Chapter One

He answered gently, "Don't let go of your old friends' hands.  They like and admire you.  They want to help you."

She shook her head and sighed.  "Oh, I know.  I know.  But on condition that they don't hear anything unpleasant…..does no one want to know the truth here?  The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend."

_The Age of Innocence_  by Edith Wharton

---

Cordelia woke when a car with a thumping stereo drove by.  She lay for a few moments, listening to the bass fade away, before sitting up.

Giles slept beside her, so still she almost couldn't hear him breathe.  To reassure herself, she touched his chest.  He used to be a restless sleeper and she'd griped about how it kept her awake.  Now she would have given up going to Anjou's Hair Stylings for the rest of her life, to have the chance to complain again.  When he slept now, he went down deep and the alarm didn't always wake him.  He often grew cold in the night too.  She'd find her skin chilled against his and no amount of covers helped.

Slipping out of bed, she drew the quilt over him and went downstairs.  She looked out the window at the gray landscape, the large silver lump that was his car and the top of the fence glimmering in the moonlight, before turning on the light and filling the kettle.

"I'm picking up one of your awful habits," she whispered as she opened the canister of Earl Grey.  "Tea at three-thirty.  Ugh."  But it was something that steadied her, something she could do rather than lie beside him and worry.

As she picked up the teapot, she noticed a figurine on the window sill behind it.  Her eyebrow raised as she picked it up.  This was something new.  Mulheim Crystal.  A pricey little object.  A rabbit, its ears cocked as if listening to something behind it.  It didn't fit in with what she knew of Giles and she wondered if someone had given it to him and why it was in a place where he'd see it every time he made tea.

Yawning, Cordelia replaced it, put the tea on to brew, and sat at the table.

Wind brushed past the windows and, far away, sounded a low note of thunder.  A storm on its way.  They hadn't had one for a while and even long-time residents, used to the arrhythmic weather patterns of the California coast, were commenting on the unusual dry spell.  Two months now.

During the last downpour…..Cordelia smiled quickly at the memory.  She and Giles had made out in the school bleachers, a surprising culmination to an even more surprising argument.  She'd seen him in various homogeneous moods through three school years and had vaguely noticed small spikes in the pattern.  She'd never thought him an emotional man.  He was Mr. Chips.  But then Mr. Chips blew a gasket, the result of a week-long feud between Buffy and herself.  She'd shown up in the library and, with no warning, he ordered *her* out, but inexplicably stormed out himself.  He raged forth into a downpour and, with a streak of mulishness she hadn't suspected in him, stayed out.  In fact, went farther out, trudging across a muddy football field, onto the bleachers, and then to the top row where there was no shelter from the rain whatsoever.

She followed in bewilderment and the feeling that she'd been insulted.  Having the last word was *her* privilege.  She meant to tell him so but the trip to the bleachers dampened her resolve, both mentally and physically.  By the time she got to the bench beside him, she had little energy left to assert her rights.

Then he did something mushingly sweet.  When she complained of being wet, he offered to share his coat, snuggling her in under his arm.  She kissed him.  He kissed her back, half-astonished and half-riding the tail end of his outburst.  She crawled onto his lap for the next kiss and wiggled until she felt him react the way most men did when a willing woman shimmied onto them.

Cordelia was quick to recognize opportunity, and seducing Buffy's Watcher would certainly nail the argument between her and Buffy.  While kissing Giles, Cordelia was imagining Buffy's face when the latter found out.  Buffy, who treated her Watcher like a half-forgotten housepet, giving him a pat when she remembered but strangely protective should anyone else go to scratch behind his ears.  If Buffy could have, she would have gotten him fixed, no doubt, if such a request could have been forwarded through the Watcher's Council.

The twill-stuffed Watcher, who Cordy figured would stay dusty even in the rain, got the last word again.  She hadn't expected much from him.  A few moments of fumbling.  And she assumed she'd have to give him directions.  After all, it had been a while since his errant youth, the story of which she hadn't quite reconciled with him.

It couldn't have been the furthest thing.  Gentle, despite having been so angry.  Excitable, though he'd formerly given the impression that polishing shelves comprised his wildest nights.  And very much in charge.

Afterwards, Cordelia changed her plans accordingly.  Though she still factored in the trump card she now held when it came to Buffy, it was far down the goals sheet.  Number one - another seduction of the librarian.  It was numbers two through fifteen too.  Cordelia also recognized potential when she came across it.

The potential here was something she'd never before considered.  Except for the bizarre hormonal sidetrip with Xander, she'd always picked her dates with an eye to her future.  Family income had been the definite factor, and if the guy was half-decent, that didn't hurt either.  She knew some girls considered such thinking crass but she'd always thought of herself as a realist.  Warm lingering glances did not pay bills.  Nice guys sometimes went hungry.

