Alternity
By Blair Provence

TITLE: Alternity  (1/3)
AUTHOR:  Blair Provence
E-MAIL ADDRESS:  aggiemo@msn.com
SPOILER WARNING:  To third season, I suppose, up to the finale. An alternate future.
RATING:  PG-13 - (Buffy/Giles)
ARCHIVE:  If you want it, let me know.
DISCLAIMER:  Everything Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Warner Brothers.  And they probably wouldn't like what I do to their property, but oh, well...
SUMMARY:  The Ascension has passed, but not the danger.  Buffy and Giles face a dire threat from an unexpected quarter, and the choices they must make are heartrending.  Angst-alert!

FEEDBACK IS WELCOME AND APPRECIATED!

Alternity (1/3)

     Giles watched silently as a drunken fly wended its way across the smeared tabletop, reeling from puddle to puddle on tiny unsteady legs, a living testimony to the disgustingly unhygienic nature of his surroundings.  He supposed he could have smashed it flat with the ashtray in front of him, but he felt an unwilling empathy for the unwary traveler - he had felt uncomfortably akin to the staggering insect for over six months now, and, frankly, he wouldn't much appreciate sudden obliteration from above, either.

     And at the moment, he was really too tired to go to all the effort of picking up the ashtray.  Sneaking another glance at his watch, he wondered where in the hell his client was, and why Buffy had yet to join him.

     The seedy tavern in which he'd chosen to meet them might have seen better days, but it was hard to imagine any amount of spit and polish improving the place - not that the owner seemed to be making any effort to increase patronage.  The leather-clad bikers sitting at the bar were enough to deter almost anyone who might chance to enter, and the looming spectre of the bartender would finish the job if there were any lingering doubts.  Giles had only been sitting at his table for half an hour, but he'd already witnessed three drug deals - and it wasn't like he was *looking* for them.  But there was little else to do at the moment but people-watch, and the company of his own thoughts was too depressing.

     He shifted against the cracked vinyl seat in order to get a better view of the entrance, wincing as a particularly loud twanging guitar riff emanated from the battered jukebox.  His 'booth' - for want of a better word - was one of several half- circles carved out of the back wall, equipped with a cheap faux- wood plastic table and a fraying privacy curtain - the better behind which to conduct criminal business without interference, he assumed.  The curtain to his booth hung drunkenly from the overhead line, parted just sufficiently for him to have a good view of the room without the reverse being true.  He had no interest in making 'friends' with any of the clientele, nor any desire to make a lasting impression on them.  A quick anonymous cash transaction with his client and a rendezvous with Buffy - that was all he wanted.

     But they were both late, and his worry for Buffy was mounting.

     <She can take care of herself, Old Boy,> he chided himself, an admonition that had always helped to calm him in previous tense situations.  <But that was before,> his mind returned. <Before you screwed up, before you ruined everything...>  She had more to fear now than everyday run-of-the-mill vampires, and her backup band had been severely curtailed.  They'd both been living on the edge for almost six months, and that kind of life wasn't conducive to longevity.  She'd been looking more tired than usual for days, and she hadn't been eating right.

     Which was why it was imperative that his client make this meeting.  The money he was to receive would guarantee them a better place to stay for a few weeks, more than a couple of well- balanced meals, and some newer, warmer clothes.

     <Come on, come on,> he glared at the door, willing his client to appear.

     Which he did immediately, as though responding to Giles' unspoken command.  Giles briefly wondered if his return to magick had engendered more serious consequences than he had anticipated.

     The middle-aged man who was his client wore a suit and tie, polished cowboy boots, and a large gray ten-gallon hat the likes of which could only be found in Texas.  He also wore an expression of genuine trepidation as he hovered in the doorway. The bikers at the bar glared over at him as he entered, but one admonishing scowl from the bartender kept them on their stools. Giles congratulated himself on his foresight in paying the bartender off, though the cash had come dear.

     He caught his client's eye and tilted his head toward the table.  The man scurried across the scarred wooden floor, clearly relieved to see Giles.  As he approached he reached into his pocket and extracted a fat wallet, and Giles sighed at his obvious amateurism.  Ten to one, the man would be mugged before he left the alley outside.

     But that wasn't Giles' problem.

     The man withdrew a hefty wad of large denomination bills and thrust them toward Giles.  "That's all of it," he whispered loudly, his accent turning the word into 'awwlll'.

     Giles ran his thumb through the stack of bills.  "I assume you won't mind if I don't take your word for it."

     The man swallowed nervously.  "Hey, I wouldn't cheat ya. Not with the...*stuff* you c'n do.  I mean - seems like it would be a really bad idea, ya know."

