ORIGINALLY POSTED: December 8, 2001
TITLE: The Family Business
AUTHOR: JK Philips
RATING: PG-13 (swearing)
SUMMARY: After the events of The Ticking Clock, Buffy and Giles are still looking for their daughter. Can they save her from a terrible fate?
SPOILERS: Everything up to “The Gift”
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.
SECOND DISCLAIMER: Here are the works I stole quotes from: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.
EMAIL: . Would love feedback. This is only my third fanfic. Well, technically my first if you want to lump Death Brings Clarity, The Ticking Clock, and this together as one book.
MY WEBSITE: www.jkphilips.com
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Part 8: The Long Sleep

They argued back and forth about what to do with Giles. Buffy wasn’t sure they should move him, wasn’t sure it wouldn’t affect whatever magic was on him, wouldn’t make it more difficult for them to help him later. Xander didn’t think the spell Giles had cast was the issue. Robin was fine and had left her circle without repercussions, and the orb had shattered. He thought this was something else entirely.

“Because you’re the big expert on magic?” she snapped.

“No, you’re absolutely right. Let’s just leave him on the living room floor. Dawn and Alex will love that when they come home. We can use him for a coffee table.”

She started crying again, and Xander just held her for several minutes until she calmed. Through everything, Robin simply lay beside Giles, her head on his shoulder.

In the end, Buffy relented and agreed to move him upstairs. Maybe he would be more comfortable in the bed, and it would at least save Alex the pain of seeing his father like this. Between Xander and Buffy they arranged the watcher in his bed. Buffy took a dish of water and methodically washed the paint from his face. Xander raised his eyebrows.

“What?” she replied defensively. “We already moved him, so this can’t hurt anything. Besides, you didn’t see the stuff he used to make it. Blaghhh. I don’t think he’d want that on his face all night.”

Getting the stuff off Robin proved more challenging. She squirmed impressively and started kicking and screaming if Buffy pulled her too far from Giles. She finally had a clean face, and Giles probably had a sprinkling of bruises across his sides and arms from his daughter’s frantic struggles.

Finished with all of those details, they were still left with the same dilemma as when they started: figuring out what spell Giles was under and breaking it.

Buffy felt helpless. Give her an enemy to fight, and she could maybe do something. But she could no more do magic than she could read Greek or translate Arabic or do any of the things that Giles, as her watcher, did.

Worse than that, she didn’t know who to ask for help. Their crack Slayerette team had slowly dissolved: Tara dead, Willow wanting nothing more to do with the slaying, Anya too far along in her pregnancy to even dare magic, and she and Xander useless for what needed to be done.

Buffy sighed. What they needed was Giles. He had picked up the slack for each missing Scooby. Now, without him, there was no one to research, no one to cast spells.

She sat on the bed beside her husband, holding his hand and brooding miserably over a myriad of what-ifs and should-haves. Robin sat on his other side, still occasionally trying to rouse him with determined prods to his side and soft pleas of his name. Xander watched over both of them silently.

Finally she could take no more. Angel was the mopey brooder, not she.

“Xander, find Willow. Go to her apartment, ask her professors, whatever you have to do. Just find her.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Call Travers.” She pulled out the slip of paper with his hotel number. “I don’t know how much good he’ll be, but he’s a watcher, right? He’s pretty much all I’ve got right now.”

Xander nodded, agreeing with all of her plans so far. “So what do we do about the escaped psycho? She pretty much booked it at the first opportunity.”

“Faith?” Buffy shrugged, reaching for the nightstand phone and punching in Travers’ number. “At this point in time I’d offer her an all-expense paid trip to hell, but lucky for her I don’t have the time.” The operator answered, and Buffy gave him the room number. “Right now all that matters is Giles,” she finished to Xander. After several rings, she frowned and hung up. “Hmm… Travers isn’t in. Okay, maybe Anya could help.” Off Xander’s look, she clarified. “With the research part, not the magic part. After all those years of experience casting terrible spells on men, maybe this one will be familiar.”

***

“Not a clue,” Anya declared, standing beside the bed, staring down at Giles. “Vengeance spells are a little more dramatic, more messy. Maybe if he had boils or if someone had shrunk his…” Anya peeked under the blanket covering him. “Maybe you should take his clothes off and check.”

Buffy sighed and leaned back against the bedroom wall. “No, I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with him.”

Anya dropped the blanket again. “This isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen.” She brightened. “Oh, except once I cursed this man so he would always fall asleep in the middle of sex.” Her smile faded. “But you and Giles weren’t having sex. You haven’t had sex since before this whole finding Robin, giving her up, getting her back, and her not wanting you thing.”

“Anya!” Buffy glanced towards her daughter, blushing and feeling both embarrassed and irritated. “That is way not open for public discussion… and… and I can’t believe you… I mean, how do you know?” She leaned closer, her voice lowering. “Giles doesn’t talk about… stuff, does he?” She shook her head, dismissing the whole conversation. “Never mind. It’s really none of your business.”

Anya laughed. “Please, Giles can hardly stand to hear about it. Like he’d ever talk about it. And it is so my business. Your sex life… or lack of one… directly impacts my work environment. He gets all grouchy and makes me double check the inventory database.”

“Anya,” Buffy said, with more patience in her voice than she had in her heart. “Can we get back to figuring out how to help Giles?”

Anya frowned in concentration. “Are you sure he’s not just sleeping? He hasn’t really gotten a full night’s sleep in a while, you know.” She leaned down, barely an inch from his face and shouted, “GILES!”

Buffy pulled her back by the arm. “He’s not sleeping.”

Robin seemed to think it was worth a try, too, and began chanting loudly in his ear, “Giles, Giles, Giles!” She punctuated each repetition with a petulant jab to his side.

“Although, he’s probably going to be deaf soon.” Buffy perched on the edge of the bed, reaching across to still the child’s hands and pull her to Giles’ other side. Robin didn’t protest sitting in her lap or the rhythmic caresses through her hair. “Robin, honey, Daddy’s going to sleep for a little while.”

She blinked up with wide blue eyes, so like Buffy’s own. “Why?”

Giles had tried so hard for so many days now to break her silence. She was finally speaking again, and he couldn’t even enjoy it. And of all the conversations Buffy had imagined having with her little girl, this had not ranked among them.

She brushed the girl’s long hair back behind her shoulders, smiling kindly. “There’s a spell on him, and we have to figure out how to break it.”

Robin looked back towards her father, frowning. This must be a lot for a child her age to process. Finding the lines between fantasy and reality blurring beyond detection was often more than most grown-ups could handle. Hence the citywide epidemic of repression. Buffy was fifteen when she became the Slayer. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be raised to it like Kendra, or surrounded by it like Robin and Alex. Alex, at least, had the security of an almost stable home life and a circle of devoted family. Robin had lost her whole world. Giles was the center she clung to. Now, to lose that center too… Buffy didn’t have the slightest idea how to reassure the girl. That was another thing that Giles would know. He would know what to do for Robin. He would know what book to look in and what spell to try. He would know how to quiet Buffy’s own fears and how to prepare her for what she needed to do. Buffy knew nothing.

Robin looked up again at her mother, her forehead still furrowed with her concentration. She asked quietly: “Bad witch? Bad spell?”

Buffy nodded slightly, quiet for a moment as she tried to maintain control over her emotions. When she was sure her voice wouldn’t break, she answered. “Yes, a totally evil spell. But don’t worry, honey, we’re going to undo it, and then he’ll be all better.”

Robin seemed to accept this and crawled out of Buffy’s lap to cuddle against Giles’ side. Buffy wondered if she had just lied to her daughter. Yeah, they would undo whatever had been done to Giles. Piece of cake. Just like they would de-rat Amy. Here it was almost seven years later, and all they had accomplished was the assembling of the world’s most impressive Habitrail.

Buffy leaned down to kiss her daughter’s forehead, and then reached up to smooth back a few stray curls of hair from Giles’ brow. She wanted nothing more than for him to open his eyes and smile and tell her he’d had a nice nap. What if she never got to look into his eyes again?

“Robin, Aunt Anya and I are going in the hallway to talk. Will you be okay here with Daddy?”

She nodded.

Anya led the way, and Buffy shut the door carefully behind her. Alex loitered in the hallway, scuffing his feet against the baseboards and staring intently at the closed bedroom door. She squatted down eye level with her son.

“Hey, Little Rabbit, what’re you doing up here?”

He shrugged, rocking on his feet and tugging on the zipper of his light spring coat. She reached across, unzipped, and peeled off his jacket. He cast a lingering glance over her shoulder as she did. Buffy turned to follow his eyes, staring at the closed bedroom door now too.

“Daddy sick?” he asked.

Buffy lifted her son into her arms as she stood, hanging his jacket on the stair railing for now. She saw Giles’ eyes looking into hers, and she ached all the more for it. “Daddy did some magic, and now he’s sleeping. But Mommy and Xander and Anya and Dawn are going to find some more magic to wake him up. Okay?” Buffy carried the boy downstairs, glancing around the living room and into the dining room for Dawn. “Where’d Dawn go?” she asked her son.

He pointed towards the front door. “Ou’side.”

Buffy had a sneaking suspicion where her sister might have disappeared to, but she was so not in the mood to worry about it right now. She looked over her shoulder to where Anya had followed to the bottom of the stairs. “Could you watch the twins for me? Until Dawn or Xander get back? I’m going to find Travers.”

“Sure. Kids like me.” Anya smiled and stroked her rounded stomach. “I’ve been researching entertaining and educational activities for different age brackets. I can think of seventeen different games that they should find enjoyable.”

Buffy frowned. “Really, you don’t have to entertain them. Maybe just make sure they don’t get into too much trouble.” She looked back and forth between her son and Anya with some amount of trepidation.

“Come on, Buffy. Giles brings Alex to the shop everyday. And he sticks me with kid-watching duty every time he has a prophecy to hunt down or some fascinating demon to research. Alex and I are buddies, right, kiddo?” Alex nodded eagerly. “Also, I’m much more strict than Xander. They’ll be fine. And well behaved and orderly. It’ll be like the Von Trapp family with the whistles.”

Buffy frowned again, before setting her son on the ground. “You’ll be good for Aunt Anya?” The boy agreed happily. “And do whatever she says?” Another affirmation. “And remember that she can’t pick you or Robin up right now?”

Alex sighed and nodded, clearly tiring of these questions.

Buffy steered him towards the living room. “Your father’s going to kill me for this, but I think this is the perfect time for a little cartoon marathon.” She found something acceptable, and her son was immediately glued to the set, every bit the pop culture addict that his mother was and his father abhorred.

