TITLE: Anchor (Part 1/16)
AUTHOR: Kerry Blackwell
PAIRING: Genfic - B/S and X/A as on the show
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Through "Wrecked" on Buffy and "Dad" on Angel
TIMELINE: Imagine it's about six weeks after those episodes and the ones we saw didn't happen.
DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy and Angel belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, UPN, FOX and Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. I own only my genius (yeah, right!)
DISTRIBUTION: My site - White Hats - http://www.whitehats.co.nz (as soon as I'm well enough to code it and upload it) Any one else please ask first
FEEDBACK: Yes please!
THANKS: To Sarah for her editing assistance, and to Sarah and Ang for being ready to brainstorm with me when I begged appropriately.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I started this after seeing "Wrecked" and "Dad". My take on what could have happened next. It got totally Jossed immediately of course and since it takes me a long time to write anything, it got more and more AU as time went by. I had hoped to post it in the break, before anything _more_ happened, but I didn't manage it. Anyway, here it is. Just forget what happened after those two episodes and read my version. Please...

"We're a goddamn detective agency!" Angel roared, trying but failing to keep his voice steady. "How the hell could this happen?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Fred was crying, her tears making tracks across the grime on her face and mixing with the blood welling from a cut on her lip.

Angel tried to push down the anger and think beyond the terror. It was a gut-wrenching, paralysing fear that was stopping him from thinking straight. He wanted to comfort her, but he suddenly didn't know how, couldn't force any words or assurances past a hundred other churning emotions that were overwhelming him.

He was saved by Cordelia, as he so often was. She had collected the ever-ready first aid kit from the office and was trying to pull Fred's hands away from her face so she could start cleaning away the dirt. Fred resisted for a moment, then let her hands fall into her lap. "Of course Angel knows it wasn't your fault," Cordelia said firmly. She glanced up to glare at the vampire. "Don't you, Angel?" she asked dangerously.

He nodded curtly, not daring to speak in case he said something he'd regret. Suddenly, everyone else's emotions were too much for him and he strode from the room, wishing he had something to kill. Preferably very slowly and very painfully.

"I'm sorry," Fred whispered again. "I… I _had_ to go out, and… and get _stuff_." She threw Cordelia a desperate look. "_You_ know, girl stuff. And I thought Angel wouldn't want me to leave him behind. So I took him with me." She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "And then the vampires came, and…" Her voice trailed off into silence, and Cordelia raised the washcloth to wipe new tears from her cheeks.

Wesley knelt down in front of Fred's chair, so that his eyes were level with hers. He took both her hands in his, acutely aware that they were still shaking. "It wasn't your fault," he said firmly.

"Yes," Fred insisted miserably.

"No," Wesley repeated. "Could you leave him here all by himself?"

She shook her head in silence.

"Were you careful?"

A nod.

"How many vampires?"

Fred tilted her head sideways, thinking about the answer. "Four," she said finally. "And there was at least one other across the street. They gave…" Her voice trailed off and she swallowed convulsively. "They gave Connor to that one."

"At least five vampires," Wesley pointed out gently. "Even a Slayer would have trouble with five vampires."

"But Angel's so mad at me," Fred said unhappily, further tears welling in her eyes.

Wesley shook his head. "No, he's not."

"He's mad," Fred repeated stubbornly.

Cordelia rolled her eyes, a 'duh!' expression on her face that fortunately Fred didn't see. "Of course he's mad," she agreed. "But he's not mad at you." Finished cleaning Fred's face, she put the cloth down and started rummaging through the first aid kit to find something for the cut on Fred's lip. "The most important person in his life has just been stolen from him," she continued. "He's beyond mad. He's mad at the vampires, he's mad at himself, he's mad at the entire universe in general. But he's _not_ mad at _you_."

Fred considered that for a moment, while Cordelia dabbed ointment on her lip. "What do we do now?" she asked finally.

"We find him," Wesley said simply.

Cordelia nodded as she packed the first aid kit up again. "And we get him back," she finished firmly.

