That irresponsible, foolish, feckless, selfish, bloody, bloody, bloody girl.
Giles puts the receiver down and walks-not running, surely there's no need to panic, he's just walking very quickly-into the sitting room. "Xander?" Xander's not there, and Giles calls again, louder, "Xander!"
Willow and Tara are both looking at him, identically wide-eyed and caught in the frozen pose, heads together, of the whispered discussion he interrupted. Oz shoots off the sofa faster than Giles has ever seen him move, not bothering to put on his shoes, and gestures towards the door when Giles asks, "Where's Xander?"
"I'm outside." In the doorframe, darkness behind him, and Xander blinks like someone who's been staring into the night. "Well-" he shuts the door "-I guess I'm inside now. What's up?"
"Dawn's not at Janice's. And Janice told her mother they'd be here." There's a round of exclamations that Giles doesn't listen to. Dawn's probably fine, he repeats to himself.
They're all watching him now. Even Oz. Waiting for him to think of something. "Did Buffy says if she was patrolling anywhere in particular?"
"No. But she was gonna go with Spike, she said." Confusion in Xander's tone, and something like old hurt. He reaches out for Anya, sitting on the arm of the sofa, and takes her hand.
"Right. I'll check Spike's crypt, then start on the cemeteries. Willow, Tara, would you do a sweep through the center of town? Xander, Anya, Oz, wait here in case Dawn comes back."
Giles takes a step towards the door, then, when no ones moves or answers, stops. Willow and Tara are arguing over something in emphatic whispers, Xander rocks on the balls of his feet as though he can barely stop himself from running out to look for Dawn, and Oz closes his fingers gently around Giles' elbow. "I'll be back soon," Giles says, and kisses his forehead.
This is just like a hundred times before, in Sunnydale. A phone call, a kiss and a quick goodbye, and Oz doesn't look like he's enjoying the memory any more than Giles is.
"Nice try," Oz says, handing Giles his jacket, then sliding his feet into his shoes and toeing up the backs. When they were first together, this was how it went, and Oz got very good at waiting. Too good. And then, afterward, they did emergency things together occasionally, but not together. Just as part of the team, and Oz started missing waiting.
Giles starts to open his mouth, then shrugs on his jacket, shoots his cuffs, and glances at the door.
Oz slips past him into the entryway. Last thing he wants is to have a huge discussion in front of everyone, so he waits until Giles joins him, then pulls into the dining room. "I'm pretty good at tracking, you know."
He ought to be embarrassed, but there isn't time for the usual hesitancy and mutters of yeah, remember? Werewolf. He's clutching Giles' sleeve and unlocks his fingers with difficulty.
"I can help. Want to."
If he helps, Oz thinks as he swipes the back of his hand across his nose, he's really here, not just something that turned up among Giles' luggage.
Oz can track. Of course. Such a sense of smell, an animal's - a wolf's sense. Once he found Willow by smell, when- "We don't know what's happening. Probably nothing, but . . ."
Oz could probably find Dawn faster than anyone. If she really is in danger, that could save her life.
Giles looks intently at the dull gleam of the dining table, the cruciform shadows of the glass-paned cabinet doors, unrecognizable pictures on the mantle over the faux fireplace, but he can still see Oz with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders drawn tight. "Probably nothing. But if it came to a fight, what would you do? You're not a fighter."
Not when he's himself, the boy and not the wolf, the boy who doesn't look at Giles, who stares down at his shoes so that his lidded eyes are as white as the rest of his face. "I don't want you to get hurt," Giles says, breathing deeply, as though he can take conviction from the air like oxygen, force it into the cold blood that stings his arteries. He has to believe he's being rational. Has to believe he's right.
He doesn't want Oz to get hurt, and he can't help how it seems. That he's treating Oz like someone helpless, or someone dangerous.
"Then I won't get hurt," Oz says. His head feels like marble and it hurts when he looks up at Giles. Maybe he should have stammered through the werewolf reminder; maybe then they'd both be more comfortable. "I'm not bad in a fight."
He's not a fighter, because fighting's stupid, most of the time. It's Spike picking fights with demons, or Xander, because he's bored and antsy. But fighting's not stupid if you have to do it.
"Look, everyone turned to you. You're in charge, so tell me to stay, I'll stay." He *knows* Giles doesn't want him hurt. But that works both ways, and Dawn's missing, which is even more important. "Don't want you out there alone. And I can help."
Giles keeps looking around and Oz starts looking, too. If Joyce was here, she'd shake her head and push them both out the door. Buffy, too.
Oz touches the side of Giles' hand and wraps his fingers around Giles' palm.
"I won't bite or anything." He smiles and waits. "Here or there, I'll be okay."
Giles can feel the words in his throat, taste them bitter and parching on his tongue. A second to speak them, and then he can turn his mind to what needs doing. Find Dawn, although he's got no idea where she is, and neither will Buffy. Find Dawn with time and sheer good luck, while Oz waits and worries.
Oz's hand is smooth and cool to his palm, like a bandage. Giles folds his fingers over it.
If he tells Oz to stay, Oz will obey him. And everything will change. The first order, the first act of obedience, they're like the first drops of acid rain or the first bite of a woodworm. They're where rot and collapse begin.
"If you get killed," Giles says, sticking a muscle-spasm of a smile on his face, "I will never, ever forgive you." He squeezes Oz's hand until his own aches. "Let's go."
