( RIPOSTE ][ A Watchergirls Archive )

__The Futility of Grand Gestures__
By Blair Provence

She noticed the beeping first, from beneath the deep, dark
fog that clouded her mind--a high-pitched sound just atonal
enough to pierce the cushion of darkness that had held her for so
long. She didn't know how she knew time had passed--but it had,
and her chest began to hurt with a sense of urgency, the source
of which she could not quite recall.

There was something she had to do, something terribly
important--though she couldn't move, nor speak, nor even open her
eyes.

But she could listen.

There was a murmur of voices underneath the beeping,
alternating soft and deep, and the lilting call of her name in a
voice that she recognized as her mother's. Her mother--who
wasn't supposed to be here, who was supposed to be gone for a
reason Buffy couldn't remember.

Her dry, parched lips formed a soundless word--<Mom...> But
there was no reply.

As long minutes passed, the murmuring became more distinct,
and other words were audible--words like 'blood loss' and
'coma'--and longer words that were the names of drugs Buffy
couldn't herself pronounce. She realized she was in the
hospital, again, and felt the fluttery beginnings of panic in the
pit of her stomach.

She hated hospitals.

After another long, grey period, the cadence of the beeping
changed, and the murmurs became sharper, more urgent. Her mother
said her name again, but differently this time--the kind of
"Buffy" that was usually followed by her middle name, and a sharp
command or reprimand that meant she had better listen up and pay
attention. Though her mother didn't sound mad, really--more
relieved, and teary, as though she had feared never having the
chance to talk to her daughter again.

"Buffy, can you hear me? It's momma, Buffy."

Buffy tried again to speak, but made no more sound than the
last time. Then she felt the cool, sweet tang of cold water
against her lips, and she drank greedily.

"Slow down, sweetheart. It's all right. Everything's all
right."

There was a sound from far away that might have been a
snort.

"Mom," she croaked, her voice sounding ancient. "Wha'..."

"You're in the hospital, baby," Joyce said, smoothing
Buffy's hair with gentle fingers. "You're going to be all right
though." There was such relief in her mother's tone that Buffy
knew at once it must be true.

It gave her the courage to open her eyes. The room swam
slowly into view, lit by too-bright lights. Her mother appeared
in front of her as a large beige blur. Behind her indistinct
form other shadows walked, darker and less comforting.

"What happened?" she managed to ask as her mind whirled
tipsily. For some reason she could not remember how she had come
to be there. The last thing she could recall was...Prom? Giles
smiling at her proudly, looking adorable in his tux. Angel
appearing--tall, dark and handsome, and one last bittersweet
dance. And then a long, white blankness. What had happened?
Had the Mayor attacked them? She struggled upward to a sitting
position, but her arms were weak, rubbery and unwieldy, and she
was forced to collapse back against the pillows. "The Mayor?"

She sensed, rather than saw, her mother turn away from her.
"Would you excuse us for a moment, Doctor?" A murmured assent,
and then one of the dark blurs left through the bright white
doorway. As her vision began to clear, Buffy counted three more
forms behind her mother, hovering back against the far wall
around the door.

"The Ascension-" she persisted, blinking rapidly. "What-"

"Apocalypse averted," a low, angry voice said from over by
the door. "Again. The Mayor's history." Was that...Xander?
Xander's voice? He didn't sound quite right.

"What? When?" The blur came forward, sharpening into a
picture of her bestest guy friend in the world, sporting a red,
bruised face, two black eyes, and a scowl darker than Buffy had
ever seen him wear.

"Two days ago," he snapped. "Graduation, remember? Big
Time Badness. But I guess you were too busy doing your Sleeping
Beauty routine to show." He was incredibly angry, she could
tell. Angry at her? What had happened?

"Xander," her mother admonished softly, but she didn't sound
mad, exactly.

Buffy raised a hand to rub her forehead, and only then did
she notice the IV line attached to her arm. She stared at it,
puzzled. "I don't-...what happened to me?"

Shock ghosted briefly across Xander's battered face, but it
was quickly supplanted by renewed fury. "What always happens,"
he bit out, his tone as sharp as bullets. "You, doing whatever
the hell you want, and who gives a damn about the rest of us."

"Xander!" her mother said again, and she did sound mad this
time. Joyce reached out to lay a quelling hand on the young
man's arm, but Xander shook it off.

"I hope you're happy," he spat, glaring down at Buffy.
"They're dead, but who the hell cares, right? 'Cause your
precious Deadboy's still around, and that's all that matters,
isn't it?"

"Angel?" she whispered, uncertain. Yes, Angel--there was
something she was supposed to remember about Angel, something
important. About Angel and...Faith? Her stomach churned as she
recalled her sister Slayer, the fierce, bitter girl who had
betrayed them all. Yes, there was something about Faith that
she'd forgotten. What *was* it?

"Xander, I want you to leave," Joyce said firmly, her hand
on Xander's shoulder, drawing him away from the bed. "This isn't
the time or the place for this."

Xander gave a bitter snort of laughter, eyes wild and
wounded in a crazed dark face. "It never is, is it? 'Cause
she's the Slayer and the rest of us are shit." His furious gaze
branded Buffy as he turned back for one final shot. "So long,
Buffy. Have *such* a nice rest of your *precious* life." He
spun on his heel and stalked out of the room, passing a now
clearly visible Oz and Willow, who huddled together next to the
doorway. Buffy squinted at them, reeling inside from Xander's
diatribe.

"Will?" she whispered. Her best friend looked terrible,
twin shiners shrouding deep purple around red-rimmed eyes, a deep
maroon gash scoring one pale cheek. Willow looked smaller,
somehow--shrunken and diminished, and she stood so close to Oz it
was as though they were trying to fuse into one person. The
musician was bruised and battered also, and his arm was in a
cast. He hovered over Willow as though he were afraid she might
vanish should his attention waver.

They said nothing, and Buffy returned her attention to her
mother's worried face. "Mom?"

Joyce reached out to caress her cheek. "Xander's just
upset, honey. You see, sweetheart, Mr.--" She blinked and
looked away, biting her lower lip. "Um, Cordelia? She--" Joyce
paused again and swallowed.

"Cordy? What?"

"Miss Chase died when the Mayor ascended," another voice--a
British voice--said, and Buffy turned her head to discover Wesley
Wyndham-Price seated in a chair by the window. He was staring at
her, his back ramrod straight, still dressed in a suit despite
the crutches resting against the wall next to him and the
unwieldy cast on his lower right leg. His chin actually showed
the faintest hint of stubble, and his hair was messy - and she
realized she'd never seen her impeccably groomed ersatz Watcher
so disheveled. It seemed almost surreal.

She blinked at him. "Cordy died?" she repeated, not really
processing his words.

"The Mayor got her," Oz volunteered, sounding oddly
detached. "And Principal Snyder."

"And approximately fifty members of the graduating class,"
Wesley offered bluntly. "In addition to assorted parents and
school officials from the audience."

Cordelia gone? The thought was so huge that Buffy could not
comprehend it. It wasn't supposed to happen that way--not to
them, not to the ones she held most dear. Cordy belonged to the
Scooby Gang; even when she said she didn't, she did, and no one
in the Gang was supposed to die. The Evil wasn't supposed to
win, not like that. "But Mayor Wilkins--"

"Died in his demon form from injuries sustained from a
massive explosion during the ceremony," Wesley supplied
matter-of-factly.

Buffy stared at him. "Oh."

Oz and Willow approached her bed, and Joyce stepped
reluctantly out of the way. The musician had his uninjured arm
around his girlfriend's waist and appeared to almost be
supporting her full weight. Willow shuffled her feet as though
she'd forgotten exactly how to walk, and her wide, blank eyes
were dark and hollow, brimming with tears. Mottled bruises stood
out in stark relief against her pale skin. She clutched the
witch Pez dispenser Oz had given her long ago in one abraded
hand, her grip so tight that her scabbed knuckles shone white.

"Willow?" Buffy whispered, but Willow didn't seem to hear,
her blank stare never wavering from somewhere near the foot of
the bed. Buffy had never seen her friend look so devastated, not
even when Ms. Calendar had died. She knew Willow felt things
deeply--maybe more deeply than any of the rest of them--but she
still found the extremity of Willow's reaction just a little off.
Sure, Cordelia had been a friend, but she and Willow had never
been especially close. Had someone else...? But, no, Willow's
parents hadn't planned to attend graduation even before the gang
had found out the date of the Ascension and ordered their loved
ones out of town. Oz and Xander were obviously alive, if not
quite all right, so then why...? A wave of dark foreboding made
her shiver, and she focused resolutely on her friend's drawn
face. "Will?"

"We came to say goodbye," Oz said after a moment, when it
became clear Willow wasn't going to speak. "Willow's coming with
me on tour."

"What?" Buffy frowned in confusion--they had discussed
whether or not Willow should accompany her boyfriend on the
Dingoes circuit across California, but the redhead had ultimately
decided she didn't really want to be a roadie. She and Buffy had
instead planned on one last 'girls-only' summer' before college.
"I thought--"

"She needs to get out of here," Oz interrupted, startling
Buffy. Her gaze narrowed on his face, and she realized he wasn't
really looking at her, either. Willow's right hand gripped his
with white-knuckled intensity, and both of them were staring down
at the hospital bedcovers, as though they couldn't bear to look
Buffy in the face. "We're glad you woke up before we had to go.
We're leaving tomorrow morning."

"Oh," Buffy repeated faintly.

"So, uh, take care." Neither he nor Willow reached out to
touch her, to take her hand or hug her goodbye. They turned to
go, and Willow's gaze flickered over Buffy's face without
recognition. She leaned in to her boyfriend's side and he
wrapped his left arm more firmly around her shoulders,
shepherding her toward the door. Buffy reached out a hand and
opened her mouth to call them back, but she couldn't find the
words.

"Mom," she murmured in distress after they disappeared into
the hallway. Joyce rushed to the side of the bed and enveloped
her in a hug, mindful of the trailing IV line.

"I'm sorry, baby," Joyce murmured, rocking her daughter
gently back and forth. "I'm so sorry." Buffy closed her eyes
and buried her face in her mother's blouse.

"Mrs. Summers, may I speak to your daughter alone for a
moment?" Wesley's voice was ever-polite, but there was an edge
to it that made Buffy tense in her mother's embrace. Joyce
froze, her hand halting mid-rub on Buffy's back.

"Mr. Wyndham-Price, I really think I ought to be here when-"
Joyce began, but Wesley cut her off.

"I'm afraid we need privacy for official Council business,
Ma'am," he insisted firmly. "I only require a few minutes."

Joyce regarded him silently for a moment, then nodded. She
briefly caressed Buffy's cheek with one palm and kissed her
forehead before rising from the bed. "I'll be right back, honey.
I just want to check in with your doctor and call your father."

"Wait, Mom-" Buffy said, but Joyce didn't miss a step as she
exited through the door, and Buffy suddenly got the feeling that
her mother was eager to escape the room. Her stomach twisted in
nervous knots as she considered the myriad possible reasons why
Joyce would wish to be elsewhere at that moment--and none of them
boded particularly well. Buffy glanced back at Wesley, who was
regarding her with a slight frown on his face. After a few
tense, silent moments, he sighed and struggled to rise from his
chair, leaning heavily on one of the crutches.

He cleared his throat, appearing uncertain as to how to
begin. "Er...ah, how much do you recall of the events leading up
to your hospitalization?"

She frowned and bit her lip, her nervous fingers twisting
the bedcovers. "Um, nothing really--I guess. I, uh, I remember
the Prom...and Giles taking me for ice cream..." Her mind
reflexively skittered away from picturing Giles, but she shook
off her uneasiness, scowling in deep concentration as she tried
to remember further. "And...um, I remember Willow and Xander
talking about...uh, Las Vegas? Siegfried and Roy?" Her frowned
deepened in confusion. "No, that can't be ri-...the
*Mayor*...that's right, the Mayor." She looked up at Wesley.
"He was going to be the commencement speaker at graduation, and
Xander was *totally* wigged..." Her eyes widened in horror. "He
came into the *library*! And he said he was going to eat me and
Giles *stabbed* him!" Her breath caught at the memory. "But of
course it didn't do any good..."

"Yes," Wesley agreed, watching her closely.

"And demon-girl had been to an Ascension," Buffy continued,
closing her eyes as hazy images rushed back to her from that day
in the library. "She said it meant he'd become like some kind of
uber-demon and destroy the whole town. So we figured he was
gonna use graduation as a kind of all-you-can-eat buffet or
something."

