Here ya go! Sorry, was a littl busy this week, but here it is. :) Hopefully I'll be writing more later this weekend, too, though please don't hesitate to let me know what you think of this chapter! It really does help a lot to know. Thanks so much! Please enjoy. :)

Chapter 3

Willow didn't want to believe any of it, but the look on Buffy's face told her in no uncertain terms that it was all real. It was all real, and this crazy idea was probably the only thing holding her best friend together at the moment. The desperation was under the surface, but it was there—visible to those who knew her well enough to see it.

Not that Willow didn't see where Buffy was coming from. If Giles was really dead...

She swallowed hard. "I-I don't know if I can do it again. I'm not really sure how I made it work this time. It was like something...I don't know. I mean I could try, but I'd have to go through the incantations...find what needs to be altered, for a different recipient, and do that. A few of the words would have to be different, I would think—you know, to change the directions..."

"Then you'll do it? Not now or anything...I won't ask you to do it until you're sure you're better and you can handle it."

"I could handle it now," she answered, a little defensively. Then she winced. "But uh...you don't even know if you're right yet, huh? A-about Giles..."

"Right...not yet. It may be as much as a couple of days or more until anything happens...i-if it's going to. Some rise fast, and sometimes it can take that long."

Were they really sitting here talking about this?

Willow settled back farther into Oz's arms. "Okay...just...let me know, I guess. I'll uh...be going over the curse."

Buffy let out a breath in relief. "So you're with me on this?"

She hesitated a moment, still not sure she knew exactly what they were getting into. This was big, and...she settled for an ambiguous answer that was still completely true. "I want Giles back too," she said finally, quietly.

"I know..." Buffy hugged her. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet; we haven't done anything."

If Oz had an opinion about any of this, he wasn't voicing it yet. He gave her shoulders a squeeze and, looking a little out of sorts—hard, for him, which meant this really was as huge and crazy as she thought it was—he slid off the bed. "Buffy, we should probably go."

Willow agreed reluctantly. "My doctor's supposed to come around this morning and check on me, sometime soon I think. He might let me go today."

"That would be great. We really need you, Will. You and your steadying force."

She tried to brighten at that; she was sure it was a compliment, but the smiling was hard. "Really? I'm a steadying force?"

"Of course you are. I need you around. Strong minds tend to be that way, I guess, and seeing as Xander and I aren't exactly the brilliant straight-A type..."

"Oh come on; you guys are smart too—"

"But not like you." Buffy's small smile faltered. "Without Giles, you're..." Willow gripped her best friend's arm for a moment, and the Slayer swallowed and forced the smile back on. "And hey, he's never known squat about computers."

"You got that right." She held out her arms for another hug, and Buffy gave it to her.

Oz was waiting patiently, hands in pockets. "So where to, Buffy? You want me to run you home first so you can get some clothes or something, or...?"

"No," Buffy quickly. When they looked at her she stammered, "I-I mean I just really want to get back to the apartment. Will, you'll call as soon as you know when you'll be out of here?"

"Of course," she answered, eyeing her friend warily. "Buffy, is there anything else?"

"No...don't worry about me. Come on, Oz. We'd better go before anyone sees me."

"Very true," Oz shrugged. He leaned in to kiss his girlfriend, and Willow was glad for it.

"I'll come back," he promised.

"Good. You've got that steadying force of your own, mister, and I kinda need it right now..." She saw Buffy smiling at them, seeing but not intruding as she slid off the edge of the bed and waited for Oz, and Willow's heart ached for her. With Angel gone and no guarantee they would be able to get Giles back...

She couldn't help but worry.

There wasn't much to do when Buffy left. Xander had dropped onto one corner of the couch, and Cordelia moved to curl up beside him. They were still like that when the front door opened again, and he had no clue how long it had been. He hadn't even been thinking about anything.

It had been easier to go blank for a while.

The door closing made Cordelia sit up, disentangling her arms from Xander's. She was the first to get turned around to see just who it was coming back.

"Buffy! Good; can I get an explanation on this most-definitely-crazy-no-matter-what-it-is plan, please? Part of the group too now here, remember?"

