( RIPOSTE ][ A Watchergirls Archive )

__Going Back__
By Gail Christison

"Buffy!"

"Kitchen!"

"Have you had my grey pullover again?"

"They're called sweaters and... um... kinda wearing it."

Giles half scowled, half smiled. It was going to take him a little time to get used to someone borrowing his clothes without asking. On the other hand, the view was usually worth the aggravation...

He headed down in just his jeans and sneakers, sniffing appreciatively as the flat filled with the aroma of breakfast in the making. He paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs to wonder at the feeling. The sheer and utter contentment and joy of waking up with someone in the morning, coming downstairs not to a cold, empty silence, but to the sound of her voice, the sizzling of whatever she was likely to burn today, and even the low mutter of a radio somewhere. Buffy had switched on the sound system and selected a radio station. After another moment to contemplate the sudden goodness of life, he continued on his way.

She was standing in the kitchen wearing nothing but the missing sweater, pouring batter into a frying pan: his spare frying pan. The first one, with egg white and bacon grease adhered to the bottom of it, attested to the fact that he was in for another marathon breakfast.

"You know we're going to get fat," he teased.

"Slayers don't get fat," she retorted good naturedly, checking the bottom of her flapjack before flipping it carefully.

"Watchers do," he growled ruefully. "You really don't need to make quite so much, you know. I used to get by perfectly well on tea, juice and toast most mornings."

Buffy lifted the pancake out and slid it onto a waiting plate before pushing the pan off the heat and turning to him.

"It's fun. And neither of us has had fun in a very long time. You know, I was trying to remember, and I couldn't."

"Remember what?" he asked curiously.

"The last time I saw you really, really happy."

"There have been plenty of times," he blustered.

"Name three," she challenged.

He stared at her for a long moment. There weren't times the way she meant them. His life had never really allowed for frivolity or joy... until now.

"One," he said in a voice deepened by real feeling. "When you chose to come back from Los Angeles and I opened my door to find you there..." He continued after a beat. "Two: when you were not killed by Hellhounds and you were able to make an entrance at your high school prom. You were far and away the most beautiful girl there." He cleared his throat. "And three..." He got very quiet for a moment. "Three was the moment I saw you standing there, alive, after you... after I was called back from England."

"You cheated." She spoke softly, but she was smiling as she came to him and slid her arms around his neck.

"I did not," he said, only to have the last word muffled by soft lips covering his. The kiss lasted a long time, long enough for Giles to slide his hands up under the sweater and confirm that she was indeed wearing nothing else but. "Well, perhaps a little," he conceded when he lifted his head, "but so did you."

She chuckled and released him. "That's why I always win."

Giles watched her turn back to the stove and slide the pan back onto the heat.

"And that's why I always let you," he growled, amused.

* * * * *

"Any plans for today?"

Giles looked up from his half-eaten breakfast, noting that Buffy had only served herself a third of what she'd heaped on his plate.

"Um... apart from possibly going back upstairs after breakfast? Not really. Would you like to get out of the house today? Perhaps you'd like to learn a little about the history of the area, or do the tourist thing and go and gawk at Stonehenge? Or perhaps you'd just like to drive up to London to see the sights..." He smiled fondly. "...Or shop?"

Buffy smiled back, mostly at the first sentiment, as she twirled a fork with pancake impaled on it.

"Getting out is probably of the good. I love you and the last few days have been beyond incredible, but I need to do something. I'm the Slayer. I'm used to patrolling, double shifts at the 'Palace... Stuff, y'know?"

He looked sheepish at her description of what had amounted to days of making love interspersed with sleeping, eating and the occasional shared bath or shower.

"Any ideas?" he asked fondly.

"Well, what do we both like to do?"

"An interesting question, given that we're not really supposed to have anything in common," he pointed out.

"Apart from great sex?" she offered playfully. "Demons, vampires... Slayage?"

"Destinies, and fighting against them, detesting Quentin and the Watcher's Council," he added more seriously. "But as for interests..."

"I know you don't like tractor-truck pulls or sports and for the record, neither do I... or...hey, we both like Sarah McLaughlin... and jelly donuts."

He grinned broadly, remembering how they used to fight over and consume boxes of donuts during all-nighters.

"We also both like fine weapons, training, listening to good music and..."

"Cheese. We both like cheese," Buffy teased. "Although you like the blue stuff and I take the position that no one should enjoy eating their gym socks. And whoever said your music was good music?"

That made him laugh. "All right, we both like cheese. And I'll have you know even Oz worshipped my music collection," he added, trying and failing to look miffed.

"It's okay," she said softly. "There'll be plenty more as we get to know each other. I mean, what did I ever have in common with Owen or Scott... or, other than badness, even Angel or Riley, or God forbid... Spike? NADA. Right now it's enough that you're the Watcher and I'm the Slayer, that we love each other and we both hate the bad guys... and neither of us asked for our sucky jobs. We've been together so long that we know each other better than we know ourselves. None of those guys could say that, and in the end none of them really knew me at all."

"Amen," Giles agreed softly.

Buffy smiled. "Now, where are we going to go?"

* * * * *

"So this is what England looks like?" Buffy watched the rolling countryside slide by between endless miles of green hedge, looking more relaxed and content than Giles could ever remember.

"Um... yes. Parts of it, anyway."

"Well, yeah. I saw some of London and there's Bath City. I think I like this part better... except for the tractors."

Giles smiled to himself.

"So... much demon or vampire activity in 'ye olde' parts of England?"

"Not especially, no... for various reasons."

"Is it much further to where you're taking me?"

Giles chuckled. "Which roughly translates to: 'are we there yet?'"

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

He sighed. "About another half hour. I think it will be worth the wait. At least, I would like to think so."

Out of pure mischief, a bored Buffy initiated a game of 'I spy,' inducing much eye-rolling from Giles, who kept guessing in spite of himself and then getting annoyed that he was then required to provide a new puzzle to be solved. The 'game' lasted until, after taking a turn off and running up into some foothills miles from the main road, Giles finally brought the rented car, hired in deference to the inclement weather, to a halt at some impressive, tall, wrought-iron gates.

"They don't open by themselves...? Don't they have one of those thingies you talk into?"

Giles snorted. "This is real life, not Beverly Hills."

She watched him climb out of the car and expertly open the gates before pushing them back, as though he'd done it many times before. When they drove through, he stopped and went to close them before driving on.

"This place feels really, really old," a subdued Buffy said a short time later, after they'd driven up the long, leafy driveway, across an old stone bridge over a little brook, and between the truly ancient looking oak and beech trees that lined it. Even all of the shrubs were old time plants. Not that she recognised any of them, but Giles knew them all, in flower or no: the lilacs, the roses, camellias, rhododendron... rows of azaleas and stands of hydrangea, borders of violets and beds where the same annuals or bulbs were planted year in, year out...

"It is," he said finally.

Buffy's head turned from her fascination with the picture-book vision of fairy woods... well, winter ones anyway... or something out of 'Wind in the Willows'. There was a note in his voice: something she wasn't used to; couldn't pin down.

"Giles?"

He cleared his throat as a big old regency house...or possibly even mansion, in honey-coloured Bath stone and a dark shingled roof, came into view.

"It's my home."

* * * * *

Buffy followed Giles to the front door, surprised when he rang the doorbell.

"Shouldn't you, like, have a key or something?"

He smiled without turning to her. "I have... in a safe deposit box, in a bank. I have people who care for the place. They have their own keys... and their privacy."

The door finally opened. Buffy watched, bemused, as the old lady looked up and focused on the face of the man in front of her.

"Oh," she said, her wrinkled face wreathing in shocked, but delighted smiles. "Oh."

"Hello, Em'."

The old face crumpled. "Oh, Rupert." As she came forward, Giles caught and held her gently for a long moment, his eyes closed, cheek pressed to the auburn and grey hair.

"I'm sorry it's been so very long..."

She finally pushed herself off his chest and straightened. "Ye came home," she said, the joy of it obvious in her tremulous Scots brogue, despite the moisture in her eyes.

Buffy realized then that Giles' eyes were over-bright and his jaw was working way too hard.

"Hi," she said, wriggling her fingers hello. "I'm Buffy. Friend of... Rupert's."

The old lady looked from one to the other then smiled. "Come awa' in. I should'na be keeping ye oot here, like this."

Buffy followed Giles inside and looked around, wide eyed, awed by the stateliness and sense of history of the old home.

"Giles," she whispered as they fell in behind the old woman, "When we were outside I counted at least seven windows upstairs... just on this side."

He chuckled. "At least," he agreed.

They passed a beautiful display cabinet and an old time, half round table with a marble top and a carved, wood-frame mirror set on the wall above it.

"It looks all antique-y."

He smiled again. "It is." He began to point, first to the display cabinet: "Regency." His finger shifted: "Queen Anne: both the table and the mirror." The green gaze flicked up to the stairs. "And the monstrosity on the landing is a Rococo gilt-wood mirror, a family heirloom given to my grandmother by her grandmother when she married."

"Wow. I mean everything is so... you really grew up here?"

"I really did," he said as they passed through a dining room with an intimidating looking table and high backed chairs, and cabinets filled with old, very expensive looking plates and cups and silver stuff.

"Are you like, in line to the throne or something?" she asked, only half-teasing.

He laughed. "Hardly. No, this is the accumulation of a number of generations of my family. I'm not entirely sure where it started, but I remember father thought most of the original fortune was made by a Giles who was a spice merchant and succeeding generations who managed to be extraordinarily clever with their investments, among other things."

"A commoner," she mugged, having watched too many movies.

Amused, he inclined his head in agreement and pointed once more, identifying the table and chairs.

Buffy nodded toward the contents of the cabinet, bemused by all the Kings and Queens. "So, what are those...?" she pulled a royal name out of thin air. "Like, King George or something?"

"Well, one of them," he confirmed, suppressing another chuckle. "The eclectic nature of the collection reflects my family history. These pieces come from both sides, from a rather long line of both Giles and Trewhellas.

"Your mother was foreign?"

Giles snorted. "To you *I'm* foreign. No, my mother was of Cornish descent, but she grew up away from Cornwall, before she met my father in London. She was fond of visiting the place, though."

Buffy was starting to look a little glazed.

"Cornwall is a part of England, Buffy. It's in the southwest of the country. Not terribly far from here, geographically."

She had the good grace to look sheepish. "Nobody ever said Slayers had to be down with the geography thing. Oh, hey, this is so cool."

Giles had never heard his mother's kitchen described as 'cool' before. It was warm, and embracing and, as always, smelled of spices and fresh baked bread and the vaguest of hints of a recent roast.

He sniffed. "You've been baking, Em?"

She chuckled. "Ne'er could hide the new biscuits from ye, even when you were a wee boy. Aye: Ashbourne gingerbread for visitors, shortbread for Gregor, and these..."

Giles' eyes lit up as the old Scotswoman lifted a tray onto the bench.

"Apple cinnamon," he said softly, his hand reaching out for one of the cookies automatically, like a small boy, utterly unable to resist.

"Aye," she replied, eyes growing very bright, "I canna resist a batch whene'er there's baking to be done. And they always get eaten. Gregor always swears he'll get fat, but he's as lean as a greyhound yet, that one."

The back door opened and a tall, straight, craggy old gent came in, shutting out the misting rain, and the breeze that had struck up, before peeling off his damp coat, taking off a sou'wester and laying both over the old chair by the Aga to air as if it were something he'd been doing forever.

Buffy watched him as he turned and saw Giles for the first time. He stood very still, doing the jaw thing Giles was so good at, his vivid blue eyes growing very bright under the white eyebrows. Eventually he cleared his throat and ran a hand through the wavy white-grey hair, before dropping it to his side again.

"Rupert," he said softly. "Ye've grown, lad."

She looked up at Giles, who was kind of mirroring the old man.

"Gregor," he finally managed. Buffy could tell he wanted to smile, even to grin dopily, but was afraid of what would happen if he gave his mouth too much freedom. "It... it's good to see you again. You look fine. Better than fine."

"Aye," the old lady said over her shoulder as she transferred her baking to a storage tin, "tough as auld boot leather, that one, and still straight as a die."

Gregor smiled fondly at his wife, aware of the pride in her voice despite the admonishments, chuckled and inclined his head toward her wide beam as she bent. He winked at Buffy. "And that one'll be the death of me yet," he told her, "God bless her heart."

The old woman turned. "Awa' wi' ye," she scolded affectionately. "We'll need a fire in the parlour, and in the guest room in the east wing and the main dining room-"

Giles had raised his hand in a staying gesture. "We didn't come to make work for you, Em'. I came to show Buffy where I grew up."

