Yikes. Sorry, ya'll. I was completely gone several days out of the last couple of weeks-at friends' houses and doing the church garage sale and working, etc etc. Here ya go though, and I hope ya'll are still liking it. Please do review if you are so I know you don't completely absolutely hate me for the wait this time. lol :P Can't wait to hear from you! Thanks so much!

Chapter 3

May 1999

When Giles and Buffy went inside again not much had changed. Willow sat hunched over on the couch with her head in her hands and Oz had an arm around her. Xander was still on his feet, but he wasn't moving anymore; he was the one staring into space now, though he snapped out of it as they they came in. He looked at Giles silently, his expression pleading for better news than they'd heard so far, and Rupert wished he had something better to tell them.

We'll figure it out. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise...

Buffy's words echoed in his mind, and he wished they could be true. He wished he could tell her she was right, that she could do whatever she wanted to be able to do...but that likely wasn't the case this time, and he knew it.

Giles moved around the couch and sat beside Willow again, and felt her lean into his shoulder when she sensed he was there. To his right Buffy sat tentatively on the arm of the couch beside him. None of them said a thing at first.

Willow was the one to pick up her head a bit, clear her throat once or twice, and speak.

"How long?" she managed finally.

He tried to think of the best way to answer that. Not that there was a good way.

"I don't know. There isn't any way to know for certain..."

"Cut the crap, Giles," Buffy huffed quietly.

Now they were all staring at him, waiting, wanting to know but not wanting to hear it. This was what he'd dreaded, all of this...having to tell them.

Rupert pulled in a short breath, and he wanted to be able to look at them but he couldn't. "Six months was the best estimate they could give me, most recently...as stereotypical as that may seem..."

Willow flinched beside him, Oz came as close as he ever did to making a face, and Buffy was deafeningly silent.

Xander stared again, open-mouthed this time, and dropped into his chair again. "But even if there isn't anything magical or whatever that can help, isn't there some kind of treatment that can do something? Everybody seems real big on the research these days. There's gotta be something."

"There are a very few options, however...none of them offer anything resembling a solution," he answered slowly.

"Meaning what?" Willow asked weakly. He didn't know if she realized she'd done it, but she'd looped an arm around his and was holding on tightly. Where such a thing would have been awkward in the past, he found it comforting now.

Giles swallowed. "I uhm...I mean that treatment is an option, but there would be very little point at this stage."

"But it would give you more time," Xander assessed quickly. "Right? Wouldn't it? We'd have more time to find another way to fix this. Isn't that a good thing?"

He hesitated before answering. "In theory, perhaps, but the side effects..." He trailedd off; he was still struggling with all of this, especially where details were involved. "There is no way to know how much more time taking treatments would give, and I've already told you that the possibility of finding any sort of 'other' solution is minimal. If there is no other way..." He looked around, at all of them, at their faces, and knew they didn't want to hear this either.

But it had to be said.

"If there is no other remedy, I don't want to have spent what time I had left too sick to be able to say I was really here through any of it," he said quietly. "I want to live, not wait."

"I get that," Oz agreed. Willow turned to him sharply, but then she said nothing. She didn't seem to have an argument either.

Xander did. "You won't even try it?" he protested. "What if it could give us a few more months to work with and you don't do it and that extra month or two or three was what we needed to find a way to get rid of it? Huh?"

Giles winced. "I doubt that would be the case, Xander. I've looked. There are a few more sources, perhaps, but not many. If we haven't found anything soon..."

He didn't like it any more than the rest of them did. He hated this more than he'd ever hated anything, but he couldn't lie to them. He valued their trust, and he knew they would hate him more later for lying to them now than they might now for his telling the truth.

The boy got to his feet again, angry now. "Then what, you'll just lay down and die? Leave us here to deal with all the crap that goes on in this town?"

"Xander, shut up!" Buffy shouted.

"What! Don't tell me you're not pissed off; I know you're pissed off."

"You'd better believe I'm plenty damn angry but not at Giles. This isn't his fault," she shot back.

The two of them glared at each other for a moment, the other three looking back and forth between them, and finally Xander backed down and sat again. He looked away, but Giles could see the tears the boy was blinking back. His own eyes were stinging, and he had to take a deep breath before he could say anything.

That, however, resulted in a small fit of coughing that likely didn't help at all with the edge everyone seemed to be on.

"Giles?" Buffy asked.

Willow added, "You okay?" The arm around his tightened, and Rupert gave her hand a pat and tried smiling a little.

"I'm fine. Thank you." Then there was a hand on his shoulder that squeezed briefly, and he glanced back at Buffy. Neither of them said anything, but it seemed they didn't have to.

"I'm sorry," Xander said from his seat. "I didn't mean it like that, really. I just..."

"I understand," Giles said gently. He cleared his throat. "Please listen. I want you all to understand that by no means have I...'given up.' Nor do I plan to. However, I believe you deserve to know the facts, and...at the moment those, it seems, are the facts."

