Disclaimer: This story is a work of fan-fiction. All used characters don’t belong to me and I just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this story is the pure pleasure of the reader.

Feedback: All feedback, comments or anything else you might want to share is welcome and can be sent to LadySet@gmx.net

Author’s notes: This story was inspired by some rumors that in current season 6 one of the Scoobies would die. Dunno if that’s true or not, ‘cause I have only seen half of it for now. Anyway the story contains slight spoilers for said season 6 and is set around the middle of that season.

The title comes from an inside joke from Star Trek, where the guy in the red shirt always gets killed on a mission, especially when he’s had a line to say.

Anyway, this one wouldn’t want to let me go until I wrote it, so I hope you’ll enjoy it at least a bit.

Dedicated to my two close friends Pari and Kiva

I love you girls, I really do.

You are the best.

Red Shirt Syndrome

by Belladonna

It was long after sundown over Sunnydale and everything seemed like it’d be a normal night, at least as normal as it could ever be in Sunnydale, directly over the Hellmouth that made it a demon magnet. All the darkest powers were drawn here, and even darker ones, planning and working on world domination and other evil schemes. Luckily for the good people of Sunnydale there was the Slayer, the one girl chosen to fight all those evil things.

Every night the Slayer would patrol outside over the dark cemeteries and make sure that the baddies were kept in check, slay the occasional vampire, though the title Vampire Slayer should make you think that she’d be doing that particular part for most of the time or at least more often. Every night those good people of Sunnydale would feel safe in their houses, never really knowing why and whom they owed that; never even knowing just how often they’d been at the brink of another apocalypse averted by the Slayer.

But not this night.

No, this night the Slayer would not patrol over the say about twelve cemeteries in Sunnydale or fight some new big bad that had come into town and save the good people of Sunnydale from their next apocalypse in the nick of time.

Because tonight, she had more important things to do.

~/~

The Scoobies had gathered all inside the Magic Box, Sunnydale’s magic shop number one when it came to supplies for spells or other occult things, not to mention that it was the only shop in all Sunnydale for that and Buffy, said Slayer, was on her way to them. You see, unlike all the other Slayers before her, she had gathered around her a close and sworn group of her friends who fought with her against all those evil things and new big baddies. Some of them had been there from the very beginning, others only recently joined, but they all were family. All her friends knew the high risk that being a Scooby meant for each of them, they’d known that when they still called themselves the Slayerettes and had continued their fight anyway. Those Scoobies were the best backup a Slayer could wish for, in research and combat and she wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

Buffy Summers rushed into the Magic Box and threw the door shut behind her. She was out of breath, having run the whole way there. As she looked around herself, she noticed that all the others had arrived already.

“Guys, it’s horrible, you won’t believe this. Have you heard the latest rumors?” She asked breathlessly, but the glum and non-believing faces of the others confirmed her question.

“Guess so.”

~/~

News traveled fast in Sunnydale, like on any other place in the world. But since everyone had found a note some time today about a huge announcement, this was serious. And every one of them knew the big news already, having it gotten announced just before the meeting.

“I still cannot believe it”; Willow said, her fingers entwined in those of her girlfriend Tara. “It cannot be true, can it?”

“I don’t know”; Xander replied, pacing nervously around until his fiancée Anya told him sharply to sit down. “They really cannot do that, can they?”

He asked Buffy and all faces turned towards her for reassurance. But she only shrugged; she herself had no clue either.

The only thing she knew for certain, as well as the others was the fact that sometime this season one of them was going to die.

~/~

“It can’t be me”; Xander murmured and repeated to himself over and over again like a mantra. “I was there from the start, they cannot kill me off.”

“They won’t kill you”; Anya reassured him, patting him on the shoulder. “Because if they do, we won’t have any more sex.”

“Ahn”; Xander groaned slightly and the others rolled their eyes. They all knew that Anya tended to be different when it came to expressing her concerns, especially when they involved something that definitely needed privacy.