A librarian's income was quite a few brackets under the one she aimed for.  The age thing was a consideration on top.  If the seductions continued past - well, number twenty-two at last count - she'd eventually be a young widow.  She was throwing away her carefully designed future for warm lingering glances.

Ironically, she felt safe with him.  She never knew how much she wanted the feeling of being completely safe.  She also felt assured with him.  He was happy with so little.  Give him a book, an armchair, and a pot of tea, and he was the most contented man on the planet.

The only thing that scared her was the intelligence factor.  Giles was sharp.  Very much so.  She couldn't play games with him, and she could read every page of the encyclopedia but she'd never catch up.  They unwillingly traded having the upper hand, pulling it back and forth between them like a stretched-out football, but she was suspicious of the times when she had control of the ball.  It usually meant he had his eye on some other play on the field.

She was in charge at the moment, which made her wonder what was coming.  Some new threat?  Some curse or portentous D-day?  Graduation was past, the hellmouth was practically dormant, and it was the beginning of summer, demon downtime.  Even Wesley, the ultimate stickler when it came to Slayer stuff, had suggested Buffy take every other day off.

So what in this dimension or the next was it?

Cordelia poured tea into a mug and sighed.  Whatever it was, it would go along without Giles for once.  His walk was slower, a stoop had appeared in his shoulders and a froggy tone often sounded under his voice.  He slept a lot too, in chairs, on the couch, and once in his car while waiting for her.  It had been seven weeks since his trip in and out of the hellmouth, but he seemed more depressed now than when he'd first come out.  He was sick and even Buffy had noticed.

He was being stubborn about it but he was going to give in this time.  The ball was currently in Cordelia's end of the field.  She'd rented a cabin at Long Beach on Giles' American Express, on a private strip of shore, and her suitcases were in the trunk of her car.  All she had to do was get him packed, get some gas, and they were on their way.

She smiled at the thought of packing him up.  He didn't even own a pair of shorts, much less anything for the beach.  Getting him ready would stretch the definition of 'challenge'.

Wind picked up outside the window as it began to rain.  It was a gentle fall, fresh and steady, and Cordelia opened the window to let the smell of it come into the kitchen.  After a moment, she remembered him upstairs, so easily chilled, and shut the pane guiltily.  She rinsed out her cup and went back to him.

---

Willow fiddled with the edge of a book and Wesley waited, having learned this was one of the young woman's ways of preparing herself for a conversation she was reluctant to have.  He'd picked up on many of the Slayerettes' mannerisms and personalities since he'd moved Buffy's workout site, and most of Giles' books, to his house.  And he was starting to get used to having the young people come and go in Buffy's wake.

He wondered how it had been before his arrival.  Had Giles been the recipient of an almost constant invasion?  The circumstances were somewhat different now, Wesley knew, for Buffy had quit the Council, which effectively negated his 'official' presence in her life.  She didn't have to answer to him and, until the Council acted, she didn't have to answer to anyone whatsoever.  He'd decided to go back to England when she'd quit, leave her to her own devices, hold on to what little bit of pride he had left and thereby escape the main bulk of the Council's envisioned response.

The events of graduation day changed his mind.  He'd never seen anything like it.  No one had warned him.  Nothing in his training had prepared him.  And when the thing that had been the mayor rose into the sky, he was no longer a Watcher, sent to help the Slayer and defend civilians - he was, and he cringed to remember, a man at the rear who'd just lost all bladder control in absolute terror.

And when that Slayer, that young girl who didn't even stand as high as his breast pocket, planted herself right in front of the thing and taunted it to its doom, he realized the full futility of everything he'd ever been taught.

It was Willow who'd caught him packing the night before graduation day.  He'd told everyone he was going back to England - no surprise that he would be packing after all.  But he'd spoken thinking it would be taken as a threat.  Yes, I'll go back and tell on you, and they hadn't cared, which only furthered his resolve.

Willow, come to tell him that she'd discovered the cure for Angel and how horrible that discovery had been, looked in dismay at the boxes and asked, "Why are you leaving us before the Ascension?"

"Buffy has quit the Council," he'd said.  The impact didn't register on Willow who knew of the board only as a vague non-entity far in the background.

"And you don't think Buffy has a better chance with as many of us helping her as possible?"

"She doesn't want my help," he said.

In a bewildered voice, she asked, "You don't care?"

"She doesn't want my help," Wesley repeated.

"You're wrong," Willow said.  "She wants as much help as she can get, but she's been at this hellmouth for three years.  You have to listen to her.  If you leave, that means you don't care, not about her, not about us, not about any of it.  And if that's how they train Watchers, they've got an awful lot to answer for!"

In that moment, Wesley understood the extent of this little band of awkward warriors.  Part of the Slayer's strength came from who stood behind her.  Historically it was the Watcher, but for this long-lived Slayer, it was a quietly courageous group of friends.  And this one, this little slip of a girl, saw his blindness and called him on it, angry underneath her own misgivings.