Xander twisted in time to see Buffy looking obviously not enthused with the greeting. She was choosing to ignore the question as she set a white paper bag on the counter.

"Here's food, if anybody actually wants it," she said.

He shrugged. "How'd it go?" he asked. "How's Willow?"

"She's about as good as could be expected, I guess...and it looks like she's on board."

"On board for what?" Cordelia demanded. "I mean, I've got an idea, but I'm not sure whether or not I wanna be right."

Xander looked at Buffy, and she nodded a little. He explained, saving her the need to. "If we're right, and Giles...if one of those bastards turned him, Buffy wants Willow to do the spell again—on him."

"The one we used to try to put Angel's soul back in him?"

"Yeah..."

"Yep. That's what I thought all right. Again, not so sure how I feel about that."

"Why not?" Buffy snapped. "We can get him back. What the hell is wrong with that?"

Xander could tell she was still feeling a little residual hurt from his questioning her about it before. But he'd had good reason to. He cared about Buffy and Giles, but he felt that what he'd said had been true. He held out a hand in warning. "Whoa! Let's chill here. No, I really don't think we're done discussing this, but we don't have to do it now. We don't have everybody here. And where is Oz, anyway?"

"He wanted to get back to Willow, and since we can't really do anything right now I didn't see anything wrong with that. He dropped me off and headed right back to the hospital." She trudged around the couch and dropped into a chair across from him and Cordy. "All we can do now is wait."

Xander grimaced and sat again, and Cordelia did the same.

"Great," she mumbled. "My favorite pastime. Oh wait, no, it's second to doing endless research in musty old books." He and Buffy stared at her. "What?" She sunk back into the couch. "Hey...I miss Giles too. I just show things in different ways," she added quietly.

Buffy actually looked a little chagrined at that, and Xander sighed and put an arm back around Cordy's shoulders.

Buffy fell asleep in the chair she'd claimed, and when she woke up Xander was still there, but not Cordelia.

"It's getting late...it's almost dark. Willow called a little while ago, and said they were letting her go in the morning," Xander told her. "Cordy went home, finally. She needed some sleep; I think we all do. I was still here to keep an eye on things, so there wasn't any reason to wake you up..."

She stretched, wondering if she'd be more sore now than she had been when she'd drifted off. Then she realized she wasn't. She wasn't in the chair anymore, either. Xander had moved her to the couch, and there was even a pillow under her head.

Wow. She didn't think she'd had it in her to sleep hard enough to be moved and not wake up. She hadn't even been awake for a horribly long time, really. Not even thirty-six hours. It had just seemed like forever.

"Thanks. I think," Buffy sighed, sitting up. Xander was still wearing the same blue sweater he'd been in for two days. "Look, I'm gonna go grab some clothes, I guess, and then you should get home and sleep yourself. I'll stay here tonight, seeing as I already got some decent shut-eye."

Xander shrugged and perched on the nearest chair. "You sure? I could stay here with you."

She raised her eyebrows at him, looking pointedly at the dark circles under his eyes. "No. You need to sleep, and you need to do it in your own bed."

He agreed, reluctantly, and she left, promising not to be long.

Getting to her house didn't take a lot of time; it was the standing in the trees deciding what to do that took longer. Buffy didn't want to go in there at all. Whether her mother had really meant what she'd said or not, she didn't think she could or should just walk in.

After long, painful moments staring at what she wondered would ever be home again, she went in her bedroom window as she did on nights when she had to go out on patrol. She stepped silently down to the floor, crossed the room to find a bag and pack it with enough things for a few days at least, and left to relieve Xander of his guard duties.

She told herself the tears she brushed from her eyes as she went was just a reaction to dust in the wind.

Nothing happened that night. Once Xander was gone Buffy finally ate something, from the food she and Oz had picked up that morning. It had been long since banished to the refrigerator. When her stomach wasn't loudly complaining any longer, she wandered to the bookshelves.

Buffy ran a hand over the old but meticulously-kept spines. Many of the books were leather bound, or something similar and just as nice. Most of them were occult books, like the ones in the library, only these were Giles's personal collection. A few were duplicates of books she'd seen at school when the Scoobies were in research mode, but she was relatively sure the rest were different. Knowing Giles, these would be the more valuable ones here.

