"Creed" ~ Part 1

SUMMARY, THIS PART: It's approximately ten years in the future. Giles and Buffy are married with a child--a special child for whom the Watcher Council has offered a bounty. To protect their baby, Giles and Buffy have left Sunnydale and are now hiding out in Philadelphia . . . unaware that an old enemy is closing in.

SPOILERS: Season 3, then branching into AU.
PAIRINGS: Buffy/Giles, Willow/Xander
RATING: FR-T for mature themes, violence, language, and drug abuse. This story is very dark and contains major angst!
DISTRIBUTION: KoalasPlace.com, Gabi's B/G FanFic Archive.
DISCLAIMER: Without Prejudice. Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and concepts are copyright ©1997-2000 20th Century Fox, WB Television, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy. No Infringments of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. I just borrowed them to put them through a little hell. The story and all other characters are mine.

Part 1: Gone to Ground

The baby's cries tore at the pre-dawn stillness of the single room apartment, in contrast to the softer, gentler tones of the young woman trying to quiet her. Propped on his elbow on the bed, Rupert Giles watched the woman pace while shushing the newborn in her arms. Their child was hungry and they had nothing left to feed her.

Guilt-ridden, he glanced away. This was his fault. He had led them to this abysmal way of life, started them toward this misery years ago, when he had turned his back on the Watcher Council. Officially fired, it seemed like a good idea, and when his Slayer also mutinied, he thought they were finally moving forward, away from the rules and regulations and clueless old men in suits. The past was behind them, and the future beckoned brightly, just up ahead.

Or so he once believed.

The babe finally hushed, and cooed instead. Giles looked up as his wife returned to the bed, gently laying their child on the covers between them. She settled on her side, facing him, eyes shining with a devotion he did not deserve. He wanted to apologize, yet again, for this dismal existence to which he had condemned them, but instead lost himself in the love of her blameless gaze. She was so beautiful in the subdued light, and their rented tenement was so dank and dingy, far less than what she deserved, than what he wanted to give her. In the flickering glow of the single candle they had dared leave burning, he gazed deep into her eyes, begging for forgiveness to his unspoken remorse.

Tenderly, Giles raised his hand to brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek. She wore it shorter these days, out of convenience rather than fashion, but it was still the color of honey and felt like spun silk in his fingers. "Buffy, I . . . "

"Shush, now, or you'll set her off again." She covered his hand with her own, leaning into his touch for a moment, then broke contact in order to place a gentle kiss on her baby's forehead.

Giles looked down at the newborn nestled between them, in time to see Buffy's adoring smile. She had been his wife for just two short years and was the heart of his existence, but what she had given him six months ago was undoubtedly the soul.

A baby. A daughter. A Slayer.

He shut his eyes and held back a sigh. This was no life for them, living hand-to-mouth; awake by night, sleeping by day, and always in dread. And there had not been a moment, in the entire six months they had spent laying low, that he did not regret his decision to move them away from some semblance of a normal life in Sunnydale, to this place. To this rodent and bug infested slum in downtown Philadelphia.

Oblivious to his remorse, Buffy stretched, catlike and graceful. Now 28, she was still young and lithe and athletic when compared to himself, an old man of 54, and sometimes making love to her was an effort best not dwelled on. She glanced up at the bare window above the bed where night still hovered against the glass. "It will be light in an hour. I should get moving."

She rose gingerly, crossing the single room tenement they called home in near darkness. There, she reclaimed her coat from a scarred wooden chair. They seemed a lifetime removed from when Buffy lost her Slayer strength and had been forced into retirement. In reality, it happened only six years ago, right around the time she graduated college and her mother remarried. Everything in Buffy's life changed at once. Only Giles remained a constant, and so he became the foundation she clung to upon finding herself thrown into a suddenly ordinary world. Loosing her Slayer strength, even temporarily during the Council's rite of passage test, had been hard enough, but loosing it suddenly and permanently was something for which neither had seriously prepared. Buffy hadn't quite known what to do, despite Giles' encouragement that she try to live a normal life, find love, or follow a dream. She was a Slayer no more, and as a reward, her life had been returned to her to live as she pleased.

Unfortunately, having seen the things they had seen, done the things they had done, it had not been quite that simple, but rather a difficult and disconcerting time for them both. Eventually they emerged, unscathed, on the side of 'mundane', their unique bond all the closer for the experience. Giles successfully convinced everyone that his devotion to this young woman was completely paternal. Everyone, that was, except Buffy. And the first time she kissed him--really kissed him, on the silhouetted terrace at her mother and new stepfather's wedding reception--he knew, quite categorically, that he had also been fooling himself. Buffy loved him. More importantly, she was in love with him, and for the first time since they met, he ardently allowed himself to love her back. Since, he had shared with her a passion he thought perished forever with Jenny Calendar.

"Be careful," Giles told her needlessly. If nothing else, age and circumstance had taught them both to be more than a little prudent in the hours before sunrise.

Buffy grinned in reply, the same brazen smile she had as a teenager, now tempered with the genuine affection of a woman in love. "Aren't I always?"

Wanting to see her on her way, Giles rolled to the side of the bed in order to stand. Struggling unsuccessfully to get to his feet, he cursed the day, long past, when an encounter with a group of over-zealous vampires and multiple sledgehammer blows to his left femur had rendered him all but crippled. He stifled a groan as Buffy returned to assist. Humbling as it was, Giles accepted her help, hiding a twinge of pain and holding her for support until she pushed his cane into his hand. A wordless moment passed between them, and then he hobbled after her as she headed back to the door.

Buffy donned a wool hat and pulled it low to conceal as much of her identity as possible. She finished buttoning her faded coat against the coming chill outside, then cautiously opened the apartment door to survey the darkened stairway of their building for movement. Satisfied of their immediate safety, she turned to Giles as he peered over her shoulder. "Anything special you need?"

Giles hesitated, absently rubbing his leg. He did not want to be more of a burden than he was already, but the twinges were becoming more frequent. The pills helped keep the pain at bay, but they were about to run out. "No, nothing I can think of."

She frowned reproachfully. "Is it your leg?"

"It's this bloody cold," he lied, attempting a half-smile that came off more as a grimace. Winter in Philadelphia, and they could only afford to heat the place sporadically. "Plays havoc with my old bones. That's all."

Buffy saw right through that one too. "You ran out of pills again. Giles, you should have told me."

"I still have a few left."

"I'll get you some more. Somehow. I promise."

"Buffy, they're expensive. And you and the baby need--"

"You have needs, too," she insisted, then tempered her frown with an affectionate smile. "No argument, mister, or else you get to deal with the crying when you wake her."

He touched cheek in a farewell gesture. He loved her, so much; it was torture to be parted from her for even a few hours. "Just . . . be careful out there."

His mood and over-cautiousness triggered a mischievous smile. "Old fuddy-duddy," she teased. Taking his arms, Buffy stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips, then she was gone, disappearing into the gloom of their slum's stairwell like a shadow in the night.

Giles waited until he heard the door at the bottom softly open and close. Sending Buffy out for supplies went against gut instinct and common sense, but given his impairment there was simply no other choice. He shut the apartment door and locked it as securely as he could. Limping back to the bed, he was well aware that a rusty lock on a dry-rotted door would be no match for several able-bodied men on a mission.

