Giles doesn't believe it himself until he stands outside the front door and Tara answers. "Good lord," he says simply.
She's wearing an apron over jeans with a green top, and appears to be covered in flour. There's a smear of it leading from a spot on her forehead into her hair., leaving a slightly white streak "Mr. Giles!" she says, brightening with a smile, and leans forward to hug him. He returns the motion, slightly dazed, patting her back in greeting.
"Tara, yes. So very good to see you too." As they pull back, he looks quizzically over her shoulder into the house.
"Buffy and Dawn are at school, Xander's at work, and Spike's at Xanders'," she explains. "I'm baking."
"Yes, clearly," he says, blinking rapidly with a slight smile as he glances at the apron. Still beaming, she steps backwards, inviting him in. "Of course," he lifts his suitcase and carries it into the foyer. While it is genuinely good to see Tara, it reminds him why he's here. "And, ah, Willow?"
"She's upstairs. Taking a shower." Tara's tone stays relatively even, but her body language shifts just enough.
Buffy hadn't said much the night before, only that there wasn't much to say. When he asked her to repeat herself, all he got was, "Tara's back, Spike is involved somehow, we don't know much of anything, and Willow's gonna gnaw her finger off if I don't give her the phone." There was a far-off shuffle of the phone being passed before Willow's trembling voice came on the line. "Giles?"
"Are you alright?" he asked immediately.
There was a shaky exhale on the other end. "Well, I haven't gone all homicidal maniac. So, I guess . . . okay?"
"It'll be alright, Willow. The next flight leaves in a few hours, I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Giles, hurry," she pleaded nervously. "I'm kinda freaking out over here."
"Ms. Hartness says to hum. I rather hope you've some idea of what that means as it's left me completely in the dark."
"I'll try, Giles. Thanks."
The memory of Willow's anxiety brings him back to the moment sharply. The being in front of him looks and acts, to the best of his memory, exactly like Tara. But the fact that there is so little to go on naturally has him on edge. She's been alone in the house with them overnight and no harm appears to have fallen on anyone. Buffy has left a voicemail promising to swing back by the house on her lunch break, and he has called Willow to let her know of his arrival. He is practically bursting with questions and can only imagine how Buffy and the others are feeling.
"You're worried for them."*
He blushes, realizing Tara knows he's scrutinizing her. He's forgotten she can do that. "Well yes, your, ah, absence was something of a traumatic experience for us all. Some took it harder than others."
"Like trying to end the world?"
The bitterness and anger in her voice is palpable, and he fails to mask his surprise at hearing that emotion from her for the first time.
Tara rubs her forehead, "Sorry," she apologizes. "It's been . . ." she searches for words but finds none sufficient, ". . . A day," she finishes emptily.
"Giles?" a hopeful, thin voice calls from the top of the stairs.
"Willow," he replies fondly, grateful to see his charge in one piece.
Practically running down the stairs, she throws herself into his arms. He collects her easily, and though she's put on weight since England, is still frail against his chest as she takes a shuddering breath. Willow's hair is still damp from the shower. He kisses the crown of her head, remembering the broken way she'd fallen into his arms after she'd first arrived in England, and feels very, very proud of how far she's come.
After several moments he finally pulls back, taking in Willow's wet eyes and the guarded way Tara observes them, and clears his throat. "Tea, anyone?"
Xander's eyes flicker nervously around the room before settling back on Willow. The pizza he's brought over after work has been devoured, mostly by himself, Dawn, and Buffy (trust a teenager and Slayer to each pack away over half a pie single handedly). And the now-empty boxes and plates are stacked high with used napkins. Willow, he notices, has managed to eat an entire slice, and is now taking small nibbles of the crust as she sits back, quietly watching everyone else. They've finally got a functional, living, real-life Willow back, one who doesn't look like every breath is excruciating. He swells with protectiveness.
God, this is freaky. And not just because Spike is here, though that certainly doesn't put him at ease. And the way he and Tara are acting together? All . . . chummy and close? It gives him the jeebies. The heebie-jeebies. The nicest person he ever met, like, seriously 'her-name-would-be-in-the-dictionary-next-to-the-word nice', is buddy-buddy with . . . Spike.
Ok, so he has a soul now, but he's still Spike.
Honestly, that's the one thing that makes him think what they're claiming is true. There's no way the two of them would ever be so close otherwise. Unless it's the big bad messing with them. And Tara is evil. No, Tara could never be evil. But if it isn't Tara . . .