"Yes," Wesley said again as he leaned forward, eyes glued
intently on her face. "And?"

"There was this...professor guy." She swallowed, her
stomach roiling with sudden queasiness. "In the paper. And we
thought...uh, that Faith k-killed him for the Mayor, so I went to
check out his place..." Angel had been there, she remembered,
and they had argued, as they always seemed to do lately. They
had argued, and he had turned to storm away from her, and
then.... The image rushed back to her in vivid technicolor.
"Someone *shot* him!" Her stricken eyes found Wesley's, begging
him to disagree.

"That's correct," Wesley murmured.

"Faith..." she whispered, disconsolate. It hurt so much
every time she was forced to face how much her sister Slayer
actually hated her. Faith had tried to *kill* Angel this time--
there was no other possible interpretation of her actions, not
when she'd chosen to use a wooden arrow. Buffy guessed it was a
good thing Faith had bailed so often on training; she was nowhere
near as good with projectile weapons as Buffy was. But the
intent was clear nonetheless. "Faith shot him."

"With a poisoned arrow," Wesley agreed.

Buffy glanced over at him. *That* she hadn't remembered.
Her brow furrowed. "Poisoned? But that wouldn't-"

"The colloquial name translates roughly as 'Killer-of-the-
Dead'," he supplied briskly. "A special poison designed to
incapacitate vampires. Very effective, as the cure is quite hard
to come by."

"Cure?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He regarded her silently for a moment, then nodded to
himself, as though coming to some sort of decision. "Yes. The
cure...which is draining the blood of a Slayer."

His words hit her like a lightning bolt.

Wesley's simple statement was all it took to bring the
images rushing back--everything, from the moment Oz and Willow
revealed the information about the cure to her to the final
darkening of her vision as Angel pinned her down and drank from
her. She relived her own decision to hunt Faith down, Xander's
concerned commentary as she chose her weapons, the brutal violent
fury of her battle with the other Slayer...the way that horrible
Klingon knife had slid into Faith's belly, easy as pie. She saw
the bitter soulless emptiness in Faith's eyes as, even in her
last moments, she'd chosen to hinder instead of help, to follow
the darkness down off the roof of her building instead of trying
to atone.

<You think she should have been oh-so-thrilled to be Angel's
afternoon snack?> some dark part of Buffy wondered sarcastically.
<'Cause the whole experience really gave *you* such a happy,
right?>

She flinched and reached for the bandage on the side of her
neck, her fingers tightening convulsively over the gauze as she
remembered the horrible slurping sounds of Angel sucking out her
life's blood.

"He drained you," Wesley told her quietly when she failed to
reply to his words. "You died...again, though the paramedics
were able to revive you once Angel brought you to hospital. The
trauma was severe, however; you went into a coma after receiving
massive transfusions of blood."

"And woke up here three days later." She licked her dry
lips. "B-but...Angel's all right, then?"

Wesley's face tightened. "As far as I know, he's fine," he
answered in a clipped tone. "He survived the battle at
graduation, at any rate. I haven't seen him since then. I do
believe your mother banned him from the hospital once she found
out what he'd done."

Buffy wondered why that news didn't irritate her the way she
would have expected it to do. But she could see her mother's
point all too clearly--once again Buffy's vampire boyfriend had
nearly cost her her life. She had nearly died...and Cordelia
*had* died. Buffy's shoulders slumped.

"I can't believe Cordy's gone..." she mumbled in a hoarse,
teary voice. Her eyes met Wesley's, and she could clearly see
the pain within. "I'm sorry, Wes."

His back stiffened. "Yes, well...that isn't why I wished to
speak to you, actually." He ran a hand through his unruly hair
and straightened his tie, clearly willing himself back into
Watcher-mode. "I have some...rather distressing news to deliver.
Do you recall what you said to me in Angel's mansion directly
before you left?"

She regarded him with wide, uncertain eyes. "I...when I
quit the Council?"

"Indeed," he agreed, clearing his throat. "I did, of
course, report your statement to them immediately." He cleared
his throat again, looking slightly abashed. "Perhaps it would
have been better to wait, but I thought it might persuade them
to..." He sighed and shook his head. "It hardly matters now.
But you must realize, Buffy, that the Council cannot accept such
insubordination. A Slayer must-"

"-do whatever the hell the Council wants," Buffy finished
bitterly. "I know the drill, Wes. But I don't agree with it,
and I'm not gonna do it anymore." She scowled at him, adding,
"Giles backs me up, too, so don't even *try* to talk me out of
it."

Wesley froze momentarily at the mention of Giles's name,
then frowned back at her. "I wouldn't dream of it," he told her
in his most chilly British tone. "It's gone too far past that,
at any rate. I shouldn't even be speaking to you of this, but I
feel somehow...obligated to do so. So here it is: the Council
is sending a tribunal here to Sunnydale, to try you for various
crimes and pronounce sentence upon you. As an action this
extreme has been undertaken only five times in all our recorded
history, I feel it necessary to warn you that in essence the
sentence has already been decided, and you *will* be found
guilty."

"I will?" She blinked at him. "Guilty of what?"

"Gross negligence," he replied promptly. "Dereliction of
duty, er...manslaughter, and-"

Her jaw dropped. "Mansl-..." She swallowed guiltily. "I-
is Faith dead, then?"

He shook his head, averting his gaze. "No. At the moment
the charge against you in her case is attempted murder, as she
hasn't yet succumbed to her injuries, though the doctors here
apparently expect that to happen very soon. Some time in the
next two days, I believe they said."

Buffy swallowed hard again, feeling numb. The decision to
go after Faith--a decision that had seemed so clear-cut and
simple at the time she'd made it--now felt like part of some kind
of horrible nightmare. She'd *hunted* down another human being,
someone who had once been a friend, in order to feed her to a
vampire....

Her hand came up to cover her mouth and she moaned low in
her throat. "Oh, *God*..."

Wesley regarded her uncomfortably. "Yes, well, an argument
can be made to defend your actions in Faith's case, I believe,
even if your motives were somewhat suspect. Clearly the Council
was ineffective in dealing with her--reining in a rogue Slayer is
*their* responsibility, after all. I myself bear much of the
blame for the situation with Faith, as I probably didn't convey
the true seriousness of her betrayal in my reports. I wanted to
clean up my own mess, so to speak, and only succeeded in bungling
things rather badly. But clearly the Council have decided to act
quite differently in regard to you."

A sour smile ghosted across her lips. "So I'm a rogue
Slayer, too, now, huh?"

"The Council considers you such, yes," Wesley replied.

"Well, to hell with them," Buffy snapped. "Useless bunch
of-...The only thing they ever did for me was give me Giles, and
then they tried to take him away! We don't *need* the Council to
do our jobs. It's not like they've been a heaping lot of help
fighting the evil anyway."

"That decision isn't yours to make," Wesley told her gently.

"The hell it isn't! *I'm* the Slayer. The whole system's
pretty much pointless without me. I mean, without me, all the
stuffy Watchers have got no one to watch, right?" He would not
meet her gaze--and suddenly that made Buffy very nervous.
"Right? What *aren't* you telling me, Wes?"

"The system is pointless without *a* Slayer, yes," he agreed
in a low voice.

"*A* Slayer," she repeated, frowning. "What do you mean,
*a* Slayer?" She tilted her head to one side and regarded him
suspiciously. "Just what kind of sentence are they thinking
about pronouncing here?" A lead ball of foreboding uncurled in
her stomach when he did not immediately answer. "Wes?"

His eyes were glued to the scuffed linoleum. "You have to
understand, Buffy--the crimes of which you stand accused are
among the most serious with which a Slayer can be charged..."

Insight came to her on a lightning bolt. "They wanna *kill*
me?" Her voice rose in distress. "They're gonna sentence me to
*death*? Is that what you're saying?"

His fists clenched, and he didn't raise his head. "I-...B-
buffy..." His shoulders slumped as he nodded. "Yes."

"They-they can't *do* that!" she sputtered.

"They can and they will!" he returned sharply. "Do you
still not understand, Buffy? Your situation was precarious
enough after Mr. Giles interfered in the Cruciamentum. Then you
made the decision to sacrifice the box of Gavrok, which was
clearly a *key* element in Mayor Wilkins' plans for his
transformation, in order to keep your friend alive, and now
you've allowed your love for a *vampire* to take precedence over
saving the lives of everyone in Sunnydale from a demonic
ascension! A Slayer cannot-"

"Stop saying that!" she cried. "I'm not just *a* Slayer -
I'm a person! I'm *me*! *Buffy*! You can't just-"

"I warned you!" he interrupted heatedly. "I told you that
there would be consequences to your actions. You chose not to
listen--you *always* choose not to listen-"

"I couldn't let him *die*," she retorted. "Can't you
understand that? If it was in my power to stop it, I couldn't
let him die."

Silence fell as they stared at one another, color suffusing
their cheeks.

"He's already dead, Buffy," Wesley replied stiffly after a
long, tense few minutes. "His is a life that should have ended
long ago. Those who died at graduation, Miss Chase and-" he
paused and cleared his throat, "-er, all the rest. *They*
deserved your consideration. *They* are the ones that deserved
your protection."

Buffy swiped at her brimming eyes. "You don't understand."

"No, I do not."

Something in his emphatic tone made her look up at him. She
studied his set expression and came to an unwelcome realization.
"You...you *agree* with them, don't you? You think they're right
about me. You think they're right to want to *kill* me."

He compressed his lips and shook his head slightly. "I
think...I think their assessment of your actions is fair. I
think that you did neglect your duty and put innocents in
needless peril. But to sentence you to-" he closed his eyes and
shook his head again. "Emotions are running high in Council, and
those we might have depended upon to keep a level head are
understandably distressed." He opened his eyes and looked at
her. "They aren't all of Quentin Travers' ilk, you know. A very
vocal minority protested Mr. Giles's dismissal as your
Watcher--he'd a great many admirers."

<Giles!> Her mind seized on him as the answer to all her
prayers. Yes, Giles...Giles could fix this. Giles could fix
anything. Suddenly Buffy felt much better. "He won't let this
happen, you know," she chided Wesley confidently. "Giles'll stop
it, you'll see."

"No." Wesley inhaled deeply and slowly let out his breath.
He regarded her sadly. "He won't."

Icy fear clutched at her chest as the horrible suspicions
she'd been desperately trying to hold at bay threatened to
overwhelm her. But she could no longer ignore the obvious:
Giles was always at her bedside when she awakened from
Slaying-induced injuries; he was always there to comfort her, to
explain things, to be exposition-guy when she asked what had
happened--but not this time. He hadn't been there, and Xander
was so angry, and Willow was so devastated...and her mother
hadn't wanted to stay in the room, hadn't wanted to hear....

Her hand came up to cover her mouth again. "No..."

"I'm sorry, Buffy."

She shook her head. "No. It's not true. NO!"

"He died in the explosion, Buffy. He-"

"*NO!*" she shouted, scooting back against the wall, glaring
at him fiercely. "You're *wrong*! It's not true--it *isn't*!"

"Buffy-"

"*NO*! HE wouldn't leave me! He said he'd never leave me.
You're *wrong*!"

"He didn't want to leave you," Wesley assured her, slightly
panicked by the extremity of her reaction. Her shouting was
bound to attract attention, and he had things yet that he needed
to tell her. "He thought he'd have time to get clear of the
blast radius before he triggered the remote to set off the
explosives in the library. But the Mayor moved very quickly in
his demon form, and Mr. Giles didn't quite have time enough to
get full away before he had to-"

"*NO*!" she shouted, shaking her head wildly, words tumbling
from her mouth in a panicked torrent. "It didn't happen! It
*couldn't* have happened. He would have gotten away--he would
have made it! He's so fast, the fastest one of all of us, except
for-" She froze and her eyes widened in shocked horror, tears
spilling over.

"Except for you," Wesley finished softly. "But you weren't
there, so-"

"Oh, *God*!" Buffy keened, doubling over, shaking with the
strength of her grief. The IV ripped from her arm, trailing
drops of blood, but she didn't notice. "Oh, no no
nononononoooo..."

He stumbled forward, landing awkwardly on the edge of the
mattress. "Buffy! Buffy, you must *listen* to me!"

But she was beyond hearing. She clasped her arms over her
stomach and curled into a ball, rocking back and forth.
"Nooooo...oh, God, please, nooo..." He reached for her, but she
flung his hand away, uncaring in her grief whether or not she
hurt him.