"Tis no' work this day, Rupert Giles. Ye've come home at last, and home it still is." Her voice, though fierce, had a catch in it. "Dinna deny me the chance to tak' care of ye after all this time."

Buffy heard a noise in Giles' throat and wasn't entirely surprised when he moved forward and gathered the old lady in his arms again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Gregor cleared his throat again, turned and went to light the fires.

Feeling a little lost, as though she was intruding, Buffy followed him. The fireplace in the dining room was big and stately, with dark, polished wood all around it and a big heavy mantelpiece of the same dark wood with various items made of coloured glass displayed on it.

"Um... can I help?" she asked as he bent to the copper wood box.

He cleared his throat without looking up and his voice wasn't entirely steady when he spoke. "Thank ye lassie, but it'll no' take but a moment."

Buffy carefully didn't notice the wobble.

He was right. The kindling had already been laid. He simply and swiftly laid the wood from the box so that the flames would funnel up from the kindling into the small pyre, then lit the screws of newspaper underneath.

Buffy watched, impressed, as the fire roared to life, a part of her wanting to ask a million questions, and another somehow knowing that it wasn't the time, or her place.

Gregor rose slowly and dusted his hands off before turning to her. "So... an American lass? Such a long way from home."

"Home is where Giles... Rupert, is." Her reply surprised her as much as it did him.

The blue eyes bore into hers for a long moment. "Slayer," he said finally, Buffy deciding she liked the way it sounded in the strong Scots burr.

She grinned self-consciously. "Bingo."

"So that's where the laddie's been this long while..."

"Well yeah, kinda. Sunnydale, California... where I live. You know, all Hellmouthy and needing of Watcher and Slayer attendance? You... do... know?"

He smiled and nodded, then tilted his head and contemplated her for a moment: the rosy cheeks and the way her eyes kept sliding toward the kitchen, the way she'd said 'Giles.'

"Ye love him."

"What?" Buffy squeaked, startled, and ducked her head, making the old man chuckle. She lifted it again only to look up into the expectant blue eyes. "Well, yeah, sorta... a lot. Are you going to be mad with him, about me being, well... younger?"

He gave a shout of laughter and looked at her with merry eyes. "Emily is seventy-three come spring. How auld d'ye tak' me for?"

Buffy really looked at him, then shrugged. "About the same, I guess."

"Ninety-six winters, I've seen. About a ha' dozen too many by these old bones, but for as long as ma Emily bides, so shall I, the good Lord willing."

"Wow. Do all Scotch people look as good as you when they're almost a hundred?"

He laughed again. "Scotch is a drink, lass," he told her gently. "But I thank ye for the compliment."

Buffy laughed then too, amazed at how at ease he could make her feel even though she knew she was reinventing the term 'faux pas' every time she opened her mouth.

At that point Giles appeared, walked up behind her and curled his arms possessively around her shoulders, to hold her snug against him.

"I see you two have been getting acquainted."

Buffy leaned back into the warmth and strength of his chest. "Gregor's been telling me why he's not having a cow about you being such a cradle-snatcher." She frowned, suddenly realizing that she'd made another gaffe, and looked up at the old man. "I... um ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you by your..."

Gregor lifted a large, weather-beaten hand. "Gregor will do fine. I like it just fine that ye can still think of me in such a way."

Buffy processed that for a moment then grinned at him, and he grinned back.

"Emily says that my old room is still in tact, and that the nursery hasn't been dismantled either," Giles said softly above her head.

Gregor nodded. 'We've done just as ye mother would have wished. Everything is just as it was when ye left, as it was when he went..."

A heavy silence fell, and Buffy turned in Giles' arms when she felt him tense. "When who went?"

It took a moment for him to meet the inquiring, and quite innocent, gaze with shuttered eyes.

"My father."

"Oh," she said softly and shifted from his embrace, slipping her hand into his instead.

"I was sent away to school," Giles continued after a beat. "A few years later, my mother... died. By the time I came home again, my father was no longer the man I knew. We, well... we clashed. Things became intolerable. Not even Gregor and Emily could help. I left without ever speaking to him again. He died a few years later."

"Aye. He was a broken man after his Alice died, and in his bitterness he almost broke Rupert. Then, after he lost Catriona, all the fight, all the strength left him and he just faded away."

Giles' fingers were tightening around Buffy's. She looked up and saw the jaw working way too hard, yet again.

"It was better that I was gone. He needed to focus on training Catriona, and all I was, was a distraction."

Gregor looked sad and shook his head. "He loved you, laddie. Loved you more than any man could love a son, but he couldn't look at ye and not see her in those eyes, that brow... even the tilt of yon sweet smile, precious few of those though there were to be had around here by then. He was never the same after ye walked oot. Even Catriona could'na bring the vitality, the life back into him again, though Lord knows how that lass tried."

"You mean she loved him?" Buffy asked softly.

He shook his head. "Aye, she worshipped him, but no' the way the two of ye love each other. For Catriona, Thomas were everything... father, mother, elder brother, teacher, friend... comrade in arms. After Rupert left, he went oot wi' her each night on patrol and they trained here each day. They took meals together and he tended her schoolin' each morning. Love there was in plenty, but passion there was not. When his Alice died, part of Rupert's father died wi' her. After Rupert went away, all Thomas had left in him was a desire t' protect and nurture Catriona, t' keep the lassie from dyin' young... from dyin' at all, if he could but find a way, in spite of the Council."

"And then she died..." Giles's voice was low and hoarse, a note Buffy couldn't quite identify making it sound even more haunted.

Gregor's eyes clouded. "Aye. And he was too proud to look for ye. Thomas knew ye finally acceded to the Council's wishes and went up to Oxford. You were safe, and that was all that mattered to him."

Giles let go of Buffy's hand and went to stand right in front of the fire. " 'All that mattered'," he growled. "For as long as I knew him, I never knew what really mattered to him, except for the Council line. Everything was about the Council. And bloody 'destiny'!"

Buffy was surprised at the pain and anger in the otherwise quiet voice. She wanted to go to him, but even from where she was standing, she could feel the self-made wall radiating around him. She turned to look to the older man for guidance, but Gregor had faded away, probably to the kitchen.

Finally, she ignored the barrier, walked up behind Giles and slid her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against the middle of his back.

"The destiny thing... it's not all bad," she said very softly. "See, your destiny and my destiny: they sorta made one big *'our'* destiny, which, personally, I've gotten kinda attached to."

The big shoulders drooped a little. "I know," he said without turning. "But the cost..."

* * * * *

Dinner was finally had in the big kitchen. Emily convinced Giles that they were to stay the night, prepared or not. As was the custom of the stately old home in its heyday, it was still stocked to cater for the odd guest or two... or more.

"Gregor Callum MacKenzie! Ye'll no be sitting down t' ma table and our guests, wi' those boots on!"

Buffy, who was laying silverware on a beautiful damask cloth Emily had insisted on using on the big breakfast table when Giles had been equally as insistent about eating there instead of the intimidating dining room, tried hard not to smile too much when the old man winked mischievously at her and went to change his work boots for more civilized footwear.

Giles, who was still very subdued, managed a sentimental smile at the old, straight back before he continued with his job of carving the evening meal, made possible at such short notice by Gregor's continued tradition of hanging fresh-killed meat for a number of days before it was packed for freezing, or eaten.

Buffy, however, had been less than excited by the sight of a side of venison being brought into the kitchen by the old Scot, to be cut up.

When they finally sat down to eat, a couple of hours and many wonderful aromas later, Giles set a delicious-looking joint on the table, ready to carve.

Buffy looked up at Gregor, trying hard not to think of Bambi.

"Tell me you didn't kill it, too?"

He smiled. "No' this time, lassie. But I ha' taken ma fair share over the years, 'tis true. Ye must remember that time and caircumstance are no' always so kind... Back in the Depression, many's the poached rabbit, hare, venison, grouse or salmon a man took, t' bring home to his hungry family... to see them through the bad times and mebbe even stop the bairns from crying quite sae much."

Buffy couldn't help looking at Emily at the mention of 'bairns'.

Giles saw her glance as he sat down. "How many great-grandchildren is it now, Em?"

"Bless ye, seventeen and counting," she grinned. "Our Fiona's youngest girl, Kirsty, is expecting again."

Gregor was watching Buffy. "Emily gave me five bonny bairns: two strong, healthy boys and three wee girls: Alasdair, Alec, Fiona, Mhairi and our baby... Catriona," he added, watching the initial shock in Buffy's eyes, then the assimilation and finally their path back to his, and the empathy in them.

"So... so you came here for...?" Buffy finally ventured when she found her voice.

"Ye might say t'was foreordained," Gregor told her. "The older ones were grown and either wed or attending to their chosen work, and bye and bye t'was becoming more and more apparent that Catriona was a different kind of bairn: one of whom neither we, nor our village, had e'er seen the like. She needed far more than we could gi' her back on our wee croft. And then came her ninth birthday, and Thomas Giles into our lives."

"But... I thought the Watcher's Council took potentials away from their parents if they found them... even if they were still little girls, you know, like Kendra?"

"If they find them early enough, it does happen, with consent," Giles confirmed. "Not all potentials are located or removed at a very early age, however, as you know. Still, Catriona was rather special, even at that young age, and father made concessions to that. She was seventeen when she died, after less than a year as the active Slayer. You're actually very like her: both of you headstrong, wilful, wonderful women who should have had..."

"Hush, Rupert," Emily said softly. "The past is done and our lass is at rest. Ye must look to Buffy now; ye must make certain ye both have the future the Good Lord no' saw fit to gi' our Catriona."

Giles and Buffy looked at each other for a moment, both back in that same dark place they'd visited the last time they'd faced Buffy's mortality: in the year Glory was to finally take her from him. Giles remembered it vividly. The exchange had, as always, been incredibly subdued given the fear he saw in her eyes as they spoke that day, over Watcher diaries that owned their own despairing pain; their writers almost to a man... or woman... unable to describe in detail the moment of loss, of failure to protect... or the crippling grief that followed.

Buffy's gaze shifted back to the others. "I'm sorry... a-about Catriona."

"Don't be," Gregor said softly, then smiled just as gently. "Ye've brought Rupert home. Tis more than enough, lass."

* * * * *

"Why haven't you been back before now?"

Giles looked up from checking all his boyhood drawers while Buffy absorbed the details of the room that was once a retreat for the child she could barely imagine him to have been.

"I corresponded with Emily when I travelled."

"Not too blabby, though, if they didn't even know you stayed in the States all this time... or why."

"Yes... well, it was more of a desire to know they were all right. And to let them know I was still breathing... all in the guise of keeping abreast of the state of this place. Everything to do with the running of the estate and their welfare has been taken care of by lawyers and trusts since my father died. When the time came for it to be handed to me, I was, naturally, preoccupied with my duties so I simply organized for that arrangement to continue."

"You really do love them, don't you? Sorta having trouble imagining you as 'the child' of the house, though... even if it is kinda nice." She half shrugged. "Somehow, all this time I always thought of you as being really, really alone in the world."

Giles straightened, closing a drawer still filled with his folded jumpers and scarves and gloves and smelling of lavender and camphor.

It was clear from his expression that she had it right the first time.

"It was wrong of me to stay away... but, until now I couldn't face... I couldn't face this place: the memories... the...."

Buffy struggled with a sudden wave of emotion as she watched him battle with the enormity of that failure. 'Pain', he was going to say. And in all the time they'd known each other, the one thing Giles never really acknowledged or owned up to without being pressed, was pain... of any kind. *Not that she'd really hung around long enough to hear most times, anyway*, she thought morosely. Somehow, there always seemed to be something or somewhere more important to do, or be...

She went to his side and leaned against his shoulder. "I'm sorry. For all of you: your dad, your mom, Emily and Gregor... and Catriona. All these years I thought my drama was, like, the ultimate tragedy of all time... I mean, I shut down to not have to deal with it... and now I find out you kind of did exactly the same thing, only a lot more sorta... um... privately. She shifted to circle his waist with her arms and rest her cheek against his chest. "You know, don't you, when it comes to dealing with the emotional stuff, we're both really crap?"

Giles laughed, a low rumble that shook his chest and her face. "Ever the gentle comforter, my dear," he chided.

"Sure I am. Emotionally-challenged solidarity," Buffy teased back. "I'm actually trying to be supportive-girl, here. Go me," she added in her best ditzy Buffy voice, and was pleased to hear the sound of his laughter.

They both knew she'd never been much good at the reaching out... emotionally or any other way, even when she desperately wanted to, but it didn't stop her trying when it really mattered. That courage had finally brought the two of them together, and for that he could never be sorry...

Giles' large arms closed around her and she felt a kiss dropped on her hair. "Yes, you are," he agreed, a smile still in his voice. "And it's appreciated."

