Hey ya'll! Thanks for waiting. I did a lot of working this week, so this came a bit slower than I'd planned, but anyway...here you go! I hope you'll like it; I can't wait to hear from you about it! Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week!

Chapter 2

January 2000

"Oh, really? To where then? I suppose you'll be sending his things along, is that it?"

Buffy stared at Ethan incredulously for a long moment, and then went for the apartment door. "I don't have time for this..."

He took a quick step after her. "Now hold on just a minute. Rupert's an old mate of mine, after all; you could at least give me an idea."

"Why, so you could pull some kind of stupid trick?" she shot back, still facing the door.

"Now I didn't say that—"

"But you'd do it."

"Well..."

Buffy spun on him. "He's not anywhere, Ethan. He's gone," she said angrily—though she didn't quite know if she was more angry at him or just...angry. Angry that it was over and there was nothing she could do about it.

Rayne blinked at her. "Wait, you mean...?" She didn't answer. "Oh. Well. Good god...what on earth took him out?" She just looked at him. She didn't know how to answer that. She didn't want to answer that. It hurt.

If she had to answer that she might curl up and die.

"Demon? Vampire? Horrible traffic accident caused by a demon or vampire? I'm only curious."


May 1999

Giles had been quiet since they left the cemetery, and Buffy didn't like it at all. She'd offered to drive—though for her that was a relative word—back to his apartment, and though he thanked her for the offer he quickly declined it and drove himself. He was a little better by the time they made it there, and he didn't really need her help to get inside, but she stayed right next to him anyway.

It was only once he was inside and on the couch that either of them realized they'd left his crossbow back at the cemetery. Giles asked her to call the others first and let them be on their way before she went back to get it. She had to go back to get it, because a crossbow was definitely not such a great thing to leave lying around for the public to find. She was hesitant to leave him, but she felt better knowing the others were coming, and going back for the crossbow meant something to keep her preoccupied. Willow and Xander and Oz would likely be at Giles's place by the time she made it back, and there would be no more waiting.

Buffy hated waiting. She particularly hated it now, when it was way too obvious that something wasn't right.

Xander was at the apartment when she got there again, and the report on the other two was that Oz had picked Willow up and they should arrive any minute. It was late now, and all of them wanted to know just what the hell was going on with the summons this time of night. Buffy hadn't gone into detail on the phone—mostly because she didn't have any herself—but she'd told them all that something was weird, in an urgent way, and she and Giles wanted them here now.

She supposed that was pretty much the truth. Except, maybe, for the part about including Giles in wanting them here, because she wasn't so sure about that.

He didn't look very happy about any of this at all. He wasn't angry but he seemed...upset, and in a worrying way more than a scary way. Her imagination was running wild again, and she had to shut it down. There would be no more speculation...except maybe for the hopefully-not-insane hope that this was nothing. That everything would be fine.

Everything had to be fine. Summer was here and they'd defeated the Mayor and with Angel out of the picture and Faith...whatever had happened there...Buffy didn't think she could take much more.

Giles sat silently on one end of the couch, lost in whatever thoughts were going on in there, until he got up and started pacing. It was slow and it didn't look painless, but he started to pace behind the couch, up and down its length, using it for support when he needed to. Xander hadn't been in the cemetery and he hadn't seen what happened but apparently he'd gotten the the message that this was serious, whatever it was. He hadn't said anything either and the room had been silent until Buffy spoke.

"What are you doing, Giles? Sit down. You're hurt."

"I'm all right," he insisted.

Xander's eyebrows went up as he jumped in on the exchange from his seat in the chair at Giles's desk. "Man...I'm no expert at anything, but I can tell. Last time I checked it wasn't a crime to take it easy when you need to."

Giles answered quickly, more hotly than usual. "I do not need to—" He cut off and winced, though Buffy didn't think it was all just in apology. "I'm sorry. I uhm...I'm sorry."

He wasn't looking at them, and she and Xander exchanged a silent, freaked-out glance.

