Twenty

LIES MY PARENTS TOLD ME

Giles sat with the Mayor and Xavier Grant in the little locked room in the corner of the archives section in the basement of City Hall. Watching Buffy Summers on a bank of monitors as she unraveled all his plans.

Okay, so, we’ve got three separate problems now, Buffy was saying, to Willow Rosenberg. According to Xavier this section of the tape was from the previous night. Buffy and Willow were sitting in Buffy’s living room together, thankfully unaware of the monitoring equipment that had recently been installed. At least there was something the exasperating little tart hadn’t yet figured out, Giles thought. We’ve got Evan and his gang, and we really need to call it a gang because not only does he have Dru but now he’s got a witch too, Buffy went on, squinting at her television screen as she tried to decipher the Indian movie that was playing without the benefit of subtitles. He’s putting his own gang together specifically to counter us, that’s gotta be it. All we can do about Evan is wait...and maybe see if we can find some way to find him before he comes after us. No idea how we can do that. Second, we have the Mayor and we both agree we have no idea what to do about him, except maybe buy bus tickets to Mexico, which I guess can be our Plan B. When Rebecca comes back maybe she can talk to the Watchers, maybe they can help. And third, we have Giles. He’s lying, he’s acting shifty, and we have no idea why. But we both agree he lied, right? When he said he read all about Sunnydale in the Watchers files before he came out here, even though when I first met him he told me he didn’t have time to read the files...

Yeah, Willow replied. And we know he couldn’t have caught up on the reading while he was in Sunnydale because he would’ve had to download the files from the Watchers Council’s computer archives and computers make him get all...

Buffy smiled. British.

Yeah. But...okay, he lied but...he’s still Giles. I mean this isn’t like some Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing where he’s suddenly a bad guy now, he’s Giles. I agree with you that he’s acting weird, I agree he lied, and I agree we should definitely check out that shipment coming in tomorrow night that he’s trying to keep you away from, but...he’s still Giles.

With Evan and the Mayor I have no idea what to do right now. But with Giles the choice seems pretty clear to me, Will. Either we confront him about the lie or we don’t. That info he gave us about the witch who was killed here in 1967, Maureen Hargenson--he was right about that. And it was useful information too. It got us digging deeper into Amy and now we know about Charlotte Moreau. So I’m not saying Giles is suddenly like a double agent. He’s still trying to help...and I’m starting to think maybe he’s warning me away from that shipment coming in because he thinks it’s for my own good. But he’s just making the same mistake I kept making. We can’t shut each other out, we can’t keep secrets, we can’t lie to each other. This thing won’t work that way.

Willow took Buffy’s hand. So we confront him. We’ll talk all this stuff out with him like you and I did today. We’ll go to Giles’ place tomorrow before we head for the docks to find that mystic bugaboo that’s supposed to be coming into town and we’ll have like...an intervention. Lay down the law. We’ll tell him no more keeping secrets and acting shifty and freaking us out. Things are bad enough without having to worry about Giles. If you can’t depend on Giles what can you depend on? He’s like death and taxes. Okay...not so much with the great analogy there.

He’s like a pair of comfy shoes, Buffy said. Yeah, they’re not the most fabulous shoes in the world. He’s not Nordstrom’s shoes. He’s Payless shoes.

Like, a pair of Keds, Willow added. Or a nice sturdy pair of workboots. But not big clompy workboots...cute ones. And they’re nice and broken in so they fit just right.

Buffy smiled again. Giles would love this conversation. He’d probably get all shirty. But yeah. He fits me just right. And I don’t like feeling suspicious about him, I don’t wanna have to be all cloak and dagger around him. It hurts too much.

The Mayor paused the tape.

“Bollocks,” Giles muttered.

“Is that some sort of obscenity?” the Mayor asked, frowning.

“Seems the bloody time for it, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that we have a problem, Mr. Giles. You’ve made a mess of things, and now it needs to be cleaned up. How did this happen? You Seskrit demons are supposed to be able to perfectly imitate the people whose bodies you steal.”

“I told you, Richard,” Xavier said. “Slayers aren’t like other people, no, no. They’re hunters. Always sniffing around. It isn’t easy to fool a Slayer...maybe it isn’t even possible.”

“Well, there’s no used crying over spilled milk, we took the chance and now here we are,” the Mayor said. “But I’m still waiting for Mr. Giles’ explanation.”

“I have Rupert Giles’ memories,” Giles said. “But there are...nuances to human behavior that take time to get down. I’ve got his body language, his way of speaking, but cataloguing every single bit of knowledge and memory he has and then being able to recall them, instantly, at exactly the right moment, takes practice. I haven’t even been at this two weeks yet, and this is supposed to be a lifetime job. There’s always a bit of a learning curve. But I admit...Buffy’s memory for minutiae is surprising. I wouldn’t have expected her to remember an inconsequential offhand comment Giles made to her almost two years ago about Watcher files when the girl can hardly be arsed to open a book.”

The Mayor was fairly certain “arsed” was another British obscenity. He frowned again. “Well she did remember, and now we’re in the soup, Mr. Giles,” he said, and stood up. He leaned against the table and looked down at Giles, considering him. “Xavier. Perhaps we should kill Mr. Giles now, and cut our losses?”

“Perhaps so,” Xavier said, and smiled. His teeth were long and sharp. He filed them. His eyes were two pools of pure black and Giles felt their pull like he was falling into a black hole.

“Now, now just hold on,” Giles said. “W-we can fix this. Give me a chance to fix this, will you? Yes, alright, I admit it, this was a cock-up on my part. But you know having me in the Slayer’s group is useful. I can direct her away from your--”

“You can’t direct her anywhere if she doesn’t trust you,” the Mayor said. He stroked his chin, and looked up at the ceiling, and thought about it. “But...she wants to trust you. That much is obvious. She thinks you’re acting odd but she’s trying to make herself believe you’re doing it for her own good. She was close to Giles...I think she saw him as a kind of father figure. We can use that...if we’re careful.” He frowned at a speck of dust on the table. He took his handkerchief from his suit pocket, and wiped it away. Then he looked at Giles again. “If we’re not sloppy.”

“And we need to figure out what to do about the shipment coming in tonight,” Xavier said. “She’ll be going after it. After she pays a visit to Mr. Giles. If she senses something off about him again--”

“She won’t,” Giles said. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. I’ll--”

“You’ll be the Giles she wants you to be,” the Mayor said. “She already knows about me, but she doesn’t know about my connection to you. She suspects something is wrong with you but she wouldn’t dream that you’re not who she thinks you are, that you’re actually working for me. We can hit ourselves out of the rough if we plan this just right. We’re going to give the Slayer everything she wants tonight.”

“Tonight she wants that shipment,” Xavier said.

“And she’ll get it,” the Mayor said. “She has no idea what’s coming in, so one magic doodad is just as good as another as far as she’s concerned. I’ll give Mr. Giles a trinket from my collection and he can present it to her at the docks, while you, Xavier, will quietly smuggle the real artifact out of there. Troy and his team will give you cover. As for you, Mr. Giles--when Buffy comes to your house tonight, you need to come clean.”

“Come clean?” Giles said.

