MEANWHILE…

Angel burst out of his barrel at almost the same time as Faith. He started going around from barrel to barrel, breaking every one else out, while Faith stood around with her arms crossed and surveyed the land.

"Something ain't right," she speculated.

"Could it be… oh, say, your brain?" Cordelia asked, letting Angel help her out of what remained of her barrel.

"You think you're real smart, don't you, Miss Beauty Queen? You think you got life all figured out just because your daddy's a rich stiff."

"Uh, hello, kinda broke now. I had to get a job and everything."

"Hey, if we could maybe not argue, I think this little vacation could be a lot easier on all of us," Angel suggested, pulling his fist back to punch through another barrel.

"Daddy, no!"

Angel sighed. "Dru, you have to come out of there."

"But I like it. It's very cozy."

"I'm sure it is, Dru, but we need you on the team."

"The kind flag and I are having tea. You mustn't interrupt the party."

Angel rolled his eyes and pulled Drusilla's barrel onto shore just so she didn't float away. "Fine. But only until you… finish your tea party. Then I'm breaking you out of there."

"Yay! Daddy brings home a treat!"

"Stop calling me that." Making sure that everyone else was free, Angel flipped the map over and read over the letter. He scoffed at its sheer uselessness and was about to put it under a rock for future fire-lighting, but did a double-take when he noticed something.

Hello, Provost tribe!

Angel frowned and read over it a few times to make sure he wasn't misinterpreting the text, and then looked up and swore. He bounded over to Drusilla's barrel and punched it in carelessly, pulling the flag from it despite Drusilla's cries and unfurling it. Angel snarled in a vampire-like fashion and threw the flag on the ground angrily. He sat on a nearby fallen tree and stared at the grounded fabric. Willow walked over to see what he was so upset about.

"The Provost Tribe," she read off the flag. She squinted and looked closer, and then looked up in alarm. "The Provost tribe? Jeff named our tribe after himself?"

"Looks that way," Angel said bitterly. Then he looked up and about. "I really shouldn't be this upset about this."

"Well, it's not like you don't have the right to be," Willow said. "It's a pretty dumb name."

Angel ignored this last comment and got up off the decomposing wood and started pacing. He was usually a fairly level-headed guy, when he wasn't off killing people. Here he was getting all bent out of shape over the name of a tribe he didn't want to be on in the first place.

"The Provost tribe?" Anya asked, appalled. "Well, that won't do. We'll have to change it to something happy, like 'The Money tribe' or perhaps 'The Bunny-free tribe'."

"Hey, Angel," Faith called, not joining the mob wincing at the poor choice of tribe name. "Are we just going to stand around all night gawking at a name, or are we going to set up camp? I'm getting wicked hungry just standing here."

Angel stopped pacing and decided to dismiss his poor mood for nothing more than precisely that. "Uh, yeah. Faith, set up the fire; get things to sit on, make a pit, try to light the fire. Willow, it'd be nice if you, Cordy and Anya went searching for food." Willow gave Angel an angry expression and Angel sighed reluctantly. "Okay, fine. Willow, set up that blanket somewhere so Dru and I can hide out during the day. Uh… Riley, go with Anya and Cordelia." Riley nodded in a military-like fashion and set off toward the woods, listening patiently to Anya rant on about the proper process of naming things while Cordelia freaked out about walking through a spider web.

Angel watched Riley go and decided to give the boy a small amount of credit. Despite his strong dislike for Angel, Riley didn't protest the order given to him. He didn't imagine he ever would.

Angel turned to Giles, who was still examining the flag with disdain and muttering to himself in a British fashion. "Giles?"

"Hm? Oh. What?"

Angel frowned. "You all right?"

"Fine, never better. Perhaps I'll fish." And with that the Watcher set off toward the lake, still muttering to himself. Angel could probably decipher his words if he tried, but he decided to let it go. Giles had just made it perfectly clear that he wouldn't be taking orders from Angel, and Angel decided that if that's the way he felt, then whatever.

The vampire walked over to the whimpering Drusilla and crouched down in front of her. "You all right, Dru?"

"No. Daddy's a bad, bad man. He ruined the party and hurt all the guests. He mustn't interfere, he mustn't…" Drusilla trailed off in a fit of whimpers .

"I'm sorry, Dru, it's just that we had to swing into action. Nothing's going to happen here unless I take control. I'm the boss, and what I say or do has to go. You understand?"

"Of course I do. I'm not a child," Drusilla stated with some of the most sanity Angel had witnessed her possess in a very long time. She stood and shook off the wood chips she'd been showered with. "Now, if you'll excuse me, my Angel, I have a something to do tonight." She stalked away into the forest without so much as a glance backward.