She walked back to the foyer, talking softly to Anya as she slipped on a light coat. “Just keep an eye on them. I don’t think Robin will leave Giles’ side. Keep checking on them and see if you can’t find something for her to do while she’s in there. If anything happens… If Giles… Well, call an ambulance if you have to, but I’d rather have him here at home.” She spared one last look for her son. “Try and keep Alex from sneaking into the bedroom. Seeing his father like that would only upset him.”

“Go get ’em.” Anya slugged the Slayer in the shoulder. “Good luck finding Travers. I hope you both find a spell to help Giles.”

Buffy smiled weakly as she opened the door. She paused in the doorway as she thought of something else. “If Dawn gets back before I do, don’t let her out of your sight.”

***

Spike heard his crypt door bang open behind him, but didn’t bother to turn away from the TV. He hoped it wasn’t the watcher again. He wasn’t in the mood for another trip to the hardware store for tinted windows. Not to mention that he was in the middle of a really good show.

“Back for another round of wail on Spike?”

“No.” The voice was soft and far more feminine than even Spike would ever accuse the Watcher’s of being.

He turned, his heart in his eyes when he saw her. “Dawn!” He jumped up from the battered couch, but stopped just before touching her.

Her eyes were sad and hurting. The smile left his face, replaced by concern and sympathy and just a touch of anger for the bastards who claimed they loved her at the same time they caused her such pain. He reached out one hand to cup her chin in his palm.

“Sweet Bit, I’m sorry. Shoulda never let them stand between us.”

Her long fingers wrapped around his wrist, pulling his hand from beneath her chin and up to rest against her cheek. His thumb brushed across her cheekbone as he bent to kiss her tenderly on the lips. So soft, so innocent. She was the only taste of heaven his demon could ever hope for.

He pulled away slightly, hoping to have erased some of the sadness from her eyes, but only finding it etched deeper in her face. A warm tear slipped between his fingers, and he wiped it away. “You gonna tell me about it, or you gonna cry me a river?”

Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath. “It’s Giles.”

He spun away from her, shaking his head. He felt the bloodlust rise in proportion to his anger. Damn this sodding chip. Who wouldn’t he love to kill right about now?

“Damn watcher. Always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. I’ve half a mind to rip it off his face and-”

“Spike!”

He faced her again, stopped mid-rant by the desperation in her voice. “I take it you didn’t give them the slip so you could commiserate ’bout how much you missed me?”

She shook her head.

“Big bad on the prowl?”

Dawn shrugged and walked slowly towards him. “Giles won’t wake up.”

Spike took her by the shoulders and guided her toward the couch where they both sat. She stayed still for several moments, her head bowed, and he brushed her long auburn hair back so he could see her face. Poor Niblet. Watcher may be acting like a real prick right about now, but even Spike had to admit that the man had been a better father to Dawn than her own miserable excuse for a sperm donor. Dawn did love Giles. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have cared so much what he and Buffy thought, would have just packed up and disappeared into the night with her vampire boyfriend. And Spike wouldn’t have argued with her one bit.

He cocked his head to one side as he studied her. “He have a stroke or something?” Spike realized that the man was mortal and not exactly in his prime, something the others seemed to overlook in light of Buffy’s slayer lifespan.

She shook her head, more tears spilling down her cheeks. Spike scowled and got off the couch, striding to the other side of the crypt to light a cigarette. He really didn’t know how to handle weepy women. Except when he was killing them. Then he had always appreciated the tears.

“He get knocked on the head again? Twelfth concussion comes with a free coma sort of deal?”

“No,” she managed between sniffling sobs.

Spike took a drag off his cigarette, cursing his sharp tongue. He was only making things worse for Dawn, and he didn’t know how to stop.

“You said you wouldn’t do that anymore,” she said softly.

He kicked a rock across the room, frustrated with himself. “Sorry, Niblet. More than a hundred years of mouthing off’s a pretty hard habit to break.” He followed her gaze to the lit cigarette in his hand. “Oh, that.” He stomped it out beneath his boot. “Yeah, a hundred years of that’s pretty hard to break too.” He crossed back to her, kneeling in front of the couch. “Look, whatever you need, I’m your guy. You need me to bash anyone’s head in, I’ll be more than happy to oblige.” She gave him a somewhat soggy laugh, and he took her head between his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “You need a shoulder to cry on, I can do that too. Coat may be leather, but it’s waterproofed.” He wiped off her tears with the back of his hand. “You need me to come back with you, I’ll even risk a staking by big sis.”

She smiled bravely for him, and he kissed her fiercely on her forehead, and then looked deeply into her eyes. “So you gonna tell me what’s what or we gonna play twenty questions all night?”

“Giles was doing a spell,” she told him.

And then Dawn filled him in on everything he had missed over the last two weeks. Apparently he had missed a lot. Everything from reclaiming the missing twin to the slaughter of all potential slayers save one to the destruction of the Watcher’s Council.

Dawn was calm by the time she finished, but Spike was sprawled out on his side of the couch in shock. “Bugger. Kill all the potentials, kill the Slayer, no more slayers. Wish I’d thought of it.” He caught her wide-eyed glare out of the corner of his eye and coughed. “Back when I was evil. When I liked doing evil things. Not now of course.” He stood and started pacing in front of her. “The Watcher’s Council. Now that’s something else entirely. They got the potentials; they made a try at Faith. All they got to do now is finish off the littlest slayer and Faith, and they win. What’s their gripe with the watchers?” He stopped pacing as he considered and then dismissed his own question. “’Sides thousands of years of trying to wipe our kind out of existence, that is?”

Dawn shrugged. “Giles was researching it. Thought he could figure out who was doing all of this by casting a spell on Robin.”

“Looks like that worked out splendidly.” She seemed near tears again, and Spike knelt down in front of her once more, tipping her chin up to look him in the eye. “We’ll figure it out, Lil Bit. Give the man some credit. He’s stronger than you think.”

She held his eyes with her own, silently pleading with him. “You can help him, right? You’ve done magic, Spike. You can figure out a spell for Giles.”

He shook his head, flashes of a dream spiraling through his skull. Just an itty-bitty spell, Spikey. And then he’ll give you the Key to your happiness.

“I can’t do magic, Dawn.”

“But… but… That time in New Orleans and that guy with the-”

“Just stories. I was only tryin’ to impress you, and all those ‘I killed the whole family’ stories were wearing a bit thin.”

“So you lied to me? None of those things really happened?”

He turned away from her, ashamed now. “No, they all happened just like I said. ’Cept Dru was the sorcerer, not me. I’m no better of a magician than a poet, or an evil vampire for that matter.” He faced her again, his mind searching, his heart desperately wanting to help her. “Why don’t you get Red to do her mojo on him?”

“Xander went looking for her, but… Ever since Tara died…” Dawn trailed off, and Spike finished.

“Red hasn’t been the eagerest bestest Wiccan in Sunnyhell. Cracked her crystal ball, if you ask me.”

“Spike, please.”

“Now look here, Platelet, I know you’re fond of the witch, but ever since Glory, you’ve all turned a blind eye to the kinds of stuff she’s been dipping her hands into. I know it’s no longer my place, and my Scooby membership has probably been permanently revoked for the unforgivable sin of loving the Slayer’s kid sister, but this affects you, and so I can’t just keep my mouth shut.

“The kind of power Red has… it seems like a good thing to have around for puttin’ up invisible walls to keep out armies and puttin’ souls back in bodies and creepin’ through mansions in India without makin’ a sound. But there’s a price for that kinda power. You get a taste for it, and it’s not so easy to go back to pig’s blood, if you catch my drift.”

“Willow stopped doing magic for months.”

Spike stood and strolled away from her, stopping to lean against the sarcophagus, his back to her. He feared very few things in his unlife. But in the past few years he had discovered one of the drawbacks to caring about mortals: they inevitably died. Even Dawn, who wasn’t a slayer, would eventually be laid into the ground. He just would rather it were many years from now. The thought that he could lose her at any moment, that something could happen to steal her away now rather than later, that was one of the few things that a vampire such as he could still fear. He looked over his shoulder at her. She was watching him, waiting. He wondered why he even had to explain it to her, why they hadn’t seen it even before Tara died.

“Just bottling it up. Mark my words: the fallout’s coming, and when it does, you’d be wise to reach a minimum safe distance.”

Dawn crossed her arms defiantly and stood. “Willow would never hurt anyone.”

“No? The minute Glory brain-sucked Tara, she went charging in, throwing every wicked bit of power she had at the bint. Red went up against a god, Dawn. And now Tara’s dead. How much more pissed off do you think she is?” He sighed and lowered his eyes. This conversation was going nowhere fast. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you is all.”

He heard Dawn’s soft footsteps on the cold dirt of the crypt floor. He heard her with his vampiric senses: each tentative footfall, the quiet breaths, and the steady thrum of her heartbeat. So he didn’t startle when he felt her hand slide up his stomach, across his chest. He just reached up and laid his own hand over hers.

“I’ll be careful, Spike. I promise. And I’ll make sure Buffy has a talk with Willow. But… we still need to help Giles. Now. And we can’t find Willow, and Anya’s having a baby, so no magic allowed, and with Giles unconscious and Tara… dead… well, that’s it for magic-type people in the gang.”

Ding-dong, the witch is dead, and you’ll have to play with her toys while the Watcher sleeps.

He still heard the faintest echo of Dru’s voice in his head, and he wondered if she had truly visited him in his dream, or if it had all come from his own mind. He wasn’t sure which answer he wanted to believe.

“Please, Spike.”

He traced the curves of her face with his eyes and squeezed her hand slightly. “Sure, Lil Bit, I’ll do my best.”

***

Willow curled up on her bed, sobbing. This betrayal hurt worse than she could have imagined. She hadn’t wanted to believe Sabrina, but it all made too much sense to ignore. Travers had always given her the creeps, and all those watchers poking their noses around the Magic Box like they owned the place and asking all those questions like the Spanish Inquisition. She remembered how that Indian watcher had interrogated them, Nigel something or other. And you’re registered as practicing witches under the names as you gave them to me?

Registered so they could be watched.

Willow had been down with the hurrahs and the go-Buffy’s after the Slayer’s standoff with the Council: getting Giles reinstated and putting those self-righteous prigs in their places. But now she wondered if being brought back under the wing of the Council had been a victory.

It made sense that the Council would want to monitor those possessed of power, would want to keep them from becoming too strong or learning too much. They were like the mob… the occult mob… the English occult mob with tea instead of booze. Willow knew they killed when they felt it necessary, and not just demons. The special ops team had come for Faith after her coma. Giles had said the special ops performed the dirtier work of the Council: smuggling, theft, wetworks. Wetworks: a nice clean word for murder, the kind of word you could use while discussing it over tea.

