I'm back home now, and I should be getting to respond to reviews within the next day or two. Thank you to those of you who've stayed with me these past two weeks! Thanks to your feedback and support, I've nearly finished writing the fic. :)
"We've just gotten news." It was Ethan at his door now, his voice more somber than it had been in years. "A man has turned himself in to the hospital, claims that he's woken up the past two nights naked in the outskirts of town with no memories of where he was. Sounds like it could have been the original werewolf."
Giles rose in a mechanical motion. "We'd better check on him, then," he murmured. "We've delayed the jet for an hour or so while Travers sends in an investigative team. They're…less than ready to believe that Xander has truly vanished from the school."
Ethan leaned against the doorjamb. "And has he?"
"Jenny did a locator spell that came up blank, which should indicate that he's still in the vicinity…or under a protective cover. His best friend is Willow Rosenberg, and I imagine that she's capable of such." Giles pulled on his coat, Ethan at his heels. "Of course, my skeleton key is also missing. But there's no need for Travers to find that out."
"You're going to let him go?" Ethan tossed him an admiring glance. "Rupert, you old dog! Breaking the rules like this? There's hope for you yet."
"Thanks ever so," Giles said dryly. His expression took on a serious cast. "Xander Harris was born to one of the most despicable parents I've ever met. I can't in good conscience force him back to that, even if he deserves it. Expulsion from the Academy is punishment enough."
"We haven't lost a student in ten years, since…" Ethan glanced around at the front hallway, where students were milling around and watching them with inquisitive stares. "…Her. I can understand if you're reluctant to give one up now."
"We'll be losing Oz regardless." Giles closed his eyes. "Another student, lost to occupational hazards. It's a wonder we made it this long."
Tara had come to say goodbye to Oz, unsure of whether she'd be wanted but positive that Willow was going to need someone to be there for her. She'd lost Xander and Oz in one fell swoop, and that had to have taken a toll- and this was about friendship, not the kiss. Never the kiss. Willow had been confused, and Tara was determined not to take advantage of that, especially after what had happened with Oz.
So she'd come to Oz's room as he finished packing, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce watching him warily with a tranquilizer gun in hand, and knocked politely on the open door.
Willow came to the doorway, her eyes red and swollen around the edges, and a tissue held close to her nose as she sniffled back tears. Her eyes darkened when she saw Tara. "You. What are you doing here?"
"Hey." Tara managed a smile. "I thought you could use a friend."
Willow shook her head, studiously avoiding Tara's gaze. "No," she said shakily, her voice rising as she spoke. "Not you! I can't believe that you would come here- here , to Oz's room!- after what happened!" She lowered her voice. "That will never happen again, okay? And I can't believe that I thought you were my friend, when you just wanted…wanted…" She slammed the door closed on Tara's face, leaving the other girl quietly mournful in the hallway.
She bit back sudden tears and headed back to her room to cry it out in solitude.
Buffy gave Willow a sympathetic look as she slammed the door shut. "Everything okay with Tara?"
Willow shrugged. "Just…witchy stuff. Nothing to worry about." She turned to pass Oz a stack of t-shirts.
He gave her a half-smile. "You all right?"
She shook her head. "How can you ask that now? How can I ever be all right without you?" The tears had been coming and going all day, and now they were back in full force. "My god, Oz, I can't do it! I can't!"
He pulled her to him soothingly, to kiss her tears away and hold her in his tight embrace, letting her fall to pieces as he held them together. "I'll never stop loving you," he assured her. "Never."
"I love you," she sobbed. Somewhere through the haze of sorrow, she heard Buffy move to open the door to the room as someone else knocked, and a very awkward-looking Jesse and Cordelia entered together.
Within moments, Jesse was standing in front of them, his shoulders slumped and his eyes ashamed. "I'm sorry, man. I should have stayed."
"There was nothing else to do," Oz said, tossing a wary glance to Mr. Wyndham-Pryce. He looked pointedly away, ignoring the implications of Jesse's presence on their fatal foray. "You saved Cordy."
"He did," Cordy said, squeezing Jesse's hand. Willow swallowed back jealousy and anger that she had no time for at such a dire time. "And we're back together. For good, this time, and to hell with what everyone's going to say about me dating a loser! I make the rules around here!" she declared, stamping a foot with precise certainty. "And if anyone has a problem with it, well, my boyfriend took down a werewolf. He's not going to have a problem with a bunch of wannabe slayers! Oh, and sorry about the whole wolf thing. That probably sucks," she added as an afterthought, reaching over to give Oz an encouraging pat on the shoulder before she reconsidered and pulled her hand away. "No offense, but I'm not going to touch you. What if it's contagious?"
"It's best to be careful," Oz agreed, deadpan.
