Giles pored over the rather astonishingly thick stack of files that Pamela had brought into his office. "All of this activity's been in the last week?" he asked, looking up at his assistant.

"I'm afraid so, sir," Pamela said. "It is rather unusual. Perhaps there's been some sunspot activity? That can sometimes provoke such fluxes, I believe."

"That's generally because the things that can have a hand in creating sunspots also tend to be a staple of the stuff of apocalyptic prophecy." He sighed and leant back in his chair, taking his glasses off and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. It hadn't even been a year since the last apocalypse; he'd hoped that closing the Hellmouth would have meant there would be a longer gap between impending ends of the world.

"Oh dear." Pamela frowned. "Should we issue a general alert?"

Sighing again, Giles sat up and put his glasses back on. "No, not yet, but we should definitely get the research department to sift through all of these events, categorising and looking for a pattern. Also, have them cross-reference those results with the prophecy archive, see if anything matches up."

"I'll get onto that right away," she said efficiently, but then hesitated. "Some of it couldn't be related to your prophecy, could it?"

Giles' initial, instinctive reaction was 'no', but realistically he couldn't dismiss the idea quite that easily. "It's possible," he admitted grudgingly.

"Does the Prophecy Archive have a copy of it, or would you rather we worked on that one by ourselves?"

"We'll handle it," Giles replied. He wasn't quite sure why, but he was loathe to tell too many people about what Keri had set out as a path for Ethan and himself.

"Of course, sir. I'll set up a parallel file for our own investigations, cross-referencing with the private file we're already maintaining on your Prophecy. I'll make sure Research and Theory keep us abreast on a daily basis of any progress or developments." She hesitated briefly again and then pulled out a couple of the case folders. "If I may, sir, you may want to make sure you peruse these two. They seem particularly... chaotic."

Giles gave his assistant a hard look and then opened and quickly scanned the two cases that Pamela had pointed out. Both were local, not only to England, but to London as well. And both of them –one a sudden infestation of fairy-like creatures in Hyde Park terrorising the local wildlife, and the other, nightwatch security guards being attacked by 'living' waxworks at Madame Tussaud's– most certainly had the kind of flavour Giles would attribute to Chaos.

They felt like something that Ethan would have instigated in the past.

"Would you like anyone in particular sent out to investigate those, Mr Giles?"

"No, I think we'll handle these ourselves," Giles answered, already making plans. Ethan and Megan could investigate one, while he and Buffy took the other.

"Is there anything else you need, sir, before I head off to R&T?" Pamela absently neatened the various folders on Giles' desk; it was almost as if she didn't even know she was doing it.

Giles hid his amusement at the compulsive tidying. "I think that's everything for now, Pamela, thank you."

As Pamela turned to go, the door opened without an announcing knock, which didn't bother Giles because he knew perfectly well who it was. Indeed, he had felt Ethan approaching.

"Hello, Ethan." Pamela smiled as she walked passed him, having long since been trained out of calling him 'Mr Rayne'.

"Hello, Pammy." He grinned. "I brought that video in for you."

"I, er, oh." Pamela flushed a shade of red even Giles could see from his desk, and she hurried out with a muttered, "Thank you." Ethan giggled as the door shut.

"Do I even want to know?" Giles asked.

"She seems to have developed an interest in gay porn from somewhere," Ethan told him, with just the slightest hint of humour hovering about his lips. He walked behind the desk and bent to kiss Giles.

Giles kissed Ethan back and then offered dryly, "I wonder where she could have got that from."

Ethan sniggered, straightening up, then perched on the edge of Giles' desk. "Until she admits she listened to us, I'm going to keep supplying such material. I know she did as I caught her out with an unexpected reference to desk polishing; she went as red as you just saw her. I think she has it all on one of those little tapes somewhere, you know."

"Dear lord, I hope not," Giles muttered under his breath.

"Well, you know how very efficient she is." Ethan seemed to find the whole affair a source of prolonged amusement. "You seem to be busy, dearheart. Should I clear off and make myself useful someplace else?"

"Actually, I was about to go look for you," Giles said, handing Ethan the two files. "What do you make of these?"

Ethan flicked through both files, his lips forming his characteristic pout of concentration. After a little while, he looked up. "The waxworks are either a poltergeist or magic. The 'fairies' could be anything."