“But on the other hand, if I die; and I am new around, I sure will be the one who dies”; now that Anya had started, she was no longer stoppable. “And then I won’t be getting any sex either. Can we not go home now instead of sitting around here, moping and have sex until one of us dies?”

“Which surely would be me then”; Xander muttered under his breath and groaned again. He did love that woman, but sometimes she was really getting on him. “Anya, what did I tell you about the little thing called tact?”

“That I should develop some more which I did”; Anya replied, grinning proudly. “I could have told them, that you like to dress up like…”

“ANYA!” this time all of them shouted towards the girl, praying fervently to be spared the mental image that was threatening to work its way inside their minds; of whatever it might have been, Anya’d wanted to say.

“Guys, can we please get back to the point”; Willow pleaded and Buffy frantically nodded. “Yeah, I mean one of us is going to die, that is serious and…and…”

“We know that this is difficult and really, really serious stuff”; Anya interrupted and smiled towards Xander. “But me having sex with Xander is also important.”

“Ahn, I am sure they don’t want to hear that”; Xander patted her hand. The girl pouted, but to the other’s great relief remained silent for a while.

“I am sure that this is just a rumor, nothing more”; Tara tried to calm them again and shared another flirtatious look with her girlfriend.

The little and more importantly extremely annoying bell over the door started to ring as somebody entered the Magic Box. Anya jumped up, putting on her brightest smile to greet the new customer; there had been no way to close the shop and loose all the money from potential customers because of this really so non-important meeting, compared to her sales income. But as she turned around, she recognized the newcomer and disappointed she fell back onto the chair.

“Oh, it’s just you, Dawn.”

“Guys, have you heard this?” Dawn asked the others, out of breath like her sister had been before. “And what do you mean, by ‘Oh, it’s just you’?”

“Nothing, other than it’s just you and not a potential customer”; Anya replied. “Or, do you want to buy something and leave your money here?” She added happily, but Dawn shook her head.

”No”; she said slowly, taking a chair and joining the others at the table. “So what do we do about the part of one of us dying? It sure won’t be me.”

“And what makes you think that?” Willow asked curiously but Dawn only smiled.

“I am the Key; I cannot die and besides, I am just a kid as you always are so eager to point out and they won’t let a kid die on the show. It’s not good for the ratings.”

“Well, she does have a point there…”; Tara stated, but Anya cut her off.

“But she isn’t even real”; she said and the others nodded. “She was made out of Buffy especially for the last Season before we switched the network we are aired on; and before that she wasn’t even mentioned once.”

“That might be true, but they won’t kill me, will they? Buffy…”; Dawn wailed now and Buffy sighed. ‘Thank you, Anya’; she thought.

“No, of course not”; She tried to soothe her back to her annoying normal self. “They won’t kill you, you are important…an important part of the show and…and…”
While she said it, it became clear that even she did not quite believe that part of her sentence either, as did the others so everybody became silent again, brooding over the possible Scooby death and who it might be.

“Well, it could be you”; Xander told Tara who looked extremely alarmed at that.

“Why me?”

“You came in last to us and you haven’t been around much since you broke up with Willow…Wait a minute”; he said, noticing Willow comforting her with a hug and some kisses to the cheek. “Haven’t you two broken up this season?”

“Well, that’s what the writers think”; Willow replied sweetly. “But we love each other, how could they even think something possible. Us breaking up, after we’ve found each other and admitted our feelings. Have you any idea how hard it was for us to come out?”

“Actually I came out long before that…”; Tara tried to interrupt silently, but no one seemed to hear her.

“Er, no”; Xander said hastily. “But then, I have Anya and we…”

”We have the greatest se…”

“That’s it, she left you because you used too much magic, Will”; Xander interrupted his fiancée before she again could say anything extremely embarrassing for him. “So you are getting really powerful and all that stuff, maybe you’ll become the new baddie this season and be the one who dies after being defeated.”

“That is so not true…”; Willow stammered. “I mean, yes I am powerful and I am using a lot of magic, but only for good and all that. And I would never turn evil, I mean come on you know me for how long now, all my life…”

“Well, more for five and a half Seasons”; Xander threw in but Willow continued. “…remember we played together in kindergarten and all that. I cannot be the new baddie and I definitely will not be the one who dies. Maybe it’s you.”