Four bodies so far, all bearing the mark of their group, all murdered. The Council was afraid of them. Thought they were getting too powerful. Sabrina warned her to be careful. But even if Willow could believe what the Watcher’s Council was capable of, she hadn’t been able to believe it about Giles. He may be a watcher, but he was her friend. If he’d had the power to save Tara, he would have. But he didn’t have that kind of power, or at least she had thought he hadn’t. He’d proved her wrong and Sabrina right with his little peeping Tom spell.

And it hurt. Hurt more than she could bear to be betrayed by those she had trusted.

“Willow.”

Sabrina’s voice startled her slightly, but she didn’t move. The semi-darkness hid her tears, but not the desperate catch in her voice with each breath.

“Willow, I’m sorry about your friend. I was really hoping that I was wrong about him. But you can’t keep beating yourself up about it. It’s not your fault. He had you fooled.”

Willow pulled herself up, her back pressed to the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. “God, Sabrina, did you feel his power?”

Her friend sat on the bed beside her, a sympathetic frown on her face. “Yeah.”

“I mean, I’ve done a spell here or there with him, but nothing like that. I had no idea he could…” Her eyes grew distant, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “He could have saved her, couldn’t he?”

Sabrina shrugged and looked down at her fingers. “Maybe there’s some kind of watcher rule about-” Willow cut her off with a seriously intense look, her old “resolve face.” Sabrina finished in a whisper. “Yeah, he probably could have.”

Willow started sobbing again, dropping her head to her knees. She felt Sabrina scoot over on the bed, her hand softly resting on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have done things any differently, and you can’t change things now. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t. I blame him. I hate him.”

“You don’t hate him.”

“I do.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “But I should… I can’t just leave him like that. I should…”

“Willow.” Sabrina waited until their eyes met. “You were very brave. You saved us. If you hadn’t done that, the Watcher’s Council would probably have taken more of us by now. It’s up to you, but if you let him go, he’ll just tell the Council and they’ll send others.”

Willow nodded reluctantly, not trusting herself to speak.

Sabrina rose finally and slowly walked towards the door. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, frowning slightly. “I’ve been thinking. That was a pretty close call. And we haven’t always been so lucky. Maybe it’s not safe here anymore. I think we should all just go. Just in case. And then when we’re settled someplace else, someplace safer, you could undo the spell, after we’re sure he can’t find us again.”

The door closed, and Willow slid back down, curled into a ball on the top of her bedspread. She was doing the right thing. She had to keep reminding herself of that. She was protecting her friends, practically her family now. But if this was the right thing to do, why did she feel so terrible about doing it?

***

Alex waited until he heard Anya close the bathroom door before sneaking up the stairs. She went to the bathroom a lot. He paused outside his parent’s bedroom, his ear pressed to the door, listening for a moment before he stretched on tiptoes to reach the knob.

He entered hesitantly, unsure what he would find. Robin sat cross-legged on the bed with an assortment of coloring books and crayons. His father looked like he was sleeping. Alex climbed onto the bed, then bounced on his father’s chest with a timid smile. He waited for his father to groan or to crack his eyes open or to suddenly grab him and tickle him. Alex bent over to give little Eskimo kisses on the nose, waiting and watching, but his father didn’t move.

“Sleepy Giles,” Robin informed him bluntly.

Alex looked over at her, and they stared at each other in silence for a long time. He hadn’t expected his sister to talk, but neither did it shock him all that much. He just accepted it, like he accepted the blue crayon she offered out to him. They sat on either side of their father and colored pictures of houses and trees and flowers and a big beautiful sun suspended in a clear blue sky.

***

It was Anya who took care of the details for Giles. Buffy came home to find that a nurse had already visited, and would be by three times a day for as long as needed to take care of Giles’ physical needs. Home hospice care. Anya had made up some story, and the agency hadn’t questioned her when she paid in cash.

Buffy knew she should be thankful for Anya’s practicality, but she resented her initiative. Arranging medical care for him meant that Anya thought he would be like that long enough to need it. Buffy was still holding on to the hope that he would wake in time to fall asleep in her arms that very night, for once not curled up on opposite sides of the bed as they had been for two weeks now. Seeing him lying so still and pale, an IV slowly dripping into his arm… Buffy choked back her tears lest she break down in front of the children.

They moved the television into the bedroom, because it seemed more traumatic to try and keep the children from their father than to simply let them stay beside him. A part of Buffy wondered if a nonstop marathon of Barney and Sesame Street might be just the thing to coerce Giles out of his unnatural sleep. At least it kept the twins occupied. They had already tried their hand at a crayon mural for the bedroom wall when Anya wasn’t watching.

Buffy halfheartedly leafed through the stack of books Giles had left on the dining table. Travers was a no-show. He had checked out of his hotel, in a hurry apparently. Too much in a hurry to let the Slayer know where he had gone. She wondered if it was spite or pride or simply the habit of years of answering to no one, of having the invisible ranks of watchers working beneath him, ready and able to take her call.

Xander’s mission was also a bust. Worse than that, actually. Willow was not at her apartment, her apartment in fact being vacant. No one had any idea where she might have gone. No forwarding address. Even her professors had no idea where to find her. Apparently she had taken personal leave from her master’s program.

So they were no better off than when they had started. They all ended up sitting in the master bedroom: the twins on either side of Giles, Buffy sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning against the headboard, Anya reclining in a rocking chair, her feet resting in Xander’s lap where he sat on the floor massaging them. For some reason none of them could tear their eyes from the purple puppets’ rendition of “near” and “far” played out on the television.

“This is a classic,” Xander informed them, imitating their voices as his hands drifted “near” and “far” from Anya’s-

“Xander!” Buffy scolded with a wide-eyed glare. “Impressionable children sitting not so ‘far’ from where I’m ‘nearly’ ready to smack you upside the head.”

He held up his hands and in the Count’s voice pronounced, “One, two, two hands keeping all to themselves over here.”

She sighed and glanced over to Giles’ still features. Sliding off the bed, she headed back downstairs. Enough sulking and feeling sorry for herself. Time to hit the books.

Buffy was just coming down the stairs when the front door opened. Dawn stepped through, Spike standing on the porch just behind her. The two sisters stopped mid-step, a stony silence descending between them.

Dawn turned to look at Spike, still waiting at the threshold for his invitation. “Spike-”

Buffy darted forward the remaining distance between them, covering her sister’s mouth with her hand. “Don’t you dare invite him in. Dawn, I can’t believe with everything going on that you would sneak off to make time with Spike.” She felt Dawn’s tongue lick across her palm and snatched her hand back. “Eww! That’s gross!”

Dawn crossed her arms and glared. “Will you listen to me for two seconds?”

“Fine.”

“Don’t mind me,” Spike offered, leaning sideways against the invisible barrier barring his way into the Summers’ home. “I’ll just wait right here while you two birds have it out.”

“Shut up, Spike,” Buffy snapped.

“Don’t tell my boyfriend to shut up.”

“Excuse me?”

“I went to get Spike because I thought he could help Giles.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Buffy looked pointedly at her watch. “What have you been doing the rest of the last three hours? Never mind. I don’t think I want to know. Get up to your room.”

“Supplies, you stupid git.” Spike held up a small bag bearing the Magic Box logo.

Buffy gave the vampire a sideways glance. “You really came here to help?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, still lounging against the invisible barrier. “I’ll do what I can. Ain’t promising it’ll work, but I’ll give it a try.”

She focused on her sister again. “And this has absolutely nothing to do with trying to win us over to the idea of you and Spike as a couple?”

“If it helps Giles, does it matter?”

“It won’t work. The winning us over part, I mean.” Buffy shook her head, resigned. How could she refuse even the smallest chance of helping Giles? She groaned at the thought of having to accept Spike’s help, but swallowed her pride and said the necessary words. “Fine. Spike, come in.”

The barrier he was so patiently leaning against disappeared, and he landed on the floor in a heap.

Dawn reached down to help him up, but Buffy stepped between them. She pointed her finger in Spike’s face. “No touching of my sister. No kissing of my sister. And no mooning over my sister.”

“Mooning? Pfft! Please, Slayer. Tell me: am I allowed to be in the same room with your precious sister?”

“As a matter of fact, no.” She snatched Dawn by the hand and escorted her up the stairs.

“Hey! This is so not fair!”

“Yeah? Well neither is my watcher in a coma.”

“You’re bloody welcome!” Spike’s voice echoed behind her.

Buffy pushed Dawn into the master bedroom, informing Anya and Xander that they were relieved of duty and now Dawn would be watching the children.

Which left the rest of their group assembled around the dining room table staring at a large stack of books, all the books that Giles had been working on that Buffy could find. The same books that had gotten him into this mess, and hopefully the same books that would provide the way out of it.

“Who said he could join the party?” Xander complained when he caught sight of the vampire.

“If he can help, I’m going to let him.”

“Fine, but if helping at any time leads to staking, I call first dibs.”

At the end of two hours, the only progress they had made involved sorting the books into two piles, one of the piles noticeably larger than the other. Dawn had joined them as well, after the twins were both asleep, but was forced to sit on the opposite end of the table from Spike.

Xander sighed and propped his chin up with one hand. “Anyone ever notice just how many of these books are not in English?”

Dawn picked up a book from the smaller stack and leafed through it briefly. “Is this English? It looks like the stuff they made us read with Chaucer, and they had translations for that too. What does ‘waymentynge’ mean, anyway?”

“Lamentation, crying out in pain.” Anya took in the incredulous looks of all around her. “Hello? Eleven hundred years old. I used to talk like that when I was human… The first time, I mean.”

Dawn handed over the book. “This one’s all yours.”

Buffy picked up a book from the much larger stack and flipped it open. She couldn’t even tell what language it was in. The writing looked like something off a hospital EKG. Her heart sank a little lower. “I guess all those times he was reading us stuff from his books, I figured he was, you know, reading us stuff from his books.”

“I had two years of Spanish, if it helps,” Dawn offered.

“Here, Dawnie,” Xander shuffled through the stack. “I think this one’s Spanish.”

Buffy picked up another volume and opened it. “Anyone read Martian?”

Spike leaned over her shoulder. “That’s not Martian. It’s Kynarr demon.”

“You can read it?”

“Nah, just recognized a few words. ’Bout the only Kynarr I know is ‘piss off’ and ‘kill that.’” He shrugged. “You don’t exactly hire mercenaries to make small talk.”

“Wow, Dawn, I think I finally get exactly what you see in him.”

Dawn dumped her book back on top of the towering stack of unreadables, ignoring her sister’s sarcasm for the moment. “Maybe I should have been more specific. Two years of high school Spanish. I could maybe order dinner and get directions to the mall. They didn’t exactly cover vocabulary words for blood sacrifice and demon summoning in class. But I recognized the word blood. Yay me!”

