A/N: Not going to disclaimer, of course I don't own Buffy. The only thing I own is the original stuff I've come up with for this fic.
I have an awful lot of this fic planned out and dialogue worked out up to what is season five on the show it's just all the filling in bits (that's just a tidbit for you there!).

Thank you for the favourites and follows and reviews so far! I hope you continue to enjoy!

It was late when Maria pulled up at the house, she'd left the shop open unintentionally late as she was helping some English Majors with their work. In another life she thought she could have been a teacher, especially something like English. Maybe that's what would have happened to her if they'd stayed in England and she'd come to her senses about waitressing and reading. Maybe she'd have decided that running a shop or a café or a tearoom wasn't for her and that really what she wanted was too teach. She was still thinking about it as she got out of the car and looked up to see the three men from the other day leaving the house.

She'd had to park across the road because it appeared one of the neighbours was having some sort of party and the street was lined with unfamiliar cars. She was grateful for it now though as she slid back into the car and watched the three men get into a big black car; tinted windows, slightly longer in the middle but not enough to be a limousine. Maria watched the shorter man look back up to the house and her eyes followed the direction of his head to the first-floor window where there was a flash of curtain.

The ill feeling that had crept up her spine the day before was there again. Settling into a twist in her stomach. Something was going on, this feeling she was having wasn't just because she'd been reading too many thrillers.

Maria sat for a minute trying to come up with something that wasn't amazingly far-fetched. Her father had always been level-headed, successful. His law firm in the UK is what had enabled them to move here so easily. He'd never taken drugs as far as she knew, except the odd bit of cannabis in his younger days. He hadn't been involved with any woman since her mother, let alone the wrong sort. He was principled and that had occasionally gotten him into trouble, but he'd never done anything outside of the law and he certainly wouldn't have gotten involved with criminals.

Maria shook her head, it probably was that she was reading too much, probably just her overthinking things. It was probably nothing. These men- it was probably just some old rich businessman wanting to get his affairs in order, change his will and he needed bodyguards because he was- well- rich.

She was letting her imagination run away with her. Letting the world of mobsters and murder and loan sharks from her latest novels infiltrate her world view. Maria looked up into the rear-view and saw her father's car pulling out of the drive. She put her key back into the ignition, then shook her head again. She was being ridiculous, and she certainly wasn't going to follow her father on some night-time errand. If he ended up at some woman's house or heaven forbid a strip club, she'd probably not feel amazingly comfortable coming eye to eye with him in the morning.

No, she was going to grab the groceries from the back of the car, go in, make herself a cocoa and then sit and read whatever trashy thing she'd picked up in the grocery store.

"You've really quite the collection there, I can see why people like coming. And you haven't had any problems with theft?" Giles asked wandering back over to the counter. He'd been looking at the books she'd acquired on the shelves. Some were books she'd read and no longer wanted, books she felt should be passed along to someone who might get more enjoyment out of them. Others were one's she'd bought in a charity shop to fill up the shelves. There was quite the collection of occult books there too, a by-product of the charity store Giles suspected. They were all decidedly shabby and well read, well used, which Maria had explained she had a fondness for as she made them tea. Which also explained Meryton's décor choice.

Giles hadn't intended to come in here, but he'd been on his lunch hour and decided to go for a walk. He'd stopped outside Meryton and had a small debate with himself about going in, just in case she was still angry.

"Hmm-" Was Maria's only response to his comments as she stirred her own tea for what must have been the eighteenth time.

"Maria are you okay you seem a little... distracted?" Giles asked as she continued to stir. Contrary to thinking he'd find her angry she was bright as ever, if a little distracted and had immediately set them out a tea tray with biscuits and a teapot. Giles had made himself at home on the stool next to the counter, Maria the opposite side. They were the only two in there, her last customers leaving to, what Giles suspected was return to school.

"Yes, yes." Maria still wasn't in focus. She was running her finger around the edge of her teacup. Maybe she was still angry about the other day.

"Look Maria if this is about the other day, I really didn't mean to imply-" Giles started to try and get an apology out. He wanted things to go back to how they been those first two meetings. Conversation had been easy and fun, and he didn't want his misstep to mean he didn't get to pull on that thread.