     "Yes, it would be," Giles replied in arctic tones.  He felt nothing but disdain for the man, but he couldn't afford to be picky when it came to his customer base.  And the man before him, for all his flaws, had paid his hefty fee in full.  "I presume that all is as I said it would be."

     The man nodded quickly.  "Oh, yeah...s-she don't even remember him at all.  I listened over the phone when he called her last night, and he was fuckin' confused, let me tell ya.  The bastard!"

     <Confused, maybe,> Giles thought, <but at least he isn't dead.>  Which had been the client's original purpose in seeking out someone of Giles' skills.  So in a way, Giles had saved the life of his client's wife's lover, even if he'd had to screw over the unsuspecting wife's mind to do it.

     <Not my concern,> he reminded himself as his always pernicious conscience tried to reassert itself.  He'd become rather good at squelching its irritating impulses during the past few months, but it was still periodically bothersome.  "You understand that the spell will only work against the man for whom it was cast - should your wife choose to take another lover, it will have no effect."  The man's face reddened with indignation, and Giles held up a hand to forestall an angry outburst, "I just want to ensure that this is clear to you."

     The man doffed his hat, ran a hand through his thinning gray hair and swallowed his ire.  "Yeah, well, in that case, I'll just have to give you another call, won't I?"

     Giles just shrugged - there was no point in telling the man he and Buffy would be long gone soon, or that his time, money and attention might be better served expended upon his wife.  "Then our business is finished."  He tucked the money into the inner pocket of his battered leather jacket.  "I wouldn't hang about here, if I were you.  You don't exactly blend in among the clientele."

     The man darted a nervous glance toward the bar.  "No kiddin'," he drawled after a moment.  "But neither do you, not the way you talk."

     Giles allowed himself a slight sneer, knowing that the man before him wouldn't understand who was the true object of his contempt.  "I find that it's not really an issue.  They aren't much for conversation."

     The man turned back to him, his gaze roaming over Giles' seated figure.  "Yeah.  And I guess you do look like 'em, well enough."  There was ill-concealed derision in his drawling tone, and Giles resisted the urge to reach across the table and break the man's hand with one nonchalant motion.  He settled for hoping the bastard *would* get mugged, and that his wife would find a new lover within two days.

     Not that Giles could argue with the man's conclusions, exactly, for he did blend in quite well with the other bar patrons, an effect that was entirely intentional.  The scarre leather jacket, faded black jeans and black t-shirt were de rigueur, complemented by steel-toed boots and an earring.  A two- day growth of silver-tinted beard and his own inner fury completed the look, a combination that had kept him completely unmolested since he'd arrived, despite being severely outnumbered by other bar patrons. 

     <If only the Council could see me now,> Giles thought sourly.  <No one who knows me would ever recognize me...>  Which had, after all, been the point of the transformation.

     No more uncertain, stuttering tweed-clad librarian for him - Ripper had returned, of necessity, and though he deplored the circumstances that forced him to it, he had to admit to feeling a tiny thrill every time someone glanced at him and shied nervously away.  No one trembled near Rupert Giles, librarian.  Those who knew of the depth of his passions might be wary of Rupert Giles, Watcher.  But only Ripper was downright feared.
    
     The front door of the bar opened again as his client turned to go, and the noises in the room fell abruptly away as Buffy appeared in the doorway.  Giles let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding upon seeing her alive and relatively healthy.  She quickly scanned the room with sharp eyes, her expression warming slightly as her gaze came to rest on him. She, too, blended in with the crowd, at least as well as someone who possessed her stunning beauty could.  She also wore black leather and boots, but to his impartial eye she looked much better in them than he himself did.  Underneath her jacket was a low cut red spandex top worn over an extremely short black skirt, which only served to heighten the contrast between her rice paper pale skin and the bold color of her shirt.  An ostentatious gold cross necklace, ruby red lips and metallic fingernails completed the dramatic outfit, and she stalked into the room as though she owned it.

     The biker closest to the door slipped off his stool and slid an arm around her waist, leaning down to whisper something into her ear, leering at her cleavage as he did so.  Quicker than the eye could see, she had him up against the far wall, his arm twisted behind him at a clearly painful angle.  Her foot lashed out to slam into his buddy's chest as he leapt to his friend's aid.  This economical and competent show of force was enough to deter the rest of the bar patrons from messing with her, and she left them behind to proceed across the floor without further interference.

     His client shrank away as Buffy approached the table.  She glared at him impatiently and he mumbled a nervous goodbye and took off toward the door.

     "Interesting display," Giles commented drily, tilting his head toward the two fuming men who were limping back to their stools at the bar.
    