Buffy fell into her chair, near tears. “This is hopeless. I never thought I’d say this, but I’d give my right arm for the Council to come stick their noses where they don’t belong.”

“Travers still missing in action?” Xander asked.

“What did the Watcher’s Council have against moving into the 21^st century anyway? Would it hurt him to carry a beeper or a cell phone that he actually- God forbid!- answers?”

“Wesley?”

“Still being harassed by the LAPD over Faith. If he came, and she’s still actually in Sunnydale and not halfway to Mexico, then he’d lead the cops right to her. As much as I really don’t care if she goes back to prison for the rest of her life, I don’t want her dead and calling my daughter for slayer duty. Wesley offered to research from there, but…” Buffy gestured towards the mountain of research covering the dining table. “But Giles already borrowed all the useful books when he was in LA the last time.” She sighed and propped her chin up on her hand. “If Willow were here, she could maybe scan some stuff and email it to him. But if Willow were here, she could probably just fix Giles herself.”

Xander clapped his hands together once as he thought of a plan. “Kinkos? Group outing? They have scanners there.”

Buffy shrugged, without lifting her chin from its perch. With her free hand, she indicated the stack of books, Vanna White style. “What specifically are you going to scan? You gonna sit at Kinkos for the next three days scanning books?”

“Good point.” Xander became as demoralized as her. He rested his chin on his palm in a matching pose.

“Besides, I kinda got the feeling from Wesley that their phones were tapped. He was trying to be all stealthy and use code words. And he kept calling me Brenda.” Buffy sat up straight, laying her palms on the table, a rush of determination filling her. “Look, we’ll just have to figure this out without Wesley… or Giles or Travers or anyone else who could actually be useful.” Buffy groaned and flopped her head down on the table. Her fleeting sense of determination left her. This was hopeless.

“Look here, Slayer,” Spike said as he tentatively laid his hand on her shoulder. “Watchers aren’t the only ones who can translate musty old books.”

She lifted her head slightly. “You saying you can figure any of that out?”

“No, but I got a few favors I could call in.”

Spike’s reassurance was less than reassuring.

“Hey!” Anya cried excitedly. She was laying out several volumes from the larger stack. “He put all these post-it notes by different passages. He must have his translations around here somewhere.”

“His diary!” Buffy jumped out of her seat and dashed up the stairs, returning with the volumes he had tucked away in the nightstand. He kept two diaries: a personal one and a watcher one. She had them both, in case there was anything relevant in his personal entries, but it was only his watcher’s diary that she handed over for the others to see.

Anya took the leather bound book and opened it, everyone else crowding around to look over her shoulder.

Xander squinted at the page and leaned closer. “My God, can the man write any smaller? No wonder he needs glasses.”

Spike snorted his amusement. “Don’t know why you’re so surprised the watcher should write like a nancy boy. He does everything else like one.”

Anya smiled as she paged through the diary, each page filled from top to bottom with tiny writing. “One time he wrote out a special order for a customer. She was quite irate when she received petrified hamsters instead of ground frogstone. He had to pull out a magnifying glass to prove he’d written it right, and I said if you need a magnifying-”

“Stop it!” Buffy shouted, silencing them all. “Can we not do this now? Can we not mock Giles right now?”

She met their started expressions for a moment before escaping into the kitchen. She leaned over the island counter, trying to control her tears, trying to still her thoughts. Giles would be fine, she kept telling herself. They would find the answer. They always did. Part of her knew she was only lying to herself, just as she had lied to Robin. She felt a hand touch her shoulder and turned to see Xander watching her compassionately.

“Buffy? Look we’re sorry. You know we’re all worried about Giles. Well, except for Spike maybe. And you know how I have a tendency to crack jokes under pressure. And Anya is still learning about tact. And… well, there really isn’t an excuse for Spike.”

“Oh, Xander,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his neck and weeping against his chest. He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head, holding her tightly until she calmed. She pulled away after regaining control and hiked herself up to sit on the island counter. Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she stared at a spot on the floor. Her voice came in a quiet whisper. It was as if she had opened a floodgate, and now all her pent up fears and doubts came spilling out, a torrent of words she couldn’t hold back.

“Ever since the twins were born, I always imagined that he would be there for them long after I had… well, gone the way of all slayers. I sometimes hated him for it: that he would get to see all those things that I wouldn’t. Little league and track meets, school plays and dances, first dates and high school graduation. Maybe watch them get married, or hold our grandchildren in his arms. Sometimes I hated him, but mostly it made it easier, knowing that they would all be okay, taken care of, that they would have him and he would have them. I could do what I had to do because I knew without a doubt that if something happened to me, that everyone I loved would be okay. In all that time, I just never imagined that Alex and Robin would lose him first.”

Her voice wavered as she fought against the tears in the back of her throat. “What if he’s like that forever, Xander? Just a vegetable lying in a bed? They won’t have anyone after… and I don’t know how to do this by myself. I just can’t.”

“Buffy, look at me.” With a finger under her chin, he tilted her head up. He was leaning up against the counter between her knees and studying her very seriously. “You’re not by yourself. We’re all here, in any way you need us to be. And…” He broke their intense stare, dropping his gaze as he struggled uncomfortably with the next part. “I truly think Giles is going to be fine. We’ll find whatever it is we have to find to fix him, and we’ll fix him. But if we don’t…” He looked up again and smiled softly at her. “Anya and I may be having our own baby right now, but… You know we both adore Alex, and Robin is just so cute. They’re like a matched set. What I’m trying to say is that if anything ever happened to both of you, they would be taken care of. I promise.”

Buffy leaned forward and kissed Xander on the cheek, moved beyond words. She felt like she could deal again, a great weight lifted from her shoulders. And then she had an image of Xander and Anya raising her children, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh God, you’re going to turn them both into Trekkies, aren’t you?”

“No, of course not,” he answered with an answering smile. “They’ll have the full range of science fiction obsessions. There’s Babylon 5 and Star Wars and when Alex is older, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the beauty that is Lucy Lawless in a Xena costume.”

She swatted him on the arm lightly, and he flinched back in mock pain. She jumped off the counter. “I think the two of us have shirked enough research. Back into the fray.”

He shrugged. “Shirk a little longer, and they might have it all figured out for us.”

“Tempting, but no. I want to be able to tell Giles that I figured out the research part without him.”

“Then he’ll only make you help with research more often.”

“Hmmm… Good point. In that case, I’ll just have to tell him that you came through with the books in my hour of need. Giles will be quite impressed with you.”

“After that stirring and selfless speech I just gave you, this is the thanks I get?”

They rejoined the others, all deeply engrossed in their own books. Buffy noticed that they had torn the pages from Giles’ diary, so they could each study the separate translations from the separate books. Oh, was he going to be pissed when he saw that. She and Xander were each handed pages, along with the original texts they matched up with.

Xander read aloud from his translation. “‘Take of mine blood and mine gifts. For you shall avenge me, and you shall have of the power of each that you slay in my name. Ten for each night of the moon shall you take. The last shall I strike down from the very heavens themselves. Thus in blood and fire shall this blade be blessed that whoever shall bear it will command the power of the slain.’ Man, what’s with all the flowery language? Can’t they just say: ‘Kill all these people and you can have their power?’ Succinct. To the point.”

“Ten for each night,” Dawn mused. “That’s 280?”

“281,” Anya corrected. “You have to count the one struck down from the heavens.”

“So Giles was pretty convinced this sword of Camela thing relates to whoever tried to kill Robin and Faith?” Xander flipped through the pages of the foreign text, stopping at each illustration. “So they were after lots of little slayer power?”

Buffy shook her head, mulling it over. “No. I don’t think there’s a lot of power in a potential slayer until they’re actually the Slayer. And it’s not really a family thing, so their parents wouldn’t be that useful. I don’t think whoever tried to kill Robin and Faith was doing it for a tally. I think they really wanted to permanently get rid of the Slayer.”

“So this sword thing’s probably a dead end?” Xander snapped his book closed.

Buffy gasped and sat up straighter. “The Watcher’s Council.” Everything was clicking into place. She glanced around at the faces surrounding her. “That’s where they got their 280. They’re going to take the power of the watchers.”

Anya raised her hand, and everyone stared at her until she lowered it. “Watchers generally come from powerful families; that’s how they get to be watchers. Most of them have a talent for magic, like Giles, but they also have a knack for finding potential slayers. It’s kind of their first sacred duty.”

Buffy made the next logical deduction. “They want their own slayers. With the power of all the watchers they killed, they’ll be able to find them and train them themselves.” She looked towards the staircase, where her daughter was sleeping upstairs. “They’ll want to kill Faith and take Robin.”

Xander leaned over and placed his hand on her arm. “But we’re not going to let that happen.”

She smiled weakly. “No, we’re not. We’re going to figure out whoever has this sword and stop them.” She frowned. “After we figure out what spell is on Giles and break it.”

She heard a small, childish squeal from the general direction of the staircase and the rapid patter of small feet dashing across the foyer. A tousled head of sandy hair ducked under the table, and Buffy could feel the child brush against her knees as he passed by. Alex reappeared at the other end of the table as he climbed up into Spike’s lap.

“Uncie ’Pike!” he greeted the vampire happily.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Well, hello there, Half Bit. Miss me?” The boy nodded enthusiastically, and Spike threw his mother a satisfied smirk. “I might have stopped by now and then if your Mum and Dad didn’t hate me so much.”

Alex gave his mother a betrayed pout, to which she simply replied, “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Can’t s’eep.”

“Want Mommy to take you upstairs and read you a story?”

“Uh-uh. Sit wif Uncie ’Pike.”

Spike adjusted the child in his lap. He looked down his nose at Buffy, as if daring her. “You heard the boy, Slayer. He wants to sit with his Uncle Spike.”

Buffy sighed and flipped open a book, turning the pages more forcefully than necessary. “His Uncle Spike is not his Uncle and is just begging for a good staking.”

“Uh-uh!” Alex objected fiercely, standing up and placing his hand over Spike’s heart, nuzzling his little head into the cold neck. “No stake!”

“You tell her, Alex,” Dawn seconded.

Spike’s satisfied smirk grew into smug smile. “That’s right, Half Bit, you protect your Uncle Spike from that mean old slayer.”

Buffy rolled her eyes again and backed up ten pages. She had been too distracted to pay attention to what she was looking at. “It’s okay, Alex, I’m not going to stake him. Yet.”

The boy settled down in the vampire’s lap, watching the flurry of research going on around him. When he bored of that, he turned to wiggle his fingers beneath the buttons of Spike’s shirt so he could feel the heart not beating. Spike jumped slightly at the touch on his skin, and the boy giggled as he turned his eyes up to him. “Grrr,” he pleaded.