Men united by a mutual purpose, and a common belief.

Sitting carefully not to jolt his daughter awake, Giles slid open the battered nightstand drawer. At one point in his life it would have held wooden stakes, crosses, and phials of holy water. But he no longer defended himself against the undead; nowadays he fought the living. He withdrew his handgun, a 9mm Ruger, recent obtained in a manner that was not entirely legal. Holding it to the candlelight, he slipped out the magazine to check the rounds--fully loaded--cocked it once, then placed it atop the nightstand within easy reach. Buffy hated the very sight of it, which is why he kept it in the drawer.

He took off his glasses and placed them beside his gun, first rubbing bloodshot eyes then the unshaven beard stubble on his chin. It took both hands to hitch his unusable limb up onto the bedcovers. So settled, he retrieved a prescription bottle from the drawer and shook the contents onto his palm. He had five pills left. Just five. He swallowed three, without water, because nowadays the recommended two did not quite dull the pain. Yes, they were prescription narcotics, he rationalized, but he had been taking them for years and his tolerance had just increased. That was all. He would not allow himself to even consider that his new dosage bordered on abuse.

Carefully returning the precious leftovers to the brown plastic bottle, Giles leaned back against his pillow, and gazed at his sleeping baby in an effort to tune his worry of running out of pills to something else. A loving smile crossed his lips. She was so tiny and new to the world, so unaware of what the Watcher Council had in store, if they ever found her. No one needed to remind Giles that unions between Watchers and Slayers were rare, negated by moral and physical circumstances, or that the favorable product of said unions rarer still. Thus, there were rules. Laws. Expectations. It was all laid down in black and white, the fate of any infant girl born from the paring foretold in a dictum so ancient that the crumbling parchment now sat encased in an airtight box, sequestered but not forgotten in a basement somewhere within the Council's long reach.

The notion never failed to rile his temper. No arcane slip of paper was going to decree what they could and could not do with their lives. No Watcher's Creed was going to dictate the destiny and responsibility of his child's life. Not while he still drew breath.

As he laid a protective hand on his child's chest, a sparkle of candlelight caught the gold band on his finger. They had named her 'Carma', from the Sanskrit meaning 'Fate', and she had been born a year and a half after he and Buffy had exchanged vows in a simple service witnessed by Buffy's mother and stepfather, and Xander and Willow Harris.

As the progeny of a Watcher and a Slayer, Carma had the potential to be an extraordinary tool in the fight against evil, the Council said. It was her Destiny and his Responsibility, they said; he should not interfere. He, of all people, should understand and accept, they said; should blindly give custody of his child to complete strangers. To which, he said, they could all go to Hell.

Giles sighed despondently, rolling onto his side to watch his baby sleep. Not for the first time, he recalled Kendra, who had been given to the Council and her Watcher as a toddler. The practice of offering one's child to Destiny may have been acceptable then, but times had changed, and with them his philosophy on the matter. Fate, as he now believed, was a flip of a coin, a branching decision made many times over in the course of ones life, not an all encompassing conviction that governed it from the beginning, as the Council still steadfastly believed. It shamed him to have once been part of them, to have sanctioned their code, for the Watcher Council had long ago been revealed as cruel and fanatical as the demons they trained children to fight.

"Rest easy, little one," Giles whispered, gently tucking the threadbare blanket around one of the two most precious things in his life.

He, Buffy, and Carma were fugitives on the run. Not from justice, but from a birthright.

* * *

Buffy kept to the shadows as she made her way down the deserted city street. She went out of her way to avoid most of its denizens, unsavory or otherwise, evading contact for the sake of anonymity. Streetlights and moonshine revealed patches of alternating color on the warehouse walls at her back, graffiti describing the quality of the neighborhood in precise and often provocative detail. Despite her haste to return to the security of Giles and her daughter, Buffy took her time, mindful of the icy sidewalk. It would do no good to slip and break her leg. That's just what they needed right now; for her and Giles to both be invalids.

It was a traitorous thought, and she bit her bottom lip as punishment for it. She could hardly blame Giles for his handicap, especially not when he sustained the injury while saving her life. He had lived with pain for the better part of a decade because of her, and yet he never complained.

'Well, hardly ever,' Buffy amended silently. It was just that sometimes she felt so . . . helpless. With Giles, and the frequency of his prescription refills these days. With her own competency, or imagined lack thereof, as a mother. With life. 'Helpless' was not a word she liked to associate with herself, but nonetheless one that had to be dealt with in her now ordinary life. If not for the fact that one of them needed to remain strong in this crisis, then she would have crumbled long ago.

Sometimes, she just wished she could go home and see her mom; let her marvel over how fast her granddaughter was growing, find a little snippet of the normality Giles had promised upon retirement. She could imagine her mother's reaction; the initial joy at having her and Carma back home, which would fast deteriorate to stoic politeness when Giles hobbled in. Her mother did not approve of her choice of husband, much less of Giles as the father of her grandchild. Buffy had only seen her mom once since the wedding, when she had been in labor at Sunnydale General, and deeply regretted their growing disassociation. But she wasn't 'wasting her life with a man old enough to be her father', and if her mother ever wanted to see them again then she was just going to have to deal with the fact that Rupert Giles was the man with whom she chose to share her life.

Pausing at the corner of the last building on the street, Buffy pushed sentiment aside and scanned the empty road before her. Crossing it, even at a run, put her in the open as an easy target for several precious seconds. Not that there was any other choice. She was only a few blocks from the tenement and still in the warehouse district, still a mile or so from her convenience store destination.

She hugged herself against a random chill. Oh, how she would love, right now, to be spending winter in the southern Californian sun, to be having afternoon tea with friends and proudly showing off her family. What a delight it would be, not to creep around at dawn, scavenging food for her baby and medicine for her husband. She had lost it, somehow, that elusive 'normal life', somewhere between her perilous youth and eventual old age.

Dear God. How had she ended up here? Like this? Freezing her butt off in a back street of downtown Philadelphia, and scared of what lurked in the shadows. She was Buffy the Ex-Vampire Slayer! She had done this dozens of times in the past months, walked the same route to purchase the same meager supplies. When had she become such a spineless wimp?

Determined and angry, Buffy broke cover for the curb. At this time of morning, the traffic light flashed an orange signal four ways, warning of the intersection but asking no particular driver to stop. It was odd, then, the black car approaching slowly from behind, speeding up as she stepped into the ice-slicked street.

Two steps across the road, her lapse in concentration proved her critical mistake. Buffy had gambled sentimental musing against caution, and she had lost. The superhuman abilities she relied on as a Slayer were hers no more, and she possessed neither the strength nor body weight to successfully fend off the two men who flung open the back door and bodily pulled her into the car. A broad strip of sticky silver tape awaited her mouth, muffling what might have been a scream welling its way to the surface. She only caught a glimpse of their faces before a cloth sack was tossed over her head as a blindfold, but a glimpse was enough to send a spear of terror through her chest. Buffy recognized her abductors, not by their faces but rather by their three-piece suits, aloof demeanors, and stern expressions.

Council men.

