"Creed" ~ Part 3

SUMMARY, THIS PART: Years have passed. Now, as Carma nears her sixteenth birthday and the Watcher Council makes plans for her calling as a Slayer, information of her secret whereabouts finally comes to light. This sends Giles to Outback Australia, where he finds the daughter he never knew . . . and the destiny he can't avoid.

SPOILERS: Season 3, then branching into AU.
PAIRINGS: Buffy/Giles, Willow/Xander
RATING: FR-T for mature themes, voilence, language. 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 3: Threescore And Ten

Giles' heart soared as he watched Sabrina Harris blow out her birthday candles. He cheered, along with her parents, as she extinguished all thirteen. It was official; she was now a fully-fledged teenager. They started a chorus of Happy Birthday, as Sabrina reclaimed her seat at the table in the Harris dining room and caught his eye with a fond smile. Pride did not begin to describe what swelled in Giles' chest. Where had the years gone? When had Sabrina, the infant to whom he was godfather, the toddler he babysat for more hours than he could count, the child he read to until he was hoarse, when had she grown into this charming, intelligent teen who sat before him?

Giles returned the smile, watching Sabrina flip her dark hair over her shoulder. She had inherited her father's dark complexion and zest for life, and her mother's kindness and aptitude for learning. Giles had been there to pick her up after her first steps, to wipe the tears from her cheeks after her first grazed knee, to greet her homecoming after her first day at school. In all those years, there had not been a day when he hadn't looked at Sabrina and wondered about his own daughter--where Carma was, how she was, what she looked like.

Fifteen and a half years had somehow slipped by. In watching Sabrina grow up, Giles glimpsed snippets of what his own daughter's life might be like, and each glance only reinforced his vow to fulfill Buffy's dying wish that he find their kidnapped child. He had never given up hope, and never stopped searching. His quest had taken him around the world and back, to every continent, to the site of every rumor of Council or vampire activity, but to no avail. Even Xander, with all the high-tech tools of his profession at their full disposal, was buffaloed at how a baby girl could vanish without a trace. The Watcher Council, wherever they hid Carma, had hidden her very well. Only one man outside of the Council knew the secret of her whereabouts, and Ethan Rayne had taken it with him to his grave.

The birthday verse ended, and at the eager insistence of Sabrina's mother and father, she moved to cut the cake. The final attending family member was younger brother Timothy, who, at ten, was more interested in the chocolate frosting than the significance of his sister's achievement. After the first cut, Willow took over the task of serving, allowing Giles a private moment to lose himself in his memories again.

With Sabrina now thirteen, it meant Carma would soon be turning sixteen--in about two weeks, in fact--and the questions that had been nagging Giles for a decade and a half again came to the fore. Had her Slayer skills developed? Had the Council called her to her Destiny? Or was she still living the carefree life of an innocent teenage girl, spared the burden of being The Chosen One? Anything was possible, and having no knowledge of her fate was sometimes far worse than knowing.

Giles sighed, suddenly despondent, and inwardly turned from the festivities. For fifteen and a half years, he had chased shadows across the globe. Fifteen and a half long, lonely years. He had not re-married or looked for love, his heart and soul forever belonging to Buffy. Now he was a tired old man, with nothing to show for his devotion but this family, clustered around the table with him--Willow, who, after the Watcher Council, had given up a promising career at The British Museum to have and raise two delightful children; Xander, who had risen through the ranks of the Secret Service and now worked at Dowling Street, directly under the Prime Minister; Sabrina and Timothy, who had adopted him a kindly old uncle, and were the closest he would ever come to raising children of his own.

Willow brought Giles out of his reverie by handing him the first piece of birthday cake.

"Thank you," he said, steering his melancholy thoughts away from the direction they wanted to go. He would not be the one to spoil Sabrina's big day. Over the years, he had become quite adept at masking his private pain, both physical and emotional.

"Mummy," ten-year-old Timothy complained as a piece of cake was placed in front of him, "can't I have that bit? It has more chocolate."

"Which is precisely why you can't," Willow said, handing a plate to Xander. "You've had too much sugar today as it is."

"Does that means ice cream is out of the question?" Xander, who now sported a moustache and possessed more than a few gray hairs, asked hopefully.

"Oh yes, ice cream!" Timothy agreed enthusiastically.

"Xander," Willow said sternly, "you're not helping."

Giles hid a sentimental smile, and concentrated on eating his cake. They would never know how fond he had grown of these little domestic altercations. No matter how old Willow and Xander got, in many ways would always be the same Willow and Xander he had known in high school.

"Come on, Will, it's a party."

"Yes, Mummy. A party. Right, Uncle Rupert?"

Laden fork at his mouth, Giles looked up in surprise. "Well, yes, Timothy," he began. He changed tact mid-sentence, after catching a stern warning look from Willow. "But a-as I understand it, cake with ice cream is . . . typically an American tradition."

The boy looked crestfallen. "It is?"

"My word. We British eat it plain."

"What's wrong with it being an American tradition?" Xander argued playfully. "I'm an American. And I want ice cream with my cake!"

Tim's face dropped into a sulk. "I'm not American. But I think I want to be."

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Sabrina complained. She reached out and took the chocolate-heavy piece for which her brother had pined, settling the discussion. At her mother's disapproving glare, she shrugged an innocent 'What? It's my party!' look.

"Now, about the ice cream," Xander began. But his argument was cut short by the shrill ring of the telephone. Nowadays, he seemed to be on call around the clock. Seemingly defeated before he even started, Xander shut his mouth and stood, tussling his son's strawberry-blond hair as he went to the living room to answer it.

Crossing to the freezer, Willow nabbed the ice cream container and brought it to the table. Timothy grinned broadly as she awarded him a small scoop of vanilla. Breaking tradition, Sabrina opted for a serving as well. Giles shook his head when offered. Leaving the container on the table for Xander, Willow took the seat next to Giles with her own portion of ice creamless cake.

"I suppose," Willow said, "we have this to look forward to all over again, next month."

"How so?" Giles asked. Young Tim's birthday was still several months away.

"Come on, Giles. You know."

For a moment, he didn't. It was quite honestly the last thing on his mind. "Willow, I'm not sure that I--"

"But it's a milestone," Willow insisted, cutting another bite of cake with her fork. "We have to celebrate. It's not every day you turn the big Seven-O."

Giles cringed inwardly, choking down a mouthful of cake. Seventy. God, how he hated the sound of that. Once, his idea of turning seventy had involved having Buffy at his side, going happily gray--like Xander--with the trials of raising a teenage girl. Now it just reminded him of how empty his life had become.

"So do you want a chocolate cake?" Willow continued happily. "Or vanilla sponge?"

"Chocolate," Timothy voted, shooting him a grin that in a short few years was going to melt the hearts of many a young girl. "Please say chocolate, Uncle Rupert. With lots of frosting."

Xander's prompt return to the table spared Giles from disappointing the boy with a lot of shallow excuses that his mother would be sure to see right through. Despite the proof of his victory melting in the container on the table, Xander remained standing and silent. He looked pensive, Giles thought, and perhaps just a little excited. "Giles, can I talk to you for a moment? In private?"

"Certainly."

Curiosity creased Giles' brow, as he stood and accepted his cane from Willow. Five years ago, surgery to insert a titanium rod in his leg had helped increase his mobility while decreasing his everyday pain, the latter which--after kicking his pain pill addiction--he dealt with using meditation techniques and herbal remedies. But the creeping onset of old age had quickly forced him back to the stability of his cane, if only for the fact that falling and breaking his hip was now, unfortunately, a real concern.

In the living room, Giles settled into the worn armchair that had long been tagged his, watching Xander pace, pensively, back and forth. Whatever that telephone call had been about, it certainly had him on edge.

"What is it?" Giles prepared himself for bad news. "Has something . . . happened?"

Xander stopped before him, dropping to a knee to bring him to eye level. "That was Nigel, from work. I didn't want to say anything before, but I've had him running some special intel that came across my desk last week and . . . Giles, I don't know how to tell you this, except just to tell you." He broke into a hesitant smile. "We found her."

"Found who?" Giles asked, not comprehending. Then it stuck him, knocking him in the side of the head as surely as if Xander had tossed a brick. He reached for Xander's arm, his heart leaping to his throat. He did not want to let himself hope that this time was the right time. He had been down that road so many times before, only to find crushing disappointment waiting at the end. But it was so hard not to. "You mean . . . ?"

Xander nodded. "This time we have a name and a place, and all the facts fit, too." His smile widened with a certitude that almost brought Giles to tears. "Giles, I think this time it's the real deal. I think we've finally found Carma."

* * *

If ever a locale qualified as 'the middle of nowhere', then Giles knew he must have been standing in it. Waving down a cloud of exhaust as the tour coach pulled way, he glanced across the wide expanse of corrugated red dirt that represented the main highway through town, taking in the sights. It did not take long; Oodnadatta, South Australia, was not exactly a bustling metropolis. Before him, The Transcontinental Hotel, The Pink Roadhouse, and the General Store squatted in the rising heat of the afternoon sun; behind him were the old sandstone Railway Station-turned-Museum and a disused section of line, leftover from the days when the railway had made the town prosperous. It seemed difficult to believe that just over a week ago, he had been sitting in the Harris' London residence, eating birthday cake and arguing the traditions of ice cream.

"Welcome to the Outback," Giles murmured to himself, already convinced that his white twill trousers and cotton shirt were far too heavy attire for the desert heat, even with his sleeves rolled partway to his elbows. Tomorrow, he would definitely forego the tie. If this was winter, then he did definitely not want to be here come summer. Thank goodness he had taken the tour director's advice back in Darwin and purchased suitable headwear; a wide-brimmed cream Panama with a hunter green band.

Leaning heavily on his cane, with his suitcase in his other hand, Giles started across the empty road. Even the buildings looked weary of the oppressive heat. The were built low to the ground, with tin roofs and large front awnings, their hand painted signs beckoning tired and thirsty travelers with promises of COLD BEER and PIES & HAMBURGERS within. As he approached the roadhouse, he noted a group of three black men in their early twenties congregated in the shade of the porch, idly tipping beer cans and talking in lowered tones. Wisdom came with age, and Giles surreptitiously watched them as closely as they were watching him.

One, wearing a lightweight plaid shirt fastened with only two buttons, dusty blue jeans, and the Akubra-styled hat of an Aussie stockman, broke from the group as he invaded their territory. "G'day, mate. New in town?"

Giles turned to the young Aboriginal man with a pleasant smile, wary of all three should they be after his wallet. He had not seen a police station, and absently wondered how many hundreds of miles to the nearest; in the Outback, everything was done in big numbers. Then again, he had no reason to believe they wanted anything more than a chance to talk to a new face. He was simply getting too old and paranoid for this. "Good afternoon."