“No, he cannot die, my Xander and I am getting married”; Anya stated, but now Xander really panicked.

“See what you’ve done? Now they know it…”

“But honey, you told them at Halloween, don’t you remember?” Anya said sweetly, Xander on the other hand was far from being calmed.

“Yes, but the others…the, the writers, now they know and you’ve jinxed it. Don’t you know that on every show terrible things happen when someone goes on vacation or celebrates birthdays?”

“Me sleeping with Angel and letting out Angelus to play”; Buffy muttered.

“Me finding out about being the key and cutting into my arms”; Dawn said in the same sound of voice.

“Not to mention weddings”; now it was Xander’s turn to truly wail and his mind decided right now to play the worst worst-case-scenarios he could think of in front of his eyes. “Do you even have the slightest idea what could happen, what they would have in store for our wedding, now that they know it?”

“No, and I don’t care as long as it will be wonderful and you won’t disappoint me on our wedding night”; Anya answered. “Oh, this reminds me to send an invitation to my former colleagues; you know all those other vengeance demons that probably were fighting for my job when I retired.”

“Hon, you didn’t retire, you were stripped off your powers and then forced to remain stuck in a human’s body”; Xander shot back to her.

“And I was so trying to repress that.”

“Can we go back to the topic again?” Willow asked quietly and the others nodded enthusiastically. “Somebody is going to die.”

Just then the door burst open again, this time almost causing the doorbell to fly off and effectively stopped the assembled Scoobies including one Slayer and the Key to continue brooding. A figure rushed into the Magic Box, blanket covering most parts of his body but still smoke clouds were coming from him.

“Bloody Hell!”

Spike threw the blanket onto the floor and kicked the door shut again. After the sun no longer threatened to cause him to spontaneously combust he stretched and tried to look cockier again like he always did.

“Could you please not leave that there”; Anya scolded him and pointed towards the smoldering blanket that had an enormous amount of holes in it caused by tiny flames and left not only her wondering why someone who knew of the reasons of exposure to sunlight for himself would use it for cover on a sunny day like this.

“But wasn’t it night just before?” Buffy asked no one in particular. She might no longer be on college and not exactly the most successful when it came to getting a job but even she wasn’t that stupid.

“Probably one of those authors, trying to figure out a really good entrance for Spike”; Willow mused, smirking slightly. Spike on the other hand was far from being amused.
”So y’ mean that some invisible omnipotent writer is doing this for getting me a good entrance, hm?” He scowled slightly, straightening his coat and fetched the worn blanket from the floor to throw it in the back of the shop where the training room was. Then he got himself a chair as well, turned it around and sat down, his hands resting on the back of the chair and he glanced over towards the others. “I know of a thousand better ways for a really good entrance that leaves a lasting impression.”

”Like running over the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign for the second time and afterwards falling out of the car, drunk like there’d be no tomorrow?” Buffy asked him curiously, awaiting the vampire’s reaction to that.

“How’d you know that?” Spike said alarmed, Buffy just shrugged. “One of my Slayer super powers?”

“More a wild guess, I’d guess”; Spike answered and took out some cigarettes. He needed a smoke, if what he’d heard had been true, he definitely needed one.

“Not in the shop!” Anya reprimanded him. “See, there’s this neat ‘No smoking’ sign over there and that had cost a fortune. Not to mention how much it costs to get the smell of the cigarettes out of the curtains.”

“But you run a magic shop and you sell all kinds of smelly and stinky stuff. Besides, you could always use that thing I’ve seen in the advertisements on the telly”; Spike protested.

”So what? Only because you think you’re the Big Bad does not mean that you can bend the rules here.”

“Hey, I am the Big Bad!” Spike shot back to her. “I can do whatever I want to do.”

“Whatever, just not in my shop!”

