Who, What, Why, Where, When?

Title: Who, What, WWherWhere, When?

Author: Haggis erieeries: 5W’s

Pairing: W/G

Rating: Starts off slushy, gets a bit naughty in the middle and stays that way for the remainder of the series (NC-17 I guess?)

Summary: Giles loses his memory and wakes up with some interesting new ideas about the group dynamics

Disclaimer: Mr Whedon and those nice people at Mutant Enemy didn’t give their permission for any part of my little fantasy world where Willow and Giles finally get together.

Feedback: Gratefully received – I get pitifully excited when mail appears in my in-box

Beta Reader: Jerri – thanks for all of the encouragement and suggestions – I’m still working on raunching up the sexy stuff!

Authors Notes: Takes place after the end of season 4. Anya and Riley are in the background, mainly because I can’t write anything funny enough for Anya or bland enough for Riley! Tara never happened – I couldn’t deny the wonderful story line that Mr Whedon ran with so I just completely ignored it!

This started off as a short fic to test the waters – kind of got away from me and ended up 28 chapters long! Don’t start if you can’t be bothered finishing!

PS: Giles now has an extra bathroom en suite to his bedroom – don’t ask why – he just needs one there!!!!!

CHAPTER 1

The weight on his left leg was becoming uncomfortable. He tried squidging around to relieve the cramp but sighed as he realised that he was waking up because of it.

The room was quite bright, but a curtain shielded his eyes from the direct sunlight. He tried to reach over to the bedside table for his glasses and was confused when he couldn’t move his right arm.

He sighed again and raised his left arm to rub his face – he desperately needed a shave! This was some hangover and he promised himself that he wouldn’t touch the stuff again, for a while anyway. Where were his bloody glasses?

The sounds around him began to clear. A short gasp and then the pressure on his leg miraculously cleared. He removed his hand and looked at a beautiful young red head standing beside his bed. He ruefully decided that his taste in “morning after, hangover” women appeared to have improved over the years.

She appeared to be staring at him and he asked her if she was alright. This prompted a small exclamation and a dash to the other side of the bed from the woman, who then disappeared out of the door and set off running up the corridor….. corridor….? Since when did he have a corridor outside his bedroom? Other details began to penetrate the haze, in a short-sighted kind of way. He was in a bed with metal sides and he couldn’t move his right arm because it was taped up and connected by tubes to a large metal stand next to the bed.

This was really very confusing and he realised slowly that he wasn’t hung-over but in a hospital bed – how the hell had he landed here and more importantly – who was the gorgeous red head he had just scared off?

Willow had fallen asleep reading a translation of an ancient Sumerian text, the book had been very heavy mentally and literally! This was the third week of the vigil schedule and she had agreed to do nights this week – Buffy needed to patrol and Anya had shanghaied Xander.

She had woken slowly, finally aware that the movement of the legs she was lying across dis disturbing her sleep. She had yawned and stretched before she remembered where she was and had stared in astonishment as he rubbed his eyes and then asked her if she was alright.

This was the first sign of life for three weeks and he had asked if she was alright? Her first thought was to hug him, but she quickly remembered the Doctor's stern warning to notify him of any changes immediately. Well this was certainly a change and, without any more thought, she heade top top speed for the door and the nurse's station.

After breathlessly explng tng that he was waking up she dashed back to the room to him him bemusedly looking at the drip stand and trying to move his right arm.

She toodeepdeep breath and was about to ask how he was when he turned to look at her and smiled – her heart stopped. She stood, completely unable to overcome the emotion of having him back. She suddenly realised she was staring at him with tears streaming down her face. His face fell and he looked worried.

The girl had finally returned to the room just as he was trying to work out how to remove the tape and free his arm. He was glad to see her back and was about to ask where he was when she started to cry. It wasn’t great sobbing, gulp-y crying but just tears streaming down her face. “Are you sure you’re alright” he asked her “what’s wrong?” She moved closer to the bed and touched his arm, as if making sure he was really there. Then she smiled. With the fickleness that only young women can hope to achieve, the smile lasted for about ten seconds before the frown started, first at her forehead but rapidly spreading to the lower half of her face.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again Rupert Giles, you, you…… bastard !!!!”

Now it was back to the crying. He wasn’t sure what to react to first – he had returned her smile and then cringed from the ferocity of the verbal attack. Before he could think of a suitable rejoinder she stormed out of the room, muttering about phoning the others.