Her arms were wrenched behind her back, tearing a tiny murmur of pain that she bravely fought to swallow. Several haphazard loops of tape bound her wrists; more around her ankles successfully rendered her immobile. Bound and gagged, all she could think of was how disappointed Giles was going to be, when he discovered she had not heeded his warning to be careful . . .

The car skid recklessly around a nearby corner, its tires screeching loudly in the deserted morning stillness, but drawing the surprised attention of absolutely no one. As it disappeared from sight, a figure clad in a long black coat stepped out of the shadows of the graffiti covered warehouses. Sole witness to the event, the man did not appear shocked, or pull out a cell phone to call the police. Instead he calmly walked to the curb where Buffy had been snatched, stroked his beard . . . and smiled.

* * *

The baby's cries slowly penetrated Giles' drug-induced sleep. Once registered, he began to hush Carma even before he opened his eyes, rocking her with a loving hand. Only half awake, it took a good minute for him to register the patch of sunlight burning his unshaven cheek. Eyes cracking open, he winced at its sudden brilliance, then squinted at the naked window above the bed to confirm its presence. It appeared to be around mid-morning, and a quick glance at his wristwatch confirmed he had been out for several hours.

Giles lazily stretched the creaks from his body, but his brief lack of attention caused Carma's wailing to begin anew. She was undoubtedly hungry again, and/or needed changing.

"Buffy?" he called drowsily. Stark shadows contrasted the corners away from the window, creating niches of potential concealment. Although they equally shared the responsibility of parenthood, it simply was not like her to ignore the baby while he slept. When she failed to appear at his summons, he sat up, now concerned. "Buffy?"

The candle had burned itself out on the nightstand holder, rather than being extinguished and saved for another use. And he didn't recall dragging himself to the apartment door to let her in, either. He rolled over, adrenaline on the rise. The door to the tiny bathroom was ajar, allowing him to verify her absence without leaving the bed.

Grabbing his cane, he struggled to his feet and limped to the tenement door. The lock was as he had left it, confirming Buffy had not returned. He opened it, just to be sure that she was not waiting, mad a blazes, on the other side, but found only dank, empty hall. Giles scratched the stubble on his chin, trying to think over the sound of Carma, whose demands had risen to a head-splitting wail, and the fog still wafting in his brain. Mid-morning and Buffy wasn't back? What the devil could have happened to her?

His mouth went dry as he began to compile a list of possibilities, all dire. Torn between his child's needs and his own, Giles hobbled back to the bed to collect the baby into his arms--no small feat for a man balanced on a cane.

"Shh, shh, shh," he murmured, gently bouncing the bundled infant against his chest. His soothing tone and rhythmic motion silenced her within seconds, an intrinsic trust between father and child. He wished he possessed the same ability, wished he could tame his own whirling emotions as easily. Something had happened to Buffy, and he could not get past the concept that it had been something bad.

What should he do? Indeed, what could he do? He looked down at his child, cooing in his arms, and his heart ripped in a dozen different directions at once. He must keep a cool head, for Carma's sake, if not for his own. Maybe circumstances were not as grievous as he perceived. Maybe he worried about Buffy just a little too excessively these days.

Giles cursed his lame leg again. There were too many 'maybes'; a lot of things he could and should do, but only one he would. He would go out and look for Buffy.

* * *

In one swift tug, the sack was pulled off Buffy's head along with her wool hat, leaving her hair alive with static and standing on end. Sucking down a gasp of surprise behind her duct tape gag, she found herself looking directly into a face from the past.

"Well, hello." Wesley Wyndam-Price smiled a greeting at her. He was older, slightly graying at the temples, but as charming as she remembered. The more unpleasant characteristics of his demeanor, which had only surfaced after her renouncement of his authority and that of the Council, were still securely packaged beneath the pretense of the perfect English gentleman.

Buffy turned away, her threat of what she would do if she ever got her bound hands free coming out as an unintelligible mumble. Instead, she attempted to identify what she could see of her surroundings beyond the broad shoulders of the two suited men at her back. Not much. In fact, from the total lack of visual clues, the only conclusion she could make was that she had no idea where she was. A deserted warehouse was her best guess, and that wasn't much help.

Reaching for her chin, Wesley jerked her gaze back to him, showing something of a sneer of victory upon realizing her discreet reconnoiter had revealed nothing.

"It's been a long time, Buffy," he said, almost conversationally. "I trust you've been keeping well?"

Buffy flinched as the silver tape was ripped from her mouth. She gritted her teeth to stop from crying out and showing a weakness, however insignificant. "Bastard," she hissed quietly.

"Yes, well, I'm pleased to see the spunk you displayed as a Slayer has not been lost with age. No matter, the Council will soon see to that."

"Where's Giles? And my baby?"

Wesley smirked. "I was rather hoping you could tell me that. You see, it would save me a lot of trouble, not to mention a good deal of money."

Relieved to hear that Giles and Carma had not yet fallen into enemy hands, Buffy's chin rose in a gesture of sheer defiance. "I'd rather die than help you."

Wesley shrugged, his casual manner sending a cold chill through her. The wave of his hand brought his two cronies into her peripheral vision. "As I thought. Take her."

A jolt of real fear stabbed at Buffy as the henchmen roughly grabbed her and hauled her to her feet. These guys were serious. Struggling rewarded her with a final moment of freedom and the chance to have the last word. "Still gutless, and still taking orders, huh, Wes. When are you going to stop being one of their Yes Men?

"Why should I? You forget, the Council and I are the Good Guys. QED, we are not the ones on the run."

"The Council is corrupt."

"I am truly sorry you feel that way, since we shall soon be sole guardian to your child."

Instinct made Buffy fight the men who held her, but their increased their grips. "Giles will never let you take her!"

Wesley removed his glasses and casually began to polish one lens. "I'm afraid, over the years, your beloved husband has become a bit of a thorn in our side." Holding up the frames, he scrutinized his handiwork in the fluorescent lighting. "It's time he was . . . attended to."

"You wish! Giles will--" A fresh strip of tape turned her defiance into a mumble.

"I must say, your faith in the old man's competence is impressive, considering his present condition." Settling his glasses back on his face, Wesley clasped his hands at his back and smiled as his men literally dragged Buffy away. "And as we both know," he called pleasantly, "highly over estimated."

* * *

A tiny bell above the main door of the convenience store tinkled as he entered, announcing his presence to everyone in a ten meter radius, despite his best effort to remain inconspicuous.

Gritting his teeth against the inadvertent attention, Giles slowly let the glass door swing shut behind him. He stood leaning heavily on his cane, his lame leg throbbing from the simple effort of having walked too many miles from the tenement. For the first time since arriving in this city, he wished they hadn't sold the car. But it had been a necessary move, since, as Buffy put it, the old Citroen was 'a dead giveaway'. That, and they had neither the space nor the money to keep it.

He took a clumsy step forward. The muscles his right arm had seized from carrying Carma in the same position against his chest, protected from both prying eyes and the winter chill under the folds of his long, black coat. He needed to rest, and since loitering outdoors with the baby caused a vulnerable prickle at the back of his neck, the convenience store seemed, despite the seedy neighborhood, as good a place as any. He tried not to think about the comatose drunk he had stepped over on the way inside.

