The library windows were covered to keep out the sun, and Spike was chained to the wall. Giles showed Spike a small wooden box lined with red silk. Inside was an unremarkable-looking stone. "The Prokaryote stone will move within your mind to reveal the root of the trigger's power. It can unleash ideas, images, memories... Hopefully, once you understand what it is that's setting you off, you can break its hold on you," Giles said.
"Hopefully? So, it might not work?" Spike asked.
"The stone's just a catalyst for the process. The rest is up to you, Spike."
"And how do expect to get that hunk of rubble into my cranium?"
Willow said, "That's where I come in." She turned to a new page in the book she was holding. "Okay. I just hope my pronunciation is in the ballpark." She began to read. "Kun'ati belek sup'sion. Bok'vata im kele'beshus. Ek'vota mor'osh boota'ke."
The stone started to move like it was alive, no longer solid, but liquid. Giles held the box up to Spike. He recoiled in disgust. "Oh, you have got to be joking! What now?"
"It has to access the cerebral cortex via the optic
nerve," Giles said
"Oh, bollocks. With all the rubbish people keep sticking in my head, it's a wonder that there's room for my brain."
"I don't think it takes up that much space, do you?""Ha bloody ha, Watcher. I'm starting to wish that Anya hadn't found where you'd been hiding what passes for your sense of humor." Unnoticed, the stone had split along a tiny flaw at its heart to become two slithering entities. One stone entered Spike, the other Giles. Willow held Anya and Buffy back when the men cried out in pain. It was best just to let the stones do their work.
After a flash of light and pain, Giles found himself in a fussy, old-fashioned parlor. Well, not really in it—he couldn't seem to interact in any way; he could only observe. These were not his memories. The Prokaryote must have divided and entered him as well as Spike. That meant that he would not only have access to his own memories and subconscious, but Spike's as well. Not only that, but it would work both ways. The Watcher was intrigued by the idea, and a little afraid, more of what he might reveal to the vampire than of what he himself might see.
It took a few moments for Giles to realize that the earnest young man was William the Bloody. Not a thug turned after a drunken brawl as was reported at all. William was a gentleman and gentle in a sense that Giles couldn't remember ever being. Watching the scene play out he felt as much envy as pity. Giles had no real memory of his own mother and William's devotion to his survived even his own death. It shocked Giles to discover that while William's mother lost every shred of her humanity on becoming a vampire, this wasn't entirely true of Spike. As Giles watched William interact with Drusilla and later Angelus, he realized that nurture played a role almost as important as the vampire's demonic nature in monster he became. What did this mean now that Spike had a soul? Did it make it easier to change for the better, or more difficult?
Watching the Scourge of Europe interact, Giles realized there was something familiar about William beyond his physical resemblance to Spike. Good Lord! He reminded Giles of Randall. Randall had been a sort of pet among his crowd, a good boy who was slumming, trying to keep up with the bad boys in order to belong. Randall's parents weren't as well off as Ethan's, but it was Randall who often paid the way—when they bothered to pay at all. That was why he so readily believed that "Randy" was his son when they had lost their memories. Something in him had recognized this, even if he didn't consciously know it.
Then he saw the events of this past summer. The trials Spike went through to get his soul and the tortures afterwards. Spike's stubborn determination to be what Buffy needed impressed Giles. His vision of Spike's part in the possible future had only been accepted in the intellectual sense before seeing all this. Now he hoped for the first time that his acquaintance with Spike wouldn't have to be ended with an axe or stake.
Spike hardly had the chance to catch an unneeded breath after re-living his mother's death when he was suddenly thrust somewhere else. It looked like a slightly shabby schoolmaster's study. A cold looking man with a lantern jaw sat behind a desk in front of a bewildered boy of about ten with big green eyes behind bigger glasses. Was this one of his countless victims? He couldn't remember eating Harry Potter. Then Spike began to focus in on what was being said. It was the Watcher's version of "one girl in all the world." Oh, Harry's name was Rupert! Something must have gone wrong with the spell. Why was he not surprised? The more the elder Giles droned on the less Spike liked him. He wasn't the sort to enjoy caning a boy, Spike could spot one of those a mile off, but he just wasn't even looking at Rupert. It would have been clear to anyone looking that the boy wanted nothing to do with his destiny or the new course of study his father outlined. Spike wanted to shake the older man. He couldn't help wondering where Rupert's mum was. The boy was being plowed over. Spike had to admire the fact that even at his young age he didn't look like he was about to let it happen. However, he could tell that, without a champion in the house, there would be trouble ahead for the whole Giles family.
As long as Rupert's grades were good, dear old clueless dad let him do pretty much anything—and Rupert Giles was the kind of boy that didn't need to study to get good marks. He was taller than most his age, and he also knew an awful truth that 90 of the adults around him wouldn't admit to knowing. So Rupert was inevitably drawn to an older crowd. Even then among his chums he was the leader. He was the sort of boy William had never been; Rupert was comfortable around others. On the street he knew how to stay out of trouble, and as time went on, just where to find the trouble he wanted. By the time he got to Oxford, he had completely shed any pretense that he would fall in line with the future his father planned, and had gained the name Ripper. It was obvious to Spike that the change from Rupert to Ripper had been an evolution and not a reinvention. It was the step over the line from self-confidence into arrogance, and the part of Spike un-tempered by the soul admired the smooth transition.
Spike also saw glimpses of things for the man as well as the demon in him to admire: his protectiveness of others, his love of music and books. He recognized a loneliness in him that hurt his reacquired soul. Rupert Giles was a boy without a mother whose father's love was absent-minded at best and conditional at worst. Ripper was a young man forced to kill his own friend. He took on an unwanted destiny as penance and a Watcher's demeanor as armor. The Giles that Spike knew was neither of these any longer yet he was still both. Just as Spike was no longer William the beloved son and bloody awful poet, or the soulless monster that that he'd both fashioned and been made into, but both still lived in him.
When Spike came to, he was exhausted, shaking, and positive that his will was his own again. He also discovered that Buffy had her arms around him. The only down side to the whole ordeal seemed to be the hangover-like headache, and the embarrassment over the intimacy of the experience he had shared with the other man. Spike grimaced at his mental word choice, but he couldn't think of anything more accurate. It didn't matter all that much; he didn't think it was possible to die of embarrassment. Then he remembered his turning and amended that thought. Not twice anyway.
When Giles woke up, it was with a sense of wholeness, as if some hairline crack within him had been mended when the stone spilt in two. He also had a new appreciation of Spike, the mother of all hangovers, and a profound sense of embarrassment.
"Are you feeling better now, Rupert?" Anya asked.
"Yes, the headache's almost gone now." Giles was lying in bed with Mop at his feet. Instead of getting up he pulled Anya into bed with them.
"Well, no more putting rocks in your head or anyone else's. Hearing you scream like that was frightening."
"A little cuddle and some more rest, and I'll be ready to make it up to you. I was more startled than anything else," Giles said. At Anya's incredulous look he amended, "I think it was for the best, anyway. The Prokaryote stone helped me face some things. I think I'll be able to deal better with what's to come now."
Anya asked, "The future you were shown on the vision quest? You never did finish telling me about that."
"I didn't?""You told me before that the vision of Faith's birthday wasn't bad. So why do you have that look?"
"What look?" Giles attempted to look innocent.
"The look you get when you need me to fix an over-ring on the register."
"You only had to do that one—a few times, and I told you it wasn't bad!" Giles said indignantly.
"If it's not bad, why are you trying to put off telling me? At this rate we'll be grandparents before I know."
"Funny that you put it that way..." There was a knock at the door that kept him from finishing what he'd been about to say.