Giles walked through the Sunnydale Cemetery, his hands in his pockets, thinking to himself. It had been three years now, three years to the day. Three years since he had come home to find the woman he loved lying on his bed, surrounded by rose petals, with her neck snapped. Three years since Jenny Calendar had been murdered.
He realised, of course, that for many people, the three year anniversary of the death of someone they had known for barely more than a year, and dated for an even shorter time, would be an occasion most likely forgotten, or shared with someone met in the large time-span. He knew that for all the others, that was all the occasion meant, something forgotten two years ago, no longer even crossing their minds. Even Willow, who had been both years previously, was now happy with Tara, and had completely forgotten her old friend’s death-date.
That probably sounded as though he were criticising them, but he wasn’t. He understood that it had faded to the back of their memories, but it could never fade to the back of his. He would never stop playing their last conversation over in his head, wishing he had said something that could have saved her. He would never forget finding her on his bed, realising that she was dead, dropping the champagne and glasses to shatter on the floor, running over to her, shaking her, calling her name, holding her in his arms, and rocking her back and forth, crying tears of grief into her hair, trying to bring her back.
But she hadn’t come back, and to this day he had never had a relationship with someone that had meant so much to him as Jenny had. The incident with Joyce had been nothing more than a one night stand under the influence of cursed chocolate. Not that he hadn’t cared about Joyce, she had been a dear friend, and he had been very sad when she had died, but he had never cared in a romantic way for her. And as for Olivia, though he had once found her an ideal girlfriend, both of them had changed, especially him, and no matter how physically attracted the two of them were, Giles had never loved her as much as Jenny. He doubted he would ever love anyone as much as he had loved Jenny.
Bending down to place the large bunch of carnations on her grave (he knew he would never, ever bring roses); he heard a loud, high-pitched scream, followed by another, more muffled. Running towards the source of the screaming, he could see a vampire feeding off a woman. Her long dark hair obscured her face from Giles’s view, and the vampire’s hand was clamped across her mouth, muffling her cries for help.
Pulling a cross from his coat, he ran to help the woman. He pushed the cross into the vampire’s face. The vamp growled in pain and threw the woman away from him. She landed hard on the sidewalk, and didn’t get up again. The vampire swung at Giles, catching him hard on the jaw. Giles went down, and quickly rolled out of the way of his foot. Jumping to his feet, he kneed the vampire in the groin, ducked the slow counterpunch, and plunged the stake into the vampire’s chest. It exploded into dust.
Kneeling down by the woman, Giles gently rolled her onto her side, and cleared away the hair from her face. And pulled back, shocked by what he saw. Peering at the woman again, he was hit by a similar wave of shock. It was impossible, there was no way it could be true.
The woman lying unconscious on the sidewalk was Jenny Calendar.
Sitting in the hospital room beside Jenny’s unconscious form, Giles stared at Jenny. She looked so beautiful, the large bruise on her forehead doing nothing to mar her beauty. He remembered how, after the night when she had shot him with the crossbow, she had stayed in his apartment, and how he had held her as she slept, and thought how small, and vulnerable, and peaceful she looked. She had changed a little since then. Her hair was longer now, reaching almost halfway down her back. She was very thin, bordering on unhealthily so. But despite this, she was definitely Jenny.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Odd as it sounded, he didn’t know if the news made him happy or sad. Not about her being alive- he didn’t want her to be dead. No, it was that in all these years, she had never contacted him. That knowledge hurt him, a lot. For three years, he had mourned her, cried for months over his loss. Every year he had mourned at her grave, every night images haunted him…
He didn’t understand. Jenny couldn’t have survived that night. He had held her dead body in his arms, he had felt constantly for breathing or a pulse- and there hadn’t been one. He hadn’t brought her back from the dead, certainly, but Willow… no, Willow couldn’t have. She didn’t have enough experience then, and she was too smart to attempt it now. He tried other possible theories out in his head. Her family, perhaps? They would certainly have had the magicks, but from what he had heard, she hadn’t gotten along so well with them. Why would she stay with them three years? Maybe they had forced her to? But then, why would she be here now?
He was confused. He had claimed not to know Jenny when the ambulance arrived. Quite frankly, he wondered if that wasn’t entirely true. He wondered if any of the staff had had any luck discovering who she was, using her wallet. They probably wouldn’t tell him if they had, why should they? As far as they were concerned, he was just a nice man who had helped a stranger in trouble.
Jenny began to shift and stir in the bed. Giles turned back towards her, preparing to confront her as to why she hadn’t gotten in touch. Her eyes flickered open, and he leant towards her. She blinked a few times to get her sight back into focus. When she was properly awake, she sat up quickly, clutching her head, looking around wildly, panic in her eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked Giles “Where am I?”
For a few seconds, Giles was frozen into shock. She didn’t remember him. He stared at her, unspeaking. Then he saw her crying with panic, and his common sense kicked in. He put his hand on her arm.
“Jenny, hush,” he said, “You’re in hospital.”
She turned to stare at him.
“How come? And how do you know my name?” Giles silently cursed himself for letting that slip.
“You were attacked. I found you. My name’s Rupert Giles.”
She calmed down a little, and instead, stared guardedly at Giles.
“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.”
“That’s all right.”
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes. Giles so desperately wanted to ask Jenny why she didn’t remember him, and hold her, and kiss her. But he knew she was confused and uneasy, and he didn’t want to make it worse. To try and lighten the mood, he decided to attempt conversation.
“So, um, Jenny... I haven’t seen you in Sunnydale before.” *Right. The way to her heart is _definitely_ through pointless conversation,* he scolded himself.
“No. No, I just moved here this week.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” *For God’s sake, man! Say something vaguely intelligent!*
“Yeah. We thought it would be nice to get away from where we lived before.”
“We?”
“Me and my husband.”
Giles felt as though he had just been punched in the gut. Hard. His face turned deathly pale and he stared at Jenny.
“Husband?” he repeated, weakly.
She gave him a weird look.
“Yeah. Husband. As in, the guy I’m married to.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”
Searching for a way to save himself, whilst trying to process all this new information, he managed to pull together an answer.
“You, umm, just look quite young to be, umm, married.” Seemingly satisfied with the answer she shook her head.
“Yeah, lots of people say that, but I’m actually 32, so... not so young, huh?”
“You, umm, you’re very... very beautiful. You could pass for much younger,” he added hurriedly. Her smile softened a little at his stuttering reply.
“Thanks. You’re not so bad looking yourself.”
Taken aback by the reply, having expected her to dismiss him as someone who was only interested in her because she was pretty, and young looking, Giles looked up. Something had to be wrong. _This_ was all wrong. Jenny had died, and now she was sitting here, telling him that she was married, and quite obviously with no memory of him at all.
“Jenny...” he began, but was cut off as the door opened, and a figure strode in. Glancing towards the door, Giles nearly collapsed with shock. As if to complete the picture of absolute confusion, Ethan Rayne stood in the middle of the room.
“Jenny, darling, are you all right?” Ethan asked, sounding concerned.
“Yeah...”
Ethan turned and saw Giles. A slow, horrible smirk spread over his face.
“Rupert, this is Ethan,” Jenny said, oblivious to Ethan’s expression, “My husband.”
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