Secrets and Lies
Prologue
Name: Appomattoxco
Seasons: AU
Challenge: 99
Must haves:
Buffy never really mends fences with Giles after "Lies My Parents Told Me".
Buffy dies in battle and Giles is somehow thrown back in time to season 6 and decides to play matchmaker for Buffy and Spike because he believes it was losing Spike that led to Buffy's death.
Sexy bites but no claiming stuff.
Can haves:
Giles/Anya as a side romance.
Spike and Buffy becoming parents
A wedding where Giles gives Buffy away.
Willow dying in Tara's place.
Author's Notes: This is my first time ever writing a challenge fic. Currently, my muse is dead, so I hope that this will get it going again.
Prologue
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, his fathomless eyes focused on his fellow former watcher, raked his fingers through his disheveled hair for the tenth time in as many seconds. He looked weary and grief-stricken, relieved and repulsed, lost and stoic all at once. Finally, he spoke. “I can’t promise to be as objective as you would like, Rupert, but I am prepared to listen without interruption. Tell me what happened back there in Sunnydale; tell me what happened to Angel.”
“Perhaps I should explain how it all began… I, myself, am still vexed by it, but it is my fervent hope that you will be able to make sense of things,” Giles began as he frantically cleaned his glasses. “I have explained the… the alternate reality in which Buffy never forgave me after Wood and I conspired to kill Spike. She was appalled, as well she should have been. She is a true hero, as we all know, not like me. After the Hellmouth collapsed, after Spike saved the world, she… It destroyed her. She moved to Italy, allowed the Immortal to use her as his, um, connubial partner, to word it delicately.
“She continued her slaying duties, but she took no pleasure in them, not even in knowing that she was saving innocent lives. She rarely ate, and she slept even less. Her advanced healing abilities kept her from truly starving herself to death, but she was weaker than I had ever seen her, even when she was first called.
“I… I don’t know where to begin, but I understand that it is of the utmost importance that I explain why I did what I did. Let me tell you about the night Buffy died for the third time.”