And at the moment, he was really too tired to go to all the effort of picking up the ashtray. Sneaking another glance at his watch, he wondered where in the hell his client was, and why Buffy had yet to join him.

The seedy tavern in which he'd chosen to meet them might have seen better days, but it was hard to imagine any amount of spit and polish improving the place - not that the owner seemed to be making any effort to increase patronage. The leather-clad bikers sitting at the bar were enough to deter almost anyone who might chance to enter, and the looming spectre of the bartender would finish the job if there were any lingering doubts. Giles had only been sitting at his table for half an hour, but he'd already witnessed three drug deals - and it wasn't like he was *looking* for them. But there was little else to do at the moment but people-watch, and the company of his own thoughts was too depressing.

He shifted against the cracked vinyl seat in order to get a better view of the entrance, wincing as a particularly loud twanging guitar riff emanated from the battered jukebox. His 'booth' - for want of a better word - was one of several half- circles carved out of the back wall, equipped with a cheap faux- wood plastic table and a fraying privacy curtain - the better behind which to conduct criminal business without interference, he assumed. The curtain to his booth hung drunkenly from the overhead line, parted just sufficiently for him to have a good view of the room without the reverse being true. He had no interest in making 'friends' with any of the clientele, nor any desire to make a lasting impression on them. A quick anonymous cash transaction with his client and a rendezvous with Buffy - that was all he wanted.

But they were both late, and his worry for Buffy was mounting.

<She can take care of herself, Old Boy,> he chided himself, an admonition that had always helped to calm him in previous tense situations. <But that was before,> his mind returned. <Before you screwed up, before you ruined everything...> She had more to fear now than everyday run-of-the-mill vampires, and her backup band had been severely curtailed. They'd both been living on the edge for almost six months, and that kind of life wasn't conducive to longevity. She'd been looking more tired than usual for days, and she hadn't been eating right. Which was why it was imperative that his client make this meeting. The money he was to receive would guarantee them a better place to stay for a few weeks, more than a couple of well- balanced meals, and some newer, warmer clothes.

<Come on, come on,> he glared at the door, willing his client to appear.

Which he did immediately, as though responding to Giles' unspoken command. Giles briefly wondered if his return to magick had engendered more serious consequences than he had anticipated.

The middle-aged man who was his client wore a suit and tie, polished cowboy boots, and a large gray ten-gallon hat the likes of which could only be found in Texas. He also wore an expression of genuine trepidation as he hovered in the doorway. The bikers at the bar glared over at him as he entered, but one admonishing scowl from the bartender kept them on their stools. Giles congratulated himself on his foresight in paying the bartender off, though the cash had come dear.

He caught his client's eye and tilted his head toward the table. The man scurried across the scarred wooden floor, clearly relieved to see Giles. As he approached he reached into his pocket and extracted a fat wallet, and Giles sighed at his obvious amateurism. Ten to one, the man would be mugged before he left the alley outside.

But that wasn't Giles' problem.

The man withdrew a hefty wad of large denomination bills and thrust them toward Giles. "That's all of it," he whispered loudly, his accent turning the word into 'awwlll'.

Giles ran his thumb through the stack of bills. "I assume you won't mind if I don't take your word for it."

The man swallowed nervously. "Hey, I wouldn't cheat ya. Not with the...*stuff* you c'n do. I mean - seems like it would be a really bad idea, ya know."

"Yes, it would be," Giles replied in arctic tones. He felt nothing but disdain for the man, but he couldn't afford to be picky when it came to his customer base. And the man before him, for all his flaws, had paid his hefty fee in full. "I presume that all is as I said it would be."

The man nodded quickly. "Oh, yeah...s-she don't even remember him at all. I listened over the phone when he called her last night, and he was fuckin' confused, let me tell ya. The bastard!"

<Confused, maybe,> Giles thought, <but at least he isn't dead.> Which had been the client's original purpose in seeking out someone of Giles' skills. So in a way, Giles had saved the life of his client's wife's lover, even if he'd had to screw over the unsuspecting wife's mind to do it.

<Not my concern,> he reminded himself as his always pernicious conscience tried to reassert itself. He'd become rather good at squelching its irritating impulses during the past few months, but it was still periodically bothersome. "You understand that the spell will only work against the man for whom it was cast - should your wife choose to take another lover, it will have no effect." The man's face reddened with indignation, and Giles held up a hand to forestall an angry outburst, "I just want to ensure that this is clear to you."

The man doffed his hat, ran a hand through his thinning gray hair and swallowed his ire. "Yeah, well, in that case, I'll just have to give you another call, won't I?"

Giles just shrugged - there was no point in telling the man he and Buffy would be long gone soon, or that his time, money and attention might be better served expended upon his wife. "Then our business is finished." He tucked the money into the inner pocket of his battered leather jacket. "I wouldn't hang about here, if I were you. You don't exactly blend in among the clientele."

The man darted a nervous glance toward the bar. "No kiddin'," he drawled after a moment. "But neither do you, not the way you talk."

Giles allowed himself a slight sneer, knowing that the man before him wouldn't understand who was the true object of his contempt. "I find that it's not really an issue. They aren't much for conversation."