"Don't worry about it..." Xander trailed.

That was when there was a knock on the door, and Xander got up and went to let Oz and Willow in.

"We're here," Oz said, closing the door behind them. "Where's the fire?"

"Or the yucky thing we have to fight," Willow added as a possibility. "What's going on?"

"That's what I'd love to know," Buffy said tightly. "But I couldn't get anything out of Giles until the rest of you got here."

Willow looked at him and frowned. "Giles? What is she talking about?"

"Well he was out on patrol with Buffy, I guess, and he got hurt. I know that much," Xander filled in when no one spoke immediately.

She looked at Giles again. "Are you okay? You're standing up, but you don't look so okay..."

Giles let out a breath. "If we really must do this now, the rest of you may want to sit down," he suggested, resigned.

Xander and Willow and Oz exchanged glances, and moved around the couch to take seats in the sitting area. Xander took a chair and the other two took the couch, and Giles hovered in front of the other chair, near the kitchen entrance, but didn't sit. Buffy drifted up to the back of the couch, but didn't come around. She wasn't going to sit and she wanted that to be clear. She was too worried to sit down, and she didn't want to be bothered about it.

Her tactic worked; Giles looked her way and opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he shut it again, and didn't. He stood with his hands in his pockets, still hunched over a little thanks to the forming bruises, and he didn't seem to know what to say.

"What's going on?" Willow finally repeated, anxiously.

Now Giles swallowed, and he started slowly. "It's uhm...I'm afraid this has to do with me, as much as I wish it didn't. There is no...new enemy, as of the moment; it seems Sunnydale is quite safe at the moment, actually, at least relative to its usual state. Anyway I...I am sorry; I didn't want to burden any of you with this before I had to, but...it seems that I have no choice. I was patrolling with Buffy tonight and there...was an incident. Buffy has insisted on an explanation."

"Well what else was I supposed to do, Giles? A couple of kicks from that vampire and you were down and out. You couldn't breathe for a second there, and you couldn't walk three feet on your own an hour ago. Yes, I was going to worry."

"You misunderstand," he answered quickly. "You are perfectly within your rights to want an explanation, and I thank you for the concern. I hold no ill will against you for asking. It's only that I'd hoped to leave the lot of you to your respective summers. I didn't want...I..." He trailed off and looked away, and Buffy had never seen him at such a complete and total loss.

She stood rooted in place, staring at him, trying not to panic. She didn't know what she was thinking because she wouldn't let herself think. "Giles, what's wrong?"

The silence was thick from all of them, and Giles had to sit down before he could answer. He still wouldn't look at them as he pulled his glasses from his face and cleared his throat. Then he took a deep breath, but he coughed, and it was another moment before he said anything.

"It seems I've...developed stomach cancer."

Buffy's heart jumped into her throat, and her own stomach dropped to her shoes. "What?"

"Since when?" Willow questioned in shock. The boys only stared.

Giles shook his head as he slid his glasses back on. "I don't know. Unfortunately there were no symptoms until three or four months ago, and...I thought nothing of them. I didn't feel well, my appetite was gone, but I thought it was only the stress. I'd been fired from the council and shortly after that we discovered the threat of the mayor's ascension; I had good reason to believe that explanation. Though things have been much worse in the past, but...anyhow, I didn't have it seen about until it persisted..."

Willow was ramrod straight where she sat next to Oz, and Buffy could tell she was fighting the urge to shoot to her feet as she stammered. "W-well o-o-okay, but you're gonna be fine, right? They can treat it. They can make it go away."

Buffy didn't take it as a good sign when Giles grimaced. "Willow, it's...it's quite advanced. It's because it often shows no early symptoms that it's rarely caught in...in time." He let out an unsteady breath and finally really looked at them all, though it was clear he didn't want to be here telling them this. "By the time the tests were concluded last month it had spread to my lungs, as well," he said quietly. "I'm told that means—"

"No," Willow whimpered preemptively.

"It's really only a matter of how much time there is..."

