Buffy stood with her toes overhanging the edge of the Hyperion Hotel pool. She carefully balanced herself, and closed her eyes against the brassy Los Angeles sun. The sun felt good on her face, but it was almost the only thing that did. She wrapped an arm around her side where it hurt. The stab wound in her side was healing, but it was still agonizing, especially when she moved. Or breathed. Or stood still.
Someone came into the courtyard. Buffy listened to the footsteps. Xander. He came up beside her.
"I wouldn't suggest diving. Maybe a cannonball into that wouldn't kill you. But yuck."
Buffy sighed and blinked her eyes open. The pool was about a third full of green and scummy water. Stagnant. It probably bred mosquitos. The whole courtyard was dusty and dirty, trash blown in the corners, as if Angel and his friends never went there at all.
"Wish I could swim, though," she said.
"Huh."
Xander moved off to a little building at the side of the courtyard. He tried the door, and it scraped open. He disappeared into the darkness, and Buffy heard some clanking sounds. The battle had claimed Anya less than a day ago, and Xander hadn't said a thing about it since he'd found out. Not word one.
Xander came back with a battered metal toolbox. Its green paint had been chipped away. He carried it over to the end of the pool where the filter motor sat, hidden under a lumpy cover. He opened the box to reveal an assortment of tools, in good condition aside from the grime.
"Let's see what we can do with this filter thing," Xander said.
He knelt and started prodding. Buffy closed her eyes again and soaked in the sun. Giles had said something once, about sun and Slayers and recharging. He'd approved of her tans.
Quiet voices talking, at the edge of the courtyard. The man himself. The second voice she recognized by accent.
"--was so sorry to hear. Is there a memorial planned?"
Wesley. Somewhere on the other side of the courtyard. Buffy squeezed her eyes tighter shut.
"We were in no shape to do anything at the time. Things are no better now." Giles made a rueful noise.
Giles and Wesley were about twenty feet away, at the end of the pool near where Xander and the filter assembly were.
"Stay here as long as you need to. The Hyperion has the space."
"This haven of my rest, this cradle of my glory, this soft clime, this calm luxuriance of blissful light." Giles's voice sounded as if he were reciting.
Wesley laughed. "Apt."
Buffy stayed still, and hoped they'd go away. But the footsteps and voices moved closer.
"Hello, Buffy. I was wondering if I might--"
"I was just going in," Buffy said, abruptly. She didn't turn.
"Right. Shan't trouble you."
Giles was still for a moment, then he left, moving fast. Buffy listened to his footsteps. Xander dropped his wrench. The clank on the concrete was loud. Buffy opened her eyes in time to see Xander pick it up again and resume his work on the bolts holding the maintenance hatch in place. She should offer to loosen them for him. But she hurt.
Wesley came closer, and showed no signs of leaving. "What was that about?"
"Huh?"
"That sort of treatment was once reserved for me."
"Things are different now."
"No apocalypse in progress, so his services aren't needed?"
"Services weren't needed for the last one, either. Giles isn't my Watcher. Anybody's Watcher. He's just another guy. None of us are special any more."
Wesley tilted his head, and smiled mirthlessly. "I see."
"Spike said... Spike said I'd surpassed him. And he was making mistakes, so I was right to--" Buffy broke off.
"Ah. Spike. One always takes vampire-slaying advice from a vampire," Wesley said. Despite his clothes and the roughness of his voice, his tone yanked her right back to when she'd first known him, in that little library. Starchy, prim, disapproving. "Very well. I have some Sumerian that needs translating. I had been about to ask Rupert to help me with it, but as he is outmoded, and you have surpassed him, I shall ask you instead. The tablet is in my office, if you'd care to favor me with your reading."
Buffy glared at him.
"No? Whatever is the matter?"
"That's not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?" Wesley's voice was soft, but Buffy was not comforted. That voice was also dangerous.
Buffy missed whatever Wesley said next, but it must have been dismissive, because he stalked off. Xander watched Wesley leave in the same direction Giles had gone. Buffy watched Xander. He turned his head. Buffy saw the patch on his eye, over a still reddened cheekbone, and felt that stab of guilt again. She'd seen him putting medication onto the place where his eye had been, yesterday on the bus. Xander met her glance for an instant, then looked down and fiddled with the spacing of his monkey wrench.
"Did Spike really say that?"
Buffy shrugged, then winced. Her side was killing her, still. That wound was deep. Spike hadn't been the only one to say it. The First had also been saying things to her about Giles. And about everybody, but some topics hurt more than others.
"Among other things."
"Huh," said Xander. He wasn't looking at her, but was instead peering at the head of his monkey wrench. He twiddled the knob, then gave the wrench a pull. The bolt came free. He levered the plate aside and stared into the filter assembly. "Doesn't look so bad. I think I have to drain the pool."
"Get the Potentials to do it," Buffy said. They were in better shape than she was. The ones who'd lived, that was. Which nearly hadn't included her.
"Naw. The point of getting the filter working is to use the pump to drain it. Besides, I heard there was a Turok Han problem. The girls are gonna be busy."
"Good for them," Buffy said, but her next thought was to wonder why nobody had told her.
Xander reached into the motor with a huge flat-bladed screwdriver and flicked gunk out. "Yeah, can't blame you. There are lots of Slayers now. Time to let somebody else do it."
For a second, Buffy wanted it. "Maybe. Would be nice to be asked."
"I think that was what Giles had been about to say to you. Hey, Buff. Free advice, worth what you pay for it. About Spike and Giles. I think the leopard is always spotty. That's what I think."
Buffy considered this. "You never liked him, did you." She didn't bother to specify which one, because she knew what Xander felt about Giles. But it was a true thing to say about both of them. And, for that matter, about the First.
Xander didn't answer. He tilted his head and looked at her with one clear brown eye. Then he walked over to the dusty maintenance shed and pulled out a heavy coil of dark green hose. He carried it back to the edge of the pool and dipped one end into the water. Buffy watched it extend out into the deepest part of the pool. Stagnant green water. Algae and mildew.
"What are the chances this doesn't have any holes in it, ya think? Another item for the Home Depot list."
Buffy watched him patiently uncoiling the hose. "Why are you doing this?"
"You said you wanted to go swimming." Xander sounded puzzled.
"No, I mean-- Never mind. Where's Willow?"
Xander dragged the free end of the hose over to the filter. "Look for that Texan chick. Fred. They were bonding over Powerbooks when I saw 'em last."
"Yeah, sounds right. And Xan? Thanks."
Xander nodded, and picked up his wrench again.
Willow was in a computer lab, sort of: one of the hotel suites, taken over by ethernet cables and industrial power strips and the white noise of a hundred tiny fans spinning. There was a big rack full of of pizza-box-sized computers with the word "Sun" on them, with sticky printed labels that Buffy found mysterious. The other was lined with bookshelves. Science books, mostly. Chemistry, physics, mathematics. Quantum mechanics. Homotopy theory. All Greek to Buffy. Or Sumerian. Wesley's comment had hit her where it hurt. Buffy trailed a finger along the spines as she made her way over to the desk where Willow was.
She sat with her feet on the pan of the chair and a Powerbook resting on her knees. "I read you loud and clear, Fred. Just got the Google home page on my browser."
"Peachy!" Fred's voice came from the other side of the room, underneath a table. Buffy could see bare legs and a bright flower-print dress, but no more of Fred.
Willow looked up and spotted Buffy. She pointed to the ceiling and twirled her finger. "Airport. Latest thing."
"Neat! I think. Like, helicopters on the roof?"
Willow grinned, a big relaxed happy thing. "Different kinda airport. Wireless network. Eight oh two eleven. We're getting everybody linked up."
"I'll nod like I understood you, and you'll pretend I did, and then we'll move along to my question."
"Fire away!"
"About the First. I wanna talk about the stuff it said."
Willow's face changed. She closed the laptop and set it aside. "Woah, Buffy. You go right for the hard stuff."
Fred appeared from under the table with a bright orange cable in hand. "Need a crossover. I'll go fetch one and let y'all talk."
Buffy watched her bounce out. Fred was, in Buffy's expert opinion, flat-out gorgeous, and that dress was adorable. She saw that Willow was also watching, with a glint in her eye, and she wondered where Kennedy was. Another item on the list of questions to ask later. Over a pair of extra-large margaritas, maybe.
"I was wondering what it said to you. Because you didn't talk about it."
"Unfun. Turns out I've known a lot of people who are now dead. Some of them are pissed off."
Willow shrugged. "According to the First."
Buffy plunked herself onto the floor in front of Willow's chair, then had to cover up a wince. Sudden movements still contraindicated. Slayer healing was taking its own sweet time fixing this one. "What was it like for you?" she said.
Willow wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Xander and I had a long talk about it. Jessie showed up to both of us, and it was-- And then it used Tara's form, and I nearly went to pieces. The First said a lot of stuff. Remember when Spike said that stuff to us to get us four to break up so we couldn't fight Adam? It was just like that. Only nastier. More personal. Because the First knew secrets."
Buffy nodded. It sure had. Big secrets. All the secrets. "Anything a dead person knew."
"Yeah. All our weak spots. All our insecurities."
Willow stared at her feet. Buffy did too. She was wearing mismatched sneakers with holes in the toes. The sneakers had red-brown dust ground into the white laces: Sunnydale dust. After a while, she went on. "Xander and I decided to ignore anything it said. We reminded each other of how much we'd come through together. Yellow crayons, you know. Not destroying the world because Xander loved me. Stuff like that. Made the First seem kinda petty."
"Oh." Buffy now felt about six kinds of stupid. It was like Xander had said, only this time she hadn't been the one to clue in first. Looked like she was last.
"What did it say to you?"
Buffy shrugged. As Willow had said, it was all stuff that couldn't, shouldn't be talked about. Private things. Even though Willow was her best friend, it was too much. Too intimate. Too much like the things she said to herself at three in the morning when she couldn't sleep. "Stuff. Mostly I've been thinking about the damage it did, to friendships and stuff."
"Like when we threw you out of your own house."
Buffy went very still.
"Did you ever talk to anybody about what it said? Like, talk to Giles? 'Cause I think you got it worst. You were the one it was trying to split off from us."
"No."
Giles might have figured out what Willow and Xander had, about the overt attack. Though he might not. The attack on Spike might have been the result of the First working its mojo. Just as Spike's problem with Giles was the same. Buffy's new question was: How long? How else? How long had it been manipulating them? Its rise was tied to her resurrection, so that meant it might have been in action the whole time since.
The whole time. Buffy thought about that. Breakups. Separation. Suspicion. Willow and Tara. Xander and Anya. Buffy and Spike. Buffy and Dawn. Buffy and her Watcher. Buffy and the world.
"You probably should now."
"Yeah, okay, I think I will. Hey, Will. Dinner, you, me, Mexican."
Willow flashed a sly grin. "Got a plan tonight."
Buffy leveled a finger at her. "Soon. And you're going to tell me all."
Now the hard one. The most damage to repair; the trickiest person to talk to even at the best of times. And, apparently, Mr Absent Man. He wasn't in his room. He wasn't in Wesley's suite. He wasn't in the library. Angel hadn't seen him.
In desperation, Buffy went to Harmony at the front desk. Harmony the vampire, chewing gum, painting her nails, and reading Cosmo, safely in the dim light of the lobby.
"Harmony. Harmony!"
She pulled a pair of white buds from her ears. Buffy caught a few seconds of tinny Britney Spears before Harmony found the pause button. "What do you want?" she said. The stupidity shone out from a point between Harmony's eyes.
"Do you know where Giles is?"
"Yeah, he and Wesley went out together about half an hour ago. They were totally rude to me when I asked them if they could please not make long-distance calls from their rooms on the hotel's account, because I don't care what Angel said, I have to--"
"Harmony. Shut up. Could you call Wesley's cell and tell him I need to talk to Giles? Tell him it's important. It's about the Sumerian thing. I'll be in my room."
Harmony looked annoyed, but turned to punch at the phone behind the counter. Buffy didn't wait to listen to Harmony's half of the conversation. She stabbed the elevator button and waited. Normally she'd just book up the steps, but it would be too much strain on her side. The blade had gone in deeper than she'd thought. She rode up the elevator and tried not to worry too much about the strange wiggles it made as it moved. There was an inspection card from 1984 over the button panel. Maybe Xander could find a manual.
She rode the wiggly elevator all the way up. Her room was on the top floor of the Hyperion. She'd picked a north-facing window, so she could look out to where Sunnydale used to be. Not that she could see anything: the haze brought the horizon in close. The blue-white sky was infinitely far away. She leaned on the windowsill looking out, thinking.
Two big things had changed. First, the Hellmouth was gone. No locus of vampire activity existed now, as far as she knew. Second, she wasn't the only Slayer any more. She wasn't even one of two. She was one of twelve. Maybe more. That meant she wasn't special any more, except that she was. She could be in charge if she wanted. She could kick off and go drinking in Cabo for a couple of years if she wanted.
Screw that.
Apocalypses, Buffy decided, were easier than the peaces between them. When the world was going to end, you had a certain purity of focus. Priorities were obvious. Stopping the apocalypse was important. Everything else was not. Take that focus away, and what you had was the usual mess of life.
She thought maybe that brown haze, way out on the horizon, was the dust of Sunnydale. Sunnydale: not as important as stopping the Turok Han. Focus. Purity. So what about Sunnydale? Dust. Brush it off, move on.
So what about Spike? Dust. Not in the way she'd always expected, either. He'd died a hero, and she knew better than anybody what that meant. Heroism like that was rewarded. She'd miss him, but she didn't want him back, not when she knew what he'd have to give up to return. Godspeed, Spike.
Buffy's new task was with the living. Twelve Slayers, three friends, one sister, and a world full of demons to fight. Now she had the mess. Now she had to figure out how to handle people. What to do with twelve Slayers who'd lost their families and their Watchers. A friend who'd lost his one-time fiancee and the town he'd lived in his entire life. A sister who'd lost her stable home. A friend who'd lost-- what had Giles lost? Buffy didn't know.
There was what Wesley had been saying about a memorial. Twice denso-girl in one day, that was Buffy. The Council had been blown up. Watchers had been murdered by Bringers, as well as potential Slayers. That meant Giles had lost friends. Colleagues. Maybe more than any of the rest of them.
She waited for the knock at her door, and planned what she would do when she heard it.
The sky began to glow with the colors of sunset, and she was still waiting and thinking. A spectacular sunset, red and raging. The dust of Sunnydale in the air, Buffy supposed. But at last the knock, and item one on the messy important list of life post-apocalypse.
"It's open," she said.
She turned and leaned back against the window. Giles came in and shut the door behind himself. He had his leather duffle bag in his hand, the big battered thing he'd been living out of for the last few months. Over his shoulder he had a new-looking messenger bag. He was wearing his leather jacket, a strange thing to wear on a warm spring evening. He was packed. He was leaving. Buffy opened her mouth to complain, then closed it. She knew why Giles might be taking off without saying anything to her.
Giles bent to set his bags by the door. He straightened, took a step further into the room, shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets. He wasn't smiling. He looked wary.
"Buffy, what is it? Wesley said the oddest--"
She pointed to the dusty couch. "Sit. We need to talk."
Giles looked as if he were going to speak, but didn't. He took off his jacket and folded it. He draped it over the back of the couch, then sat. He sneezed. The inevitable handkerchief came out of his jeans pocket. Buffy went over to him, and tossed all her plans aside, and went with what her Slayer instincts told her. She climbed onto him. She sat astride his lap, facing him, hands resting on his shoulders. Alarm flashed across his face, and he said again, "Buffy, what--"
Again she interrupted him, with a finger against his lips.
"When did we do this last?"
Giles shook his head. "Two years. More. You--"
He shook his head again and fell silent. Buffy knew what he meant. Infinities of meaning, in one head-shake. Their last intimate talk had been the last time it happened between them. After that had been two years of disconnection, so complete that he'd feared her when she'd climbed onto his lap.
She slipped his glasses off, gently, and set them aside. Giles blinked. He looked vulnerable without them. Buffy stroked his temples. The worried look slowly faded. He sighed, and his shoulders relaxed at last.
Buffy kissed his forehead. "Missed this."
Softly, "As did I."
"Tough year."
"Mmm."
"I screwed up. A lot."
"No more than did I. But you came through in the end. As always."
Giles smiled up at her, and Buffy's heart turned over. That was the smile she'd been missing all this time. She leaned forward and kissed the end of his nose. He shifted and slipped his arms around her. Buffy rested her chin on his shoulder and let him hold her close. She breathed in Giles-scent, that old-fashioned clean smell of his cologne. The hand caressing her face smelled faintly of india ink. She remembered the first time she'd been aware of his scent, that cologne. He'd been teaching her how to throw a knife, and had stood close behind her to guide her through the correct arm motion. She'd held still for a second and sniffed. He'd been alien to her and familiar at the same time.
Familiar. Safe. Hers. Every Slayer needs a Watcher. Every general needs an adjutant. Every queen needs a vizier. Giles was warm underneath her now. The hand bracing her back was solid. Buffy nuzzled his ear.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What on earth for?"
She gave him a look. The man was moving out without saying anything, and he asked her what she was sorry for. There were a lot of things she could apologize for, but Buffy started with the most important.
"For all the people who died. When the First blew up the Council." Giles tensed again beneath her, but said nothing. "How many friends did you lose?"
Giles sighed, and tightened his arms around her. "I never counted. An uncle, my oldest nephew, several cousins, more schoolmates than I care to think."
"You never said anything."
"There was no point. It would have distracted you from what you needed to do."
Buffy gripped his sweater and shook him, gently. "No. Wrong. There was a point. You were grieving. I should have been your friend instead of the Slayer machine. We turned into these, I don't know, robots. Marching around making self-righteous speeches. Not talking to each other. Scheming against each other. How the hell did I not hug you for all that time? What was wrong with me?"
Giles shook his head again. "You were distracted--"
"No. Remember what I said the first time? About not screwing up by ignoring you again? Well, that's exactly what I did. And I finally figured out why. Took me this long, but now I know. It was the First. Working on us. All along. Driving us apart."
His eyebrows went up. "From the start? I mean, from the moment you, you returned?"
"Yeah. That's when Willow gave it a foothold."
"My goodness. It fits. I wonder how. The spectral visits were obvious manipulation, but it must have--"
"Giles. It's over. And I know how to fix it. No more apartness."
Buffy pressed herself against his chest for a second, then bent her face down to kiss him. He returned the kiss gently, chastely. Buffy stroked the back of his head. Then she kissed him again, and made it blatant, like she had the first time she'd reclaimed him. He stopped her with fingers laid across her lips.