The man smiled, surprised by his accent. "You're a long way from home, mate."

"Indeed. I'm . . . just visiting."

That drew a skeptical look. Oodnadatta may have been Aboriginal for 'blossom of the Mulga', but it was not exactly the nucleus of the tourist industry. "Here? All by yourself? With just that?" He pointed at Giles' less-than-modest luggage. "Must not be staying long then."

"I'm . . . having my luggage sent on," Giles lied. He had long ago learned to pack light. "My destination is Calypso Creek Sheep Station. You, um, wouldn't happen to know it, by chance?"

The smile turned into a grin. "Know it? Mate, are you in luck. I run it!"

"You do?"

"Too bloody right. I'm Mr. Mallard's right hand man." He put out his hand. "Johnny Dingo."

Giles put down his case and returned the handshake. "Rupert . . . Jeeves. How do you do?"

"You must be that Pommie bloke the Boss has been on about." Johnny rubbed a thoughtful hand across his stubbly chin. "Although, I didn't think you were supposed to arrive until next week."

Despite the jolt to his gut and the knot in his throat, Giles digested the information with a straight face. Carma's adopted father was expecting the arrival of an Englishman the following week, the same week in which she turned sixteen. He did not like the sound of that, for the only compatriots he knew likely to make this godforsaken trek into the heart of the Australian desert were his former peers on the Watcher Council. It appeared that Destiny had, indeed, called, and they were coming for her, whether she liked it or not.

"Um, change of plan." Giles smiled at Johnny, dispelling skepticism with a confident look that was entirely superficial. With the Council on the move, he did not have much time. Although perhaps it explained why accurate information of Carma's secret whereabouts had suddenly surfaced. "Didn't you . . . receive the memo?"

"Well, I suppose the Boss did." Dismissing it, Johnny grinned again. "No worries then. You're just lucky it's Friday and I'm in town for supplies. Got the Ute parked over yonder."

"Indeed, I am," Giles agreed, guessing 'the Ute' was one of the rusty pickup-type vehicles baking in the hot sun. He not only had a ready-made escort to the sheep station, but transportation as well.

Johnny nodded at the roadhouse door. "How's about I buy you a cold one before we head back?"

"If by that you mean a beer," Giles said truthfully, "then thank you. I'd be delighted."

Johnny slapped him on the back and reached to open the roadhouse door. "Mate, I love the way you buggers talk!"

"I assure you, Mr. Dingo, the feeling is entirely mutual."

Grinning, hand on his shoulder, Johnny steered him inside.

* * *

Unlike English beer, the Australian variety was ice cold and strong. As Giles drained his third pilsner glass, he was aware that he had consumed much more than was needed to simply wash the dust from his throat. It was time to quit, before the alcohol loosened his tongue and he started saying things he shouldn't.

He and Johnny had struck up an easy rapport, sitting at a secluded corner table in the cool of the roadhouse, finding unexpected common ground in the subject of Carma. Of course, Johnny knew her by her adopted name, Nikki Mallard, and it had quickly become evident to Giles that the young man was extremely fond of her. He genuinely liked Johnny, but paternal curiosity made him speculate just how deep the fellow's affection ran, or indeed, if it was in any way reciprocated. Carma--or Nikki, as he would have to adjust to calling her--was barely sixteen, after all. Johnny had at least ten years on her.

Not that age mattered when two people loved each other. Giles only had to look at his own relationship with Buffy to know that. Nor did he need reminding that Slayers matured much faster than other girls. But his daughter was still minor, by law, and far too young for the fantasies he saw dancing in the other man's eyes. Later, given time, it could blossom of its own accord . . . if only time were a commodity they had at their disposal.

"She sounds . . . quite a handful," Giles said, non-committal, after Johnny finished recounting Carma's latest exploit; a rather reckless race pitting Johnny on his stock horse against Carma on her Kawasaki motorcycle. It had ended in a nasty spill on her part, which Johnny, although greatly relieved, was astonished to find spared her any major, life threatening injury.

"Mate, you said it. Fifteen going on twenty-bloody-five is our Nik, and out to prove herself to everyone." Johnny ducked his head, staring into his half-emptied glass. When he looked up, his eyes betrayed his heart. "I miss her already."

Giles stiffened. Johnny knew, and seemingly accepted, that someone was coming to take Carma away. He wondered if the young man also knew why. Did he know about Watchers and Slayers, and their clandestine fight to protect the world against things that went bump in the night? Seeing the sense of loss reflected in Johnny's gaze, and the animosity into which it abruptly transformed, it occurred to Giles that as far as Johnny was concerned he was that man come to steal his love away.

Johnny broke eye contact, swilling his glass as a barmaid drew near. "'Nother round, gents?" she asked.

Avoiding Giles' gaze, Johnny looked up at the woman. "Nah, I think we've had enough, luv." He threw a handful of yellow coins and a scrunched bill on her tray. "Thanks, Rita."

"No worries, Johnny. See you next Friday." With a polite nod at Giles, she moved away.

Johnny stood, reaching for Giles' suitcase without looking at him. He obviously wanted to voice an opinion, but was doing his best to hold it back, almost as if he had been told before that it was not his place to argue. Perhaps he had been through this same battle with Carma's adopted father. "We'd better get going. We've got a little bit of a drive ahead of us."

"Certainly," Giles agreed, casting his guilt aside. Johnny Dingo's feelings were not his problem. His problem was reaching 'Nikki Mallard' before that representative from the Watcher Council, and convincing her that her Destiny lay with him, not them. Of course, that was if indeed she turned out to be his long lost daughter. All the facts seemed to be adding up this time, but he had experienced disappointment so many times in the past that it was better not to let himself hope.

A tad reluctant to leave the cool comfort of the roadhouse for the blistering heat of the desert, Giles took his hat from the table and his cane from the back of the chair, and slowly followed the Aboriginal man to the door.

* * *

The 'little drive' to Calypso Creek Sheep Station took three dusty, boring, cramped hours. Despite their initial connection, Johnny did not have much to say as they headed south, skirting Lake Eyre and the Tirari Desert, save for the occasional tour guide observation. The road, if one could call it that, was unsealed and corrugated, making for a bone-jarring, teeth-rattling ride, while threading a mile long ribbon of red dust behind them. Not that there were any vehicles back there to collect it; there wasn't another car on the road.

Although it could be worse, Giles reflected. He could be sitting in the back of the Ute with the sheep dogs and the assortment of greasy machine parts Johnny was transporting.

From horizon to horizon stretched a plateau of low, sparse vegetation; straw-colored spinifex and canegrass, dotted with the occasional acacia tree. Giles had never seen wild kangaroos before, or dingoes, or the nubbly little lizards Johnny called 'skinks', but what surprised him most were the herds of feral camels. Who on earth would have thought?

"Left over from the days of the Afghan traders," Johnny explained when he asked. "They used camel trains, back in the 1800s, to take the mail to Alice Springs. After the railway came, they just turned them loose."

Giles lost count of how many dry creek beds they crossed, their existence a warning for flash flooding in the wet season. Water was life in the Outback, and trees and other greenery clung to the creek rims in thick abundance. When Johnny stopped square in the middle of the deserted road at one creek that actually had a trickle of water running through it, Giles was grateful for the break. His back ached almost as much as his leg, and he needed to stretch both. He also needed to get rid of the beer he had consumed, and guessed, when Johnny disappeared behind a clump of nearby bushes, that it had been a mutual necessity.

The sun was just setting as they drove under the wrought iron arch and across the livestock-grid that marked the gates of Calypso Creek. Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the large, single-story, ranch house with a red-tin roof, and a wide covered verandah stretching around all four of its sides. Johnny was first out of the Ute, slamming his door and releasing the dogs from the back. They ran off barking as Giles stiffly unfolded his limbs from the cab. Straightening, he found himself captivated by the most spectacular, most beautiful, sunset he had ever seen. Distracted by its magnificence, he failed to notice the slender girl in jeans and a sleeveless denim shirt running out of the house to meet them . . . until she jumped into Johnny's arms with her booted feet hooked behind his hips.

Giles caught his breath. She was taller than Buffy by several inches, but with the same slim, athletic build common to all Slayers. The same honey-blonde hair he had once loved to run his fingers through swayed, unrestrained, as she moved, her green eyes--his eyes--sparkling with the naïve enthusiasm of youth. Carma was the image of her mother, and Giles could do nothing but stare at her, open-mouthed, while his heart turned over several dozen times. All doubts that this trip would end in failure, just like the others, instantly evaporated, for she was undeniably the daughter he had searched for all these years.

'I found her, Buffy, I finally found our little girl.'

"Did you get it?" Carma asked Johnny, completely ignoring him.

Johnny spun her around a time or two, then put her feet back on the ground. "You know I did."

"Great! I can't wait to--"

"Um, Nik?" Johnny said, remembering Giles. "This is . . . Mr. Jeeves. From England."

"England?" She frowned, first at him then back at Johnny. "I thought that was, like, next week?"

Giles hobbled a step toward her, longing to enfold her into a hug but prudently settling for a simple handshake. Anything would suffice. He just wanted to touch her, assure himself she was real. "H-hello . . . "

Carma stared at him as if he had two heads, giving careful thought to the way he stood leaning on his cane, offering his hand. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever." Dismissing him completely, she turned her vivacity back to Johnny. "So when can we get it installed? Tonight?"

Stung by her glib attitude and casual rejection, Giles hung back a step. He had foolishly expected more; foolishly expected the daughter he had not seen in almost sixteen years to accept him back into her life without so much as a question. He wondered if she even knew the people she called 'mum and dad' were not really her parents. Had anyone even told her? Did she know she was adopted? That somewhere in the world was her real father?

Johnny raised his hand to brush a lock of hair from her face in a gesture that tore at Giles' heart. "Struth, Nik, I just got here! And I'm buggered. In the morning, okay?"

"But John-ny."

"I'm serious. Tomorrow will be soon enough." With a glance at Giles, Johnny moved to lift his suitcase out of the Ute's flatbed. "Now go tell your father he has company."

Carma redirected her displeasure at Giles, holding his gaze with a frosty look before turning to run back into the house.

"I . . . don't think she likes me," Giles said, disheartened, watching her go.

Johnny gripped his shoulder as he passed. "If it helps, mate, I don't think it's you personally." He headed after Carma with Giles' suitcase, leaving him to follow of his own accord.

Turning on his cane, Giles knew Johnny was right. Carma's hostility was not directed at him so much as it was toward what she believed he represented. To her, he was the bad guy, the black hat who had come to take her from her home and family and people she loved.

To her, he was the enemy.

