Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Standing in the crowed hallway, peering from one of the large front windows of the school, watching the children, specifically the girls, being dropped off, searching each face in hopes of discovering one that was new, unfamiliar, destined to be important in the days (and years) to come, studying each new form because he couldn't not; Rupert Giles felt acutely self-conscious. He felt like an obvious pervert, a conspicuous voyeur.

No one knows, the voice reminded him smugly. No one can see me, especially when I'm being good. To them you look like just another teacher on killjoy duty, watching to make sure they don't have any fun. I'm going to kill you, you evil fucker! Giles thought very hard, his face becoming red with anger and embarrassment. I'm going to obliterate you and banish you to some really nasty bit of hell that even you won't be able to stand.

A few nearby teens (randomly struck by his laser-beam glare) stopped whatever they could think of that they might be doing wrong and hurried to class. Rupert would have liked nothing more than to have retreated to his dark, quiet, private office in his almost always mostly empty library. But he didn't dare revert to his original plan of waiting there for the Slayer to come to him, as was her destiny. Under the circumstances, he simply had to intercept her on more neutral, more public territory.

You really think you can spoil my fun that easy? The unseen imp sneered. I could make your little problem a lot more obvious, even out here, and you know it. I know there is some way to be rid of you, Giles silently snarled in return. There has to be. I just have to find it. If thy right eye offend thee... Believe me, if it were truly a matter of right or left, I’d hardly hesitate. Ha! I wonder!

For a moment the creature was quiet and let Giles think. He was able to focus his full attention on the window once again. At last his eye picked out a delicious, moderately blonde little thing in a criminally short skirt bouncing out of a black SUV. He was certain he'd have remembered meeting her before, especially in the state he was in. That went double for the equally blonde, casually beautiful thirty-something woman dropping her off, who absolutely had to be her mother.

Two simultaneous (yet mutually exclusive) erotic fantasies gripped Rupert's imagination. This Miss Summers, whom he couldn't quite believe was actually called “Buffy” and not Elizabeth; the mother, whose name he didn't remember at the moment, other than Mrs. Summers. Limber young flesh, strong and powerful, curling possessively around him in an excess of violent passion; softer more vulnerable, still frankly pretty young flesh waiting welcomingly in his bed for his gentle caress. Suddenly, Giles felt himself getting more than reasonably angry again, wishing he could hide his face at least as well as his thick, multi-layered tweed suit hid his partial erection.

You could always help me open the Hellmouth and get MY body out, the demon reminded him for about the fiftieth time in three and a half weeks. Then I could make my own way in the world and leave you in peace. Fuck you. I'm getting MY body back, all to myself. She's going to help me, and you're not having her. Ah, a challenge. I love a challenge. Liar. You like shooting birds on the ground. If you'd had half a clue how well equipped I was to resist you, you'd have glommed onto someone else and taken him whole. Just my luck to pick a Marked man, the demon agreed resignedly. Still, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy a fight if I have to have one. It doesn't mean I won't best you and 'have' her more ways than one either, and you know it.

Ah. Here she comes now. Of course, I could make you stand to attention and greet her properly, but out here that would only scare her off. That's one round to me then, finally. I wouldn't say that exactly. The demon's last taunt had been thought with deep amusement. It didn't take Giles long to discover why. “Rupert?” said a shy, nervous little voice behind him as four delicate, tiny, hesitant fingertips brushed his shoulder, morally obligating him to turn from the window.

“Mi—I—Uh—Willow,” he stammered, with a bit too much surprise and too little warmth, ducking his head and smiling sheepishly, avoiding her huge, hurt puppy-dog eyes. “W-what, erm...” She goes to school here, you idiot. “... Can I help you with... Did you want something?”

“Just you,” Willow mumbled, then (eyes suddenly, impossibly widening) she joined in the stammering, “Oh! I... no! I didn't mean—I mean not that I d—not that I—Oh God, I just... We need to talk. I mean, you know, in private?” The poor girl blushed crimson, to the point that Giles could hardly help imaging how flushed and hot every inch of her skin must be under her absurdly childish plaid-pinafore-over-white-tights-and-Oxford-shirt ensemble. Bastard. There seems to be a lot of that going around.

“Oh Damn!” Giles felt ill. I hope you're joking. It was only when Willow whined miserably and started apologizing—*to him*!—that Giles realized part of his startled response to the demon had been spoken aloud. Willow was tearing up, moments from falling weeping into his arms, an action she was clearly entitled to and didn't deserve to have rebuffed. But the pair had already become an object of intense staring and whispering by both students and faculty in the crowded hallway.

“I think perhaps we'd better go into the library and talk,” Giles found himself saying, seeing no better option. That's yet another round to me then! The demon gloated, reminding Giles that on top of everything else, he'd just missed his first and best opportunity of the day to waylay his new Slayer far enough from the library to warn her to avoid that hateful room at all costs.

The moment the library door was closed behind them, Willow and Giles found themselves in one another's arms, clinging to each other while she wept and sobbed out a disjointed, almost totally indecipherable discourse of her misfortune and confusion, while he stroked her hair and murmured half-intelligible words against the top of her head that he hoped were comforting, half understanding her only because he had the demon's hints by which to frame her scattered words into a clear pattern of disaster.

Pregnant. He'd gotten this poor child pregnant. He felt deep concern, regret, affection, compassion, confusion, terror, a suffocating sense of responsibility. But somehow, as he had known it must here in this unholy place, this hell-adjacent home-ground of the incubus who had him quite literally by the balls, all of this intense emotion was quickly and seamlessly warped into romantic fervor and sexual passion.

It was hard to say exactly when comforting turned to caressing and sobs to sighs, but it was soon clear that they had. By now both he and Willow were used enough to the feelings stirring between them (and to where those feelings inevitably lead) that neither had to tell the other when it was time to move into Giles's tiny private office with the blinds that closed and the small-but-big-enough leather couch. “It's going to be all right,” Giles still found himself whispering huskily into Willow's hair, her ears, against her throat and breasts as he undressed her and let his hands and mouth roam freely over her body, as she eagerly, actively reciprocated. “Willow! Oh dear, sweet Willow! Everything is going to be all right.”

“Promise?” she sighed around a mouthful of his collarbone, her tiny fingers stroking the length of his cock where it was snugged up against her bare thigh.

And without really intending to, without stopping to examine too closely what he was promising to cause to be 'all right', he promised. “Yes, Willow, my love, my darling, I promise! I swear to you, I will make this right.” Everything that had been said between them (verbally anyway) was so confused that Willow herself might still have been unsure about the exact content of his promise. But the physical act of union that followed his words was as traditional a symbol in its own context as a firm handshake at the end of a sales negotiation. It seemed like sufficient clarification.  

Chapter Text

Giles stayed in his office through first and second period, lying down with the lights out and the door locked. He wanted to be left in peace, to be still with himself, to avoid thinking, feeling, and acting in every sense indefinitely. Careful, pal, there's a word for that. Ha! Don't tempt me. You haven't got the balls, the demon mocked, unable to resist the pun. Then, more seriously, almost sympathetically, with perhaps a tiny, grudging measure of respect. Besides, you have better sense. Giles sighed. The demon was right, of course. Whatever it took to commit suicide (good or bad, brave or crazy) he didn't have it. Risking his life he could do. Deliberately ending it... he wasn't nearly that desperate yet, desperate indeed though he was.

Which meant he had best get up off of his posterior and head out once again to face the world that continued to spin around him. It was pushing ten o'clock. The Slayer had, no doubt, completed her interview with Mr. Flutie by now, and whatever class she'd have been directly ushered to from there per school policy. In fact, morning break was beginning. She'd soon be in looking for textbooks, and likely to get a good deal more than that if he wasn't extremely careful. Speak of the human...

“Oh,” said the girl uncertainly, turning to face Giles as he walked out of his office and into the much larger space she was tentatively exploring. “Anybody's here.” He had a strong impulse to retreat and slam the door, but that would have only convinced her that her new Watcher was insane; besides, he was already struggling with an even stronger impulse to do the exact opposite of retreating.

“Miss Summers?” he said, sounding unsure to whom he was speaking, though that was perhaps the only part of this situation of which he was sure. Without thinking, he reached out a hand as if to touch her arm (okay, maybe not her arm) but quickly curbed the impulse. For the moment. Spawn of Satan. Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment!

“Good... call,” Miss Summers almost, but not quite, stammered. The way her eyes took inventory of his own face and form as much as the unconsciously defensive way she held her hands before her chest—her think-you're-seeing-something-but-you're-not-but-you-are-barely-buttoned-shirt-over-only-mildly-tight-and-low-cut-tank-top clad chest—told him that the presence of the incubus beneath the floor, combined with his own infected presence was already having an effect on her.

The thought of this lovely creature being aroused—even mildly, uncomfortably aroused—by the sight and scent and heat and closeness of his body was almost more than Rupert could stand. He licked his suddenly very dry lips, trying to find his tongue to tell her that they must leave the library at once. Her fingers were laced together, flesh with flesh entwining, perfectly filling the spaces between. “I guess I'm the only new kid, huh?” She babbled nervously, blushing as she caught herself eying the front of his suit just below the waist. “'Cause I am. New! Not...well... but, anyway, I mentioned that, right? So...”

Or maybe she was blushing and babbling at what she saw; because, as he suddenly realized, Giles had neglected to put his coat back on after... fucking? Yes thanks, so very much the word I was groping for(!) Willow. Your Freudian slip is showing. And so was his tweed clad erection, through the front of his trousers. “Damn!” And now they were both looking at it. And looking up from it. Their eyes locked. Double Damn. At least, but who's counting.

Certainly not Giles. Certainly not the Slayer. They were suddenly so very far beyond maths. Biology and chemistry plunged them headlong into the improbable, unnatural physics of a girl he could easily lift off the ground throwing him backwards into a wall.

For several horrifying milliseconds, Giles knew that he was done for. The Slayer had caught him thinking what he was thinking, trying to do what he was trying to do—leaning to kiss her, grabbing for her breast, fucking her already in his mind—and he was about to be taken apart. Then suddenly, her legs were wrapped around his waist, pulling his groin tight against her through all those maddening layers of clothes as she actively leaned into him, pinning him helplessly to the wall at his back. They were kissing, but that was hardly the word for it. Their mouths hungrily mauled each other in fierce, sensuous union.

Rupert's body was pinned helplessly, but his hands were free and he put them to good use. He pushed the Slayer's skirt up around her waist and pulled savagely at her flimsy nylon nickers, ripping them apart and off her body. Her hands were free too and at his belt. Already, she had it unfastened. Somehow she had lost her shoes, which was a good thing because she nearly climbed him like a tree, using her feet to push his trousers and pants down in the same moment that her hands got his fly unfastened.

There was an unsteady, wobbling moment when they might have fallen to the floor, but they didn't. Within another second, she had thrown him painfully back against the wall again, and already he was inside her. Her feet were crossed behind his ass. She rolled her hips against him as he thrust to meet her thrashing, grinding motion and they rode the waves of passion and friction to an almost immediate, simultaneous orgasm. “Oh, Good Lord!” he moaned out at the moment of release as Buffy emitted her own, high sharp breathy cries of ecstasy.

Within two minutes of penetration, she was unwinding her body from around his and getting unsteadily to her feet. Still trying to catch his breath, Giles pulled himself up from against the wall and his trousers up from around his ankles, taking stock of himself, relieved to find that no bones were broken, though his lower lip was bleeding, and there was a definite sensation of bruises beginning to form on his back, shoulders and ass. The Slayer pulled her skirt down as far as it would go (which clearly wasn't far enough to suit her) and held her hands out in a low, broad blocking gesture that seemed designed to conger a large bubble of impenetrable personal space from the aether. “Okay,” she demanded in a slightly shaky, warily seeking, guarded but not quite hostile voice, “what just happened here?”

“Well, I... uh, well... we... but erm... sex obviously, but—” Giles began to stammer, suddenly very sheepish, chagrined. As though he'd just accidentally brushed against her in a crowed hallway; a deep, black, ironic, angry part of him thought with utter self-contempt. Embarrassment was hardly an adequate response to becoming a diabolical instrument for the defilement of sixteen-year-old girls.

“Yeah, I worked that much out, actually!” Buffy snapped, suddenly much more hostile, her head rolling on her shoulders as one hand came to rest on her hip. Dear God, there was semen running down her leg. Very slightly tinged with blood. Score! Feel free to drop dead at any time. “What I meant,” the Slayer kept on, eyes blazing, “is, 'Who the Hell are you, and how did you make me do that??!!'”

“I'm Rupert Giles,” he more or less apologized, feeling more embarrassed than ever, extending his hand half ironically, “your new Watcher.”