There was silence again, for nearly an unbearable amount of time before Willow spoke up again. "Well...how much of the research have you done? Where do we start?" Now she did stand, letting go of him and getting quickly to her feet as if she might grab an armload of books and begin flipping through them now.

"Any time other than tonight," he answered. "That is where we start. It's late, and I'm certain that all of you need your rest."

"We don't have school tomorrow," Xander protested. "We don't have school ever. Or I don't, and that roadtrip is definitely history. Why not start now?"

"You do need sleep, regardless of your opinion on the matter, and if it's what you want to do you should take your trip or whatever exactly it is, Xander. You—"

"I don't want to," he cut in, quite seriously. "Not now."

Willow had not sat down again. "We just want to do what needs to be done," she said. "We want you to be okay, Giles."

He swallowed. "Now I-I don't want you all to get your hopes up if—"

"We'll find something," Buffy interrupted.

Rupert winced. "Buffy, I know what you said, and I much appreciate the sentiment..."

"What happened to you haven't given up and you don't plan to?" she questioned.

Giles let out a breath and rubbed at his temples. His head was beginning to pound, and he didn't have to move to feel the soreness in his midsection. "I meant that..."

"What?"

It was so hard to explain; even harder to say at all, knowing what it meant.

"I meant...that no matter what happens, even if there is no way to fix this, I...don't plan to simply 'give in.' I want to be here for all of you as long as I can. Though that was always my intent, to stay here as long as you might need me...even before-before this."

He heard Buffy swallow. "We know, Giles," she said quietly.

Rupert wondered if they did know—if they knew how much they all meant to him.

He knew he had to make certain that they did.


By the time Buffy and the others left Giles's place, none of them were up for much conversation. She knew all of them would have felt much better just tearing into the books now, tonight, but she also knew that wouldn't have made much sense. It was incredibly late—she was relatively sure it would be tomorrow in a few minutes—and they would all do much better research with some decent sleep under their belt.

Now how any of them were going to get it was another matter.

Willow, it seemed, didn't plan to try.

"I'll go home and get online," she announced once they were all out on the sidewalk. "I can't sleep now. I—"

"Will, you should try," Buffy told her. "I know this is...crazy, for lack of a sufficient word, but we should all try to get some sleep. We'll meet back here first thing tomorrow morning."

"Giles said he's already gone over everything he has in his apartment. We should meet at the storage unit." She meant the one where the moved books from the library had been put before they blew up much of Sunnydale High School to destroy the mayor in his demon form on graduation day.

"Right...fine. You guys meet there. I'll come by here first and let Giles know what we're doing."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Xander said, hands shoved deep into his pockets. "I'll bring the doughnuts." Buffy had to smile at him a little for that.

There was a moment of awkward standing around before Oz glanced between her and Xander. "Hey, I'm already bringing Willow home anyway; you two game for a ride?" he asked.

"Sure," Xander shrugged.

Buffy hesitated for a moment, thinking, and then shook her head. "No thanks. I'll be fine."

Willow moved forward to hug her. "Okay. See you in the morning. We'll all be there with our research caps on." The attempt at sounding casual, if not cheerful, helped a little, and Buffy was able to make it home.

The progress was immediately ruined when her mother jumped up from the living room couch the moment she stepped in the door. The television droned quietly in the background.

"Oh, Buffy, there you are. It's so late; did you eat dinner before you left?"

"Yes, Mom," she answered quickly, going for the stairs. She saw Joyce frowning just before she was too far up to see her from the corner of her eye anymore.

"Buffy? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she lied shortly. She swept into her room, shut the door harshly behind her, and went to her bed and dropped onto it. It all seemed to happen in one fluid movement, and she didn't move at all after that but to pull a pillow into her arms and curl around it.

Buffy didn't move all night. She meant to take her own advice, and rest, and she tried—but the next morning she felt stiff, and sore, and she couldn't remember whether or not she'd really slept at all. At first she didn't remember anything. She assumed it had been a hard night of slaying and she'd come home exhausted and fallen asleep on the bed before changing or even pulling her shoes off...

Then she remembered. She sat up abruptly, running over all of it in her head again, and suddenly she very nearly couldn't breathe.

It was all real. Giles was sick. He was in trouble...

No. They were going to fix this. In all of the hundreds, thousands...in all of the books Giles had from his home and from the library, there had to be something useful. Surely Giles couldn't just know there was probably nothing to find. Surely he'd never in his life had the time to read every single volume. There had to be something, didn't there?

Buffy climbed out of bed slowly, but not uneagerly. She wanted to get to the storage unit and start looking through books. She'd never been keen on the research part of her job before, and usually left it to Giles and Willow and sometimes Xander or whoever else was around to do it, but now she had a better reason to do it herself. Now she felt as if she didn't get started as soon as possible she might hurt herself for not being in an active state of doing doing something about what was happening to her Watcher. She hated to think about it...the tiny cells in his body causing damage that she couldn't see and couldn't fix.

