The challenge this week is: Unexpected

BtVS – Season 6 – Bargaining, Part 2 – Buffy/Spike

1. A Show of Hands

She remembers checking over Spike's hands in a rough, assessing manner, eying the sliced flesh and bloodied muscle he'd obtained keeping the blade from impaling her head. "You'll live," she'd said, shoving him aside in a perfunctory manner, off to the next crisis that demanded her attention.

Sitting with her hands in his, Buffy's surprised at the gentleness of Spike's touch. The tenderness in his eyes. The understanding in his body language. A shared experience – clawing one's way out of the coffin. An unexpected bonding between vampire and slayer. We're having an Oprah moment, she thought with a mad giggle.

Buffy listens as Dawn angrily stamps her way around the livingroom. She'd love to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the teenager and just burrow under her covers, but no… she has to be older sister, mother and father and it's just too...

The sudden quiet makes her look up, astonished at what she finds: Spike calmly brushing her sister's long hair. She hears soft snippets of conversation, the easy affection impossible to miss.

She might be able to explain Spike's attention in regards to herself, but the sweet devotion to her baby sister is completely unexpected.

The sight of Spike sitting outside of the Magic Box in the daytime is unexpected, but comforting. Some sort of explanation about indirect sunlight goes in one ear and out the other. Surprisingly, Buffy feels at ease around the squinting vampire; more relaxed than with her friends.

When the words tumble out about having been in heaven, Spike's expression of horror is reassuring. He truly had nothing to do with her resurrection. She wants… no, she needs the comfort and peace she finds in his presence.

It's not death she's seeking, but the simplicity of shared experience. Death and rebirth.

BtVS – Season 1-3 – Giles

2. Not What I Expected

He's nervous, to be sure. He's trained his whole life for this very moment. A Slayer! The one girl in all the world… one born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires. Giles sees an unfamiliar face and wonders.

"Miss Summers?" He's excited past listening to what the girl is saying as he places the huge i Vampyre /i text on the desk in front of her. He's taken aback when the girl refuses the volume, and he thinks, perhaps, he may be mistaken.

He watches as the poor girl leaves. He never expected the Council's information could be wrong.

It's totally unprecedented. Two slayers alive at the same time. Side by side they invite comparison: light and dark, isolated and gregarious, disciplined and unruly. Amazing. Oh, the beauty of a well-honed team. Rupert Giles and Kendra, the Vampire Slayer. They'd be talked about for years; her exploits legion…

His thoughts are interrupted by Buffy's insulted squawking about the Slayer Handbook. Ah well, it's an interesting fantasy – the Council's perfect vampire hunter. Best to just focus on the unexpected pleasure of having two slayers hunting for the Slayer of Slayers: Spike.

William the Bloody will never know what hit him.

"I've recommended to the Council, and they've agreed, that you be relieved of your duties as Watcher immediately. You're fired."

Quentin Travers' words are totally unexpected. Giles has apparently done the unforgivable – interfered in Council procedure dating back millennia, but his Slayer is alive to fight another day. That should be the ultimate measure of success for a Watcher.

Whether or not Buffy ever forgives him is another story altogether. If she'll allow him to try and rebuild the trust he's destroyed.

He does know that the disillusionment in his girl's eyes hurts more than the loss of his vocation.