Hasn't ever happened but we don't know for sure it's impossible. We suspect it is.

Wishbone says it can't happen to - alien-demons - I still need a word for the ones from other dimensions - so it seems like it probably wouldn't work. Although you guys aren't technically aliens. But I bet it still wouldn't. It'd be weird if it could.

This is probably a stupid thought, but Quendi seem like they're..... sort of a little bit between the thing that humans are and the thing that angels and demons are? Like, if humans are composite entities that have souls that are made of both a spirit and a body, and angels and demons are all spirit, then Quendi are spirit and body, but their spirits control how their body is, so it's not like two pieces that both have equal weight. And humans die and angels and demons don't - I think they don't - and Quendi can die but they don't die forever? And then there's the thing where angels and demons don't have free will the way humans do - someone explained it to me once as, like, they made one choice, a very long time ago, angels to serve God and demons to rebel against Him, and now they can't ever go back, all of their actions now flow from that one decision. And you guys are way more like humans there than like angels and demons, but you also have that thing where you can make a commitment and then you just have to keep sticking to that commitment forever, and - humans I guess have to keep deciding how they want to be all the time, they're never really stuck as any one thing, for better or for worse.

Possibly I just confused myself by calling you guys Not-Archangels in my notes before I knew the word Quendi. It doesn't really have any practical implications anyway. M'just thinking about stuff now.

That's mostly consistent with our understanding of it. Though some Maiar start out on the side of good and end up on the side of bad or vice versa if the - same tendencies and values and preferences and priorities - put them in different territory.

Huh. 

All right. Well. I'll see you tomorrow. Ugh, I think I have a trig test tomorrow. It's very annoying that the responsible thing to do is probably not study for it until first period English.

- where are you gonna spend the night? Given super hypnosis vampire and everything.

I'll stick by your place, if that's okay.

That is extremely OK.

Night.

Night.

Every morning at 10am a uniformed soldier comes into Spike's cell and sits down on a folding chair on the far side. 

"Hey," he says on the first morning. "I'm Ryan. I'm here because we're not allowed to leave you alone with no one to talk to. I'll be here for two hours or until you ask me to leave."

The first couple days he immediately tells Ryan to leave him the fuck alone. Bad enough knitting himself together without the government bastards rubbing it in his face that they're going to be watching him while he does it. After he does he wonders whether he should have maybe asked about anything, but there are pretty much only two things in the world he cares about right now. Can't ask after the first one, because he's told everyone he doesn't care about her and that she isn't in town anyway, and asking would sort of spoil the whole being tortured to protect her bit. Can't very well make any progress on the second one, either, since he figures the government bastards aren't really going to be very much help on his quest to find the slayer's pretty-boy bodyguard and see how the fuck he likes being tied down and tortured for the location of everyone he cares about.

Eventually, though, he does get to the point that boredom is a somewhat more pressing concern than pain and useless humiliated rage.

"So, Ryan. What'd you do to get stuck with vampire babysitting duty."

"We went out late for my birthday, had too much to drink, figured we'd be responsible and walk home instead of driving, got a bit lost, made it back at six in the morning, overslept and missed our next shift."

"Well that'll do it, Ryan. Lucky you didn't end up with a set of fangs in your throat."

"This has been pointed out to me. Not many murderers still loose around here, though. Before you showed up we'd gone weeks without seeing one."

"God, this town is sad."

"Gonna be the whole world, pretty soon."

Spike laughs. "You go on thinking that. Lot more terrifying things in this world than the sad little vampires you've been dealing with."

"You gotta take it one thing at a time, you know? You eradicate smallpox, you eradicate malaria, you eradicate vampires, you haven't solved everything but you're looking a lot better than when you started."

"You won't eradicate vampires. Your little tin soldiers don't even know what a vampire is."

"Oh? What's a vampire?"

"Top brass ever tell you about the Old Ones?"

"They don't tell us anything, man."

"I don't figure they would, seems like it'd be a lot more trouble than it's worth. You listen, then, before I get bored of history. Earth's never really belonged to humans. Used to be demons in charge here. Real demons, the likes of which you've never seen. Old Ones'd burn you to a crisp just by looking at you. But they ran into a spot of trouble - had nothing to do with you, don't flatter yourselves - and they figured they'd leave this dimension until they had all of their business sorted out. Didn't really like giving humans the run of the place, though, so they left a few little baby demons to walk around in your skin. And that's us, Ryan, here to keep the vermin in check while mommy and daddy are away on vacation. So you enjoy your makeshift Eden while it lasts, because they'll come back, when they're good and ready, and everything you or I or your government buddies have ever made or dreamed or hoped for will be gone, like that, like it never was. All any of us are doing is deciding how to kill time until it happens.

"I'm bored now, you guys have cable?"

"You get your choice of the news, the weather, Star Trek reruns, General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, Oprah, and Friends."

"Friends sounds OK."

He puts it on. 

In the morning Michael goes to the pet store and comes back with hamsters for the mummy girl to try.