TITLE: 'All Mimsy were the Borogoves.' 6/12
AUTHOR: Pythia
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated
DISCLAIMER: The Slayer and her Watcher are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. 'Jabberwocky' and 'Alice' were written by Lewis Carroll. Geoffrey wandered by and took up residence when the story demanded it, and Ari has been delightfully mine for the past two and a bit years. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please do not reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.

Posting Notes: *-* indicates emphasis. {-} indicates thought. [_] identifies thought-speech

Once the kittens and their mother were safely ensconced on the real sofa, back in the real world, Ari led the way back into the labyrinth, boxing at shadows in a mercurial display of high spirits. Giles lingered for a moment, hanging back to catch one last envious glimpse of the tortoiseshell and her family. He wondered if the witch who shared their lives had an inkling of the special gifts the kittens now possessed - or the sacred duty those gifts would demand of them as they grew older. Whether she did or not, it was likely that she'd be overjoyed at her companion's safe return; going by how old the kittens were, the tortoiseshell had to have been missing for several days.

He sighed at the thought, hefting the sword back onto his shoulder and striding after Ari before the cat disappeared completely from view. He wasn't sure just how long he'd been wandering in this strange, silent world, but it felt like forever. Were his family missing him? Were Buffy and the others searching for him, or mourning him? Did they think him lost forever?

Or had they even noticed that he was gone?

There was disconcertion underlying that consideration. Not that he'd thought of it - but that, having thought of it - he found himself fearing it might be true. If only he could *remember*. His memories of the past were becoming clearer, but most of them seemed to be those of distant, long ago events. Whenever he tried to focus on *recent* history his efforts stirred the lurking, nagging headache into a raging protest of pain.

He went back and mentally walked through it again, frowning at the fog that still obscured the important details. He could recall fragments of his childhood, including the day his father took him aside and solemnly informed him of his birthright, his destiny to serve the Slayer. There were glimpses of rebellion in his academic years - glimpses his mind shied away from for some reason - and memories of returning to the fold, of being trained and tutored in the most obscure of subjects and skills. After that things fractured a little more, becoming hints and images, patterns of names and faces, of places and events. He had a clear picture in his head of Buffy, standing in the library protesting *her* destiny - and of later, less certain occasions, times when the other members of his adopted family drifted through and lingered with a sense of warmth and affection.

The headache began to pound at the back of his skull as he tried to follow what remained; the slender threads of memory unravelling into disjointed flashes that had no context or meaning. A young man in combat fatigues. A shiver of something primitive and very powerful. A place - not the library - filled with shelves and books and other objects. A bleached blond vampire fighting beside him, rather than against him. Buffy and her sister. Xander and a rather attractive blonde woman. Willow and an equally attractive but far shyer blonde companion of her own. A shadowed tower. A man lying on the ground …

Pain flared with almost unbearable savagery, making him gasp and stagger. The world pitched around him and he was forced to seek the support of the nearest wall while he fought down a surge of dizziness and nausea.

[Are you all right?]

Ari had to repeat the question, emphasising it with an added 'piirupp?' of sound. The pressure of solicitous paws on his thigh lifted Giles from his self inflicted misery, and he looked down, finding the cat standing on his hind legs so that he could push his nose into the curl of a shaking palm.

"Oh, Lord," he sighed, letting his weight slide down the support of the wall until he was sitting on sketchy linoleum. Ari immediately climbed into his lap; they sat like that for a moment or two, the man letting the impact of pain slide away while the cat purred reassuringly and let himself be petted by distracted fingers. "No," Giles breathed eventually, giving his companion a friendly scratch behind his left ear. "I'm not all right. I - I seem to be incomplete … bits of me missing. I'm lost, Ari. I've lost myself as well as my way, and something tells me I need to find one before I can find the other. But it's hard. Like - trying to sort through pieces of broken glass."

[Memories and mirrors share many aspects,] Ari observed philosophically. [And both need light to give them purpose.] He licked at his company's hand in much the same way that the mother cat had offered comfort to her kittens. [The White Knight knows many things. Perhaps he will know your way.]

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