Magic or poltergeists were things that Giles felt confident in handling. "Right then. I'll take the waxworks, and you can have the fairies." He smiled faintly. "Let the expert take a closer look."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "From anyone else, dearheart, I'd take exception to that."

"What?" Giles blinked as he realised how Ethan had interpreted what he'd said. "I meant," he said with a wider smile, "that this feels much like the kind of stunt that you used to come up with."

"Oh," Ethan reared back slightly, looking genuinely surprised. "Trickster spirits running amok in Hyde Park. Yes, I suppose you're right. The walking waxworks too, now that I think of it. Ah, those were the days." The little smile and unfocused eyes suggested fond reminiscing.

"Do you miss it?" Giles asked curiously.

The eyes snapped back into focus. "Of course not."

"You used to be better at lying to me."

Ethan frowned. "I was footloose and conscience-free then; things are different now. Rupert, I'd never want to go back."

"I know." Giles reached out and rested a hand on Ethan's thigh. "I'm not worried about you suddenly deciding to go back into the candy business again."

"I do miss the challenge of such things," Ethan admitted. "But that's all."

"Well, then. Hopefully the challenge of figuring out someone else's attempt at such things will be recompense enough."

Ethan did not exactly look filled with enthusiasm. "Do you really imagine Leonardo would have been happy as a mere art critic?" he asked. But he stood, keeping hold of the Hyde Park folder. "I'm taking Megan and Giddy, I presume?"

"Unless you'd prefer to take Buffy?" Giles asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ethan didn't even bother to answer that, but he leant down again to kiss Giles, long and tenderly. "Take care at Tussaud's," he murmured, when he pulled back again.

Giles smiled at him and said softly, "I will. You watch out for those fairies as well."

Ethan chuckled as he headed for the door. "I will, but I don't think I'll be in much danger unless I'm a duck."

"They could branch out and go for foxes as well."

"I'll take care," Ethan promised, and then he was gone.

***

"Well..." Ethan looked at the small display in front of him with a feeling somewhere between amusement and distaste. "Quacky here won't be doing whatever it was he did to offend again in a hurry."

"Ew," Megan said, wrinkling her nose. "That's just... ew."

Ethan poked gingerly with a twig at the ex-duck nailed to the signpost. "I can't decide whether I'm looking at the work of a very small and very thorough psychopath, or the latest entry for this year's Turner Prize."

Gwydion whined, straining at the leash held in Megan's capable hands, trying to get at the alarmingly arranged mess of flesh and feathers. Megan knelt, taking hold of Gwydion's collar and trying to calm the dog down. "Someone's seriously disturbed, that's for sure. I mean, ducks? What's there to hold a grudge against?"

"There was apparently a canine victim as well, earlier in the week. A Chihuahua," Ethan told her, levering the remains from the signpost. They fell into the open plastic bag with a wet slithering noise. "Some old dear was very upset, I'm told."

"No wonder." Megan's hand went from holding onto Gwydion's collar to sliding around the puppy protectively. "People get very attached to dogs."

"Oh, whatever is behind this miniature terrorism of Hyde Park, whether it really is something at least vaguely fairy-like or something more mundanely awful, I can promise you, Megan, they'll not be hurting Giddy." Ethan tied up the bag and disposed of it in the nearest litterbin. There was no point in keeping the remains; his pattern senses had revealed that it was exactly what it looked like, a drake someone had turned into a surreal jigsaw, at least partially while the bird was still alive.

He crouched down in front of the wolfhound and looked into his eyes. "I know I'm not your master, but you know Rupert would want you to obey me, eh, Gwydion?"

Gwydion stared back solemnly then moved to lick Ethan's cheek.

"Good boy," Ethan said approvingly. "Now I want you to take us to the thing or things that made the artistic canard tartare. You've had a good sniff around. Can you take us there?" Rupert seemed to be able to speak to the dog like this and be understood, so Ethan was damned if he was going to talk otherwise himself.

For a long moment, Gwydion continued to stare at Ethan, until he began to doubt that he actually was communicating with the dog at all, but then Gwydion moved to sniff at the base of the park signpost where the duck had been hung. After a few seconds to get the scent, the pup was tugging on his leash.

"Should I let him go?" Megan asked, looking from the dog to Ethan and back again.