Giles is still grimacing when they reach the end of the block and Oz stands on tiptoe, looking up and down the cross-street. The air's crowded with salt and shouting and chocolate crammed into hungry little mouths, but there are other things afloat. Cigarettes, and blood, and the usual oily Sunnydale-smog of fear.
Plus Giles' fear, which is crisp and full like a pile of coffee filters.
Oz turns around. "I'm going to be really embarrassed later, you know. Doing this in front of you."
Giles' rictus of a smile twitches again and Oz checks the traffic before setting off across the street. He's moving, and helping, and Giles' fear is making more and more sense to him, but it's secondary, right now, to Dawn and the shit that unfolds in this town.
Outside the gate to Spike's cemetery -- the closest one to Revello, and that's something else to think about later -- Oz pauses and holds up his hand before Giles can say anything.
"Spike's in there," he says, tasting Marlboros and cheap Jack on the back of his tongue. "No Buffy, though."
"Bugger." Swinging open the crypt door, Giles reminds himself to ask, later, what vampires smell like.
Whiskey, apparently. By the time he's reached the bottom of the steps, he can smell it himself. Cheap stuff, medicine-and-burnt-wood, but Giles has to swallow twice as saliva fills his mouth.
A voice rises up from the other side of the armchair and briefly covers the shrieking-violin soundtrack of an old vampire movie that's playing on the television. "What the fucking hell do you two want? Can't a bloke get a bit of peace on Halloween?"
"Dawn's missing."
Spike's face appears above the chair back, cigarette in his mouth. "Oh, good glorious buggery. Hang on while I get me axe." The television cuts off, leaving only a ringing echo in Giles' ears.
"Actually, we're looking for Buffy."
"Haven't seen her," Spike says, opening a trunk. "Actually." Giles remembers the axe he lifts out, from this past strange, awful Sunnydale summer without Buffy. He's seen that axe wet all the way up the handle with demon blood, seen Spike's clothes and grim-set face gray with vampire dust. Spike even saved Giles' life once or twice.
Giles holds out a hand when Spike takes his coat off the peg. "Xander said she was looking for you to go patrolling. You'd better stay here and wait."
Spike's tooth-clenched grin tilts his cigarette precariously up. "Well, aren't you all unexpectedly masterful, Rupert." Grin sliding into a leer, he looks from Giles to Oz. "But then, I reckon you've learnt a few new tricks lately." Holding the axe gracelessly between his knees, he pulls the coat on. "If something big and bad has the girl, who's gonna save her? You and your new puppy? Pretty, but it's a bit too small to bite."
Oz makes an aborted movement, draws a quick breath that's nearly a snort, and Giles finds himself, absurdly, wanting to defend Oz's ferocity, the strength and blood-thirst of the werewolf in him. "Shut up, Spike."
"Well, I guess you told me."
"Spike. Please." Giles can almost feel his teeth grinding as he says it. "Buffy needs to know."
"Fine." Spike sits-flounces huffily, rather-in the chair again, crosswise with his feet over the arm. "I'll wait half an hour, but after that I'm leaving her a bloody note and going out looking." He raises a whiskey bottle and takes a long drink that makes Giles' mouth itch.
"Thank you."
Outside, walking between the gravestones, Giles lays a hand on the valley between Oz's shoulderblades and says, "You know, there was a time this summer when I actually liked him. I must have been off my head."
Giles' touch is warm and sure and Oz's breathing comes more normally now.
Outside, down a row of graves, well away from the crypt, Oz stops again. "Last week he was telling me how he fought a werewolf for an hour and almost lost his hand." Giles' eyebrows raise and his forehead wrinkles up. Oz smiles and glances over his shoulder. "One on one he's okay. Debated whether he could have been the first known werevamp if he'd been bit."
There are sirens off to the east and the familiar blue lights painting the sky. Urban legends coming true -- candy overdose, razor blades in apples -- at least he hopes so.
"What do you think?" he asks Giles. "Meant to ask you, actually, 'cause maybe --"
There's a whimper, down past the cemetery, a girl moaning and leaves rustling and Oz starts running after the scent of excited girl -- hot citrus and facepowder -- and jock sweat mixing with acrid demon.
"Down here," he whispers when Giles catches up with him. Thundering breath, racing heartbeat, and Oz holds out his arm so Giles has to stop, too.
"Girl, probably Dawn, and something not -- something vampy. But, like, *young*."
They're barrelling forward now into the woods, through the leaves, and Giles scuffles with the stupid vampire while Oz pulls someone -- not Dawn -- off to the side. He presses the cuff of his sweater against her neck while Giles shoves the vamp away and the dust explodes.
Giles, heartbeat, dry leaves. Giles, heart still beating, and fear that Oz files away. Rich tang of blood and they're running again and Oz doesn't have time to think, just feel, hardpacked ground and rushing blood and peppermint soap. Peppermint, orange soda, Dawn. He grabs Giles' arm and pulls him to right.
"Dawn's over there. Not, like, alone."
Alive, peppermint and Giles and Oz drops to a crouch, pulls Giles down with him.
"Over there" is a parked car. Giles can't see any movement inside, and he's just starting to wonder if Oz was mistaken when the door swoops open and a girl, Dawn, pulls herself out, fighting off the unseen hands of whoever's still inside, and starts running.