Still bemused and finding a headache building at the back of his neck, he was relieved to see a doctor arrive – now was the time for some answers.

“Where am I?”
“”What is wrong with me?”
“Who was that beautiful woman and what have I done to make her shout at me?”
“WHERE ARE MY BLOODY GLASSES?”

Doctor Alexander took a deep breath and checked his usual stream of calming platitudes. He remembered that Rupert was a regular attendee and had probably heard them all a thousand times anyway. With a smile he moved closer to the bed and began removing the tape on the IV tubes.

“First of altop top bloody shouting in my bloody ward” he took the sting out of the remark with a smile. “You are such a grumpy sod whenever you come out of a concussion!” Rupert closed his mouth on the rejoinder and waited.

“Thank you, you are in a ward of Sunnydale General suffering from a particularly severe case of concussion”. The tape had all been removed now and he signalled the nurse to begin removing the IV’s from his arm.

“You have been unconscious for just over three weeks and we really must talk about a more suitable hobby for a man of your age as I dread to think what the next head trauma will do to you!”

The nurse finished her task and he absently thanked her – “No problem Rupert, nice to have you back with us“ she said to him.

“That will be all Nurse Stevens” the doctor sighed “You really do have a most disconcerting effect on the female staff here Rupert!”

“Now where was I? Oh yes, the 'beautiful woman' was of course the long suffering Willow and she was 'pissed off' with you because she had pulled the night shift this week and has been stuck watching you sleep while trying to believe that you would survive to “fight” another day”

At this point the Doctor appeared to get a little angry and the banter seemed less playful. Rupert smiled a little as he realised that the Doctor was jealous of Willow’s attention to him.

“And finally, your bloody glasses are where we always keep them, in the top drawer of the nightstand!” With this the Doctor reached over and took them out, handing them with a flourish to the bewildered patient. “Anything else before I get you some water?” asked the Doctor.

“Just one small thing………… well no, actually two” mumbled the patient “Who the hell are you and who the hell is Rupert?”

Willow had agreed to meet the others at the front entrance and stood in the morning sun trying to calm down. Why was she so upset when he appeared to be awake and well again? She told herself that she was being silly but knew that she was simply reacting to the release of three weeks of nerve jangling tension over Giles’s fate.

He had received the head trauma during their last big battle and, although they had been victorious, the thrill of saving the world was wearing a little thin by now. Everyone had been quite beaten up, physically and mentally, and they had assumed that G wou would recover after a few hours in the emergency room, as usual.

After the second day he had been moved to his own room and the waiting had begun. The tests all showed the damage you would expect from a head injury with a blunt instrument and none of the doctors even bothered acting surprised at the “softball accident” explanation any more. There hadn’t been anything unusual about this injury except the fact that it was the last of a long line of “sporting” injuries. All of the experts agreed he would come round in his own time.

Three weeks later and the schedule had been running to allow someone to be with him at all times. She was just glad it had been her that he had seen first, however, she couldn’t think why she had shouted at him!

Buffy arrived in record time, with Xander just behind her. They both hugged Willow and a babble of questions started about Giles. She silenced them all and explained, with a mumble, that the doctors were with him but he seemed fine. Buffy looked quizzically at Willow and said “There’s something you’re not telling us Will – you should be happy about this but you look as if you’ve just been told the horrible truth about the tooth fairy!” Willow tried to deny it, but eventually they wheedled it out of her about her outburst.

Xander laughed until they thought they were going to have to get oxygen for him. “You wait three weeks for the guy to wake up then, when you are supposedly sooooo happy to see him recovered, you call him a ba..ba..” he started to laugh again.

Willow’s lip trembled and Buffy said soothingly “It is pretty funny, but not that funny “ with this she punched Xander's arm “Why do you think you wigged out on him and where did you learn such language?” Buffy had tried to sound all “parenty” about the last part and this finally made Willow see the amusing side of the situation.

“OK, OK you guys, I don’t know why I swore at him, but I was just so scared this time and I don’t know that I ever want to go through that again”.

“None of us do Will” said Buffy “So let's go and see the old delinquent and explain the finer points of 'ducking' to him”.

Doctor Alexander was at the nurse's station on the phone when the gang arrived on the ward. He signalled to them to stop and they looked worriedly at each other. “If you could just ask them to come as soon as possible” he finished saying before putting the phone down and ushering them to the waiting area. “I need to talk to all of you before you go in to see him”

“What’s wrong” asked Willow, clutching at the doctor’s sleeve “He was OK a minute ago”.