The man turned back to him, his gaze roaming over Giles' seated figure. "Yeah. And I guess you do look like 'em, well enough." There was ill-concealed derision in his drawling tone, and Giles resisted the urge to reach across the table and break the man's hand with one nonchalant motion. He settled for hoping the bastard *would* get mugged, and that his wife would find a new lover within two days.

Not that Giles could argue with the man's conclusions, exactly, for he did blend in quite well with the other bar patrons, an effect that was entirely intentional. The scarre leather jacket, faded black jeans and black t-shirt were de rigueur, complemented by steel-toed boots and an earring. A two- day growth of silver-tinted beard and his own inner fury completed the look, a combination that had kept him completely unmolested since he'd arrived, despite being severely outnumbered by other bar patrons.

<If only the Council could see me now,> Giles thought sourly. <No one who knows me would ever recognize me...> Which had, after all, been the point of the transformation.

No more uncertain, stuttering tweed-clad librarian for him - Ripper had returned, of necessity, and though he deplored the circumstances that forced him to it, he had to admit to feeling a tiny thrill every time someone glanced at him and shied nervously away. No one trembled near Rupert Giles, librarian. Those who knew of the depth of his passions might be wary of Rupert Giles, Watcher. But only Ripper was downright feared.

The front door of the bar opened again as his client turned to go, and the noises in the room fell abruptly away as Buffy appeared in the doorway. Giles let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding upon seeing her alive and relatively healthy. She quickly scanned the room with sharp eyes, her expression warming slightly as her gaze came to rest on him. She, too, blended in with the crowd, at least as well as someone who possessed her stunning beauty could. She also wore black leather and boots, but to his impartial eye she looked much better in them than he himself did. Underneath her jacket was a low cut red spandex top worn over an extremely short black skirt, which only served to heighten the contrast between her rice paper pale skin and the bold color of her shirt. An ostentatious gold cross necklace, ruby red lips and metallic fingernails completed the dramatic outfit, and she stalked into the room as though she owned it.

The biker closest to the door slipped off his stool and slid an arm around her waist, leaning down to whisper something into her ear, leering at her cleavage as he did so. Quicker than the eye could see, she had him up against the far wall, his arm twisted behind him at a clearly painful angle. Her foot lashed out to slam into his buddy's chest as he leapt to his friend's aid. This economical and competent show of force was enough to deter the rest of the bar patrons from messing with her, and she left them behind to proceed across the floor without further interference.

His client shrank away as Buffy approached the table. She glared at him impatiently and he mumbled a nervous goodbye and took off toward the door.

"Interesting display," Giles commented drily, tilting his head toward the two fuming men who were limping back to their stools at the bar.

"His bad luck that he's not the first slimebag to try that tonight," Buffy replied as she flopped down into the booth next to Giles, sliding over until her thigh bumped his. She reached up and pulled the privacy curtain closed. "So did he pay you?"

"In full." He patted the hidden pocket. "What do you mean he's not the first?"

She reached for his bottle of beer and took a healthy swig. He considered attempting to take it away from her, but the dangerous glint in her eyes didn't bode well for any kind of success. "I mean, every male in this city seems to think this skirt gives 'em license to pinch my butt. This outfit may be aces as vamp-bait, but I'm tired of being taken for a hooker, Giles."

A familiar pang of guilt stabbed into his chest. "I'm sorry, Buffy."

She glared up at him, her eyes dark underneath a fringe of white-blonde bangs. "Not your fault. And I'm *really* not in the mood for GuiltyGiles, tonight, so can it, okay? Unless you want to listen to me blame myself for forcing you to go back to magicks you'd rather forget."

"It's not your-"

"Fault!" they finished in unison, and Giles couldn't help emitting a pained chuckle. "We're a pair, aren't we?"

She eyed him speculatively and licked her berry lips. "I happen to think we're quite a pair, actually," she murmured, her gaze roaming his chest in a way that made him feel exceedingly warm. "Whaddaya say we get outta here and get naked?" Her fingers crept across his lap to cover his groin.

"Stop that," he admonished gruffly.

Her fingers tightened and she grinned as he inhaled sharply. "Don't wanna," she replied impishly. "I think I'm finally getting what Faith meant about slaying making her horny." She blinked and the smile fell away at her inadvertent allusion to her former friend - and it wasn't just because the other Slayer had betrayed her. The merest mention of anyone from Sunnydale was inevitably guaranteed to depress them both.

<God, I'm sorry, Buffy,> he thought, but he didn't say it aloud, knowing it would only make her angry. Instead he took her hand in his and pulled it up to the table, lacing his fingers through hers. Time to change the subject. "How was the hunt?"

Her gaze slid from his face to land on the half-empty bottle of beer. Condensation streaked down the brown glass toward the peeled label - which had been shredded in an unspoken testament to his earlier anxiety regarding her whereabouts. She began to pick at the residual glue with one chipped red thumbnail. "Bagged eight," she informed him, her expression darkening. "This town is crawling with nasties - maybe they like the humidity or something. But they're pretty easy to take out. No match for Mister Pointy."

"Anything else?" he asked quietly. It was an innocuous question on the surface, but one loaded with meaning for the two of them. 'Anything else' was their own personal code for the Tarakan Order of Assassins, the group of deadly hired killers that had been scouring the planet for them for almost six months now. Buffy had killed ten of them already, but there were an endless number available to follow, and they'd been in Houston too long already.