Giles is running too, Oz just behind him, even before the driver's door opens and a boy races after Dawn. "Dawn, come back, wait!" he's calling in the breath-gaps between her screams. A half-laughing boy in an athlete's letter jacket, running easily, catching up, and what in hell was Dawn thinking, getting in a car with him? He could as easily have been a rapist as a vampire.
Giles runs, not taking his eyes off Dawn and the boy who's getting closer and closer. Risking his neck on this uneven ground, risking a fall that'll slow him down and give the boy more time, but he can't stop watching. If he turns his eyes away, he'll be admitting that this is going to end in blood.
Runs and runs and his own breath is as loud as her screams. Louder, because the boy's caught her, he's got his elbow crooked round her neck and she's still and not screaming anymore.
But she's talking, thank god, they're talking almost like a couple having an ordinary argument, and Giles is there, finally. Gasping, hand shaking a little as he holds up a stake, words coming out in little bursts. "Let her go. Come on, son. Let's not make this any worse." He could be a policeman, a priest, talking to an ordinary boy in trouble.
But then the boy's face warps to its truth, its horror, and the vampire grins-snarls at him and at Oz, who's been sidling discreetly over with a bottle of holy water. "Worse? Things look pretty good to me."
A broken branch cracks behind him. Vampires, a dozen or more, starting to circle, and he and Dawn are going to die. Maybe not Oz, though, maybe if Oz changes he'll live. Giles looks around for him, and jumps when a heavy hand thumps down on his shoulder.
"Decided not to wait," Spike says. "But don't go all stammery with gratitude. 'S embarrassing."
The holy water's uncorked and Oz turns slowly, counting the rest of the vampires, keeping his back pressed against Giles and Dawn and Spike in the corner of his vision. The vampires smell *hungry*, and he's wondering how he knows that, how he knows what Dawn's blood would taste. That it'd be better than her friend's, that it would be like rain and mint growing wild and green, growing things. Wondering and trying not to retch at his own hunger when Buffy runs up.
Buffy's got the talking thing going, yelling at Dawn and the doofus vamp, and Xander was right all those years ago. Buffy's quippage is one of her best weapons; the vamps are uneasy now, and then everything breaks. Like raindrops rolling over a puddle and vanishing, it's uneasy one moment and the next, everyone is fighting.
Oz is moving with knees bent, and Giles is gone, crunch of car doors and breaking windows and the scent of Buffy's anger streaking past him, and when Oz is tackled, he goes limp. Limp, heavy, and he rolls over, spraying the vampire with the holy water and watching horrified as its face sizzles and slides away. Long enough to push onto his knees and stake it, not long enough to catch his breath before the next one, another jock, kicks him back down.
Sunnydale varsity teams have really gone downhill since Larry died.
Oz flips over, the pain in his back sending an ugly, sulphurous growl out his mouth, and everything flashes still. Frozen, black and white, and he sees Giles over there. Sees the dust, sees another attacking him, and the asshole who kicked Oz is dust as Oz runs, ground-sky-trees all silver, launches himself at the second one throttling Giles.
He lands in color, lands human, but the water's empty and his stake's flying out his hand. But he's pulling her off, locking his arms under hers from behind. And Giles is on his feet looking fiercer than he has since that time he caught Willow reading the locked books, and when he stakes her, the wood goes all the way to Oz, tears his sweater, and it's quiet.
Quiet for two heartbeats, his own, Giles, and they stare at each other, not breathing.
"I can't believe you, Dawn!" Buffy yells. "Is there anything in your head besides boys and schemes to piss me off?"
Everything's all right. Giles pulls Oz in and Oz collapses against him, and the heartbeats keep rattling, thundering, onward.
Vampire dust smells like burnt blood, mildew, and the bone ash fertilizer that Giles' mother always used on her roses. Organic foulness that slimes the throat, and then a bitter unnatural aftertaste. Oz's hair stinks of it, but he's alive, sweaty and shivering and wheezing great breaths that, for once, are out of time with Giles' own breathing. Alive, and Giles is alive, and if he'd gone out alone he might be dead now.
Giles leans back against the car, feeling the dull broken cubes of the windscreen imprint themselves through his clothes. His knees are rubbery, ready to give under him. "Thank you," he whispers to Oz, words sticky and indistinct from the grit on his tongue, and pulls Oz tighter against his chest so he doesn't have to answer. They're rocking a little back and forth as they each push closer into the other.
Giles doesn't really notice Buffy and Dawn shouting at each other until it stops. A little later, Buffy says hesitantly, "Uh, Giles?"
He lifts his head just enough to see her over the tips of Oz's hair. "You know, I truly loathe Halloween."
"Yeah, it's always more trick than treat on the hellmouth." Buffy pulls a few stray hairs off her face, blows out a sigh through pursed lips, and frowns over at Dawn. "I think we'd better get Little Miss Bite Me home. Dawn, you are in so much trouble."
"Okay. You've only said so eighty times." Dawn, arms crossed, looks remarkably unchastened. Giles glances around for Spike, but he's already gone.
The walk back to Revello Drive is long and silent. Occasionally Dawn tries to lag behind, and then Buffy pulls relentlessly on her arm and walks faster. Giles feels aches developing in the few muscles that weren't aching already, and every time he looks at Oz, the bruise on Oz's cheekbone is larger and darker.