"Buffy, I must ask. What does this mean? What do you intend? I don't know if I-- the last time, it was marvelous, but I-- It was hard to bear not knowing if it would happen again."
His face was strained and vulnerable again. Buffy was serene, though. She knew the answer to this one.
"I'm serious. This time. Serious about everything. No more excuses. I have a life to put back together, and I want you in it. I have a bunch of Slayers to lead, and I want you helping. I want you. Got it?"
Giles drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Dear Buffy. I do love you so. You know that, don't you?"
"I know. Silly guy. Known all along. But I didn't know you had an uncle. And now you're going to tell me all about him. What his name was. What he was like. And about your nephew. And if you need to cry, you're going to cry."
"No," Giles said.
Buffy's heart almost stopped. "No? What--"
"First I'm going to patch up the injury in your side that's making you wince and move oddly. And then we'll talk, and I'll tell you everything you want to know. And then--"
Buffy's breath caught.
"There's a Turok Han loose in Los Angeles."
She smacked Giles on the shoulder. "I know just the chick for the job."
The Slayer and the Watcher sit on a dusty couch in a dilapidated hotel room in downtown Los Angeles. They are granted the definite article out of respect for their seniority in their roles. Twelve other girls with Slayer powers are in the Hyperion with them, and at least three other people who might lay claim to the title of Watcher. But they are, to themselves and to their friends, the Slayer and the Watcher. They sit on the couch, the Slayer in the Watcher's lap, kissing each other much as they did in their first intimate encounter, three years before. That is to say, tenderly, tentatively, as if they are each afraid they might frighten the other away. The Watcher ends the caress, and lays his hand over the place where his Slayer has been injured. She hid it from her other friends, but she cannot hide it from him.
There was no chance that Buffy would be hunting Turok Han that night. Not after she stripped off her shirt for Giles and showed him what was making her wince. He gasped, and pushed her down onto her bed. She blushed, mistaking his reaction— it was the first time she'd been naked in front him in more than two years. But his gaze was on her side, and he bent over her without seeming to see anything but the wound. He pulled the soaked bandage away. Buffy recoiled at the sight of blood; she hadn't realized it was oozing. He touched her side gently. Something deep inside throbbed.
Giles made a grumpy sound. "You ought to have come to me sooner. On the bus. What's wrong with your healing?" That last he muttered almost to himself.
What was wrong with her Slayer healing, anyway? Buffy let awareness of the pain slip past her barriers. Ouch. It wasn't getting better. If anything, it was worse than it had been that morning, when she'd been sun-soaking. What was up? Buffy concentrated. Honed. Tried to feel her way in. There was something funky going on. Breathe, the way he'd taught her so long ago, and find her center. Move in, and down. Down to where her Watcher's fingers were on her side, touching her somewhere in the spirit realm as well as in physical reality. Where her wound was. Where there was a splinter of evil, deep inside.
Buffy opened her eyes and surfaced. She prodded at her side, now heedless of the pain.
Giles straightened up. "Hospital. I'll arrange transport."
"No! No. It's not— There's something evil in there. Seriously. I need you or Willow. Mystical stuff, Giles."
Giles shook his head, and pulled his phone from his pocket. Giles with a cellphone: Buffy's world was indeed changing.
"Xander? Giles here. Do we have a first aid kit? A serious kit, none of those— Good. Can you have her bring it up to Buffy's room? Now, if not sooner. Ta."
Giles snapped his phone closed. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'll try to patch this up, but— Are you sure you won't go to hospital?"
"Certain. There's bad mojo they can't fix. Something's messing with me."
Buffy tried to stand up, but Giles put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her flat on the bed. He glared at her, and Buffy gave up. He was in full Watcher mode, and to be honest she was glad he was. There were things she could delegate now, and one of them was getting this fixed. He could handle the mojo situation.
Somebody knocked at the door. Giles went over to answer it. Buffy heard Xander's voice, in quiet conversation with Giles. She pushed herself up enough to meet his eye and wave at him. Then the door was closing again, and Xander was off. Another fix-it errand accomplished. She wondered how much progress he'd made on the swimming pool.
"Where Xander got this, I don't know, but it's military issue."
Giles arranged a towel under her on the bed, and got the kit open. He went into the bathroom, and came out with wet hands. He rubbed them with something from the kit. Buffy smelled alcohol, something astringent and medical. The smell of the patch-up after a late-night patrol. It almost made her feel nostalgic. Then he was putting on a pair of latex gloves, and taking something metal out of its packaging. He looked grim.
"Buffy, I don't have any anesthetic. Are you certain you want me to do this?"
"Stop asking. Just do it."
Giles laid his hands on her side and did something. Buffy looked away and concentrated on not making any noise. It was wussy to make noise, unless you were exaggerating it to make the people around you laugh.
"Healing at the edges," Giles said. "As if it's closing around something."
"Can you see it?"
"Nothing there."
"Holy water. And go deep."
"Ah. Brilliant." The bed shifted, and he was off digging through his leather satchel. He came back with a little bottle and a stake. He handed her the stake and pointed to his mouth. Buffy made a little noise, a pointless protesting whimper, but put the stake in her mouth crosswise.
Giles unscrewed the cap from the bottle of holy water. "I'll be as quick as I can."
There was apology in his voice, but he didn't hesitate. When the holy water touched her, it fizzed. Buffy bit down on the stake and concentrated on not making any noise. She did a visualization thing Giles had taught her once: she walked through her childhood home, counting doorknobs. Screen door, front door proper, hallway closet door, bedroom door—
"Found it. Breathe for me, Buffy. Breathe in, and let it out slowly. Again. One more time, deep as you can."
The moment she let breath escape, he did something to her side. The stake creaked in her mouth. Buffy tried not to bite so hard, but this was as bad as it ever got. Then it stopped. Giles held up a tiny sliver of metal, dark with her blood. He set it on a wad of red-stained gauze on the nightstand. He then swabbed at her side with something wet, but it already felt better. The pain had begun to ebb the second he got the metal out. She opened her mouth and let the wet stake fall out, then spit out a few splinters of wood. Yuck.
Giles made a soothing noise, and continued whatever he was doing to her side. He murmured to her as he worked. "Cleaning it up. A little antibiotic. Just enough to keep things clear for the Slayer power to do its work. Nearly done. Butterflies now. Should give you stitches, but we'll skate by this time. There."
He taped gauze over it, then wadded up a bunch of red-stained stuff to throw away. Buffy could recall a time when the sight of her own blood had made her queasy. A million years ago, before she'd learned skills like how to staple herself back together. How to pop her own joints back into their sockets. How to sit still while Giles stitched her up without anesthetic. Her hands were shaking, though, probably from the aftereffects of the pain. She could taste it in her mouth, and her face was wet with sweat.
Giles picked up the metal fragment again and wiped the gore from it. He turned it over in his bare fingers, studying it. "This is cursed?"
"Big time. Can't you feel it?"
"You've always been more sensitive than I. Let's see."
Giles wet his fingers in the holy water and made the sign of the cross on the sword fragment. He chanted something in Latin. Buffy recognized the words of a counter-curse she'd heard before. Energy flowed, the fragment flared white, and just like that it was a hunk of metal, no power left in it to hurt her.
"They must have cursed their swords to do extra damage to Slayers. The Turok Han out there now will have something like this—"
Buffy sat up, but Giles once again put a hand on her shoulder. To the surprise of both of them, he was able to push her flat again. Buffy sighed, and surrendered to the inevitable.
"You'll tell 'em?"
"I will. Rest." It was a command, though a soft one. He followed it by layering blankets over her. Buffy vaguely remembered something about shock. The adrenaline was fading now, and she felt strange in the pit of her stomach.
Giles got off the bed. Buffy watched him close up the first aid kit and dispose of the old bandages. He went into the bathroom and ran water. Buffy zoned. Her body had changed modes, to deep healing mode. For a while there she'd almost been able to make it shift on cue, and defer the healing if she had to fight for a while. She couldn't stave this off, though. She blinked herself awake again, with difficulty. Hibernation mode, healing mode was calling her. The needs of her body agreed with the command from her Watcher, something the Slayer inside knew was a good idea.
The sound of the door opening startled Buffy up from her doze. Giles was sliding his messenger bag over his shoulder. Buffy pushed herself up onto an elbow, awake now and freaked.
"Don't leave! We're not finished. Giles. I'm sorry. Whatever I did. I mean—"
"Buffy. Buffy. Please. I'm not going anywhere. I merely need to... inform Wesley of my change of plans."
But he closed the door and set his messenger bag down next to the couch. Buffy slouched back, but kept watching him uneasily. He pulled out his phone. He dialed and talked for some time with someone, quietly enough that Buffy couldn't hear what he said. She could hear from his voice, the way it rose and fell, the little laugh, that he was okay. She'd fixed things between them enough for now. Emergency repairs complete.
She woke again from a half-sleep when the bed tipped under his weight. He was readjusting the blanket at her neck. He rested a hand on her forehead for a moment.
"Sorry I panicked," Buffy said to him, muzzily.
"No, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to alarm you."
"Giles? Were you leaving? When I called you here, I mean."
He looked away from her, then at the floor. "I had... I'd intended to take the next available flight to England."
"What's your plan now?"
Buffy was braced to hear he still wanted to leave. But he shrugged. "I have no plan. I've canceled my flight. I'll stay with you. Follow you wherever you want to go. Do whatever it is you'd like to do."
"Mmm. Good plan. Always listen to Buffy."
Giles laughed softly, so that she felt it more than heard it. He stroked her forehead again. "Just tell me what you want done."
"Simple. I need a grand vizier."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Need a grand vizier. Want the job?"
"Buffy, what—"
She tugged the blanket up higher. "Wait. Aren't viziers evil? No, I got it. Only if they have goatees. You planning on growing a beard?"
Giles opened his mouth, shut it again, then just stared at her. "I think I'm safe on that score. Go to sleep, Buffy."
"Not without you."
He shrugged, and bent to unlace his shoes. Off came his jeans, then his shirt. Then he rearranged the bed somewhat, and stole half of her pillows. When he was finally settled in, she said, "But do you want the job?"
"Yes, I'll take the job. I suspect I know what you're angling for. Hush. I'm right here. I'm holding you."
He snugged himself up beside her and made his words true. This was new. She hadn't let herself sleep with him before, in the conking out sense of the word. They'd only been in a bed a couple of times, and both times she'd waited until he'd started snoring then taken off. This time she was too tired even to think about it. Too sore. It felt too good to feel his arms around her. Stupid to distrust him. Stupid to distrust Xander. Her own sister. The First had played her. Buffy didn't like being played. She drifted off, feeling safe for the first time in two years.
Buffy dreams. They are a Slayer's dreams: vampires and demons, running and fighting, blood and dust, equal parts terror and thrill. She dreams this way every night, and has since the night the Powers touched her to make her Theirs. She sighs in her sleep, safe and content, and allows herself to move into deeper sleep. The dreamless sleep of healing. When she surfaces to REM sleep once more, the dreams shift, become more real. Scent and sound and sight: she is in a cold pine forest, far away, watching men with hammers chain a wolf to the ground. Their breath billows white in the night air. Their hammers are loud on the chain links. Buffy knows she is dreaming true. The Powers are sending her a message. She wishes They'd use Western Union like everyone else.
Buffy woke to the mattress shifting as somebody climbed in next to her. Giles. The sound of water running in the bathroom told her where he'd been. The room was dark, and so was the sky outside the window. Slayer time-sense said it was past midnight.
"Hey," she said.
Giles slid close beside her. "You slept well."
"Did you nap?"
He grunted. "A little."
"What did you do?"
He shrugged against her. "Thought. Held you. You dreamed, I think?"
Buffy snuggled herself against Giles's side. "Yeah. Prophetic, even. A wolf. Big honking wolf, with green eyes that glowed. She let herself be chained up by a bunch of men, but she kept breaking out of them."
"Fenris," Giles said. His breath was warm against her cheek. "Norse mythology. He allowed himself to be chained, but will eventually break free. He will, according to prophecy, devour Odin at Ragnarök."
"Hello, apocalypse. Except that my wolf was a girl."
"Interesting. That would seem to eliminate Fenris, who was most definitely male in the myth. Father to the sun-chaser Skoll. Roman myth, perhaps?"
"Fits otherwise. Really huge, like moon-eating huge. And breaks free. I kinda think she did eat the moon. Not sure."
Giles made an uncertain noise. "Has this been recurring?"
"First time just now. I didn't get a big creepy thing from it. No urgent danger."
"You'll tell me if it recurs."
"'Course."
Buffy stretched. Her side tweaked her a little, but not seriously. She touched the bandage; it was dry on the outside. Slayer healing had done a big chunk of the work already. The sheets were cool against her feet. She was wearing her panties, and nothing else. Giles was in t-shirt and boxers. His legs were warm against hers, a little fuzzy. She turned to face him, laid her hands on his chest. His heart beat under her hands. She could hear it, if she let herself listen. His chest rose and fell with breath. He was nice. Comfy. Human. And dangerous and complicated and problematic. They had unfinished business, and he had to know it just as much as she did.
"Giles, what did the First say to you?"
Giles went very still next to her. His pulse hammered faster under her hands. "A great deal," he said, at last.
"I am thinking it was probably pretty bad. It was bad for me, too, you know? I fell for it. There were a lot of times when I wanted to go talk to you, clear things up, maybe even do this again. But it always showed up and said stuff."
Giles twitched at that, but said nothing. Buffy let it sit between them. She wasn't sure she was ready for this conversation yet. This conversation was going to have to cover Spike, before it went very far, and that was going to be painful. It was the kind of conversation that maybe you could only have in the dark, where you couldn't really see the other person. Then Giles started talking, almost muttering under his breath.
"Tara knew. That we had— I'm not sure how she knew, but she did. She said something to me once, before I left Sunnydale. And so the First... Well. It supplied explanations for why you didn't, ah, resume the relationship. After you came back." Giles trailed off. He cleared his throat. "Apparently I was a fool. Again. Easily played. I've always had difficulty with thinking you don't need me. Insecurity, I suppose."
He laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it. He reached up and clasped her hand in his and held it tight against his chest.
"Buffy, I am truly sorry. My behavior, I. Lord."
"Look, don't. It's over."
"I can offer excuses. But I ought to have been on guard."
"Giles, our lives were insane. Yours especially. Flying all over the world, stressed out of your mind."
He squeezed her hand. "Jet-lagged beyond belief, living out of a suitcase, either fleeing with a traumatized girl or trying to forget the sight of my latest failure."
"Vulnerable." More than she'd been, really. She'd been safe in her house in Sunnydale the whole time.
Giles made a sound, possibly in agreement.
"Grieving? For the uncle you're going to tell me about?"
Giles let go of her and rolled away to face the ceiling. He rested his arm across his face, so Buffy couldn't see him. "Yes. No. It's complicated. There wasn't time. There was a war on. Pull up one's socks and get on with it. One's perspective changes, in wartime. My grandmother tried to tell me about it, once, about what it had been like for them all during the war. No time to mourn. No permission to mourn. The sacrifices are supposed to be necessary. A bubble of unreality. Now I know. Now I understand what she'd been trying to say."
Buffy turned that one over. She'd been living that one almost every day from the moment she learned Glory was a hellgod. It hadn't let up. And now the war was over. Two years, more, and over now. Anya dead. Spike— Spike dead, his soul at last released. And Buffy knew where he was, where Anya had to be too. Heroes don't go to hell.
"You stop to mourn afterwards. That's what Memorial Day is, I guess."
"We call it Remembrance Day. And wear a poppy. Flanders field, mud and poppies and the bodies of the dead. So many girls, Buffy. So many dead. Just twelve left. The twelve in this hotel with us. All the rest, gone. And their Watchers."
He was crying now, at last, softly. It was easier for her, maybe, than for Giles, because she knew where they all were and what it felt like. She'd miss them all, but she'd see them again. She was in no hurry, but it was there, waiting, the reward. Near-impossible to explain this to Giles or anybody. She'd tried once, with Willow, but Willow had wedged it into the frame of her magic and power, had thought she was talking about dimensions and places where the living were.
Giles rolled out of bed and moved to the chair where he'd laid his trousers. Buffy watched him dig in the pocket and extract a handkerchief, the ever-present Giles hankie, and wipe his face. Then he got back into bed. Moment of grief over, at least for now, but the repression filter seemed to be off. Off for good, she hoped, though Giles was never going to be Mister Heart On His Sleeve. It was time, though, to hold him tight. Instinct said it.
Giles had once had a fit when she'd used the word "instinct" to describe her hunches, the things the Slayer deep inside told her, but she had no other word for it. Maybe, if she explained it to Giles, he could tell her what it was. Research it, explain its mysteries. That was a topic for the morning, for the day, for the time of cold rationality. Night was a time for following hunches, and Buffy's hunch said that she should act now. Make Giles hers again now. The grievances were past, and it was time for sorrows to end.
She slid her hands under his t-shirt, and pushed it up. He obediently rose enough to tug it over his head and toss it aside. He lay back onto the pillows and allowed Buffy to touch him.
He was more battered than he'd been the last time she'd seen him naked. The worst mark was a big round scar on his stomach. The spear, she remembered, wielded by the knights of Byzantium. Bad times, bad times. His face was lined more deeply than it had been, too, both the smile lines around his eyes and the worry lines in his forehead. He had more gray in his hair. But he was still Giles, still the man she'd known for seven years now. He smelled good. He smelled restful, if that was even possible.
He rested a hand over her side, on the bandage. Buffy could feel him there again, a presence in more than just physical space with her. It was eerie and comforting at once. "How are you feeling? Are you up to this?"
"Giles. It's been hours. I'm not a hundred percent yet, but I will be in the morning."
"I forget. I've lived with the miracle that is you for seven years, and it still astonishes me."
"Sweet talker."
"But are you sure—"
"Yup, I'm sure. Kiss me."
Buffy didn't wait for him to follow orders, since orders were generally not something either one of them bothered following. She kissed him. He slid his hand down and around to her back, and pulled her tight against him.
Giles was such a contradictory partner in bed. He obviously knew what he was doing, and had done far more in his life than Buffy had in hers. He'd had lots of partners, and some of them had been other men. But he was always so shy with her, so cautious. He never made the first move, not ever. He waited for her to make it obvious that she wanted to make love, and only then did he touch her body. He'd been excited from the first touch of her hands on his bare chest, his body hard against hers, but he stayed a perfect gentleman. Though there'd been that one time, the last time. Buffy'd coaxed him into letting that mask slip, and what had come out of his mouth had been startlingly filthy.
