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buffyfic Digest      Wednesday, September 3 1997      Volume 01 : Number 025



In this issue:

    BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (1/3)
    BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (2/3)
    BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (3/3)
    BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Giles (1/5)
    BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Giles (2/5)

See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the buffyfic
or buffyfic-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues.

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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 07:28:34 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth Ann Lewis)
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (1/3)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation... Willow
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Disclaimers:  See Author's Notes
[e-mail]

        "...and so the user said, 'I broke the coffee cup holder.' I'm all,
'What coffee cup holder?' 'You know, you press a button on the tower and
the coffee cup holder slides out.  I broke it, I need a new one.' The idiot
had been putting her mug in the CD-ROM caddy!"
        Willow joined in with the laughter.  "Oh, I've got a good one." She
drained her can of Coke and grinned.  "There's this real snob at my
school."  Willow stopped and thought for a second.   "Well, she's not
really that bad of a snob anymore.  Anyway, she was languishing in computer
class and wanted to know how to save her program.  I told her to hit
'deliver.'"
        There were puzzled looks for all of three seconds until one of the
guys hooted, "Delete!" and everyone lost it.  Willow settled deeper into
the comfortably beat-up couch in the rec room and relaxed, really relaxed,
for the first time in months.  Outside, the rain rattled the windows and
pattered on the roof.  Inside, the fire in the fireplace made everything
warm and cozy.  In the week she'd been here, she'd felt more accepted, more
a part of the action then in her whole life in Sunnydale.  She never would
have imagined speaking up in front of a crowd of people at home.  But the
people here didn't make fun of her clothes or her hair or her interests.
        She had found the nerds, and they were her.
        She pushed away the twinge of guilt that hit when she thought of
Buffy and Xander.  Yeah, they accepted her.  But Xander had known her her
whole life, and Buffy...  Buffy wouldn't have told her the truth about
vampires if Willow hadn't already seen the evidence for herself.  Probably
she and Buffy would have never really become friends otherwise.  Willow
would have helped Buffy with her homework and sometimes wondered at the
weird things that Buffy would say.  But she would have never really known
her.
        Cutting into Willow's musing, the big grandfather clock in the room
started booming.  "Oops.  Shift change.  Okay, who's got the lab for the
next two hours?" Rick asked.  The lab was open twenty-four hours a day, and
the kids who were attending the computer camp signed up for two hour blocks
of time on the mega computers that the company sponsoring the camp
provided.
        Willow got up and stretched.  "I've got the 6 AM to 8 AM block,"
she said, yawning, "so I'm going to sleep now."
        The vastly night-owl-skewed population of computer geeks shuddered.
"6 AM?" Lily asked.  "Nobody's awake then!  The sun isn't even up yet!"
        "But it rises pretty soon," Willow pointed out.  "I like the sun.
Watching it rise, I mean.  'Night."
        Willow set her clock for 5:30 AM so she'd have time for a shower,
and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillows.  But at 4:30 she found
herself wide-awake and bright-eyed.
        "Okay, I'll just get an early start.  The labs pro-AW-" she yawned,
"-bably deserted now, so I can get some extra time on the computer."
        She stumbled in and out of the shower on automatic pilot, but
perked up the closer she got to the lab room.  It was still dark, and so
intent was she on the thought of putting in some time on the lovely, lovely
computers in there that she almost ran into a girl standing in front of a
cabinet.  "Whoa.  Sorry."
        The girl didn't seem to notice that she had nearly been collided
with.  "Where is it?" she muttered.  "Confound it, I know it's around here
somewhere.  Where is it?"
        Willow tilted her head a little to the side and looked at the other
girl.  She was a few years older than Willow, maybe a college student come
to intern at the house.  She was dressed in a long, floral,
old-fashioned-looking dress, and her dark hair was in a long braid down her
back.  Willow hadn't seen her around before, but everyone had been putting
in a lot of time in the labs, so it was possible that she'd been here for
the past week and Willow just hadn't seen her.
        "What are you looking for?" she asked finally.  The other girl
