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Part 9
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"How's Tara?" Doyle questioned as Willow walked back into the living room.
The blonde Wiccan was currently resting in the extra bedroom, recovering from whatever had happened when she read Buffy's aura. They didn't really understand what exactly had occurred, and Tara was still too dazed to fully explain it to them. She'd been out for nearly a half hour and when she woke up all she could tell them was that there were dark magicks in Buffy's body. That alone was enough to send them into a panic, but they all worried that there was more bad news to come.
"She's still out of it," the redhead sighed and sat next too Doyle.
After Tara's revelation, the group had been stunned. Their worry over their friend's health had quickly escalated into sheer terror. If she didn't have the flu or something along those lines, then what was making her sick? That was what they were now trying to figure out. Every single book related to the supernatural world had been carted up from the offices downstairs and were now spread throughout the apartment's living room.
Despite their desire to be by Buffy's side, they knew they needed to focus on researching. Cordy was currently on Buffy watch while the rest of them scoured the books in search of answers. Willow, Oz, and Angel were familiar with the tedious task, but for Lindsey, Lorne, and Doyle, it was a daunting mission. They had absolutely no idea what they were looking for or where to look for it.
"Find anything yet?' Cordelia asked as she walked into the living room.
"Not unless a lot of dusty books count," Oz chimed in without looking up from the old tome he was reading.
"How's Buffy?" Willow looked up and blinked the bleariness out of her eyes.
"The same," Cordy said as she slumped down on the couch next to Willow. "She's still drifting in and out of sleep."
"I'll go in and sit with her. Maybe sing her a song or two," Lorne tried to say cheerfully but failed.
"What about the club? Don't we have to get ready to open?" Willow suddenly remembered that they all had jobs.
"Don't you worry you're pretty little head about that. The club will be closed for a few days. We have more important things to be worried about," he answered and left the room before the issue could be debated.
Cordy watched him leave and then looked around the room and frowned. "Where's Doyle?"
"He went to pick Ashlynn up from school," Willow relayed, rubbing at the tension headache she was getting. Then, suddenly realizing what was about to happen, her eyes snapped up, glanced briefly at Angel before moving over to Cordelia.
Catching the look, Cordy almost leapt off the couch. "Uhh, Willow, why don't we go get some drinks and, uh, snacks for everyone."
"Yeah...snacks...good...sure," babbled Willow incoherently and practically dashed out of the room.
Angel stared in confusion over the odd antics until the initial statement registered in his mind. Ashlynn. Buffy's daughter. The child she'd had with someone else. The boytoy's child. If there was a hole nearby for him to crawl into, he wouldn't have hesitated. A small part of him wanted to meet the little girl that was part Buffy, but the larger part of him didn't want to see one of the reminders that she had moved on. It was bad enough that her...lover...was sitting only a few feet away from him.
Inside the kitchen, Cordelia was pacing anxiously across the floor. "This is sooo not good!"
"Shhh!" Willow peaked out the door and saw Angel looking in her direction.
"What are we going to do?" Cordy whispered as quietly as possible.
Before the redhead could respond, they heard the noise of the elevator rising to their floor. Both girls quickly dashed out of the room and toward the elevator, reaching it just as the gates opened. Ashlynn skipped out the compartment and smiled when she saw her two favorite Aunts waiting for her.
"Hey, Sweetie! Did you have a good day at school?" Cordy asked and knelt down and to gave the little girl a hug.
"Yup! Look what I made!" she chatted happily, pushing a large piece of paper in front of Cordelia's face.
"Oooh! Did you draw that? It's beautiful!" Cordy beamed as she looked at the wonderful drawing Ash had done.
"Lindsey!" Ashlynn squealed when she caught sight of the blonde man out of the corner of her eye. Before Cordy could stop her, the girl was across the room and sitting on Lindsey's lap showing him her drawing.
"Where's Mommy?" Ash asked after Lindsey had complemented her picture.
"She's still not feeling well, Darling," Lindsey replied smoothing down the hair on her head.
"Oh," she mumbled, some of the happiness in Ash's eyes fading. "Can I see her?"