Face flushed from the cold, Giles scanned the unfamiliar territory in which he now stood. Buffy shopped here, he was sure of it. He recognized many of the brand labels on the boxed and canned food on the shelves before him. But with her missing, he trusted no one. Not the fellow at the back of the second aisle filling an upright fridge with soda cans; nor the young chap in the front restocking rows of individually wrapped breakfast pastries; not even the brunette standing behind the counter idly flicking through Cosmopolitan between lunch hour customers. The gun tucked into the back of his jeans offered false protection since, encumbered by the baby and his cane, he did not have a free hand to use it.

The self-serve hot dog stand against the wall directly opposite the main door caught his eye. The sight and smell of hot food made his stomach growl and his mouth water. He was so hungry even junk food seemed like gourmet cuisine. But he had no money in his wallet; he had no need for it, since it was Buffy who went out for supplies. After withdrawing several thousand dollars from their savings account in Sunnydale, they had burned their checkbook. It seemed the safer option, rather than leave a telling little paper trail of cashed checks across the country. His credit cards, likewise, had been deemed 'for emergency use only', and were now hidden away with a bunch of other important documents in a leather wallet under the bed. Buffy had taken possession their sole ATM card, which she used, sparingly, to withdraw cash in the largest amounts allowed.

Reluctantly, Giles realized he did not even have enough change in his pocket for a hot dog and a cup of coffee.

"Can I help you?"

Remembering his priorities, Giles regarded the brunette who had spoken. She was taller than Buffy, slightly older, and pretty, in a plain sort of way, and as he scrutinized her, her expression went from obliging to hesitant to totally uneasy. He imagined what he must look like, standing slightly hunched with an unidentified bundle concealed under his long, black coat, his chin unshaven and his hair unruly. The furtive way his eyes scanned the corner mounted security cameras did nothing to help either. All told, Giles figured he must look to be in the same league as the unconscious drunk outside.

No sooner had the notion formed, when he saw the cashier's hand slide slowly down under the counter toward a silent alarm. And involving the police was the last thing he needed.

"I'm looking for someone," he explained before she panicked and pressed it. He tempered his anxiousness with a smile, pulling back his shoulders and shuffling into a less intimidating stance.

It worked. The brunette slowly straightened. She folded her arms across her ample bosom, and sized him up in a shameless head-to-toe glance. "Aren't we all."

"A young woman," Giles continued, scarcely aware of her flirting. "My wife. Blonde hair, about five-foot-three, wearing an overcoat and, perhaps, a wool hat?"

Before the woman could answer either way, Carma woke from her nap and announced her presence under his coat, hitting a succession of high notes that would have done an opera singer proud. Balanced precariously on his cane, Giles shuffled his daughter into the light, the folds of his coat allowing her muted cries to transform into a piercing wail. As he started to gently shush her, the woman rounded the counter, heading straight for him, beaming with maternal impulse. Despite his protest, Giles didn't have a free hand to stop her taking the baby from his grasp.

"Oh, she's such a sweetie," the woman said. Remarkably, Carma instantly stopped crying and smiled at the brunette. "You're a cutie, aren't you? Yes, you are . . . "

Relieved of his burden, Giles took the opportunity to flex his numb arm and restore circulation, just in case he needed his gun. But the situation remained non-threatening, and in spite of himself, he couldn't stop his smile. Seeing his daughter contented and happy was such a rarity that he cherished the moment for all it was worth.

"She likes you," he told the clerk, reaching out to caress his daughter's rosy cheek with the backs of his fingers.

"Yeah, I think she does." The woman answered his grin with one of her own. "You're Rupert, right?

Smile fading, Giles started. The hair on the nape of his neck stood on end like tiny soldiers snapping to attention. Intuition immediately pinpointed the exact positions of the two men in the store behind him, defined the quickest, unobstructed route to the door, and added the option of now having a free hand to reach for his gun, should trouble ensue.

"Your accent gave you away," the clerk explained easily. "Buffy told me all about you. I'm Melanie."

The mention of Buffy's name brought some ease to the tenseness in his muscles, but the brunette's self-introduction meant nothing to him, even though she looked expectant, as if he should recognize her name and start spouting small talk at any second. Suspicion prickling, Giles wondered just what else Buffy had confided to this stranger, and if she, or her companions, had anything to do with his wife's abrupt disappearance.

Instinct made Giles take his baby from the arms of a potential enemy, before incident revealed his suspicions correct.

"Sorry," Melanie said embarrassed by her display. She crossed her empty arms as Giles snuggled Carma to the front of his black sweater, protectively placing her out of the line of site of the other men. "I just can't resist babies." She leaned closer to coo at Carma in baby talk. "Especially when they are such cutie wooties . . . "

"Perhaps you've . . . seen Buffy?" Giles asked, as Carma began to burble in what he knew preceded some more wailing. He bounced her gently in an attempt to delay it, carefully adding, "This morning?"

But his effort was in vain, and Carma launched into her earsplitting intermezzo.

Straightening, Melanie grinned. "Good lungs."

"Quite," Giles agreed, trying unsuccessfully to hush his daughter. "About Buffy--?"

"Here, let me try."

Carma was forcibly taken from him again. "I don't think--"

"Nonsense," Melanie shouted above the baby's cries. "Shh, shh, shh, it's Auntie Mel again, it's okay." She turned a triumphant grin on Giles as Carma subsided into a slightly disgruntle gurgle. "See? It's a mother's touch. I have one of my own, not much older. A boy. Brian."

Impressed though he was, Giles did not have time for parental chitchat. His worry and frustration was mounting with each passing minute. "Miss--Melanie, have you, or have you not, seen my wife this morning?"

"Um, not. I think."

"You think? Please, it's important."

"Well, I hadn't by my coffee break--that's eleven, by the way--and she usually comes in much earlier than that. I guess she could have come in while I was out back. Hey, Neil, have you seen Buffy this morning?"

Giles rolled his eyes. Good Lord, did everyone here know Buffy by name? So much for laying low. He obviously need to better explain the concept of remaining anonymous to her. When he found her.

If he found her . . .

To survive was to trust no one; a rule Buffy had apparently broken. Not that he blamed her for wanting a friend in all this. Someone to talk to. Someone who wasn't him . . . the whining invalid who was unable to provide even basic necessities for his family.

"Nah, not since Tuesday," came the reply from the young fellow stocking the pastries near the front of the store.

Melanie shrugged. "Guess she hasn't been in today." She cocked her head at him. "Why? You lose her?"

Intended a joke, the question bought Giles firmly back to earth, reminding him of the risk he was taking coming here with Carma, in broad daylight. The Council had eyes and ears everywhere, and more often than not these days, the muscle to back it up. Swallowing hard, he looked at his child, so content in the arms of a total stranger, and again felt the grip of panic rise in his chest. Melanie appeared genuine, but one could never be sure of whom to trust when one was on the run.

"Uh-oh," Melanie said, frowning. "I think I found the problem."

"P-problem?"

"Little girl needs changing."

"Oh." Giles hesitated, his thoughts in confusion. Was this woman really as friendly and helpful as she seemed, or was she leading him on like a lamb to the slaughter? "I mean, I'm aware of that. But I'm afraid don't have--"

"I do," Melanie said. "I have Brian's change bag in back. May not be pretty or an exact fit, but I think we can make do in a pinch." To the young man finishing up on the pastries, she said, "Cover for me, Neil, will you? I'm taking a break."

