Zigpal-no you musn't let me go through clap withdrawels. haha. and curse your cleverness! You smelt my Xander plan a mile off. haha. Oh, but I just had to get him out of the basement! and you shall have to see if Joyce figures it out...hehe. And ooh this is your new favey story? ooh yay! Go me. haha

Okay-apologies in the extreme as it's another pretty short chapter. Although what happens in it are vital to progression of story...but still witness the shortness. But I will be making it up to you as the next chapter, A New Man, is going to be rather long so...forgive me! hehe

Moving boxes were everywhere. Some were empty and some were packed to the brim with Giles' things and some were half-packed.

"I don't see why it was immediately assumed I'd be moving into your house" Giles said as he taped a box closed.

"Because I'm the one who asked," Joyce retorted.

"Well, I wanted to ask"

"Well I said the words." Joyce retorted, "Plus my house is bigger"

"So size matters?" He asked and Joyce merely smirked.

"That house is my home, I couldn't possibly leave it," She told him.

"Well this place is my home," He pointed out.

"You seriously expect me to move into a place that is, for the majority, green?"

Giles went to retort but at that point Buffy walked in through the front door.

"Something horrible is going to happen!" Buffy announced.

"What?" Giles asked and Buffy explained about her earthquake fears.

"Oh honey, it was just an earthquake" Joyce soothed her with a little smile but Buffy seemed unconvinced, "You've grown up with them. You know there's no reason to panic"

"Oh there's plenty reason," Buffy argued, "Last time there was an earthquake I died" To say Joyce looked slightly queasy when Buffy said that would be a slight understatement, "But…obviously I was okay" Buffy added.

"Buffy I understand your anxiety…" Giles told her.

"Oh good, because I would hate for my little untimely horrible death to be ambiguous"

"Buffy don't say things like that," Her mom told her. She hated any reminder that Buffy was predicted to have a very short lifespan.

"Sorry Mom, it's just you know Earthquakes last time equalled Master. I mean what if this is the sign of an impending apocalypse?"

"Buffy, unless evidence speaks otherwise," Giles said, "I think we can assume that it is merely shifting landmasses and not a portent of imminent doom"

Buffy went to argue her point when she suddenly took in the scene around her for the first time.

"Why are there all these packing boxes?" She asked, heading toward one, "And why is Giles' stuff being packed into them?"

Joyce frowned in confusion.

"Xander and Anya didn't say?"

"Say what?" Buffy asked naively

"Death…carnage…it's a Buffy party!" Buffy said as she and Willow sat on the stairs watching the ambulances and police passing by.

"I'm so glad you're here" Willow was in tears.

"What happened?"

"I found him. This guy on the bed with me. Dead. Not me dead. Him dead"

"God are you okay?" Buffy hugged Willow lightly, before whispering to her, "Vampire?" Willow shook her head.

"There was so much blood and…there was a symbol…and Percy said I was a nerd!" She felt herself crying again.

"Percy called you a nerd?" Buffy sounded outraged.

"I guess we should report to Giles, get with the demon tracking"

Buffy stopped Willow getting up.

"Speaking of, did you even know about this whole Giles moving in with Mom thing?"

"Well yeah," Willow automatically replied, "Anya said something about it when I picked up a book from Xander's. It wasn't his book…it was one I'd left behind."

Buffy's jaw dropped open so wide in shock and indignation it nearly hit the floor.

"I thought you knew" Willow told her, sounding worried.

"No, I didn't…" Buffy whined, before taking on resolve face, "That's it. I have a bone to pick with Xander, like officially. And it's a really big bone. Dinosaur bone sized."

"It just made me feel like I was back in High School" Willow said when the gang were all at Giles'. It was a little small on the room front as boxes were taking up half of the seating space.

"Well, you're not," Joyce told her, "And you weren't even a nerd then. It's him who has obviously not grown up past High School."

"Stupid dumb jock!" Xander said simply, "If it wasn't for you he still would be" Xander speaking seemed to remind Buffy that she had the bone issue with him to deal with.

"You!" She exclaimed, walking over to him.

"Me?"

"You didn't tell me!" She pointed over at her Mom and Giles, "About them! Moving in together!"

Xander held his hands up in a protective defence.

"I thought you knew!"

Buffy sighed in frustration mixed with exasperation.

"Everyone 'thought I knew'!" She exclaimed looking around at them all, "But no one thought that someone has to think to tell me before I can be thought to know" Everyone looked at her silently, "Sorry…I'm just a little tense. Dead guy on the bed and all…"

"Yeah…" Willow agreed, "Oh something else! He…the dead guy…he had been propped up like someone wanted to drain the blood out of him so I think whoever killed him took a load of his blood along with. And I haven't been a nerd for a very long time!"