"Maybe later. She doesn't want you to get sick too," he lied to her. They'd all agreed earlier in the day that it was best to keep Ashlynn from finding out how sick her Mommy was.
"Okay." Her lower lip trembled and she squirmed out of Lindsey's lap.
The moment her little feet hit the floor, Ashlynn froze. The picture that had been clasped tightly in her hand fell fluttering to the floor. She didn't need anyone to tell her who the strange man sitting opposite her was. Years of staring at his picture left his image ingrained in her memory. Cautiously, she took a small step toward the man she'd heard so much about.
"Da-."
"Ashlynn, Sweetie, why don't we go get you out of that dress?" Cordy spoke, cutting Ash off as she rushed over and swept the girl up into her arms before she could finish the word that had started to come out of her mouth.
"But-," she started to speak again, but was again interrupted.
"Nope, no buts! You don't want to ruin your dress now do you?" Cordy didn't give her the chance to speak again and quickly left the room with Ashlynn.
Angel's eyes followed her out of the room. Looking into the little girl's eyes had given him the strangest feeling. It was almost as if he should know her, but he supposed that wasn't that odd. After all, she was Buffy's child. There was something else, though. She ignited a feeling in him that he couldn't put a finger on.
Confused, his gaze drifted back across the room and landed on Lindsey, who was staring intently at him. She had called him 'Lindsey'. Why? Shouldn't she have called him Daddy? She didn't though. That would mean...Angel didn't want to think about what that meant. He didn't want to know that there had been others. But obviously there had been, and he was just one of the pack.
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A few minutes later, Willow was waiting outside of Ashlynn's room for Cordelia to emerge. Her hands nervously twisted at her sides as she thought about what had almost happened out in the living room. She should have known that Ashlynn would recognize Angel. Buffy had never kept his identity a secret from her and had even given her daughter a picture of her Father. Now Angel was here, not knowing he had a daughter, and Buffy was bed-ridden with a mystical illness. Gods, Willow thought, could this situation get any worse?
"That was way too close," Cordy whispered after she'd stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Willow grabbed Cordy's arm and pulled her down the hall into her and Oz's bedroom, closing the door behind them. "What did you tell her?"
"What could I tell her?" Cordy paced across the room. "She already knew who he was."
"You told her the truth?" Willow screeched a little too loudly.
"Shut up! Do you want him to here you?" she waved a hand toward the living room. "I didn't really have a choice!"
"What exactly did you tell her?" This time Willow kept her voice low.
"I told her that, yes, that was her Father, but that he didn't know who she was. I said that he had to leave before her Mommy could tell him about her and that's why he didn't know," Cordy explained, wondering how she'd gotten into this mess. Why did this have to happen when Buffy wasn't able to deal with it?
"How did she react?" Willow took a seat on her bed.
"She was sad about it. You know she always wanted her Daddy." Cordy's heart broke for the poor girl. "She asked why he had to leave. So I told her that he fought bad guys like her Mommy did and that he had to go away to fight them."
"Did she believe you?" Willow couldn't imagine what the child was going through. She was only six years old. Grant it, she was a bit advanced for her age, but it still had to be confusing.
"I think so. But we need to keep her away from Angel for now. I told her there was a bad guy we needed to catch right now and that she needed to stay in her room so that we could figure out how to catch him," relayed Cordy tiredly. This was going to be a long night, or days even.
"Good. That'll buy us some time hopefully. We better get back to the researching," Willow sighed and stood up from the bed.
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~two hours later~
The room was deathly quiet except for the rhythmic flipping of book pages and the occasional shift of bodies on furniture. They were all intently searching through the many books for the slightest clue about Buffy's illness, even Lindsey as he sat by Buffy's bedside keeping vigil. So far, they had not found anything to give them answers. Not even Tara's recovery had helped. All she could tell them was that there was dark magick reeking havoc on Buffy from within. Their only hope was to find something in the books.
"Nothing!" Cordy threw the book she'd finished scanning down onto the growing pile by her feet. "There's got to be something else we can do!"
"Calm down, Princess," Doyle put a calming hand on her back.
"Calm down!" Cordelia looked at him incredulously. "She's getting worse, Doyle!"