“But this is Giles shop…hey, maybe it could be him who dies. Then nobody of us would have to die”; Willow suggested suddenly and the others nodded happily to that. Not that they truly did want Giles to die, but since he already had left…and who were they to look a gift horse into the mouth.

“Hey, I am not the one who dies”; protested Giles, who suddenly appeared in the shop. “Nice work you did with the shop, Anya”; he added while admiring the new decorations.

“Thank you, Giles”; Anya beamed but the others looked puzzled.

“Hadn’t you left for England?” Buffy asked non-believing and the rest of the gang had similar expressions on their faces.

“Well, yes.”

“Then how’d you get back here so quick?” Willow asked him, Giles just shrugged.

“W-Wait, didn’t you get your own mini series?” Tara suddenly quipped and Giles took off his glasses to clean them nervously.

“Oh…”; was all that Buffy said.

“Ah, yes, I did and I just remembered that I need to get back there”; Giles hastily answered while he continued to fidget nervously. Then he disappeared again. Outside it had gone dark again as the invisible writer corrected the mistake or one of the techs turned out the stage lights to create nighttime.

“He’s gone again?” Buffy stated the obvious and Spike shrugged.

“Well, yeah so what? And what about the thing with somebody dying here, shouldn’t we be doing something against it?”

“Yah, why are you still here, Spike? Don’t you have places to be, people to kill?”

“’m chipped, remember pet?” Spike answered looking intently towards Buffy. “Can’t hurt any humans.”

“Oh, well make that then plans to figure out for taking over the world.”; She added instead, Spike just smiled at her. “Isn’t that the kind of thing the three Nerdketeers would do?”

“Hey!!!” sounded three voices form the off.

“I think Spike’s right on that one, I mean that really does sound like a plan those geeks would come up with”; Willow threw in. “Can’t it be them who die this Season?”

“No fair!” a voice sounded again from the off and they weren’t quite sure which one of the three it was. “We are not the ones who die this Season, we’re not even part of your little Scooby thing. We are super-villains, and they never die!”

“Well, actually they do, after they reveal their plans to the hero and allow him that way to figure out a way to stop them and defeat them”; a second voice sounded, probably Warren, since they could hear a clearly being pissed underlying tone out of his voice.

“And we are not the ones wearing the red shirts on this one”; must have been Jonathan, but they weren’t so sure about that since they couldn’t see anybody. They probably were in their van again, watching them from the outside.

“But that is so not true and so prejudiced to say”; the third voice, must be Andrew this time. “Statistics say that the guys who die on Star Trek the most are not the ones wearing the red uniforms and I have counted on every single one of them”; in the background there could be heard a frantic agreeing nod from Jonathan and a slightly annoyed sigh from Warren. “Besides, since they have changed the uniform colors anyway, it must be the ones in the gold uniforms…”

“Guys, did anybody notice that with Giles gone, all the older Scoobies have gone?” Xander suddenly asked the group, ignoring those three for the moment like all the others also did and the Scoobies had to agree to that. “Guess that makes you then the oldest of us”; now he did turn towards the vampire who casually sat in the chair opposite of him, trying to look disinterested.

“Xander’s right”; Willow chimed in. Spike suddenly sat up straight.

“Now wait a bleedin’ second!” Spike was in a temper now. “You don’t suggest what I’m thinking you’re suggesting with that? I won’t be the one who dies, I’m getting great shagging with the Slayer finally now this Season. And I bloody well am not old, I am life experienced!”

“You are getting what?!” the others except Buffy, who clearly looked mightily embarrassed nearly shouted, Dawn tried to fake real interest in some of the books on the table. There were things she so not wanted to hear; well okay she wanted to hear them, but not just now.

“Please Buffy tell us that’s not true!” Willow pleaded, Xander tried to get the mental image off his mind that threatened its way into his brain, not that he still wasn’t quite over the last time he saw Buffy straddling Spike, only that it had been the robot which he didn’t know that time. If things like this happened again, he would be mentally scarred for life. Anya just grinned broadly.

