Tuesday March 20th, 2007 ~ Waiting Room ~ Project Quantum Leap Compound ~ Stallion's Gate, New Mexico

Giles stopped pacing when he heard the door slide open behind him. He turned and sighed deeply to see Al approaching him.

"If you've come to annoy me with your appearance or endless questions I have no intention of answering I may not be able to restrain myself from inflicting damage upon your person," Giles said formally but with a decided undertone of threat in his voice.

"At least you're speaking to me again," Al said with a smirk. "I have marines and tranquilizer gas in my arsenal, so let's see if I can push beyond annoy to infuriate. Being nice certainly hasn't gotten me anywhere. And what's wrong with my appearance?"

Giles carefully ran his gaze from the top of Al's head to his feet and back up. "I'd be hard pressed to say what isn't wrong with your appearance. I have been considering making a request for other garments," he explained, tugging distastefully at the skin tight white body suit with a thumb and forefinger. "But was concerned that anything you might provide would be even less palatable to me than this."

Al laughed. "Anya's right. You're kinda cute when you're cranky."

"You are not, in the least, convincing. Anya would never describe me as 'cute'," Giles growled, pacing away.

"You're right. She said you're sexy when you get all 'cranky and menacing'. I just didn't want to you to get any wrong ideas about me," Al replied.

Giles stopped at the far wall, thinking about what Al had said before turning. "You overheard Anya talking to your friend Sam about me," he implied.

Al shook his head. "Nope, she was telling me not to piss you off or you might thrash me."

Giles rushed forward. "You have been lying all this time! You told me no one but Sam could see or hear you when you visited him in the past. This is all some ridiculous charade and I insist you release me at once!"

Al stood his ground, shaking his head sadly. "This isn't a charade or a joke, Giles. I wish to God it was. This is deadly serious. I'm gonna come clean and see if there's any way for us to find common ground. It's the only thing left I can think of to try."

Giles listened in mounting astonishment and dread as Al explained that Anya could see Sam and him, she had agreed to keep their secret and had ultimately decided to trust them. As Al ran down the highlights of Anya's tale of the Watcher, the Slayer and the Scooby gang, Giles dropped into a seated position on the table, tuned him out and began to tally how many ways he could think of to maim, torture and kill the ex-vengeance demon if he ever managed to return to Sunnydale. He was so engrossed in this activity that he was startled to feel a touch on his shoulder. Giles batted the offending appendage away and looked up into the sympathetic face of his jailer.

"She was only trying to help, Giles. And she has," Al told him.

"So she has helped you and you came in here for what purpose? To gloat? To make me understand how pointless my silence has been?" Giles choked out in fury. "Well, mission accomplished. Now leave me alone!" Giles was desperately reviewing the countless ideas for attempting an escape he had considered over the past twenty hours. Nothing seemed any more feasible now than it had before and he railed inwardly at his failure to find a way to warn Buffy of this new peril.

Al spoke up again, interrupting his train of thought. "The reason she decided to trust us is that she knows we know Dawn is the key and we didn't tell Glory; or anyone else for that matter," Al explained. "And don't try to tell me that information isn't important. If it was trivial you wouldn't have done that terrific imitation of a catatonic state last night."

Giles considered this for a moment. "How does she know you haven't informed Glory?" he finally asked.

Al rolled his eyes. "Because we're still around and Dawn is fine." Al's hand-link beeped but he only pulled it from his pocket in order to shut it off.

Giles stared into the other man's eyes. Al met his gaze steadily. Giles considered himself a good judge of character and knew his intelligence was well above average. Everything this man had told him, even the least believable, fitted neatly into a coherent whole - if Al were telling the truth.

"By the way," Al went on softly. "Anya asked me to tell you that she's taking good care of the shop until you get back and that she's almost positive Sam and I aren't bunnies." Giles detected a hint of embarrassment in Al's eyes. "I hope you realize how difficult it was for me to relay that message word for word," Al added with chagrin.

Giles struggled with his firmly entrenched instinct to suspect everything when it came to the slightest possibility of harm coming to Buffy and the preponderance of evidence that now lay on the side of Al and Sam being exactly what they represented themselves to be. It suddenly occurred to Giles that he knew Anya to be at least as distrustful and difficult to win over as he was himself and, much as he tried to fight it, a glimmer of hope began to grow in him.

The sound of a man's throat being cleared sounded from somewhere in the ceiling, causing Al to angrily break their staring contest. "Not now, Gushie. I'm busy," he snapped hoarsely.

"Um, s... sorry, Admiral, but it's urgent. Ziggy discovered that Buffy's real name is Elizabeth Anne," the hesitant, disembodied voice announced.

"Imagine my surprise that Buffy is a nickname," Al ground out sarcastically. "So you thought it was imperative to inform me her parents aren't complete sadists when I told you I wasn't to be disturbed?"

"N... no. That's not... I mean, once Ziggy discovered her real name she found out something... important. She sent it to your hand-link. Sorry for disturbing you, Admiral."

Giles heard the click of the intercom being shut off and watched Al shift his eyes back and forth between him and the hand-link. Apparently, he decided the moment had been lost and the shorter man sighed, punched a button on the small device and squinted at the tiny screen. Al's usually mobile features stiffened, then his lips began to move but nothing audible emerged. Giles felt a wavering, queasy sensation building in his gut. "What is it?" he whispered, not really wanting to know but unable to resist the need to discover what had so affected the other man.