Buffy swung through Parkrest Cemetery in a wide arc, making a last sweep as she made her way home from Spike's crypt. Once again, she'd promised herself no more Spike. But in some moment when she hadn't been paying attention her guard had slipped. So here she was, limping home after another marathon sex session with Spike that she had sworn was never going to happen again.

The thing was – it was _good_. Spike was an amazing lover; he made her feel things she hadn't known she could fell. And that was what made her keep going back. He made her _feel_. With him, she could be herself, even if she didn't know exactly who it was she might be right now. There was no need to hold back her strength or to reign in her hurt, her pain and her anger. He could swallow it all, take it all away and make her feel in return. In his arms, moving against him, feeling him moving inside her, she felt _alive_ in a way she hadn't done since Willow and the others had raised her from her grave.

But as good as it might feel, it was also bad.

It wasn't right that it should take a dead man to make her feel alive. It was crazy, highly ironic and typical of her life, but it wasn't right. Surely there had to be more, something _better_ to hold her to this unwanted third chance at life. Something to make her feel alive that wasn't itself dead.

Buffy paused, hearing voices from the other side of the nearest mausoleum. There was something familiar about one of them; high pitched and petulant. The others were male, dull and slow, and they made that place inside her burn, the one that screamed _vampire_.

_Minions,_ Buffy thought in disgust. _That's all I need._

She dropped into a crouch and made her way carefully around the tomb. It took her a moment to separate out the different figures. There were four minions, gathered round a woman. Tallish, blonde and clearly convinced of her own self-importance, it took Buffy only seconds to recognise her.

Harmony Kendall.

Buffy grimaced. _Could my night possibly get any worse?_

The vampires were distracted, their attention focussed on something Harmony was holding in her arms, and Buffy took the opportunity to crawl closer, still safely under the cover of the headstones.

From this distance, she could see that Harmony was holding some kind of bundle, wrapped in a dirty blue blanket. The bundle moved and Buffy felt her stomach start doing flip-flops as possibilities flew through her mind.

Then it cried, and Buffy's stomach churned as realisation hit. It was a _baby_. What was Harmony doing with a baby? More importantly, what was Harmony going to do _to_ a baby?

The child continued to cry, great hiccupping sobs that made Harmony frown. "Hush, baby," she begged awkwardly, trying to sound gentle. Her words had little effect and the crying continued, a thin desolate wail that cut through the night.

_I'd be terrified, too,_ Buffy thought, _if all I could see was Harmony's ugly face._

"Shhh," Harmony repeated, her voice sharper now. When that had no effect, irritation caused her face to shift automatically and she glared down at the child in her arms, all distorted features and fangs.

To Buffy's amazement – and clearly Harmony's as well – that was what it took to stop the baby crying. It gave a last hiccup and settled into silence.

"That's better," Harmony murmured. "You like vampires, do you, little baby? Maybe I'll sell you to them, then." She smiled, and the baby chortled quietly, clearly not understanding that the woman holding it looked like she was contemplating eating it. "Then again, those lawyers have more money," she continued thoughtfully. "I think we'll stick with the highest bidder plan."

Buffy nearly choked. Sell? Highest bidder? Harmony was planning to _auction_ a _baby_? Her stake was already in her hand; she shifted it into a better grip and quickly checked her backups with her other hand. Satisfied, she rechecked the positions of Harmony and her minions, working out the most effective way to take them all out.

If she wasn't going to have Spike gambling with kittens, she sure as hell wasn't going to let Harmony Kendall auction a baby.

Despite the much vaunted power of vampire hearing, none of them heard her coming. She easily took out two minions with her first charge. Each dissolved into dust with a surprised look on his face as she drove her stake home into first one chest and then, with her back swing, into the other. The third did try to put up a fight, but that was mostly because Harmony was standing there, screaming shrilly, "Kill her!"

He was only a fledgling, probably no more than a few days old, and he still fought like the nerdy college student it was clear he had been before he died. A couple of sweeping kicks and a good, solid blow to the jaw and he was on his back on the grass. All Buffy had to do was lean down and drive her stake home and he was ash on the grass. She looked up, already poised to fight again, and found the fourth minion staring at her, a terrified expression on his distorted face.