“You need to regain her confidence. To do that you need to tell Buffy the real reason you’ve been acting so distracted lately. The real reason you lied to get her to look into Amy Madison’s death. The real reason you’ve been trying to keep her away from this shipment coming in tonight.”

“And that reason is?”

The Mayor smiled. “Me, of course.”

“Here she comes!” Buffy whispered in Willow’s ear. “Be cool.”

“Um...be cool about what?” Willow said. They were in Buffy’s living room, finishing off the pizza--actually, Buffy had finished it off, along with a meatball sub and a bowl of microwave popcorn--and watching Pulp Fiction. They had rented the movie, because they wanted to return to their previous status quo of being friends without benefits, and snarking over movies while eating pizza and popcorn was a hallowed Buffy-Willow tradition. Buffy had picked out Pulp Fiction because she liked watching the part where Uma Thurman and John Travolta do the twist at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, and because she liked doing her strangely accurate impression of Samuel L. Jackson in the scene where he quotes the Bible, and also because she had partially based the new hairstyle she had given Willow on the style Uma Thurman sported in the movie. “It’s a long, layered angle bob parted on the side with sorta wispy sideswept bangs that’s all angled in the front to frame your face,” Buffy had said when she cut off alarmingly huge swaths of Willow’s hair earlier that day, and Willow hadn’t the slightest idea what any of it meant, but she trusted Buffy’s judgment when it came to hairstyles. Hairstyling was one of Buffy’s recognized areas of expertise. Even Cordelia grudgingly respected Buffy’s hairstyling prowess.

Buffy was staring at the front door like a horde of zombies was shambling up the walk. She had heard her mother’s car pulling up, and now she had her scent.

“About--you know!” Buffy hissed. “The stuff! All the...stuff.”

“You mean how you and I boinked on pretty much every single piece of furniture in the house? Including the washing machine while you did a load of clothes, and that was kinda surreal, with all the vibrating. That stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was planning on telling your Mom all about it with like really vivid descriptions...”

“Willow!”

“You’re cute when you’re neurotic. Every time you do something you don’t want Joyce to find out about you get all shaky like a snitch in a Humphrey Bogart movie. It’s like you think she’s psychic or something.”

“She always knows when I’m keeping stuff from her. It’s like, she just looks at me and bang! First words out of her mouth are always, What did you do this time?”

Willow heard the car’s motor turn off. She heard the car door open.

“Have we figured out what we’re gonna say about how we broke the rocking chair?” Buffy said.

“Well...you don’t want me to tell your Mom that we broke it because I was sitting in your lap riding that evil awesome dildo of yours for an hour, right?”

Buffy’s face turned red. Willow thought Buffy was just the cutest thing in the world when she was acting goofily neurotic like this. Sort of like Ally McBeal with vampires. “Willow!” Buffy hissed again.

Willow giggled. “Um...so that’s a no on the rocking chair sex play by play. Gotcha. How about... leprechauns did it? Or maybe zombies, like last Christmas? Or we could just make up a monster. After everything Joyce has seen you could tell her Frankenstein came in here and broke the chair and she’d probably believe it.”

“We already fought a Frankenstein guy once.”

“Right, right, I keep forgetting...Daryl from the football team. Poor FrankenDaryl. If that weaselly kid whatshisname had actually succeeded in combining me and Cordy into a girlfriend for Daryl that would have been just...eeewww. And how would that even work? Would I have been cute on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, and a bitch on Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays? I probably would have had awesome shoes though.”

Buffy sighed. “I have the most ridiculous life in the history of the world.”

When Joyce walked through the door, rested and relaxed after two weeks away from Sunnydale, ready to face the monsters and the apocalypses and the vampire boyfriends and the letters from Buffy’s guidance counselor once again, and ready to whip up a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner too, Buffy practically flung herself at her.

“Hi Mom!” Buffy said with a big smile--specifically, that particular smile Joyce knew Buffy always wore when she was trying to lie to her about something. And Willow was there too, and Joyce knew Buffy often used Willow as a shield, because Joyce could never be angry at Buffy in front of Willow no matter what Buffy had done and Buffy knew it. Buffy threw her arms around Joyce and hugged with all her might. Which had been a problem in the past, because Buffy was a Slayer and when she exerted all her might she broke things. But Buffy had eventually gotten the hang of hugging people without knocking the wind out of them, so now Joyce felt like cookie dough being squeezed rather than a walnut being cracked.

“Hi, honey,” Joyce said, a little breathlessly as she recovered from the hug, and kissed Buffy’s cheek. “Hi, Willow. You’re coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow, right? I picked up the cranberry sauce you like.”

“The kind that like, slurps outta the can in a big can-shaped blob?” Willow said, her eyes lighting up.

“Absolutely. I just got back from the Foodland downtown. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, yams, dumplings, biscuits, cheesecake, rice pudding for Giles, I’m gonna make three different kinds of pie...it’s all in the trunk. This year even Buffy won’t be able to finish it all.”

“You’re like totally throwing down the gauntlet, aren’t you?” Buffy said. “My tummy hereby accepts your challenge.”

“Sounds scrump-dill-e-icious,” Willow said. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. How was your trip?”

“Yeah!” Buffy said, a bit too perkily, Willow thought. “How was your trip?”

“Very relaxing,” Joyce said, looking at Buffy now with a big smile of her own. “I did some shopping for the gallery and I didn’t meet a single vampire. So what did you do this time?”

“Okay...you really need to get better at lying to Joyce,” Willow said. “I mean, that was just kinda sad. You acted like you committed war crimes or something.”

They were walking to Giles’ house. They could have taken Buffy’s mother’s car, or Willow’s mother’s car. But the weather had warmed up again and the sky was clear and starry and it was a nice night for walking. Crickets chirped in the strange suffocating darkness of Sunnydale’s night. Willow always loved the crickets: when she looked up at the night sky in Sunnydale and felt small and powerless and alone in a vast sea of black the crickets reminded her that there were some things that evil couldn’t touch no matter how long its terrible reach became. They were beyond its grasp. Some things, the simple, beautiful, everyday things, were eternal. They were part of the natural order of the world.

Willow might have felt under siege sometimes, but she knew there was a reason, and an order...a Goddess. And nothing could happen out of Her hand. And the Goddess liked crickets.

“Hey,” Buffy said, and took Willow’s arm, and stopped her. “You don’t think...I mean... after how I freaked before when I said I want us to be friends, and then when I got all goofy in front of my Mom...you don’t think I’m...ashamed of what happened between us, do you? Because I’m not, Willow.”

“I know, sweetie.”

“I’m not. I just...I need you this way. As my best friend.”

“I know. We had a day. A day we got to take a peek at how things could have gone.”

Willow kissed her cheek.

“It was an awesome day, Buffy,” Willow said. “And I understand where you’re coming from, why you didn’t want to take a chance. I know the future’s uncertain, especially here. And I kept worrying about Faith...about how it would have hurt her. And I know we decided that after today, we’re not gonna talk about what happened anymore, we’re gonna act like it never happened and just be like we were before, and I’m okay with that. But before we stop talking about it, I just need to tell you something. I was willing to risk it for you. You’re special enough to risk it, Buffy. And...I think...I think I could’ve loved you the way--”

Buffy touched her finger to Willow’s lips. Then she kissed her. A good one...the best one. A kiss to last a lifetime. The world seemed to pause...to hold its breath.