“He’s fine” said the Doctor, extricating himself “But we seem to have a rather unusual side effect this time”.

This sobered the three into silence and they sat while the doctor paced in front of them slightly. Buffy smiled to herself thinking that this was exactly what Giles used to do and she wondered if there was an Advanced Pacing Class at Oxford.

The Doctor looked up at the three of them and seemed to make a decision. “What do you know about amnesia?” he asked.

“I can’t remember” flashed back Xander and then looked bashfully around the group as they all glared at him.

“Amnesia” began Doctor Alexander “can occur in many forms dependant upon the root cause”

“Wait a minute” interrupted Buffy “Before you go into three hour lecture mode, is Giles OK!”

“He is, and I’m sorry but it appears that he has some kind of amnesia” explained the Doctor. “While he is physically OK, he has lost his memory of more recent events”

“What”, “When”, “How” began the three friends until the Doctor silenced them with his raised hands. “I can’t be any more specific right now until we carry out some psychological tests, but, at the moment he doesn’t remember his name nor where Sunnydale is”

The three looked on stunned and Willow grabbed Buffy’s arm for support. Buffy absently stroked Willow's hand and asked “This isn’t the drugs you’ve been giving him?”

“No, we haven’t been giving him any medication for a couple of weeks now” explained the doctor “just fluids through the drip to keep him hydrated”.

“Can we see him?” asked Willow

“Sure, but you have to remember he is a little confused and, and…” he stumbled over the right phrase.

“Wierded out” supplied Xander.

“Yes” he said with a smile “wierded out right now. Perhaps you could just explain that you are his friends but don’t go into too much detail just yet, the psychologist will be here quite soon and then you’ll need to leave us alone for the rest of the day”. He smiled round the three friends and wondered, yet again, what Rupert did that engendered such loyalty from this strange band of youngsters. He couldn’t remember being this emotionally attached to his librarian three years after he left school!

Giles sighed, this day had started quite well and fallen away rapidly. He shook his head ruefully and then regretted it. “Damn” he swore under his breath, closing his eyes and lying back “I forgot to ask for something for this headache”.

He opened his eyes as he heard shuffling feet and a small cough. “Hello” he said “are you OK?” he asked as the red head appeared again, this time with an attractive blonde and an anxious looking young man. She gulped and smiled back at him “Yes, I’m, we’re fine Ru…”.

“It’s OK” he said with a sigh “the doctor told me that my name is Rupert”. They all stood around awkwardly until he said “he also told me that you are Willow and you’ve been watching over me?”

This time both the red head and the blonde burst into tears and ran from the room leaving the startled looking young man staring at the startled looking older man. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your magical touch with the ladies G-Man” sighed Xander. “OK, where do I start?” He took pity on the patient “The red head is Willow, the blonde is Buffy and I’m Xander”. This didn’t seem to resolve very much so he started again “You were our librarian and we still hang together?”

Giles held up his hand to forestall any further “explanations”. “Please, just a couple of questions before you go on?” Xander nodded his head and sat on the chair beside the bed. “Why do these girls keep crying whenever I open my mouth and why on earth did you call me 'G Man' ?”.

Xander grinned "G Man because you’re last name is Giles and, well, it just kind of stuck with you” he smiled a bit sheepishly “and I am the wrong person to ask abthe the mysteries of women, put it down to hormones or something!” Just as he made this stern pronouncement Buffy and Willow re-entered the room and stared at him. He went a bit green around the gills and pointed to Giles “He keeps making you cry not me!”

“Xander enough” Willow said with authority. “Rupert, I’m sorry but we are all just really glad to see you feeling better” and she smiled at him.

He smiled back and she got the heart stopping, stomach lurching feeling again.

Buffy walked over to the bed and hugged him, with the others joining in. “Glad you’re back Rupert, we really missed you” she said. “Apart from the “memory losing” thing how are you feeling?”

“Actually I have a bugger of a headache but I think the hug helped” he grinned. The quizzical look between the three passed him by as they all hugged again.

Doctor Alexander entered and asked that they leave him and Rupert alone so that they could sort out the upcoming tests.

Buffy looked at the other two as they stood in the corridor. “Bugger of a headache” she asked incredulously. “Even when battling the worst that demon hell can send us I have never heard Giles swear and be flippant about it in the same sentence!”