It was said lightly enough, but his eyes were bright with emotion.

"That's good," she told him, "because I'm still way better at killing demons... well, fighting, punching, killing, you know the drill... than I am at the loving. We both know I sucked majorly at the whole thing, right from the start... and I really need not to suck for you, right now... And that came out really, *really* wrong..."

Giles chest shook again, a deep, short chuckle audible above her head. "Never mind," he said mildly. "I speak Buffy." She giggled into his chest. "And being here, with me, right now is rather the antithesis of 'sucking' at love. I think perhaps it's time we went back downstairs."

She straightened and looked around the room. From the aircraft models on the mantelpiece to the very-much used dartboard on the wall, the collection of bird's eggs, to the small sled in one corner, and the soccer poster on the closet door, it was very much a boy's retreat.

"What was it like when you lived in this room? No comic books, music... stereo? No TV?"

"It was the sixties, Buffy. Of course all that existed, except in those days television sets were largely confined to living rooms and I'd stopped looking at comic books by the age of ten. There was no time, no room, for such things. I followed Liverpool's soccer fortunes in the schoolyard and listened to rock music with school friends, though never at home. It wasn't tolerated... any more than fluorescent pictures or flared trousers."

Buffy eased out of his arms and went to open the closet. "So what did you do when you weren't slaving over Latin texts or studying your brains out?" A navy blue coat with wooden toggles for buttons was about the only thing hanging there, and several pairs of shoes: school, tennis, cricket boots, were neatly lined up, side by side. In the back was a soccer ball, a Stuart Surridge cricket bat, the willow obviously well oiled once upon a time, but deeply stained by numerous red smudges, a wooden tennis racquet and a shabby pair of ice-skates, along with a schoolbag and a small box of toys, filled mostly with parts of construction sets and one or two action figures, tennis balls and a battered cricket ball.

"Tell me this isn't the sum of your childhood," she said quietly.

"All right. It isn't," he said unhelpfully. "I wasn't that different to any other small boy. There were more toys, school things and such, but most were given away when I outgrew them. All my books, I took with me. The rest you see here."

Buffy turned. "But there's so little here that actually tells me anything about you. So you played tennis and cricket and you liked a soccer team." She spread her hands. "Except for the planes... and I already knew Giles junior wanted to be a pilot... what else is there? There aren't any CDs... no posters, no junk, no stupid prizes you won at carnivals and didn't want to throw out, no trophies, no photographs... not even a teddy bear..."

"I still have the photographs," he told her softly. "And since I had no time to participate actively in team sports beyond the age of ten, or go to carnivals and fairs, nor did I have the resources to buy endless musical albums... vinyl ones back then, even if I had wanted to, my childhood was commensurately uncluttered by such things." He turned then, and went to a wooden window seat. Only when he lifted the top of it, did Buffy realize it was hinged. When he turned again, he was looking down, almost forlornly, at a rather battered, but jaunty-faced, one-eyed teddy bear.

For a long moment, Buffy couldn't bring herself to break the silence. Finally, she walked up to him and touched the bear's brown corduroy waistcoat.

"What's his name?"

Giles almost smiled, but the forlorn look remained. "Edwards. Don't ask me why. I was four, apparently, when I named him."

"Edwards? Let me guess: you weren't spending much time with other kids?"

His eyebrows rose. "I was learning to read and write in several languages, to ride and to fence, among other things."

"At the age of four?" Buffy asked, alarmed. "And I thought Slayers had it rough."

"I was being prepared; though, of course, for what, I wasn't told. They knew I was gifted, and though it wasn't quite common knowledge back then, the Council had been aware for some time that the most successful way to teach languages... among other things... was right from the beginning. The basics of riding and fencing were for balance, co-ordination and physical fitness."

"Or they could have let you play soccer and catch frogs...you know: hang out like a normal little British kid, with the usual little boy running around and jumping and climbing and stuff," she said with a scowl on his behalf.

"Don't distress yourself about it." He handed her the bear. "I wasn't unhappy. A little lonely, perhaps, but I was loved and cherished... both my mother and my grandmother ensured that I never wanted for love as a child... and later..."

"Gregor and Emily," Buffy filled in, hugging Edwards to her bosom. "But you had friends at school, right?"

"Of course. And I filled my quota of chipped knees, schoolyard punch-ups, followed by notes from the Headmaster, dodgy reports and playing truant."

"You ditched school?"

He finally grinned. "If I was angry enough with my father about something, or if my mates had plans. My grades were never affected. I was always ahead with the work... my father saw to that, so I could afford to pretend I actually had the freedom to indulge my own little rebellion every now and then... until I was sent away."

"Away?"

"Boarding school... Public school education: not for the faint of heart, and rather lacking the latitude for real rebellion, I'm afraid.

Buffy looked down at Edwards. "You must have missed your mom, your grandmother?"

Giles cleared his throat. "It wasn't... ideal. My grandmother died the first year I was away." After another strained moment he smiled unexpectedly. "Emily used to send me biscuits. And Argyll socks."

"Biscuits-cookies, I get. But socks?" she asked, bemused.

He grinned. "Emily is an Argyll, herself. She used to say she could turn a heel with the best of them. Her socks, and if I remember correctly, her Fair Isle knits as well, have taken prizes."

"So, socks were good...?"

He chuckled. "Emily's woollen, hand-knitted socks? If you'd ever lived anywhere where the temperature dropped below seventy degrees for more than five minutes, you wouldn't have to ask."

Buffy made a face at him. "Maybe one day I will... with you. There's something to be said for lots and lots of snuggling weather. You and me, a big bed and a warm fire sounds about like heaven right now..."

* * * * *

Buffy followed Giles curiously through the door he'd led her to, some way down the hall from his boyhood room.

"I thought these things were only this spectacular in fairytales?"

Giles chuckled. "As you can see, they're entirely real. Times may have changed, but once they were a common part of the fashion and social mores of affluent society."

It was Buffy's turn to chuckle. "English, Giles: for the verbally challenged American, remember?"

He sighed. "In the past they were very popular with the wealthy, who were the only ones who could afford them, though I believe you can buy mass-produced replicas, nowadays."

She moved over to the huge four-poster bed with its ornate canopy and carved wooden posts, replete with gorgeous quilt and pillow covers in darker autumn tones, and laid Edwards on one of the pillows.

"At least it isn't one of those really girly ones. I'm not sure I could keep a straight face with you wallowing in lace or flowers or something," she teased.

Giles turned and surprised her by sweeping her off her feet and depositing both of them on the bed, Edwards tumbling onto the polished wooden floor in the process.

"This isn't the main guest room, but I'll have you know I can be just as manly in lace, voile, tulle, satin or even bloody flowers," he growled, and kissed her with a ferocious, red-blooded passion.

Which drew exactly the right reaction from Buffy, whose body always came alive in the presence of his very real, and no longer suppressed, power, which, combined now with the intensity of their love for each other, whipped up a potency of passion and desire she couldn't resist. The game became a session of love making of heady proportions, leaving both of them limp but content afterward, curled in each other's arms and already falling into a blissful post-passion torpor, barely aware of the temperature of the room or the fact that the weather outside was rapidly turning.

"We can't go to sleep now," Buffy pointed out blurrily. "What if Emily comes in and finds us like this?"

Giles stretched out a long arm, grasped a hand full of quilt and hauled at it, pulling the bottom half up and dragging it over them so that they made a disorganised looking pile of bodies and bedclothes in the middle of the bed.

"Then she'll just be cross that we don't know the civilized way to sleep in a bed," he yawned, drawing her even deeper into the cocoon of his arms in an unconscious retaliation against the encroaching chill.

Neither of them stirred for the next few hours, nor did they hear the tap at the door after the second hour, or see the amusement and affection in the cornflower-blue eyes that peeped in on them after they'd been gone far too long, unsure whether they were in the room or not.

When they finally stirred, Buffy declared that she was both thirsty and hungry, and made to slide out of the big bed only to shriek as the cold immediately bit into her bare legs, and when her feet touched the floor, sent chills through their soles.

"We could stay here for the night," she suggested, burrowing back under the covers and snuggling up tightly against Giles' chest.

"Or we could go back to our room, where our things are and our made-up bed is waiting... probably with the electric blanket switched on..."

"Okay," she said reluctantly, then paused. "You go first. I'll stay here while you get dressed and then you can hand me my stuff..."

Giles snorted. "I see... I'm to freeze my arse... and other parts... off to fetch your things so you can get dressed without setting one bare toe out of the warm bed?"

She wriggled up to eye level and kissed his nose. "Uh-huh," she confirmed and grinned mischievously at him.

He was lost. When she looked at him like that, he always was.

Buffy watched him slide out, enjoying, as always, the sight of his long legs and incredibly cute butt, despite his swiftly indrawn breath and muttered epithet as his feet touched the floor. Within moments he'd pulled on his shirt, gathered up all their clothes and shoes and thrown them on the bed before sitting down again so that he could lift his half-frozen feet off the floor.

He was amused by her antics, trying to dress under the covers while he steadily clothed himself and pulled on his socks and shoes. When she emerged again, tousled and rosy, he suddenly felt very, very old.

Her brow furrowed when she saw his face go from tenderness and amusement to very real consternation and sadness.

"Hey... talk to me," she said softly.

He shook his head. "Us... You and I... it's ludicrous for someone as young and alive as you are to saddle yourself with someone like me. No matter how much I try, there are times I can't help feeling like a selfish, possibly dirty, old man..."

The cold forgotten, Buffy crawled across the bed and put her arms around his neck, resting her chin on top of his head.

"You think Gregor was a dirty old man?"

"Hmm... no, of course not... but it was a different era... Women were..."

"They were what...?" She demanded dryly. "Smarter, stronger...?"

He sighed. "Emily at sixteen was probably older and more emotionally mature than you are now, or than Dawn, or even Willow, will probably be at forty."

Buffy's eyes widened a little and she sat back to look at his face. "Was she really married at sixteen? That would mean they've been married almost sixty years!"

Giles looked thoughtful for a moment then shook his head. "I believe Emily was eighteen and Gregor forty odd when they were married. He'd lost a fianc�e to diphtheria when he was thirty and thought never to find true love again."

"Wow... he sure made a lot of babies for an old guy," she teased.

"As did Emily... all by the age of thirty, including the twins just after their first, Fiona," he mused. "Highland women had to be tough just to survive their confinements. There were no clinics or hospitals around the corner, no day care for the little ones or the ubiquitous drugstores your countrymen seem to take for granted, to run to for any and every emergency, or even day-to-day items. Five children, more than one in nappies at times, without medical help, power or mains water would probably traumatise even the best modern mother..."

"Slaying is looking better by the second," Buffy agreed, then ran a finger down the crease in his forehead and across his brow to the laughter lines at the corner of his right eye. "Except... did you ever think about having little Gileses running around?"

His eyes grew distant. "Not when I was younger. The last thing I wanted to do was saddle an heir with the kind of inheritance I'd have been required to pass on to them. Later, however..."

Buffy's large, blue-grey eyes searched his face. "You would have made a great father... in a stuffy British kind of way," she said tenderly.

The corner of his mouth lifted and he chuckled softly. "No, I wouldn't," he said ruefully. I'd have been as appalling as any father whose occupation continually takes priority over the needs and welfare of their own children."

The wide eyes lost their sparkle. "I'm the reason you don't have a family of your own? But your father..."

His glaze flicked up to hers, his expression unreadable. "And we know how well that turned out..."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Do we? You only remember how much your dad wasn't there for you, but were you listening to Gregor and Emily tonight? Did you hear how much he adored your mother... and you? It's like her death changed everything..."

Giles' eyes grew very bright. "My mother deserved better than to spend her life standing and waiting..."

"But did she?" Buffy persisted. "Do you remember her being unhappy?"

He frowned. "Not when she was with me, but there were times when she was terribly, terribly sad, particularly when he was off to the Council again or on the nights when he was out training Catriona..."

"I'd be 'terribly, terribly' sad too, if my honey was out spending his all time with a nubile young teenager instead of home with me." She caressed his clenched jaw. "And I'd miss him horribly if he went off without me for days at a time. "I don't suppose you remember what she was like when he came home? Mad? Cool and unresponsive?"

After a beat he finally smiled, then shook his head. "Not at all. She seemed to come alive whenever he was around. My father was not a terribly demonstrative man, but mother used to be able to make him smile, even laugh... and if he thought no one was around, he'd even manage a comforting pat or small, soothing circles on her back if she was upset or worried about something."

It didn't seem like very much to Buffy, but Giles spoke in tones that were almost awed. Giles senior must have been even stuffier than Rupert used to be.

