"Immortal Beloved"
Rated: PG-13 Characters: Buffy, Giles, Immortal.
Description: Post-"Chosen." Life after Sunnydale gets more complicated when Buffy meets an ancient mysterious brooding creature who may or may not be evil. What are the chances he'd be her type?

Chapter 1: Giles has a Theory

January 2004, England, The World, The Universe

Buffy pushed the sketchpad across the table in Giles' private library. The Watcher frowned, removed his glasses, replaced them, and frowned again. No, Buffy thought, this time around he positively scowled.

"Buffy, are you absolutely certain this was the insignia on the man's ring?"

"Well, I kinda got a D in art, but that was mostly from the missing the exam to keep demon monkeys from attacking the school play. And I only got a glimpse of the ring. I was looking, but first it was there, then it wasn't, then it almost was again. Though sort of shimmery." She leaned over Giles' shoulder. "It definitely had that rose thing, do you see? And then like the head or snout. Do you think that's a pig, or what?"

"A fox. Yes, the rose and the fox, the symbols of -- you say he called himself Sergei?"

She nodded, confident. "Sergei Michelob." To Giles' puzzled expression. "Or maybe Mikhalov? Molotov?"

"Sergei Manilov," he murmured. "Yes, a well known persona -- Buffy, this is very important and I'm aware that it may sound, well, insane. But did he happen to call you an unusual name?"

"He called me Buffy. No, Summers. That was what was so weird about it. I never introduced myself. And he knew Faith was Faith. We were in a dance club - um, kind of a rave type thing? - and it was loud, but we both heard him say something about slayers. He was seriously the weirdest guy I ever met, since way back in Sunnydale, when Angel kept stopping in to drop hints about 'grave danger'. At this rate, I'll be dating him by March."

Giles cringed. "Don't even joke about that. Buffy, this is very important. He didn't call you anything besides Buffy Summers, or slayer? No other names?"

"Well," she hesitated. "Guys, when they're clubbing, they can get - Um - Familiar. So maybe -- babydoll, or -- something Russian. God knows what he called Faith before she slugged him, I'm sure it wasn't nice."

"No no," Giles said. "That's completely what you ought to expect when you patronize those horrid places. But he didn't call either of you anything like -- nothing like 'Ramona'?"

Buffy blinked and swallowed, not wanting to question Giles, but not sure how to process his question. "As in 'Ramona Quimby, Age 8'?" she finally ventured.

"I'm quite aware it's a ridiculous name, Buffy," he said, putting emphasis on her own name. "But this is very serious, in every possible way. It seems that you and Faith may have encountered the Immortal."

She tilted her head toward him, awaiting the rest of the sentence. None came. "Immortal what?" she finally ventured.

"Just the Immortal. His name has been lost to the ages." Giles gestured to Buffy as though she should be picking up on the story, but she still drew a blank. "An Italian prince --" More gesture, more blank. "Or possibly Romanian. Devotee of the Lady Ramona. As a punishment for his arrogance -- or possibly a reward for his valor -- or because the goddess Hecate was jealous of his great beauty -- Buffy, I'm quite sure we covered this, and early in your training."

She frowned. "Was it in the same day as the art final?" Giles sighed, and Buffy said, "Cut to the chase. How do we kill him?"

"Well, you don't. Or rather, you can't. He has lived for at least a thousand years, appeared in over a hundred manifestations -- your Sergei is a bit of a chestnut from Cold War days, perhaps his idea of a joke. The Immortal has rather an odd sense of humor. What is it Buffy --?"

"Different manifestations. I've seen him before," she said. "Last month, at the train station in Oxford. He stood next to me on the platform, asked if I had a cigarette. Made a comment about how far I was from California. It was a weird conversation, serious 'Manchurian Candidate' stuff. But I didn't think of him being the same guy, because he was dressed so differently. He was so English. He didn't just speak it, Giles, he didn't just look it. Everything about being English, he just was. Almost too --"

"Too perfect," Giles said quietly.

"He called himself -- something really Monty Python. Sir Nigel, um . . ."

"Tatherton. From the War Office. Bloody hell. He's pulling out some old personae, feeling his way around, not letting us see the main face he's been showing the world. Getting close. Interested in slayers. I don't like this, Buffy, not one bit."

"He stood next to me on that platform in broad daylight. He's not a vampire, so - What is he?"

"Sui generis."

"I knew it was a pig!" In response to Giles' baffled look, she gave a call of "Soo-ey!" He rolled his eyes, and Buffy protested, "That's how you call pigs. In America. Or so I've seen in movies."

"Sui generis. It's a thing he used to say -- that is, I heard he used to say. It means that the Immortal is -- well, himself. There's nothing else like him. The closest we may have encountered is your old friend the Mayor."

"So, what, he's gonna turn into the snake that ate England? Giles, we so have to figure out how to kill him. We killed the Mayor and -- remember the judge? No weapon forged. We got around that puppy like -" She snapped her fingers.

"I was using the Mayor only as an example. The truth is that even if we could discover a way to kill the Immortal, I'm not at all certain that we should."

"Here's the part where I say, 'Excuse me?' Did you not hear yourself going, 'I don't like this, not one bit.'"

"He is human, after a fashion."

"But evil," Buffy prompted.

"No. Like most of us, he's done some evil. And he has powerful forces at his command. But over the centuries, he has also used those forces to do quite a bit of good. Even proven a valuable asset to the Watchers' Council from time to time."

"So he's back, he's getting interested in slayers again. Where's the bad here?"

"The, um, bad would occur on a more personal level. For you or Faith but -- for some reason, in this situation, it seems more likely a danger to you. You see, if the Immortal gets it into his head that you might happen to be the reincarnated spirit of his lover, Lady Ramona. . . "

"That I'm --" And then Buffy couldn't help it. The laughter started deep in her belly and moved up through her chest, shaking her entire body. "Oh, Giles," she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "Listen, Giles -" But then another spasm seized her.

"As you might put it, Buffy, I fail to see the funny."

"Giles," she managed. "I think it's sweet. I honestly do think it's sweet that you're looking after me. But do you really think I'm so vulnerable to broody immortal types that --" She had to stop and laugh some more. "I'd fall for some creep because he told me I was the reincarnation of his -- sorry, give me a minute -- of his dead lover? That is absolutely the worst line in the history of bad lines. Spike, rest his soul, would leap out of the grave and smack me around if I fell for that one, and I'd pretty much deserve it. If that's what he said to Faith, no wonder she decked him."

"Be that as it may. In some versions of the legend -- some versions which, I must say, I have certain reasons to believe -- the Immortal was cursed to meet the spirit of Ramona once in every generation. Meet her, and fall in love with her --."

"That doesn't sound like a curse. It sounds like a party."

"-- to fall in love with her, and lose her. Tragically."

"Oh." Buffy's jaw dropped, and the laughter seemed to leak out of her. "So, basically, with all the other slayers that have been called, I may have escaped the early death sentence of Slayerhood. Only to acquire the early death sentence of being some Eurotrash freak's goomar. Just peachy. Wait until I tell the gang."

"You mustn't think that way, Buffy. The chances of you being this Ramona are astronomically small. I only meant that if the Immortal comes to believe that you are she, the situation could become quite complicated."

"Well," said Buffy. "Things are looking up then. Because unless he believes that Faith, Dawn, and the twenty-seven other girls he was getting his freak on with at the rave are also his destiny."

"Right, then. Put a positive spin on it. Be cheerful but cautious and -- You took Dawn to that place?"

Buffy got her smile back. "Gotcha."

Giles sighed. "I do hope you girls manage to take care of yourselves in Rome."

End Chapter 1