Who, What, Why, Where, When?

CHAPTE

Willow shivered in the cold night air as they tried to pretend they were an amorous couple in the doorway. "I don't know why I always get picked for the outdoor decoy stuff" she complained. "The only danger I'm in here is from pneumonia". The last phrase was slightly muffled as he put his arms round her and pulled her into a clinch.

"Talk about danger" he murmured into her neck as he pretended to kiss her passionately. "If my decoy act is too convincing Giles will kill me" sighed Xander.

Willow giggled and put her hand on his butt. "But if we're not convincing then the bad guys might get suspicious" she dissolved into even more giggles as he nearly jumped out of his skin at her touch.

"If your neck wasn't so warm I might think you were evil, vampy Willow" he laughed.

"I don’t think you were her type Xan" Willow whispered as two large men strode past purposefully.

"I did have my suspicions at the time" Xander nodded and turned her round so he could watch the two men entering a warehouse across the street from them. His mind was completely concentrated on watching the other doorway, whilst continuing the decoy act, and he didn’t notice the approach of Giles and Bufrom rom the other direction.

Giles tapped him on the shoulder. "Hands warm enough?" he asked sardonically and was rewarded by Xander jumping away from Willow as if she had become electrified. "Willow?" he asked looking down at her smiling face.

"We saw them going in" she ignored his unasked question and nodded to Buffy. "They didn’t seem to use a secret knock or anything, just opened the door and in they went"

Buffy checked the sidewalk in either direction and then indicated a row of small windows high up on the side of the warehouse. "I guess that's the best place to get a look at what they're up to in there" she suggested and looked to Giles for confirmation.

"Yesss" he agreed. "Although it will leave the viewer rather exposed to any perimeter guards they may set up. After all, the fire escape doesn't provide much cover"

"I guess that's where you and Xander come in?" she suggested and set off to climb the fire escape.


"That's a plan then?" sighed Xander as he trotted after her to cover the rear of the building.

Giles shook his head and turned to Willow. "Can you stay in this doorway and alert us if any reinforcements turn up?"

Willow nodded. "Please be careful, I don’t think these guys are looking to take prisoners"

The nervous tension of the situation kept them all on their guard but was, eventually, rewarded with anticlimax. Buffy came down the fire escape and found Giles behind a large trash can. "I think they are getting ready to leave, we should probably do the same" she whispered and went to find Xander.

The four rendezvoused two blocks away and went into a late night café for hot chocolates to heat themselves. Sitting in a booth and speaking in hushed tones Buffy related the scene within the warehouse. "Thirteen of them gathered around a central figure in a red robe who didn't appear to move for the entire time I watched" she began. "The others were wearing blue robes and they circled round this central guy for about ten minutes before breaking up into groups and reading from several large books they had resting on tables around the edge of the gathering"

Giles eyes opened a little. "Did you notice anything specific about the books?" he asked hopefully.

"Made of paper with inky markings on them" Buffy shrugged. "They were too far away and the blue robes were gathered round them too closely"

Willow sighed a little. "Did you hear anything of what they were saying?" she asked.

Buffy shook her head. "Sorry, but I was too far away"

Xander seemed to rouse himself from his thoughts. "We only counted thirteen guys going in there and we were at the warehouse for four hours before the meeting began" he said and everyone nodded their agreement. "So where did the fourteenth guy come from?" he asked and looked round their faces.

"He must have arrived much earlier and brought the books with him" Giles suggested and they all considered this for several minutes. Eventually he took his glasses off to rub his eyes. "This isn’t getting us anywhere, let's find the car and get back home to a warm fire and comfortable seats"


"I'm getting too old to creep around behind warehouses in the dead of night" Giles groaned as he stretched his legs out in front of the fire.

Xander was sitting on the floor leaning against the sofa. "I think I'm getting too old for it so you must be way past it G-Man" he sighed as he took another drink of coffee.

Buffy laughed and sat down behind him on the sofa, pulling her legs underneath her. "How can you complain about being stuck in a doorway pretending to kiss Willow for forty minutes?" she asked incredulously.

Willow brought through a large dish of popcorn and sat it down next to Xander before sitting at the opposite end of the sofa. "He's more used to utility closets" Willow suggested and smiled sweetly at Xander.

Xander glared at her and looked up towards Giles. "Do you think any man will ever win an argument with these two?" he asked plaintively.