“I knew that there was something going on”, she announced. “You were smiling too much and you had this post-orgasmic blissful look on your face, you know the kind of look Xander gets when…”

“Not now, Ahn!” Xander said. “This definitely is not the time or place for discussing that. There are more important things now to talk about.”

“Yeah, like one of us dying”; Spike couldn’t quite banish the smirk from his face. “But of course I am dead already, so that doesn’t count me in, now does it?”

“No, the thing about you having sex with Buffy”; Xander returned.

“Guys, virgin and definitely innocent teenager here”; Dawn’s little voice came from the far end of the table. The others apparently had forgotten about her, again. “Not that I don’t know about that stuff, but…”

“Bleedin’ right!” Spike shouted. “I am not going to die, but maybe you will.”

“We’ve established that earlier”; Xander replied. “I am not the one who dies this Season.”
”Actually we are not so sure about that”; Tara silently interrupted, Xander only shot her a deadly glare.

“Well, maybe according to the writers not”; Spike said, growling and shifting into the demon face. “But I am sure I can help a little there.”

Xander jerked back, forgetting for a minute that Spike couldn’t hurt him, even if he’d wanted to.

“Stop teasing my husband-to-be”; Anya chided him. “If he gets a stroke or something before we are getting married, I’ll never be able to get that special tax decrease to save money.”

”And thank you so much Anya.”

“And of course I won’t be getting satisfied on our wedding night if you kill him”; Anya seemed oblivious to everybody staring at her like she’d lost her mind. But that might be because they always looked at her when she talked about the important things in life.

“Maybe it is still you Spike who dies”; Xander said hopefully. “Maybe Buffy stakes you finally so that we can get rid of your annoying bleached un-deadness.”

“Or she will do that after you couldn’t satisfy her properly”; Anya added which turned Buffy’s already bright red face into an even redder shade.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with me performing!” Spike shot a deadly glare towards Anya and wished for that if he couldn’t kill anymore that at least his glare could. So much for you’ll get what you’re wishing for because even that wouldn’t want to work either.

“Maybe Riley comes back and stakes him for sleeping with Buffy”; Anya suggested; Spike now really wished his eyes would shoot daggers or something like that.

“That’s it, Riley comes back…boom, he dies, end of story”; Dawn said happily, the thought of Spike dying did not please her, everybody but her favorite pet vampire.

“Sounds good, I never really liked the guy anyway”; Xander said. The others glared at him. “What? At least he was a Scooby.”

They all went back to brooding over the imminent catastrophe of one of them dying, completely forgetting the other urgent issue at hand, the discussion of Spike’s performance; not that there was anything wrong with that, in any non-satisfying way.

“So, if it’s not Willow or Tara who dies, or Dawn and Spike, or me and Anya that only leaves you Buffy”; Xander stated the obvious after a while and all heads turned to face the Slayer.

“Who, me?” Buffy said defensively. “No way! I’ve died twice already! Twice!!! I cannot die again.”

“She has a certain point there”; Willow agreed on that. “But on the other hand, I could always bring her back again.”

“There’s no way I am going to die again, that is so lame”; Buffy stammered. “And can you say overused much? I mean, hallo, died twice and now a third time?”

“Well, to all good things there are three times”; Spike grinned evilly before he added “and more times.”

“No, no, no! I am not the one who dies, I mean the show’s called ‘Buffy, the Vampire Slayer’ after all and that’s me the last time I checked”; Buffy tried to sound convincing towards her friends but failed miserably.

“We can always get the bot back to work”; Xander mused but the daggers that were thrown at him coming from Buffy’s and Spike’s eyes were enough to shut him up. “Hey, it was just an idea.”

“Nice idea, whelp”; Spike sneered. “But it still doesn’t answer the question as to which one of you do-gooders will die.”

“Like you so do not belong to us”; Xander returned slightly scowling.

“I won’t be the one who dies, I get great lines from the writers and the fans love me, plus I get the Slayer…”

“Whatever, just spare us the mental image”; Xander did really not want to hear that again. “I just hope I won’t have to see that again. That was enough with the bot.”

