FIC: Thusia 1/3 (Giles/Buffy, FRM) by antennapedia

[antennapedia.livejournal.com]

Title: Thusia 1/3
Author: Antennapedia; illustrations by khaoschilde
Pairings: Giles/Buffy
Rating: FRM
Summary: Prophecy chases Buffy in the Los Angeles summer. Giles thinks he knows how they might elude it.
Warnings: Buffy is sixteen.
Spoilers: Season 1.
Word Count: 20K
Notes: Thanks to emmessann and my husband for beta-reading, and to glimmergirl for classics consultation.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I claim no ownership and am making no money.

The first time Buffy called him on her new cellphone was at two in the morning. Giles was asleep when the phone at his bedside rang. He slammed awake and was almost frantic with worry until her calm voice convinced him that she was not in danger. Just reporting in, she said. She was fine; her father was being nice; LA had lots of vampires and what was up with that? He was speechless with surprise, because she'd always resented being asked for kill rates, for an accounting of time. He cleared his throat, leaned back onto his pillow, and asked her softly how she'd found the vampires. She sounded more quiet and subdued than he remembered her.

The second time she called, he was in bed with a novel from the public library, lounging in his boxers with a splash of whisky over ice in a tumbler. He felt odd at first, talking to her so informally, so close to nudity, as if she could see him. She made her report, still in that quiet voice. Then she asked him how his day had been. Nothing much, he said. A day at the library. Cataloging. Inventory. Assisting the contractor in estimating repair costs. The earthquake damage had been extensive, from the floor under the skylight to the roof itself.

The third time, he was drowsing, light on, book slipped down onto his chest. He'd been waiting for her call, and dreaming half-lucidly about training her. He had warned her about dropping her shoulder. She'd grinned at him and launched a graceful kick at the hanging bag in their training space. The room had brick walls, upon which someone had drawn symbols of protection in white paint. It was their space, and it was home. The cordless handset buzzed in his ear, and he slid up to wakefulness, and her voice. "Hey, Giles. Killed four tonight."

She called every night.

He adjusted his sleep schedule to match hers. The Slayer was a creature of night as much as the vampires. He wanted to be awake for her calls. They came no earlier than midnight, no later than two. He told her about his new crossbow. She told him about her new shoes. A few days later, he told her about his new running shoes and she told him about the vampire she'd talked into handing her his sword, which she'd then used to behead it. She gave him kill counts, though he had long since stopped requiring them from her, and recounted particularly difficult fights. She asked him for weightlifting exercises. He reminded her to stretch. Sometimes he talked to her until she fell asleep, about anything that came to mind.

She never asked about Willow and Xander, though sometimes Giles volunteered tidbits about them. The one time he attempted to bring up the topic of the Master, she changed the subject, and instead asked him about the earthquake damage. He took his cue, and complained about delayed repairs on his library, about the tarpaulin over the broken skylight that made the space eternal twilight, even as summer stretched to its height.

And so one week passed, and then another. Giles felt he understood the rhythm of this summer, his first summer in the States. Long slow sunny days, under a cloudless sky that never changed. Short desert-cool nights, spent in solitary quiet, save for her voice in his ear.

One night she called him earlier than usual, a scant minute after midnight. He'd been in bed, but sitting awake to read and await her. She sounded distracted as she ran through the usual patrol and beach reports, and kept him on the phone longer than usual. Giles was tired following a long day with the contractor installing glass in the library skylight. He attempted to bring the conversation to a natural close, but she prevented him.

"Giles? You know the dream thing? How can you tell if they're prophecy or not?"

"Oh! Oh. Usually the Slayer, you, you will have a sense of it. You'll wake up knowing. They're more vivid and intense than normal dreams. And they're often repeated."

"Huh." She breathed in his ear for a minute. He lay back on his pillows, waiting for it. "So, ah, yeah. Dreams. So, like, I'm dreaming about having my heart ripped out."

"What? Gods, Buffy." Giles sat up, and reached for his journal.

"I'm chained up by demons and guys in masks. Then one of them rips my heart out, just like in that Indiana Jones movie. And then he drinks the blood and eats it. Though how I'm alive to see that part, I don't know."

"Masks? Humans in masks?"

"Yeah. And at least one demon."

"Masks of what?"

"I don't know. Just... masks."

"That's... There's got to be something in my books of prophecy. Or in the Pergamum Codex."

"I hate that book."

He jotted a note, then set the book aside. "Can't blame you. Are you... are you all right?"

"Yeah, sure, why wouldn't I be? Just another sucky phase of the sucky Slaying gig. I didn't ask for it, but I gotta do it. So, you know, get cracking with the research, fighter-pilot-guy. Though it's good you never did the pilot thing. You would look awful in those aviator glasses. Though those leather jacket things? Maybe you'd look good in a leather jacket. I'm trying to picture it and I'm not getting anywhere. Have you ever been anywhere near leather?"

"I have."

"What?"

"Been near a leather jacket. I still have it."

"My brain is now dribbling out my ears."

