Alanis Morissette

Cordelia slept beside him, back to him and dark hair over the pillows like a puddle, undisturbed by his nightmare.

Giles looked at her for a few moments before sitting forward, elbows on knees.  He shivered as air touched the sweat on his back.  A sickly chill followed the shiver, shaking hard through his stomach.  When it eased, he reached down over the side of the bed for his clothes, found his shirt, and struggled to put it on over clammy skin.

Another round of trembling went through him, leaving nausea in its trail, and he wondered if he was coming down with something or if he was reacting to some disturbance in the hellmouth.  He tried to remember his dream but the wisps of it remaining were elusive and fast fading.  Certainly he had reason enough to have nightmares.  They usually meant nothing at all.

But not always.

He pulled his side of the quilt over him as gently as he could but the tug of the cover caused Cordelia to shift and grab at it, possessive even in her sleep.  Her movement exposed an arm, then a breast.  Despite being so cold, the sight caused a stab of arousal in his groin and he pulled the quilt back over her reluctantly as he lay down.

The light on the ceiling seemed brighter.  He wondered at it.  Was it the streetlight or his eyes?  He raised his arm and saw every hair distinctly as well as the ridge from an old scar at his wrist.

Odd, he thought.  He had good night vision but not this good.  He turned his head to look at Cordelia and perceived fine down on her cheek and the small pulse of a vein under her jaw.  The arousal returned, prickling down his abdomen.  He rolled onto his side and pressed his mouth against her neck, running his tongue over the drumming vein.

She stirred at his movement, her elbow connecting with his chest.  He barely noticed it, lost in the pleasure of pushing his penis between the cheeks of her buttocks while he pulled at her neck.

The elbow landed harder.

"Damnit, Giles," she muttered.

He pulled back in sudden shame.

"What time is it anyway?" she said, leaning to the table on her side in order to see the clock.  "Three twenty?  For Godssakes!"

Her words caused an unexpected swell of anger.  He swallowed it and discovered an odd taste in his mouth.  He swallowed again, sat up abruptly, and switched on a lamp, putting a finger to his lips.

It came away red.

Giles stared at it in confusion before looking over at her.

Blood speckled the side of her neck.

"Cordelia!"  He grabbed her shoulder and her face came into the light.

It wasn't Cordelia.

Drusilla, in a soft sleepy voice, held out her arms and said, "What's wrong, husband?  Were you dreaming about your angel again?"

He bolted from the bed, the covers dragging with him as he stumbled backwards into the dresser.  In panic, he launched into the Lord's prayer and had just reached the part about earth and heaven when she asked, "What are you doing, Giles?"

He raised his eyes to the bed.  "I'm--" and that was as far as he got.

Cordelia stared at him, blinking in the sunlight that streamed across the bed and holding to her chest the last bit of cover that remained to her.

"Show me your neck," he said.

"What?"

"Do it!" he ordered.  She jumped at the tone in his voice, then lifted up her hair.

"This is hardly the way I expected to wake up with you," Cordelia complained.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, throwing her one of the sheets he was holding.  He glanced at the side of the bed and there was his clothing, shirt included.

"Nutso much?" she asked.

"I had a dream."

Cordelia regarded him dubiously.  "Your old girlfriends must have loved *this* part."  She thought for a moment.  "Do you actually have any old girlfriends?"

The insult made him feel better.  "Dozens."

She snorted.  "You dream a lot more than you think."

But he was still by the dresser.  She eyed the expanse of floor between them.  "What exactly did you dream?"

"Nothing," Giles replied, holding an arm in the sunlight.

"I wouldn't worry about that," she said, watching him.

He glanced at her, unsure.

"If you ever turned into a vampire and bit me, Giles" she added, "My knee would hit your groin so hard you'd be the best soprano in the history of the London symphony.  Now come back to bed."

"Please call me by my first name," he said, though he didn't move.

"Would that help get your stubborn butt over here?"

"How alluring that sounds.  Cordelia, we should talk about what happened yesterday."

"I'm kinda thinking that wouldn't be a good idea."  She leaned forward, propping her chin on a hand.  "You're going to do the guilt-awkward-how-the-hell-did-that-happen and we both know how it did."

He opened his mouth but she cut in, "And you'll pull the I'm-so-much-older routine and after I smooth you over that, you'll stutter through the oh-my-God-we-didn't-use-birth-control and *completely* kill the mood.  Giles, just get over here."