It had been a judgment call whether or not to leave, and Giles had finally decided they should wait around for his client to pay him what he owed. Running was infinitely easier when you had sufficient money to finance it. But staying put had been a gamble.

"No bug men," Buffy reported in a low voice, her gaze still riveted on the beer bottle. "Not a wacky policelady to be seen." She reached inside her jacket with her free hand and pulled out several wallets, tossing them on the table. "Got these, though."

"I told you not to do that unless I was with you," he scolded angrily. "It's too risky." Vampire slayage took on a whole new dangerous dimension if the slayer tried to frisk the slayee before staking - but that was the only way to steal whatever money the vampire might be carrying, since wallets disintegrated post-staking like everything else.

Her jaw set mutinously, matching the stubborn flash in her eyes. "Yeah, well, I wasn't sure the redneck slimeball would show up to pay you the other half of your money. And I wanted to find a better place to stay when we moved on." Her glare declared the subject closed. "It paid off, too. One of them had close to two hundred dollars, God knows why."

"Really?" Giles replied, momentarily distracted. Usually vampires carried little more than pocket change, if anything, making the procedure more an exercise in futility than anything else. But they'd been desperate the first few times they'd resorted to pickpocketing the undead, and every little bit had counted. "How unusual."

Her gaze flicked to him and a brief smile lit her lips.

"What?"

"For a minute there you sounded like the Bookman," she said, her fondly reminiscent expression softening her face momentarily. "It reminded me of your reaction to Chris and Eric building their zombie girl at the beginning of junior year. Remember? You thought it was intriguing, and the rest of us were just grossed out."

"I remember." He cast his mind back to those relatively innocent days and heaved a small mental sigh. The old adage was true - You don't appreciate what you've got until it's...

Gone.

Buffy brought her other hand up to cradle their joined fingers. "You're so different now," she murmured regretfully, tracing his knuckles. "Not worse, but different. You were way happier then, weren't you? Before all the badness." It wasn't really a question, since the answer was practically a given.

Before...

Before Angelus, before Jenny, before Acathla, before the Mayor, before Faith...before *Wesley*. Remembering his fellow Englishman's hideously painful and protracted death brought an accustomed wave of regret to Giles.

Of course they'd been happier.

He sighed aloud. "You were happier back then, too, Buffy," he told her, feeling actual physical pain as he catalogued the visible changes in his slayer. Not that she had been a complete innocent when he'd met her - she'd been the Slayer for a while before moving to Sunnydale, and fighting the undead left indelible marks. But even then, her knowledge of what went bump in the night hadn't sullied her sunny outlook. Angelus, Faith and the Council were the ones who had done that, and the knowledge of the true extent of evil in the world had hardened her. The gold in her hair was brassier, the set of her jaw was firmer, and the fury in her eyes lived unabated. All softness had been burned away, leaving solid bone and muscle behind.

And he mourned the changes, even as he recognized their necessity. Because if she weren't the woman she'd become, she would have died long ago. Permanently.

He squeezed her fingers. "We can't afford to dwell on the past, Buffy. It's not healthy. And don't think I haven't noticed how little sleep you've been getting lately."

Her smile was a pale shadow of what it had been, though he appreciated the effort. "What can I say? My man keeps me up nights."

He wasn't going to allow her to deflect his concern - not this time. "I wasn't making a joke, Buffy."

"I know. I'm sorry." She lowered her gaze to the smeared tabletop and bit her lip. "I just...can't help thinking about them. Wondering how they are. Wondering if the Council has done anything to hurt them."

Giles squelched the automatic urge to reply, 'They wouldn't do that.' Because in the past few months he'd had to face the unwelcome reality that the Council very well might hurt their loved ones. He wouldn't ever have imagined that they could contract with assassins to kill a Watcher and Slayer, either, but they had. If it hadn't been for Spike, and then Willow, he and Buffy would have been dead before they'd even known the reason why.

But Spike had come to them with his suspicions, and they'd been curious enough to check them out, even if the vampire's reasons for helping them had been suspect, to say the least. "Better the Slayer you know, ducks," he'd told Buffy, smiling in that infernally annoying manner of his. Buffy had smacked him one across the face, just on general principle.

But Willow's computer searches into the heavily guarded Council files had confirmed what Spike's sources had told him - a contract on their lives had gone into effect, courtesy of the Watcher's Council - a charge led by Quentin Travers. And it wasn't limited in scope, the way Spike and Dru's Tarakan contract had been - those three assassins had been infinitely easier to battle than an innumerable host of others would be.

So they'd decided to run, packed a few necessities, and departed within five hours. Buffy hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to her mother, who'd been away on an art-buying trip, and it was an omission that Giles knew haunted her. They'd heard nothing of their friends since that night, having cut themselves completely from their lives out of sheer necessity.

He could still picture Willow's tear-stained face as she had begged him to allow her to set up an untraceable computer e-mail account in order to stay in contact. It had torn at his heart to refuse her, but he knew that any remaining ties between he and Buffy and their friends in Sunnydale could be exploited by the Council, and that would make the people they loved into perfect hostages. But the Council couldn't threaten them if they couldn't find Buffy and Giles to issue the threat, and the only sure safeguard for the ones they'd left behind was the shield of ignorance.

But it was a thin shield, at best - Buffy knew it as well as he did, and that knowledge was another reason why the shadows under her eyes grew deeper every day.