“Oh, for the Love of God!” she shouted at him, sounding angry but looking terrified, shaking in fact. “Why can't you people just leave me alone!?! Or at least stick to throwing knives at my head! I mean, what kind of sick game are we playing now? You got some kind of mystical mind-control thingy the 'Chosen One' is supposed to learn to resist??!! Because that's a pretty fucking disgusting way to test it out!!!”

“What?!? I—Buffy no, I wouldn't... even if I could... which I couldn't, I—there's a demon here with us,” he began to explain urgently willing her to understand. For her own wellbeing, as well as the fate of the world (and because he didn't exactly fancy being killed or imprisoned) he had to make her see that he was on her side. “We just need to get out of this library,” he tried to explain, “and then—”

“Oh no!” she interjected sharply. “'We' don't need to do anything. There is no 'we'. There's me, over here and you over there. And you can go Watch yourself! I have to go... get ready for gym class.”

“But I—you—w—!” he found himself saying to the library door that she left swinging in her wake.  

Chapter Text

Giles stood a moment, gathering his wits, forming a tentative plan to go after the Slayer, to catch up to her and talk to her somewhere where they actually might talk, to make her understand. Like in public where she can scream 'rape' and have you arrested, or in private where she can break you in half?  He didn't have much of an answer for that, but it didn't change the fact that he needed to find a way. Hey I told you, I am the way, man! The only 'out' of this is by helping me.  Bugger off. Not my scene, man; I'm strictly about that front door action. The better to muck up my existence. Hey, If you don't roll them dice, it don't punch my ticket. I'll punch your ticket for you, you watch. You and what Slayer? Because trust me, that one is not about to come to your rescue.

And of course, it was true; she wouldn't. But—! Rupert was stabbed by guilt as he had a dreadful, but brilliant idea. See, this is why I love fucking with humans! It's that devious, egg-sucking mammal brain of yours! Always finding a way to slink under an obstacle. Pillock, Giles sneered, almost aloud. He truly hated himself for even considering putting into action the plan that had formed unbidden in his mind. But, incubi notwithstanding, he desperately needed the Slayer's cooperation to thwart whatever other evils were soon to emanate from the Hellmouth.

Giles had made his formal request for reassignment to the Council nearly three weeks earlier. But he knew perfectly well that their idea of taking immediate action would be to try to schedule a meeting to discuss it by end of the month with an eye towards working up a proposal for the next quarterly meeting. Meanwhile, all the signs and portents he'd been reading, together with the relevant prophesies and the information he'd managed to get from the demon itself, pointed to a crucial mystical upheaval here in Sunnydale within days, possibly less. Which meant that Giles, not his eventual replacement, would have to be the one to deal with it, or rather, to see that it got dealt with. And once he had had his one and only idea for gaining the Slayer's cooperation, once he had seen the logic in it, he couldn't unsee it.

Buffy was very unlikely to come to his aide for any reason, considering what had just happened between them. But come to the aide of an innocent in danger? That she still very well might! It was far too much to ask, of course. Especially of a girl he knew could refuse him nothing. Really, under the circumstances, it was truly indecent. Cruel even. And yet...

While he stood debating thus... Dithering like Hamlet you mean?   Asexual Shapeshifter. Hey! That's hitting below the belt!   If it's your belt, who'd notice? … the library door opened.

“I'm telling you, man,” argued a pale, lanky young man—whom he only knew to be 'Jesse' somebody because he was with Xander Harris, an oft mentioned 'friend' of Willow's—addressing his perennially confused companion with cheerful stridency, “Whatever you said to that girl, this morning must have really pissed her off. You're just lucky she didn't ram that thing right down your throat.”

“Well...” the hulking (yet somehow functionally gangling) sub-adult prat admitted sheepishly, “I may have accidentally propositioned her for sex, but she seemed pretty cool about it at the time.”

“You mean 'at the time' that she ran off so quick she forgot something she wanted to kill you for having like two hours later?” Jesse prodded skeptically.

As he watched Harris struggle to do that small bit of very simple math in his head, Giles had the uneasy feeling that he knew, far too well, the young lady of whom they spoke. “Did you want something?” he asked with politely half-concealed impatience, ready to serve the boys' book related needs as quickly as possible, the faster to rid himself of his witless and therefore unwitting rival. Oh for God's sake! Hey, pal, that was your POV, not mine.

“I need...” Xander consulted a note scrawled on the inside of his hand, “Theories in Trig? Willow told me I need it to try and understand the math.”

Giles's senses tautened. “You've seen Willow? This morning?”

“No,” Xander replied, clearly puzzled. “I talked to her on the phone last night, why?”

“Oh, erm, yes...” Giles stammered, feeling like an idiot. Which was how he felt a lot lately. When he wasn't feeling like a villain or a helpless thrall. “Well, if you do see her tell her I'd... like to speak to her after school. Not here!” he added a bit too abruptly, drawing an even more suspicious look from both boys. “In... well... erm, in the... the computer lab. I need her to show me... something about computers.” They were looking at him like he was standing there naked with his cock in his hands, trying to convince them there was nothing amiss. No they're not, that's just your guilty imagination. Shut it! Hey, just tryin'a help.

“So, uh, yeah.” Jesse said at last, attacking the incredibly awkward silence boldly and with moderate success. “The math books are... where again?”

“Oh, yes, erm... that section just there,” Giles indicated, pointing the boys towards the depths of the stacks, still collecting himself. “Fourth row along on the other side and second from the bottom.” As they disappeared from view behind a thin screen of bookshelves, Giles turned to walk away. But he hesitated, thinking he should retreat to his office before any more young women could come calling and yet feeling that he must go and find Willow at once.

While he stood mired in uncertainty— A.K.A. Dithering— the boys began to converse as if they were now completely alone, the vaguely human shaped component of the school system that they'd just encountered being out of sight and therefore out of mind. Given the topic of their conversation, Giles could not help but listen. “So Willow did finally call you back then?” Jesse asked. “I thought maybe you'd just bumped into her or something.”

“No, she called back,” Xander explained, “after about the five hundredth message. But it was weird. She got all serious and started talking about how we've always been friends and how she isn't that close to any other girls but that she needed someone to talk to. I thought she was finally going to tell me what she was crying about at lunch the first day back and why she's been avoiding us ever since. And—I know I shouldn't have, but I got nervous—I... made a joke. I told her if she was trying to propose the answer was 'yes'.”

Giles managed to hold his curses in only by venting his anger in the very rough handling of some unfortunate books that had gotten in his way. But if the boys heard him slamming the volumes about, they didn't seem to notice. “Then I laughed and she didn't and, all of a sudden, all she wanted to talk about was math.” Xander went on, plaintively. “So we did. And then I didn't know what else to say. So, I just told her we should maybe go to the Bronze tonight, the three of us, hang out. But she said she didn't know, all hurried like, and hung up. She didn't answer when I called her right back though.”

“You jerk,” Jesse said with a rather light combination of frustration, censure, mild amusement, and friendly affection. Then, “Well we should go anyway. There's some new band tonight that's supposed to be good, and I bet Cordelia will be there.” More slamming instead of cursing followed as the two boys discussed Ms. Chase as if she were theirs to accept or reject. Xander took the position that she was more trouble than she was worth, while Jesse countered that a girl that hot was worth a lot of trouble. Privately, Giles thought that they were both probably right, however slender their claims of entitlement to an opinion on the subject.

Cordelia Chase, queen bitch of Sunnydale High, was made of sex and obstinace. When he'd realized there was no other way to avoid her repeated incursions into the library, supposedly in search of books; Giles had tried hiding in his office, telling her through the locked door to help herself to the books and sign them out in the log. It had worked on every other female student who'd insisted on spending more than thirty seconds in the library since his first encounter with Willow had alerted him to his condition. But it hadn't worked on Cordelia. She had waited him out, continually insisting that she needed his assistance desperately.

When she'd finally coaxed him to open the door a crack, and somehow gotten on the other side of it with him; Cordelia had been no less aggressive than the Slayer. Thankfully, she had been both more playful and less physically strong, leaving him spent, but not covered in bruises as he was now. And unlike Buffy, she had not blamed him, but taken all of the credit herself. At the time, in fact, she had seemed so pleased with her conquest that Giles had feared he'd acquired another regular patron. But that had been more than two weeks ago, and she hadn't darkened his library door since.

Giles had been extremely relieved for more than just the obvious moral reasons. Cordelia was clearly a young woman who knew what she wanted and was used to getting it by whatever means necessary. He'd have hated to have seen poor, sweet Willow get crosswise with her, especially over him. It was bad enough getting her mixed up with Buffy. Which was exactly what he knew he had to do.

Chapter Text

Giles tried to look casual, strolling the campus; though strictly speaking, he should not have been out of the library at Lunch hour, which was a peak time for fiction borrowers particularly. He should have been there to serve. But, considering how his day had gone so far, he didn't want to run the risk of deflowering yet another innocent student. He'd been damned fortunate over the course of the past twenty-five days to keep that number at only three. Besides, he had to speak to Willow before she or Buffy left school, and at any other time, she might well be in class.

Sunnydale High, unlike every other state secondary school in California, still had six class periods rather than seven or the increasingly popular eight. This allowed classes to be completed by 2:30, leaving time for all extra-curricular activities to be squeezed in before 5:00. No one was sure just why, but it was a Sunnydale tradition. In order to keep that schedule while still meeting state standards, Sunnydale had devised the most complicated variant of block scheduling known to man. Each student was assigned to eight classes, which met on often but not always alternating days, leaving one or two free class periods per day, though not always at the same times. There was a Vice Principal whose entire job it was to keep up with where each student was supposed to be at any given day and time. The rest of the faculty had all they could do to keep up with where they were meant to be themselves.

Guilty as he felt admitting it to himself, Giles had no idea of Willow's schedule for this afternoon, let alone Buffy's. And so, hands tucked safely into the pockets of his tweed suit coat, forcing his eyes (in so far as was possible) to scan only the faces of the young girls that he passed, Giles strolled. Or rather, he scoured the campus for his young lover. Your young what now?  Shut up.

At last he spotted her, sitting alone at a picnic table near the edge of the outdoor dining area, far from the laughing crowd. He moved to join her, fairly sure that no one would overhear their conversation and that the few who saw it wouldn't make much of it. Willow had evidently been well-known as a haunter of libraries, wont to converse with librarians, long before his time. But when Giles saw who was even now approaching her, he hung back, stepping into the shadow of a tree with practiced stealth. He leaned one hand against the trunk and stood there. Tense. Watching. It might have been cowardly of him, he supposed, but under the circumstances, he'd have been a damned fool to do anything else.

“Willow!” Cordelia's voice rang though the picnic area in acidly ironic greeting. “Love the outfit! Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears(!)” Willow made an evidently contrite response (which could not be heard at this distance) and stood, gathering her things to move. Apparently, Cordelia and her companions were not satisfied. Harmony Kendall, a tall, exceptionally attractive blonde with a sour look on her face, threw out her elbow and 'accidentally' knocked Willow's still mostly full lunch tray to the ground. Several lesser 'Cordettes' laughed loud and plastically. Willow took a long step backwards, lowing her head and seeming to wilt, to almost physically shrink.

Giles took his hand from the tree and was on the point of stepping forward after all, blood boiling, when he was seized by sudden, sharp, painful spasms of the scrotum. The crippling pain very nearly drove him to his knees. Though it lasted less than a second, it was several seconds before he could see straight. Easy there, Don Quixote, the incubus warned, deep breaths. But this is all my fault; I have to do something! Nah, s'got nothing to do with you. Just garden variety meangirlism. Believe me, I've known this type for centuries. Fit right in at Versailles, that one. If she thought for one minute she'd been boinking the same beefstick as Miss Just-Happens-Not-to-Be-Mousy-Haired, she'd hide in a closet with a paper bag over her head until she died of shame.

Willow was crying now, possibly pleading with her tormenters to have mercy, but not yet running away. Cordelia and friends had lowered their voices, probably to say something truly nasty. Look, I can't just stand here and let them treat her that way! She's my—! Giles stopped short, having no labeled relationship to assert. The incubus smirked inwardly in triumph, understanding the assertion well enough without the label. Die and be damned! Giles admonished the demon, taking a step forward, heedless of the dizzying array of possible negative consequences. What the hell. You asked for it. Let's see how this one plays out.

“You girls!” Giles challenged in a way that sounded, even in his own ears, very much like, 'en garde!', striding purposefully forward, “What do you think you're doing?”

Cordelia cocked her head to one side and made a noise of utter disdain. “Excuse you?” she demanded. “Since when is what I do any tiny bit of your business?”

“Cordelia,” Giles said, as firmly and steadily as he could manage, looking her slightly above and to the right of in the eye, “This behavior is completely unacceptable. It's childish and... and cruel... and unbecoming to—well to anyone.”