* * *

Johnny showed Giles into a large family room awash with the setting sun. Left alone, Giles put his hat on the low-slung coffee table and meandered while he waited. The crimson curtains, bombarded with years of sun, were now an anemic pink. Likewise, the floral sofa and armchairs bore an old and faded appearance. In the corner, a wood-burning stove made him marvel that it could possibly turn cold enough for its use. All told, there was a lived-in feel to the room, a place for family gatherings and cheerful socializing. He wondered if Carma had ever celebrated a birthday in this room, and tried to imagine it adorned with balloons and streamers, and good cheer.

On the bookcase, Giles spied a handful of framed photographs; a succinct but accurate chronicle his daughter's life. There was a shot of her as a toddler, hand in hand with a man and a woman on an ocean pier somewhere. Another as a child, mounted on a chestnut mare and proudly displaying a blue ribbon. A candid one of her in swimwear, sitting by an earthen dam, with a black and white sheep dog licking her face.

Giles regarded the photos with a mixture of regret and longing, lingering over a portrait shot that had obviously been recently taken by a professional. It looked like something one would find in a high school yearbook. Indeed, there were three identical wallet-sized versions tucked into the lower corner of the black chrome frame. These were slightly curled, as if they had been there for a time, perhaps awaiting delivery to friends or family. With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Giles stole one of the smaller pictures and quickly tucked it in his shirt pocket, against his heart; a father desperate to possess something of his daughter. Surely one would not be missed. And he was family, after all.

The sound of movement from behind drew his attention, and Giles turned as a man--an older version of the same man in the photo on the pier--entered the sun-bathed room. A young woman, with dark hair and blues eyes, perhaps in her early twenties, hovered at the door. Was this Carma's sister, Giles wondered absently?

"G'day. Paul Mallard," the man introduced himself, extending a hand as he came forward. He was tall, fifty-ish, with blue eyes and sandy-colored hair just graying at the temples. His shirt had no sleeves--the armholes ragged as if someone had just ripped them off--which adequately displayed his suntanned muscles.

Giles hobbled toward him on his cane and shook the callused hand. This man had seen a lifetime of hard physical labor. "Rupert Jeeves."

"Please, have a seat," Mallard said, waving at one of the armchairs. He flipped the overhead light switch to combat the coming darkness, before seating himself on the faded sofa at right angles to the indicated chair.

"Thank you." Giles settled, aware of the man watching him as he struggled to find a comfortable position for his leg. The car ride had just about done him in for the day, and now he longed for a little quiet and solitude in which to meditate.

"Would you like something to drink, Mr. Jeeves?" the young woman, who had remained standing at the door, asked politely.

"Um, thank you. A cup of tea would be lovely."

"I'll have a beer, luv," Mallard said, with a grin that was far from fatherly and instantly made Giles wonder about their relationship. After the young woman left the room, Mallard, as if sensing his curiosity, explained. "That's Debbie, by the way, my . . . housekeeper. Need a woman around the place, you know?"

"I see," Giles said, even though he didn't. "And Mrs. Mallard?"

"We, er, we lost Wendy about two years ago. Car accident, on the way home from town. Debbie came to live with us after that."

"I'm sorry," Giles said genuinely, wishing he could have been there to help Carma survived the loss of her adopted mother, and the addition of the new, younger woman in her father's life, for it was obvious that Debbie was far more than just a housekeeper. He looked down, unsure how to continue.

Mallard took up the slack for him. "We weren't expecting you 'til next week. Not 'til after Nik's birthday actually."

"My apologies for the mix-up," Giles said, wondering just how far he should carry the charade. He had mixed feelings about deceiving Mallard about his identity. On one hand, the man deserved to know exactly who Giles was and what he had in mind, but on the other, how could he have even the slightest compassion for a man who would willingly hand over his daughter to a complete stranger? And if Mallard was going to blindly give custody to someone else, then Giles steadfastly wanted it to be him. "I trust my early arrival doesn't . . . present a problem?"

Mallard smiled grimly. He sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees, and met Giles' gaze head on. "Look, can I be frank?"

"By all means."

He nodded. "Ever since I got word of someone coming for Nik on her sixteenth birthday, I've been doing some pretty heavy thinking. I know I signed an adoption contract and all, but the truth is, after sixteen years, I don't give a rat's ass about your Watcher's Creed anymore." His unshaven chin lifted defiantly. "I'm not prepared to give up my daughter to you, or them, and I'll fight you for custody every step of the way. In court if I have to."

Giles lowered his gaze, feeling a strange mixture of ease and ire. He wanted to commend the man for his conviction, and also verify just how futile it was. The Council wanted Carma, so the Council would take Carma. No ifs, no buts, no court battle for legal custody. If Mallard resisted, as Giles had done sixteen years ago, then they would simply send someone else, as they had sent Ethan Rayne to him, to remedy that. "I see."

Mallard hedged a smile. "Of course, I . . . sort of hoped we could come to a more reasonable arrangement first."

That got Giles' attention. "Arrangement?" The Watcher Council did not bargain. Period.

"As I see it," Mallard said hesitantly, "the only problem your early arrival presents, is that I don't have all the money together yet. Bloody bank won't have the paperwork finalized 'til Monday."

Giles frowned. Before he could ask, Mallard continued with an explanation.

"I'm not a rich man, Jeeves. This was my grandfather's land, and I've worked hard, all my life, to get where I am today. I'm . . . well, I'm hoping that half a million dollars will be enough to persuade you to return to England. Alone."

"Y-you're offering me a bribe?"

Optimism peaked in Mallard's eyes. "You can tell the Council they made a mistake, that Nikki isn't The Chosen One. Hell, you look like a man with clout. Coming from you, they'll probably believe it and leave us alone."

"Mr. Mallard, it's not a question of--"

"I don't care! Okay? Tell them whatever the bloody hell you like, just . . . just don't take my daughter from me. Please."

Giles held the other man's beseeching gaze, unsure how to respond.

Mallard took his silence as uncertainty. "Look," he said, rubbing his neck, "all right, I can probably wrangle a bit over half a million, if I--"

"That won't be necessary," Giles cut him short.

Relief flowed across Mallard's face. "Then you accept?"

"No, I don't."

"But--?"

"Now let me be frank with you." Giles paused a moment to draw breath, then went on. "Believe me when I say I don't want to see . . . Nikki . . . in the Council's care any more than you."

"I don't understand. You're their representative." Mallard had not asked to see credentials, he had just assumed, and now suspicion dawned for the first time. "Aren't you?"

"The Council and I go way back," Giles confessed. "I was once a Watcher, charged with a girl just like Nikki--a Slayer. We fought their war, risked our lives, night after night." He looked away, history dredging up raw emotions. "They took everything from me. So now I despise them, and all they stand for."

Mallard grunted, but Giles couldn't tell if it was in agreement or disapproval.

"I'm not the hypocrite you think I am, Mr. Mallard. I still believe evil must be fought, just . . . not their way. Not by children, who don't have a choice."

"Well, you got my vote on that. Mind if I ask what changed your mind?"

"One night, sixteen years ago," Giles said grimly, "when they murdered Nikki's real mother." A muscle rippled in his jaw as he relived the night he and Xander rescued Buffy from the Council stronghold in rural Bath, and the gentle smile on her face as she later died in his arms, a victim of their fanaticism. "Nikki was only six months old," he continued hoarsely, "when they took her, and hid her . . . I presume here with you. I've been searching the world for her ever since."

"But . . . " Mallard indicated Giles' bum leg and obvious age. "Why you?"

Giles looked at him squarely. "Because Nikki's mother was my wife."

Mallard's mouth dropped open as realization dawned. "Then you're . . . ? No, you can't be."

"I assure you, I am," Giles said, holding the other man's thunderstruck gaze. "I'm her real father. And I've come to take her home."

* * *

No way.

In the hall outside the family room, Carma pursed her lips in absolute denial. No way the old bloke was her real dad, no matter what he said. Sure, she knew she was adopted, but she had always been told, always believed, that both her biological parents had died in a car wreck when she was just a baby.

Why was this happening to her? Other kids turned sixteen, had a big party, and went on with life. Instead, her world was crumbling down around her ankles as she watched, powerless to stop it. Just last month, her father sat her down for a long talk. At first, she feared he had noticed her and Johnny, and that the talk would be one about sex, and age, and even race. Boy, was she ever wrong! She had no idea where he had dreamed up all that Watcher/Slayer stuff, which according to him was a more than adequate explanation for her newfound abilities.

For days after, she truly believed her dad had lost it, until that night. There, behind the stockman's quarters, as she and Johnny made out on a blanket under the stars, some bloke she had never seen before--some big, brute-ugly bloke with extra-large incisors--appeared from nowhere, and, after bragging about how renowned he would become for preventing the Slayer from ever meeting her Destiny, had promptly tried to kill her. Her instinctive reaction to his seemingly unprovoked attack had been to stake him through the heart with a broken rake handle, after which, when he disintegrated in a shower of putrid dust, she reevaluated her father's alleged insanity and the whole Watcher/Slayer deal. And although she grudgingly then accepted the reality of vampires, she steadfastly refused to be this 'chosen one' her dad spoke of, the girl personally responsible for stopping them.

Down the hall in the kitchen, Debbie carelessly rattled her mum's good china as she prepared tea for their guest. Carma frowned. As if the vampire deal wasn't issue enough, there was also the matter of Debbie. Debbie, who may have been sleeping with her dad, but was no maternal replacement. It wasn't right that a complete stranger should be given access to her mum's most cherished possessions, but six months ago, her father had given full reign. That had been around the same time he started getting real friendly with the housekeeper, and around when he had, essentially, stopped being a father.

Carma deeply missed her mum. Her premature death had undeniably been the first wedge driven firmly between her and her dad, and they had grown ever distant in the two years she had been gone. Sometimes, all Carma thought she was to him now was an unpaid pair of hands, to muster the sheep, or muck the stables, or bale the wool. She couldn't talk to him about anything anymore, and the sad thing was, at this stage in her life, part of her didn't want to.

There came a crash from the direction of the kitchen, and the sound of Debbie swearing a blue streak that would make even Johnny blush. Another broken cup. Soon there would be nothing left of her mum's good china. It was just one more example of how Debbie was slowly but surely stamping out her memory, and making Calypso Creek her own. Carma resented her for that, and for the way she had single-handedly replaced both 'wife' and 'daughter' in her father's life. It was a mutually returned feeling, although one only displayed when her dad was not around to see it. The housekeeper wanted her out . . . which was fine by Carma because after Mr. Fang Face, she was more than ready to leave before the I've-Come-To-Take-You-To-Your-Destiny clause was put into permanent practice.

Destiny, Fate, whatever you called it, it really sucked.

And as if things couldn't get any more complicated, now Mr. English had arrived with claims to be her real, long-lost daddy. God, did it never end? How had her life gone down the toilet so fast?

