Title: The Walk
Series: What We Are (1)
Author: K.V. Wylie
Spoilers: Mild through 4th Season
Content: Buffy/Giles
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy and WB. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: This is a sequel to "Danube's Reason".

Spoilers for Danube's Reason ...
In that story, Giles' life was taken by a vampire. Before his soul was sent to the ether, Buffy invoked the Sacramentum, which is a power possessed by the Slayer. Using this power, she was able to offer her soul in place of Giles'. The offer was accepted and Giles' life was saved, but the exchange of souls bound Buffy and Giles together as wife and husband. At the end of the story, Giles had just woken up in the hospital to find himself married to his Slayer.

Buffy woke to the sound of soft footsteps. She immediately bolted up and nearly fell off the hospital bed.

A nurse stood in a shaft of light from the hallway, looking at Buffy curiously. She turned on a lamp by the door and whispered, "Miss? Visiting hours ended….." she consulted her watch, "six hours ago."

"There was another nurse here before," Buffy whispered back. She gestured at Giles, sleeping under the covers beside her. "She said it was ok for me to stay because I'm his wife. She was going to see if there was a cot."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know," the nurse smiled. "I need to check your husband's I.V." She did so and, as she was wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Giles' arm, said softly, "Do you wish me to follow up on that cot?"

Buffy shook her head. "It's nearly morning. How is he?"

"Everything seems fine. His pressure is within normal range and his pulse is steady. He's fortunate. He lost quite a lot of blood."

"He uh…..there was a…..an accident," Buffy fumbled. "Is the cafeteria still open?"

"Yes. Second floor." The nurse left, her footsteps receding until they became part of the muted night traffic in the corridor.

Buffy pulled Giles' covers up, tucking him to his neck in white flannel. He moved slightly, but didn't wake. Feeling bold, she touched his cheek and trailed her fingertips over his jaw and to his mouth. Angel's skin had always felt bare and cool, but human skin, a man's skin, had textures and warmth. Unshaven prickles started at his cheeks, becoming coarser on his chin, but his lips felt soft, as soft as her own.

She bent quickly and kissed him, a light kiss, a scant brushing of mouths, and then she chickened out and ran into the hallway, in case she had awakened him. She went down a floor and bought a container of chocolate milk, and lingered at the condiments counter where the straws were. This was certainly going to cause a stir. Buffy could just see herself going home in the morning and saying to her mom, guess what? I saved Giles' soul yesterday. The cost for it was marrying him, but you're ok with that, right? I don't have a ring, but I'm sure he'll buy me one, just as soon as he gets over his horror at finding himself stuck with me.

Yes, this was going to go over *real* well.

Buffy fiddled with the top of her drink until pieces of the carton began to fall into the milk. She hadn't said anything to the others when they'd left the hospital last night. Willow and Xander didn't know. Wesley did, but only because he'd heard her mangled version of the Sacramentum and understood Latin. With Oz, she wasn't sure. He'd looked awfully thoughtful, not that he didn't usually. Somewhere in his strange background, though, he might have taken a course in dead languages.

A bell rang. An alarm perhaps? Buffy ran for the door before remembering that she was on a different floor.

Jumpy much? she asked herself. But she had a reason. Giles *had* died. It was irrelevant to her that some act of grace from somewhere had brought him back, because he'd died, in front of her, in a terrifying manner, and she hadn't been able to stop it.

It had happened so easily. That was the crux of it. She was the Slayer, the Chosen one, with all the super powers and super strength that entailed, and it hadn't mattered. A vampire had taken a notion to kill Giles, and accomplished it. Effortlessly. And Buffy hadn't been able to lift one hand to stop it.