"No, but run with him," Ethan replied. "Not too fast though; I need to be with you, and I can't reach Wolfhound speed, let alone Slayer speed."

Megan threw him a quick grin. "Don't worry. We won't lose you." Then she let Gwydion have his head and took off after the excited puppy.

Ethan followed, refusing to allow himself to run faster than a mild trot. He might need his energies for other things. Even this level of exercise was warming him up, however. He was well wrapped up from the winter's chill, his body having never really adjusted back to a temperate climate after years in California and then Nevada. Or maybe it was just his age, which was a depressing thought.

They left the area of the upper park and headed towards the Serpentine, the small lake which was a major feature of Hyde Park and from whence the dear departed had undoiubtedly come.

Megan did an expert job of holding Gwydion in check, and Gwydion for his part, after the second or third time she pulled him back, slowed down somewhat and began to divide his time between sniffing out the trail and glancing over his shoulder at the humans following him.

The sedate chase took them to one end of the pond and then behind a café called 'The Dell', rather suitably. There was a closed off area beyond which was undoubtedly the tradesman entrance to the establishment. Gwydion barked once at the gate in the corrugated iron fencing and then subsided.

"Pull him back a little way," Ethan told Megan as he took his gloves off and rested his bare hands on the cold metal.

Megan did as she was bidden, kneeling again to put an arm around Gwydion as they both watched what Ethan was doing. "Find anything?"

Ethan was frowning. "There's something in there, yes." He wasn't sure what though. There was a taint of Chaos, certainly, but also something much stronger, something... odd. Something that tasted off in an entirely different way. He turned and looked at his Slayer, his brow creasing further. "I need your hands free to fight."

"Right." Megan put the leash under a stone, more symbolic than actual restraint, and sternly told Gwydion, "Stay." Then she was up and moving to a position just behind Ethan, tensed and ready for action.

In the past, a quick mutter of Latin would have opened the door, but things were more complicated now. Ethan could either speed up the rust degrading the hinges of the gate, or use a more material approach. Pulling a small tool from his pocket, he inserted it into the lock, using his pattern sense to tell him exactly where to apply pressure. The gate was open in two seconds flat.

"You're going to have to teach me how to do that some day," Megan said admiringly.

"I did start to teach you and Kat the skills of the effective criminal," Ethan pointed out, as he cautiously entered the small cobbled yard at the back of the café. Like all the Hyde Park businesses, it was closed while the investigation was underway. "I believe those particular lessons had to be halted because of a certain irritant now happily looking for employment elsewhere. Happily for us, that is."

"So that means you can start those lessons up again." Megan grinned,as she followed in Ethan's footsteps.

He flicked a quick grin at her, before lifting a thin plank of scrap wood and using it to poke about behind a pile of rubbish sacks. "I'll get you a set of lock picks for Christmas then, instead of all those useless cosmetics."

Megan didn't even miss a beat. "That's okay," she said, patting his shoulder. "You can get me both."

There were rather a lot of small bones between the bags and the wall. Now aged, the bones could have belonged to chickens and have been dragged from the cafe rubbish by rats, but Ethan suspected that wasn't the case. He looked at the small dark hole at the base of the wall with disquiet. As much to distract himself as any other reason, he asked, "When are you seeing Jade next?"

He didn't need to be looking at Megan to sense the bright smile that graced her face at any mention of her new girlfriend. "Tomorrow night. We had plans for this evening, but being a Slayer comes first." She paused, then continued hesitantly, "Though if we get this finished before dark, you think maybe I should go surprise her?"

"Sounds a fine idea," Ethan told her. "And make sure she knows she's welcome around ours anytime... although you might want to make sure the first time that Rupert is out; he seems somewhat fierce about this sort of thing." He poked his piece of wood into the hole, causing something inside it to slide over the cobbles. Interesting. But before Ethan could investigate further, Gwydion started barking outside the small yard.

Megan went back to the gate to check on what the dog was barking at. "Oh!" She glanced over her shoulder at Ethan, eyes wide with childlike glee. "Ethan, come see. It's just like out of a Disney cartoon."

Unwilling to leave his potential discovery, Ethan nonetheless got up and went over to the gate. Beyond it, he saw Gwydion being teased by three little tinkerbell fairies, complete with lacy wings and glittering trails left wherever they flew, which was always just out of reach of the angry puppy.