<They're all right, Buffy,> he wanted to assure her, but she would see it for the hollow reassurance it was - and maybe even resent him for patronizing her, when she was as aware as he of the depth of peril they all continuously faced.

<There has to be a way to end this...> But as hard as he'd tried, he'd yet to come up with one.

Buffy swiped surreptitiously at her eyes, denying the tears that streaked her cheeks with the black kohl of her eyeliner. "Real winner of a place you picked to meet in, Giles," she told him, her voice determinedly cheery. "I always knew the English had weird taste."

He smiled at her, admiring her courage for the hundred thousandth time. "Oh, yes, honky-tonk bars - they're

*everywhere* in England. And you haven't lived until you've seen me line dance."

She affected a pained look. "I'll bet." She reached for the wallets and tucked them back inside her jacket. "Thanks, Giles."

He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. "Anytime."

"Let's get out of here."

They stopped off on the way to their temporary lodgings and ordered a banquet of Chinese food, splurging with a bit of their newfound largesse. The scent emanating from the containers filled the interior of the beat up old car Giles had boosted in Jackson, and they held hands as he drove, content, for the moment, just to be together.

"Maybe we should try to sublet an apartment in Phoenix," Giles suggested, reminding her of the location they had selected for their next move. "We've not seen any members of the Order for almost a month - it might be that they've lost our trail and we can afford to stay in one place for a while."

"That sounds nice," Buffy replied wistfully, gazing out the window.

He squeezed her hand. "Buffy? Are you all right?"

"Fine," she said, nodding slightly, "just a little tired."

The neon sign signalling the location of their motel swam into view. It was an old track motel, barely hanging on by the edge of a highway that saw much less traffic since the interstate had opened. They'd selected it for ease of entry and egress, which it possessed, and not ambience, which it did not. Their single room with kitchenette was located at the end of the long building, and Giles parked just to the side of it, behind a row of scraggly bushes that would shield the car out of easy view from the highway.

The 'Do Not Disturb' sign still hung from the knob of the motel room door, and Giles and Buffy shared a satisfied glance. They both had been worried about the maid stumbling upon their cache of weapons and spellbooks hidden under the bed. As a hiding place, it wasn't the best location, but leaving them in the car entailed certain risks as well, from both lawful authorities and sticky-fingered auto thieves. So they'd finally settled upon cleaning the room themselves and delivering their sheets and towels to the laundry personally. The maid hadn't put up much of an argument, and they'd spent an entire lazy afternoon in bed the previous week debating what she probably believed they were hiding in there - finally settling on either illegal drugs or stolen stereo equipment.

Once inside their room Giles set the cartons of food on the tiny card table, shed his jacket and flipped on the rickety window unit. Stale air wafted into the room, only marginally cooler than what was already there. Sighing, he shook his head and picked up the ice bucket. "I'll be right back," he told Buffy. She nodded, disappearing into the tiny, semi-sanitary bathroom, and he opened the front door to step outside.

The night was warm and clear, unseasonably balmy for December - not that Giles hadn't become accustomed to year-round warmth in California, but at least in Sunnydale the heat had been a dry heat. Houston was more like the world's largest sauna - two minutes outside and his clothing became bonded uncomfortably close to his skin. Thus they hadn't really needed the leather jackets they'd worn that evening, but coats were very handy garments in which to conceal weapons. Unfortunately, sweating almost continuously always left him feeling grimy all over by the end of the day.

Giles filled the ice bucket, purchased two cans of coke from the soda machine, and headed back to the room. Buffy was still in the bathroom when he returned, so he unearthed a bottle of rum from under the bed and mixed two rum-and-cokes in a pair of blue plastic cups. He felt vaguely guilty about allowing her to drink spirits, but couldn't quite justify permitting himself the comfort of alcohol while denying it to her. They never overindulged - he'd yet to see her drunk - but the day's tensions melted away much easier with the help of a few libations. And he'd long ago realized that he would do anything to ease the pain in her eyes, even if only for a while.

As in regard to many of his actions these days, he instructed his conscience to remain quiet.

The bathroom door opened and Buffy emerged, clad only in an oversized white t-shirt - which he recognized as one of his own, purchased in a pack of twelve from a discount store. They'd washed most of their clothing before heading out that afternoon, but the dryers at the laundromat had all been nonfunctional, and their meager wardrobes were now dripping dry from the shower rail. Therefore she'd had a limited selection to choose from for her sleepwear - not that he really minded that she'd appropriated his shirt. In fact, he rather liked it.

She'd scrubbed all the makeup from her face and stripped the polish from her nails, and her hair hung damply down her back. The contrast from her earlier appearance was almost startling in degree, and he realized that the sexual come-ons from strangers must have bothered her more than he'd realized for her to transform herself so hastily and completely. <Damn,> he thought.

Buffy just smiled at him and snatched up her rum-and-coke, downing half of it in one gulp. He frowned as he opened a container of Sesame Chicken. "Slow down, Buffy."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Chill, Giles. I was just

thirsty. Where's the General Tso's?"

"Here." He handed her a carton.

"Thanks," she said as she flopped down into one of the folding metal chairs next to the table. She drew her knees up,exposing a long length of shapely thigh, and gave him a saucy wink as she attacked her chicken with chopsticks. He rolled his eyes at her and sat down in the other chair.