"Buffy? Is there something else about this dream?" She was silent in response. He made his voice as gentle as he could. "You can tell me anything. I'm here to help."

"It was... Giles, I died again. In the dream. Only this time nobody was there to help. I was alone."

"Buffy, oh, Buffy, don't worry. We'll stop it. It won't happen. And I'll be there. You'll never be alone." He soothed her until she calmed and began to yawn in his ear.

Giles hung up and pulled the chain on his bedside lamp. He lay for a time watching the shadows of leaves shift on his ceiling. Waxing moon. It would be full in a week, and the next night was the Solstice. High summer. She'd been given a scant month of respite. Not enough, not nearly enough. And she never would be given enough time.

Giles' morning was spent assisting the workmen who were completing repairs on the skylight in the library roof. He had no time to research Buffy's dream until the afternoon. They finished the job shortly after the lunch hour, and rolled away the tarpaulin. Giles had often grumbled about the sun allowed to shine in unfiltered upon his precious books, but now, after more than a month of darkness, he was glad to see it. He sat in the smeary sunlight gracing his study table, and opened his books to search for the interpretation of Buffy's dream.

The answer came more quickly and with more certainty than he liked. The Pergamum Codex had something that seemed to clearly reference Buffy. It followed the prophecy about the Master that had distressed them all so greatly, and built on it. Giles read it through once, supplying a rough translation from memory. He transcribed it into his Watcher's journal, then wrote out a more careful translation, Liddell-Scott at his elbow.

The valley of the earthshaker
that has not paid tribute
that has not honored its god
will be consumed in flame and ash

The masked ones of the earthshaker
who have sold themselves to the demon
who are drunk on the blood of the bull
will offer him the demon-killer's heart

On the longest day the earthshaker comes
At the sun's height the earthshaker tramples

The demon-killer risen from darkness
who has tasted death but not life
who has been known by neither man nor demon
will be a pure sacrifice

The watchman marked by darkness
who has dealt death but not life
who has been known by man and demon
will bring fire to the sacrifice

On the longest day the sun's tower falls
At the sun's height the moon's daughter dies

The god demands his due
sever the head
drink the heart's blood
their end will be flame and ash

Giles swore. He stared into space, at the dust motes floating in shafts of sunlight, then got up and moved into the dim stacks for a cross reference. What he learned did not calm him. He carried his Attic cults compendium with him back into his office and sat down heavily. The earthshaker's cult still lived. There was record of recent activity from them, in Los Angeles. The States were Christian, in the main, but Los Angeles was a cosmopolitan center, and the religions of Europe were tolerated. Though the bull cults would not be practicing openly, even there.

Vile. These men were vile.

He reminded himself that Buffy had already thwarted prophecy once, and could easily do so again. Or not thwarted rather; she had died. She apparently could not forget that fact, and neither should he. Prophecy had been fulfilled, and then twisted past. He would need to find a way-- But that was getting ahead of himself. First he needed to be sure this was the prophecy she dreamed of.

Before he left the school, he wrote a memo informing Snyder that he'd be away for at least the next week.

That night, he was unable to rest. He paced the lower floor of his flat, from door to fireplace and back, a glass of whisky in hand. At midnight he sat at his desk and watched the phone. By one, the glow of the whisky had faded and he was left with a faint headache and the taste of peat in his mouth. He thought about how to frame it, how to ask what he needed to know. If she'd been raised by the Watchers, he would know the answer. She would have been carefully guarded, raised to prize her chastity as sacred to the goddess. If she'd been a Watcher, he would know. She would have lost her virginity in school, to an older schoolmate chosen by lot as her mentor for the year, in a trembling-hands-solemn ritual deeply important for the both of them.

She was neither. She'd been raised by the ignorant, and he had some hope.

The phone rang at last. "Buffy? Oh, good."

She sounded better, once again cheerful as she reported. "I had the dream again last night. Noticed something new: they were dressed up like cows. Full-on Gary Larson cow-head masks. Thus tipping it right over into the surreal. Find anything, research-guy?"

"Yes. Buffy? I, er."

"What?" Her voice in his ear was amused, tolerant. He stammered, but couldn't get the words out. "Okay, now you're wigging me, Giles. What's up?"

"I need to ask you something rather personal. I assure you that I have a reason."

"Just ask, Giles. It's not like I can smack you."

He stammered out another apology.

"Giles. Ask already."

"Are you a virgin?"

A few breaths of silence in his ear. Then, "Oookay. That was totally not what I was expecting."

"I'm sorry. I need to know. The prophecy is--"

"Yes."

"Pardon?" he said, stupidly.

"Yes, I am. Did I give the right answer?"

"Damn." Dismay, and he confessed it, a breath of relief. Slayers were not supposed to taste that fruit.

"Sounds like a no."

Giles struggled to control his stammering. "I found a prophecy. In the Codex. It fairly clearly refers to, well, to you and to me. And to a Minoan mystery cult. They take a virgin girl and, and, and, give her to their bull god to be, be deflowered. And then sacrifice the girl. To propitiate the god. It might be Minoan. It might be a later corruption of the rite. Whatever it is--"

"Whatever it is, it's yucky."

