"Oh, I like these. They'd look so cute on you." Willow held up a pair of
Osh-Kosh b'gosh overalls against Giles, measuring them. The brown-haired little
boy tried to adjust the glasses he wasn't wearing, then just settled for
crossing his arms.

"I am *not* wearing that... kindergear."

Willow put the blue corduroy overalls in her basket anyway. "I'm sorry, but
they don't seem to *have* any tweed suits in your size, Giles."

"Oh, very funny. I haven't worn tweed in at least two years. But there's a
difference between casual attire and something that has a large giraffe
embroidered on the front pocket. I'm not too keen on wearing anything with one
front pocket, to begin with."

"You can put your dignity in it, Rupes," Spike called out from where he was
standing, looking at the pint-sized jeans.

"Thank you for your support," Giles told him. "Now, even *I* know that they do
manufacture clothing for children which does not make one look like an idiot."

At that, Xander came jumping out from behind the other rack of clothes. "Look!
Look! I found one!" He was wearing a red shirt with a yellow lightening bolt on
it. "In my size!"

Giles rolled his eyes as Willow giggled. Tara came around the rack, then, and
gave Willow a smile. "Sorry. I keep trying to control them, and...."

"And they act like four-year-olds," Willow finished. "Maybe we should send
them to look at something else, while we pick out the clothes."

"Yeah? Like what? They got dirty mags, here?" Spike wandered over, tossing a
pair of black frayed jeans into Willow's basket. Willow whapped him on the
butt. "Oi! That *hurt*!" Spike rubbed his shorts-clad behind. "I'm littler than
you now."

"Oh, don't be a baby. You're as bad as-- Buffy, put that *down*!" Willow ducked
around the three pseudo-children to grab a twenty-pound barbell from Buffy's
hands.

"Why? I can lift it, no problem. I still have my Slayer strength."

"Yeah, but you can't let people *see* a four-year-old girl lifting a barbell!" 
Willow sighed. "Look, the four of you know you have to keep your cover. Either
behave and let us pick out clothes you can wear -- or you'll be wearing Power
Puff girls for two weeks. Or wander around and look at *something* and stay out
of trouble!" She shook her head, trying to remind herself that the
four-year-olds were *not* four. Even if they were acting like it.

"Hey, I saw that first!"

"Did not! It's mine!"

"Find your own!"

"Give that back!"

She stomped over. "Spike, Xander, don't *make* me send you out to the car."

Both boys stuck their tongues out at her. "Like we couldn't drive it away,"
Xander said.

"You couldn't even see over the dashboard," she reminded them.

"Could if I sat on someone's lap," Spike said with a leer in Xander's general
direction.

"Okay, that's just disturbing. Don't do that." Innocent blue eyes. Spike really
should have been wearing the Bubbles shirt. She rolled her own eyes. "What are
you two fighting over?"

Xander looked down at the floor. Spike looked up at the ceiling.

Willow heaved a sigh that Anya probably heard in New York City, where she was
attending a convention on commercial uses of magic, and not-so-incidentally
schmoozing up an old friend from her demon days who was in possession of a rare
text that Giles desperately wanted to add to his collection. If *she'd* been
here-- well, Xander and Spike would still be acting this way, but at last there
would be someone around who had a more immediate influence over them than Willow
did.

Reaching between the not-really-boys, Willow pulled out... "Legos? You're
fighting over Legos?"

"It's the pirate cove," Spike muttered.

Xander turned evilly puppy-ish wide eyes on Willow. "I've always wanted the
pirate cove Legos, Willow. You know that."

"So why haven't you gone to the toy store before now, and gotten it?" she asked
him. Buffy started giggling, standing behind Willow, and she could hear Giles
telling Tara to get that nice solid blue shirt down from the rack.

"Bloody hell, it's got a turtle on it. What is *wrong* with this culture? You
can't dress children in decent, un-embarrassing clothing?"

Willow was still staring at Xander, who was silent, apparently still trying to
think of a reply. Spike took advantage of his distraction and tried to slip the
Legos out of Willow's hand. "Uh-uh! Bad Spike." Buffy grabbed the box from him.
"I think since you guys can't play nice, I should get 'em."

"Oh, please, like you'd even know what to do with them." Spike was smart enough
not to try to mess with a Slayer who still had all her strength and was now
about the same height as him, but he could still taunt her. "This looks like
it's about your speed." He grabbed a ratty-haired, completely unclothed Barbie
from the shelf and shook it at her.

"Huh. That anatomically incorrect airhead?"

Willow took the doll out of Spike's hand. Looked at it. "She has a point. I
mean, when I was your age-- I mean, the age you look now-- I didn't know any
better, but really. What kind of role model do they think she is for young
girls? Teeny waist, perfectly comb-able hair..."

"No nipples," Spike added helpfully. "Ow!" he said a moment later, rubbing his
arm and glaring at Buffy.

Willow shook her head without sympathy. "Maybe you should go look
at...the...um..." Where could they *possibly* stay out of trouble?

"Oi, where are you going?" Spike turned and walked after Xander, who had
wandered down the aisle a ways. Willow and Buffy followed, curious, Tara and
Giles coming along behind them to see what was up and to help corral Spike and
Xander if necessary. Giles was holding a jump-rope, with an 'Try me, see if I
don't' expression.

Xander was holding a red plastic fire engine, a peculiar smile on his face.

"Um..." Buffy said, staring at him as he ran it along a tabletop, still lost
somewhere. "Xander?"

He looked up guiltily. "Oh. I just... kind of always wanted one like this."

"And the pirate cove Legos?" she teased.

"Hey, like there wasn't anything you wanted when you were little, and never
got?" Spike was suddenly protective, hands on his tiny hips, standing between
Buffy and Xander. "A pony, maybe? Your own personal palace?"

"Just what the heck do you mean by that? You really think I was some kind of
overprotected princess?" Buffy was right in his face, and Xander put down the
fire engine. He wandered a little way away and just looked upset, like he'd
started the fight instead of it just being Buffy and Spike, albeit the
bite-sized versions.

Willow stepped around Buffy and Spike and went after him. Caught up quickly
enough, and she put her hand on his shoulder. When he looked up at her, all she
could see was a four-year-old -- the one she'd known long, long ago, who had
come over to her house and played with her toys and always put them away
carefully before he left, despite all the times she told him he could borrow
one.

Tara and Giles were trying to calm down Spike and Buffy -- or drag them apart,
or possibly bean them each on the head. Willow just held out her other hand to
Xander. He blinked at her, confused. "Come on, Xander. You know you want to. 
You're small enough now, and I can."

He frowned, but slowly raised his other hand. Willow leaned down, and picked
him up, and settled him on her hip. Xander let his head rest on her shoulder. 
"It's just a stupid fire engine," he said quietly.

"No, it's not," she said, just as softly. "I remember." He didn't answer, but
he also didn't squirm, as she expected he would, when she put her hand on his
back, and just left it there.

So she carried him around for a little while, stopping to look at clothes that
might please Giles or cause Spike to make puking noises, which was always of the
good. She was standing next to a table full of folded-up t-shirts when Xander
asked, a little more of the adult in his voice, "You did burn down the house
next door, didn't you."

"No." Though she'd thought deeply about pulling the fire alarm at school the
day after Xander's birthday. Had guilt pangs for weeks.

In a more four-year-old whine, he said, "Buy me the fire engine?"

She smiled. "Maybe. Here, would Giles wear this?" She held up a plain brown
shirt -- which only had one very small bit of cartoon decoration on it.

"I think Giles wants that one," Xander pointed.

Willow looked at the shirt, and glared at Xander. "Be nice, or I'll let Giles
pick out *your* clothes."

"I think he'd look cute." Xander leaned over and grabbed at the shirt --
missing when Willow stepped aside.

"I sincerely hope that was not *Xander* saying *I* would look cute," Giles said
dryly.

Xander stuck his tongue out. "You *are* though. You're four -- everyone's
cute when they're four."

Buffy took a considering look at Giles, and nodded. "Yeah. You kind of look
like somebody just made you swallow cough syrup, but still cute."

"Ate worms," Spike corrected. "Definitely got that 'go outside and eat worms'
look to 'im."

"Ugh-- remind me not to ask you about *your* childhood." She was still eyeing
Giles critically. "You really have to loosen up, Giles. Four-year-olds are
supposed to run around pretending to be Superman, not Middle-Aged Man."

"I *am* a middle-aged man. A middle-aged man who happens to be under the
influence of a spell. It has made me short, not young." Giles gave her a stern
look.

"Too short to see over the edge of the table," Dawn said, as Giles was trying
to do just that. "Don't you trust Willow to find you something you like?"

"When Xander's helping her?" Giles replied, but his tone wasn't as stern as it
had been.

"Well, here," Dawn said, and she was lifting him up. Settled him on her hip,
just as Willow had done with Xander.

Giles looked very nonplussed. "Really, Dawn, this isn't--"

"You can see, now, can't you? Go on, find something you want."

"Yes, well, I...."

"Either you do it, or Xander's gonna do it," she reminded him.

Xander grinned at him. "There's the one I saw." He pointed.

"Remind me to do something horrible to you when I grow up," Giles muttered,
staring at the Ren and Stimpy t-shirt.

"You mean, more horrible than sending Spike to live in my basement?"

Giles screwed up his face for a second as if in deep concentration, then shook
his head. "Actually, I can't think of anything more horrible than that." Xander
pumped his fist in the air, like he'd just gotten away with something major, and
Giles glared at him. "Give me time." He reached down and picked up a plain blue
polo shirt with a small appliqué of Winnie-the-Pooh in the spot where the
alligator would have gone on a grown-up's shirt. "This isn't too terrible."

"Winnie the Pooh? He's English, isn't he?" Dawn asked.

"Course he is. All the great ones are," Spike said, reaching up for the shirt. 
Giles held it out of his reach, and Spike pouted, then put his hands on his
hips. "Didn't want it anyway. Don't even like the bloke."

"You just said he was one of the great ones," Buffy said. "Besides, don't you
have the entire text of 'When We Were Six' memorized?"

Spike gaped at her. "I certainly do not! And if I did, it would be Dru's
fault. She liked me to read to her and I don't remember a bloody bit of them. 
Besides, it's __Now We Are Six__," he added.

"Hey, there's a Peter Rabbit one over here," Xander said, making a good show of
trying to distract Spike.

""Yeah? They got Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, too? Maybe Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle?"
Spike snorted, or tried to. Four-year-old bodies just aren't made to snort. "I
do have *some* standards."

"Oh. Then I guess you don't want the Barney one."

Spike glared up at him, then tugged on Willow's shirt. "Would you put him down
so's I can kill him, please?" He sounded terribly polite, and she almost did it
just from the shock of it all.

"You can't kill him," she said in a reasonable tone. "What would Anya say?"

"If Anya heard him saying that word, she'd help me do it. She saw one of his
shows, once. Locked herself in the bathroom for hours, saying it was no wonder
they didn't need her as a vengeance demon any longer."

"It took us all evening and a vat of chocolate to calm her down," Xander added.

"I found one for you," Buffy interjected, thrusting a shirt at Spike. It was
pink, and when Spike held it up, they could see the Care Bears all over the
front.

Spike held the shirt out to Willow, and said, still politely, "Excuse me." Then
he tore after Buffy, who squealed and ran away.

"Aww, they like each other," Tara said.

"Yeah, Spike always tries to kill people he likes," Xander agreed. "I mean,
he's hit me over the head, threatened to eviscerate me..."

"No, that was Anya," Willow corrected.

Xander frowned. "Are you saying I have some sort of pattern of self-destructive
relationship choices?"

She grinned. "No, I'm saying lots of people like you."

"Yes, well, I have a shirt, could you possibly put me down, now?" Giles was
saying to Dawn.

"You're gonna need more than one, Giles. Two weeks wearing only Mojo Jojo and
Winne the Pooh - when are we gonna do laundry?"

He sighed. "Fine. Why you wouldn't just take us to Gap Kids, like I'd
asked...."

"Because we pointed out that we'd be taking Buffy, Spike, and Xander to the
Mall. As four-year-olds. Remember? You said you'd rather be painted green and
tossed to a pack of wild Ziphoriu demons?" Dawn made no move to put him down.