Spike’s answer to that was an even bigger grin but he remained silent.

“It sure cannot be me who dies”; Buffy repeated again, having turned bright red once more, knowing exactly what Spike’s grin was referring to. “I have died too often, even for a soap.”

“It won’t be me either”; Tara said. “I-I mean, why would they do that, I’m not even mentioned in the trailer.”

“Oh, no, it can’t be me”; Willow sounded panicked. “I am the last one whose name is said…and…and remember that Giles was the last one and has left now? It can’t be me, I am powerful and essential…I can do stuff, magick stuff…”

Tara rubbed her back in small circles to soothe her. “Of course it won’t be you, baby.”

“But it isn’t going to be me either”; Anya protested. “I have to get married and I am the shop keeper now…”

“Remember how Giles got the shop?”

“I am holding this shop longer than anybody before, and how should I earn my money then?” Anya insisted hysterically. “I definitely will not die.”

“Hey, I won’t die”; Dawn stated between two sentences of the conversation. “I mean, I am the kid on the show, the kid never dies, not good for the ratings, remember?”

“We’ve already established that, like having the main character of the show die twice is better for them?” Buffy threw in, to which the others nodded in agreement. “But no, they’ve had to do that, and twice!”; she mumbled grumpily.

“But I cannot die; I am too young for that!” Xander started to wail again. “Not after I finally have found a job, a real job.”

“Now that thing about Giles…”

“NO!” this time the voice of the watcher came from the off.

“But if it isn’t us who dies”; Willow said carefully, the others shaking their heads frantically in denial. “Who is it then?”

“Y’know, that is actually a good question”; Spike said. “But it is one of us who dies, right?”
”At least that’s what the note said”; Buffy replied. “Rumor has it, that one of us is to die this Season, the big Scooby death, pretty heavy stuff and so on.”

“How can we be sure that this isn’t again one of those funny ideas the invisible omnipotent writer had?” Xander asked.

“And he does know some intelligent words”; Spike snickered. “Or did you pick that one up earlier?”

“You know, go on like this and we won’t need the end of the Season for someone to die here”; Xander supplied smiling. “I’ll do that right now with you.”

“C’mon, take your best shot”; Spike still grinned broadly.

“No”; Buffy interrupted this show-off of male hormones. “Is it that time of the month again when you boys need to blow off some of that testosterone you’re storing somewhere? There will be no staking Spike, that’s my job…”, she stopped herself when she realized that both Spike and Xander glared at her, the latter with a definitely deadly look in the eyes while the first one only grinned “…er, no killing of any kind, not now. Can you do that later, now we have more important stuff to do.”

“She’s right, you two behave”; Willow said, scolding both Xander and Spike. “You are acting like an old couple.”

“No way!” the unison reply came from both Spike and Xander.

“I don’t think that the writers have made up this”; Tara offered. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“Tell that to the guys who made me die twice”; Buffy returned grumbling. She still wasn’t quite over the whole having died twice thing.

“Do you think they’d have made that up?” Dawn asked suddenly.

“I have died twice; they couldn’t have made that up.”

“No, I mean the rumor”; suddenly something clicked in Buffy’s brain as Dawn tried to explain.

“You don’t tell me now that they might have created that rumor on purpose?”

“They have made up this bleedin’ rumor only to get us sitting ‘round here wussing around like nancies while thinking whose gonna be the bleedin’ next to die?” Spike asked disbelievingly.

“Yup, except that I didn’t quite understand parts of that sentence”; Dawn smiled sweetly. “You know, they are bleeping over the cursings now.”

“And they show the hot stuff?”

“It’s complicated”; Buffy tried to explain, but then thought against it. “So what are we gonna do now about it?”

“We could always go on strike”; Xander suggested, but Anya slapped him.

“And what about my money? If we go on strike, then nobody will come into my shop and purchase anything. I won’t be making any money, so I will be cranky and mad and we won’t have sex.”

“Now thank god for pointing out the priorities again”; Xander murmured quietly so that his fiancée didn’t hear him, the others just snickered again.