"So," Buffy began through a mouthful of chicken, "did the spell-thing work the way you thought it would on the big-haired bimbo?" She had been afforded a brief glimpse his client's wife while acting as backup for Giles' initial reconnaissance, and had pronounced the loud-mouthed highly-teased blonde as a perfect example of an unflattering Southern stereotype. He'd been forced to agree with her assessment.

"Mmm," he affirmed through his own mouthful. "Our hatted client's wife has completely forgotten about her lover. I forbore to explain to him, however, that the spell wouldn't make *him* any more appealing to her."

She grinned. "He'll figure it out."

"I suppose."

She took another drink from her cup, crunching a stray ice cube thoughtfully. "Why would anybody want to live like that, Giles?"

"Like what?" He doused his chicken with a packet of soy sauce and poked through the depths in search of snow peas.

"Why would anyone want to stay with someone who didn't want them back?" she wondered. "I mean, redneck-guy spent a *lot* of money to hold onto a woman who wants someone else more than him. And she stays married to him even though she wants another man. And it's not like they had any kids or anything to keep them together - why not just go their separate ways?"

"I suppose they have their reasons," he replied after a moment's consideration. He stabbed at a stray chunk of chicken. "I won't pretend to fathom them, however."

"Yeah, I guess." She stared down into her container, then sighed and plunked it back down onto the table. "It seems like such a waste, you know?" She rose from her chair and began to pace restlessly back and forth across the natty carpet, her slim legs flashing underneath the cotton hem of the shirt.

"You need to eat more, Buffy," Giles told her, concerned by the increasingly obvious thinness of her frame.

"I'm not hungry," she tossed over her shoulder as she snatched up the tv-guide. A moment later she threw it down in disgust. "Why don't they ever offer anything but the same three X-rated movies?"

"Buffy-" he began wearily.

She whirled around, her hands fisted at her sides. "I'm *not*HUNGRY*, Giles!"

"You haven't been eating enough," he replied, calmly meeting her furious gaze. "It's important for you to keep up your strength."

She scowled fiercely at him, but he refused to flinch or look away, and slowly the ire drained from her features, until she appeared to be on the brink of tears. He watched as she blinked them back and squared her shoulders, schooling her features into an amiable mask.

"What will you give me if I do?" she asked, cocking her head to one side.

"What do you want?" he asked cautiously. Her mercurial mood changes were becoming more and more disconcerting, to say the very least.

She came toward him, smiling, and wound her arms around his neck. "What do you think?" she breathed, sliding into his lap. He barely managed to keep the container of Sesame Chicken from spilling.

"Buffy-"

"Feed me, Giles," she whispered, kissing his nose.

He sighed, determined not to allow her to get to him. "Fine. Hand me your chicken." She leaned across the table for the carton, and as she shifted on his lap his body automatically began to react to her presence. She grinned smugly at him as she handed him the container. "Yes, yes, very amusing," he told her. She opened her mouth to reply and he shoved a mouthful of chicken into it.

But she was not to be deterred. "I think-" *gulp* "-that you *like* me, Mr. Giles," she murmured, fluttering her lashes.

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," he replied blandly, offering her another chopstick serving. She wiggled her backside provocatively, and he nearly swallowed his tongue. "Stop that," he ordered breathlessly.

"Don't wanna," she replied for the second time that evening. She threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. "I changed my mind, Giles," she whispered, then leaned in to trace his lips with her tongue.

"Hmm?" The Tso sauce was quite tangy, he noted idly.

"I *am* hungry," she informed him. "But not for food." She planted one foot on the floor and swung the other around until she was straddling him. "And you're hungry, too, I can tell..." She thrust her pelvis against his, hissing in pleasure at his involuntary counter-thrust.

She was trying to change the subject - and using her deliciously soft body to do it. Well, she always had possessed a solid grasp of tactical maneuvers. "Buffy-" The carton of chicken landed on the table with a *thunk*.

"I'll eat every single bite later," she vowed, nibbling at his earlobe. "I swear I will. But right now I want you. Inside me." She pulled back to blink up at him, her eyes large and luminous in the shadowed evening. "Please, Giles..."

He could never resist her when she looked at him like that. "I have your promise, then?"

She nodded, kissed him softly, then buried her face in his neck. He braced his hand against the table and stood up, clutching her against his chest with one lean arm. She responded by wrapping her legs around his waist and holding him tighter. He carried her over to the bed and gently lowered her down on it, extricating himself from her embrace with difficulty. He ended up kneeling on the floor next to the mattress, while she sat on the edge of the bed, shoulders rigid, eyes closed, dark eyelashes fanning against her skin. "Buffy," he whispered, reaching out to cup her pale cheek with his palm. "Open your eyes."

She did, and the depth of pain inside them made him catch his breath. "Oh, Buffy..."

"Make it go away, Giles," she whispered urgently. "You're the only one who can." One tear escaped to roll down her cheek. "Please..."

"Buffy, I-"

She cut him off, leaning forward to capture his lips with her own, her tongue plumbing deeply into the warm depths of his mouth. Her arms came up around his shoulders, trapping him with her greater strength, and one abrupt tug pulled him onto the bed after her. He landed flush on top of her, the soft curves of her petite body pressing into him through his clothes, and even as a familiar rush of desire threatened to overwhelm him, his mind rebelled at what she was asking him to do.