Spike sighed. “Grrr,” he replied in kind, slipping into his vamp face.

The boy giggled again, his fingers reaching up to touch the bumpy forehead. “Grrr,” he said a little louder, crinkling up his nose and forehead, his other hand moving to touch his own smooth face. The vampire growled back, and the two proceeded to have a small growling contest, which Buffy ended with a stern glare.

“Spike, if you keep that up, my son is going to think all vampires would make swell playmates. I’d rather he had at least a little fear for creatures which could potentially kill him.”

Spike’s features smoothed back into his human guise, and he looked suitably chastised. “Your mum’s right about that,” he told Alex seriously. “Most vampires are bad news. Spike’s the only one you let near you, you hear me, kid?”

“Angel too!” Alex cried.

“Pftt! That wanker? What you want to hang around with him for?”

One of the illustrations caught Alex’s attention, and he pointed to the book in front of Spike, the previous topic of conversation promptly forgotten. “Bad dog hurt watchers.”

Five sets of eyes turned in his direction.

“He mentioned that dream before,” Anya remembered. “Maybe he knows something.”

Buffy lifted her son from Spike’s lap. “Honey, can you tell me everything you remember from your dream?”

“Bad dog hurt watchers.” His eyes filled with tears. “Me an’ Robin run. Run, run, run. All cold, wet. Bad dream. No s’eep.”

Buffy wrapped her arms around him and swayed gently with her son. “Do you have this dream a lot? Is that why you can’t sleep sometimes and have to get in Mommy and Daddy’s bed?” She felt him nod against her shoulder. She sat down and made him lift his head to look at her. “Alex, is there anything else you can tell me? Where were you and Robin running?”

“Cold. Wet.”

“Wet. Was it raining?”

He shook his head, sniffling a little. “Sand.”

“Sand? Were you on the beach? By the ocean?”

He nodded. “Mou’ain.”

“On a beach by the mountains?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered softly, nodding slightly as he laid his head back down on her shoulder.

“Kayer’s Bluff?” Xander guessed. “It’s the closest thing to beaches and mountains we got around here.”

“It’s worth a look,” Buffy said.

“No!” Alex insisted, clutching her shirt tightly and managing to grab hold of her bra strap as he did. “No go!”

“Shhh, honey, you aren’t going,” she soothed. “Just Uncle Spike and I.” She cringed as she heard herself call the vampire Uncle Spike.

“No go!” And then he started to cry.

Buffy stood and walked from one end of the dining room to the other, trying to calm her terrified child. The others watched her for a moment before turning back to their research. Spike was seriously considering the illustration that had drawn the boy’s attention.

“Bad dog, huh?” He laid Giles’ translation next to the book. Buffy stopped just behind Spike’s shoulder so she could see the drawing too. It looked like a big bear, except its head looked like a mishmash of other things, maybe other demons, maybe other animals, but all in all: butt ugly.

“Mortog beast.” Spike exchanged a glance with the Slayer. “Says it’s the one this sword was made for. Ten bucks says it’s the one you’re after.”

Buffy’s face hardened. She thought of Robin and the fire, Giles’ father and Travers’ children and all the other watchers, her husband lying upstairs unconscious, and her son now crying in her arms, plagued by nightmares of this thing. “Figure out how I kill it.”

***

Travers woke, first aware of the pounding in his head, followed by the realization that his movements were severely hindered by the ropes binding his wrists and ankles. He opened his eyes, flinching at the bright overhead lighting. When his eyes grew accustomed to the harsh fluorescents, he absorbed the details of the room around him: posters of young adolescent boys, a small side table with a lace skirt and covered with various bottles of cosmetics, clothes laid at the foot of the bed he rested on, boxes on the floor in various states of packing or unpacking. He wasn’t sure which. On the ceiling directly above him, a poster of a kitten dangling from a rope advised him to “Hang in there.”

He struggled to shift himself into a more upright position, attracting the attention of whoever was sitting behind him.

“Lookie, lookie what we caught spying on us.”

He turned to meet the dark gaze of a young black woman.

“Don’t bother trying to make noise,” she told him. “It’s a silence spell.”

He tested the spell. Just as she promised, he could make no sound.

“Hey, Willow, want to go get Sabrina for me?”

Travers turned in time to see her walk out of the room. He was more than confused and wondered if the concussion might be muddling his thinking. Willow Rosenberg? The Slayer’s friend?

With her departure, he realized he was alone with this young black girl. She looked like she might be a college student, and this room might be a dorm room. But when she leaned forward to invade his personal space, he saw something in her eyes that convinced him that her act was all a façade.

“You can let go of the idea that any of them will help you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re the bad guy. You and the Watcher’s Council. Never mind that the Council is rubble. Shhh… that will be our little secret.” She smiled and touched the side of his face in such a way that he shuddered. “You will be the last. You will light the sword.”

***

Faith waited in the back alley, watching demons enter and exit, her slayer senses tingling through her whole body. She hadn’t had a good slay in years, and she was aching for it. But that would give away the game.

In Sunnydale she could maybe go unnoticed. That was Buffy’s town, and there it was Buffy who struck fear in evil hearts. But three hours of hitchhiking had brought Faith back to LA, and she had come to think of this as her town, even if she only saw it through a two-foot by two-foot barred window. And here in LA, Faith would be recognized, both by the police who were searching for her and the vampires who had tried to kill her.

It was a risk to come back here, but hey, if she couldn’t stand a little risk, she was in the wrong profession.

It was worse to just sit around Buffy’s house doing nothing. And if she had stayed, she might have been turned over to the cops as soon as the ambulance showed up. Better to fly solo, avoid the cops for as long as she could, or at least until she had put a stake through the heart of whoever was looking to activate the next slayer. To that end, she needed to do her own research: the kind that would actually produce results, the kind that required introducing her fist to someone’s face.

By two thirty only the occasional demon happened through the alley. Faith figured the club was about to close. She waited a bit longer before entering, adjusting Buffy’s clothes across her shoulders, shifting the pants on her hips. Better than prison gray, but not by much. She wanted something tighter, higher cut or lower cut or daring enough that people saw only her body but not her. She wanted to paint her face into a mask of vice and hide behind the familiar routine of proposition and taking and using and throwing away. She felt naked and vulnerable in Buffy’s clothes, without even the smallest bit of lipstick to help her play her part.

She ran her hands through her jet-black hair, her natural color, but so dark that it seemed dyed, fake, which had always suited Faith just fine. “Screw this.” She marched to the entrance and flung open the door with more force than necessary.

She surveyed the mostly empty bar, neon lights casting strange shadows across the inhuman patrons. The stage lights were dimmed, and no one was singing at the moment. The human looking bartender was washing glasses and stowing away the liquor bottles. It was probably past last call.

So this was Caritas.

Angel hadn’t been pulling her leg when he told her about the karaoke bar for demons. Although she was reasonably sure that he had made up the part about putting Wesley in charge of Angel Investigations. Yeah, she could just imagine tall, dark, and brooding taking orders from Mr. Screams-like-a-woman.

She scanned the room for her target. Two o’clock. Just as Angel described him. Green, horned, with terrible taste in designer suits.

She strode across the room with grace and purpose. He didn’t even see her coming before she had him pressed against his own bar, his arm twisted behind his back.

“Look, Mister, I haven’t killed anything in a really long time, and I’m gettin’ kinda itchy. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll slay something else instead.”

“Hey, hey, hey, didn’t you read the sign? No violence in Caritas. It’s a sanctuary.”

“Sorry, I was never one for rules.” She wrenched his arm further up his back and saw the answering grimace flash across his face.

“Let me offer you a piece of advice, sister: I don’t exactly hold my customers to the honor system. There’s a spell on the whole bar. Try any real damage, and you’ll be waking up back in prison.”

She released him abruptly and took two steps back. “How did you-?”

“Know you were a psychotic escaped convict doing time for multiple homicide?” He turned around to face her, massaging his shoulder and sizing her up with one glance. “Faith, right? Angel warned me you might stop in. I’ll have to thank him for putting my bar in your tour guide.”

“Look, Green-skin, I just want-”

“Lorne. My name’s Lorne. Green-skin’s offensive to my people.”

“Well damn, I usually try so hard to be pc. So how’s this work? Do I hafta sing?”

“I don’t know, sugar. Are you any good?”

She shrugged and crossed her arms. “I’m usually better at making other people sing.”

“So I’ve heard.” He tilted his head towards a nearby table and led them both to chairs. “Lucky for both of us, singing will not be required tonight. Although I have you pegged for an Alanis Morissette number, something that really screams ‘men are evil.’ Anyway, Angel left a message for you in case you dropped in and threatened to kill me. He’d deliver it himself, except for his ever present tails: LAPD and scourge-of-the-day-come-scourge-of-the-night.”

“Huh?”

“Lawyers turned vampires. Apparently some up-and-coming lawyer at Wolfram and Hart grew himself a pair of fangs and recruited a full staff. Angel’s pretty sure those are the ones you’re looking for.” He pulled a pen from the inside pocket of his purple suit coat and scratched something on a napkin. “This address is their headquarters.”

“So if Angel knows where to find them, why hasn’t he dusted them already?”

“Hasn’t had a chance yet. The LAPD’s keeping him hopping.”

“They think he busted me out.”

Lorne, the Host, shrugged. “They think he knows where you are. Which technically he did until you bailed out on his old flame.”

“Hey! I didn’t bail. I just didn’t see the point in sticking around, you know? I needed to get in on the action and… Well B didn’t seem to want me there. None of them did, really. I just made everyone nervous.”

“Can you blame them? Hey, maybe you can drop in and say hi to Wesley on your way out of town.”

She slammed her fist down over the napkin, making the table shake and Lorne jump as she took the address and slipped it into her pants pocket. She stood and leaned over him with one hand on the back of his chair. Her eyes bored into him as a wicked smile played across her lips. “I’d chill the attitude if I were you. This dive may be a sanctuary, but you have to show your face outside sometime. Buffy and Angel may embrace diversity, and I may be reformed, but I see a demon, I pretty much see a demon.” She moved in closer, her voice pitched low and seductive and her breath hot against his ear. “And they don’t send you back to jail for killing demons.”

A voice from behind made her stand quickly. “You okay, boss?”

She spun to glare at the human bartender that stood there regarding her warily. Her gaze traveled between him and the Host. “Sure. We’re five by five, aren’t we, sugar?” She said the last word with venom.

Lorne cleared his throat nervously. “Whatever you say. It’s okay, Bob, Faith was just leaving.”

