TITLE: 'Out of Africa' 31/31
AUTHOR: Pythia
E-MAIL: pythia@tiscali.co.uk
DISCLAIMER: The characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. 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: *.* is for emphasis. {.} denotes thought and [.] implies translation from another language.

"**Giles!**"

Buffy's outcry was practically a primal scream; it voiced a savage denial, giving expression to the anguish and the terror that had taken root in her heart. She'd been forced to stand and watch as the ritual played out, her body tense and her heart pounding in her chest. She'd barely felt the comfort of Angel's hand on her shoulder - although she'd felt his hands as he'd caught her, preventing her convulsive charge as, for the second time that night, she saw flame creep from around clenched fingers and ripple up a man's arm. Her breath had caught in her throat then, choking her instinctive cry of alarm; she'd been frozen to the spot as the hint of fire flared into sudden conflagration. It had taken barely seconds - between one and the next - and the moment had pierced her heart and ripped what was left of it in two.

But Giles' voice had barely faltered. And the flame hadn't consumed the figure within it - not the way it had before. She'd watched with horror as he'd continued to intone the ritual words, trying desperately not to imagine how it must feel, fighting to banish memories of flame seared bone emerging from beneath cooked flesh and charred skin. She didn't notice how Angel's grip on her arms had tightened with bruising reaction - any more than she felt the pain of manicured nails as they bit into the palms of her hands. The light from the fire had grown brighter, etching the scene indelibly into memory; Lilithu's frozen glare, the gleam of amber and ivory - and the image of her Watcher, turned into a living figure of flame.

A moment later everything went kablooie. Light flared with unbearable brilliance. A wave of force and heat surged across the hall, scattering the debris of the exhibition and shaking the whole building with a sound like thunder. Buffy felt something stab through her - a silent howl of anger and pain, a raging moment of loss and death - and *that* was when she cried out, when her fears finally found a voice.

She matched it with action, tearing herself from Angel's grip and leaping back into the now darkened and silent hall. Dazzling afterimages danced behind her eyes, and she blinked, fighting to regain focus - and to brush away the resurgence of tears. It just wasn't *fair*. She'd faced this loss once tonight - and for him to be taken from her again, in the same night, the same *way* …

The roller coaster of her emotions sat poised on the brink of a final fall. She was suspended over an abyss, and a piece of her wanted to jump, to tumble into the dark; down there she wouldn't have to feel, wouldn't have to *deal* - and the world could go to hell, and she wouldn't know and wouldn't care.

Except she would. Because she was the Slayer - *his* Slayer - and, just like Merrick before him, Giles had willingly given his life to enable her to fulfil her destiny.

She almost could hear him pointing that out - gently and with some amusement; telling her that she could and *would* go on without him.

In fact, he was laughing about it …

"Giles?"

She wasn't imagining his laughter. She was hearing it - a soft, semi-hysterical chuckle echoing out of the dark. Buffy moved towards the source of the sound, stepping cautiously through the remnants of Koenigsburg's collection. Between her, Lilithu, and the final moments of the rite, there wasn't a lot left intact; at least the steady drizzle from the sprinklers seemed to have stopped, although there were glistening pools of water everywhere.

She found her Watcher lying in one.

He was flat on his back, sprawled out like an abandoned rag doll. His clothes were torn and charred, and he was soaked to the skin - but he was *laughing*. Giggling in fact, his body shaking and quivering from head to foot.

"Giles?" Buffy didn't know what to make of the sight - which was utterly bizarre, and utterly wonderful all at the same time. Her relief at finding him alive was immediately tempered by a mixture of affectionate exasperation and total bafflement. She dropped to her knees beside him, ignoring the way water rippled out around her as she did so. She was already soaked to the skin; a little more wouldn't do her any harm. "Giles - are you okay?"

It was a rather stupid question, but it was the best she could formulate, given the circumstances. Half of her wanted to cry with relief and the other half wanted to join in the giggling. She managed to do neither, although she suspected nobody would blame her if she did both.