Willow smiled, and blushed. “You sure can kiss. Boy oh boy you can kiss.”

“We have to turn into pumpkins now, Cinderella,” Buffy said.

“You’ll find the girl that fits into that glass slipper just right, Buffy. Maybe you already have. Maybe...you shouldn’t break up with Faith. Why don’t you give her another chance, sweetie? She has so much going on right now, and you guys were only with each other a week... and I know she really loved being with you. If you really dump her it’ll...it’ll hurt her.”

Buffy stood there, silently, for a long moment. As if she was struggling to say something...or to hold it in.

“She’s meant to be with you, Willow,” Buffy said.

Willow blinked. She took a breath.

Then she shook her head. “I already told you, Buffy...she doesn’t feel that way about me. She cares about me but...not that way.”

“Not yet. It will take time. Maybe it will take years. Maybe you’ll both date a bunch of other people between now and then. But...someday...”

Buffy looked up at the moon. It was a bright golden crescent. It stared back at her like a cat’s eye.

“I can’t go back to Faith because I know, I know in my heart, that she’s meant to be with you, Willow,” Buffy whispered.

She sat down on the curb. Willow sat next to her.

“But we’ve had enough drama lately,” Buffy said. “I wanna be alone for awhile. Not like before, when I was being a bitch and not talking to you and shutting everyone out. I mean alone as in, not dating anyone. The thing with Faith...I was like, rebound girl. First losing Angel, then Xander...Rebecca said something to me the other night. When I told her I loved Faith...she told me she thinks that after everything that’s happened to me lately, that I needed Faith more than I love her. I don’t know, maybe she’s right. Isn’t she always right? That’s like, your motto.”

“You loved Faith, you needed her too,” Willow said. “I think you still need her. Not because you’re rebound girl, and yeah...I think you’ve had some of that going on for awhile. You need her because you need her perspective. Because she can understand you in a way no one else in the world ever could.”

“Yeah. But...I’m tired of this, Willow. I feel like I’ve just been...running. Running ever since Angel went bad. Just running from one thing to the next, afraid to even see what’s going on around me.” She shook her head. “I think about what happened between Faith and me and it just seems...so strange. It was so...so fast. I can’t believe how fast it went. I hopped into bed with her, then I hopped into bed with you. What the hell am I doing? I’m like...it’s like I’m suddenly a character in some stupid soap opera. Yeah, okay...vampires, zombies, giant snakes, one girl in all the world, my life’s gonna be a stupid soap opera to a degree. But that part’s just me doing the job, being the Slayer. I don’t have to be acting all crazy around my friends on top of it. I don’t have to have sex with every single person I know. Did you know I tried to boink Rebecca?”

Willow actually gasped. Then she giggled. “Okay, for a second, just for a second, you had me going there.”

“Except I’m not lying.”

“Um...I’d really prefer it if you were.”

“It was after the thing with Coyote, the ceremony we did before you got there. He...he had me and he made me crazy. After the ceremony I was just...hysterical. I needed him, I’ve never needed anything as much, but I was afraid of him too. It was like a drug. I was going crazy for another hit...”

“Yeah. He...sorta had me too. I get it, Buffy.”

“Rebecca gave me some scotch to settle me down and told me I’d be able to deal eventually, but I was still feeling crazy. Crazy scared, crazy horny. Crazy alone. And...well... y’know...she’s really, really, really hot.”

“Um...eeewww?” Willow said.

“You don’t think she’s hot?”

“That’s like me asking you if you think your Mom’s hot.”

Buffy looked at her. Her eyes glinted in the dark like two diamonds. Willow blinked. But then Buffy took her hand again, and Buffy’s hand was warm.

“You really think of her that way, don’t you Will? Like a Mom. It’s not just because you have Faith’s memories of her, is it?”

“Becca’s been more of a mother to me in two months than my real Mom was my whole life. She made things better for me. After Xander...Becca made things better. Helped me keep it together.”

Buffy smiled. “I’m glad. I know she really cares about you, Willow. I could tell, when I was talking to her with Faith last week.”

Willow smiled too. Then she frowned. “So when you say tried to boink...you mean you didn’t actually succeed in boinking Becca, right? Um...because...”

“Don’t worry. I might be gay and Faith might be bi and you might be...well, I’m not sure what you are, maybe experimenting...but Rebecca’s totally straight. Not only that, but she’s also not crazy insane like I was and maybe still am. I managed to kiss her a couple times but she settled me down and got things under control, thank God. But...that thing with Coyote, the way he made me feel...it didn’t feel new, Willow. That craziness, that need, it didn’t feel like some brand new thing I’ve never experienced before. It felt like...like me. Like just another day at the office in a way. Yeah, it was like, times ten, but it was just more of what I’ve been going through. Just running around, needing to be with someone because I’m afraid to be with me. I need to be with me, Will. I need to find a way to deal with myself, with my life, without hopping from one bed to another.”

“Can I help?”

“Yeah. With pizza and movies and popcorn and hanging out...with being the awesomest best friend ever.”

“Okay. You need to promise me something, Buffy.”

“What?”

“Don’t cut Faith out of your life. I know you’re pissed at her, I understand that. But don’t cut her loose. Let her in. If she can’t be your lover, at least let her be your friend. She always wanted to be your friend, Buffy. From the night she first arrived in Sunnydale.”

Buffy grinned. “Believe me, she’ll be in my life. Maybe Faith and I aren’t meant to be each other’s one and only, but I’m pretty sure we’re destined to annoy each other forever.”

Willow giggled in the dark. She knew some things were eternal. Buffy and Faith annoying each other was part of the natural order of the world.

And then they stood up, dusted themselves off, and proceeded on to Giles’ house, both of them keenly aware that their lives had taken a turn: they had made a choice, and chosen a path. The crickets went on chirping.

When Giles answered the door he had a teacup in his hand, and Buffy and Willow could hear Pink Floyd playing softly from the living room. The house smelled like scented candles.

“Buffy,” Giles said. He looked tired, Buffy thought. Like he had been up worrying. It had been a long time since she had seen him smile, she realized. He had a wonderful smile. It was winsome, and it showed off his dimples. Buffy missed seeing it. “You know, I’ve been rather expecting you,” he said. “Hello, Willow. Come in, come in.”

“How come you expected me?” Buffy said, as she walked into his living room and sat herself down on the frumpy old couch with Willow. Buffy had been there so many times it felt like her house now. There was a plate of British tea cookies on the coffee table. Giles always put them out when he was making tea and Buffy always ate them whenever she was there. They were dry and tasteless, but for some reason being there just didn’t feel the same without the tea cookies. Buffy took a cookie and popped it in her mouth.

Giles sighed. “Because I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been a jackass. And I owe you an apology.” He turned off the record player, slipped the record--a well-preserved copy of Wish You Were Here--back into the album cover, and carefully inserted the album back into its position in the precisely ordered stack he kept his old vinyl record collection in. “Would you girls like some tea? Just made a pot of Darjeeling.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Thanks.”

Giles headed for the kitchen. He turned back to them and smiled. “Dash of honey the way you like?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said.

