"Last one to the tree is a rotten egg!" As Buffy raced up the hill, she looked behind her, noticing that her pursuer had relented, and hiking up the hill at a steady pace. "Give up, Old Man?"
"I prefer to breathe, thank you very much." Giles reached the summit, bestowing a friendly smile on her and dropping a picnic basket on the ground. "And I lack certain, well, advantages, of a seventeen year old girl."
"Slayer strength, endurance?"
"Precisely." Giles flopped on the ground beside the tree, where Buffy was spreading out a large blanket. She reached into the picnic basket, grabbing a can of diet coke and lobbing a thermos of hot tea at her companion. She popped the can open, taking a long sip before running her hand through her hair and seating herself next to her Watcher. Giles retrieved a book from the picnic basket thumbing through the pages until he reached his post-it not marking where he had left off. "Where were we? Ah, I see." And he launched into the story, while Buffy relaxed, snuggled up on his chest. Who thought Giles would like Harry Potter so much? She listened to his melodious British voice, which read the book with a tinge of amusement as he described the arrival of Hagrid to the island cabin where the Dursleys had run away to escape the letters from Hogwarts. As Buffy began to drift off, she startled when she noticed the voice had changed from Giles' kindly one to a gravelly voice that she had not heard in a long time. "Merrick?" She looked up from her comfortable spot on Giles' sweater to see instead the face of her long-dead first Watcher. As she gazed at his face, Merrick's voice issued its final challenge. "How could you betray me? How could you leave me for another?" She watched as his face faded, becoming skull-like, finally drifting into the dust motes of a newly-staked vampire.
"No! No!" She looked on in horror as the dust that was Merrick clutched at the stake in his heart, her final vision his accusing eyes. "I'll never! I didn't mean to! Come back!" She screamed out loud, clutching at the sweater under her head, sobbing. "Please. Forgive me!" She was lost in that place between sleeping and waking where the dream felt so real that she wanted to snatch it back and try to change the ending.
"Buffy! Wake up!" Her eyes fluttered opened, seeing not the accusing eyes of her first Watcher, but the concerned ones of her second. She scrambled back on the leather couch in his office, burying her face into the knit sweater that she had used as a pillow for her nap. Eu de Giles. Peppermint and Earl Grey. No wonder she had been having such a weird dream. She could still feel the wet tears streaming down her face, soaking the sweater. "Angel?" Buffy shook her head no. Since Buffy had returned from her summer away in Los Angeles, she had frequently awakened haggard from nightmares. "Prophecy?"
Buffy shrugged, unsure of how to answer. "No, I guess not. Not unless a picnic at Monroe Park qualifies as prophetic. However, it felt, well, real. It was actually a good dream, mostly."
Giles removed his reading glasses and studied her face, which still streamed tears. "Really? And so why the screaming? And the tears?" He passed her a white linen handkerchief.
Buffy looked up at her watcher, morbidly wondering what Merrick might have told him about her. Merrick had always seemed to disapprove of her privately, while attempting to encourage her in a businesslike fashion. She had never lived up to Merrick's expectations of her. She wondered if Giles felt the same way. He probably did but, then, he did a better job of covering. She thought of how her poor decisions had resulted in Miss Calendar's death and Giles' torture. "Bad ending. God, how you must hate me." She shied away from him, not wanting to see the same accusatory look in his eyes that she saw in Merrick's. She grabbed her books from under the couch shoving them in her bag as she flew out the door, leaving a puzzled watcher in her wake. Giles bent over, noticing that Buffy had left behind an envelope in her haste. He picked it up, walking over to his desk. The return address on the envelope was the UCLA Classics department, and inside was a set of papers. Curious, Giles pulled them out, rifling through them quickly, noticing that in the "Name" section of each of the papers, Buffy's neat print filled out "Elizabeth Anne Summers". Each paper was a test and clearly Buffy's grades in this course was well ahead of any that she ever reported at Sunnydale High. "92, 96, 89, 95, 95, 99 "Excellent Work!", 97", and one, that read "Final - Classics L202", which again was filled out in Buffy's neatest print, but ungraded. Giles read through the test, absentmindedly noticing two minor errors while realizing the effort that Buffy must have put out to work through the difficult translation. "Who would have thought Buffy would attempt Latin?"
Later...
"Hiya, Giles!" Willow bounded through the library doors gifting Giles with a big grin. "What's up? Need any help with research?" Giles poked his head out of his office, seeing the sweater and overall clad redhead dumping her books on the study table and walking around the front desk to his office. "Ooh, tea. And doughnuts! Cool." Willow plopped down on the same couch where Buffy had been napping, grabbing a doughnut from the stash. "Buffy said she was going to be a few minutes late. Snyder is meeting with her. You know, catching up on school stuff."
Giles handed Buffy's UCLA envelope to Willow. "Do you know anything about this?"