"I know," he said dejectedly and slumped back into his seat.
"Isn't there something you can do? I mean you have connections and stuff," she asked, looking at him hopefully.
"Not ones that would help in this situation," he answered dismally.
Cordy was about to reply when suddenly the door to the stairwell flew open. All eyes in the room quickly landed on the two figures that raced into the room without warning.
"Giles?!? Faith?!?" Willow screeched, jumping up from the couch.
"It's happening isn't it?" was all the former Watcher said in response.
Angel was in front of him before anyone could blink an eye. "What are you talking about?"
"Buffy. Something's wrong with her isn't it?" he panted from the exertion of racing up the stairs.
"Yes. What do you know?" Angel practically growled at him.
"Damn!" Giles threw his bag to the floor and shared a look with Faith.
"Giles? What's going on? Do you know what's wrong with Buffy?" Willow managed to squeeze her way between Angel and Giles.
"Yes, unfortunately I do," he responded as he pulled his glasses off. "The Watcher's Council has poisoned her."
"What?" nearly everybody in the room gasped.
"But why would they do that?" Willow choked out, shock running through her system.
"Please, why don't we sit and I will explain," Giles said and pointed to the various couches and chairs.
It wasn't until they were all seated that it occurred to Angel that Giles' arrival had surprised the others. He hadn't noticed before that the Watcher was missing. What exactly had happened? Why wasn't Giles with his Slayer? And why was Buffy in Seattle anyway? He'd never bothered to think about it before, but now he began to wonder about what had happened after he left. Still, now wasn't the time for those questions. Getting Buffy well was first priority.
"We're waiting, Giles," Cordy snapped harshly, remembering what Buffy had told her about the confrontation at Giles' apartment back in Sunnydale.
"Oh, yes, s-sorry," Giles stuttered, tearing his eyes off the vampire. His presence was unexpected. His sources had not told him that Angel had returned.
"You see," the Watcher began the long explanation. "When Buffy...left...I told the Council that she had disappeared. They believed her to be dead. Another Slayer was not called because Faith was still, alive, or rather in a coma. They intervened and made her the active Slayer once again," he looked at Faith who still did not know about the Council's full actions against her.
"You let them think she was dead?" Doyle asked in disbelief.
Giles gave the strange man a cursory glance, wondering who he was. "Yes. It was better that way. If they had found out that their Slayer had gone off on her own, and of her...situation...they surely would have sent a retrieval team to...eliminate her."
"They would have killed her?" Oz frowned at the disturbing thought.
"Likely, yes. The Council does not take well to Slayers who go against their rules," Giles confirmed.
"So they thought she was dead all this time? How did they find out she wasn't?" Willow wanted to know.
Faith looked to Giles and took over this part of the explanation. "Apparently my Watcher was following me. I don't know why, but the same night I'd run into Angel I overheard my Watcher on the phone telling someone he had reason to believe Buffy was alive. He must have heard me talking to Angel when he came to Sunnydale looking for Buffy."
"Faith then called me to inform me of the situation," Giles continued on. "I was instantly worried for her safety. I used some contacts I still had within the Council and found that once they suspected that there was a chance Buffy was still alive that they had quickly searched for and located her."
Angel listened as the others talked and couldn't help feeling like there was a backstory that he was completely unaware of. There seemed to be much more going on than he had initially thought. He wanted to ask what else he had missed, but he knew they had to focus on Buffy at the moment. There would be time for his questions later.
"So they just decided to take her out?" Doyle spoke up again. He was quite disturbed by the current turn of events.
"To put it simply, yes. They were rather displeased, to say the least, to find that one of their Slayers was working outside of their guidance. They felt she was too much of risk to allow things to remain as they were," Giles relayed and shook his head at the Council's ways.
"Poison doesn't sound like something the Council would do," Angel absently interjected.
"No, you're quite right," the ex-Watcher agreed. "But, you see, for the last few years, the Council has been in a state of disrepair. Quintin Travers still has a tedious hold over everyone, but insurrections have arisen from within led by a small group who feel that the Council's ways are antiquated. So far, they have not succeeded in taking control, but Travers' resources have become limited due to the lack of trust in his own organization. So he was unable to handle the situation as he once would have."