Wesley managed to grab hold of her shoulder. "Buffy,
*listen*!" he hissed, glancing over at the open doorway. "Your
mother will be back any moment, you must *listen* to me!" He
squeezed her arm, hard.

Her wild eyes finally turned toward him. Tears streaked her
cheeks, and her face was flushed, her breath coming hard and
fast. At that moment she looked the picture of a lost,
heartbroken little girl, something Wesley would never have termed
her from the moment of their first meeting. He'd never seen her
so vulnerable, and the profound compassion he suddenly felt for
this exasperating, stubborn, endearing young woman quite took him
by surprise. "I'm sorry, Buffy," he said again, his tone
softening. "I know you c-cared for him, and he for you."

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and buried her head against her
knees, sobbing.

"It's because of that...bond between you that I must say
these things to you. I didn't understand him--I won't pretend
that I did, but I know that you were the most important thing in
the world to him." Her shoulders began to shake with increased
violence. "I know that he would have been willing to sacrifice
his life, if only to see you safe. He would have deemed it a
fair trade."

"It's not," came the muffled whisper in a raw, aching voice.

"Be that as it may," Wesley replied gently. "And you're
right--he would have done whatever was necessary to fix this, to
keep you safe from the Council. Unfortunately, his enemies have
found common ground with his allies in this instance. They cite
your actions as proof of your unfitness to be the Slayer, and his
friends believe you betrayed him for a vampire. Perhaps in time,
they would change their minds...but time isn't a luxury we have
at the moment, I'm afraid. They're calling for your blood."

She raised head to look at him, her blue eyes swimming in
tears. "The charges...the m-manslaughter? They're saying I k-
killed him?"

Wesley found he couldn't lie to her, much as he might want
to. "Yes."

She regarded him steadily. "And you agree with them?"

His answer--whatever it was--lodged in his throat, and he
could only stare back at her silently.

A tiny, miserable smile curled her lip. "'S'okay, Wes.
When you're right, you're right."

"He wouldn't ever want you punished like this--especially
not in his name," Wesley told her positively, sure of that if
nothing else. "The Council's representatives won't be here until
late tomorrow night, and the doctor has indicated you should be
recovered sufficiently to check out of here in the morning. That
should afford you enough time to find Angel and leave town before
their arrival."

She blinked at him. "L-leave?"

He wanted to shake her, to somehow force her to understand
the depth of the peril she faced. "Yes! Buffy, you *must*
leave. They'll *kill* you."

As he watched, all the remaining life and fire seemed to
drain out of her. She closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders
in misery, more tears escaping to streak down her cheeks. Her
voice, when she finally spoke, was so soft he had to strain to
hear it. "So?"

"Buffy, *please*," he begged, surprising himself with the
intensity of his plea. He hadn't made the decision to reveal the
Council's plans to her lightly; he knew many of its members would
view his act as a betrayal, Travers most especially. And he had
only managed to convince himself to do so by noting that another
Slayer was sure to be Called sometime in the next few days--even
if Buffy's second temporary demise had failed to bring forth a
new Slayer, it would not be long before Faith finally drew her
last breath. Buffy, gifted as she was, would no longer truly be
needed, and so he would not be endangering the world by helping
her to flee--or so he told himself. And after everything she'd
done to serve the forces of light, she deserved better than the
ignominious death the Council offered. So, after careful
consideration, he had come to his decision, believing without
question that she would take his warning, and his advice, and
leave town with her vampire lover, for whom she'd sacrificed so
much.

But looking into her anguished eyes at that moment, he was
no longer so certain of what she would do. "Buffy, *please*," he
said again, gripping her shoulder even harder. "You *must* go!
It's what he would want for you, you know that!"

She removed his hand, finger by finger, with careful but
considerable force. "He can't want anything now, can he, Wes?"
she pointed out quietly. "That's sort of the whole point, isn't
it?"

He reached out to cup her cheek with his palm, some part of
him idly noting that it was the first time he'd ever touched her
with any kind of affection. "He wouldn't begrudge you a moment
of life and you know it, Buffy," he told her tenderly. "Your
safety and happiness meant everything to him. He would only be
disappointed in you if you stopped fighting."

She regarded him silently with huge blue eyes and said
nothing.

A moment later Joyce Summers reappeared, hovering anxiously
in the doorway. "Buffy?" Wesley snatched his hand away as
though he'd been caught doing something he oughtn't.

Buffy wrenched her gaze from Wesley's face and looked toward
her mother, who rushed inside the room to embrace her daughter.
"Oh, honey. Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

Buffy's face crumpled as she clutched her mother tightly.
"Giles is gone, Mom," she sobbed as her tears began again. "He's
gone."

"I know, baby." Joyce smoothed her daughter's rumpled hair
as she rocked them back and forth. "I know."

Wesley stood up from the bed, awkwardly maneuvering on his
crutches. He felt useless and helpless--two sensations that he'd
become accustomed to feeling during his months in Sunnydale, but
perhaps never before to such a degree. There was nothing more he
could do to help Buffy, and he needed to check on both Faith's
condition and the disposal of the remains of the Mayor. Whatever
Buffy's decision, he'd already done all he could do for her.
Sighing, he turned toward the door.

Buffy's eyes caught his as he took one last look over his
shoulder, but he couldn't read anything but grief in their
anguished depths. "Goodbye, Buffy," he told her softly. She
nodded once, then buried her face in her mother's neck. The
sounds of her sobbing followed him out into the corridor.

*****

It took a good half-hour of argument before Buffy could
convince her mother to leave the hospital that night. Joyce
didn't want to leave her daughter alone for even a moment after
receiving such devastating news, but Buffy finally managed to
make it clear that she wanted a little time by herself to process
things. Joyce departed with a kiss and a pledge to be back
bright and early the next morning to take Buffy home. The doctor
had been astounded by the speed of her recovery once she had
awakened, and had promised that she would be as good as new in a
matter of days.

<So I'll be a healthy corpse,> Buffy had thought wearily,
but she had managed to bite back the words, though only barely.
She hadn't been able to find the courage to tell her mother of
the Council's plans for her, nor of the extent her own
culpability in Giles's death. She'd sworn to keep no more
secrets about the Slaying gig, but telling her mother that the
so-called 'good-guys' had sentenced her to die at their hands?
And that it was more than a little bit deserved? There was no
way.

After Joyce left Buffy began crying again, and sobbed for a
good long while before drifting off into an exhausted slumber.
Odd, troubling dreams dogged her sleep, culminating in a
nightmare extravaganza in which Faith and Giles took turns
berating her for their murders while Angelus lurked behind them
and laughed and laughed. Faith stood before her with the knife
still embedded in her stomach, pointing accusingly at Buffy with
fingers covered in blood. Giles's angry green eyes capped an
expression of heartrending betrayal, and though Buffy tried to
plead with him, to tell both of them that she had never truly
meant to cause them harm, they wouldn't listen to her. And then
Faith vanished, and Giles backed away from her, shaking his head
when she made as if to follow him. Her feet were glued to the
ground, holding her fast to one spot no matter how hard she tried
to move, and she watched in horror as he disappeared from sight.
Leaving her behind. Alone.

"No!" she shouted as she awakened. "No! *Giles*!"

She nearly had a heart attack when a voice from the darkness
answered her call.

"Yes?"

She had awakened in the dark, but she didn't need her eyes
to identify her visitor--she would have recognized his voice
anywhere. She blinked rapidly in the gloom, her nightvision
adjusting to make out the solid form of her former Watcher seated
in the chair next to her bed. A feeble stream of light from
somewhere down the hallway dimly lit her hospital room through
the partly open door, and she could see a bit of reflection from
his glasses. "Giles?" she whispered hesitantly, not daring to
believe it.

"Hello, Buffy," he replied, in the quiet British tones she'd
always found so comforting.

"Giles!" she cried, launching herself from the bed into his
arms, hugging him tightly. "OH, God, Giles! Wesley said you
were dead--he said you died at graduation but I didn't want to
believe it and I *told* him that you would have gotten away but
he wouldn't believe me, he said it wasn't possible but--Oh, I'm
so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're *alive*!" She knew she
was babbling, but she couldn't stop herself. "I'm so glad to see
you!"

"Are you?" he asked.

She pulled back a little, confused, as she realized he
wasn't hugging her back. Well, he'd never been what one would
call demonstrative. "Of course I am," she said, blinking up at
him, but in the darkness she couldn't make out his expression.
"I'm so sorry, Giles. I'm sorry I let you down--but you have to
believe me, I never *ever* meant for you to get hurt. I care
about you so much." She managed a tremulous smile. "I *l-love*
you so much."

"You've an odd way of showing your affection, I must say,"
he replied diffidently, and Buffy's confusion deepened.

"Giles?" She sat back on the bed. "Are-are you mad at me?"
She berated herself silently for the tremor in her voice--he had
every right to be angry with her, and she should take it like a
grownup.

"Now whyever would I be mad at you?" he answered. His tone
was dryly sarcastic and just a little bit snide--like the way
he'd always talked to Wesley when Wesley proposed one of his
stupider plans. But Giles had never used that tone when talking
to her--Xander, maybe, when he was being an idiot, but never
her.

"I know I messed up," she whispered, chilled by the sudden
memory of the vengeful Giles from her nightmare. Had she
stumbled too badly this time? Was she now beyond forgiveness?
Another dreadful thought occurred to her--maybe Giles agreed with
the Council's decision. "Do you...do you hate me now?"

"Not at all," he replied promptly, and he sounded as though
he meant it. "I suppose I should thank you, really, though the
words come a bit hard. After all, without you I wouldn't be
here."

"I-" Her mind whirled in confusion. "I don't understand."

Giles shifted in his chair, leaning forward slightly.
"Well, now, you wouldn't, would you? Intelligence was never
really your strong suit--leaving the thinking to others better
suited for it. A bit selfish, really, but there you are."

Buffy's eyes filled with tears. He hated her now--it was
obvious, and though she told herself she deserved every harsh
word he uttered, a part of her still reeled in disbelief. Giles
was never cruel, even to those who truly warranted it--he'd even
helped Angel in spite of everything the vampire had done to him.
But then, probably not even Angel had ever hurt him as much as
she had. She shrank back against the pillows, as though mere
distance could lessen the strength of his verbal blows. "I'm
sorry," she whispered, sniffling miserably.

"Of course you are," he told her. "Aren't you always?"

She swiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. "Why are you doing
this?" she wondered in a tiny, hurt voice. Despite the covering
of darkness, she knew he must have been aware that she was
crying.

"Why?" He leaned forward further, invading her personal
space until his face was mere inches from her own. His tone was
thoughtful. "Why? Well, I suppose because...hmmm...Simply
because I can, perhaps?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing emerged except a
choked gasp--for at that moment the overhead lights in the
hallway switched on, and she finally saw what the darkness had
hidden from her. Giles's face.

Giles's ruined face.

For one, semi-hysterical moment she was reminded of a
character in one of Xander's precious vintage comic books--a
villain from the Batman series named Harvey "Two-Face" Dent,
whose appearance was bisected down the middle of his
body--one-half strong handsome man, one-half scarred nightmarish
monster. The left side of Giles's face was ribboned with ropy
pinkish-gray and white scar tissue, from his forehead all the way
down his neck to beneath the collar of his black shirt. His left
eyelid drooped low over his pupil, giving him an almost sleepy
look behind the cracked lens of his glasses, and one eyebrow and
half of his hair had been singed away. He looked terrible--and
she could only imagine how horrific his injuries must have been
to leave such scars behind.

The vanishingly small part of her brain still capable of
rational thought wondered how he could have even *survived*
wounds like that--and if he had, how he could be up and about
just two days after suffering them. But the larger part of her
mind was completely occupied simply staring at him in shock.

Giles smiled--more of a grimace, really, since only half of
his mouth moved. "Admiring your handiwork?"

Buffy covered her mouth with her hands, feeling bile rise in
the back of her throat. "Oh, no...Giles," she breathed. "No..."

The grimace widened. "Oh, yes," he told her, clearly
relishing her horror. "Not a pretty picture, is it? What
remains of a mere mortal when one has been forced to do a
Slayer's duty in her place. Though, actually, I do seem to
recall you complaining of chipped fingernails upon occasion. Ah,
well, c'est la vie, I suppose." He paused to eye her pityingly.
"Oh, I apologize, I had forgotten your poor marks in French.
C'est la vie means, 'That's life.'"

Tears rolled down her cheeks in gibbous drops as she
hiccuped on a sob.

He rose from his chair and moved to close the door. For a
moment he was visible only in unscarred profile, and he looked
almost like the Rupert Giles she had known for three years, the
quiet, compassionate man who had seen her through all the best
and worst moments of her life.