Angel watched her go and shook his head in mild amazement at the many moods of Drusilla and how quickly they could change. He turned back to the lake and saw Giles staring intently into the water and not moving at all. Angel watched in mild fascination as the Watcher, without even blinking, caught a fish in a microsecond with his bare hands. Giles looked about and picked up a small, sharp rock and began using it as a knife to clean the fish.

The vampire approached Giles carefully and stood above him, watching as he cleaned a fish. "What's going on with you?"

"What d'you mean?" Giles asked, not looking up.

"You're not speaking with your usual precision. You're acting a little more high-and-mighty than usual, which I personally have no problem with. But what I do have a problem with is that you just reached out and caught a fish with your bare hands faster than I could morph into vampface. I did see it in different speeds than everyone else would, but would everyone else would see would be something strangely akin to a fish suddenly appearing in your hands. It's an inhuman speed you're operating at."

Giles finally looked up at Angel, though angrily, and saw that he was serious. He then looked down at his fish and the rock in his hand, and put them both down carefully, staring into the lake. Neither of them said anything for a while. Angel decided to sit on a boulder next to the one Giles was sitting on.

"Oh dear," Giles commented after a few minutes. "Oh dear me." Angel waited patiently for the Watcher to turn to him and explain when exactly he got turned into a vampire, but it never really came.

"Is there something I should know?" he prodded eventually.

"Yes," Giles said slowly, rubbing his eyes. He looked up at Angel after a second and stared straight into the vampire's eyes. " I don't like you. I feel that Buffy's judgement has been very poor in her decision not to kill you, soul or not."

"Buffy?" Angel asked dimly, not expecting her to be brought into it.

"However, since you are the head of the team, and since I have no intention to be 'kicked off the island', so to speak, I believe I owe you something resembling an explanation."

The Watcher picked up his gutted fish and stood up carefully, stepping from stone to stone back to land and toward the fire that Faith was starting to build adeptly. Angel followed him and listened as he explained.

"I'm not sure how much, if anything, Buffy has told you about my past. I've been hoping she hasn't said a word, but I can't control her since she quit the council. In short, when I was in my early twenties, me and four other Oxford drop-outs formed a fun little club. We created a demon that shortly took one of our own. I realized how terrible the power we possessed was and immediately lost contact with all of them as much as possible. I didn't hear from any of them for twenty years, when two more of our group brought the demon back and killed them. Ethan Rayne came to Sunnydale. He and I are the only ones left."

The Watcher sighed and stopped as he neared Faith, putting the fish down on the wall around the fire pit and walking away, not wanting her to become a part of the conversation. Angel remained silent. "Anyway, you battled the demon, and won. I thought it gone now, totally dead. Nonetheless, the tattoo on my arm that serves as a constant reminder of those years is still there, and since I found myself in that cramped little barrel, it's been… I don't know how to describe the sensation. It's itchy, but in a way that I don't know how to make it stop itching. I suppose I've been acting weirdly, and I suppose I know why now; the demon's coming out, trying to make its appearance again. Eyghon lives on, despite my best efforts. I believe that he's trying to fight his way out of the tattoo and into me. That's why I was able to catch that fish so freely."

Angel proverbially breathed more easily. He had sensed something weird from Giles, and he'd just assumed that he'd been turned, but this was better and easier to deal with for the both of them; Drusilla was enough of a handful. "Can I… help? I don't really know what I could do, but feel free to ask."

Giles nodded. "I need you to keep me in check. If I start to mutter again, listen. I know you can, but you haven't chosen to. If I get out of control, put me in line. Be as candid as possible and don't worry about any balderdash like 'hurting my feelings' or what have you. I can take it."

Angel smiled slightly and nodded. "Sure." The two gentlemen continued their walk along the beach, Angel ignoring the shouts from the woods he heard and Giles ignoring the slight whisper in his mind that was instructing him to stake the vampire with the nearest sharp stick. They walked in almost comfortable silence that may have lasted an hour. Angel eventually blurted the question he'd been wanting to ask since the beginning of their conversation. "You mentioned Buffy before. I'm just wondering what she has to do with it. I haven't seen Buffy in months."

Giles stopped walking and looked up at Angel. "What are you talking about? You and Buffy see each other almost daily, despite my constant protests."

The vampire raised an eyebrow at the skeptical man. "I live in L. A. It's nearly impossible for us to see each other that often, and besides, I left so we wouldn't see each other daily. That was the entire point."

Giles scoffed. "I might be partially controlled by a dormant demon, but I'm not an idiot. Feeding me lies like this isn't helping the me hating you situation," he added a tad childishly.