Giles opened one eye and smiled at Xander over his mug. "Well you do have a proclivity for cleaning fluids and janitors buckets" he suggested and closed his eye again.

"Hey, I resent that remark" Xander said indignantly then looked towards Willow. "He was making fun of me, right?"

Giles sighed deeply. "If I hadn't seen the certificate myself I would never believe you graduated from high school"

Buffy sighed. "Whatever happened to the good old days when youldould kill the big snake by blowing up the school and consider it a job well done"

Xander sighed deeply and nodded. "Demons these days, they don't have any style or imagination" he turned to lean on Buffy's legs. "I mean, whoever heard of a group of demon worshippers getting together to read books then go home" he warmed to his subject. "Not a single virgin sacrifice to be seen" he shook his head.

The three friends nodded to each other and silently thought about their frustrations in not being able to resolve this particular problem.

Giles finally roused himself and stood up slowly. "Do you two want to stay?" he asked Buffy and Xander. "Buffy and Willow could have the bed and Xander and I could manage on the floor and sofa.


Buffy also stood up and stretched. "No thanks Giles, I'll walk Xander home then head home myself"

Willow slowly uncurled herself from her position on the sofa and took Buffy's mug from her. The three of them stood looking down at Xander, who appeared to be in a world of his own. "Xander" Buffy said and gently kicked his leg.

"Mmmm" he mumbled as a smile crept across his face. "With you in a minute"

Willow sighed deeply and leaned closer to him. "If you don’t get up now I'll tell Rupert what you're thinking about" she whispered in his ear and stood back as he abruptly jumped up and took his jacket from Giles' hand.

"Are you OK?" Giles asked and was met with a very embarrassed mumble and Xander pushing past him to follow Buffy to the door.

Willow hugged Buffy and laughed as she closed the door behind them. Giles was looking at her quizzically but she shook her head before heading for the stairs. "I'm not going to tell you until he has a head start"

Ten minutes later they were lying in each other's arms and Giles was tickling her to torture the truth out of her. "OK, OK, I give up" she gasped. "He was imagining Buffy and I in the same bed" she laughed. It took a further ten minutes for her to kiss the look of shock from his face.

Giles was on the phone when Buffy and Xanderiverived the next morning. Xander was hanging back a little and signalled to Willow to come outside. "Is Giles OK?" he asked furtively.

"He's fine" Willow leaned in close to him. "Why are we whispering?" she asked and started to laugh at the worried look on his face. "He's probably forgotten already"

"I hope so" Xander mumbled and followed her back inside. "Somehow I think I'd rather fight Oz at the wrong time of the month than face Giles any time\ "I "I'm glad to hear it" Giles said from behind the door as he closed it behind Xander. "Perhaps we can focus our minds on the demons?" he asked and looked at Xander who nodded vigorously and sat down at the table behind a large pile of books.

Buffy moved from the kitchen with a glass of juice. "Did you get anything useful from Angel?" she asked.


"He wasn't there" Giles shook his head and took his glasses off. "But Wesley had some very interesting information on the particular band of worshippers we saw last night"

Willow was sitting next to Xander and cleared some of the books from the table. "Did he get any names?" she asked hopefully.

"Not quite" Giles leaned against the back of the sofa. "However he has been investigating a lar lar group recently and had some interesting insights into their rituals and the texts they use in their meetings"

"Go Wesley" Willow cheered then looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry" she whispered as Giles glared at her.

"He is sending you an electronic mail message containing the information he has to date" he continued and looked a little uncomfortable. "You can deal with that I trust?"

Buffy handed Willow her laptop from the counter and smiled. "Giles, if Wesley can learn how to do this stuff why can't you?"

"Well Wesley is a little younger than me.." began Giles before the laptop beeped at him and he abruptly stood back.

Xander laughed a little and Willow kicked his ankle under the table. "It might take a littlee toe to download the attachments" she smiled at Giles. "What else did Wesley say?"

It was four in the morning before they had worked through the leads suggested by Welsey's information. Giles had spent an hour and a half on the phone with Wesley and Angel while Willow and Xander had ploughed through most of the books on the table. Buffy had returned form patrol an hour before and was listening to Giles finish up his call.

"OK, where are we now?" she asked Giles.