But he wasn't. He wasn't that man at all. Slowly, the
truth began to dawn on Buffy, and when he turned back to her and
raised his un-singed eyebrow, he saw comprehension blossom on her
face. Smiling slightly, he nodded a confirmation. "Or perhaps
the proper phrasing would be, 'That's un-life!'" He cocked his
head to one side and pretended to consider. "Doesn't quite have
the same ring, does it? Ah, well..." He returned to the chair
and leaned back casually, regarding her with an expression that
was almost friendly. "I suppose you'd like to know what
happened."

Numbly, she nodded.

"I assume that Wyndham-Price told you about the donnybrook
at graduation." She nodded again. "Yes, well--as my Slayer had
retired from the battlefield in order play the sacrificial lamb
for her demon lover-" the sneer that accompanied his words was
truly terrible to behold "-and having nothing better to do, I
took it upon myself to lead the charge to stop the Ascension. In
short, your Gang of Four armed the graduating class, we stuffed
the library to the rafters with ANFO, and I then led the Mayor a
merry chase to a fiery demise." He reached a hand up to ruefully
trace his scarred cheek. "Alas, my four-minute miler days ended
long ago, and I hadn't the legs to outrun an explosion. Quite a
painful denouement, I must say. So there I lay, bleeding to
death on the sodding front lawn, when who should find me but one
of the Mayor's minions fleeing Angelus' bolloxed pincer
movement." He paused to scowl at the mention of the brooding
vampire. "Incompetent prat. Anyway, it was injured, and hungry,
and fancied me a bit of a snack--and somehow managed to sire me
in the process, quite by bloody accident." He rolled his eyes.
"Now there's a Turning to impress your mates. It was so
humiliating I simply had to stake him directly upon Rising."

"You killed your Sire?" Buffy managed to ask in a trembly
voice, for want of a more coherent question. She couldn't quite
believe the words that were issuing from their mouths. <Giles
can't be a vampire! He *can't*!>

"He hadn't a brain to speak of," NotGiles informed her
matter-of-factly, "and I can't say as I fancied being anyone's
childe."

"Oh," she whispered, stunned by the news. She remembered
how Angel had brooded after killing Darla, and how Spike's
attitude toward *his* Sire had been a strange combination of love
and hate--not to mention how skanky-ho batty Drusilla had been
over Angel. She'd battled enough revenge-minded Childe to know
that there was something almost inviolate about a vampire's
relationship with its sire, at least until enough years had
passed for a more gradual emotional separation. No vampire
killed its creator mere minutes after Awakening--it just wasn't
done.

But this demon had done it, with less consideration than it
takes to swat a fly. And the last tiny part of her that wasn't
terrified down to her toes began to tremble.

"I'd enough strikes against me, I should think," he went on
blithely, seemingly unconcerned by her horror, "being an ex-
Watcher, former ally to the Slayer and a magick-user--not to
mention sporting the less than fearsome tag of 'Rupert'." He
smiled his gruesome grin again, and Buffy suppressed a shiver.
"I'm going by Ripper now, Slayer. A much more fitting name for a
demon, don't you think? *Do* try to remember it."

The nickname instantly sent her mind flashing back to the
days of the behavior-regressing band candy, and the juvenile
delinquent who'd commanded her to "Sod off!" and shagged her
mother on top of a police car. But that Ripper, who had
admittedly been obnoxious, rude and more than half-crazy, had
still possessed a core of goodness in his heart which had led him
to fight Lurconis to save helpless babies. And that Ripper had
grown into her Giles, who had made it his mission in life to make
her strong and keep her safe, who'd stayed up all night to help
her study for her SAT's, who'd risked his Citroen and his life in
a perilous attempt to teach her to drive. But as she looked into
the eyes of the man--the creature--in front of her, she could see
that all of that goodness was gone, snuffed out by a nameless
vampire already gone to dust--and by her own selfish, unthinking
actions.

 Buffy thought bleakly.

Ripper tilted his head to the side and regarded her with
bemusement. "You aren't going to continue weeping, are you? It
won't change anything."

"I know," she whispered as her tears spilled over anyway.
"I'm sorry."

He raised his lone eyebrow. "You're sorry? Why in the
world would you be saying that to me? *I'm* quite happy with how
things turned out, on the whole."

Buffy sniffed and wiped her cheeks. "I'm sorry to Giles,"
she told him, knowing it was nonsensical even as she said the
words. She wanted to break down in a torrent of tears, she
wanted to throw up everything she had *ever* eaten...and more
than anything else, she wanted to fling herself into his arms and
hear him promise to make everything better.

She wondered if this was what it felt like to go insane.

Ripper studied her thoughtfully for a moment. "He
appreciates the sentiment," he commented finally.

She blinked at him, a part of her wondering why she wasn't
terribly afraid--after all, there was a vampire sitting not two
feet away from her, and she didn't yet have the strength to fight
him off. But another part of her simply saw her Giles and felt
no fear at all.

And what would it matter if he killed her, anyway?

"Wh-what?"

"Your 'Giles'..." He made a face as he said the name. "He
appreciates your apology--though he, of course, being the puling
puppy that he is, feels that you don't honestly owe him one.
Perhaps I should accept it on his behalf, hmm?"

Her brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

Ripper leaned forward again, smirking as she flinched away
from his ruined face, but she refused to move back any further,
meeting his mocking gaze squarely. He tapped his scarred
forehead with his index finger. "He's still in here," Ripper
murmured, eyes sparkling with wicked glee. "Inside this body.
His soul didn't depart the way it was meant to." He reached out
to trail the finger down the smooth curve of her cheek. "You
see, this is not the first time your Giles has shared this body
with a demon-- it's simply a tad less voluntary this time. He's
still here, still Watching...still trying to save his precious
Slayer."

She shivered at his cool touch. "I don't believe you," she
told him shakily.

"It hardly matters," he whispered, lightly fingering her
neck. "The soul of your Giles has no more control over this body
than you seemed to have over your raging hormones. But, just for
your edification--your Watcher knew what was happening to him as
my pathetic Sire drank his blood, and he fought it with all the
power he possessed." Ripper grinned his gruesome grin again,
enjoying how Buffy paled at the thought of Giles's last moments.
"It's rather amusing, really, to find I now have the definitive
answer to an age-old question, a longtime point of debate among
the sniveling tweed-clad horde. Most dismissed it as just a
rumor, even faced with Angelus--oh, pardon me," he sneered, "I
mean *Angel*--and argued that there was no possibility of a soul
and a demon co-existing...disregarding the question of what
happens when someone is Turned who understands the mechanics of
the process..." He curved his hand around the back of her neck,
kneading the nape with dexterous fingers. "There were stories,
you see, about what happened to other Watchers who became
foolishly attached to their Slayers, who were Turned trying to
protect them--one of our profession is hardly likely to die abed
of old age, now, after all."

"Giles never said anything about that..." she protested
weakly, distracted by the feel of his skin against hers. Her
flesh prickled icily in response to his touch. Giles had rarely
ever touched her, except in the course of training, but when he
had, it had always been with infinite care and gentleness. And
it wasn't as though she was unaccustomed to the feel of cold
hands upon her skin. But Giles had always felt warm before, a
living breathing man with a heartbeat and a pulse--and so to feel
those clever fingers and know that no life pulsed beneath them...
"No," she whispered brokenly. "Please..."

She felt the collar of her hospital gown loosen, then sag
forward, and she realized that he'd undone the knot that held the
garment closed. His smooth palm circled her neck and came to
rest against the hollow of her throat, where she could feel the
throbbing of her own pulse against his cool hand. "What is it
you want, little girl?" he asked, his tone mocking.

Buffy gazed at him with brimming eyes. "I want Giles back,"
she replied softly, then squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't
bear to look at the ruined face any longer, couldn't bear to
wonder any more what the creature in front of her wanted from
her. "What do *you* want?"

He leaned even closer, until his cold non-breath whispered
against her ear. "I want to know...*he* wants to know..." His
lips brushed against her earlobe. "Was it worth it, Slayer? Was
your demon lover worth all of this?"

She choked on a sob and brought her hands up to hide her
face. "Oh, *God*..."

He chuckled, using his free hand to pull her wrists away.
"No God here, Slayer," he answered as his fingers tightened
around her throat. He pushed her back against the pillows; she
allowed it without protest. "No reply?" he asked. "I'm afraid
that's not an option, Slayer. We require an answer to our
question." After a moment she opened her eyes and regarded him
miserably. He smiled again, reaching into his jacket pocket with
his free hand to withdraw a small object. "So tell us,
Slayer...the death of friends, the death of families...the death
of your Watcher...was it worth gaining a few additional days of
un-life for your pet demon?"

Her eyes widened in horror as she beheld the small silver
object in his hand. She would have recognized it anywhere--a
Claddagh ring, the counterpart to the one Angel had given her on
her seventeenth birthday. She'd never seen him take it off--even
as Angelus, he'd worn it faithfully. <A few additional days...>
Buffy swallowed convulsively. "You k-killed him?"

His snide grin didn't waver. "Oh, my dear Slayer," he
replied, tossing the ring onto her pillow. "He died years ago.
You *know* that."

She began to cry in earnest and attempted to pull away from
him to curl into a ball, but he wouldn't let her--and after a
moment she simply gave up. Her grief robbed her of all strength,
and so she lay in front of him, defenseless, her body racked by
shuddering sobs. He shifted from the chair to the bed, looming
over her like a monster from a dream.

Ripper's fingers traced her delicate collarbones underneath
the loose material of the gown. "Your lover didn't
suffer...much," he told her conversationally. "He seemed almost
grateful, really--I suppose he had been feeling guilty for
draining you and wished to pay some penance." The sneer
returned. "To be honest, I found him quite pathetic. But I
suppose I shouldn't have expected him to face me like a man."
His hand swept lower to press against her breastbone, stilling
her convulsive whimpering. "Not like your Giles, that one--your
Watcher at least had *that* to recommend him." He leaned forward
again, bringing his cool, unscarred cheek to rest against hers.
"He never told you what Angelus did to him, did he?" The
murmured inquiry wasn't really a question. "Why is that, do you
think? Did he not want to say, or did you simply not wish to
hear it?"

"Don't," Buffy told him brokenly. She stifled a crazy
impulse to turn and bury her face into his chest. He smelled--
bizarrely--just like Giles: like tweed and tea and book dust.
Only the coppery scent of blood underneath was different.

"Still hiding," he whispered, his lips trailing down her
neck to her collarbone. "Still running away. Will you never
face the consequences of your actions?" He kissed her shoulder,
light as feathers, and pulled the gown down to bare her upper
arms.

"I c-can't," she sobbed, turning her head away and squeezing
her eyes shut again. <This can't be happening...this can't be
happening...> Giles--her Giles--couldn't really be gone. This
creature couldn't be all that was left of the man she had known.
Maybe if she closed her eyes...if she couldn't see, then maybe
she could pretend... "Oh, Giles..."

"He's dead," Ripper whispered, nuzzling her, drawing the
gown down to her waist. Everywhere he touched her she was
chilled to her very bones. "And there's nothing you can do to
bring him back." He kissed the slope of her right breast as he
shifted one leg over hers until he was straddling her body.

She reached out automatically, thinking to shove him away--
but instead her hands circled his neck of their own volition, the
fingers of her right hand tracing his scars. <Nothing I can
do...> she thought. Was this damaged shell all that was left of
him? Or was Giles's soul really inside, watching her...watching
them? Was there nothing she could do to bring him back to her?

"Willow," Buffy breathed without thinking.

He chuckled against her breast and raised his gaze to meet
hers. "I was wondering when you'd think of that." He crawled
forward on his elbows until he lay almost fully atop her, like a
cold, heavy blanket. Their faces were mere inches apart, but his
scars were soon invisible to Buffy, caught as she was by his
magnetic eyes.

They were Giles's eyes.

"You think to gift me with my soul, to bind me to your side
for all eternity." His lips grazed hers as he spoke, his tongue
darting out for a light, fleeting touch.

"Please," she breathed, without knowing for what she
pleaded. Her hands tightened around his neck, trapping him flush
against her, the rough material that covered his chest scraping
her bare breasts. Her body felt numb with cold.

His mouth touched hers, briefly--a whisper of a kiss, more
of a promise--or a threat--than a reality.

"Selfish," Ripper murmured, chuckling again. "You'll never
change, will you?"

