“Cordelia was right,” Buffy muttered quietly as she walked into the library, “he does live here.” A slow, almost tender smile crept unbidden across her lips as she watched the sleeping librarian. He had fallen asleep in the midst of research, as the ancient book currently being used as a pillow testified. His glasses hung precariously from one ear, threatening to fall off at any given moment. Gently she reached out to retrieve them before disaster occurred.
“Buffy?” Giles blinked as he gazed at his ward through bleary eyes.
“We’ve got to work on my stealth-mode,” Buffy said with a forced smile as she handed her Watcher his glasses, “if I can’t steal glasses from a Watcher then I definitely need some training in that department.”
“Yes quite,” the Watcher murmured, obviously still groggy from sleep. He suddenly jumped in his chair as memories hit him, “Angel! Did you and Spike find him?”
“Somebody’s in the know,” she replied as she shook her head.
“Willow called and told me what happened. I wish I could have been here to see it,” he sighed regretfully. “After that your mother called. I had to lie and tell her that you were sleeping over at Willow’s after some lengthy research. She was not a happy woman.” He gave her a stern look, “try to keep me in the know, so to speak, Buffy. With that storm raging last night you really had me worried.”
A delicate eyebrow rose humorously, “I went after Angel with Spike and you were worried about a little rain? Contradiction much?”
He gave her the familiar resigned look he usually did when she abused the English language, “it wasn’t a regular storm, Buffy. It felt all wrong. Besides,” he added as he ran a weary hand through his graying hair, “the bloody thing kept me up half the night. Finally I just gave up on sleep altogether and came here.”
“Find anything interesting?” Buffy asked as she motioned towards the slept on book.
“Nothing terribly exciting,” Giles admitted as he guiltily smoothed out the rumpled cheek-shaped pages. “There was one passage that seemed relevant, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Something to do with power.”
“Really?” Buffy asked as disinterestedly as she could. “What did it say?”
Giles shrugged as he finally gave up on the book and moved on to clean his glasses. “Something about power and corruption,” he thought for a moment as his hands meticulously cleaned the glistening lenses. It’s almost like meditation for him, Buffy suddenly realized as the Watcher began reciting. “And she shall empower him with the strength above all others, for it is known that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He shook his head in frustration, “absolute gibberish is what I say,” he muttered.
She felt the delicate hairs on the back of her neck rise as shivers ran up and down her spine. It all fit together in a kind of horrible logic that made her want to scream. She needed to tell him about the elders, keeping him in the dark left her all alone. She couldn’t do this alone. “Giles,” she began hesitantly. This will destroy him, she thought miserably.
“I still say it’s your fault,” Cordelia’s shrill voice came floating down the empty hall.
“How is it my fault?” Xander asked, his voice hovering somewhere between humor and weariness.
The argument had obviously been going on for some time and was merely reaching its high point as the unlikely pair burst into the library. “Not just your fault,” the may queen replied acidly, “all of you. It’s all your fault.” She motioned towards the startled Watcher and Slayer as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them all to be at the school slightly after dawn. On second thought, Buffy thought irritably, it wasn’t really that rare either. “It’s unnatural that every time something falls out of the sky it happens to land on me!”
“It didn’t really fall out of the sky,” Xander corrected demurely.
“I don’t care where it fell out of,” Cordelia grated through clenched teeth. “It still managed to land on me! It’s a curse, it has to be a curse. There’s no other explanation. I hang out with you people and I get cursed!”
“Your hair’s wet,” Buffy observed helpfully as the pretty brunette opened her mouth to deliver another blistering accusation.
Xander winced as Cordelia slowly turned towards the Slayer, her eyes narrowed and flaming as if she had received a deadly insult. “Gee, you think?” She said bitingly. “See, somehow I managed to miss it when that tree I was walking under decided to rain on me.” The cheerleader’s dripping hair made her mascara run giving her the appearance of an extremely annoyed clown. One look at Cordelia’s face, however, deemed it best not to mention that. With a huff she retrieved a small facial towel from her bag and stormed out of the library. “I still say it’s a curse,” came floating back from the hallway through the swinging doors.
“Well she’s a regular Miss Congeniality this morning,” Buffy said brightly. “What’s her issue?”
“Beauty sleep,” Xander shrugged helplessly, “or rather lack thereof. Damn storm kept both of us up half the night. She called me and we talked till dawn,” he added as they stared at him. “You two have very dirty minds. That’s usually my field of expertise.”
“Trust him, it really is,” Willow murmured as she walked haggardly into the library. “I just saw Cordelia dripping down the hallway saying something about a curse and things falling on her.” The tired red-head looked up at the Watcher, “is it anything important?”
“Not to us anyway,” Buffy muttered, ignoring the dirty look Xander threw her way. “You’re looking a bit un-Willowy, Will,” she said, noting the dark circles under her friend’s eyes.
The pretty hacker sighed and slumped into a nearby chair, “stupid storm kept me up.”