Angel's eyes lit up as he suddenly understood something. "Giles…"

"Is this some sort of absurd test? Because you're not terribly good at coming up with stories. 'I live in L. A.'… honestly. How daft do you think I…"

"Giles, what year is it?"

Giles stopped mid-sentence and frowned even deeper at the vampire. "It's 1999."

Angel smiled. "No. It's 2000."

Giles turned his head and watched the vampire out of the corner of his eye. "You're smiling, but not in a humourous way. You're not lying to me, are you?"

Angel shook his head. "I think I have an idea. Let's go back to camp. I'll prove my theory and then explain."

They turned and walked back along the beach in the other direction, quickening their pace. Finally they neared the camp, and everyone except Drusilla was back and crowded around the healthy fire Faith had built and lit single-handedly. The flag with the controversial name on it waved proudly nonetheless in the slight breeze. Willow looked a little worse for the wear and Riley was surrounded by ample amounts of some sort of juicy fruit that may have been pears. Angel didn't keep track of what food really was anymore. The vampire stopped a safe distance from the flame due to his increased liability of catching on fire and waited as Giles sat down.

"Hey, where have you guys been? It's been like two hours since Faith said she last saw you drop off the fish and leave," Willow asked, looking happy that the two of them were okay but mostly still looking battered and dirty. "The fish was delicious, by the way. There wasn't a lot, Giles, but we left you a helping." She held up a makeshift plate that had obviously been Riley-made, which held a small strip of fish which Giles decided was properly a sixth. He smiled at Willow and gratefully ate the meal, pleased that she would fight for his share.

Angel watched this transaction and smiled at Willow's thoughtfullness. Then he stated quite plainly and simply: "What year is it?"

"Well, duh, it's 1999," Cordelia provided.

"Told you," Giles said with a smile, and then realized how silly his words sounded and resumed eating his fish.

Willow frowned. "Hardly. It's 2001."

Faith's eyes darted around. "I gotta go with Cordelia here. It's good ol' '99, if you ask me."

Anya made a cluck sound with her tongue. "You're all nuts. It's plainly 2002. It even says so on calendars, and they can't all be wrong."

Riley frowned. "I'm actually pretty sure it's only the year 2000."

"Well, at least we agree on something," Angel said from behind him. Everyone turned to look at him. Recoiling slightly under all the sudden attention, he cleared his throat. "You all think it's a different year because it is. We're all on different wavelengths. I think that if Drusilla was here, she'd say it was 1998. …Or possibly she'd say that it was still 1860, no one really knows what she's thinking. But my point is, none of us are wrong. We've all been torn out of our respective lives at some point in time and brought here, none of us questioning what anyone else is doing here. It occurs to me now that Cordy's in L. A. in my time, but I never questioned that she was still in high school here."

Giles made a noise of understanding in the back of his throat and swallowed before speaking. "A time flux, of course," he provided, looking about. "Damn. I wish I had at least some books on this God-forsaken, continuum-defying island."

"I knew there was something wrong here," Willow said, nodding. "While I was fighting with the blanket…" she noticed Angel's eyebrows shoot up and she shook her head. "It's a long story. Anyway, I tried magick on it and it failed. Like, totally and completely. I tried even the simplest of spells and it just didn't work."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "I didn't really think anything of your magick talk until just now. I just knew that you were a bad ass wicca. But back in my time, you can barely float pencils…" the Slayer shook her head. "This is weird shit. I don't like this island. It's making me actually do things. I lit this fire and everything, even though I know I wouldn't do that in the real world, since I'm evil and all. It's like I'm nice here or something, totally the opposite of who I know I am."

"Bully for you," Giles muttered into the last of his food. Angel overheard and stopped himself from laughing aloud, settling instead for an appreciative grin in the Watcher's direction.

"So what was the upshot of this Willow-blanket throwdown?" Angel asked, sounding much too much like Buffy for his taste. "Is it up?"

Willow winced before answering. "It's up, but Drusilla popped by to play fort under it or something. The blanket didn't like that much. Threw her up in the air and sent her squealing away for Miss Edith to save her or something. I never really know what she's saying."

Angel shook his head. "No one ever really does." He took in the information. "All right. Well, the sun's going to rise in an hour or so, so I think I'll give the blanket thing a shot now, which still gives me enough time to find a place to hide if it doesn't like me, either. If you need anything, feel free to wake me up if I'm asleep, even if I'm hiding under a bough of evergreen." He flinched at his last words, hoping it didn't come to that, and set out into the forest to conquer the mighty blanket.