The old abandoned building was still standing. Pike stared at it across the train tracks that had once served to keep it a fully stocked warehouse. Now it was a shell, partially destroyed by fire in the past five years, and probably home to any number of people -- or things -- who didn't have a home elsewhere.

There wasn't any purpose in moving closer. Pike buried his hands in the long coat he wore, regardless of the stifling summer night, and stared. He knew what was and wasn't there. Merrick had used the building as a training area for Buffy, long, long ago. He'd lived there, too, keeping under any and all radars. All of his books and papers had remained there after he had been murdered by Lothos, until Pike had taken them with him.

He didn't need to close his eyes to remember the months between Merrick's death and Buffy's leaving LA. The old warehouse had remained training quarters, and Pike had moved in. Studying wasn't his strong point, and he couldn't read most of the languages that Merrick's books were in, but he could certainly read Merrick's old diaries.

Watchers. Vampires. Slayers. History stretching back farther than anything Pike had ever thought of. And the teenage girl who had steadily become more and more weary the longer she had gone on, watching her life disintegrate around her, with only a jerk slacker for support.

"They're living in the rafters of the gym," Buffy had said to her knees. She was sprawled on the floor of the practice room, forehead resting on her legs. "Hemery has gone through like nine night janitors." She raised her head and looked at Pike, barely two years older than she was, seventeen to her fifteen. "I don't know what to do. My parents will kill me if I sneak out at night again, and it's going to take a couple nights of patrolling to clean out that nest. And there aren't any windows in the gym. They might start attacking during the day."

Pike crossed the room to kneel beside her, hand on her shoulder. When they'd met, they'd had a cautious flirtation, a sense of connection. Now, that connection bound them tight in a shared goal. But Pike was always conscious of the fact that he didn't know enough to help Buffy.

"I don't know what to do," Buffy said again, helplessly. Sunset light speared through the broken windows, and gleamed on her face. In a few minutes, it would be night, and Buffy would have to go patrol until she had to go home and face her parents yet again. The longer this went on, the more she shut down and the less she talked about it, but Pike knew that she was worried that her parents were splitting up, and that it was her fault.

He couldn't do anything for Buffy's splintering world, or the problems she had at home, or her failing grades and fading hopes. But he could help her fight vampires.

"Blow up the gym."

Buffy turned to face him, open-mouthed, and, incredibly, began to giggle. "You have *got* to be kidding me."

"No." He started to get enthusiastic. "Think about it. It'll get rid of them all really fast. And if you do it in the daytime, they won't be able to run away."

Buffy was still looking completely freaked, but there was a faint gleam of appreciation for his scheme in her eyes. Or maybe it was just the desire to do something big. A sly smile crossed her mouth as she blinked at him, making her look almost like the spoiled airhead Valley girl she'd been when he'd met her. "Okay. How do we do it?"

Slowly, Pike turned away from the abandoned building. They'd blown up the gym, and within weeks Buffy was gone, whisked away to a boring little middle-of-nowhere town called Sunnydale. Except for apparently it hadn't been all that boring, and now she was dead. One Slayer dies, and the next one is called.

Someday, that Slayer would be Amanda.

He made his way back to Cordelia's apartment, parking his van on a quiet side street. They'd ended up at Cordelia's due to a shouting match at Hyperion. There was plenty of room at the hotel, but Cordelia pointed out that it wasn't a residence really, and even if it was, it was a vampire's residence, so vampires could waltz in whenever they wanted. They'd argued about where Pike and Amanda would stay until Amanda fell asleep on Pike's arm, and Cordelia had thrown her hands into the air. "Fine. My place. Why not? Everyone else stays there."

It was weird being back in Los Angeles. He kept flipping back and forth between everything being familiar and everything being strange, between knowing exactly how to get to downtown and getting lost on his way out. He didn't like being unsettled. He didn't like being unsure. And he really didn't like asking for help.

He knocked on the door, and it swung open without anyone being on the other side. The ghost again. Cordelia had blithely informed them that her apartment was haunted as she had sailed into her bedroom.

"Amanda and you can share the living room, the kitchen's through there, and oh, yeah, don't worry about it, but my apartment's haunted."

Amanda had just hauled her duffel bag inside. She dropped it and began giggling. Pike had smothered a smile at hearing Amanda's giggles, and called out, "Now you warn us? You couldn't have mentioned this back at the Hyperion?"

"Dennis is a nice ghost. Don't worry about him."

True to Cordelia's words, Amanda's duffel had begun to float up and drifted across the room to tuck itself neatly into a corner. "Cool," Amanda breathed.