Her friends had been threatened in the past. Willow and Xander had been held hostage once by Spike, and Willow again by the Mayor. Cordelia had even been taken, whisked away in a limo by one of Mr. Trick's minions. But Buffy had always been able to act, to find some means to pull her friends out and bring them back home. With Giles, she'd never really worried. He'd seemed the safest to her, the one most able to protect himself. He'd suffered many hits, and Angelus had taken him, tortured him for hour upon hour. But Giles had survived and, having done so, seemed proof to Buffy that he wouldn't die. Couldn't. That there existed within him some stubborn hold on this life that prevented his losing that final fatal inch.

The proof was all illusion. Watching him die shattered everything. In the fragile broken pieces of her rock bottom, fixed beliefs, she discovered the only thing she knew for sure - she could take anything, *absolutely* anything, as long as Giles was there. Without him…..Buffy shivered. Without him, she had nothing to hold onto.

As she went up in the elevator, she wondered, when had it happened? And why hadn't she noticed? My God, she'd been going along, never thinking, never understanding. Fooling with Parker. Dancing with Riley. Giggling in her dorm room with Willow about a boy that had just passed by. Always underneath, the certainty that Giles waited for her, that he could always be found. She only had to run to his apartment and he'd be there. Never thinking about what that actually meant. How could she have been so unaware?

Buffy tiptoed into Giles' room and nearly choked when he spoke.

"You're still here?"

"You're awake," she said. She went over to the bed. He looked sleepy and pale, but he was alive.

Giles rose up on his elbows and tried to see the clock without his glasses. "What time is it?"

"About quarter to four."

He eyed her. "You've been here all of this time?"

"I'm allowed to stay being, uh, next of kin."

He looked at her for so long that she wondered if he'd forgotten. He had been pretty out of it when she'd brought him in.

Then she thought, no, he never forgets, not with that brain. He's never forgotten anything before, not even the miniscule tiny little details that most people tend to let drift away. The running joke was, ask Giles what he had for lunch two months ago, and he'll tell you.

At last, Giles said, "I suppose you are my nearest relative. When I get out of the hospital, we'll return to that abandoned church and see what we can do."

"Oh." Buffy walked to the foot of the bed and sat in the chair there.

"Why don't you go home, Buffy, and get some sleep?" he asked, in a gentler voice.

"I got some sleep here, earlier."

"Buffy, I'm feeling better. You needn't---"

"You don't want me here?"

Giles frowned. "I didn't say that. I only meant that you don't need to worry."

"I'm not here because I'm worried about you. I'm here because I haven't finished yelling at you for that dumb stunt you pulled."

He took a long breath. "In terms of 'dumb stunts', Buffy, your actions were not exactly---"

"They saved your life," she snapped, stopping him.

"Yes, well….." Giles paused.

"So there."

His tone hardened. "Buffy, we need to set things right. I died, but *your* soul was taken."

"Taken? Taken where? You mean, I don't have one any more?"

"Perhaps I need to be more precise. Your soul was accepted. Or else, the offer was payment enough."

"Payment for what?"

Giles looked uncomfortable. "I'm not qualified to explain it, nor do I understand it."

Buffy sighed. "Yet you feel you have to do something about it."

"Buffy, everything must balance. When I died, I created a debt, and I can't see how it has been paid."

"Does it matter?" she asked. "You're here. Everything's fine."

"Everything is *not* fine. We are bound together. You are bound to me."

"Well, if I am, I can't sense any difference."

Giles glanced around the room, his gaze finally settling on the monitor to which he was attached by a wire. "Buffy, come here and count your pulse."

"What?" She came to the side of the bed.

He took one of her arms and turned it over, exposing her wrist. Then he took her other hand and placed her fingertips to her skin. "Count while watching my monitor."

Buffy looked at Giles for a moment before glancing towards the machine. Then, amazed, she dropped her gaze to her wrist. For every beep indicating his heartbeat, there came an answering throb under her fingers. "Giles, what else goes along with this?"

"I-I'm not sure. I would have to consult my books, though I'm not sure how much is, um, has been written on this. In fact, this is research that might be better suited to a church or monastic library."

"Giles, what happens if you die?"

He met her eyes. "You die."

"Oh," Buffy said, in an almost normal tone.