At the house, Giles is tempted to just get in the car, but Buffy, in the doorway, looks back forlornly over her shoulder. "This has been a very, very long day," Giles says, taking a firmer grip on Oz's hand, and follows her inside.
When adrenaline drains away, it goes in fits and spurts, fizzing in its own wake, so inside the house, Oz is alternately asleep on his feet and still jumping out of his skin. This part of Sunnydale life, post-Giles, was always his favorite part. Handing out ice, uncapping aspirin and Percodan with aching wrenches of the wrist, just talking quietly and moving slowly.
Buffy swallows three aspirin in one gulp, then hands the soda to Oz. "Want a steak for that face?"
Oz touches the hot bruise crawling up his cheek. It's hard to talk, and every time he bends at the waist, his ribs complain. "Wouldn't say no to a burger."
"Nice try," Buffy says, squeezing his hand as she passes. "Tara's the chef, and -- Where are they, anyway?"
"Dunno." The last thing on Oz's mind is Tara and Willow. He's still hungry, hungry like he used to be in the mornings after full moons, and Oz casts around the kitchen for something more substantial than Doritos or cookies. "Giles sent 'em into town."
"Probably making kissy faces, then," Buffy says and unearths a frost-covered box from the back of the freezer. "Like you two. I think these are burgers --"
"Yeah," Oz says, pushing the box away. "Not that hungry. Wait, kissy faces?"
"Oh, yeah. Total kissy face going down." Buffy grins and shoves the box back into the freezer.
This is the hyper stage of exhaustion, Oz thinks, filling his cup with more Coke and sucking it down. "I don't make kissy face."
"You totally do," Buffy says and slaps him on the back, right where the vamp kicked him. "I'm going to go check on our very own juvenile delinquent."
Oz raises the cup in salute and reaches for some cookies. "If you see Giles, send him in?"
"Sure thing, Casanova."
He chews and swallows three or four cookies without tasting them. Blood, and the monochrome glare of the wolf's eyes, are still beating their tattoo against the inside of his skull. He wants to puke, like a good heave would bring everything up and free him. His hands are shaking as he tries to fill the cup again, and his face is throbbing in time with his heartbeat. His mouth is parched, his stomach twisting, and Oz fingers the mala.
Tells himself to feel the wolf and let it be. Let himself be and trust in acknowledgement.
Breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and looks for the calm.
"On Halloween?" Xander's saying for at least the third time. "Man, where's the Halloween spirit if you can't even count on the vamps to stay home? Sure, candy and costumes seem great, but without that sense of tradition it's just not meaningful."
Giles shifts his weight to his other foot (somehow it's better if only one aches at a time) and says, "Well, it's been dealt with."
"I hope Buffy's going to lay down the law," Anya says, nodding towards the dining room where Dawn sits staring at the wall, like a prisoner in a cell. "Children need rules, or they grow up to smoke crack cocaine and work as strippers. I've been reading lots of baby books. Perhaps I should give Buffy some suggestions."
Xander, halfway through raising a biscuit to his mouth, says in a small voice, "Baby books?"
"Anya, it's very generous of you to share your expertise, but I think Buffy should be left to work this out in her own way." She scarcely seems able to work out being alive again, but she's Dawn's guardian. Dawn is her responsibility, one among so many, and it may be irrational to hope that this responsibility will steady her and not just overwhelm.
"But-"
"Ahn? Baby books?"
Giles sits down on the arm of the sofa, tries not to let his eyes close, and listens as little as possible to Xander and Anya's urgent back-and-forth about being prepared versus jumping the gun. Eight days until he leaves. Eight days until Buffy has no Watcher, no older person to rely on. No-he might as well admit it-father.
Nonsense. He's not dying or disappearing into the wilds of Siberia. He'll be at the other end of a telephone, whenever she needs him.
Buffy, but not Oz (is he all right?) finally returns to see Xander and Anya out the door with apologies and goodbyes and the promise of another party later. All very jovial and brisk. "Oz wants to talk to you," she says, looking around the empty room. Willow's magical decorations have disappeared. "He's in the kitchen."
"All right. Actually I think we'll be going. I'm sure you'll want to have a private chat with Dawn."
Buffy smiles a little, nervously, and retreats towards the stairs. "Um, I kinda thought maybe you could do that? You're much better at being all parental than I am. Thanks Giles goodnight!" She disappears past the landing in a clatter of footsteps, then the sound of a door closing.
"So you get to lecture me, huh?" Dawn says. She's holding the vampire's jacket in her arms, stroking the gold 'S' tenderly. It makes Giles angrier than anything she's done all evening. High school athlete, vampire, as though she's playing at being Cordelia and Buffy combined, weaving all their mistakes into one vast fabric of teenage stupidity. "Guess Buffy's too busy."
They both know that he shouldn't be doing this, but he is, and he's damn well going to make a good job of it. "Have you any idea what it would have done to your sister if you'd been killed?" He'd like to sit down, but he thinks it would lose him some advantage.
"Yeah, poor Buffy, too upset to Slay."
"You know how much Buffy loves you. Dawn." He waits, watching her averted, angry face, until she finally looks back at him. "You know."
"Like I can ever forget." With a violent movement, she throws the jacket across the table. "Better be a good girl, Dawn, 'cause your sister died to save your life! I could almost hear you guys thinking it, all summer long."