turned and jumped as though she had been stuck with a pin.
        "Oh!"  Wide dark eyes met Willow's.   "It's...  my journal," she
said finally.   "I can't find the dratted thing.   I know I put it in here
somewhere...."  The words trailed off as the girl seemed to forget Willow's
existence, turning back to the open cabinet.
        Except that Willow was quite sure that cabinet was always kept
locked.   Well, maybe if the other girl worked here, she had a key.   "Can
I help?" Willow offered.
        "Um...  could you check the pie safe?   Why a pie safe is in the
parlor I don't know...."
        "Pie safe?   What's a pie safe?"
        "Over there, under the window."  The girl, still distracted,
pointed impatiently.  "The cook locks his pies in it to keep them from
being devoured before dinner.   He will be put out to find someone has
moved it in here."
        Willow located the small, squat chest and opened it.
Entertainment Weekly, People, Time and, of course, every shade and
variation of computer magazine, but nothing that looked like a journal.
        Willow got to her feet and turned back to look at the other girl.
"I don't see...."  Her voice died.
        The sun was coming up, shining through the window behind the other
girl.   And *through* the other girl.
        A moment later, the ghost vanished.
********
        She could handle this.  She could.  Willow repeated her
not-terribly-convincing mantra to herself as she made her way to the
computer lab.  It wasn't a vampire or a witch or a demon in a full metal
jacket, or a three-headed *thing*.  It was just a ghost.
        Just.  Just a ghost.  What had her life become that she actually
framed a thought with the words "just a ghost" in them?
        She could handle it, though.  No sweat.  She reached the lab and
booted up the computer, logging in.
        First things first.  Go for the easy answers.  She jumped on Yahoo
and did a search on ghosts, poltergeists, wandering spirits, and the like.
She'd done enough 'Net research for Giles to know at a glance which of the
sites were just lurid imaginings and which contained useful information.
        And which needed to be dug into a little more deeply...
        By the time people started entering the computer room, the sun was
fully up and shining with all its might and Willow had been online for
three hours.  She collected her printouts and unobtrusively slid them into
her backpack, then started the project that was supposed to be her focus
for the six week session, pretending that she had been working on it since
daybreak.  "Hey, Will," Rick leaned over the back of her chair.  "What was
that?"
        "Nothing," Willow said casually.  "Just some script that I think I
need to go over later.  I don't want to waste my time on the computer doing
it now."  ~Hate lying, hate lying, hate it, hate it...~
        "Okay.  Um, some of us were going into town to grab some dinner
tonight.  Maybe go to a movie.  Did you want to come with me?"
        "Hmm?" Willow said absently.  "Oh, I thought I'd get something out
of the kitchen here.  I, um, am falling behind on my project."
        "Oh," Rick said.  "Another time?"
        "Sure.  Another time what?"  Willow's fingers were flying over the
keyboard, and she didn't notice Rick's ignomous retreat.
        By the time she was kicked off the computer, she had managed to get
a good amount of work done on her project.  She retreated to her room with
her printouts and started highlighting things that seemed appropriate.
Within a few hours, she had assembled enough information to begin to figure
out what was going on.
        Ghosts fell into a few categories.  There was your loud and
annoying chain-rattling type.  There was the quiet and unobtrusive specter
type.  And then there was the destructive, whirlwind poltergeist type.
        This ghost didn't seem to be destructive.  And no one else
mentioned hearing chains rattling or doors opening or phantom shrieks in
the night.  But the ghost did seem to be more than your average wandering
spirit.  She had a definite purpose and desire.
        Ghosts became ghosts, so the theory went, because they had left
some earthly thing undone.  This particular ghost had been looking for a
journal.  Willow put down her papers and got up to head down to lunch,
thinking hard.  If the journal was found, would the ghost be free?
        It wasn't until Willow almost turned away from a crowded table to
sit by herself to think that she realized what she was doing.  Why did she
automatically think that *she* had to fix things?  Just because there was a
ghost and the ghost *may* want her freedom, didn't mean that Willow was
obligated to drop everything to help her, right?  That was her life in
Sunnydale.  And that life had nearly gotten her killed.
        Flipping her long hair over one shoulder, Willow stopped by a empty
seat.  "Um, is this one taken?"  The chorus of welcomes almost drowned out
the mournful wail in her head.
- -~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~