"Agreed."

Silence for a long minute. Giles would have given anything to be with her just then, to comfort her. Or even to be a target for more thrown books and punches. Anything but leave her alone with this news.

She spoke abruptly. "I need to see this prophecy. Come down here tomorrow."

"Buffy, it's in Greek--"

"I need to see it. Bring a bathing suit. For the hot tub. And hey. Giles? Could you bring me more stakes? I'm kinda out. Nursing my last one."

He swallowed his urge to complain that she was sloppy with them, and merely promised to bring more. He'd been planning on going to her anyway. Though he didn't know what he could do. The Codex was reliable, unlike so many other books of so-called prophecy. It was a true oracle. And if it applied to her, and to him-- What if it didn't? What if it was made not to?

He went to bed turning the implications over in his head, and wondering at himself for even daring to think it.

In the morning, he packed stakes and holy water, the Codex and his journal, and a couple of paperbacks to keep himself entertained in his motel. The daily weaponry was hidden in the boot of his car, as always: knives and stakes and holy water. He prepared a second bag with more serious weaponry: his new crossbow and a bundle of bolts, a pair of wickedly sharp combat knives. And his finest fighting sword, the steel xiphos his father had given him on his election to the Hundred, the day he became a Watcher.

He stood considering the contents of his closet, wondering what to pack. He took out a tweed jacket, and laid it across his bed. He hadn't worn a suit coat since the day Buffy had left for Los Angeles. It would be nearly ninety degrees there today. He pictured himself red-faced and sweating in front of her, clumsy and fumbling. No. She needed to be able to lean on him. Trust him in ways she had not yet learned to trust him.

Giles rehung the jacket. He found a pair of jeans and pulled them on. Then a light long-sleeved henley. He never wore short-sleeved shirts, no matter the weather. To do so would be to expose his shame, the place where he'd allowed himself to be marked as the possession of something evil.

At the last moment, he took an earring from his jewelry box and looped it through his ear. He'd worn it every day until the day she'd appeared in his library. He'd taken it out and hidden it away in fear; it didn't fit with the role he'd chosen with her, the role she'd seemed to need: the safe and respectable geeky textbook with arms. The buttoned-up man.

Merrick's diaries had been clear about her allergic reactions to the wilder aspects of Slayer lore, to magic and the presence of the gods. She'd been raised Christian, of all things. And he'd seen himself how she responded to prophecy. He'd wanted to spare her knowledge of the frightening reality of the world, where gods and demons walked and sometimes meddled with the lives of mortals. Buffy needed him to be another man, now, a different sort of Watcher. She needed knowledge from him. Knowledge unfiltered by her own fears, if she were to live.

He carefully did not think about the implications as he ran his morning errands and left a note for Xander and Willow.

He found his prescription sunglasses and wore them on that drive south and east in blinding sunshine, through hills scorched yellow and brown by the relentless summer, down into the glittering grid of haze that was Los Angeles. South through the freeway maze, choked slow even in early afternoon, to Redondo Beach and Buffy's father's home. Avenues all lined with palms, wide streets in straight lines, four lanes of streaming cars, in eternal sunshine. Giles had memorized Buffy's directions and followed them carefully south, to the more expensive part of town in the hills, with its identical houses on twisty little streets in a great maze.

He parked the Citroen on the street and diffidently rang her bell. He heard nothing from inside. He stood waiting, attache under his arm. Not a single human being was in sight. Rigidly maintained landscaping; shuttered windows, red terracotta tiles on the roof. The house gave away as little as the street did.

The door opened. Buffy glowed out from the dimness within. "Hey. Wow, it's the anti-Giles."

"Hullo, Buffy."

She stood in the doorway considering him, then stepped aside to let him in. Her tan was magnificent, displayed under a white tank top. Her hair was a lighter blonde than it had been two weeks ago, straw-pale and straw-dry. She was wearing long dangling earrings in silver and turquoise. She was thinner than she'd been. Her bare arms showed muscle, biceps and the line of the pectorals disappearing under the cotton. The twinned scars where the Master had drunk from her were white against her neck. Even with Slayer healing, she'd likely bear a scar. Vampire bites did not heal easily.

The bulldancers of Minoan Crete had been forced to leap the bull's horns in ritual dance. Over and over. Until they were gored or trampled. No matter how graceful they were, no matter how skilled, the bull was the one that left the palace on its feet. The Master had gored her, but she was alive yet. How many more leaps would she survive?

Buffy showed him the house. She was shockingly out of place: vibrant, alive, almost wild, in this dead place. It was a lovely tomb, however. Tasteful. The hand of a professional decorator was visible in the leather and the wood and the framed prints on the walls. No personality of the residents was visible even in the least. Giles had visited Buffy's home in Sunnydale only twice, but that had been discernibly marked by the taste of Buffy's mother and dusted over with the evidence of busy lives. Either Buffy's father had no personality, or he did not truly live here.