"Dennis, the friendly ghost," Pike muttered as his bag began to move. It fell to the ground with a decidedly annoyed thump, and he grimaced. "Got it. Don't like the Casper jokes. Sorry." After a pointed moment, Pike's bag was lifted, moved to the same corner as Amanda's, and put down.

Now Amanda was curled up on the couch watching some action movie with Cordelia. Pike shut the door behind him, and came into the living room. "Nice viewing selection."

"Amanda's choice." Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "She wanted punchy-kicky." Amanda ignored both of them and avidly watched the screen.

"And she doesn't shut up about how they do it wrong," Pike agreed. He leaned forward to clap his hands over Amanda's eyes, and she began to giggle and struggle. She fought him off and kicked him in the shin before settling down to focus again on the screen.

Restless, Pike roamed the apartment. He wandered into the kitchen, where dishes in the sink announced that Amanda and Cordelia had eaten dinner without him. He poked his head into a cabinet and had it shut with a resounding thump. "Hey, I'm sorry about the Casper crack," Pike objected.

"It's not that. Dennis is just really protective of me." Cordelia leaned against the doorjamb and smirked at her houseguest. "Hungry?"

"Nah. Just..." Pike shrugged.

"Bored? Frustrated?"

Pike sighed and leaned back against the counter. "Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I'm grateful for the invite and all --"

Cordelia brushed aside his pathetic attempt to act civilized with the back of her hand. "But you'd rather be out kicking demon ass."

"Vampire, specifically, but yeah."

"God." Cordelia rolled her eyes and sat down at the kitchen table. "You," she said, pointing at Pike, "are exactly like every guy I've met in the past four years."

"Huh?"

Cordelia waved her hands. "What is wrong with you people? All of you want to fight the good fight, charge in where angels fear to tread -- and hell, I even know an Angel who charges in where angels fear to tread --"

"Bad pun."

"Whatever. All of you just love being macho and risking your necks and what is *wrong* with you?" Cordelia demanded.

"What's wrong with you?" Pike returned.

"Oh, no, no, no. I so did not ask for this gig. I got the vision plan after some other idiot guy went all gung-ho." There was a thread of real pain beneath the sarcastic tone of her voice, and Pike stopped and looked at her. He'd taken her for a smart-mouthed brat who loved being in charge. And he had been right, but there was more than that.

Pike smirked at her. "And you, of course, weren't doing anything, mister, when all of a sudden you landed up to your neck in weird-ass vampire stuff."

"I was *born* in a town of weird-ass vampire stuff. Besides, I was asking you." Cordelia stuck stubbornly to the point.

Pike didn't say anything for long moments, as the sounds of Hong Kong cinema filtered in from the living room. "My best friend was killed," he said finally. "And then the guy who was helping Buffy was killed. I was all she had. And then she left town, and I... couldn't go back to being a slacker. And then I found Amanda, and there wasn't any going back if I wanted to."

"Yeah," Cordelia said quietly. "Yeah, me too. I know the feeling. There's like this moment, when you know too much, and you realize you've just crossed some line no one warned you about." Cordelia sat still for a few moments, and then shook her head hard. "I really hated that moment."

Her pissed-off tone startled a laugh out of him. "Yeah, I know."

Shaking her head, Cordelia got up and went back out into the living room. Pike followed her in time to see her turn off the TV and grin at a sleeping Amanda sprawled on the couch. "Can you pick her up?" she asked in a whisper.

Nodding, Pike crossed the room and boosted Amanda into his arms. She was a tall ten-year-old, but she was still small enough that he could carry her easily.

"Put her in my room," Cordelia said quietly. "I've got a double bed."

Amanda murmured sleepily as Pike tugged her shoes off. Luckily, Cordelia had convinced Amanda to change into sweats before they'd settled down for a night of Jackie Chan. With a peaceful sigh, Amanda turned her head into the pillow and dropped like a rock.

"You really love her," Cordelia said from the doorway of her room.

Pike stared down at the sleeping girl. She'd been the center of his existence for four years, a kid sister, a girl who had looked to him for everything and whole-heartedly believed that he could provide it, his reason for getting up every morning. "Yeah," he said finally. "I do."

He couldn't turn to meet her eyes in the darkened room. He just stood there staring down at Amanda. He loved her more than anything in the world -- and someday he'd send her out to fight monsters.

And die, like Buffy had.

"Come on," Cordelia said finally. "Go to bed. You get the couch. I need my beauty sleep."