High Priestess Lizbet of the Cult of Joss -~*~- {{>AGA<}}
[e-mail] ~*~ [e-mail] ~*~ Keeper of Joss's Evil Brain
SunS List Co-Mummy:  "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." ~*~
"God made relativity and God made marijuana and the two are not entirely
unrelated." -- Boo   ~*~  http://www.primenet.com/~lizbet/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 07:30:28 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth Ann Lewis)
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (2/3)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation... Willow
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Disclaimers:  See Author's Notes
[e-mail]

        2:32 AM
        Willow sighed, turned over, and punched her pillow.  "Sleeping
would be good about now," she said out loud.
        Nobody answered her.
        2:33 AM
        It wasn't her job.  Right?  She wasn't the Chosen One.  She just
happened to have developed an odd talent for being in the wrong place at
the right time.  Or right place at wrong time.  Or...
        2:34 AM
        Besides, even Buffy wasn't a Ghostbuster.  She was a Vampire
Slayer.  The fact that they had been up against some other really weird
stuff had nothing to do with Buffy's duties, and everything to do with the
fact they lived on a Hellmouth.  This really was Giles' area of expertise.
        2:35 AM
        "Great, now I have guilt."  Willow dumped her pillow on the floor
and flopped facedown into the mattress.
        2:36 AM
        "Okay, okay, I'll do it."  Sighing, Willow sat up and pushed her
long hair away from her face.  Maybe the ghost didn't want to be released
from her captivity.  Maybe she was happy to be haunting a house full of
computer geeks.  Maybe Willow couldn't do anything about it.
        But she couldn't sleep until she tried.
        There were still faint sounds coming from the computer lab,
nocturnal creatures discovering the joys of C++.  In her robe and slippers,
Willow tiptoed into the small parlor where she had seen the ghost before.
"Hello?  Anyone here?  Hello?  Um... are there any ghosts around?  Anything
undead at all?  Okay, I tried.  Can I sleep now?"
        Before she could turn to go back to bed, a crackle of static energy
lifted the fine hairs on her nape.  Slowly turning her head, Willow saw the
ghost standing in front of the window.  Wan moonlight spilled through her
incorporeal body.
        Willow swallowed.  Twice.  "Um... hi," she managed weakly.  How
*did* you address a ghost?
        Like their earlier meeting, only when Willow directly addressed the
not-quite invisible girl did she seem to recognize Willow's presence.  Wide
dark eyes fixed on the mortal girl's slight figure.  "Oh!  Did you find
it?" she asked eagerly.
        Willow shook her head.  "No.  Um... what is it that you are looking
for?  Exactly?"
        The ghost turned and knelt in front of the fireplace, poking
slightly up the chimney.  "My journal.  Papa threatened to burn it.  He
didn't, did he?" the ghost asked anxiously, glancing back over her
shoulder.
        Willow shook her head vigorously.  "No.  Um, I don't think so."
        Pulling away from the hearth -- without a trace of soot from either
modern or prehistoric fires -- the girl sat back on her heels.  "Where *is*
it, then?" she fretted.
        Willow took a step toward her.  "What's your name?"
        "Oh, how rude of me!  I'm Eleanor Gordon.  My friends call me Nell.
Or at least, they did...,"  Nell's voice trailed off uncertainly, "...long
ago."
        "I'm Willow."  ~Do you know you're dead?~ Willow thought, but
didn't ask.
        The girl smiled brightly.  "I'm quite pleased to meet you."  Her
eyes turned vague again.  "Where is the blasted thing?  It had all my work
in it."  She rose and turned toward the door.
        "Wait!  Tell me what looks like at least.  Maybe I can help you
find it?"
        "It's a *journal*," Nell said with the impatience of both youth and
ghosthood.  "Leather cover."
        "What's in it?  Is it your diary?"
        "No, no!  It's my work, do you understand?  The new university, the
one Stanford is founding, won't take women.  But I've got formulas and
equations that will *prove* to them that I'm not a foolish girl, that I'm
the equal of any of the men who will attend.  But if I can't find it, I
can't prove to them that I can do the work.  And if Papa burned it...."
        Nell's transparent face crumpled in grief, and Willow couldn't
resist putting out a comforting hand.  The electric shock she received when
she touched Nell's form jolted her back a step.
        When she looked up again, Nell was gone.
        "Willow?"  Meri, one of the other kids at camp poked her head into
the room.  "Who were you talking to?"
        "Uh... nothing.  No one."  Willow was still staring at the spot
that Nell had occupied a moment before.  She had disappeared right before
her eyes.  Just poof.  There, and gone.
        "Yes, you were," Meri insisted.  "I heard you!"
        "Just... myself.  Myself."
        Meri gave her a weird look, and unpoked her head from the room.
Willow stood still for several moments, her heart pounding.  The look on
Meri's face... as if Willow were some kind of weirdo.  ~Isn't that what I
am?  I talk to ghosts.  How much weirder can you get?~  "I thought I could
take anything," she muttered.  Then she turned and ran from the room.
********
        Willow avoided the parlor for the next few days.  She worked hard
on her project, and slept with her pillow over her ears to block out any
ghostly pleas.
        She didn't *want* this.  She'd finally found a place where she fit
in, really fit in, and she didn't want anyone looking at her the way Meri
had that night.  Looking at her as though she was strange, bizarre.  Abby
Normal.  She wanted to fit in.
        She didn't fit in at Sunnydale High.  She never would.  But here...
she had a chance to find out what normal was.  She didn't want to screw it
up.
        It was early evening, not even quite dark yet.  Willow was brooding
in the rec room.  Before she had met Buffy, she'd been plain Willow
Rosenberg.  Resident hacker, tutor-for-begging, doormat and lonely.  Since
Buffy had arrived in Sunnydale, Willow had nearly died more times than she
really wanted to remember.  But she'd also been truly, completely accepted
for the first time in her life.  Xander, always a bud, had become one of
her closest friends.  And Buffy, while not exactly a role model, taught her
fashion and make-up and self-esteem.
        Here, she was another computer geek, just another face in the
crowd, but a *part* of that crowd.  With Xander and Buffy and Giles, she
was a part of something else entirely, something that frightened her.  She
loved them, loved them all, but she didn't know if she could handle what
came with being around Buffy.
        "Will!" Rick beamed at her.  "There you are.  Wanna go into town
with us?"
        She looked up, meeting Rick's eyes, Lily's eyes, Juan's, Ben's.
Sudden, she felt a little dizzy.  They were all her age, and yet she felt
so much older than all of them.  They hadn't had to see the bodies of their
friends strewn all over.  They hadn't had to fight the forces of evil.  She
wasn't good with people anyway.  It had always been easier to just
withdraw, to avoid conflict, to not fight.
        "Will?  Please?  I don't want to be the only girl out with all
these he-men."  Lily's voice was teasing, but her eyes were honestly
pleading.
        Buffy had taught her to fight.  And she knew she could.  Maybe she
had seen and done things that most kids her age would never have to deal
with.  But it had made her stronger.  More than that.  It was a part of
her.  She was Willow Rosenberg, Slayerette, as much as she was Willow
Rosenberg, hacker extrodinaire.  Two sides of one person.
        She'd proved that she could handle the powers of darkness.  She
could definitely handle that arguably more scary task of social
interaction.
        "Sure."  Moving forward, she blended with the group.  "As long as
we hit a McDonald's.  I'm starved."
        "And a movie?  They're rereleasing Scream up here," Rick said,
slinging an arm around her shoulders.  Willow stole a look at him, and
sighed.  Yeah, he was cute.  But she was a little leery of guys after
"Malcolm."  And, despite everything, she still loved Xander, as clueless as
he was.
        Which didn't, however, mean that she couldn't appreciate a little
male attention...
- -~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~