“And extra sugar for Willow,” Giles said, anticipating Willow’s thought just as she was about to speak. She smiled.

Buffy looked around the room, at the guitar Giles sometimes played, leaning next to the precisely ordered stack of old records, the hat rack in the corner even though Giles never wore hats, the expensive rug she had once spilled a vanilla milkshake on, and the television that completely didn’t get HBO, as Giles busied himself in the kitchen preparing their tea. She chewed tasteless British tea cookies. She had lost count of the times she had been here, often late at night, often because she was hurt and she needed Giles to patch her up. He never complained, no matter how late it was. He was always gentle, when he treated her wounds. And, at least as often, she had come there just to talk...to be with him. To make fun of his corny old records and eat his tasteless tea cookies and frown at his strange British expressions, and to be reminded again that he cared about her. It was almost like having a father.

She looked down at the milkshake stain on the rug. The rug cleaning people hadn’t been able to get it out. It had been a year since that day.

“So this jackass thing,” Buffy said. “Care to elaborate on the jackassiness? We can maybe talk shop, trade jackass tips. Considering I’ve been a jackass to everybody since Xander.”

Giles came back out with a teapot and two teacups on a tray. The teapot wasn’t silver like Rebecca’s, and the cups weren’t bone china like Rebecca’s, and Buffy liked that fine. Giles sat in the big, squeaky leather recliner. It gave the squeak it always gave when he sat in it. Willow sipped her tea. Buffy waited.

“I lied to you today...in fact I’ve been lying to you for awhile now and it needs to stop,” Giles said. “It doesn’t help us do the things we need to do. It doesn’t help us if we can’t trust each other to be aboveboard. And...it isn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Buffy said. “I’ve been...I always just...just thought I was in this alone. Even when you guys helped me I always felt like...this is my thing, not yours. I was so full of myself. And I shut you out. I shut Willow out, my Mom...all the people I care about. But Will and I talked today and I’m not shutting anybody out anymore. Giles...this needs to change. Faith and Rebecca are here with us now, Angel’s gonna be leaving, and we’ve got this whole situation with Evan and Drusilla...we need to get serious, to learn to work together in a better way.”

“From now on Buffy’s not gonna keep stuff from us, she’s not gonna be going off on her own anymore,” Willow said. “Um...do you have any Oreos?”

“Any what?” Giles said.

“Oreos. Y’know...the cookies.”

“Are those the little black round ones with the vanilla in the middle?”

“Yeah.”

“No, sorry. I’ll try to remember to pick some up for next time.”

Willow frowned at the tasteless British tea cookies, and popped one in her mouth. “Well...anyway, Buffy and I decided no more secrets, we’re all gonna be a team from now on with Becca and Faith and we’re all gonna be on the same page.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “You’re my Watcher and I’m gonna start treating you that way.”

Giles raised his eyebrow. “You mean you’re going to start training regularly instead of popping off to the Bronze three nights a week?”

“The Bronze doesn’t count as training? Dancing’s aerobic.”

“Not as such, no.”

Buffy smiled. She liked his strange British expressions, and the fact that he always seemed to strive to say as many words as possible to express an idea.

“That’s part of what we want to tell you,” Willow said, as she crunched her tasteless tea cookie and washed it down with some tea. The tea was wonderful: it made up for the cookies. “Becca used to be in the British military and she wants us all to train together. She’s a fifth-level Aikido blackbelt, plus she knows, y’know...military stuff. Tactical stuff. When they get back from Milwaukee she’s gonna want Buffy and me to train with Faith.”

“I see.” Giles sipped some tea and tried his best to look slightly disturbed at the prospect of someone else training his Slayer, but privately he was relieved. The less time he had to spend with Buffy, the less chance there would be of her catching him in another mistake. “Well... you’ve definitely reached the limits of what I can teach you, Buffy. My training regimen at this point would’ve been about keeping you sharp, not teaching you anything new. And I suppose it’s a good idea for the three of you to all be training together, especially with Evan on the horizon.”

Buffy took his hand.

“Giles,” Buffy said. “Rebecca’s not my Watcher. You are. Will and I are gonna train with Faith because she’s here and it would be stupid not to work with her. But you’re my Watcher. I report to you, not Rebecca. And I won’t let Rebecca train me unless you say it’s okay.”

Willow shot a glance at Buffy. This hadn’t been part of the agreement. But she knew Buffy still felt guilty about what Giles had been through...Angelus cast a long shadow. Buffy and Giles lived their lives under it.

“I’d be a poor Watcher if I put my pride above what’s best for you, Buffy,” Giles said. “I know a bit about Rebecca. She’s quite excellent at training Potential Slayers, she’s one of the best instructors we have. I assume I’m at least invited to come along and observe?”

“You’re always invited,” Buffy said. “And I want you to watch me train because I want to know how you think I’m doing. I want that Giles seal of approval. Maybe a gold star. You could buy a pack of those gold stars down at the stationery store and give me one every time I’ve been extra-awesome.”

Giles smiled again, because he knew he was supposed to. Although the real Giles had harrumphed his way through a good many nonsensical conversations with Buffy and had on numerous occasions bitched and moaned about the death of the English language, the demon that inhabited him now knew that Giles had always secretly enjoyed Buffy’s cute nonsensical asides. Though not so much Xander’s. “Yes, well that’s all well and good Buffy, but now we really need to get onto how I’ve been a jackass. Because that ship will be coming in sometime later tonight and we don’t want to be late when we intercept it.”

“The ship? The one you’ve been telling me to stay away from?”

“Yes. Part of my...jackassery.”

“Jackassiness.”

“Jackassiness. Right. I tried to put you off that ship because...”

He stood up. He paced around the room. He stopped in front of the hat rack. It was easier to talk without looking at her. He didn’t have to worry about getting the facial expressions right. He was getting there, but it had only been a little over a week and he needed more time.

“I found out something last summer when you ran away to Los Angeles, Buffy,” Giles said. “Something about this town. Something terrible. It scared me...and that’s why I’ve been lying to you. Because I’ve been trying, in my own rather clumsy, ham-handed way, to protect you. But I realized today that I can’t protect you by keeping you in the dark. If anything that might just get you killed even faster.”

Then he turned to her.

“This is going to come as rather a shock so I’m just going to say it,” Giles said. “This town was built about a century ago, and the fact that it was built upon a Hellmouth was not by accident but by design. The man who built it was a gold prospector who had left New England and traveled to California to make his fortune. His name was Richard Wilkins, and when he got here he found that this area was infested by demons. To keep from being killed he made a pact with them. In exchange for building a town atop the Hellmouth so the demons would have human victims to feed upon, the demons would see to it that he would not age a day for the next hundred years, and at the end of that hundred years--which happens next September, by the way--the demons would grant him some sort of prize if he had served them well. I don’t know what that prize is, but I have a feeling we’re not going to like it when we find out.”