"I will," she swore vehemently. "I'll do better, I promise.
I'll do so much better. Just-"

His kiss stopped her words--a real kiss this time, his lips
and tongue bizarrely cool against the heat of her mouth. She
closed her eyes and opened herself to it, ruthlessly silencing
the part of her brain that told her she was acting completely
crazy, that she was allowing the touch of a vampire who'd just
admitted killing Angel, the demon who'd taken Giles away. She
let the kiss go on until her need for oxygen became acute, then
broke it off, gasping. "Giles-"

"I've a present for you," Ripper said, nuzzling her neck.
Oddly, she didn't fear at all that he would bite her. "Check my
pocket."

Obediently she reached for his jacket pocket, and he
chuckled again. "Not that pocket. The trouser pocket."

He levered himself up on his elbows as she groped down
between them, laughing as her questing fingers found evidence
that left no doubt as to how their close contact was affecting
him. She flushed, mortified, but persevered until her hand found
something rectangular and plastic.

Slowly she brought the object up between them, squinting at
it in the dim light. "What...?"

He kissed her earlobe, his tongue darting out to trace the
pinnal curve. "I haven't the slightest idea what it is," he
murmured softly. "She seemed to value it, however--held onto it
with all her strength as the life drained out of her."

Buffy froze in shocked horror.

It was a Pez dispenser. A witch Pez dispenser--one that
looked just like the toy she'd seen clutched in Willow's hand
less than six hours ago. A gift from Oz that Willow carried with
her always.

"Oh, no..." she breathed. "Oh nononononooooo..."

"'Fraid so," Ripper chuckled. "Couldn't have her mucking
about with souls and curses, after all. I quite like the way I
am now." He pulled back on his elbows and grinned down at her.
"Don't you?"

Using all the strength sudden fury afforded her she pushed
him upward, drawing her right leg up to knee him in the groin.
He doubled over with a satisfying grunt and rolled off of the
bed, landing hard on the scuffed linoleum. "You bastard," she
hissed through a waterfall of fresh tears. "You bastard, you
*killed* her!"

Ripper stumbled to his feet, the smugness of his grin marred
a bit by the fact that he was obviously in some pain--and by the
sudden appearance of a pair of gleaming fangs. "Of course I
did," he returned blithely. "I'm a vampire, after all." He
straightened his jacket, dusted himself off, and continued in a
conversational tone. "She was quite savory--tasted of magick,
and sunlight, and lust not long sated." He paused to offer a
'tsk' of mock reproof. "Sex with a werewolf--a very risky
proposition. Wouldn't have thought the little witch had it in
her, actually. But I'm sure you'll be interested to know that it
*is* true that wolves are very protective of their mates." His
forehead smoothed and his fangs retracted as he nodded
companionably. "*Very* protective..."

"Oz?" she whispered. Her fingers clutched the PezWitch
convulsively.

"He'd been a part of the ritual before, you see," Ripper
explained in a helpful tone. "And Cordelia as well, of course,
but she spared me the trouble of killing her by dying during the
Ascension. Counting your Giles, that's everyone in Sunnydale who
might have possibly been capable of performing the soul-
restoration ceremony. You yourself never bothered with the book
work, remember? Always running off with your demon or dancing at
the Bronze or watching the telly or some such rot." His sneer
clearly showed what he thought of those pursuits.

Buffy licked her dry lips, stunned into near immobility by
his words. "You k-killed them just so we wouldn't give you your
soul back?"

"That's right." He braced his palms on the bed and leaned
forward, a scant two feet from her. "You see, *he* knew you so
well--and so *I* know you, too. I know just how selfish you are,
little girl. I know that it wouldn't matter to you that life as
a vampire would be the last thing Rupert Giles would want---or
that the gypsy curse to restore his soul would deny him happiness
for the rest of his unnatural life---or that his loyalty to you
would tie him to an existence he utterly loathed for all your
remaining years." He shifted toward her, until his face was mere
inches from her own. "Because you want your Watcher back, and
that's all that matters, correct? Buffy wants what she wants and
to hell with the rest of the world...just like three days ago,
when you decided you wanted your demon."

She swallowed past the large lump in her throat and did
not--could not--reply.

And still he kept after her, relentless, his words cutting
deeply. "Your Giles screamed inside me as I drained the life
from them, you know--loudest for the little witch, but he was
fond of the werewolf, too. He even managed a token protest for
the vampire, though if he were an honest soul he'd have to admit
he hates Angelus nearly as much as I do."

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears, incapable
of listening anymore. Ripper reached up and pulled her hands
away, his vampire-enhanced muscle more than a match for her
depleted strength. "Hiding again? Are you going to run away,
little girl? Once more leaving your mess for others to clean
up?"

She just stared at him, utterly stricken.

He leaned forward to kiss her slack lips. She offered no
response. "I'm afraid I must leave you now," he whispered
against her cheek. "Places to go, people to kill..." He reached
out and trailed one cold finger down her chest, from her
collarbone to her navel. She shivered convulsively. "I'll be
seeing you soon, Slayer." One final kiss, then he rose and
turned away.

Ripper paused in the doorway for a last look at Buffy. She
sat frozen in the middle of the bed, clutching Willow's toy to
her bare chest, her eyes huge and dark with horror and pain, her
expression blank with shock.

"Have I gone crazy?" she wondered numbly, her voice a hoarse
whisper in the silence.

"Not yet." He grinned at her--and it was, bizarrely, the
familiar, charming, roguish Giles-grin she'd seen all too seldom
in their years together. "Not just yet." He offered her a mock
salute. "But you will. Very, very soon now."

In another moment he was gone.

The contradictory sensations of comforting heat and bone-
knawing hunger brought Buffy back to herself a few hours after
Ripper had departed. Early morning sunlight shone through the
window in her hospital room, bathing her in its warm glow and
leaching away some of the cool clamminess from her skin. She
blinked, disoriented, and found that she was still sitting
slumped in the middle of the bed where Ripper had left her, her
hospital gown gaping open. Her heartbeat sounded sluggish to her
own ears, and her hand was numb from clutching the Pez dispenser
so tightly. <I'm in shock,> she thought dispassionately,
recognizing the symptoms from one of Giles's long ago lectures.


Soon enough, everything came rushing back to her and she
moaned low in her throat, anguished anew. "Giles...Oh, Giles..."
Her red, itchy eyes remained dry, however--it seemed she had no
tears left at the moment. She carefully pried her fingers from
Willow's toy and placed it on her pillow, next to the circlet of
silver--Angel's Claddagh ring. <Willow...Angel...Oh, God...>
They were gone. Oz and Cordelia were gone. And Giles was gone,
too, but in the worst possible way, leaving a demon behind to
commit mayhem behind his smiling face.

She remembered what Ripper had said about Giles's soul--that
it was still inside him, watching in horror at the things the
demon made his body do. Buffy couldn't even imagine how painful
that must be for the good man who had been her mentor and her
friend, who had held all life sacred, who had given his own life
to keep Sunnydale safe. She knew that more than anything in the
world, Giles must wish for someone to end it, to stake his body
before the demon inside could kill anyone else he loved.

She hadn't even tried. He'd come to her, here in this room,
completely unarmed...and she hadn't even tried to kill him. Had
welcomed him, in fact--had allowed that grotesque parody of an
embrace.

Because he had Giles's eyes.

How could she kill him?

<Willow...Oz...Angel...>

<Giles...>

How could she not?

Ripper's mocking words echoed in her mind: "Are you going
to run away, little girl? Once more leaving your mess for others
to clean up?"

"No," she whispered. Her voice sounded weak and shaky in
the quiet room. In her mind's eye she saw Giles--her
Giles--frown at her lack of conviction.

"No," Buffy repeated, more firmly this time as she stared
down at the toy and the ring. She reached out to pick them up.
"I can do this. I *will* do this." She clenched her fist, the
sharp edges of metal and plastic biting into her skin. The pain
was welcome.

"I promise, Giles. I'll do it--I'll do it for you."

Buffy set her jaw and squared her shoulders, resolute--and
was at once overcome by a wave of dizziness. She realized she
was almost faint from hunger--which made sense, since she hadn't
been able to choke down any of the meal the orderly had delivered
last night, no matter how her mother had prodded her, and meals
for three days previous had consisted of only IV nutrition. That
was fine for an ordinary hospital patient, but her accelerated
Slayer healing required a caloric intake of Xander proportions to
truly work effectively, which was probably why it had taken her
so long to reawaken from the draining. To regain her health and
strength, she was going to have to find large quantities of food,
and fast.

And she also very much needed to get some sleep, or all the
conviction in the world would not help her defeat a vampire at
full strength, especially one who possessed every possible
psychological advantage over her.

A light knock brought her back to the present, and she
hastily tied her gown as the door opened. An obscenely cheerful
nurse wished her a perky good morning and informed her, between
checks of her vitals, that her clothing from the night she'd been
brought in had been trashed, though her shoes were in the room's
closet. Breakfast, PerkyNurse said, would be served in two
hours, and then the doctor would come to release Buffy from their
care. She really, really hoped, she said, that Buffy would be
feeling much, much better, very, very soon.

Ten minutes later Buffy exited the hospital, clad in stolen
scrubs and incongruous clogs, her destination already fixed
firmly in her mind.

*****

It was laughably easy to break into Giles's apartment.
Buffy had chided him upon occasion about the rinky-dink locks on
his front door, but Giles had pointed out somewhat ascerbically
that he had much less to fear from ordinary burglars than he did
supernatural foes. Vampires required invitations to enter, and a
sliding chain was hardly likely to pose much of a barrier to a
demon. On the other hand, the frequency with which he lost his
keys during battle dictated that he keep the entering process
simple, to facilitate his own home-breakings. After a few lock-
picking lessons Buffy herself had become nearly as proficient as
Giles with a bobby pin and credit card.

Lacking those, she simply kicked the door in.

That action took the last of her strength. The walk from
the hospital to Giles's condo had been long, cold and draining,
and she'd had no money for either a cab to shorten the trip or a
bagel to tide her over. But as much as she wanted to simply
collapse on the couch, she knew she needed to eat before getting
some rest--odds were, she'd sleep until nightfall, and her body
could do a lot of healing in that amount of time if she provided
the proper fuel. So, near the top of her agenda was breakfast.

But before that, she had phone calls to make.

And before even that, she had to make sure she was alone.

She didn't honestly think Ripper had stayed in the apartment
since he'd been Turned. It didn't fit, somehow--the condo was
very Gilesy, and from the things the vampire had said, she didn't
think that would appeal to him much. The place certainly didn't
look ransacked, at any rate--a little untidy, but that was to be
expected with the schedule they'd been keeping the past few
weeks. Dusting the furniture really didn't seem all that
important when you had a mini-apocalypse to worry about. And
even she, self-acknowledged Oblivious Girl, had noticed that
Giles had basically given up both sleeping and eating. Housework
must certainly have been below those on his list of priorities.

A quick check of the bathroom and the kitchen revealed that
they were in a similar state of disarray as the living room. The
dish drainer by the kitchen sink was full of teacups and saucers,
indicating that Giles had been mainlining tea for days as he
researched. The milk in the refrigerator had expired long ago,
and the fruit and vegetables were wilted looking, if not actually
molting yet. There was a lone English muffin on a plate on the
top shelf, and she grabbed it as she turned to head upstairs. It
was dry and slightly stale, but edible enough.

She paused mid-swallow at the top of the steps, freezing
momentarily at the thought of entering Giles's bedroom. She'd
only been inside it once before, in the aftermath of Angelus's
cruel visit, in order to search for clues as to how Giles would
retaliate for the death of the woman he loved. The romantic
setting the vampire had created to present his 'gift' to Giles
was seared into her brain, but for some reason she had trouble
remembering any other details of the room. She couldn't even use
her imagination to conjure up a picture of what it *might* look
like. It had never been something she thought about,
really--what Giles's home life was like, how he was when he was
by himself. When she pictured him in her mind he was always in
the library, presiding over everything like the lord of a
book-filled manor.

The Watcher.

A sense of shame swept over her again. He'd been more than
that--so much more, and she had known it even as she ignored it.
Even as she lived her life as though he had nothing more to do--
could want nothing more--than to train her, to watch her, to
guard her. As though he couldn't possibly desire anything else
for himself.

The one time he had tried for more her demon lover had
nearly destroyed him.

