He opened the door. Yep. Plump, dark-haired, olive-skinned Luba from upstairs. She was wearing sweats with a massive t-shirt, and had her hair up in a sloppy ponytail. She looked beautiful, as always ... it was something about her smile ... or her smart-ass attitude.

"Wow!" she marvelled, looking him up and down. "Pretty snazzy outfit!"

Xander kicked his dress shoes off and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Meetings," he explained. "All day. I can't wait to get on site again." He tossed his tie onto the couch.

"You sound beat. Come upstairs and let Frank feed you."

Xander hesitated. He'd really been looking forward to just collapsing in front of the tv with a beer and a slice of cold pizza.

"He's making chile relleno," she crooned temptingly. "With polenta and his special spicy rice and truly bad-for-you refried beans ... and fresh sopapillas for dessert. With chocolate sauce."

Xander held up his hands, defeated. "Okay okay! I'm convinced! Just let me change into some jeans."

Luba bounced happily.

* * *

Officially, Frank and Luba were his landlords, since Frank did in fact own the duplex, but they didn't act very landlordy. They were more like upstairs housemates. It helped that they were all about the same age.

"I'm so lucky," Luba beamed as Xander came through the open door into their apartment. She held Frank's face in her hand and gave him a big kiss as he stood with a pot-holder in each hand, humoring her. "I think everyone should marry a man who cooks this well."

Xander put on his innocent face. "Even me?"

Luba grinned at him. "Oh, we'll find the right man for you yet!"

Xander shook his head, laughing. "Not really looking for a someone of the manly persuasion, thanks."

Luba cocked her head. "You don't seem to be looking for anyone of the womanly persuasion, either."

"Yep. Pretty much just not looking." Xander shrugged.

Luba nodded. "Okey-dokey. I'm not going to be nosy." At Xander's arch look, she chuckled. "So ... do you want to stay for movies? We've got Empire Records and High Fidelity."

Xander nodded seriously. "Ah. I see our theme this evening is record stores."

Luba scoffed, "No points for guessing one that easy. Now, when we did the all-day 'Movies With Frogs' marathon, now that was a good one. The Muppet Movie, Magnolia, Spirited Away, Jurassic Park, and E.T. That was a brilliant Sunday marathon."

Frank called from the kitchen, "Any ideas for this weekend?"

Frank continued moving things around in the kitchen. He knew what he was doing in there, so Xander left him to it. Despite his imposing height and eye-catching bright orange hair, Frank was a pretty quiet guy. Luba talked enough for both of them. It worked, somehow. They were relaxed together, and they'd whole-heartedly welcomed Xander into their lives.

They were his best friends, and somewhere along the way, this had come to feel like home.

Xander said, "How about movies with people finding their way home?"

Luba put her hands on her hips and scowled. "I am not watching The Incredible Journey or anything involving Lassie."

"How about E.T. again? Or Starman? Apollo 13" suggested Xander.

Luba warmed to the subject. "Maybe Casablanca or Empire of the Sun. Or Spirited Away. Maybe The Wizard of Oz or even Big Fish."

"Or Free Willy," Xander suggested with a carefully straight face, making Luba snicker.

Frank called from the kitchen. "We'd have to do Chocolat. And I could bake some appropriate movie-watching theme food."

Xander and Luba looked at each other, and grinned. "Oh yeah," said Xander. "I think that one's a definite plan.

* * *

Dinner was delicious, as always. Halfway through a truly sublime sopapilla, Xander turned to Frank and said seriously, "Luba may be right. I may have to find myself a nice Irish boy and settle down. But only if he cooks like you."

Frank and Luba both laughed. Then Luba smirked, "He does have a brother..." She winked.

Xander shook his head, chuckling.

Just as they were finishing dinner, the phone rang. Luba answered it and began speaking in a different language. It sounded sort of like Arabic, but Xander knew -- only because she had told him previously -- that it was Farsi. This always meant it was her mother or her sister.

She put a hand over the mouthpiece and said apologetically, "It's my mom. I'll be right back." And then she took the phone back into the bedroom.

Frank and Xander began quietly clearing the table, loading the dishwasher, and just generally cleaning up. Out of the blue, Frank said, "You seem distracted tonight. Is something wrong?"

Xander looked at him. "Distracted? I'm not distracted. Why would I be? I just had a most excellent dinner with most excellent company after a craptastic day of meetings and suits and pinchy shoes."

Frank peered at him with intense blue eyes, then said, "You just don't seem like yourself."

Xander put a plate into the dishwasher and thought about that. "Okay, maybe I'm a little distracted. I just had something sort of weird happen today."

Frank didn't say anything. He just wiped down counters and stacked dirty dishes for Xander to put into the dishwasher.

Eventually, Xander continued, "Down by Civic Center, on the street, I thought I saw somebody from back home. I mean, I know it wasn't him. But for a minute it was weird."