"Hmm," he said noncommittally, folding his arms and pursing his lips as he pattern-read the strange creatures. "Settle down, Giddy." The puppy ignored him, continuing to bark and growl at the fairies, giving them a baleful eye.

"Aren't they amazing?" Megan asked, moving forward and reaching out a hand to try and touch one of the fairies.

Moving with a speed he didn't know he had, Ethan grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "No," he forbade. "I'm not sure what they are, but they're not about to grant you three wishes."

Megan's movements had attracted the attention of one fairy, and it hovered closer, close enough for Ethan's pattern sense to suddenly reveal what had been hazy until that point. "Christ."

He stepped back, wanting to be well away from the thing that without its glamour looked pretty much like a flying scorpion with humanoid hands. His instinct was to pull Megan back with him, but that would be denying his Slayer her job, so instead he pressed the length of wood he was carrying into her nearest hand. "We need them dead, Megan," he said in a low voice. "And for all our sakes, don't let them sting you."

To her credit, Megan didn't question or protest. She just moved smoothly until she was standing in front of Ethan, and when one of the creatures flitted close enough, she hit it for six.

The creature splatted into the side wall of the cafe and slid down to the ground where Ethan quickly stomped on it. It crunched beneath his shoe with a sensation not unlike crushing a giant snail. The other two swooped over, clearly angered. "Will you be able to manage?" he asked Megan, cautiously backing up towards the gate. He wanted to get back to that hole.

"I had a three hundred batting average on my school's softball team back home," Megan replied, grinning. "It's not a problem."

"I'll assume that's a good thing," Ethan said with a small laugh and went back into the yard. He had a feeling he knew what was inside that hole, and he needed to get to it.

He had given his poking device to Megan, but he was very unwilling to put his bare hand inside the hole. Ethan was pulling his gloves back on when Giddy's barking suddenly upped a notch into frantic. He whirled around to find a veritable swarm of the nasty little creatures heading straight towards him.

Hitting out with his arms, somewhat blindly, Ethan yelled for help, even as he was reaching for the patterns of the slight breeze that was agitating the air today, trying to build it up into something that could save him.

Before he could work up anything like a sufficient defence, Gwydion was there in front of him. Leash trailing behind, the dog barked and leapt, his powerful jaws closing on several of the little creatures with loud chomps.

Ethan was terrified that the dog would get himself stung; he didn't know how he'd explain that to Rupert, but Gwydion's disobedience had certainly bought Ethan enough time to gust the rest of the fairies away from him. Megan appeared, waving her slime-smeared length of wood, but Ethan didn't stop to watch her or Giddy commit further fae massacre.

Instead, he dived to the cobbles and thrust his arm into the dark hole, feeling about inside. His gloved fingers located a lumpy object, and he pulled it out.

It was a Chaos fetish, an elaborate mockery of a Voudan offering and a focus for a summoning. Holding it, even through thick gloves, made Ethan shudder and his bones almost ache. The urge to touch it to his bare skin, to taste the Chaos again was strong. It had been so long...

A low growl right beside him shook him out of his distraction, but not soon enough to stop Gwydion from grabbing the fetish from Ethan's lax grip. He watched as the puppy violently shook his head, ripping the thing apart with his teeth.

With a small shower of Disney sparkles, the remaining 'fairies' vanished. Ethan remained on his knees, his gaze returning to his now empty hands. Bugger.

Gwydion finished his demolishing, then moved closer, licking Ethan's cheek.

With a violent shudder, Ethan pulled himself together. He stripped the gloves hurriedly from his hands and threw them into the trash. He then explored the dog's coat, looking for stings. "Are you all right?" he asked Megan, without turning to look at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He heard her toss away her makeshift bat. "You and Giddy?"

Gwydion was wriggling happily under Ethan's attention, which wasn't making it easier to make sure the puppy wasn't hurt. Ethan gave up using his hands and instead used his pattern senses to check out the dog. "The disobedient mutt is fine." He lifted himself stiffly to his feet. "I think we can call in the Council cleaners to remove the traces. Let's go home. I feel like I need a change of clothes."

"Ethan?" Megan's hand touched his arm gently. "Are you okay?"

He made himself look her in the eyes and smile. "I'm also fine, sweetheart. Now, how about we get you home and into some less practical clothing before you head off to see Jade?"