Giles stood uncertainly, watching her demonstrate the usefully-complete expensive weight machine her father had in the den. She was friendly, open, happy to see him. They hadn't touched, and that was both as things were between them, and unusual. They'd been separated less than three weeks, but their relationship had shifted since he'd seen her last. He'd spoken with her nearly every night, in the intimacy of his bed, her voice in his ear. It had been easier to be casual with her. Now, without the protection of distance or a jacket to shrug around himself, Giles was uneasy. They were alone here. Alone for the first time, without their usual context of school and library and friends.

Giles folded his arms, unsure of the impulse that had driven him to dress casually that morning.

"Guess we should talk about this prophecy, huh?"

She led him to the kitchen, which gleamed with hanging copper pans and brushed metal appliances, and sat him at the table. He extracted what he needed from his case and handed it to her. She gave him iced tea in a tall glass. Giles ran his finger through the condensation, tracing Greek characters. θυσία. Sacrifice. Droplets ran down from the endpoints of his strokes, blurring the word. She held in her hands the Codex, opened to his marker in the relevant section. Next to it flat on the table was his leather-bound journal, with his translation and notes. She traced her forefinger under the words, sounding out the Greek letters. He hadn't realized she'd known them. Her face was drawn in concentration.

One prophecy of sacrifice and death fulfilled, and a month later another one. The end times, according to the Codex, though it didn't specify what was ending. Her life, his life, the Council, the human species, the world.

Buffy spoke, and he jumped. "You're sure about this?"

"My Greek is excellent. I've gone over it again and again--"

She made a thoughtful sound. "Does this 'skopos' mean you?"

"It usually means watchman. Or lookout. Or spy. Likely it's me, given the description."

She glanced at him and away, but asked nothing further. She paged back in his journal. He twitched, as if to stop her, then checked himself. The journal recorded her exploits, and he shouldn't mind if she learned what he made of them. She paused at his drawing of the bones of the Master, broken on the library study table, in pen and ink and wash. And then his description of their final disposition in sacred ground.

"This is good," she said, tapping the page. He recognized it for a delaying tactic and kept his peace. She would reach her conclusions sooner without his interference.

Eventually, she said, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why sacrifice people?"

"Desperation. The Aztecs believed the sun would not return if they failed to sacrifice. In this case, the cult probably believes they are preventing earthquakes. They fear the Earthshaker will consume Los Angeles."

Buffy made a face at him. "That's silly."

"I'm afraid it isn't. The earth god has many names, but the bull is one of his manifestations. He is quite real, Buffy. A-and he can cause earthquakes if he wishes."

"Yeah, okay. I can buy that. A year ago, no way. But now? With everything I've seen? I believe it." She looked down at his journal open on the table in front of her. "Everything they ever taught me was wrong."

Giles busied himself with his glass of tea. With this, he could not argue.

"But... I ask again, why? What good does sacrificing people do?"

"Ah. Blood and soul. Blood is life, and life is power. With blood, you can work strong magic. It is how vampires live. And if you are willing to play with souls, if you are that black, there is great power in the moment a soul is ripped from a body. Demons drink that deeply. And it's like wine to the gods of the underworld. They will step between the worlds to taste it."

Giles looked at her, sitting luminous and graceful at the kitchen counter. "The force of life is so strong in you, Buffy. In any Slayer. Because of what you were given when you were made a Slayer. Many beings crave your blood. Vampires. Other demons. And these men, these cultists."

Though men sacrificing humans to gods did not always awaken what they imagined they would. Sometimes they invoked a god to find they'd summoned a demon. A demon whom they'd unwittingly granted power over themselves. Giles ground his teeth. He'd been that foolish once, and lived with the memory of it every day.

Buffy turned and studied his face carefully. He schooled his expression back into calmness. "So they want to sacrifice a Slayer."

"According to the prophecy."

"When is this living sacrifice thing supposed to happen?"

"Solstice," Giles said, putting down his drink.

"That's the twenty first?"

"At a bit past eight in the morning. So we have until the evening of the twentieth."

"One week."

"Yes."

Buffy handed him back the Codex and his journal. He tucked them away in his leather attache.

"I should go find myself a motel--"

"My dad's in Taos all week. He left last night." Buffy rolled her eyes. "My mom would so have a conniption if she knew. I'm not supposed to have unstructured time until I demonstrate I'm responsible." Giles met her glance; a more responsible teen it would be difficult to imagine.

She continued. "But anyway, you can sleep here. Till Friday."

Giles nodded uncertainly. He went out to his car to fetch his bag from the boot. The infernal glare, on tarmac and car roofs, on glass. So much hotter here than it was in Sunnydale, on its sheltered south-facing coast. Buffy's father's house was a relief, with its air conditioning and slat-shaded windows. He carried his bag in and closed the door on the glare.

"Buffy?"

"In my room."

He followed her voice down the hall to a room in the eastern corner of the house. It contained a double bed, a sofa, a dresser, and his Slayer. The decorator hadn't touched this room; the furniture was an assortment of leftovers. The windows were open onto the yard, to sunlight and the smell of eucalyptus. It felt almost livable. His Slayer was brushing her hair, gravely inspecting herself in the mirror over the dresser. He opened his his bag and took out a dozen stakes, from the stock he'd made for her.