High Priestess Lizbet of the Cult of Joss -~*~- {{>AGA<}}
[e-mail] ~*~ [e-mail] ~*~ Keeper of Joss's Evil Brain
SunS List Co-Mummy:  "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." ~*~
"God made relativity and God made marijuana and the two are not entirely
unrelated." -- Boo   ~*~  http://www.primenet.com/~lizbet/

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 07:35:09 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth Ann Lewis)
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Willow (3/3)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation... Willow
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Disclaimers:  See Author's Notes
[e-mail]

        Willow stood at the bottom of the attic stairs and took a deep
breath.  "I can do this.  I can.  I can."
        Questioning the house administrator had lead her to this spot, up
in the quietest part of the house.  Mrs. Marshall had assumed Willow was a
history buff, interested in the history of the house and its former owners.
She had told Willow that all the family possessions had been stored in the
attic following the house's sale.
        If the diary was anywhere, it was up there.
        Armed with a flashlight and a firm grasp on her courage, Willow
climbed the steps and tried not to remember certain key scenes from the
movie she had just watched -- watched being a loose term, considering how
much time she had spent with her hands clapped over her eyes.
        The attic was hot and dusty, still holding the heat of the summer
day.  It was also very dark.  Moonlight slanted through random cracks in
the boards, making crazy patterns on the floor.  Dust motes shimmered in
the close, still air.
        Willow started poking in corners, lifting lids of trunks, peering
into wardrobes.  The beam of the flashlight found treasures, alone in the
dark.  Hats missing half their feathers, faded and torn dresses from time
gone by, fans and trinkets and *things* that didn't seem to have any use,
and were exotic for their very uselessness.
        It was an oddly peaceful way to spend time.  Willow felt surrounded
by ghosts -- but they didn't bother her this time.  There were lives
represented by the accumulation of stuff that had been hidden away in the
attic.  People, plain old ordinary people.  Willow almost forgot her
mission until she turned to the last piece of furniture -- a big mahogany
desk.
        Squeezing around a dressmaker's dummy and a big framed mirror,
Willow knelt down in front of the desk.  It had more drawers than she would
have expected a desk to have, and the top one was locked.  She tried all
the other drawers, but they were empty of everything except for random
papers that looked boring.
        So she found a long hooked thing that prompted a vague memory of
"Little House on the Prairie," and started working to pry the locked drawer
open.  She hated to damage the beautiful wood, but she'd promised Nell that
she would try to find the journal.  And if it was up here, it was probably
in this desk that Willow was willing to bet belonged to....
        A stray rumbling sound had Willow poised to dive into the kneehole
of the desk.  She was California-born and bred, and earthquake reflexes
were bone-deep with her.  But the rumbling stopped and she started chipping
away at the drawer again, suddenly scared and eager to get out.  She held
the flashlight awkwardly with her chin and used both hands, trying to pop
the lock out of its groove.
        A crash made her scream and drop the flashlight, which rolled over
and over, its light careening around the confines of the attic.  She
crawled out from under the desk and looked around.  A glass figurine lay
shattered on the floor.  While Willow tried to convince herself that it had
fallen after the brief tremor, a music box sitting on a three-legged table
nearby flew through the air and smashed against a tall wardrobe.  The
pieces showered to the floor in a rain of disjointed music.
        At that point, Willow realized she was seeing altogether too well
for her light source being a dim moon and a fallen flashlight.   She
really, really didn't want to turn around, but it was a toss-up which was
worse:  not knowing what was behind you, or *knowing.*
        "Not knowing," she whispered, her throat suddenly very dry, and turned.
        He was an old man, fifties or sixties, with a thick head of hair
and a handlebar mustache.  Willow's mouth worked for a few moments, taking
in the old-fashioned clothes and the faint luminosity that surrounded his
figure.  "Are you Mr. Gordon?" she asked.
        The ghost didn't seem to hear her, although he could certainly
*see* her.  His eyes were fixed on her with an intensity that made Willow
want to be somewhere, *anywhere* but where he was.  His expression was one
of fixed coldness, lacking even the most basic thread of humanity.  While