That successfully distracted Megan, and she visibly brightened at the thought of Jade. "Really? There's nothing else we need to do here?"

"We're done." He smiled at her and held an arm out to encourage her to leave ahead of him. Once she and Giddy were out of the yard, he firmly relocked the gate with a sense of relief.

***

"So," Buffy started, her voice sounding loud in the tall-ceilinged chamber. "According to this map thingy, we can go to five different areas. Has stuff been all X-files-y everywhere or just, say, in the Chamber of Horrors? Which is so where I'd be if I were a homicidal wax mannequin."

"Most of the manifestations have been in the Spirit of London exhibit actually," Giles said, leading the way towards that section.

The museum was closed, the nightguards cowering in their office, too afraid to do their job. Over the last week, they had all suffered attacks. Three were seriously injured in hospital. Brief interviews with those still on the job had revealed that they were all quite certain it was the waxworks attacking; it wasn't humans pretending to be part of the exhibit.

The lights were down low, and Buffy waved her torch around, peering into shadowed areas as they walked up the stairs. "Spirit as in ghost?"

"More like spirit as in essence of," Giles replied. "It's London through the centuries."

As they pushed through the doors into the exhibit area, Buffy asked, "So how do you slay wax?"

"It's whatever is animating it that we want to get at, be it poltergeist or spell, but chopping or melting should work for incapacitation." In some ways, this felt like old times. "The best approach would be to treat them much the same way as you would zombies."

She hefted her axe, apparently testing its weight. "I'm ready."

Giles smiled, his own sword strapped to his back a comforting presence. "I never doubted that."

Apart from the main foyer, Tussaud's had few large chambers. Instead the route wandered between rooms in which tableaux were laid out along walls and within alcoves. There were waxworks everywhere and close enough to touch. Giles sincerely hoped that if any did animate, it wouldn't be all of them at once.

Buffy had stopped and was staring at a victim of the Great Plague. "Did this one's eyes just move?"

Giles stared at the figure in question, but didn't detect any movement. "I think it's just incredibly lifelike," he finally ventured. "Or deathlike, in this particular case."

Buffy reached out to poke the statue, but hesitated before making contact. "So... if it came to life would its germs come to life with it? Could we, you know, get wax-bubonic plague?"

"I don't think we need to worry about catching wax diseases," Giles said, even managing to do so with a straight face.

She poked the figure and it rocked very slightly, not seemingly remotely animate. Apparently satisfied, Buffy walked on.

They continued in silence for a bit, Giles watching Buffy and thinking about the conversation they'd had the other day on the way to Leighton Buzzard. "Can I ask you something?"

"Buenos Aires," she replied. It was, apparently, an answer.

"I beg your pardon?"

She looked at him with a hopeful expression. "Is the capital of... somewhere?"

"Yes, but that wasn't what I was going to ask." Giles reflected it was probably a good thing that he had so much experience staying on topic despite Buffyesque diversions.

"Rio de Jan–" Buffy glanced at him and stopped. "What did you want to ask?"

"If you could be anywhere, where would you like to be?"

Her eyes widened a fraction. Giles half-expected her to name another South American city, but all she said was, "Here's fine."

Giles raised an eyebrow. "You can be anywhere in the world, and you choose Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum?"

She shrugged. "What's not to like? It's got fake merrymen, look. And you know what? Those bows and arrows are not made of wax." She peered at the Robin Hood display suspiciously.

"Stage props," Giles said, "Don't change the subject."

She glanced at him. "What do you want me to say, Giles?"

"Anything. As long as you make a decision." He checked the display they were walking past, but all seemed quiet. Turning back to Buffy, he said, "There must be somewhere you'd like to be."

"Sunnydale?" Buffy said, her tone flippant. She wasn't making this conversation at all easy.

Giles sighed exasperatedly. "Buffy."

She stopped walking and put her hands on her hips, or as close as she could approximate the gesture with an axe held in one of them. "Giles, I don't care where I am. What difference does it make to anything?"

"That all depends."

"On what?"

"If you don't care where you are because you're happy anywhere, then it makes no difference. But if you're not happy where you are, then you need to be looking for somewhere you will be."

Buffy seemed to be staring just over his left shoulder. "Pretty sure I'm just where I need to be right now. Duck?"

