dragonyphoenix

Summary: Rewrite of season 1 with Giles as the Big Bad.
Master List for In a Corner of My Soul (previous chapters / scenes)

Dodging the nursing staff was more difficult than it should have been. “Giles,” Buffy insisted, “you passed out. You need to see a doctor.” Facing outward to address the room, she shouted. “Can we get some help here?”

Giles yanked her arm, dragging her to the lifts. “Buffy, the staff are busy enough. I. Am. Fine. A mere touch of migraine, nothing more.”

“Migraines aren't a mere touch of anything. They're more like a sledgehammer to the head.”

He walked into the lift, turned, and raised one eyebrow at her. “Are you coming?”

“Only because I don't want you passing out alone in the elevator.”

“Buffy, if you must worry about anyone, worry about your mother. She'll have anaemia. You'll need to keep an eye on that.”

“But she'll be okay, right?”

“Yes, Buffy, your mother should be fine.”

When they arrived at the room, it seemed as if Joyce was better already. Kris and the three children had crowded into the hospital room. Either the doctor had decided that Joyce was well enough for company or all six of them, now that he and Buffy had returned, could expect a severe reprimand from one of the nurses.

“Oh, hey!” Willow noticed them first and made space for Buffy by Joyce's side. “Everything's okay, right? I mean, of course it's okay because you just went to check that the house had been locked up because we're pretty sure the ER guys didn't think to.”

“Yeah, it's good.” Buffy caught on more quickly than Giles would have expected given how stupid she'd been in the Bronze.

“Oh, honey, did you check to see if the stove is off? When your friend was there, I was planning to make a snack. I don't recall if I left it on or not.”

“It's fine.”

Giles made a note to check the stove himself before Joyce returned to the house.

“So it's all good?” Willow obviously had no idea how to be surreptitious. Of course, Buffy's responses of good and fine did leave a fair number of the details to the imagination.

“It is getting late,” Giles said. “And I doubt the nurses will let us all remain all night. Perhaps some of us should be heading home?”

“I'm staying,” Buffy said.

“I'd expected nothing less.” Giles turned to Kris. “If you'll drop Mr., uh, Owen home, I'll take Willow and Xander.”

Of course they couldn't leave immediately. A good fifteen minutes meandered by before they were out of the door, and Giles suspected it would have been longer but Buffy was too focused on her mother to gossip with Willow, which left him to explain the incident at the Bronze to the children.

They were barely out of earshot of Kris and Owen before Xander started in. “What went wrong?”

“Xander, we don't know anything went wrong. Buffy said it was fine.”

Giles cringed as Xander, ignoring the door, jumped into the back of his Aston Martin. He made a note to keep the top up when carting students around. There honestly wasn't enough room for such shenanigans and he shuddered to think what Xander's boots were doing to the leather.

“She didn't look fine.”

“Angel's alive,” Giles said.

“He got away?” At least Xander was properly appalled.

“Not as such,” Giles replied. “Buffy let him live.”

“But he's not evil, right?” Willow sounded anxious. “I mean, yeah, vampire, but he's had plenty of chances to kill Buffy and he hasn't.”

“Right,” Xander replied, “because evil guys never toy with their prey like, um, cats.”

“Did you just say that Angel's a cat?”

Time to put a stop to the inane banter. “I'm afraid Xander is right.”

“Angel's a cat?”

Giles gripped the steering wheel tightly. “No, that he's toying with Buffy. Angel, or Angelus as he's more commonly known, is a master manipulator. He's infamous for toying with his prey, for days when it's purely physical torment, but up to months for psychological manipulations.”

“So he's the cat and Buffy's the mouse. Great.” Did Xander have to keep up that cat metaphor?

“But Buffy's more than a mouse. She's the Slayer. She can take him.”

“She could still be a mouse if they had a Tom and Jerry thing going on. That Jerry, man, he's vicious.”

“By bitter chance,” Giles interrupted before the nonsense could continue, “Buffy's fallen for his game of cat and mouse.”

“But, are we sure he's evil?”

“He's a legend, known for his savage villainy. His first act, upon being turned, was to torture and kill his entire family including a younger sister, still a child. He's obsessed with innocence. The torments he's inflicted on nuns alone, well, the details would take me weeks to describe.”

“Right,” Xander agreed. “We're onboard with the he's evil train. So what are we gonna do about it? If Buffy's not gonna kill him, are we gonna do it ourselves?”

“We wouldn't stand a chance against such a savage creature. No, I'm afraid we'll have to convince Buffy.”