Sniffing back angry tears, Carma pushed away from the wall. Damn, Mr. English for arriving early! That wasn't in The Plan, but she would have to make do. Without looking back, she went in search of the only person left whom she trusted, the only one who understood.

Johnny would know what to do. He always did.

* * *

"I had no idea you were still alive." Paul Mallard looked very much like a man who wanted to hit something. "Let alone that Nik had been taken from you against your will."

Giles nodded grimly over his cup and saucer. That sounded exactly like the Council, plowing over the truth with a seamless pavement of lies. "Just as I had no idea of her whereabouts for sixteen years. They kept us both in the dark, Mr. Mallard."

Mallard suddenly grew resentful. "Look, mate, you may be her biological father, but I'm the bloke she calls 'dad'. Me. You don't even know her."

"While that maybe true, I intend--"

"And there's no bloody way I'm giving you custody. You hear me?" That said, Mallard sucked on his beer and diverted his gaze.

"I understand your hostility," Giles said, trying to keep his own temper in check. He put his tea on the low-slung table before him, having suddenly lost the taste for it. "But I'm not your enemy. I want what's best for Nikki, too."

Mallard turned an angry glare on him. "What's best is for you to crawl back into the woodwork and let me deal with this my own way."

"If you honestly believe that money is the answer, then you're a fool." Giles stiffened, his temper flaring. "The Council will be here for Nikki next week, and whether you accept it or not, I assure you they will not leave without her. She's a special child, The Chosen One, and even if they have no immediate plans for her as a Slayer, then they will find another use of her . . . talents." Mallard was already upset, Giles did not want to mention the Council's breeder program; he did not even like to consider it himself. "I trust you have explained her abilities and the situation to her?"

"Yeah, I tried. Nik's not sold on the idea, I'll tell you that now." Frustration drove Mallard's right hand though his hair. "There must be something I can do, some way to stop them from taking her." He looked to Giles for an answer. "So tell me."

"I truly wish I could."

"You said you were a bloody Watcher! You must have some insights."

Giles paused for a moment. "If you will allow me to take her back to Britain--"

"No." Mallard shook his head, obstinate.

"As you yourself pointed out, I am her biological father. Legally, I could fight you for custody. And win."

Mallard growled into his beer bottle. "That's your prerogative. I can't stop you from trying."

Now frustration crept over Giles. This was getting them nowhere. He and Mallard needed to work together, not fight each other, if they wanted to help Carma escape her Destiny in the Council's employ. True, he could probably win a custody battle . . . if he had the month it would take filter through the legal system. But there wasn't time for that; the real Council representative would be arriving in just a few short days.

"We still have until Nikki's birthday," Giles pointed out reasonably. "Perhaps, if you allow me to stay and we worked together, perhaps then we'll think of a suitable way out of this."

Mallard looked at him, then grudgingly nodded in a gesture of truce. "Fair enough. I'll give you a few days. For Nik's sake."

Giles returned the nod. He had just found his daughter, and was not prepared to lose her again so quickly. Whatever it took, he and Mallard had to find a way to keep Carma from the Council's grasp.

"For Nikki," he agreed solemnly.

* * *

Giles' first reaction when Carma failed to turn up at the dinner table that night was blind panic. His second reaction, following rapidly on the heels of the first, was anger at the annoyingly casual way her surrogate father dismissed her absence.

"She's probably out with Johnny," he said in explanation. "Does it all the time. She'll be home when she's hungry."

Maybe so, Giles thought, struggling to keep his concerns to himself. For Carma's sake, he did not want to destroy the delicate truce forged with her adoptive parent. Ordinarily she may be late for dinner, true, but ordinarily there were there not men from the Watcher Council arranging to take her away. What if they had simply arrived early, as he had done? Perhaps they had been expecting Mallard's change of heart to their sixteen-year-old agreement, and had just taken her against her will. Whisked her off into the night, right under their noses . . .

Reluctantly, Giles gave Carma a mental curfew of midnight, and if she as not home by then, he was raising Cain no matter the fallout. At worst Paul Mallard would throw him out of the house, which simply meant the difference between a soft bed with cool linen sheets, and roughing it in a cot in the stockmen's quarters. 'Jackaroos', Johnny had called them; that was the correct Aussie term for 'stockmen'.

The thought of Johnny dredged up another unspoken parental concern. Calypso Creek Station was hundreds of miles from civilization. There was no nearby town where a young couple could take in a movie, or dinner with friends. So, what exactly did Carma and Johnny do when they were 'out' together? Their affection for each other was evident; surely Mallard had noticed?

Good Lord, what sort of father was this man?

After dinner, Mallard retired to the family room with a polite but diffident invitation to join him for coffee, but Giles made excuses about an ache in his leg that was only a half-lie. Instead, he retreated to privacy of the guest bedroom, preferring solitude to the inevitably strained conversation and the risk of freely speaking his mind.

Giles left the door to his room ajar, and optimistically awaited Carma's return, passing the time with some meditation to ease his pain. The layout of the ranch house put all but the master bedroom on this side of the residence, so Carma had to eventually come down the hall, past the family room and the guest room, to reach the sanctuary of her own.

Despite his best intentions, relaxation washed over Giles, and his body soon rebelled against the idea of staying awake. After all, he was not a young man anymore, and it had been a long day of traveling; first on the tour bus, then in Johnny's Ute. Giles was just beginning to lose the battle with his increasingly heavy eyelids, when raised voices startled him from fatigued stupor into full awareness. His initial fear of the Council's early arrival repeated in his chest like a bad case of indigestion. Sitting upright from where he had slumped in a chair, he listened to the ensuing conversation.

The confrontation began with Mallard's enraged voice booming from the family room door, where he had obviously caught Carma as she attempted to sneak in. "Where the hell have you been? Do you know what bloody time it is?"

As Carma mumbled an indistinct reply, Giles squinted at his wristwatch without his glasses. It was 11:53pm. She only just made his curfew.

"Go to your room. We'll talk about this in the morning."

"What do you care where I was, anyway? You're giving me to a stranger!"

"Damn it, Nik, I'm too tired for this."

"But you never asked me how I felt about any of this Slayer crap, or what I wanted. You just told me!"

"Go to your room, young lady. Now."

"Dad, you never listen to me, you never take my side! You even side with Debbie against me! I might as well not even exist!"

"That's enough. While you live in this house, you'll do what I say. NOW GO TO YOUR BLOODY ROOM!"

"Then I won't stay in this house!"

The sound of her running down the hall toward him brought Giles out of his chair. The moments it took to stand and hobble to the door on his cane meant the difference between catching her in the hall and losing her to a slammed bedroom door. But by the time he fully opened his door, all he caught sight of was Carma's back as she brushed by.

The hallway sat in lucid darkness, the slim triangle of moonlight filtering in through the window with a ghostly blue-silver glow at odds with the electric light down at the other end. Carma was clad in jeans and a bulky black jacket, carrying an unidentifiable bundle. She stopped at her bedroom door, and was just reaching to open it when the sound of another door slamming, elsewhere in the house, made her jump. Mallard angrily heading to bed, Giles surmised without much effort. Judging from what he had heard, he remained unconvinced of the man's priorities. Was he miffed because Carma stayed out so late, or simply because he had to wait up for her?

"Ca--Nikki?" Giles called softly.

Startled again, she wheeled to face him in the moonlight, revealing the bundle she carried to be a motorcycle helmet. Good Lord, they should all be breathing a sigh of heartfelt relief that she had not had another accident on the wretched thing!

"Are you . . . all right?" Giles ventured, unsure if he was asking after her physical or emotional state in the wake of Mallard's verbal abuse. Torn between staying where he was, more or less halfway out his door, or crossing to her directly, he teetered on his cane. The paternal need for physical contact grew even stronger as he realized Carma could use a hug as much as him, reassurance that at least someone in this house cared enough to see her home and safe.

Defiant, Carma lifted her chin and wiped the back of her hand over her cheek. In the diffuse lighting she looked the image of Buffy, and it took ever ounce of his willpower not to go to her. She didn't answer his question. In fact, she did not say anything at all. The glare that settled across her pretty young face just ripped at his heart.

"Your father was just--" Giles stopped himself short. No. He was not about to stand here defending the man's temper. "I was concerned for you," he admitted. "Are you all right?"

He waited, holding her belligerent gaze and longing for her to speak to him. Any words would do at this point. Even insults if she chose. Instead, Carma opened her bedroom door and disappeared within. She slammed it in her wake, hard enough for Mallard to hear from his end of the house.

Giles flinched, this one action far more eloquent than any words could have been. Reluctant to leave the matter unresolved, he quietly closed his door and limped back to his bed. He sat, absently rubbing his leg. Carma was home, he consoled himself. She was safe and uninjured; that was the main thing.

The fact that she so openly hated him was another matter entirely.

* * *

Giles rose at what he considered an early hour, well rested and renewed in his vigor to set things right with his daughter, whether or not her adopted father approved of his coming informality with the teen. He showered and dressed in record time, and by seven-thirty was following the mouth-watering aroma of fresh baking bread out to the ranch house kitchen. Expecting to see a gathering of faces sharing a hearty country breakfast, he was more than a little surprised to find the room empty, the piles of dirty dishes testament to the fact that breakfast was long over.

Debbie, sipping her second cuppa-of-the-day while idly flipping through a dog-eared recipe book, glanced up as he entered on his cane. Mallard, he discovered as Debbie seated him at the table and poured hot tea from a pot into a mug for him, had already left to attend a stretch of broken Dog Fence; a two-meter high wire mesh barrier that divided the eastern Australian states from the deeper outback. A boundary rider had come in at dawn, she explained, reporting a trampled section and some slaughtered ewes nearby. Dingoes, in all likelihood, were responsible.

It sounded like a typical farm problem to Giles, solved with Mallard riding out to pasture on his stock horse to mend the broken fence . . . until Debbie mentioned the section in question was such a distance that Mallard had taken one of the two Robinson R22 mustering helicopters to get there. Even with such fast transportation, he would likely be gone all day, first repairing the fence then hunting down and shooting any dingoes he found within.

For the first time since arriving, Giles was thankful for the large distances involved in all things Outback. This was perfect. Perhaps not for the unfortunate dingoes, but it did give Giles the entire day to get--or try to get--acquainted with Carma. Alone. Up close and personal. Just the two of them, if his assumption that Mallard had taken his right-hand man, Johnny, along for the ride. If he could just talk to Carma, tell her about the Watcher Council in none too glowing terms, explain the pitfalls of the Slayer's life they had in store for her. He needed to convince her that returning to Britain with him was for the best.