Buffy shied away from that memory. Too close to some other memories she resolutely avoided visiting. Bad times, redux. Better memories were of the first time she'd kissed Giles, the first time she'd tasted his mouth, licked tears from his face. He wasn't crying this time, the big softie, but instead he seemed quietly happy. He made a little sound as he slid in, a soft thing that sounded more like satisfaction than desire.
He took his time, and Buffy let him. He held her close and moved against her slowly. He was quiet, as he usually was, controlled even when she could tell he was in the throes, even when his breath started coming fast, when he started making little gasps. Buffy nudged him over onto his back and sat astride him, so she could see him. He slipped his hand between them and touched her, held his thumb against her. And then she was there, and he followed her.
Giles didn't move, didn't make any attempt to let go or clean up or change position. He just said, "Oh, Buffy, don't leave me this time," and then closed his eyes. Just like a man, like all of them, to fall asleep afterward.
Buffy watched her Watcher sleep, and started making plans. Dangerous, complicated, contradictory, hers. Giles would be all right. Now for the rest of it. Twelve Slayers. One hotel. One long summer stretching out before them. What to do? Kill the last Turok Han, and then what? She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and this time, if she dreamed, she didn't remember it.
In the city to the south of them, a vampire hunts. It does not look like a vampire as we have come to know them. It has no friendly human face to present to its victims, no memories of the human soul it has displaced to aid it in luring the unwary into thinking it harmless. Or attractive. It looks like what is it: a predator. It cannot hunt, then, with guile. It has other gifts to use. Speed. Strength. Focus. This vampire will never be weakened by attacks of human emotion, by those memories of its dead host.
It is related to the vampires we know as the Neanderthal is related to us. It is a throwback. The blood of older demons, mingled with the blood of men. It thinks of modern vampires as corrupt. Weak.
The human it is draining of blood at this moment would agree, if he could speak. But he has drawn his last breath, and his soul's blood has fed the Turok Han.
Buffy woke ravenous. She was always this way when the Slayer powers were under strain. Her mom had used to give her grief about dieting and being too thin, had accidentally on purpose left articles on body image and anorexia lying around the house. But really it had been that sometimes Buffy couldn't eat enough to keep the Slayer system fueled. And if forced, Buffy would admit she liked how easy it was to stay in the size two jeans.
Giles had used to lecture her about nutrition. He'd always had fruit around, in the library and in the shop, just for her. Another resource she'd blown off, because it had felt like more of a burden to her. Now, she understood the reasoning behind the lectures. Now, she wanted to understand it from the inside out. For herself, for the twelve other Slayers at the Hyperion. Buffy loved Giles, and always had, but she admitted he'd been utterly clueless about how to get things across to a teenager. This was something she knew how to do. Something she was going to have to do.
Just as soon as she ate an entire horse.
She shook Giles awake. "Giles. Breakfast. Now. Hungry Slayer."
He sat up fast and looked around, then blinked and rubbed his face. He said something unintelligible to her and rolled out of bed. He vanished into the bathroom with his duffle bag in hand. Apparently Giles was a zombie in the mornings: shambling and sans brain. Moments later the water in the shower ran. Buffy smiled up at the ceiling. Giles had no clue what he was in for. No way he was showering without her. Maybe food could wait.
Later, when they were showered and Giles was most definitely fully awakened in all senses of the word, they rode the wobbling elevator down to the deserted Hyperion lobby. The lobby was shrouded and dim and smelled dusty, but the street outside was bright with morning sun.
"Going to go find a newspaper," Giles said.
He waggled his cellphone at her, then tucked it into his shirt pocket. He was out the lobby door before she could complain that he hadn't actually given her his number. Buffy shrugged, then made her way back to the private areas of the hotel, the places that had once been the domain of the staff. She followed her nose and found the kitchen right away. It was ten in the morning, and the only other person there was Xander, at the big industrial stove with a griddle and a bowl of batter.
"Morning, Buffy. Pancakes?"
Buffy gave him thumbs up. "Where's everybody else?"
"It's kind of a late-night crowd here. Fred told me the place doesn't get going until noon at best."
"Vamps and Slayers. In bed by dawn, no earlier."
"Yup, about the size of it. Hey, you look way better this morning. Giles fix you up?"
"Yeah. He'll be down here in a minute, so slap on a stack for him, too."
"So he stayed, huh?"
Buffy nodded. "Yeah. The leopard is always spotty. He's with me again."
Xander bobbled a pancake, then recovered. "With you, with you?"
Buffy held up a hand with two fingers stuck together. "In the boy-girl sense. Like this."
"In about ten minutes I am going to do the world's most-delayed spit take. Right now I am going to finish cooking breakfast."
Despite that, Xander's face under the eye-patch was calm. Xander was going to take it in stride. Angel might be more of a problem. He still liked to pretend that Buffy was waiting for him and a solution to their star-crossing problem, even though Buffy knew for an absolute fact that some vibing was going on with him and Cordelia.
She went around to Xander's side of the kitchen work surface and dug around for a coffee pot. She'd seen Gunn drinking a cup of something in the machine oil class yesterday, so there had to be beans. There, in the freezer, and there was a grinder and drip machine of the kind that coffee fanatics got into, all brushed metal with Italian names. While she ground and dripped, she made conversation with pancake-flipping-Xander about the pool. He'd fixed the filter, and drained the stagnant water, but the pool needed serious cleaning. A run to the local home and garden store, armed with a credit card lifted from Angel, had produced all the supplies he needed. It just lacked some manpower.
Girlpower, rather. This was a house of Slayers now.
Giles appeared a few minutes later with copies of the major California papers: the LA Times, the SF Chronicle, and some little thing from Sacramento. He nodded a distracted good-morning to Xander and plunked himself down at the table. He unfolded the LA paper and sorted through until he found the crime reports. He always started there, red pen handy to mark the reports he thought Buffy should know about. Buffy stuck a cup of coffee next to him, and poured a few spoonfuls of sugar into hers. She poked at the Chronicle; Sunnydale's crater still rated front-page treatment.
Giles gulped down some coffee without even looking at it. The newspaper had his attention. "Listen here," he said to Buffy. "A series of murders in east LA. Bodies found with torn throats. The usual speculation about a serial killer, but— "
He looked up at her. Buffy sighed, and refrained from feeling guilty. She'd been in no condition last night to help. Twelve other Slayers in the house: twelve people to share the responsibility with. Though Buffy knew, even as she formed the thought, that more responsibility would always rest on her. She was the one of them who led. First among equals.
The first stack of pancakes arrived on the table. Giles declined. Buffy snagged it without guilt and glugged on the maple syrup and butter. "What happened last night?" she said, through a mouthful of pancake. "Did we hunt?"
Xander answered. "Faith and Kennedy went out with a couple of the others. I was asleep long before they got back, so I haven't heard the sitch. They might have got it."
"They didn't," Buffy said. Giles cocked his head her, and she understood his question. "Can feel it."
"Extraordinary. Is it nearby, then?"
"No, but I can tell it's out there. LA is crawling with demons. Most of them are sorta masked off. Half-hidden. This thing isn't hidden at all. It's blaring its existence at me." Buffy met Giles's thoughtful gaze. "I bet it's driving Faith nuts."
"Faith only? Not Kennedy or the others?"
Buffy shook her head. "I think it takes a while to figure out what the spidey sense is telling you. The honing thing gives you confusing info for a long time. I mean, Angel was right next to me, and I didn't know he was a vamp. Now I can feel him two floors away."
Xander snorted, softly. He carried his plate over to them and sat. He'd made a huge stack of pancakes for himself. Buffy stole one, and he made a half-hearted attempt to stab her with his fork. Then he slid about half his stack over onto her plate. "I've seen you in this mode. And Rona, after she got sliced. Eat up."
Buffy poured more syrup onto her gooey plate. Then she stopped glared at Giles. "Shut up."
"I said nothing!" Giles said.
"You were thinking it. You were looking at me in that Watchery way."
Giles groaned. "Very well, then. All that sugar. Dreadful. You need more protein than that. Make sure you eat something solid for lunch. Happy now?"
Buffy grimaced at Giles, and he glared back, but his eyes were crinkled in the way that meant all was well. They held the look for a few seconds, then Giles blushed. He buried his face in his coffee cup.
"So, spit take time."
"Pardon?" Giles looked at Xander, then at Buffy, eyebrows raised.
"I let the cat out of the bag to Xander."
Giles spent about three seconds thinking about that, then he smiled. It was perhaps the sweetest, purest smile Buffy had seen on him since her mom had died. She knew he'd put it together, and understood her message: it was a real thing this time. Out in the open.
"So is this a Watcher-Slayer dealie or what?"
"No," said Giles, at the same time that Buffy said, "Yes."
"Totally it is," she said, bowling right over whatever it was Giles was about to say. "I have spent the last seven years of my life vibing hard whenever this guy is anywhere near me. And denying it like a pro. I am the queen of denial, which is, as you know, a river in Egypt."
Giles and Xander made near-simultaneous sounds. Giles sounded like he'd choked on a mouthful of coffee, Xander like he was trying not to laugh.
"That's the other thing about honing. Bet you didn't know this. You told me to hone, the very first day. So I honed, there in the Bronze standing next to you, and scared myself spitless. Didn't do anything about it for years. Not until I was desperate and almost drowning in Slayer-ness. It was insisting that I get back on track, complete with Watcher."
Giles wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shook his head. Xander smacked his hand on the table and made his fork skitter off onto the floor.
"All during high school? Man. Skank city. Lolita-matic!"
"Thank you, Xander. May I point out that I had no idea at the time? And that if I had—"
Buffy met Giles's consternated look. "You'd have run away as fast as your Watchery legs would carry you? Yeah. Giles, this Slayer stuff needs to learn about the modern world. This all would have been okay a thousand years ago, but now it's kinda... inconvenient." Buffy made a face. It was okay now, because she was an adult. At the age of sixteen, not so much.
"Lord," said Giles. He was scratching at the back of his head. He didn't look distressed, but instead thoughtful. Buffy'd seen the signs before: that giant brain was clicking into motion, gears spinning up ready to cross-reference. Slayers, desire for Watcher-nookie, historical instances of. Tick tick.
"Anyway. Worth bringing up, 'cause we have twelve girls here who are going to have the same uncanny sense of whose bones they're supposed to jump in a destiny-fulfilling sort of way. They might not understand what it means, though."
Now Giles did look alarmed. "Unconscious experience, you mean. Like your sense of the Turok Han. Needs experience or training to refine."
Buffy held up a finger. "Speaking of super vamps..."
"Right. Let's clear up here, then start planning for tonight."
The Watcher, if he were to be caught in a moment of unguarded honesty, would confess he has long known what the Slayer has just told him. Her blood has called to his. He dismissed it until now as romantic fantasy on his part, wishful thinking, perhaps even rationalization. He is relieved, now, to find that when his Slayer reaches out to claim him, she acts as the Powers that made her wish her to act. When she keeps him close, she strengthens herself. It is his nature not to consider his own wishes, but the Powers leaven their cruelty with kindness: they also made him as he is, and he is meant to find his peace with her and with no one else.
Xander led them to Angel's armory, or the room Angel called the armory. It was in the hotel basement, and had at one time been used as storage for uniforms. There were still a few rolling metal clothes racks pushed up against the far wall, with hangers rattling. Most of the space was cleared away for the tatami in the center. Angel still liked his tai chi, then. Buffy liked it too. Giles tended to sneer, and talk up shinkendo. In practice he'd ignored both and taught her the Council's own school of sword-fighting. And knife-fighting, which she'd always suspected he'd learned unofficially, the hard way. Some of the dagger techniques were useful with a stake.
Sure enough, Angel had his jian on a rack against the wall, in pride of place. It was sharp and in perfect condition. Xander stood, watching with rapt attention, as Buffy spun through some of her sword katas at high speed. There were times to do them slowly, when she was working on form, or learning something new, but this time she wanted to get the feel of the weapon, understand how it would respond in battle. She came to a halt and shook her head in dissatisfaction.
"Lovely weapon. Too long for you," Giles said.
"Yeah. Help me find something?" Buffy returned the sword respectfully to its place in the rack.
"Jeez, how could you tell? It looked fine to me."
"She was off-balance," Giles said, absently. His attention was on a jumble of weapons in a packing crate. "This is all axes. Not your weapon, I think."
"Nah. That Slayer axey thing is cool and all, but I like swords better. Hey. Knives over here. Combat knives."
Buffy frowned at the drawer she'd pulled open. She'd lost hers when one of the girls had borrowed it, gone out patrolling, and not come back. Not alive, anyway. She rummaged and came up with a cool-looking knife with a green camo pattern on the hasp. She unfolded it: same pattern on the blade. Giles leaned over her shoulder.
"Junk."
He took it from her, snapped it shut, and tossed it into the corner. It clattered on the floor, and Buffy reflexively winced for the sake of the blade. Giles sorted through the mess in the drawer. He muttered under his breath, something nasty and not entirely printable about the state of the knives. He'd kept his in a rack, she remembered, sorted by blade length. She'd always known where to go for each kind of tool. Angel wasn't so neat.
Giles had found a bowie knife in a black sheath. He drew it and inspected the blade carefully. He flicked it delicately against his arm and shaved a tiny patch of skin bare. He held it up, and Buffy shrugged. Whatever he thought was okay by her. He knelt and strapped the knife to her leg.
"Test the draw."
Buffy drew the knife and feinted with it. She re-sheathed it and tried the draw again. "Not bad."
"Right. Good. I don't want to load you down too much with hardware, but I do want you to have weapons easy to hand. You've always preferred a more improvisational approach, anyway."
"Improvisational. Does that mean unprepared?"
"Spontaneous. Creative. Absurd. Bloody lunatic."
He was smiling again, though, and Buffy knew he approved of her methods. Giles had once snarled at the Council that he'd taught her to win, not to obey. He sought the payoff strategy as single-mindedly as she. Though through different means.
He stood now in the middle of the tatami, hands on hips, glaring at the mess. "The first thing I'll do is have the new Slayers organize this room." Then he stopped and looked at her. "Pardon. That was overstepping my bounds."
"No, I think that's okay. I'll make you my official armorer in addition to my official evil grand vizier. And hey. Have Xander help?"
"Good thinking." Giles and Buffy both watched Xander on the other side of the room, already on the job sorting through chests of junk.
"You'll teach him your methods."
"Yes. And talk to him, when he's ready. About Anya." Giles sighed, then ran his hand through his hair until it stood on end. "We'll need a larger space than this for training. And more equipment."
"I think I'm ready to do some of the training myself. The basics for sure. And it's better for them to spar with me."
Giles had been cannier than she for ages, but she'd equalled him there, and now strength told. And she was going to be cannier than the new Slayers for a while. She didn't bother to specify that she'd be leading the fights, and he'd be staying home unless he had an observation mission. They'd have that argument when it came to it, and not before.
"Oh. Hey. Not too much training? Give them a few weeks to chill. It's the summer, anyway."
Giles finished with the sheath on her left leg. "Recovery period. Yes."
"Each apocalypse has an equal and opposite vacation afterward."
Giles giggled.
"Hey, Buff, found the short swords. Angel's got a stash here. These look okay?"
Xander held up something with a damascened pattern in the blade that made Giles gasp with surprise. He ran over and snatched it from Xander, then apologized hastily. Buffy watched the two men discuss the blade. Giles held it up, and pointed out features to Xander. He had Xander rest it on a finger to find the balance point. The next generation of Watchers was officially in training. At least it was in good hands, with Giles and maybe Wesley— if they could talk him into it— teaching them all. Starting over with new traditions, new rules. Rules invented by her, by Faith, by all of them as they figured out how things worked in the new twelve-Slayer world.
What the hey. Buffy grinned, and stretched, and felt her healed side move and bend without pain. None of that serious stuff needed to happen right now. They'd hunt the Turok Han tonight, when they were tanned, rested, and ready.
"Hey! You two! Quit geeking over the swords. We can do this stuff after dark. Let's get the Slayerettes and scrub out the pool. I wanna go swimming now."
Giles rolled his eyes, but he set the short sword down. Xander rubbed his hands against his jeans. The three of them trooped out of the armory together, in search of the Slayers and sunshine.
The Watcher and his one-eyed apprentice stand in the background, nervous seconds to their principals. It is their lot to stand aside while their warriors find battle in the night. She fights demons; he prepares her to fight. He watches her. He is witness to her deeds, and he records them so that future generations might sing her praises.
Though so many traditions have been lost, this one has not. And now they create new ones.
She leads the Slayers; he teaches her to lead. She will never fight alone again. And she will return at dawn, flushed, rumpled, triumphant, linked arm in arm with her sisters, her charges. She does so now. The Watcher and his apprentice count heads, scan for injuries, and nod to each other in satisfaction.
The Watcher is only truly at peace when his Slayer returns from the hunt, triumphant, and is folded in his arms. So many of them have been denied this comfort, or denied their need for it, and have suffered in consequence. Not so these two, whom we shall leave as we found them, embracing each other in joy.
Giles stood barefoot, in t-shirt and jeans and resenting even that much clothing, in the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel. His nerves jumped and his skin itched. Angel spread his hands, helpless and baffled. The Hyperion had no air conditioning. It had never occurred to him to want it. Why did they want it now?
The Santa Ana winds, Wesley said, standing behind Cordelia’s wheelchair, turning the summer night into dry hell, choking it with the desert dust and the ash of forest fires a hundred miles away. Cordelia snorted, and told Angel that it was because it was hot. She waxed long on the topic of vampires and their lack of consideration for the needs of the living, such as the need for ramp access to her room until she recovered. She was still waxing when Xander nudged Giles’ arm and dragged him over to where he’d repaired the surviving ice machine, just off what had been the lobby. Giles gratefully filled the little plastic bucket Xander gave him.
The elevator doors shut on the lobby noise, and it lurched into motion. Giles rode with the ice bucket up to the top floor, where Buffy and he had set up. Set up for what, he had no idea. Nor did he need one, just yet. Days spent lounging poolside under an umbrella, watching Buffy swim while he read, nights spent in restful talk, or restless silence. Tonight it was too hot for either, and too hot to sleep. Dry, itchy.
Anything could happen.