she was trying to decide the quickest way out of the attic, the drawers
started flying out of the desk, crashing into the wall.  All but the locked
one.
        "Please," Willow said.  "I just want to find your daughter's journal --"
        ~Bad move.  Very, very bad move.~  The poltergeist didn't seem to
like that idea.  Willow screamed again as every breakable in the room
seemed to fling itself at her head.  Terrified, she took shelter behind a
bureau and covered her head with her arms.
        Only to be trapped when the wardrobe slide towards her, inextoribly
coming closer.  She was pinned in a corner between the bureau and the wall,
and would be crushed...
        "Father, no!"  Nell's cry seemed to stop the wardrobe's advance,
although it was still blocking Willow's escape.
        As though a switch had been thrown, the ghost seemed to suddenly
come to life.  He was still transparent, but there was consciousness,
understanding, *soul* in his eyes.  "Nell, lass, go to your room."
        "I want it back," she begged, tears pouring down her face.  "Please!"
        "No daughter of mine is going to ruin herself trying to prove
herself a man," Nell's father thundered.  "What man would marry a woman who
played with numbers all day long and couldn't cook to save her life?  I'm
doing this for your own good, lass."
        "Please, Father!  You don't understand.  My *work* is in there,
everything I've learned, years and years of studying.  You can't take it
away from me."
        Willow was watching the drama through the narrow crack between the
bureau and the wardrobe, and swore that she saw Mr. Gordon's expression
soften.  "Lass..." he said quietly, "I don't want to see you break your
heart on what can never be.  Even if they would allow you into that school,
even if I let you go... what would you do?  Who would hire you to use the
knowledge you would gain?  You're better off marrying and having a son who
you can teach what you know."
        "I don't want to marry and raise a son to have what I cannot.  *I*
want it!  I want to try.  Father..."
        Crying desolately, Nell's ghost flickered and disappeared.
        Mr. Gordon remained behind his desk, staring at the space where his
daughter had been a moment before.  "I didn't know.  I swear I didn't know,
girl.  I didn't know you cared so... I'm sorry.  I'm sorry..."
        Slowly, the wardrobe inched its way back from its looming position
over Willow's head.  No fragile breakables flew through the air as she
crossed to the desk.  Mr. Gordon was gone.  So, too, Willow suspected, was
Nell.
        But on the scarred and scratched surface lay a small leather book.
Inscribed on the flyleaf with faded ink was the name, "Eleanor Gordon."
********
        "It's not fair.  It's not.  Somehow, I thought that when I gained
the courage to show Father my work, when I proved to him that it was real
and true and not just a foolish young girl's imagining... I thought he
would understand, and would believe in me.  I so needed him to believe in
me.  To prove to him that I was not just his silly, flighty daughter, that
I could make him proud.
        "But I failed.  He laughed in my face, and said I was a fool for
thinking that I could ever gain admittance to the university.  Such was not
for me.  My duty, my fate, was to marry and keep a house and be a mother.
        "But... but I had to try.  I had to believe I could win.  If I had
not... then my soul would have been a desolate thing.  I *know* that the
work I have done in my little book is good, that my mind is equal and more
to any of those who will wander the halls of this new university.  And that
knowledge is my one comfort and solace."
        Willow closed the book before any of her tears smeared the ink,
clasping it to her chest and thinking.  Poor Nell.  That was the last
entry.  She must have died young, of what, Willow didn't know, but young.
        Leaving behind this book.
        Willow glanced at her bedside clock, blinking in surprise when she
saw the hour.  At this rate, she was rapidly becoming accustomed to the
night-owl hours that so many of her hacker ilk kept.  They were often the
same hours that Buffy kept, as well, in her duty to pursue and kill the
demons who hunted the night.
        And she belonged to both.  She could take pride in the fact that
what she had done for Buffy had helped her.  The horrors that she had seen
were nothing compared to the love and acceptance she had now.
        Tiptoeing downstairs, Willow peered into the parlor.  "Nell?" she
whispered.  "Nell?"
        No answer.
        Smiling slightly, Willow left the journal lying amid a stack of
computer magazines.  Someone would find it tomorrow.  Someone would read
it, and recognize what it contained.
        "I hope you're at peace now, Nell," Willow said softly.  She turned
to the door, to head back up to go to bed, and stopped, struck by a sudden
realization.  "Because I am."