Looking at her, Wesley said, "I do care."  Then, quietly, "But I can't--"

"Yes you can," Willow said.  Then she'd left but it had taken him a few minutes to follow, trying to work out how best to approach Buffy.  In the end, he simply asked, "How can I help?"  Apparently that was all he'd ever needed to say.

Now, here it was, the beginning of July.  He was still in Sunnydale.  The Council was notoriously silent and so was he, having failed to send reports to them beyond the single, "Ascension over.  Slayer prevailed."

A few days after graduation, Buffy came to his doorstep, defiant but quiet.  "I want to hone my fencing.  Giles isn't up to it but he says you know how."  Other weapons followed, and work out sessions in the basement, and then the rest of the gang, Xander first, Oz and Willow later, bringing conversation and noise and almost endless activity into his house.  The ones he didn't see were Cordelia and Giles.  Giles had taken a part-time position at the museum.  Other than that, he and Cordelia seemed content to be each other's sole social circle.  Wesley phoned periodically, but it was always Cordelia who answered, and he suspected the two had unobtrusively set up house together.

Buffy and her friends left him the sanctity of the upstairs but the main floor and basement were their places.  The path of least resistance was to accept this, though it rankled at times.  Now, for instance.  Wesley liked to have everything in its proper place, but he could see a pizza box on the floor beside the couch.  It was taking all his effort not to consign it to the dustbin and get out his carpet shampooer.  If he moved though, Willow would fall silent, and she'd been trying to talk to him since yesterday morning.

He shifted until the box was out of his sight.  But that put most of Willow out of his sight.  Wesley sighed.  There was just no dealing with these young people sometimes.

He edged his chair until Willow was between him and his view of that end of the couch.  But that brought new terrors.  Was that a *soda can* on the mantle?  And right beside his Dakeesh Globe!

"Wesley," Willow started.

He pulled his eyes away from the mantle.

"I can't reach Buffy," she said.

American slang? he wondered.  The phone was right behind her.

"She's not at home?" he ventured.

"She's distant.  She's been this way since she and Giles went into the hellmouth.  I thought it was something to do with that but it's getting worse."  Willow stopped fiddling with the book and looked up.  "Xander and I took her to the beach last weekend.  There are some others there that we play volleyball with.  Buffy has the meanest spike over the net I've ever seen."

"That stands to reason," Wesley said and Willow smiled at him.

"I suppose it does."  Her smile faded.  "She wouldn't play.  She just wanted to sit by herself and watch the waves.  That's not the only thing.  No matter what Xander and I try, she…..well, she's really down.  It's like she wants us to leave her alone."

Wesley considered her words for a few minutes.  He didn't know the Slayer all that well.  He didn't have a grasp of her moods and rhythms, though sullen stubbornness seemed to be the most prevalent one.

"You've come to me instead of to Giles," he commented in surprise.

"Giles is more down than she is," Willow said.  Realizing how it sounded, she suddenly flushed.  "I mean, I would have gone to him because he's known her longer than you, not because you're not….."

"I understand.  Mr. Giles is still suffering effects from the hellmouth and from his descent into Rapture," Wesley offered as consolation to the girl.  Though there was practically no information on the subject, he added, as brightly as he could, "I'm sure he'll pick up soon."

"And Buffy?" Willow persisted.

He decided to accept Willow's evaluation at face-value.  She knew Buffy far better than he did, and probably ever would if the current trend continued, he thought ruefully.  He'd assumed the Slayer's demeanor had to do with concern over Giles, but Willow was just as concerned and she wasn't acting so beaten down.

Wesley mentally reviewed the few certain facts he possessed.  Giles was ill.  Buffy was depressed.  Both states were the result of entering the hellmouth.

He paused.

Or were they?

Giles' situation made sense.  From what Cordelia had told him, the demonic infection in the elder Watcher's blood was still active.  Buffy hadn't been infected.  Also, she'd been in and out of the Hellmouth before, during the Harvest.  Yet her mood had come at the same time as Giles'.

It suddenly clicked.  Wesley sighed and the resentment on his face must have shown for Willow frowned.

"Are you angry?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm not angry," he lied.  He stood, but a glance at Willow paused him.

She looked frightened.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's all right, Miss Rosenberg," Wesley told her.  "When Giles picks up, Buffy will too."

"Because?"

Allaying her fears meant going against Council directive.  He might as well just toss the Council's handbook along with the pizza box, for all the good it had done him here.

"They're connected.  I should have realized," he said.

"What do you mean?" Willow asked.  "Is it some kind of Watcher-Slayer thing?  But you're the Watcher now."