"Dawn, we all care-"
"You don't care! You wanted to kill me to stop Glory!" Now it's Giles who can't look at her, and when he manages, she says, with horrible calm, "Willow told me."
Sick taste in the back of his throat, his legs gone fluttery and weak, and he'll never forgive Willow for this. "I never wanted to kill you," Giles says, sitting down as slowly as if it might break his bones. "I thought there might be no other choice. And so I insisted that we consider the possibility."
Perhaps she expected him to deny it; his answer seems to derail her anger, the tirade she's no doubt been anticipating for days. "If you really cared about me," she says finally, flatly, "You wouldn't even have thought about it. You wouldn't consider the possibility of killing him just because of some stupid hell dimensions." Dawn points at Oz, standing in the kitchen doorway. Under the bruises his face is pale, the skin fragile over sharp bones.
"No," Giles says. And it's true, Oz means more to him than anything, more than the other six billion souls crowding the planet. This is the real reason, the best reason, why he can't be Buffy's Watcher anymore. "I wouldn't, any more than your sister ever considered killing you. True, you're not the center of everyone's life, Dawn. But that doesn't mean we don't love you. And if you throw your life away out of misguided anger, than you don't deserve Buffy's sacrifice."
Saying another word, staying here another minute is impossible. "Oz, let's go. I'm tired, and you must be too." Deeper than bone-weary. Soul-weary, soul-bruised.
Giles puts the receiver down and walks-not running, surely there's no need to panic, he's just walking very quickly-into the sitting room. "Xander?" Xander's not there, and Giles calls again, louder, "Xander!"
Willow and Tara are both looking at him, identically wide-eyed and caught in the frozen pose, heads together, of the whispered discussion he interrupted. Oz shoots off the sofa faster than Giles has ever seen him move, not bothering to put on his shoes, and gestures towards the door when Giles asks, "Where's Xander?"
"I'm outside." In the doorframe, darkness behind him, and Xander blinks like someone who's been staring into the night. "Well-" he shuts the door "-I guess I'm inside now. What's up?"
"Dawn's not at Janice's. And Janice told her mother they'd be here." There's a round of exclamations that Giles doesn't listen to. Dawn's probably fine, he repeats to himself.
They're all watching him now. Even Oz. Waiting for him to think of something. "Did Buffy says if she was patrolling anywhere in particular?"
"No. But she was gonna go with Spike, she said." Confusion in Xander's tone, and something like old hurt. He reaches out for Anya, sitting on the arm of the sofa, and takes her hand.
"Right. I'll check Spike's crypt, then start on the cemeteries. Willow, Tara, would you do a sweep through the center of town? Xander, Anya, Oz, wait here in case Dawn comes back."
Giles takes a step towards the door, then, when no ones moves or answers, stops. Willow and Tara are arguing over something in emphatic whispers, Xander rocks on the balls of his feet as though he can barely stop himself from running out to look for Dawn, and Oz closes his fingers gently around Giles' elbow. "I'll be back soon," Giles says, and kisses his forehead.
This is just like a hundred times before, in Sunnydale. A phone call, a kiss and a quick goodbye, and Oz doesn't look like he's enjoying the memory any more than Giles is.
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Giles starts to open his mouth, then shrugs on his jacket, shoots his cuffs, and glances at the door.
Oz slips past him into the entryway. Last thing he wants is to have a huge discussion in front of everyone, so he waits until Giles joins him, then pulls into the dining room. "I'm pretty good at tracking, you know."
He ought to be embarrassed, but there isn't time for the usual hesitancy and mutters of yeah, remember? Werewolf. He's clutching Giles' sleeve and unlocks his fingers with difficulty.
"I can help. Want to."
If he helps, Oz thinks as he swipes the back of his hand across his nose, he's really here, not just something that turned up among Giles' luggage.
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Oz could probably find Dawn faster than anyone. If she really is in danger, that could save her life.
Giles looks intently at the dull gleam of the dining table, the cruciform shadows of the glass-paned cabinet doors, unrecognizable pictures on the mantle over the faux fireplace, but he can still see Oz with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders drawn tight. "Probably nothing. But if it came to a fight, what would you do? You're not a fighter."
Not when he's himself, the boy and not the wolf, the boy who doesn't look at Giles, who stares down at his shoes so that his lidded eyes are as white as the rest of his face. "I don't want you to get hurt," Giles says, breathing deeply, as though he can take conviction from the air like oxygen, force it into the cold blood that stings his arteries. He has to believe he's being rational. Has to believe he's right.
He doesn't want Oz to get hurt, and he can't help how it seems. That he's treating Oz like someone helpless, or someone dangerous.
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He's not a fighter, because fighting's stupid, most of the time. It's Spike picking fights with demons, or Xander, because he's bored and antsy. But fighting's not stupid if you have to do it.
"Look, everyone turned to you. You're in charge, so tell me to stay, I'll stay." He *knows* Giles doesn't want him hurt. But that works both ways, and Dawn's missing, which is even more important. "Don't want you out there alone. And I can help."
Giles keeps looking around and Oz starts looking, too. If Joyce was here, she'd shake her head and push them both out the door. Buffy, too.
Oz touches the side of Giles' hand and wraps his fingers around Giles' palm.
"I won't bite or anything." He smiles and waits. "Here or there, I'll be okay."