"Tell me more about this symbol," Buffy said and Willow took out a yellow napkin and unfolded it and everyone crowded round to look at the drawing.

"The symbol for evil CBS?" Joyce frowned and Xander smirked

"They're just going by CBS now" He told her, "But this could be the work of Mr Morley Safer…"

"I know it from somewhere" Buffy told them all, picking up the drawing for a closer look, "I saw it before. God, it's…it's…"

"It's the end of the world" Giles filled in.

"Again?" Xander, Buffy and Willow asked in sync.

"It doesn't mean something a little less apocalypse…y?" Joyce asked hopefully but Giles shook his head.

"It's ah the earthquake…and the symbol…yes"

"The earthquake Buffy had been worried about?" Joyce asked and he nodded, knowing Buffy was going to be gloating that she had been right.

"I told you!" She exclaimed right on cue, "I said end of the world and you were like pooh! Pooh! Southern California! Pooh! Pooh!"

It was amazing that no matter how much things changed some things stayed the same. After researching the demons when Buffy and co returned from patrol they had discovered some not-too-pleasant things about the Vahralls. All the information on them had been in rhyme, which well gave everything they found out a nice rhythm it had emphasized some of the terrible details and confused the others. The bones of child. Horrifying and disturbing, but only half of the demon's plan. Along with the sacrifice of the three and a word of valios the demons sought to bring about the end of the world. And so while Buffy was off saving the world with her friends Joyce had been left behind, worried to death whether her daughter or the others were going to make it through the night. Like she said, some things never changed.

Some things had changed though. Now, she wasn't at home alone worrying, but rather at Giles' apartment looking for The Word of Valios…while worrying. Some books that Giles believed would be relevant had already been packed and so while he researched at the table in the living room, Joyce looked through the boxes, getting out all the potentially helpful books. Why were all the helpful ones so old and dusty? Her hands felt gritty and dirty after picking up so many ancient texts.

She reached forward into a box and picked out the last book in there, but put it aside, it opening up to a middle page by itself, when she noticed an intriguing looking box at the bottom of the carton. She gave into her nosiness as she picked it up and opened the lid. Inside were numerous talismans and necklace that all looked to be extremely old, priceless and knowing the area of work Giles came from, powerful. She glanced over for a moment at the open book beside her and saw a diagram labelled Word of Valios and she looked back down in the box and saw a matching talisman and her eyes widened in realization.

"Erm…Rupert…" She called his name and he looked up to see her holding up the book and the talisman next to it.

"Oh dear" He said simply, getting up but before he could head over to her and the talisman three of the Vahrall demons came from behind her, presumably entering through the back door, and before he could issue any sort of warning to her, one of the demons slapped a green, clawed hand across the side of Joyce's face, knocking her head to the side and she fell to the floor inertly. "Joyce!" He exclaimed, running over but two of the three demons attacked him before he could reach her. He was able to see the third take the talisman from her still hand before he blacked out completely.

Waking up, his head felt terrible and he felt in pain all over. Blinking, everything around him finally came into focus as he straightened his glasses with a bruised hand. He looked to his left and saw Joyce lay unconscious on the floor not too far away from him and it was then that everything came flooding back to him. He ran over to her and so she had an extremely bad injury on the side of her head where the demon had hit her and it was bleeding quite badly. The flow seemed to have slowed down but with the small pool of blood he saw next to her, he worried about whether this was a bad thing or a good thing. He reached over for the phone off the table and called 911, still not leaving Joyce's side. Her breathing seemed to be steady and he sighed a sigh of relief as Emergency Services answered the phone.

"Y-yes. Hello? I need, I need an ambulance. She, she's badly hurt" He rattled off his address and after assurances from the woman on the other end of the phone he hung up. He cradled Joyce's head in his lap, so her head was propped up slightly as the woman on the phone had instructed and he silently prayed she would be okay.

Buffy couldn't believe the nerve of Riley. The things he had said had been way out of line. She wanted to stay in the dark place? Yeah right. She'd love to be up there in the bright place dancing along side the bunnies and flowers, but that just wasn't the way the world worked. Last time she'd given into impulses like a normal teenage girl her boyfriend had turned into the walking personification of pure evil. Riley just didn't understand. It was just a job to him. One that he felt relatively safe in, but Buffy knew the reality. She'd buried too many people not to.

"Oof!" Too lost in her thoughts Buffy walked straight into Xander and Willow when she reached the courtyard outside Giles' house.

"Penny for 'em?" Xander asked, rubbing his arm where Buffy had banged into him.

"Sorry, just a…lot of things going on right now" She shook the Riley thoughts aside, "Anything on the Word of Valios?"

"Nothing." Willow informed her, "We went to all the museums and the other places on Giles' list, but there wasn't anything"

"We got ourselves a whole lot of zilch," Xander added.

"Well put me down for a dose of nada as well," Buffy told them.