"Buffy….."

"Well, Giles, it's not like we have long life spans in this business."

"Buffy, we're not…..fruit flies. We shouldn't come together because you're worried you might die tomorrow, that I'm your choice because of that. I fully intend that you *will* survive."

She looked unimpressed. "I'm not worried about my death, Giles. As for being bound….." She gestured between them. "It feels ok. I can't explain it. It just feels like it makes sense."

He opened his mouth but she interrupted. "It's happened; we have to deal."

"Buffy, we do not have to…..*deal*."

She sighed. "You're the one who keeps rebelling here, Giles. Not me. This rebellion thing is the story of your life."

"We can't stay tied together."

"It looks like we can," Buffy said. "And I'm sorry you find it so terrible."

"I didn't say that," he said. "I'm thinking about our ages. You are a young girl and---"

"Giles, shut up," Buffy said.

He stared at her in surprise.

"I mean it," she said, sounded tired herself. "Go to sleep, or lie there and look at the ceiling, but don't say anything else." She went back to her chair, turned it so that it faced almost completely away from him, and sat down.

---

"That's a new look for you," Buffy said, finally breaking a silence that had started when they'd left Giles' apartment earlier. She referred to a cell phone which he'd extracted from an interior pocket of his jacket.

"I have a friend with clerical connections. She'll call when she finds something," Giles said as he turned on the phone and hooked it to his belt.

"You mean secretaries?"

"Clergy," Giles corrected, as he looked around.

They were in an old, unused church, its outside sign faded and unreadable. Willow had pulled a hundred and twenty years worth of maps out of the Sunnydale City Hall archives without finding anything except the property lines and that there had once been a bell tower. Inside, the wooden pews were rotted away, and the altar was so laden with dust and plaster that it resembled a gray mound.

A vampire named Danube had killed Giles in the cellar below. Danube's method had been gruesome and effortless, but he'd taken a lot of pleasure in it and had been unconcerned that Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Wesley were witnesses. Buffy wondered if her being there had added to Danube's enjoyment, if it was an extra thrill to kill a Watcher in front of his Slayer. Most vampires killed to feed. They rarely took satisfaction in the hunt, and very few fixed on one specific prey. They were murderers by opportunity.

Danube had thought it through. He'd planned. He'd wanted Giles and no one else. In fact, he hadn't been interested in the Slayer at all, except as a way to draw the Watcher to him. It was the very simple fact that Giles was willing to protect Buffy with his life that gave Danube the means with which to get him. Danube merely shackled Buffy up and waited.

And Giles came, but in a way Danube hadn't foreseen, despite all his planning. Giles came not only willing to die, but counting on it. He came and offered his neck. Danube, thinking he had won, drained him.

And died on a poison Giles had carried in, in his blood. A simple poison, actually, bee venom which didn't hurt Giles, but to which Danube had been allergic when human. By the time the bee venom reacted on Danube, he'd taken too much blood, and Giles died.

"Here's the way," Giles said suddenly, startling Buffy. He stood at the front of the church, holding a door open. "I've found the stairs."

Buffy moved beside him and glanced down. "It's dark."

He squinted. "Not completely. There's a faint light."

She took a second look, then moved in front of him. "Me first." She started down the stairs, before Giles had a chance to go all gentlemanly and get in front of her. "Sometimes you forget just which one of us is the Slayer," she said.

A bluish glow rose out of the black. Buffy paused at the bottom of the staircase, looking for the source of the light, but her gaze was caught by four chairs underneath which were broken shackles. "Well, this is the place," she whispered. "It seemed bigger when we were here before."

Giles stumbled into her in the gloom. "Sorry." He pushed his glasses up his nose as he looked around. "Storage area," he decided, sounding glum.

"But there was more." Buffy began a circuit of the room, edging around moldy pieces of furniture and unmentionable things on the floor. "When the fog came in, you disappeared."

"Fog?"

"You didn't see it. You were dead at the time. We had fog, water, bees….." She stared around, puzzled. "Where is that light *coming* from?"

