Title: ...In All the World
Series: Magic Season (6/12)
Author: Kerry Blackwell-Dustin
Email: magicbox@whitehats.co.nz
Pairing: B/G, W/T, S/Dawn
Further disclaimers etc in part 0
There were large goldfish nibbling at Giles' toes. Or they might be penguins, he couldn't quite be certain. Whenever he levered himself up on his elbows to look they changed; black and white tuxedos to gold and orange scales and back again.
He was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming - it had been part of his training to know such things. Unfortunately, he had never completely mastered the part where he was supposed to be able to take control of the dream and shape it to his wish. He had no idea why his subconscious had decided to conjure penguins and goldfish, but they were very vivid, all bright and sparkly and rather pretty. They were also giggling.
Blearily, Giles opened his eyes, not quite able to believe he'd fallen asleep on the sofa. He really must be getting old at last.
His return to consciousness banished both goldfish and penguins back to the recesses of his subconscious where they belonged, but it didn't get rid of the giggling. He raised his head cautiously, a little afraid of what he might see.
Buffy, her silver blond hair falling over her face, was one of the culprits. The other was Melanie. Either on her own probably wouldn't have bothered him, but the combination - Slayer and ex-Slayer together - made him extremely nervous.
"What are you doing?" he demanded. Melanie giggled all the more and Buffy gave him such an innocent look he _knew_ she was guilty of something. He started to sit up and she shook her head at him.
"Don't move," she ordered. "You'll smudge it."
"Smudge what?" he asked suspiciously.
"Your nail polish," Melanie explained, not managing to do innocent nearly as well as Buffy could.
He started to glare, and Buffy laughed at him. She raised a small bottle filled with a viscous, pale blue fluid. "Spike's _Ocean Mist_ to be exact." She looked over at Melanie. "It's a bit of a disappointment really. Kind of insipid, isn't it?"
Melanie studied Giles' toes for a long moment and finally nodded. "Weak," she agreed. "And kind of little girly."
Giles sat up, ignoring the look he got from Buffy and checked out his toenails himself. They'd managed to pull off his shoes and socks _and_ start drawing on his feet all without him waking. He couldn't decide if that disturbed him or warmed him that there were finally times in his life when he could sleep without some part of himself staying awake enough to listen for danger.
And his wife, nail polish and _his_ toes instead of her own surely had to count as danger.
"You put nail polish on my toenails while I was asleep and didn't even pick a good colour?" he asked in a pained voice.
"It was closest," Buffy offered apologetically. Her grin turned positively evil. "And now you match Spike."
Giles looked around the room, hoping the vampire wasn't present and watching. Unfortunately, he was leaning against the doorframe looking amused. "Saints preserve us," Giles muttered.
"You maybe," Spike offered helpfully. "Probably not me."
"Socks," Giles told Buffy firmly.
She pouted beautifully. "But Rupert, you look so cute."
_I am not going to succumb_, Giles promised himself, steeling himself against the power of the Buffy-pout. "Socks," he repeated.
"You're no fun," Buffy complained good-naturedly. She leaned down and brushed a finger over his blue toes. Finding the polish dry, she reluctantly handed him his socks.
Giles was pulling on his second sock when the doorbell rang. Without a word, Spike left his post in the doorway and went to answer it.
A moment later, his voice could be heard from the front hall. "What is this? A bloody invasion?" A pause. "I guess you all better come in then," he finished with an exaggerated sigh.
Hurricane Miriam arrived first. She took in the occupants of the room in a sweeping glance and launched herself at Buffy with all the enthusiasm of an energetic six year old. Fortunately, this was a regular occurrence and Buffy had braced herself for collision the instant Miri appeared at the door. She caught her granddaughter in her arms and gave her a warm, loving hug.
She didn't see who came in next because Miriam was blocking her view. It was the sudden gasp from Melanie that made her adjust her position so that she could see the doorway.
Richard Marsh - all bearded, six foot four of him - was standing there looking at Melanie with a mixture of relief and fury that reminded Buffy of many, many Watcher/Slayer encounters between herself and Giles. Some things, it seemed, never changed.
"Melanie."
The Slayer gulped and stood up. "Hello, Richard," she said weakly.
That, Buffy knew, was the wrong response. Although, in situations like this one, _any_ response tended to be the wrong one.
Richard exploded.
"What the _hell_ did you think you were doing?" he roared. "You just took off into the night. _Anything_ could have happened to you."
"I'm okay, aren't I?" Melanie had gone on the defensive; another bad move, but exactly what Buffy herself would have chosen at seventeen.
"Mr Marsh is cross," Miri whispered to Buffy, who nodded distractedly.
"Shh, sweetheart," Giles whispered back. He put one finger to his lips and Miri nodded and mimed zipping up her lips.
Giles and Buffy exchanged amused, loving glances and went back to shamelessly eavesdropping on the unfolding confrontation.
"You might not have been," Richard pointed out. "You might not have been," he repeated and Melanie's head snapped up as she heard the break in his voice.
At that, all her bravado collapsed.