Provided, of course, that he could first get her to actually talk to--

The sound of a light aircraft buzzing the house stopped him mid-thought, with his mug of sweet, hot, milky tea held at his lips. Good Lord, it sounded as if they were being . . . dive-bombed!

Debbie's annoyed frown, as she glanced toward the window at the plane's low-pitched climb out, hardly seemed to do the unusual situation justice. She moved to the kitchen door, which opened onto the back section of the wide, covered verandah that encircled the house. Following her out on his cane, Giles stopped at the paint-peeled rail, and lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he looked skyward. There, a single engine Cessna aircraft performed some death-defying aerobatics maneuvers against a backdrop of cloudless blue.

"Good Heavens!" Giles exclaimed, as the pilot rolled the plane upside down. His mouth dropped open as it went from this inverted position into another dive, its engine winding in pitch as it headed directly for the red dirt below. Seconds later, no more than a mere hundred feet above the point of impact, the pilot pulled out of the dive, having lost several thousand feet of altitude and preformed a 180 degrees turn in the process.

"She's going to get herself killed," Debbie muttered. "Stupid kid."

With effort, for he was clearly witness to the skills of a seasoned pilot here, Giles pulled his awed gaze from the plane. He spotted a man down by a large, rusty shed that supported a limp yellow windsock on the end of a flagpole. He, too, stood watching the air show, from the edge of some flatter ground that evidently made up one end of a homemade airstrip.

"Excuse me," Giles said, genuinely impressed by the aerial tricks. Eager for information, he descended the steps, passed a satellite dish, then picked his way down the gentle slope leading away from the back of the house.

The loose dirt and uneven footing of the incline slowed his descent, but as he got closer to the man, recognition struck. It was Johnny Dingo. So much for his theory of him having gone with Mallard for the day, although he supposed he should have guessed that part of a right-hand man's job description would be to assume responsibility of the jackaroos and associated chores when the boss was not around.

The young Aboriginal man was wiping greasy hands on an equally grease-ridden rag, and, with his gaze fixed on the Cessna, did not hear Giles' approach until he was right on him. They exchanged a cordial look of acknowledgement, then stood watching the small plane together.

"I say, that looks extremely . . . dangerous," Giles said, watching the pilot execute another death defying barrel roll, dip a wing, and make a low turn onto final approach for landing.

"Yeah, but Nik's got it covered," Johnny answered simply.

For a moment, Giles had no idea what Johnny meant, what possible connection there was to his daughter and the daredevil aerobatics he was watching. Then, suddenly remembering Carma's pleas for Johnny to install something for her this morning and the machinery parts Johnny had brought back from town in his Ute, Giles looked at the grease now covering the man's hands and the assortment of nearby tools, and came up with . . . "Good Lord! That's Nikki up there?"

Exasperated by this unexpected turn of events, Giles completely tuned out Johnny's meek but loyal defense of Carma's abilities and her 'last chance to have some fun', and instead focused on the landing plane. Parental anger flooded him. No doubt Mallard should be flogged for letting her partake in such a perilous activity.

Good God! She could have been killed! Right in front of him!

Giles started to breathe again when the Cessna's wheels touched, bounced once on the hardened red dirt, and feathered down again for a smooth landing flare. The small 2-seater plane taxied toward where he and Johnny stood at the edge of the compacted dirt apron. Just before reaching them, Carma kicked in hard right rudder and spun the plane around on a dime, ending up facing down the airstrip in the direction from which she had just come.

Now behind the propeller, the wash stirred up clouds of red dirt that ruffled Giles' hair and clothes, and stung his eyes until she cut the engine. After the aircraft coasted to a complete stop, Carma threw off her shoulder harness, flung open the passenger side door, and leaned across the seat to poke her head out of the fuselage. She looked back at them, her face lit by one gigantic smile.

"Did you see?" she excitedly asked Johnny, totally ignorant of Giles and the clearly evident wrath on his face. "Two perfect Split-S's in a row! That new electric fuel pump is awesome, Johnny. Now I can go upside down without even a hiccup!"

At that point, Giles went into full parental overload. His sixteen-year-old daughter was obviously in need of a lecture, and since there was no one else around to give it, he handpicked several choice words for the girl, none of them particularly praiseworthy of the awe-inspiring skill to which he had already forgotten he had been privy. In fact, they were more along the lines of 'irresponsible', 'rash', 'reckless', 'dumb-assed', and downright 'stupid'.

"Sure did, Nik," Johnny called proudly. "You're the best."

She beamed.

Giles, certain there must have been smoke pouring out of his ears at this point, could hold his tongue no longer. Leaving Johnny, he limped several paces closer to the open plane door before he unleashed the full force of his temper. "Are you completely insane?"

Carma's smile evaporated as quickly as a dewdrop on a spring morning, rightfully shocked by his tone. She focused on him as he continued forward. "Wha--?"

"Do you have any idea how precarious that . . . that stunt was?" Giles continued. He hobbled the remaining distance to the open Cessna door, his height making it necessary to duck his head in order to maintain his glare at her under the small plane's high wing. Grabbing the wing strut for support, he got in her face. "You could have been killed. And I, for one, do not relish the task of shoveling what's left of you into a bucket."

Carma, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, snorted contemptuously. In a low voice only he could hear, she said, "Get stuffed, Grandpa, you're not my father."

It was the first whole sentence she had spoken to him, and it came like a backhand across the face. Of all the things she could have said. Stunned by the denial more than the rudeness, Giles hesitated. Had someone told her? And if so, who . . . and when? Or was it simply a rebellious teen reaction to the counsel of an adult? No matter what had prompted her retort, it was the perfect opening for the moment of truth.

Carma continued to challenge Giles with a defiant stare that was so like Buffy at that age, it was heart wrenching. Expression and temper softening, Giles opened his mouth to gently tell her she was wrong, that he was, indeed, her long lost father and that he loved her very much, but he never got the chance.

Commotion had him looking over his shoulder, back up the slope past Johnny, whose attention had also been caught by the sound of car tires crunching to a stop on the gravel up by the house. The dust quickly settled to reveal a late model black Ford Falcon, its doors synchronously opening to discharge three men in equally black suits.

Suits? Out here?

Fear tightened Giles' chest. His body moved involuntarily, edging protectively toward the open plane door, as he watched Debbie greet the newcomers. The tall man in charge, still too far away to discern any distinguishable identity, briefly spoke to her, and then bent his head to listen to her reply. When the housekeeper lifted an arm and pointed directly at the plane, the bottom fell out of Giles' world.

The real representatives from the Watcher Council had just arrived. Early.

"I say," the lead man called in familiar British tones, "stop that plane!"

"Bloody hell!" Giles spat. Awkwardly, he hoisted his six-foot-plus frame into the cramped 2-seat cockpit of the Cessna, tucking himself in beside his stunned-looking daughter.

"Hey!" she protested. "What do you think you're--?"

"Go!" he ordered, slamming the door closed and fussing for the seat harness. As he fumbled with the complicated buckle, he craned his neck to look out the window, fearing the worst. Sure enough, the three Suits were headed his way. Fast.

"What?" Carma asked, more miffed than mystified by his direct order.

Giles turned his full attention back to the teenage girl in the pilot's seat. Ahead of them was an unobstructed length of red dirt runway. He was about to again tell her to go, when her green eyes flicked from his to the window behind his head. She jumped, startled, as a fist slammed into the other side of the glass, take aback. Giles looked over his shoulder . . . right into the enraged face of Wesley Wyndam-Price.

"Step out of the aircraft," Wyndam-Price ordered, his voice muffled through the glass. He reached for the door handle, but Giles quickly flicked the locking latch. "Giles, I demand you give this up and come out now! You are obstructing Council business!"

Giles looked back at Carma, and gave her a winning smile. "I believe now would be a good time for you take off," he said in an oddly calm voice.

"GILES!"

Nodding surreally as Wyndam-Price thumped the glass again, Carma reached to key the ignition. The prop sputtered once, twice, before the cylinders fired it into life, shaking the entire plane. Wesley, his fancy black suit flapping about his body like an ill-fitting rag, flung his arms up in protection of the dirt flying in the prop wash. It was only out of sheer luck that he ducked his head before the lowered flap gave him a concussion he would not soon forget. Which was a pity, Giles thought, watching.

As the Cessna began to roll forward, Wyndam-Price was forced to take several steps away from the fuselage, lest he wanted to collect a fair wallop in the midsection from the advancing tailplane. Inside the cockpit, Carma pushed the throttle control all the way in to give the single engine maximum rpms, then used the rudder pedals to steer them down the center of the dirt strip as her takeoff began to gather speed and momentum.

Bumping along, feeling oddly akin to a penny rattling around an empty tin can, Giles endeavored to peer out the back window. Through the dust they left in their wake, he saw Johnny and the other two Watchers join Wyndam-Price as he kicked ineffectually at the red dirt and swore in obvious frustration. Bastard. Giles would have dearly liked to have obeyed his order and gotten out of the plane . . . if only to pop the little pillock in the mouth. Oh yes, setting that wanker on his backside, right in front of his lackeys, would have given Giles a great deal of satisfaction.

Giles turned forward again, and smiled. Opting for escape over personal satisfaction still filled him with a sense of triumph. He settled in his seat, content with this small victory, as the Cessna lifted gracefully into the air.

* * *

After an hour and a half of flying, Giles admitted he was completely lost. Shortly after takeoff, there had been the rather stunning vista of Lake Eyre to admire; an enormous dry lake, its bed of salt crystals sparkling with a pink hue in the desert sun. From it, the dried up creeks, which he and Johnny had driven across in the Ute, snaked through the red dirt and spinifex like shriveled arteries from a dead heart. But even this scenery, such as it was, soon gave way to the harsher landscape of the Simpson Desert, with its pebble-strewn plains and dunes of drifting red sand, broken only by sporadic outcrops of rock and the occasional tortured tree. The terrain was monotonously void of perceptible landmarks, which, Giles decided, would have made pinpointing their exact location difficult even had they been in possession a map. There was, of course, the compass on the Cessna's dash, but it indicated a heading of northwest that was so steadfast in its track, that it twice made him question whether the needle was actually stuck.

Silent, arms folded, he regarded Carma from the corner of his eye. Determination etched itself deep into her brow. With the exception of glancing at the instrument panel, she kept her eyes front and center, refusing to acknowledge she even had a passenger, much less that they were now in this--whatever 'this' was--together. She had not spoken to him since takeoff, although Giles was unsure if that were due to extreme concentration or extreme annoyance. Perhaps both. Surreptitiously watching her, he wondered if she had even an inkling of the life from which she had just escaped.

'You're not out of the woods yet, old man.'

