A/N: I own nothing of the Whedonverse nor any fairytales and I am not profiting from this work.

Chapter 3 13/11/1999

Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

You're a book, Giles

Buffy it appears you have made a deal with an agent of CHAOS

Yeah, yeah Giles. I get it. Stinky sewers it is

"Euh! Slogging I do not." Buffy sidestepped something pretty suspicious looking and incidentally bumped Giles with her hip. Oomph. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright." Came the muffled response. "I do believe we're here."

Buffy breathed and could certainly smell the difference between the campus and the rest of the town. They were right at the quad outside of Stevenson Hall. She opened the hatch and scurried to the door thanking the Powers for once that she was in Sunnydale and not someplace where people noticed these sort of things. She ran to her room and walked in. Then stopped.

"Uh, Giles."

"Yes, Buffy?"

"I don't think dorms are covered by the invite only rule."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because," Buffy opened the bag and pulled her Watcher out, "Willow's not in, but we are."

"Well isn't that interesting?"

"Yeah I think so…"

"No not the invite." Giles scrunched up his features as though studying something. "I do believe something is happening to my pages, I feel...strange inside."

Buffy placed her Watcher on Willow's bed and opened him up. There was a table of contents eight pages long. She flipped to the back and found an Index. Running her finger down to C Buffy found what she was looking for."CHAOS. Page 153. Alright." She flipped to the appropriate page."It says here that the 'out' for all CHAOS contractor agreements require the client to attain something impossible. Hey! Someone loving me's impossible?!"

"Hrrem hem rllrerem."

"Wha?" Buffy closed Giles and looked at him, confused.

"I said 'The contract also states you must learn to love another.'"

"I love people! I love mom, and Willow, and Xander, well I guess I kinda like Oz, and Anya is okay."

"Buffy."

"Oh, and you too Giles in an old high school librarian kinda way. The high school is old not you. Although…"

"Buffy," Giles looked at her with sympathy, "I do not believe they mean love in that way."

"Oh," Buffy swallowed past a lump that she could've sworn wasn't there a minute ago. "So, I…"

Not for the first time Giles wanted to get in his car drive to L.A. and punch Angel very hard in the nose. The only thing stopping him being his current lack of limbs. "I believe the term 'another' implies it cannot be him."

"Yeah," Buffy nodded quickly in agreement, "Yeah you're probably right. You know, I just have to find someone that I can give myself completely to and hope that he doesn't turn all evil and try killing everyone I know like Angel or be a complete pig like Parker." She started hunching in on herself and looked up slightly ashamed when Willow knocked on the door jamb. "Hi."

"Hi," Her friend looked at Buffy and looked back down. "Did you see Oz last night?"

"Uh, yeah," Buffy swiped at her nose impressed that not only could vampires tear up but also snot up. "I was gonna tell you that he got out last night and I put him back in but you were already gone."

"Oh," Willow nodded, "that makes sense because he's kind of...stuck. Like really stuck. Slayer strength stuck."

Buffy stood up realizing that she had left Oz pretty much trapped but that she couldn't get anywhere until sunset. So she made with the 'splainy.

"So, these big bad lawyer meanies took your words out of context and made you a vampire and Giles a book."

"Yep." Buffy shrugged into her mug of hot cocoa. Willow just stared for a second as her friend didn't seem any different. Not like Jesse had.

"Why aren't you all 'Grr'?" Willow put clawed hands at her ears and made scratching motions.

"I kinda was at first. But not like a fledge seems. First I really wanted to kill Dru. Then I went running off to find the werewolves. And after that I went to the butcher's. Eating people just wasn't on the agenda." Buffy sipped her chocolate and licked her upper lip.

"I think I get it." Willow stood up and grabbed a yellow pad from her desk sitting back down cross-legged on the floor.

"Ooh yeah!" Buffy looked over sheepishly at the sleeping book and repeated in a stage whisper. "Ooh yeah. Willow to the rescue." She made a little fist of victory in the air.

Willow just smiled at the girl who held so much on her shoulders. "Alright. So Giles, who normally knows a lot, get's turned into a book and gains this total recall of encyclopedic knowledge. Yeah?" Buffy hummed in accord. "Alright. Well, that means that a part of him was amplified through the transformation. So maybe if you dig deep you could find the demon but whatever makes you the Slayer is being amplified so it supersedes your basic animal need to hunt humans and is making you protect them instead. Because you still need to drink blood so it's not like you're not a real vampire."

"Trust me my shoes know about my sun-sitivity. But yeah that, makes kind of a lot of sense. My Slayery-ness is overriding my vampirey-ness."

"Yep." Willow smiled as Buffy settled back against her bed. The redhead decided to try and get a better look at Giles.

"Hey!" Buffy's shout caused Willow to jump back from her near perusal.

"What?" Her heart was thundering.

"We need to go get Oz." Buffy stood and gently tucked Giles into his travel bag and headed for the door. She looked back at her friend who stood and smiled at her as they made their way to the cemetery so Buffy could be there long before morning to let Oz out. As Willow paid for the pints of pig's blood on their way over she couldn't stop thinking one thing.

Demon goes in. Soul goes out.

But if Buffy was soulless how could she be Buffy. Angel was Angelus without a soul. In fact the only other demons she had equal exposure to were Anya and Oz but they were both mostly human. Then she remembered the only other demon she had ever heard of drinking hot cocoa. But he tried to put a bottle through her face.