"You just came back from a break an hour ago."

"So I'm taking another. Deal with it."

Neil, a gangly youth with a ponytail and an earring, who would not look out of place in a street gang, rolled his eyes. Disgruntle, he snatched up the empty pastry box by his feet, and mumbled something derogatory as Melanie headed down the aisle toward a doorway in back. Exchanging a quick glance with the boy, Giles hobbled after her, refusing to allow his daughter to be out of his sight for even the time it took to change a diaper. Halfway down the aisle, he saw the refrigerator stocker complete his task and start rolling a stacked trolley of empty crates toward the front exit. Giles watched him surreptitiously, keeping most of his attention on Melanie, who was baby-talking to Carma in an effective ploy to keep her quiet.

Giles stopped abruptly, just as Melanie reached the open doorway and went through it, his attention caught by the familiar green and yellow labels of puréed baby food on the shelf to his right. A glance over his shoulder told him that Neil and Mr. Soda Crates were mulling over a conversation near the front door, so he quickly slipped a few jars into the pockets of his coat before hurrying after the woman taking his baby.

* * *

"There, all done." Melanie lifted Carma up and fussed at her until she was rewarded with a giggle.

Through the course of casual conversation, primarily on Melanie's side, Giles discovered she was a single mom, and that her own baby, Brian, spent work hours in the hands of a local daycare center. Luckily for Giles and Carma, this morning she had been in such a rush that she forgotten to leave Brian's diaper bag with him. As such, Carma was a happy tot in her clean togs, ill-fitting though the thing was . . . but she would be no doubt happier with a belly full of warm food. Instinctively, he glanced at his coat, which hung folded across the arm of the chair to his left. He needed to leave, find a quiet, safe alley somewhere nearby, in which to open one of the pilfered jars in the pocket.

As if reading his thoughts, Melanie reached into the diaper bag again, this time extracting a feeding bottle half full of formula. Giles, sitting in one of four peeling, plastic-coated, wire lawn chairs that passed as staff furniture in the makeshift break room, straightened from rubbing the persistent ache in his outstretched leg, candidly watching the woman who was fussing over his child like the proverbial mother hen. Carma had certainly taken to her, and in record time.

Melanie looked up and grinned, then, noting either the apprehension in his eyes or the twitch in his jaw, promptly returned the baby and the bottle to the safety of his lap.

Giles welcomed his daughter with a flood of warm relief. He held the bottle while she sucked down the nourishment she so needed, grateful to have her back in his arms and content, if only for the moment. "Thank you," he told Melanie sincerely. "For everything."

"No biggie. Forget it." Standing over him with her hands on her hips, she added, "Now, what can I do for daddy?"

He looked up. "Excuse me?"

"Cup of coffee and a sandwich, maybe? You look as though you could use a good feed, too." Melanie returned the diaper bag to the shelf with her other belongings, then moved back to the table, this time with a steel thermos flask and a red plastic lunch box in hand. "How long is it since you've eaten, anyway?"

"Yesterday," Giles admitted, his mouth watering at the very sight of the simple ham and Swiss cheese sandwich she produced from the container. Using the lid as a plate, she pushed it across the wire-topped lawn table to him, and immediately set about pouring him some hot coffee from the thermos. "I-I couldn't," he said meekly, hungrily eyeing the halved sandwich before him. "This is your lunch."

Melanie shrugged a shoulder. "True, but it will also force me onto that diet I keep promising myself I'm going to start. Go ahead. Dig in."

Ravenous, Giles didn't need to be invited twice. He rested Carma in the crook of one arm, balancing the formula bottle against his chest as her tiny hands eagerly encircled it, and reached for a sandwich half. "Two, four, six, eight," he said with a small grin, then took a bite which consumed three quarters of it.

"What's that mean?" Melanie asked, placing the plastic cup of black coffee by his makeshift plate.

"Something my Nana used to say when I was a boy," he said as he chewed. "'Two, four, six, eight. Dig in, don't wait.'"

Melanie chuckled. "Sounds like a wise woman."

"She was." He washed down a mouthful with some coffee. It was black and bitter--exactly how he didn't like it. At least it was hot, and beggars couldn't be choosers, he supposed; another of his dearly departed grandmother's adages. Words to live by, surely.

"You know, I should have guessed right off."

"What's that?" Giles asked, finishing the first half of his sandwich. He took a moment to adjust Carma's bottle before reaching for its mate.

"That the other guy wasn't you."

Giles almost choked. "O-other guy?"

"Yeah. See, I thought he was you on account of his British accent, too. We don't get too many of those around here, you know. But you're much more like how Buffy described you. Gentle, loving, protective--I can tell from the way you handle your baby."

The stab of fear in his gut ruined his appetite. What were the chances of a man with a British accent, being in this part of town, at this point in time, and not from the Watcher Council?

"When?" Giles croaked, his throat suddenly dry and constricted. He put down the sandwich half, untouched. "When did you see this other man?"

"Last night. He bought a pack of cigarettes and an instant lottery ticket."

"What did you say to him?"

"What does that matter?"

"Tell me!" Giles barked, slamming his fist onto the table for emphasis. His action upset Carma and his coffee cup, turning the remains of his meal into an unpalatable brown mess. Instantly regretting his temper outburst, he gently hushed his daughter and rearranged her bottle.

"I asked him how Buffy was," Melanie answered. Uncertainty clouded her gaze. "Look, I thought he was you, okay? And that Buffy was maybe--I don't know--sick or something, because I hadn't seen her since for since the day before yesterday."

Panic stricken, Giles processed the information in silence. Melanie's extroverted personality toward total strangers may yet prove the final nail in Buffy's coffin.

No, he couldn't think like that. Not now. Not yet.

He hugged Carma closer to his chest. 'Don't loose it, old man, or you'll all end up dead. Or worse.'

It was, Giles reasoned in an attempt to placate, inevitable that the Council's nationwide manhunt eventually led them to Philadelphia. Under other circumstances, it would have simply meant he and Buffy needed to uproot their lives before they intended, and move elsewhere. That the Council was far closer to finding them than he ever thought possible was a whole other story. 'Never underestimate the Council, Buffy.' Good Lord, he'd broken that rule of survival all by himself. The noose had been tightening around his neck all this time, and he had not an inkling. What a fool he had been to think they were safe here. He knew, now, they would never be safe, no matter where in the world they tried to hide . . .

"The really weird thing," Melanie continued on reflection, "was that he told me she and the baby were fine, and they you guys were leaving the area. That I probably wouldn't ever see her again. Strange, huh? Why would he say that? If he wasn't really you?"

"I have no idea," Giles murmured. But he did. It was all too clear that the Council was covering tracks, making sure no one, no matter how casual the acquaintance, reported him or Buffy or Carma missing when they abruptly disappeared.

Giles pushed his hand up under his glasses, rubbing tired eyes. "What did he look like? This chap you mistook for me?"

"I don't know."

"Think, woman!"

"I don't remember!" Melanie paused. "About your height and build. And he had one of those--" she gestured at her own face-- "you know, those beards that are just in the front, not at the sides?"

"A goatee?" The description didn't ring any bells, alarm or otherwise.

"Yeah, that's it. And his clothes. Spiffy gray silk suit. Mucho expensive, by the look of it."