She gave the bartender a once over before departing and a saucy slap to his rear as she passed by. She sauntered out of Caritas, hearing the Host call after her, “Nice to make your acquaintance, Faith. Be sure to not stop by when you’re in LA again.”

***

The twins slept, one on each side of him. Buffy rearranged Alex slightly so she could sit on the bed beside him too, leaning back against the headboard. Her fingers began methodically combing through her watcher’s hair. She rested her head back against the wall, closing her eyes and speaking softly.

“I guess this is the cheesy coma scene. You know the one: where the wife sits at her husband’s bedside and pours out her heart to him. And the audience gets all weepy. And right after she confesses her undying love, his hand twitches, and he opens his eyes, and it’s happily ever after.” Her hand paused, and she watched expectantly, before continuing her tender caresses through his hair, down each side of his face. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I kinda feel like I’m talking to myself. It’s weird. But John said he talks to April, and it helps, so what the heck.

“Remember when I was dead, and you came into my room to pray to me? I guess I’m in your shoes now. If you can hear me, if you’re really listening, then you’re probably waiting for the same sorta speech.

“Well, you’re outta luck, Mister. I ain’t gonna do it. You wanna hear an apology; you wanna know just what you mean to me? Then you’re going to have to snap out of this, because I want to be looking into your eyes when I say it.” The first few warm tears slipped down her cheeks. Her voice sounded much smaller to her own ears. “You have to snap out of this. I can’t do this without you.”

And then she slid down the bed, arranging herself against his side, mindful of the various tubes snaking in and out of his body and the sleeping child tucked up against him. Unbuttoning two of his middle shirt buttons, she slipped her hand beneath his shirt and pressed her palm against his bare chest. She counted out the beating of his heart. She watched the steady rise and fall of each breath. He was still alive. She had that much to be thankful for.

“Come back to me, Giles,” she begged. And then she cried, silent tears that would not disturb their children.

He didn’t come back to her that night. Or the next. More than a week passed, and nothing changed. They fell into a steady routine. Anya ran the store during the day, Buffy took personal leave from work and cared for the twins until Dawn came home from school each afternoon, and Spike had more or less moved in with them. In the evenings Xander brought take out for dinner and picked up Anya after work, and they would all bury themselves in research. Spike would disappear for hours after dark, returning with blood on his knuckles or torn clothes and on occasion a spell they could try or a lead on the Mortog beast. But nothing they tried would stir Giles from his slumber.

They found nothing at Kayer’s Bluff except sand and stone. They found nothing of the Mortog beast except rumors and false sightings by drunken demons looking to be bribed. They accomplished nothing in more than a week except to lower their hopes and exhaust their limited resources.

Buffy visited John in the hospital sometimes after the children were in bed and before she went on patrol. She imagined that Giles would want her to. And there was some comfort to be found in her husband’s friend, as he sat vigil beside his wife. She told him about Giles’ condition, and he grieved with her. She listened to the daily updates on April’s status, each an echo of her own: no change, hasn’t regained consciousness, unresponsive to stimuli. They took turns crying on each other’s shoulders, alternately upbeat about the other’s chances and despairing of their own partner’s hopes. John even left the hospital once to visit Buffy at her home. They stood together at Giles’ bedside, and Buffy allowed herself to truly break down for the first time. She sobbed in John’s arms until she had no breath, until her eyes were red and swollen, until her belly ached with her grief. Just when she thought she was finished, he offered her a handkerchief from his pocket, and in that little gesture, she was reminded of her watcher and started crying all over again.

The twins tested her patience. She didn’t know how Giles did it. She hadn’t taken care of both of them by herself since Robin came home. He had gotten their meals and bathed them and kept them out of trouble. The fault for that was not entirely on her shoulders. Robin had stubbornly refused anyone but him. Now she didn’t have a choice, which only made Buffy’s work that much harder. She thought if she put them both in the tub at the same time, that maybe Robin would tolerate a bath given by her mother rather than her father. But Robin screamed for Giles anyway, and splashed water angrily in Buffy’s face, and flailed her slippery little arms every time Buffy tried to get a solid grip. And Alex took the opportunity to sneak out of the tub and run through the house naked. It was Spike who delivered the wayward child back to his bath. Buffy gave him a grateful smile. During the days, she and Spike were alone with the children, and she was surprised to find that she was actually thankful for his presence. Except for the occasional colorful word the boy picked up, Spike was good with Alex. Which freed Buffy to focus on Robin.

By the end of the week, the girl was warming up to her mother. She still remained at Giles’ side whenever possible, but she didn’t throw a fit over bath time or dressing anymore, and she ate what Buffy set in front of her without coaxing. Once she even colored a picture for her mother, and Buffy felt her heart melt when she saw that not only were Alex and Giles beside Robin in the picture, but she had included Buffy as well. The moment that truly gave Buffy hope that she might connect with her daughter, however, came just before bedtime one weekday night. The gang was struggling with the translations Giles hadn’t gotten to yet, dictionaries opened between them, the occasional argument erupting over the meaning of a certain word. Spike had disappeared on one of his usual walkabouts. And Buffy was curled up on the sofa, reading a story to her son. She stumbled over the words when she caught sight of Robin in her peripheral vision. Buffy looked up, becoming very quiet and still. She felt like a hiker glimpsing a fawn in a clearing, trying very hard not to startle the creature and scare it off. It was the first time Robin had willingly left Giles’ side, before or after his coma. She stood on the bottom step, her arms wrapped around the banister, her whole body tensed and on alert, as if she might bolt at any moment.

Buffy smiled and slowly extended her hand. “Would you like to listen to the story too?”

Robin hesitated, clearly torn between wanting to be upstairs with her father and wanting to be read to. She cautiously made her way towards the sofa, climbing up to sit beside Alex on Buffy’s other knee.

Buffy blinked away tears, and smoothed back her daughter’s hair. She beamed, her joy filling the emptiness the last weeks had left. It was such a little step, but in the end wasn’t life all about little steps? She started again at the beginning of the book, thrilling to the feeling of holding both her children in her arms.

***

He drifted. Time had no measure. There was only darkness. He was aware of his body, lying there, beyond his control. Sometimes he heard their voices. Buffy, Xander, Anya, Alex, Dawn. He thought he imagined Robin’s voice sometimes. She was always calling for him, and he couldn’t reach her. Sometimes, though, they all sounded so far away, he could barely make out the words.

He was conscious, wherever he was, stuck between living and dying. He was aware of himself, his thoughts, his fears and frustrations. Not sleeping, not dreaming, his mind wandered through the darkness.

He tried to keep himself occupied, stave off the fear and despair, but soon Latin conjugations and store inventories could not hold back the darker thoughts his mind forced upon him. He had nothing to distract him: no book to open and lose himself in, no way to contact another person for simple conversation, nothing but his mind locked inside a stone body.

Poor, poor watcher.

He sensed her magic, sharp and bitter. He felt them sometimes: the seven who had joined with Willow would come near him with their magic, like spiders inspecting the fly they had ensnared in their web.

He never sensed Willow. He hoped sometimes that he would, that she would realize what she had done, how she had been corrupted by these others. Other times he remembered the anger in her eyes, the hate in her voice, and he was very glad she stayed away.

In his darker moments, he fought against the spell that bound him. It only seemed to strengthen the magic surrounding him. Each time he gave up more quickly than the time before, sinking back into despair and bad memories and dark thoughts he had no power to banish.

Poor, poor watcher. Such power buried deep inside you, but you were always afraid of it, weren’t you?

Of the seven who sometimes hovered near him, she was the only one who ever came close enough for him to hear.

Suddenly they were standing in a circle of stones, just the two of them. He did not know this place, but it was the illusion she always manufactured when she came to him as herself. Sometimes she came as his father, and then it was the bedroom he’d had as a child. Sometimes as Ethan, and then they were lounging in a dark pub. Once she had come as Jenny, curling up beside him in his flat, and once she had even dared to come as Buffy in the training room. But no matter the face she wore, he always knew it was she, so she didn’t play those games anymore. Now it was always the two of them standing in the circle of stones.

“You don’t seem happy to see me, Watcher.”

“Should I be?”

“I would think you’d be happy to have some company.” She stretched out atop one of the stones. “Would you rather be left alone? You don’t seem to be enjoying the solitude either.”

“What do you want, Sabrina?” he said through clenched teeth.

“I just find you fascinating. Is that so wrong? You have all this power at your command, but you choose not to use it. I’m just trying to understand. It’s not just because of Randall, is it?”

“How did you…?” But he didn’t finish his question. He already knew the answer. Sabrina was gifted. She could pull whatever information she wished from his mind. She had already taught him that lesson with the games she had played as his father… Ethan… Buffy… Jenny. Jenny had been the hardest. So much unsaid between them, so much of his grief buried beneath even his awareness, so much he had never even confessed to Buffy, all laid bare by Sabrina’s merciless probing. Why should he be surprised that she saw Randall in his mind? She could see all his most painful memories. Why not Randall too?

“So you killed your friend. So what? We all make mistakes. We learn from them. Even I learn from mine. But you’re wasting a beautiful gift. Come on, you remember the high of magic, of danger, of touching something dark and feeling the answering darkness inside yourself. Don’t you miss it?”

“Is this what you did to Willow? How you brainwashed her?”

Sabrina smiled, seeming to enjoy his bitter rejoinders. “Nah, you and I are just conversing. I need nothing from you except to pass the time. If I wanted to, I could influence you. I’m pretty good at it. Although, shhh…” She placed her finger against her mouth and smiled wider. “Just between us, it’s harder if the person knows you’re trying to do it.” She swung her legs back and forth like a child on a swing. “No, I just enjoy coming here and talking to you.”

“Lucky me.”

“It’s like I can tell you anything. You’re really easy to talk to, a good listener. That’s a rare trait to find nowadays. Must be the Watcher in you, huh? I’m a good listener too. It’s one of my gifts. But sometimes it’s nice to have someone else listen for once.” She grew serious for a moment, her brow creasing in serious thought. “You know why I like talking to you?”

“The phrase ‘captive audience’ springs to mind.”

She chuckled and jumped off her stone perch, now strolling in casual circles around him. “That’s a big part of it, I must admit. I can whisper in your ear and have it stay there. God knows you’ll never speak to another living soul again. But it’s more than that. Joseph doesn’t appreciate the big picture, everything that I’m doing for him. He can’t see past Wolfram and Hart and his own shortcomings reflected in his father’s eyes. If he hadn’t found the sword for me, I would just kill him and be done with it. He can’t see how brilliant my full plan is. It will change the order of things for the next thousand years. I guess I need to share with someone who can admire my long term vision.”