"What did they do to her?" Angel asked, leaning forward and staring at the Watcher.
"From what I was able to learn, Travers sent two of his confidantes here to Seattle with a mystical poison. They likely followed her until an opportunity presented itself to administer it, possibly in her food," he relayed solemnly.
"Mystical poison?" Willow repeated and glanced toward the hallway. "That would explain why Tara felt dark magicks in her."
"Tara?" Giles asked in confusion.
"She's a friend of ours who is a witch. When Buffy got worse we had her read Buffy's aura. She said there were dark magicks consuming Buffy. Whatever she felt, it was so strong she passed out afterwards," Willow explained of the events from earlier that day.
"The poison would cause such a reaction," Giles nodded in confirmation.
"What do you know about this poison?" Doyle looked expectantly at the man he assumed was Buffy's former Watcher.
"It is mystical in nature, as I said," Giles started and again took off his glasses. "I'm not quite sure about the details, but I believe it takes over the body and systematically attacks the internal organs. The effects start off slow, but once it takes hold, the recipient rapidly deteriorates."
"That sounds about right," Doyle said with a sigh and ran a hand over his face. "Apparently she was feeling sick for almost two weeks. We didn't even know until last night when it got so bad that she passed out."
"So what do we do Giles?" Willow questioned and turned to the older man, feeling slightly relieved that they now knew what they were facing. "How do we stop what they did to her?'
"W-well...I...t-that is...," sputtered Giles, his eyes suddenly looking downwards. This was the part he didn't want to face.
"Giles?" Willow sad nervously as she stood up, her earlier relief vanishing instantly.
Giles gazed up at the group staring waitingly at him. They were all so young, with the exception of Angel. Too young to have to face things like this. And Buffy. She'd been through so much in her short life. It broke his heart to think about the girl who was still like a daughter to him despite what had happened. She didn't deserve this. She deserved so much more than this wretched life she'd been dealt.
Finally, after a long moment of silence, Giles found the courage to tell them what he knew they would not want to hear.
"There is no cure."
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TBC!!
Part 9
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"How's Tara?" Doyle questioned as Willow walked back into the living room.
The blonde Wiccan was currently resting in the extra bedroom, recovering from whatever had happened when she read Buffy's aura. They didn't really understand what exactly had occurred, and Tara was still too dazed to fully explain it to them. She'd been out for nearly a half hour and when she woke up all she could tell them was that there were dark magicks in Buffy's body. That alone was enough to send them into a panic, but they all worried that there was more bad news to come.
"She's still out of it," the redhead sighed and sat next too Doyle.
After Tara's revelation, the group had been stunned. Their worry over their friend's health had quickly escalated into sheer terror. If she didn't have the flu or something along those lines, then what was making her sick? That was what they were now trying to figure out. Every single book related to the supernatural world had been carted up from the offices downstairs and were now spread throughout the apartment's living room.
Despite their desire to be by Buffy's side, they knew they needed to focus on researching. Cordy was currently on Buffy watch while the rest of them scoured the books in search of answers. Willow, Oz, and Angel were familiar with the tedious task, but for Lindsey, Lorne, and Doyle, it was a daunting mission. They had absolutely no idea what they were looking for or where to look for it.
"Find anything yet?' Cordelia asked as she walked into the living room.
"Not unless a lot of dusty books count," Oz chimed in without looking up from the old tome he was reading.
"How's Buffy?" Willow looked up and blinked the bleariness out of her eyes.
"The same," Cordy said as she slumped down on the couch next to Willow. "She's still drifting in and out of sleep."
"I'll go in and sit with her. Maybe sing her a song or two," Lorne tried to say cheerfully but failed.
"What about the club? Don't we have to get ready to open?" Willow suddenly remembered that they all had jobs.
"Don't you worry you're pretty little head about that. The club will be closed for a few days. We have more important things to be worried about," he answered and left the room before the issue could be debated.
Cordy watched him leave and then looked around the room and frowned. "Where's Doyle?"
"He went to pick Ashlynn up from school," Willow relayed, rubbing at the tension headache she was getting. Then, suddenly realizing what was about to happen, her eyes snapped up, glanced briefly at Angel before moving over to Cordelia.