"Phosphorous glow from the slime on the walls?" Giles offered.

Buffy eyed the wall nearest to her. "Really?"

"I don't know." He shrugged.

"Are you upset?"

"About what?"

She wasn't looking at him. "Being tied to me?"

"I'm not upset," Giles said, "but there must be more to this than what we know. It's…..worrisome."

"More than the when-you-go-I-go thing? That doesn't worry me."

He frowned at her. "Why not?"

"It just doesn't," Buffy said. "And it doesn't seem like you have much of a problem with it either, considering the way you just waltzed in here and said to that vamp 'pick an artery'."

"That's my job."

"I don't know, Giles. It looks to me like Watchers mostly outlive their Slayers. If it is in the job description, it's awfully far down the list. Or maybe it's just my luck to get stuck with a suicidal one." The moment the words came out, she couldn't believe she'd said them. She clamped her mouth shut, her breathing coming so hard it burned her chest.

"Suicidal?" he asked, sounding surprised.

His question nearly caused her to explode. "I've lived with this for three years now!" she cried, astonished at the anger that was welling up in her.

"Lived with what?"

"YOU! Going around, trying to get yourself killed. It's really tiring to deal with. All these things you do!"

"What things?" His tone was coming up too.

"These self-destructive things, Giles!"

"As in?"

"The drinking, for one," Buffy snapped.

"Excuse me!" he retorted.

She started holding up fingers. "You have a bottle behind that bookcase by the window, another in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, *two* in your desk. That's *four*. I have no idea how many might be up in your bedroom because I'm afraid to look. Just how much scotch is in your place anyway?"

"You went through my desk?"

"How…..many…..bottles?"

"None…..of…..your…..business."

She had to take a breath. Something was going to fly somewhere. "What about those prescriptions?"

He didn't answer. "Giles," she persisted. "In the cupboard by the fridge, there are three bottles of pills with different names. What are they for? Is something wrong? Is it something I should know about?"

"Again, none of your business." His voice was very hard. In the dim she could see the barest blue reflection off his glasses. Other than that, he was a dark shadow standing motionless at the foot of the stairs.

"I can't protect you. There's so much I don't know, and things you keep doing….." she started, but he turned and started up the stairs.

"Damnit!" Her fist hit the brick wall. The hollow smack barely sounded in the room, but it was followed a second later by a loud rumble that almost rocked Buffy off her feet. Giles grabbed onto the railing as the stairs swayed.

"…..oops….." she whispered.

On the tail of the first came another rumble, thundering more loudly. The walls began to shake.

"Buffy!" He was down to her in an instant, his arms gathering her up and pulling her away from the brick.

But the second burst died away, leaving them in silence.

"What did I do?" she asked softly.

"I think you knocked on the door."

"What door?"

Giles moved in front of her, studying the wall. Exasperated, Buffy pulled him back behind her.

"Buffy--"

"Giles!" she retorted. She heard him sigh in annoyance himself, but she was caught by what was before her.

The wall had become crumbly or transparent. She could see sparkles of light through it.

"This isn't brick, is it?" she asked. She glanced at Giles. He looked as bewildered as she felt.

"It's a passageway," he said, in a hushed voice. He reached forward and his hand went through the wall.

"A passageway to that foggy place?"

"I don't know. I suggest caution."

"I suggest we leave." At his look, Buffy shook her head. "Giles, I have the wiggins, and I can hear something. Like humming."

"I thought Willow had mapped all of the entrances to the Hellmouth."

"She's missed one," Buffy said.

"Buffy, the demons we encountered didn't use this passageway."

"I don't go down every single street in Sunnydale, but it doesn't mean that I can't. Giles--" She grabbed his arm which was disappearing into the glow and pulled him away. "And that's another thing. Every time something big and icky comes out of the Hellmouth, you have to stop and stare in fascination. Never mind that it's going to take a big chunk out of you."