"Nothing on your end either?" Willow asked and Buffy shook her head as the three started walking towards Giles' front door.

"No, it's just so frustrating," She pushed open the unlocked door, "Maybe Giles' had found something else…" She trailed off as she saw the mess that was Giles' place. Several of the packed boxes had been knocked over, their contents spilled over the floor and a table seemed to have been upturned (or possibly knocked a little and then carried over by it's own weight).

"What happened here?" Willow asked, catching sight of the mess.

"Mom! Giles?" Buffy called out walking into the house, looking round.

"Buffy" Xander stopped in her tracks and she turned around to see him holding up a piece of paper on which a note had been written in a rush, "They're at the hospital"

"Mom!" Buffy exclaimed, running over once she stepped into the room her Mom and Giles were in. It had taken the group long enough to find it for as usual the doctors and nurses had been hard to get information out of it. Buffy was relieved to find neither her Mom nor Giles had been admitted to a ward so it couldn't be as worse as she feared, but Giles seemed pretty bandaged up and her Mom was sat on the seat-table with what seemed like stitches and a bandage on the side of her head, "What happened?"

"It's nothing really" Joyce assured her daughter, pushing Buffy's hands away from her head calmly, "Just after I got rid of the arm bandage" she joked but Buffy seemed anything but amused as she turned to Giles.

"What happened?"

"The Vahrall demons." He explained.

"They came to your house?" Willow asked, "Why?"

"For the word of Valios"

"Wait, you had it all along?" Xander sounded quite affronted as though Giles had put him out by sending him to the museums on purpose.

"The Word of Valios is the name of a talisman not a book" Giles explained, "And I had it all along. I blame myself entirely." His voice was wracked with gilt as he looked over at Joyce and she looked at him sympathetically.

"It wasn't your fault," She told him and he nodded but looked unconvinced, "Really" she added.

"Well either way they have it now" Buffy said, "And they probably have their sacrifices by now too."

"They're on their way to perform the sacrifice now" Giles told her.

"On their way where? You found out what the ritual is for?"

"The Hellmouth" He told them all, "They are going to open the hellmouth. The one in the library."

The group looked at each other sombrely and Buffy was the first to speak.

"Looks like we're going back to High School" She announced, before telling the others head out. Before she left the room herself she turned back, "Get better" She told her Mom, "And no more talisman research for you" She added firmly and Joyce laughed.

"Check"

Happy, Buffy left the room closing the door behind her.

"See this is what happens" Giles said, looking Joyce in the eye for the first time since they had arrived in the hospital. He had been in blind panic when the ambulance had brought them here, as Joyce still hadn't gained consciousness. The Doctors had told him it was just head trauma, concussion and a cut that would need stitches, but nothing too serious. Shock had been the most likely cause for her lack of consciousness as the body had shut down in reaction. He had of course had to make up some tale for why the two of them were so badly beat up, but luckily the doctors of Sunnydale were so used to seeing weird injuries everyday that they didn't ask too many questions. When she had come to after the stitches had been put in he had been overcome with as much guilt as he was relieved. But he had put those thoughts aside for that moment when, as Joyce gained consciousness, in her slight delirium she had started rambling on about the Vahrall demons and the vampires and he had had to cover up the situation pretty quickly.

"See what?" She asked, though she was pretty sure she knew what he was getting at. She'd seen him throwing those guilt-filled looks her way ever since she woke up in the hospital. But she didn't know why he felt guilty. Well, she knew why she just couldn't see how. It was just one of those things in their lives that was bound to happen from time to time. She didn't have a daughter as a slayer without getting a few lumps and bumps from demons passing through. Okay, so the injury she had had been more than a lump or bump, but still, there was no need for him to feel guilty.

"How this sort of thing happens," he explained, but then realized from the confused expression Joyce threw him that it was more of a half-explanation than anything and he elaborated, "if I-I…well, move in…with you then a-all this, my…the demon texts and artefacts they will all be there too and your house will become like a walking target and it will put you in so much more danger"

"If you move in?" Was all Joyce asked, noting his choice of words.

"Pardon?"

"Not having second thoughts there are you?" She asked with a raised eyebrow and he looked at her in mild surprise.

"Why no, I thought perhaps that you were," He told her honestly.

"No, of course not" She told him with a little laugh and gave him a light kiss, "A little danger is not going to change my mind"

"I'd hardly call what we came across tonight 'a little danger'," Giles pointed out, "Buffy and her friends still have an apocalypse to avert after all"

"Little danger…large danger…either way it isn't changing my mind," She assured and looked into his eyes so he was forced to look directly at her as well, "You have got to stop thinking that every bad evil thing that pops up in our lives is going to break us apart. Our relationship is not doomed. I'm here to stay," She told him with a smile, "Whether you like it or not"