“Half the night?” Buffy offered.
“I wish,” Willow snorted, “try the whole night. After the earthquake I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
They stared at her, “earthquake?” Giles finally spluttered.
Willow nodded, lost in her own fatigue and oblivious to their shock, “yeah, a real doozie too.”
The Watcher reached for his glasses, “I knew that storm felt unnatural,” he muttered as he fiercely cleaned the unoffending lenses.
“You think Angel had something to do with this?” Buffy asked quietly.
“Let’s see,” Xander said, sarcasm dripping off his voice, “a kick-ass thunder storm in the middle of autumn in a place were you have to pray for some rain around wintertime. And oh yeah, another earthquake. Nope, just Mother Nature back to her old tricks, no Angel intervention there.”
“See, I knew this had something to do with you people,” Cordelia muttered sourly as she pushed her way through the library’s swinging doors. Her face and hair had returned to their usual perfection, but there was still a dangerous glint in her eyes.
“There’s more,” Willow said, a yawn escaping her lips. “After I accepted the fact that I wasn’t about to fall back to asleep, I slipped into the city coroner’s web site.”
“Eeww, morbid much?” Cordelia complained.
“I didn’t know the coroner had an open web-site.”
A slow flush crept up the timid hacker’s face, “well not exactly a web-site per say, more like encrypted files with a state of the art security system,” she couldn’t hide the pride in her voice. “Well, it was a long night and I got bored,” she explained as her friends stared at her. “Anyway,” she went on quickly, “they found a homeless guy’s body last night,” she raised her pallid face to look the Slayer straight in the face. “He had two sets of bite marks on his neck.”
“Looks like Angel had himself a little party last night,” Xander grated brusquely.
“Two different sets of bite marks,” Willow emphasized.
“So he invited a friend?”
“Spike was with you last night?” Giles asked, looking at his suddenly pale Slayer. With her jaws clenched tight and her muscles aching to strike, Buffy slowly nodded her head. “So if it was Angel that only leaves Drusilla.”
Willow shook her head, “according to the report the marks were large and roughly the same size. Women generally have smaller teeth then men. It wasn’t Dru.” She gave Buffy a comforting look, “it was probably a couple of rogue vampires who couldn’t help themselves.”
“When the cat’s away,” Xander murmured.
"I don't like this," Giles said shaking his head, "if it was just a random vampire attack then that means Spike is loosing control over his clan." He looked his shaken Slayer in the face, "which in turn means that any deal you've made with him is deemed worthless. You need to talk to Spike, head this off before it goes any further."
"Yeah," Buffy agreed mechanically, her thoughts an uncontrollable whirlwind in her head, "I'll talk to Spike." Right before I make sure he fits in an ashtray, she thought wickedly.
Xander shook his head, "I'm still not convinced it wasn't Angel, I mean with the earthquake last night we know something happened that had to do with him."
"It could have just been the storm," Willow offered, barely suppressing another yawn.
"Which really brings up my curse," Cordelia threw in.
"I mean how many vampires have you seen around Angel besides Spike and Drusilla?" Willow went on, completely ignoring the irritated brunette.
"Hello people, what about my curse?"
"Yeah," Xander conceded, "I guess that's logical."
Cordelia turned on him, her eyes promising violence. No one ignored her and got away with it, "what," she said acidly, "you're a Vulcan now?"
He gave her an impudent grin and she flushed realizing she'd been duped, "live long and prosper," he replied automatically.
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"I think that on that note you should all get to class," Giles said rolling his eyes at the entire exchange.
"We still have plenty of time," Xander objected.
"Nevertheless," the Watcher replied.
"Come on Xander," Buffy said lightly, "lets leave Giles alone so he can bond with his books."
"Oh God," Willow moaned, "classes! I can't deal with classes. Thinking hurts."
"Now you know how I feel most of the time, Will," Xander said sympathetically as he put his arm around his friend's shoulders, half supporting her.
The tired hacker yawned as she rose to her feet, "I have no idea how I'm going to get through this day," she complained as they all left the Watcher to his books.
Willow's sentiment was apparently wide spread, Buffy discovered as the empty school began to teem with life. Pallid and lethargic students made their weary way to class to face irritated and bleary-eyed teachers. Finally, around mid-day the teaching staff had managed to corner Principal Snyder into giving them all the rest of the day off.
"What are you going to do today, Will?" Buffy asked her friend as they stepped out of the school and into the sunshine. Most of the evidence of yesterday's storm had dried up in the warm Sunnydale climate, but stooped trees and the occasional shattered window spoke volumes of the violence they had suffered.
"Home. Sleep," the tired hacker replied.
Buffy smiled, what one sleepless night will do to some people. "I meant after, when you've started to talk in full sentences again."
Willow tried to pout in response, then sighed miserably as she found herself too tired to do so, "Oz is playing at the Bronze tonight. Feel up to it?"