* * * * *

When they reached the room Emily had told him was theirs, Buffy leaned against Giles and sighed with contentment, then grew very quiet. There was another big bed, crisp white linen, lots of pillows and a patchwork quilt, heavy burgundy drapes and a small sitting area near the window. This room was carpeted instead of the polished floorboards of the other one, and someone had put fresh flowers... peony roses... in the vase on the small table.

A fire crackled in the old fireplace, and the bedroom, lit only by lamplight and the glow of the fire, was made even more intimate by the flicker of the shadows of the flames dancing on the walls and the ceiling. Even the sound of the wind whistling through the trees outside and a steady thrum of rain on the window only served to make it even cosier.

"It's not real, is it?" She finally whispered, ending the moved silence.

"Buffy?"

"All of this... it's... it's like one of those dreams where everything is too perfect... and then you wake up, and all of the bad stuff is still there..."

"Except you're not dreaming, love," he said gently.

"Yeah, I am," she said quietly, touching noses with Edwards. "This is a dream. Soon I'll wake up and I'll be back in Sunnydale."

Giles turned her slowly and waited for her eyes to find his above the bear's worn head.

"*We'll* be back in Sunnydale. Together. And just as awake as we are right now."

It was a long moment before she smiled slowly. "Reminds me of that song... back when we were all doing Broadway auditions thanks to Xander's little spell."

His brow furrowed for a moment then his expression cleared. "It has always been our greatest strength... being together. That hasn't changed.

"I'm kinda starting to get that, even if I still can't really believe... you know: that there's actually an 'us' now... and that it's so good and so right. I'm sorta used to everything being wrong... especially me."

He smiled then, and touched her face with great tenderness..

Edwards fell to the floor, forgotten. Buffy put her arms around Giles' neck, curled her legs around his waist as his arms enveloped and lifted her, then kissed him thoroughly. She finished with another kiss on the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry I got moody. It's just... it's like a dream here... like we belong... which is ridiculous when you think about it... I mean, Buffy and antiques is kind of like bubblegum and spinach..." She paused and made a revolted face. "I can't believe I said that."

He chuckled. "Yes, well, it makes the point rather vividly." He brushed her lips with his again. "But I suspect that you haven't really known the real you for a very long time." He made a laboured noise and moved to the bedside.

"What's the matter, big guy? Feeling the strain?" she teased.

"Not all of us are fortunate enough to be blessed with mystical strength," he pointed out stuffily.

"True... So I should stop mocking your manliness now...? Ahhh!"

Giles had waited until she loosened her grip on his neck and then released her without warning, so that she fell backwards onto the big bed.

"You!" she muttered, untangling her arms and legs and sitting up. "I bet you feel all Neanderthal and Alpha male, now."

He grinned dangerously. "Absolutely," he agreed and within the blink of an eye had her stretched out and pinned to the bed, crushing her lips with his. Moments later he raised his head and looked down into her flushed face and flashing eyes. "I may not be able to match you muscle for muscle, but you will never be in doubt as to how much I love you." He moved slightly to rest his groin against hers. "Or how much of a man I happen to be."

Buffy moved suggestively beneath him. "Mm... there's something to be said for Cave Giles..." She flipped him over swiftly and neatly, despite their size differential, and settled herself, straddling his hips and moving provocatively, before grinning equally dangerously. "Like the way he turns Cave Buffy on."

He slid his hands up her sides and chuckled. "There's also something to be said for Cave Buffy," he agreed, then grasped his chance and flipped her back over, this time rolling to his side and drawing her into his arms.

"But, all things considered, I think I like sentimental, tender Buffy most of all," he told her softly.

A look passed between them, a knowing, understanding look, that spoke volumes about how strong... and how precious their new relationship was.

* * * * *

The kitchen was warm and inviting and full of wonderful smells when they finally wandered sheepishly downstairs in the morning. Emily looked up from the saucepan she was tending to grin at both of them.

"Good mornin'to ye. Breakfast won't be long."

Giles looked around. "Gregor outside?"

"Aye. He'll be here momentarily. The wood-box was almost empty."

But the minutes ticked away. The porridge was cooked and removed from the heat, the toast done to golden perfection and the eggs and bacon sizzling on a low heat, but Gregor still hadn't returned. Giles watched Em' cast a second and third furtive glance toward the door, before clearing his throat and standing up.

"I'll just go and give Gregor a hand, shall I? He's probably found another broody hen with a set that needs rescuing, or something else that needs mending."

Emily grinned. "Ye remember well," she told him fondly and nodded.

Giles turned to Buffy. "Won't be long."

"Glad to hear it, but excuse me if I stay here where it's both warm and dry... not to mention the breakfast-y goodness..."

He chuckled. "Save some for us."

It was cold outside, and damp. It had obviously rained on and off during the night, but though the sky was grey and cheerless, the rain was long gone. Giles headed for the place firewood had been stacked for generations, behind the stables. Gregor wasn't there, but the axe was. The axe-head had been in the family since before his time and he knew Gregor wouldn't have left it lying in the grass near the woodpile, nor in such poor repair, without good reason.

Inside the stables, he found the big skewbald stallion he'd sent down the last time he went back to the US, in the end stall. It snorted and stomped, then blew out a long breath before pausing. As Giles turned away, it whickered softly. He turned back and walked the several paces to the stall to stroke the big horse's nose.

"Sorry Otto," he said softly. "I know I neglect you shamefully, but at least you get to come back here when I can't be with you. You wouldn't happen to have seen Gregor anywhere, would you?"

The stallion snorted again and mouthed his hair.

"Yes, all right," Giles chuckled and pushed him away. "I promise I'll come and see you later... with carrots next time."

A search of the stables was fruitless. Giles scoured every inch of the house-yard, the barn and the outhouses. Something made him reluctant to call out the older man's name, but alarm was beginning to manifest itself in the pit of his stomach, nevertheless. When he walked through the back door alone, the tension in the kitchen was palpable.

"He can't be far away. If he was hurt, I'd have found him." Even to Giles' ears it sounded feeble. "I'm going to wash up and if he hasn't come in by then, I'll take Otto, and Buffy can re-check everywhere I've already been. Between us we should be able to cover the entire estate by this after..."

The back door rattled, then swung open, two arms wrapped around a very large load of kindling and firewood preceding the rest of Gregor into the room.

"There ye are, man. And everyone fretting about where ye were," Emily scolded, turning away to tend her nearly-spoiled breakfast, so that Buffy only caught a glimpse of the overwhelming relief on the old face.

"And why would ye be worryin' ye heads about me? I was only out yonder, down in the wood cellar trying to find something dry enough to burn," he said gruffly, making a loud clatter as he filled the kindling bucket and dumped the heavier timber in the big oak wood-box in the corner.

"Rupert went looking for you. You were gone a long time and he couldn't find you anywhere," Buffy explained.

"Ah," he nodded. "Normally I don't have to bother with the cellar, but the guttering on the back of the stable needs replacing. All of the firewood outside is too damp from the leaks to burn."

Giles was watching the old man, his eyes slightly narrowed, but he just nodded. "The steps down to the cellar are rather steep. I daresay if the gutter's leaking, there's probably water in there too."

Gregor nodded. "Aye, but only on one side. There's a lad in the village who'll come and bring out the wet logs to air. He cleaned the stables and the drop-boards in the henhouse and stacked wood in the cellar for Emily for years, for a bit o' pocket money. He's no' been around for a long while. It's about time he was up here again, now that yon beastie is back. I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Come on all of ye, now. Breakfast, before it's completely spoiled," Emily ordered, bustling across to the big table with the salver of salvaged bacon and newly cooked eggs before going back for the toast rack and the preserves to add to the fresh butter and marmalade already there.

The meal was a success. Everyone was hungrier than they thought as the anxiety wore off and stomachs remembered they hadn't yet been fed. They all gradually relaxed, Gregor teasing Buffy about her very modest plate and Emily recounting cute but embarrassing stories from Giles' babyhood about his introduction to certain foods and his predilection for 'hands on' exploration of the texture and content of each bowl.

Buffy and Giles passed the day exploring the house and looking at family photographs, Giles answering endless questions about his family history and his own childhood in particular, before suggesting they take Otto some carrots in the hope that it would create a successful diversion. It worked. Otto's reputation had apparently preceded him thanks to Emily, and Buffy wanted to meet her Watcher's 'noble steed'.

Otto, for his part, didn't care about anything except the juicy carrots borne by the Slayer. In many ways Giles regretted ever having purchased him. The stallion had been little more than a green, barely schooled colt when he chose him, less than twelve months before he was notified that he was being sent to California. No one was bidding on the skewbald colt that hadn't yet been gelded, and looked like it needed to grow into its head and its dinner plate hooves. Giles' practised eye had been able to see that the animal couldn't be faulted in its confirmation and he knew the stable where it had been schooled and saddle-broken. When the notification came of his Sunnydale assignment, it was with regret that Giles had handed the big horse's training back to the stable's manager, Lucy Wainwright, who'd subsequently achieved only mixed success at gymkhanas and eventing, with him, but had done a splendid job to ensure that Otto would not want for exercise or manners.

He watched the handsome, now beautifully proportioned, head shake whimsically at Buffy before snorting and blowing chaff and carrot spit all over her, and smiled as she objected strenuously and proceeded to tell the nonplussed animal so in no uncertain terms. In the entire time he was in California, he'd only managed to get home twice... both times while Buffy was visiting her father in Los Angeles, and both times he'd been able to renew acquaintance with Otto, but it was only since he'd left her for her own good that he'd really found his riding legs again... and gotten to know the animal both as a companion and a mount.

Buffy brushed the chaff and bits of carrot from her shoulder. "Your horsy needs to brush up on his manners." She looked around the stable. "Where exactly is this cellar Gregor was talking about?"

It took Giles a little by surprise, but mostly because he was thinking about the same thing himself... investigating the cellar, that was. With a last rub of the stallion's powerful neck, Giles led the way out to a trap door, set in the floor of the feed room at the other end of the stable.

"Well that's weird," Buffy said almost immediately, toeing greying straw off the wooden door, dusty grains of wheat and oats, cobwebs and dirt flicking in all directions.

Giles agreed, pulling back the rusty hasp and hauling the door open so they could climb down, both faltering when they found one of the steps broken in the murky darkness.

The air was musty and rank to the point of being offensive, and it took minutes for Giles to feel for and eventually find the old pull-cord for the light.

When it clicked, but didn't light up the inky darkness, obviously due to a blown bulb, Giles said nothing more than 'out' in an ominous voice.

Back in the chilled air, they looked at each other.

"Nobody's been down there for very long time, huh?" she asked quietly.

Giles shook his head, thinking again of the axe. "It doesn't make sense."

"There has to be a reason why he'd lie."

"He wouldn't. That's why it makes no sense. Something's wrong."

"Something demon-y or mystical? I'm not sensing anything."

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't want to call him a liar in front of Em', nor do I want to hurt his feelings by more or less accusing him of something when I don't know what the hell's going on. If it was a matter of age... if he simply forgot where he got the firewood from, that would solve everything, but you saw the wood outside. He was right, it would never burn in its current state. And he obviously hasn't been down to the cellar."

"Maybe since you last visited, Gregor or this other guy he was talking about made other stores of firewood around the place?" Buffy looked back at the entrance to the basement. "Y'know... so Gregor wouldn't have to go up and down that rickety old ladder when the weather was bad. Somebody should have replaced those middle rungs a long time ago..."

* * * * *

"Where's Gregor?" Giles asked when they clambered back into the kitchen.

Buffy headed straight for the warmth of the Aga.

"Every noontime he takes a nap. He'll be up again in no time," Emily told them as she patiently peeled and sliced apples for that night's pudding.

Buffy wondered if she should offer to help. "Are there any spare light bulbs?"

Emily looked up at her and smiled. "Aye. Rupert, show her where the cupboard is."

Giles was obviously supposed to know which cupboard, confirmed when he headed off without further questions.

Buffy peered into what looked like a janitor's closet, but which Giles was calling 'the cleaning cupboard.' It certainly was filled with brooms, mop, dustpans, cleaning products, and a shelf with candles, lanterns, matches, fuse wire, a couple of types of glue and several light bulbs.

Giles picked out a regular-sized one. "I don't think there's going to be much to find down there."

Buffy shrugged. "Yeah, I know... I just hate loose ends...plus what if Gregor does want to go down there for firewood one day? He could trip over a log, or a stump... or something scary in the dark..."

Giles looked at her speculatively. "You're concerned that perhaps someone or something is hiding down there? I hardly think a Hellmouth or any other portal would bother to open up in my coal cellar."

"Yeah, well, stranger things have happened," she pointed out, and both of them went quiet for a few moments. Much stranger things...