It still told him nothing. "Anything else?"

She thought for a moment. "His eyes," she said finally. Melanie looked at him with a shudder. "They scared me. He was charming enough on the outside, but I'll never forget the look in his eyes as long as I live. Like something . . . evil . . . was looking out from deep within." She shivered again. "I knew right then he wasn't you."

Considering the acquaintances forged during his former vocation, the description could have referred to just about anyone, or anything. "There's nothing else you can recall?"

"Um . . . " She jumped. "Oh, wait. When he left, he said something I thought was odd, too . . . but then, maybe it's just a British thing and all."

"What did he say?"

"'Be seeing you.' As If he intended on coming back, even though he just told me they were leaving the area. Is that some weird English slang, or what?"

Giles' eyes narrowed. "Ethan," he hissed. The goatee was new, as were the fine clothes, but Ethan Rayne was the only compatriot he knew with his own personal tagline. Ethan. He had not seen or heard from his old black arts study buddy in a long, long time. But why would he show up in Philadelphia now? At this time? Unless he was working for the Council? And if indeed that was the case, then he and Buffy and Carma were in far greater danger than initially feared.

Painful, awkwardly, Giles struggled to his feet with Carma clutched to his chest. She immediately protested when he took her bottle away and placed it on the table, but this time he steeled himself to ignore her. He needed to get her somewhere safe.

He reached for his coat, managing to shuffle his free arm into the sleeve. "I'm sorry, I have to leave."

Melanie stood with him, holding the collar of the rough black wool while he slipped in his other arm. As she settled it across his shoulders, the jars of baby food clanked in the pocket. Giles froze as Melanie retrieve one, staring first at it and then at him. It may have only been a few dollars worth of baby food, but shoplifting was shoplifting on principle.

Her gaze met his, but her eyes betrayed concern. "Are you and Buffy--? Are you guys in some sort of . . . trouble?"

"We . . . " Diverting his gaze, he bounced Carma to keep her quiet. "You've been very kind. Thank you." Cane in hand, baby in the other, Giles turned to go.

"Wait!" Melanie grabbed his arm. "Maybe I can help?" she said, slipping the jarred food back into his pocket with the others. "I want to help. Really."

"You've already done far more than expected. Please. I can't explain. Just . . . just if anyone else comes in and asks about either myself or Buffy, forget you ever saw us."

With a small but grateful smile, he ducked his head, and left without looking back.

* * *

The motion of his body, as he laboriously retraced his steps along the ice-slicked street, soon rocked Carma to sleep. Giles was utterly exhausted upon reaching the tenement, sweating profusely despite the snow shoveled against the buildings and the mid-afternoon chill that permeated the shadows.

Although relieved and grateful to finally reach his building, Giles suddenly hesitated. It was not the painstaking climb that stood between him and relaxation that stopped him cold, but rather a sudden sixth sense feeling that he was about to walk into a trap. Ethan Rayne was undoubtedly on his trail, after all, and the man took perverse delight in turning up at the most inopportune moments. Giles knew he was in no condition to fight, should a struggle ensue. The smart thing would be to simply turn and walk away, regroup somewhere safe, and plan his next step in finding Buffy while staying out of Ethan's way.

If only that were an option. Giles sighed, with both exhaustion and frustration, his breath vaporizing in the chill air as he toiled to make a decision. He and Buffy had stashed some irreplaceable--or at the very least, difficult to replace--documents in a leather wallet under the bed; birth and marriage certificates, passports, his Last Will And Testament, immigration papers, credit cards, and the likes, not to mention a substantial amount of emergency cash. It was the same wallet they had once kept in a safety deposit box in the Bank Of Sunnydale, and Giles knew he needed to retrieve it from the tenement before all hell broke loose. He needed to keep the papers safe, yes, but more importantly, if he had any immediate plans of providing basic necessities for himself and his daughter, like food and shelter for the coming night, then he needed the money.

Giles suddenly felt ridiculous. Good Lord. Now he was scared to go inside? He had never let Ethan Rayne intimidate him in such a manner before, why start now? Besides, Ethan was most likely miles away. There was no evidence to the contrary, just the convoluted words of a convenience store clerk, which in turn had triggered a feeling of paranoia that would no doubt prove to be completely unwarranted.

Besides, his leg ached--no, 'ached' was much too mild a verb. Amputation with a rusty hacksaw would have been less of an agony. His pills were upstairs--the last two. He wanted them. He needed them. For that end, if nothing else, he was willing to take the risk.

Grunting in decision, Giles headed for the building's shadowy side entrance. It took him fifteen arduous minutes to complete the two minute ascent up the stairs. Finally, drained and fumbling one-handed to unlock his front door, he pushed the old wood open with his shoulder and shambled inside. Carma did not even stir when he laid her on the bed, perhaps with a little more vigor than intended as he longed to be free of her weight. Despite the numbness in his arm, the fire in his leg, and the rivulets of sweat rolling down his cheeks, Giles fussed with her blanket for a moment, putting her needs above his own. Satisfied that she was napping warm and comfortable, he straightened and shrugged out of his winter coat. He let it drop slipshod to the floor, and, still burning up, tugged his perspiration drenched sweater and undershirt over his head, loosing his glasses along the way.

He slid out the nightstand drawer in search of his pills. Damn, he had left the bottle right there--

"Lose something, old man?"

Giles straightened at the unidentified voice, stunned. A chill draft assaulted his damp, bare skin, prompting a reminder that in his haste to put the baby down he had not closed the front door. He turned, expecting to see a man filling the doorway . . . but instead found himself watching as the door seemingly closed of its own accord. As the latch clicked, he squinted at the knees and feet of a man seated on the battered wooden chair to the side of it. The trousers were of an expensive cut, the shoes immaculately polished to a mirrored shine, but the rest of his body, and his identity, remained a silhouette cloaked in shadow. Clearly, the opened door had concealed the intruder, and allowed an unsuspecting Giles to walk right past upon entering.

Giles gritted his teeth, cursing his stupidity, and thought fleetingly of the gun still tucked in the back of his jeans. He waited, on edge, for his visitor to make the first move.

The chair creaked as the man shifted his weight forward, bringing his face into the fading afternoon light filtering through the tenement window. Older, grayer, and now sporting a salt-n-pepper goatee, the man smiled a greeting; the same charming, yet manipulative, smile Giles would never forget. "Hello, Ripper."

"Ethan," Giles returned, monotone.

An eyebrow raised. "You don't sound surprised to see me?"

"I'm not. Scum always surfaces, sooner or later."

"Tsk, tsk, is that anyway to greet an old friend?"

"I shouldn't need to remind you that our friendship ran aground a long time ago."

"I'm hurt," Ethan said, feigning a pout. With a knowing smile, he held up the missing pill bottle. "As you must be, to be taking these."

The blood rushed through Giles' veins, the craving like a siren's call.

Ethan glanced at the label. "I must say, these can be quite addictive." He grinned, showing his teeth. "They must give you an extraordinary high, Ripper. Just like old times, hmm?"

"Give them to me."

"Uh-uh. Say 'please'."

Giles gritted his teeth. "Please. You bastard."