"I wanted to go to the mall," Buffy pouted.

"Me, too!" Spike pouted, beside her. The others looked at them for a moment,
wondering why they were standing there, not running around and not screaming,
throwing things, and hitting each other. Like any other normal day.

"Can I ask why-- specifically-- you wanted to go to the mall?" Giles did the
infinite patience thing really well as a four-year-old. It was uncanny.

Buffy grinned. "Easter Bunny! Pictures!"

Spike looked around, like something nasty was going to jump out in Goodwill and
save him by distracting everybody. Finally he said, "Well, yeah. Thought I
might get one of me and Xan, so Anya could ohh-ah over it when she gets back."

"You mean so she could squeak and freak out, and we'd have to comfort her,"
Xander said. After a few seconds, he grinned and added. "Good idea."

"Perhaps we should," Giles began, though he sounded as though he were being
talked into letting the gang invade a nest of vampires with only three stakes
between them. "I'd rather pay for photos with a large rabbit, than wear any of
these."

"You're paying?" Xander perked up. "I want some cotton candy!"

"And I want a hot dog, and some caramel corn," Spike added.

"Can we stop at the shoe store? They're having a sale," Buffy said. "Oh, but
I guess I can't really try on the ones I want." She frowned at her feet. Then
she smiled. "But I can get those pink sandals! They came in kids' sizes!"

"No, I've changed my mind. I'll wear this." Giles picked up a Superman
T-shirt. "That's three, that will get me through the next two weeks. Put me
down."

Dawn rolled her eyes, but she let him down, finally. "Sure, spoil all my fun."

"I'm quite certain Spike would love to be picked up and carried around," Giles
said stiffly. "Or... no, I think not."

Spike glared at him. "What, I'm not allowed to get any attention?"

"I think he was thinking you'd use it as an excuse to stare over her shoulder
at that girl in the tank-top," Xander said. Spike looked far too innocent for
his own good, in response.

"Actually, from down here you can see up her sk-- what am I saying?" Buffy
shook her head, and thumped Spike again.

Spike, however, was pouting again. "Nobody loves me," he said, jutting out his
lower lip. He wandered quickly away, towards the woman in the tank top and
skirt. "My mummy doesn't lo--"

"Oh, no you don't," Tara scooped him up around the waist, and held him, giving
the puzzled woman a smile. "Sorry."

"That's okay, he wasn't bothering me. All of these can't be yours, right? Are
you babysitting?"

"Something like that."

"Oi! I'm not a baby!" Spike wriggled wildly in her grip, but she held firm.
Willow was impressed. Even Xander looked impressed.

"No, a baby wouldn't get into nearly as much trouble. You're just an evil
four-year-old."

"Oh, you shouldn't tell him he's evil," the woman said sincerely. "You'll
damage his psyche."

"Yeah!" Spike agreed happily, still wriggling determinedly.

Tara smiled... evilly. "You're right. Whatever was I thinking." She lifted
Spike up and cuddled him. "Who's Auntie Tara's widdle morally challenged
toddler, huh?" Then she tickled him unmercifully, until he was laughing so hard
he couldn't say anything coherent enough to get any of them in trouble.

The woman smiled at them, and moved away -- the look on her face said she was
happy she'd encouraged the harried young woman to be kind to the youngster. 
Rather than having a clue that Spike was planning to bite Tara just as soon as
he could get away with it.

When Tara carried Spike back to the others, Spike wriggled out of her grip,
glared at Giles and Buffy for laughing at him, then gave Tara a dirty look. 
"That wasn't nice."

"That's not what you say when *I* do it," Xander observed.

"I think we'd better head for the cashier, and get these kids someplace where
they can't do any more damage." Willow handed the last of the clothes they'd
picked out to Dawn.

"What damage? We haven't done any damage," Buffy said, looking around the
store. "Everything's still standing."

"I mean to my sanity." Willow gave her a smile, though. She looked down at
Xander, who was wriggling determinedly himself. "Careful, or I'll tickle you,
too."

"S'what he wants. *He* likes it," Spike said sullenly.

"Not in a 'you can't tickle me, that would be wrong' kind of way," Xander said
quickly.

"Oh, good," she replied, rolling her eyes. "If I put you down, will you stand
still and actually act like you're a twenty-some year old guy in a four-year-old
body?"

"Um." Xander's expression grew thoughtful. "What was my third option, again?"

"Behave, or you have to go to Bozo's Burgers for lunch, and sit on Bozo's lap."

Xander looked stricken, then held very still. "I'll be good. I swear." 
Willow set him down, and he went over to stand beside Spike, who had never been
to Bozo's Burgers as an adult, much less a child. The group made their way
towards the cashier, Spike nudging Xander along the way and trying to get him to
explain. "There's this big... clown guy. With fluffy red hair. And.. um... I
don't like clowns."

"Was that why you freaked out when Anya put on that red nose at the Christmas
party?"

"No!" Xander denied vehemently. "I just didn't like the idea of her leading
Santa's reindeer, when Giles was playing Santa."

"You two really should take that act on the road," Giles observed. "In fact,
why don't you get a head start and leave now?"

"Why don't you make me?" Xander retorted, stepping over to Giles, hands balling
into fists.

"I don't believe this," Giles shook his head. "I'm far better trained than you
are." He grabbed Xander's arm, and before anyone could blink, Xander was
sprawled on the ground.

Giles blinked, then he was bending down and helping Xander back to his feet. 
Xander -- and everyone else -- looked a little startled. "I'm sorry. I'm
just...well, a bit stressed I suppose. I really don't know what came over me,
are you all right?"

Xander blinked, then said, "I think someone needs to buy me ice cream. Then
maybe I'll be OK."

"Yeah! Me, too. I had to endure the agony of seein' him thrown to the floor,"
Spike interjected.

"I had to endure the agony of being with Spike. Can I have ice cream?" Buffy
asked.

"I...um... like ice cream," Dawn said cheerfully. "Can I?"

"Honey? Do you actually want to give them sugar?" Tara asked. From the floor,
Spike and Xander started in on a high-pitched rendition of 'Sugar...ah, honey,
honey...' until Buffy whapped them both upside their respective heads.

"Well, they're not *real* kids, no matter how much they're acting like it at
the moment," Willow answered. "And I wouldn't say no to some pralines and cream,
myself."

"Yea! Ice cream!" Xander and Spike shouted. Which was pretty much normal
behavior for them. Or as normal as they got.

Tara shrugged. The look on her face was one every parent knew -- you're gonna
regret this. "Just remember their bedtime is at 7," she said calmly, then gave
Willow a grin as four high-pitched voices protested.

Part Three  

"Honestly, I'll be fine." Giles looked up at Tara and Willow, his face as
composed as ever.

"Are you sure?" Willow asked, again. "I know you're not *really* four. But...
you are awfully small. What if.. if.. something falls and you can't pick it up? 
Or someone comes to the door, or if someone calls and wants to talk to your
parents?"

Giles looked at them patiently. "If something falls and I can't pick it up, I'll
leave it there. But honestly, what do I have in here that's heavy enough that I
couldn't pick it up, aside from the furniture? And obviously I won't answer the
door or the telephone, unless it's one of you lot. I *do* have an answering
machine."

"Yes, but it's still blinking 12:00," Tara teased. Actually, she couldn't see
it to tell *what* it was blinking, buried as it was under a stack of books and
papers.

"No, that's his VCR. His answering machine still says 'Hello. Insert your name
here is not at home. Please leave a message.' " Willow shot back.

"I can still hear whoever's calling." Giles narrowed his eyes. On his
four-year-old face it looked adorable.

Willow must have had the same thought, because she reached out and patted his
head. "Sorry, I can't help myself." She giggled as Giles sighed.

"Why don't we, um, stay for a bit, and make sure he'll be OK?" Tara suggested.

"Fine, stay if you like -- but at 8 o'clock I'm chucking you all out. You're
warned." Giles headed towards the kitchen.

"What happens at 8?" Buffy asked from where she was bouncing on the couch.

"Passions' documentary is on!" Spike yelled. "We have to stay -- or be home by
eight."

"That is *not*--" Giles called back from the kitchen.

"Relax, vamplet. We've set the VCR," Xander told Spike.

"Who're you calling vamplet, you... humanoid!"

Xander frowned. "Okay, you realize that wasn't actually an insult?"

Spike stuck out his tongue, Xander dove for him, and Willow plopped down on the
couch between them. "Do I have to separate you two? Really?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "I wasn't gonna *do* anything to him."

"I was more worried about the furniture. And the lamps. And the books..."

Tara followed Giles into the kitchen. Not that she was checking up on him or
anything, she was just... checking up on him. She found him standing
precariously on the kitchen counter, trying to reach up to the top shelf. She
stood behind him, watching for a moment.

"Bloody hell." Giles lowered his hand and began looking around.

"Need some help?" Tara asked. "Because you look a little...short, to reach the
bag of tea you keep stashed on the top shelf."

"I was not--" Giles began. "Would you be so kind as to get it down for me?"

Tara looked at him, looked at the tea, then looked at him again. She reached
up and got the tea down, but held it in her hands. Looked at Giles.

Who sighed. "Fine. I'm too small to fix my own bloody tea. I'll come home
with you. But I am *not* wearing footie pajamas and I am *not* going to bed at
seven."

"Agreed. We don't have any footie pajamas, anyway." She waited until he had
preceded her out of the kitchen before leaning down and whispering
"Seven-thirty."

"I heard that!" Giles turned around and gave her the sternest glare a
four-year-old could possibly give. "I am *not* a child, no matter how much I may
look like one, and I am perfectly capable of staying up until midnight if I
wish."

She raised a hand. "You know best. As always."

He glared again. "I'm also old enough to recognize when people are quoting Mary
Poppins at me, thank you." He proceeded into the living room, the most
middle-aged preschooler she had ever seen.

Tara just smiled, and Willow and Dawn giggled. Spike, Buffy, and Xander were
too busy trying to see who could bounce the highest.


********


"They're *adorable*," Willow whispered as softly as she could.

"You said that already," Tara whispered back. But she was smiling.

"Five times, actually," Dawn added in a whisper of her own. The three were
standing in the living room, staring at four young children fast asleep on the
couch.

Willow giggled. "We should have gotten footie pajamas. And a camera."

"We would've had to drug Giles before he'd put them on," Tara said.

"But I have a camera," Dawn added, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "It's on
the bookshelf over there. Even has film in it."

Willow and Tara looked at each other. "It would be very bad," Willow whispered.

Five minutes later, they were starting their second roll of film.

"Okay, I think we've gotten as many different angles of Spike sucking his thumb
as we can," Tara said, finally. "We should really put them to bed. It can't be
good for them all to sleep on the couch."

"Hmm." Willow looked at the four, and considered. "There's only three beds. 
Dawn's, Buffy's, and-- um, Joyce's."

"Buffy can sleep with me," Dawn said. "And you and Tara in mom's room, leaves
Buffy's bed for Spike, Xander and Giles. It'll be big enough, won't it?"

Willow shook her head. "You don't know Xander. He's the 'take the entire bed
and then some' type. He'll have Spike and Giles kicked out of bed in half an
hour."

"But, doesn't he, I mean, he's used to..." Tara stopped, and blushed.

"All right. We'll put them in together, but if Giles wakes up first tomorrow
morning, *you* are explaining it to him."

Dawn picked up Buffy, easily, and stood there, just holding the sleeping girl.
"You know, she used to carry me around like this."

Willow had lifted Xander into her arms, and was rearranging him as he snuggled
sleepily against her shoulder. "It's weird, I know." Weirder that Dawn
remembered something that Buffy probably remembered too, and it hadn't really
happened. But she didn't say it, and Dawn didn't say it, and Tara had already
carried Giles into Buffy's bedroom, so *she* certainly didn't say it. Willow
passed her girlfriend on the stairs a moment later, as she came back
empty-handed for Spike. "Adorable?"

"Tucked in with the covers pulled up to his chin."