Giles turned his head and grinned at her. Broadly. An 'I don't have a care in the world right now' kind of grin. "*That*," he announced with confident authority, "was one hell of a rush. Bloody incredible." His voice held echoes of effort, and his words were slightly slurred; Buffy frowned at him.

"Uh, Giles … " she started to say bemusedly. He looked a little dazed, and he sounded - well, *drunk*. She wondered if he'd hit his head or something. He lifted his right hand and jabbed in her direction with an authoritative finger.

"Tell me," he ordered firmly, "*never* - to do anything like that again. Good lord." The hand fell away, landing with a soft splash back in the water. "I do feel peculiar."

{He *is* drunk,} Buffy realised disconcertedly. {Well, not drunk, exactly. High. High on the magic. On whatever it was that happened, right at the end …}

"I'm not surprised." Angel said, emerging out of the gloom. "That was … pretty impressive stuff."

"Indeed," Wesley agreed, joining the vampire in looking down at the prostrate librarian. "We knew that the ritual was intended to turn Lilithu's own power against her - but from the looks of things the priests who created it had severely underestimated the extent of her potency. The staff unlocked the floodgates - and turned you into a conduit through which the unleashed energies poured. I'd say you've just survived the mystical equivalent of sticking wet fingers into an electrical power socket."

"*Right*," Giles acknowledged with a another quiver of amusement. He was staring up at the ceiling with an odd look in his eyes. Buffy suspected he was feeling as if he were floating somewhere up there, rather than lying sprawled on a cold wet floor. "So - you'd consider the m-moment of perceptual transcendence as merely a by-product of the experience, rather than a - a fundamental component of the process?"

"Well, ah - " The younger Watcher blinked. "The moment of *what?*"

"Transcendence." The giddy grin resurfaced, wrapping itself around the word with relish. "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, you're a pillock. You know nothing about magic and I - " Giles paused to lift his hand a second time, only to have it fall back again as he failed to find the energy the gesture needed. "I know too bloody much." The laughter left him. Almost *everything* left him as exhaustion finally made its inevitable claim. His eyes closed and his head rolled to one side; a moment of panic clutched at Buffy's heart, one that she pushed away with determined effort. She reached for his hand instead, feeling the warmth in it, despite the water's chill. His fingers tightened on hers, just as they'd done back at the hospital, back when this all began. "She is gone, isn't she?" he asked faintly, needing that last reassurance before he could let go completely.

"Yes," Angel affirmed, giving Xander a reassuring smile as the young man appeared out of the dimness, anxious to know what was going on. "Nothing left but dust."

"Slurry," Xander corrected abstractedly. "In all this water - corpse dust gets to be slurry. Hey, Buff. Is the G-man okay?"

"He'll be fine," she answered, finally assured that was the case. She leant forward to slide her arm under Giles' shoulders, realising that the middle of a cold puddle was not the best of places for him to sleep. "Once he's had a cup of tea and a cookie."

"Cookie?" Wesley queried puzzledly, and she grinned.

"Yeah. *I* always get a cookie after dealing with a big bad. It's traditional. And traditions are *so* important, don't you think?"

Angel had moved to help her, taking the now unconscious Watcher's weight as they lifted him from the floor. Wyndam-Pryce's mouth was open - he clearly *knew* he was being teased but just couldn't quite work out how. Xander grinned at him.

"Totally of the important, Buff. Cookiness and just rewards going together hand in hand."

Buffy nodded, savouring the unexpected opportunity to wrap the two most important men in her life in a single loving hug. It didn't matter that Giles was totally out of it and Angel wasn't exactly paying attention; they were there and safe and so was *she*. It was over. Finally over. Nothing left to do but pick up the pieces and sweep the floor …

"Mien *Gott*." Albrecht Kalskal's voice echoed across the shattered remnants of his exhibition. "What *ever* am I going to tell the insurance company?"

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