"Buffy, *no*!" he managed, yanking his arms away and rolling off of her. He ended up flat on his back, staring fixedly the ceiling. "Not like this." He could hear the harsh reverberation of her breathing, interspersed with hitching sounds that could only be tearful sobs, and he was glad that the darkness of the room hid her face from him. "Buffy-"

"It never goes away, Giles," she interrupted, her voice low and raw with pain. She reached blindly for his hand, entwining her fingers with his until her long nails bit into his skin. "I know you know that. Maybe you can hide it better, but I know it never goes away for you, either."

He pressed his lips together, willing his own tears away as she skillfully dug a knife straight into his heart, striking to his soul as only she could.

"We left them," she continued hoarsely, emotion clogging her throat. "We left them behind and we left our duty behind, and if the world ends tomorrow, it'll be our fault."

"Buffy, no, that's not..." But he couldn't make the denial sound convincing.

"Then tell me you don't feel guilty, Giles," she ordered, tightening her grip on his hand. "Tell me the nightmares you have aren't about us not being there when evil takes our friends away. Failing them. Failing the world. Failing *us*. Just tell me that, and I'll believe it....Just say it."

"I-...I can't," he admitted softly. It had been Joyce's death last night, a technicolor surround-sound demise, capped by her transformation into a vampire by whatever new master had risen at the Hellmouth. He'd staked her himself, determined to spare Buffy the pain of doing so, only to have Joyce's face transmute into Buffy's a split second before exploding into ash. He'd awakened with a horrified shout, and though Buffy had already been up and showering, she'd obviously heard him anyway. Or maybe she'd merely noticed the previous night's agony, which had starred Willow in various bloody scenarios.

"We never should have left them," Buffy whispered, her voice so low it was as though she was speaking only to herself. "I was selfish. I didn't want to die. But we made the wrong choice."

"The Council didn't *leave* us with a choice," Giles protested faintly.

"Not a good one," she agreed, sounding almost detached as her breathing evened out. "We never seem to have a good choice, do we? I wonder why that is."

He rolled over onto his side and reached up to trace her cheek with the index finger of his free hand. "I don't regret it," he vowed fiercely, more disturbed than he could say by the hollow desolation of her tone, "and I'll take whatever nightmares I'm given, as long as I have you to wake up to, as long as you're alive and we're together."

A tear rolled down her cheek and she gazed up at him with eyes brimming full of emotion. "Oh, Giles..."

"I hate that I've done this to you," he murmured, bleak regret suffusing his face. "I hate that I didn't see what the Council was becoming, that I didn't take steps to protect you, that I allowed my injured pride over being fired to get in the way of doing what was best for you. If I hadn't..."

"If I'd protected Wesley better," she interjected, shaking her head at him. "If I hadn't loved a vampire in defiance of *everything* Watchers and Slayers stand for, if I hadn't somehow made Faith *hate* me and turn to evil..."

"No!" he retorted, bringing his hand up to cover her mouth. "You saved the *world*, Buffy - more than once. You did everything they ever could have asked, sacrificed more than anyone should ever have to sacrifice. They had no *right* to do this to you!"

"Or you," she returned softly, kissing the tips of his fingers. They stared into one another's eyes for a long, endless moment. She swallowed and licked her lips nervously.

"I love you, Giles."

He felt his heart break, literally, within his chest. It was the first time she'd ever said the words, making it both the happiest, and saddest, moment of his life.

He opened his mouth to reply, but she brought her hand up, covering his lips with her fingers this time. Slowly, never taking her eyes from his, she raised her mouth to his, trailing her fingers along his cheek. "Kiss me," she breathed. "Kiss me like it's the first time...and the last."

Their lips met, and he could taste the salt of her tears. "Oh, Buffy..." he murmured as her other hand slipped beneath his t-shirt. She scraped her nails across his belly and eased her knee between his legs, rubbing her core against his thigh.

"Make love to me, Giles..."

He wasn't proof against the utter need in her low voice. He brought his hands up to frame her face, his tongue delving into the honeyed depths of her mouth in a slow, languorous kiss. She brought her other hand up to frame his waist, pulling him fully atop her and hooking her ankles around his legs. The fizzing warmth of desire began to course through his veins, and he applied himself to the task of driving all thoughts from her mind in favor of the bliss of mindless need.

She was right about one thing - the magic that happened between them in their bed had the power to banish all manner of demons, at least temporarily. And the sad truth of it was, for now, it was all he could think of to give her.

Giles awoke all alone in the lumpy double bed, and the sensation of loss he'd felt even in his dreams made him bolt upright, his eyes rapidly scanning the room mere seconds after awakening. "Buffy! Buffy, where are you?"

There was no response. His heart beat triple-time inside his chest as he blinked frantically, trying to accustom his vision to the midnight gloom. A passing big rig honked its horn and shined its headlights through the dirty white motel curtains, briefly illuminating the interior of their room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Buffy curled against the wall underneath the air-conditioner, as naked as she'd been when they'd finally dropped off to sleep hours earlier.

"Buffy?" he repeated in a softer tone, shucking the bedcovers and planting a foot on the floor. "Buffy, are you all right?" He approached her cautiously, but she gave no sign that she had even heard him calling out to her.