Willow took Xander into the bedroom. "Well, Xander, this is your chance to
sleep in Buffy's bed." She laid him down gently in the middle of the bed, under
the blankets. He was as sound asleep as she'd ever seen him -- so she leaned
over and kissed the top of his head. She moved aside as Tara brought Spike in,
who was asleep as well, but tossing a bit in her arms, and muttering. He
quieted as soon as he was laid down on the other side of Xander, whom he
immediately grabbed and cuddled like a teddy bear.

Willow and Tara stood there for a moment. Then Willow began, "Oh, we need--"

"This?" Dawn asked, holding the camera over Willow's shoulder.

"How much film do we have?"

"We can buy more. It's only seven o'clock."


***********


"Oh, God, what time is it?" Dawn yawned. "I've still gotta get up for school in
the morning." They had been sitting on the couch, mostly getting silly about how
cute the pseudo-kids looked. They'd been talking a little, too, about what it
might be like to have kids of their own, and how if they were anything like
Spike and Xander, they might just want to babysit for the rest of their lives,
and stick to cats and goldfish.

"It's eleven-fifteen. Yeah, I suppose we should get to bed. Especially if we're
gonna be up at the hour that *those* bodies are probably gonna wake up." Willow
stood and stretched.

"You think they're really wake up early? Even Xander?" Tara asked.

Willow paused in her stretch, and faced her girlfriend. "Tara, when Xander was
four, he would show up at my window at five o'clock in the morning."

"Oh." Tara looked upstairs. "Maybe we should have gone to bed earlier."

"Hey, I still have some film. Should we go check on them?" Dawn asked, with a
mischievous smile.

"I think we should." Willow nodded, and led the other two towards the stairs. 
"For their own...safety."

The sight that greeted them was enough to make Willow overjoyed that she'd just
*happened* to bring the camera upstairs with her. Buffy was asleep against the
wall in Dawn's bed. There were three little figures in the bed acros the hall.
Xander in the middle, flat on his back, taking up as much of the space as
possible. Spike curled up next to him, still hugging him like a giant-size
Winnie-the-Pooh. Pretty much the sight they'd seen the last time they left the
room, except that on the other side, the half-pint Giles was doing exactly the
same thing.

"We're gonna need more film," Dawn whispered. Willow just kept taking photos.

************

Rupert woke up last -- as usual. He hated it; he'd much rather be the first
one awake so he could extricate himself with some semblance of dignity. It
would have helped had he *known* why he snuggled up in his sleep. But he
didn't. He had no idea. He didn't even *like* Xander that way.

He tried to tell himself he was offering support to the young man..er...other
four-year-old. But that didn't account for Spike, on Xander's other side. 
Xander didn't need any more support than an octopus-limbed vampire. Who was
currently grinning at Rupert, over a grinning Xander's shoulder.

"All right, get on with it." Rupert sighed. Three mornings in a row, now, he'd
had to deal with....

"Get on with what?" Spike smarmed. "*I* wasn't gonna say anything. Were *you*
gonna say anything, Xan?" Silent back-and-forth shake of a grinning face. 
"Nah, didn't think so. I mean, you want to share the fun, Rupes, be my guest.
Not like Anya would care, long as we got pics. Hell, we had a bigger bed, I bet
she would've invit--"

"Yes, all right, very funny, that's enough." Rupert carefully pulled his left
arm out from under Xander, who gave him a pouting face that he would probably
have found irresistible if he were his own age, looking at a real four-year-old.
As it was, he had the bizarre urge to smack Xander on the head with a pillow.

Not that it was an uncontrollable urge. It was just there, somewhere beneath
the surface.

"Not leaving already, are you?" Spike said, in an almost perfectly-guileless
tone. "Because we can still--"

Rupert had been scooting towards the edge of the bed. He stopped, and turned
to face Spike. "Stop. Stop it right there. Spike, you are four years old and
you are not having sex. And if you are, you are not doing it with me in the
same bed, the same room, or even the same bloody house."

Spike and Xander blinked at him. Then Xander asked Spike, "You were right! He
didn't hear us."

"Excuse me?" Rupert stared at them.

"A few months ago, we--"

"No, I didn't ask, I don't want to know I am NOT LISTENING!" He pushed himself
off the bed and ran for the door.

He could still hear the giggling behind him as he made his way cautiously down
the stairs. Ever since the first time he had tried to take them at his usual
speed and almost tumbled from the landing to the living room, he'd been quite
careful about climbing down, while still trying to look as if he *wasn't* being
consciously careful.

And if he took his time concentrating on the stairs, he didn't have to think
about where or when Spike and Xander might have done whatever it was that he
didn't want to know and hadn't been listening to. When he got to the foot of
the stairway, he looked up, finally, to find Willow sitting on the couch. "Hey!
Morning, Giles. You want breakfast?"

"Thank you, Willow, I can manage." He headed towards the kitchen, though he
should have known better. They hadn't let him try to make his own meals since
the first morning after, when he'd dropped the milk. He had grabbed it with one
hand, and been shocked to find it so *heavy*. Buffy had demonstrated proper
'strength of a four-year-old two-handed carry'...before lifting a twenty pound
bag of potatoes with one hand to get it out of the way of the spilled milk.

"Oh, I don't mind," Willow was saying as she passed him. "You want cereal? 
Because I can make toast and eggs, too."

Rupert sighed, and made his way to the barstool at the kitchen counter. 
"Cereal will be fine." He pulled the stool out, and started to climb -- and
Willow picked him up and plopped him on the chair.

"Oops." She smiled guiltily at his expression. "Sorry, I just saw you, and
thought, well I didn't think, I just...well, you're short now, and I, um...
cereal, you said?"

He nodded.

"Huh. Fruity pebbles, Captain Crunch, or Cocoa Puffs?"

"Do we have nothing that neither snaps, crackles, pops, nor comes with a secret
decoder ring?"

Willow shook her head. "You finished off the Cinnamon Life yesterday, and
that's the only thing Buffy and Dawn have in the house that comes remotely close
to grown-up cereal. Unless you want instant oatmeal?"

"Yes, that would be fine."

"Milk?" she asked. Rupert rolled his eyes.

"I may *look* four, but I assure you, I will do fine with coffee. Or tea."

Willow gave him a measuring look. "I don't think I want to see a four-year-old
Giles jacked up on caffeine."

Rupert gave her a measuring look right back. "And I don't particularly care to
see a grown witch turned into a frog. But I will, if I must."

"Giles, for shame. Resorting to threats? Why don't you just ask her to make
some tea?" Tara came into the kitchen, and went over to the stove and picked up
the kettle. Willow was giving her girlfriend a dirty glare, for picking
Rupert's side.

He, of course, knew that it was decaffeinated herbal tea -- and Tara knew that
he knew, but she was playing along. Or perhaps he was playing along.

"I *know* he's a grown-up, but he still has a four-year-old body, you know,"
Willow said, a bit reprovingly.

Tara smiled. "And it's not *really* gonna stunt his growth over the next two
weeks if we let him have a few grown-up pleasures. Relax, sweetheart. Sit down
and eat your own breakfast--you have a class to get to in an hour."

"Are you sure? I can skip," she looked worriedly over at Rupert, doing a
terrible job of pretending she wasn't looking at him and thinking about leaving
Tara and Dawn home alone with four kids.

"Yes, because without you here, we might destroy the house. Like we've done
every day since actually *being* four. Willow, go to class." Giles accepted a
mug of steeping tea from Tara. "Thank you."

Willow glanced at Tara, question on her face. Tara opened her mouth -- but
what they all heard was, "BANZAI!"


*********


"I guess they found the cardboard," Tara observed as they reluctantly left
Giles in the kitchen to fend for himself while they investigated the newest
emergency.

"I thought we threw it out!" Willow headed for the stairs, Tara on her heels. 
There they found Xander and a large piece of cardboard in a pile at the foot of
the stairs.

"Um..." He looked up innocently at them. "Ow?"

Willow looked up the stairs, and sure enough-- "William the Bloody, don't you
*dare* toboggan down those stairs again!"

Spike shrugged-- then quickly jumped feet-first onto the piece of cardboard
he'd just dropped onto the floor. "Gangway, then!"

She grabbed him halfway down the stairs, just as he was about to be launched
headfirst past the last four steps and probably get airborne in time to smash
his head against the lower landing wall. "What?" he grumbled as she carried him
down the remaining steps under one arm. "You didn't say anything about
snowboarding!"

"I swear, you're acting more like a four-year-old than normal. Which for you
-- you *two*, Xander Harris, get back here when I'm scolding you! -- is saying a
lot!"

Xander froze, then snuck back to stand beside Willow. As soon as she set Spike
down to scold him further, Xander grabbed him by the neck. "You can't yell at
us! We're adults and can do as we like. Even if it means breaking Spike's
neck."

"Oi! Speak for yourself," Spike wriggled. Xander didn't let go -- which meant
Spike wasn't wriggling very hard. Willow glared at them both, regardless.

Xander gave her a slightly more reasonable look. "Come on, Will, it's not like
there's anything Spike can do to really hurt himself. Aside from playing with
fire. Or holy water. Or pointy sticks. Or...um..."

"Sunlight," Buffy supplied from the top of the stairs.

"Right, and what's your excuse, Xan? You're little, your bones are little, you
could go smoosh-crunch just like... Buffy, for God's sake!" Willow planted
herself in the middle of the bottom step, waiting to catch a certain little girl
with long brownish hair who was even now slide-thumping her way down, butt
plastered against a third piece of cardboard.

"Ow!" Xander screamed behind Willow, and she turned, taking a step towards him
reflexively. She found him grinning at her and calling out, "Who-hoo! Go,
Buffster!"

Willow turned around again to find Buffy at the bottom of the stairs, lying on
her side with the cardboard still firmly clasped in her hands. "I'm going to
class. Then I'm going to the library. *Then* I'm going...somewhere. For
mochas. I'm not coming home until you four are *in* *bed*."

"All in the *same* bed?" Spike grinned cheekily. "Cos... er... not that it's
ever been a fantasy of mine or anything..."

"Eew!" Buffy whapped him with her cardboard. "Leave me out of your icky sex
fantasies, please. Or at least don't tell me I'm in them." She whapped Xander
over the head, too.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"It's fun?"

Whap. Anti-whap. Et cetera. Willow stalked out of the living room, letting the
cardboard fight progress as it would. There wasn't much in that half of the room
that they could damage, anyway.

She could hear the giggling, and ignored it as she went into the kitchen, gave
Tara a kiss, collected her school bag, gave Tara a kiss, glared at Giles because
he was there, and gave Tara a kiss before leaving out the back door.

Part Four  

Giles and Tara looked towards the sounds emanating from the living room. "You
know what's remarkable," Giles remarked after a moment, sounding much older than
his appearance for once. "They actually get along better *now* than before."

"Why don't you go...." Tara began, nodding towards the lively noises.

Giles managed to look put off. "I think not, Tara," he said gently. He
couldn't seem to resist glancing in that direction again, however, before
turning around and resuming eating his oatmeal.

"Okay. It's *your* second childhood," she teased.

"I am *not* senile," he said calmly, without looking up from his bowl. "I'm
merely under a spell."

She wisely refrained from pushing the subject, going instead to make sure the
war of the cardboard hadn't spread to the more dangerous bric-a-brac zones. "I
don't suppose you guys want to do something nice and quiet?" she asked the three
ruffled, red-faced individuals in the living room. "Like, say, clean the
basement?"

"You want to trust them alone in the basement? With power tools?" Buffy pointed
out. Xander and Spike giggled.

"Well, then, you could go...no, you can't go outside, can you." She thought
for a moment. "I suppose you could help me practice a spell."

Xander and Spike leapt into the air. "Yes! We wanna help! We wanna help! "

"Er, without Willow?" Xander added.

Tara narrowed her eyes, then smiled as innocently as she could manage. "I'm
trying to learn how to turn people into frogs, like Mr. Giles can do."

Spike gave Xander a look. " I get the feeling Goldilocks thinks we're major
suckers, or something."

Xander pointed to Spike. "I volunteer him for the first casting!"

Buffy shook her head. "That won't work. He's not people."

Spike stuck his tongue out at her, and vamped out at the same time, so he was
waggling it between pointed teeth. Xander giggled. Then giggled some more.

Tara smiled, then placed her hand in front of her mouth. Buffy walked up to
Spike and said "Aw! Innit he cute!" She patted Spike on the head.