Grunting to himself, Giles let his gaze slide to the stack of radios and other navigational equipment in the dash--silent, the lot of them. Still, he supposed that turning them on would only be an exercise in futility, since he doubted there was anyone to call for help within a thousand miles of this red-painted wilderness. And the idea of listening to Wesley on the radio link back at Calypso Creek, demanding their immediate return and unconstitutional surrender, would surely aggravate his temper again.

So instead, he contented himself to just sit there, listening to the faithful drone of the single engine, while watching the tedious scenery flash by beneath. Besides, if Carma really was concentrating on her flying, then he definitely did not want to say or do anything to distract her.

He was just drifting into an unintentional doze when her voice snapped him into full awareness.

"There's only about half an hour's worth of fuel left," she said, matter of fact, practically yelling to be heard above the engine. She tapped a finger on a gauge with twin readouts, both indicator needles hovering on the 'E'. "Maybe less."

Giles sat up a little straighter, unsure how to interpret the news. Carma did not seem particularly panicked by it. Should he? "W-which means?"

She shot him a wicked smile. "We go down. One way or another."

"Perhaps there is . . . somewhere you could . . . land?"

"Maybe. I mean, we obviously can't land on a sand dune," she said, gesturing out the window, "but hey, we might get lucky by then."

Giles' eyes narrowed in suspicion. Her casual attitude over supposedly running out of fuel with nowhere to land was all just a little too precise. Premeditated, even. "Where are we going?" he asked astutely.

Carma looked over at him, her mask of innocence betrayed only by her words. "Don't worry, it's all taken care of."

So, she did have a contingency plan. And he would lay odds it had been concocted with the help of the ever-resourceful Johnny Dingo. He must remember to thank the man.

"What's the matter, Grandpa, you look surprised?"

"Don't call me that," Giles grumbled, shifting his gaze to his feet. While he admired her aptitude for having planned this getaway and her obvious skill for carrying it off, her insolence was really beginning to annoy him.

Carma scoffed. "Just as long as you don't ask me to call you 'Dad'."

Conceding that now was not the right moment to pursue that particular interest, he reluctantly said, "Then call me 'Giles'. Not 'Grandpa'."

"Well, like, you're way old enough," she retorted without compassion. "And what happened to 'Jeeves'? I thought that was your name?"

This time he bristled to her impertinence. She may not yet accept him as her father, but he was an adult, damn it, and entitled to a little respect. "Do you really want me to answer that? Or is this just your rather inept attempt at making conversation?"

"Okay. Fine. Whatever." She huffed at him again, making him regret his outburst. "Just keep out of my face, and we'll get along fine. Giles."

"You really do have a knack for being most infuriating."

"Fine. Then we won't talk at all. Suits me."

"Until now we haven't actually been doing any talking," he pointed out in near exasperation.

"Look," she snapped, drilling him with a cold stare that would stop a vampire at twenty paces, "I didn't ask you to come along for the ride. So if you don't like it, tough. I'll drop you off anytime you like."

"Fine," he repeated, catching the emphasis. He folded his arms again. "Far be it from me to try to have a civilized conversation with a child in such desperate need of discipline."

One wing dipped, the plane scooping sky to the right, as Carma turned in her seat to give him the full force of her glare. "Is that what you think? That I'm just some stupid kid who doesn't know any better?"

"I never said 'stupid'," Giles said, after the plane had righted itself to straight and level flight and he had pried his fingers out of the upholstery.

"But you implied it."

"I implied no such thing."

"Yeah, you did!"

The sputtering engine cut short her tirade. The propeller chugged a few more revolutions, before it choked, and died. The silence was stark, deafening after the hour and a half spent listening to the drone of the single engine. Giles actually felt the sluggishness begin to wrap around him as the aircraft slowed in the sky, a moment before his stomach lurched when Carma pushed the nose down to build up some lost airspeed.

As she went about methodically lowering flaps, trimming her controls, and turning off various switches, Giles found his voice. "I-I thought you said we had half an hour of fuel left?"

"'Or less', okay? I said, 'or less'."

"Considerably less, I would wager."

"This is not my fault!" She spared him a short glare, which he countered with a dubious one of his own. "It's not!" she insisted. Returning her concentration to the task of trying to find somewhere to land them in one piece, she added, "If anyone's to blame, it's you. Damn, where's a flat spot of dirt when you need one?"

"Me?" Giles sputtered disbelievingly, but survival instincts had him joining her search instead of taking up the fight, scanning the rock and sand covered terrain below for a suitably landing site. The Cessna was in a glide pattern, but without forward thrust it sank lower and lower to the ground with each passing second, a sensation he could feel in his gut as well as see by the rapidly approaching earth.

"There," Carma said, her green eyes flashing hopefully. He followed her nod and spotted a narrow path carved out between the dunes and rock to the left. She put the descending plane into a shallow turn toward it. "It's a road. I think. Probably an old stock route."

The Cessna's sink rate increased as the airspeed dropped back in the turn. It felt like being on a roller coaster that only went down. The sensation again sent Giles' stomach to his throat, making him glad he had not eaten breakfast. Compensating, Carma lowered the flaps another notch, until they were fully extended. No more joy there. The ground was coming up awfully fast, and the narrow section of road chosen to be their makeshift landing field measured no more than a hundred yards in length, before it angled around a sharp right-hand bend. Then there was the blackened tree stump sitting right at the apex of the turn . . .

Carma kicked in some rudder to side-slip the plane just a tad, lining them up with the road. No engine meant no margin for error. There was no diverting if something went wrong at the last moment, and no second chances, and the idle notion that they could crash and die suddenly became a harsh fact.

Giles looked over at his daughter, who was striving, with an expertise beyond her teenage years, to maintain complete control of her aircraft. He was proud, scared, and regretful, all at once, and the thought that he may never live to tell her that he loved her ripped him in two.

Fifty feet above the ground, he abruptly said, "I have to tell you something. I-in case we don't make it."

"Don't you dare," she said resolutely, eyes focused on the disused outback track that just barely fit the category of 'road'. "We are going to make it. Now stop your whinging, and let me land this thing."

Reluctantly, Giles held his tongue. He swallowed hard, and stared at Carma's determined profile, preferring to die looking at her than at the unforgiving red sand of the Australian Outback. 'Buffy, you'd be so proud of our little girl. She's brave, skilled, cunning . . . if not tad impertinent. Just like you at that age . . . '

"Hang on," Carma said, unaware of his sentimental musing. "This could be a bit . . . bumpy."

* * *

'Bumpy' was an understatement. Without power, the Cessna literally sank into the ground, its wheels hitting with a force that rattled Giles' bones, along with just about every part of the plane, bolted down or otherwise.

Holding on for dear life, he gritted his teeth. The aircraft careened wildly down the length of disused track, jarring over the ancient corrugation and hitting, he was certain, every pothole and rock there was. Now they were no longer in the air, Carma steered the thing with her feet, and Giles could tell she fighting hard to keep them in the center of the narrow strip of dirt. Too far either left or right meant disaster, for the road edges were meter-high banks of soft sand topped by scrub bush. More than once the Cessna's wheels nudged against the sandy banks, risking the possibly of flipping them over.

But the worst was still yet to come.

"Damn," Giles cursed, as the aircraft refused to slow to the threat looming ahead.

"I see it! I see it!"

Directly in front on them, their landing field came to an abrupt end with the angled corner. The blackened tree stump they had spotted from the air sat dead center of their path, like a huge wooden buffer ready to stop a runaway freight train at the end of a rail siding. Unfortunately the 2-seater Cessna was not built like a freight train. It was basically aluminum and plastic, which meant it had the crumple factor of a soda can.

Suddenly, while still doing about 60 knots, the nose wheel struck a deep rut, and, having endured the abuse thus far, finally collapsed under the impact. The resulting momentum pitched the nose into the ground, lifted up the tail, and threw its unsuspecting passengers forward with a jolt. They were lucky they didn't turn over completely, but they did mangle the propeller and with it any chance they might have had of ever taking off again.

After a short nose-down skid, which carved a new furrow into the parched red dirt, the plane finally came to rest in the shadow of the blackened stump. At least they had avoided hitting it.

As the dust and debris settled around them, Giles pushed himself back from where the shoulder harness held him suspended. Doing the same, Carma shook her head, and looked over at him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Concerned, Giles reached for her temple. "You're bleeding." She must have cracked her head on something during the violent end to their crash landing.

She flinched, deliberately avoiding his touch. "So are you."

Instinctively, he put his hand to his brow, and sure enough, when he looked, found his fingers smeared with blood.

"Well, at least we didn't hit the stump," she said, putting voice to his earlier thought. Her fingers expertly undid the complex buckle of her shoulder harness, freeing her in moments. Such was their nose-down attitude, it was necessary for her to brace her foot against the dash in order to remain, more or less, in her seat.

The fuselage frame had twisted and warped with the impact, and so it took a strong shoulder against the cabin door to wrangle it open. The dry desert air rolled in like the heat a blast furnace. As Giles struggled to release his harness, Carma gingerly hopped out of the plane.

"Hang on," she said, then ran around to pull on his bent door. The entire thing came off in her hands, which would have startled someone not familiar with the extraordinary strength of a Slayer. Tossing it aside like a piece of cardboard, she leaned in and started to release the harness buckle for him.

"Bloody complicated affair," he muttered, watching her hands work.

"Meant to be," she returned, leaning over him. "This plane is built for aerobatics, and believe me, you don't want some wimpy harness that's going to come undone when you're hanging upside down in a negative-g roll. If you'd had it a little tighter, you wouldn't have conked your head."

"Speak for yourself," he said, inspecting at her gash at close range.

"Yeah, well, I hate feeling confined. There."

Although prepared, Giles still fell forward when she released him. Carma saved him from cracking his skull again, her perfect reflexes throwing a strong arm across his chest. Catching his eye but looking away quickly, she helped bodily maneuver him out of the plane. Grateful for the assistance, Giles did not argue. The time spent in the cramped quarters of the small cockpit made his leg ache fiercely.

"My cane," he said urgently, as she lowered him to sit on the sand bank beside the stump. Carma retrieved it without a word, laying it within easy reach as he rooted around his pockets. "Here." He offered a clean handkerchief as she went to move away. "You're still bleeding."

Their eyes met. For a moment he didn't think she was going to accept it or any other help he had to offer, for it was clear that she resented authority, especially when it came in the form of a father figure. Despite that they were not yet well acquainted, Giles already had the impression that Carma liked to do things her own way, and was used to doing so. It was no guess that Mallard had little control over her, although she did not seem to fit the bill of a juvenile delinquent either; a curious combination, which made Giles wondered what had happened to the happy child in the bookcase photos. Undoubtedly, things had been different when her adopted mother had been alive.

"Thanks," Carma said, taking the handkerchief. Diverting her gaze, she wandered around the other side of the plane, dabbing at the blood trickling down the side of her face and matting the loose hair that had pulled free of her ponytail.