"I'm sorry," Melanie cried unhappily. "I'm so sorry. I just didn't want them to take you away and I thought Mrs Giles could help 'cos Mr Giles always stayed with her."
Richard was shaking his head in confusion. "Mel, I have _no idea_ what you're talking about."
Melanie blinked, suddenly at a loss for words and Giles stepped in smoothly to fill in what gaps he could.
"Melanie overhead a phone call, Marsh," he told the younger man. "She believed arrangements were being made to replace you as her Watcher and she came to us for help. It may not have been the wisest move, but she did mean well."
Melanie herself nodded miserably from her position by the sofa. Richard, who had been standing stiffly in the doorway the entire time, finally relaxed enough to walk right into the room. Behind him, Wesley and Susan Giles crowded into the doorway to watch.
Richard stopped about three feet away from the Slayer and gave her a small smile. "You were upset about maybe losing me?" he asked gently.
Melanie nodded again, the gesture fierce this time. "You're _mine_," she insisted. "No-one is going to take you away from me. Mrs Giles didn't let that happen and she's going to help me keep you."
_Was I *that* possessive?_ Buffy wondered in a kind of near-embarrassment. But she knew she had been, even during the times she was ignoring Giles. He'd been hers from the day she walked into the library at Sunnydale High and she had been no more prepared to let him go than Melanie was to lose Richard.
Richard Marsh was only thirty-two, nothing like the age gap between herself and Rupert, and while it was too early to make such predictions, Buffy rather suspected that 'Melanie and Richard' might come to fit together in the same fundamental way that 'Buffy and Giles' did, as if the two names were part of the same whole.
She grinned. The Watchers' Council might be a lot more open-minded these days, but she wasn't sure if they were ready for another Slayer to marry her Watcher. Buffy didn't care. If that was the way things were going to go, she was going to do every single thing in her power to see Melanie live long enough to have a wedding if that was what she wanted.
"Who's _she_?" Melanie's voice was fierce and Buffy was pulled out of romantic futures into the still-tense present.
She blinked, slowly and deliberately, to see if that would make the apparition that had just appeared at the door return back into her imagination where it belonged.
Only Giles' startled, "Tricia?" convinced her she wasn't seeing things.
Tricia Harris looked rather embarrassed. "Hey, Uncle Rupert," she agreed quietly. "Aunt Buffy."
"You _know_ them?" Melanie's voice had gone up an octave. A second later, she gulped and gave Richard at despairing, small child's look. "Is it her? Is she the one?" She was still trying to act brave, but it was starting to fail. "I don't want her, I want _you_."
Xander and Anya's youngest daughter was doing her best to look innocuous and unthreatening. Since she was a slight little thing who barely topped five foot, it shouldn't have been all that different. But Tricia had inherited her mother's eyes and their sharp gaze belied the gentleness of her general appearance.
"Hello Melanie," she tried. She got a glare in return, but it was relatively mild as Melanie waited for the axe to fall. "I'm Tricia."
"Are you here to be my new Watcher?" Melanie asked, her voice full of trepidation.
Tricia shook her head and was astounded by the relief that visibly flowed across the Slayer's face. Without thinking, she cast at glance at her so-called aunt and uncle; Giles had an hand resting of Buffy's shoulder while Buffy cuddled Miriam in her arms; the girl was a little wriggly but aware this wasn't a good time for talking. There was the usual, familiar closeness and unity about them that she had known all her life. And suddenly, Melanie's fear and her relief at Tricia's single shake of her head didn't seem so strange after all.
"I am a Watcher," Tricia conceded. "But I'm a researcher. I've been sent to work with your Richard on another project. But I'm hoping you'll be able to help us."
Melanie was looking relieved and confused, both at the same time. "But the man said..."
Richard gave her a patient look. "The man, as you call him, and who actually happens to be the Head of the Watchers' Council, told me he was sending another Watcher to work with me. Not you. Although I'm hoping you'll be nice to Tricia and let her help us both."
Melanie took a long moment to absorb that. "They're not sending you away from me?
"I'm afraid you're stuck with me," Richard answered.
Another long, silent moment. Then Melanie grinned and hurled herself across the remaining space between them, to hug her Watcher with all her strength.
"Ribs," Richard finally managed to mutter as he slowly ran out of air.
"Oh." Melanie bounced back, embarrassed but smiling. "Oops. My bad. Slayer strength and all that."
Buffy couldn't help it. She started to laugh, aware of Giles chuckling beside her.
"Aunt Buffy?" Tricia was looking at them as if they had just gone insane.
"Sorry," Buffy managed to say around giggles. "I'm sorry, but it feels like I've just been sent back in time forty years."
"It's a miracle I still have some undamaged ribs," Giles added with further chuckles.
"And didn't die of unintended asphyxiation years ago," Buffy added.
She managed to swallow her laughter and looked at Melanie and Richard, who were looking back at her and Giles as if they were crazy, and smiled. "Rupert love, I think it's time to teach Melanie how to bind up cracked ribs and other useful Slayer skills like that."