From behind the couch Xander's face was the only other Buffy could see, and it crumpled at that. "Oh my god," he choked out.

Oz pulled Willow into his arms as she started to sob. "There isn't anything else...?" he asked. "I mean, this is you we're talking about. Us. We know stuff. We're not exactly normal. We usually have way more than the normal options for a lot of things."

Giles was only half listening as he got up and moved to Willow's other side, and Oz let her go so she could cling to Buffy's Watcher instead.

"I-I know. Since I've known...I've looked, but...I don't know. I don't believe so. That isn't what magic is for. I'm sorry..."

Xander was the one who did stand, and he started to pace back forth in sharp, frustrated movements. "It's not your fault, Giles." He huffed miserably, pulling a hand through his hair. "God. Oh god..."

Oz was staring into the middle distance—which he was good at—trying to absorb Giles's answer, Willow's face was buried in Giles's sweater as she cried, Xander was about to lose it, and Giles looked up apologetically at his Slayer, who hadn't moved a muscle.

"Buffy..." he said, because he didn't seem to know what else to say.

She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath. "I can't do this," she gasped.

"Buffy—"

But she spun on her heel and fled, out of the apartment and across the courtyard of the apartment complex. She made it to the gate that led out into the parking lot and stopped, leaning heavily on the the wall there and heaving dry sobs that it took a long moment or two to control enough to stop them.

Buffy's imagination ran wild again, more active again tonight than it had probably been most of her life. It showed her what the next few months could look like, from what little she knew about cancer and how it took its victims, and none of it was good. She didn't want to see it.

So she decided that it wasn't going to happen.

I'll fix it. Or...well I can't fix it, but I can find someone who can. Or someone or something that knows how to find out how to fix it...

"Buffy..."

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she knew who it was. She meant to turn around and tell him that it would all be okay, but suddenly she was so angry that any of this was happening in the first place that she spun and took it out on him, instead.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" she snapped.

Giles took a step back in surprise at her vehemence. He swallowed. "You and the others were already under enough pressure working to stop the mayor. It wouldn't have been right to put this on you as well; you didn't need anything else to worry about."

"That's an excuse and we both know it." He didn't say anything else. "You didn't want things to be weird. That's pretty much what you almost said back there, isn't it?"

He nodded a little. "Yes," he admitted.

"How long have you really known?

"I didn't lie. It was last month when I knew for certain..."

"When last month?"

He winced. "The first week."

Buffy crossed her arms tightly. "Right. So you've known for at least a month and a half. Almost two. That means you knew, what, around the time I started hearing everybody's thoughts? Just after? It had to have been after, or I'm sure I would have heard it."

"Yes...just after," he sighed.

"So you've known since then and you didn't say anything!"

"What on earth was I supposed to say, Buffy! Good lord, I...I was having enough trouble absorbing this on my own without forcing it onto the rest of you as well. I'm sorry. If it helps, I apologize. I'm sorry."

"It doesn't help. You can't do this to me."

"Buffy—"

"You said you weren't going anywhere! You said it! You said it in front of that creep Quentin Travers and I know you meant it! You wouldn't have said it if you didn't mean it!"

He blinked, and in the dim illumination from the coutryard's lights she couldn't tell for sure, but she thought he was blinking back tears. "I did mean it. But I hardly think I have much of a choice in this."

"You can fight it! We can...can find a way to fix it. We have to. I-I don't care that I'm eighteen, Giles," she choked. "It doesn't matter that I'm the Slayer, either. I'm just...I'm a kid. I'm a girl who's father is probably never coming back. He doesn't visit, or call...he doesn't care anymore. I know that now." She had to stop for a moment to keep from sobbing, and she looking briefly at the ground. "I can't lose you too," she whispered.

Giles reached up to squeeze her shoulder gently, probably because he was at a loss for words again, but Buffy shook his hand off. She couldn't do this. Not now. She was still trying to come terms with the fact that Angel was gone. She couldn't deal with this too. "No—"

She twisted back around and opened the gate in one motion, but she'd hardly taken two steps before she heard Giles coughing behind her. She looked back and he had the hand that had been on her shoulder braced on the wall she'd been leaning on a few moments ago. His head was bowed and his own shoulders were shaking even though the coughing had stopped.

