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punch_kicker15Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: R
Characters/Relationships: Willow/Giles
Summary: A prophecy leads Giles to practice dark magic once again. This sets him down a dark path, and Willow may be the only one who can help. AU in which Willow’s magic training started earlier than in canon.
Word count: 47,533
Notes: Thanks to
scratchingpost1 for generously offering a plot bunny that ate my brain, gilescandy and dragonyphoenix for looking over a very rough first draft and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement. Thanks also to the mods (red_b_rackham and traycer_ and other participants at 
het_bigbang for all of the help and hand-holding throughout. And special thanks to 
Chapter Ten
Buffy
Sensations assaulted her all at once. Slowly she began to differentiate them. The earthy scent of freshly-dug dirt. The lumps in the ground under her back. Crickets chirping and the wind whistling through trees. And she could see a man, who seemed familiar somehow . . . "Giles!" she croaked out. Apparently her voice was just as fuzzy as the rest of her.
He looked exhausted and worried, but he smiled at her. "Hello, Buffy. I've brought you back."
Back. She sat up, looked around the cemetery, saw a headstone with her name on it. She'd died. And that place she'd been--where she hadn't felt pain, that must have been Heaven. Giles had ripped her out of Heaven.
But when she looked at him, all she could see was Giles. The one who had helped her even after the Council fired him. Giles, who had been there for her when her Mom died. Giles, who had been a better father to her than her actual dad.
He stood up, took her hand and helped her up. "Come on, let's get you home."
***
Willow
Giles had some Council business and had told them all to take a break from patrolling tonight. Willow decided to invite everyone else for a pizza and movie night. Maybe it could be a first step towards getting back together with Tara. And if things were awkward, then everyone else could act as a buffer.
The evening was going pretty well. Dawn was curled up on the couch between Tara and Willow. Willow had picked Galaxy Quest. It wasn't historical (so Anya and Spike wouldn't chime in every five seconds about how the movie got the era wrong) and it was funny instead of scary or sad. Plus Willow was enjoying Sigourney Weaver's cleavage, which meant that despite the incident with Giles, her appreciation of women’s bodies hadn’t gone away.
Then, just as the pig-alien exploded, there was a knock at the door, which unsettled everyone. They weren't expecting anyone. Xander looked through the peephole. "It's Giles and the Buffybot."
"I thought she was charging downstairs--" but maybe Giles had been “training” her again. Or maybe all of the stress was making her forgetful.
They opened the door for him, and Spike went very still, then whispered, "That's not the Buffybot. That's Buffy."
Willow's heart skipped a beat. All of the grief they'd been through over the past few weeks--the grief she thought would never end--was gone, just like that. Buffy was back. Dawn rushed forward to hug her, and Willow and Xander followed.
Willow asked Buffy, "How did you get back?"
Giles answered. "I did a resurrection spell."
That knocked the wind right out of her. Giles had done a powerful spell without her? After all the times this year that she'd done powerful magic without any mistakes? But then, the obvious explanation came to mind. She'd really, really screwed up by sleeping with him, and of course it would affect their work relationship.
She thought about the resurrection spells she'd read about. "Giles, how did you get enough magic to do this?"
He looked at Buffy, then down at the ground. "Borrowed power. From the Watcher's Council." He looked almost sheepish. If she’d resurrected Buffy, she’d be proud.
And the Watcher's Council had actually been useful. That was weird. Maybe it was the stopped clock that was right twice a day. Then, another, more pressing question came to mind.
"Buffy, do you remember where you were? I was worried that you'd fallen into Glory's hell dimension."
"I was--" Buffy looked pained for a moment, "You're right. I was in Hell. I don't really want to talk about it. But Giles brought me back."
Willow smiled at Giles. "Thanks, Giles." He'd made everything better by bringing Buffy back. They'd figure out how to get back to a normal working relationship later.
"Yes, thank you Giles." Buffy looked kinda blank when she said it. But she was probably still recovering from the hell dimension. Willow could be elated for the both of them at the moment. Buffy would be back to her normal self soon.
***
Later, after they’d settled Buffy into her old room, Willow sat down in the kitchen with Tara.
"Did Buffy seem a little weird to you?" Willow asked. "I mean, I know we don't have a lot of other resurrected people to compare her to. But she didn't seem, I dunno, as happy as I thought she would."
Tara said, "Maybe it was a difficult process for her. I mean, Giles did break all the laws of nature. That could be traumatic."
"Pfft. Laws of nature. I'd break them too if I had to get Buffy out of Hell."
The sad, disapproving look on Tara’s face made Willow feel guilty and defensive and indignant all at once. Willow would do anything for a friend trapped in Hell. Why couldn’t Tara understand that?