Giles was looking at his hand. "It felt warm."

"And you think *I* don't listen," she muttered. "In Poltergeist, you would have been lost in that house before the movers had a chance to bring your couch in. Giles!" She grabbed his jacket, for he'd put a hand into the passageway again.

"Buffy, according to what you told me, we have already been in this place once."

She glanced at the light sparkles. "Then it's where I saw that woman. We *really* shouldn't go in there."

"What woman?"

"The woman that was singing to you."

Giles eyed her. "You didn't tell me about this."

Buffy knew that. For a reason she didn't understand, she didn't want to talk about the figure she'd seen. "After I said the Sacramentum, you disappeared in this mist stuff. When I found you, a woman was bending over you and singing. Maybe a spell because the vamp's blood started coming out of you and it scared me because you'd already lost maybe all of your blood. The more she sang, the more it came out." She paused.

"What did she look like?"

"Big. Tall, way taller than you, and she had something on her back. I said the Sacramentum again and she started to look up, at me, and…..and….." Buffy felt Giles touch her arms.

"She frightened you?"

"It sounds stupid, Giles, but I was scared to look at her eyes. I looked down and then the singing stopped and I thought maybe you were gone too. So I looked back up, but it was just you there."

Giles was quiet for a time, his eyes going between her and the blue-lit wall. "Buffy--"

"I don't think we should go in there," she cut in. "I have a feeling that we shouldn't."

"Fair enough," he said, "but there's a problem. If simply knocking can open it up, then we are not the only ones who can find it."

"Maybe it's because I knocked?" she asked. "Maybe it's a Slayer thing, and not just anyone *can*."

"I was in there."

"She took you. Giles, I'm getting major wiggins about this place."

Giles placed one of his hands over hers and said, "I'm going in. I promise I won't be long. Wait for me."

She shook her head violently. "Together."

They went through the wall. To Buffy, it felt like passing by feathers. Giles looked as though he had to push to get in.

"It's terribly warm," she said. The humid air steamed into her nose and dampened her clothing. She pulled her suddenly sticky shirt away from her back as she looked around.

The light was only a little brighter here. The blue glow and murky air reminded her of a school trip to an Aquarium when she had gone into the airless, underground corridors that wound past the tanks.

Giles wiped condensation from his glasses.

"We must be under the street. Maybe a sewer?" Buffy asked him.

"I don't think we're under the street," he said, squinting into the gloom. "What do you see?"

"Blue, and I hear a kettle."

"A what?"

Buffy pointed. 'It sounds like a kettle hissing."

They walked towards the noise. After a few minutes, Buffy glanced behind them, then reached blindly to the sides. "Did we go in a straight line, Giles?" she asked, her voice high-pitched. "I can't tell." Losing her sense of direction unnerved her, not that she hadn't, inexplicably, been at the point of panic before.

"Yes," he said distractedly.

Buffy tried wiping the uncomfortable damp off her arms. "What's in here with us?"

He gave her a sharp look. "Do you sense anything?"

"My skin's crawling. And dripping."

"It's warm," he said, " but not very so."

"It burns, Giles." She wiped sweat from her cheeks.

"Hmmm," he commented as he handed her his handkerchief. "Do you hear anything else now?"

Buffy shook her head.

"I hear pounding." He gestured to the left.

"Then we are under the street and you're hearing cars," she said.

"No, the noise is rhythmic. You can't hear it?"

At her negative shrug, he looked excited. "Intriguing."

"No. Not intriguing. It's bad. This is somewhere we shouldn't be."

But he was moving off to the left.

She sprinted after him. "Don't *do* that!"

He'd gone, not for the noise, but to an object, a slab of granite towering higher than they could see. Over their heads, a word had been etched in the rock.

"Ingressus," Giles read. "Latin for 'entry'. If that's meant to be eye level, then you're right about the residents here being tall."

"Very tall," Buffy emphasized.

Giles walked around the slab and found more writing.

"Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus," Buffy said. "Giles?"