"Slayer." He stared, swallowed, and turned to run. Buffy stretched out a leg and tripped him easily. He crashed heavily to the ground with all the grace of a felled tree.

"It's always the big ones who are the dumbest," Buffy commented and, with a single, swiftly economical movement, staked him though the back.

That left Buffy, Harmony and the baby.

For an instant, Buffy thought Harmony might put up a fight. Thenshe reverted to form and chose running away instead.

"You want the baby?" she hissed. With an abrupt flick of her arms, she tossed the blanket wrapped bundle in Buffy's direction. "Then take the baby!"

Slayer reflexes kicked in immediately. Buffy was snatching the falling shape out of the air almost before Harmony could turn and flee. The child began to scream in earnest. This was beyond discomfort or confusion or even fear. This was full blown terror, being cried out with all the capacity its little lungs could manage.

Buffy shifted the child into a safer grip in her left arm, raised her right hand and spun her stake through the air towards Harmony's retreating figure. Her aim was true and the force of the throw exactly what was required to plunge the wood through the running woman's back and into her heart. For an instant, the outline of Harmony's running form hung, unmoving, in mid-air, before the dust dropped to the ground and she was gone.

"And good riddance," Buffy muttered, walking over to check the grass on the off chance her stake had survived the dusting. Ash swirled and settled on her shoes and she grimaced. "Trust Harmony to make one final attack on my fashion status." A quick glance showed the stake was gone. She sighed. "At least it wasn't Mr Pointy."

The baby continued to scream. And scream. And scream.

Not sure what else to do, she started walking home, murmuring endearments that had no effect on the crying child. Buffy felt like a walking siren, attracting every evil – or even plain human and curious – creature within a ten mile radius. She wanted to get the pair of them safely home, inside and away from danger. Her walk soon turned into a jog, and when she was confident she wasn't going to drop the baby, into a run.

The baby kept right on crying.

Giles wasn't really sure why he was reading this particular book. Unlike the enormous collection of research volumes around him, both ancient and modern, that all had a touch of wisdom and class, this was a garish little paperback a friend had given him not long after he returned to Bath.

Here he was, with one of the better private occult collections in the country, possibly even in the world, and he was reading some pop psychology trash a mate he hadn't seen for seven years thought might help him 'readjust' after the horrors of living in America.

He was resolving to put it down for about the tenth time, or possibly even throw it away and find something 'real' to read, when the doorbell rang. He grabbed the nearest thing he could find – it turned out to be his latest letter from Dawn – and hurriedly used it to mark his page. Leaving the book on the arm of the chair, he went to answer the door.

Giles managed to get rid of the collector for the RSPCA by handing over his last fiver and swearing blind that he was a die-hard animal lover. The young woman seemed disappointed by his paltry donation, but he resisted the urge to pull out his pockets, just to prove there wasn't anything else in them for her stray cats. She eventually rolled her eyes – making him feel more at home than he had since the day he'd left Sunnydale – and moved back off the doorstep so that he could close the door.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back sitting in his chair, a cup of newly brewed tea in his hand. He set the cup and saucer on the small side table and leaned back, managing to knock the paperback to the floor as he did so. Dawn's letter fluttered loose and settled on the rug beside the fireplace; the book landed on its spine and then toppled slowly onto its front, leaving him staring at the back, snippets of glowing praise from so-called experts shouting at him in a horrible pink script.

With a sigh, he stood and retrieved Dawn's letter. He refolded the pages carefully and set it on the mantelpiece. He didn't need to read it again. He knew what it said, almost word for word.

_Willow broke my arm._

His heart had almost stopped when he'd first read that. He still couldn't decide if the reality of what had happened was better or worse that his immediate image of Willow physically breaking bone and flesh.

_Xander and Anya are squabbling about the wedding._

No surprise there. Squabbling – he wondered idly if Dawn had picked up the word from him since it didn't sound particularly American – was what Xander and Anya did best. They were an odd couple perhaps, but they were also two people who clearly loved each other very much. So long as they survived the wedding, they should be able to survive anything.