With a conceited look, Ethan tossed him the bottle. Catching it, Giles tipped the last two pills onto his palm. He swallowed them without thought to the consequences, aware of his old friend's studious attention. If he could just quell the agony in his leg, he may yet stand a small chance of escaping this encounter unscathed. At least, that was his belief.

"What are you doing here?" Giles asked, stalling, tossing the empty pill bottle onto his pile of shed clothes. His senses jumped to full alert as Ethan pushed out of the chair and began to close the floor space between them. Ethan Rayne still had two good legs, and the strength and wit to match his own. He was a dangerous and cunning adversary, and Giles was the one person on the planet not fooled by the casual, one-hand-tucked-in-his-pocket, charm-the-pants-off-anyone performance.

"Oh, you know, 'I was just in the neighborhood' sort of thing--" Ethan struck like a cobra, the attack masked by the pretense of casual banter, expertly singling out the gun tucked behind Giles' back and thumbing off the safety.

Handicapped by his leg and his exhaustion, there was no struggle. Giles just suddenly found himself with a loaded weapon pointed right in his face. No doubt Ethan had spied it when he pulled off his sweater and t-shirt.

"No, not really," Ethan confessed, stroking the goatee that leant him an appropriately sinister air. "This isn't a social visit. There's a bounty on you. Or should I say, rather--" he nodded to the sleeping bundle on the bed "--on her."

"Touch her, and I'll kill you." It was not a threat, but a promise.

Ethan pushed the gun barrel up under Giles' jaw, hard enough form a bloodless indentation, but his voice remained as smooth and unruffled as the silk suit he wore. "Idle threats, dear Rupert. You forget who has the gun." He jabbed the barrel into his throat for good measure, then backed off a few steps.

"I don't need a gun," Giles rasped. Drug-induced high or not, he stood his ground between his old friend and his daughter, defiant of the weapon aimed so casually in his direction.

Ethan laughed. He lowered the gun, clearly not considering Giles, in his present state, much of a threat. "Oh, I see," he said, showing a total lack of concern by turning his full attention to examining the weapon in his hands. "You're going to beat me to death with your cane, hmmm, cripple?"

"Not a bad idea. For starters." Giles chanced a step forward to gain better footing, camouflaging the tactic as non-threatening repositioning of his cane. He weighed his chances of taking the other before he could shoot, and if he would, indeed, shoot. Guns were never Ethan's weapons of choice, but neither were silk suits, goatees, or the lure of outrageous sums of money. Times had changed, and apparently Ethan Rayne along with them.

"I'm afraid I am also the bearer of bad news," Ethan said without any hint of remorse. Classic Ethan, rubbing salt in a wound.

"And that is?"

"That your 'little woman' . . . your--oh, what's the American?--your 'main squeeze' won't be coming home tonight." He smirked. "You know, I always suspected you were doing her, Ripper. Tell me, is she as good in bed as she is in my fantasies?"

"You bloody bastard!" Giles spat. He limped forward, wanting to strangle the man with his bare hands.

The gun snapped up to halt his advance, this time aimed with deadly intent. Behind it, the look on Ethan's face was as cold-blooded as any convicted murderer's.

"Don't make me kill you, old man," he warned. When Giles pulled up, teetering on his cane, Ethan relaxed again.

"Is she safe?" Giles asked, suddenly fearful of what fate might have befallen Buffy while in this man's care.

"Safe is such a relative term, Ripper. No, your lovely wife is not safe in the sense you mean. Although she is, I'm told, unharmed. And will remain so, if she cooperates."

Giles shoulders slumped perceptively. "The Council has her."

"Yes."

He looked away. Buffy cooperate with anything the Council had to say or do? Not bloody likely! Had it not meant the difference between her life and death, he would have laughed heartily at such absurdity. "Where, then?" Giles asked, feeling defeat settle in. "Where is she?"

"On a flight to London by now, I dare say. Two of them pull her into a car down on the corner of North Main and State early this morning." Ethan paused thoughtfully. "Actually, I must remember to thank them for that. They saved me the trouble of bagging her myself."

Giles look up with murder in his eyes. "You led them right to us."

"Of course," Ethan agreed, a conceited little smile turning up the corners of his mouth. "I'm just thankful they know that, too. She's fetching a handsome sum, as is your little bundle of joy."

"I warned you. Lay one finger on Carma and--"

"Rupert, Rupert, Rupert ." Ethan smoothed his silk tie back inside his suit. "You know I'm a reasonable man . . . "

Giles scoffed.

"Well, at least a small percentage of the time. Surely we can come some sort of arrangement here."

"Such as?" This should be good.

Ethan seemed to give the idea serious consideration, tapping the gun barrel against his bearded chin. His eyes--the same eyes that had spooked Melanie--grew dark as true intentions were revealed. "Such as, you give me the child, and I won't put a bullet in your head." He smiled pleasantly.

Giles returned it with a slow, a cold Ripper smile that he had not used in more than a decade. "Sorry, 'old man', but if you want my baby, then you're going to have to come through me first."

"I am so disappointed to hear that. It's nothing personal, Ripper. It's just that the bounty your Council is offering is, shall we say, quite a substantial amount, and so--" the gun came up, and the venomous look returned behind it "--if you insist."

The cold steel of the muzzle brushed against Giles' bare chest, hovering directly over his heart. His gaze flicked from it back to the glacial look on the other man's face. He meant it; Ethan Rayne was really going to shoot him in cold blood. Giles broke a new sweat. They stared at each other for a millisecond which lasted an eternity, until he saw Ethan's finger twitch on the trigger; until he saw him start to pull it . . .

In a swift, unanticipated move, Giles raised his cane and clubbed Ethan in the side of the head. Things happened fast from that point. Ethan staggered, just enough to make his shot go wide and harmlessly chip a ragged circle of plaster from the opposite wall. Carma woke crying at the sound. Outside, dogs barked. A few apartment doors slammed shut. No one wanted to get personally involved; total anonymity was one reason why he had picked this neighborhood.

Although the blow had caused a deep gash, it had not been solid enough to render the man unconscious, as had been Giles' intent. Dark, red blood began to ooze between the fingers of the hand Ethan clamped to his temple. His face wore a mask of shock, having mentioned a beating with the cane in jest but never truly expecting it to happen.

With surprise his only ally, Giles pressed his advantage before it was lost. Dropping his cane, he grabbed his assailant's right wrist with both hands, forcing the gun barrel upward before if could be aimed again. Without support, he was as unsteady on his feet as a six-foot tower of Jell-O, but he changed that handicap to his advantage too, letting Ethan take his weight. His plan was to topple them to the floor, where they where more evenly matched.

Possession of the gun became the primary objective. Instead of buckling, Ethan stood tall. He dug the bloodied fingers of his free hand into Giles' face, trying to gouge, but succeeded only in smearing crimson across his cheek. Giles bit the one that clawed into his mouth. Ethan yelped, shifting his hand to grab a fistful of hair instead. He yanked, trying to pull Giles off, then in an unpredicted move of his own, completely turned the tables. Ethan Rayne did not fight fair, especially not when losing, and his kick to Giles' crippled leg was as vicious as it was solid.

The torture that splintered through Giles was like a jab from a white-hot poker. It was enough to make him let go of his opponent and howl in agony. He went down hard, crumpling helplessly to the floor. There, he writhed, clutching his leg in vain. Sweat blinded him. Endless, paralyzing waves of pain battered him. Not even his pills could overcome this.