The elevator released him onto the stifling hallway. As he stepped from it, the lights died and the hotel sighed to silence. The doors froze, half-shut behind him. And then a moment later, voices echoing from the stairwell, as its residents called to each other. Giles was enough of a Californian now to curse PG&E and its rolling outages, and still enough Watcher that the darkness of the hallway did not trouble him. He made his sure-footed way to their door, bare feet silent on the carpet.
His Slayer, his lover, was face down on the bed, stretched out diagonally across the sheets. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of his boxer shorts, and looked ridiculous and adorable. She rolled over and sat up, head cocked.
“The building just lost power. I have ice.”
“Power’s out all over. Heard it. There was a sort of collective groan from the street.” She gestured vaguely toward the open window. The breeze coming through was hotter than the air in the room, and bone-dry.
Giles tossed the bucket to her. Buffy caught it easily. He shucked his jeans and let himself fall across the bed next to her. She was on her back, arms clasped loosely around the bucket resting on her belly. Condensation dripped down the sides. She’d rested a single ice fragment on the center of her forehead. Giles watched it melt, watched silvered droplets of water run down to her temples. He set the bucket aside on the bed. He took another piece of ice, already wet and dripping, and ran it down her nose to her lips. She opened her mouth for it, but he painted the ice across her lips, around and around. He let it rest in the groove under her nose. She twitched.
“This is called the philtrum.”
“Oh?”
“The root is the Greek word for love. The ancient Greeks thought it was an erogenous zone.”
She smiled at him, and the ice slid down and vanished, a damp spot on the sheets. “So does modern Buffy.”
Giles let his mouth brush over her cool lips. He reached into the bucket for more ice. This piece he slid over her throat, over the pulse point of the carotid, down to the hollow at the base.
“This is the throat. It’s also an erogenous zone, according to some.”
Buffy closed her eyes. “Did the Greeks have a funny name for it?”
“I don’t know,” said Giles.
He kissed the places he’d wet with the ice, bending over her in the dim room. Salt, sweat, peaches. Far below, on the street, a car alarm howled. He reached a hand into the ice bucket and touched it to her breastbone. He traced around the edges of her neckline. Buffy shivered delicately. He pressed his lips to her damp chest, and slipped a hand under her shirt.
Anything could happen.
The car alarm silenced itself at last. The Santa Ana blew hot through the open windows. The curtains lifted and fell with it. Something metallic flapped in the street below. The only sound in their hotel room was Buffy’s gasp as he slid himself home. Giles let himself rest inside her for a moment, eyes closed. Savoring her, and the feeling in his chest. The sweet ache.
It had happened four times before, four times before this summer floating at the Hyperion. All hurried, uncertain. No opportunity for exploration, for taking his time with her. No chance to figure out what she liked, truly. Now, however, now— he had all the time he wanted. He could be patient. Though often she was not.
“What’s the hold up?” she said.
“You said you wanted it slow. It’s a night for slow. And deep.”
Slow and deep to soothe jumping nerves and itching skin. Buffy wrapped her legs around his waist and snugged him close. Her belly, flush against his, was cool and damp from the ice. Her body felt wonderful around him, warm and slick and soft. So sweet. Inexperienced in so many ways, despite her earlier partners. She was curious, however. About sex. About him. About the city around them. Curious and eager for all of life.
He lifted his head to kiss her mouth. Her eyes crinkled, and she giggled against his lips.
“Sorry. Just thinking about you and, you know.”
“Who?” Giles kissed her neck again.
“Ethan.”
She moved under him, rocking her hips up, and he took the hint and began to move. More slowly than she thought she wanted, withdrawing himself in a long slow tease, then holding himself motionless again until she rose to meet him.
“What brings him to mind?” Giles said, and thrust back in.
Buffy groaned, but could not be dissuaded. “Can’t imagine that guy liking it slow.”
He withdrew himself again. “He’s like you. Impatient. Insatiable.”
Buffy snorted. “Impatient, imprudent, imprisoned.”
“Oh, goodness, no. He sent me a series of mocking postcards from Las Vegas a week later.” They’d been entirely salacious. Giles hadn’t been able to meet the eyes of his postman for weeks.
“You really slept with him. Then he turned you into a demon.”
“Mmmm. Most ungrateful of him.”
She’d dragged parts of the story from him in the first days they’d been here, after she’d seduced him the first time. Seduced? No. All she’d had to do was kiss him, and he’d handed himself over to her again, utterly. He did have a bad habit of giving himself over completely to lovers. Though perhaps it would work out better this time. Hope springs eternal. Difficult not to feel hopeful, here in bed with his Slayer, her restless fingers exploring his chest, stroking down his flanks, striving to tease him into going faster.
His control did not waver. He counted heartbeats, and made her wait.
“You and Ethan. Dating. Can’t picture it.”
Giles laughed. “Dating somehow isn’t… wild enough a word for it.”
“In love?”
“Love isn’t the right word, either. Monomania. Mutual immolation. A year of madness. And sex. And most extraordinary highs. We tried to climb into each other’s skins.”
Buffy made a thoughtful sound, and mussed the hair at his temples. “Can’t picture you in bed, either. Trying to imagine what you did, with him. That night.”
Giles studied his Slayer. There was something in her face, something intense. Restless and unsatisfied. “You want to know what we did?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll show you.” Giles withdrew abruptly and knelt over her. He growled at her. “Roll over. Now.”
“Oh my God,” Buffy said, faintly, but she rolled onto her face.
He arranged the pillows under her so her arse was raised to him. He caressed it with the same slow patience he’d shown earlier, when he was painting her skin with ice. Her skin was ghostly pale in the dim light from the windows. He couldn’t see his goal, but he could find it well enough. Brush his fingers around it and make her flinch and tremble with anticipation. Touch her everywhere but that one place, drawing all her attention there.
Giles reached to the nightstand where she had a wide jar of some thick lotion. She’d been using it on her elbows and hands. He screwed off the top and scooped out some onto the fingers of his right hand. It smelled like coconut, not too sweet. He slicked it over himself generously, not lingering. His breath had gone short at the thought of what he was about to do. She’d never been taken this way. He would be the first.
Another scoop of the cream. The coconut scent was strong, and he knew he’d be thinking of this moment every time she used it from now on. He stroked it over and around her, finally touching her.
She jumped. “Oh God.”
“Be still,” with the growl in his voice.
“Just, just… I’m nervous.”
He leaned forward and kissed between her shoulder blades. “I’ll stop if you wish,” he said, softly, all the bluster gone. It was the wrong approach to use with her.
“S’okay. Please. I want to. I’ve always wondered—”
He let his left hand stroke up and down her back, while his right waited.
“I’ve done this many times. It’ll be all right. It’ll feel good. Relax. Like that, yes. Let yourself melt. Trust me. I know what you’re feeling. Mmmm.”
She hummed along with him, and he knew she was finally where he wanted her to be. He let his fingers find their goal again. She let out a breath, and he felt her settle further under his hands.
“That’s right. Feel that? So many nerve endings there. So sensitive. Some people reach orgasm just from this. Yes, that’s it. Let me in.”
He slid his finger in, taking his time, caressing. He hadn’t done this since that night with Ethan. He liked it as much as he always had. The idea that there was no part of his partner’s body off-limits. No part of his own body, for that matter. The idea of the last secrets revealed. Buffy at last responded with a pleased sound.
“Do you like how it feels?”
“Yes. Never thought.”
“Nobody ever touches us here. It’s forbidden. Dirty. Secret.” She opened further for him on those words, and began to move, pushing back just the tiniest bit onto his questing fingers. “Do you like that it’s dirty?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
Giles leaned over her back, holding her close. “My dirty sweet girl. I like that you like it. I want you to feel good.”
On those words he entered her, pressing himself just inside. Buffy moaned and tightened around him. Giles held himself motionless and counted heartbeats again, willing himself not to come right away, not to lose control yet.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Go slow?”
“Ah. She wants it slow. She begs me to be slow.”
Buffy laughed. Giles moved, again with infinite patience, easing himself into her. He caressed her everywhere he could reach. She’d always had exquisite control, and she trusted him. She was trembling under him, covered in sweat. So was he. He pressed on until he was all the way inside. He held himself snug against her backside and gulped in deep breaths.
“You okay?” She sounded uncertain.
“God. Yes. Trying not to come. So tight. Feels so— You have no idea.”
“What’s the hold up?” she said, and he heard laughter in her voice. His heart turned over.
“Slow and deep, my love. A night for slow and deep.”
And slow and deep it was, two fingers caressing her, one hand on her hip to brace himself as he moved. Giles tested his own patience to the limits, and beyond. She was close, he could feel it, hear it in her voice, in the way her breath had begun to come ragged.
She squeezed him and he thought he might die. Die, or come. Or both. He swore, and slammed into her hard. Hard and fast and deep and everything he’d wanted to hold himself back from, but he was beyond control now. Listening to her cry out beneath him, his hand on her clit and his body hard against hers, the hot dark night and no one around them, just her tight arse and his cock inside it. She was coming, shuddering underneath him and around him, and Giles clutched her hip and held himself motionless inside her and let go.
Too hot to collapse on her, though he knew his weight wouldn’t trouble her. He rolled onto his back and breathed. Waited for his heart to slow, counting. God.
“Bloody hell. That was fantastic. Hell.”
She sniffled, and guilt shot through him. Giles rolled onto his side and touched her shoulder.
“Buffy, I ought to have asked. I’m sorry. Lord. What’s—” He pulled her close and kissed her wet face.
“No, I’m okay. Just too much. It felt… you know what it felt like. Intense. Different. Sort of… like you saw all of me.”
“Ah.” He kissed her shoulder. This he understood. “Are you worried about what I saw?”
“No. Yes. Sorry, incoherent Buffy.”
Giles kissed her and nuzzled her hair. “I respect you completely. I like making you feel good. You deserve it.”
She giggled through her tears and leaned up against him. Her skin was hot and sweaty. He sighed with relief. She was all right. “Intense, yes, that’s the word,” he said.
“No kidding. I’ll still feel it tomorrow.”
“One of the pleasures. Feeling one’s self well-fucked the next morning.”
Buffy disengaged from him. Giles let himself slump back onto the bed. The sheets were damp beneath him. She sat up and stretched.
“So, Ethan left you well-fucked, huh?”
Giles laughed softly. “Usually the reverse. Though there were some times—”
“Tell me about them in the shower. In the nice long cool shower. In the dark.”
But as she said the words, the lamp by the bedside clicked on, and the ceiling fan creaked into motion. Someone in the street below cheered.
Four times before. Before this floating summer at the Hyperion. There were times when he found it a weight upon his heart, to see her indifferent to him, and remember when she had not been. Though now, now lying quiet with her, stroking her hair as she slept, Giles was at peace.
Four times. Watcher recall is ever green.
"You had something you wanted to say?"
"No... it's nothing."
Giles picked up his teacup, to give himself something to focus on. His throat had constricted with emotion too complex for words, and he needed a moment to control himself.
She wanted him to be her Watcher again.
He'd been about to crawl back to England defeated. Five years ago he'd abandoned a career and a nascent relationship to fulfill his vocation; he had decided to return with vocation and career and relationship all shattered, alone in all ways. No partner, no Slayer, no center to his life. His Slayer was still alive on a Hellmouth, still alive and effective and not in need of him at all. He must find his consolation there. Nothing he valued from his life remained to him otherwise.
Or so he'd thought when he sat down and poured tea for Buffy. In two minutes of conversation she'd overturned his world. Now, he swallowed, and attempted to get command of his face. He looked down at the cup in his hands, at the quivering surface of the tea.
Buffy's hand closed over his. She steadied him, then took the cup and set it on the tray.
"Are we okay?"
"Yes, yes, why wouldn't we be?"
"Oh, I dunno. Just, the whole last year of me ignoring you? I'm gonna screw up again, Giles. I'm going to make mistakes. But I'm not going to make that one again."
In another breath she'd straddled him and was sitting on his lap, facing him, hand on his shoulders. Giles opened his mouth, but she laid her fingers across it.
"This calls for serious hugs, Giles. Major hugs."
"All right, then."
He closed his arms around her back and pulled her to his chest. It had been so long since anyone had touched him, in this or any other way. Giles shivered, and tightened his arms for a moment, unthinking. Her breath was hot on his ear. She kissed it. He mirrored her, nuzzling into her hair. He breathed in her light floral scent, faintly sweet, and below it the scent of Buffy. Slayer. Something in her blood, that hereditary Watchers could sense. He wondered if there was something in his blood she could scent. Romantic nonsense, perhaps, both ideas. He gathered her hair behind her back and ran his fingers through it. He would never, ever be able to touch her as much as he needed to just then.
Buffy pulled back. She was smiling. Then she kissed his nose. His shoulders shook with a laugh. He returned the kiss, just a quick brush across the tip of her nose. She was smiling at him, and his chest ached to see it. A sweet ache, one that had tears threatening, though he was laughing with her, and rubbing his nose against hers.
Which one of them kissed the other first, he wasn't sure, though he would have sworn it was she and not he. He would never have dared. So Buffy kissed him, then, and again, and something tore free in his chest. He kissed her, and handed himself over to her. Let her remove his glasses and ruffle his hair. Let her kiss him, long and slow, eyes closed, hands clasped. Let her tug his shirt free from his trousers and run her hands over him. Watched her undress herself, revealing a taut and tanned body. Raised his hips and let her slide his trousers down to his knees. Let her claim him.
When she touched him he shivered.
He gripped the arm of the sofa, struggling to stay passive, to take only what she wished to give him. He wouldn't push, couldn't push. She was his Slayer again, and if she needed something he would give it to her. They'd warned him, his one-time employers had, in dark voices, that this was always a temptation between Watcher and Slayer, but something he must never allow her to do. Her instincts were not to be trusted, on this or any other issue. Fools they were to try to keep them separated; fool he was to have listened to them.
This, now, with Buffy astride him, sinking herself onto him, it was inevitable. It was right. No thoughts of bureaucracy or rules or assignments. It was the way it had been through all the long years since the birth of humans and demons. His dream: it had shown the way. Men and women, behaving as they always had. The Slayer claiming her Watcher, becoming one with him, taking from him what she needed.
And giving him what he needed: tender fingers stroked the tears away from his face, until he was smiling up at her, until he was able to give himself over to the pleasure of her body, her sweet body so warm and slick, moving over him with such power and grace. His Slayer again.
"What's this one?"
"Algiz. It means protection."
"You painted these?"
"Mm. And did a warding ritual, to dedicate the space."
Giles didn't often like to do magic, but the cleansing and sanctification of their training space had seemed to him to be a worthy use of the power. And the ritual had felt good to perform. He'd buzzed for hours afterward, but not with the sick dizzy-spin of a selfish working. He'd had a sense of well-being and groundedness the likes of which he hadn't felt in years. The echoes were still present in the room. An opportunity for a lesson, perhaps.
"You might," he said, in his Watcher voice, "try reaching out with your inner senses to feel the boundaries of the space. Close your eyes. Find your center."
Buffy had closed her eyes on his first words. Her face cleared. She drifted a few paces to her left and came to rest in the exact center of the room. He watched her face as she moved herself down into a light trance. They'd been working on that technique, and she was becoming comfortable with the basics. He'd teach her next to be able to use her senses without needing the trance. He was pleased with her progress. She was, as ever, the best Slayer he'd seen.
Giles closed his own eyes and let his consciousness shade out into the room. He found her there with him, a bolder and more powerful presence than he. He was aware of the places where he'd marked the walls with runes of power, of the blessing of the Powers, asked for humbly and received. Of her, stalking from corner to corner, measuring out the space he'd prepared.
His Slayer spoke his name. Giles opened his eyes. She grinned at him and leapt up at him. He caught her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She weighed nothing.
"Thank you. It's the best present a Slayer can get from her Watcher."
"Oh? Better than a new sword?"
"This is even better. It's huger, for one thing. Plus swords don't come with pommel horses. It must have cost a bundle, Giles."
"I found a deal," he said, evasively. He resettled his arms around her, to hold her closer.
Dared he hope? She had given him no signs since that afternoon in his flat. She'd been affectionate, far more physically casual with him than she'd been before, but she had said nothing. And she was still dating Riley. Giles didn't dislike the man, but neither did he like him. He mattered to Giles only as much as he mattered to Buffy.
Giles set thoughts of Riley aside easily, and focused on Buffy's grinning face. He was content, so long as she gave him her smile this freely. Kissed him this deeply. Their partnership was better than it had ever been, tighter, warmer, with a deep mutual trust they'd shared rarely before. Buffy had been right to act. He had thought long about the Council's policy, and found himself furious over, of all things, the word "instinct". Buffy was no mute beast. She acted on intuition, perhaps, but more often on finely judged tactics. Her post-patrol debriefings had made this abundantly clear to him. His Slayer knew what she was about, and if she wanted him, she had a reason.
Giles pinned his heart to his sleeve, and kissed her back with all he was.
She pulled away with a little pout.
"I gotta run," she said to him. "Gotta do the homework thing. No time now."
She raised her eyebrows in a question, and he nodded. Message heard. There would be time later. She kissed him again and he released his grasp. She slid down to the floor and bounced. She gave him that bright, happy smile again, and sped away. Giles remained in the center of their training space, and contemplated the rune next to Algiz. Wunjo. Joy.
"Giles?"
The voice was Buffy's and it was coming from right next to his bed. Giles sat up, instantly awake. He reached over and clicked on the bedside light. He examined her anxiously, but she seemed physically well. His heart slowed. He reached a hand out, but stopped short of touching her.
"What's the trouble? Is anyone hurt?"
"No. It's Riley. He just flew off on a helicopter. Took an Army post in South America or some place as far away from here as he could get."
Giles scrubbed at his face while parsing through this. She meant permanently. "Oh, Buffy, I'm sorry."
"I'm not sure I am. Xander said he was my once in a lifetime guy, but I think Xander was full of it. Riley is a nice guy, kinda screwed up right now, but nice. And not the guy for me."
She sounded resigned. He sat up straighter, and pulled the blankets around his waist. He patted the side of the bed. Buffy sat down next to him.
"He never, ah, seemed to be comfortable with your Slayer abilities." Giles essayed this tentatively. He didn't like to criticize Riley at the best of times, and he distrusted his own motives just now. The feeling in his chest was relief. A selfish emotion. Likely not what his Slayer needed from him.
But she nodded. "I know. It got bad when he lost his own supercharger cyborg thing. But really, it was over when I found out he was going to that suck house. I can't-- Man. Could he have picked anything more annoying and stupid to do?"
Buffy sighed. Giles watched her face carefully, searching for his cue. She was sober, a little sad, not wildly unhappy. She had many things on her mind, with her mother ill and her sister not truly her sister. Taking Riley off the list had to be a relief. Even if he was biased, he knew it to be so.