"Stakes," he said, and cleared his throat.

She took them from him and hefted one, gripped it, made a few test plunges. "Why are your stakes always better? Xander whittles 'em for me, but they don't feel right."

"Because I'm your Watcher." He tucked himself down onto the sofa and watched her dance with her stake. Not karate, empty-hand, meant for show. Her hands were meant to hold weapons. Swords and stakes. The martial art of the Slayers. Meant to kill.

"How does that make your stakes better?"

Sometimes Giles forgot that Buffy was feral. The display of grace before him now, so deadly, so pure, so much better than any he'd seen from another Slayer. He could forget everything when he watched her fight. But how was he to explain this so she understood?

"I was dedicated to your service. When we learned you needed a new Watcher. I have a connection with you, an affinity. There are certain things only I can do for you. And other things I will always do better than others. There's a, a, a prayer, an incantation, that I say, as I carve. It, ah, makes them yours."

She came to a smooth halt with the stake at her eye level, poised for an overhand thrust. She held the position for a second, then relaxed. "Dedicated. Creepy mystical stuff, huh?"

"Fasting, ritual purification, and creepy religious stuff, yes." Creepy was a better word for it than she knew. It still made the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end, to recall the experience of being accepted and taught by the god himself, deep in the Watcher shrine. Of emerging to sensation and shock among his peers, that he had been chosen to serve, the tainted man beloved of Apollo after all.

"That's all it takes to make a Watcher?"

Giles smiled faintly. "That, and the twenty years of study."

Buffy was silent. She sat on the sofa, in the corner opposite him, and curled her bare feet under herself. She examined the stake he'd carved for her, ran her fingers along the bare wood of the pointed end. "It belongs to me. It won't slip out of my hand. It won't break. It will almost come when I call it. And all because you chanted when you made it?"

Giles nodded. She eyed him speculatively. "There's a lot I don't know yet about what your job is, I'm guessing."

His smile grew to an outright smirk. "The handbook is in my office, if you ever change your mind about reading it."

"Nah. I'll just make you tell me. More efficient. Wanna get some dinner?"

They had Mexican for dinner, at a little place Buffy directed him to, near the beach. They sat at benches at long tables covered in deep blue tiles. Painted wooden fish hung from the ceiling. Custom was light. Two tables over, a pair of middle-aged Hispanic men in straw hats drank their way through a bottle of añejo. The slow-setting sun glowed in through the west-facing windows. Giles ate tamales with black beans and green chiles and a ferocious salsa. He could not get a decent curry in this country, but the spice of habanero and jalapeño more than compensated. Sweat dripped from his forehead and he smiled in endorphin-stoned pleasure. Buffy rolled rice and beans and fish into corn tortillas and smiled with him. He drank tequila straight. It was complex and straightforwardly rough on his tongue, sharp and smooth going down.

Buffy watched him closely. He had a second drink, to numb his urge to writhe under the twin points of that stare. And to give himself courage. He knew what he'd have to discuss with her before the evening was over.



Afterward they walked west, toward the Pacific, descended steps toward the beach. This, unlike Sunnydale's rocky coastline, was the California of the movies. Palm trees and convertibles and flat stretches of pale sand warm under his bare feet. Giles held his trainers in one hand, socks tucked into them, and followed Buffy down to the water. The tide had turned and was on the way in, successive waves pushing kelp and foam further and further up the sand. The orange sun glowed on the water, but it was sinking fast. The air cooled. The tequila was still hot in his blood.

"Beach is lousy with vamps after sundown," Buffy told him. "Venice is worse, but we get a bunch here too. Feeding on the homeless. Though not so much the last few nights. I think word is out."

They walked south along the beach in gathering dark. Buffy's white shirt was luminous against the deep rippling blue of the ocean.

"So. What makes a chick not a virgin any more?"

Giles answered the question with dust and ink in his voice. "The prophecy is ancient. The sense of the description would have been traditional."

"So fooling around doesn't count."

"No."

Buffy turned and walked up the smooth stretch of beach, away from the water surging up and hissing back. Giles tread in her footprints. She chose a spot on the sand about ten feet up from the high water mark, seemingly at random. She sat, facing the ocean. Giles hovered for a moment, then sat next to her. Six carefully-judged inches between them, closer than he would ever have dared sit with anyone else. She'd never seemed to mind, or even to notice.

He leaned back on his elbows and listened to Los Angeles at dusk. Traffic. The shouts of three teenagers on their way past, tossing a frisbee. A runner heading north, at the water's edge, breathing hard. Two surfers, dark dots bobbing in the water, calling to each other. The rush and ebb of the waves, hissing closer up the slope of the beach.

"Giles, what's the deal with these prophecies?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if I'm supposed to subvert it? Go there as a virgin and make it end differently? Having my heart eaten might be metaphorical."

"I thought about that. There isn't much leeway."

"Literal virginity. Literal heart-eating. I'm not so into that."