Recollecting his cool demeanor, Ethan watched with emotional detachment. He slicked his hair back into place, then shook a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to staunch his bleeding temple. After a few moments, when Giles managed to look up with a homicidal expression on his face, Ethan stepped forward and callously kicked him again.

Giles screwed his eyes shut, and rested his cheek against the gritty floorboards. He did not see Ethan step over him toward the bed, rather heard the protesting cries of his baby as she was lifted into the arms of the enemy. Instinct had him groping at the silk trousers that crossed him again, and he captured a handful. Giles gave Ethan's leg a swift tug, hoping to trip him, but all he got for his effort was a heel kick in the face. If was enough to make him let go, but it not enough to suppress his determination.

Ethan backed up a few steps, awaiting his next move. Giles, ignoring the blood trickling from his broken nose, lunged for his cane. As his fingertips clawed the final few inches and made contact, Ethan kicked it out of his reach. He bent to retrieve it himself, then flung open the tenement door and pitched it out. Giles heard it clatter down the shadowy stairway, knowing all too well that without it, he was helpless.

Struggling, Giles sat up, holding his nose. The agony cascading up and down his lame leg was nothing compared to the agony in his heart. Carma was screaming her lungs out; he had failed her.

Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed into life, coming ever closer. Perhaps one of his unsupportive neighbors, upon hearing the gunshot, had indeed called the police?

Giles glanced up at the gun barrel thrust into his face, then down at the blood on his hand. "Do it," he rasped in defeat.

Ethan tightened his grip, on both the gun and the screaming baby. "Don't think I won't."

Giles glared at him. "Because if you don't, I'll find you, you son of a bitch. I'll bloody find you, whatever rock you crawl under, and then I'll kill you."

A muscle twitched in Ethan's jaw. "I do believe you're sincere. And as the old saying goes, 'rather you than me.'" With a cold smirk, he pulled the trigger . . . at the last moment shifting his aim from Giles' head, to his leg.

The hot metal tore into the inside muscle of his good leg, halfway between his knee and his thigh. Giles keeled over with a shriek, engulfed in new misery. Bright, red blood quickly soaked his jeans. His forehead found the bare floorboards again as he battled the blackness that wanted to take him to merciful oblivion. But he stubbornly held on to consciousness, watching Ethan retreat to the door. From a position on his side, Giles blinked the sweat from his eyes, fought the nausea rising in his stomach, and focused on his old friend.

Reaching the threshold, Ethan paused to throw him one of his most charming smiles. Gently, almost paternally, he held eye contact with Giles as he hushed at the screaming baby in his arms, using the gun to push a blanket fold down from her tiny, tear-streaked face. "Say ta-ta to daddy."

"No!" Running on adrenaline, Giles hauled his body forward, dragging his two useless legs a scant few feet that felt like miles, leaving a smeary red trail in his wake.

Unhurried, unthreatened, Ethan pressed his handkerchief to his own bleeding temple, then simply turned walked away. He left the apartment door open in a cruel and perverse show of victory, so that Giles could watch him carry his daughter for just a few excruciating seconds more as he headed down the stairs.

"You're a dead man, Rayne!" Giles vowed. "A dead man!"

"Toot-a-loo," Ethan called merrily, as the top of his head dropped out of sight.

Giles attempted to stand, but with both legs incapacitated it was only a token gesture. Giving chase was lost cause. He collapsed back on the floor in utter, bitter defeat. All he could do was lie there, straining to listen through the dull buzz that had surrounded his head, through the yap of barking dogs and the wail of approaching sirens, struggling to hear the protesting cries of his kidnapped baby.

Until he could hear her no more.

Seconds lapsed. Minutes. Giles' eyelids grew heavy, from either blood loss or the narcotics finally kicking in, and he resisted the need to close them. His hand instinctively found the bullet wound, and feebly probed the entry point beneath the ragged hole in his sodden jeans. He thought he heard the sirens stop, right outside, but he couldn't be sure; thought he saw an alternating flash of red and blue spew across the tenement's single window. The sound of his pulse grew louder in his ears, and with every throb, he felt a new gush of warm, arterial blood pump from his body. He needed to staunch the bleeding, or he would bleed to death.

But part of him didn't care. He had failed in his vow to protect his wife and child. He had lost. Everything. Why not his own life?

Flinging his arm over his bloodied face as booted feet assaulted the building's stairwell, Giles wept.

* * *

A week later, Ethan Rayne, still sporting an adhesive bandage on his bruised temple, looked up from the open briefcase of money on the hood of his BMW. He frowned at the three men standing opposite. Slowly, one at a time. "This is only half," he complained to the Watcher in the middle--one Wesley Wyndam-Price.

It was he who spoke, he who was in charge. The other two were simply the muscle. Backup. "May I remind you, Mr. Rayne, you only delivered half."

"But surely the most important half," Ethan argued. He blew into cupped hands, fighting the frigid Yorkshire day that, despite his topcoat and gloves, chilled him to the bone. Who else but the over-indulgent, self-imposed idiots of the Watcher Council would request the windswept crest of some piss-poor-no-name-village-goat-track-of-a-road like this for a business meeting? He smiled charmingly, in a last bid to negotiate what he believed was rightfully his. "The bounty was for the mother and the child--I understand that. But you . . . gentlemen stepped in and stole Buffy from under my nose."

"Mr. Rayne--"

"I simply don't think I should be penalized because you got impatient." Ethan was fast losing his temper. Fighting to hold it in check, he fondled the money bundles flapping in the chill breeze. They were trying to cheat him. Bloody Watchers, never could trust them. "After all, you wouldn't have either without me. You owe me for Buffy."

"Your expertise in this matter has been well appreciated, and I think you will agreed that you have been handsomely rewarded for it." Wyndam-Price stepped forward and snapped the briefcase lid closed, making Ethan draw back his fingers or loose them. Accordingly to the Watcher, that ended the discussion. "Now, I suggest you take your money, and leave. Good day."

Wyndam-Price turned, taking his two top-coated bodyguards with him. A fourth man, a driver, waited inside a black Mercedes with the engine idling.

"Prat," Ethan muttered after him, claiming the briefcase that was only half as full as it should have been.

As the other car left the scene, heading south back toward London, Ethan again found himself alone on the deserted hilltop. The moors stretched for miles in all directions; bleak and inhospitable, just like his mood. Tossing the case into the passenger seat of his BMW, he shut the door and leaned his hip against it as he lit a cigarette.

Exhaling a lungful of smoke helped calm his temper, but not by much. He was pissed. Royally. After all he had done for them, the long months he had spent tracking Giles and his family to Philadelphia. No one else knew Rupert Giles like he did, and no one else ever had a hope in Hell of finding him. He knew it, and they knew it. Once Ripper went to ground, he may as well have been buried under it.

But Ethan had found him, and if the Watcher Council thought their debt paid in full and that they had seen the back of him, then they thought wrong. Dead wrong.

Watching the black Mercedes crest over the top of a distant hill, Ethan smiled to himself. As the wind snatched away a puff of smoke from his cigarette, he quietly murmured, "Be seeing you."

END OF PART 1