Catching the look, Cordy almost leapt off the couch. "Uhh, Willow, why don't we go get some drinks and, uh, snacks for everyone."
"Yeah...snacks...good...sure," babbled Willow incoherently and practically dashed out of the room.
Angel stared in confusion over the odd antics until the initial statement registered in his mind. Ashlynn. Buffy's daughter. The child she'd had with someone else. The boytoy's child. If there was a hole nearby for him to crawl into, he wouldn't have hesitated. A small part of him wanted to meet the little girl that was part Buffy, but the larger part of him didn't want to see one of the reminders that she had moved on. It was bad enough that her...lover...was sitting only a few feet away from him.
Inside the kitchen, Cordelia was pacing anxiously across the floor. "This is sooo not good!"
"Shhh!" Willow peaked out the door and saw Angel looking in her direction.
"What are we going to do?" Cordy whispered as quietly as possible.
Before the redhead could respond, they heard the noise of the elevator rising to their floor. Both girls quickly dashed out of the room and toward the elevator, reaching it just as the gates opened. Ashlynn skipped out the compartment and smiled when she saw her two favorite Aunts waiting for her.
"Hey, Sweetie! Did you have a good day at school?" Cordy asked and knelt down and to gave the little girl a hug.
"Yup! Look what I made!" she chatted happily, pushing a large piece of paper in front of Cordelia's face.
"Oooh! Did you draw that? It's beautiful!" Cordy beamed as she looked at the wonderful drawing Ash had done.
"Lindsey!" Ashlynn squealed when she caught sight of the blonde man out of the corner of her eye. Before Cordy could stop her, the girl was across the room and sitting on Lindsey's lap showing him her drawing.
"Where's Mommy?" Ash asked after Lindsey had complemented her picture.
"She's still not feeling well, Darling," Lindsey replied smoothing down the hair on her head.
"Oh," she mumbled, some of the happiness in Ash's eyes fading. "Can I see her?"
"Maybe later. She doesn't want you to get sick too," he lied to her. They'd all agreed earlier in the day that it was best to keep Ashlynn from finding out how sick her Mommy was.
"Okay." Her lower lip trembled and she squirmed out of Lindsey's lap.
The moment her little feet hit the floor, Ashlynn froze. The picture that had been clasped tightly in her hand fell fluttering to the floor. She didn't need anyone to tell her who the strange man sitting opposite her was. Years of staring at his picture left his image ingrained in her memory. Cautiously, she took a small step toward the man she'd heard so much about.
"Da-."
"Ashlynn, Sweetie, why don't we go get you out of that dress?" Cordy spoke, cutting Ash off as she rushed over and swept the girl up into her arms before she could finish the word that had started to come out of her mouth.
"But-," she started to speak again, but was again interrupted.
"Nope, no buts! You don't want to ruin your dress now do you?" Cordy didn't give her the chance to speak again and quickly left the room with Ashlynn.
Angel's eyes followed her out of the room. Looking into the little girl's eyes had given him the strangest feeling. It was almost as if he should know her, but he supposed that wasn't that odd. After all, she was Buffy's child. There was something else, though. She ignited a feeling in him that he couldn't put a finger on.
Confused, his gaze drifted back across the room and landed on Lindsey, who was staring intently at him. She had called him 'Lindsey'. Why? Shouldn't she have called him Daddy? She didn't though. That would mean...Angel didn't want to think about what that meant. He didn't want to know that there had been others. But obviously there had been, and he was just one of the pack.
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A few minutes later, Willow was waiting outside of Ashlynn's room for Cordelia to emerge. Her hands nervously twisted at her sides as she thought about what had almost happened out in the living room. She should have known that Ashlynn would recognize Angel. Buffy had never kept his identity a secret from her and had even given her daughter a picture of her Father. Now Angel was here, not knowing he had a daughter, and Buffy was bed-ridden with a mystical illness. Gods, Willow thought, could this situation get any worse?
"That was way too close," Cordy whispered after she'd stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Willow grabbed Cordy's arm and pulled her down the hall into her and Oz's bedroom, closing the door behind them. "What did you tell her?"