Letting her have some space, Giles turned his attention to rubbing some numbness from his leg. From the corner of his eye, he watched Carma examine the Cessna from nose wheel to tailplane, and heard her mumble a few choice obscenities he was certain he did not want to fully hear. When she finally drifted back to him, she plopped down in the sand at his outstretched feet, seemingly defeated, and sat with his handkerchief pressed to her head.

A companionable moment passed, as they studied the wreckage in the heat of the mid-morning sun. They had survived. They should be grateful.

"Well, this sucks," Carma said eloquently.

"Indeed."

"Now what?" she asked, her back still to him.

Giles watched her stuff the bloodied handkerchief into the back pocket of her jeans. Her gash, although nasty, had already stopped bleeding. Gingerly, he fingered his own wound, wishing he possessed the same Slayer healing abilities. "You're the one with the plan, remember?"

"Unfortunately, it didn't involve crashing my plane." Carma pulled her knees up and hugged them under her chin. She sighed, and spoke over her shoulder. "And it didn't involve you, either. You had to hop in, didn't you."

"Is that why you insisted that running out of fuel was my fault?" he guessed. "My extra weight?"

She shook her head, setting her ponytail in motion. "No, it's just that . . . I wasn't going to take the Cessna. I was only flying it this morning for kicks. One last thrill ride, you know? I was planning on taking the bike." After a pause she sarcastically added, "Never thought about filling up the stupid plane."

Of course, her motorcycle. She had been out somewhere on it last night, perhaps to the same secret destination where she was now obviously headed. Giles did a mental calculation of how many miles she could have covered on the motorcycle last night, versus in the plane this morning. While he knew nothing of the Cessna's fuel range, consumption, cruising air speed, or factors involving wind currents, it did not take a genius to figure out that one generally covered more distance in the air than on the ground, when given the same amount of time. So wherever they were headed, they were, thankfully, all the closer to it.

"Then we shall just have to improvise," Giles said, wondering when she would enlighten him to their destination.

Carma, however, was thinking along completely different lines. "Who were those blokes who turned up at the house? The Suits, I mean. Friends of yours?"

"Watchers. Sent by the Council to collect you." Giles grimaced as his fingers again probed the open cut on his forehead. Since he did not have another handkerchief, he settled for using the cuff of his shirtsleeve to wipe away the blood. "And I assure you, they are no friends of mine."

"Well, that one, Mr. Bad-Temper-Almost-Broke-The-Plane-Window sure seemed to know you."

"We go back," he admitted, his expression souring at the very thought of Wesley Wyndam-Price. "Way back. He's the man who--" Giles hesitated, unsure if now was an appropriate time to bring this up. But the sooner he came clean, the sooner she may accept him. "He is the man responsible for the death of . . . my wife. Your birth mother."

Carma digested the information with remarkable calm, then asked, "Then why isn't he in jail?"

"Believe me, I tried," Giles admitted wearily. "I spent years going through every legal procedure in the book trying to get a conviction. But the Watcher Council is outside of the laws that the rest of us obey. They govern their own, and have done for generations. Since he was technically following Council orders--" Giles broke off, his heart suddenly heavy. Buffy's senseless murder, as she stepped into the line of fire and took the bullets meant for him, was still too painful to talk about, even after sixteen years.

"The bastard got off scott free," Carma finished for him.

Desperate to change the subject, he said, "I'm not sure you should be using language like that."

"Now you're starting to sound like my dad!" She swiveled on her backside to face him, chewing her lip, well aware of what she had just acknowledged. "I'm sorry. About . . . her, I mean."

"Buffy," he said gently, finding her gaze. "Your mother's name was Buffy."

Carma glanced away. "Buffy," she murmured, trying it out. With a nod of self-acceptance, she looked back at him. "I never knew her name. I don't think even Dad did. So, like . . . thanks, Giles. You're okay." A grin threatened to break out. "For an old bloke."

Her smile was like a welcomed sunrise in the long dark night of his soul, and he felt some of the guilt and grief he had carried for sixteen years begin to lift. Reaching out, Giles gave her arm a gentle squeeze. "You're entirely welcome. And there's a lot more, if you will allow me the chance."

But his touch was a catalyst, reminding Carma of his sole purpose for being in her life right now. It was not to bring sentimental stories about the mother she couldn't remember, but to take her away from the home and life she knew. In her eyes, no matter how good his intentions, he suddenly reverted to the role of enemy.

Smile evaporating, she jumped up, dusting sand from the seat of her jeans as she spun around to face him. Their momentary truce was over. Anger flashed across her face, as if he had invented the entire moment as some impossibly callous ruse to win her over.

"We have to get going," Carma told him, back to her stubborn, independent self.

"What?" Giles asked in great concern. The idea of traipsing across the desert, on his cane, in the heat, at his age, did nothing to improve his overall take on the situation. Despite being winter, the daytime temperature must have been nudging 30 degrees Celsius, and from what he could see, they were hundreds of miles from the nearest anywhere. They lacked essential provisions, such as water, so dehydration and disorientation due to heat stress were very real dangers. "You're not seriously suggesting that we walk?"

"You said this was my plan." She folded her arms. "So, yeah. I'm suggesting. Let's go."

"Wouldn't it be more appropriate to stay with the plane?" He gestured at he crumpled wreck, stuck like an ostrich with its head in the sand. "After all, it's large, and . . . rather white against all this red sand. I imagine it would be a terribly easy thing to spot from the air. At the very least, we would have some shade under the wings while we wait for help to arrive."

"I don't want help."

"But--"

"Look, you want to stay? Fine. But I'm leaving. I have a life to live." Carma turned on her heel and walked away.

"Nikki . . . " He wondered if, in her pigheadedness, she had actually given any thought to the direction.

"Been nice knowing you," she called over her shoulder. "And say hello to your Pommie mate for me, okay, when he comes and hauls your sorry old butt back to the house."

Suddenly, Giles saw her point. Staying put until help arrived would have been the sensible thing to do, had the help in question been of the friendly persuasion. Her father was away for the day, and Johnny could hardly leave the station to find her without raising suspicion. That only left Wesley Wyndam-Price and company. Giles had no doubt that his nemesis had organized some sort of posse to hunt them down, either on horseback or in 4-wheel drive vehicles, or that he was doing so at that very moment.

Time was scarce, their lead over their would-be captors tenuous. It was only out of sheer luck that the visiting Watchers did not have the benefit of an air search, if what Debbie the housekeeper had told him was correct, and Mallard spent the entire day away mending fences. Unless, of course, they persuaded Johnny to take them up in the other mustering helicopter. But since the Aboriginal man was in on The Plan, it did not seem likely that Johnny would consciously fly a route anyway near the track Carma had taken. That could possibly buy them a little more time, although not much.

On the other hand, traversing this harsh and hostile environment was hardly the walk in the park Carma presumed. They had no water, no food, no map, no compass--no anything remotely survival-ish. A man could perish in this unforgiving red wilderness, and his body would probably never be found.

With no alternative, since waiting for rescue was clearly not even a viable option and since the father in him would simply never allow her to go it alone, Giles took one last swipe at the cut on his forehead before struggling to his feet. Using his cane, he hoisted himself up the sandy embankment at the edge of the old stock road, and wordlessly followed Carma across the red desert dunes.

* * *

The heat was relentless, and the notion of resting under a tree--at least one with actual leaves on it--soon became a pipe dream. Surprisingly though, the desert topography was not all sand dunes and spinifex. In some areas, they were forced to climb stunted ridges of sandstone, while in others, had to cross mile-wide plains of small, rough pebbles . . . both of which Giles quickly discovered were hell on his soft leather shoes. But perhaps the most surprising thing of all was when Carma waited at the foot of the first ridge, offering unspoken help to climb it. They walked together after that, and while not exactly conversing in volumes the companionship was gracious enough.

Never before had Giles seen, or had cause to imagine, such a vast inhospitable wilderness. This was the true Outback, Carma told him; a place of timeworn worlds, of ancient Aboriginal spirits and Dreamtime creatures. Personally, it felt more like being lost on mars; red and desolate, devoid of man for as far as the eye could see. Initially, Giles thought the trek to be a bad idea. While passing yet another pile of sun-bleached kangaroo bones, he knew it was nothing short of insanity. But he kept his misgivings, and his growing thirst, to himself, and pressed on without complaint. The knowledge that his handicap slowed them was his only irritation. With every mile, he and his gammy leg caused their brief lead over their pursuers to become briefer still.

It was after noon before they finally took refuge beneath a lonesome boab tree, its huge bottle-shaped trunk providing relief from the baking sun far better than its spindly branches. After hours of laboring on his cane, Giles felt utterly exhausted, and gratefully allowed his eyes to close while they rested in the shade. As a native of a cooler climate, he found the heat really beginning to take its toll. Age definitely had something to do with it, too.

The thought impulsively conjured up visions of Willow, back home, happily planning his seventieth birthday party regardless of his protests . . . of Sabrina blowing out her thirteen candles . . . of young Timothy, wearing the mischievous grin of a ten-year-old as he stuck his fingers in the chocolate frosting . . . of Xander asking for ice cream . . .

Ice cream. This time Giles most definitely wanted ice cream with his cake. Vanilla. Turning to milk as it slid down the back of his parched throat and helped quench his abominable thirst.

Abruptly, his stomach churned. Fighting nausea, Giles opened his eyes and stared hard at the figure approaching across the red sand . . . which miraculously transformed into the pastel-painted walls of the Harris' London home.

The approaching woman lifted a spoon, taunting him with a huge scoop of dripping vanilla ice cream from a frost-covered carton. "W-Willow?"

"What?" Carma asked, reaching him. She fell to her knees in the sand beside him, shattering the mirage.

Giles blinked the sweat from his eyes, struggling to shake off the aftereffects. When had he been so out of it, that Carma had moved away without him knowing? He struggled for a tighter grip on reality. "Where have you been?"

"Exploring." Carma frowned in obvious concern. "You were supposed to be resting, not going bonkers on me." The heat, while capable of bringing a sweat to her brow, otherwise did not seem to affect her.

"It's your Slayer constitution," Giles mumbled, vaguely aware that he was not making sense, except to himself. "Either that, or because you've grown up in this bloody inferno."

"'I love a sunburnt country,'" she quoted, undoing a few buttons of his shirt to increase ventilation. She took off his glasses, then tucked them in his shirt pocket saying, "You should be here in January."

Giles was about to ask her the source of her quote, when the gentle touch of her hand on his sweaty cheek brought his gaze directly to hers. Her face, framed by silky strands of the honey-blonde hair he so loved to run his fingers though, was hauntingly familiar. He knew every curve, every contour, in intimate detail. "You look . . . so much like her . . . "

"Who?"