“We could go to that vacation we always wanted to, the summer at the beach had been so nice”; Buffy said to the others who nodded.

“Unless you don’t want me to come with you, maybe you should decide for a place a little less sunny”; Spike told her but received only a look that said “So what?” Spike pouted at that, mumbling something along the lines of “She doesn’t like me anymore”.

“Why would they make something like this up?” Willow wondered. “One of us dying after all the struggles we’ve been through and all that had happened to us, now that we finally have come back together again as friends, being happy again. I mean this is ridiculous.”

Somewhere in the background they could hear the noises of someone typing on a keyboard, whistling along the tunes of a soap opera theme.

“Okay, maybe not that ridiculous”; Willow hastily corrected herself. “Maybe that strike thing doesn’t sound so bad after all.”

She had put on her resolute face, leaned back on her chair and folded her arms challengingly in front of her chest. The others followed her example, including Spike.

“You can’t go on strike with us”; Xander said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you must be in a union for doing that and…and…”; suddenly he remembered something. “Are we in a union?”

“Uh, yes?”; Buffy answered slowly, not being sure of that herself. “I think we are, yes, the Slayer union and we hold our union meetings every Thursday.”

“Yes, our motto is ‘NO VAMPS’ which means National Organization of Vighters Against the Mightily annoying Pleached one called Spike’”. Xander grinned widely. Spike only shrugged at that.

“You’d better learn to spell properly first”; Spike suggested, still having that unnerving grin on his face that made him look so darn sexy. Well, not to Xander of course, but Buffy melted away while looking into these deep blue eyes.

“Uh, Buffy?”

“Yeah, what?” She said in a dreamy voice until she realized that she’d been indulging herself in her dreams again. “Right, the union thingie, we are in one, so we can go on strike to…what for did we want to strike again?”

“They were trying to kill one of us off”; Tara reminded her. “We are in a union, so we can go on strike, after we have held a voting.”

“Quit that, we are going on strike”; Buffy said resolutely. “I am not going to die a third time, no sir, I am definitely not.”

“Well, since that’s established now, I am in a union too, pet”: Spike supplied happily. “Our motto might not be as fancy as yours, but it works.”

“And what might that be?” Xander mused. “’Evil Bloodsuckers Inc. We bite the helpless?’”

“Hey, how did you know that?”

“May I have your attention please”; a disembodied voice from the off suddenly broke the discussion in the Magic Box before another heated argument between Spike and Xander would lead to a real fist fight, with both men wearing only tight jeans and no shirts, sweat glistering on their muscular chests…why was it the voice interrupted them again? Ah, yes, the strike. “You cannot go on strike.”

“So, why not?” All of them asked curiously and also a little pissed. It had been such a good idea.

“Er, it is in your contracts”; the voice started to explain as to which all of the Scoobies hastily dug out their contracts from under their chairs and frantically searched through them in search of that paragraph.

“Found it!” Spike exclaimed. “Oh, bleedin’ lawyers, knew I should have gotten a better one turned to negotiate the contract!”

“See, now that we have established that, we can go back to normal again and go on with the show”, the voice spoke again.

“But one of us is going to die”, Willow pointed out. “And we really would prefer if that didn’t happen.”

Nodding from all the others underlined that statement.

“So unless we aren’t getting a statement now that this isn’t gonna happen”; Buffy started to negotiate; “we are on strike.”

“Didn’t I just explain that you cannot go on strike?” The voice sounded displeased.

“I am not going to die again!” Buffy wailed, as did the others in pleading that it wouldn’t be them who would die this Season.

“Alright!” They could hear the invisible speaker throwing up his or her arms in defeat, mumbling something that sounded like ‘Why, why me?’. “I will tell you what happens next, who dies and so on; so will you be happy now and go on?”

Another unison nod from the group to no one in particular made the voice continue.