"What could I tell her?" Cordy paced across the room. "She already knew who he was."
"You told her the truth?" Willow screeched a little too loudly.
"Shut up! Do you want him to here you?" she waved a hand toward the living room. "I didn't really have a choice!"
"What exactly did you tell her?" This time Willow kept her voice low.
"I told her that, yes, that was her Father, but that he didn't know who she was. I said that he had to leave before her Mommy could tell him about her and that's why he didn't know," Cordy explained, wondering how she'd gotten into this mess. Why did this have to happen when Buffy wasn't able to deal with it?
"How did she react?" Willow took a seat on her bed.
"She was sad about it. You know she always wanted her Daddy." Cordy's heart broke for the poor girl. "She asked why he had to leave. So I told her that he fought bad guys like her Mommy did and that he had to go away to fight them."
"Did she believe you?" Willow couldn't imagine what the child was going through. She was only six years old. Grant it, she was a bit advanced for her age, but it still had to be confusing.
"I think so. But we need to keep her away from Angel for now. I told her there was a bad guy we needed to catch right now and that she needed to stay in her room so that we could figure out how to catch him," relayed Cordy tiredly. This was going to be a long night, or days even.
"Good. That'll buy us some time hopefully. We better get back to the researching," Willow sighed and stood up from the bed.
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~two hours later~
The room was deathly quiet except for the rhythmic flipping of book pages and the occasional shift of bodies on furniture. They were all intently searching through the many books for the slightest clue about Buffy's illness, even Lindsey as he sat by Buffy's bedside keeping vigil. So far, they had not found anything to give them answers. Not even Tara's recovery had helped. All she could tell them was that there was dark magick reeking havoc on Buffy from within. Their only hope was to find something in the books.
"Nothing!" Cordy threw the book she'd finished scanning down onto the growing pile by her feet. "There's got to be something else we can do!"
"Calm down, Princess," Doyle put a calming hand on her back.
"Calm down!" Cordelia looked at him incredulously. "She's getting worse, Doyle!"
"I know," he said dejectedly and slumped back into his seat.
"Isn't there something you can do? I mean you have connections and stuff," she asked, looking at him hopefully.
"Not ones that would help in this situation," he answered dismally.
Cordy was about to reply when suddenly the door to the stairwell flew open. All eyes in the room quickly landed on the two figures that raced into the room without warning.
"Giles?!? Faith?!?" Willow screeched, jumping up from the couch.
"It's happening isn't it?" was all the former Watcher said in response.
Angel was in front of him before anyone could blink an eye. "What are you talking about?"
"Buffy. Something's wrong with her isn't it?" he panted from the exertion of racing up the stairs.
"Yes. What do you know?" Angel practically growled at him.
"Damn!" Giles threw his bag to the floor and shared a look with Faith.
"Giles? What's going on? Do you know what's wrong with Buffy?" Willow managed to squeeze her way between Angel and Giles.
"Yes, unfortunately I do," he responded as he pulled his glasses off. "The Watcher's Council has poisoned her."
"What?" nearly everybody in the room gasped.
"But why would they do that?" Willow choked out, shock running through her system.
"Please, why don't we sit and I will explain," Giles said and pointed to the various couches and chairs.
It wasn't until they were all seated that it occurred to Angel that Giles' arrival had surprised the others. He hadn't noticed before that the Watcher was missing. What exactly had happened? Why wasn't Giles with his Slayer? And why was Buffy in Seattle anyway? He'd never bothered to think about it before, but now he began to wonder about what had happened after he left. Still, now wasn't the time for those questions. Getting Buffy well was first priority.
"We're waiting, Giles," Cordy snapped harshly, remembering what Buffy had told her about the confrontation at Giles' apartment back in Sunnydale.
"Oh, yes, s-sorry," Giles stuttered, tearing his eyes off the vampire. His presence was unexpected. His sources had not told him that Angel had returned.
"You see," the Watcher began the long explanation. "When Buffy...left...I told the Council that she had disappeared. They believed her to be dead. Another Slayer was not called because Faith was still, alive, or rather in a coma. They intervened and made her the active Slayer once again," he looked at Faith who still did not know about the Council's full actions against her.