"What? Oh, oh yes, no that's not what I was thinking about. I know you didn't mean to imply I was some sort of Harlot you just touched a nerve. A big heartbroken mess of nerve because I'm not. Not that I've got anything against women who are, or who enjoy that sort of thing. You know girl power, free sex and all that but it's just not for me. I'm a romantic, a sweep me off my feet, barely-a-kiss-until-the-third-date kind of girl. Which you didn't need to know any of." Maria rambled, her fingers worrying again like they had the other day when she'd gone on. She was pacing backwards and forwards too and when she stopped her cheeks had coloured slightly and she apologised again.

"But yes, the other day its forgotten, honestly." She pressed her hands into the counter as he leant against the other side. Before starting to stir her tea again.

"Can I ask what you were thinking about then? Before you stir right through your teacup." Giles asked gesturing to the tea, which she stopped stirring immediately and removed the temptation by putting the spoon on the side.

"It's nothing, really. I've just been reading too many thriller novels and my father has some new... interesting clients is all. It's nothing." She picked the teacup up, so she'd have something to do with her hands, it had gone from hot to luke-warm in the time she'd been playing with it.

"Interesting how?" Giles straightened up, demon senses starting to tingle like they did when anyone mentioned something being odd, because that's exactly what Maria's interesting had implied.

"I don't know, just creepy little man you know a bit like Snyder." Maria replied still distracted.

"You think Snyders a-" Giles replied looking at her with a smile on his face. There was definitely more fire in her than he'd first thought.

"Creepy little man? Don't you?" Maria looked up at him and seemed to realise what she'd said. "Sorry that was probably a little mean, I've only met him once, no, twice but he just seems like a little Napoleon the sort to be flanked by two brutes to make him seem more powerful."

"This Snyder or your father's friend?" Giles asked

"My father's client, he's a lawyer. Since we came to Sunnydale he works mostly out of the house, out of his office. This man was, they were all just- I can't explain it but he kissed my hand-" Maria wrinkled her nose distastefully.

"If you think there's something wrong, maybe you need to talk to him, your father I mean. Not the Napoleon who kissed your hand." Giles suggested, putting his own teacup back on its saucer.

"Hmm, maybe. Anyway, you don't need to hear about that. I'm sure you came here for something, what do you need?" Maria added, seeming to shake herself out of distraction and change the subject.

"Actually, I just came in to peruse your library, hoping you wouldn't want to throw teabags at my head for-" Giles started wandering back towards the bookcases.

"Almost implying I was a Harlot?" Maria said matter-of-factly and stepping out from behind the counter.

"Yes that." Giles said rather sheepishly.

"Honestly its forgotten." Maria said leaning against the bookcase. "It's me who should be apologising anyway. I should have seen the humour in it." She tapped the bookcase absentmindedly as their eyes met on a smile, Giles felt something pull at him again.

That thread again, that thread that wanted to be pulled on. That feeling that wanted him to step closer despite the fact it was far too early to be making any kind of moves. That thread that wanted to push the hair behind her ear just to see if the skin of her cheek was really as soft as it looked. Giles was just starting to raise his hand when the bell tinkled, and the moment was lost as Maria sought to welcome the new custom.

#*#

"Where've you been?" Buffy asked as he stepped back into the library.

"Ah- uhm- lunch." Giles replied, which was a half-truth. He had been meaning to pick up lunch, but it had slipped his mind what with talking to Maria and then thinking about how he'd wanted to-

"There was another hit last night." Buffy said interrupting his train of thought before it could go anywhere.

"How do you know that?" Giles asked looking around at them.

"Oh, I set up an alert for every time one comes in." Willow said proudly. "You know, a body with all the blood gone and the fang marks, and the- oldness."

"Yeah turns out she's a teacher here, well not her it was her mom, but still that really sucks." Buffy added.

"Who?" Giles asked trying to cycle through teachers he knew in his head.

"Miss Zuma." Buffy said a little too perkily causing Xander and Willow to shoot her a look that said she needed to be more sympathetic.

"I think her first name is Brienne, Oz told me she prefers the AP kids to call her that. She's super musically talented. I wonder if grief will affect her playing?" Willow pondered.

"You said it was her mother?" Giles picked up a printout off the table, a list Willow had put together of the victims and their ailments.

"Yup." Buffy said confidently as Willow nodded along.

"No wait, grandmother." Willow said double checking the screen in front of her.

"Brienne, that rings a bell." Giles said looking over the list again. "Maria said Brienne told her that her grandmother had been sick. That she'd been sliding down hill, which could mean whatever this is had been feeding longer than one night. Willow do you think you could pull the records of the last few victims." Giles asked.

"Already on it." Willow said tapping a pile of papers next to her.

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