She hadn't been here often, to her Watcher's flat, and she certainly had never taken a very close look at his books. They weren't her thing, but she couldn't help thinking about how important they were to him—how much they were a part of who he was. Now, anyway, no matter what he'd been like when he was younger.

Buffy pulled a book from the shelf—carefully, of course, though she knew she wouldn't have been so careful a week ago—and curled up in the chair near the shelves. The night wore on, and she skimmed through book after book. When she found one in English she lingered, looking for anything remotely interesting. To her immense surprise, sometimes she found a story or something or other worth reading. Some of it was actually kinda fascinating, in its weird way.

She didn't know why she was sitting here, looking through 'musty old books' as Cordelia had called them. Maybe it was just that there was nothing else to do. But...no. She knew that was a lie.

Giles wasn't here. Not really. Maybe they could get him back, but right now he was gone, and the uncertainty of whether or not that would ever change was killing her. These books...they made her feel close to him, even if it was only in a small, not-quite-satisfying way.

It kept her sane for now, anyway.

Buffy was staring into space when there was a knock on the door the next morning. She staggered to her feet and approached warily, but when she answered it was only Xander.

"Oh...hey."

"I take it nothing interesting happened?"

"No, not really."

He came in and she closed the door again, and he looked around curiously as he set a bag of obviously breakfast-smelling food on the counter next to the remains of what little she'd managed to eat the night before. "I didn't need to buy this, did I?" he asked, pulling out fast-food biscuits.

"Again, not really," Buffy sighed. But she grabbed one, and took a stool to try to eat it. The human ritual of consuming food came a little easier than it had last night, but some of it still stuck in her throat on the way down. Xander sat on the next stool munching down, albeit not as happily as he usually did. When Buffy finished she found her head in her arms on the counter.

"Xander, what if we're wrong?" she moaned into the darkness her arms shielded her face in. "What if nothing happens? What—what if Giles is—" What if he's really gone?

She sobbed once, dryly, but she wouldn't let herself cry again. She heard Xander noisily gulping down whatever had been in his mouth.

"I uh...I don't know, Buff," he said quietly. She knew he wasn't sure about any of this, and when she glanced at him he looked like there was much more he wanted to say. But he couldn't get it out.

That was fine for now; she didn't want to think about it anymore.

Willow was more than glad to get out of the hospital. Sure, there were residual effects and the general not-feeling-great that came from having a concussion, but she'd been all right enough even the night before last to perform a pretty heavy-duty spell. She was going to be fine. She just needed to be with her friends.

Her parents came to see her when she was released, but she made it clear that she was leaving with Oz. As usual, of course, they didn't mind. They didn't have much to say on it one way or another. It still hurt, like it always did, that twinge of pain at their disinterest, but she had to admit that with her new life as a member of the Scooby Gang, it came in handy.

It was late morning and Oz took her straight to Giles's apartment. Thanks to the fact that he'd been standing there when the doctor had told her to stay off of her feet for a few days, he carried her inside when they got there. Xander had opened the door for them, and closed it after them, and Buffy was on the couch. She looked pretty close to zonked out, but she sat up groggily when Oz deposited his girldfriend in the next chair.

The Slayer blinked sleep out out of her eyes. "Will?" She glanced up at Oz. "Did he just carry you in here?"

"Doctor's orders," Oz explained briefly.

Willow shrugged. "There's a rented wheelchair, but it's kind compact in here; didn't make sense to bring it inside and get in the way and all."

Buffy got up and leaned in to hug her. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"You too." And she meant it. Buffy could just as easily have been killed in the battle with Angel two nights ago. As much as they all liked to believe their Slayer was indestructible, well...she wasn't. None of them were. That much was painfully obvious now. She herself had managed a concussion, Xander had a broken wrist, Buffy likely had emotional scars that might never really go away, and Giles...

She really didn't want to think about that, but it was why they were all here.