“Oh, I see,” Cordelia something between purred and snarled, her voice dripping with scorn, “You're being the 'grownup' now. Well sorry, I don't do the whole 'discipline' thing. So why don't you go find yourself another naughty little girl to spank?”

“What—I—Ms. Chase, that's hardly—”

“It's all right,” Willow assured Giles with quiet, gentle urgency that suggested more concern for him than for herself, backing up to stand much too close to him, touching his hand. “It was an accident. I was just leaving anyway.”

Then it happened. Cordelia looked from Giles to Willow and back again and something clicked with her, even as she was failing to notice the looks several Cordettes were exchanging at her expense, and the pointed way Harmony failed to meet those looks in either confirmation or challenge. Harmony reached to put a hand on Cordelia's shoulder, gently suggesting restraint. But Cordelia was too far gone to be gently restrained. “Oh, but I guess you've already got one. More your speed is she? Little Miss Compliant. Ready to bend over just for the attention?”

“Hey!” Willow snapped, suddenly fierce, stepping protectively in front of Giles, “Rude much! You can't talk to him like that! He's—uh—a teacher or, or well not exactly, but—but—!”

“Willow,” Giles admonished her, worried for her safety now—and not at all worried you're about to get busted, I bet—pushing her aside a bit less gently than he'd meant too, putting himself between the two girls, and much, much too close to Cordelia. “Go to the computer lab and wait for me.”

Willow obeyed, looking reluctant but moving quickly. Giles turned his attention back to the other girls. Everyone stood their ground. Cordelia's eyes blazed. All of her girls seemed, for the moment, at least passively, prepared to back her up.

“Cordelia, Harmony,” Giles began, as steadily and authoritatively as his temper would allow, “You will both—” report to the principal's office? Seriously, that's what you're going with? “—do... well to remember... to remember... that the actions you take towards others may come back to haunt you in ways you least expect!” he blustered indignantly, his sense of chivalry acutely unsatisfied, but both guilt and self-preservation preventing him from taking any more definite action. “You might also do well to consider the cost to your own reputation of attacking someone else's,” he added more firmly, warningly.

Nicely done. Very heroic. What was it you were trying to accomplish here again? Protect Willow? Keep your secrets? Assert justice in the universe?   Fuck off and die. Oh well, in that case, your doin' all right.

“Are you done?” Cordelia demanded, putting on a bored-with-being-annoyed-by-you attitude, having gotten a hold of herself at last. “Was that the whole faculty lecture? Fifty ways a mousier you? Or do you have more pearls of wisdom yet to share?”

“As far as I'm concerned,” Giles replied in a tone of calm, authoritative threat-warning, “this entire matter is most definitely concluded. And if I hear of anything like this happening again, I don't think anyone is going to very happy with what results.”

“Is that what you think?” Cordelia countered, nasty-sweet. “Well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we?” Giles raised his eyebrows, one slightly higher than the other. Favoring Cordelia with a doubtful but carefully unconcerned expression that would do until a smirk came along, he turned stiffly and quickly walked away.

Chapter Text

As Giles strode purposefully through the crowded halls of Sunnydale High, headed for the Computer Lab, he cursed himself. He cursed his demons, his luck, his stars, his temper, and his stupidity. Why don't you throw in your warped sense of honor while you're at it, that's what's about to get you tossed in the clink if you don't watch yourself. That business with Cordelia? She won't say anything. As you say, she'd die of shame.

Not that. The other one. You keep acting like such a knight in scratchy armor, next thing you know she'll be wanting to take you home to meet Mom and Dad. Nonsense. She may not be able to see this for exactly what it is, but she's not a fool. She knows secret, illegal affairs don't end in marriage. Does she? What are sixteen-year-old girls like on your planet(?) No, you're wrong. Willow's not just any girl. She's brilliant, and mature, and amazingly sensible, and-and— And sixteen. And in love. And pregnant.

Giles stopped in the middle of the hallway so abruptly that traffic backed up behind him a bit before it was able to flow around him. Why are you telling me this? He asked, warily, honestly perplexed. I thought it was your goal to get me into as much of exactly this kind of trouble as inhumanly possible. Getting girls pregnant, yes. Having actual babies, weather permitting. Plighting your troth to starry-eyed teens who then go on to tell their friends, their families, and half the town where their babies come from? Eh, not so much. I told you, the kind of action you get in the bathroom at San Quentin just doesn't do it for me.

Besides, I'm going to enjoy watching you try to hard sell her on the easy way out, knowing it probably won't work. Hard sell her? What nonsense. All she can talk about is what University she'll be going to. She's not interested in having a baby. A baby, no, the demon half agreed and totally disagreed at the same time. Your baby, most definitely.

“There you are,” Mr. Flutie huffed, seeming to appear out of nowhere. “I've been looking all over for you!” He seemed even more strained, dismayed, and desperate to project false positivity than usual.

“What is it?” Giles asked, suddenly alert, brought back to his surroundings as if from a dream. Or nightmare. Who are you talking back to now?  What? No one! Man, you are losing it!  Small wonder.

“There's been... an event in the girl's locker room,” Flutie began to explain hesitantly, “Well not in the locker room,” he doubled back hurriedly, “the event may have happened anywhere but the body was found in the girl's locker room, so we're treating it as an on-campus event, not to say that the event actually happened on campus, which we in no way concede for liability purposes.”

Event. Body. “Good—Good Lord!” Giles found himself tripping a bit over his own words as well. “You don't mean to say there's been a murder on campus?” Flutie responded with startled noises and jumbled words that were mostly if vaguely in the negative but which taken together amounted to an essentially affirmative response.

While he listened to his superior prattle in circles, Giles worried and wondered if this murder was really a coincidence or some harbinger of things to come. Gosh, ya think? The foul work of a nest of demons about to go on a rampage perhaps, or a sacrificial victim of some unholy ritual for opening the Hellmouth. I wish. I could do without your snide commentary on my every train of thought, thank you very much, and while we are at it—!

“Mr. Giles? Mr. Giles?” Flutie actually had one hand on his sleeve, pulling at it a bit to get his attention.

“Oh? Erm, yes? Wh—what were you saying?”

“I was SAY-ing,” Flutie repeated forcefully, or at least as forcefully as he could manage, “that with all the gym classes canceled while the crime scene people 'process the area' or what have you, it's important that the library and other common areas be open to students, because they won't all fit in the school lounge. Meanwhile, apparently, from what I've been told, the library has been locked most of the morning, and you're off wandering around campus, doing what exactly?”

The students?   “Fu—” Oh! You! You! You! You! Very articulate. I can tell you're an Oxford man.

“Well?” Flutie demanded, losing patience.

“Oh, Piss Off Already!!!” Giles shouted. In the moment of dead silence that preceded the roar of whispered and stage whispered incredulity and speculation, he could hear someone's pencil hitting the floor. It bounced once, and then the cacophony began.

“MIS-ter GI-les! Is that any way to speak to your principal?” Flutie burbled, horrified. “Do you want to be fired?”

“Well, yes,” Giles said, calmly and cheerfully, but with a definite feeling of something in danger of snapping. Something that would not easily be put back into place. “I want to be fired very much, actually.”

“Well—well you—you can't!” Flutie informed him, very near to coming unhinged himself. “Do you know how long it took us to find *another* new-ne-never, never mind! You have a contract, Mister! Now... Get in that library!”

Come on Rupes, the demon cajoled and very slightly ridiculed him at the same time. You gotta chill out man. Your books would miss you if you got fired, right? It was true, many of his most important volumes didn't belong to him. The Council had had the bright idea to save the cost of equipping him with books by having him order what he needed and charge it to the school, which meant that the dozens of rare volumes he's just acquired specifically for this assignment—including the few sources touching upon the Hellmouth itself—were now the property of the Del Bacco County School District. The school had a large, preexisting collection of books that he'd already begun to find very useful, come to that. If the signs were right, he might well need all of them, and soon.

Besides, he had to have some means of continuing to run into Buffy that couldn't be viewed as stalking. It was also true that the incubus wanted to keep that portion of its spirit which inhabited his testicles close to the rest of it's being, which was still trapped inside the rim of the not-completely-sealed Hellmouth. All right, fair cop. So it's a win/win. Androgynous Morphogenic Anomaly. So's your ass.

Mr. Giles made his awkward apologies to Mr. Flutie and hurried back to the library, prepared to shut himself in his office and lock the door if need be to avoid students of the opposite sex. But something was wrong. The library wasn't still locked. In fact, the knob had been forced, broken. It hung loose, the door slightly ajar. Giles poked his head gingerly—Not a word!—inside, but despite Flutie's hysterics to the contrary, the place appeared to be empty. “Hello?” he called hesitantly, and when no one answered, he ventured to step inside.

As Giles approached his office door, he noticed that, here too, the knob had been forced. That gave him a very uneasy feeling, which was soon confirmed. Slamming the office door open, Buffy stood before him in all her beauty and rage. “AH!” he all but screamed, startled, stepping quickly back. Buffy rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. She had traded her revealing street clothes for a pair of loose fitting maroon sweat pants and a hooded gold sweatshirt, emblazoned with the school's initials and the silhouette of a rampant razorback. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, which made her look even younger and more vulnerable than she actually was, but no less fierce.

“We need to talk. Now!” she demanded. The entirely genuine anger she projected at him did nothing to mask her fear.

“Now, yes,” Giles agreed, “but n—not here. You see w—we need to get out of the library!”

“Oh no,” the Slayer countered, grabbing him by both arms and shoving him bodily into the tiny office, standing between him and the door. “You. Are. Not. Going. Anywhere!”

“Look, I tried to tell you,” he implored her urgently, intensely, forcefully ignoring the sexual tension he once again felt stretched taunt between them. “It's the library that's the problem. There's a demon—an—an—incubus stuck in the—well—in the—the Hellmouth below! It's controlling us. Making us want to have sex!”

He shouldn't have said it so directly. Not in this close little space.

“Really?” She tried haltingly to make him a sassy response has he moved, helplessly compelled, to close the space between them. “That's the excuse you're going with? An incubus in a helmet?” Before this, the people's great warrior, the Gods themselves do tremble.

“Hellmouth,” he whispered gently as his lips brushed hers. She emitted a little noise, between a whimper and a sigh. Soft against her ear, as she kissed his neck, he moaned, “There's an incubus stuck in the Hellmouth.”

Chapter Text

“So, ah signs and ah por! Portents!” Buffy panted, as Giles moved within her in slow, deep even strokes from behind as she knelt on the small couch in his office, knees planted wide apart, ass held high, hanging on to the backrest with both hands.

“Yes! I'm mu, mu, mufraid s-so,” he gasped out between moans of sweet torment. “Something's, something's, gonna, ah, ha—happen here. Soon!”

“Something that eh—eh—eh! Explains vampires on campus?” Buffy breathed, just a hint of something that might have been skepticism evident in her tone between the noises of sexual arousal and pleasure.

“Oh, yes! Oh God, yes!” Giles explained. “I've hmm, yes, oh, I've been, been digging ah around a bit in the history of this place ever since—well especially since my—ah sweet Jesus, yes—my affliction became apparent. And, oh, oh, my. Slowly, my dear,” he had to admonish Buffy, who was thrusting backwards against him with such enthusiasm that he feared the act would reach it's conclusion and she would go back to being angry and suspicious long before he could finish his explanation of what he thought was happening in Sunnydale that needed her attention.

“You've been digging?” she prompted breathlessly, “ah ha hu, and?”

“And I discovered,” he went on, voice becoming more steady now that they had settled once again into a slow, sustainable rhythm. For the time being. “That there was a ah rash of, of intense vampire activity in this area, in the n-n-nineteen thirties.”

“Bu, buddin't you say, oh, ah, god there, oh you're so deep, god, ah, buddin't you say there's always been... a st-steady st-stream, you said, of, of weirdness in this town?”

“Yeh-yes, but this was more, more—Oh Sweet Mother of God, don't finish me off yet—intense! Mass destruction. Then there was, was an, an earthquake and and and, ah God, the town was half destroyed and vampire activity d-dropped to ah umm, nearly nothing for decades, while the ah ah odd occurrences slowed down to a trickle. But, oh oh over the last f-f-five or s-s-six years and 'sp-specially the last s-six months, it's been—ah—it's ah, been getting, getting worse!”

“Oh, I, yes! Worse!” Buffy agreed for the sake of agreeing, hardly in a state to do anything else. At least, Giles hoped it meant she was listening. God knew it was near enough impossible for him to concentrate on his argument as it was. He'd hate to think his words were all going to waste.

“Please, please, Buffy,” he begged her, huffing and sweating and hardly able to think, “You, my sweet goddess, only you can stop what's coming! Only you can protect us! I ah, hu, I, d-don't know exactly when or, or how the vampires will strike, but, they must be, must be planning to do it very, very near here, because, I'm c-c-certain that the focus of their activity is still, still the Hellmouth!”