He cast about for a gesture he could make safely. "Would you like some tea? Cocoa?"
"Nah. Just a big long snuggle, if you got one of those."
Giles lifted the blanket. "Well. Get in."
"Gimme a sec." Buffy stripped herself down to camisole and knickers, tossing her clothes into a pile bedside. She slipped in next to him and moved close. "You sleep in boxers?"
Giles cleared his throat. She had to have noticed the erection inside the boxers, but perhaps she was being polite. If she wanted him, she'd let him know. "When it's warm, yes."
"Why not nude?"
"Oh. Ah. Too many unexpected visitors in the small hours."
"Point taken," she said. Then she slid her hand down his belly to the waistband. "Take 'em off. No visitors after me tonight."
Giles flushed. "Of course," he murmured. The chorus in his chest sang hallelujah as he stripped.
They lay next to each other. Giles returned her soft kisses. He held her close. If all they did was touch this way, bodies entwined, he could be content. He stroked her gently in ways he hadn't had time to touch her before. Along her flank, her thighs, a tentative touch on her breast. When she gave a little gasp, he became bolder, and lifted her camisole to run fingers over bare skin, to tease her nipple into wakefulness. He shimmied down in the bed so that he might alternate lips and fingers, rousing her further, until he had succeeded in wildly exciting himself as well. Her knee was between his thighs, and he shamelessly rubbed himself against it. He rolled onto her and cradled himself on her, nudging himself against her.
"Let me-- may I-- God, Buffy, I need you."
"Stay chill, tiger," she said. She extracted herself from him and nudged him over onto his back. Off came her camisole and her knickers; he would have liked to have removed them himself, but he was grateful they were gone. Grateful to see her sweet body bared to him at last. Tanned, slim despite the muscle, confident. He caught that scent again, and wondered once again if there was something to the rumors, if Watchers and vampires might have something in common. He reached to touch her sex, but she batted his hand aside.
"Lie back. Let me do the work for a while."
Buffy climbed over him and knelt between his thighs. Giles spread his legs to give her room to do whatever it was she wanted. She studied him. Her eyes were on his penis. Would she touch him? Giles felt himself tighten at just the thought. He wondered if he could reach orgasm from imagining how she would touch him. Her tongue flicking against the head? Licking along his shaft? Swallowing him down? He tightened further. Any touch from her would be enough.
But she did not touch him. Instead she met his gaze and grinned. "I like the way it comes out of hiding when you're excited. And it twitches when you gasp like that. It's cute."
Giles burst into startled laughter. His excitement eased. "Don't think it's ever been called cute before."
"What has it been called, if I dare ask?"
"Hmm. 'My God' is a popular name. At least that's what they all seem to--"
Buffy smacked his thigh. "You, you guy, you."
The rejoinder on his lips turned into a gasp when she bent without warning and licked him from root to tip. She did it again, more slowly with wandering tongue, and he flung his arms out and moaned.
"Wow. You're usually so quiet."
"Do that again and I'll--"
"See that you do."
She did, and he did. He watched himself slide into her mouth. Wide-stretched lips, hollowed cheeks, eyes closed in concentration. She took what she wanted into her mouth, and grasped the rest with a hand, and Giles screwed his eyes shut and struggled to hold out, not to pop like a schoolboy at the first taste. She was too much, too beautiful, too desirable, too intense, and he cried out his delight.
Much later, with the favor returned several times over, the room was quiet again. Giles drifted to sleep with Buffy in his arms. He hoped he would find her here when he woke, and again the next night. Perhaps now that her boyfriend was gone, now that she was truly free.
He awoke to more silence, and a sweet note on his refrigerator, signed with a line of hearts, but she herself was gone.
"A god."
"A hellgod, to be precise."
"Giles, I am not thinking that the exact adjective in front of it matters all that much. We're talking god-sized. Like, total orders of magnitude bigger than anything we have any clue about."
The shop was long since closed up for the night, shades pulled, doors locked. The Councilmen were gone. Giles poured himself a tot of the single malt they never had got round to drinking, then poured a second one for Buffy. Just a taste. She sat down next to him at the tarot table and sniffed at it. Then she drank a little.
"How do you kill a god?"
Giles had no answer. The Councilmen had had no answer to that question either. "It's beyond me, Buffy. I haven't the power to kill a god. You don't, and you are so much more powerful than I."
He tasted his whisky. Peat, dust, ashes. He put it down again.
Buffy drank hers off. "So the answer is, we don't. We need information. My job is to prevent her from getting my sister. Your job is to find out why she wants her."
"You know I'll give it my all."
"You always do."
Buffy toyed with her empty glass. She seemed deep in thought. Giles stood and paced. Bookshelves to table, table to counter, back. He stopped at the wall where Buffy had thrown the sword. It was there still, embedded a foot deep into his wall. She'd done something similar with the throwing axe as well. Hit the training dummy in the gold from clear across the room, while blindfolded. He had once thought her the best Slayer he'd ever seen. He knew now that she had risen far since that moment, that she would rise still further if she wished.
There was satisfaction in this, in knowing that he had fulfilled his own destiny as fully as a Watcher might, by training the greatest Slayer in the long line of Slayers.
He tugged the sword out with a grunt. He examined the blade. Distinctive markings. A starting point for research. He returned to the table and laid it down. He sat across from her again.
The greatest Slayer. Calling her merely a Slayer was denying the reality that was Buffy, the whole human being she was. A student, daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover. Sometimes, his lover. Not merely his Slayer. She had ambitions for a degree in psychology, for a career, for a life far richer than the one circumscribed by nightly patrols and demon-fighting. He would do anything to ensure she need not give up those dreams.
But what if research or translation were not what was required? What if laying his own life down would not help? What could these poor hands do?
What would happen if the hellgod found her key? He supposed it all depended on that. And therefore it would, as always, depend on knowing one's enemies. The fate of humanity rested on those slim shoulders. And therefore it also rested on him. Giles removed his glasses and rubbed at the divots on the sides of his nose. He felt as if he hadn't slept in weeks. And if he felt that way-- When had Buffy last taken a break? He put his glasses back on and examined her professionally. Yes, she looked done in.
"It's late," he said.
Buffy gave him a half-smile, as if she could see through his clumsy maneuvers. She stretched her arms over her head and rolled her shoulders. "Hey. Giles." Her voice was tentative. "Can I come home with you tonight?"
"Buffy. Of course. Always. You are always welcome in my home."
"No, I meant--" She trailed off.
"Always welcome in that way as well. Or any way you wish," he said, quietly. His chest ached, and he was half-aroused already, at just the hint she wanted to come to his bed. Oh, Rupert, you poor fool. She doesn't love you that way, not the way you want her to.
"I just want, God, something. To feel good."
He watched her press her neck muscles with a hand and wince. "Let's go, then. I'll give you a massage. Help you relax."
"I should go home. Guard Dawn. It isn't right to, to, waste time, have fun, while things are so scary and apocalyptic and all--" Buffy waved her hands.
"Buffy, you mustn't wear yourself out. You need to let yourself live. Enjoy things. You don't have to be on guard always. Let me help."
Buffy sighed. "Hard to turn it off, you know? I'm used to killing vamps, but when it gets this serious, I just, well. Don't know how to stop."
"Even the Slayer must rest, Buffy. Come. I'll take you home with me. We'll take a bit of a break together."
He held out his hand. She stood, slowly, and took it, and he led her out, and took her to his bed, and gave her surcease, if only for one night.
Giles set the kettle on the stove and reached up to the cabinet for the tea. He knew where everything was, now, where Joyce had kept everything from dried pasta to loose tea. He'd tried moving something once, to a more convenient location, but Buffy had silently returned it to its original place. He understood what the trouble was. He'd had similar issues when his father had died: his filing system, no matter how outmoded, had to be preserved. Giles had felt for years that he might appear at any moment to observe the innovations and tut.
So the tea remained up and in the back, and the sugared cereal in pride of place, and Giles quietly worked around it. Grief took strange paths in the human heart, and might wander its maze for years before its course was done. And Buffy had been allowed so little time to grieve undisturbed.
He leaned back against the counter and watched her pace. Round and round the kitchen, circling the island.
"Giles, I'm scared. It's been kinda grim, all this year. Been grim before, back when we had no clue what the Mayor was up to. But this. This is scaring me like I've never been scared."
He said nothing. Buffy continued to move. The Slayer paces; the Watcher watches. He could see the stress in her body, in the way she held her shoulders. Her face. The circles under her eyes.
"I've gone from a family to just her in five years. I used to have a mom and a dad and a sister. Now I have just her. I can't lose her. But I don't know how."
"Buffy," he said, and nothing further. She knew all he knew, and she knew that everything he had was dedicated to this search for information.
"Glory, social services, everything. It's just too much. I can't deal with any more."
"Buffy, I'll offer again. Let me move in. You needn't cope with Dawn on your own. It's a difficult time for both of you."
"No, Giles, I can't-- I can't let this ruin your life, too."
He opened his mouth to protest. Didn't she realize this was his life? Then he closed it again. The message was clear, though she seemed unaware of what she'd said. He'd failed. She was reduced. No college degree, no career. A glorious warrior, nothing more. An overburdened single parent to a sister who was, perhaps, not truly her sister. Giles wondered, not for the first time, what Dawn's parentage was. But it could not be said aloud.
"Buffy," he said. "Please. Let me help. I'm here to help you."
The kettle went. He turned off the gas and poured water. Fussing with the tea things distracted him from disloyal thoughts. Trust Buffy. Trust her decisions, which might be instinct but were more likely intuition. Sound intuition from a trained tactical mind. Trust her, though something inside Giles screamed that things were going wrong, there was something he'd missed. Some connection he'd failed to make.
He poured two mugs and sweetened hers the way she liked. Milk in both. A single spoon to set both spinning, then to the sink to wash it clean immediately. No tray with service and little cookies tonight. Just a quiet cup, standing in the kitchen. He drank, and tried not to fix his gaze on failure, but instead look at whatever it was Buffy was looking away from.
His jaw was tight. His dentist had told him he was grinding his teeth in his sleep.
"Giles. Make love to me."
"Now? We--"
"Now. I have a hunch. Don't ask. Just a hunch. We aren't going to get any more chances. Now. Or never."
Giles was frozen in place for a moment, thinking. As propositions went, blunt, heartbreaking, utterly grim. But his body had heard what it wanted, though his heart had not. And he suspected it never would. Poor fool Rupert.
Poor fool Rupert took off his glasses and set aside his tea and drew a deep breath and stepped over to her. And crushed her against his chest and took her mouth. She made a sound of satisfaction.
Giles lifted her to the counter top and sat her down. She weighed less than he remembered. He bunched up her skirt around her waist. His hands found her sex. He caressed her with his thumbs. She spread her thighs for him and threw her head back and let him be rough. He removed her knickers and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. He unzipped himself and entered her without preliminaries. She was ready, he was ready, and they had little time. He moved hard, fast. She slipped a hand down between them to touch herself, and he urged her on, begged her to come for him. Told her he'd come in an instant if she were to come around him. He said things he'd never said to her before, about sex, her body, how she felt around him, what he wanted to do, how he would make her feel. How she would shake for him.
And she did, over and over, to his immense and selfish gratification. Ripper knew how to please, men and women both. She'd walk away satisfied, if she could walk after this. Giles thrust, and felt her shudder again, and heard her cry his name. Rupert.
His own orgasm caught him by surprise. It was hard and swift and merciless. His knees failed him, and he would have fallen, but she caught him and held him up effortlessly, held him tight against her, inside her, while the aftershocks eased and his breathing slowed. Her grip on him was painfully tight, but he didn't mind. He held her just as desperately.
I love you, he thought, but did not say. I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for her. I'll never love Dawn as much as I love you.
"I think you'll like Ferlinghetti," the man behind the register said.
He had an accent like Giles', educated English. Dawn glanced up at him for a second while she dug inside her backpack for her wallet. She hadn't expected that. He was about Giles' age. He had a mischievous smile on a long face. She liked it, though she couldn't have said why.
The Englishman rang up her purchases on an old-fashioned register, the kind with long-throw keys that printed up a receipt on a thin strip of paper in blue ink. The kind the Magic Box had had. Dawn had learned to count up change behind that kind of cash register. He tucked the receipt into the title page of the Ferlinghetti, and slid book and change across to her. He stepped back to the Pavoni to brew her drink. He limped visibly even in the three steps he took. Dawn looked, and saw a cane hung on the edge of the counter, a spar of dark wood with an odd silver handle.
The milk steamer roared, then was choked silent. The man emptied the little silver pitcher into a wide porcelain cup, then poured in milk. He brought cup and saucer to Dawn and smiled for a moment. He re-perched himself on his high stool and returned to his own book. Heavy, leather-bound, the sort of thing Dawn associated with Giles and research parties. Nostalgia was sweet in her throat for a moment. She swallowed, and turned her back on it.
Dawn carried her coffee over to one of the two tables at the window, in the cafe area. A gray tabby cat dozed on the windowsill, in the sun. A half-high wall topped with planters separated it from the poetry bookshop. A couple of customers browsed the shelves. A man folded his newspaper, tucked it into his messenger bag, and left. His foam-stained latte glass remained on his table.
Another customer moved to the back of the shop and through a curtained doorway Dawn had not noticed until that moment. The curtains were dark red velvet. Over the door was a bas-relief of a two-faced head, done in some white stone. Dawn had been well-taught, by some definitions. She recognized Janus, wondered briefly if the cafe owner had chosen it for meaning or decoration, then turned her attention to the book of poetry. She wound her feet around the legs of her chair unconsciously as she read. She read the poetry slowly, stopping to think about it and re-read. A rebirth of wonder. A cat on the counter of a candy shop. Like the cat asleep in the window sill. No candy for sale, though. Just biscotti in glass jars.
It was nice to get out of the Hyperion, away from the gang. The Slayerettes. Angel, who never seemed to look at her straight on, and his weird employees. From Xander, who was dealing with grief by fixing everything he could get his hands on in the hotel. From Giles and Buffy, who were at least so obsessed with each other that they didn't bother Dawn any more. Thank heavens for small blessings: Buffy had released her manic over-control. There were moments when Dawn was happy to observe Angel's distress, but even that palled after a while.
Plus, she was bored. There was only so much self-study Latin and Sumerian she could take in a single day. It was nice to find a place to hang out. A long walk from the hotel, not so close that any of them would trip across it by accident.
A faint chime sounded in the back. The man slid down from his stool, cast a glance at Dawn, and took down his cane. He limped out from behind the counter, cane thumping and creaking on the warped hardwood floor, and vanished through the curtains underneath the two-faced man. Some time later the customer emerged, with a book, leather-bound, large, ragged gilt edges. The sort of book Dawn had grown up reading. A minute later, the shopkeeper followed. Dawn didn't look up, but listened to the uneven creaks on the floor. A sideline in magic books, then. Poetry and coffee in the front, grimoires in the back. Open mike night on Wednesday, closed on Sabbat Day. Dawn grinned to herself.
The only downside was that she was no longer certain her refuge would be safe from visits from the Hyperion crew. Wesley at least had to know about this place.
Dawn put the book into her backpack and ran a hand over her hair. She looked up over the door as she went to leave, and saw another bas-relief of Janus. Bearded man, androgynous youth. God of gateways. Tacked up next to the door was a hand-lettered card. Help wanted. Dawn stopped, and yielded to impulse. She turned and walked over to the counter.
"I see you're looking for help," she said, directly, meeting the man's eyes. "I'm available, and I know about books. I'd like to fill out an application."
"Ah. Yes. I'm not sure you're, er, entirely qualified."
"Unqualified to do what? To run a cash register? Make espresso? Handle selling whatever's in the back room to your non-human customers?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"I have experience with non-humans and retail," she said, still defiant.
The eyebrow stayed up. "You can see the back room," he said, as if thinking aloud.
"Yeah. Am I not supposed to? Is there a glamour on it?"
The shop owner gazed at her and stroked his jaw. "There is, but quite a simple one. All it takes to see past it is, shall we say, awareness of a world beyond the mundane. Which you clearly have."
He looked at her again, meeting her eyes, and Dawn felt herself spinning dizzy for a long second. Then the man blinked, and she wondered if she'd imagined it. But his face had changed. He reached below the counter and came out with a xeroxed form, with the logo of the shop on top. Angel City Books and Cafe. Peter Martin, proprietor.
"Fill this in for me, would you?
Dawn filled out the form quickly, printing neatly with block capitals. She'd learned some time ago some tricks for making her writing appear older than it was. No loopy script and rounded dots. Her name. Address of the Hyperion, and the phone number of the front desk, where that moronic vampire chick might or might not answer, and might or might not remember Dawn's name. She slid the form back to the man. His face did not change as he glanced down the form, up at her, then back down again.
"Have you worked before?" he said.
Dawn shrugged. "I've got experience. At a, a shop in that line of business. Not official on the books experience," she added, looking up. She didn't want to mislead him. "A friend owned the shop. And I've never used one of those." She gestured toward the espresso machine, the long expanse of gleaming red enamel and stainless steel.
"You'll learn in five minutes. Sorting out my inventory system will take you longer."
"I doubt it," said Dawn, before she could catch herself.
The shop owner didn't seem to mind. His face transformed in an easy smile. "I would pay minimum wage, but given that you can help with the, ah, more esoteric side of things, shall we say seven dollars an hour?"
Dawn nodded, on uncertain ground suddenly. Was that good or bad? Should she negotiate? "Do you need references?" she said.
Giles would probably do it just to make Buffy happy, and not mention the shoplifting. That was a different person who'd done that, anyway. Not the person Dawn was turning herself into now.
"I have my own means of determining reliability." The laugh once again chased itself across his face and vanished.
He stuck out his hand, and Dawn shook it.
"Well, then. Welcome to Angel City Books. You're my first employee, Miss Summers."
"Pleased to meet you, Mr Martin."
"Oh, sorry. The form is out of date. That's the previous proprietor. My name is Rayne. Ethan Rayne. Come by at nine-thirty tomorrow. We open at ten."
Dawn hadn't been certain she'd show up in the morning. Even if Mr Rayne didn't know who she was, she knew who he was. She'd worn one of his costumes, a burglar getup with a mask, and had a deep and intimate knowledge of safecracking and lockpicking as a result. She'd heard all about the demon thing, too.