He's never seen anything so convincing, though. The way she greeted him this morning, eyes so tender and full of bright, shining love; holding him tight. Eyes that looked so sorrowfully at the faint marks on his cheek, and clouded over when she touched them so delicately, her fingers tickling the stubble on his skin. Tara had looked at him the same way when Joyce died and he put his fist through the wall like an idiot. Only, she hadn't looked at him like he was an idiot; just with infinite tenderness and understanding. Like only they shared a secret.
That same Tara is somehow sitting in the living room, buddy-buddy with Spike, and collecting the broken pieces of all of them like it's nothing. Something that only Tara can do. No. She's real. Somehow.
He doesn't like it. Well no, that isn't entirely true. He's thrilled! Tara is back! And hasn't been pulled away from a heavenly dimension! But nothing ever happens on the Hellmouth without reason, and that reason is usually bad, if not terrible, and even more often than that, straight up evil. It makes his stomach turn. And not just because he's eaten too many slices of pizza.
They need answers, because the longer Tara is here without them, the worse it'll get.
He pulled Willow aside after handing off the warm pizza boxes to Buffy. "How's it going?"
It didn't look like she'd moved much from the dining room table all day. She glanced back at the workstation and shook her head. "There hasn't been much to go on yet. She was waiting for everyone to get back before going too much into detail, but I started researching pocket-dimension theories and—" He cut her off.
"No. Will, how are you doing?"
"Oh," she said softly, a little dumbfounded and surprised, as if she'd forgotten about herself entirely.
He watches her carefully while Tara and Spike explain their story.
"And you say the books were completely empty?" Giles asks curiously in his most Giles-y way; blinking rapidly while holding a cup of tea.
"Not completely. There was some stuff in them, but a lot of blanks. Some were things I already knew, but not everything."
Giles seems to chew on the information. "Fascinating," he murmurs. "And they were like that until Spike appeared." Tara nods in confirmation. "Fascinating," he repeats to himself, lost in thought. "There are theories of cryptomnesia, but never in a type of case such as this."
"Giles? Translate?" reminds Buffy, glancing around the room at similar blank faces.
"The reappearance of suppressed or forgotten memories," he explains. "Usually it manifests as unconscious plagiarism. Or in cases of deep trauma, such as people waking up from a coma with the sudden ability to speak another language. In your case, it appears as though only that which you had previous knowledge of, or exposure to, was present in your . . . Limboland," he finishes, begrudgingly using the word Buffy has coined to describe where Tara has been.
"So why'd they suddenly fill up when Spike showed?" Buffy asks. "If I knew he could magic words onto a page, I would've had a much easier time getting through finals."
"If, as Tara says, before there was no connection to the earth, and thus magic, it appears his soul must have had something to do with it," Giles posits.
"So what, Spike's soul is magic? What makes him so special? I've got a soul, why couldn't I see Tara?" Xander asks.
"You're human," Buffy says, some sort of realization dawning. "He's not."
Giles walks slowly around the room, pacing as he thinks aloud. "A vampire is a magical creature by its very nature; a demon inhabiting the body of the deceased. It's possible that Spike's soul, while reunited with his body, wasn't bound by it the way ours are."
"So Spike's soul is magic." Xander confirms.
"Of sorts, yes. And I doubt there are very many demons in Sunnydale who can attest to the same qualifications. It still begs the question as to where Tara was in the first place. And how she got there. I suggest we start looking into demonic soul possessions and dimensional theory," Giles finishes.
"Isn't it lucky we get homework when we're not even in school anymore?" Xander says with false cheerfulness.
Buffy stands and runs her hands over her thighs to straighten her pants, signaling commander mode. "You, Dawn, Giles, and Willow are on book duty. I'll patrol tonight and see what I can find out about this 'beneath you devoury' thing."
"Um, hello?" Spike spreads his arms wide in a 'what about me' gesture.
"Right," Buffy says. "You stay here."
"What?!" Spike says, offended. "I may be crazy but I can still fight."
"That's exactly why you can't fight. Your crazy is a liability and I can't protect you and fight the bad guys at the same time. Sorry Spike, you're benched. Besides," her eyes scan the room quickly, "I think there are more than a few people here that could use some extra protecting."
Immediately, Xander's eyes find Willow, whose eyes are predictably trained on Tara, whose eyes are, predictably, trained on Dawn. Whatever his feelings about Spike, Xander finds he can't disagree with Buffy on that.
*borrowed from JetWolf's 'The Chosen'