Spike growled, and glared at each of them, which only made them smile and
giggle more. "Oh, for cripey's sake," Spike muttered, and stomped into the
kitchen.

The small harrumph of laughter from Giles probably didn't improve his mood.

"I'm hungry...." came the growl, in a four-year-old Cockney accent. "I want
blood..."

"He sounds like those kindergartners from Halloween," Buffy giggled.

Xander looked at her a little nervously. "The ones from *this* Halloween? Or
Halloween of our Junior year?"

She shrugged. "Either/or. Pint-Sized Demons 'R Us. C'mon. I wanna see him try
to drink blood from a sippy cup again."

Xander gave her a mild glare as he let her drag him along to the kitchen, Tara
following. They walked in and found Giles watching with amusement as Spike
climbed up the chair that he'd dragged over to the cabinets where the mugs were
kept. Buffy giggled. "You shouldn't tease Spike, you know," Xander told her.

Buffy gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding?"

Xander shrugged, and went over to hold the chair as Spike continued on his
quest for a mug. "Found it! She hid the Gossamer one in the back!" Spike
pulled a large orange mug out of the cabinet.

It wasn't *really* a sippy cup. But it *was* pretty much impossible to spill
from. Spike yanked the refrigerator door open, and grabbed a bag of blood from
one of the lower shelves. Then glared at all and sundry. "Anybody gonna try to
tell me I'm not allowed to play with *these* sharp objects?" he asked, snapping
his teeth shut on the edge of the bag and ripping the corner off.

"No," Tara replied, "but if you spill it on the floor again, I'm gonna make you
clean it up. Pour it over the sink."

"Can't *reach* the bloody sink," Spike grumbled.

"Then give it to somebody who can." She pulled the bag carefully from his
grasp, poured it into the mug--over the unbloody sink--then put the mug in the
microwave. Spike glared at her, then, his attention arrested by the Fruity
Pebbles on the table, slithered into a chair next to Giles.

"And gimmie a spoon, too," he demanded.

Tara stopped in mid-step, and folded her arms. For a moment she felt like
Willow. "You can reach the silverware drawer, Spike."

But Xander had gone over and gotten two spoons out, as well as a bowl for
himself, out of the dish washer. He carried them over to the counter, set them
next to Spike, then returned to the fridge for the milk. Tara started to help
him with the gallon jug, but he had it firmly in both hands. By the time the
microwave beeped, he'd got himself up on the stool between Spike and Buffy and
was making his bowl of cereal.

Tara brought the mug of warmed blood over, and Spike promptly poured Fruity
Pebbles into it.

"Oh, that's disgusting," Giles said.

"Says a man who spreads yeast extract on toast," Spike shot back. "At least
mine has entertaining colors."

"Yes, I've always based my nutritional choices on how attractive the meal would
look splattered against a wall," Giles agreed dryly. Well, he was obviously
trying for dry, but there was a bit of a pouting sound to it, as if the
four-year-old larynx just wasn't made to *do* dry.

"Well, the blood's the nutritional part, for him," Xander pointed out,
crunching happily into his own cereal-and-milk, unperturbed by Spike's meal
sitting next to him. Then again, he was used to it. "The cereal's just for..."

"Texture. I remember." Giles shuddered.

Spike opened his mouth to show Giles a mouthful of partially-chewed, brightly
colored cereal.

"Appearance," Xander finished.

"Yes, remind me again why I don't eat breakfast with you two more often?"

"Cos' you're sexually repressed, and you won't take Anya up on her offer of a
swing-night?" Spike suggested while still crunching.

Giles spit his tea out all the way across the counter. Tara grabbed a towel,
and Spike and Xander looked at him like he should have been expecting that. "I
think I'm going to go to the shop, and get some work done on the inventory," he
said, setting his cup down and sliding off the barstool. "Er, that is, Tara, if
you don't mind driving me...."

"Maybe we should all go?" she asked. "I don't think I should leave Buffy,
Spike, and Xander here alone."

"Yes, you should!" Spike countered. "We'll be good, we promise."

Spike and Xander gave Tara their best innocent us faces. Buffy looked up from
the donut she was blissfully attacking, Spike hissed at her, "Look innocent!"

She looked surprised for a second, then turned an equally 'innocent me' face
towards Tara.

Tara blanched. "I'm afraid. I have fear. I am a frightened person. And you are
all coming along. Or we're all staying here."

"Why d'you want us along, if we scare you," Spike asked reasonably.
Pseudo-reasonably.

"*You* don't scare me. The thought of what you could do unsupervised scares
me."

"Oh, come on. We're not *really* kids. And this *is* my house-- it's not like
I'm gonna let 'em demolish it," Buffy protested.

"Who got the cardboard out of the basement?" Tara asked.

Buffy bit her bottom lip before answering, "Spike?"

"I did not!" Spike retorted immediately. "I was trying to sit and read and be
good, and *you* came running up all 'hey, let's play on the stairs like I
haven't done since I was five the first time'."

"Yeah, but this time I--" Buffy stopped. Bit her lip again, and Tara
instinctively took a step towards her. Buffy half-smiled. "Mom used to get mad
at me for doing it."

There was a silence that no one seemed to know how or whether to break. Then
Xander said, "I used to get yelled at, too. I didn't use cardboard, though. I
had a dinner tray that my dad had broken."

Spike looked up from his crunching. "You slid down the *basement* stairs? Onto
*concrete* ?"

Xander shrugged defensively. "I put the couch cushions at the bottom."

"I'm not surprised you got yelled at," Tara said. "You could've broken your
skull."

"S'pect that lot were more worried about the concrete," Spike mumbled into his
cereal.

Xander grinned. "I *do* have a pretty hard head."

"Not what I meant," Spike said even more quietly. When he'd actually swallowed
his food, he perked up. "Fine. So we go to the magic shop. Not as if we can't
have just as much fun there..."

"That is *not* why we're going. We're going so Mr. Giles can do inventory. 
We're not going to have fun." Tara paused, and looked at Giles. "I mean...if
you *like* doing inventory...."

"That's all right, Tara. I don't. But I appreciate the thought." Giles began
looking around the kitchen.

"Um, can we help?" Tara asked after a moment when he didn't find whatever he
was looking for.

"Lose something?" Buffy asked, unhelpfully.

"If it's your mind, I'm sure we have an extra one. Buffy isn't using hers." 
Spike took another bite of his cereal, in time to get walloped by the tiny
Slayer. "Hey! You make me choke on my cereal, and I'll.. um.. choke. Really
hard."

"Which, since you don't breathe, would pretty much just be for the purpose of
entertaining us?" Buffy pointed out. "Get a life. So to speak. What are you
looking for, Giles?"

"My...er..." he trailed off, continuing to look -- under the table, in the
below-counter cupboards...

Spike continued to look completely innocent.

"Giles?"

At last he stood up, to his full three and a half feet. "My shoes?"

"Your shoes?" Buffy repeated. Then she turned to Spike and Xander. "Xander.
Where are Giles' shoes?"

Xander blinked. "Why aren't you asking the evil undead guy? He does things
like steal shoes, break VCR remotes, and leave empty cans of beer in the
fridge."

"Because I'm asking you. Where are they?"

Buffy glared. Giles glared at Xander, as well. Xander tried pouting, but it
really didn't work as well on fellow four-year-olds. "Fine. They're in the
bedroom under the bed."

"Thank you," Giles said with a tone of long-suffering. "Er, which bedroom?"

"Ours," he said, and smiled when Giles blushed faintly and left the kitchen.

Tara shook her finger at Xander. "You really shouldn't tease him like that. You
used to blush just as hard."

"Yeah, but that was before the bookends of bluntness double-teamed me. With
both Spike and Anya around, I either had to get over it or resign myself to
losing all feeling in any other parts of my body besides my face," Xander
replied cheerfully.

Tara frowned, slightly, about to ask exactly what he meant. Then *she* felt
herself blushing, and turned away. "Um, does, um anyone still need breakfast?"

Xander raised his hand. He waited patiently until Tara looked at him. "I am
in need of coffee."

Tara was confused. "I didn't know you drank coffee. Um, I thought...you drank
sodas?"

Xander looked innocent as he said, "I meant for Giles."

"Oh. Well, okay, I guess. He'll drink instant, won't he?" She reached for the
jar on the counter. "Otherwise we'll never get out of here."

"Oh, yeah. This early in the morning, he'll drink dishwater." Xander looked
guiltily towards the ceiling. "Not that I've ever substituted that for anybody's
Earl Grey in the middle of a research all-nighter."

Tara paused. "Xander? Why do you want me to give you Giles' coffee?"

Xander looked up at her with all the elfin angelic innocence a four-year-old
Xander could muster. Fortunately for Tara, she'd been exposed to Willow for
long enough to be partially immune. She looked sternly at him. "Xander? I don't
think you have Giles' best interests in mind."

"How can you *say* that?" Spike objected around a mouthful of cereal. "Here
the lad is all eager to show how much he cares for-- oh, nevermind."

Giles came into the kitchen with his shoes. "Giles, did you by any chance want
some coffee?" Tara asked, one eyebrow lifted.

He stopped in the act of pulling his left shoe tight with its Velcro fastening,
and looked up at her. "Er... coffee?"

"Xander thought you might like some. He was even going to take it to you
himself."

Giles looked at Xander. "Really. Isn't that thoughtful of you. Almost makes
me sorry I ever told your English teachers about the papers you copied from
someone else's homework."

Xander stood there for a moment, gaping. Spike smirked, though it wasn't clear
whose bit of evil he was proud of. Then Xander started yelling. "I never
cheated! More than once! And besides how did you know and you *told* on me?!?"

Giles simply looked smug, and asked Tara, "Are we almost ready to go?"

Xander leaned over to Spike. "Are you sure you didn't turn him? I remember you
saying you wanted to suck on his--"

"Xander!" Tara said quickly.

"Well, that too," Spike agreed.

She threw up her hands. "Yes, we're ready to go. Oh, please, let us be ready to
go."

"I'm ready!" Buffy called out, loudly.

"I'm ready!" called Xander, equally loudly.

Spike looked at his bowl of cereal, then looked at Xander's. He picked up each
bowl one at a time, and slurped as fast as he could. "OK, I'm ready," he said,
still munching cereal.

Tara sighed. "Thank goodness. All right, everyone's, let's go." She began
herding them towards the door.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Xander announced.


************


"Let me down! Mrrmpph rhmph frryum!" Tara rolled her eyes and set the
struggling contents of the blanket down on the countertop at the Magic Box. It
changed shape several times until a pouty-faced Spike finally appeared from
within its folds, hair sticking out in every direction.

"Did Spikey not like his blankey-ride?" Buffy asked, quietly pulling on his
dangling shoestring.

He kicked out at her lightly, then grasped his head. "Ow!" It didn't improve
his hairstyle.

"I want a blankey-ride!" Xander pouted, and grabbed the blanket Spike was still
sitting on. He pulled, and tugged, and Spike began sliding towards the edge of
the counter.

"Watch it!" Spike snapped, and tried to scoot backwards. Xander pulled again,
and Buffy giggled and gave Spike's shoestring a yank, as well. Spike came
crashing down off the counter, onto Buffy and Xander.

Tara sighed.

"I will be in my office," Giles said calmly, pretending not to notice the
wrestling match that had broken out on the shop's floor.

"Are you guys about finished?" she asked a few minutes later, as the game of
Twister-without-a-board slowly ground to a halt. It had taken them half an hour
just to get out of the house, because a similar not-really-fight had broken out
over who got to wrap Spike up in the blanket in the first place.

Xander because he was used to it, or Buffy because she could pretend to be
smothering him.

"Er..." Spike pulled an arm out of the pile of limbs, and luckily for all
concerned, it was attached to him. "Yeah. S'pose so. Was getting boring, really.
No fun feeling the Slayer up when you don't get any enjoyment out of it."

"Ew!" From Buffy, of course.

Then a whap from Xander. "I"m gonna tell Anya--" Spike gave him a
bewildered, 'what will that do?' look. Xander continued, "That you did it when
she wasn't here to see." Then Xander was scrambling out of Spike's way, and
another wrestling game began, interspersed this time with bouts of 'tag' and
target practice.