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Giles can feel the words in his throat, taste them bitter and parching on his tongue. A second to speak them, and then he can turn his mind to what needs doing. Find Dawn, although he's got no idea where she is, and neither will Buffy. Find Dawn with time and sheer good luck, while Oz waits and worries.
Oz's hand is smooth and cool to his palm, like a bandage. Giles folds his fingers over it.
If he tells Oz to stay, Oz will obey him. And everything will change. The first order, the first act of obedience, they're like the first drops of acid rain or the first bite of a woodworm. They're where rot and collapse begin.
"If you get killed," Giles says, sticking a muscle-spasm of a smile on his face, "I will never, ever forgive you." He squeezes Oz's hand until his own aches. "Let's go."
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Giles is still grimacing when they reach the end of the block and Oz stands on tiptoe, looking up and down the cross-street. The air's crowded with salt and shouting and chocolate crammed into hungry little mouths, but there are other things afloat. Cigarettes, and blood, and the usual oily Sunnydale-smog of fear.
Plus Giles' fear, which is crisp and full like a pile of coffee filters.
Oz turns around. "I'm going to be really embarrassed later, you know. Doing this in front of you."
Giles' rictus of a smile twitches again and Oz checks the traffic before setting off across the street. He's moving, and helping, and Giles' fear is making more and more sense to him, but it's secondary, right now, to Dawn and the shit that unfolds in this town.
Outside the gate to Spike's cemetery -- the closest one to Revello, and that's something else to think about later -- Oz pauses and holds up his hand before Giles can say anything.
"Spike's in there," he says, tasting Marlboros and cheap Jack on the back of his tongue. "No Buffy, though."
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Whiskey, apparently. By the time he's reached the bottom of the steps, he can smell it himself. Cheap stuff, medicine-and-burnt-wood, but Giles has to swallow twice as saliva fills his mouth.
A voice rises up from the other side of the armchair and briefly covers the shrieking-violin soundtrack of an old vampire movie that's playing on the television. "What the fucking hell do you two want? Can't a bloke get a bit of peace on Halloween?"
"Dawn's missing."
Spike's face appears above the chair back, cigarette in his mouth. "Oh, good glorious buggery. Hang on while I get me axe." The television cuts off, leaving only a ringing echo in Giles' ears.
"Actually, we're looking for Buffy."
"Haven't seen her," Spike says, opening a trunk. "Actually." Giles remembers the axe he lifts out, from this past strange, awful Sunnydale summer without Buffy. He's seen that axe wet all the way up the handle with demon blood, seen Spike's clothes and grim-set face gray with vampire dust. Spike even saved Giles' life once or twice.
Giles holds out a hand when Spike takes his coat off the peg. "Xander said she was looking for you to go patrolling. You'd better stay here and wait."
Spike's tooth-clenched grin tilts his cigarette precariously up. "Well, aren't you all unexpectedly masterful, Rupert." Grin sliding into a leer, he looks from Giles to Oz. "But then, I reckon you've learnt a few new tricks lately." Holding the axe gracelessly between his knees, he pulls the coat on. "If something big and bad has the girl, who's gonna save her? You and your new puppy? Pretty, but it's a bit too small to bite."
Oz makes an aborted movement, draws a quick breath that's nearly a snort, and Giles finds himself, absurdly, wanting to defend Oz's ferocity, the strength and blood-thirst of the werewolf in him. "Shut up, Spike."
"Well, I guess you told me."
"Spike. Please." Giles can almost feel his teeth grinding as he says it. "Buffy needs to know."
"Fine." Spike sits-flounces huffily, rather-in the chair again, crosswise with his feet over the arm. "I'll wait half an hour, but after that I'm leaving her a bloody note and going out looking." He raises a whiskey bottle and takes a long drink that makes Giles' mouth itch.
"Thank you."
Outside, walking between the gravestones, Giles lays a hand on the valley between Oz's shoulderblades and says, "You know, there was a time this summer when I actually liked him. I must have been off my head."
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Outside, down a row of graves, well away from the crypt, Oz stops again. "Last week he was telling me how he fought a werewolf for an hour and almost lost his hand." Giles' eyebrows raise and his forehead wrinkles up. Oz smiles and glances over his shoulder. "One on one he's okay. Debated whether he could have been the first known werevamp if he'd been bit."
There are sirens off to the east and the familiar blue lights painting the sky. Urban legends coming true -- candy overdose, razor blades in apples -- at least he hopes so.
"What do you think?" he asks Giles. "Meant to ask you, actually, 'cause maybe --"
There's a whimper, down past the cemetery, a girl moaning and leaves rustling and Oz starts running after the scent of excited girl -- hot citrus and facepowder -- and jock sweat mixing with acrid demon.
"Down here," he whispers when Giles catches up with him. Thundering breath, racing heartbeat, and Oz holds out his arm so Giles has to stop, too.
"Girl, probably Dawn, and something not -- something vampy. But, like, *young*."
They're barrelling forward now into the woods, through the leaves, and Giles scuffles with the stupid vampire while Oz pulls someone -- not Dawn -- off to the side. He presses the cuff of his sweater against her neck while Giles shoves the vamp away and the dust explodes.