"Anyway, I thought I'd leave Jesse here with you while I go out for lunch with the girls! Buffy, you coming?" She beamed at Jesse with all the pride of a job well done, seized a bemused Buffy by the arm and was out of the room before anyone could argue with them.
Oz shrugged. "That was interesting."
Willow threw her arms around him and began to sob anew.
"I'm sorry," Giles said quietly. "It isn't something that can be stopped."
"But a werewolf!" The man stared up at them disbelievingly. "Such things don't exist, not outside of horror movies! You can't just waltz in here and insist that I'm a werewolf!"
"Were you bitten at some point over the past month? By a human or any other creature?" Giles inquired.
The man shook his head. "Not that I can remember. And I haven't even been blacking out for the last three days, like you said, only the last two. Your theory makes no sense, and-"
"It's the truth, and we really don't have time to wait for the realization to settle," Ethan interrupted, scowling at him. "There's a jet leaving for Tibet in several hours, and a facility there equipped to deal with people like you. Rupert here is too proper to force you on the plane, but I'm not- and I'm also a warlock who will just as easily knock you out until the moment you land in Tibet if you refuse. Understood?"
The man held up his hands. "Hey, you might be crazies, but you do make a certain amount of sense. And to be completely honest, I've got nowhere else to go."
"Very well. You'll come with us?" Giles asked curtly.
The man shrugged. "Yeah, okay. Is it alright if I contact my wife, tell her I'll be out of town?"
"You're married?" Giles sighed wearily. It was always the most difficult when these things happened to a family man.
"Separated, actually," the man elaborated. "I…uh, I was having a little something on the side. To satisfy my needs, if you know what I mean." He winked rather hideously at Giles.
"He doesn't," Ethan cut in. "He's got the most disgustingly healthy long-term relationship going on. Makes me sick, it does."
"Stay away from marriage," the man warned. "Oh, they're alright at first, then they start nagging for children and more attention…and the next thing you know, you're trapped in a marriage with a broad who won't put out as often as she used to, and three squalling children who're a nightmare to put up with. Can you blame me for looking elsewhere for my…entertainment?" He wrinkled his nose. "But the old lady found out a few days ago, told me to leave her house and never come back. Thought I'd mention to her that I'm actually listening to her for a change, make her regret having come on me so harshly." He sat back, pleased.
But a cold chill was running through Giles and unwelcome suspicions were slowly building. "Can you tell me where you lived?" he heard himself asking, his mind whirring wildly with dawning realization.
It couldn't be.
Could it?
"We're what?"
"Doing lunch. God, are you an idiot?" Cordy demanded. "Just to set things straight here, I'm not doing this because I like you. I'm doing it to prove to Jesse that I can totally take care of his friends, even the pathetic, sad loser-types."
"And I'm a pathetic, sad loser-type," Buffy guessed, pokerfaced.
"Exactly." Cordy nodded. "You know, Buffy, you used to have potential. I even thought that you could be one of the good ones. Your sense of style isn't totally hopeless, and you're not an annoying sycophant like Colleen or Cari." At Buffy's startled look, she tossed her hair. "What? I'm popular, not stupid. Anyway, you were one of my top picks for our year until you started hanging with Faith. That's pretty much a reputation killer. Then you couldn't just go be average like everyone else, so now everyone hates you."
"I thought everyone hates me because I hang out with Willow?" Buffy ventured.
"Yeah, that too. Seriously, Willow? Even you could do better." Cordy shrugged. "But I guess you're the most bearable of all of Jesse's friends, so you get to hang out with me!" she said cheerfully.
"Aren't I lucky," Buffy said sardonically.
"Oh, you are," Cordy said with certainty. "Come on, everyone's here already."
Colleen, Caridad, Eve, Chloe, and Annabelle were all already seated at a round table in the back corner of the café when they arrived, and they all looked to their queen expectantly, confusion spreading across their faces when they spotted her companion. "What's she doing here?" Eve asked with distaste.
"She's with me," Cordy said confidently, pulling over another chair for Buffy. "We like Buffy again."
"Excuse me?" Chloe said doubtfully. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Cordy raised an eyebrow. "Don't make me repeat it," she said scornfully. "Do you even listen when I talk?"
Colleen stood up, quivering a bit with apprehension. "You brought Jesse McNally to our dorm last night. And didn't leave till morning."
Cordy flushed almost imperceptibly, quickly hiding it with her standard disdain. "Yeah? What's your point?"
"He's Willow's friend. And one of the worst of the watchers," Annabelle pointed out. "And now you're making nice with Buffy?"
"There are some things that even you can't do, Cordy!" Caridad chimed in. "You crossed a line to watcher country, and now you're, like, Buffy Junior!"
There were emphatic agreements from the rest of the girls, and Colleen slowly, shakily, stood up and pulled the last two chairs from the table. The other girls filled out the table, taking extra space and huddling together to pointedly ignore Cordy.