Tara went to Giles' office. He was sitting at his desk, kneeling in his chair
and bent over a large book. He looked up as she entered, and his face for a
moment bore the same studious expression the elder Giles always had. "Yes,
Tara?"

"Are you *sure* it'll be two whole weeks?"

There was a shriek and laughter, then "Look out!" from Buffy. A moment later
there was a crash.

Neither Tara nor Giles moved.

A moment after that, Spike yelled, "I didn't do it!"

"If it's any consolation," Giles said kindly, "it'll *seem* like much longer
than two weeks."

She stared at him for a while, then burst into laughter. "Oh..ha... oh. Wow.
Heh. Okay, am I the *only* one who's noticed that those three are having way too
much fun pretending to be kids?"

"No. Trust me, you're not the only one." He looked so terribly serious,
kneeling there in his chair. He kept reaching for his face, to push back the
glasses he wasn't wearing.

"So how come you're not joining in the fun? Taking advantage of it while you
can, and all."

He barely glanced at her. "Because I am not, in fact, four years old."

Tara frowned a little. "But, you could...you know. Have fun. No one will
know you aren't really four."

"*I* know I'm not four, Tara. Thank you, really, I appreciate what you're
saying. But it isn't necessary."

From the shop, they heard, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Monster!!" from Xander.

From Buffy they heard, "I am *not* a monster!"

"Yes you are, you're a hair-pulling, cookie-stealing monster."

Tara glanced out the door. "Where did they get cookies?"

"I believe they got them from the cookie jar, where such things are usually
stored."

"And the fact that the cookie jar is on top of the fridge didn't have anything
to do with Xander's sudden need to run back into the kitchen to find his lost
sock, with Spike's expert tracking skills."

"They're quite resourceful," Giles paused, and half-grinned, "Children. I
sometimes think I would get Buffy to train harder and better if I hid chocolate
in the training room."

"There's chocolate in the training room?" Two tiny faces peered around the
office door. "Chocolate?" Buffy repeated.

"I heard him say chocolate. You said chocolate." Xander repeated.

"There is no--" Giles began. Then he blinked. "If I told you where it was,
it wouldn't be hidden, would it?" Two loud squeals, and the two pint-sized
adults ran off -- towards the training room.

"Was that nice?" Tara asked him.

"Am I required to be nice?" Giles asked. "It'll keep them in a relatively safe
environment for a while, anyway. There's nothing in there that can be broken by
even a full-size Slayer."

Tara stared at him, wondering when the last time he'd actually dealt with
*real* children had been.

"Would you like to make a bet on that?"

In the distance, they could hear Spike shouting, "All right, who took the
screwdriver?"

"No," Giles answered.

Part Five  

"We *promise* we'll bring some back for you." Buffy looked earnestly at Spike.
Which would have been enough to make her sick, if the chance of chocolate
weren't looming happily on the horizon.

Spike scowled. "I don't think I trust you."

"Spike, come on. If we could get the blanket, we would. But it's up front,
and Tara will see us. You wait here and we will be *right* back."

Spike kept scowling. Xander looked cute -- just a little. Spike growled. 
"Fine. But I want dark chocolate!"

"Absolutely!" Xander said even as he was grabbing Buffy's hand and dragging
her towards the door. There wasn't much dragging, because she was as determined
as he was.

Out on the sidewalk, Buffy looked both ways, and pointed. "There. Cafe Borgia
has ice cream treats, and cookies, and double choco-fudge mochaccinos."

"I don't think they'll give us mochaccinos, Buff."

"You haven't seen *me* look cute yet."

"Yeah, actually, I have. But I don't think the whole looking cute thing will
work when it comes to handing out grown-up beverages to four-year-olds."

"Wanna bet?"

"Nope. Want chocolate. Come on, let's try it."

Buffy looked at him. Xander shook his head. "Nope. Gotta make your eyes go
wide. Wider. Wider -- yeah! That'll do it." He grinned, then his expression
instantly turned into the most pathetic, starving, kick me I'm nobody can I have
a piece of chocolate, Buffy had ever seen.

"Wow, you're good at that. How'd you learn how to do it so good?"

Xander shrugged, but his face looked shadowed. "Come on. Let's go tell 'em
we're lost and hungry." He headed towards the Cafe Borgia.

"You know, we could have borrowed money from the Magic Box till," Buffy pointed
out as they walked down the sidewalk.

"Where's the fun in that?"

She giggled.

Luckily for them, the door was propped open to let in the spring breeze,
because the heavy glass would have been too much for a normal four-year-old to
move. Buffy, of course, would have had no trouble, but it wouldn't make them
look very hungry or pitiful for her to start showing off her superpowers.

Soon they were standing in front of the counter -- which was too tall for them
to see over the top of. It didn't deter them in the slightest. Buffy went up
on her tiptoes, trying to peer over the counter. Xander walked around her
towards the ice cream, which he could almost see into, if he stood on *his*
tiptoes.

They both looked hungry, but just a little bit sad.

"Can I help you?" the cashier leaned forward, giving Buffy a cheerful smile
even as she spoke in a over-done condescending tone.

Buffy jutted out her chin, and slowly shook her head.

"Look," Xander said in a tone of awe. "They have chocolate." He carefully did
not read the label that said 'Super Chocolate Double Fudge Marshmallow Ripple.'

"Umm... chocolate? Ice cweem?" Buffy moved over next to him, and he gave her a
quick look, which let her know that yeah, the lisp was a nice touch, but don't
overdo it. She nodded. Check. Got it.

"Uh-huh," Xander said sincerely, pointing.

Buffy looked, and she made her eyes get even bigger if that was possible. 
"Oh." They both stood there, not quite looking the cashier in the eye. Just
staring at the thick brown ice cream with the dark fudgy stripes and the white
marshmallowy stripes running through it.

The cashier followed them over to the ice cream part of the counter.

"We have some little cones just your size," she half-teased,
half-sales-pitched, "or you could share a big one, if you two can convince your
mom that you wouldn't fight over it."

Xander and Buffy looked at each other, then slowly looked back at the cashier. 
"That's OK," Xander began. "We were just looking."

"Xan," Buffy began in a little girl's tired, make it better for me tone, "I'm
hungry."

Xander took her hand. "I know. But Mommy will be back soon. We'll have
breakfast then." Buffy gave the ice-cream an extra wide-eyed look of longing,
and Xander tugged her hand gently.

"Come on, Mommy told us to wait in the alley for her."

"But I'm hungry!" Buffy said again.

"Your mother told you to wait in the alley?" the cashier asked, frowning
slightly.

Xander gave the cashier his best brave little boy look. Buffy whined, very
quietly as if only for Xander to hear, "I want ice cream."

"Honey, how long have you been outside in the alley?" the woman asked, concern
spreading across her face.

Buffy shrugged. Xander looked up earnestly and said "Dunno. A little while."

Buffy shook her head. "A long, long, time. I didn't eat in forever."

A little tap on her shoulder where the cashier couldn't see -- don't ham it up
too much, Buff. Check, got that too.

"I think you two should sit down for a minute," the cashier said, coming around
the counter. "There's some nice kid-sized seats right here." She pointed to a
mini-table with matching sweetheart-type soda fountain chairs. Xander shook his
head.

"No, thank you. We should really go back and wait."

Buffy pulled on his hand, and said to him in a stage-whisper, "But I want ice
cream!"

"We don't have any money," Xander told her, patiently. "Mommy will buy us some
when she gets back this time. I bet she will."

He took a step towards the door, and Buffy gave the ice cream counter a
devastating look of disappointment.

The cashier crouched down beside them, putting her arms around them, and giving
them a blatantly forced smile. "How about if I give you two an ice cream cone
each, while you wait?"

Buffy squealed, "Yea! I want chocolate!" Xander, however, looked doubtful. 
Buffy turned on him. "Please? Please, I want some ice cream!"

"It's all right, dear, your mommy will be able to find you here," the cashier
said.

Xander gave a slow nod, and put his arm around Buffy, pulling her toward the
table. 'Nice touch' she mouthed.

Soon they were each gleefully licking at their own adult-size ice cream cone.
Buffy had a chocolate smear on her nose, and Xander was doing his best to lick
all the way around his ice-cream before one side or the other dripped down the
cone.

"So... how exactly are we supposed to get chocolate for Spike?" Buffy asked
under her breath. "Tell her we left our baby brother sitting out in the alley,
and could we please have some for him too?" If only getting rid of Spike were as
easy as abandoning him in an alley...

"I'm still working on it," Xander said, equally quietly. "Maybe just say we
have to go back and wait, and maybe can we have a candy bar to take with us?"

Buffy frowned. "I don't think he'll be satisfied with just a candy bar."

Xander glanced at his ice cream cone. "I suppose I could *share*--"

"Buffy! Xander! What are you two doing?" They'd never heard Tara shout,
before. Hadn't known she had it in her. Nor did they known she had it in her
to look quite so furious.

"Eep?" Buffy replied.

"Nuthin' ?" Xander tried valiantly. Possibly the chocolate smeared all over his
own face made that statement seem a little farfetched, but Buffy had to give him
points for effort.

"You couldn't wait an *hour* ? I was gonna bring you guys over here anyway."

The cashier came out from behind the counter again, looking at Tara like she
was something extra-icky that you would have to get a newspaper just to scrape
off the bottom of your shoe.

"Excuse me," she said very icily. "Are you their mother?"

Tara blinked. "Their what? No, I'm babysitting." She glanced at Xander and
Buffy, and her expression changed into one they'd seen a lot in the last four
days. "What did they do?"

The cashier seemed a bit off-balance, as she said, "They said...their mother
left them in the alley. They hadn't had any breakfast and they--"

"Wanted ice cream?" Tara finished, nodding. "I'm so sorry. Let me pay you for
those cones." She gave Xander and Buffy another sharp look as she pulled out
her wallet.

Xander started easing out of his chair.

"You mean...they aren't...?" The cashier seemed confused, now, though she
accepted the money Tara was handing her. Buffy began to eat her ice cream as
fast as she could.

Xander had made it out of his chair, and began ever so slowly easing towards
the door.

"Don't even think about it, Alexander." Tara said it without even looking back
at him.

"I fear her," Xander whispered to Buffy, who was too busy licking her ice cream
to do more than nod.

Suddenly Tara was standing in front of them. "Hands, please. Not the ones with
the ice cream cones."

They glanced at each other. At least they hadn't lost the cones. Yet. Each of
them held out a hand, and Tara began to lead them out of the shop.

"How'd you find us, anyway?" Xander asked. Good idea. They needed to know where
they'd gone wrong, for next time.

"Spike. He got bored and told me you weren't really bringing him any ice
cream." She stopped, and looked down at them, and their cones. She glanced
back at the counter. "I can't get three more cones *and* make sure you two stay
out of trouble on the way back to the store."

Xander looked as offended as Buffy felt. "We won't get into trouble!" she
protested indignantly. Tara gave her a look. Buffy wilted, a little. "Anymore. 
This morning."

Tara sighed, and dragged them back towards the counter. "You two are going to
have to carry Spike and Giles' ice cream. If you drop one -- they get what's
left."

"Eew! I don't want Spike eating my ice cream. I might get reverse Spike-germs!"
Buffy wrinkled her nose.

Xander frowned as Tara rolled her eyes and paid for three more cones. "Don't
you mean he'd get Buffy germs?"

She sniffed. "I don't have germs. Besides the regular ones. He's the one with
vampie-cooties." That last said low enough so that no one else in the store
could hear it. Hopefully.

"I always thought he had to bite you. Didn't know you got it from cooties,"
Xander grinned.

"You should learn more -- do more research," Buffy said with a superior air. 
Xander stuck his tongue out at her.

"All right," Tara interrupted them. "Each of you take one of these." She
handed Xander another chocolate fudge marshmallow ripple cone, and handed Buffy
a pistachio cone.

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Eew. I am *so* not dropping my cone."

"As long as no one trips you," Xander taunted. Buffy gave him a killing glare,
to which Xander once again stuck out his tongue.

Tara sighed.

The cashier said, "I can understand why you might have left them in an alley."