"May 4th," Al said, simply.

"May 4th?" Giles prompted. When Al met his gaze, Giles gasped at the bleakness in the shorter man's eyes.

"May 4th, 2001. That's the date on Elizabeth Anne Summers' death certificate. Buffy is going to die in eight days," Al told him.

Giles felt a numbness spread through his body as he stood staring at Al in shock. The words 'Buffy is going to die' echoed in his mind, which was otherwise empty of thought. He watched Al thrust the device which had heralded the appalling news into his pocket. He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and began pacing; muttering under his breath and pausing only long enough to light the cigar before resuming his movement, criss-crossing the room in agitation. After a few minutes, Giles began to comprehend what he was saying.

"Damn it!" Al cursed. "I knew it. I knew it was going to be one of those Leaps!"

Although the leaden heaviness seemed to have paralyzed him completely, Giles was surprised to find himself responding, though his voice sounded weak and hollow to his ears. "What kind of Leap?"

Apparently, his voice had been loud enough to reach Al because the irritated man stalked back and planted himself in front of Giles again.

"The kind of Leap where Sam has to save someone from dying. The kind of Leap where he takes on a sense of responsibility and all kinds of guilt for something that's not his fault. The kind of Leap where he's in danger of being badly hurt or even killed. The kind of Leap where, if he fails and remembers what happened, he's haunted by his inability to fix something that wasn't his doing in the first place," Al listed off in a growl. When Giles didn't speak, Al continued his rant. "For two years he's had to give up a normal life so that he can help other people who don't even know he exists, without thanks, without rest; it's just one crisis after another. If we can't find a way to bring him back he'll just keep doing it until he dies."

As he became aware of the hint of accusation in Al's voice and expression, Giles felt a flicker of resentment overcome the numbness. "While I'm sure I can't possibly relate to your situation, you have my sympathy and good wishes," he offered in an even, but caustic, tone.

Giles watched Al's jaws tense and saw his teeth bite down sharply into the cigar he held in his mouth. Al's eyes shifted rapidly over Giles' expression and Giles suspected he was considering the stories Anya had told him and Sam in a new light; along with the news he had just delivered regarding Buffy's doom.

Al glanced away from Giles' intense stare and removed the cigar from his teeth, knocking off the ash. "Okay, you do understand what it's like," Al admitted, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. "So, I guess I should stop yelling at you and we should start figuring out how to save Buffy."

Giles sighed deeply and found he was capable of movement, so he began to pace slowly around the room, thinking. He came to a stop and leaned heavily against the far wall then looked over at Al, who was watching him closely.

"It's her gift," Giles said. "That's what the spirit guide told her."

Giles watched Al approach, confusion evident on his face. "Spirit guide? What is whose gift?" Al asked.

"Death is Buffy's gift," Giles explained.

Al halted in his tracks. "'Death is Buffy's gift'? What the hell does that mean?"

Giles shrugged lightly and glanced away, but a flash of movement in the corner of his vision caused him to look back to see Al was now glaring up into his face.

"You expect me to think you're okay with Buffy dying?" he demanded.

"Is this place very far from Sunnydale?" Giles asked.

If Al was startled by this seemingly abrupt change of subject, he covered it well. "Pretty far," he replied.

"But on the same continent?" Giles guessed.

"Yeah, and in distances of that magnitude, not all that far away," Al agreed.

Giles nodded thoughtfully. "Did anything... untoward... happen in California in May 2001?"

Al snorted, some of his natural irreverence resurfacing. "Something 'untoward' is always happening in California."

Giles smiled thinly, although he felt little humor. "Quite. But I meant something on a very large scale. A huge earthquake with massive devastation. Seas boiling. Reports of nightmare creatures that defy description laying waste to a large area. An unidentified plague decimating the population. Widespread disappearances of a considerable number of people. Anything of that sort?"

It took Al a moment, but he managed to respond. "No, nothing like that."

Giles nodded. He stared down at his feet for a long while. "Then she won," he whispered.

"Won what?" Al asked.

"Her final battle. We may have perished, but we foiled whatever plan Glory was attempting to execute," Giles explained.

"'We'?" Al queried.

"I presume you have a record of my demise as well on that device of yours," Giles said evenly. "Death would only be able to reach her by coming through me."

"Uh," Al said, shifting nervously. "Ziggy... Ziggy was looking for information about Buffy when she found her, uh, the you know..." he trailed off.

"I see," Giles said. The numbness was returning and he found he couldn't summon the energy to pursue the topic further. His silence seemed to spur Al's anger to a higher level.

"I never expected to see this kind of fatalism from a Brit," Al snapped. "And anyway, this is America. Around here, we try to make the other guy die for their cause."

This statement roused Giles slightly. "Don't you understand?" he demanded of the other man. "I was there and I couldn't stop it. Nothing I could think of or discover or tried was enough. What do you expect me to do from here?"

Al deflated in reaction to the anguish in Giles' voice and expression. "For the moment, nothing," he replied. "I have to go see Sam now. Maybe we can talk some more when I get back."

Giles closed his eyes, not caring whether Al stayed or left. He wondered if he would still die, now that Sam was taking his place in the past. Perhaps Sam would Leap at the last moment, allowing Giles the small mercy of falling alongside Buffy in their final campaign. He fervently hoped it would be so. He no more wanted Sam to die than he wanted to survive beyond Buffy's last moment of existence.

End Part 10