Giles wasn't either. He'd been with her less than six months, and already he knew he could not sacrifice her. Despite everything they'd ever taught him about how Slayers were sacred, set apart. Not meant for men. Meant to die this way. He found his voice. "My suggestion is th-th-that you make sure it can't apply to you."

"You mean lose my virginity."

"Forgive me, yes."

Buffy flopped back onto the sand. "You know, adults are supposed to say the opposite. Don't let anyone so much as kiss you until you're thirty!"

Giles made no reply. She sat up again and sighed.

"So I have until Friday night to find somebody to do it with."

"Sooner would be better."

"I was, uh, kinda ahead of you on this. Last night I tried to get in touch with this guy I used to know. My boyfriend, I guess, after the Slaying wrecked my life the first time. Pike. He was in Vegas last I heard. Numbers didn't work."

Buffy pulled a dried piece of seaweed from the sand between them. "We almost did it once. I was ready to. Only he passed out. Pike drinks a lot. Drank. I don't know any more."

He pushed his feet into the cool sand. The day's heat was no longer memory. Every word out of her mouth was a step further along the path he'd seen in front of him when he'd first read the prophecy.

"Here's a thing I don't get. If I dodge this prophecy by making myself not qualify for it, aren't I just dooming some other Slayer? Some other girl is going to get sacrificed because I wasn't?"

"If the prophecy was meant to apply to you, you wouldn't be able to avert it. There'd be some reason why you couldn't, er." He paused, then blurted, "And I don't care. It's my duty to save you. Keep you safe. Not some future Slayer. Just you."

The surfers swam to shore and carried their boards out of the water. They walked up the beach, wetsuits streaming with water. Giles watched them both take sneaking looks at Buffy on their way past. He sat up and hugged his knees to his chest. The sun had vanished entirely, leaving only red-stained clouds to the west.

"We could call Angel," he said to her.

Buffy's mouth twitched, and her expression changed. Giles couldn't make out what she was feeling. "We're kinda moving in that direction, but we're not there yet. This is... this isn't for him." Another sigh. "You know it's going to be you, don't you."

Giles said nothing.

In his duffle, inside the toe of a pair of athletic socks, was a fistful of condoms. A variety pack. Colored, flavored, plain, lubricated and not. He'd gone to the sex shop near the campus and bought them that morning. He'd told himself that Buffy would need them, and she would appreciate not having to buy them herself. There was no telling if the young man she chose would be responsible on his own. Or so he'd told himself. Now he understood that this moment had been inevitable, since he'd first read the prophecy in the Codex.

His oath, the one he'd sworn and sealed with his own soul's blood when he was dedicated to her: that oath had been to her. To her, not the Watchers or the gods. To guide and defend her with all he was. She'd already died once under his care. No more. Tradition and custom and law were set in conflict with that oath. And with his affection for her.

Now he would see where this path before him led. See his end. His stomach dropped away; his head spun. The tequila had faded, leaving only his oath and his fate coursing through him.

Buffy knelt up on the sand and turned to face him. "You're not arguing with me."

"What I said about duty. And dedication. I'll do anything to keep you safe. And I will do this for you." He'd done it. Iacta alea est.

"Giles--" Buffy trailed off, and left whatever it was unsaid. She stood, and stuck out a hand to him. He gripped it, and she pulled him up. She went around behind him and smacked sand from the seat of his jeans. Giles allowed the intimacy; it was a taste of what was to come between them. He followed her up the beach and to the parking lot where they'd left the car.

They sat side by side on a bench. Giles brushed sand from his feet and pulled on his socks. The bench faced east, toward the haze-blurred hills. The moon, gibbous and waxing, had crept into view. It shimmered red through the miles of sun-heated air. Watching him. The Slayer's virginity was sacred to its goddess. Would losing it lose Buffy her favor? Would taking it earn Giles her enmity? Would she even notice? The Watchers might, and he knew what they would make of his temerity. His hubris. His life would be forfeit if the Watchers learned what he proposed to do in her defense. And they would, eventually. He shivered.

Buffy looked up from the laces of her sneakers. "It'll be okay, Giles. You're my Watcher. You'll make it all right for me, I know it."

He almost laughed aloud at the irony. "I will. Buffy? May I ask a favor? Could we wait until the morning?" He didn't want the goddess watching them.

"Sunlight. Yeah. Okay." She didn't understand, but that was fine. He would not be able to explain to a Christian what troubled him.

"Come on," she said, and she led him not to the car, but to the alleyways stinking with rubbish tips, the places where the streetlamps had burnt out, where the chainlink fences had been torn open, behind the back of the city. She hunted, and Giles shadowed her. She was everything he'd dreamed she could be, every fantasy he'd ever had of what his Slayer might be. Canny, graceful, bold. Her form wasn't perfect, and she had much to learn about tactics and planning, but that was his task, and they had time. He could teach her. Giles followed his Slayer, stake in hand, and Watched.

She had an agenda, a list of places to check. Together they canvassed a section of downtown Redondo Beach, and staked four vampires. Buffy brushed the dust of the fourth from her hands, and turned to him with satisfaction in her face. "That's it. Nobody else around. They're staying away from me. I'm gonna get you to drive me to Venice tomorrow night, 'cause I know there are more there."