Giles crossed his arms, refusing to let her casual laps around him affect him, her movements like a shark testing its prey. “Isn’t this always the downfall of the villain? When you talk too much, when you reveal your plans before you’ve finished them?”

She shrugged and stopped directly in front of him. “But it’s also the pleasure. Where’s the fun in destruction, in vengeance, if you can’t enjoy the misery that comes after?”

“Vengeance?”

There was venom and hatred in her answer, the first time he had seen her show real emotion. With everything else, she was blasé, amused, entertained, but not invested. With her next words Giles, for once, caught a glimpse of her inner demons. “For her. I gave my word. I would destroy them with their own power.”

The words seemed familiar, but he didn’t have time to think about them too deeply. She was still talking to him, making him jump as she touched him on the arm.

“But enough about me. I’m still trying to work out why you keep your magic all locked up. Not that it could save you now. The beauty of this spell is that the more you fight it from the inside, the tighter it will bind you.”

“And if I don’t fight it at all? Is my struggle feeding the spell its power? Will it simply dissipate without my force behind it?”

She considered his words for a moment. His imprisonment was a simple intellectual puzzle to her. He thought perhaps she might even answer his question truthfully. “Perhaps. You could try. But you will still end up trapped between. To escape, you must push through the spell, which you can’t do without strengthening it. Catch 22, I suppose. Your only chance is for someone on the outside to free you. And Willow right now hates you for your betrayal of her, of us. She’d sooner kill you, I think, than set you free. No, your only chance was when she cast the spell. You could have fought her, matched her magic with your own, unlocked Ripper from his cage, and become what you fear most.”

She gasped in understanding, and he dropped his gaze from hers, as if that could give him any protection from her mental invasions. “That’s it, isn’t it? Why you keep all that power buried inside you? You’re afraid to touch it, to taste it, and lose control. You do remember the thrill and the power, and you couldn’t get enough of it then. You’re afraid you won’t be able to get enough of it now. Can’t have just one drink?” She laughed lightly and wrapped her arms around his neck. He tried to push her away, but she held tightly to him. He closed his eyes in shame. “You’re afraid of what you’ll become. You know you walk the line already. You’ve taken human life: Longsworth, Sulla, and with your own hands: Randall, Ben. You remember what it felt like to strangle Ben, so much different than putting the sword through Randall, when all you could see was Eyghon. No, with Ben, you saw nothing of Glory, only the human man beneath you. Did you feel like a god, Rupert? Did you enjoy it?”

“No.”

“No conviction behind that. Don’t lie to me. I see through you. You are afraid, Rupert, afraid of yourself. You’re afraid that you’ll become the thing that needs to be killed.”

He opened his eyes, feeling naked before her. He shook his head. There was nothing he could say to her, no way to deny the truth she had pulled from his mind. “Please stop.”

“Shhh... dearest.” She laid her head against his chest. “No need to be afraid. You’re locked away, safe as houses, and you’ll never get the chance to become anything. A pity, really. I am truly curious whether you would have been a match for my Willow… you know, if you had allowed your power free reign. But you couldn’t let it out, not even to save yourself. Are you that afraid of your own darkness? That it could so easily control you?”

He didn’t answer, but she smiled anyway. She saw the answer in his heart and in the shame that blazed across his face. He begged her again, “Stop, Sabrina. Please. I’m tired of these games.”

“Shall we play a different game then?”

The scene around him shifted. No longer outside in a woodland grove circled by stones, they were standing in the training room, and it was Buffy in his arms. Buffy’s long golden hair instead of Sabrina’s short brunette waves, Buffy’s curves instead of Sabrina’s girlish figure, and Buffy’s loving blue eyes instead of that penetrating dark gaze. He tried to wrench himself from her grip, but she held tight, with Buffy’s slayer strength that this illusion gave her. But it wasn’t Buffy. It was still Sabrina.

“Come now, dearest.” It was Buffy’s voice, and he had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t real. “How many times did training lead to... more? Sometimes easier than at home, with a toddler constantly climbing into your bed and a teenager just down the hall. It’s been a while. Things have been strained between the two of you. You’ve been fighting, and haven’t quite managed to... make up.” She trailed her fingers down the side of his face, and he flinched from her touch. “Would it be so hard to close your eyes and pretend I’m her? I look like her, sound like her, smell like her.” She pressed her body close to his. “I feel like her. You’ll never get the chance to touch her again in the real world. Would it be such a betrayal to have one last moment with her in this one?”

He met her questioning gaze with a steady one of his own. “I think I’d rather you sent me back, where I was, alone.”

He saw anger flash through her eyes. No longer a simple amusement, mere entertainment, he had touched something inside her. She shoved him backwards, pinning him against the wall, bruising him with Buffy’s slayer strength. For the first time since Willow had bound him with her spell, he felt true primal fear. He struggled against her briefly, but it was Buffy’s strength fueled by Sabrina’s anger. She kissed him on his neck, hard, marking him, branding him with her lips and teeth.

She laughed. “You like it rough, Watcher? You like your Slayer’s strength and passion and fire? Yes, you hunger for the fire, don’t you? You like a dragon in your bed. What would you do with a beast like me? Would my fire destroy you or would it cleanse you of your doubts and fears? Would it strip away everything but the Ripper and free your magic from its chains?” She kissed him on the mouth, a forceful, claiming kiss, with none of Buffy’s love or affection.

He focused on his breathing, his heart rate. He waited for the kiss to end, waited until she looked him in the eye. “You going to rape me? With my Slayer’s own strength no less. Is that the new game?”

She pulled him back from the wall, only to slam him against it again. She released him and spun away from him. He had angered her, enough that her illusion of Buffy was slipping. It was Sabrina’s dark brown eyes and not Buffy’s blue that glared at him from across the training room. “I find you less entertaining and more irritating every second.”

“I’d like to go back now.”

“You think that’s the worst I could do to you? Send you back to the darkness, trapped in a body beyond your control? You know I could send you somewhere far less pleasant. I could leave you in the mansion with Angelus. Or I could force you to relive Randall’s death ad nauseum.” The corners of her mouth twitched with repressed amusement. “Or hers.”

The brick walls and weapons cabinet and punching bag and training mats around them wavered, coalescing into the construction site of Glory’s tower. The sky darkened, and it was night. He could just make out Buffy’s form at the edge of the platform. He wanted to turn away from the sight, but he was frozen. His heart stopped as he watched her plunge over the side. Even knowing that she would come back to him, the sight of her rapid descent tore his very heart from his chest. This was not just a memory; he was reliving it, with the feel of the night air across his skin and the ache of his wounded side and all the pain with which her death had overwhelmed him.

Sabrina’s voice was soft beside his ear. “How many times can you watch her fall before it destroys the last shred of your sanity?”

He clenched his hands into fists and gritted his teeth to regain control of his emotions. “You’re a prize sadist.”

She laughed, her anger gone. He was once again nothing more than her plaything. “How else am I to entertain myself? I think I could drive you over the edge if I tried hard enough. But I’ve pushed enough for today, and it’s time for me to go. Because I really don’t want to destroy you. I want that to happen all on its own.

“You see, Morgaine and I actually have a little bet going: without all these mind games, without either one of us tormenting you, just all on your own, how long will it take for you to go insane? The isolation, the sensory deprivation, and that brilliant mind of yours. She doesn’t think you’ll last a month, but I have faith in you. You’ll hold on to the hope that they’ll find the key to your freedom. You’ll hold on to the memory of your wife and your children. I think you might last a year.”

The construction site around them faded out, growing dimmer, darker. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision, squinting to make out vague forms. He knew what was happening, but it was almost a habit to fight against it. It reminded him of another of Willow’s spells from years ago, her my-will-be-done spell that had stolen his vision, had slowly turned the world dark until he was blind. He fought against the same panic that had threatened to overwhelm him then. He focused on slowing his breathing, even as he heard Sabrina’s voice echoing in his ears, no longer beside him but coming from all around him.

“They say that even in the deepest madness, there are occasional moments of clarity, when you can see and understand what you have become, mere moments when you are sane and can feel the horror for all the time that you are not. Moments when you are sane enough to feel it slipping away again, but powerless to do anything about it.”

He felt the weight of his body, his sensations deadened, just darkness and the prison of his useless body. He remembered Tara’s insanity, what Glory had done to her, how the very thought had terrified him. Don't... please don't with that treachery. I told the cats. And now I beg my mother, sitting all alone. How she had looked at him and known even before he had. You're a killer. It's all set down… He remembered how she had described it afterwards. Sabrina was right. Tara had experienced moments of lucidity, breaks in the storm when she could see light. Light, but also the storm clouds that approached, beyond her control to stop them.

“I wonder which is worse: to lose your mind or to know that you have lost it?”

It was the last sound he heard. He was alone again in the darkness. He struggled desperately against the spell, fought longer than he had ever fought before, until he had exhausted himself and still made no progress. His body lay still and quiet. No matter how hard he concentrated, no matter what meditation techniques he used or what magic tricks he tried, he could not move even his littlest finger. He was paralyzed. Trapped. Nothing but his thoughts locked inside his skull, careening down paths Sabrina had kindly opened for him. Thoughts of Randall and Ben, thoughts of going insane, memories of the taste of dark magic and power he had tried to forget he owned. How many times do we stop our train of thought, distract ourselves from unpleasant musings, by physical movement? A shake of the head, a deep breath, a swallow, a clenching of fists, a change in position, or a furious polishing of glasses? Giles could do none of these things. The harder he tried not to think of them, the larger these thoughts and fears loomed in his mind. The idea that he was already losing control terrified him, filled him with a cold panic. He wished, not for the first time, that Willow had simply killed him.

True!- nervous- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

He laughed to himself at his choice, but the words were vivid in his mind and so he continued. Ever practical, he began at the beginning. He would get through this. Whatever it took. He would trust Buffy and the others. They would find a way to free him, and he only needed to hold on until then. He would hold on. For Buffy. For Alex. For Dawn. For Robin.

The more cynical side of him pointed out that this was just how Sabrina had predicted he would hold on, how he would last a year. The thought of a year like this threatened to overwhelm him, and he tried to push that out of his mind. Today. He would just get through today, whatever it took. He dredged up the words, the memory of the pages, the scent of his father’s library. To be lasting, memory must have a sensory component, a smell, a touch. He remembered the book, the words. He turned it into a game, a test of his memory. To see what snippets of what stories he could remember. The recitation would be a blessed escape, would mark time and keep him focused, keep him from drifting where he didn’t wish to go.

The disease had sharpened my senses- not destroyed- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily- how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

***

Buffy had pulled up a chair beside John. They both watched April in silence. The monitors around her beeped occasionally. She looked small beneath the array of bandages, tubes, and wires that cocooned her. Her injuries were healing; she was recovering from surgery; the doctors were optimistic. But she had yet to regain consciousness.