“Oh, wow!” Buffy cried. But her exclamation had nothing to do with what her Watcher had just explained. “Oh God!” she gasped, sounding not so much pleased as hanging between awe and panic, “I'm coming!” And she did. Buffy screamed and moaned so loud that Giles was sure the whole school must have heard her.

But that was too distant a problem to worry about right now. Right now, the most important thing in the universe was that Giles too was on the verge of having an orgasm. The second most important thing was that he felt he'd finally explained the Hellmouth situation to his Slayer sufficiently to gain her cooperation. As he thrust into her, hard and fast, heedlessly taking his own pleasure, as she bucked and writhed against him, he even dared to hope that at last she understood that he was as helpless against the powers of the incubus as she was, maybe more so, and would stop blaming him so awfully much for what was happening between them.

“Ah Good Lord Almighty In His Highest Heaven!” Giles cried as he climaxed at last, “God, yes! Thank you, Buffy! Oh, Great Goddess, yes!” Suddenly, Giles found himself crashing to the floor—a naked tangle of awkwardly, somewhat painfully bent arms and legs—exactly as if the structure upon which he had been supporting his weight had been pulled from beneath him. Giles was so shocked that it took him a moment to realize that that was more or less exactly what had happened. Except that it was a girl, not a structure, that had been bearing his weight.

Buffy was on her feet now, looking down at him in horror and disgust. “You did it again!” she accused him bitterly, fiercely swiping at the angry-sad tears that filled her eyes. “How the Hell are you doing this!?!”

“I'm not!” he pleaded, terrified by the gathering storm clouds in her eyes. As he spoke, Giles grabbed his pants and trousers from the floor and scuttling round the end of the sofa to have a bit of minimal protection from direct attack as he pulled them on. “It's the incubus!” he reminded her. She'd seemed to understand that a few moments ago. Thankfully, Giles had kept his t-shirt on the whole time, so that in less than a minute he was decently, if not quite appropriately dressed, which made his goal of leaving the room seem blessedly within reach.

Buffy however, was still stark naked as she stood, feet planted wide apart, hands on hips, tossed her head back and demanded, “The 'incubus' huh! The one 'stuck like a cork in the bottle of the Hellmouth'(?) Bullshit! The only sex fiend I see here is you!”

“Buffy, I swear to you—”

“Button it, Jeeves!” she cut him off angrily. “The only reason I came to you was to find out what you know about this vampire attack. And what do I get? Screwed! Again! And this, this is beyond even the most sick and twisted for-your-own-good Watcher head-games. I mean,” she was shaking her head, crying nearly beside herself with indignation, “I'm just gonna call it what it is. This is rape!”

Buffy put her hand to her mouth as though she hadn't expected to hear such a vile, terrifying word come out of it. Suddenly, she seemed to notice that she was still naked. Shaking and crying, she began to gather her things and dress hurriedly, muttering all the while about 'fucking vampires' and how the 'goddamned Watchers' ought to 'kill them their fucking selves.'

Although his first impulse was to comfort her, Giles instead grabbed his shoes, socks, and oxford shirt and walked out into the library to finish getting dressed, abandoning the coat, tie, and vest that could not be had without reaching past her, which he felt would be both insensitive and unsafe. Which two adjectives perfectly described the act of trying to comfort someone whom, from her quite understandable point of view, he had just 'raped' for the second time today.

Bloody hell! Maybe if he simply pulled up his stake and left Sunnydale, resigned his post as Watcher immediately and unconditionally, his replacement would be sent that much sooner. 'That much' perhaps, but knowing the Council, 'that much' sooner still wouldn't be soon enough.

The very fact that Buffy was here at all tended to support his belief that a terrible supernatural crisis was imminent. Buffy had been left Watcherless for months after Merrick's death precisely because the Council had not been able to agree upon where to send her or with whom. Finally, after all their internal wrangling had gotten them no closer to an answer, they had agreed to let fate decide where Buffy was most needed, positioning Watchers and staff in each of the likeliest places. And though it had barely made the list at all, though it had been assigned only a single Watcher with no staff support, a Watcher whose questionable past had kept him in the worst, least important assignments throughout his career, fate had sent Buffy to Sunnydale. And into the arms of Rupert Giles.

Hell yeah, let's hear it for 'Fate'! Keep rollin' them dice, My Lady!

Chapter Text

Giles stood behind the book counter: quiet, tense. Waiting for Buffy to get herself together and come out. There was... not a *great* deal of noise coming from the office. But there were enough crashing and banging sounds included to make any reasonable person nervous. Well, perhaps a bit of slamming about as she got dressed would help Buffy release some of her aggression. Hopefully, without doing too much damage.

Giles kept trying to think of anything he could say to make her see this situation for what it was. Or at least help her to stop seeing it for what it wasn't. The problem being that, for her, maybe it really was that. She had been compelled against her natural inclinations to have sex she now didn't want to have had with a man she didn't know, didn't trust, and (when in her proper wits) didn't fancy. What other name than 'rape' could a young woman be expected to apply to such an experience?

At this point, the idea that they could ever have a healthy, long-term working relationship as Watcher and Slayer was an impossible fantasy. The best Giles could hope for at this point was her sub-lethal enmity and temporary, grudging cooperation in saving the world. Even at that, he was unsure of his chances. So, guess it's back to plan A? Get your little girlfriend to rope her in? Shut up.

Finally, after more than fifteen minutes in the office on her own, Buffy walked out in her sweats carrying a large cardboard box full of mostly old and mostly important books and papers, which she threw to Giles so suddenly that it knocked the wind out of him as he caught it. The sharp, sudden discomfort was accentuated by the embarrassment of his almost immediate realization that he could have just let it land on the counter, as she might well have intended.

But Giles wasn't to be distracted by anything so trivial just now. “Buffy,” he tried appealing to her one more time, “you must believe me, I never intended any of this—”

“Oh, I believe you,” Buffy assured him in an even, almost friendly tone in which he could detect no trace of sarcasm. “It's not you; it's the hotel. You're just the caretaker.”

“What?” Giles knew he was missing something, but he honestly didn't know what it was. Buffy didn't seem as if she'd gone mad, just the opposite.

The Slayer rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh as she started shoving an amazingly large wheeled book case towards the swinging doors to the main hallway. “Uh... It's a literary reference(?)” she replied with exaggerated sarcasm. “Geez, who's the librarian here, you or me?”

“Ah, erm, yes,” Giles murmured, comprehension striking him a bit uncomfortably, just as he became puzzled about something else. “B-Buffy? What are you doing with that?”

“I'm moving all the books on this level out into the hallway,” she explained, her tone once again calm and cheerful. “I noticed this seems to be the Watcheriest stuff down here, but if there is anything really important up in the stacks, now would be the time to grab it, 'cause as soon as the fire alarm starts going off, everything in here's gonna get soaked. And don't forget your box, there. I saved your Watcher Diaries and anything else that looked oldish or rarish.”

For a moment, Giles couldn't find his tongue. Flabbergasted, he looked from the girl to the box and back again. “Wait, Wh—what? Fire alarm?” he stammered. “Why would—?”

“Oh, because I just set your office on fire. I'd say this place should be closed for repairs at least the next three or four weeks. So, problem temporarily solved.” I said goddamn! Bitch is hardcore. Oh, I hope you knocked this one up! Pervert. Why, thank you!

“Oh, I wouldn't go in there,” she added, sounding friendly and helpful as ever as he took three or four quick steps in the direction of his office door. “That *might* knock the aerosol cans and the open bottle of super-expensive looking booze sitting on top of the door into the burning pile of old papers and broken furniture. Then I won't be responsible for what happens.”

Giles stood there, blinking in slack-jawed amazement. Seriously, I think I'm in love. “You wanna lend a hand here, Jeeves?” Buffy said after a moment. “These bookcases aren't going to move themselves, and time is of the serious essence here.”

“Bu—Buffy, n—now let's, let's think about this a moment...” Giles groped tentatively in the direction of an appeal to reason, having found his tongue at last, but not his wits.

“I thought,” Buffy said, her almost matter-of-fact tone having something just a bit abrupt, just a bit harsh in it. “I acted. Now I'm moving books. Hop on the train, Jeeves, or get off the tracks.”

“You can stop calling me that any time,” Giles grumbled, picking a bookcase at random and shoving it towards the door.

“And you can stop violating me with your penis,” Buffy rejoined, in a chipper tone that wouldn't have seemed in the least ironic, if not for the words she was speaking.

“The door *was* locked,” Giles couldn't help pointing out. Very, very much under his breath. Oh, what? You're ignoring me now. She gets all your snide little aside comments now? After all the snatch we've been through together? She's set the library on fire, you fool. Why aren't you bothered by this? Eh, I'll just turn up your lust a little and breed you in bars more. Granted, you aren't literally irresistible out there in the wide world, but you're not without charm or beauty, both of which I've seen you use already when you wanted it enough.

Giles's pulse quickened. He wasn't having any of that. The incubus hated most of the women he got on his own merit. Mainly because so many of them *were* women, not girls. There could only be one reason why it was amused rather than dismayed by the impending conflagration. It knew something! It didn't expect to need the library much longer. Which meant it expected the Hellmouth to be opened within a day or two. It would have been too bothered by any longer delay in its lecherous activities. Finally, the vile fiend had given him some useful information. Ummm.... You know, I can hear you thinking about me, right? No, Giles replied dryly, I'd forgotten. Ha! Ha! Vile Fiend. She's getting away, you know.

The incubus was right. In the time it had taken Giles to move one bookcase into the hallway, Buffy had finished with the others and was striding purposefully down the hall, which at least was mostly empty now, lunch being long over. “Buffy!” he called as he ran after her, adding in a much lower but equally urgent voice as he caught up, “You, you have to listen.”

“No,” she corrected him, lengthening her stride so that he nearly had to jog to keep up despite his much longer legs, “I have to repress. And I have to get to English class to establish my alibi.”

“You don't understand,” he insisted, almost grabbing her arm, but thinking better of it. “The demon has just unwittingly revealed to me something very important.”

That at least got her to stop and face him, foot tapping impatiently, fingers drumming on her hips. “It talks to you(?)” she said, in a voice like eyes rolling. “The evil thing that lives in your crotch talks to you?”

“Well... n-not out loud,” Giles admitted sheepishly, getting frustrated, annoyed. “But, but the Hellmouth is go—”

“Is your problem, Jeeves,” Buffy cut him off harshly. “Like I've been trying to tell you. I don't do Hellmouths, incubi, talking jockey shorts, none of it. Because, first off, I'm a VAMPIRE Slayer; and secondly, I'm retired.”

“But it's going to open at, at any moment, may-maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but, but—”

“Soon? Yeah, Bogey, I heard you the first time!” At that moment, the fire alarms sounded throughout the building. However, the system was sophisticated enough that only the sprinklers in the library itself—where the smoke was—were triggered. Buffy's look of deep annoyance became one of utter exasperation. She rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. “And there goes my alibi(!) Thanks a lot, Jeeves.”

At that moment, students began pouring into the hallway, headed for the exits and thence the tennis courts, per the school's evacuation plan. Few of them were calm and orderly. Many were elated, some panicked as a voice over the intercom confirmed that this was not a drill.

“Ms. Summers,” Giles tried to start again from the beginning, striving for a calm, even tone, lowering his voice, daring to lean closer to her, more than he dared to risk being overheard by the sudden crowd, “I don't know how much Mr. Merrick will have gotten the chance to tell you about a Slayer's other duties besides, well, Slaying vampires, but—”

“Shshshshsh,” she said quietly, softly, putting a finger to his lips, her eyes softening and somehow seeming to grow larger. Rupert's heart pounded. Their faces were inches apart. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of desire for her that made the coming apocalypse seem distant and small. Unimportant. “You're missing the most important thing here,” she whispered, almost purred, in fact.

“Yes?” he said, reaching a trembling hand towards her cheek despite their very public location.

“Your box is getting wet,” she whispered huskily. In the moment it took his brain to reset, Buffy melted into the churning throng.

Chapter Text

“Damn!” Giles bleated in frustration as he ran to rescue the Watcher Diaries. By the time he had snatched the all-important box from the already smoke-filled library, tried to talk a fireman into letting him move his bookcases a bit further down the hallway, survived a dressing down by a Deputy Fire Marshall for violating evacuation procedures and interfering with Emergency Personnel, stashed said box in the trunk of his car, and made his way to Vice Principal Barton (all while successfully avoiding Principal Flutie) it was nearly 2:00. In half an hour, the student body would be scattered to the four winds.