Giles assented. The Slayer was drawn to the hunt, as always.

They walked back to his car. The sweat from the chase and the exertion of the last fight cooled on his face. Buffy rearranged her hair as she walked. He watched her under his eyelashes, let himself look at her bare arms raised, at her slim body. So tiny. So powerful. Giles opened the passenger door for her. She nimbly slipped under his arm and into the seat. He got in next to her and drove. He stopped at a traffic light, in a line of cars. She was quiet next to him. Her face was still and serious, thinking about something. Giles had no idea what.

He pulled into Buffy's driveway this time, now that he knew her father was away. He turned off the engine and listened to the metal tick. He was starting to feel nervous, now that he knew he'd be going through with it. Even if she weren't the Slayer, and sacred, even if she'd just been an ordinary girl, he'd be sick with nerves. He'd been that way in school, with his first protege.

She had already climbed out of the car, and was unlocking her front door. He pulled his shoulders back, and followed her in. He found her in the kitchen, listening to a cheerful phone message from a male voice. She poked at the answering machine and told him, "My dad. Telling me he bought me more jewelry in Taos. He gave me all this silver stuff after his trip last week."

She would look better in gold, Giles thought. Gold and green. But he held his tongue.

"There's dust in places I don't want to mention, and I'm sore. Let's do some hot-tubbing. Mellow out for a while. Did you bring your suit?"

"Mmm."

"Though hey, doesn't matter! We're gonna get naked together anyway."

"Buffy--"

She was grinning at him. "But for the sake of the neighbors, get your suit on and let's soak."

Giles changed in the bathroom. He pulled on the ragged long-sleeved t-shirt he'd brought for this purpose, the one with the age-faded Fender logo. He joined her on the back deck, moving timidly. She was in a bikini. He slid his eyes away. Looked at her bare feet, brown on the pale decking. She'd polished her toenails with something that glittered in the light reflected up from the tub.

She stepped up to him and tugged at the hem of his t-shirt. "Giles. What is this? Take it off."

It was silly. Tomorrow he'd be showing her far more of himself. He bent to allow her to pull his shirt over his head. She studied his chest until he crossed his arms nervously. He knew he had nothing to be ashamed of. He had the muscle any Watcher had, sharpened in recent months by the rigors of training with her. The hair on his chest had begun to gray, his belly to soften, but he wasn't ashamed of that, either. He was ashamed of what his hand covered on the inside of his left elbow.

She hadn't noticed it, for she did not comment on it. She drew him over to the tub and pulled him into the water after her. The water was hot, frothing from the jets she'd turned on, flickering with blue lights from below. He imitated her, and submerged himself to the chin.

Giles moaned in pleasure. "Gods! This is good."

"Told you."

He let his feet drift off the bottom and leaned back. The muscles in his shoulders and neck were in knots and had been since she'd told him of these dreams. No, he had to be honest. For weeks. Since he'd first learned of the prophecy of the Master and the child. He tipped his head back against the edge of the tub and sighed. England wasn't much of a country for outdoor baths. There were public baths, but Giles avoided them. Had done so since the incident. His hand moved to the inside of his elbow again, but he forced it away.

Buffy moved to the far side of the tub and pushed at a switch. The jets subsided, and the water quieted. Giles straightened on the seat to cool his chest and shoulders. He'd begun to sweat a little.

Buffy slid down under the water again. "That was a whacky prophecy. Almost like poetry."

"It is poetry in the Greek. Strict form."

"Is translating stuff hard?"

"Depends. I'm fluent in Latin and Greek, but the idioms can be difficult. And connotation is always tricky."

"We were studying that in class. Shakespeare. Sometimes words meant slightly different things to him than to us. Or they are supposed to remind you of something different."

"Mm. Yes. Connotations change as the culture changes."

Buffy turned a sharp gaze on him, and Giles shifted uneasily in the water. "And sometimes they stay. Like know. The word know. It said I haven't known men. But the Watcher has. And demons. What does that mean?"

Giles hesitated for a moment, then took a resolution. "What you think it does."

"You had sex with guys. And with demons?"

"A single demon, as far as I know."

"Jeez, that's gross. How could you get near a demon?"

"You've kissed Angel, you said."

"Yeah but that's diff-- Oh. Oh." Buffy worked this one through. "Was it a vampire?"

"No. I'm... not comfortable talking about it. It went badly. It usually does. Human and demons aren't, aren't... meant to be together." Giles had had to kill to deal with the consequences. It had been the first time he'd taken human life, but not the last. Not the last. His hand drifted to the inside of his elbow. He'd tried to scratch off the tattoo, while he'd been captive, and in the days after. It couldn't be marred. He'd paid, oh how he'd paid, for that mistake.

"Okay, one demon, who we won't talk about any more. How many guys?"

Giles laughed nearly silently. "I lost count long ago." At her shocked stare, "I had a wild period, after university. I slept with anyone who would have me."

"Anyone?"

"Yes. Men and women both."

"Woah. Mister wild man."