He sat back in his chair watching the expressions that flickered across Willow's face. First shock, then interest, then a guilty frown as she ripped the papers from the envelope and looked at the grades on top. "Damn. She got a 95 on that one. Oops! I'm sorry, Giles. Hey! She didn't tell me she had gotten to the final. I'm only on the sixth test. If my calculations are right, I'm about fifteen dollars behind." Willow walked back to her book bag and pulled out an identical yellow envelope that read "UCLA Classics Department", but was addressed to "Willow Ruth Rosenberg" and handed it to Giles.
"I'll take that as a yes." Giles glanced over the papers in the envelope noting the grades on the top. Willow's were two to five points lower on each of the first five tests, the lowest being an 86 on the third test. "What is this about? Why would Buffy study Latin, of all things?"
"It's a duel. I got to choose the weapon." Willow took back her Latin papers from Giles. "It goes way back to the end of sophomore year. Anyway, it was a challenge. I hacked the UCLA classics department and signed us up for Latin 101 in distance ed. We add up the points at the end of the course and subtract the difference. Whoever has the most points gets to go out for dinner at the other's expense. I won the first two classes, Buffy won for 201, but it was just enough for coffee at the Bronze. I guess Buffy finished more papers over the summer than I did. She may finally have enough points on me to get treated to La Med." Willow trailed off.
"So why not come to me for help? I assure you I am quite familiar with Latin."
"That's the deal. No helping allowed. Solo work only, any questions have to be addressed by e-mail to the professor."
"You mean neither of you have received any help on any of this?"
Willow shook her head vehemently. "Nope. It's a secret. No one is supposed to know." She thought a minute. "We've both used outside sources for assistance, you know, we each have a Latin-English dictionary, and a Latin verbs book, but it's kept even. But I noticed that Buffy sneaks out of Holy Cross each Thursday for the Latin Mass before patrol. I haven't called her on it. Seeing as how I'm losing big-time, maybe I should."
"Nothing is stopping you from going, too." Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them, trying to puzzle out the implications of this little contest.
"I'm Jewish, Giles, Mom would have a cow." Willow spoke softly. "Just don't mention it to anybody. Buffy doesn't want anyone to know about it. And since I hacked the UCLA network to get us in the classes without paying, I guess I don't want anyone to know, either."
Just then, Buffy arrived, dressed in workout clothes. "Ready for training, watcher-mine?"
"Very well, go warm up." While Buffy was stretching in the main library, Giles snuck her envelope of Latin tests back into her bag.
"I prefer to breathe, thank you very much." Giles reached the summit, bestowing a friendly smile on her and dropping a picnic basket on the ground. "And I lack certain, well, advantages, of a seventeen year old girl."
"Slayer strength, endurance?"
"Precisely." Giles flopped on the ground beside the tree, where Buffy was spreading out a large blanket. She reached into the picnic basket, grabbing a can of diet coke and lobbing a thermos of hot tea at her companion. She popped the can open, taking a long sip before running her hand through her hair and seating herself next to her Watcher. Giles retrieved a book from the picnic basket thumbing through the pages until he reached his post-it not marking where he had left off. "Where were we? Ah, I see." And he launched into the story, while Buffy relaxed, snuggled up on his chest. Who thought Giles would like Harry Potter so much? She listened to his melodious British voice, which read the book with a tinge of amusement as he described the arrival of Hagrid to the island cabin where the Dursleys had run away to escape the letters from Hogwarts. As Buffy began to drift off, she startled when she noticed the voice had changed from Giles' kindly one to a gravelly voice that she had not heard in a long time. "Merrick?" She looked up from her comfortable spot on Giles' sweater to see instead the face of her long-dead first Watcher. As she gazed at his face, Merrick's voice issued its final challenge. "How could you betray me? How could you leave me for another?" She watched as his face faded, becoming skull-like, finally drifting into the dust motes of a newly-staked vampire.
"No! No!" She looked on in horror as the dust that was Merrick clutched at the stake in his heart, her final vision his accusing eyes. "I'll never! I didn't mean to! Come back!" She screamed out loud, clutching at the sweater under her head, sobbing. "Please. Forgive me!" She was lost in that place between sleeping and waking where the dream felt so real that she wanted to snatch it back and try to change the ending.
"Buffy! Wake up!" Her eyes fluttered opened, seeing not the accusing eyes of her first Watcher, but the concerned ones of her second. She scrambled back on the leather couch in his office, burying her face into the knit sweater that she had used as a pillow for her nap. Eu de Giles. Peppermint and Earl Grey. No wonder she had been having such a weird dream. She could still feel the wet tears streaming down her face, soaking the sweater. "Angel?" Buffy shook her head no. Since Buffy had returned from her summer away in Los Angeles, she had frequently awakened haggard from nightmares. "Prophecy?"