"You let them think she was dead?" Doyle asked in disbelief.
Giles gave the strange man a cursory glance, wondering who he was. "Yes. It was better that way. If they had found out that their Slayer had gone off on her own, and of her...situation...they surely would have sent a retrieval team to...eliminate her."
"They would have killed her?" Oz frowned at the disturbing thought.
"Likely, yes. The Council does not take well to Slayers who go against their rules," Giles confirmed.
"So they thought she was dead all this time? How did they find out she wasn't?" Willow wanted to know.
Faith looked to Giles and took over this part of the explanation. "Apparently my Watcher was following me. I don't know why, but the same night I'd run into Angel I overheard my Watcher on the phone telling someone he had reason to believe Buffy was alive. He must have heard me talking to Angel when he came to Sunnydale looking for Buffy."
"Faith then called me to inform me of the situation," Giles continued on. "I was instantly worried for her safety. I used some contacts I still had within the Council and found that once they suspected that there was a chance Buffy was still alive that they had quickly searched for and located her."
Angel listened as the others talked and couldn't help feeling like there was a backstory that he was completely unaware of. There seemed to be much more going on than he had initially thought. He wanted to ask what else he had missed, but he knew they had to focus on Buffy at the moment. There would be time for his questions later.
"So they just decided to take her out?" Doyle spoke up again. He was quite disturbed by the current turn of events.
"To put it simply, yes. They were rather displeased, to say the least, to find that one of their Slayers was working outside of their guidance. They felt she was too much of risk to allow things to remain as they were," Giles relayed and shook his head at the Council's ways.
"Poison doesn't sound like something the Council would do," Angel absently interjected.
"No, you're quite right," the ex-Watcher agreed. "But, you see, for the last few years, the Council has been in a state of disrepair. Quintin Travers still has a tedious hold over everyone, but insurrections have arisen from within led by a small group who feel that the Council's ways are antiquated. So far, they have not succeeded in taking control, but Travers' resources have become limited due to the lack of trust in his own organization. So he was unable to handle the situation as he once would have."
"What did they do to her?" Angel asked, leaning forward and staring at the Watcher.
"From what I was able to learn, Travers sent two of his confidantes here to Seattle with a mystical poison. They likely followed her until an opportunity presented itself to administer it, possibly in her food," he relayed solemnly.
"Mystical poison?" Willow repeated and glanced toward the hallway. "That would explain why Tara felt dark magicks in her."
"Tara?" Giles asked in confusion.
"She's a friend of ours who is a witch. When Buffy got worse we had her read Buffy's aura. She said there were dark magicks consuming Buffy. Whatever she felt, it was so strong she passed out afterwards," Willow explained of the events from earlier that day.
"The poison would cause such a reaction," Giles nodded in confirmation.
"What do you know about this poison?" Doyle looked expectantly at the man he assumed was Buffy's former Watcher.
"It is mystical in nature, as I said," Giles started and again took off his glasses. "I'm not quite sure about the details, but I believe it takes over the body and systematically attacks the internal organs. The effects start off slow, but once it takes hold, the recipient rapidly deteriorates."
"That sounds about right," Doyle said with a sigh and ran a hand over his face. "Apparently she was feeling sick for almost two weeks. We didn't even know until last night when it got so bad that she passed out."
"So what do we do Giles?" Willow questioned and turned to the older man, feeling slightly relieved that they now knew what they were facing. "How do we stop what they did to her?'
"W-well...I...t-that is...," sputtered Giles, his eyes suddenly looking downwards. This was the part he didn't want to face.
"Giles?" Willow sad nervously as she stood up, her earlier relief vanishing instantly.
Giles gazed up at the group staring waitingly at him. They were all so young, with the exception of Angel. Too young to have to face things like this. And Buffy. She'd been through so much in her short life. It broke his heart to think about the girl who was still like a daughter to him despite what had happened. She didn't deserve this. She deserved so much more than this wretched life she'd been dealt.
Finally, after a long moment of silence, Giles found the courage to tell them what he knew they would not want to hear.
"There is no cure."
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TBC!!