Luba came into the kitchen and hung up the phone. "What was weird?"

Frank looked at Xander. Xander shrugged. Frank explained, "Xander thought he saw someone he knew today."

Xander insisted, "Just some guy who looked like him. I barely even saw his face."

Luba asked, "So this is somebody you know from before you moved here? Before the quake?"

Xander just nodded.

Luba continued, "An old friend of yours?"

Xander flinched slightly. "Look, it wasn't even him. It just sort of weirded me out a little bit."

Frank asked simply, "Why?"

This wasn't going to be easy to explain, so Xander stopped to consider before answering. Then he sighed. "Because he's dead."

* * *

A few minutes later, they were all sitting in the living room, arranged around the fireplace. Frank had built a fire, and it was crackling cheerfully. He and Luba were quiet, obviously waiting for Xander to explain.

"It's kind of complicated."

Frank and Luba just waited expectantly. They were his best friends. He should be able to talk to them, right? Just ... very carefully.

"Okay. So. We sort of worked together."

Luba nodded. "In construction?"

But Xander shook his head. "No, not really. Really not." Spike was more of a DE-struction kind of guy.

Luba nodded again. "So he worked with you in the Neighborhood Watch program?"

"Uh ... yeah. For a while. But he didn't really want to work with us. He was a pretty rough character. Violent. Rude. Just ... a real asshole. Not somebody you'd want to have around."

Luba looked confused. "But he volunteered in the Neighborhood Watch program? That doesn't sound like he was such a bad guy. Am I missing something?"

"Well, he sort of ... he got himself into some trouble ... pretty bad trouble, actually ... and it was like ... what do you call it ... it was like court-ordered community service. He wasn't happy to be there."

On the couch, Luba curled up against Frank and he put his arm around her. Xander often envied them. They seemed really happy together, and he'd never really had that, even with Anya.

Luba asked, "So did he take off when the community service ended?"

"Actually, that's kind of weird. Because he didn't. He just kept hanging around and helping us out. It was kind of complicated. There was a girl involved."

Frank smiled. "The savage beast tamed by the love of a beautiful woman? It sounds like a fairy tale."

Xander shook his head. "It wasn't like that. Or ... not totally like that. Or ... hell ... maybe it was like that. But he was still a jerk. And there really wasn't much love involved, actually."

Luba and Frank both looked a bit skeptical.

"All right," Xander sighed. "So maybe there was some love involved, but only sort of freaky stalker love, and only on his side."

Luba asked gently, "You said he was dead. What happened?"

Hesitant to explain that Spike had actually died a few times and that he was technically undead, he stuck with the final death. "After the earthquake, we all just scattered. I moved up here. Spike sort of eventually ended up in L.A."

Frank asked, "Spike? That's his name?"

Xander chuckled. "Well, it's what he calls himself, but I doubt it's the name on his birth certificate." Did they even have birth certificates in the 19th century? Xander wasn't sure.

Luba interrupted his thoughts. "So Spike ended up in L.A. Is that where he died?"

"Yeah. He'd sort of ended up working for this company of private investigators. Real hero types. They went up against organized crime. At least, that's what I heard through the grapevine, from mutual friends."

Luba was cautious now when she asked, "Organized crime? Like the mafia?"

"Worse.'

Frank and Luba were both quiet for a long moment, soaking this in. Eventually, Frank asked quietly, "So that's how he died?"

Xander hesitated. "Well, I only know what other people have told me. Reliable other people. People who know a lot about this kind of stuff." He considered actually mentioning Giles, but this was already complicated enough.

"So ... uh ... they were fighting this big organized crime organization, and ... they all sort of ... died."

"The criminals?"

"No. The P.I. folks. Including Spike. I mean, they ... some of the ... bodies ... some of the people were ... identifiable. But a couple of them ... there just wasn't enough left. Just dust ... like ashes."

Luba's face was pale. "So these mob guys, they actually burned them to death?"

"Something like that. So ... everybody knows they're dead. There were so many bodies, and the bad guys weren't the type to let anybody get away."

Luba said quietly, "This is why you were so disconcerted? Because you thought you saw him on the street?"

Xander just nodded.

"Is there any chance it actually was him?"

Xander shook his head.

Frank asked, "Could he have survived and then gone underground to avoid this organized crime ring? Get a new identiy and start over?"

"You know, I never really liked Spike. Couldn't stand him, actually. But I have to admit that he never seemed like the kind of guy to run and hide."

"Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought."

Xander thought about that one, that possibility. Would Spike have run off like that? He wasn't sure.

* * *

That night, he had trouble falling asleep, remembering that glimpse of pale hair in the crowd. Could it really have been Spike? And if so ... how?

In the last few moments before sleep, he resolved to find out.

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