Ripper's words echoed inside her mind.
<Selfish...Selfish...>

She blinked back a fresh onslaught of tears and pushed the
door open, entering the cold, silent bedroom. Her search was
hasty and not terribly thorough as she scanned the confines of
the room through brimming eyes. The bed was rumpled, and clothes
were stacked on the chair and hanging from the closet doorknobs--
arranged more untidily than she would have expected, but at least
not piled on the floor. The morning sun streamed through dark
green curtains, lending a cool, otherworldly glow to the walls as
motes of dust danced through the air. A faint residue of Giles's
cologne lingered. Her throat closed up with emotion the moment
she smelled it.

<Oh, Giles...>

Taking a deep breath, she knelt down and looked under the
bed, the only possible hiding place in the small room. No Ripper
there, just boxes lined up side-by-side, and a cardboard envelope
half-hidden by the duvet. She picked it up as she arose,
curious, and found that it held a stack of pictures from the
one-hour photo place downtown.

With trembling fingers she opened the envelope.

They were from the Prom, pictures taken with one of the
disposable cameras that had been scattered around the room by the
Prom committee, for the enshrining of memories thereof. Xander
had snagged one for their little group--in order to avoid dancing
too often with Anya, Buffy had thought, but hadn't said. There
were several shots of Willow and Oz, looking cute and couple-y,
and it broke Buffy's heart to see the happiness in their bright
faces. There were a few of Xander alone, a bit out-of-focus, as
Anya tried her hand at the unfamiliar process of photography.
There was a really nice shot of Wesley and Cordelia, dancing as
though no one else were in the room, and she could tell just by
the composition that Xander had taken it--Cordelia looked
absolutely stunning. And there were several snaps of Buffy with
her 'Class Protector' umbrella--she flipped past those quickly,
uncomfortably aware that she had proven herself entirely unworthy
of that accolade.

And there were pictures of Giles--beautiful, horribly
haunting pictures. A shot of him by himself, slouched elegantly
in one of the folding chairs, a satisfied smile on his face. One
of him dancing with Willow, holding her hand with careful grace
as they traded steps. One, in particular, of all of them--Giles,
Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia--that must have been taken by
Wesley, a clear, beautiful shot of them grinning with dizzy glee.
Giles, surrounded on all sides by the Scooby Gang, looked like
the King of a particularly appreciative court, practically
glowing with pride...so incredibly proud, of all of them.

<Where was I?> Buffy wondered, but deep down she already
knew. She hadn't noticed their photo session, hadn't seen
anything at all but the man who'd held her in his arms. She'd
been dancing with Angel, and if the devil himself had walked in
and done a tango, she never would have even noticed.

There wasn't a single picture of her with Giles. They
hadn't danced at all, though she'd had a vague idea of asking him
to do so before Angel had arrived. And then after Angel had
gone, leaving her alone once again, she'd allowed Giles to take
her for ice cream, as though granting him the wonderful favor of
her company. He probably would have had a lot more fun at the
IHOP with Willow, Oz, Xander and Anya. Her friends had wanted
him to go with them, she knew that without question, because
*they* never took Giles for granted. But he'd gone with her, had
taken care of her, and she hadn't even thanked him.

<Selfish,> Ripper chided once again.

Choking back a sob, Buffy dropped the pictures on the
dresser top, turned and fled downstairs, unmindful of the tricky
steps in her headlong rush. <Ican'tdothis, Ican'tdothis, Ican't
Ican'tican'tican'tcan'tcan't....>

At the foot of the steps she was suddenly seized by a
gripping fear that Ripper was coming for her--now, before she'd
had a chance to prepare herself, before she was even remotely
ready. She quickly crossed over to the couch, shivering in
nervous apprehension. With shaking fingers she opened the small
drawer of the oak end table, extracting the supplies Giles had
cadged there, all the ingredients necessary for the de-inviting
spell he'd devised for Angelus. Buffy had found them one day
while looking for a pencil--and had then subjected Giles to an
unexplained three-week snit as a result. She had known those
supplies were there because of Angelus, had known that Giles
feared his return more than anything--and she had chosen to view
their presence as an admission on Giles's part that he didn't
trust her to do the right thing.

<Why should he have?> Buffy thought bleakly as the
combination of herbs began to smolder in the tiny brazier. She
opened the book and began to recite in a shaky voice.

When she was finished she felt somewhat safer but not all
that much better. The ritual had, of course, reminded her of the
last time she'd performed it, and what had happened on that
terrible night Giles had nearly been destroyed. Angelus had
killed Jenny, because Buffy hadn't been able to find the courage
to stop him, even though she'd had months in which to do so.

She knew instinctively that she wouldn't have nearly so long
this time. Ripper wasn't Angelus--who, frankly, for all his
psychotic evilness, hadn't been terribly *efficient* at
conducting a reign of terror. Ripper had only been in demonic
existence for a few days and he'd already managed to triple
Angelus's nearest-and-dearest body count. She was terrifyingly
certain there hadn't been more only because he wanted her awake
in order to bear witness.

<Xander.> Buffy's mind immediately zeroed in on the only
one of the original Scooby Gang still alive. He hadn't been a
part of Angel's successful cursing ritual, which probably
explained why Ripper hadn't killed him outright. But she owed
him a warning, at the very least, and a promise that she would
take care of what needed doing.

With chilled, shaking fingers, she dialed the phone, quite
unsure of what she was actually going to say to him. A picture
of his wounded, angry face as he'd glared down at her yesterday
filled her mind.

After a few rings the answering machine picked up, and
Xander's father's gruff tones admonished her to leave a message.
She hadn't considered that possibility--though she should have,
probably. Xander had confided once with uncharacteristic candor
that his parents tended to screen all their calls, the better to
avoid angry creditors. If anyone answered the phone at all, it
was usually Xander, but judging from his behavior the day before,
he probably wasn't in a conversation-having mood.

"Xander," she began hesitantly, her mind racing as she tried
to select the right words--words that would make the situation
clear to her friend without alarming his parents. "It's me,
Buffy. I-I know you probably don't want to talk to me, and...um,
you're right. To not want to, I mean. And you're right about
everything you said in the hospital. I'm so sorry about Cordy,
Xand." Her voice broke, and she swallowed, blinking back tears.
She couldn't tell him about Willow and Oz--she just couldn't find
the words--but he *had* to know about Giles.

"It's just--you know that friend of ours that died in the
explosion at graduation? Well, h-he didn't. Um, not really. I
mean, he, uh, came to see me in the hospital last night. After
it got dark, you know? And he was okay except for being, um,
really pale a-and his teeth were messed up some. But I-I'm gonna
take care of him, Xander. It won't be like last time, I promise.
I'm gonna do what we both know he'd want." She sniffed and
swiped at her eyes, her voice lowering to a hoarse whisper.
"Just b-be careful, okay? I-I...I love you, Xand. And I'm so,
so sorry."

There was nothing left to say. The receiver clicked as
Buffy placed it back in the cradle. Taking a long, shuddering
breath, she looked over at the clock, mentally calculating how
long it would be before her mother left to pick her up at the
hospital. She didn't want to talk to Joyce, didn't want to have
to explain herself or admit what she was going to have to do.
And she still hadn't figured out a way to tell her mother about
the death sentence from the Council. Better all around to simply
leave her a message.

Buffy stood on shaking legs and headed for the kitchen. Her
sharp hunger pangs had subsided to a hollow ache thanks to the
English muffin, but she knew she needed a lot more fuel to regain
top Slayer form. Opening the refrigerator, she extracted all the
necessary ingredients for an ultra-omelet and a rasher of bacon.
She pulled two large frying pans from the cupboard and set them
on the stove, tossing half a stick of butter into one and
depositing the bacon in the other. As the stovetop burners
heated, she chopped up a shriveled green pepper, two iffy-looking
onions and a plastic crate of sickly mushrooms. When the butter
had melted in the left pan she cracked six eggs into the mix and
then hunted up a spatula with which to toss them. As everything
sizzled to her satisfaction, she trimmed the green from half a
loaf of wheat bread and popped the slices into the toaster.

A few minutes later she sat down to a gloriously greasy,
calorie-laden feast. Ordinarily she never ate anything like it,
as concerned as most girls about the consequences to her figure,
but she supposed it didn't much matter any more *what* she looked
like. A zillion-calorie meal didn't register real high on her
worry-o-meter with the sword of Damocles descending toward her
neck. But as wonderful as everything tasted, she couldn't bring
herself to enjoy the unaccustomed treat--every thought of Giles
made it harder to swallow, though she knew how necessary it was
to do so.

As Buffy ate she contemplated various strategies,
considering and then discarding them one by one. She was
actually quite adept at tactical planning--it was one of the
things for which Giles had consistently praised her--but her
confidence was tempered by the knowledge that Giles had known her
better than anyone in the world, which meant that Ripper knew her
as well. He knew how she felt and thought and acted, and would
probably be able to suss out her plan before she'd even
formulated it herself. She couldn't afford to give him that kind
of advantage, but was at a loss as to how to prevent it.

<What is the last thing in the world he'd expect me to do in
this situation?> Buffy wondered--and then wondered further if he
would perhaps expect her to wonder that very thing and plan her
actions accordingly. <Circles within circles...> She closed her
eyes, shook her head and speared a mushroom.

By the time she had persevered through most of the omelet
and half of the bacon and toast, she'd come to a few tentative
conclusions--ones that left her entirely unsatisfied and not a
little wary. Which could maybe be a good thing, she supposed--
maybe Ripper wouldn't expect her to embark upon a course of
action she was more than half-convinced would lead to an entirely
disastrous conclusion.

Maybe.

Buffy chewed a last bite of toast and washed it down with a
sip of water, glancing sideways at the wall clock. If she'd
guessed correctly about her mother's schedule, it was now safe to
call the house. She reached for the phone and let out a sigh of
relief when the answering machine picked up on the other end and
Joyce's bright tones instructed her to leave a message.

"Hi, mom, it's me. I'm sorry I didn't wait at the hospital
for you to pick me up, but I needed to...to get away, be by
myself for a while. I'm fine, though--ultra-rapido healing,
right? I just need to deal with some stuff. Just...please don't
worry about me, okay?" She paused and swallowed; the answering
machine tape hissed in the silence. "And, listen, Mom--be home
before it gets dark tonight, all right? And don't invite anybody
inside. Not anyone, even if you know them, even if you think
they're a friend, okay?" Great, *that* was guaranteed to freak
her mother out majorly, but it was necessary to warn her. "I-I
love you, Mom," she added finally. She could think of nothing
else to say, so she hung up the phone.

Buffy looked down at the cooling remains of her breakfast
and swallowed convulsively, suddenly quite nauseated. But the
hollow aching in her bones had eased, and she could almost *feel*
her body healing, blood singing in her veins, various aches and
bruises subsiding into nothing. The whole process made her
incredibly sleepy, and she wanted nothing more than to climb up
the stairs and crawl into a warm bed--to allow the horrible
reality of the day to slip away, if only for a little while. But
she had two more phone calls to make before she could even think
about resting.

Sighing, she reached for the phone book.

*****

Buffy pulled the curiously old-fashioned stopper out of the
drain of Giles's old porcelain bathtub, watching blearily as the
tepid water swirled down the hole. She shivered in the cool air
and grabbed two towels from the shelf, using one to dry her body
and wrapping the other around her wet hair like a turban. The
warmth of the tub had lulled her to sleep temporarily, until her
head had slipped below the water and she woke up, sputtering.
But she felt a great deal better for being clean; going without a
shower for four days wasn't something she would ever willingly
do.

She cast a dubious glance at the discarded scrubs piled on
the floor. They had already been dirty when she had stolen them,
though luckily not bloody--but assorted sweatstains and wrinkles
didn't do much to entice her to put them on again. She did store
a change of clothes and extra shoes in the apartment's downstairs
utility closet, for the aftermath of ickier patrols, but she
would need them later, so she glanced around the small bathroom
in search of an acceptable substitute. Her eyes lit on a shirt
hanging from the doorknob.

<Bilious celadon,> she thought automatically, then choked
back a sob at the memory. The shirt was Giles's most hideous
wardrobe choice, a selection she and Willow--and even a
sartorially-challenged Xander--had long ago dubbed a Watcher
Fashion Don't. They had never informed Giles of their opinions,
instead developing a verbal shorthand to employ on the days he
wore it, and whispering the phrase during research sessions to
crack each other up. "B.C." they had called it, the initials of
Willow's entirely accurate description of the color of the
shirt--a horrid vomit green.

Giles had stopped wearing the thing by the fall of junior
year, though Buffy had never been sure why. Either Ms. Calendar
had broken the news to him of its awfulness, or Cordelia's
pointed comments had begun to hit home. Either way, Buffy hadn't
seen it in years. She had just assumed he'd thrown it away, but
there it was, hanging from the doorknob.