Giles blinked at the non sequitur. "Duck?"

"Duck!" She yelled and threw her axe right at him.

Ah, right. Duck. Giles was moving before the thought was completed, ducking to the side away from the axe and then spinning around to see what his Slayer was aiming at.

Three flamboyantly dressed punk rockers were heading towards them, all spiky shocks of pink or orange hair, bondage trousers, kilts and safety pins. Buffy's axe had sheered the arm from one at the shoulder, the absence revealing not blood and bone, but uniform beige wax.

Buffy sprinted past, high-kicked the, er, wounded one in the face, landed and reclaimed her axe, all in one smooth manoeuvre.

Giles drew his sword and moved in to face off another of the punk rockers, feeling a distinct sense of deja vu. Although back in his youth, he would have been more likely to be using a flick knife, if he'd wielded a physical weapon at all.

"Hey!" Buffy exclaimed. "I call no fair! Giles, tell them they're not allowed to do that!" When Giles glanced over, his Slayer was hacking away at the other two waxworks, but the cause for her complaint wasn't obvious.

"They're not allowed to do what?" he asked, blocking the attack of the figure he was fighting and countering with one of his own, lopping off its left hand.

"Get whole again," she said between kicks and swipes. Giles was about to ask for a better explanation when he saw for himself. The hand he'd sliced off seemed to melt, rapidly oozing across the floor to join the punk's leg. Meanwhile at the end of the waxworks' arm, a hand regrew... only this time it was holding a jagged broken bottle.

"Bugger," Giles muttered, jumping back as the waxworks thrust the bottle at him. "Definitely not fair," he agreed, trying to look at the figure with his magic sense, while he continued to dodge its attacks. There was an unpleasantly familiar magic aura hanging around the animated statue – Chaos. Not Chaos as black and sticky as the appalling glyphed pouch he was storing, but Chaos much like Ethan used to maliciously inflict upon unfortunate Sunnydale citizens.

Another quick glance at Buffy showed she was easily holding her own, but not actually making any progress. The waxworks reformed in almost less time than it took to notice it was happening.

Giles knew from Ethan that most Chaos magic of this kind needed some kind of physical focus; if he could find and destroy that, he could break the spell. The problem was that the focus could be almost anything; Giles did his best to narrow his magic sense, to try and follow the taint of Chaos to its source.

"Giles, this is stupid," Buffy complained from somewhere close behind him. "It's like chopping up water."

"I'm working on it," he replied distractedly, dodging the broken bottle again. He was fighting mostly by reflex now as more and more of his awareness was going ever deeper into his magic sense, following the ebb and flow of Chaos around the waxworks, forging against its currents upstream to where it had sprung.

He was dimly aware of Buffy fighting around him; his mind even took note for later of one particularly inhuman leap which would have taken his breath away had he time to really think about what she'd just done.

"They've called in the cops," she shouted in passing, and yes, several 'British Bobbies' were rushing into the fray. Not on the side of the law, of course. Buffy, twirling impossibly fast, sliced the head from one. "Why do your police guys wear those boob-hats, Giles?"

Giles didn't answer . He couldn't afford the attention it would take to do so away from his tracking attempt. He was so close... just a little bit more...

There.

An image of a glowing blood-red crystal flashed through his mind, along with the sense of where it was located. With a flick of his sword, he slashed the punk figure's t-shirt over its heart; the glint of red that shone through the hole confirmed what his magic had told him. Giles ducked under its counterattack and simply reached out and plucked the crystal out of the wax.

The figure immediately stopped its swing and fell to the ground, inanimate once more.

"Go for the centre of their chests," Giles shouted to his Slayer, turning to deal with a pair of Bobbies who were heading his way. "There's a red crystal, removing or destroying it should stop them!"

"On it." Buffy moved like sped up film, doing whatever was necessary to get the crystals out. Between them both, it wasn't long before they had nothing more threatening in their way than a pile of broken wax effigies.

"Well, that was bracing," Giles observed dryly as he used a scrap of one of the dummies' t-shirts to clean the wax off his sword.

Buffy gave him a huge grin, so apparently genuine and heartfelt that it both warmed Giles and saddened him, as it had been so very long since he'd last seen such an expression on her face. "I'm ready for more," she said.