He reached out to touch her bare shoulder, shocked by the damp, clammy feeling of her skin. She pulled away, curling into a tighter ball and letting out a low, pained moan. "Buffy, are you sick? Do you feel ill?" She gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. "Please look at me." No response. "Buffy, you're scaring me."

Slowly she raised her head and turned to look at him, her eyes dark pools of pain rimmed with puffy red. Her pale cheeks were blotched from what must have been long hours of crying, and tears continued to stream down her cheeks, a sight all the more heartbreaking for the utter silence of her weeping.

"Buffy, what is it?" She just shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. He touched her shoulder again. "Sweetheart, you're freezing." Her lips were faintly blue, and her teeth were chattering as the cold gusts from the air-conditioner continuously buffeted her slim body. He reached up to switch it off.

"Don't...wanna feel..." she mumbled, blinking disorientedly. "Hurts..."

"I know it does," he told her, sliding an arm around her back and gathering her close against his chest. She was cold all over, and her clammy skin leached the heat from his own. "You're going to make yourself ill, Buffy."

"'S'better..." she murmured, closing her eyes. "...if I die....you'll be safe..." His breath caught at her words. He knew exactly to what she was referring - she'd spoken of it before in passing, idle speculation on whether or not the contract against him would be canceled if she died and another Slayer was called. He thought he'd dissuaded her from that assessment, but apparently not, and her words chilled him more than any amount of cold air could.

Desperation made his voice hoarse. "No, Buffy, you can't believe that. If you died, I'd lose my reason to-"

She clutched at him abruptly, her fingers digging into his arms. "*Don't* say that," she hissed through dry lips, cutting him off. "*Never* say that..."

"Then stop trying to die on me!" he retorted before he could stop himself. <This isn't helping...> He made a concerted effort to calm down. "Buffy...please tell me...what is it?"

Her answer, when it came, was terrifying in its childlike simplicity. "I feel like I'm killing you," she whispered. "And *I'm* supposed to die first."

"No..." He hugged her more tightly, goaded by pure fear into making promises he knew he'd have great trouble keeping. "Neither one of us is going to die, Buffy. They won't find us. We won't *let* them find us."

Buffy shook her head again, then turned her face until her lips touched his bare chest. She gently kissed his warm skin. "We can't run any more, Giles," she murmured. "I..." Her eyes closed and she swallowed "I'm so *cold*."

He nodded and hefted her into his arms, gaining his feet with little difficulty. "Let's get you into a warm tub, then." In a few swift strides he was inside the tiny bathroom, regarding the olive green bathtub with fastidious dismay. Buffy had attacked the grout with admirable industriousness when they had first arrived, but it still lacked visual appeal. However, all they required at the moment was for the bathroom to be functional, and the tub held water well enough. He set her down inside the basin and reached for the tap.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth slightly, her unseeing gaze riveted on the tiled wall. Giles tested the water with his finger, waiting until it ran hot before plugging the drain. He reached for a bottle of Buffy's bubble bath and poured in a few capfuls. A glimpse of the grinning cartoon character on the bottle's label brought a brief smile to his face - the day she'd purchased it, Buffy had spent half an hour in the discount store explaining the relative merits of one kind of cartoon bubble bath over another, and then had proceeded to make elaborate Kama Sutra bubble sculptures of the two of them later that night as they'd bathed.

A happy memory.

"Better?" he asked over the sound of rushing water filling the tub. She didn't reply. He reached for a washcloth, dipped it into the water, and rubbed it across her back. "Do you feel any warmer, Buffy?"

Slowly she turned her head to look at him, then reached out with trembling fingers to touch his cheek. Her thumb brushed his lower lip, only to be quickly replaced by her lips as she leaned forward to kiss him softly. He pulled her into a hug over the cold porcelain rim of the bathtub, and she buried her face in his neck, stifling a sob against his skin. They remained that way for several minutes while the tub filled and her trembling subsided. Eventually Giles reached out with one hand to turn off the tap, then returned his attention to their embrace, cradling Buffy against his body as though his presence alone could keep all the monsters at bay. In the resulting silence they could hear the slight fizz of bubbles popping interspersed with the harsh sounds of their own breathing.

Her words, when they came, were almost too low for him to hear.

"They've got Willow," she said.

<I couldn't have heard her right,> Giles told himself, even as he felt his heart sink down to somewhere near his toes. "What did you say?"

She took a deep breath, hugging him tightly. "The Council...they've got Willow, Giles."

He pushed her away from him and waited impatiently for her to muster the courage to meet his searching gaze. "H-how do you know that?"

She bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears again. "The last Tarakan I killed told me."

"The one from a month ago?" It had been a bug-demon, he recalled, and she'd made a Xander joke when she'd reported it to him - not the sort of reaction he would have expected if she'd just received truly horrible news.

Buffy shook her head. "Another one, a week ago. When you were having dinner with Stetson-man."

"They traced us to Houston?" His voice rose with alarm. "And you didn't tell me?"

"I couldn't," she replied as a few tears escaped to spill over her cheeks. "Don't you understand? I *couldn't* tell you. I couldn't, I *couldn't*!" She began to tremble again, small and alone in the rapidly cooling water.

He realized that it was imperative that he calm and reassure her. "Buffy," he admonished, reaching out to grip her upper arms, "listen to me for a moment. We knew this might happen, remember? We knew they'd try to use our friends to manipulate us. But the Council can't hold Willow indefinitely - eventually they'll have to let her go."