***
Giles
A week after the spell, and Giles was still feeling the effects. Every muscle in his body ached with restless energy, and his mind kept racing with new thoughts, new ideas for patrol formations or spells Willow could cast. He was hyper-aware of the steady thrum of Hellmouth energy, which he'd never even noticed before.
He hadn’t felt so alive in decades.
It was a stark contrast to Buffy, sitting across from him at the Summers' kitchen table. She still looked as lethargic as the day that he’d resurrected her.
"Buffy, I wanted to explain why I brought you back," he said.
"There was a reason besides getting me out of Hell?" she asked.
"Er, well, yes. Do you remember encountering the First Evil?"
She gave him a blank stare in response.
"It was Christmas, the year that Angel returned."
A spark of recognition finally showed up in her eyes. "Yeah, I remember now. Feels like another lifetime ago. I guess it was. Big talky evil that wanted to make Angel kill himself."
"Right," Giles said. "We have reason to believe that The First is planning to end the world."
Buffy said, "By talking people to death? That's all they can do, right?"
Giles sighed. "Unfortunately, no. I believe that they have an army of vampires just beneath the Hellmouth. At some point, they'll open the Hellmouth and unleash the vampires."
Buffy picked up an apple from the fruit bowl, stared at it, then put it back.
"So is that all? Just an army of vampires coming out of the Hellmouth?"
"Er, no. These aren't ordinary vampires. They're Turok Han, an ancient and entirely different race. They are the vampires that vampires fear. I'm afraid that we don't have much useful information on how to fight them. Until recently, I thought they were extinct."
Buffy was silent for a moment. Then she said, "And what about the new Slayer? The one that was called when I died? How does she figure into this?"
"There is no new Slayer," Giles said. "You and Faith are the only Slayers in the world now. There are prophecies that the two of you will work together to save the world." He glanced at her, trying to gauge her emotions, but she had the same impassive expression.
"I'm sorry to burden you with all of this now, before you've had a chance to recover," he said. "It felt wrong to keep this information from you any longer."
She shrugged. "So world ending, we have no clue what to do, and we need to work with someone evil who tried to kill us. Same old grind."
***
Willow
Tara had asked if she could have some one-on-one time with Dawn at the Summers’ house tonight. The exclusion really stung, but there was nothing Willow could do without seeming incredibly petty. The most obvious solution was the least palatable: accepting her parents' invitation to come to their house for the night.
Her parents were so utterly predictable. Dinner was the same Stouffer's meatloaf they made whenever they were home. CNN was on. There was a sickly-looking orchid plant on the table.
And then there was the conversation: "Willow, it's so good to spend time with you. How's Terri?"
Yep, her mom was just as annoying as ever. "It's Tara. And she's fine, mom."
"Really?"
Wait, how could her mother possibly know about Tara being brainsucked or even that they’d broken up--oh, she was talking about Tara's name. "Yes, mom. My girlfriend's name really is Tara."
Her dad finally looked away from the TV. "Honestly, Willow, there's no need to get bent out of shape for an honest mistake."
Willow seethed. Her mother could remember hundreds of complicated names of researchers and dozens of child development phases. Why were the "honest mistakes" only about the most important people in Willow's life?
But maybe that wasn’t fair, Willow had been lying to her parents since she was sixteen years old. Joyce had been a better mom to Buffy once she understood that Buffy was the Slayer. Willow had never given her parents that chance. Maybe the distance was a two-way street these days.
But even if she wanted to bridge the gap, tonight was not the night to do it. She had much more important things to worry about. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I've had kind of a long day, I'm gonna go to bed now."
Her old bedroom was exactly the same, too. If she stayed here too long, she'd probably turn back into the long-haired geek with frumpy clothes and an unrequited crush on Giles.
Though she was already halfway there on the Giles front. She'd been having flashbacks about Giles’ hands running down her back, the soft little noise he’d made when she’d kissed his neck, the intense look in his eyes as he thrust inside her . . . whoa--there was a lot of weird conflicted lust going on. Which should not be happening.
She thought of all of the ugly things that she’d heard people say about women who’d done what she’d done: Lesbian until graduation. Or fence-sitter. Or Closet case who’s afraid to admit she's gay.
Willow didn't want anyone, especially Tara, to think that she was ashamed of being attracted to women, or that Tara had been the stereotypical college experiment.
Her relationship with Tara was way too important for anyone to dismiss that way. And Willow didn't want to give anyone any reason to do that.
If this pesky attraction to Giles would just go away, it would make her life so much easier.
Chapter 11