Giles prepared himself to act surprised; in a moment he knew Buffy would tell him that she already knew about the Mayor because Willy the bartender had told her. Acting surprised was difficult for the Seskrit demon inhabiting Giles’ body because the real Giles had never liked being surprised, especially in front of Buffy, whom he was ostensibly supposed to be mentoring, and the emotions he felt at such times were complicated and contradictory, and the Seskrit demon had trouble with emotions, especially when it had to try to emulate more than one at a time. Slightly embarrassed and slightly annoyed, the demon reminded itself. Widen the eyes, stand up straight, stutter. And remember that underneath it he would feel protective of his Slayer most of all: he would be afraid. Afraid for her life.

“Because you see, Richard Wilkins is the Mayor of Sunnydale, and he is in large part responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened in this town,” Giles concluded, with just the right dramatic intonation at the end. He knew Giles had liked being dramatic.

“We know,” Buffy said. “That’s what we came to tell you.”

Giles widened his eyes and stood up straight and pretended to be slightly embarrassed and slightly annoyed.

“Now, j-just, just hold on, you...you know?” Giles stuttered. “But...but how?”

“Willy told us last night after Will and I decided to change our arrangement with him,” Buffy said. “He works for us now. Or he loses his bar, and the ability to walk. How did you find out? And--not that I’m getting all accusatory here, because that would so be like the pot calling the kettle black, but--what lies have you been telling me exactly?”

Giles sighed, and sat down heavily in the squeaky recliner. He was doing splendidly so far; now he was on the homestretch. Unfortunately there was a tricky part coming up. He had concocted this story with the Mayor and Xavier Grant just a few hours before and they had been in a hurry. Parts of the tale were rather tall, to say the least. And there was no way to fabricate any sort of proof--there hadn’t been time.

“As I said, I found out last summer,” Giles said. “I was poking around...putting some things together. Making some connections that disturbed me. I never did read the files the Watchers keep on Sunnydale, Buffy, they’re voluminous and there wasn’t time, I got the assignment to be your Watcher and I was sent here in short order. But I can tell you now that the Watchers had no idea about Wilkins; if they did they obviously would have told me, they would have told Rebecca. I’d imagine they kept the files because they know this town was built on a Hellmouth, and the files are probably just notes about the various occult happenings that have been recorded here since Sunnydale was built. I told you I read those files because that poking around I did led me to believe that Amy Madison’s death wasn’t a suicide, and I wanted you to look into it. But I didn’t want to tell you how I knew.”

“And how did you know?” Willow said.

He braced himself. This was the best they could come up with in a few hours.

“When you two were away during the summer I was visited again by that shaman fellow I know, you remember him, he came to the library once. Wore that long cloak and the mask that covered half his face?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “He said like three words and he smelled weird and he was creepy and he looked like a ninja.”

“And he did that cool spell where he disappeared in a ball of smoke,” Willow said. “I keep trying to find that spell. It would be awesome, being able to disappear in a ball of smoke. I’d totally be like I Dream of Jeannie.”

“Er...yes, I suppose so,” Giles said. “Well anyway he owed me a debt--I introduced him to his wife. In his culture a debt is a terrible burden: it must be repaid. He’s been looking for a way to repay me for more than a decade now, and last summer he found it. He told me he had done some work sweeping some demons out of an old Celtic temple in Wales and in the course of his investigations he learned that one of the demons was part of a clan that had a connection to a powerful man in Sunnydale. The demon didn’t know the powerful man’s name but it had seen him and it had the image of the man in its mind. My friend read the creature’s mind and found the image of the man, and then copied the image to a photographic sheet by means of thought projection. Then he came here. My friend hadn’t been able to find out the man’s name, but he gave the picture to me hoping I could make something of it, because the demon clan connected to this man was a very powerful clan and my friend was afraid for my life. The man in the picture was Richard Wilkins. And that’s when I started digging.”

“So you were like, Giles, P.I?” Buffy said. “Did you tool around town in a Ferrari and have a bunch of chicks and like this little butler guy? Did you get into shootouts? Did you grow a porn star moustache over the summer and then shave it off just before I got back?”

Giles frowned. “Yes, Buffy, that’s exactly what I did. Actually my shaman friend did most of the heavy lifting, I just made the connections. His ninja-like ability to appear and disappear at will--really, it’s just a glamour Willow, he casts an invisibility glamour on himself and then throws a little smoke bomb for show--”

“So that’s it,” Willow said. “Becca said she’s gonna start training me on glamours. Now I’m totally gonna be paying attention. Maybe I should do the smoke bomb thing too. I could scare the bad guys.” She turned to Buffy. “Should I do the smoke bomb thing? Y’know, scare the bad guys with my ninja-like comings and goings?”

“You’re plenty scary enough, Will,” Buffy said. “Proved that last night. Too bad they don’t make wooden throwing stars though. It’d be neat to be able to take vamps down from a distance, but the crossbow’s too unreliable. Plus if they made wooden throwing stars I could dress up in a ninja outfit.”

“Yes, well...” Giles sighed, because it was the correct thing to do at this moment; the real Giles had always sighed whenever Buffy went off on one of her ridiculous tangents. But he thought this was going splendidly so far. The girls were so busy amusing themselves that they not only hadn’t noticed that his story was a load of rubbish that anyone could have made up on the spot, but they also hadn’t noticed that there was--conveniently--no way to disprove it. “I suppose a ninja costume would be more practical in the field than one of your skirts. Where was I. Yes. My shaman friend’s ability to make himself invisible for short periods means that he’s marvelous at getting in and out of secret places and stealing things. Once I saw the man in the picture was the Mayor of Sunnydale, I decided my friend’s debt wouldn’t be paid off until he acquired some information for me. I sent my friend to City Hall and he came back to me the next day with an armload of the Mayor’s secret records.”

“Computer records?” Willow said, perking up.

“Nope,” Buffy said. “Ninja Guy didn’t look computer literary.”

“Literate.”

“Literate.”

“No, no bloody computer records,” Giles said. “Just nice reliable paper. He grabbed whatever he could lay his hands on but the Mayor has his own wizard so my friend couldn’t just stay there indefinitely. But he certainly grabbed records of a rather intriguing cross-section of dirty deeds going back decades, and I spent months connecting the dots. I may be bugger-all with computers but I’m good at chasing paper trails.”

“What did you find out?” Willow said.

“Where are the records?” Buffy said.

“The records are gone,” Giles said. “Just before you came back from Los Angeles someone broke into my apartment and stole them. Every last scrap of paper, gone, including all my notes. But that doesn’t matter, because I’ve got it all in my head. One of the files was a collection of police reports that the Mayor had taken a particular interest in over the years; one of them was the death of Maureen Hargenson in 1967. That was why I suspected Amy’s suicide was actually foul play right off, and that we have a new and very dangerous witch operating in Sunnydale. As for the rest...I know a great many of the despicable things Richard Wilkins has done, but the one thing I don’t know is what he’s planning to do next, because he was smart enough not to keep detailed records of that. Next September he’ll receive his reward from the demons he has served, but I have no idea what it is.”

“Willy said he heard it’s gonna kill a lot of people,” Buffy said. “Giles...are you sure it happens in September?”

This was the best part, Giles knew. The most brilliant part of the plan. In a way it was actually a good thing Buffy had found out. Because now, with one simple lie, she could be redirected. On May 18th, 1999, the day the Mayor would be ready to ascend, become a pure demon, devour her graduating class and then rampage through the town, Buffy would think she still had months left to stop him.