Making sure to appear composed, casual yet purposeful, Giles approached Ms. Barton. She was inspecting a group of evacuees; checking off names in her roll book, making sure everyone was accounted for. “Rosenberg...” she began her reply to his inquiry, without looking up from her clipboard, then interrupted herself to continue her current headcount, “Blaizdale, Larry; yes, thank you Larry.... She'll be on Court 4-West.... Blake, Michelle; very good.... 10^th grade, N-S.... Buchenwald, Gerda? Yes, thank you.... That group's already been counted, so.... Charleston, Holly. Holly? Get those things out of your ears and listen up, dear!.... you'll need to run if you want to catch her. They'll be dismissing at ten after.”

Giles had already turned and was preparing to run in that direction when the thought of whom else '10^th grade, N-S' included struck him with full force. He hesitated, unsure how to proceed, and was therefore still present to hear the next name Ms. Barton called. “Chase, Cordelia?” He knew, even before he heard her uncertain should-I-be-worried-or-annoyed repetition. “Chase! Has anyone seen Cordelia Chase?” Cordelia wasn't there. Distracted though he was, he would have noticed her at once.

For someone in his position, Rupert Giles was not overly given to superstition, to seeing ominous portents in every coincidence or premonitions in all his doubts and fears. So when he had a feeling like the one he had at that moment (a gut understanding that something was very wrong based on reasons he didn't consciously understand but which were nonetheless real) he didn't waste time searching for confirmation or trying to talk himself out of it. He rushed back towards the building.

“You again?” the same Deputy Fire Marshall demanded when he caught Giles tugging at the yellow perimeter tape, clearly preparing to duck under. “Where do you think you're going?”

“There's a girl, a... a student!” he explained hurriedly, “She's... un-unaccounted for. Cordelia. Cordelia Chase. She—she may have gone to the, the library, or, or the computer lab, one floor up! Look, there's no time to explain. I just need—”

“You need to stand back,” the Fire Marshall ordered firmly, standing toe to toe with the Librarian, calm as fuck, arms crossed with the confidence of authority. “Nobody's going into that area, it's too hot. There's already been a small explosion and a partial collapse of the upper floor, and the sprinklers have stopped working. Right now we're just trying to contain. If the flames reach the science lab, the whole place could go up.”

“But Cordelia—!”

“—is either clear of that area or dead,” the Fire Marshall cut him off impatiently. Then he continued to stand eye to eye with Giles as he pulled his radio from his belt and informed the firemen inside the building to be on the lookout for a missing girl in the parts of the smoke-filled building they still were able to get to.

Giles took a couple of steps back but not much more, nerves taunt, heart in his throat. It's funny how it does that to you, once you've been joined with someone, no matter why or how. You get this sense of... special responsibility. Decent guys do anyhow. That's why I fall for you hero types every time. I like the romance. Romance? I *am* responsible, you berk! She's gone in there to torment Willow just to prove I can't do anything about it! Think about that sentence for a minute. Giles sighed, running a hand nervously through his hair. It was no good trying to explain normal human concern for a young person's life to a foul, cruel, lecherous demon. He waited.

Within three or four minutes a report was radioed back that two girls had been found unconscious from smoke inhalation in the girls' restroom across the hall from the computer lab. A further three minutes after that, as an ambulance pulled forward to receive the two unresponsive teens who were already being carried out, oxygen masks on their faces, Vice Principal Barton came running up with her list of unaccounted for students. The only names for which there was no alternative explanation, no reasonable suspicion at least as to their whereabouts, were Cordelia Chase and Harmony Kendall.

Giles watched as the two gurneys were wheeled down the steps to the ambulance. The girls' faces and bodies were covered. They were so completely surrounded with first responders that one of the two had no identifying characteristics exposed to view at all. From the other gurney, wisps of long blonde hair flew like pennant flags in the afternoon breeze, showing the colors of Harmony Kendall. It was circumstantial, but it left the identity of the other girl in very little doubt. Ms. Barton said as much.

The girls were hustled in and the ambulances pulled away before either faculty member got close enough to get a good look, though Ms. Barton was allowed to get a bit closer than Giles. At any rate, she saw enough to know that the other girl had shorter-but-not-short, dark brown hair. That was enough confirmation for her to call both girls' parents. As she pulled out her mobile phone and extended the antenna, Barton reminded Giles, “It's ten after. If you wanted to speak with Willow, now would be the time.”

But it was no good making his way to the tennis court. Even if Buffy didn't walk over and confront him, she would see them talking. And as badly as he felt about the course events had taken with Buffy, and the fire—about his role in driving her to it as well as his shock-induced hyper focus and stupidity, worrying about a lot of old books when he should have been sounding the alarm that much sooner—Giles was still determined to bring Buffy to task before it was too late to face the coming Hellmouth crisis. For that to happen at this point, he was going to have to ruthlessly (and successfully) manipulate not only Willow, but also Buffy. And it was a dead cert at this point that Buffy wasn't about to do anything she realized he was still trying to actively influencing her to do, not even if it meant saving the world.

As for Cordelia and Harmony, the best he could do was say a prayer for them. They were in the hands of God and the emergency medical staff at Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. Giles turned and started back towards the parking lot, towards his trusty old gray Citroen. That's another thing I love about you; you know when to cut your losses on the whole 'hero' thing. You can be pragmatic when you really need to. Like an 'egg sucking mammal' you mean? Yeah, exactly. The both-at-the-same-time thing, the way the parts of the whole personality rub against each other, the fit and the friction, like bodies locked in sex! I love humans, I really do. Well you have a damned funny way of showing it. Eh, it amuses me anyway.

When Giles reached his car, he sat behind the wheel and waited. A couple of minutes passed. What are we waiting for? The demon finally asked. Not what, who. About that time, Giles got out and opened the passenger door for the young redhead who came running up, breathless and flushed with the combination of anxiety and excitement most people, especially young people, tended to feel when their relatively routine lives were interrupted by unexpectedly dramatic events.

How did you know? The demon demanded as Giles assured Willow that she was welcome to a ride and to pass the time with him until her parents were likely to come home for dinner. I didn't. But I knew it was a fair bet. Because, unlike you, I am mortal, was once young, and have more than once been in love.

Chapter Text

“Is everything all right?” Willow asked, brow slightly furrowed.  Obviously she'd noticed the fact that Giles had very little to say in response to her dramatic account of being evacuated or her worried speculation about when school would be able to start again. 

“I'm... fine,” he managed to mumble without looking at her.  His eyes were on the road, but his focus was elsewhere.  Brooding.  God, there was no way he could do this.  She was too incandescent and too innocent, too capable and too uncertain.  Too sixteen. 

“Is it...” her voiced dropped, her eyes flicked guiltily across his face before zeroing in on her own hands folded in her lap, “the baby?”

Giles blinked.  “What?”  Told you so.  That doesn't necessarily mean...  Choice of words, man.  That's where her head is at, and I told you so. 

“It's just,” Willow warbled at him worriedly.  “You're not saying anything.... About anything, and I know we haven't really talked, and it's a huge mess... and, and scary... and I thought, all right, talk about something else, but, but you aren't saying anything!”

Giles looked over at Willow for the first time since they'd started driving.  “I'm sorry if I've been... distracted,” he apologized.  “I'm just... having a lot of thoughts at once and not sure what to think about them.”  Willow nodded, made understanding noises and offered to change the subject again if he wanted.  “No,” Giles countered.  “We do need to talk.  Seriously I mean.  About our... erm relationship and the directions our lives are taking.”  Willow nodded, looking both hopeful and terrified.  This couldn't wait any longer.  She needed an explanation, and she deserved the truth.  Oh, man!  You are the limit!  

Giles turned off on Weatherly and pulled in at the park.  “Let's go for a walk,” he said.  Willow nodded.  They made their way from the parking lot to the shady walking path in silence.  She was waiting for him to start.  “I love you, you know that,” he began, taking her hand as they walked beneath the winter-bare branches, surprising himself a bit.  But it was true.  “But...”  The look on her face was agonizing.  “Well... have you ever heard the story of Tristan and Isolde?”

“Yes,” she admitted hesitantly, seeming as much puzzled as worried now.  “Rupert, you're not trying to tell me you're suicidal?”  He couldn't help laughing at that, which broke the tension between them a little, though his heart still hurt to look at her. 

“No, no,” he assured her.  “It's just—if you recall—even though... their, their love was caused by... something outside themselves, it was real between them.  They did love each other, but well... that didn't change the fact that, that... there were other forces at work.”

“Rupert,” Willow repeated, her tone gently annoyed, half scolding now.  “I know this... what's happening, is kind of a disaster.  You don't have to explain it in the form of a fairytale.”

“No, but it's... It's more than that.” He warned her seriously, miserably.  “What I'm trying to say—D'you remember when we'd only just met and, well... more or less instantly found ourselves... erm... getting involved.”

Willow laughed.  “I vaguely recall that, yeah.  And, yeah I was surprised but, you know, then I realized, this is love at first sight.  What we have, it's just that powerful.”

“But... there's more to it than that,” Giles insisted.  He spotted a bench and pulled her over to it.  He needed to look her in the eyes when he explained all this, to make sure she really understood.  But sitting there with her, clasping her hands, looking into those eyes, he still couldn't quite seem to start explaining it.  He tried another oblique approach.  “Do you remember when I was telling you about my work at the British Museum and, and consulting on that archeological dig in Syria and you asked me if I was really a librarian at all or if I was undercover for MI5 or something like that...”

“Rupert,” again she repeated his name, more and more like an admonishment, growing impatient.  “We've know each other less than a month.  I think you can stop asking me if I remember all of it.”

“Yes, sorry, but—”

“You said 'or something' and we both laughed like it was a joke,” Willow recalled.  “But it's not is it?  You didn't move halfway around the world because of a sudden burning desire to become a high school librarian.  So what?  Who are you really, and what's going on with you that us getting 'involved' makes me suddenly need to know?”

“I am a... erm, a secret agent of sorts,” he finally admitted.  “Though not for the government, yours or mine.”  Willow listened patiently; perplexed, perhaps becoming skeptical, it seemed, but willing to hear him out.  “I work for an organization called the Watcher's Council of Britain.  It's... we're... a secret society, I guess you would say, dedicated to... to...”  he couldn't quite say this last without embarrassment, aware that it must sound insane to her, “well, battling supernatural evils.  Or, or rather, assisting with, with that battle.”  Willow's face was unreadable, but within reason, Giles knew what she must be thinking.  She must think him a mad man.  Or a scoundrel who'd taken her for a fool.

Then, suddenly, “I knew it!” Willow declared, breaking into a huge grin. 

Giles found himself blinking once again, utterly stunned.  “You did?”

“Well, I mean, I thought I was probably imagining it, but... all the new books? And, and all the things you know about, well, everything?  Yeah, it makes sense or, you know, as much sense as something supernatural can make.”

“Oh, Willow!” Giles all but gasped, sagging with relief, squeezing her hands tighter, “You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that!  If I couldn't convince you, then what hope—!  But I'm getting ahead of myself,” he half apologized again, then continued on seriously.  “How much do you know about the history of this town? ...”

When Giles had finished explaining about the Hellmouth, the vampires, the Slayer, and the coming crisis, Willow was subdued.  “I want to help,” she agreed.  “I need to.  I mean big, big no to the end of the world, obviously, but... One question?”

“Yes?”

“Why does this conversation start with Tristan and Isolde?”  Giles dropped his eyes at last.  “I mean...” Willow continued nervously, “You don't mean... someone put a spell on us?  Literally?”

“No, well...” Giles fumbled guiltily, “Not, not exactly a spell.  This is more the work of well, a demon.  An incubus.  Not... the way we feel about each other, obviously,” he hastened to explain.  “That comes from the heart, God help me it does, but... the process of... becoming close enough to develop and entertain those feelings.... My compulsion to make love to you the moment I first saw you.... Yes, I'm afraid that was the demon at work.  Because the Hellmouth is directly below the library, you see...”

Willow's eyes widened.  “Oh God!” she half wailed, half whined miserably.  “No wonder we—and I thought—Oh God, I'm so STUPID!”

“No, Willow, you're not,” Giles assured her earnestly, squeezing both of her hands tightly in his.  “You are one of the smartest women I've ever met, of any age.  And if... I would never have—that still doesn't change the way I feel about you, honestly it doesn't, but... that doesn't mean this is going to turn into a fairytale instead of...”

“A tragedy,” Willow whispered grimly, looking miserable and in shock, but also stoic, resolved, shutting down and focusing.  “Which we can worry about after we make sure the world doesn't end.”  At that Giles nearly wept.  That was half the reason why he loved her, his beautiful, sensible girl.  “So what about this 'Slayer' person?  She seems to be the key to the whole thing.  How do we find out who she is and get her here?”