The cellar didn't smell any better the second time, but Giles was a lot faster finding the light fitting, using a flashlight from the house this time. When he was done, he pulled the cord and the dampish room was revealed: cobwebs, remnants of coal, piles of wood that had laid on the dirt floor far too long, toadstools growing in between piled up stacks of logs and kindling, mildew and filth covering almost everything. And...

Buffy made a distressed noise. Giles turned and looked down, then immediately pulled her close.

A few feet from the ladder, the remains of someone dressed in a raincoat and a sou'wester lay sprawled on the floor, timber pieces scattered before them. Remains, because as far as Giles could tell, they'd laid there for a very long time, untouched. He released Buffy for a moment to stoop down and slide his fingers into one mildewed pocket, and then another.

"Giles," Buffy whispered tremulously. "He's wearing the same clothes as..."

He straightened and looked at the two things he'd pulled from the decaying coat. One was a pocket watch, its face smashed so that it was almost impossible to see through the fractured glass. The other was a card, damp and water damaged, but enough remained for them to see that it was for a doctor's appointment. A cardiologist.

"Giles... the date..."

"I know. We... we should get back to the house."

"But..."

"There isn't anything we can do here now," he said sternly and turned her to the ladder.

When they were both topside, he closed the door and the hasp.

"Giles?"

But Giles was staring at the door, every inch of him rigid with unspoken grief. Buffy could feel it radiating off him, and yet he was as still as a statue, his face set in stone.

Then her eyes widened. "A half dozen... he said 'a half dozen too long'... that's too spooky. It's him... isn't it?"

Giles finally looked up. "A half dozen?"

Buffy nodded. "He was telling me about the age difference... with him and Emily. He said..." She closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly, though the hot tears crowding her eyes weren't helping. "H-he said: 'ninety-something... six... I think... winters, I've seen. About half dozen too many by these old bones, but for as long as my Emily...' something... what's Scottish for 'is here' or 'stays', or 'hasn't gone yet' or like that?"

Giles looked puzzled for a moment, then got it. "Oh. 'Bides'?"

"That's it! '...for as long as my Emily bides, so will I, God... no... the Good Lord, willing...'"

They stared at each other.

"What are we going to do?"

Giles seemed to be a long way away. "There are recorded cases of people who don't realize they're dead... who simply... continue... until they do. Oftentimes, however, they don't realize they're not interacting with the world around them, so much as reacting to it from a distance. There are also cases of people who made a deliberate choice to stay. Generally though, they have to learn to focus enough to be seen, to interact physically to a point, which means they have to be aware of their circumstances from the outset..."

Moisture flicked from Buffy's lashes. "Stay... bide... he's staying until it's Emily's time?"

Green eyes, too bright, stared back at her. After several long moments, Giles nodded slowly.

* * * * *

"There ye are at last... and these scones just out of the oven. Emily lifted open a cloth sitting in a basket on the table. Next to it were glass dishes of blackberry jam and strawberry conserve, along with a jug of clotted cream and a china dish with fresh butter.

Buffy and Giles resisted the temptation to look at each other, instead sitting down as they were bid, and allowing Emily to bring cups and saucers and then the teapot she'd filled with the big old kettle from the Aga.

"Where is Gregor?" Giles asked, splitting and buttering a hot, fluffy scone and mechanically adding jam and cream before setting it, uneaten, on his plate.

"Laying the fires for the evening," Emily told him as she came back to the table, a basket of fresh peas and a saucepan in her arms. As Giles formulated his next question, she began shelling them.

"Has he been quite well? No health problems?"

Emily looked up at Giles and smiled at him, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement. "Gregor? No' a one. He'll outlive me yet," she chuckled.

Buffy spilled tea on the cloth and put her cup down quickly, looking down and pretending to concentrate on mopping the spill with the handkerchief Giles had immediately handed her. Moments later she pushed back her chair and fled.

"Something ails the lassie?"

Giles tried to focus. "Uh... yes, I'm afraid, well... ladies'... um..."

"Ah," Emily winked. "Enough said."

He exhaled long, but silently, giving thanks for the universality of female... problems.

* * * * *

Buffy wandered into the living room, lost in her thoughts and unheeding of the telltale moisture in her eyes, only to come face to face with Gregor, coming from the other direction and dusting soot off his hands.

"We've been looking everywhere for you! You had everyone worried," she teased, to cover her unsettled emotions.

"Pish," he growled. "I'll no' go anywhere without Emily. Such a stramashin' over so little."

"Pish, yourself," she retorted. "People care about you... and besides, breakfast was getting cold."

The craggy old face relaxed into a grin. "Ye'll keep Rupert on his toes. So many years we've missed, since we said goodbye to the boy. And now ye've brought the man back to us... so much like his father, save for his mother's eyes and his mother's heart."

"You can tell all that just from seeing him again?"

Gregor's smile widened. "I've loved that laddie like he were my own since he was a wee boy... his face holds no secrets from me."

They were interrupted by Giles' voice calling Buffy from his father's old sanctum. Gregor motioned to her to go.

The room looked almost like a small cross-section of Giles' old library. The combination of dark timber and row upon row of books, scattered artefacts on various tables and shelves, and the sense of great peace and quiet, gave Buffy a painful stab of d�j� vu. Giles was standing by the fireplace, next to its great heavy mantle, dark as ebony, with an antique clock in the centre of it. He looked a little shaken.

"Something wrong?"

He opened his mouth, but the sound didn't come for several more moments.

"I called the Cardiologist on that appointment card. Fortunately, they keep excellent records. That appointment was definitely for Gregor. He'd been short of breath for a while, and having small episodes. Emily had forced him to see his own doctor, who'd recommended the specialist."

Buffy's head tilted to one side. "How did you get them to tell you confidential patient details like that?"

Giles cleared his throat. "I told the receptionist I was their son, Keith, and I um..." His eyes wandered back to the big oak desk and the mortar and pestle in the centre of it, a small curl of smoke still winding up from its contents.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "So, I'm guessing he never made it to a second appointment?"

Giles nodded tightly.

"S-should we... I mean... do we need to call the police about the... you know... in the cellar?"

He rubbed a hand over his distressed features. "Lord, I don't know. If it is Gregor, moving him might disturb whatever convergence of events has allowed him to remain here for so long with Emily... and I'm not sure I can do that to her..."

"But if it isn't..."

Giles nodded. "Then someone's been missing for a very long time. I think it's time we talked to the boy who comes here to do chores."

* * * * *

Gilbert Crouch was neither a boy, nor was he available to talk to. It turned out that Gregor's 'lad' from the village was a forty-three year old man, a simpleton who lived with his mother, and who'd done chores for Emily and Gregor since he was in his twenties. Nobody had seen him for almost a year.

When Giles had apologised gently to Gilbert's still obviously heart-broken mother and the door had closed, they turned to each other, both pale and a little shaken.

Then Buffy's eyes widened, first startled, then filling with warmth. "Giles... it's not Gregor! I don't know what's going on... but I'll bet you anything-"

"That it's Gilbert," Giles finished, looking as though a great weight had just lifted from his shoulders. "But it doesn't explain where Gregor was, or why he lied about the cellar..."

Buffy frowned. "And there's that card in his, I mean Gilbert's, pocket, too."

Giles grasped the back of his neck with a harried hand. "He was probably using one of Gregor's macks. We all leave things in coat pockets. We must report the remains. I don't know how I let myself get so distracted by such fanciful theories..."

"Yeah, we do," Buffy agreed. "And considering how tame ghosts are in comparison with our regular day, uh, night job, I wouldn't worry too much about 'fanciful' theories if I were you," she added, smiling at last.

Giles smiled back, then frowned again. "On second thoughts, we still don't know where Gregor is disappearing to. I think perhaps we might beg Gilbert's forgiveness and ask him to wait just a little longer before he goes home..."

* * * * *

Giles and Buffy came down to breakfast early the next morning, helping Emily to start the porridge and slice the bacon and the bread.

When she was done setting out the plates, bowls and cutlery, Buffy looked to Giles, who'd just finished wiping the bacon-slicer and was about to cover it again. He turned to Emily.

"We're going to go down to the henhouse while we're waiting for Gregor to come to breakfast, Em'. Buffy would like to see the bantams 'in the flesh' as it were. Having almost no experience of farm animals, she's rather intrigued by the idea of 'bonsai chickens'," he chuckled.

"Bonsai chickens?" Buffy drawled as they crossed the house yard.

Giles rolled his eyes. "I wanted to sound convincing. I've always found it very difficult to lie, t-to deceive Emily. I thought 'bonsai chickens' actually sounded more than ridiculous enough for your unique way of... labelling things," he added dryly.

Buffy could tell he was silently laughing at her. but ignored him. "So where do you think he went? I can't hear any wood being split and I haven't heard any movem... wait..." She turned.

Giles followed her down to the stream, curious in the extreme. He knew her hearing was well beyond his, but he still couldn't hear anything. When Buffy halted it was behind a thicket of May bush, blackberry and bramble. She signalled to him to go softly.

When they peeked through the only gap in the mass of vegetation, Giles could see why... except he wasn't thinking about any of that any more.

He wasn't thinking about anything, except the old man sitting on his mother's old grotto seat. When he was a small boy, he'd dubbed it 'The Wishing Stool'. The white-painted wrought iron garden chair was designed for two, and back then he'd spent many hours there with his mother on warm summer days, listening as she read him the classics... original versions of tales later butchered by the media to cater to modern sensibilities and marketing needs. He'd loved every moment of that time.

"Giles, who...?"

He put a hand on her shoulder. He was still coming to terms with what he was seeing. He barely remembered the slim, quicksilver figure, her short, dark hair so full of body, and glossy as a raven's wing, astonishing sky blue eyes, decadently long lashes and a mouth that could pout with the best of them... even Buffy. Gregor, predictably, was full of life, smiling and talking animatedly, chuckling every now and then.

"Giles?"

But Giles was taking Buffy's hand and leading her away. When they were back near the woodpile, they finally stopped.

"At least now we know where he disappears to...but why does he have to lie about it? Who is she, Rupert?"

Giles looked at her, his face still pale and his eyes filled with deep emotion. "It's Catriona," he said simply.

Buffy's eyes went like saucers. "That was...? But... so Gregor's definitely-maybe-not dead... but he talks to dead people...? And he has a dead people in his cellar... but he's really not a ghost?" she babbled, Willow-like.

A divot formed in Giles' brow. "Essentially, yes, I believe so. It's Catriona, as she was at the time of her death. She cannot *be*... therefore it has to be either an apparition of her... or some kind of cruel deception."

Long years of experience with cruel deception made them look at each other in a moment of shared bleakness, then Buffy seemed to gather herself.

"Then you have to go over there. Introduce yourself. If it's really Catriona, ghost or not, she'll be pleased to see you. If it's a trick... a... a vampire..." She stopped and frowned, concentrating. "Nope. Not a vampire. But maybe a demon, or some kind of shape-shifter. If it is, they're gonna scram but fast, right?"

Giles looked grim. "In theory, yes. There is also the possibility I could be putting Gregor in danger... not to mention embarrassing him terribly."

"Giles, at this point it's our only option. If it is something crappy that's somehow getting under my radar, we can't just let it keep taking advantage of him... I mean, he's already lying for it."

"I think he would lie anyway. Given his age, he may even suspect that it cannot be real and is afraid that if he told anyone, not only would she stop coming, but he might ultimately be taken away from here, or even from Emily, for his own good."

Buffy scowled. "They'd have to go through me first." She touched his arm. "Look, you have to. It'll be okay. I'd feel it if she was a vamp, and what would a demon want with a ninety year old guy?"

After a long moment he nodded, and Buffy followed him back to the thicket, watching as he stepped through.

The two heads, bowed close in conversation, immediately lifted.

"S-sorry to interrupt," Giles said gently, looking at Gregor but aware of Catriona's startled look. "We couldn't find you." He let his gaze move back to the girl, who was now looking at him through eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"Rupert," she said softly, her gentle Scots brogue softening the word even more. "Poor Rupert."

Giles stared into the blue eyes. And then he knew; knew somehow that she *knew*... all of it... all of... him. "Who-who are you?"

She looked at her father and smiled reassuringly, then rose and walked toward Giles.

Buffy considered getting between them but restrained herself.

Catriona stopped just inches away and half smiled, but it died on her lips. "Leaving... seemed so wrong," she said, a faraway look in her eyes. "Thomas was so terribly unhappy... so heartbreakingly lonely..." She looked to Gregor again. "And then there wasn't a way to leave anymore..."

The old man nodded. "When Catriona chose to stay here for your father, a door closed and in all these years it hasn't opened again... not even when he died and moved on, himself."

"Why don't ye ask the lassie to come forward?" Catriona suggested, and was amused when Giles' emotionally charged expression was punctuated by two eyebrows flying up into his hairline.