He was staring at it. "Holy Holy Holy," he replied softly.

After a long moment, she said, "This isn't a place for demons."

Giles took her hand and continued walking around the granite.

"Let's leave," Buffy said.

"Yes," Giles replied, "but first I want to find out what that infernal noise is."

"I don't hear anything."

"Sssh," he said.

The granite disappeared into the dark, and so did Buffy's sense of where they were. She couldn't have retraced their path, didn't know if they were going in deeper or winding around to the church cellar. She held tightly onto Giles as he led them through the dusk.

Just when she thought she couldn't take the heat anymore, a cool waft of air brushed her forehead. The light brightened, losing its bluish tint, and it was accompanied by a roll of mist.

She tripped. Giles grabbed her. "Buffy?"

"There's stuff on the floor."

"Vibration," he said. "Under our feet." His voice sounded loud.

Buffy tripped again, inadvertently letting go of him, and a spark jumped between them. It crackled up the back of her neck.

"Ouch!" he yelled, as the spark bounced off his chin.

"Why are you shouting?"

"It's loud! Can't you hear it now?"

Buffy shook her head. "I don't hear anything, Giles."

He eyed her. "WHAT?"

Buffy raised her voice. 'I don't hear anything!"

"WHATEVER IT IS, TELL ME LATER!"

She snatched his jacket lapels and screamed, "GILES!"

He jumped, then glanced around bewilderedly. "The noise stopped." As he spoke, another cloud of fog descended.

His coat prickled with static, hurting her. She let go and another shock leapt between them.

"Weird," she said. "Too weird. Giles, time to go. Now."

Her words echoed strangely around them. As if afraid to add his voice, Giles nodded. Taking her hand once more, they started walking.

Another granite marker appeared. On tiptoes, Buffy read, "Inlustris Sanctum Angelum."

"Latin again," Giles said in a hushed tone. "Brilliant Holy Angel." He pointed at more words higher up. "And Italian. Camminata degli Angeli. Walk of Angels."

There were other words he couldn't read, and markings overtop of those.

"A passageway for Angels?" Buffy asked, looking around nervously. "Then we *really* shouldn't be here."

"I shouldn't be here," Giles said. "Probably, you're all right."

"Me?"

"You're the Slayer. You weren't chosen for your bad qualities."

"But this place is burning me." She held up her arms, now harshly reddened.

"The power you possess reacting with what's here."

They went past the marker, Giles ahead and Buffy glancing behind. She kept thinking she saw movement, shadows that darted in and out of the mist. And there was a smell, like the wet tang that lingered in the air after a lightning storm.

He suddenly stopped. Not realizing it, she walked into him.

"Giles…..?" She turned and the rest of her question froze in her throat.

There was a figure ahead of them in the gray, surging billows. A very large figure. And it was turning towards them.

Giles abruptly dropped his gaze to the floor and nudged Buffy to do the same. She was caught, however, staring in terrified wonder, her breath coming in queer, fast pants.

The figure was almost indistinguishable from the mist around it, but the bulk was unmistakable. As it turned, it was straightening, rising high. The sides unfolded and swept across the passageway. Vapour flickered from it, as hot air sizzles from a glacier.

When it finished uncoiling, it stood motionless for so long that Buffy wondered if it had become stone like those granite markers. Giles' arm clenched around her, pulling her in until she was pressed hard against his side.

At that moment, the cell phone rang.

They both grabbed, frantically pawing at where it hung on Giles' belt. It rang a second time, shrilling high through the air. Giles managed to shut it off as the third ring began, but he dropped it when the being before them responded with an abrupt, shattering screech.

Buffy squeezed her hands over her ears. "Giiillless!" she cried.

"Buffy!" he said, sounding breathless. "Look!"

She cautiously opened her eyes, then let her hands drop to her side. Silence greeted her, and soft light and dissipating remnants of the mist.