Giles sighed then rolled his neck and shoulder muscles. He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. "Both Angel and Wesley are convinced that the group were performing a final ritual of allegiance. What you witnessed last night seems to have been the final stage in the adept's training to see which one will become the host for Bolak during his battle with the slayer"


Willow and Xander leaned on the table, trying to assimilate what Giles was saying. "I know I’ve asked this before but does that mean that Bolak is still a dog?" asked Xander.

"No" Giles shook his head and walked to the kitchen. "Wesley has a theory, and I tend to agree with him, that the demon would have found an intermediate, human host to enable him to complete the rituals and choose the adept most suitable for the coming battle"

"How long do we have?" Buffy asked quietly and accepted the glass of juice from Giles.

Giles sighed and gave glasses to Willow and Xander. "We're not sure, but I think he will move quite quickly after choosing his preferred host". He had returned to lean against the back of the sofa. "I would think the vengeance which is his reason for existing will be at it's peak, particularly after his humiliating defeat at our last meeting"

Buffy nodded and glanced at Willow and Xander. "And Angel still thinks he'll go for the big set piece and 'High Noon' approach and not just sneak up behind one of us?"

Giles folded his arms. "Both Angel and Wesley agree that he will stick to his preferred modus operandi" Giles let the sentence trail off.

"And you?" asked Willow.

"I don’t have any evidence to base this on" he shrugged his shoulders. "But I think he'll try to get the job as as quickly as he can, after all he's waited more than long enough and his enforced lack of action recently must have driven him to the edge" Giles suggested.

"A hunch?" asked Xander.

"I'm afraid so, yes" Giles replied and smiled at him.

Willow and Buffy looked at each other and Willow nodded slightly. Buffy moved to stand in front of Giles. "I would rather trust your hunches than anything that Angel or Wesley could come up with" she declared and put her hand on his arm. "After all you've been working and living on a hellmouth for long enough to have developed a sixth sense about things by now"

"Maybe you're developing spider sense as well" Xander suggested and covered his mouth with his hand as he finally gave in to a huge yawn.


Giles seemed to appreciate the sentiments but looked troubled. "But Fraser and the psychologist will both tell you that I\ot fot fully recovered and you all know that there is still some way to go" he suggested and Willow moved to stand beside him. "I'm not sure I can trust myself in this situation and I don’t think you should base any decisions on my opinions"

Willow sighed. "OK, we know that you're not 100% the Giles we had before the accident but you are talking to three people who know you better than just about anyone else and if we're prepared to trust you then that must mean something"

"I think you should take Welsey and Angel's advice very seriously. I would understand if you decided to accept their assessment of the situation instead of mine" Giles stood looking at each of them in turn.

"Perhaps Giles is right" Buffy suggested and he felt his heart sink.

"Buffy" Willow shouted and turned to face Buffy with her arms folded. "How can you say that?"

Buffy held up her arms and silenced her friend. "I'm serious Will" she said quietly and waited till Willow relented. "There was a time I thought I could trust Giles completely and then he mentioned that he'd forgotten to tell us about the demon he'd summoned years before". Giles took a step back as if he had been struck but he didn’t say anything. Xander and Willow were both staring at Buffy in amazement. "Even when he was being sneaky and Watchery he couldn't go throwithwith it because he realised where his loyalties lay, although we shouldn't forget the whole prophecy secret he kept from us the first time around" she continued then her face softened a little. "The only thing is I can’t quite get over the fact that we are all still here because we've listened to him and trusted him since day one" she paused and saw a look of surprise cross Giles' face.

Willow looked at Giles quickly but he wouldn't meet her eyes. He was staring intently at his slayer and Willow could almost feel the communication passing between them. She knew that she would never have that level of understanding with him but she also knew that she wasn't jealous of their relationship.

"Anyway" Buffy finally said and looked towards Xander. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've only ever had one Watcher and protector whom I trusted completely and I'm standing in front of him right now" she smiled at Giles.

Xander stood up and moved towards the three of them. "I think a group hug is called for" and, before anyone could protest, he herded them all against Giles.


"Thank you Xander" Giles suggested dryly and disentangled himself from the huddle. "And thank you Buffy" he said quietly and moved to the table to pick up one of his books.

Willow and Xander were still hugging Buffy. "Guys" Buffy finally managed to croak. "Pep rally's over, let's get back to work"