THE END
************************

High Priestess Lizbet of the Cult of Joss -~*~- {{>AGA<}}
[e-mail] ~*~ [e-mail] ~*~ Keeper of Joss's Evil Brain
SunS List Co-Mummy:  "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." ~*~
"God made relativity and God made marijuana and the two are not entirely
unrelated." -- Boo   ~*~  http://www.primenet.com/~lizbet/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 07:26:35 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth Ann Lewis)
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Giles (1/5)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation... Giles
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Disclaimers:  See Author's Notes
[e-mail]

Part One

        "I've had better ideas in my life," Giles said out loud to the
vastly empty clearing.  "Regrettably, I've had few more foolish ones."
        The birds were the only ones who heard him.  He was out in the
middle of nowhere, on a errand of madness.  Returning to England to close
his office at the British Museum, he had found the work moving slowly.  His
flat in Chelsea had been easy to close by comparison.  He had boxed up the
volumes that lived there and shipped them across the pond.  But his
office...  that had been more his home than the flat.  It was covered in
dust and still not large enough to bring a cat in, let alone swing one, but
no one had invaded it in his absence.  There were no windows; there were no
pictures on the wall.  Every spare space was covered in books.
        The difficulty was sorting out what belonged to him personally and
what belonged to the Museum.  Somehow, before, that had never been a
problem.  He'd always known it was his duty, his fate, to be a Watcher.
But until he had been called to Sunnydale, it never really had infringed
upon his life very much.
        Now, all of a sudden, there was here and there, this and that,
Watcher and librarian.  His life was bifocused.  He suddenly understood why
Buffy had tried to deny her fate as Slayer.  Two lives, two identities, and
only one person to live it.  It was exhausting, to say the least.  Buffy,
at least, knew which life she would rather have been living.  She would
have turned her back on her destiny, lived a normal, staid life if she
could.  But Giles...  offered the choice, which would he choose?
        The dismantling of his life in England had been a wearisome
project, one that he tackled with a complete lack of enthusiasm.  And one
that made distractions of any sort welcome.  When the director of the
library had approached him to ask that he deliver a particular volume to a
monastery in Ireland, Giles had accepted without thinking.   Now, he was
regretting his rash action.
        It was well before sundown, half-three, just as the abbot had
requested.  Giles had followed the detailed directions out to the small
henge out on the coast of County Clare, text in hand.  Why a Christian
priest would wish such a transaction in the middle of a pagan stone circle,
Giles could not understand.  The text itself was not extraordinary, a
fourteenth century retelling of the legend of Saint Patrick's life.  Giles
could be grateful that the renowned saint had driven the snakes from
Ireland.  It made picking through the nearly waist-high grass surrounding
the henge a little less hazardous.
        He'd spent his plane trip to Dublin studying the Pergamon Codex,
instead.  It puzzled him endlessly.  It was a font of knowledge, not
complete, but most definitely not wrong.  The prophecies in the Codex and
the prophecy that Aurelious recorded dovetailed perfectly.  And yet...
there was no other way to translate, "Interfectrix non cogitabit eum" other
than, "The Slayer shall not know him."
        The Codex rested in a satchel slung over Giles' shoulder, along
with three or four other volumes that needed his study, and a change of
clothes.  The *Life of Saint Patrick* that he was to return was clutched in
one hand.
        A half an hour passed, and there still was no sign of the gentleman
he was to meet.  The soft summer sun and gentle breeze swayed the grass and
stirred the green scents of the earth.  Curious, Giles wandered over to the
well-worn stones that stood silent sentinel against the ages.  There were
faint markings on their surface, engravings once deeply cut and now shadows
against the granite.  Leaning closer, he braced one hand against the
opposite stone and examined the marks carefully.
        With a flash of coruscating light, he felt himself violently thrust
into...  nothingness.
********
        It was dark when he woke up.  Pitch-black without the faintest
trace of light.  Terror gripped for a moment before he remembered to open
his eyes.
        The sun was down, but it was not quite dark.  Purple twilight
lingered overhead, specked with only the most brilliant of stars and
planets.  Giles levered himself upright, his head spinning as dizzily has
it had in his carefree youth when he and his fellows had sought to
