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Part One
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I was running...running so fast that my heart pounded the wall of my chest and threatened to burst through. A wall stood in my path, a dark unforgiving wall that blocked my escape from the unnamed demon who was always at my heels in all of my dreams of late. I had known from the beginning that I would find the wall here as usual, but yet I never thought to take a different route through my dream-land, as if I was destined to make the same damning mistake over and over until insight broke through and I knew what it all meant. This time though, I turned to face the demon...something I had never done before in the history of this desperate nightmare. I looked into the face...of a tiny child. A little girl, blond and silent, eyes sparkling an ice blue, and I had never seen such an expression ofawe-inspiring love in my entire life. Why had I been running from her for so long? Why had I been scared? I reached out one finger, a tentative touch. Millimeters before my hand brushed hers, she cried out in defeated anguish and my dream world folded in around me, collapsing around the child and knocking me into consciousness.
* * *
Giles opened his door to find Buffy standing there, cold and shivering in the rain, at 3 in the morning, no less. What on earth was she thinking? An admonishment was on his tongue, but she looked up with such an uncharacteristically haunted expression that the words died before they could slip out.
"For god's sake, Buffy, get in here out of the cold." He spoke softly and took her arm to lead her into his house. He left her standing in the hall and rushed to get a blanket.
"Here," he said, wrapping it around her, "Come sit by the fire." He put her on the couch and sat down next to her. He stroked her hair absent mindedly, trying to come up with what could have possessed her to show up at his house at this time of night. It had to have been a nightmare.
"Buffy, did you have a bad dream?" he asked carefully. He didn't want to force her to talk about it if she really didn't want to.
Her eyes suddenly became very clear and very bright, and Giles wrapped her in a warm embrace as a sob shook her and she nodded mutely into his chest.
"Was it the same one? The one where something was chasing you?" Another cry escaped her and she shook her head yes again. "It's OK, it's all over now."
Buffy struggled to find her voice to explain the recent developments. "It... was...different...this time."
"It's OK...different how?"
"When I got to the wall...I...I turned to face it."
"Oh Buffy." He held her tighter, and squeezed his eyes shut in quiet contempt for whoever had chosen this innocent, beautiful girl to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"I saw...it was..."
"Shhh, you don't have to say it if you don't want to," he told her, even though he was very curious as to what she saw that upset her so.
"No," she protested,"I want to. I saw a little girl, a beautiful little girl. I felt better as soon as I saw her, and I wondered why I had run from her so long. I reached out one finger to touch her hand, but before I could grab onto her everything collapsed around me and then I woke up. I feel like I killed her, Giles!"
Tears fell again. Buffy was still in that half dream state where nightmares were real if you allowed yourself to believe in them, she was in that scary place where all your defenses are down and nothing is there to shield you from the horror. Giles knew where she was now...he had been there a few times himself. And when no one was there to watch out for you, who better for a Slayer to go to than her Watcher? No wonder she was crying in his arms tonight.
"Come on, let's get you tucked in."
"NO!! No! I don't want to sleep anymore!"
"You don't have to go to sleep if you don't want to. I just want to get you out of those wet clothes and into bed."
Despite her tear stained face, Buffy raised an eyebrow and a quirky smile alighted her features at Giles's choice of words.
"You know what I mean," he said, but he smiled in return. She nodded. Giles led her to his bedroom and dug out a large button up shirt of his for her to wear. He handed it to her and left the room quietly, shutting the door behind him.
Buffy stripped to her underwear and slipped the shirt over her head. It was too big on her, and it hung nearly to her knees. She smiled in self-deprecation at being so vertically challenged.
"Giles," she called softly. "You can come in now."
He walked in to find her sitting cross-legged on his bed, blankets pooled around her and looking very lost in his big white shirt. He walked over and pulled the bedding back so she could slip under.
"Feel any better?" he asked.
"Yeah. I'm sorry that I came over here so late. I was just so scared..."
"No apologies. This is what I live..." he stopped mid-sentence, realizing what he'd just *almost* let slip. "This is what I'm here for." She smiled knowingly. Giles sighed. You'd think she'd be used to having people falling all over themselves for her...she brought that out in people. No one had more friends who were so intensely loyal to her as Buffy did...and he had to admit that her following included him.
He bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead, smoothed her hair off her face again, and rose to leave the room.
"No!" her cry stopped him in his tracks.
"What is it?" he asked, returning to her side. "What's wrong?"
"Don't leave me." Giles had thought she had drifted out of that limbo where dreams could still hurt, but he had been wrong.
"Alright, I won't leave if you don't want me to." He sat carefully on the edge of the bed near her.
"Stay," she demanded, reaching out, clinging. He surrendered to her needs. 'Just for tonight,' he told himself, 'just for tonight...', and he slid into the bed with her to take her in his arms.
End part One.
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