Tara glared at Xander and Buffy again. "Yes, and we're going to have a *talk*
about that when we get back to the shop." Turning to the woman again, she smiled
politely. "Thank you for putting up with them. If you ever need any hensbane or
bladderwort.. or.. um... a tarot reading, feel free to stop into the Magic Box,
and I'll fix you up."

"Anya would be so proud," Xander said.

That got him another glare and Buffy whispered, "What do you think she meant by
a *talk* ? Like one of those, "Now Buffy, you really shouldn't do things like
that without consulting me,' lectures from Giles? Or one of the 'Giles thinks I
almost got myself killed and now he's gonna finish the job' ones ?"

Xander gulped silently. "Hoping for number one, betting on number two."

"Maybe she means something else entirely," Tara said from behind them. Buffy
and Xander looked up, startled, and Xander had to quickly move his hand to avoid
dumping Spike's cone on the floor.

Cowed, and trying to figure out what she *did* mean, Xander and Buffy headed
out towards the Magic Box. Every time either glanced back, Tara was right
there, enjoying her ice cream and giving them a 'wait til I get you back to the
shop' look.

When Tara opened the door for them, Xander preceded Buffy inside -- and was
instantly beset by a tiny, excited vampire. "Chocolate! Mine!"

"No, I think the pistachio is yours, Spike," Buffy teased. Which earned her a
fang-faced glare, then a chocolate-covered tongue stuck out in her direction,
since Spike had already snatched the cone out of Xander's hand.

"The pistachio is mine, actually," Giles said from his spot perched on top of
one of the counters. "And don't you *dare* drop it."

Buffy mimicked him as she walked over. "Don't you *dare drop it.... Bossy,
bossy, bossy."

"I *am* your Watcher. It's my job to boss you around."

Buffy stopped, halfway across to the counter. Held up the ice cream. "Say
that again?"

Giles jumped down and started towards her. Buffy waved her hand a bit, making
the ice cream sway.

"Remember what I said about sharing?" Tara reminded her.

"But he doesn't like chocolate fudge marshmallow ripple," Buffy replied.

Giles got closer, and Buffy took a step back. Tara walked up behind Buffy. 
When Buffy grinned up at her, unrepentant, Tara said sadly, "I can't believe
you'd be so mean to him."

Buffy huffed once, rolled her eyes, didn't *quite* stamp her foot, and handed
the cone over to Giles. Who took a lick, and a look of indescribable joy came
over his face for a few seconds. Then he looked at Buffy, grinned smugly, and
said, "Told you."

Buffy narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. For about half a second,
then she opened her mouth. "You did *not* boss me around. Tara just appealed to
my better nature."

"You haven't got one," Spike said with a mouthful of ice cream.

Buffy was about ready to hurl something at the vampire -- when she realized the
only thing she had handy to throw was her ice cream cone. She gave Spike a
dirty look, and went back to eating her ice cream.

Tara looked at them all, then shook her head. "If I had known having your
hands full of ice cream would make you behave, I would have bought some
yesterday."

"That was Spike's fault!" Buffy shouted.

"Was not!" Spike countered.

Buffy paused for a lick of her cone. Then, "Was!"

Spike swallowed a mouthful of his own ice cream, then said, "Was not!"

Neither of them made any move to strike the other, as they normally would have
done. Tara smiled.

"Now. About sneaking out of the shop by yourselves, without telling anybody
where you were going..." she began.

"We did too," Xander protested. "We told Spike!"

"Xander, you're not helping," Buffy said.

"Hey, I'm somebody!" Spike piped up.

Xander shot him a glance full of sunshine-- vampire-burning sunshine. "Yeah,
somebody who was supposed to keep his big fangy mouth shut."

"If Spike hadn't told me where you were, I'd have been looking up and down the
street for you, convinced you'd been kidnapped, or run over, or dragged away by
trolls." She held up one hand to cut off twin protests from the two sneakaways.
"Please don't tell me you're adults in kids' bodies again. First of all, you're
at about half your usual strength, Buffy. If something big had run up and
chomped on Xander, do you think you could have beat it up in time?"

"Yes," Buffy immediately. But she glanced guiltily at Xander. "Of course I
would have," she said, but she knew she was trying to convince herself.

"Secondly, if you were being responsible, you would have come and told me you
were going. I would even have given you money for the ice cream."

"But our way was so much more fun." Xander grinned, then wiped it from his
face when Tara frowned at him.

"Yeah, I was only worried about your welfare," Spike put in. He looked
sincere, even as he took another lick of his ice cream. Amazingly, he didn't
have any chocolate on his face. Xander grumbled quietly that it was probably
another evil, vampiric super power.

"You were worried we weren't going to bring you back any chocolate," Xander
corrected him.

"Would you do that to me?" Spike pouted.

"As a matter of fact, no. We were just trying to think of a way to get some for
you when we got...um...rescued."

"Oh." Spike went straight from pouting to happy, with no detour to 'guilty' on
the way.

"And speaking of welfare," Tara really frowned this time. "Did you not get that
that woman was about to call social services on me? Or whoever your imaginary
evil mom who left you in the alley was. What if I *hadn't* got there in time,
and we'd had to try to explain this to the police, instead of just one cashier?"

Buffy and Xander looked at each other. "Um..."

"If you want us to remember that you're adults in there, you should really try
to act like adults. Not four-year-olds." Tara walked away from them, moving to
sit at the table near the books. Giles went over to join her, looking smug. 
Buffy noticed that the green smear of pistachio on his cheek didn't help.

Xander, Buffy, and Spike looked at one another. They kept licking their ice
cream, but Buffy found that she wasn't really hungry for it anymore.

"So," Xander said after another moment of silent reflection. "I guess we
should behave ourselves?"

Spike and Buffy looked back at him. They all grinned, and mouthed 'nah.'

****************

"I want the one with the Pelican head!" Buffy and Xander were racing for the
boingy spring animals, while Spike stood back and laughed.

"Those things don't even *go* anywhere!"

The diminutive vampire was climbing up the 12 foot slide -- the slide, not the
steps -- by the time his cohorts had decided that the one with the Pelican head
looked kind of evil, and they were going to play on the swings instead.

"Could you explain to me again how this is 'training' ?" Giles asked Willow as
they sat on the park bench.

Willow smiled and held her finger up to her lips. "It's really a time honoured
technique of child-rearing. Called 'tire them out so they fall asleep when
they're supposed to'."

"Ah." Giles nodded, and turned to face the playground, watching as Xander and
Buffy started competing to see who could swing higher. Spike was still slipping
more than he was climbing, on the slide.

"Um, you know you could go...." Willow began. "Um, if you wanted to."

Giles shook his head, though he didn't break his gaze. "That's all right. I
don't need to be tired out before bed."

"Yeah, but, Giles," Willow leaned over, gesturing at the playground equipment. 
"How often do you get a chance like this? To play on stuff that you're the
right size to play on?"

He shook his head. "I don't need to play, either, Willow. I know that Buffy and
Xander enjoy it because you're not that far out of childhood yourselves, all of
you. And Spike... is Spike. We should be grateful he's merely attacking
defenseless playground equipment."

Willow blew bangs out of her face, as if this were an argument they'd had
several times -- which it was. "It's not like it'll break your dignity as an
apparent four-year-old to be seen playing in a park. In fact, you look a little
weird just sitting here watching." She gave him a stern eye. "And no Watcher
jokes, please."

"Willow, it's dark -- no one is out here, but us."

"Well, what if someone comes by? They'll think you're being punished, and
they'll look cross at me and say how cruel, letting the others play and keeping
him over here, what could he possibly have done--' " She broke off as Giles
climbed off the bench.

"All right, fine," he muttered. "I shall go...er...." He looked around the
playground. "I shall go sit on those bars, is that all right?"

"I think you'd like the tire swing, better," she said brightly.

Giles glared at her, but turned without saying anything. Willow watched as he
went over to the monkey bars, and climbed up to sit on one.

"They'll look cross at you?" Dawn repeated with a giggle as she leaned over the
bench from behind Willow.

"Giles-speak. Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"You do realize that you and Tara are *way* too good at this stuff?"

Willow blinked. "Well, in my case, I've babysat for years. *You*, for
instance." Dawn gave her a small smile, and Willow ducked her head. "Well, I
*remember* babysitting for you. Granted, you weren't four, you were nine. But
the principle is still the same. You just required more ice cream."

"I think they're going to require a *lot* more ice cream, if it keeps
preventing them from trashing the house while they're eating it."

"I have to keep telling myself it's OK to constantly give them ice
cream...until they're sick and pass out. Which also keeps them out of trouble." 
Willow smiled.

She glanced over at Buffy and Xander, who were still trying to reach orbit on
the swings. Spike was sliding down the slide on his stomach, though whether it
was intentional or not, she didn't know. When he reached the ground, he jumped
up and ran over to the swings and grabbed the one on the other side of Xander.

Giles was still watching, sitting on the bar, swinging his legs.

"Okay, at least I got him off the bench, so he *looks* like he's playing,"
Willow said.

"Think I should go bug him?" Dawn asked, staring across at Giles as well.

Willow shook her head. "Nah. He'll just go all 'I'm Super Stuffyman in my
four-year-old secret identity' on you. Let him do what he wants." She glanced
back at Dawn. "Of course, *you* could go play..."

"Race you to the merry-go-round?"

The two girls jumped up, and raced towards the merry-go-round. They reached it
at the same time, jumping on and yelling out, "You have to spin it!" They
looked at each other and began laughing.

A moment later, Xander was climbing onto the merry-go-round with them. "Who's
spinning it? Don't look at me, I'm only four."

"Here, I will - the first time," Willow said, giving Dawn a look. Dawn beamed,
and sat in the center. Xander crawled to one of the bars along the edge and
grabbed on.

"Let'er rip!" he cried out.

"Xander, if you fall off-"

"I'll regret it in the morning. I know! I know! I'm hanging on."

Willow gave it a good running push, then climbed on. Soon the artificial wind
was blowing her hair all over the place, and Xander was shouting "Cowabunga!"
Dawn of course, sat in the middle like a Buddha, pretending she wasn't getting
completely sick to her stomach.

Spike and Buffy were looking at each other with evil grins. At least from what
Willow could tell every time her section of the merry-go-round strobed around to
let her see the swingset. It was kind of frightening, how similar they looked,
for two people who were supposed to be mortal enemies.

Her eyes narrowed as it clicked in her head exactly what they were planning.
"Don't you...." They had jumped off their swings at the highest point of the
arc before she even got the word 'dare' out. Tucked, rolled, and come up in a
puff of grass and dust right at the foot of the monkey bars. "I suppose I'd be
wasting my breath to point out that you could've busted your heads open?"

Spike and Buffy ignored her, no doubt pretending they were too far away to have
heard her. She could hear them clearly, of course, as they went up to either
side of Giles.

"I bet he's just here because he's afraid of heights," Spike said, climbing
onto the lowest bar.

"He isn't," Buffy retorted. "He just probably *can't* climb higher." She
climbed up to the second lowest bar.

Spike climbed up after her, neither of them looking down when Giles said, "I
most certainly could if I wanted to."

"Whatever," Buffy said, climbing still higher.

"Oh, for... I could. It's not as if I'm a..."

"Great big scaredy cat?" Spike supplied as he passed Buffy and reached for the
top rung.

"Vampire with a mouth that's bigger than his ability to back it up..." Giles
responded, and started to climb.

"Tweed-for-brains!" Spike called down.

Giles said something they couldn't hear from the merry-go-round, but Spike
laughed. Giles climbed up, quickly reaching the top. "Now who's--" He
stopped, as Spike and Buffy were already climbing down the other side. "Where
are you going?" he yelled after them, and began climbing down.

Spike and Buffy reached the bottom, waiting there until Giles was almost upon
them. Then they ran for the tornado slide.

Buffy ran up the steps properly, Giles close behind. Spike, of course, had to
do things the backwards way. He was halfway up the corkscrew slide when Buffy
yelled 'Look out below!" and she and Giles both came shooting down at him. The
three of them landed in a tangle of arms and legs at the foot of the slide.

A sandy-haired, grin-covered head popped up from the mess. "Can we do that
again?"

"Yeah, but this time *you* get to be the one that gets slammed into!" Spike
replied.