“Must be hanging around with rough women” said Xander and stared pointedly at Willow.

“Xander!” squealed Willow and chased him down the corridorrse rse Stevens looked up from the nurse's station and raised her eyebrows at Buffy, who just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. The Nurse smiled and wondered, yet again, what Rupert did that engendered such loyalty from this strange band of youngsters?

The gang meeting took place in Giles’ apartment. Buffy was making coffee for everyone while Willow gathered some clothes to take back to the hospital.

“I know Doctor Alexander seemed fairly convinced that this was amnesia” said Buffy “but suppose it’s a bit more, well, demony?”

“How do you mean?” asked Willow, dumping a suitcase at the front door.

“Well, go with me here, but we haven’t exactly been used to simple medical explanations for strange stuff before, have we?” Buffy suggested.

Xander continued eating his twinkie and said “It had to happen eventually, I mean, how many times did he take shots to the head even just in training with you?”

Buffy looked a bit subdued “I did try to make sure he wore the helmet but you know what he was like”

“Why are we talking about him in the past tense?” asked Willow abruptly. “Giles is fine and he will recover” suddenly the resolve left her face “won’t he?”

“Sure he will” said Xander.

“Yeah, sure he will” agreed Buffy. But all I’m saying is, perhaps we should be checking for…….”

“Amnesia demons” suggested Xander.

“Yeah, one of them” said Buffy.

“All right” sighed Willow “I’ll do the research, you take his clothes to the hospital”. Her lip trembled a bit at the mention of the “R” word but she shook herself and called after them “tell him I packed his razor, I noticed he needed a shave last night”. Xander and Buffy rolled their eyes and left Willow to hit the books and laptop.

The headache had lapsed a little and allowed him a chance to doze. The last three hours had been quite disconcerting.

The psychologist had spent a couple of hours going over basic memory tests to try to gauge what type of amnesia he had and what was the last thing he definitely remembered. He had lost his temper a couple of times with the effort of trying to remember the easy stuff, his present address or phone number, but could tell them the makeup of the England cricket and rugby teams. This had caused some confusion with an American psychologist and several minutes had been spent explaining the number of members in each team. Doctor Alexander had helped and was pretty sure that Rupert had an excellent memory for all of this up until about six years previously.

Doctor Alexander and the psychologist had collaborated for some time after they left Giles to get some rest. They were both worried at the apparent lack of "concern" Giles was showing over his current situation, he was angry more than anything else and they both expected some emotional fallout before much longer.

Giles sighed, despite Doctor Alexander’s assurances that he was “physically” alright, he couldn’t remember anything of the last six years. His last memories were of being in London and working for the museum. He smiled to himself, he also remembered a very attractive research assistant and wondered what had happened to her? He sighed and shook himself out of the listless feeling. At least he was OK and he would spend the next few weeks sorting the rest out, after all he was getting memories back already. He could remember his name now and he could tell the psychologist his date of birth and personal details from years before. He had been silent on the matter of family or friends from England that they had wanted to contact. He couldn't imagine how he had ended up in America but he was either here on Watcher Council business or he was trying to get away from them and, either way, he didn't want them knowing of his present condition. As soon as he was feeling a little less "wobbly" he would find a library and check out any magical options for the return of his memory. In the meantime he would take each day as it came and try not to alert anyone from back home.

Doctor Alexander passed by the door just as Giles sighed again. “How you coping old man?” he asked with a hint of sympathy in his tone.

Giles grinned, he instinctively liked this man. “Do you speak to all of you’re memory impaired patients in that derogatory tone?” he asked.

“Only the ones who can remember the best watering holes around Oxford”. Giles looked puzzled and Doctor Alexander settled on the chair next to the bed “I did my medical training at Oxford before emigrating out here” he explained. “We met a few times when you came in for treatment, or accompanied someone else, and got talking about the old country”

Giles smiled “You make it sound like I am a regular visitor here, do librarians make up most of your regular intake?”

Alexander smiled a little ruefully “Not so as you would notice” he conceded. “But then you were never a regular librarian”. Giles looked a little confused and was about to ask more questions when the Doctor stood up and patted his arm “I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more because I genuinely don’t know what you get up to outside this place” he indicated the building surrounding them. “Perhaps when you regain your memory over the next few weeks or months you will take pity on a poor doctor and come back in to tell me?”

Giles smiled a little weakly and nodded. Yes this day was definitely getting stranger and stranger.