After a moment, she reached for it.

The cloth was soft and light against her shoulders, and
smelled faintly of mint and Giles's aftershave. It was like
being enveloped in a scented cloud, and Buffy suddenly understood
why Giles had worn the shirt--superficialities like looks had
never mattered to him, but the careworn comfort of the material
felt amazing. She finally began to feel at least a little of the
chill leave her bones.

She patted her hair with the turban/towel until it was
merely damp, then reached up to swipe the terrycloth across the
fogged bathroom mirror. Her drawn faced stared back at her,
appearing older than she would ever grow to be and so incredibly,
terribly sad. Every stray thought of Giles made her want to
burst into tears again, and here in his apartment she couldn't
help but think of him nearly every minute--how he'd eaten at that
kitchen table only a few short days ago, how he'd showered in the
same bathroom and worn the same shirt. How he hadn't known then
that he had only hours left to live because she would leave him
to face the Mayor alone.

<Giles...>

Suddenly, Buffy could no longer bear to look at herself and
averted her gaze from the mirror. She tossed the towels
haphazardly onto the towel rack and padded out into the hallway,
barefoot, buttoning a few buttons of the shirt as she climbed the
stairs. She'd decided earlier to sleep in his bed--partly as a
form of self-punishment, but mostly because the couch downstairs
was more conducive to tossing and turning than sleeping, and she
would need all the rest she could get come evening. She could
never understand how Giles had been able to nap on that couch so
often--unless of course he had chosen it to prevent prolonged
somnolence during a crisis. The one time she'd tried zonking out
on it, she'd had a crick in her neck for days.

The room was as she had left it, the scattered pictures
fanning across the top of the dresser. She paused for a moment,
examining them--the group picture and the single one of Giles in
particular. Her index finger traced all the beloved faces that
she would never see again, and her heart ached with bruising
weariness. After a moment, she slipped both pictures into the
front pocket of his shirt, then turned and climbed into the large
bed. The sheets were cold against her skin. Shivering, she
pulled the duvet up over her shoulders and sank into an
exhausted, troubled slumber.

She awoke hours later to find herself no longer alone.

Buffy awakened abruptly, bolting upright, suddenly tense in
the shadowed room. The afternoon sun peeked dimly through the
green curtains, but the wall of the building next door shaded
most of it away. It was as though she were hiding in her own
dark, little cave, sheltered from the world. But she still felt
so cold, so incredibly tired...and she wondered what it was that
could have awakened her so precipitously.

Her eyes searched the gloom and lit on a shadowy male form
seated in the chair next to the bed. For a moment, her heart
stopped, remembering the previous evening, when the vampire who
wasn't Giles had watched her in just that way from the chair next
to her hospital bed. But he'd been disinvited from this place,
and she could certainly handle any other foe--or friend, for that
matter, though those were thin on the ground just then. She
commanded her heart to start beating again and took her best
guess. "X-Xander?" she whispered.

The figure didn't answer.

Quick as lightning, she rolled to the opposite side of the
bed, the half-buttoned shirt tangling about her torso awkwardly.
She yanked at the material, sending buttons flying, and slapped
the switch for the table lamp. A cheerful yellow light
brightened the room, and her heart stopped beating again.

It was *him*.

Without taking her eyes from his seated form, her fingers
scrabbled for the drawer of the bedside table, searching inside
for a cross, a stake, a bottle of holy water...anything. Surely
Giles had *something* there--he was nothing if not prepared.
"I-I uninvited you," she stammered as her fingers closed around
something wooden. She whipped the object out in front of her; it
was a beautifully carved cherrywood cross.

The man didn't visibly react--not to the words, to the
cross, nor to her half-clothed state. Confused, she blinked at
him, suddenly realizing that something was wrong. Something was
missing.

The scars. The scars were gone.

Her eyes widened. "G-Giles?" she whispered, dry-mouthed.

The man cocked his head to one side and regarded her calmly.
He was dressed in the charcoal sweater and slacks Giles had worn
that last day in the library, when he'd shocked them all by
stabbing the Mayor through the chest with a fencing foil. She
remembered the moment with perfect clarity--the controlled,
focused rage he had exhibited had been impressive, if not exactly
completely unexpected, and she and Willow had both agreed later
that he had looked *damned* good in that outfit....

Buffy shook her head, commanding her mind back to the
present, and to the inexplicable sight before her.

"Giles?" she whispered again, a hopeful note in her voice.

A slight nod.

"I don't understand..." But joy had begun to blossom in her
heart nevertheless. It didn't make any kind of sense in the
world, but he was *there*, he was *alive*...it was *him*.

It just had to be.

She could barely breathe. "Please...please say something."

He blinked and offered her a shrug and a slight smile.

"Giles, *please*..." And then, suddenly, it came to her--
how he could be here, after she'd already met the loathsome
creature that called itself Ripper, and why he wouldn't speak.
The disappointment that resulted from her realization was almost
crushing. "Y-you're a ghost, aren't you? You're my Giles...only
a ghost."

Was that a flicker of agreement in his eyes? She couldn't
see him very well--her own eyes had welled up with tears again.
"Oh, God," she whispered brokenly, dropping the cross to bury her
face in her hands. "Oh, God, Giles, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry
I've done this to you."

After a moment she felt the mattress move a little, and
looked up to see that he had shifted from the chair to the bed.
He continued to regard her silently, a sympathetic expression on
his face. She glanced down at the mattress in momentary
confusion--should it give under the weight of a ghost?

Then she looked up and their eyes met, and she promptly
forgot all her questions.

He looked...*content* was the only word she could find to
describe it. Content, the way he'd never seemed in life, when
worry for her and for the world had filled his every waking day.
She had know the burden of responsibility weighed heavily on his
shoulders, but she had never realized before now how oppressive
his duty had been. Unlike Buffy herself, he had never
complained.

His clear green eyes twinkled as he looked at her, his
eyebrows raised as if to ask, 'Yes?' His hair was unruly, the
way it tended to become after hours of research and countless
absent-minded run-throughs with his fingers. The casual clothes
gave him a relaxed air, and the light dusting of stubble on his
cheeks marked him as a man of leisure.

"You look...happy," she murmured, knowing it was a
nonsensical thing to say to a ghost, but then, what *would* be
appropriate?

A slight nod.

His response made her feel bit bolder. If he was a ghost,
he at least didn't seem to be an angry one. "Did you--are you
here to see me?" For a moment, she was reminded absurdly of the
game Charades. <One word, rhymes with post...>

He nodded again.

She scooted forward on the duvet, halting a few feet from
him, and gathered all her courage to ask the one question for
which she truly needed an answer. "A-are you mad at me?" She
bit her lip as she waited for his reply.

After the barest hesitation he shook his head.

She regarded him silently with shadowed blue eyes. "I don't
believe you," she told him softly.

Regret flashed across his face, and he shook his head once
more, slowly, deliberately.

Her fists clenched. "*I'm* mad at me," she admitted,
shivering a little from the cold that seemed to never leave her.
"I'm so mad. I made such a big mistake, Giles. The biggest."

His eyes met hers, and he nodded slightly.

Her face crumpled and she began to cry in earnest. "I never
meant to hurt you, though. You know that, right? Please tell me
you know that. Please..."

He closed his eyes, briefly, then opened them again. They
were the dark color of a forest, and filled with anguished
compassion. He nodded again.

"I'm gonna fix it," she swore to him, swiping impatiently at
her wet cheeks. "I can't make it right, but I'm gonna do what
you'd want me to do. I won't let him hurt anyone else while he
hides behind your face. I *promise*."

He regarded her silently with an expression that looked
something like pride.

"You want that, right?" she asked him, needing to be sure.
"You want me to...to kill him, don't you?"

He smiled, a sad, gentle smile, and nodded.

"Then I'll do it. I swear." She stared at him intently,
willing him to believe her. "I *swear*."

He closed his eyes and appeared to exhale, as though
suddenly released from an unbearable burden. She felt her breath
hitch a little--what if that was the only reason why he had come
to her? "C-can you..." her voice broke, and she hunched her
shoulders, her fingers worrying the long sleeves of his shirt,
"...w-will you come with me? When I go to...I mean, can you?"

He shook his head regretfully, then waved his hand at the
walls in explanation.

"You have to stay here?" Buffy guessed, and was rewarded
with an affirmative nod. "Oh." She was disappointed, but a
little relieved, wondering if it would be that much harder to
stake his body if his ghost were watching her. "Are you--do you
have to stay here then? Forever?"

He shook his head again and pointed to his watch.

"Time limit, huh?"

Another nod.

"Well, can you stay here until I have to go?"

A smile. A nod.

She smiled back at him. "I'm glad." The regarded each
other silently for a few moments, until Buffy felt her smile grow
strained. She had no idea what to say to him--how did one go
about making small talk with a ghost? Especially one who could
not talk back? But the last thing in the world she wanted was
for him to leave.

A moment later she noticed that his gaze had strayed, and
she realized he was looking at her chest--her more-than-a-little-
bare chest. Her scramble for the light had popped the scant few
buttons she had fastened on his shirt, and the too large garment
hung loosely from her shoulders, hiding less than it revealed.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, his smile becoming a bit
devilish, and she couldn't help but grin back. "I like your
shirt," she told him, a part of her marveling that she could
banter with him in this way. But the limits that had constrained
them no longer mattered--what they had been to one another before
had changed irrevocably three days previous.

Her grin widened as his expression turned sardonic, as if to
say, 'No, you don't'.

"No, I *didn't*," she amended impishly, as though he'd
spoken the words aloud. "Tweed Man. But I like it now. And it
looks way better on me."

He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, clearly agreeing
with her.

Buffy scooted forward, reaching out with a tentative hand to
touch his pantleg. She snatched her hand back in shock when her
fingers met--instead of the cold mist her movie-educated mind had
expected--the warm feel of cloth over skin. "I *touched* you!"
she told him, shocked.

He laughed silently at her oh-so-obvious observation.

"But I thought-" she blinked up at him, her mind racing.
"But you're--" Suddenly a new thought occurred, and the
disappointment that resulted rivalled the devastation of the
moment she had decided he was a ghost. "I-Is this a dream? Am I
dreaming you?" She'd had realistic dreams before, both the
Prophecy and non-Prophecy variety, dreams so real that she would
have sworn she was living her actual life--until she awakened.

But this felt different.

And if she were dreaming him, why wouldn't he be able to
talk?

<Maybe you're afraid of what he'd say...> a nasty little
voice in the back of her mind piped up.

Her lower lip trembled as she blinked back fresh tears. She
didn't want it to be a dream. She wanted to believe she'd been
given this one last chance to make things right with him, one
last opportunity to tell him all the things she'd never told
him...all the things she'd never known.

All the things she'd never even imagined before she lost
him, before they'd lost each other...before they'd all lost
everything.

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the tears by sheer
effort of will. <It's not a dream,> she decided on the spot. 

When she opened her eyes again and saw the way he was
looking at her, she could almost truly believe it.

He was staring down at her with infinite affection, his own
eyes none too dry. She watched, spellbound, as he raised his
hand to cup her cheek. The moment his smooth, warm palm met her
skin, she let out a wounded cry and launched herself into his
arms.

He was solid. He was real. He had to be.

She was sobbing so hard her whole body shook with emotion.
His palm rubbed her back in soothing circles as he cradled her to
his chest. She clung to him desperately, her face buried in his
neck, her fingers digging into his biceps. His embrace felt
better than any she had ever known--the solid, heated warmth of
him burning away the numbed iciness that had plagued her ever
since she had awakened in her hospital bed to find that he was
gone.

"Closer," she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Closer. Oh, God..." The material of his sweater was rough
against her cheek, and suddenly she couldn't bear for it to be
there any longer, no matter how good he looked in it. She could
stand nothing coming between them anymore. She reached down to
the hem and yanked the sweater upward, dragging along the white
t-shirt underneath it. He allowed her action without protest,
flinging the garments to the floor before gathering her to his
chest once again.

The feel of his skin against hers ignited an inferno, each
point of contact inflaming her further. "Closer," Buffy murmured
still, as though it were a mantra. "Closer closer
closerclosercloser..." She squirmed on his lap until she managed
to wrap her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together
behind him. But it wasn't yet enough--she let go of him for a
brief, endless moment, stripping the shirt from her body and
tossing it away before pulling him to her once again. He was
bare to the waist, his touch gentle but firm, and she felt as
though she were coming alive again, melting naked in his arms.