They were in an avenue, a wide one, and the walls were white and shimmering, swimming before her eyes in their brightness. Giles bent to pick something up, then dropped it with a clatter and a small yelp. It was his cell phone, melted and still hot.

"Now where are we?"

"In the same place," he said, his voice restrained, but, underneath, she could hear the excitement. "I should have known. Everything balances, Buffy. For every yin there is a yang. For every Angel, a Buddha. For every dark, a light." He tested the cell phone again, then picked it up. "Therefore, for a Hellmouth, there would be--"

"Heavenmouth?" Buffy asked.

He smiled. "Well, a Hellmouth is a passage for demons, so there would be something--"

"For Angels," she finished. "If we keep going, do we meet…..God?"

"The markers said Angels," Giles said. "Not that I know, but I wouldn't think God needs a corridor. Are you ready to leave?"

"And I've been saying that I have since when?" The look she gave him was particularly ticked.

"Right," he said. "This way."

She could only hope that he did, indeed, know the way, for she didn't have any idea. He seemed to, however. He led them in a direction behind them.

They walked quietly. Buffy was often uneasy with silences; she felt the need to fill every lull. But she felt averse to breaking this hush. One, it was so silent. Two, she didn't feel they were entirely alone.

What finally ended it was the sound of something coming towards them. Whatever it was whistled.

Giles moved to the side of the avenue, bringing her behind him. Out of the sheer white ahead of them, a small object appeared. Despite the noise it made, it came slowly, turning gradually end over end, revealing itself at last as a square piece of rock.

Buffy blinked several times. It blurred in its slow motion flight, the edges smudging in and out. At last, it stopped its dance and floated to the ground before them. That's when she realized the blur was smoke. Letters burned like embers upon the granite.

"Giles?"

"Uno chi guarda. Uno chi cacce. One who guards. One who hunts."

Nothing else was forthcoming. "Now what?" Buffy asked.

Giles shrugged.

They continued walking. A few moments later, a second rock appeared, coming in the same slow, burning flight.

"Uno all' altro. One to the other," Giles said.

Buffy was seriously wigged by the time the third message appeared. "Si uniscono," she read, her voice quivering.

"Join."

They exchanged looks.

"This way," Giles said at last.

At a part of the alley that didn’t look any different from any other part, Giles stopped.

"Here?" Buffy asked. "How can you be sure?"

"I counted our steps."

She didn't know whether to laugh or not, but when she put out her hand, it went through the wall. She gave him a second, rather impressed look.

"Sometimes I earn my keep," Giles said.

"Together," Buffy said, taking both of his hands in hers. "Like we did before."

They stepped through. This time, instead of feathers, Buffy felt something hot flash over her and, momentarily blinded, stumbled. She thumped onto a cold floor that scraped her knees.

When the sparkles cleared out of her vision, she found herself in the church cellar, only it was a little less gloomy and there was a mirror before her.

Then Buffy frowned. She seemed to be looking *down* at her reflection and, in it, she had green eyes.

"Giles--"

Her voice cut off with a squawk. Where did she get that deep tone?

Buffy coughed. "Giles, something's….." As her hands came up to her throat, she saw the sleeves.

She was wearing a tweed jacket.

She looked before her again and realized it wasn't a mirror.

It was her.

"Giles?" she asked in a baritone.

"Buffy?" he asked in a high tone, looking up at her. He glanced down at himself again, then back up. "My Lord!"

"We've switched." She nearly choked getting the two words out. "How did it--?"

"Si uniscono," he said in her voice.

"Quick! Let's go through and see if it reverses!" Buffy tried to grab him (her?) but overshot her reach with her longer arms. Giles took her hand instead, and nearly crushed her fingers.

"Sorry," he said. "Your muscles are rather more developed."

"Never mind." Buffy pushed against the wall.

It didn't budge.

She knocked, with no success, and, after a pointed look at her body, Giles tried rapping on the brick as well.

"Oh God. It's shut!" she cried.

They stared at each other. Finally, Giles said, "We have a problem."

DISCOVERY