Missing a week of school should have had the teachers hounding her about missed assignments, but this being Sunnydale, none of them seemed to have noticed Buffy had been absent. She made her way from class to class, missing Willow's babble and Xander's bad jokes and gods help her, Cordelia's tactless observations. She occasionally caught glimpses of them throughout the day and even had a couple of classes with them, but neither Xander nor Cordelia spoke to her. The dode patrol as she once called the four bullies, also avoided her and she was intensely curious as to what was going on with them and used her lunch period to head to the Library for answers. She found Giles studying the books Fred had found in the demon library.
"Where's Fred?" She asked, taking a seat at the Library table.
"I let her sleep on my couch last night and gave her my credit card so she could get some clothes, she's out shopping right now and still trying to think of what to tell her parents." Giles answered. "How was your night? And, um -."
"My doctor visit? Not a conversation I want to have with you, Giles, it's hard enough having it with my mother. As for my night, it's heavenly sleeping in a bed again. Aside from the nightmares. Xander wished I'd see the truth about Angel/Angelus and I did. Pylea forced the monster out and it was horrible, Giles. An ugly, brainless thing. That thing was inside Angel all along. Every time I kissed Angel, I kissed it too. Just knowing that I may never sleep without nightmares again."
"I'm sorry, Buffy, if I could have saved you from that -."
"You could have, you chose not to." Buffy said bluntly. "I may be the Slayer, but you're the Watcher. You've literally spent decades studying monsters and you know more about demons than I ever will. I know how to destroy them, but you know what makes them tick and you still let me date him. You could have sat me down at any time and told me the truth, you never did. Why?"
"Because having him around made you more willing to do your job and letting you have friends and a boyfriend was something you were determined to have and I couldn't talk you out of it. It's what you wanted."
"That is a lousy explanation, Giles. As my mother reminded me, I might not like having boundaries and think punishments are a bad thing, but they're actually a necessary things. You could have saved us a lot of pain if you'd just given me those boundaries."
"I am not your parent, Buffy, I am your Watcher. I told you the first day what my job was, to prepare you, to help you do your job as the Slayer. Having friends and Angel in your life made you more willing to do your job."
"And is that all I am, my job? Like Kendra, who has no life, no friends, nothing but the fight. Is that who you'd rather I be? If I was like Kendra, no friends, no boyfriend, just the job, the problem wouldn't exist, right?"
"It wouldn't." Giles agreed.
"So who's at fault, Giles? Me, for not being the perfect Slayer and wanting to be a girl too, or you, for giving in? I asked you if I was a disappointment to you, more than once actually and you told me I would never have anything but your support. There's a difference between support and spoiling. As the adult, I would think you'd know that better then me, a teenager."
It seemed Buffy was picking up the blunt stick for herself. Giles sighed. "Perhaps you're right and I handled it badly, the Council believes so. I'm sorry to tell you this, Buffy, but I'm no longer your Watcher. Tomorrow Kendra and her Watcher, Sam Zabuto, will be arriving in Sunnydale. Sam will be your temporary Watcher until either another is assigned or I'm reinstated."
Buffy felt like she was on overload, it had been a Hell of a week. A Hell of a month and a half, since her birthday. "Thanks for letting me know. And what's going on with Xander and the others? They're not possessed again, are they?"
"No, most definitely not, I've checked them all thoroughly. It seemed Xander has what's known as a seed of Magic. Magic is an energy, drawn, focused and shaped by spells. Sometimes that energy takes root in someone, becomes a part of them. Xander is one of those people. When he was possessed last year, Magic became a part of him and because he was connected to the others, it became a part of them as well. When Xander went after Angelus that seed became active, it's giving him the power of the animal spirit, without being possessed by it and it reawakened the connection between him and the others. The connection they had when they were a pack, when Xander was their connecting point, the Alpha. They're trying to figure out what this means for them going forward."
"They seem awfully, I don't know, protective of him?"
"Xander said they're feeling each other's emotions, his especially and trying to help each other. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened before, Buffy, this sharing of a seed of Magic. And Xander won't let me tell the Council because it's not their business, but that means there's also no one able to study it, to help them figure it out."
"Maybe I can help them." They looked up and saw Fred coming through the Library doors carrying shopping bags. "Kinda be their unofficial Watcher. Wouldn't hurt to ask, would it? Because I need something to do while I figure out where my own life goes from here." She set the bags down by the counter. "And I can't go back to my old life, I've seen too much."
"It's worth considering." Giles nodded, he'd been impressed by the young woman's intelligence. "You can certainly discuss it with them. But, before you do that, Fred, there's something I've discovered about the books brought back from Pylea that we need to discuss."