Buffy gave the hollow of his throat one long experimental
lick, pleased when the muscles of his chest reacted to her touch.
She alternated licking and biting across his torso, reveling in a
feeling of growing power and in the fire that raged between them.
"Giles..." she breathed as his clever hands began to map her
aching breasts. She thrust her pelvis against his stomach; the
crisp material of his slacks scraped against her moist center,
and she moaned.

Suddenly she needed to see him, needed to look him in the
eye, needed to know that he wanted this surprising, perplexing
thing as much as she did. Her hands came up to frame his face,
and their eyes met for the first time since they'd begun. His
pupils were dilated and his cheeks were flushed, and a small
smile trembled on his lips. "I love you, Giles," she told him,
without even thinking about it--or planning it, or even really
knowing it was true before that moment--but it was. "I love
you."

He nodded, bringing two fingers up to cover his mouth, then
hers. the gesture said. She captured the
tips of his fingers inside her mouth, sucking on them gently. He
closed his eyes, smiling, and that was when she leaned forward
and met his lips with her own.

Their very first kiss.

It was better than anything, ever.

"Love you," Buffy told him over and over, gasping for breath
between deep, drugging kisses. "Love you, love you, love you..."
Her hands skimmed his skin, everywhere she could reach, reveling
in the velvet feel of it. He was fit and lean--a consequence of
their rigorous training--and more than a little battlescarred.
But she thought he was beautiful, and his body felt like heaven
touching her own. She wanted more. Needed more. Needed
everything.

Abruptly, she pulled him backward on the bed until he lay
half on top of her, pressing her down into the covers. His
fingers and lips worshipped her body, telling her in the only way
he could that he felt as she did--it was as though she could feel
the love flowing from his fingertips into her skin. She cried
out as he nipped her right breast and then licked the sensitive
peak until the pleasure was almost painful. Her hands roamed up
and down his back, meeting the waistband of his trousers. She
frowned at the intrusion.

Buffy braced her elbows and used her legs to flip them over,
until she lay on top of him, giggling at the surprised expression
on his face. With trembling hands she made short work of his
pants and boxers, tossing them over the side of the bed before
returning to cover his body with hers. Their movements were
frantic, raw passion, need and desperation overcoming any impulse
to go slowly.

Buffy positioned herself on top of him, then hissed in
pleasure as he entered her with one fierce thrust. She felt as
though he had impaled her almost to her womb--her body was on
fire, the chill of the previous hours completely gone as he held
her to him with impossible strength. His seed filled her to
overflowing, the warmth spreading outward from within, until she
felt as though she were a living flame, burning bright and
strong. Invincible...invulnerable....

Loved.

A starburst exploded inside her mind as they came together,
his mouth open in a wordless shout that matched her own harsh
cry.

The power of it was almost too much for her. She collapsed
onto his chest, her head swimming dizzily, her hands clutching at
his shoulders. Her shaking fingers traveled upward to caress his
cheeks as she managed to catch enough breath for only three
words. "Don't leave yet," she pleaded with the last of her
energy.

Buffy felt him shake his head. Momentarily content and
utterly sated, she drifted off to a sleep that was, for once,
dreamless.

*****

The last time Buffy awakened, the lengthening shadows of
early twilight filled the bedroom, and she was alone.

She sat up slowly in the bed, blinking blearily as she tried
to clear her mind. Her eyelids felt heavy and she ached a bit
all over, though she felt the most healthy she had since
awakening in the hospital.

<The hospital,> Buffy thought fuzzily. <Mom...Wes...> Her
eyes widened as the memories came flooding back.
<Ripper...Giles!> She scanned the room frantically for any sign
of her bed companion, but he wasn't in sight. She opened her
mouth to call out to him...but something stopped her.

The events of the afternoon were jumbled in her mind, with
the kind of Dada-esque quality typical of an interrupted dream.
Her recollections were a hazy, jumbled morass of taste, sound,
and the feel of skin on skin. By her accounting they'd made love
three times in the afternoon's lengthening shadows, each time
touching something profound in one another that required no words
to express. They'd been one person in every sense of the word,
the way they'd never had a chance to be in life--joined by a love
the likes of which she'd scarcely even dreamed of finding.

She hadn't dreamed....

Until now.

Her breath caught. <No. Oh, no...> She squeezed her eyes
shut and shook her head.

But once the possibility had again occurred to her, she
couldn't seem to banish it away.

Perhaps it all *had* been a dream. Perhaps Giles's ghost
had been a figment born in her subconscious, a product of her
incredible need to see him, to be with him...to make amends.

<No!> she retorted, leaping from the bed and turning toward
the door, determined to prove somehow that he had truly been
there with her. Her headlong rush was halted when she tripped
over something lying on the shadowed floor.

Clothing of some kind.

<Clothing!> Buffy bent down to pick up the scattered
garments, realizing as she did so that she herself was naked,
bereft of the shirt of Giles's that she recalled selecting for
pajamas. She jumped back on the bed and reached for the bedside
light, which illuminated the room and revealed that the clothes
in her hands were a charcoal sweater, a white t-shirt, and a pair
of slacks.

*The* charcoal sweater--the one Giles had worn that last day
in the library.

She glanced over at the armchair, her brow furrowed in
puzzlement. Hadn't those clothes been stacked on top of the
chair when she'd first come up to check the room? And where
*was* the Bilious Celadon shirt? She lifted up the rumpled duvet
and searched the sheets underneath--her efforts were rewarded
when her fingers found a sleeve. She pulled the shirt out and
inspected it thoroughly--all the buttons were intact, and the
pocket still held the two pictures she had placed there.

Buffy shook her head in confusion and raked her fingers
through her hair. What had really happened? Her body felt as
though she'd been thoroughly loved by someone with a great deal
of talent for it--but she was also clean, as fresh as though
she'd just stepped from the tub, and sex was nothing if not
messy.

Evidence against....

Then again, the shirt she'd worn to sleep in had somehow
ended up at the foot of the bed--and the clothes her dreamGiles
had been wearing had somehow migrated to the floor.

Evidence for....

But the buttons of the B.C. shirt were intact.

And she'd never, ever heard anything before about ghosts
being able to make love.

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head. Nothing made
sense.

She drew the shirt around her shoulders, lost in thought.
It took a moment for her to realize that someone was banging on
the front door downstairs--loud, impatient, demanding knocks,
with no pauses in between to wait for an answer. She took one
last look around the room and headed down the steps, her fingers
nimbly doing up the buttons of the shirt. Her mind was still
entirely preoccupied with the question of what might have
happened in the bedroom, so she opened the door without looking
through the peephole, or even registering the fact that she was
naked except for Giles's shirt.

The person on the front stoop pursed his lips in a soundless
whistle and gave her an appreciative once-over, one scarred
eyebrow raised in sardonic delight. "'Ello, ducks," Spike said,
smirking, the old-fashioned pistol in his right hand pointed
directly at her chest.

"Nice legs."

Buffy stared at Spike blankly for a few long moments as her
mind tried to process the reality of his presence on Giles's
doorstep, standing big as death and twice as cocky in the
deepening twilight. She knew it was rather nonsensical to be so
nonplussed by his appearance--after all, she'd placed the call to
Willie hoping for this exact result.

 she
concluded. Spike responding to a request for help from the
Slayer? Buffy actually *making* the request in the first place?
The idea was so crazy that she was almost, *almost* positive it
would never occur to the demon that now occupied Giles's
body--and it might therefore give her the edge she needed to
defeat him.

"Isn't that cheating?" Buffy finally offered, tilting an
eyebrow toward the pistol. Her voice was steady--and she was
mildly surprised to realize she didn't feel the least bit
apprehensive that Spike would shoot her. <Talk about having
nothing left to lose....>

"Only if I use it, pet," Spike replied, his smirk still
firmly in place. "Thought I'd bring it along to provide a bit o'
insurance, you might say. While we're coming to terms, so to
speak."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Whatever makes you feel more manly,
Spike." She stepped back from the door and waved a hand toward
the living room. "Come on in." She nearly laughed aloud at the
way his jaw dropped--clearly she could have said nothing to
surprise him more.

He entered warily, his cold blue eyes scanning the room for
hidden traps. "That Watcher-bloke won't be thanking you for
this, Slayer. 'Preciate the invite."

She winced and glanced away. "Willie didn't tell you...?"

"Willie told me sod-all," Spike retorted as he prowled
around the couch. "He was pissed off his arse and whinging
something awful by the time I got to the bar. Said something
about you 'killing all his clientele' or some such. Only one
vampire in the entire place--and 'e said the Mayor bought it two
days ago and took 'alf the bloody underground with 'im." He
turned to eye her appraisingly. "You killed 'im?"

Buffy swallowed guiltily, but managed to meet his gaze head
on. "Giles did."

Spike's eyebrow shot up. "The toff?" He cocked his head to
the side thoughtfully. "Makes sense."

Buffy wondered what he meant by that. "Huh?"

"'E's a stubborn bugger, that one," Spike told her, finally
returning his gaze to her face, apparently satisfied that the
room held no hidden dangers. His fingers relaxed around the
pistol, though he didn't lower it just yet. "'Eld off bloody
Angelus for longer than most vampires could've done. Drove the
demented wanker daft, it did." His expression turned to a sneer
as his attention caught on her scanty attire once again. "Seems
t'be a lot going on under all that tweed o' his--but I'm guessing
you know that, right? Does the poof know you're knockin' boots
w--"

"He's dead," Buffy cut him off, hating the vampire's
insulting tone.

He blinked at her. "Angel?"

She turned her back on him and stalked toward the downstairs
utility closet. "Angel," she confirmed in a tremulous voice.
"Willow, Oz..." She wrenched the door open. "Giles..."

Spike whistled appreciatively. "Cor, I miss all the bloody
fun."

Abruptly furious, she grabbed blindly for an object from the
upper shelf and whirled on him, throwing the missile at the
vampire with all her strength. He ducked, narrowly avoiding a
concussion, and the object shattered against the wall behind him,
raining yellow shards of porcelain down on the carpet. Buffy's
anguished gaze caught on one large piece, where the word 'KISS'
was writ large in red letters--and she realized that the object
had been the 'KISS THE LIBRARIAN' coffee mug she and Willow had
purchased for Giles last year in celebration of National Library
Month. She remembered the embarrassed grin he had worn when he
opened the box--and how quickly the mug had disappeared from the
library after Ms. Marsden had tried to take him up on the offer.
They had wondered what he had done with it....

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut against the pain of the
memories. "Shut up!" she hissed at Spike.

Spike waved the gun in a vaguely threatening manner, though
his brow seemed to be furrowed more in puzzlement than anger.
"You don't expect me to *care*, do you, ducks? A few 'Appy
Meals, more or less..."

"I said SHUT *UP*!" Buffy yelled, swiping angrily at her
tears. She hated herself for breaking down in front of him. It
shouldn't matter what he said, or what he thought, only that she
somehow convince him to do what she needed him to do. And in
order to do that she needed to be strong.

Spike regarded her silently for a moment. Then: "Angel's
dead?"

Buffy couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard a hint of
regret in his tone. She nodded slowly. "G-...Giles killed him."

He considered that briefly. "Can't say as I blame 'im,
really."

She shook her head and turned back to the closet, extracting
her emergency clothes--a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and
running shoes. "Don't you care? He was your *sire*!"

"Ancient 'istory, pet," Spike returned. "Or did you forget
that I tried to do 'im in on several occasions myself. A bad job
the Watcher beat me to it, in fact. If the bloke weren't already
dead I might be inclined to make 'im pay for that."

"It wasn't Giles," she murmured, pulling the sweatpants on
up under Giles's shirt. Immediately she felt a little better as
she turned to face Spike again--she found it much easier to stare
down evil vampires when she wasn't half-naked.

Spike made a sarcastic little moue of disappointment, but
didn't comment otherwise on her changed attire, clearly more
concerned with her words. "But you said--"

She glared at him. "It *wasn't* him, okay? Not..." she
swallowed with difficulty, "not really."

Spike regarded Buffy blankly. She waited silently for
comprehension to dawn, watching with interest as an expression of
what could only be described as sheer horror bloomed on his face.
"Someone bloody *Turned* him?" he asked, aghast.

She nodded.

"What kind of sodding idiot went and did that? Christ, how
bloody stupid-"

She cut him off. "I thought the *point* for all you big bad
vampires was to kill off my friends and family."

"Yeah, and put 'em in the bloody *ground*," he returned.
"Permanently! Not Turning 'im so that 'e could go spare! Any
vampire with half a brain would