_Buffy is ignoring me._

That worried him a great deal, both for the hurt so evident in Dawn's scrawled words and for what it meant for Buffy herself. Buffy had been ready to die for her sister, but now she didn't appear to be able to deal with the responsibilities inherent in Dawn's simple presence in her life. Dawn had been enough to die for, but she no longer appeared to be enough for Buffy to live for. The realisation brought back the nagging question that constantly haunted him. _Was I wrong to leave?_

_She keeps fighting monsters and coming home hurt and says it's nothing._

His heart had leaped into his throat as he read that, and even just remembering the words made his breath catch again.

He found himself recalling Buffy telling him about the 'lesson' she had demanded from Spike a year earlier; that, at bottom, all a vampire needed to kill the Slayer was _One Good Day_. Buffy was having so many bad days at presence that he was horribly afraid some vampire was going to get its fondest wish. It wasn't like her to come home injured the way Dawn had described. The odd cut and scrape, even an occasional broken or dislocated bone was to be expected but not constantly 'sore and limpy' and refusing to talk about it.

As always, a part of him wanted to ring his travel agent now, damn the hour, and get a seat on the first flight back to LA and Sunnydale. A very big part of himself, if he was to be honest. But as he always did, he stopped before reaching for the phone. All his reasons for leaving were still valid, and he and Buffy had parted on such bad terms that he was afraid his returning might just make everything so very much worse.

He sighed, bending down to pick up the book, and wished yet again for a bolt of illuminating lightning or even a bang around the head with a large block of wood – although preferably of the enlightening rather than concussing kind.

He sank back into his chair and opened the book to a page at random.

And wondered if the lightning had hit and he had failed to notice.

The paperback had opened at a new chapter, further through the book than where Giles had been browsing before. It was titled "Anchoring", something it was impossible to miss, given the size and weight of the lettering used to title the chapter. Just in case the reader hadn't been paying attention, there was also a stylised ship's anchor printed in blue in each corner of the page. Giles' lips twitched at the pretension of it all – give him a nice old volume bound in animal hide and written in some indecipherable and archaic language over this trash any day. All the same, he started reading.

_After any life-altering event, such as loss and grief, serious or chronic illness, or some other major trauma either physical or emotional, an individual may loose his or her sense of what holds them to this world._

_To rediscover a sense of place and balance in their existence, the individual must re-establish his or her connection to what anchors them in life. Without such an anchor, life is likely to have little meaning or purpose. If a previous anchor is no longer available or no longer sufficient, a new one must be found._

_Once a sense of anchoring is re-established, the individual is likely to feel less buffeted by people and events and more able to take some form of control over their life again._

Giles closed the book thoughtfully. It went on to list pages and pages of suggestions and metal exercises to re-establish one's anchor, which he ignored completely. A quick skim of the first few paragraphs made him dismiss them as both embarrassing and unlikely to be helpful.

Besides, if the book had a single pearl of wisdom within its covers, he had already been granted the gift of it.

Much as it went against the grain to admit it, the little pop psychology book was right. Buffy needed something to anchor her in the world again. She had found something – or rather someone – to die for, and under normal circumstances, that would have been the end of it all. Giles' heart still ached when he remembered that awful summer, with Buffy dead and buried while the rest of them tried to pretend everything was all right.

It was not Buffy's fault that she had not been left to rest in peace as she so richly deserved – and Giles still occasionally had to suppress the urge to strangle Willow if he thought about it too hard. Nor could she be blamed for her failure to bounce back to being the old Buffy they all loved and remembered.

She was anchorless in the big, bad world, carrying with her every waking moment the memory of heaven.

He hadn't thought there could possibly be anything worse than that terrible summer; not until he had been forced to watch Buffy self-destructing before his very eyes, and had come to realise that his presence was only making things worse, when all he wanted to do was make everything all right for her again.

Anchor.

Buffy had found a purpose to die for, but she still hadn't found something strong enough to maker her ready to fight to live.

If Dawn was not enough, not the Scoobies or himself or even Angel, then he didn't know what was.

Giles would die for Buffy, but he had no idea how to make her want to live.

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