“Yes, absolutely certain,” Giles said. “The pact he made with the demons is a hundred years to the day and even though no public records contain the exact date the construction of Sunnydale began, I know from dozens of notations in the Mayor’s files that September 22nd is the day he receives his reward.”

“Well...at least we’ve got time,” Willow said.

“Yes,” Giles said. “And now we’re together again and we’re all finally on the same page. So let’s get cracking on that shipment, shall we?” He smiled. The winsome smile, the one that showed off his dimples. “And perhaps I might even manage to avoid getting hit on the head.”

Buffy and Willow and Giles stood in the black shadows of a long, dirty alley that ran between two warehouses on the edge of the docks and smelled like fish. The narrow alley was so dark they couldn’t see each other. They could hear a foghorn in the distance.

“Will, you grew up here, so tell me again how this goofy little town has its own airport, a world class university, a giant, perfectly neat system of underground tunnels, more than twenty graveyards, a zillion little magic artifact thingies buried every ten feet like pirate treasure, and now a fully functioning port with ships coming in and out all day too,” Buffy said. “Oh yeah, and a Nordstrom’s and a Bloomingdale’s. I’m not complaining about the Nordstrom’s and the Bloomingdale’s but Sunnydale really shouldn’t have them.”

“Um...magic?” Willow offered unhelpfully. “Whenever something is weird in Sunnydale I just blame it on magic. ’Cause, y’know, we’re on a Hellmouth and...well, that’s all I’ve got.”

“If we were all in a story this whole town would be a plot contrivance,” Buffy said.

“Standing around this alley talking about shoe stores is really a smashing good time but perhaps we might get on with finding that artifact,” Giles said. He had a sword buckled on his belt. A katana. He had given Buffy one too. It wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the one Rebecca had given her, and when Giles had given it to her and insisted she wear it for her own safety she had felt guilty about how much she had loved the one Rebecca gave to her.

She put it out of her mind now. She was working.

“Okay,” Buffy said. “Um...so...I guess the ships are thataway. We need to be somewhere we can get a better look around. We don’t know which ship the thingie will be on so I guess we hang back and look for suspicious people. Like vampires. According to Willy the Mayor likes to use vampires.”

“Yes, I saw that when I was looking through his files,” Giles said. “He has a whole security force comprised of vampires, and even the ones who aren’t on his payroll still work for him in a way. This is his town and all the vampires in Sunnydale know it. And although we don’t know for certain that this shipment is for the Mayor, it’s a good bet. If something’s coming into Sunnydale on a boat he has to know about it.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “He runs the whole town, right? The cops, the news stations, my school, everything. But vampires work to our advantage. If he sends vampires to pick up this magic doohickey I’ll smell them and they’ll lead us right to it.”

“Fuck you, Slayer!” Billy Gianelli screamed at the top of his lungs as he watched Buffy and Willow and Giles from the roof of the warehouse directly above them. “Fuck you, you fucking airhead cheerleader bitch!”

“Feel good to get that off your chest?” Troy said. Troy was the Mayor’s chief of security, and he had the job for a reason: he was the biggest, toughest vampire Billy had ever personally seen. And he was old: unlike most vampires, he had been around awhile. Because he wasn’t just tough, he was smart and he was disciplined. Smart enough and disciplined enough to survive.

“Yeah. Dude, glamours are awesome.” Billy grinned back at Xavier. “The X-Man scores again.”

“Indeed,” Xavier said. “Now let’s be certain we score that artifact.”

The two vampires crouched on the roof like wolves, not fifty yards away from Buffy and Willow and Giles, while Xavier, the Mayor’s wizard, stood still as stone behind them, his hard obsidian skin dark as the night shadows. He had cast a glamour around the three of them that camouflaged them all completely. They couldn’t be seen or heard--or smelled. When you were dealing with a Slayer, camouflaging your scent was very important.

“How long until this boat gets in, Xavier?” Troy said.

“Due in ninety minutes,” Xavier said. “But you never know with boats. The sea is capricious.”

Troy looked out at the docks, his eyes, much more acute than a human’s or even a Slayer’s, piercing the darkness without any trouble at all. There were two big merchant ships in port with plenty of cargo containers.

“Okay,” Troy said. “This works out perfect for us. We don’t want the Slayer anywhere near the real ship. The Seskrit demon will have the fake artifact with him. We lead the three of them to one of those cargo ships, find a way to separate the Seskrit from the two girls for a minute or so and then we run the plan. If we do this right we’re in and out. Billy, you and I will lead the Slayer to the boat. Xavier, once they follow us in and we jump ’em, you make sure that witch down there doesn’t fry us.”

Xavier smiled. “Rosenberg will pose no problem at all.”

“Don’t be so sure, Xavier,” Troy said. “According to my files the girl’s tough and getting tougher. She took down Kakistos and it doesn’t get a lot tougher than that. Big K was stronger than four of me and I’m pretty strong.”

“Can I ask a dumb question?” Billy said. “We’re like, invisible, right?” He pointed down at the alley, at Buffy and Willow. “And the Slayer and the witch are right there. Why don’t we just jump down and kill the two of them and then go out for beers?”

“That’s not policy,” Troy said. “The Mayor wants the Slayer alive right now.”

“Why the hell does he want her alive? She has this annoying habit of killing people like us. And cracking those stupid fucking jokes while she does it. Every time I hear her talk that goofy California valley girl talk where she ends every other fucking word in a ‘y’ I just wanna strangle her.”

Troy chuckled. “Her talk is annoying, that’s a fact.”

“But she cleans up messes,” Xavier said. “Kakistos, Angelus, the Master. The Slayer doesn’t know it, but she works for Richard too.” He smiled. His sharp white teeth glinted in the dark. “For six more months. Then she can die, I suppose.”

“Yahtzee,” Buffy said.

“What?” Giles said.

“Vamps,” Buffy said. “Look.”

They were crouched behind a dumpster at the head of the alley, and Buffy was pointing now at one of the big cargo ships anchored at the docks. When Willow squinted by the light of the streetlamps that dotted the port here and there she was just able to make out two running figures. But they weren’t running...not the way human beings ran. They were loping through the shadows, their noses to the ground. Like animals...like vampires.

“Weird, though,” Buffy said.

“What’s weird?” Willow said. “I mean, other than our whole lives.”

“I wasn’t picking those vamps up at all a second ago,” Buffy said. “Not even a whiff. And now it’s like they suddenly just appeared on my radar. Like they popped up from out of nowhere. Maybe it’s all the fish screwing with my nose.”

Or the glamour that had protected them suddenly being removed, Giles thought. And he knew that even though they could only see two running figures, there were actually three: Xavier was there...somewhere. Invisible, blending into the shadows...lethal as a snake.

“Okay, so...um...we need a plan,” Buffy said. She didn’t glance back at Giles, but Willow knew Buffy was waiting for him. Trying to show him respect now. But that wasn’t the only reason Buffy was hesitating, Willow realized, as she watched her, crouching there in the shadows like a lion that had just been released back into the wild after a long captivity and didn’t know quite what to do.

Willow touched Buffy’s shoulder, and kissed her cheek.