Giles, heartbeat, dry leaves. Giles, heart still beating, and fear that Oz files away. Rich tang of blood and they're running again and Oz doesn't have time to think, just feel, hardpacked ground and rushing blood and peppermint soap. Peppermint, orange soda, Dawn. He grabs Giles' arm and pulls him to right.
"Dawn's over there. Not, like, alone."
Alive, peppermint and Giles and Oz drops to a crouch, pulls Giles down with him.
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Giles is running too, Oz just behind him, even before the driver's door opens and a boy races after Dawn. "Dawn, come back, wait!" he's calling in the breath-gaps between her screams. A half-laughing boy in an athlete's letter jacket, running easily, catching up, and what in hell was Dawn thinking, getting in a car with him? He could as easily have been a rapist as a vampire.
Giles runs, not taking his eyes off Dawn and the boy who's getting closer and closer. Risking his neck on this uneven ground, risking a fall that'll slow him down and give the boy more time, but he can't stop watching. If he turns his eyes away, he'll be admitting that this is going to end in blood.
Runs and runs and his own breath is as loud as her screams. Louder, because the boy's caught her, he's got his elbow crooked round her neck and she's still and not screaming anymore.
But she's talking, thank god, they're talking almost like a couple having an ordinary argument, and Giles is there, finally. Gasping, hand shaking a little as he holds up a stake, words coming out in little bursts. "Let her go. Come on, son. Let's not make this any worse." He could be a policeman, a priest, talking to an ordinary boy in trouble.
But then the boy's face warps to its truth, its horror, and the vampire grins-snarls at him and at Oz, who's been sidling discreetly over with a bottle of holy water. "Worse? Things look pretty good to me."
A broken branch cracks behind him. Vampires, a dozen or more, starting to circle, and he and Dawn are going to die. Maybe not Oz, though, maybe if Oz changes he'll live. Giles looks around for him, and jumps when a heavy hand thumps down on his shoulder.
"Decided not to wait," Spike says. "But don't go all stammery with gratitude. 'S embarrassing."
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Buffy's got the talking thing going, yelling at Dawn and the doofus vamp, and Xander was right all those years ago. Buffy's quippage is one of her best weapons; the vamps are uneasy now, and then everything breaks. Like raindrops rolling over a puddle and vanishing, it's uneasy one moment and the next, everyone is fighting.
Oz is moving with knees bent, and Giles is gone, crunch of car doors and breaking windows and the scent of Buffy's anger streaking past him, and when Oz is tackled, he goes limp. Limp, heavy, and he rolls over, spraying the vampire with the holy water and watching horrified as its face sizzles and slides away. Long enough to push onto his knees and stake it, not long enough to catch his breath before the next one, another jock, kicks him back down.
Sunnydale varsity teams have really gone downhill since Larry died.
Oz flips over, the pain in his back sending an ugly, sulphurous growl out his mouth, and everything flashes still. Frozen, black and white, and he sees Giles over there. Sees the dust, sees another attacking him, and the asshole who kicked Oz is dust as Oz runs, ground-sky-trees all silver, launches himself at the second one throttling Giles.
He lands in color, lands human, but the water's empty and his stake's flying out his hand. But he's pulling her off, locking his arms under hers from behind. And Giles is on his feet looking fiercer than he has since that time he caught Willow reading the locked books, and when he stakes her, the wood goes all the way to Oz, tears his sweater, and it's quiet.
Quiet for two heartbeats, his own, Giles, and they stare at each other, not breathing.
"I can't believe you, Dawn!" Buffy yells. "Is there anything in your head besides boys and schemes to piss me off?"
Everything's all right. Giles pulls Oz in and Oz collapses against him, and the heartbeats keep rattling, thundering, onward.
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Giles leans back against the car, feeling the dull broken cubes of the windscreen imprint themselves through his clothes. His knees are rubbery, ready to give under him. "Thank you," he whispers to Oz, words sticky and indistinct from the grit on his tongue, and pulls Oz tighter against his chest so he doesn't have to answer. They're rocking a little back and forth as they each push closer into the other.
Giles doesn't really notice Buffy and Dawn shouting at each other until it stops. A little later, Buffy says hesitantly, "Uh, Giles?"
He lifts his head just enough to see her over the tips of Oz's hair. "You know, I truly loathe Halloween."
"Yeah, it's always more trick than treat on the hellmouth." Buffy pulls a few stray hairs off her face, blows out a sigh through pursed lips, and frowns over at Dawn. "I think we'd better get Little Miss Bite Me home. Dawn, you are in so much trouble."
"Okay. You've only said so eighty times." Dawn, arms crossed, looks remarkably unchastened. Giles glances around for Spike, but he's already gone.
The walk back to Revello Drive is long and silent. Occasionally Dawn tries to lag behind, and then Buffy pulls relentlessly on her arm and walks faster. Giles feels aches developing in the few muscles that weren't aching already, and every time he looks at Oz, the bruise on Oz's cheekbone is larger and darker.
At the house, Giles is tempted to just get in the car, but Buffy, in the doorway, looks back forlornly over her shoulder. "This has been a very, very long day," Giles says, taking a firmer grip on Oz's hand, and follows her inside.
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Buffy swallows three aspirin in one gulp, then hands the soda to Oz. "Want a steak for that face?"
Oz touches the hot bruise crawling up his cheek. It's hard to talk, and every time he bends at the waist, his ribs complain. "Wouldn't say no to a burger."