"When I was younger. I came to believe it wasn't something I should be so casual about. Or perhaps it was that intimacy mattered more than pleasure, and intimacy... shouldn't be casual."

He glanced sidelong at Buffy. He didn't expect a girl her age to understand it. Or for a Slayer ever to understand it. Her leap over the bull's horns was a thing of power and grace, but it was brief. He wished for her to taste all the pleasure she wanted, while she was in flight.

He let himself look at her, at the figure so small and so alive across from him in the water. She wasn't beautiful to him. Not yet. She'd begun the transformation from girl to woman that would make her beautiful, to lose the childish roundness of her face and sharpen to her adult form. She would not have long to achieve it; just two more years and then the Watchers would--

And what did his oath to his Slayer say about that tradition? Giles tried to push the thought aside, but he knew. Already he knew.

The Watchers could go hang. They hadn't told him what it would be like, what she would be like, what he would come to feel for her in the very first week. Though he'd been told this moment might come, oddly. The god-- The god had said something. Memory returned, in a spinning crystalline moment of certainty. The god had said he would find no satisfaction with men, had told him he would only truly know his Slayer. Had commanded him to love her, and give her life.

Giles pushed himself up and out of the tub in one frantic surge. Buffy came alert and stared at him. He got control of himself and sat on the edge of the tub and trembled.

"You okay?"

"Yes, yes. Just a bit overheated."

"Don't lie to me. You're freaked." She laid a hand on his knee and he flinched. "Is it because I'm so much younger?"

Giles shook his head; she'd misunderstood, and he didn't know how to explain. "No, that's not a problem at all." His salvation, in fact, because it allowed him familiar custom as his guide. He breathed himself down. "Where I come from, it's... normal. No. It's because you're the Slayer. It's forbidden. Beyond forbidden. But I mean what I said earlier. I will do this."

He considered her, once again relaxed and floating on her back in the water. He tried again to see her as a man might, not as a Watcher did. It was difficult. Grace radiated from her, and power. The sign of the god's favor. It was Buffy that he loved, though, not the Slayer. Buffy who'd charmed him and made him laugh when he least expected to. The god had said she would. Had said a number of things that tickled now at the back of his memory.

"Did you know that you're special to Apollo?"

"No. Does he even exist?"

Giles laughed. "Yes. Oh, yes. The gods exist, Buffy. This is another place where you were taught lies. Apollo exists, and you are special to him."

"Because I'm a Slayer?"

"Partly. All Slayers are blessed by him, because he's the god of the sun. But you specifically. He told me so. Told me to keep you alive. He spoke to me, when I was chosen as your Watcher."

"I am... so not believing this, really."

"I don't suppose it matters if you do," Giles said, softly. He felt chilly now, in the night air.

Buffy said, "But you believe it. I've learned to believe you. To trust you. I think... I think that's why it has to be you, not Angel. I trust you more than anybody. All the way down. You're like... you're like the stakes. You have to do right by me, don't you."

Giles shivered. "Yes."

"So. It's you. Come on back in the water."

She held out a hand to him. He took it and allowed her to pull him back into the warmth. His shivers stopped. She sat close to him in the water, and the conversation turned to lighter matters. She asked what he'd made of her fighting earlier in the evening, and he told her. They discussed technique for a time, the concepts of using your opponent's momentum to defeat him. Of inertia, and the difficulties of changing direction, and of using centered stances to preserve her flexibility while luring the vampire into committing to an action. She was intent on his words and on his hands gesturing, as she had never before been when he talked about tactics. Perhaps some part of her had disbelieved the whole thing, had been convinced it was all a dream, until the Master had drunk from her. She had changed, Giles was convinced, in some fundamental way.

Buffy eventually sighed and stretched. "Well, I'm cooked. You?"

"A limp noodle."

"Well, let's pour peanut sauce over us and serve us chilled, then." She launched herself out of the tub with a single hand planted on the edge. Giles marveled, as always, to watch her move. They didn't tell them, likely couldn't tell them, what it would be like to be so close to such divinity, to the power of the gods in the flesh of a girl. A girl who treated it casually, as if it were no more wondrous than the fact of the sun's rising in the morning.

Buffy handed him a thick towel, and Giles shook himself out of his daze.

He refused to sleep in her father's bed, though she offered it. Instead he stretched himself along the sofa in her room, modestly clad in sweatpants and a t-shirt. He lay listening to the quiet sounds of deep night. Her breathing, slow and steady in her sleep. The hiss of the ever-present traffic, faint with distance.

She trusted him. He wouldn't trust himself. He'd wavered and fallen and spent as many years as she'd been alive branded by his error, his selfish pursuit of a moment's sexual thrill. But she was right. For her, he would rise above himself. In the morning, he would make love to her, and on the Solstice, she would not be offered to the bull god. And on her eighteenth birthday, she would not be offered to Artemis. He'd offer himself instead. And if she died, it would be because he had died first, facing her enemies. Thus he would fulfill his oath, sworn to his god Apollo and to her. This decision brought him peace, and Giles let himself sleep.


Continued in part 2.