"You don't believe that," she shot back angrily, swiping at her tears. "That's just what we tell ourselves to get through the day, but we know it's not true." She held up a hand to forestall his protest. "And it doesn't matter anyway, Giles. The Tarakan told me they didn't take her as bait to bring us back - or at least not *just* as bait."

Cold dread roiled in his stomach. "What do you mean?"

"They know she's the one that broke into their files, Giles," she told him softly. "They know she's the reason we got away from them, the reason they don't already have our heads on a pike and a shiny new Slayer to brainwash. H-he said there's gonna be some kind of tribunal, and they're gonna punish her for interfering." She closed her eyes. "It will happen in Sunnydale. In five days. And we're not talking about laying on a stiff fine here."

<NO!> He shook his head in firm denial, banishing his creeping doubts as he tried to marshal a convincing argument. "It must be a ruse, Buffy - a story they've made up to get us to return to Sunnydale. The Council has no *jurisdiction* over Willow!"

"What, they're gonna start playing by the rules *now*?" she snapped, opening her eyes to glare at him. "Those crazy sons of bitches don't give a damn about 'jurisdiction', Giles, and you know it! Besides, I *know* the Tarakan wasn't lying."

"Really." He studied her. "And how exactly is it that you can be so certain?"

Her gaze slid away from his face to land on the rapidly diminishing mound of bubbles at the far end of the tub. "Please don't ask me. I just know, all right?"

"Buffy-" he said, a clear warning in his tone.

"I tortured him, okay?" she whispered, hunching her shoulders miserably. "He wasn't lying. Trust me."

<Oh, God...> "I-" He paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled tiredly. This news did indeed change things. "I don't know what to say. Why didn't you tell me, Buffy?"

She gave him a '*duh*, why do you think?' look, then averted her eyes again. "Because this means I have to go back, Giles, don't you see? I can't let Willow suffer because she was foolish enough to make friends with me. I have to try to save her."

He reached out to grip her chin between his fingers, forcing her to turn her head and meet his gaze. "You mean *we* have to try." He'd intended for his words to be reassuring, but her reaction wasn't at all what he'd expected.

Her face crumpled with misery. "Oh, God, I knew you'd say that. I knew it, and I couldn't figure out a way to stop it!"

<What?> "You can't think I would ever leave you to face this alone, Buffy. I would never abandon you."

The tears began again, and she reached out to touch his chest with a bubble-covered hand. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think that if there's anything in the *world* I'm sure of, it's that you won't ever leave me alone? But it's a *death* sentence, Giles! Going back to Sunnydale is like putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger!"

He knew that what she said was true, but felt obliged to argue the point anyway. "Buffy-"

She cut him off, never pausing as the words burst forth in a torrent. "I almost left tonight, Giles."

His jaw dropped. "What?"

She rushed onward, heedless of his response. "The two hundred vamp dollars? Airfare. That's why I was late meeting you, Giles. I spent an hour at the airport watching the planes take off, trying to convince myself that I could do it without you." She crossed her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders defensively as her tears dripped into the water. "Telling myself that if I never showed up at that bar you'd spend days here looking for me before you'd figure out where I'd gone - and by that time everything would be resolved, and Willow would be safe, and *you* would be safe..."

"And you would be *dead*," he finished bitterly, suddenly overcome by an overwhelming, irrational anger. Did the girl not understand what she meant to him? "How *dare* you!"

"Don't y-yell at me," she shouted back, hiccuping in distress. "I'm doing the best I can, don't you understand that? Can't you see how impossible this is? How would *you* make that kind of choice, huh? Me or Willow, pick who dies! *Now*!"

Her visible distress tore at Giles, but he couldn't seem to get past the anger. "That's not the point - it's *my* decision!" he retorted. "*I* decide where I go, and why. It's not up to you."

She stared at him, all huge eyes and trembling lips. "But I love you," she whispered brokenly. "And I don't know how not to give the world to keep you safe."

And with just those few words his anger melted away into nothing. "Oh, Buffy."

She launched herself toward him, tumbling gracelessly from the tub into his lap. Water and bubbles pooled on the tile floor, but neither of them noticed. "I love you," she said, kissing him. "I *love* you! And if I'm going to die, then I have to know that you will live. I can't *do* it, otherwise."

"There are never any guarantees, Buffy." He kissed the top of her head, crushing her against his chest. "But to ask me to stay behind? Knowing how you'd feel if I asked it of you? Do you honestly think that I love you any less than you love me?"

He *felt* her breathing stop. "What?"

He closed his eyes, wondering how words that were meant to bring such joy could cause so much pain. But she deserved to hear them. "I love you, Buffy. I can't imagine my life without you - and more to the point, I don't *want* to."

She said nothing in response, but embraced him so tightly that he was afraid she might crack some ribs. They held each other as the minutes passed, limbs entwined on a cold tile floor, listening to the beating of each other's hearts.

Finally she spoke again, her voice small and tired in the stillness of the dingy little room. "What are we going to do, Giles?"

He smoothed her hair with his hand, savoring the silk of it as he bade a silent farewell to all the hopes and dreams that had come to be in their months together, the moments of happiness easing in around the pain.

He sighed - resolved, once again, to duty.

"We're going to go back. Together."

The End

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