Chapter 14

Every time Buffy closed her eyes throughout the day all she could feel was Spike's hands on her and the excitement of his words challenging her. You can't help yourself. Her whole body, in one moment calm and relaxed, would at the closing of her eyes shiver at the thought of him. She had to keep herself together for participating in class and interacting with Willow, Xander, and Giles, but when she could, she would sneak a moment to concentrate on that feeling. It was raw and unlike anything she had ever experienced. Rather than get lost in the what-ifs and the whys on the new direction her life had taken, she only allowed herself to focus on that feeling, on those moments. With the combination of exploring her friendships, being confident standing up to Giles, and the promise of her future with Spike, Buffy had finally found something worth fighting for. Worth living for.

"Buffy…hey, pssst," Xander attempted to quietly intrude on Buffy's thoughts as they sat in biology lab.

Buffy startled out of her headspace to a concerned Xander and Willow, "Yeah, oh, sorry. Just spacing out for a minute there."

Willow laughed, "We figured, and what with the drool," she playfully pointed to the corner of her own mouth.

Buffy's hand shot up to her face conscientiously, finding no drool. "Haha," she drawled sarcastically.

"Daydreaming about Mr. Dreamy Pants Buff?" Xander was curious about the older guy Buffy was seeing, if not out of protection then out of wanting to know how to charm the ladies like he clearly knew how. Xander wanted to take notes, be my master—No! Not like that, ugh school brain.

Buffy smiled, trying to hide the blush that was inevitably spreading on her cheeks, "Maybe. That's none of your business Mr. Nosey Pants."

As Xander harrumphed, Willow cut in, "He was very handsome and clearly an intellectual stud too. Where did you two meet? Maybe I should go there."

Buffy and Willow shared a knowing look about the hotness that was Spike, while Xander blanched at Willow's admission thinking, Go there? Go there?! I'm right here. I guess I really should take notes from my—er, the master. He pouted as the girls continued gossiping quietly about the unknowingly vanilla story of how Spike and Buffy met. Finally, the teacher shushed them and they got back to their lab work.

Over the course of the day, the three of them continued to bond over their favorite movies and television shows, commiserated about their families and decided Buffy's house was probably the most ideal for sleepovers—no drunken fathers or intellectually overbearing mothers. They walked to their classes together and sat at lunch together, with Cordelia of course commenting on Buffy's downward mobility and Buffy not caring in the slightest. This was where she was supposed to be, she knew it, and she wasn't going to let anyone tell her otherwise.

"Buffy, I'll be seeing you in the library now, then," Giles nonchalantly, yet sternly, whispered near Buffy as he passed her in the hall after school was over. She made plans with Willow and Xander to hang out on the weekend, maybe go to the mall and do some holiday shopping, they broke from school next week for a couple of weeks. The timing for which could not have been better. Then her birthday was coming up after the New Year, a celebration that both past and present had all royally sucked. Hopefully, Spike would breathe new life into an otherwise sad season. Buffy waved at her friends and stalked off towards the library, wholeheartedly expecting a lecture.

Giles leaned against the table, his hair disheveled and books haphazardly lying about behind him. He was massaging the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, his glasses off and dangling from his hand when she walked up. She just stood there, her thumbs hooked on her backpack waiting for the onslaught.

"Buffy, I have done nothing but search for information on this William the Bloody and I keep coming up empty handed. I really don't know what to think or how to prepare you for a threat I can't even isolate!" He was raising his voice because of his apparent frustration. He was really worried for her and she hadn't expected his reaction. She walked up to him and placed her hand on his upper arm, patting it softly before removing it.

"It's going to be okay Giles. I'll face this vamp just like all the others and I'll be fine." She tried to be convincing because she knew that, at least in this one regard, she really was going to be all right.

Giles fought internally with himself over Buffy's reaction to his outburst. He shouldn't have let himself get too close to Buffy, he was repeating his past all over again and now the thought of not only being unable to prepare her but the sudden certainty of losing her because of it broke him. He jerked away from her attempt at comforting him and paced quickly nearby, muttering to himself quietly, taking stock of his failures. He just wanted to lock her away so that she would not have to face this burden at all, so that he wouldn't have to bear the burden of losing her again. Her. Not her. Not Buffy, no. The other one. He started shaking his head, eyes wide and distraught.

Buffy did not recognize this Giles. He was falling apart in front of her and she did not know what to do. He was supposed to be her watcher, be her rock and assurance in moments of uncertainty. Now she reached back into her memories and found Giles to be a very different kind of watcher in her previous life—a gentler one, a more forgiving one, a more defiant one—a watcher that did not break easily and challenged Buffy when she gave up.

She dropped her bag and went to stand right in front of him, sternly gripping his upper arms and stopping him mid-pace. "Giles look at me! Stop this! I am not her! You treat me like I'm fragile and reckless, at the same time wanting to protect me and wanting to punish me. This needs to stop. You're hurting us both by carrying on like this." Oh how she wanted to slap him.

Giles looked at her finally, his eyes bleary and unfocused as they met with Buffy's young and piercing eyes. He noticed a change there, a level of maturity in her young orbs that had not been there before. Also, despair had been replaced with hope and happiness. Was it possible that her new perspective was strengthening her? Preparing her to fight for something other than the abstract concept of good and evil? Giles' mind swam around the thoughts and the knowledge that for however much she may find strength in her friends and family, she also unnecessarily placed them in danger in the process. He did not know how to reconcile these two equally important logics. He felt her fingers cutting into his arm, Buffy not knowing her strength, in an effort to shake him out of it.

"I'm sorry Buffy. You shouldn't have to see me like this. I'm just—I'll be fine. I'll just keep looking," Giles stepped out of Buffy's grip and wandered back to the books and sat down disheartened in a chair, lifting a book to his eyes and reading the same line over and over again, lost in thought.

Buffy did not know what to say, she wanted to run away from him and she wanted to console him. Now that she knew some of what Giles had done for her and Spike, making this do-over possible, she realized that some residual guilt of her previous death may linger in Giles' memory. She didn't know all the details about how the previous life translated to this life, but she could imagine how Giles felt and would continue feeling if he did not feel effective in his duties as her watcher. This was not something she could help him with, she could only show and tell him how prepared she was for what was coming by patrolling and being the best version of herself. Something her connection to Spike and her friends was going to help with through strengthening her ability as the slayer and her maturity as a person.

Buffy picked up her bag and walked toward the swinging library doors to leave when he softly called to her, "Be careful Buffy."

She heard him though, and replied, "I will be Giles. I promise." A promise that he was not sure she was able to keep, but he hoped. He really did.

The image of seeing Giles lose it kept replaying in her mind along with all the other memories of him from her previous self as she walked across the street to the cemetery. She thought that she and the other Buffy could probably both agree that Giles was a pretty complex fellow. She was not about to unravel the mysteries of him right this moment, but at least she knew that she would have to work through this all with him eventually. He was not the one-dimensional Scrooge that she had painted him to be—she would revisit this another time and remember to give him more updates on her patrolling and training. Buffy hoped that he would drop the William search when he kept running out of leads, which seemed like the most logical response once he realized that there wasn't a big bad in town. A revelation made even more likely by Spike assimilating to the day walking crowd of Sunnydale proper.