But she wasn't helpless yet. They weren't. There were the books. There was magic. It would have to be good magic, or Giles would never let them do anything, but...it was there. It had to be.

She crept downstairs, hoping to avoid her mother, and then realized that it was a little later than she'd wanted it to be. Joyce would already be off at work. Buffy didn't feel hungry, really, but she knew she should eat because really she'd lied to her mother twice; she'd forgotten to eat anything before patrol the night before, so if she didn't have food now she might very well pass out on her way to meet the others. So she grabbed a couple of things from the kitchen that would be easy to carry and eat on the run, and started walking.

It took longer than usual for Giles to open his front door when she knocked, though when he got there she saw that he'd changed, and he looked much better than he had the night before. If she didn't know what was wrong with him she wouldn't have thought that anything was. Now though, she knew, and it helped her to see the dark circles beginning under his eyes and the tiredness in his gaze he tried to hide with a smile. She doubted he'd gotten any more sleep then the rest of them. There was an almost imperceptible hunch in the way he stood, too, and that of course would be thanks to the bruises from last nast.

"Buffy. This is a bit of a surprise."

"No it's not; you knew we'd all be up early to get started. We're meeting at the storage place, since you said you'd looked through all the books here."

His eyebrows went up a little. "Right to the point then. Yes, I uhm, I've been through everything here twice over, and half of what there is there."

"Well hey, with all that down already we've gotta be close, right?"

Giles didn't answer, and Buffy cleared her throat. "Okay, I just wanted to let you know, I guess."

"Don't be ridiculous. Give me a moment and we'll both go; I only need my keys." He backtracked inside a step, and Buffy took a step in after him as he went to take his keys from his desk.

"Did you eat breakfast?" she asked suddenly. She wasn't sure why she did it; maybe it was just that she remembered nearly forgetting it herself or, though she didn't quite want to admit it, maybe it was her overprotective side kicking in already.

"What?"

Giles glanced back at her as if he hadn't quite understood, and she shrugged. "Nothing. I mean...I was just asking if you ate."

"Oh." He glanced toward the kitchen, and now she saw the remains of toast on the counter.

"Right," she said quickly. "Good. Toast is good. I had toast too, actually. I guess we're toast buddies today." Her Watcher looked at her strangely, and she shook her head. "Nevermind. Let's go." She turned back for the door and they left, and as they went she felt Giles's hand at her back, lightly. Suddenly she began searching her memory, wondering if it was something he did often. She realized it was. Whether he actually touched her or not—and usually he didn't—he was often there, just behind her, a firm but gentle hand ready to make the way clear if that was needed, or to offer the beginnings of protection...

Buffy's throat clenched tight as she saw how much the simple, gentlemanly gesture illustrated what Giles was to her, and how much she needed him. He was always there, ready to help her or to guide her whenever she needed him whether she wanted the assistance or not. They were a team, as a Watcher and Slayer were always meant to be, she thought, and more than that they were friends.

She couldn't lose him.

Giles opened the passenger-side door for her when they made it to his car, but Buffy hesitated before getting in, and she looked at him. He looked back. It wasn't her intention, exactly, but something passed between them then, and when she realized what she'd just told him she wasn't sorry—not until he looked away and swallowed, and she knew that he'd gotten the message, but it was hard for him. She felt awful then, but she wasn't going to take it back.

She was never going to accept this, even if in the end there was no way to stop what was happening to him, and he knew that now.

She was not going to let him go quietly.

They were both silent on the ride out to the storage place. Buffy didn't want to make it obvious that she was watching Giles, so she didn't. She looked out the window instead, watching his reflection in the glass and willing all of this to go away.


January 2000

It hadn't gone away. It all happened. Giles died. He was gone. It shouldn't have happened, and Buffy knew that now, but it did happen. It was over.

Ethan called after her as she sprinted away from Giles's place, and she barely registered the fact that that meant he hadn't left yet. A very, very small part of her wanted to turn and shout at him, to tell him to get gone immediately before she really did kill him, but she couldn't do it. She wanted too much to just run—to get away from anything that reminded her that this wasn't supposed to be real and it was her fault that it was.

What would the others say? Did they know now, too? Or was it just her? Oh god, what would Giles say? Either Giles. The one she had just lost or the equally inaccessible one she remembered from the future that he wouldn't have now...

Buffy stopped abruptly, and she realized she'd been running for much longer than she thought. There was shade here, which made it even colder, and her breath puffed visibly into the air around her head as she stared, frozen, at the silent gray tombstone of the grave that she hadn't been able to bring herself to visit since they'd buried Rupert Giles a week and a half ago.

Her throat closed off, and she had to spin and walk quickly away.