Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Nothing, I own nothing! nada, zilch, zero, nein (or is it nien?), finito.

"Buffy! Xander, Willow. What a surprise, I didn't expect you for until next period. Is everything okay?"

As usual, Giles was cleaning his spectacles, his semi-receding hair slightly ruffled looking, his tweed pants and elbow-patched blazer with brown Oxford loafers completed the whole studious professor image, what Buffy had come to secretly call 'clueless, stuffy, British male spinster' look.

And coming in right behind their beloved musty librarian Watcher was a not so stuffy looking but equally disheveled Ms. Jennifer 'Jenny'Calendar, Giles' uh, lady friend and fellow teacher. If the slight flush on both their faces was an indication, and Buff could see the slight swelling on Ms. Calendar's lips, Buffy was willing to bet Mr. Rupert Giles and Ms. Jennifer Calendar were having a little heated moment of their own. That and an increase in Giles' nervousness and stuttering speech.

If she hadn't felt like crap already seeing a blatant reminder of a love that she could never experience or hope she could would have. As it was, it was icing on the cake of an already bad day and Buffy just sighed.

"I think I'm going to ignore the fact that my Watcher and his girlfriend actually know about sex, making out, and the smoochies, and just get back to my own skewed up world," Buffy moaned.

"We have a Buffalypse," Xander announced, drawing himself up in mock pride, chest puffed out.

"A what?" Giles blinked as he reset his glasses and adjusted his clothing, more flustered than ever thanks to Buffy's smart ass remark. Buffy idly noted that he messed with his clothes or glasses when he was nervous or wound up.

"Xander speak for him not knowing what's going on with me," she explained, shrugging, and immediately wishing that she hadn't. The night's exertions coupled with the nightmare and the severe seizures had bruised her quite a bit.

Her wince didn't go unnoticed and Giles immediately set into Watcher mode, replacing his earlier kid-caught-kissing nervousness with an efficiency that Buffy found herself pleased with for some reason.

"What happened? How late did you stay out and how many did you take down?" Giles sounded at once curious and disapproving.

"Fourteen staked, one burned, almost sunrise, and I'm just a little bruised," Buffy admitted, but held back a little.

Blue Lady, she felt so tired.

"Fourteen staked and one burned?" Giles repeated, stunned. Even that was quite a bit for his Slayer, any Slayer for that matter, and from the looks on the others' faces, they knew it too.

"Fifteen in one night! You must have been busy, no wonder you look so tired, even for you!" Willow burst out.

"I would have been fine if that was all that happened." Did Jack and Max ever feel this tired after their seizures?

"What?"

Buffy blinked, and that's when she realized that she had spoken that last out loud. Caught, she tried to think of something to say to divert them, but her headache returned in full force and she was in too much pain to think of something appropriate.

"Ugh," was all she could say, hand going to her head even as she swayed and pitched forward.