He moved, in the other direction however.  Wrapping the sheet more tightly around himself, he looked across at her in dismay.

"I think I'd have an easier time seducing a eunuch," Cordelia sighed.  She let her sheet drop.  "I'm on the pill, it's Saturday morning, you don't have to be anywhere, and I really want you to lie down beside me, Rupert."

"I need a few moments," he said, taking some clothes out of the closet.

She raised an eyebrow in irritation.  "You're dressing?"

"I had a very bad dream."

"Your very bad dream sounds like rejection."

"Cordelia….."

"No, I don't put up with this," she snapped, retrieving her top and skirt.  "I didn't expect this from you but I suppose, at the bottom, you're a typical male just like the rest of them.  After you get off, you can't wait to get the hell away."

"I dreamed that I killed you," Giles said quietly.  "It's a little…..upsetting."

"Just a *little*?" she retorted.

"Oh Lord."  He sank into a chair.  He heard her move around and assumed she was dressing.  But she came to stand in front of him, wrapped in a sheet herself, and held out her hand.

"Come here, Rupert."

She led him to the bed, sitting him down on the edge.  She took a place beside him and put his arm around her.  "Just hold me," she said.  "Hold me until you know I'm ok and that it was just a dream."

Giles did, resting his cheek against the top of her head.  When she felt him relax, she continued, "We look like toga party riffraff in these boring white sheets.  If I'm going to spend any more time in your bed, you're going to have to get something more refined."  She revised her sentence.  "A *lot* more refined."  She gazed around the room.  "This room is sure…..utilitarian.  Don't you every buy anything nice for yourself?"

"I, uh, don't spend a lot of time in this room."

"It's not just this room.  Outside of the living room, and all those books and weapons, your apartment's rather bare."

"I don't have the time.  I have a job, a responsibility."  He added softly, "Or, I did."

"Let the new Watcher take care of Buffy."

"Cordelia, it's not the same as being fired from a…..a Seven-Eleven."

"I'm not telling you to abandon her but you can have a few things now that you haven't had since you've been here."

"Like new sheets?" he asked in some amusement.

"Like a free weekend."  Cordelia shifted around in order to kiss him.  "We can go for a drive, see a movie, have dinner somewhere.  Or we could hit the next town, find a long street, and go for a walk.  Wait, I know.  There's a great bed and breakfast in Haven, a two hour drive with my car.  Every room has a fireplace."  She caught herself and amended, "So I've heard."

He managed a laugh.  "That you're not entirely innocent makes this easier."

"Not entirely innocent is a good way for you to look at it."  She took his hand and maneuvered it through a wad of sheet to the spot between her legs.  She pressed him into her and said, "Make love to me.  Do what you did yesterday."

"We did a varied number of things yesterday.  Perhaps you could narrow it down."

"Replace your hand with these."  She gave his lips a single lick from bottom to top before laying back in the bed.  He laid down with her, kissing her, then smiled and moved down dutifully.

---

At the Monday morning staff meeting, Snyder officially mentioned Wesley Wyndham-Price as a volunteer library assistant, no doubt responding to curious questions from faculty who'd noted him hanging around.  Unofficially, Snyder hadn't as much as breathed the man's name.  Giles suspected Snyder of losing ground with the mayor.  Something was slipping somewhere but if Snyder thought the backhanded turning of a blind eye to Wesley would allow him to call upon Giles' protection someday, he was mistaken.  Giles owed the little no-name demon in the principal's office nothing whatsoever, and both men knew it.

Giles paused inside the library doors.  Buffy, sitting on the table, recited her report of the previous night's patrol with less enthusiasm than she devoted to the cafeteria's vegetarian lunch specials.  Wesley, pacing back and forth, shot clipped questions at her, most of which she ignored.

The library wasn't his anymore, Giles realized.  Buffy had a key and so did Wyndham-Price.  Giles felt like the third person on the sidelines, waiting in his office or in the stacks while others decided battle plans at the table.  Buffy was the main thing, he knew, and his pride secondary.  As long as she was all right, he had no just cause to ride the new Watcher.  As long as she was as safe as possible, Giles kept his mouth shut even if the effort made him chew the inside of his cheeks damn near right through.