"Giles..."

Buffy went back to him without a thought. He hissed in pain when she wrapped her arms around him and forgot to be gentle, but he didn't say anything. Instead he returned the embrace so tightly that it might have bothered her if she didn't have the strength and durability of a Slayer.

It told her what she needed to know—that Giles wasn't going anywhere without a fight.

"We'll figure it out," she said firmly. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise..."


January 2000

Buffy snapped back to the present, and her jaw clenched. I let him down...

"He got sick," she said quietly. She didn't want to say anything at all, but she knew she didn't really have a choice. She could have continued to evade Ethan's questions, but she knew he wouldn't really go away until she answered them.

"That's all?"

"That's what happened. And?"

"Well, Ripper just never seemed the type..."

"Shut the hell up," Buffy snapped back shakily. "It could have happened to anyone, and it happened, okay? Giles got sick. He got sick and...and he died. That's all. We did everything we could. He fought. He fought so hard, and—" She wasn't sure if she was talking to Ethan anymore. She had to stop abruptly to choke off a sob and swallow the lump in her throat. "And it's none of your business. Now get out of here before I change my mind and decide to kill you anyway, human or not."

Then she pulled the door open, went inside, and slammed it behind her, leaving an open-mouthed Ethan Rayne in her wake. She sank back against it and let herself cry, just for a minute, quietly in case Ethan hadn't left right away.

Giles, why? Why can't you be here? she thought miserably. It had only been two weeks since he died. The bed that they'd had to move downstairs in the last couple of months was still down here, in the main room, just stripped of linens now. She stared miserably across the apartment at it, at the place where her Watcher had taken his last breath.

Buffy was still pressed against the door when the voice bellowed in her mind.

Is this what you wanted? Do you like this world?

"Ah!" She cried out, doubling over from the pain in her head.

Your future in this world will be what you wanted. Are you satisfied now?

And it all came back—the rest of this year, and most of next year, and Dawn, and Glory, and her mother's death—and she knew she wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't right. Giles wasn't supposed to be dead. None of it should have happened. The last several months...all of it wrong.

All of it her fault.

"No..." she gasped. "No!"

You did this. Does it make you happy?

"NO!" Buffy screamed. "What the hell are you! What do you want!"

The voice was taunting, smug. Only to give you your greatest desire. To give you your mother. YOU wanted this.

"I didn't what THIS!"

Your mother will live. You should thank me.

"For making Giles suffer? You know that's not what I meant!"

To save a life one must be taken.

Oh god. Oh god, what had she done? She remembered the entity coming to her. She remembered knowing it had to be evil. It wasn't even a vengeance demon...or she didn't think so. It seemed much more powerful than that. It tricked her.

She never meant for anything to happen.

"No!" she shouted again. "Fix it! Put it back! This is wrong!"

It is too late. You made your choice.

"No I didn't! You can't do this!"

It is done.

"No," Buffy sobbed. "Oh god. Giles. Oh my god..." She remembered everything now. She remembered how useless he'd admitted to feeling this year—last year—freshman year—whatever...She remembered Dracula's appearance. She remembered asking Giles to be her Watcher again. She remembered being mortified when she'd heard from Willow later that before that Giles had been planning to go back to England...until she told him she needed him. She remembered the much stronger friendship they'd had after that. Then Joyce Summers had died, and...

She missed her mother. She'd missed her so much, but this was wrong.

"Change it back!" she shouted at the ceiling. She didn't know where the voice came from. She only knew she'd heard it.

But now it was silent.

"Come back! Where are you! You can't DO this!"

All of it was her fault—everything that had happened to Giles...the last several months in this world that had been a nightmare for all of them.

Buffy, spun, ripped the door open, and ran.

It was all her fault. And she remembered every moment of it.