A/N: My apologies for the lateness of the chapter. NaNoWriMo and the xover_exchange over on LJ have eaten my brain. Next one should be up sooner!

Chapter 7 - Philosophical ponderings

Willow only looked up from her typing when Giles let out another muttered curse. It wasn't really like him to swear so much, no matter how quietly he did it. Xander and Cordelia paid him no attention, but were unusually engrossed in one of Giles' books, presumably researching. She glanced towards Oz, who merely gave a shrug in return. So he'd noticed too.

She watched silently as Oz turned back to inspecting the Doctor's belongings. They were all supposed to be looking for whatever happened to Donna Noble, but they didn't have much to go on, so it was more of a random search through the books. Giles was still rather annoyed that the Doctor had left all of his books strewn about the table willy nilly. Not to mention the table was still littered with the contents of his pockets. From all that he had left behind in his frantic exit to look for Donna, Willow thought that the thin leather wallet Oz was so fascinated with was the least interesting. Personally, she was itching to take a look at some of the gadgets, but had so far managed to restrain herself. She could get a look or two when Donna wasn't in danger anymore. Willow rather liked the other redhead, even though she reminded her of Cordelia a bit, all brash and loud. But much nicer overall.

Willow's job was to search for anything relevant on the Web, but she kept getting distracted by the knowledge that there were aliens out there. She really needed to look into a few of those organizations she had found mention of when there was nothing life threatening going on. UNIT sounded interesting and she hoped they had more information on the Doctor. Speaking of which, the Doctor and Buffy should be returning soon. They had left a few hours ago to look for information. She really hoped they found something, because she was drawing a blank and she presumed the others were too.

"I'm going to wring his skinny neck!" Giles slammed a book down on the table, making everyone startle.

"Anger management issues, much?" Cordelia scowled at him. Giles sighed and whipped out a handkerchief to wipe his glasses.

"Just for the sake of clarification, whose skinny neck are we talking about here?" Oz piped up.

"The Doctor's," Giles said, the anger in his tone rising again when he glanced at the book.

"Why, what's he done?" Willow tried to see what was wrong with the book, but couldn't get a good look from where she was sitting.

"He - he-" Giles seemed to have trouble even formulating the words.

"Wrote in the margins and crossed things out?" Xander supplied. Giles blinked at him.

"Well yes. How did you-" Giles had a horrified expression on his face, "he did that to more than one book?"

"Seems like it," Xander said cheerfully, waving the book he and Cordelia had been reading, "very entertaining, I gotta say."

"That's the Compendium of Hopefully Modern Prophecies," Giles' expression was carefully blank and his tone very measured. Probably to keep from going into a rage. Giles was very protective of his books.

"More like his 'been there, done that, not to worry anymore' list," Cordelia took the book from Xander and flipped through the pages.

"I beg your pardon?!" Giles snatched the book from Cordelia's hands, paying no attention to her indignant complaints.

"Yeah," Xander sniggered, "he sort of crossed out the title of the book and wrote in what Cordy had said instead. Then he started to scribble in what actually happened and what he did to fix it. Only more vaguely and with a lot of mentions of spoilers. He really didn't strike me as a fan of prophecies."

Oz leaned over to look at the book, where Giles was disbelievingly turning the pages that were filled with surprisingly neat and structured scribbles.

"Personally, I like the little note that says if he hasn't taken care of something yet, he probably will in the future or he just forgot that he did since the people who wrote this were annoyingly cryptic," he said.

"B-but, that's good, right?" Willow offered hesitantly. She cringed a little when Giles directed a glare at her, "N-not the book writing, 'cause that's bad and books are sacred and must not be written in under any circumstances," she said with only the slightest amount of sarcasm, "but the fact that we won't have to worry about the prophecies?"

Giles sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, I suppose you're right Willow. But we should still keep an eye on them. Just because he thinks he solved something already doesn't mean it can't change, if I understood correctly what he was saying earlier."

"You mean the fact that demons weren't around all the time, but some weird time thing changed it?" Cordelia asked. The rest of the Scoobies looked at her in confusion.

"Yes, thank you, Cordelia for blurting that out," Giles said in a resigned tone and turned to pick up more of the scattered books, paying little attention to the rest of them. But that was fine as Willow was having trouble noticing what he was doing herself, because her mind was busy running through the implications of what Cordelia had said.

"Wait - so all of this," Xander waved a hand to emphasize the whole situation, "was never meant to happen? Like some great big event changed time to this? Man, that completely sucks! And not in a good way. I think I feel cheated. How come we're the ones who always get the short end of the stick?"

"I feel vaguely ambivalent about it," Oz said slowly after a moment of thought. Willow stared at him in disbelief, her heart starting to race as Cordelia's words finally sank in.

"Ambivalent?! How can you feel ambivalent about it?! We've changed and we don't even know it! Who knows what we've done?! Maybe we're not supposed to be alive? Our lives changed and we didn't even notice! It could be changing right now! Oh God," Willow said, panicking and almost hyperventilating. Oz reached across the table and grabbed one of her flailing hands. She stopped talking and took deep, nervous breaths.

"Hey," he smiled at her. She smiled back tremulously. He could always make her feel better in that quiet way he had. But she was still more than a bit freaked out that she had no control over her own history. Not even her memories were safe!

"In fact, I've just realized something," Oz stated.

"Willow has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility?" Xander said, but everyone ignored him. Willow looked at Oz, silently encouraging him to continue.

"I don't care if it changed."

She looked puzzled.

"How can you not-"

Oz smiled slightly.

"'Cause I have you now. Who knows if we'd have met without all this?"

She gaped at him for a moment, speechless.

"That's so - so-" Willow gave up trying to form a coherent sentence and just pulled Oz in closer for a kiss.