     "His bad luck that he's not the first slimebag to try that tonight," Buffy replied as she flopped down into the booth next to Giles, sliding over until her thigh bumped his.  She reached up and pulled the privacy curtain closed.  "So did he pay you?"

     "In full."  He patted the hidden pocket.  "What do you mean he's not the first?"

     She reached for his bottle of beer and took a healthy swig. He considered attempting to take it away from her, but the dangerous glint in her eyes didn't bode well for any kind of success.  "I mean, every male in this city seems to think this skirt gives 'em license to pinch my butt.  This outfit may be aces as vamp-bait, but I'm tired of being taken for a hooker, Giles."

     A familiar pang of guilt stabbed into his chest.  "I'm sorry, Buffy."

     She glared up at him, her eyes dark underneath a fringe of white-blonde bangs.  "Not your fault.  And I'm *really* not in the mood for GuiltyGiles, tonight, so can it, okay?  Unless you want to listen to me blame myself for forcing you to go back to magicks you'd rather forget."

     "It's not your-"

     "Fault!" they finished in unison, and Giles couldn't help emitting a pained chuckle.  "We're a pair, aren't we?"

     She eyed him speculatively and licked her berry lips.  "I happen to think we're quite a pair, actually," she murmured, her gaze roaming his chest in a way that made him feel exceedingly warm.  "Whaddaya say we get outta here and get naked?"  Her fingers crept across his lap to cover his groin.

     "Stop that," he admonished gruffly.

     Her fingers tightened and she grinned as he inhaled sharply. "Don't wanna," she replied impishly.  "I think I'm finally getting what Faith meant about slaying making her horny."  She blinked and the smile fell away at her inadvertent allusion to her former friend - and it wasn't just because the other Slayer had betrayed her.  The merest mention of anyone from Sunnydale was inevitably guaranteed to depress them both.

     <God, I'm sorry, Buffy,> he thought, but he didn't say it aloud, knowing it would only make her angry.  Instead he took her hand in his and pulled it up to the table, lacing his fingers through hers.  Time to change the subject.  "How was the hunt?"

     Her gaze slid from his face to land on the half-empty bottle of beer.  Condensation streaked down the brown glass toward the peeled label - which had been shredded in an unspoken testament to his earlier anxiety regarding her whereabouts.  She began to pick at the residual glue with one chipped red thumbnail. "Bagged eight," she informed him, her expression darkening. "This town is crawling with nasties - maybe they like the humidity or something.  But they're pretty easy to take out.  No match for Mister Pointy."

     "Anything else?" he asked quietly.  It was an innocuous question on the surface, but one loaded with meaning for the two of them.  'Anything else' was their own personal code for the Tarakan Order of Assassins, the group of deadly hired killers that had been scouring the planet for them for almost six months now.  Buffy had killed ten of them already, but there were an endless number available to follow, and they'd been in Houston too long already. 

     It had been a judgment call whether or not to leave, and Giles had finally decided they should wait around for his client to pay him what he owed.  Running was infinitely easier when you had sufficient money to finance it.  But staying put had been a gamble. 

     "No bug men," Buffy reported in a low voice, her gaze still riveted on the beer bottle.  "Not a wacky policelady to be seen." She reached inside her jacket with her free hand and pulled out several wallets, tossing them on the table.  "Got these, though."

     "I told you not to do that unless I was with you," he scolded angrily.  "It's too risky."  Vampire slayage took on a whole new dangerous dimension if the slayer tried to frisk the slayee before staking - but that was the only way to steal whatever money the vampire might be carrying, since wallets disintegrated post-staking like everything else.

     Her jaw set mutinously, matching the stubborn flash in her eyes.  "Yeah, well, I wasn't sure the redneck slimeball would show up to pay you the other half of your money.  And I wanted to find a better place to stay when we moved on."  Her glare declared the subject closed.  "It paid off, too.  One of them had close to two hundred dollars, God knows why."

     "Really?" Giles replied, momentarily distracted.  Usually vampires carried little more than pocket change, if anything, making the procedure more an exercise in futility than anything else.  But they'd been desperate the first few times they'd resorted to pickpocketing the undead, and every little bit had counted.  "How unusual."

     Her gaze flicked to him and a brief smile lit her lips.

     "What?"

     "For a minute there you sounded like the Bookman," she said, her fondly reminiscent expression softening her face momentarily. "It reminded me of your reaction to Chris and Eric building their zombie girl at the beginning of junior year.  Remember?  You thought it was intriguing, and the rest of us were just grossed out."

     "I remember."  He cast his mind back to those relatively innocent days and heaved a small mental sigh.  The old adage was true - You don't appreciate what you've got until it's...

     Gone.