Almost reluctantly, he stretched a hand backward, beckoning Buffy to him. She eased herself gingerly through the thicket and moved to his side, both of them watched by the young Scotswoman.

"Too much... there's been too much upon both of ye. Make the joy last, because it's no' done with ye yet," she said, her tone as heavy as her heart.

They looked at each other, this time with little surprise. It was no news to either of them that there would always be more... that they would never be allowed to rest.

Buffy turned back to her. "We kinda figured that out a long time ago. It's in the job description... death, mayhem, apocalypses... more death. Thing is, it doesn't matter; that's what we've learned. As long as we're there together, we'll take the good, the bad and the suckage as it comes."

Catriona smiled slowly. "Then it bids fair for both of ye." Her gaze flicked to Giles. "Now it's time to take Buffy to see the hens."

Irresistibly, Buffy and Giles looked at each other again, but when they looked back Catriona was gone... and so was Gregor. They both called out, then checked the surrounding bushes before sprinting up to the main yard.

* * * * *

Gregor was crossing the open ground with an arm load of split kindling and the day's firewood.

When they reached him, Giles was blowing hard and Buffy was flushed and a little windblown.

"How did you get up here so quickly... where did the wood come from? Where... where were you?" Giles puffed.

Gregor looked at his load, and then from one to the other as though they were children.

"Fetching firewood from the coal cellar. Are ye no' a wee bit old to be playing running games?" he teased.

"But... ten minutes ago we were talking to you down by the..."

"We were down at the wishing stool," Giles cut across Buffy smoothly.

Gregor grinned. "Aye, and up to no good, I'll wager, the pair o' ye."

They both watched the old, proud back as he made his way slowly across the yard to the kitchen.

"Okay, where's the Twilight Zone music?" Buffy growled. "This is weird, even for us."

"The coal cellar," was Giles' only reply.

Buffy followed him to the hatch door but almost collided with his back when he stopped suddenly just inside the feed room entrance. When she straightened, Catriona was there again.

"Dinna fash, Rupert. He keeps me company every day for a wee while, and then I send him back with the firewood. He won't remember until the morrow, when we meet again.

"'Iona, how is it you can't leave? You surely earned the right to rest... to peace?" Giles asked her grimly.

"I had a choice," she said quietly. "Go when it was my time, with all blessings, or stay to help Thomas... and be condemned to remain here for eternity. Eternity is such a long time, Rupert. Don't begrudge me the small respite, the small dispensation given me to save my father. He loves our time together, and it allows me to do what must be done to keep him from his fate in the coal cellar. He wants to stay for his Emily. They need each other more than they need to live. He knows that if he leaves, she will slip away before her time, for the want of him."

"I-is Gregor a... y'know... too, like you?" Buffy asked suddenly.

Catriona laughed, a pure, clear sound of real merriment, and shook her head. "'Tis true that if my Da were taken he'd surely stay for my mother, just as I did," her eyes flicked to Giles, "for your father. But Gregor McKenzie is so alive, of *such* true stock that he'd surely live to a great age, if not for the coal cellar."

"You get the wood for him," Buffy said suddenly. "But..."

Giles' eyes widened as he put it together. "Catriona... the body in the cellar... the missing rungs, the blown light?"

She nodded. "If I were not here fetchin' the wood for him, so that he doesna fall, Da would have joined me long ago. His old bones would snap like twigs in such a fall. I am sorry about Gilbert Crouch, but he died swiftly. His puir heart failed him on the steps, in the dark. If it's any consolation, he loved my parents very much, and before he... before he went on, he gave his blessing."

"His blessing? You mean he said it was okay to leave him down there like that maybe for years and years?" Buffy squeaked.

"For the sake of my parents... his dear friends... he did. He had no wish be discovered at the cost of another life."

"Then," Giles cleared his throat, "now that we have discovered him and he can be removed and everything put right so that your father won't be in danger of an accident any more, there's no reason to keep his remains from his family any longer?"

Catriona nodded. "He will be pleased for their sakes."

"Um... problem," Buffy interrupted. "What are we going to do about Gregor? He thinks he's been going down to the cellar for wood for years, not to mention telling Emily that he was... going, I mean."

The dark haired slayer smiled serenely. "Leave it to me. From this point onwards, they'll both think the door's been seized until Rupert forced it open, and that Da hasn't been down there since before everyone thought he'd taken a turn."

"Why did no one look here for Gilbert when it was realized that he was missing?" Giles asked quietly.

"They would have asked my mother. But there was no reason to think he was still here. There was no way to know his heart would fail. He used to come and go at will, but he always knocked at the kitchen door first and asked if my mother wanted anything. That day, of all days, she was at the hospital sitting wi' her man whilst he fussed about being stuck in hospital and being endlessly poked and prodded."

"The specialist appointment," Buffy said suddenly .

Catriona nodded. "He took ill... and they thought it was his heart."

"So they rushed Gregor off to hospital and Gilbert took over all the outside chores?" Giles guessed.

Catriona nodded. "Only, he told me it wasn't his heart. It was pneumonia coming on. It was lucky he was such a tough one and that the antibiotics were aye powerful enough to pull him through. But it meant no one was here when Gilbert fell. It grieved Gil most that he let the door fall closed, because he knew no one would know he'd been down there or that the steps were broken, and that bless'd feed room is so shadowed, even at the best of times. No one opening the door would have seen anything but darkness."

Buffy swallowed. "So you promised to protect Gregor from falling, for as long as it took, and Gilbert said it was okay... to leave him there?"

Catriona smiled at her. "Aye, and it's been fine 'til now and all." Then her face fell. "But I don't know what I'm going to do if I canna talk to Da anymore."

"Couldn't you talk to your parents anyway?"

The young Scot shrugged. "If it were allowed, I'd have warned Da long ago, and I would have been talking to my mother too, this long while. I have tried many times, but she canna see or hear me. It's more than odd that you both can see me now. Unless of course either of you has died..." she added doubtfully.

Giles and Buffy looked at each other.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Well I know I died... drowning, swan-diving... take your pick. When did you...?"

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I... um... after that Post creature tried to bash my brains out... on the way to the hospital. The poor paramedics had their hands full. I believe they revived me two or three times."

She stared back at him, white as a sheet. There had been no hint of the extent of that particular drama, even after the glove had been recovered and Mrs. Post dealt with. Giles had returned to school, battered, bruised, but not letting on that anything was worse than any of the other times he'd been bashed on the head and knocked unconscious. As much as she wanted to pursue the revelation, she made herself focus on her fellow Slayer's fate.

"You should be allowed to go if you want to. You earned it."

The vivid blue eyes grew sad. "A bargain is a bargain. I cannot regret the time I was given both with Thomas and with Da."

"Research," Buffy muttered, then looked at Giles. "We have to research. We've got to find something... a-a loophole or something."

"What exactly is it that still holds you here, Catriona?" Giles asked quietly, dampening his Slayer's enthusiasm deliberately.

"A promise. It was my time, but I wanted to stay for Thomas. H-he said if I stayed, I would never be allowed to leave... but it was my choice."

Giles frowned. "My father said that?"

Catriona looked up at him bleakly. "No... no, not Thomas. The light. The light told me."

"The light?" Buffy asked dubiously. "You mean, like an angel or something?"

The other girl looked doubtful. "I think I would have known... if it was an Emissary of the Lord..." She shook her head. "It was an intense white point of light. When I hesitated... when I didn't move on... it came to me, while I was watching Thomas struggling to write in his diary. It told me that it knew I wanted to stay... that if that was what I chose, I could... but only if I accepted that I would never be able to leave here." Catriona's face grew hauntingly sad. "Thomas was in such pain... so alone. I couldn't go. At the time it seemed such a simple bargain, but Thomas had lost heart, no matter how much he tried to hide it from me... and when his time came it was to his Alice that he went, no thought of remaining here... not even a moment's pause..."

Giles' eyes narrowed. "You made him forget you, didn't you?"

She looked away. "He waited so long to be with her again..." she whispered.

"So... researching interfering points of light..." Buffy added hopefully and looked up at Giles. "Your dad must have had at least as many books as you've got. Plus council contacts, right? So..."

The tall Watcher and the slender spirit turned to her.

"Research what?" Catriona asked curiously.

Giles rubbed his index finger on the divot between his brows. "Um... I could venture a guess. I think perhaps Buffy suspects your benefactor of having ulterior motives for trapping you here."

"But what possible purpose would be served by keeping me here? As I am, I have nothing to offer except my company, and none have sought me out, nor have any whom I've sought out, other than my father, been able to see or hear me, until now."

"Gregor? Right. Wait... he wasn't part of the original deal, so how...?"

Catriona turned again to the fair haired Slayer. "'Tis true. Until Gilbert fell, I'd been completely alone... at least after Thomas went. Gilbert was the first soul I'd talked to since my Watcher's passing. Then, just a few weeks later, Da was going to the cellar for firewood after a storm; the first time since his release from hospital. He'd never been able to see me but I still foolishly ran out and tried to stop him anyway. I was so certain I would fail..." she whispered.

"I just wanted him to be somewhere safe... wanted him to see me... and then suddenly there we were... sitting on the wishing stool... and he could see and hear me. He was beside himself at first. He wanted to tell mother, until I told him that she wouldn't be able to see or hear me. We both knew he couldn't risk being taken away from her. They would have thought... even she might have thought... that his mind was going, but I knew he'd have to try anyway so..."

"So you modified his memory each day so he wouldn't have that burden, and allowed him to believe he was the one fetching the firewood. Is that why neither he nor, apparently, your mother, appear to know that Gilbert is missing? You did that too?"

"I'm not sure how, but I did what was necessary," Catriona confirmed.

"But you could have told him about Gilbert, instead... warned him not to go down to the cellar..." Giles pointed out quietly.

"And if I had...?" she asked hauntedly. "It would have meant he'd have to remember me... to remember my words, and he might have tried to convince my mother. He might have gotten himself taken away... might have jeopardised their entire future. I didn't know what would happen... I only knew I couldn't go back to being alone again... I couldn't."

"And now?" Buffy asked softly. "What do you think will happen if the authorities take Gilbert away and the steps are fixed?"

Catriona's eyes filled with unshed tears. "Then you'll leave. And there will be no reason for me to see Da each day... I'll be alone again."

Giles and Buffy looked at each other.

"Research," Buffy repeated. "Mean ass, burning white lights."

Giles looked at Catriona again. "Can you come up to the house with us? To the Study?"

She nodded forlornly.

It took over three hours to find any reference to any kind of manifestation that could or had represented itself as an intense point of light.

"Ballieri's Curse?" Buffy muttered, dumping the huge, dusty, leather-bound text on the table. "The picture's in American," she said whimsically, "but the rest is in Latin. Time to do your thing, Giles. And by the way, this collection is way older and way weirder than yours. Some of these books are disturbingly 'Harry Potter'. I kept waiting for one of them to try to bite me when I pulled it out."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't move his gaze from the text under the black and white representation of a glowing point of light.

"Giovanni Ballieri was the first to document the phenomenon... a sentient concentration of pure energy, likely mistaken in the past for Judeo-Christian religious icons... Angels, divine messengers, archangels, and the like..."

It was Buffy's turn to roll her eyes. "And it was in fact...?"

"An entity trapped here... in this dimension... trapped for so long that it shed its corporeal form millennia ago. It can't get back to its own dimension. Ballieri's wife died, leaving him bereft. But then she started coming to him, spending time with him, until finally she told him much the same story that Catriona has told us, including the memory loss, so Ballieri left himself notes. Through Juliana, his wife, he was able to learn more about the entity... and to find a way to send her to her rest..."

Catriona's eyes went very wide as they all looked at each other. "How?" she whispered.

Giles continued to translate the Latin text. "He became convinced that the only reason his wife couldn't leave was because... she believed she couldn't."

Buffy snorted. "The entity said so, so she made it true?"

They both looked up at the small noise Catriona made. She was looking horrified. "All this time... and I only had to...?"

Giles scanned the last few paragraphs and nodded again "I-I'm afraid so, 'Iona. If Ballieri is correct, you are free to go. And I'm afraid you aren't the only one. It would seem that the entity is amusing itself to relieve its boredom while it waits to find a way home again... convincing souls like yourself that they cannot leave and then watching to see how long it takes them to realize... regardless of their suffering or despair."

"Sounds like more than a little bit of spite as well," Buffy offered. "All those people moving on... souls leaving this dimension going on all around it.... and him... it... always left behind. Sounds a lot like petty revenge to me..."

"'If I can't go, nobody can...'" Giles mused.

"Something like that," Buffy said darkly. "I'd kick its ass... if... it had an ass. Giles, there must be some way we can stop it from doing whatever it is that it's doing.... so everyone who's stuck here can...?"