Giles sighed heavily, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I know who the Slayer is,” he admitted.  “She arrived this morning.  I just—the Slayer is the new student, Buffy Summers, but...” God, there was no explaining this!

“Buffy Summers?” Willow repeated worriedly, “The girl that just got arrested for setting the school on fire?”

Chapter Text

“How can you *not have* a computer?” Willow asked for perhaps the tenth time as Giles drove the car past her parents' house and around the block.

“I have to deal with the dreadful thing in the library,” he mumbled, his response having grown progressively less polite with each iteration. “Why on Earth would I want one in my home?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Willow countered as he pulled to a stop on the cross street and parked in front of a neighbor's house, less than a block away but well out of sight of the Rosenberg's front door and windows. “Maybe in case of an emergency?” Her mock-casual tone sharpened towards honest exasperation near the end.

“Point taken,” he mumbled, chastened for more reasons than one. She was cooperating, helping him attempt to free Buffy despite everything she had learned in the last two hours, including the relevant details of his recent sexual history. He couldn't afford to get impatient with her, and she certainly didn't deserve it.

“Don't worry,” she assured him, reading his mood if not quite his mind. “It's only 4:00. I doubt anyone is even home. Dad probably just came home at lunch and left the porch light on. And even if he is home, I can still probably run in and grab my PowerBook without him even noticing. I don't know if I'll be able to get the modem, but maybe I can rig something up to tap into the Sunnydale MAN through your phone lines with my Ethernet card and remote in to one of the City Hall computers to get on the Net and/or hack directly into the Juvenile Court's computers if they're on the MAN too, which they might be.”

“Erm... yes... I'm sure that would be most....” Giles didn't actually have a reasonable ending planned for that almost sentence. So, he stopped, embarrassed. He'd never thought or cared much about computers one way or the other, but that didn't mean he felt comfortable being found in such an abject state of ignorance regarding something that seemed as though it would clearly have been useful to know.

As she was getting out of the car, Willow leaned over and gave Giles a quick, casually affectionate peck on the lips. He was so startled, he barely kissed her back. But he did kiss her back. And it felt strangely natural. Friendly. Casually romantic. Like they were partners. Exactly like. Giles sighed and tried to concentrate his full attention on cleaning his glasses. To avoid thinking about the terrible mess that was his life, and, thanks to him, now hers.

Hey, you could do worse. Hell you've done worse this week. I hardly think Buffy— So not who I meant. I love Buffy. I meant the girl from The Fish Tank. Oh God, don't remind me! *Sapphire*. Soooo not her real name! Without a doubt, Giles agreed, feeling all the more rankled, ready to change the subject.

Kind of a laugh they even let her in a place like that, the demon kept on. I bet she's not sixteen, let alone twenty-one. She started it. Giles pointed out, though he knew perfectly well that his companion didn't give a tinker's damn. Anyway, at least she doesn't go to Sunnydale. I'd guess Catholic School the Demon agreed conversationally. They had both kept an eye out the last few days and had never seen 'Sapphire' on campus.

Look, for once could you just not, Giles pleaded impatiently. Hey, I was quiet almost the whole time you were talking things out with your little girlfriend, the demon pointed out, fairly truthfully. But it was silent for a while. Giles felt several minutes pass. I can't believe you gave her fifty dollars, the incubus continued, clearly too bored to keep quiet any longer. Should have haggled. Anyways, they're not supposed to wait and ask after. That's extortion. And witness tampering, more to the point. Which is nothing to haggle over.

Willow should be back by now. Oh well, her parents must be home after all. Probably grounded her. Wanna go to The Fish Tank? Ha. Ha. But you do want to go to The Fish Tank. That's beside the point. You know this little rescue mission is only going to land all three of you in big trouble with the law. I'll risk it. But is that really fair to Willow? More than letting the world go to hell, I dare say. All right, the demon admitted. You got me there.

Another longish silence ensued. Giles glanced at the dashboard clock. Willow had been gone fourteen minutes since he'd first checked it, some time after she'd left. That was too long. He reached for his door handle. Oh no! The incubus warned. Don't make me hurt you. I have to go, Giles argued, though while he argued, he did retract his hand. I have to find out—exactly how angry and suspicious her father can get? Giles sighed, running a hand through his hair. The creature had a point actually.

Well, but I can't sit here much longer without arousing suspicion, he pointed out. No, and she can't contact you here either, because you still don't think you need a mobile phone. You just want a number we can give out without women finding out where we live. Come in handy right about now, though, wouldn't it? Let's just drive by and see if we see anything. Yeah, all right.

What they saw was nothing much. Except that the aforementioned porch light had been turned off. Giles would have given quite a lot to be able to see inside the garage, let alone the house. Well if you'd just let me pos—No! As it is I'm relying on only what you're able—No! All right, fine, what's your plan then?  Giles was passing the house for the second time now, not counting the two circuits he'd made twenty minutes or so ago. Just let me knock on the door. If he answers I'll tell him it's a membership drive for the PTA or something. All right fine, the fiend agreed, half petulantly.

Rather than circle again, Giles parked in front of the house two down from the Rosenbergs'. He got out, walked back to their door, and rang the bell. A minute or more passed. He rang the bell again. More time elapsed. He knocked. Three times. Progressively harder. That's a bit much for the PTA. Giles looked at his pocket watch and cursed. It was 4:45.

When the Rosenbergs' garage door started opening itself, he cursed again. As he made his way briskly down the front walk, towards the street, a late model black Lexis pulled into view, stopped in the driveway, and rolled a window down. “Can I help you?” a fortyish chestnut-haired woman asked in a way that, despite her synthetically 'friendly' tone, clearly meant something a lot more like 'Who goes there?'

“I erm, hope so,” Giles gave her the charmingly sheepish smile for all he was worth. “I was looking for Willow Rosenberg.” You bastard! Coming from you...

The woman's brow furrowed, then light dawned. How do you lie to me *while* I'm reading your mind? Spontaneity. And practice.“You must be from the school?” she guessed, opening her car door and preparing to get out. Giles made a small nod of acknowledgment even as the woman he was (ever less tentatively) calling Dr. Sheila Rosenberg continued to speak. “I thought Ira took care of that.”

“Erm... yes, well, this may be a slightly, slightly different matter.”

Sheila smiled vaguely and looked at her wrist watch. “Well, I wish I could help you,” she said. “But I need to get inside and get my things for my Thursday evening class over at the University.” With that she walked past him, clearly indicating that he'd been dismissed.

Not sure what else to do, Giles started back towards his car. About that time, a not-quite-so-late model green BMW pulled up next to Sheila in the driveway and Ira Rosenberg (whom he had seen but not met at the December school board meeting when he'd been officially hired) leaned out the window and said, in a very genuinely friendly tone, “Ah, you must be from the school. Thanks for rescheduling. Go on in and have a seat while I park the car.” No! And your better idea is?

Sheila hardly seemed to notice that the librarian had followed her into the house and taken a seat on her sofa as she rushed around a bit and then rushed out the door, not bothering to cross paths with her husband, who walked in from the garage a scant minute later. “Willow told me about the fire,” he explained conversationally as he entered the living room and extended his hand. “I hope those two girls are all right,” he added when they had clasped flesh and exchanged names. “I'm afraid you just missed Willow. I dropped her off at a friend's. Honestly, I didn't exp—remember that Sheila said she'd take care of making a new appointment.”

“Yes well, actually...” Giles admitted. What the hell are you doing now? “I wouldn't know about that.” What do you want me to say when he finds out from Flutie or Barton that they haven't actually sent me for whatever it is? “You see. What with the fire and... well, I'm actually trying to track down any books that may have survived due to being lent out or...” Ooo, nice one!

“So you're not here about all the classes Willow's been missing or the assignments she hasn't been turning in?”

Bugger. “Erm... No. I was looking for a couple of advanced math books and uh one or two poetry books I thought she might have. We've lost the circulation records as well you see, so...”

Ira sighed heavily. “So Sheila didn't actually call Ms. Barton back,” he pronounced in a very crisp, not all that questioning tone, developing a frown.

“If I may...” Giles asked, “which friend was...? Well, if it's someone on my list, then I may as well...”

“Xander Harris,” Ira replied, “but you won't catch them. His friend Jesse got there just as I was leaving. They were going to hit the old Drive-In, then go over to the Bronze.”

Chapter Text

“♫ Now the heat of the summer/ It hits just like your head against the pavement...♪” The music thumped inside Rupert's already thumping head, making the few lines he managed to pick out of the cacophony seem all too apt. Although, compared to the grinding, almost mechanical noise of the last number (with lyrics as deep as half-full and half-empty glasses, no less), this monotonal soliloquy (backed by the comparatively subdued thrum of drums and guitar) was an almost physical relief. On stage, the band members continued to throw themselves about as if in a state of religious ecstasy. For them, it probably amounted to that.

Rupert had been there, had felt that. He hated feeling the way he did now—disgruntled, annoyed, cynical, old, teeth-on-edge about what was probably, if he were being honest, a half decent, garage-quality rock band. Half a dozen bright kids covered in hair and filled with innocent zeal to fix a broken world. He'd never really thought he could ever become the grouchy old bastard who literally wanted to shout at them to grow up and out of it. But it was hard enough to try to concentrate; to try to find anything or anyone in this dark, crowed, hot, pungent, naturally noisy environment; without their sincere, heartfelt mediocrity adding to the din.

If only he could get higher up, Giles thought, could see over the crowd.... Look up and to your left , the incubus advised. Sure enough, there was an industrial looking something-between-a-cat-walk-and-a-gallery bearing only a couple of tables, with less than a dozen people lounging about them or leaning on the railings. Mounting the narrow stairs, Giles thought it seemed almost as if this tiny structure had been installed for him by divine providence, a convenient perch from which to scan the crowd below. You're welcome. The timing of the discovery was excellent as well. I said you're welcome!

As Giles found his place at the rails, studiously avoiding brushing up against the gorgeous ass that jutted out from the young woman leaning next to him— Kill joy. Predator . Twenty-five if she's a day. Not the point. — Jesse and Xander walked in the front door. Willow was not with them.

She'd been with them at the imaginatively named Sunnydale Drive-In when he'd finally found the place (and driven by repeatedly) about an hour ago. But that had hardly seemed like a natural place to approach her. Especially compared to this. You'd look a hell of a lot more 'natural' in this place if you'd lose the tweeds , the demon pointed out, not for the first time. But Giles felt exposed enough as it was. He'd gotten used to walking around half hard most of the time, but the key to not dying of embarrassment was to keep that fact covered up.

Never mind about that. Focus. Concentrate. Jesse and Xander were there. Willow was not. A minute passed and she didn't follow them in, nor did they act as if they were waiting for her. Xander headed straight to the bar. Jesse took to the dance floor almost at once with a graceful, confident blonde girl who moved into his arms so readily at the first suggestion of same that she almost had to be his girlfriend, though Giles had previously been under the distinct impression that he didn't have one.

Right, so she's not here. Why don't we head on over to The Fish Tank, do something about your little frustration problem, and maybe in the morning — Wait a minute. Why are you suddenly in such a hurry to get out of here? What? I'm not. I'm just... ready to find you a nice piece of ass while the night's young, that's all. Unlike the one I'm standing next to? Giles scoffed. Hey, no, right. She'll do fine. Why don't you introduce yourself, do the smile-with-the-eyes thing all the girls go to puddles over, see if she wants a drink....

Giles did his best the tune out the monster in his trousers as he continued watching the crowd of young people from above, trying to find whatever he wasn't seeing that the demon was. It literally had to be right before his very eyes, in the exact same field of vision. Sometimes I really hate smart people. I mean, I love mixing those flavors, but... Shut up, already! It's no use trying to— Suddenly, though less than a full song had elapsed, the blonde girl was pulling Jesse off of the dance floor, over to the bar almost directly beneath the platform on which Giles stood. Though there was no making out what was said, both she and Jesse raised their voices in greeting and gestured broadly for Xander to join them, insisting, despite his pantomimed protests that he had yet to obtain any drinks.

At this proximity, Giles could see that the woman wore heavy evening makeup, as if covering or compensating for something. The hand that she raised to beckon to the boy was ghostly pale. As she closed the distance between them, she leaned and whispered something in Xander's ear, which lit up his eyes with joy and amazement. The way she brushed against him as she did so was more than friendly, anything but casual. The three of them headed for the exit at a swift trot. “Oh, damn!” Giles cursed quietly but emphatically as he began to push and shove his way hurriedly down the suddenly much too crowded stairs and through the throng below.