He could have shaken her hand vigorously for that, if touching her hand wasn't so strictly out of bounds.  "This is private information.  You must promise to keep it to yourself.  Before Giles went into the hellmouth, Buffy claimed him.  A Slayer can demand it.  By claiming him, she was able to find him in the hellmouth and bring him out."

"Claiming is joining?" Willow asked.

Wesley nodded.

"Then they unclaim and she's ok again?"  Looking at him, she frowned again.  "Wesley?"

"Once it is done, it's done," he said softly.

Willow was silent for a moment.  Then, in an awful tone, she asked, "What if Giles…..should die?"

"It would weaken the Slayer but it wouldn't kill her," Wesley said quickly.  To his astonishment, Willow started to sob.  "Buffy wouldn't die," he tried again, raising a hand ineffectually towards her shoulder.  Before touching her, he caught himself.

"But Giles could die?"

Wesley fell back into his chair with a feeling of deep water closing over his head.  The stream of consciousness swimming with him  - crying girl, he'd rarely encountered them, usually they had mothers nearby, if Giles had been here, no, *he* was the Watcher, what should he do about a crying girl, his handkerchief, perhaps a glass of sherry.

But she looked up at him with a tear running down her cheek.  "Will Giles die?"

He had *no* information.  And Giles' blood was heavily infected…..

"No, no he will not," he said in the briskest, most chipper tone he possessed.

Please, not on my suit, he prayed as she leaned against his shoulder.  But hers was the lightest weight he'd ever encountered, a hummingbird grazing his lapel.

He patted her shoulder, his pats slowing when he touched her hair.  What colour *was* that?  Burnished copper?

He abruptly realized what he was doing and jerked his hand away, unfortunately taking several strands of hair with him.

Willow jumped too and raised a hand to her head.  "Ow."

"I'm-I'm sorry.  My watch," he tried.

Out of my depth, he thought.  Past the breakers, past the coral reefs, way way out to sea.

Time to call for help.

---

"A real holiday," Willow said, pointing at a spot on a fold-out road map.

Xander batted down his end of the map and tried to see over a fold.  "And what's there besides water, sand, and more water and more sand?"

"Sand with girls on it," Willow said.

"Girls with bikinis?" Xander ventured.

"Maybe one or two," Willow replied with a sigh.

"I suppose I could break down and go," he leaned forward for a closer look.

"I can't," Buffy said.

"It has to be all three of us," Willow started.  "There's no way my parents are going to let me go alone with Xander."

"Hellmouth.  Vamps.  Me, Slayer.  Remember?"

"Wesley suggested it," Willow said.  "He said you deserved a real holiday."

"Deserved?" Buffy repeated incredulously.

"For a week."

"And when I'm gone, who patrols?"

Willow put her hands on her hips.  "When was the last time you staked a vampire?"

"Time issues are meaningless because it works on a curve."

"We're going," Willow said firmly.

"Can you actually see Wesley patrolling?"

"From where we're going?  Not without a very strong telescope," Xander said.

"And we *are* going," Willow repeated, pointing again at that spot on the map.

Buffy peered over.  Suddenly her face froze and she pulled away.  "No."

"My parents' friends have a cottage," Willow tried.

"*Not* Long Beach," Buffy said.

When nothing more was forthcoming, Xander asked softly, "Bad memories?  Something undead we should know about?"

"I've never been there," Buffy told him.

"Not seeing the problem," he said.

"All you see are girls in bikinis."

"No, I'm hoping beyond hope to see them but they're not physically in sight yet."

Willow gave him a *look* before saying, "Buffy….."

She sighed loudly.  "Long Beach is where Cordelia is taking Giles."

"Oh, then we want to go the opposite way," Xander said quickly and studied the map.  "Tijuana.  Land of muscatel and really big hats."

Willow looked over in surprise.  "Giles and Cordelia are taking a holiday alone together?"

Buffy glanced at a clock.  "They've probably left by now."

"Wow," Willow murmured.  "I didn't know they were that serious."

"Her stuff is all over his apartment.  She's practically living there.  Wesley calls her 'Giles' mid-life crisis'."

Willow and Xander stared at her.  "Well, he did once," Buffy said uncomfortably.

Xander pointed at the back of his neck and asked, "Can you see the hairs popping up?"

"Excuse me Mr. Grope-In-The-Closet Boy," Buffy said.

"I never lived with her."

"Enough!"  Willow shook the map.  "Long Beach is huge, I doubt we'll run into Cordelia, and can't the two of you just go for my sake?  I'm trying to be cheerful.  I mean, I have things bugging me too.  Oz touring being one of them.  *I* need a holiday and you two are going to make it a pleasant one for me!"

When Buffy and Xander eyed her, she added, "Do I need to have *another* tantrum?"

Xander exchanged a look with Buffy.  The latter said, "We'll go, Will.  Besides, how often does a Watcher *tell* me to leave the hellmouth?"

---