"Nice try," Buffy says, squeezing his hand as she passes. "Tara's the chef, and -- Where are they, anyway?"
"Dunno." The last thing on Oz's mind is Tara and Willow. He's still hungry, hungry like he used to be in the mornings after full moons, and Oz casts around the kitchen for something more substantial than Doritos or cookies. "Giles sent 'em into town."
"Probably making kissy faces, then," Buffy says and unearths a frost-covered box from the back of the freezer. "Like you two. I think these are burgers --"
"Yeah," Oz says, pushing the box away. "Not that hungry. Wait, kissy faces?"
"Oh, yeah. Total kissy face going down." Buffy grins and shoves the box back into the freezer.
This is the hyper stage of exhaustion, Oz thinks, filling his cup with more Coke and sucking it down. "I don't make kissy face."
"You totally do," Buffy says and slaps him on the back, right where the vamp kicked him. "I'm going to go check on our very own juvenile delinquent."
Oz raises the cup in salute and reaches for some cookies. "If you see Giles, send him in?"
"Sure thing, Casanova."
He chews and swallows three or four cookies without tasting them. Blood, and the monochrome glare of the wolf's eyes, are still beating their tattoo against the inside of his skull. He wants to puke, like a good heave would bring everything up and free him. His hands are shaking as he tries to fill the cup again, and his face is throbbing in time with his heartbeat. His mouth is parched, his stomach twisting, and Oz fingers the mala.
Tells himself to feel the wolf and let it be. Let himself be and trust in acknowledgement.
Breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and looks for the calm.
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Giles shifts his weight to his other foot (somehow it's better if only one aches at a time) and says, "Well, it's been dealt with."
"I hope Buffy's going to lay down the law," Anya says, nodding towards the dining room where Dawn sits staring at the wall, like a prisoner in a cell. "Children need rules, or they grow up to smoke crack cocaine and work as strippers. I've been reading lots of baby books. Perhaps I should give Buffy some suggestions."
Xander, halfway through raising a biscuit to his mouth, says in a small voice, "Baby books?"
"Anya, it's very generous of you to share your expertise, but I think Buffy should be left to work this out in her own way." She scarcely seems able to work out being alive again, but she's Dawn's guardian. Dawn is her responsibility, one among so many, and it may be irrational to hope that this responsibility will steady her and not just overwhelm.
"But-"
"Ahn? Baby books?"
Giles sits down on the arm of the sofa, tries not to let his eyes close, and listens as little as possible to Xander and Anya's urgent back-and-forth about being prepared versus jumping the gun. Eight days until he leaves. Eight days until Buffy has no Watcher, no older person to rely on. No-he might as well admit it-father.
Nonsense. He's not dying or disappearing into the wilds of Siberia. He'll be at the other end of a telephone, whenever she needs him.
Buffy, but not Oz (is he all right?) finally returns to see Xander and Anya out the door with apologies and goodbyes and the promise of another party later. All very jovial and brisk. "Oz wants to talk to you," she says, looking around the empty room. Willow's magical decorations have disappeared. "He's in the kitchen."
"All right. Actually I think we'll be going. I'm sure you'll want to have a private chat with Dawn."
Buffy smiles a little, nervously, and retreats towards the stairs. "Um, I kinda thought maybe you could do that? You're much better at being all parental than I am. Thanks Giles goodnight!" She disappears past the landing in a clatter of footsteps, then the sound of a door closing.
"So you get to lecture me, huh?" Dawn says. She's holding the vampire's jacket in her arms, stroking the gold 'S' tenderly. It makes Giles angrier than anything she's done all evening. High school athlete, vampire, as though she's playing at being Cordelia and Buffy combined, weaving all their mistakes into one vast fabric of teenage stupidity. "Guess Buffy's too busy."
They both know that he shouldn't be doing this, but he is, and he's damn well going to make a good job of it. "Have you any idea what it would have done to your sister if you'd been killed?" He'd like to sit down, but he thinks it would lose him some advantage.
"Yeah, poor Buffy, too upset to Slay."
"You know how much Buffy loves you. Dawn." He waits, watching her averted, angry face, until she finally looks back at him. "You know."
"Like I can ever forget." With a violent movement, she throws the jacket across the table. "Better be a good girl, Dawn, 'cause your sister died to save your life! I could almost hear you guys thinking it, all summer long."
"Dawn, we all care-"
"You don't care! You wanted to kill me to stop Glory!" Now it's Giles who can't look at her, and when he manages, she says, with horrible calm, "Willow told me."
Sick taste in the back of his throat, his legs gone fluttery and weak, and he'll never forgive Willow for this. "I never wanted to kill you," Giles says, sitting down as slowly as if it might break his bones. "I thought there might be no other choice. And so I insisted that we consider the possibility."
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"No," Giles says. And it's true, Oz means more to him than anything, more than the other six billion souls crowding the planet. This is the real reason, the best reason, why he can't be Buffy's Watcher anymore. "I wouldn't, any more than your sister ever considered killing you. True, you're not the center of everyone's life, Dawn. But that doesn't mean we don't love you. And if you throw your life away out of misguided anger, than you don't deserve Buffy's sacrifice."
Saying another word, staying here another minute is impossible. "Oz, let's go. I'm tired, and you must be too." Deeper than bone-weary. Soul-weary, soul-bruised.
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