Then she'd watched Giles pour Buffy's coffee and smile at her in that way that said there was no one else in their universe. And Wesley was doing the same thing with this Texas chick. Angel was all over Cordelia, still weak from her magical coma-thing, or whatever the hell it was. Xander hadn't paid attention to her in days, except to ruffle her hair and ask her to pass him the wrench for whatever it was he was fixing now. Nobody was going to notice her. Nobody did notice her. To hell with them all.
Dawn didn't even bother to mention that she'd gotten a job. She just got herself dressed-- black shirt for the poetry crowd, colorful vest over the top, hair tied back for the espresso machine part, sensible shoes on her feet-- and walked. Rush-hour traffic roared along Santa Monica Boulevard. Nine in the morning, and she had her sunglasses on. The summer heat shimmered up from the asphalt. She ducked over onto the side street of shops where Angel City was. A broad green shade had been pulled down behind the plate-glass window, nearly down to the low sill. The sign in the door said "closed". Dawn laid her hand on the doorknob.
It was locked.
A chime sounded within. Mr Rayne appeared at the door and let her in. It was cool inside the shop. The cat sat in the patch of sunlight from the half-shaded window. It groomed its face.
Mr Rayne drew Dawn back to the doorway with a gentle hand on her elbow.
"Allow me to introduce you to my janitor. He guards this door. Quartus? This is Dawn Summers. She is welcome here."
He gestured at the white stone bas-relief. It shimmered and seemed to move and Dawn swore it spoke. Rayne glanced sidelong at her. "The janitor is--"
"I know," said Dawn, and shrugged. "Janus. Gateways."
"And transitions," Mr Rayne said. "My little guardian knows you now. You will be able to enter at any time."
"Cool," said Dawn, and it was cool. Mr Rayne had impressed her already. The Magic Box didn't have anything so cool. She gave him her perkiest smile. "So. Show me what my job is."
Rayne did. He was right that it took her only a few minutes to get comfortable with the espresso machine and its nozzles and levers. After the morning rush was over, she knew how to steam milk and judge the temperature with a hand on the bottom of the pitcher, how to interpret the Italian words the customers used to order: Americano, doppio, ristretto, macchiato. Rayne was a past master of coffee-brewing. He seemed to enjoy the banter with regulars.
The bookselling business was more suited to Dawn's talents, as she saw them. She knew poetry. Or was starting to know poetry. It was almost a disappointment when she realized that the poetry bookshop was a front for the magical bookshop in the back. The shop's considerable profit was in that business, and in a sideline of artifact sale. Next in profitability came the coffee, and last the small-press poetry chapbooks.
Before the first week was out, she'd learned that her true talent lay in a very different sort of books. It lay in shaking out Rayne's tangled accounting and setting it straight. His accounting system wasn't so much confusing as insane. It took Dawn several days to understand it and, in the end, replace it. She didn't tell him she'd gone to the local public library in the evening, after closing time, and swotted up on how small retail accounting systems should go. She also read about software, but decided not to mention that. She'd seen no signs in the shop of technology newer than 1975. Even the Pavoni was an older one, though in beautiful condition.
On Saturday, near closing time, Rayne wrote up Dawn's first paycheck, doing the tax necessities she'd explained to him. She watched him write out the check and sign his name with a flourish. Fountain pen. The guy was more like Giles than he wanted to be, probably. Or maybe that was the other way around. Only with Mr Rayne, there'd be a story about how he got the fountain pen, involving a narrow escape from a disreputable sorcerer and probably the police as well. And he'd tell the story so engagingly, leaning forward to touch Dawn's arm to emphasize a point about the sorcerer's black-stained hands, and the steadiness of Rayne's own elegant hands as he lit a casual cigarette after the chase.
Rayne cleared his throat, and Dawn realized he was holding out the check for her. She took it and looked: her first paycheck ever. She couldn't stop herself from smiling as she folded it and tucked it away in her wallet.
"A marvelous first week, Miss Summers. I can already tell that I cannot do without you. I'll see you on Tuesday."
Dawn grinned, and had to restrain her urge to skip out the door. Grownups did not skip. Sophisticated world-weary constructed entities did not skip.
She stopped at an ATM to deposit the first check in her account. She stared at the balance, glowing green on the screen. It was not what it had to be, to pay for a year of college. That was another thing she was mad at Buffy about. She'd passed the test and gotten her diploma a year early. The letter had arrived, but Buffy hadn't asked what it was. Hadn't given Dawn a reason to boast. Hadn't offered to help her plan for college. Dawn had to do it all on her own. But she could.
She was Dawn Summers, and that meant she was self-reliant and plucky and brave.
Mr Rayne paid her every Saturday, and after the first two times, didn't need any help from Dawn to get the taxes right. He'd entirely given over the bookkeeping to her, but refused to allow her to tend to customers in the back room. There were etiquettes, he explained to her, complex rules of interaction, that were at times touchy. Sometimes the demons remembered that they were on a human's territory, and sometimes not. He would teach her, he promised, but in the meantime, he would not allow her in the back room while customers were present. The guardian over the doorway to the back, Tertius, enforced this restriction.
There were times when Dawn thought she would never want to be back there. It smelled strange, not like the warm comfortable coffee and cinnamon of the front. Damp and smoky at once, somehow. Mr Rayne had books that were seriously dark. Books bound in human skin, inked in blood and the ash of martyred saints, he said, and Dawn thought it was no wild claim. Giles had refused to sell books like that, though he'd owned some. He'd kept them locked in the safe, and he'd taken them away with him when he abandoned them all.
Those books were profitable. Rayne sometimes made special trips to acquire them, from estate sales and antiquarian conventions. In one case, he bid on the contents of the storage facility left in default by someone who wouldn't be showing up to claim it. Rayne seemed quite sure of his information on that one. The crate had contained some books he'd fussed over, a bag of blood-stained clothing, and an axe with gore crusted on the blade. Dawn shivered and dutifully entered each book into the ledger. Rayne cleaned the axe and burned the clothing in a brazier in the alley behind the shop.
They got along. It was strange, but they did. He was social, far more social than she expected. She had formed the impression from years of watching Giles that Englishmen were introverted and stammering, a trifle overwhelmed by too much social pressure, and prone to outbursts of surprisingly skilled violence. Ethan Rayne was not like this. Educated, yes, polite, reserved when on guard, but suave and gregarious with the customers. He knew something about each of his regulars in the morning coffee rush, and the people who came in to browse the unprofitable poetry in the front. Dawn watched him, and imitated, and learned that there ways to manipulate people that did not use power. Bestow a smile upon them and remember that they liked a scrape of fresh nutmeg across the top of their cup, and you went far toward relaxing someone who was uncertain that he truly needed the Oak and Thorn Herbology, or the complete set of Witchfinder Annals, Cambridge University reprint edition. The odd cup on the house turned browsers into buyers.
About the poetry there was more dispute. Mr Rayne cheerfully mocked her interest in Sylvia Plath as entirely predictable, and pushed her in the direction of Jacobean poets, men, who wrote elaborate puzzles with words, with Latin mixed in. Dawn surprised him with her facility with Latin, and she found the Sumerian tutor she'd been wanting. Giles, she told herself, wouldn't have consented to do it even if she'd asked. He was busy. Had more important things to do than Dawn. Chiefly, Buffy.
She broke the news of her job to Buffy on Tuesday the second week, when Buffy happened to be awake early enough to see Dawn heading out. Or, more likely, she'd been up all night vampire-hunting and stayed up to meet Giles on the flip side for breakfast. Buffy stared at Dawn's neat clothes and tied-back hair, and said, "That doesn't look very summer vacation-y. What's up?"
"I have a job. Had it for a while now. In a poetry bookshop. I make seven bucks an hour."
That last dig went home; Buffy had never made that much at the burger place. To Dawn's surprise, Buffy controlled the anger. "Why?"
"To earn money for college."
"But, Dawn--" said Buffy.
"Sorry, gonna be late. See you at dinner."
Dawn took off, and didn't hear whatever else Buffy had to say. That evening Giles gave her a mild catechism about the job, while Buffy hovered. When he heard the name Angel City and Peter Martin, he relaxed.
"Oh! Yes, yes. Quite famous. Associated with the Black Mountain school, at one time. You should meet some interesting people there. Well done, Dawn."
And that was the end of it. Dawn was almost angry to realize that they would allow her to pursue her summer plans in peace, that they trusted her. Which surely they could not. Surely it was that they didn't care. Or they would have found out that Giles' old enemy Ethan Rayne was really her employer. She was aware, at some level, that she was being unfair to them. But it didn't matter. she'd been simmering on this for nearly three years. Nearly as long as she'd been in existence.
And their opinion didn't matter. She was being responsible. Adult. She was taking charge of her own life, and it felt good. It felt good to get to know the regulars, and make easy jokes with them. It felt good to read poetry during the slack hours of the early afternoon, with Loki the cat dozing on the shelf next to her. To teach her employer a few new tricks, while learning from him. And getting to know him.
He was amiable for a guy who made Giles go non-linear the way he did if you even said his name. She guessed he was fifty-ish, but it was hard to tell. He looked older than Giles, more worn. Fine lines radiated out from his eyes and down from the corners of his mouth, and his hair was shot with gray at the temples. His left leg troubled him, and he often retreated to his stool to take his weight off it. He was restless otherwise, in constant motion, drumming a pencil on the desk, fidgeting. He was happiest when there were customers for him to flirt with and seduce into buying, or when he was actively using magic. He seemed to have a mail-order business in small magical objects, charged devices, usually small animal fetishes of wood and stone.
Dawn asked him what they did, once, several weeks into their arrangement. Rayne laughed.
"The usual, my dear. Like any man who wishes to make money, I cater to the obsessions of humanity. Love and sex, chiefly. And the thwarting of our rivals. Most of these are harmless."
"They don't work?" she said, uncertainly.
"Oh, they work, just not in a grand sort of way. They turn heads, trip feet, and in three months have lost their virtue. Mostly."
Mostly. Rayne was strangely careful with the truth. Dawn watched him rub oil into a tiny wooden carving of a sleeping cat. His long mobile face was still for once, intent on the task. He favored dark clothing, and was in wine red and black today. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow. He wore silver rings on his thumbs.
He looked up and met her eyes. Dawn looked away quickly.
"You've been staring at me all day. Why?"
Dawn blushed hot. "I dunno. Wondering."
"About what?"
"Well, you. Everything. I know almost nothing about you."
"What on earth might be interesting to you about a man more than thirty years your senior, I cannot guess. No, wait. I can. I am a fascinating fellow."
Then he laughed and turned what ought to have been a display of ego into a joke against himself.
Dawn said, "Well, yeah."
"Ask!" he said, sweeping out his arms.
"What happened to your leg?"
"The American government happened to it," Mr Rayne said, and then was silent. His arms curled in, around his chest, as if he were cold. Or defending himself against something.
Dawn thought about what had happened to him after he'd turned Giles into a demon. Riley had arrested him. Though what authority the Initiative had to arrest anybody-- Mr Rayne stared at her, and Dawn realized she'd said it out loud. His face darkened.
"How do you know about the Initiative? What are you doing here? Are you--"
"No! No. It's not like that. I lived in Sunnydale. I, I. Okay. I have a confession to make, and you gotta promise to hear it out."
Rayne resettled his arms into a more natural crossed posture, deliberately, elaborately. Regaining his composure. He still looked angry. The sight of anger on that face was frightening. Dawn swallowed, and rested a hand on the edge of the counter to brace herself.
"Pray, continue. I am all ears."
"I'm the Slayer's sister. Buffy's sister. Giles? Her Watcher? I grew up with him around like some kind of uncle. I know you guys have some kind of history."
Rayne stared at her. "You're joking."
"No. Total scout's honor here. I'm Buffy's sister. We're staying nearby, in the Hyperion, after our house collapsed. I was bored one day, and saw your sign, and, I, you know. That's it, I swear. I had no plans. And I... I kinda like working here. With you."
Rayne laughed, and shook his head. "Rupert's Slayer has a sister? And she's working for me. How on earth did he hide that from me?"
"Um. He didn't. We've met before. You sold me a costume. When you sold Buffy hers."
Rayne sobered. "I don't recall seeing you before. I'd remember your face. Your hair. The fact that you were with the Slayer. Certainly I would recall the power inside you. I remember the girl with the Slayer aura, the red-haired girl, and the clumsy boy. No one else."
"It was-- Yeah. Okay. The monks made me, and gave everybody fake memories. I guess they missed you?"
"What?"
And that was how Dawn came to tell Mr Rayne all about how she came into existence, about glowing green balls of light, and insane Hellgods. He listened and took her entirely seriously. Somehow she forgot she'd wanted to ask him questions, and instead answered his. He asked questions she didn't have the answers to: What was her earliest memory, fake or otherwise? When did they think she'd come into being? How was Buffy able to close the gate that had been opened with her blood? Was she really Buffy's sister? How had she come into being as a human being with a soul? How had the monks achieved such a monstrous spell, the alteration of the memories of thousands of people?
They talked until long after closing, until long past dinnertime. Dawn's stomach rumbled, and she lurched back to a sense of herself and the world. She looked at the clock, and almost panicked. Buffy would kill her. She lunged for the phone, and got Buffy in her room. Buffy hadn't noticed the time, either.
"Yeah, we got busy doing inventory. I get overtime, though!" The lie came easily. "Not coming home just yet. Mr Martin is buying me dinner. Yeah, yeah. I won't be too much later. See ya!"
Dawn pushed a finger down over the hook. Mr Rayne took the handset from her with a graceful turn of his wrist, and dialed something quickly. "Yes, hello, Mike. It's Rayne. My usual, please, double order. Cash. Deliver to the shop. Thanks."
He hung up and turned to her, eyebrow up. "Mr Martin?"
"Yeah. Well. I don't think they'd be so relaxed if I said I was working for a Mr Rayne. I think Giles would be here beating you up about five minutes later."
Rayne laughed that relaxed laugh he had. "Good judgment on your part, I suspect. Dear Rupert has a penchant. Several, to be honest."
"Penchant?"
"For men, for violence, for, you tell me, his Slayer. That last, oh, it's marvelous. Truly rich." Rayne laughed quietly.
"Men? You mean, oh. You and him?"
"Indeed. Though it was a bit of a sideline for dear Ripper, it's rather my main occupation. Disappointed?" He looked sly, and as if he were ready to laugh at something. Probably her.
But Dawn shook her head calmly. Something inside her relaxed. Mr Rayne was safe. But he was also about a hundred times as exotic as he'd been the moment before. If something deep inside her were disappointed, she hid it away. It had been a crush. A perfectly understandable crush on a sophisticated older guy.
Conversation ceased. Rayne was watching her and rubbing his jaw. She'd learned that meant he was thinking. So was she. He'd asked a lot of questions. Painful ones, if she was honest with herself. She hadn't really coped with being a glowing green ball of energy instead of a real person. She'd just kinda shoved it aside and gotten on with living. Which, when she thought about it, had been pretty much the only option she had. Being fifteen didn't give you a lot of power and choice. It was better to be seventeen: she had a driver's license, she had a job and a bank account. But the problem hadn't gone away, and eventually she'd have to solve it.
The door guardian chimed. Rayne gripped his cane and limped across the shop to the door. He let the food delivery guy in-- a young Asian guy, cute, college age, in a button-down shirt and jeans, wearing a red Angels cap. He handed over a plastic bag and the bill. Rayne tipped him something that made him nod and grin.
Rayne turned the sign around to the closed position and spoke a word to Quartus. He crossed the creaking wooden floor, one hand on the bag, the other tight on the handle of his cane. Thump. Thump. Dawn watched him move.
"The DiPuccio Family restaurant. Suspiciously operated by a family named Nguyen, but their tomato sauce is rather better than it was under the previous management. I do love Los Angeles at times. It almost reminds me of London. If London were left under a hot lamp for a hundred years."
He set the bag on the counter and pulled out containers. A pair of paper plates. Forks. Loki appeared from nowhere and leapt onto the counter. He kneaded his paws on the wood and purred.
"Mr Rayne? What did happen to your leg?"
Rayne pulled the top off a styrofoam bowl of something red, and inhaled deeply. He had a self-satisfied look on his face something like Loki's. "I shattered my knee in a fall while escaping from the soldier-boys. Then I botched the healing. Never try tricky magic whilst in agony, Miss Summers."
"Can't you get it fixed? Surgery."
"Yee-es. I could. Shall we say, I developed an aversion to medical experiences during my short term as guest of the American government. Serious enough that it does interfere with my life, rather. My dentist had to knock me out to do a simple tooth polish."
"Oh." Then, "I'm sorry."
He handed her a carton of angel-hair pasta. "It was not your fault."
"It was Giles's fault."
"I've always chalked that one to his Slayer's account, truthfully. He was rather occupied at the time, what with the mucus and the horns. And I think he had no idea."
Dawn thought about that. "Buffy kinda did. But she was in serious denial for a while. I'm still sorry, Mr Rayne."
"I appreciate your sentiment. And call me Ethan. Please."
"Ethan."
Ethan smiled at Dawn, and she felt a thrill in the pit of her stomach. She had a name for that, too. But it was safe. She dug her fork into the pasta, and spun it. It was hotter than sin and dripping with garlic, and it was delicious.
The summer deepened and heated into August. Dawn's Sumerian was becoming almost decent, and she'd finished reading the Beats entirely. Ethan had begun working with her on simple castings, in an attempt to teach her how to make his charms and wards. For the first time in her life, Dawn tasted utter failure. No attempt worked. No power moved at her bidding.
"It's there," Ethan told her. "I sense it in you. It's bound somehow, perhaps? Or latent. I'm not sure which."
They gave up the attempts after a few days, because Dawn complained it had begun to hurt, almost. To make her bones itch, if that made any sense. Ethan shook his head, as if it didn't, but put the spell primers away in the back room. He returned and settled to the bookkeeping. Dawn had been marginally more successful at teaching this skill to him than he had been teaching her magic. He swore quietly to himself as Dawn rang up a copy of the collected Robert Frost for a tourist.
The customer left, and the shop was quiet. It was the post-lunch lull, and they might or might not see anybody before three o'clock. Dawn settled to read a translation of some Norse poetry. She wasn't liking it very much. The Beats had been more her style.
The guardian of the main door glowed red, and made a sound Dawn had not heard from Quartus before. A woman was standing outside the shop door, with her hand over the doorknob. It was apparently not turning to admit her.
"My my," Ethan murmured. "Quartus, she may pass, but this once only."