“This is yours, Buffy,” Willow whispered in her ear. “You’re the Slayer. Own it.”

Buffy hesitated another moment.

Then she turned to Willow and Giles.

“Okay,” Buffy said. “Those vamps went for the ship on the right so I figure that’s our ticket. How about we follow them in and hopefully they’ll lead us to the magic doohickey. I can’t think of any other reason why vamps would be meeting up with a cargo ship so my working theory is those vamps work for the Mayor and it’s the Mayor’s cargo. That sound good to you guys?”

“Works for me,” Willow said. “I’ll keep ready on an energy shield, and I have my lighter ready too.”

“But let’s be careful,” Giles said. “The artifact is what we want, the vampires are a secondary goal.”

“We’re on stealth mode until they lead us to the gold,” Buffy said. “Okay, I’ll, um...take point? That’s how they say it in the movies, right? Anyway I’ll go first. You guys follow me in and keep close.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Willow said.

“They’re taking their sweet time,” Billy said.

“It’s lousy odds for them so they’re being careful,” Troy said. “Their only way to the deck is walking up that gangplank and the Slayer knows we can see them every inch of the way. She’ll be extra cautious because unless we’re stupid there’s no way she can take us by surprise. The wind’s coming from the east, so it’s against her too. This boat’s downwind of them and she knows it’s carrying their scents right to us.”

They were crouched behind one of the big metal cargo containers on the deck of the ship, watching Buffy and Willow and Giles approach. Buffy was in the lead, and Willow and Giles were behind her. They were running, keeping to the shadows between the electric lamps that lit the vast area of the docks at fifty yard intervals, trying to make as little noise as possible.

“I should have brought my crossword puzzle book,” Billy said. “Too bad it wasn’t the other Slayer instead of Buffy Summers. We can kill the other Slayer, right?”

“No,” Troy said. “They’re all officially off-limits until May, the order just came down yesterday. It’s what tomorrow’s security briefing’s gonna be about. That includes both Watchers, both Slayers, and the witch too. And that asshole vampire pal of theirs with the gay hair.”

“Can we kill them in May at least? Come on man, throw me a bone here.”

“I don’t know. Ask your girlfriend. She’s his assistant, she’s got pull with him.”

“Grapes doesn’t get to see the security and wetworks stuff. And she isn’t my girlfriend.”

“Not from a lack of trying on your part. Okay, let’s keep it down. They’re close now. You got the plan?”

“Yup. Hit ’em hard and fast, separate the demon so he has time to pretend he found the thing, then you take a chunk out of him so he looks like one of the good guys. And don’t kill the Slayer.”

Troy frowned. “Hey, I don’t like it either, man. But we both know Richard’s a strange bird. Last week he sacrificed a dozen babies, this week he’s handing out Thanksgiving turkeys. If I didn’t know better I’d think he likes the girl.”

Buffy scampered up the gangplank with Willow and Giles behind her, feeling horribly exposed. The gangplank was wood and Willow and Giles couldn’t avoid making noise as they climbed it. Buffy didn’t make a sound.

“They’re gonna know we’re here,” Buffy whispered. “They’ve gotta have our scents by now. Will, once I find them, stay with me but hang back. You need room to work and the deck is a maze with all those big metal lunchboxes.”

The weather was turning cold again and the wind had picked up. The ship made the strange sounds that ships made as its huge metal bulk settled in the cold, murky waters of Sunnydale’s harbor in the moonlight, and the unpredictable wind, gusting now, scraped its rusty deck with cold fingers. The deck of the ship was fairly well-lit, at least. It was covered with big metal cargo containers in neat rows, but they were close enough together that it would be difficult to maneuver: the vampires would have the advantage in a fight. Luckily there were only two of them...Buffy knew she could handle two in her sleep. But as she reached the top of the gangplank, silent as a wisp of smoke, she nevertheless had the uncomfortable feeling that she was leading Willow and Giles into a trap. For a moment she was tempted to tell them to head back, to wait for her on the dock...but she knew she couldn’t do that. Willow and Giles had committed to this war too...they had the right to take these risks, to decide for themselves. Taking that away from Willow had very nearly cost Buffy her friendship. Buffy wouldn’t do that again...but she knew that if Willow died, she would never forgive herself.

She felt the weight on her shoulders. Heavier than a fully loaded merchant ship at anchor.

“Now what?” Willow whispered.

Buffy sniffed the air. “This way,” she whispered. She began creeping along one of the rows of cargo containers, keeping low and staying out of the little pools of light that the electric lamps strewn haphazardly about the deck splashed around. Willow and Giles followed silently behind her. Buffy heard Giles loosen his katana in its sheath: the soft scrape of metal on leather. Buffy had her stake ready. She didn’t remember removing it from her boot. Its smell reassured her and the perfectly tooled wood, its texture worn from constantly being held in her hand, felt like an extension of her will.

They crept through the maze of cargo containers for a minute, then two...

Then they saw it. There was an open cargo container at the other end of the deck, about a hundred yards ahead of them, and there was a vampire crouching in front of it.

“There it is,” Giles whispered. “That has to be it.”

“Something’s wrong,” Buffy whispered. She sniffed the air again, and looked around. She could smell them both...where was the other one? “We’re about to get hit!”

There was a roar from above, and then the other vampire, the one who had been lying in wait, suddenly attacked. He sprang at Buffy from atop a pile of crates and tackled her, knocking Giles and Willow away as he did, sending them both sprawling to the deck. Buffy rolled with the vampire, covering up and trying to protect her face as he raked at her with his claws. After a moment she was able to get her legs underneath her, and she kicked him off. With a howl of rage he went tumbling away and slammed into one of the crates with a clang that reverberated throughout the deck like a bell. Buffy got herself up, and the vampire rolled to his feet just as quickly. He grinned at her like it was funny. He was standing beneath a portable lamp that had been set up on top of one of the crates. He was tall and powerfully built, wearing a leather coat and jeans and leather boots. He had thick black hair cut short and he was thuggishly handsome. Buffy looked around for Giles and Willow. Willow was just getting herself back up, about ten yards to the right. Buffy heard the ring of a sword, and a growl. She turned and saw Giles fighting with the other vampire by the open cargo container. That vampire looked even bigger than this one and Buffy knew Giles was going to need help.

“So you’re the new Slayer, huh?” the thuggishly handsome vampire said. “Cute. Maybe a tiny step down from the last one. She was a solid nine. I’ll call you an eight.”

“The last one?” Buffy said.

“Don’t they send you girls to like Slayer school or something?” the vampire said. “Frenchie chick. Madeleine Lambert. I had a few run-ins with her back in the day. Good times.”

“I’m gonna call you a negative eighty-seven,” Buffy said. “You’ve got sorta like this Antonio Banderas Desperado-ish thing going with the hair and the leather and the check out how cool I am attitude, but...”

Out of the corner of her eye Buffy noticed that Willow was up. And she had her lighter ready. There was plenty of room and she had a straight shot...and the vampire didn’t even seem to notice her. It was perfect.

Buffy made sure she kept her eyes on the vampire, and kept his attention focused on her. All she needed was another couple of seconds for Willow to cast her spell and then he’d go up like a torch and she could help Giles...