determine who could consume the most ale in one sitting.  For the first
time, he understood why henges were often referred to as dances.  The
blocks seemed incapable of remaining inanimate around him.
        His hand fell on the satchel beside him and he gained his feet.
Obviously, the abbot was not going to appear.  He would make his way back
to the rented car that he had left parked about a mile back on the road,
drive into Shannon, and fly back to London in the morning.
        He took two steps and landed back down in the short grass.  Wisely,
he decided to remain there for a few moments.  A meteor glanced through the
heavens above him, and it seemed that there was not another soul in the
world.
        Which meant that the approach of another person took him completely
by surprise.  "Are you well, sir?  Sorry," she apologized when Giles turned
sharply, eyes wide and startled.  "I saw you sitting so still, and out here
in the middle of nowhere, and feared you were ill."
        Behind him in the dim light stood a young girl, not much older than
Buffy.  Long dark hair was tied at the nape of her neck into a loose
ponytail, and she wore a plain blouse and a long loose skirt.  "I fear...
I am disoriented.  I was waiting here for the abbot to come, but I have not
seen him."
        The girl cocked her head curiously.  A feeling of familiarity
overwhelmed Giles.  Something whispered that he should know this girl.
"Father Ambros would not leave a sheep to linger alone at night.  Not here.
You must have been misdirected.  And he had services to conduct today.  It
was St.  John's Day."
        "Midsummer's Eve," Giles murmured, checking his head for a lump.
Surely a blow to the skull would explain his dizziness and confusion, as
well as the persistent notion that he knew this girl.  There was no
swelling, however.  An energy discharge?  If a bolt of lightening had
struck nearby, it might have stunned him.  But it had been a clear, sunny
day.  No clouds in sight.
        The girl came forward to kneel beside him, helping to steady him.
"Aye, 'tis the sun feast." She grinned suddenly, pale eyes gleaming in the
low light.  "Father Ambros has no quarrel with the Old Ones, but for the
sake of his position, he can hardly acknowledge such things." With easy
strength she helped him rise, and supported him when he wobbled.  "I'll
take you to him, won't I, and he can have Brother Rugh look you over.  Rugh
is a fine healer."
        "My car is on the road.  I walked here."
        "I saw no cart on the road, sir, and I came that way.  What's your
name?" she asked, chatting away as they walked.  "You're obviously British.
Father Ambros has letters from England often, I assume you are one he
contacts there?  Or...," her voice trailed away.  "Or did they send you to
replace Henry?" she continued after making an obvious effort to steady her
tone.
        "I am Rupert Giles.  As for Henry --" Giles stopped dead.  Being
upright and mobile had done wonders for his aching head, and the clear
night air had swept away the rest of the cobwebs.  The girl did not seem
familiar because he had met her before.  To the best of his knowledge, they
had never come face to face.
        But she was, undeniably, a Slayer, something that he sensed on a
level that he could not even begin to explain.
        He was incapable of speech for several long moments.  Buffy was the
Chosen One for her generation.  There was only ever one Slayer at a time.
The only way that this girl could be one was if Buffy had been killed.
        In the silence, the girl let go of his arm.  "You are a Watcher,
aren't you?" she asked in a low, husky voice.  "I knew when Henry was
killed that they would have to send another.  But I--are you well?" she
asked urgently as Giles sank again to the ground.
        "No, I do not think so," he said, dazed.  "Tell me, was your
Watcher named Henry Wadsworth?"
        "Yes.  Did you know him?" The girl settled on her knees on the
ground in front of him.
        "No, I didn't.  For the very good reason that he died two hundred
years before my birth.  Dear God, I've traveled back in time."
- -~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~

High Priestess Lizbet of the Cult of Joss -~*~- {{>AGA<}}
[e-mail] ~*~ [e-mail] ~*~ Keeper of Joss's Evil Brain
SunS List Co-Mummy:  "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." ~*~
"God made relativity and God made marijuana and the two are not entirely
unrelated." -- Boo   ~*~  http://www.primenet.com/~lizbet/

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 07:27:20 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth Ann Lewis)
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Summer Vacation -- Giles (2/5)

Why, yes, I've read Diana Gabaldon.  Why do you ask?  <VBG>
- -~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~
What I Did On My Summer Vacation... Giles
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Disclaimers:  See Author's Notes
[e-mail]