Buffy shrugged, unsure of how to answer. "No, I guess not. Not unless a picnic at Monroe Park qualifies as prophetic. However, it felt, well, real. It was actually a good dream, mostly."
Giles removed his reading glasses and studied her face, which still streamed tears. "Really? And so why the screaming? And the tears?" He passed her a white linen handkerchief.
Buffy looked up at her watcher, morbidly wondering what Merrick might have told him about her. Merrick had always seemed to disapprove of her privately, while attempting to encourage her in a businesslike fashion. She had never lived up to Merrick's expectations of her. She wondered if Giles felt the same way. He probably did but, then, he did a better job of covering. She thought of how her poor decisions had resulted in Miss Calendar's death and Giles' torture. "Bad ending. God, how you must hate me." She shied away from him, not wanting to see the same accusatory look in his eyes that she saw in Merrick's. She grabbed her books from under the couch shoving them in her bag as she flew out the door, leaving a puzzled watcher in her wake. Giles bent over, noticing that Buffy had left behind an envelope in her haste. He picked it up, walking over to his desk. The return address on the envelope was the UCLA Classics department, and inside was a set of papers. Curious, Giles pulled them out, rifling through them quickly, noticing that in the "Name" section of each of the papers, Buffy's neat print filled out "Elizabeth Anne Summers". Each paper was a test and clearly Buffy's grades in this course was well ahead of any that she ever reported at Sunnydale High. "92, 96, 89, 95, 95, 99 "Excellent Work!", 97", and one, that read "Final - Classics L202", which again was filled out in Buffy's neatest print, but ungraded. Giles read through the test, absentmindedly noticing two minor errors while realizing the effort that Buffy must have put out to work through the difficult translation. "Who would have thought Buffy would attempt Latin?"
Later...
"Hiya, Giles!" Willow bounded through the library doors gifting Giles with a big grin. "What's up? Need any help with research?" Giles poked his head out of his office, seeing the sweater and overall clad redhead dumping her books on the study table and walking around the front desk to his office. "Ooh, tea. And doughnuts! Cool." Willow plopped down on the same couch where Buffy had been napping, grabbing a doughnut from the stash. "Buffy said she was going to be a few minutes late. Snyder is meeting with her. You know, catching up on school stuff."
Giles handed Buffy's UCLA envelope to Willow. "Do you know anything about this?"
He sat back in his chair watching the expressions that flickered across Willow's face. First shock, then interest, then a guilty frown as she ripped the papers from the envelope and looked at the grades on top. "Damn. She got a 95 on that one. Oops! I'm sorry, Giles. Hey! She didn't tell me she had gotten to the final. I'm only on the sixth test. If my calculations are right, I'm about fifteen dollars behind." Willow walked back to her book bag and pulled out an identical yellow envelope that read "UCLA Classics Department", but was addressed to "Willow Ruth Rosenberg" and handed it to Giles.
"I'll take that as a yes." Giles glanced over the papers in the envelope noting the grades on the top. Willow's were two to five points lower on each of the first five tests, the lowest being an 86 on the third test. "What is this about? Why would Buffy study Latin, of all things?"
"It's a duel. I got to choose the weapon." Willow took back her Latin papers from Giles. "It goes way back to the end of sophomore year. Anyway, it was a challenge. I hacked the UCLA classics department and signed us up for Latin 101 in distance ed. We add up the points at the end of the course and subtract the difference. Whoever has the most points gets to go out for dinner at the other's expense. I won the first two classes, Buffy won for 201, but it was just enough for coffee at the Bronze. I guess Buffy finished more papers over the summer than I did. She may finally have enough points on me to get treated to La Med." Willow trailed off.
"So why not come to me for help? I assure you I am quite familiar with Latin."
"That's the deal. No helping allowed. Solo work only, any questions have to be addressed by e-mail to the professor."
"You mean neither of you have received any help on any of this?"
Willow shook her head vehemently. "Nope. It's a secret. No one is supposed to know." She thought a minute. "We've both used outside sources for assistance, you know, we each have a Latin-English dictionary, and a Latin verbs book, but it's kept even. But I noticed that Buffy sneaks out of Holy Cross each Thursday for the Latin Mass before patrol. I haven't called her on it. Seeing as how I'm losing big-time, maybe I should."
"Nothing is stopping you from going, too." Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them, trying to puzzle out the implications of this little contest.
"I'm Jewish, Giles, Mom would have a cow." Willow spoke softly. "Just don't mention it to anybody. Buffy doesn't want anyone to know about it. And since I hacked the UCLA network to get us in the classes without paying, I guess I don't want anyone to know, either."
Just then, Buffy arrived, dressed in workout clothes. "Ready for training, watcher-mine?"
"Very well, go warm up." While Buffy was stretching in the main library, Giles snuck her envelope of Latin tests back into her bag.