John and Buffy had already had their conversations, confessed their fears. Now when one or the other visited, it was usually spent in companionable silence. It was really all they could offer each other. Sometimes they would hold hands. Sometimes they would walk together through the hospital corridors or around her neighborhood. John had his family and she had hers, but there was something missing that they only found in each other. For his children, he felt the need to be strong. For Dawn and the twins, so did she. When they were with each other, they were allowed a safe space where they could be weak.

Buffy saw it first. She wondered if she might have imagined it, so she waited before saying anything to John. But then April’s hand moved again, and she knew it was more than a trick of her tired eyes.

“John,” she whispered.

He looked up just in time to see his wife’s hand close into a loose fist and then open again. “April?”

Buffy hit the call button for the nurse as John leaned closer to April’s bedside. Her eyes opened a crack, slightly glazed over and unfocused. He touched his fingers to her cheek, and she smiled softly in recognition.

Buffy’s eyes filled with tears as she watched the happy reunion. A part of her burned with shame that she resented John even the smallest bit for getting his wife back while Giles was still lost to her, but mostly the tears she wept were joy for April’s recovery.

The other police officer turned her head slowly to look at the figure behind John. “Buffy?”

Buffy smiled and moved closer, placing a hand on John’s shoulder. “Hey, April. Have a nice nap?”

She chuckled silently and then looked back at her husband. “What happened?”

“You didn’t answer your page. Something must have attacked you. You’re in the hospital now. They did surgery, but you’re going to be fine.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You’re going to be fine.”

She closed her eyes in concentration, as if willing the memories to come back to her. Her voice was raspy from disuse, and she swallowed before attempting speech again. “I was checking out that new house on frat row. I think it’s supposed to be a sorority. I didn’t recognize the symbol over the mantle. I think… I think I walked in on a séance?”

John kissed her hand again. “Shhh… Don’t think about that now.”

But Buffy was thinking about the other woman’s words. A symbol. A séance. Could she have walked in on some magic? Could that house be the one Buffy was searching for?

“Scott?” April asked. John didn’t answer her immediately, and she made the obvious conclusion: her partner was dead. She started to cry softly, and he tried to soothe her.

The nurse entered at that moment and noticed that her patient was both awake and upset. “Only the husband can stay. April needs her rest, and the doctor will be down in a minute.”

Buffy made to leave, but April stopped her with an urgent question: “Did anyone go back there? Did they find anything?”

“I think they sent Detective Cricks, but no luck. I’m not sure if they found anything else. I’m kinda on personal leave right now.” She shrugged casually. “Tell you what: I’ll go check it out myself right now.”

April nodded, relaxing slightly, beginning to doze back off into a drugged exhaustion. “3231 frat row,” she murmured. “Be careful. There was a bear, I think.”

Buffy stopped in the doorway. “A bear?”

The nurse tried to shoo her out. “She needs her rest.”

“I think a bear,” April answered. “Claws. Got me ’cross the stomach. Had horns too, I think. Horns? No, that can’t be right. It didn’t look like a bear in the face… Don’t know. It’s all fuzzy.”

The nurse tried to silence her. “Now, now that’s enough, dear. Don’t upset yourself more. You need to gather your strength.”

“Wait, Buffy!” April tried to sit up, but was restrained by both John and the nurse. “I got off a shot, before… blacked out. I’m a good shot. Nailed it right in the chest. Nothing. Shoulda killed it.”

“Don’t worry, April. If I come across it, I’ll kill it.”

***

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

The darkness faded. Perhaps not faded. That was not the right word. It lightened. Faint at first, and then growing brighter. He shrank back from it, blinded by it, holding his hands in front of his eyes.

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, and the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ‘Lenore!’

He realized then that he was no longer locked away in the darkness, that he had been brought out into the light, that his hands were his to move, and that he could feel each breath through his chest, the trembling of his hands, and the grass beneath him. She had brought him here again, to her circle of stones, and he wasn’t sure which was worse: the darkness or her.

He murmured the words under his breath as he curled into a ball, dropping his head down to his knees. “This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word ‘Lenore!’”

Her breath was hot beside him. “Merely this and nothing more.”

He flinched away from her and focused his mind on his recitation. Maybe he could shut her out; maybe if he filled his head with enough nothing, she would see nothing inside him.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Ah, dear boy, I am much more than the wind. And I am after much more than simple entertainment this time.”

He tried to ignore her, but she had him by the arm and was hauling him to his feet. “What do you want?” he ground out.

“Her.”

***

“Whatcha doing?” Xander asked.

“Read to Daddy. Daddy fave’it.”

While Xander doubted that “Yertle the Turtle” was Giles’ favorite, he knew it was one of Alex’s, and so sat beside him as he read. For a moment he thought the kid was actually reading, a feat that would have been unexpected and quite humbling for a guy who had barely squeaked through high school. Alex had the words mostly right and turned the pages at the appropriate times. But then Xander realized the kid wasn’t even looking at the book and just had the words memorized. He wasn’t sure which was more impressive.

The doorbell rang, and he heard Spike call out, “I got it.” A pause. “You got to be kidding me!” The door slammed.

Xander hurried out of the bedroom, meeting Dawn in the hallway and urging her to stay back with the twins. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Spike was leaning over the couch, peering out between the curtains.

“What’s going on?”

“Vampires. A whole friggin’ brigade of ’em.”

“How bad can it be?” Xander leaned up against the couch beside Spike and peeked out the window too. “Oh, that bad.” The house was surrounded.

Spike jumped off the couch and strode quickly to the front hall closet. He tried the door three times before he noticed the childproof lock. He sighed, undid it, and flung open the door. Crossbows, swords, stakes, crosses… He snatched his hand back before he could unintentionally burn it. A whole arsenal, and he handed out weapons to Xander and then Anya as she stepped up behind them.

“Hey, hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Xander snapped as he snatched the crossbow from his wife.

She snatched it back. “Trying not to get killed.”

He made another grab for it, but she held firm, and they started a tug of war over it. “You’re way too pregnant to play Rambo.”

“Oh! I’m too fat? Is that it?” She slapped his hand hard, but he didn’t loose his grip. “I’m still a better shot than you.”

Spike stepped between them and ended the discussion by taking the crossbow himself. “No one’s playing Rambo. There’s too many of them. We’re going to wait them out ’til morning. They can’t get in without an invitation, remember?” He handed the crossbow to Anya. “Let’s see how many we can pick off in the meantime. And for God’s sake, be careful ’round the windows.”

***

“And to think, we were going to redo that spell, but now you’ve delivered her right to us.”

He felt a cold shiver of fear shoot down his spine. “Who?”

“The last slayer.”

Giles curled his hand into a fist and swung with every bit of anger he possessed. Sabrina laughed and ducked easily. She danced a few feet in front of him, jeering him on.

“Have you forgotten? I can anticipate your every move. Come on, then, let’s give it a go. I have a few minutes to kill.”

“You lay one hand on her-”

“And you’ll what? Think very bad thoughts about me? Your body is lying in a bed, stuck full of tubes, where it will stay until it withers away and dies many, many years from now.” She smiled as she saw the pain lance across his face, as she saw his crushing fear of the very future she described. “I don’t think you’ll be doing anything to me.”

Giles backed down, knowing she was right, taking a seat on one of the stones in defeat. Knowing didn’t make it any easier. “Please,” he spoke softly, his head bowed. “I’m begging you. Leave her be.”

“Don’t be absurd. After all that work we did killing off the others? Only one escaped us. Ironic, isn’t it, that she was your daughter? I saw her in your mind.” She squatted down in front of him. “You’re the reason I found her.”

He covered his face with his hands, rocking rhythmically as he tried to quiet his traitorous thoughts, tried to prevent himself from betraying anyone else he loved. Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore- He felt her fingers through his hair.

“If it helps, she won’t be harmed. They want a slayer of their own. And I want…” She laughed, and the sound of her voice moved until she was behind him, her fingers tracing lazy patterns across his back. “Let me tell you a little secret, just between us. I have my two hundred and eighty, chosen carefully to be only the most powerful. Most of them watchers. Your daughter buys me the sword. And then one last watcher: that Travers fellow. He will be the one that lights my sword and gives me the power of all I have taken in her name. That would make you the last. I considered killing you as well, adding your power to the others, but this is much more… cruel, wouldn’t you say? And I’m all about cruel.”

He stood abruptly and walked several paces away from her. “You’ve had your gloat. Send me back and let me be.”

“Tut-tut-tut,” she clucked her tongue at him. “I told you I needed something from you.”

He turned to look at her, trying to keep the litany going in his mind, trying to keep her out of his head. Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-

“I need you to give me an invitation.”

He blanked on the rest of the stanza. He shook his head, his eyes pleading with her. “She’s just a little girl.”

“I think it will be more fun if you’re there when you do it.”

Like a door slamming, like being sucked down a whirlpool, not in the least bit gradual like before, he was plunged back into darkness, shoved back into his lifeless body. He couldn’t move, couldn’t control any of the events happening around him. He was more aware this time. The voices surrounding him were clear. He could feel his children’s trembling forms pressed against each side. Dawn kept reminding them to keep their heads down, pushing them down against his chest. Anya’s voice was shouting from another room, and Xander answered her from somewhere off to the right. Spike’s voice came from that general direction as well.

Giles felt his lips move, but he couldn’t stop their movement any more than he could force his eyes open. He heard the sound come from his own throat and wished he could swallow it back.

“Come in.”

His awareness receded. The sounds around him faded; the sensations of his body dimmed. He was slipping back into the darkness. The last sound he heard was the simultaneous scream of both son and daughter. After that, all was black and silent.

***

Anya shouted for more bolts.

“In a minute,” Xander called back. “They’re kind of shooting back at us over here.” He hugged the wall tighter as another bolt came flying through the window and embedded itself in Buffy and Giles’ dresser. “Hey! You guys are paying to have that fixed! Those drawers are dovetailed, Mister.”

Spike rolled his eyes and jumped up to take another shot out the window before ducking back down. “Maybe if you stopped missing them, you wouldn’t keep them stocked up with ammo.”

“You know, maybe a vampire shouldn’t insult someone who’s holding a crossbow.”

“You know, maybe I’d be the teeniest bit worried if you could actually hit something with it.”

Xander heard Giles’ voice, so faint he might have imagined it.

He heard Giles say, “Come in.”

Spike threw a glance towards the bed too, and Xander knew he hadn’t been the only one who heard it. He looked at Spike. Spike looked at him. They said it at the same time.

“Shit.”

***

DBC Home Back: Part 7: The Council’s Last Stand Next: Part 9: Waking the Dead

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