Part Two

        "It was the stones," Deirdre said finally.
        She and Giles had spent nearly an hour unraveling the threads that
tangled them in confusion.  The revelation that it was the year 1778 had
first stunned and then intrigued Giles.  Certainly in a year when he had
finally taken up his duties as a Watcher, had encountered vampires,
witches, giant bugs and alarming technopagans, and had cast spells for the
first time, a trip through time was not quite as alarming.
        "I quite agree.  There are legends of fairy hills, where people
fall asleep and wake a few hundred years later.  I'm not sure I've ever
heard of anyone moving *backwards* in time before."
        "Well, I would say that it did happen tonight." Deirdre stopped
within sight of the monastery.  "The question then, is, how do we get you
back?"
        "I don't know," Giles said heavily.  "Return to the stones?  But I
would think people wander through them every day, and not all of them go
missing."
        "But it was a holy night tonight.   Perhaps the door opens
briefly...  but if you step through again, will you go back farther?   Or
return to your own time?" She sighed in frustration.  "I wish I knew what
to do!  Henry was the one who guided me.  I've missed him dreadfully."
        "How did he... die?"
        "As you'd expect," she said shortly.  "One of the demons found him
and murdered him." In the hard words was a wealth of pain.  "I hate them!"
she said fiercely.  "They maim everything they touch, polluting and
desecrating what they cannot simply tear limb from limb.  I wish...."
        "You wish that you were not the Slayer, that you did not have to
know that such things existed, that it was not your duty to fight every
creature that threatens what you know and love," Giles said quietly.
        "Aye." Tears stood in her eyes.  "I want to marry and have children
and grow old...  Liam can't understand why I refused him, and I dare not
explain.  But how can I put him in danger?"
        Giles was at an awkward loss for words.  Before his helpless
silence dragged and became obvious, Deirdre took a deep breath and favored
him with a strained smile.  "Well, it cannot be helped, then.  I am the
Slayer.  It is my duty and my fate, and no tears will change it.  I will do
what I must.  Come, we must get you inside, even if few vampires are out
tonight.  They loathe Midsummer's violently.  The shortest night of the
year offends their sensibilities.  Father Ambros will make you welcome, and
Brother Rugh will make sure that you took no lasting harm."
        They walked along a few more steps before Deirdre spoke again.
"Aine will dearly love to speak with you.  He is fiercely hungry for
knowledge of the outside world." Deirdre sighed again, with regret.  "'Tis
irony that he should best find freedom within cloistered walls.  He should
be in Dublin or Oxford.  But even if the entire village gave up their
savings, we would have not a tenth of what he would need to study in such
places." She smiled fondly.  "Aine is Liam's brother, and a dearer, kinder
boy I've never known.  If you feel he is plaguing you unduly, tell him to
go away.  Curiosity will be the death of him someday."
        By that point they had reached the small gate that connected the
monastery with the outside world.  Deirdre rang the bell that hung beside
the wooden door, and within a few moments, it opened to reveal a tall,
gaunt looking man.  "Brother Rugh!" Deirdre exclaimed in relief.  "Just the
one we needed!  I found this traveler in the dance.  Perhaps thieves set on
him.  Regardless, he is dazed and in need of shelter."
        "My good man." The tall monk had a surprisingly mellow voice.  He
came around Giles' other side and supported him.  "Come with me."
        Within short order, Giles found himself examined and pronounced in
fit health.  A bowl of hearty broth and a hunk of brown bread took the edge
off his hunger.  Deirdre bid him a good night and returned to her family's
home, promising to return the next day.  Giles was given a bunk in an empty
cell.  Weary with the day's events, he immediately fell into a deep sleep.
        The sleep was broken a few hours later by a mild commotion.  Giles
stumbled out of his cell, putting his glasses on and looking blearily
about.  "What's the matter?"
        "There is a band of travelers outside seeking shelter from the
night," Brother Rugh told him.  "Five men and one woman.  From their
speech, I would say they are aristocrats and French."
        "But why the commotion?" Giles' question was answered by Father
Ambros' quiet declaration.
        "She is a female and she may very well be as ungodly as the rest of
the French.  But she is still a traveler in seek of shelter.  Brother
Fegin, let them in."
        One by one, the sumptuously caped and shod men filed in through the
narrow door.  Without exception, they were young and Adonis-like.
Following them was a woman whose velvet hood shielded her face.  She
stepped into the circle of torchlight and moved unerringly to the abbot.
        "Thank you most kindly for your hospitality.  We are grateful that
you allowed us to rest our weary bones in your house.  And if there is any
way that we can repay you, I would seek most strenuously to discover it."
        Even before the woman lowered her hood to reveal sleekly styled
blond hair and a delicate face, Giles recognized the voice.  "Dear Lord.
Darla!"
- -~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~

High Priestess Lizbet of the Cult of Joss -~*~- {{>AGA<}}
[e-mail] ~*~ [e-mail] ~*~ Keeper of Joss's Evil Brain
SunS List Co-Mummy:  "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." ~*~
"God made relativity and God made marijuana and the two are not entirely
unrelated." -- Boo   ~*~  http://www.primenet.com/~lizbet/

------------------------------

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