"No, I think it should be Buffy," Giles countered. "Let's see if she's really
strong enough to catch us."

Buffy, who had been about to protest, took this as a challenge. "Oh, I am! 
I'll show you." She went to the bottom of the slide. When Spike and Giles had
climbed the stairs, she called up, "Ready?"

Spike made shushing motions to Buffy. "In a moment!" Then Spike and Giles
hurled themselves down the slide.

Willow put her head in her hands.

She wasn't precognitive, really. So why did she know with a sort of doomed
certainty , what was going to happen? She peeked, and sure enough, as soon as
Spike and Giles got past the point where they could remotely slow themselves
down, Buffy stepped aside. "Oops!" she said as the two boys hurtled off the
slide and rolled into another heap, this time quite a bit further away from the
foot of the slide. "Guess you're right -- I'm not strong enough to catch you."

She giggled as Spike and Giles exchanged a glance. "Get her!"

Buffy screamed and ran away, Spike and Giles on her heels. At first.

The diminutive Slayer was still faster than normal mortals, and though Spike
was faster than Giles, Buffy soon left them both behind.

Spike kept after her, but Giles came to a stop near the merry-go-round. Xander
held out a hand, and Giles climbed on. "Willow, spin us again!" Xander told her.

"Wait, let me get off... uh, I think I should go after Spike and Buffy," Dawn
said, looking green and woozy.

"Only if they're heading to the bathroom," Willow said with a not-unkind laugh.
"You shouldn't have eaten quite so much ice cream yourself, tonight."

"Bleagh," Dawn replied, climbing unsteadily to her feet and stepping off the
merry-go-round.

"Ready?' Willow asked as soon as Dawn was clear. Xander nodded; Giles just
rolled his eyes.

Xander elbowed him. "Hang on-- she pushes fast."

Willow grinned, and gave the ride another spin.

Part Six

"All right, who wants a burger?" Dawn held up a plate and walked over to the
table. Six cries of 'me! me!' drowned out anything else she could have said. 
She set the plate down beside Willow, and returned to the kitchen. When she
came out this time, she asked, "Who wants green veggies?" No one said anything. 
Dawn grinned. "Good, because I don't have any. Potato salad, though...."

Again, six cries of 'me' drowned her out.

As they passed the food around the table, there was a certain amount of
bouncing in chairs. Probably because they all knew there was strawberry
shortcake with ice cream and whipped cream for dessert. Willow and Tara weren't
above bouncing in seats for strawberry shortcake, either.

"Hey -- Spike's stealing fries from me!" This from Buffy, who gave the vampire
on her left a slight push on the shoulder.

"Was not. Like I'd want to eat anything you touched," Spike shot back. Then he
popped a ketchup-laden fry into his mouth. Dawn glanced at his plate. Yep. *His*
pile of french fries was covered with mustard.

Buffy apparently noticed, as well. She grabbed the ketchup bottle, and
squirted some all over Spike's french fries.

"Hey! What was that for?"

She reached over and took one of the now-ketchuped fries, and ate it.

"Children, behave," Willow said in a calm tone.

"Stop kicking my chair."

"I'm not kicking your chair."

"Are too."

"Stop it!"

Willow looked over. "Xander, Giles, am I going to have to make you stand in
the corners?" She was smiling, a little. Dawn thought it was probably because
Giles had given in and played with the others for a couple hours, that
afternoon. Still was, if you considered annoying each other 'play'.

Since it was raining, the park wasn't an option, so they'd all had to stay
indoors during the day today, not just Spike. Giles had quietly wandered over
and helped Xander build a Lego castle that still stood on the coffee table.
Admittedly, a bit trashed, since Spike's horde of vampire G.I. Joes had attacked
it soon after it was built.

Of course, the whole kid thing could be taken too far. Like for instance the
fact that Giles and Xander *still* hadn't stopped kicking each other's chairs.

"Um, guys?" Dawn tapped Xander on the shoulder. One more kick, then Xander
looked up with an inquisitive expression. "Don't you think you should act like
grown-ups, now, and eat before your food gets cold?"

"That's what microwaves are for," Xander said, and gave Giles' chair another
strong kick that made the chair wobble.

"Stop it!" Giles shouted, and began to kick back. Dawn pulled Giles' chair
back out of the way.

"I think this 'acting like a kid' thing can take a rest, don't you?" Dawn
leaned down between them. Xander and Giles looked at her, then looked at each
other.

"I will if he will," from both of them.

"Excuse me?" She looked back and forth between the two of them. They looked
perfectly serious, and perfectly willing to continue irritating each other all
night.

"Well, he started it," Giles accused.

"I did not! You kicked my chair when you sat down."

"That was an accident!"

Dawn looked down at the other end of the table. "Willow?"

"Hey, Giles, Xan, cut it out for a while, huh?" Willow said gently.

"He's annoying me!" Xander complained, then stuck his tongue out at Spike when
the vampire said 'right on, mate!'

"Guys, come on, this isn't fun anymore." Willow sighed, looking a little
tired. Tara glanced her way, then squeezed her hand gently.

"*I'm* having fun," Spike remarked.

Buffy whapped him on the arm. Spike started to whap her back. "Not you as
well! Please, guys. You're adults. Act like it." Willow's voice snapped,
just a little, at the end.

"I will if she will," Spike said with a smirk. Buffy picked up her fork,
loaded with potato salad, and aimed it for Spike.

"Stop it!" Willow yelled, standing up so fast her chair nearly tipped over. 
Everyone's eyes were on her, as she glared at each of the four-year-olds. "If
you want to act like kids, then you'll be treated like kids! The next person who
misbehaves is getting sent to bed this instant!"

There was silence around the table as four people who should supposedly know
better looked at each other, then back at Willow with big, somewhat startled
eyes.

"Er...sorry. Don't know what came over me," Giles said quietly. He really
looked like he didn't, too. A bit confused and fuzzy.

"I'm not." From Spike, who grinned. "But I'm not gettin' sent to bed before
strawberry shortcake."


Buffy rolled her eyes. "You know, if I'd known all I had to do to make evil
vampires be good was give them dessert, I could've retired to Miami Beach by
now."

"I'm not good. I'm just temporarily well-behaved," Spike protested.

"You will be *good*," Willow reiterated as she sat back down. "Or no dessert
for a *month*."

Dawn refrained from pointing out that they wouldn't be kids for a month, when
she saw how well it seemed to have worked: Spike opened his mouth -- then
stopped, and shut it. He went back to eating his french fries. He glanced at
Buffy's plate, then his own. Then he looked timidly up at Willow. "Do I have
to give her back the fries I didn't take but might have rescued from falling off
her plate?"

Willow just glared at him.

"Right. Here." Spike dumped a handful of fries on Buffy's plate.

"I knew you took them!" Buffy began. Then she shot a guilty look towards
Willow, and went back to her dinner, as well.

The grown-ups all looked at Xander, who had been sitting quietly throughout. 
Xander just looked back. Not a grin, not a smile, not an eep-face, either.
Utterly blank expression.

At least they didn't have to yell at *him,* too. Heaving a sigh of more than
just relief -- it was exhausting, taking care of four not-really-four-year-olds
-- Dawn turned her attention to her own plate. She had bitten halfway into her
burger, and was just starting to come to the conclusion that Willow was a better
cook than she had realized, when they all heard the little thud.

Followed by another.

Dawn looked up at Willow, who was scanning up and down the table. Every not-kid
seemed to be firmly entrenched in ploughing through his or her dinner.

Willow looked around at each face more intently, before settling on the one who
had been the most quietly unimpressed by Willow's earlier outburst. She turned
her attention towards him, and waited until he looked up at her.

"Xander? Would you like a bedtime story tonight?"

Xander's innocent blank expression turned into one of excitement -- then almost
as quickly into suspicion. "Yes?"

"Then stop kicking Giles' chair."

Xander glanced down, obviously weighing the benefits of chair-kicking and
Giles-annoying, with getting a story from Willow. "How long of a story?" he
finally asked.

**********************

Willow came down the stairs slowly, to join Tara and Dawn on the couch. "Well.
That was..."

"Exhausting?" Tara supplied.

"How about freaky?" Dawn leaned her head on her arm and rubbed at her neck with
her other hand. "I mean, I know Buffy's always lived to annoy me in her own
I'm-older-and-I-know-what's-right way, but this is the first time I've ever felt
like *I* was the big sister. For real." She stretched her neck back and forth
and grimaced. "Exhausting works too, though."

"Yeah, it was like... they forgot, or something. That they weren't really
kids." Willow shook her head in wonder. "Maybe it's because everyone treats
them like kids. It's a subconscious reaction to being what everyone expects you
to be."

"But when we try treating them like adults, they act like kids. Especially
Xander and Spike," Tara said.

"Well, Xander and Spike *always* act like kids. I think it's a guy thing,"
Willow replied.

"I think it's a Xander and Spike thing," Dawn said.

"Hopefully they'll be themselves in the morning. I don't think I can take this
much longer." Willow began rubbing her neck. Tara scooted away on the couch, a
little, and turned so she could reach Willow's shoulders. As she began rubbing,
Willow moaned. "Oo, I'm keeping you."

"It's only another week," Tara said quietly. "They really aren't that bad. 
Just...exhausting."

Dawn gave her a grin. "I bet you're gonna end up with four kids of your own,
aren't you?"

Tara smiled, shyly. Willow glared at her. "Don't even think it. Not unless
the oldest one is old enough to take care of the rest of them!"

"Well, hopefully not quadruplets," Tara agreed. "And no vampires."

"Ye Gods, I hope not. Then we'd have at least one permanent four-year-old."

"So we're back to talking about Spike?" Dawn laughed.

"Well, he *was* the loudest." They all grinned, though at the time -- fifteen
minutes ago -- it hadn't been funny. Though they'd been more or less
well-behaved throughout and after dinner, once they'd started yawning the threat
of no-dessert and early bed didn't hold.

There had been whining, and pouting, and stomping about, before Willow, Tara,
and Dawn had simply carried the smaller ones upstairs. Spike had shouted his
head off that he was being murdered. Five minutes after Willow had plonked him
down on the bed and held him there, his eyes had closed.

"Is there anything *really* morally wrong with putting Nyquil in their milk?"
Dawn questioned.

Willow nodded. "I think there's a line between letting them eat themselves sick
on sugar because they'll be adults next week, and actually drugging them."

Dawn shrugged. "Never hurts to ask." She glanced at the television. "You think
it's safe to turn that thing on, or will it wake 'em up?"

"We can keep the volume down low," Willow said. Dawn nodded and picked up the
remote, and started channel surfing.

She'd barely settled on a show, when they all head a footfall on the stairs. 
When they looked up, they saw Xander standing there, looking hesitant.

"Xander," Willow sighed. "Why are you awake? Never mind," she said without
giving him the chance to respond.

Xander took another step towards them, and they could see there was something
upsetting him. Willow was off the couch and over at his side before anyone
could ask what was wrong. She knelt down in front of him, with him on the last
step her head was below his. "Xander? What is it?"

"I'm scared."

Willow raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? Well, I'll have to come back upstairs
with you and make sure there's no scary Spike-monsters in your bed or anything."
She leaned down, and Xander reached his arms up to be lifted. Over his shoulder,
Willow mouthed, "Pity-cuddles..." at the other girls, who smiled. She carried
him up the stairs, whispering to him, "We'll just make sure the Big Bad doesn't
hog all the bed-space, okay?"

Xander murmured something sleepily, and leaned his head against her shoulder.

She took him back to the bedroom, and tiptoed in so as not to wake the others. 
Giles was curled up on his side, facing away from the center of the bed where
Xander had been. Spike was sprawled out across the entire other half of the
bed, seemingly oblivious to everything. When Willow leaned over to put Xander
back in the bed, he reached out and pulled Xander towards him and snuggled.

Willow watched as Spike wrapped one arm and one leg around and over Xander,
glomming onto him as if to prevent him from escaping, again. Willow grinned and
pulled the blankets back into place.

She waited a moment, to make sure Xander was really going back to sleep. Spike
opened one eye and looked at her. She grinned, waved, and tiptoed out of the
room.