The woman walked into the shop. Dawn wasn't much of a judge of designers, but she recognized expensive when she saw it. Stockings, heels, gray suit with conservative side-slash, the buttery calfskin of the case she carried. High-powered professional. She oozed corporate gloss of the faked Hollywood kind: someone's idea of what a lawyer should look like. Dawn had met real lawyers, from her father's firm, and they tended to be rumpled. Nebbishy sharks. This woman had had any lurking nebbish groomed right out.
She certainly had a presence. One that set Dawn's nerves jumping. Her feet made no noise on the wooden floor. Neither clack nor creak. Dawn looked again.
The woman was non-corporeal.
"Mr Rayne? My name is Lilah Morgan. I represent the firm of Wolfram and Hart. We have not done business in the past, but we find ourselves interested now in retaining the services of a contractor with your, ah, reputation. Is there somewhere we could talk?"
"I have no customers at the moment. You may speak freely."
Ethan made a little gesture with his hand, and Dawn understood it to be an instruction to vanish. Dawn slipped out of the way and busied herself unpacking a shipment from their distributor, keeping her head down. Packing slip, verify contents. Then over to the drawers at the back, to put some shelves between herself and the visitor while she recorded the shipment.
Ethan and the corporate woman were having a quiet but intense conversation. She couldn't make anything out, but Ethan seemed on edge. His usual languid humor was not in evidence, and his shoulders were tense. Dawn wondered if the woman could read him as well as she could.
Eventually the bell over the door rang. Dawn returned from the back of the shop and raised her eyebrows at him. Ethan ignored her. He held a manila folder in his hands. He limped back to his office and came back without it. He installed himself on his high stool behind the counter, and seemed to be thinking. Dawn went to hand him the packing slip, but he waved his hand. She went to the cabinet to file it.
"I've seen that woman before," Dawn said, as she flipped through file folder tabs. "At the Hyperion. Talking to Angel. And to Wesley, before Fred started going all--" Dawn made a clawing gesture.
"She made me an offer I cannot refuse," Ethan said, eventually.
He said no more, as a customer came in at the moment. He smoothly rose to his feet, cane in hand, to tend to it. The customer was Vahrall, with a glamour cast around its head so it looked more or less human, and in search of a compendium of demon religions. Ethan made a sale, a rather hefty one, and returned to the front of the shop. Dawn pulled a ristretto, marked it with a dab of milk, put it on a saucer with a twist of lemon peel and a single cube of sugar. She carried it over to him.
"So? Tell me about this offer."
He didn't answer right away, but slowly stirred the sugar into the coffee. He tasted it, then spoke. "A great deal of money. Or she suggests I might find myself in difficulties with my, ah, somewhat unorthodox visa."
"What's the problem? Do they want you to do something you dislike? Like, put all the square pegs into square holes and label things correctly?"
Ethan smiled at her at last. "Nothing so uncongenial. I've been asked to convince your sister to leave the Hyperion. Along with her lover."
Dawn shrugged. "That all? I don't care if they're here or not. I hate them."
"Even your sister?"
"Especially my sister. Why?"
"She didn't say. But I think I can guess. Do you know who she is?"
"Beyond somebody who makes Angel get all tense and broody? And makes Giles fume? No."
"Ripper fumes? That clinches it. She represents the firm of Wolfram and Hart. Ever heard of them?"
"Yeah. Evil lawyers. Angel used to bitch about them, until he stopped mentioning them. They made him some offer recently. Which sent Giles into a rage. Or as close as he gets these days. More like, tut-tutting and wiping his glasses."
Ethan chuckled, and gently slapped the counter. "There's my connection. Tell me, my little dove, what you think of this theory: Your souled vampire host has, apparently, something the evil lawyers want. Your sister and Ripper have talked him out of giving it to them. The firm wishes the overly-moral Rupert out of the way, so that they can work on the vampire. Who is, by all accounts, not the sharpest tool in the shed."
Dawn considered this. It wasn't fair to call Angel stupid. He varied, depending on the topic. He was more volatile than a human, and always prone to brooding. Buffy and Spike had always been able to push his buttons reliably. Which argued the lawyer's case: getting Buffy out of the way would make Angel more malleable. But for what?
"Would help if we knew what she wanted."
"I'm not entirely sure I care. The money is... persuasive. It would enable us to do, ah, many things. If Angel is foolish enough to allow himself to do what the firm wants, well--" Ethan spread out his hands. "It's hardly our concern."
"Us?"
"If you assist me, half is yours."
Dawn saw college. Not just college at a California public university, but college wherever she wanted it. And all she need do was get her sister and her Watcher out of the Hyperion. Not hurt them. Not do evil. Just get them out of her hair. If Angel was going to be an idiot, let him be an idiot.
"What's our plan?" Dawn said.
Ethan smiled, slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. "I'll need to think, love. But I think it will be fun."
The next day was Sunday. Dawn spent the morning swimming in the Hyperion pool with Willow, while her sister caught up on sleep after a night's patrol with Angel and Giles. Dawn had been hoping that maybe Angel was brooding about the sight of Buffy hanging all over Giles, but he seemed not to mind. He seemed to have moved on. She was frustrated to see it, because it meant her first plan, getting them all thrown out by a jealous Angel, was a non-starter.
In the afternoon, she got dressed more casually than she would for the store, but still nice enough to look good. Not so nice that she looked like she was trying. Sometimes Dawn thought that judging clothing required more brainpower than differential calculus. No makeup. Never makeup, like Buffy's heavy-handed raccoon eyes thing. Ethan had mocked the tendency of the American woman to cake it on once while Dawn had been listening, and she'd been determined ever since to look like she wasn't wearing anything, ever.
"Shopping," she said to Buffy, on her way out. "Spending some of the loot."
Buffy grinned. That motivation, she understood. Dawn waved back, smile fixed in place. And then the beeline to Ethan's apartment.
Ethan lived over the shop. He owned the whole building, he explained to her. He smiled in a way that didn't reach the eyes when he explained that he'd earned the building and business in payment of a sorcerer's debt. A deep one. The expression on his face was the one Dawn knew meant that lives had been involved, had likely been taken. That was rare with him. He preferred overturning to demolishing, change to destruction. He liked replacing a winner with whatever had been losing before. Killing was inelegant and inefficient, and therefore Ethan avoided it. When expedient.
He was also a private man. Dawn had never been upstairs.
The entry was on the street, to the side of the building. Stairs rose directly from the doorway to the second floor. The walls were painted white, and a carpet ran up the middle of the worn steps. They creaked even worse than the shop floorboards did. Dawn tiptoed up, trying to step lightly.
Ethan answered her knock, and introduced her to Secundus, who guarded the door to his apartment upstairs. Dawn looked around for the two-faced image of Primus, but did not see it. Perhaps Primus guarded the more private section of the flat, down the hallway. Or perhaps it guarded something else entirely.
His taste was modern but comfortable, and once again Dawn was reminded of Giles, except not. Spare lines, rich dark colors, reds and browns. Rothko prints on the walls. His leather couch was insanely comfortable, so much so that Dawn wondered if one could charm furniture. Probably. She sank into the cushions and took the drink Ethan handed her. Something red, bitter and fruity at once, with lemon and soda water and ice. It had alcohol in it. Dawn gave him a look.
"Campari," said Ethan. "Perfect for a day like this. And harmless. Go ahead."
Dawn shrugged. It was indeed hot in the apartment, even with the silent fans spinning in the windows. And her walk over had left her sweaty. August had baked into the very bones of the city, and the walls were warm to the touch.
Ethan began. "I've done a little research since last we spoke. I now believe any plan we form must include thwarting the lawyer's scheme, whatever it may be. As well as achieving your freedom from the Watcher and your, er, sister. Buffy. Thus we serve both sides at once. Heaven and hell."
"Why do you care if the lawyers don't get their way?"
"There is an angel in me whom I'm constantly shocking," Ethan said. Dawn recognized it; the book she'd bought the day she met him. "Besides, apocalypses have rather a way of interfering with my pleasures. Civilization aflame means no grapes are pressed, no music is played. I disapprove."
He lifted the glass in his hand and drank. It was Campari and not wine, but Dawn took the point.
"Apocalypse, huh?"
"It is their little penchant. Well, no. It's their raison d'être. They seem to be the arm of some of the princes of hell. They've been operating rather a long time. Nearly as long as Rupert's bunch of white hats. We thwart them, cleverly, and indirectly, because that is how we prefer to operate."
The word "we" gave Dawn a little thrill.
"They impress me, rather. The requirements document is most clear about what constitutes an acceptable fulfillment of contract. Killing the pair is out, for some reason. Pity."
Dawn glared at him, and he grinned at her.
"Not that we would consider such crude measures. But we have many options. The file they gave me on Angel's current operation was quite complete. For instance, they know more about your existence than you do."
Ethan set his glass on the coffee table. Dawn stared at it blankly for a moment, watching the condensation drip down its sides. She felt Ethan's gaze on her. Apparently she was about to get some answers to the questions. She wasn't sure, now, that she wanted them.
"Such as?" she asked, cautiously.
"Such as exactly when you were created. What use the key's energy is put to. What your parentage is."
"Parentage? And ... energy?"
He took the lemon slice from the rim of his drink and squeezed it into the glass. "Your energy. It's occupied. The reason we've been unable to teach you any casting, despite the obvious simmering potential. My dear girl, you're fettered. Chained. Bound."
"I don't... like that. At all."
"Can't blame you. I didn't like it when it was done to me. However briefly."
Dawn's hands were shaking. She hated to admit it, but they were. "What else was in the file?"
"A number of things, about Angel's employees. The Gunn fellow has quite an arrest record. But most of that is irrelevant."
"More about me?"
He spread his hands. Of course there was more about her.
"I need to read it. Where is it?"
"Dawn. You're better off not knowing. I shouldn't have mentioned it."
Dawn shoved herself out of the couch and leaned over him dangerously. He didn't look afraid. Frustration surged. For a moment she wondered if she had the power to force him. Then she recalled the lesson of the shop. She chose her words carefully.
"Ethan. I value your judgment, but I think I have a right to know. May I please have the file?"
"Fetch it yourself if you are able. It's in my desk drawer." Ethan pointed to the desk set against the far wall of his living room.
Dawn strode over and tugged at the side drawer. Locked, of course. Locked. She knew what to do with locks. She laid a hand on the little brass plate, and explored. It hurt. It hurt in ways Dawn had never imagined hurting before. Somewhere deep inside, not her head, not her gut, somewhere in her body that she hadn't known existed. Something creaked and pinged... and gave, just a little.
The lock on the drawer clicked.
Dawn stopped straining against whatever it was. She reached out a shaking hand, and slid the drawer open. She took her reward, the manila envelope with all the secrets in it. She didn't open it, but carried it back to the couch where Ethan was sitting, knees crossed. She stood over him. It didn't feel like victory.
"Excellent," he said. "The essence of the Key is accessible to you, when you make an effort. As they speculated."
She realized he'd planned it. Had maneuvered her into it. Dawn reached for anger, and found she did not have it. Ethan was handing her what she'd been wanting. Her hands were damp on the folder. She couldn't open it, not yet. She stared at her white knuckles. It was coping time. She had to find a better way to react than slicing her own arms up to prove she could bleed. She knew that already.
"This power... is it always going to be inside me? Inaccessible?"
"I suspect I know how to unleash it, if you truly wish it. It might be dangerous." He shrugged. The danger was to her, then, not to him.
"So is that all I am? A key for all locks? A ball of energy?"
Ethan answered with a soft, gentle voice. "That is a part of your being, but not the whole. I suspect you'll always have an affinity for locks and gates and doorways, but you are something else. You're a human woman. A human woman with an ancient power at her heart."
"Who am I supposed to be?"
Ethan shrugged, a fluid languid motion. "Who knows? Whoever you wish to be. That's the only answer any of us have to that question, Dawn."
"Is Dawn even my name?"
"If you wish it. We can name ourselves."
"We? Meaning sorcerers?"
"No. 'We' meaning everyone. Humans and demons alike. Name yourself, my dear, if you wish."
Dawn set the manila folder down, and picked up her drink. One long swallow. Two. She rubbed her wet hand across her face, and stared at the stripes of color in the print on Ethan's wall. Abstract blobs. Yellow and red. Meaning nothing.
She had no idea what she'd name herself. Dawn was as good as anything.
Dawn read the file folder that night, curled up in her bed in the Hyperion. Ethan had allowed her to take away only the segment on herself, but she hadn't been much interested in the sections on the others anyway. Who cared about Buffy's permanent file from Hemery High?
Even the secrets of her own life interested Dawn less than she might have expected, once upon a time. The knowledge that Buffy was her mother, not her sister, was almost anti-climax. She'd deduced it weeks ago, when Ethan had asked his penetrating questions about why Buffy had been able to close the portal. The identity of her father, the firm had not yet discovered. It listed several potential candidates, the four eligible males who had been near Buffy during what they judged to be the crucial window. They hadn't yet decided it was worth the expense to obtain genetic samples from each of the candidates. Dawn looked at the list, and found herself vaguely hoping that it wasn't Riley Finn. That would be too boring.
But she wasn't worried. Her real parentage was the energy of the Key, woven throughout her body, used to accelerate the development of a normally-conceived human child. To warp it, in the language of the report, but Dawn didn't like that word. That was what truly made her what she was.
She was human. Not an entity, a human. With an artifact inextricably woven into her soul.
More interesting was the report's speculation about ways the energy might be unbound. It wondered aloud if Dawn might gain access to some of the Key's elemental nature, as she grew. Ethan had tested that theory with his needling. Wolfram and Hart was very much interested in the possibility of terminating her life and trapping the released energy. It was, perhaps, natural speculation, but reading it described so clinically in the report made Dawn shake. They might have killed her, just to see what happened. She would never have known why, or what happened.
Dawn lay awake deep into the night, stoking her hatred for Wolfram and Hart. She had now committed herself to the game. The fencing match. She threw herself into plotting against Wolfram and Hart with an enthusiasm that amused and alarmed Ethan.
Dawn reasoned this way: Lilah Morgan, or whoever told her what to do, must have known going in that Dawn was in Ethan's employ. So they must have known Dawn would eventually see this information. So they must have wanted a specific reaction. Dawn was determined not to give it to them, if only she could figure out what it was they wanted. Perhaps staying calm was enough.
She also reasoned that the firm had chosen Ethan because a twisty approach served their goals. Ethan was unlikely to do anything straightforward, and they might have guessed from his previous affinities that he would approve their covert goals, that of destruction and chaos and death. That was, in Dawn's judgment, their first mistake.
In reaction, Dawn's plan was simple and straightforward. She would tell Angel what she wanted. Angel would do it. He would ask Giles and Buffy to leave, and he would not give Wolfram and Hart whatever they had asked for. He would be on his guard.
She and Ethan bickered about this suggestion for several days. He, quite reasonably, pointed out that it gave them one shot at success. If the attempt failed, the parties involved would be on their guard. She, in turn, shot down his various suggestions for petty harassment campaigns as unlikely to even be noticed by the pair, who were in the sickeningly besotted phase. The minor compulsion spells were out; Willow had detected the ones Wolfram and Hart had tried to put on the Angel Investigations team, and swatted them away like gnats.
They were at an impasse, and the lawyer's deadline was approaching. Finally Ethan agreed to let her try, and she would let him execute some more major harassment if she failed.
Dawn geared herself up make her pitch. Sophisticated. Adult. Cool. Calm. In control. A little bit like Lilah Morgan had been, if she could manage it. Though she sure didn't have the wardrobe.
Dawn found Angel in what had once been the back offices of the Hyperion Hotels. His office was cramped and messy, littered with file folders and weapons. When Dawn knocked, he was sorting through a pile of wooden stakes. He was in black, as usual. Black trousers, black coat, heedless of the weather. But then, he was undead. The heat only troubled him if it damaged the flesh he animated.
Angel held up two stakes, comparing their length. He tossed the shorter one into the pile.
"Hey, Dawnie. What's up?
"Isn't that kinda creepy? A vampire holding a stake. Like, a vampire with a string of garlic or something."
"Garlic isn't all that effective."
"No?"
"Well, we are hyper-aware of scent and taste. So it might work to drive us off. Just not, um, mystically." Angel flashed her a charming smile. "What can I do for you?"
"You can answer a question for me. What did Lilah Morgan offer you?"
Angel put down the stake. "I beg your pardon?"
"You heard me. What?"
"How do you know?" Angel shook his head, then said, "There's no secret about it. She offered me the Los Angeles branch."
"Of Wolfram and Hart?"
"Yes. All their facilities."
"Interesting. 'Cause they just gave me a lot of money to lure Giles and Buffy out of here, so they can convince you to accept."
"Huh. I'm not sure they need to do that. It's an interesting offer, all by itself. Quite generous."
Dawn put her hands on her hips. "And you're tempted by the evil law firm because?"
Angel blinked. A deliberate gesture, from a vampire. "My son. They'll give my son... what he needs."
"I thought Willow and Wesley were researching ways to help Connor."
"They're not going fast enough. He's not, he's not-- It's not enough." His distress was genuine, Dawn thought.
"And so boom! You're going to do what the evil apocalypse-seeking law firm wants."
"Now you sound like Buffy. They offered to give him a home. A family. To remove his memories of his life as it has been, and make it what it ought to have been."
Dawn shook her head. "Trust me on this. Fake memories are never worth it. You always find out they're fake. And when Connor does, he'll be pissed. And they're hella expensive. Lots of energy to cast and maintain. Who's going to pay for them, Angel?"
Angel shook his head slowly. "Giles asked that as well. I assume they--"
"You assume. I get it now. I totally get why they want Buffy gone."
"Why?"
"Lilah Morgan thinks you're an idiot, and will be easier to manipulate if Buffy's out of the way."
Angel said nothing, but leaned on his fists on the desk. He seemed to be thinking, though Dawn was never sure with him. The demon had always been smarter than the man, and Angel distrusted his demon. That's what Buffy said, anyway. He was always second-guessing himself. Quite a bind to be in. Dawn had no pity. She had a goal to meet. She pushed on.
"Or maybe it's just that you have no conscience, and seeing the guy you tortured reminds you that you have to behave? Or maybe it's that you're an emotionally stunted demon who's more susceptible when his friends aren't around. I don't know. I don't care. I'm just telling you."
Angel blinked again, very slowly. Yellow flashed in his eyes. "You've talked to them yourself. You know because they told you."
"Yes," said Dawn, and the casual tone did not require an effort. It wasn't acting. And it didn't matter. "And I stand to profit greatly if Giles and Buffy move out of here soon. But the second they do, Wolfram and Hart will be working on you again. And I need you to resist."