“Well, we are planning on something real big for this Season”; the voice began and had some really interested audience for its speech. “We are planning on bringing some old characters out, having a real huge reunion thing going on the next couple of episodes; which ones I am not authorized to tell you, but you’ll find out anyway. So when Riley comes back…damn!”; the audience collectively groaned at that;  “we will get some big fight apparently. And there will be some more heavy loving going on at special locations, so lots of hot stuff in store this year”; Spike’s and Buffy’s faces lit up to that, but the voice ignored them. “So when Riley comes back and finds them both in a very compromising position”; snickers from the group; “he comes back to the Bronze, drinking with Xander and it turns out he, also Riley, is in fact Xander Harris but they both were switched at birth. That leaves them with the question who’s going to marry Anya, the former vengeance demon which leads for interesting misunderstandings and mix-ups for the wedding episode…”

“See, I told you that it never goes good on those special occasions on any show”; Xander said to the others in his ‘told you so’ face, then remembering what the voice had said about him.

“Hey, that can’t be true!”

“No interruptions, please”; the voice boomed. “Where were I, ah yes, the wedding. Well, afterwards some things happen and leave Willow in a coma, brain trauma or something, we’ll figure that out on our way towards there…anyways, there will be this thing, revealing long lost secrets for Xander, or should I say Riley there, or I’ll guess, I’d stay with Xander for the moment, all this is confusing me really. So it will be revealed that Spike here is their father…no, that’s been used again, make him his great-great-something- grandfather, that sounds better now, otherwise we’d be in trouble with the rights on that one.”

”That’s bloody not true, it can’t be, can it?!”

“So we do have Tara here, becoming the patron saint of scorned women to wreck havoc on their cheating girlfriends after Willow’s been put in a coma, which no one is sure she’ll be waking up. We can always use her again as her evil twin and replace her then with a bot. Oh, Buffy will die a third time, but be revived again as the new player opposed to the Slayer…hey that rhymes.”

“No, not again”; Buffy muttered. “I will not die again. And who will be the Slayer then if I am not?”

“Ah, but we need that to evolve our plotline around that, sweetie”; the voice explained. “So that you can become the Big Bad, oh, the Big Bad – The next generation, sounds better and plot against your former Scoobies, uniting with the evil twin Willow and plan on stealing Anya’s husband, then work her way into his business and make him loose everything he’s had before, before revealing that she is his sister. Oh, then we can have Willow wake up again, amnesiac of course to think that she is Buffy’s sister and wanting Spike here to join her in her revenge with Anya and Tara against Buffy and her evil twin; while they switch places and again and again. Did I mention that she woke up straight after that coma, that being the cause of Tara becoming a vengeance demon? Oh, and we can always make Spike the Slayer.”

“He’s a vampire, he can’t become a Slayer.”

“Oh, we’ll overlook that fact for a second now, won’t we?” the voice hastily dismissed that, the prospect of getting to see more Spike action clearly rising on the want-to-see list.

“What about me?” Dawn accused. “You again have forgotten about me!”

“Ah, yes, she can be the Key.”

“Newsflash, I am the Key already.”

“Well, so nothing new to worry about”; the voice sounded relieved. “And we can put her into a coma also, to figure out what to do with her. At the end of the Season we can always make that dying thing of Buffy again give it a big ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ and let it turn out to have been a dream sequence in the next Season opener. Now, how does that sound? Aren’t you happy that your writers are thinking so hard for another bunch of new and never guessed storylines? Hey, where are you going? Come back here, what are you doing? You cannot leave me like this…”

“Now, that’s definitely strike-worthy, who’s with me?” Buffy asked the others as they left the Magic Box.

“Sounded like a good plot line to me”; Spike said.

“If you like crappy soap operas”; Willow answered and the others agreed, even Spike had to nod to that.

“Well, if you are putting it up that way; who else is on for that strike?”

~/~

And if they hadn’t died this Season, they lived being still on strike somewhere happily ever after.

~fin~

“Guys…guys, please”; the voice hung in the now empty Magic Box. “Come on, that was a good plotline and it took our finest writers hours to come up with that…guys? Damn, what if the boss finds out?”

“Er, excuse me, but where did all the others go?”

“Uh, oh…”

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