"You can't do this!" Cordy said, outraged. "I'm Cordy! I'm in charge! You listen to me! I'm Cordy!"
Buffy patted her shoulder. "Come on, Cordy. Let's get out of here."
The other girl shook her head. "No! I'm…this isn't…I'm Cordy!" she said again.
"Yeah, you are."
"I'm better than this!"
"There you go."
"I am out of here."
"Lead the way."
The werewolf's wife was large, busty, and carried around a handkerchief that she seemed to wave around quite a bit. "It wasdreadful," she told them, wiping at her eyes and blowing her nose flamboyantly. "All these years, and he repays me by sleeping with that floozy Rita! I have on good authority that those things are fake as they come," she informed them. "And the way she looked at him…" She shuddered. "To think that he was taken in by her wiles! Why, I never!"
"It sounds positively dreadful," Ethan said, bored.
"It was! And oh, how the neighbors gossiped!" She blew her nose again, and Giles winced at the sound, like a foghorn in the silence of the ocean. "I couldn't confide in any of them anymore! There was only one woman at church, a new arrival, I think, who'd listen to me without telling her friends. It's so difficult to find friends here, yes? The women are so grounded to their circles of friends, and poor Anya was left almost completely ignored!" Giles's blood ran cold. "I always try to be welcoming to the new girls, bless them," the woman revealed, not noticing the grim expressions that had settled on both men's faces.
"I told Anya about Howard, about what he'd done. I said, I said I wished that he could understand how hard it was for me! How yes, sometimes I'm not as attractive or as ready to have sex as he is, but you know, he should see how it feels to be that different for a few days a month! He'd never have left me if he understood that," she declared. "That Anya, sweet girl, she understood!"
"I'm sure she did," Giles said softly. "We're going to leave now."
Ethan went back to the hospital to pick up the afflicted man and bring him to the jet, and Giles headed back to the Academy, his steps heavier and more difficult than ever before.
It had been easier to ignore what Anya did rather than confront her about it; it was in her nature, after all, and something he couldn't change. But he'd been weak for letting it go, for giving Anya a reprieve she didn't deserve for the havoc she gleefully wreaked. And now a student had paid for it. Now Oz was forever doomed to the life of a werewolf and Xander Harris, who had shown such promise and for whom Giles had had a bit of a soft spot, was gone as well. The Academy was in chaos, and who knew how many others the werewolf had harmed along the way? Who knew how many murders Giles had condoned by accepting Anya s demon heritage?
He pushed open the door to his apartment and froze. Anya was cleaning up the books he'd left scattered on the table, singing to herself as she did, tucking away each book and giving it a pat to make sure it was secure in its place. Oh, god, he loved her rituals, her fastidiousness, the way she danced as she sang and sang as she worked and tried so hard to act as a typical human housewife because she thought it would endear herself to him.
He loved her so much.
She turned to frown at him, the smile still in his eyes. "Aren't you coming in?" she asked, and he moved to her instantly, to kiss her deeply and hold her close, the tiny, delicate little thing that she was so easily encompassed by his embrace. He kissed her like they had no tomorrow, like there was nothing left but the two of them, like she was all that was life and made life living for, and he was bidding her adieu at last.
She pulled away from him to fix worried eyes onto his. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly, searchingly. And then she saw it in his gaze and took a step back, her eyes tearing up. "Rupert? No…you aren't…"
"You turned that man into a werewolf," he said hoarsely. "You caused one of my students to be harmed."
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "I did my job," she said simply. "I grant wishes."
"You hurt people. You hurt Howard, and Oz, who was entrusted into my care. His family…his classmates…the other watchers…they trust me to take care of these children, and I betrayed them. I brought evil into my school…into my bed."
Fat, silent tears were rolling down Anya's face, but Giles didn't stop, couldn't. Not anymore. "You need to leave my school, my world. You're nothing but a demon."
"Rupert!" She reached for him, but he forced himself to push her away, to avoid her pleading gaze. "Please! Don't leave me! Don't…"
He crossed the room in four long strides and moved to open the door. "Goodbye, Anya," he whispered, and she snapped her fingers to teleport away, her eyes widening in despair when nothing happened. "You won't be able to enter or exit the building like a demon anymore," he said quietly, unable to meet her imploring eyes. "And I'd rather you don't return here in any way."
"Rupert!" He closed his eyes, refusing to respond. She was standing right in front of him now, her presence so close that he had only to reach out to touch her, and he kept his arms firm at their sides. "Rupert, please!"
He waited, waited until she'd left, a sobbing muddle of fury and despair who wept and begged for him to return to her. He stayed silent, unswayed, though it nearly killed him.
And when the sound of her tears finally faded, he closed the door and sank to the ground, the pain of loss overwhelming him.