     Buffy brought her other hand up to cradle their joined fingers.  "You're so different now," she murmured regretfully, tracing his knuckles.  "Not worse, but different.  You were way happier then, weren't you?  Before all the badness."  It wasn't really a question, since the answer was practically a given.

     Before...

     Before Angelus, before Jenny, before Acathla, before the Mayor, before Faith...before *Wesley*.  Remembering his fellow Englishman's hideously painful and protracted death brought an accustomed wave of regret to Giles.

     Of course they'd been happier.
    
     He sighed aloud.  "You were happier back then, too, Buffy," he told her, feeling actual physical pain as he catalogued the visible changes in his slayer.  Not that she had been a complete innocent when he'd met her - she'd been the Slayer for a while before moving to Sunnydale, and fighting the undead left indelible marks.  But even then, her knowledge of what went bump in the night hadn't sullied her sunny outlook.  Angelus, Faith and the Council were the ones who had done that, and the knowledge of the true extent of evil in the world had hardened her.  The gold in her hair was brassier, the set of her jaw was firmer, and the fury in her eyes lived unabated.  All softness had been burned away, leaving solid bone and muscle behind.

     And he mourned the changes, even as he recognized their necessity.  Because if she weren't the woman she'd become, she would have died long ago.  Permanently.

     He squeezed her fingers.  "We can't afford to dwell on the past, Buffy.  It's not healthy.  And don't think I haven't noticed how little sleep you've been getting lately."

     Her smile was a pale shadow of what it had been, though he appreciated the effort.  "What can I say?  My man keeps me up nights."

     He wasn't going to allow her to deflect his concern - not this time.  "I wasn't making a joke, Buffy."

     "I know.  I'm sorry."  She lowered her gaze to the smeared tabletop and bit her lip.  "I just...can't help thinking about them.  Wondering how they are.  Wondering if the Council has done anything to hurt them."

     Giles squelched the automatic urge to reply, 'They wouldn't do that.'  Because in the past few months he'd had to face the unwelcome reality that the Council very well might hurt their loved ones.  He wouldn't ever have imagined that they could contract with assassins to kill a Watcher and Slayer, either, but they had.  If it hadn't been for Spike, and then Willow, he and Buffy would have been dead before they'd even known the reason why.

     But Spike had come to them with his suspicions, and they'd been curious enough to check them out, even if the vampire's reasons for helping them had been suspect, to say the least. "Better the Slayer you know, ducks," he'd told Buffy, smiling in that infernally annoying manner of his.  Buffy had smacked him one across the face, just on general principle.

     But Willow's computer searches into the heavily guarded Council files had confirmed what Spike's sources had told him - a contract on their lives had gone into effect, courtesy of the Watcher's Council - a charge led by Quentin Travers.  And it wasn't limited in scope, the way Spike and Dru's Tarakan contract had been - those three assassins had been infinitely easier to battle than an innumerable host of others would be.

     So they'd decided to run, packed a few necessities, and departed within five hours.  Buffy hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to her mother, who'd been away on an art-buying trip, and it was an omission that Giles knew haunted her.  They'd heard nothing of their friends since that night, having cut themselves completely from their lives out of sheer necessity.

     He could still picture Willow's tear-stained face as she had begged him to allow her to set up an untraceable computer e-mail account in order to stay in contact.  It had torn at his heart to refuse her, but he knew that any remaining ties between he and Buffy and their friends in Sunnydale could be exploited by the Council, and that would make the people they loved into perfect hostages.  But the Council couldn't threaten them if they couldn't find Buffy and Giles to issue the threat, and the only sure safeguard for the ones they'd left behind was the shield of ignorance. 

     But it was a thin shield, at best - Buffy knew it as well as he did, and that knowledge was another reason why the shadows under her eyes grew deeper every day.

     <They're all right, Buffy,> he wanted to assure her, but she would see it for the hollow reassurance it was - and maybe even resent him for patronizing her, when she was as aware as he of the depth of peril they all continuously faced.

     <There has to be a way to end this...>  But as hard as he'd tried, he'd yet to come up with one.

     Buffy swiped surreptitiously at her eyes, denying the tears that streaked her cheeks with the black kohl of her eyeliner. "Real winner of a place you picked to meet in, Giles," she told him, her voice determinedly cheery.  "I always knew the English had weird taste."

     He smiled at her, admiring her courage for the hundred thousandth time.  "Oh, yes, honky-tonk bars - they're
*everywhere* in England.  And you haven't lived until you've seen me line dance."

     She affected a pained look.  "I'll bet."  She reached for the wallets and tucked them back inside her jacket.  "Thanks, Giles."

     He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.  "Anytime."

     "Let's get out of here."

*****

END (1/3)

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