"Yes Xander, it's me."

"What are you doing here? What do you want? And it's Alex now, I haven't been Xander for a very long time."

"Alex. Hmmm, I like it. But not the beard, I'm glad you didn't have one when we were together. The long hair is nice though."

"So glad to have your approval. Why. Are. You. Here?"

"I'm in town on business, sensed you here and thought we could chat."

"About what? In case you hadn't noticed, not real big on the hanging out with vengeance demons thing."

"Oh, because of what Willow did? It's hardly fair to be mad at me. I didn't curse you. D'hoffryn wouldn't let me, remember?"

"And that makes me feel soooo much better."

"It should. If I had done it, I would have turned you into a troll, or horribly disfigured you. All Willow did was make you immortal."

"Go away Anya, I'm not in the mood for this."

"Fine. I'll just go pop in on Spike. I know he's here as well."

"NO! Leave him alone. Spike isn't......Spike anymore."

"Oh, right. The soul, I forgot about that. Lucky him, Willow had a much worse idea in mind for him. He's lucky that demon souled him first."

"What do you mean?"

"D'Hoffryn said that Since the soul had done nothing to wrong Willow, she was forbidden from wreaking vengeance on him."

"Wow, that's good then. I mean for Spike, Wil. So...how is Willow? Still very much into the vengeance?"

"Yes. She's very good at it. D'Hoffryn is very pleased with her work."

Xander sighed. He had hoped that Willow would realize the mistake she'd made. That somewhere deep inside she was still his best friend, the one he could always depend on. Apparently he was wrong. His Wills was gone.

"But she's okay?"

"Oh, yes. She's an excellent demon. Very creative. Why there was this one girl....."

"Stop! I don't want to know. She's not my Willow anymore. She's... I don't know what she is anymore."

"She was never yours Xand...Alex."

"I have to go Anya. I have places to be."

"Okay. It was nice seeing you again.... Alex. I hope I'll see you again before I leave."

"Yeah, sure."

And with that Anya was gone. No one seemed to notice that she just disappeared, such was life in Sunnyhell. Xander folded up his paper, gulped the rest of his luke-warm coffee and headed out to find an apartment. But first he was going to see Wil. He needed to warn him about Anya being in town. It couldn't be a good sign, his life was just starting to look up and wham! Vengeance demon.

As he was heading to Wils' store, Alex kept thinking about what Anya said. Spike had been spared from Willows' vengeance only because he had been given a soul. He wondered what Willow had planned to do to Spike, it would have to have been pretty bad if being given a soul was preferable to what she had planned. As far as vampires' were concerned, being souled was a fate worse than death.

What had happened to Willow to make her that hard, that cruel. It couldn't have just been Tara’s' death, they had all lost loved ones before, hell, Buffy had to kill Angel and send him to hell! You didn't see her going all vengeance demon on everyone. And Buffy had every reason to want Xander to suffer, he lied to her, kept quiet about the fact that Willow was trying to re-soul her lover. There had to be another reason why Wills had turned to D'Hoffryn.

Wil had been feeling out of sorts all morning. He was impatient, insolent, and rather rude to one man who had asked after a book on angels. He didn't know what was wrong with himself and frankly he just wanted to close up the shop and go back to bed.

Wil tried to ignore his seeming mental breakdown, he chocked it up to having a terrible night and tried to let it go. It wasn't easy. He was glad that it was turning out to be a rather slow day for business. He really wanted to just go back upstairs, or perhaps call Alex and talk with him. He felt perhaps he could help him make sense of what was happening to him.

When Alex arrived at the shop he saw Wil standing at the counter, eyes closed and a look of fierce concentration of his face. He walked over and stood behind him. Alex rested his hand on Wils' shoulder and spoke softly in his ear.

"Hey, what's up?"

Wils' eyes didn't open, in fact he didn't move all, but when he spoke.... thirty years seemed to melt away and Alex was left standing in muted shock.

"What the bloody hell do you want Harris?"

The voice, the accent, it wasn't Wil at all. It was harsh, cockney, arrogant, it was...

"Spike?"

And then the world turned black.