TITLE: Bedknobs and ....4/4
AUTHOR: Second Slayer
DISTRIBUTION: In the unlikely event that you want it, ask.
DISCLAIMER: It all belongs to Joss, the WB, UPN, Fox,
Mutant Enemy and anybody else who feels they own it.
FEEDBACK: Go on then.
Giles waited patiently for the call, but eventually realised it wasn't going to come. He tried calling again, but was advised the line was out of use. He tried several more times, before finally calling British Airways.
He tried calling again from the airport, calculated over and over in his head when 72 hours would be up. 24 hours from the first time to the second. Five hours more to him realising... 29 hours. 12 hours before his hugely-overpriced last-minute flight left. 41 hours. 11 hour flight. 52 hours. Three hours from LAX to Sunnydale. 55 hours.
He fretted the entire flight, got no sleep whatsoever. He tried calling again from the airport, but again - no joy. He was stupidly tired, but rented a car and drove to Sunnydale anyway.
He failed to find Buffy, assuming correctly that she was patrolling, it being almost 4am when he arrived, but their paths never crossed. At dawn, he returned to Revello Drive. He knocked, but got no answer. He fell asleep on the porch, and Dawn nearly trod on him heading out for school at 8am. 59 hours.
Dawn went to school and Giles sat on the sofa, fretting while Buffy insisted on making him tea.
"Buffy... I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you some very personal questions, and... and I have a horrible feeling that... that the outcome of what I'm going to have to tell you... that if... if my suspicions are correct..."
"Spit it, Giles. Ask what needs to be asked."
"Buffy, in the last few days... have you been having erotic dreams?"
"I, uh.. well..." she blushed, sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Giles, so she wouldn't have to look at him.
"Couple of nights ago I had a pretty racy dream. It was odd, though, not like any dream I've ever had. I had my eyes shut in the dream. I had another one the night after. Nothing last night, though."
"Buffy... did you, in that dream, have unprotected sex?"
"Uh... I guess. I'm not going to like this, am I?"
"No. I have reason to believe that... well that you weren't dreaming. That you were made to think you were, as was the man in question. You were transported to his bed. I.. I can't prove it, but..."
"Oh god."
"Quite." He paused, not sure how to say it without just... saying it.
"Would you like me to come to the planned parenthood clinic with you?"
Giles sat with Buffy, who, he thought, was taking it all very well. He certainly seemed more nervous than she was.
She explained how she was starting to get things together - about the jobs she was going to apply for later that day. She was particularly hopeful about the self-defence coach job, but the others she still thought she was qualified enough for.
She ran out of things to say that weren't likely to cause an argument quickly, and went quiet, scowling at a particularly badly-behaved child tearing up leaflets in the corner.
"You know. Who it was, I mean. Don't you? You know who did this to me?"
"Yes."
"I don't want to know, do I?"
"I.. I don't think you do, no."
"Do we at least know he doesn't have any icky diseases?"
"Yes... I think you're quite safe in that respect."
"It's stupid... I felt... I felt so loved. It actually made me feel alive again, and... and it was... who did it? I mean who made it happen?"
"I have no idea. It would take enormous power to perform so precise a teleportation... and to control the minds of both parties."
"Could Ethan do it?"
"Not alone, I wouldn't have thought, too dangerous for him." Her name was called, and Giles sat and stared at his shoes until she returned. "They say it's going to make me nauseous, I have another one to take later."
"I really am very sorry, Buffy." He got into the rental car, realised it wasn't left-hand drive, got out again, and got into the driver's side, which made Buffy smile.
"Hey, no big. I see only the good here. I feel alive again, I feel like Buffy again. No diseases, no babies... no mysterious lover-man for Buffy. I guess that's the only down-side."
"I assure you, Buffy... it was no-one you'd ever consider as a partner."
"Yeah, well... that's what I thought about Spike, and... and the least said about that whole mess the better."
"Quite."
"You really think I'm better off not knowing?" He sighed, said nothing. "I guess that's a yes... so... do you think you might come back, now I'm me again?"
"I... I don't know that I can, Buffy."
"Is it a woman. Why you can't come back?"
"Yes... yes I rather think it is."
"Serious? You love her?"
"Very much so. She... she's my world." He parked the car. Buffy settled on the sofa, with tea and cookies.
"I felt so safe, in those dreams... like nothing could hurt me. I've always felt so... so self-conscious, so much like I had something to prove, or something to be ashamed of. Then, in the dreams, I didn't feel like that at all. I felt loved, I felt like nothing could possibly be wrong about it."
"He would never mean you any harm, Buffy."
"It was like being with you," she said, and leaned against his shoulder. She realised he'd gone still as a statue. "Apart from the sex part."
"Yes," staring into his tea "Apart from the sex part."
"So where'd you get that funky metal bed-frame of yours?" she said, biting into a cookie.
"Ikea." He said, without thinking.