Giles slept deeply into the night. Silvery moonlight came through his closed window (having open windows at night in a Sunnydale home is asking for a grisly death) and cast shadows and patterns on his bed and upon the floor. Through the crack under the door, yellow light shone through from the study light Giles had left on. His face was calm and peaceful in his bed. He did not hear a faint squishing sound coming from the foyer... or the slight thump of something hitting the floor... or the light scuttling sound approaching his room... not even the sound of his door opening as someone came into his home.

Suddenly, the light under the door was blocked in several places, casting spidery shadows over the floor, which merged eerily with the ones cast by the moonlight. Slowly, the shadows lengthened towards Giles as the caster of the shadows inched one thin yellow leg under the crack... then another... and another... Soon, the shadows resembled a black hand, reaching out for Giles. Then the legs extending under the door flattened out, as their owner began to squeeze its small, foul body through. Still Giles slept on.

"Eh?"

The legs twitched and stilled as the voice was sensed, the creature not wanting to be discovered. Frozen, not moving at all, it waited.

Then came the sound of footsteps cautiously approaching the door. The creature, knowing it was spotted, suddenly bolted under the crack, and its powerful legs propelled it straight towards its target. The door shook and there was a barrage of curses as someone made a flying tackle for the thing and missed. Giles awoke with a start, just in time to catch a glimpse a yellow, scorpionesque horror flying at his face. He gasped and dove under the covers, causing the creature to miss its mark and slam into the wall. The rudely awakened ex-librarian tumbled out of bed as the door opened and Spike burst in.

"Spike! What the hell is going -" Giles' words were cut short as the thing leaped on him from behind and scurried over his head onto his face. In an instant, the legs had seized his head and neck in a surprisingly strong grip, the thing's moist, throbbing body was plastered on his face, and it was sticking itself into his mouth, a tube of some kind sliding over his tongue, being shoved down his throat. Gagging, choking, beginning to panic, he scrabbled at the creature uselessly, unable to get a firm grip on its slimy shell. Panic tore at his mind, he couldn't breathe, couldn't get the thing off, couldn't close his mouth, dear God he felt something starting to come through the tube...

There was a moment of sharp, tearing pain in his face and suddenly the creature was gone, he could breathe again, he could see again, and the first thing Giles did was vomit all over his carpet, puking out the taste of that foul tube.

"Well, that's one hell of a thank you." Spike said as he inspected his shoes, which had been splattered by Giles' stomach contents. Spike was feeling rather nauseous himself, saving the Watcher. It would've been fun to watch him die, not to mention that it would have absolutely destroyed the Slayer emotionally. But if she had found out, she would have destroyed him fairly quickly...

Giles looked around cautiously. "Don't worry, the bugger's gone," said the vampire. "Scurried away after I tore it offa you." Spike was acting incredibly casual, as though entering Giles' home and saving him from monsters was how he spent every night. Giles took a deep breath, getting control of himself- I'll be tasting that tube with my morning tea, I'm sure, he thought sourly- then got control of the situation. He put on his glasses, grabbed his housecoat, then reached under his pillow and retrieved a small weapon- an axe with a sharpened end and a crosspiece, allowing it to serve as axe, stake, and cross all at once.

"All the doors and windows are closed and locked, and I don't think it will be able to squeeze under the outside doors. It must still be in the house."

"Goody goody, gonna have ourselves a little hunt then, are we?"

Giles looked at the vampire. "Spike, don't think I'm not grateful- although experiencing that emotion in relation to you is more than mildly disturbing- but what exactly are you doing in my house?"

"Beer run."

Giles blinked.

Spike sighed. "I threw a party with some friends at the crypt, and we ran out of the drinkables. Thought I'd 'borrow' some of the fine wine you keep around here and restock my blood supplies at the same time. Your door was unlocked again, by the way. Don't know how you've managed to survive in this town so long... I was helping myself to the fridge when I noticed your big-ass book pile. I started checking out a page that I think had one of my pals in it when I saw whatever-the-hell-that-was wiggling into your room."

Wondrous, Giles thought. I owe my life to a drunken vampire. Aloud he said "I suppose I must thank you Spike. Now let's do something about the creature running around my house, shall we?"

The living room was still in the same state of literary disarray Giles had left it in. "By the way," Spike said, "what's with the weird vase?" He pointed at the floor.

Giles frowned. "Vase?" Then he saw what Spike was pointing at. The book stack he'd put the meteor on had fallen over- and the "meteor" had changed. It's top had split open four ways, like the petals of a demented flower, revealing a pale, hollow interior coated in slime. Giles came to a chilling realization. "Dear Lord," he said, "this isn't a meteor at all. It's a bloody egg! The thing that attacked me hatched from it!" He automatically took off his glasses to clean them, remembered that he didn't have his handkerchief, and reluctantly put them back on his face.

"Meteor? Egg? Whaddaya mean, Watcher? I just thought it was some weird vase or urn or something. Lord knows you got enough things of that sort kickin' around here."

"Buffy found it in the graveyard. I didn't get the full story, but apparently she thought it was a meteor. She gave it to Willow for study, and thought I might also like to have a look at it. But... it's actually an egg!" Giles explained. "But I've never seen or heard of any egg of any creature like-" Suddenly they heard a sizzling sound coming from the dining room.

There were wisps of gas, and a faint smell of acid, when they entered the room. The first thing Giles noticed was his open fridge, followed by a hole in the window. Spike ran to the window, then groaned. "Bullocks," he said, "the bugger's gettin' away."

Giles got there in time to get his first good look at the thing that had attacked him, scurrying along the street. It was truly bizarre. His initial impression had been of a scorpionlike creature, but the creature actually had the shape of a skeleton hand, albeit one a foot long and with a multitude of fingers used for legs. A short tube, the one that had been forced down Giles' throat, protruded from the "palm", and a muscular tail trailed behind the creature's body. A truck approached, and as Giles and Spike watched, the thing leaped by coiling the tail under itself, then straightening it against the ground. It landed on the rear truck, and disappeared into the night. As the truck receded, the creature turned and looked at them with a single eye on its back. Giles felt a chill as the eye focused first on him, then Spike before being carried out of their sight.

"Well, that's something new for me," Spike admitted. "Two'll get you one that truck driver's going to have some unexpected company in his cab in a sec."

"You're right," Giles said. "I want you to follow it and help if you can." Spike opened his mouth, no doubt to remind Giles that he didn't take orders from anyone, let alone bloody retired Watchers, then shut it. He wanted another look at whatever that critter was. Giles kept talking. "I'm going to call the others and get them over here. We need to find out what's happening here. Now."