"There may well be more. Or just a very boring night spent checking all the figures for crystals that aren't there." Giles regarded his Slayer fondly. "You were quite a sight to behold."

Her grin, which was still there, was infectious.

It also helped crystallise an idea that had been toying around the edges of Giles' mind for a while. "You know, I do believe your answers to my question earlier may have been very telling after all."

The grin slowly faded. "Stubborn's a British thing, huh?"

"Tenacity, perhaps," Giles said, tilting his head to the side. "What I mean is there's at least one thing Sunnydale and here have in common, and that is that they're places where you could help."

She nodded sadly. "I tried to explain the other day. It's only when I'm the Slayer that I... that I know who I am."

"Maybe there's a reason for that."

"Because that's all I am?"

"We're all more than the callings we answer," Giles said, "but they're callings for a reason, nonetheless. Trying to ignore them or deny them tends to lead to a less than happy life." Lord knows, it had taken him long enough to figure that out himself.

"But there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Slayers now. I'm retired. At twenty-two." Buffy's tone was challenging.

"Do you want to be?" Giles challenged right back.

There was a long pause with nothing said, Buffy playing with the red crystals in her hand. Then very quietly, without looking up, she said, "No?"

Giles moved closer, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. "Then we should see about bringing you out of retirement," he said quietly with a smile.

She looked at him intently, but didn't answer, seeming to be waiting for more.

"The Council is always looking for enthusiastic Slayers who want to work in the field, especially experienced ones." He dropped his voice as if sharing a confidence. "And I have it on good authority that the Head of the Council would be willing to negotiate whatever recompense and job that you wish."

She gave him a small smile, not committing to anything but obviously interested. "They don't come more experienced than me. And that so didn't come out right."

Giles chuckled. "I will take it in the spirit that it was intended."

The smile grew slighter bigger. "Would I have a neat job title?"

"Possibly," Giles said, measuring the success of this conversation by the width of, and indeed the very appearance of, her smile. "Was there one you had in mind?"

"Well, if you're the Head of the Council, and you're my Watcher...?"

"You have a good chance of talking me into whatever title you're thinking of," Giles confirmed with humour.

For a brief moment, she looked uncertain, but then she smiled, met his gaze strongly, and took a breath. "I'm the oldest surviving Slayer and have loads more field experience even than Faith. I've saved the world eight or nine times, and I've even met those creepy old guys who started the whole thing. Don't you think I should be called something that, you know, reflects all that?" She grinned, then added. "Plus, I've got the Scythe of Holy Ass-kicking."

With more than a hint of irony, Giles suggested, "The First?"

Buffy laughed then paused. "Um, that was a joke, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Buffy, that was a joke."

"Ah, Watcher-humour." Buffy nodded wisely. "It's an AP class. I never got that far."

"You've still time," Giles replied, deadpan. Then relenting, he asked, "What about Senior Slayer?"

"The Senior Slayer? Could be cool. Would it come with an appropriate, um, pay packet?" Before he could answer, she thrust her hand out at him. "Are these dangerous? Should I just crush them?"

Giles had carefully pocketed the crystal he was saving for possible research later. "Crushing them shouldn't be dangerous." He paused and then continued on in a more intimate tone, "Whatever you need financially, I'll make sure you get. Whether you're an active Slayer or not."

Buffy fisted her hand and red powder fell through her fingers to the floor. "Is there really work for me?" she asked, almost timidly. "If you're just being nice..."

"Buffy," he said at his most serious. "I would have offered you a position when I first started trying to put the Council back together if I'd thought you would have taken it. You'll always have a place here if you want it, and that's not just me being nice. That's because there's never been another Slayer quite like you, and I would be a fool not to put you to work."

Her eyes opened wide, and she smiled, a genuinely grateful expression. She opened her arms and was clearly, Giles thought, about to hug him. Instead, her gaze focused behind him, and she leapt, using his shoulder as a springboard, vanishing over and beyond him.

Giles spun around to see Buffy in the middle of a group of cavaliers and roundheads. That answered the question about whether there were more crystals at least. "We'll consider this your first assignment," he said, stepping into the fray and parrying the sword of the nearest figure.

"You mean I'll get paid for this?" Buffy laughed, slicing right through the chest of a curly-wigged cavalier so that it fell in two halves. "Things are looking way up."