Willow swallowed and pulled a slip of paper from her jeans pocket once Buffy released her. "Here. Most of the stuff for the spell I can re-use from the last time, but I'll need more of a couple of things. I wrote it all down exactly. There's not much."

"Everything we already have is still in the van," Oz said.

"It's all ready to go whenever, so we just need that stuff," Willow finished, nodding to the list.

Buffy took the paper and glanced at it uneasily. "Thanks; I'll go today."

Before she could say anything else Willow was cut off by Xander, who swooped in to get a hug of his own from her. Once he'd straightened again and was out of her line of sight, she focused on Buffy again. "Don't you want to go home and get some sleep?"

"No...I don't think I could sleep, anyway. That's what I was trying to do when you two got here, and it wasn't working. Close but no cigar. I can only do it by accident; not on command yet, apparently."

"But you should go—"

"I've been home, Willow. See? Fresh clothes," Buffy told her quickly, holding out her arms. Then she glanced down at herself, and seemed to realize she was a little rumpled. "Okay, they were fresh last night, anyway." She tried to smile a little, but something still didn't feel right. "I'm fine, Will—or as close as...anyway..." She stopped and grimaced.

Willow looked at her for a moment, not convinced. "If you say so." She glanced up at Xander, who shrugged. He didn't have any more information than she did.

The four of them sat or stood in silence for what seemed like a long time, before Willow bit back a sudden lump in her throat and started to push herself to her feet.

Oz had been sitting on the edge of her chair, and he was standing himself and reaching for her in a second. "Willow?"

She nodded down the hall toward the bathroom. "He's in there, right?"

They all stared at her for a moment before Buffy nodded.

"Well I want...I mean, I never...I uh..." She didn't know how to say it—to tell them that she needed to see him. She didn't want it to be real, but she knew she couldn't pretend it wasn't. She needed to see Giles, and she needed to know this was really happening. And...if for some reason the spell didn't work, or if he never woke as a vampire at all, then...it would be her last chance.

There were things she wanted to say to him, even if he couldn't hear her.

Or maybe he would hear her, from somewhere. There was always that hope.

Buffy and Xander seemed to suddenly understand, and they looked away just as quickly. Oz swallowed, and put an arm around her waist for support.

"Okay," he said quietly.

Willow leaned into him, and let him help her past the kitchen and down the short hallway. She thought maybe she could have made it there on her own, but even though she was fine sitting up, she was still a little wobbly on her feet. The doctor's orders hadn't been without reason. Either way, she braced against the wall when they got to the bathroom door.

"I've uh, got it from here."

"You sure?" Oz looked at her, and where the hall opened to the living room Buffy and Xander stood watching with concern.

"Yeah...this is kind of a me thing," she said, looking back at them all.

"We're right out here if..."

"I know, Xander. Thanks."

Oz reluctantly let go of her and stepped back, and Willow gave him a grateful look and went in alone. She slipped inside, using the door itself for support and closed it again behind her. Then she reached for the closed toilet and sat there.

She didn't look until then, and when she saw her breath caught in her throat. It wasn't that he looked bad...but that he didn't. Not anymore. She imagined he had, but now the only blood was present in a few specks on his shirt. Even the deep cut on his forehead and the telltale bite mark on his neck were clean. Buffy or Xander had probably...yeah.

Giles looked almost like he was only sleeping, but for the fact that he was propped up against the nearest end of the bathtub and was chained to the pipes that ran there.

But he was dead. Maybe he might not exactly be that way for much longer, but he was. Right now he was dead, and he was gone. Giles. The man who, even though his role as Buffy's Watcher didn't require he notice her at all, was the only adult besides Miss Calendar who had ever shown any real interest in or caring for her as person. Sure, all of her teachers liked her because she was smart but...that was it. They weren't Giles, or Miss Calendar.

This shouldn't have happened to either of them.

Willow hadn't cried again since Buffy and Oz had broken the news to her. The whole thing, this horrible situation...it hadn't really sunk in until just now. Even if they could get Giles back, nothing would ever be the same, and they might not get him back at all.

She couldn't think enough through the pain to say anything she'd wanted to. Instead she cried, but she kept quiet because she knew the others were hurting enough on their own.