"Buffy's right," Catriona agreed vehemently. "We must do something, anything, to stop it. If it's been around for so very long, there's no telling how many poor souls it has trapped here, on this plane, with no hope, no chance..."

"It's composed of energy," Giles pointed out. "And this isn't a Hollywood movie... we aren't likely to be able to short-circuit it, or confuse it to the point where it melts down or explodes, nor is it likely to turn out to be misunderstood and simply in need of sympathy and understanding," he added dryly.

Buffy's eyebrows were raised. "And you say you don't watch television. Captain Kirk would be proud. Me, I was thinking of something more along the lines of interrupting whatever holds it all together. Willow would already have a suggestion by now... something math-y or physical... I mean physic-ish... well, scientific anyway. Will's big with the science and the math."

It was Giles' turn for raised eyebrows. "It is possible that there may be some way to affect the cohesion of the creature..."

"Yeah... and make it explode into all its tiny little bits," she said brightly. "Just like those replicant thingies in Stargate... and I really wouldn't hate having Richard Dean Anderson building me a weapon to do that either... actually having my own Thor would be kinda neat, too..."

"Buffy," Giles interrupted.

"Yo?"

"Focus," he growled.

"Oh. Well, the replicant thingies that couldn't be killed went poof when Jack's big ol' blaster stopped their energy whassis from sticking together... seemed like a plan."

Giles dragged a hand over his face. "Would that Xander was here now to sort all that out and make something remotely resembling sense out of it," he muttered then looked stunned that he was actually wishing for *Xander* to bring order to chaos.

"Very funny," Buffy snarked, but it was obvious that she was not amused. "I'm not 'science girl' here... that's Willow... but can you, or can you *not* disrupt whatever holds an energy ball together... turn it into lots of little glow worms or Christmas lights, or something equally harmless...?"

"Yes, yes, just hang on a minute while I break out my disruptor beam," he retorted, patience wearing thin.

Buffy finally subsided. "I could call Will," she proposed.

"Yes, well, I'll keep researching. If you can find out anything useful from Willow, by all means."

"Catriona, we're just going to..." Giles turned and was visibly surprised to find her gone.

"Maybe she'll come back later," Buffy proposed, but Giles didn't answer, his expression bleak.

He left briefly, muttering something about bathrooms, and Buffy went straight to the phone. She'd already memorized the international dialling codes from calling Dawn, so it didn't take long to reach Willow's number. Unfortunately, it took a little longer to get from Earth to Willow, who'd obviously been roused from blissful unconsciousness.

"Oh, hey Buffy... how's ol' Blighty?" she finally mumbled.

Buffy looked perplexed for a moment. "Giles is fine. I just need you to loan me your Super-Brain long enough to be answer-girl in the solving of a major problem."

With a barely detectable chuckle at the other end of the phone, Willow yawned a prolonged yawn and said: "No problem."

"If I want to disrupt a concentrated source of energy, how do I go about it?"

"Um... you mean like a power station, or-or maybe a Taser gun?

Buffy frowned. "No, I mean like an ancient being who shed their body a long time ago and now they're just like a concentrated ball of energy... y'know?"

"Not really," Willow replied bemusedly. "But that's a hard one, Buffy. I-If I was there, I could probably do it with magick... but...."

"Really?" Buffy squeaked happily. "You think magick would work?"

"Sure, I can do it. Why not?"

Buffy frowned. "It seems kinda... big... you really sure you're ready for something like this?"

The silence at the other end of the phone was ominous. "You still don't think I can handle anything bigger than a pencil?" Willow finally asked, the muted anger in her voice unmistakeable, if noticeably tinged by echoes of guilt and very real doubt.

"Sure I do... think... you... can do stuff bigger than a pencil, that is... witness me, for example," Buffy pointed out, in a tone devoid of humour. I'm just worried about you, Will. It's a lot to ask, that's all. I could see if Giles knows anyone here..."

Buffy was answered by a dial tone. She frowned at the phone and then hung it up slowly.

A few moments later Giles returned. "Anything?" he asked as he started working down the rows of ancient text, looking for useful books to begin his search.

"Not so much," she said glumly. "Willow wanted to do a spell."

Giles blew out an irritated breath. "I will ask some friends of mine in Devon if such a thing is possible. Willow isn't... she doesn't..."

"Yeah, my sentiments exactly," Buffy agreed unhappily, saving him from further efforts to be diplomatic. "Will and the magicks..." She shrugged. "Mucho badness. I know it drove Tara away... not to mention Dawn's arm. And how can we forget the big Buffy encore...? Not exactly warm fluffies material, either." There was a pause as the rest of his statement sank in. "You know someone magick-y in Devon... wherever that is... someone who might know how to help Catriona?"

"There's a coven. I was seeing... um... I met them several months ago, when I first came back... they're good people and as a group... quite powerful. If anyone can help magickally, they can, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Catriona's situation is..."

She sighed. "Yeah, I know... but we have to do something." Her eyes grew bright with sadness. "If Ballieri's right, there must be so many..."

Giles' expression mirrored hers. He nodded and picked up the phone.

* * * * *

"I never want to have to do that again," Buffy said wearily as they prepared for bed after an evening of not telling Emily and Gregor what was going on.

Giles didn't look up from unbuttoning his shirt. "Nor I. It felt like we were lying to them... deceiving them."

"Well, we are, kinda. But what good would it do to tell them that Catriona's here, only they can't see her or hear her and hey, don't mind us, we're working on adios-ing her permanently before that's ever gonna happen...?" She sighed heavily.

His profile was so sad, so bleak, that Buffy wished she were as smart as he was... or at least Willow... so she could come up with something spectacular to make things better for everyone. Instead she moved to his side and sat down on the bed next to him.

"I know I'm not much help... but we're doing the right thing... you're doing the right thing. They wouldn't want Catriona to suffer, any more than you do." She reached up and gently smoothed feathers of greying hair around his ear, then caressed his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "It's going to work. The woman from Devon... if you believe in her, then so do I," she said softly.

His head dropped even further. "There's... there's something you should know," he said very quietly, making the hairs on Buffy's neck prickle.

She waited.

"D-do you remember when I told you that I met someone...?"

Buffy frowned, not expecting that, of all questions. It took a few moments, but the puzzlement in her eyes finally cleared. "Right after I came back... when you came back from England. You said you almost made a friend..."

"I may..." He cleared his throat. "I may have understated the situation slightly. Caroline was... we were..."

Buffy's eyes widened but her reply wasn't what he was expecting.

"You were seeing her," she guessed, then: "my coming back messed up your life *again*?"

He shook his head. "When I came back to England... after Willow's amnesia spell... we got back together for a time. If a relationship was meant to be it would have withstood all obstacles."

Buffy forbore asking what obstacles. "And Caroline is the wiccan coming here tomorrow?"

Giles nodded. "Caro's very powerful... the most gifted of an extremely gifted group. If it can be done, she can do it. Her power extends to the most elemental forces... it's quite extraordinary."

"So do I need to be jealous of wonder-wiccan?"

Giles laughed softly in spite of himself and turned to her, his eyes gentle with tenderness and love. "What do you think?" he asked.

After a long moment, Buffy smiled. "I think I want to snuggle with the man I love."

* * * * *

Caroline was even more intimidating than Olivia wearing nothing but Giles' shirt. Buffy cast another sideways glance at the tall, willowy woman, all peace and serenity and 'olde worlde' smarts. She turned then, soft, russet hair shining like someone polished it, and beautiful eyes that couldn't decide if they were dark blue or dark green, making them even more attractive.

And on top of everything else, Caroline was nice. Buffy could tell, and it made her even more irritable. The woman was perfect for Giles... so perfect that he would probably have lived a happy and peaceful... a *long* life with her. Who knew how long she-Buffy-could give him before the ol' destiny reared its ugly head one too many times...

"Buffy?"

She jumped, realizing she'd been spoken to several times.

"Yo?" she finally managed, trying to look like she really was paying attention.

"Are we in agreement?"

"A-greement?"

Giles rolled his eyes. "Caroline has proposed that she do a summoning spell, since Catriona doesn't seem to know exactly how to call the creature. If it is brought forth, it will be up to you and I to occupy it until Caroline can do the spell to cast it into another dimension."

Buffy looked confused again. "I thought we were going to 'splode it, Lucy?"

Again Giles looked stern, but Buffy could tell he was trying not to laugh. He'd watched enough late-night television in the States after she started college to get the pop-culture reference immediately.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid there are no ''sploding' spells for this situation. Science fiction is full of wonderful concepts that remain solely the domain of human imagination."

"Wow... did all that just come out of your mouth?" she teased. "You sound like a documentary narrator."

Giles went stuffy librarian for a moment. "*Buffy!*" he growled.

Caroline cleared her throat, amused by the banter, but wanting to get on with the preparations.

"The Housekeeper and her husband... they've gone?"

Giles nodded. "I dropped them in town this morning. Emily is shopping and Gregor is getting a haircut."

"Good. They're better off as far away as possible. I want to give this thing as few weapons as I can to use against us. As soon as it realizes it's under attack, we lose our advantage. And from what you've said we have no way of knowing exactly how powerful it is. Though something that would indulge in the kind of petty spite you've described... not to mention something stuck here for this long without either searching out a solution or finding something better to do with its time... maybe isn't that powerful after all... or maybe just not that bright, if we're really lucky."

"Wow, pessimism and Pollyanna all in the same sentence... es," Buffy muttered under her breath, still disgruntled, and drawing a dirty look from Giles as they moved off to get started.

* * * * *

Catriona was frightened, but she followed the older woman's instructions implicitly, sitting in the circle and repeating the incantation perfectly. At the precise moment both of them finished their chanting, the air came alive and the night sky rent in two, light seeming to pour into it from... nowhere.

Giles and Buffy watched with fascination as it formed into the intense nexus of white light that Catriona had described, managing through the flashing of almost metallic colours and pulsating its form, to look both ferocious and outraged. As one they moved forward to confront it while Caroline began the new spell.

Catriona appeared to be listening to it. Though none of the others could hear what it was saying, the overwhelming impression was of the light ranting and raging and Catriona fighting down fear to stare back at it, transfixed. Buffy wondered in passing whether or not their conversation was telepathic and decided it sounded way too migraine-making for her taste. Then, suddenly, idle thought was no longer possible.

The light had suddenly turned cobalt blue, with a blood coloured, throbbing centre, and it appeared to be enveloping Catriona.

Before Giles could say anything, Buffy had charged the other slayer, both of them flying out of the circle and out of the radius of the light. He only had time to marvel at the fact that Catriona seemed to be, or to have made herself corporeal, or at least solid enough for Buffy to tackle, within a split second of her decision to charge. Then light started after the pair, scrambling as they were, to get to their feet and move further away. He lunged after it.

Caroline's voice rose and strengthened as she reached the zenith of the incantation and the actual command to send the creature to the dimension she'd chosen.

Her voice stopped Giles within a hairsbreadth of plunging into the fiery mass of energy, reluctantly holding himself back as the spell took effect.

The creature fought hard, trying to get to Catriona, trying to resist the spell. Then suddenly it enveloped Caroline. After a short, tense silence, the wiccan repeated the incantation with astonishing power at least a half a dozen times before the entity finally let go.

It vanished, rather like brightly coloured dishwater spiralling down a sink, until finally only the tranquillity of the countryside remained.

"Whoa." Buffy moved to Giles' side. "That was some light show."

Caroline was pale and exhausted, but she seemed satisfied with the result. "It wasn't entirely malevolent. It wasn't even mature. It was an adolescent version of its species. Obnoxious and volatile, but not evil in the true sense. I changed the incantation to send it home."

Buffy wasn't convinced. "But all those spirits it trapped here?"

Caroline smiled. "I sent it home, in exchange for their freedom." She turned to Catriona. "Can you feel it?"

Catriona looked up, then smiled. "Yes!" she cried. "Like quicksilver rain and sunshine all at the same time... like ten thousand voices all raised in amazement... and unbridled joy..."

Giles' eyes filled with moisture as the dark haired beauty began to fade. "Goodbye, 'Iona," he said softly.

The vivid blue eyes leaped from one to another. "Thank you... thank you all... Oh! They're here! Thomas and Alice... even Gilber-," she said excitedly, and, before the last syllable was sounded, she was gone.

For a long moment Giles simply stared after her, almost as though trying to see what she saw. Then, finally, reluctantly perhaps, he turned to Caroline.

"How?" he asked.

"A trade," Caroline reiterated. "It was a frustrated adolescent. It leaped at the prospect of going home. Cost wasn't an issue. I told it what I wanted and it complied. I asked for their freedom first... all of them... every soul it had touched since it came here. To the creature it probably wasn't of much more import than a playground trade... marbles, toys... trading cards... human souls... it really had no concept of the harm it had been doing..."