"You need me to resist." Angel laughed. "What's the plan, Dawnie?"
The world spun around Angel's face. Dawn's hands shook, just a little, and she saw green light on the inside of her eyelids. She held it down.
"Cut the condescending crap. I'm older than Buffy was when you slept with her. When you smashed her heart to little pieces because you were too stupid to investigate your own curse. Just like you're too stupid now."
Behind Angel, the cork popped out of a bottle of whisky. Dawn heard a lock click open somewhere in the room. Angel didn't seem to notice. He was staring at her, intensely. His eyes were entirely yellow. His nostrils flared, but he shook his head.
"Dawn," he began.
She interrupted. "I'll tell you the plan. The plan is to keep you from doing anything to help them. The plan is to keep you from causing apocalypse."
Angel flashed a grin at her, intended to disarm her, but his eyes were still yellow. "I don't think they want anything that bad."
"If Giles doesn't like it, it's bad. He's stodgy, but he's reliable about apocalypses and who's evil and who's not. He's kinda... trustworthy."
Angel wasn't smiling any more. She'd been right; he still felt guilty. She could use that. "Are you all right, Dawn? You look..."
"I'm just wondering what it would take to convince you."
"I don't know, Dawn. I could do a lot of good with that power."
Dawn's head was still strange. There was green behind her eyelids. Green drops of poison, falling. No. Yes. It hurt. Fetters around her wrists and ankles. She was too large for her skin. She could sense exactly what bound Angel's soul to his body, the parameters of the curse. She could reach out and manipulate them, maybe. Unlock him. Free him.
She knew what a bad idea that would be. She backed to the door.
"Think about it, corpse-boy," she said, to cover her exit.
She ran off to her room, where she flung herself across her bed. She shook, and tried to get herself back under control. This wasn't good.
With sunset came the winds from the mountains. Angelenos called them the Santa Ana winds, and told stories of Satan's breath. It felt like the breath of hell to Dawn, hot and dry and dusty, with the flavor of ash from distant forest fires. The day had been hot, but this wind was hotter. The old hotel was stifling. Dusty and mildewed and claustrophobic and unbearable. Dawn's skin itched. She scratched and wondered if constructed entities could molt.
She could not stay inside any longer. She took a cool shower, dressed, and slipped out of the building without being noticed. The sidewalks were empty, the streets streaming with cars. She hoped Ethan's place would be cooler than the Hyperion had been. He had fans, at least, and cold things to drink. It was a night for murder and mayhem, for overturning. Or maybe just a night for ice cream. For turning on the air conditioning and standing in front of the blower and not moving. Dawn couldn't make up her mind which. It would be nice to be a plain teenager again.
The shopfront was dark, the shades pulled, of course. Dawn laid her hand on the door to the second floor. It was locked, conventionally. She reached out, and felt every door on the streetfront click open. Something had to be done. She needed control. She mounted the steps nervously. Was Ethan even home? What did he do when she wasn't around?
Light shone under the door at the top of the stairs, and she could hear music playing, solo piano, something austere. She raised her hand to knock, then deliberately lowered it.
Secundus resisted her for a moment, then yielded to her persuasion.
She stepped confidently into the apartment. Ethan was on his sofa, a book in one hand, and a crystalline object in the other. He had been coiled tense, but he relaxed when he saw it was her. He set the object aside, and smiled crookedly.
"You could have knocked."
"I wanted to make a point."
He set his book aside. Dawn could see in his shoulders that he was tense again, but fighting to set it aside. "Oh? What point would that be?"
"That I'm the Key."
Ethan raised his eyebrows. "You needed more proof? Why are you here, my dear?"
"Were you serious when you said you knew how to unchain me? Or was that just boasting?"
"No boast. I believe I can persuade Janus to unleash you. At a price, of course, but he should be amenable to the request."
"And if I asked you to bind it all tighter than before?"
Ethan stood up, suddenly, and limped into his kitchen. He took a bottle of water from his refrigerator and handed it to her. He leaned back against the counter. Dawn splashed water on her face, then drank half of it down. She still felt restless and itchy.
"That would be more difficult. But possible. A reinforcement of the monk's original spells, perhaps."
"Which would you advise?"
Ethan laughed. "Power, of course. Take the power. You grow too large for your bonds. You might submit to new ones, but you'll burst those eventually as well. You know what you are, now. There's no going back."
"What's the price? What do we have to give Janus?"
He shrugged. "I can only guess, and hazard the offering, and hope it suffices. But in this case, a transition of some kind, endured in his honor and in his presence."
"Transition."
"First experiences, especially profound ones. Initiations. Irreversible sacrifices. Virginity is one possibility, if yours is, ah, intact." He raised his eyebrow.
Dawn flushed bright red. She'd barely been kissed, never mind gone all the way. She suspected Ethan knew that already. It would have been in her file. Her voice was brittle and false when she answered. "Okay, let's give Janus that. Keys don't have much need for their virginities."
Ethan slapped the counter, not hard, but just loud enough to get Dawn's attention. "I will say this again. You are not some artifact, nor yet a ball of pointless energy. You are a human woman."
"Not a woman. Not yet."
Ethan did not laugh. If he'd laughed, she might have run from the apartment and never come back. Instead he very deliberately stepped forward to her. He laid his hands on her shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. He reached behind her, moving slowly, and removed the brooch from her hair.
"If that is all, my love, it is easily dealt with. It would be my honor to guide you through this passage."
Dawn tried to speak, but could not for the life of her answer. He shook out her hair, and ran his hands through it. It felt good. Buffy used to do this. When had somebody touched her last? Ages and ages ago.
He rested his hands on her shoulders, and caressed. "One might almost say, my duty. How fortunate I am, that duty and pleasure make their bed together tonight."
"I thought you, you, you liked--"
Ethan's voice was in her ear, husky and rough, like heavy silk under her hand. "I might have an inclination, a preference, but Janus requires that his servants have two faces. Male and female. Dawn, love, I serve the god of doorways. You open doors. How can I not be drawn to you?"
It wasn't who she was. It was what she was. Dawn was pretty, she knew that, but if she'd been an ordinary girl he wouldn't have looked twice. Too young, too naive, too inexperienced. But his hands were everywhere, gentle, skilled. Her breath came short. He held her hand as he guided her to his bedroom.
Dawn stood in the dark room, waiting. A match flared, and he lit candles. Many candles. The room was hot, and the flames made it hotter, but Dawn shivered anyway. Fear. She was really going to do this. Whatever else happened, even if it was a big fizzle, she'd be a different person when she left this room..
Ethan lit a cone of incense and set it on a concave stone on a low table next to the bed. There were charcoal stains in the bottom of the dish, and the room was already sweet with the scent of aloeswood. The stone sat before a little statue of a man with two faces. It was an altar to Janus, then.
"Are you set on this?"
Dawn nodded.
"Are you aware that it might be just what Wolfram and Hart wished to accomplish?"
That gave her a moment of pause, but she pushed past it. "I don't care. It's what I want. For myself."
"Are you aware that I might be wrong? That it might mean the end of your existence as a self-aware being?"
Her stomach flipped. Dawn looked at Ethan unsteadily. His eyes gleamed in the candlelight. Dawn wondered if he'd mind that outcome. Maybe at first. Later, his grief would fade as he learned to enjoy possession of her power. Or enjoy the reward from his god for his service: Janus held a key in his right hand. Maybe Janus wanted to hold her. Maybe.
"I'll risk it."
"Very well, my dear. Your life is yours."
And he reached out to her. Dawn flinched. He seemed to know she was terrified. He went slowly, ever so slowly, in the red-flickering heat of his bedroom. She was awkward. So was he: he could not bend his knee as he wished. More than once he swore, under his breath, when he forgot his limitations and attempted to move as freely as he was once used to.
He knelt over her, as well as he was able. She'd never been naked in front of anyone else before. His eyes were on her, and a smile crinkled their edges. He liked what he saw. The candlelight flickered on his slim chest. The hair dusting his nipples was gray, and so was the hair on his belly. She was in bed with somebody older than her father. He knew what he was doing; oh, did he know. She thought back to those kisses in the back seat of the car, with a teenager who didn't seem to be entirely sure where anything was. She was as excited as she'd ever been in her life. Despite the fear in her throat.
Ethan held his palms together and muttered something. He winced. He pulled his hands apart with difficulty. Blood dripped from his palms onto the sheets, onto Dawn's legs. He smeared blood over his palms and hers. His forehead, hers. His chest, hers. He invoked Janus in Latin that Dawn was too distracted to follow. His faithful and unfaithful son. Ethan lifted the glass of whisky high, and poured it into the shallow dish next to the statue. It caught fire and burned blue.
Dawn felt the presence of the god. Ethan addressed something to him, again in Latin, with respect in his voice that Dawn had never heard before. And then he awkwardly rolled himself onto her.
Despite all his care, it hurt. Dawn froze, and would have drawn breath to cry out, but all the air seemed to have left the room. Windows shattered outside. Something in the distance exploded. The lights went out and the building sighed to silence around them.
Ethan cried out against her neck, and Dawn felt him shudder. She was too distracted by pain, by upheaval, by whatever was being overturned inside her. It was almost done. The last step was hers to take.
She made her hands into fists, and pulled. Bands snapped. Dawn saw, for a moment, the structure of the memory spell, a delicate and complex lattice around a heart of green energy, binding it. It shattered. The energy was hers. She was free. No. Not free. Still partially bound. If she'd been freed entirely, she would have ceased to exist. Ethan had been right. The energy had entirely contaminated her soul.
The memory spell was gone. Across the city, dozens of people would reach for memory that once was, and find something else in its place. Reality. They would find reality in its place. At some point in the evening, Dawn knew that Buffy would turn her attention to her sister and know, truly deeply know for the first time, that her sister had not grown up with her. That'd she'd only existed for three years. And Buffy would ask questions.
The memory spell was dead. But Dawn remembered everything exactly as she had before. She wasn't a three-year-old. She wasn't an impossibly wise ancient being, either. She was seventeen, just like she'd been a few hours ago. Exactly as she'd been. No, not exactly.
The spell was dead, and its energy was Dawn's. It twitched and throbbed in her hands. It wasn't a firehose. It was delicate, for fine work. Like opening doors, picking locks, untangling knots. Or fixing damaged bone and cartilage in a man's knee. Dawn did it, and then fell back, limp on the bed, wet with sweat and Ethan's blood. Her hands and feet buzzed, but the current had faded. She'd have to work to learn to use this power, to twist it to her will. And she would.
Ethan kissed her mouth, then her brow, heedless of the mess. He sat up and made a sound of deep pleasure. He ran his hands over his knee and bent his leg experimentally. He got out of bed and walked with only a hint of the limp, over to the window. He pulled the drape aside. The sky was dark red, and the wind coming through the window hotter than the air inside the room.
"The power's gone out," he said. "All over. And the hills are burning."
Dawn stretched out a hand. If she looked hard, with the eyes inside, she could see the green light shine through her skin.
Giles slept until wakened by the late morning sun in his face. He stretched and yawned. He wondered what the time was, but didn't bother to look just yet. There was no hurry. Instead he rolled onto his side and propped his head on a hand to watch Buffy lying next to him.
The breeze through their windows was warm but not stifling for the first time in days. The weather had turned, and the wind was coming from the west. Giles could smell the ocean in it, under the scent of smoke. The night had been troubled. He'd awakened several times to find Buffy standing at the open window, her back and shoulders tense. He'd allowed himself to sleep, trusting that she would wake him if she needed anything from him. She hadn't, and she seemed to have set aside the tension some time in the early morning and come to bed to sleep.
Her eyes were closed yet, but Giles knew she was awake. She was lovely with her hair rumpled and creases from the pillows on her face. He slipped his arm over her waist and eased himself closer to her. Her body was hot to his touch, lithe, hard with muscle, so small. Unlike any woman he'd taken to his bed before, but she was the Slayer. His Slayer, that is, since there were eleven more Slayers in the Hyperion. But this one was his. In all ways. Without opening her eyes, she reached up to him and pulled him down into a kiss. A fusty morning kiss, open-mouthed and sloppy, and he was deep enough in love to find it sweet. He rolled her onto her back and settled himself where he could kiss her throat. She made a sound he knew to interpret as pleasure and rested her hands on his shoulders. He slid downward so he could kiss the tips of her breasts and lick her to arousal.
"Good morning to you, too," she said to him. Giles did not bother to reply; his mouth was better occupied. She ran her fingers through his hair slowly. "You were right, by the way. About the well-fucked thing."
"Mmm?"
"Kinda weird. Like you're still there. So you like being a back-door man, huh?"
That brought him to a halt. He felt his face flushing, though he had thought himself beyond embarrassment with Buffy. "From time to time," he said.
"Who knew? Well, Ethan did, I guess."
Giles levered himself up onto his elbows so he could see her face. "Buffy--"
"I know that sound. That's the sound of Giles being nervous."
Giles cleared his throat. "Are you sure it's all right?"
"Are you worried?"
"I confess I am. I was a bit, ah, peremptory last night. When we, er."
She stroked the hair at his temples in a gesture he knew was meant to soothe, but he still felt guilt tweaking him. She'd cried, after all, though she was smiling at him now.
"Silly guy," she said.
"Indulge me. Reassure me."
Buffy sighed, and her fingers in his hair went still. "Okay, mister worry pants. You weren't treating me like I was made of glass. But you weren't being nasty, either. You wanted me to feel good. The point of sex is to feel good, isn't it? To make the other person feel good."
"Well, yes. Ideally."
"It made you feel good too, you know. You were way turned on by it, and that was neat. So any time you want to do it again--" She trailed off.
Giles shook his head, and said, "Don't say that just because I liked it. There are too many things that we both want."
"No, I mean, what I'm saying is I liked it. I want to do it again some time."
"Very well. I shall bear that in mind," he said, formally. But she'd said what he needed to hear, and he believed her. He would ask her for it now and then, when the urge took him.
"Now where were you before you went all wiggy on me?"
Giles flashed a smile at her. "I believe I was kissing your breasts."
"That was a good place. Go back there."
Instead Giles nuzzled the valley between her breasts. Her ribs were too prominent beneath them. He wanted to feed her up. He slid himself further down, and examined the pink line on her side where the Turok Han had injured her. It had been a long time healing, but it finally seemed to be fading. She might bear a scar. He kissed that, too, and indulged himself by imagining it would make it heal faster.
He licked her belly. Her muscles tightened and she giggled. He smiled and kissed his way down, wriggling down on the bed until he was settled comfortably between her thighs. He paused before he touched her, and said, "You must tell me what you like. Now that you know what I like."
"You're close to one of the things I like."
"Oh, am I?"
Giles smoothed back the hair over her mons. He touched his tongue to her and she made a pleased sound. Her fingers clutched in his hair for a moment, then she relaxed.
"I definitely like that."
"Are you sure?"
"Shut up."
"If you insist," Giles said, and did it again. He knew, of course, that she liked this a great deal, and hadn't had much experience of it before taking him to her bed. Though he had rather a higher opinion of Riley Finn now than he'd held back when Finn had been his rival. Finn had at least treated her well and given her pleasure. They did not speak about Spike; Giles suspected any such conversation would be painful for both of them.
He set aside thoughts of her other lovers, and concentrated on flickering his tongue against her. She sighed and relaxed under him. Her thighs parted further. She was beautiful to him, though all women were. He liked this complexity, the challenge of discovering what worked best for each of them. And for Buffy, just now, who'd discovered something new about herself-- Giles let his thumb drift, slicking it up, moving ever-further down until it rested over her arse. No jump this time, just a moan, so he let his thumb circle around, as his tongue was moving on her clit. He settled into the steady rhythm she liked best and let the soft sounds she made guide him. God, he liked doing this, liked the taste, the scent, the sounds she made. Perhaps later he would tell her that he liked this rather better than the other thing. Especially when it was mutual. Perhaps she would touch him the way he was touching her. Or even-- He pressed his thumb into her, going deep in one sharp motion, and she surprised him by coming. She raised her hips, straining upward, arse clenching around his thumb, gasping, shuddering, then subsiding on the bed under him. Giles held still, for he'd learned that any further touch would be too much for her immediately afterward.
He withdrew himself from her gently and rested his head on her belly, waiting for her. At last she shifted and stretched and stroked his hair again.
"That was a nice way to wake up."
"Mmm, yes."
"Let's swap. You sit up here and I'll take care of you."
"I'm fine for now. We should get up and make an appearance. Xander has a project for me."
The truth was that he wasn't fully erect, though of course he was excited. He was still sated from last night's session. One of the curses of middle age, that he was not ready and randy every hour of the day. He wished he could be for her, because she deserved as much pleasure as she wanted. All the pleasure there was in the world to be felt, if he could arrange it. Backways, frontways, sideways, upside-down if she wanted it.
"Rain check for tonight, then."
"Sounds lovely."
Giles knelt up between Buffy's knees and wiped his face against his forearm. She grinned at him and said, "Wow, you look wrecked."
"And you are loveliness personified. Especially with your hair like that. Magnificent."
"You're abusing sarcasm again."
"Abusing? This is what it's made for."
She shoved him aside playfully, and he rolled onto his back. He swatted at her buttocks as she stood, but she dodged out of the way and Giles subsided back onto the bed. He rubbed at his messy face again, fruitlessly. He needed another shower.
"I wonder what happened last night," Buffy said. "It smelled like fire for hours. But the wind has changed now."
"Brushfires in the hills. Common during the Santa Ana winds."
"Yeah, maybe. Wrong time of year for that."
The doubt in her voice was clear enough that Giles sat up and swung his feet off the bed. He reached for his glasses on the nightstand. There she was, standing at the window again, with that tension in her shoulders. He said, "Did you, ah, was it mystical?"
Buffy came away from the window and scooped her her tank top from the floor. She tossed it onto the bed and stood for a moment staring past him. "Wasn't demonic," she said, slowly, "but something didn't feel exactly right about it. I kept dreaming about that giant wolf. But I woke up every time before things started making sense."
"Ah."
Buffy focused on him and her expression was wry. "I know what that sound means too. It means book time. Though we're sort of book-free at the moment."
"Perhaps Wesley will lend me some to consult."
"Or Angel, if you can promise me you won't yell at him again."
"I shall behave myself. Besides, Cordelia was doing a fine job of that last night."
"He is being kind of a butthead. Shower time again, Watcher. Come on."
Buffy held out her hand to Giles. He took it and followed her out of the room. And thus began another day in Los Angeles.