“Hey...wait, haven’t I seen you before?” Buffy said. “I’m getting all flashbacky all of a sudden. I think...yeah. You’ve been part of the slayage before, haven’t you? We had a romantic evening in some graveyard somewhere and I introduced you to Mr. Pointy. And yet you’re not dust. How lame is that? Now I feel all inadequate.”

“Jesus Christ,” the vampire said. “Why can’t you talk like a normal fucking person?”

Willow was taking too long. Buffy glanced in her direction...

Willow was gone.

“Willow?” Buffy said, looking around, suddenly frightened now. “Willow!”

She ran in the direction she had seen Willow a second ago. She forgot the vampire and just ran...

She turned a corner in the maze of cargo crates. Willow was lying on the deck in front of her. Buffy knelt beside her and took her in her arms. In the distance she could hear Giles struggling against his vampire, his katana sword ringing every time it glanced against one of the cargo crates that hemmed them in, the vampire growling every time it found its mark. But Buffy knew Giles could hack away at that vampire for hours and not succeed in killing him; vampires could take a lot of punishment. And all the vampire would need to kill Giles was one good hit...

Willow’s eyes fluttered open. She coughed. “Something...knocked the wind outta me... I’m okay. We gotta...help Giles.”

“You’re hurt, stay here, put a shield around yourself,” Buffy said.

“No. We’re a team.”

Willow got herself up. Buffy nodded her head, and helped her. And then she kissed her cheek.

“I know we’re pumpkins now but I love you,” Buffy whispered.

Giles and Troy watched the deck. Billy had done his job, leading the Slayer and the witch away. Giles slapped his sword against one of the cargo containers every few seconds. Occasionally, Troy made a growling noise.

“They’re coming, I hear them,” Troy said.

Giles pulled a silver amulet out of his jeans pocket. “Looks like we pulled it off.”

“Yeah. Now comes the hard part. You ready?”

Giles had requested this, when he and Xavier and the Mayor had come up with this plan: a battle wound. If one of the vampires took a good chunk out of him while Giles was heroically fighting him off he thought it would be the icing on the cake. Seeing him wounded in the fight would play on Buffy’s guilt.

“Yes,” Giles said. “Try not to hit a major artery, there’s a good chappie. And leave me conscious, please. The real Giles always got knocked on the head and it hardly inspired the Slayer’s confidence. It’s become something of a running joke.”

“Sure,” Troy said, and raised his hand. He had claws long and sharp as talons that could slice through a man’s flesh with ease. “But hey, you get to run me through with that sword so I’m calling it even. Here it comes.”

Buffy and Willow ran for Giles as fast as they could, no longer keeping low, no longer sticking to the shadows. The vampire Buffy was fighting was gone and that worried her: maybe he had run away but maybe he was attacking Giles...

Then Buffy’s blood froze, as she heard Giles scream.

“GILES!” Buffy shrieked, and ran faster, ran so fast she left Willow far behind...

She raced through the shadows, and felt tears running down her cheeks. The wind made them feel cold against her skin.

She saw him, still struggling against the vampire, but he was clutching his side as if he had been wounded there...

But he was alive. He was alive, and Buffy felt like she could breathe again.

“HEY!” Buffy screamed at the vampire who was closing on Giles, her voice ragged. “Slayer here! I’m the one you want! I’m the one you want!”

The vampire ignored her. He was entirely focused on Giles...

Buffy felt her heart leap into her throat as the vampire leaped at Giles like a wolf, his claws raking the air...

Then she saw Giles spin to avoid the vampire’s attack, and ram his sword straight through the vampire’s chest.

The vampire’s shriek of agony and outrage echoed up and down the boat and all the way through the port, as he stumbled back against the railing, and saw Buffy running straight toward him with Willow behind her...

The vampire leaped overboard, and the darkness swallowed him.

“Giles!” Buffy screamed. “Giles!” She skidded to a halt beside him on the slippery deck, and nearly lost her balance in her haste to reach him. He was leaning against one of the cargo crates, shaking a little, holding onto his side and wincing. The sword fell from his hand, covered with blood up to the hilt.

“Hey...hey, hey,” Buffy said, as she put her arms around him. She felt her tears coming, and pushed them back. “Are you...are you okay? Are you okay?”

“Giles!” Willow shouted breathlessly, as she caught up to them.

“I’m...I’m...all right,” Giles whispered, with a little smile. The vampire had slashed at his ribs and even though he hadn’t quite broken any of them his side still hurt like hell; the vampire’s claws had sliced through his flesh the way a butcher’s knife carves meat. But this was what he had asked for: a war wound, and a victory.

“You’re not all right!” Buffy hissed. She looked around; she had no idea where the other vampire had gotten to and he might still be there, lurking in the shadows, biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. She heard an electric hum.

“I just put up a shield, Buffy,” Willow said. “We’re safe until we decide our next move.”

“Thanks,” Buffy said. “Giles, let me see how bad it is.”

“Just...just a scratch,” Giles said. “Willow, I just noticed--are you doing something different with your hair?”

“Um...it’s like an angle...layer...bob...something?” Willow said. “Buffy just did it for me today. It’s kinda Uma Thurmanish. You like?”

He smiled. The winsome smile. “Yes, I, I do. It looks rather smart.”

“Work now, hair talk later,” Buffy said, and pulled Giles’ hand away from the wound. It was covered with blood.

“I know it looks bad but it’s superficial,” Giles said. “I just need something to...staunch the bleeding before I...bleed out on this stupid bloody ship.”

It had been a warm night when she and Willow left her house and neither Buffy or Willow were wearing coats. So Buffy yanked off her blouse. She folded it until she had a thick wad of cloth, about six inches square.

“Is our relationship going to the next level?” Giles said, as Buffy stood frowning at him in her bra. “I think Joyce might become rather jealous.”

“And now he’s making jokes,” Buffy said.

“Well I am like a stevedore after all, according to Joyce,” Giles said, still smiling. “Would she really want to let me get away?” Willow giggled.

“What did we say about using that word?” Buffy said. “I banished that word from our vocabularies, remember? Stay still.”

She tore a long strip from her skirt, and lifted Giles’ shirt. She pressed her blouse against the wound--it was a deep gash but it didn’t look too bad if they could get the bleeding under control--and tied it in place with the strip from her skirt.

“That should hold you until I get you to a hospital,” Buffy said.

“A hospital?” Giles said, being sure to wince just enough as he said it so Buffy would know he was heroically bearing a good deal of pain. “For this scratch?”

“Shut up!” Buffy shouted. “Stop being all heroic! We gotta get you to a hospital for stitches and then, and then they gotta give me about twenty valiums. Nice work with the sword by the way. That vamp you were fighting looked huge. Will, any vamp sightings?”

“Nope,” Willow said, as she peered into the shadows. “I think the other one took off. As for what hit me...no idea.”

“Okay,” Buffy said. “We’re wounded but alive. In Sunnydale that counts as a win.”

“Especially since I managed to knick this,” Giles said, and held up the silver amulet. “I’ve no idea exactly what it is or what it does but that vampire sure seemed keen to have it.”

“You are totally my hero,” Buffy said.

Then she smiled, and kissed his cheek.

“And the best Watcher ever,” she whispered, with a tear in her eye.