"Captain Kirk *would* be proud," Buffy muttered in a voice low enough that only Giles heard, his attempt to abort his spontaneous chuckle turning into a choking cough. "Tea time," she announced, to deflect attention from Giles, who really had got himself into bother, turning dark red as he continued to hack away. "We don't have to pick up Emily and Gregor for at least another couple of hours, and I know where all the cooki... biscuits... and cake are hidden. Not to mention Emily was working on oat cakes and pikelets this morning... whatever they are. I know it's something good because Gregor was positively gleeful."

Giles, more or less recovered, finally smiled. "Oh yes, better than good. Both of you are in for a treat."

* * * * *

"...And none of you could remember anything?"

Giles picked up a tiny buttered pancake and added blackberry jam and clotted cream before popping it into his mouth.

"No... and mistaking a sodding vampire for my son, particularly given that that vampire was only a few years younger than I when he was turned, was more than a little humiliating," he snorted.

"And I suppose snogging Anya was party time?" Buffy snorted back.

Giles coloured again. "That was below the belt and where did you pick up 'snogging' anyway? Besides, you know none of us could remember anything, *Joan*. We simply interpreted the empirical evidence..."

"Entirely incorrectly," Buffy finished, deliberately ignoring the reference to her amnesiac persona. "Just like the rest of us. The whole gig was *so* weird. I was vibing on Spike almost exactly the same as when Willow's 'do my will' spell went kablooey and Spike and I stopped trying to kill each other for five minutes, and wanted to get married instead. What's up with that, anyway?"

Caroline was looking more and more concerned. "Rupert, perhaps you should consider sending your young friend to the coven for a short while..."

"Perhaps I should, at that," Giles agreed ruefully. "But I'm afraid it's been some time since Willow would listen to anyone, much less me. I take full responsibility for not seeing this coming sooner, of course."

"Rupert--" both women began at once. Caroline deferred to Buffy.

"Giles, it's not your fault. You know how smart Willow is. We both know she's known exactly what she was getting into, and exactly what she was doing, all the way back to when she did that spell to re-ensoul Angel... I repeat, not your fault, big guy."

Caroline's normally calm eyes were like saucers. "Re-*ensoul*?"

Buffy winced. "Um, yeah. Evil vampire thing. Gypsy curse... gave him a soul, made him good. Broke the curse, lost the soul. Badness... had to get it back to stop him from destroying the world... that kinda stuff."

"*Buffy*," Giles chided uncomfortably, then faced the older woman. "Essentially that's it. A... once particularly sadistic vampire, with a soul... who lost it... a-and the only way to stop the ensuing carnage was to find a way to give it back to him. He's actually a good man when his soul is restored to him."

"And an evil, sadistic psychopath when some dumb-ass screws up and makes him lose it, you mean," Buffy said morosely.

He touched her arm reassuringly. "Let's not rehash the past. Angel is good now and, more importantly, doing good and, in the end, that's all that's important."

Caroline's colour ebbed. "Angel... Angelus?" She swallowed. "And you all survived?"

Buffy looked miserable.

"Well, yes, most of us," Giles said awkwardly. "And Willow did restore his soul, just before he was sent to hell, fortunately for us, since someone saw fit to send him back a few months later. He's working out of Los Angeles now, for 'good', last we heard."

"Oh," Caroline said, dazedly. "Rupert, you have to send that girl to us. That kind of talent and power as undisciplined as you describe.... I can't begin to tell you how dangerous..."

Giles was looking even more uncomfortable and Buffy not much better. "I... um... that is, we know. Take me for example," Buffy pointed out. "Giles did... tell you about me?"

Caroline's blue eyes bore into hers. "About you? That you are the Slayer... that you are the most important thing on earth to him?"

"I was, then I wasn't. Now I am again."

The older woman was looking dazed again.

"On Earth," Buffy clarified. "See, I died in an apocalyptic battle with a god that wasn't very godly, but Willow doesn't do grief so well... like when she helped my little sister try to raise my mother... not to mention when she went to fight Glory after Tara's brain got sucked... and put us all... the whole world... in danger because she was pissed. Except later that whole thing kinda worked out because in the big battle..." She felt Giles' gimlet eye on her and rushed on. "...Tara kinda got... uh, unsucked... so there was good. So anyway: Willow... grief... bad... which means, after my little hiatus in heaven, I'm kinda back, thanks to some Siren thingy or something..."

"Osiris," Giles corrected automatically and could have kicked himself.

"She didn't...? My God..." Caroline swallowed. "As soon as possible, Rupert. Do you understand me? It's imperative that you bring this - this Willow here, before she loses control completely."

Giles looked his friend in the eye. "In spite of what was said earlier, I know I should have done something long ago... back when I knew she was stealing spell books from my private collection, and later when I knew she was stealing ingredients from the Magic Box. It all seemed like little more than childish enthusiasm at the time, particularly given how bright Willow is, and how much good there is in her."

Caroline's expression wasn't one of condemnation. Buffy liked that. If anything she looked sympathetic. "Being bright doesn't protect us from ourselves or our own foolishness," she said softly.

Giles nodded. "And I, of all people, should have known that, right from the beginning. Self esteem has always been a vulnerability for Willow. It was always going to give purchase to any kind of dark magic she encountered, without someone to guide her, to protect her from herself..."

Buffy frowned. "Yeah, well, stop beating yourself up about it, Giles. It's not like she's a kid anymore. Not to mention... IQ bigger than my SAT score. I seem to recall the notion that people should be taking more responsibility for their badness and not blaming bad childhoods, potty training, Mister Rogers or ingrown toenails all the time."

Caroline blinked. "Yes, Rupert. It's not your fault. But if you don't get her over here to us, soon, you have my permission to feel as guilty as hell when she does self-destruct."

Giles stared back at her. It was the harshest he'd ever heard the gentle woman's voice outside of doing spells. "The voice of experience?" he asked gently.

She subsided, sighing heavily and nodding, her eyes dark with memories. " Trust me, she needs help."

Giles nodded. As much as Buffy had trod frequently in his own footsteps, it was pretty obvious Caroline knew only too well where Willow was right now and what lay ahead.

"Done, then," he said with conviction. "I will arrange er... 'travel arrangements' with you when we're ready, even if Buffy has to wrestle and hog-tie her first..."

* * * * *

When Caroline drove off, Giles and Buffy found themselves heading down to the wishing-stool. They sat for a long time, in rich silence.

Buffy could almost feel the past creep up and embrace them, and she could tell that Giles had travelled back to a different time and a different world. Not for anything was she going to spoil that.

Much, much later he stirred and looked down at the fair head leaning against his shoulder, then up at the dappled light through the trees. He missed his mother so much sometimes, mostly in the solitudes of life... last thing before falling asleep, or in the grey time after waking in the morning... or when he was jogging on his own, and his mind wasn't filled with some demon mystery to be solved. Then she would come visiting... filling his thoughts with memories of her soft voice, her laughter and her love. Alice Giles had been the last person who'd made him feel truly safe and truly loved.

He smiled as the golden head stirred a little. It was never going to be quite so peaceful or so safe with Buffy. Her journey had been as traumatic and as irrational, and often stupid, as his own... but he knew her... heart and soul, foolishness and courage... he knew her perhaps even better than he knew himself... which was perhaps why it was so easy to forgive her, no matter how far or how hard she fell. From the desperate need to escape her destiny to the overwhelming need to not be alone... the lashing out, the rage, the selfishness... he knew them all as intimately as he knew himself. He dropped a kiss on the brow that tilted back to look at him.

"Hello, sleepy head. Sweet dreams, I hope?"

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Not really. I dreamed I was flipping burgers for a living. I could almost *smell* it, and it wasn't the food. It was my clothes... and me. If I ever announce that I'm going to do anything like that, just shoot me. Don't ask questions... just find the crossbow and make it quick."

He chuckled. "Agreed. But honestly, I can't even imagine you in a silly hat asking if I 'want fries with that?'. It's... it's... well Emily on snow-skis would be more likely."

That made Buffy laugh, which in turn made him laugh with her.

"Thank God," she said with feeling. "I gotta tell you, I've felt some kinda bad in my time, but I've never felt as pathetic and useless and miserable as I did in that dream." Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, God. Emily!" She grabbed his wrist and peered at his watch. "We're supposed to pick them up... fifteen minutes ago!"

Giles looked at the time piece. "Good Lord. Well, we'll take them to the best tea room in town for a treat to make it up to them."

"Cool," Buffy grinned. "Except I'm not sure anyone makes tea-morning *or* afternoon-as good as Emily's..."

* * * * *

They stayed on until the whole business of reporting and the retrieval of Gilbert's remains, and his funeral, were over.

It was clear that Emily and Gregor didn't want them to go, and just as clear that they really didn't want to leave either.

Giles put down his cup of tea and smiled. "I wish we could stay longer, but we've already had to dig through the attic for clothes, and you've had to wash our things twice. We really must get back. Buffy has a sister at home in Sunnydale who needs her... and I'm afraid to say I need her even more. Until the Hellmouth is closed I'm afraid that's where both of us belong," he added, his smile fading, then looked at Buffy who was equally sombre. "However, should that ever change, I promise we will come home."

After a beat both sets of eyes twinkled, each of them knowing that if the world ever turned on its head and Sunnydale didn't need them anymore, they would move heaven and earth to do exactly that.

"Buffy, lass, take care of him for us. And don't be strangers. If ye can no' live here with us, ye can still visit."

Buffy smiled at Gregor. "Are you kidding? Every chance we get. Giles might even be back here before I am. There's someone he might need to bring to Devon. I'll make sure he stops over to see you and to take Otto carrots."

"Otto," Giles said softly, looking at the older man. "Will you see that he goes back to Lucy for now? I'll call her before I leave, but I'll need you to see to everything..."

The silver head nodded. "He'll be the happier for it. I take him out every few days, just to check the fences and such... but it's no' enough for him."

Buffy's eyes were like dinner plates. "You ride?"

Both men chuckled. Giles cleared his throat first. "Gregor learned to ride even before the shot was heard around the world."

"The... shot?" She asked dumbly.

"The one purported to have started World War One," Giles explained, trying not to smile too much. "The assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand... what did they teach you at Sunnydale High?"

"Not much," she muttered, then something clicked. "That's like nearly... that's... okay, I guess you might still remember how to ride a horse," she deadpanned. "But how do you get... up... there? Otto's kinda big and you said yourself when you were doing the fires last night that things don't bend the way they used to..."

It was Gregor's turn to laugh at the child's confusion and the boy's tender amusement.

"True enough," he conceded. "Tis a simple matter to lead him down to the stream and mount him from the lookout rock."

"Ah," Giles said quietly, the mystery solved for him as well, and turned to Buffy. "There are several granite outcrops along the watercourse. The closest one we've always called the lookout rock, because it's like a big granite platform overlooking the stream and the valley beyond it. If Gregor brought Otto alongside its lowest face, he'd only have to slide his right leg across the saddle, provided Otto behaves."

"Aye, the laddie always does. He's a good beastie, intelligent and patient with an old man."

"I don't want to go home," Buffy sighed, looking at two of her favourite men in the universe and letting her nostrils fill with the smell of the pies Emily had in the oven. "I want to stay here and get fat and watch you guys ride Otto."

Giles looked amused but made his expression serious. "Buffy..."

But Gregor was still smiling, and Buffy was smiling back.

"I'm coming with, Giles. It's just nice to dream." She got a mischievous look in her eye and turned to her lover. "This would be such a great place to raise little Gileses... fill them up with pikelets and apple cinnamon cooki... er... biscuits... and Gregor would teach them to ride ponies and we'd make them all wear Emily's socks in the winter."

Giles cleared his throat. "Yes... yes it would," he managed in an embarrassed rasp, then covered the slender hand resting on the table, before relaxing enough for a slow, jubilant smile to emerge.

"Really?" Buffy half whispered, her expression a combination of true joy and the effort of the struggle to grasp it and hold on to it.

His head tilted a little, eyes growing very bright, before he nodded almost imperceptibly. For the first time he truly understood what it must have been like for her, returning to this mortal coil so traumatically and so horribly. Buffy had forgotten how to be truly happy... had forgotten joy.

Giles squeezed her fingers. "Really," he whispered.

Gregor looked from one to the other and saw the light in their eyes, the patches of colour in their cheeks, and knew that the place would come alive again with small feet and children's laughter, one day soon. He nodded his head, satisfied, and looked up at his Emily, who was beaming from ear to ear, no doubt planning on turning out the nurseries and redecorating them...

* * *