They only broke apart at the sound of Xander yelping. Turning their heads to see what had happened, they only saw him scowling at Cordelia who was glaring at him.

"What was that for? I didn't even say anything!"

"Exactly! How come you never say such nice things to me?"

"You have to ask?" Xander said incredulously, rubbing his shoulder pointedly.

Cordelia merely huffed and proceeded to ignore him. Willow exchanged a bemused glance with Oz.

"Much as I haven't enjoyed this existential crisis of the day, do you think we could get back to researching? However mutilated my books are?" the last was said under Giles' breath. Willow winced. Sarcasm from Giles; he must be more affected by the books than she'd thought. Exchanging worried glances with the Scoobies, she turned back towards the computer.
Right, time to get back on track, even though she was still more than a little creeped out by the history-is-changing-as-we-speak thing. Maybe she should check out some of the Wiccan sites she had taken to browsing after Jenny's death? They sometimes had useful posts. As she clicked, she kept half an ear out, listening to what the rest were saying.

However, instead of keeping track of what the Scoobies were saying, her attention was drawn to the sound of approaching footsteps and raised voices. She perked up and turned towards the door, hoping it was Buffy and the Doctor with information. But the sight that greeted her when the two entered wasn't quite the decisive let's-get-on-with-this-rescuing-business she had expected.

"For the last time, I didn't kill that Fyarl demon!" the Doctor snapped at Buffy as he pushed open the library doors, his coat whirling behind him. Buffy followed him in, rolling her eyes, whether at the display or his words, Willow couldn't tell.

"Yeah, kinda figured that when we heard Willy start screaming like a little girl when it woke up. Still not sure on the why though. It was a threat."

"He was a sentient being!"

He? Sentient being? Willow frowned. She had never really thought of demons that way. Then again, they could never afford to. Her attention was drawn back to the arguement.

"It tried to kill you!" Buffy persisted.

"So I should go around killing everyone who tries to kill me?"

Willow wanted to hide from the burning in his eyes as he faced Buffy. She noticed the flicker of fear in Buffy's eyes as well, but her admiration for Buffy rose up by a few more notches when Buffy didn't back down.

"Because that would be a very long list," the Doctor continued.

"What? No! It's a demon!"

"Oh, so that's your answer to everything then, isn't it? See something that looks like a demon and just go on right ahead and kill it?" He almost snarled into Buffy's face.

The two were completely ignoring the rest of them. Everyone else was a bit too stunned to react to the argument in front of them.

"Kinda goes with the job description. Slayer see, Slayer slay. I don't get the luxury of blathering on at something. If I don't act, I'm dead." Buffy wasn't giving any ground either.

The Doctor's eyes flashed with something Willow couldn't define and he suddenly seemed to grow sad, the fight draining out of him. His body twitched when he straightened and made an aborted move to back away from Buffy. But instead of moving away, he looked at her straight in the eye, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Buffy steadfastly stared back, still not relaxing from her confrontational posture.

"Violence is never the right answer, Buffy. Killing even less," he said softly.

"But sometimes it's the only one," she said in a firm tone. The Doctor looked even sadder at her words. Not so much, Willow thought, at the fact that Buffy wouldn't change her mind, but at the fact that she was right and both of them knew it. Willow wondered how much it must cost him every time to relearn that lesson if this was how he reacted to killing a demon, nevermind some other threat.

The Doctor was about to reply to Buffy, when a quiet cough from Giles brought their attention to the silently watching Scoobies. Willow had to look away from the Doctor when he turned to face them. It was as though it had just hit him that a bunch of teenagers were responsible for protecting the world from evil. Well...well, they were just as good as those stuffy Watchers in England. No - they were better! Willow looked up and stared squarely at the Doctor, a defiant expression on her face. His eyes flickered to her face and a fleeting, but still sad smile crossed his face.

"Much as I find this conversation fascinating, I believe Ms. Noble is still in need of rescue. Have you found any information on her whereabouts?" Giles tried to get things back on track.

"Yeah, three guesses for which vamp nabbed her and the first two don't count," Buffy's expression was still grim, even though she was now facing the Scoobies.

"Good Lord," Giles paled. "Angelus has her?"

"What the hell does he want with her?"

They all turned to stare at Cordelia incredulously. The Doctor's expression hid a brewing storm, one which Willow would have been glad to see directed at Cordelia at any other day. But if they were going to save Donna, they really needed to get a move on. They could hit Cordy for her tactlessness later.

"What?" Cordelia continued noticing the looks directed her way, "Those two just got here! How could Angelus possibly know she'd be here? And that she'd have anything that'd be remotely useful to him?"

Willow felt that her mouth was open, so she closed it as unnoticably as possible. Cordy actually had a point.

"She does have a point," Oz contributed, echoing her thoughts.

"Apparently they weren't so unexpected as we thought," Buffy explained, "According to Willy, the psychics in town went all cuckoo a few days ago. And Angelus has his very own hotline."

"Drusilla," Giles' tone was grim.

"Exactly," Buffy confirmed, "but that still doesn't explain what they want with Donna."

"Oh, I could think of a few things," the Doctor's voice was light, but his expression sort of made Willow want to hide in a corner, even more than when he was arguing with Buffy.

"Bait."

"Pardon?" Giles turned to Xander.

"C'mon, it's obvious! Donna might not be anything more than human, but who do you think they expect is going to storm the castle wanting her back?"

"That," the Doctor began grimly, "makes more sense than I'd like it to."

He turned to leave.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm going to give him exactly what he wants."

He exited the library with another swirl of his coat.

"I have to get me a coat like that," Xander said wistfully.

"I'll kill him," Buffy grumbled, ignoring Xander. "All right gang, time to move out."

TBC