Buffy noticed him and smiled brightly at him though.  Bless her, he thought.

But Wesley immediately stepped into her line of sight.

"Insufferable twit," Giles mumbled as he went into his office and whether the other man heard him or not, he didn't particularly care.

It was mid-morning before Buffy was able to talk to him alone.

"Did you feel the earthquake, Giles?  Wesley thinks it was something hellmouthy which is a really detailed analysis.  It's the first time he hasn't opened his books to the exact page and given me an arrogant lecture.  By the way, can you talk to him about the Brylcream on his hair?  It's making me sneeze."

Giles' head came up.  "What earthquake?"

"The one early Saturday morning.  It shook me out of bed and Willow said all her dresser drawers opened.  You didn't notice it?" she asked.

"No.  What time did it happen?"

"After three, close to three-thirty I think, but nothing's happened since.  I found a couple of vamps on my patrols but they were little dumb ones."  She paused.  "What's that look for?"

"I had a nightmare when this earthquake hit."

"If you weren't awake, how do you know what time it was?" she asked teasingly.

"In my dream, someone told me the time.  Actually," he corrected, "I may have been awake when that person told me.  I'll have to ask…..them."

Buffy eyed him.  "Ok, this is a place I so *don't* want to go."

He didn't listen to her as he took the morning's newspaper from his briefcase and spread it open.  "Point four," he mused.  "Minor damage, centre in El Quino.  Here we are."  His expression changed.  "Three-twenty.  It can't be a coincidence."

"What was your nightmare about?"

"I, uh, was a vampire and I killed Cordelia."

"Well, you started in the right place," she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.  He shot her a severe look.

"Giles, you're standing in the light from the window so I know you haven't gone vampish.  Besides, I'm the one who gets the freaky preview dreams."

"Precognitive," he said.

"Whatever.  The point is, you never have."

"No," he agreed but his expression was still disquieting.

Buffy hopped up to sit on his desk, planting herself on the newspaper.  "Give, Giles.  I'm not risking ink stains on my skirt for nothing."

"I probably don't need any help if I wish to become vampyr," he said quietly.  "I think we should have discussed this before now."

Something cold went through her.  "What do you mean?"

He sat down.  "You read a journal of mine, a private one.  You took it without asking, do you remember?"

"Borrowed," she said.

"Drusilla and I exchanged blood."

"Twenty-one years ago, Giles, and not your fault.  Besides, if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now."

"The poison never goes away," he said.  "If she were to return here, I would know.  I would sense her.  I will never be free of her."  He raised his head to look at her.  His expression was pained.  "And there was another demon, more recently."

"Who?" she asked.

But, already, in her gut, the knowledge was there and she felt the smallest echo of surprise when he said, "Angelus.  When he was…..torturing me about Acathla, he thought it would be a, ah, fun thing to do."

There was a stretch of silence.  Buffy broke it by asking, "Are you connected to him too?"

"No.  Obviously not as you were able to hide him from me.  Drusilla and I have more history."

Buffy shifted uneasily as he continued, "The hellmouth is a portal between our reality and the demon world.  I've described it to you as a door but it's more of a turnstile.  Certain demons can go back and forth without needing to shift the bar.  Others have to wait for the right conditions.  An earthquake is indicative that something has turned the stile.  Something's come out, Buffy.  The opening existed for a few moments and, during that time, the contagion in me reacted."

"I didn't see anything."

"There's something else."

His tone was starting to scare her.  "What?"

In a steady tone, he said, "When I die, you're going to have to kill me."

"We don't need to talk about this now," Buffy said, dropping her eyes.

"We should have discussed this long ago."

She scowled.  "You sure know how to put a damper on a day, not that it being Monday wasn't depressing enough."

Giles gently lifted her chin.  "If you have any regard for me whatsoever, don't let me become what I have spent my life trying to beat down."  He stood.  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do something I wish I didn't have to."

"And that would be?"

He put on his jacket.  "Share information with Mr. Wyndham-Price."

"Leave out the part about Cordelia.  He drools whenever her name's mentioned."

Giles paused.  "By that you mean?"

"He's got a hormone and it points at her.  Something happened between them in a bathroom the night we thought Willow got vamped.  I don't know the details."  Buffy got off the desk and checked her skirt.  "Is there any ink back here?"

"No," he said without looking, and left.