As the young man on stage moaned out his upbeat existential angst, “♫Why do I live; why do I die?... Should I worry about my soul♪”, Giles pushed his way to the front door and hurried through. He would have almost sworn he could hear his demon smirking as he scanned the immediate area, failing to catch sight of them. Okay, now you're just getting paranoid. I think you need to just go home, relax, have a hot shower, a nice long wank... Giles turned down the narrow alley towards the carpark in the rear of the club. It was the only place they could have possibly disappeared to so quickly. Sure enough, as he emerged he caught a glimpse of the vampire's blonde head disappearing into an old beater with the two teens, three doors slamming closed.

Giles ran forward with the half formed intention of throwing himself in front of Jesse's car before it got up any speed, or something of the kind. But before he could make half the necessary distance, he was brought to his knees by a crippling, twisting pain in his testicles. In fact, twisting was exactly the right word. Damn right! I just gave you massive, bilateral testicular torsion. And if you don't want your balls to rot and fall off, you'd best crawl on back inside and call for an ambulance to get you to the ER and get you sorted out.

You fool! Giles cried out miserably in his mind, even as he groaned and grunted aloud in torment, How are you ever going to get your kicks this way? Save it, Dr. Logic! You were right back in the library. I'm getting my body back. By this time tomorrow, your fucking scruples won't be my problem anymore, and neither will your balls. Hell I could twist them all the way off if you give me half a reason. You could, but you won't. No way you could stand living with that for twenty-four hours. I will before I'll let you stop the Harvest!

Giles heart thumped. A tentative sense of triumph swelled within him, despite his pain. At last a solid bit of information. Something he could look up. If, God willing, he could still get his hands on the right book. Oh, fuck, I'm an idiot! Thank the devil most of your books are ash by now. Most, but not all.

Grunting with effort, using a stranger's car to pull himself up, Giles got to his feet and began limping painfully forward, in the direction of his own vehicle. He nearly lost his balance, nearly fell to his face on the asphalt, as the scrotal pouch itself spasmed, vice-like, around his already painfully twisted balls. Flesh contracted around flesh in places that didn't even have musculature. Such was the demon's power.

Giles caught himself against the bonnet of another unknown automobile. He stayed on his feet but could go no further. Please, he begged silently, tears streaming down his face, just unclench, untwist me and I swear I'll go home and to bed. Nice, try, the demon scoffed , but I can hear you planning to plan to betray me, even if you're not sure how just yet. OF COURSE I AM, YOU SUBHUMAN GARBAGE!!!! I WANT TO SEE YOU TRAMPLED AND EATEN BY SWINE!!!!

So, here's the deal, the demon went on calmly, ignoring his victim's outburst, I will unclench, but I won't untwist, and you are going to limp right back into that club and get yourself an ambulance. Is that understood? Until I figure a way around it , Giles sneered, since the demon knew what he really thought anyway. The more acute, squeezing pain ended and he began making his tortured way towards rear entrance to the Bronze.

Suddenly, a familiar form stepped from the alley that led to the street out front. “There you are,” Willow sighed, the relief and friendliness in her voice far sweeter in that moment than a choir of angels singing. “When you weren't at home, I thought you must have come looking for me.”

“Thank God,” Giles gasped, even as his scrotum seized up tighter than ever. He winced, but pressed forward, biting out the words between gritted teeth. “We haven't much time. Jesse and Xander have been captured by vampires. Probably for some kind of ritual sacrifice. Which they mean to complete by tomorrow night.”

Chapter Text

“*Now* can I call an ambulance?” Willow pleaded, not for the first time. Nor the tenth.

“No!” Giles ground out between clinched teeth. “I'm fine!” he lied transparently. “We need to keep—nuhg—working.”

“But, we've already found out how the Harvest works and that they can't do it until exactly tomorrow night,” she half wailed in frustration, trying to make him 'see reason'. “And that Buffy's set to come in front of the Juvenile Court in the morning, so most likely she'll be out by then! And, and you're NOT fine!! You need medical attention!”

“It's just pain, Willow,” Giles tried to be dismissive, grimacing, though he'd meant to smile. He had taken some pills, which he'd described to her as 'left-overs' from an unspecified surgery, kept in case of an emergency. At twice the recommended dose, they were helping but not enough, reducing his pain from unbearable to merely crippling. He didn't dare to take more for fear of becoming as near to totally useless mentally as he was physically. He also hadn't dared to explain that the surgery they were 'left over' from had actually been performed on another individual, one of several who had sold him a few pills for $20-35 each. He expected Willow to have a typical post-Regan American teen's attitude towards 'drugs', and this was no time for long explanations about what a professional fighter of evil legitimately might require for his first aid kit.

And no time to let the girl you plan to keep using to get your work done and your rocks off know you are nothing like the same person she thinks she knows and admires. Filthy, scum-sucking piece of shit!!! Looks that way to me yeah, but hey, I'm into that. Willow took the anger on Giles's face for purely physical suffering, of course. Poor sweet, silly child. He tried harder to smile at her and succeeded modestly. Taking her hand, squeezing it gently, he explained—read lied—he EXPLAINED, “I'll grant my condition is very uncomfortable, but I'm in no danger. Anyhow, we've got to stay focused on the problem at hand.”

“Rupert!” Willow corrected him, her voice somewhere between scolding and panicked, “I want to keep feeling like we're helping too. I'm worried about Xander, you have no idea how much! And I get that, that they could be dying right now, but there is literally nothing else we can do tonight! Unless you *want* us to go down into an electrical tunnel full of vampires with you practically crippled and me... being me!!! And, and, you *are* in danger! Of losing both your testicles!! Which is extremely not okay!!!” Damn, how did she know the common complications of testicular torsion? Even he hadn't known that until the demon had explained it to him. Was there anything she didn't know? She doesn't know you fucked Cordelia Chase. Have I told you lately to piss off!?!

“But tomorrow—” Giles tried again to object, above her insistence and through his pain. “To-Tomorrow Bu—erm I'll, I'll be needed to, to—”

“Let me worry about Buffy,” Willow countered. “She won't listen to you anyway, because—and, and I already know everything she needs to know to stop the Harvest.”

“You don't know where it's happening,” Giles objected sharply, “other than in or near Sunnydale. Nor when for that matter! Other than between dusk and dawn.”

“Yeah, well, neither do you!” Willow countered, just as fiercely, “And, and... I know this town way better than you! Plus, with the laptop! Which you won't even touch. So, I'll probably figure it out first anyway!"

“Willow, I hardly—”

“Shush!” She said sharply, holding a finger in front of her lips with such a stern, schoolmarmish expression that his annoyance momentarily overwhelmed all thoughts of pain and danger. He tried to interrupt her again, to tell her how foolish this all was, but she would have none of it. “Bup! Bup! Bup!” she cut him off with a warning wave of the hand and a jerky, exaggerated head shake. “I've made up my mind. Now, are you going to call an ambulance this instant and let them take you to the hospital while I hide upstairs until they go away, or do I have to call them myself and make you explain what I'm doing here at ten-thirty at night?” Her expression said she absolutely meant it and was capable of following through.

Giles opened his mouth to object, but couldn’t quite formulate an objection that made any sense. That's called her being right. Look, when I want your opinion—I'll never want your opinion! With a sinking sense of defeat that was also a floating sense of relief, Giles drew breath to capitulate to her demands. Something to be said for *not* being a martyr, isn't there? But he was stopped by a sudden, sharp wrapping at the door. Gesturing for Willow to run upstairs, which she began to do, Giles limped to answer it.

Before he was even close, the door burst inward. Or rather, it was kicked open, the flimsy latch snapping easily in half without much damage to the door itself. Willow froze on the stairs. Giles stood frozen as well. There stood Buffy. Her hands were on her hips. She radiated casual hostility and deep impatience. “Okay,” she demanded, her tone almost businesslike if a bit harsh, “what's the sitch with this Harvest deal?”

“The Harvest?” Giles repeated, startled. “How do you know ab—?”

“Your friend told me,” Buffy cut him off, even more impatiently than before. “Some kinda vampire deal, right? Ritual killfest or whatever. I'm guessing it opens the Hellmouth or something like that.”

Before Giles could make any response to that, Willow spoke up, “Wait? How are you even here?”

“Why are *you* here?” Buffy snapped. “As if I didn't know. God!” she turned and scolded Giles, taking an actively invasive step over his threshold. “Do you club baby seals to death too? I mean, she's like an actual kid. What is the *matter* with you?” So... she was paying absolutely no attention when you completely explained in humiliating detail exactly what the matter is with you? Yes, exactly! Thank you! That's what I—OH! OH! SHUT UP!!!

“Hey!” Willow shouted, coming down the stairs two at a time, finger wagging before her. “He's not—he can't help it—and anyways, I'm almost two whole months older than you are! And, and—!” at the foot of the stairs, Willow stopped abruptly. Given the fact that Buffy had just taken a second and third step forwards, that was probably a good thing. But the odd way that she cocked her head, clearly puzzled, looked potentially, well... less good. “Wait a minute,” she asked, almost calmly, brow deeply furrowed, “What friend?”

It was a fair point. On this continent at least, he was hard pressed to think of anyone who would call him that. In fact, the only person who might was the one asking the question. And besides, at this point, she'd have probably attached a prefix that changed the meaning of the word entirely. Not to mention, it had to be someone who knew about the Harvest without having heard it from him or read it from the book he had lying on his coffee table. Which could almost certainly mean only one thing. “I'm not friends with any vampires,” Giles said aloud, finishing with a grimace of pain, which Buffy finally seemed to notice.

“Hey, what *is* the matter with you?” the Slayer asked, actually seeming a little concerned.

“Acute, bilateral testicular torsion,” Willow explained tersely. At Buffy's completely uncomprehending expression, she added, “The demon is twisting his balls off to punish him for trying to stop the Harvest. How are you not in jail? I mean, good,” she hastened to add, straining for a friendlier tone, “but how?”

“This guy,” Buffy explained, “Big, tall, dark, annoyingly gorgeous guy. Young but not very. He said he was 'a friend', but maybe not mine.” She turned to Giles, “I thought he meant he was yours.”

Giles was more puzzled than ever. He opened his mouth to say so, only to find Willow stepping on his cues once again. “That doesn't explain anything!” she blurted in frustration. “How is 'this guy' how you're out of jail?”

“He got them to change it in the log so it looked like I was supposed to be released without a bond, and so my court's not til next week. He like bribed them or something, I don't know,” Buffy explained, clearly growing even more impatient with having to explain anything to Willow. She turned, once again, and began to address herself specifically to Giles, who had retreated to a position in which he could lean on the back of the couch for the support he needed to stay on his feet. “I really didn't ask any questions since I *assumed* you set the whole thing up! Which is kind of, you know, your job!?!” Then her expression abruptly changed again, to one of not so much concern as sheer puzzlement. “You know, you really don't look so good,” she noted casually.

Once again, Giles marshaled himself to reply. Once again Willow spoke first. “He's not. He needs to go to the hospital, but he's being stubborn.”

“The Harv-harves—” Giles managed to grunt.

“Is something we can handle,” Willow cut him off. “Between the two of us, we know more than everything you know, so...” She walked over and picked up the phone from the end table. Setting it before him on the backrest of the couch, she admonished him, “Quit being such a *guy* and call for help.”

Chapter Text

The ambulance rushed along the street, sirens wailing. Strangers were poking at Rupert's scrotum and asking him odd questions, which he gamely tried to answer to the best of his ability. It was remarkable how little he cared. They'd given him something on top of what he'd already taken and everything had gotten very vague, even his sense of dread at the prospect of losing The Good Fight and/or his testicles. In fact, it suddenly struck him as rather funny that if, at some point in the future, someone told him he 'didn't have the balls' for something-or-other, they might literally be right. He hoped not figuratively... vaguely. He assumed there really wasn't much of a connection. The adrenal glands actually took care of most of that, from what he understood.

Say, you really are looped, aren't you?   Indubitably.   How far out there are ya?   Rupert might have actually laughed out loud at that, but no one reacted, so he wasn't really sure. Somewhere between comfortably numb and the dark side of the moon, only without being comfortable. Or numb. Oh hell. Sorry. Immediately, Rupert felt a blissful cessation of torment which fully taught him the difference between pain management and relief.

There you go, the demon assured him soothingly . All untwisted. Pretty good blood flow coming right back in already. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. You should be all right now. Although, I may twist one of them back just a little right before the doctor sees you, just to make sure they still do the surgery. I do still need you flat on your ass tomorrow. Don't s'pose I should bother pretending you can trust me, Rupert agreed affably, since you know perfectly well how much I'm looking forward to killing you at the first reasonable opportunity. The demon imitated a yawn, which is a damnably strange thing to do silently inside another person’s head.