They managed to have a quiet evening. Watching TV while Dawn did her homework,
Willow and Tara helped without actually breaking down and giving her the
answers. There were no more visits from should-be-in-bed-people, and finally
they were all yawning, themselves. Dawn gathered her things and said goodnight,
leaving Willow and Tara to put out the lights before heading upstairs as well.

The quiet lasted as they got ready for bed, and crawled under the covers and
cuddled. Willow was almost asleep, and knew Tara was already asleep, when she
heard someone come into the room.

"Huuh..." Opening her mouth to ask who was there also opened the way for a
yawn. She sat up, and peered at the small figure in the doorway. "Xan? Once was
fine, but it's not really funny anymore."

"Willow?"

"Yeah, Xander. If you were hoping for a peek at our nighties, I hate to
disappoint you, but we're wearing sweats."

He shuffled a bit further into the room, until she could see the look on his
face, in the faint light that came in the window from the back porch light.
"Xander?"

"I'm scared."

"Xan.."

"Really scared. I don't know why, and I don't like it."

"Xander?" She could see that he wasn't kidding, this time. It occurred to her
that he might not have been, earlier. She held out her arms, and Xander hurried
forward, climbing onto the bed and into her lap. She held him close, and leaned
down to see his face.

He really was scared.

"Did you have a bad dream?" she asked quietly, though she could see that Tara
had opened her eyes and was listening.

Xander shook his head. "Don't think so."

"Did Spike kick you in his sleep?"

Again, he shook his head. "I just woke up. And it was dark." He looked up at
her, and she felt something clench, in her chest. Right around her heart. It
had been so long since she'd seen this face....

There were reasons why Xander had shown up at her window at dawn some days.
Reasons why he'd spent the night, as well. The simplest one was that in the
Rosenberg home, anybody who wanted a night light could have one. But most of
them weren't very simple at all.

She studied his face, and he frowned. "Are you mad? I'll go away if you're mad.
I'm sorry."

Willow put a hand on his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes, and closed
her own, just for a second. When she opened them, he was still looking at her as
if he was afraid he was going to be punished for being scared. Or for coming to
tell her about it.

"Oh, no. No, no, Xan, it's okay. " She tried to sound as grown up as possible,
while she was wondering where this child had come from who reminded her so much
of the Xander she had known back then. She hugged him tightly, rocking ever so
slightly back and forth. "I'm not mad. I won't ever be mad. It's ok."

Xander didn't move, for the barest moment. Then he clung to her, digging his
fingers into her shirt and burying his face against her chest.

Willow spared a thought that if he *was* faking, he was one dead kid.

But it didn't feel like he was faking it. He seemed really scared. She looked
down at him, and asked, "Do you want a night light in your bedroom?" She had no
idea where she would find one in the Summers house, but she could always magick
up a little fairy light, even make it a soft green color, which she knew Xander
would like.

He closed his eyes, and nibbled on his bottom lip. Then opened them again, and
shook his head. "Can I... Can I stay here? Please?"

There might have been just a tiny bit of 'Mom left me in the alley, can I have
some ice cream' pitifulness in those eyes, but as far as she could tell, most of
it was real.

And if there *was* some of that other look in his eyes, maybe it didn't matter.
She couldn't imagine Xander ever having tried asking his *own* parents if he
could sleep with them. Or if he had... Was it wrong of her not to want to know
what had happened, if he had? She glanced over at Tara.

Who blinked once, then smiled, and nodded. Scooted over towards the wall to
make room.

"OK, Xander. You can stay here with us." She turned to ease him down onto the
bed between her and Tara; Xander was still holding onto her as he laid down. 
Willow half-expected him to stick his thumb in his mouth -- then she smiled. 
"I'll be right back."

Willow disentangled herself from Xander, which was difficult when he pouted
harder at her. She slipped away, though, and sneaked down the hall to Buffy's
room. When she came back, she had Mr. Gordo in her hands.

She found Xander curled on his side, snuggled up against Tara but watching the
door for Willow's return. She came over to the bed and held out the stuffed
pig. "I don't think Buffy will mind if you borrow Mr. Gordo."

Xander looked at her doubtfully for a moment, even though she'd seen his hand
twitch towards the stuffed animal. Then he took it, still frowning slightly as
if not sure it was proper for a boy to want to sleep with a stuffed toy, and
held it tightly in both arms.

She shot Tara a look over his head, as he settled in between them. The 'we must
talk later' look. Although half of what they needed to talk about was probably
evident on her face. This was more than just subconscious childlike behavior at
the table or over toys, because everyone *expected* them to act like kids. This
was something different.

*What* it was, she couldn't be entirely sure of, but hopefully it would keep
until morning.

One hand on Xander's shoulder, one tucked beneath his neck, she lowered her
head to the pillow.

She wasn't even remotely close to sleep, this time, before another small figure
appeared in the doorway. Spike, hair standing out around his head, rubbing his
eyes with both hands, and blinking at her. Worried. "Where's Xan? He's gone. I
can't find him."

She'd barely lifted her hand to wave him over, when Spike's eyes darted to
Xander, and Spike was scrambling up onto the bed and wriggling under the covers
next to him. Willow blinked, and stared at him. He wrapped himself around
Xander, as he had when she'd taken Xander back to bed earlier, and closed his
eyes.

Willow opened her mouth to ask Spike what the heck he was doing. Then she shut
it. If Xander really was upset, then she couldn't very well demand that Spike
go back to the other room and sleep with Giles. Willow glanced towards the
door. Giles wasn't going to sneak in here too, was he?

She had almost decided he wasn't, when she heard the padding of bare feet in
the hallway, and a little head poked around the door frame. "Er... did they come
in here to bother you? I'm sorry. Come on, you two, come back to bed."

Xander popped his unsleeping head up. "Nuh-uh. Not goin'."

"Oh, come on, Xander--"

Spike looked up at Giles, and calmly stuck his tongue out. "He doesn't wanna
go, he doesn't have to."

Willow took a deep breath, refrained from rolling her eyes, and *did* shake her
head. "No, Giles, they're not bothering us. It's okay."

Blink of sleep-fuzzed eyes. "Oh. Well. All right, then, I guess." He peered at
the two others in the middle of the bed, then turned around to go, carefully
squaring his shoulders. Walking slowly back towards Buffy and Dawn's bedroom.

Willow sighed, to herself. "Giles? There's room for one more."

He stopped, but looked over his shoulder. "No, I don't need to. I don't mind
having the bed to myself for once."

Willow scooted towards the edge of the bed as much as she could, and saw Tara
do the same. They grabbed the SpikeXander amoeba and pulled them towards
Willow, making enough space for one more four-year-old.

"Come on, Giles. Plenty of room." Tara patted the bed.

Giles hesitated, though he didn't head towards them, neither did he continue
down the hall back to Buffy's room. "I don't really...."

Spike lifted his head slightly and grinned in Giles direction. "Bawck, bawck,
bawckawckkk..."

"I beg your pardon..."

"He's calling you a chicken," Xander mumbled sleepily. "Get in bed already. M'
tired."

"You don't wanna see him get grumpy," Spike warned.

Willow agreed. Grumpy Xander meant he'd give you the mad-face. Which could
shatter mirrors and frighten small furry animals.

Giles shrugged. "I suppose," he said hesitantly, coming all the way into the
room. "If you insist." He climbed carefully up onto the bed and lay down between
Tara and Xander.

Willow waited until the three additional bedmates were settled, before she lay
her head down again. Spike had stolen most of her pillow, and she briefly
considered getting into a tug-of-war with him for it. She'd always won those
with Xander, but she wasn't sure she could overcome even tiny vampire strength.

Besides, she had to admit, Spike and Xander -- and Giles -- looked too cute to
disturb.

As long as Spike didn't kick her.

********

Part Seven

"I wanna watch Batman Beyond!" Xander had the remote, and was holding it over
Giles' head.

Giles couldn't quite jump up and grab it, or he would spill his bowl of Fruity
Pebbles, so he settled for whining. "What's wrong with Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood?
They have puppets."

"'Cos it's silly. How could that little puppet king be that big human girl's
uncle? What, her mum was human and her dad was a puppet?" Spike was ensconced on
the other end of the couch with a *giant* bowl of cereal.

"Yeah, I always wanted to know that too," Buffy said. "And anyway, we've seen
all those shows. The cartoons are new ones."

In the kitchen, Willow leaned over to Tara. "Now would *not* be the time to
tell them about my mother's paper on the Freudian significance of the trolley
going though the tunnel to get to the happy fantasy land, I'm thinking."

Dawn looked up from her cereal at the table. "What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm not sure they'd...get it," Tara said, glancing worriedly towards the four
children arguing over the remote.

Willow nodded. "It's weird. Something's...definitely not-hunky-dorey about
this."

"You mean how they're arguing over a TV show that two weeks ago none of them
had ever heard of?" Dawn asked.

Willow looked at her. "I think Spike and Xander probably have watched it
before."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "At 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning?"

"Well, I think it was on in the afternoons...but that's not what's weird. I
mean, it is what's weird. But not what's really weird. It's like they've all
stopped trying to be grown-ups, anymore."

Dawn nodded. "Yeah. Buffy threw a real hissy-fit when she found out Spike and
Giles and Xander got to sleep with you guys last night. I thought she was just
kidding, you know, 'cause she started the pouting thing, but she sat on the bed
with her arms crossed for twenty minutes, and wouldn't talk to me." She
frowned, looking a bit worried. "Do you think that spell is messing with their
brains, too? Like, brain damage kind of messing?"

Willow and Tara exchanged glances, confirming that they'd each had the same
thought -- and weren't going to give in to it.

"No, I don't think so. Giles said the spell wouldn't do any permanent damage,"
Willow said.

"You mean, Giles who had already been affected by the spell when he researched
it, Giles?" Dawn asked.

Willow just looked at Dawn for a moment. Then she turned to Tara. "I think
we should call our other stuffy British former-Watcher good with the languages
person."

Tara nodded, but as Willow went over towards the phone, said thoughtfully, "I
don't think he's stuffy, anymore."

There were four screams from the living room - difficult to tell if they were
screams of delight or anger, but they were definitely not the "there is real
blood and pain here" type of screaming. All three grown-ups ignored them.

Dawn frowned. "Do we need to get somebody else, then? I think stuffiness may be
a requirement for the job..."

"I think we'll have to make do with non-stuffy language Watcher guy," Willow
said as she dialed. "I don't *know* anybody else."

Soon she was exchanging greetings with Cordelia, and explaining the situation
in between fits of hysterical laughter on the other end of the line.

"You mean they're *all* like three feet tall, and wearing Underoos?" Cordelia
asked. "Even Giles?"

"No, Giles wouldn't wear the Underoos. Which was a good thing, because they
only had two packages left, and Xander and Spike were fighting over who got
Batman and who had to be stuck with Spiderman. Is Wesley actually *there* ?
Because there'll be plenty of time to laugh at them later, you know."

"Oh, sure. Hey, I don't suppose you took pictures?"

Willow found herself suppressing a sigh. "Yes, we have pictures. Lots of
pictures. I'll give you copies of everything. Can I talk to Wesley? This is
kinda serious."

"What, they aren't going to bed on time? OK, OK, hang on."

Willow had to hold the phone away from her ear as Cordelia yelled. She shook
her head, then had to repeat her story once Wesley came on the line. He, at
least, asked relevant questions, and listened to her.

He still chuckled.

When she hung up the phone, there were two expectant face looking at her, and
four youthful voices still raising a minor ruckus in the next room. "Wesley
thinks he's heard of the Urdeku, but he's not all that familiar with it. He
wants to come up here and check out the books."

"Couldn't you just scan them and e-mail it to him?" Dawn asked.

Willow smiled mischievously. "I think he also wants to come up here and check
out the kids." A bit more seriously, "He's never heard of it causing any lasting
damage, and he thinks Giles was probably right, but he wants to see for himself
how they're acting, so maybe between us we can figure out what's happening."

Dawn blew a raspberry. "He just wants to take videos of Giles so that he can
blackmail him with them later."

Willow's eyes went wide. "Videos! We need a video camera. Do we have a video
camera?" she asked Tara.

Tara patted her on the arm. "Maybe we should think about getting them turned
back into grown-ups, instead."