Rupert giggled. “Bloody hell, what did you give me?” he asked a young woman he'd almost swear was 'new' relative to the other one to three people who were poking at him and murmuring excitedly. Though where she could have come from while the vehicle was in motion, he couldn't begin to guess. He didn't think the generally more positive attitude that suddenly prevailed towards his genitals had anything to do with his brave new erection, but just in case, he said slyly “Those gloves are a bit cold. Perhaps it would be better if you took them off.” The fact that he got jabbed very hard with a needle at that exact moment was probably a coincidence, he decided. He still laughed though, because it would be funny if it wasn't. Things got more than a bit blurrier after that. Which was hilarious.

“What are *you* laughing at?” the woman asked him crossly. It was a male voice actually, but it seemed to come from her, though he couldn't see her face properly to know if her lips moved or not.

“It's the end of the world!” he explained through convulsive fits of mirth that caused tears to stream down his face and someone to hold him down by the shoulders. “We're all going to die! Isn't it wonderful! No, no, I'm kidding. It's terrible. I know it is. I just—the look on your face! As though anyone will be alive to miss you in a week's time! And here you are offended that I want to shag you at a time like this.”

“His vital signs seem a bit unstable,” said a disembodied female voice in a tone of heavily taxed patience and grudging professional concern.

“Touché,” Rupert admitted cheerfully, letting the world spin merrily around him.

“They ought to be!” someone shouted, someone who sounded in need of something to take the edge off themselves. “Look at his eyes! Christ, what *did* you give him?”

Giles became aware of the pain before anything else. He felt rather like someone had taken a knife, a set of pliers, and quite possibly several additional implements to his scrotum and testicles.

Which, of course they had.

“Wha—m?” he groaned around something that had been shoved—also quite painfully—down his throat. He opened his eyes, but it was still dark. He was lying in a hospital bed. Strapped down. Hooked up to a respirator or something like it. With an IV in. And a catheter. And something stuck all over his chest, with wires in. His eyes soon adjusted to the dim glow of the various monitors. Enough to know that the place looked like hospital rooms everywhere. And that he was alone.

What time is it? he repeated. 5:14 in the morning , the demon answered glumly. It's that first glowy green-white number in the top left of that big square one there. Giles felt a sharp pang of despair at still having that voice in his head. But at least it meant he still had his testicles. Just the one actually , the demon admitted sheepishly. And I didn't even do any retwisting, it hastened to add, feeling his growing anger about to burst forth. It just, didn't get reoxygenated very fast, what with the reduced blood pressure and the doctors being distracted and everything from your overdose and your heart attack so....

MY WHAT! Giles meant to shout, jerking against his restraints so hard in his attempt to sit up that he was slammed back against the mattress setting something to beeping furiously. Heart attack , the demon repeated impatiently, almost sullenly, in fact, bored already with its brief attempt to be apologetic and solicitous. The real bad kind where they have to actually jump-start you. Which *you* caused by not telling the EMTs about all the drugs you took, it argued as the nurse made her brisk but unruffled way into the room to check him over and call for a doctor. So there's no sense shouting at me, old friend, especially since it looks like we're going to be stuck with each other for a good long while.

Now Giles was puzzled on top of angry and annoyed and in pain, which only made him even more impatient with his inexplicably morose companion. Stuck with each other? he snarled silently. I'm exactly where you wanted me last night: flat on my ass. Unable to help Buffy in any way. When did you become such a pessimist?

About nine hours ago , the fiend huffed petulantly. Which by the way was *Friday* evening. When the Slayer stopped the Harvest. Without your help.

Chapter Text

“And then!” Willow went on, enraptured by the drama of her tale and the glory of its hero, filling him in on the details of the victory she had merely informed him of on her earlier, much briefer visits, before the medical restrictions on their time together had at last been relaxed. “Buffy threw the thing, the, the metal thing? Right past his head! And, and it broke that little window! The one *I* showed her when we were going over the Bronze's floor-plan on the laptop! So, this giant vampire is just completely freaking out and covering his face. I mean he's scared to death! Literally!!! Because! Because, that's when Buffy pulls the stake out of her sleeve, and just jabs it into him! Right between the ribs! Right in the heart! And she says! She says! Do you know what she says!?! 'It's in about nine hours, Moron!'”

Willow physically jumped for joy, actually clapping her hands in excitement. “It was just... just... the most amazing, cleverest, coolest, baddest, awesomest thing of anything ever!” Giles smiled. It was nice to see her being genuinely cheerful again, not just forcing it for his sake. She'd lost a lot the last few weeks, and he knew her heart was troubled. She had barely mentioned the loss of her two childhood friends whom he had failed to save. But the *way* she barely mentioned them—not as if they didn't matter, but as if the whole subject was too painful to speak of—told him that she had taken Jesse's death rather hard and Xander's undeath even harder. But for the moment at least, she seemed to be coping okay. With that and all of her other troubles. Even if she was able to cope only by putting them out of her mind.

“And, and,” Willow went on breathlessly, “She showed me how to lob these little bottles of holy water at the vampires like grenades! And, and—this was after she killed the blonde girl one with the cymbal but before that 'Angel' guy showed up to act like he was going to help after it was almost all over already, like we were gonna *not* know he was a vampire—And, and, I did it! And they ran away. Him, too. From me! Vampires ran away from me, Giles!”

Giles? Wait? How are you suddenly on a last name basis again?   I told you she was sensible. Giles countered with a deep internal sigh. Knowing it was for the best. That it was inevitable in any case. Sensible? For calling you by your last name?   She's figured out I'm not her boyfriend, that I can't be, that she doesn't want me to be. Which is all the better for everyone, including you.

Giles tried to smile understandingly, to hide the irrationally wounded feelings that Willow didn't deserve to have to see. This affair had been nothing but harmful to her. Amidst the sucking, draining morass of regret and shame and loss in which he was mired, Giles couldn't help but feel a small glimmer of relief that the whole debacle was finally over. Not to mention pride in Willow for having the strength and the good sense to put a stop to it, even if he couldn't. Now that he was done abusing this poor girl, maybe she could begin to heal.

You'll be fucking again in three weeks tops, the demon predicted confidently. Now the school's burned down? Giles scoffed. I highly doubt it. I doubt your doubt. His incubus replied smugly. You two are in this too deep. You hardly need my help anymore. As soon as I stop repressing your natural androgen production so you can heal comfortably (you're welcome, by the way) 2 to 1 you'll be all over each other before I even get up to any of my old tricks.

But truth be told—as Giles struggled to follow Willow's detailed recitation of her clumsily victorious encounter with the vampire Angelus and her discovery of his identity through research after the fact—he was more worried about dealing with the possibility that he might soon never see her again than with the nonsense the demon was suggesting. Ahem... as I was saying... He certainly wouldn't be seeing her at school every day. Eventually, there were plans to rebuild Sunnydale High on the same site, but it had already been decided not to rush things, to take the opportunity to improve, to upgrade to a state of the art facility.

For now, the entire ninth grade had been sent back to Sunnydale Jr. High and as many of the upperclassmen as possible, including Willow, had been absorbed by nearby Fondren High. The rest were scattered among the numerous private schools that had stepped up to provide tuition waivers for Sunnydale students, including Buffy's new Alma Matter, Ms. Porter's School for Girls. This arrangement would continue certainly for the rest of the semester, and in all probability, for the entire coming school year.

In the meantime, surely within the next few months, he would be replaced by the Watcher's Council and forced to return to England, where at least the distance from the now closed Hellmouth would give the demon even less power over him. You do that, and I swear I'll give you cancer. Ha! You won't. Not even if you still can, and you know it. You're truly stuck with me now, and you don't want to live without this testicle. Even less than I do. What good's it going to do you to possess an empty sack, even if you can keep purchase? And if not, back to limbo for another century or two of boredom. So, we are going to do things my way from now on, and if you behave yourself, I might occasionally let you experience a little bit of sex.

There was a definite sense that the argument was not concluded. That the demon would have more to say, but was holding its peace for now. Giles tried to ignore its active silence and focus more on what Willow was saying. But her use (yet again) of his sir name as a form of address caught him off guard once more. He winced with the still unpleasant shock of their new, more sensible, relation before attempting to cover with a smile that he hoped wouldn't look too much like a grimace.

It was probably much the expression he'd made when she'd said the same thing a few minutes earlier, but this time Willow—being less absorbed in her tale now that it was one of research methods rather than high adventure—actually noticed. She paused, looking suddenly apologetic and more than a bit worried. “Sorry, Rupert,” she said dropping her eyes. “That's just... what we've all been calling you the last couple of weeks. She's just—Buffy I mean—it's just—” There was a definite sense of a forced subject change “...it sounds more teachery, anyway, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” he agreed miserably, more confused than ever by his contradictory feelings, and his silly, cruel, selfish hope that somehow, despite her own good sense, she would want to continue their disastrous association after all. “Perhaps that's better, lest... lest someone suspect...”

“That you're my snuggle bunny?” Giles didn't mean to make the horribly conflicted face he felt like making at that, but he must have, because Willow's face fell. “You are, though,” she asked worriedly, puppy eyes focused on him, “Aren't you?”

Are. Present tense. Giles hadn't realized how heavily dread and regret had been weighing upon him, until he felt the joyful sensation of relief, like heavy stones being lifted from his chest, a reprieve from pressing death. With a small smile, he reached up and touched her cheek with his fingertips, their first skin-to-skin contact since he'd been hospitalized. “Always,” he murmured, wishing he could believe that half as much as he meant it, wishing their love could be sensible, could give her what she wanted, what she needed, so that she would always truly want him to stay.

It was all too good to be true, of course. Soon enough she would want someone her own age. A love she could declare openly. A love with a future. They could never have that. Willow was only fooling herself that they could. She was ignoring the impossibility, pushing it to the back of her mind in the same way that she had the loss of her friends and the ticking timebomb that was her pregnancy. Really, Giles chided himself, he was being selfish. Any decent man would have withdrawn his support for the delusion that they could live happily ever after. Would have let her go sooner, rather than later.

Giles knew all of that. And yet... he couldn't help but hope.... No, it wasn't really *hope*, he tried to correct himself, because it would be foolish to *really* hope.... It wasn't as though he honestly thought there was a chance that they might come through all of this as lovers and friends. As partners. As a family.

It was more... he didn't know. He just couldn't break things off right now, not like this. Not while he was still leaning on her so much and had nothing but the promise of love to offer her in return. Maybe in a week or two, when he was just a little stronger... Riiiiiiiiiiiight.  What's that supposed to mean. Like I said, the demon reminded him smugly, you two are in this too deep already. Every day you spend together will only make it harder to let go. And that goes double for little Plus One. Trust me, you're going to be stuck with her til death doth you part.

I won't be staying here, Giles reminded his inner demon. I literally can't. As he put the thought into words, he began to panic internally. He could feel the horrible reality of their situation settling over him again, like the same familiar rocks being piled back onto his chest. The rhythmic beeping of one of his various monitors became less regular, less healthy sounding, but he ignored it, too overwhelmed with emotion to worry about a little thing like his health.

I've already requested reassignment, he pointed out, horrified. And I've even informed the Council that I'm partially possessed, so they're hardly going to take my word that the crisis is resolved and I'm fine to keep working with the Slayer. Not that the Slayer would even agree! Even if I were to resign the Council, where would I get another immigration sponsor? Especially over their objections. My position at the school has been eliminated. The *school* has been eliminated. I'm nothing to anyone here except Willow, and she has even less power over the situation than I have!

Stuck with her? Bloody Hell, we're going to be forcibly pulled apart if I don't think of some way to stop it! Dear God! I can't let this happen. I can't just... leave her like this. Certainly not if she's—well if she really intends—I mean but—bloody hell—*Plus One*! I can't, I can't do that to her!

Did I hear a request for assistance in that word salad somewhere?  What!?! No! Certainly no—er why? Do you have a suggestion? Fear not! The demon assured him. For one thing, there's more to your little girlfriend than meets the eye! I've been watching the way she gets things done... well listening mostly, what with you tending to have your eyes closed, but wow! And that aura! The way it flares up when she IS getting things done, or when something gets in her way. She is something else. Don't deny, even you can feel it. Believe me, where there's a Wil, there's a way.

Perhaps that was true. Perhaps not. Special as he knew Willow to be, she was still, in legal terms, in terms of social status and power dynamics, a child. Expecting her to be able to do anything more to help him with his present difficulties was probably wishful thinking at it's worst. Truth be told, anything that needed to be done was something he himself would have to do. As yet, he had not even the barest hint of a plan of action.

But there was one thing Giles knew for certain. He wasn't just going to walk away from the girl he loved. He wasn't going to abandon her, not with a child, not with a grief of losing a child already actively imagined, and certainly not with the responsibility of making that choice alone and unsupported. Not on the say so of the Council or the INS or anyone else. Notwithstanding the law was against them, whether or not it was 'for her own good', anyone who wanted to separate him from Willow had best be getting together that team of wild horses, because they were bloody well going to have to drag him away.