"Y-your mother."

Carma pulled back in a hurry. "Whoa, you go turning into a fruit loop on me, Giles, and I'll leave your sorry old butt out here in the Never Never. You'll be Dingo tucker by nightfall."

"Tucker," he babbled. "Australian slang for food, I believe. Good Lord, do they really eat humans?"

"Not as a rule," she said, pulling out the tail of her cotton shirt. She ripped a long strip of cloth from the hem. "Although I hear they're pretty partial to Englishmen."

He chuckled at that. "Pity Wesley isn't here, then."

"Who's that? Mr. Bad Temper?"

"The same. It would be a rather convenient way to be done with him."

Careful to avoid the dark knot of congealed blood covering the gash on his forehead, Carma mopped the sweat from his brow. "Do you feel like you want to chunder?"

"If by that you mean vomit, then yes. I do."

"Thought so. Your skin is clammy too. You've got heat exhaustion, although at this point I'm willing to bet the yammering is entirely yours. Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought."

"I'm desperately thirsty," Giles admitted, trying to hang on to a coherent thought.

"I know." Carma sat back on her haunches. "Think you can walk?"

He chuckled again, this time at the absurdity of her question. "No."

"Want me to carry you, then?"

Affronted, he cast her his best glare. "Certainly not."

"Then on your feet, mate. Before I, like, totally humiliate you and put you over my shoulder." She grinned, but he had no desire find out what would happen if he called call her bluff.

Still disoriented, Giles forced himself to stand, using the boab trunk to claw his way up. Once on his feet, Carma took his free arm, the hand without the cane, and pulled it across her slim shoulders. Much to his embarrassment, she ended up supporting the greater portion of his weight, while he concentrated solely on picking up his feet and putting one in front of the other.

"It's just up ahead," she said, motioning with her head. "Over that ridge."

"What is?"

"An artesian bore."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Water you can drink," she explained. "I would have brought it to you, but I had nothing to carry it in."

"An artesian bore," Giles repeated. It suddenly seemed very funny to him, and he let loose another chuckle. "Sounds like something one would find in a bad LAWRENCE OF ARABIA film."

"I take it you've never of Australia's Great Artesian Basin, then."

"Not recently, no."

"It's this gigantic table of fresh water trapped in the rock under the desert," Carma said, proving that although she lived in the Outback, she was not backward in the matters of education. "It covers an area of, like, three states, and services twenty percent of the continent west of the Great Divide. Most of the towns and properties out here are dependent on it for drinking water, for both people and livestock."

"You mean, we're actually walking on water?"

Carma spared him a dubious glance as they mounted the outcrop summit. "No, Giles, we're walking on sand. Stay with me, okay?"

"How do you know all that?" he asked, impressed.

"I like to read. Learn about stuff."

"Well, I'm pleased to hear my genes didn't all go to waste."

He suddenly wondered how, if not where, she attended school in the midst of all this harsh isolation. Years ago, the children of remote Outback stations relied on ham radios and the 'School Of The Air', for their education. On vague recollection of seeing a satellite dish by the kitchen steps, he decided she must attend SOTA's modern equivalent; an Internet classroom. But before he could ask her to verify that assumption, she spoke again.

"There it is."

Giles' attention turned to a rusty steel structure just ahead. It towered a good twelve feet into the deep blue sky, successfully breaking the monotony of this virtually treeless wilderness. They stumbled down the rise toward it, kicking up sand and loose rock, and inadvertently sending a bearded dragon lizard scurrying for shelter.

"It's a well," he said in relief, as they reached the scaffold. But it looked sealed up tighter than the proverbial drum. "But . . . where's the water?"

"Tap," she said, nodding at it. Carma let him slip from her grasp. He collapsed like a rag doll, to end up sitting on the hot sand beside the bore with his hands eagerly cupped beneath the spigot.

As Carma reached to turn it on, Giles asked, "Are you certain this is safe to drink?"

"Hope so. I just did."

Clear, cool spring water splashed out over his hands, the dry desert sand absorbing the initial flood like a sponge. Giles sated his thirst with a dozen or more handfuls, threw three more over his head, and another couple down the front of his open shirt. When Carma finally turned off the spigot, Giles, although drenched, had begun to feel a whole lot better. Without a word, she helped him to his feet again, moving him out of the puddle he had inadvertently created, and on across to the shady side of an old, rusty pumping shed, where she let him rest. Kneeling beside him, she used her piece of torn cloth to catch the droplets of water, dyed anemic red by his bloodied gash, that were still clinging to his eyebrows and lashes, and the tip of his nose.

"Feel better?" she asked. At his nod, she turned and sat beside him, her back against the warm tin. A long moment passed before, out of the blue, she asked, "What happened to your leg, anyway?"

It was the first truly personal thing she had asked him. Giles pulled his surprised gaze from hers and glanced down at the outstretched limb in question. The grotesque knots of his shattered femur bone were, thankfully, hidden beneath the loose material of his lightweight khaki trousers. "Vampires."

To anyone not privy to the whole Watcher/Slayer/save-the-day-one-night-at-a-time deal, such an explanation would have seemed ludicrous, and been dismissed as more of his heat-induced prattle. Acceptance may have been yet to come, but knowledge of the existence of such evil was simply now part of Carma's everyday life.

Still, she frowned. "I thought they, like, bit necks? Not legs."

"They do." Giles smiled grimly, his hands automatically rubbing his useless leg. "But on this occasion they used a sledgehammer."

"Ouch." She grimaced. "So it's . . . broken?"

"Shattered. In too many places for it to ever knit together properly. About five years ago, I had a titanium rod put in."

"Did it help?"

"Some. The pain is less."

"I'm sorry."

He found her gaze again. "Don't be. I would do it again in a heartbeat, since it meant the difference between life and death for your mother."

"You saved her life?" Carma asked, slightly awed.

"I . . . distracted the enemy," he said modestly.

She grinned a bit, unsure if she should. "Some distraction."

"Indeed." Turning the tables, he asked, "So how long have you been flying?"

"Since, like, ever. Dad used to take me up when I was little. As soon as I was tall enough to reach the pedals, he made me take some serious lessons. See, only my Dad flies. My mum--when she was alive--never did. Dad wanted someone else in the family who could, in case of an emergency. 'Course, we have the Flying Doctor Service, which comes to us, but if we ever need to go to them, the nearest hospital is in Alice Springs."

Trying not to wince every time she referred to Paul Mallard as 'dad', Giles nodded. While he did not know the exact distance to the aforementioned town, he knew that it was, as with everything in the Outback, hundreds of miles from Calypso Creek. That, at least, seemed a sensible pursuit on the part of her adoptive father. "And the aerobatics?"

She smiled mischievously. "About six months ago I got the urge. You know, that need for living on the edge. Now I can't get enough, whether it's in the plane or on my bike. I've turned into an adrenaline junkie."

"That's your Slayer metabolism developing," he admitted, even though it terrified him to even think about. Whether or not he liked or approved of what was happening to her, the risk-taking, life-threatening, need-for-speed-and-all-things-dangerous changes she now experienced were simply part of growing up The Chosen One.

Carma turned slightly to face him, unsure. "You . . . used to be a Watcher, right?"

"Correct," Giles said slowly, holding her gaze. He wondered how she knew, and where her loaded question was headed. He did not have to wait long to find out.

"And you trained a Slayer. Will you train me? Because I don't know if I can handle all the new powers that I have. Not alone, anyway. And 'Bob's your uncle' my luck's gonna run out sooner or later."

His heart soared at the veiled confession that she wanted him to remain in her life, then plummeted into the pit of despair when he realized exactly what she was asking him to do.

"So will you? Train me as a Slayer?"

"I-I couldn't." Giles broke eye contact. "And I wouldn't, even if I were still physically capable." When he chanced to look up again, he found her staring at the sand, disheartened. But her disappointment confused him. "I thought you wanted to avoid your Destiny? I thought that was the whole point of running away?"

Miffed, Carma flung her back against the shed, her shoulders making a clang against the rusty tin. "Fine then, don't. It's not like I'm asking you to stick around and actually be my dad or anything." She shot him a quick glance to see if he had noticed her unintentional admission, then covered with a nonchalant shrug. "I just thought that since you knew about all this Slayer stuff, maybe you'd want to--I don't know--help me deal. So that I could still 'be' a Slayer, without actually, like, slaying anything." She pouted. "Guess you don't think I could cut it, huh?"

His heart heaved. "Nikki, you may have been born a Slayer, but neither your mother nor I ever wanted you to be a Slayer. That's why we hid you from the Watcher Council in the first place; we wanted to give a life that was entirely your own." Impulsively, he reached out and took her hand. It felt small in his, lost, in need of guidance. "Now that I've found you, I'll always be here for you, just as I was for your mother."

She cocked a tentative eyebrow at him. "You mean that?"

"Of course. And I'd be honored to help you tame and cultivated your skills in any way I can. But I will not, under any circumstances, expose you to the traditions of Watchers and Slayers. I would prefer if we just--" He gave her a smile, raising his other hand to stroke her cheek. "--just have at it our own way. I know your mother would want that, too."

Slowly, without breaking his gaze, Carma reclaimed her hand. Giles pulled back, suddenly fearful that he had gone too far too soon, 'invaded her personal space', as Buffy might have once said. Anxious, he watched her rifle through the mix of emotions playing on his face, trying to decipher them. His love for her; hatred for the Council and all it stood for; desperation, that she might be reconsidering her calling; guilt, that he had not been able to find her sooner; grief, that Buffy was not alive to share his joy of being with her now.

"What was my mother like?" Carma asked simply.

Giles huffed out the breath he had not realized he held. "She was . . . very much like you," he said softly, aware that such a generalization was not going to wash this time.

Clawing his way up out of the personal hellhole that he always fell into when attempting to discuss the only woman he ever truly loved, he summoned the strength needed for a more private confession. After all, if there was ever another human being alive with whom he wanted to share Buffy's memory, then that person was sitting here, right now, at his side.

He took a deep breath. "Buffy was . . . my soul mate. She was brave . . . loyal . . . an extremely skilled Slayer . . . and funny--she could always make me laugh when I was feeling down. She was vivacious . . . honest . . . passionate." His voice cracked, betraying him. "I miss her terribly, even now."

"I wish . . . I wish I could remember her."

"Well, you were only six months old when you last saw her," Giles said. Shifting position, he dug his wallet out of the seat pocket of his khaki trousers, and from it extracted an old photograph. Life in his wallet had been far from ideal for its preservation, for its colors had faded and its surface cracked with age. But the feelings held within were still as fresh as the day they were captured. "Maybe this will help."

Giles handed the snapshot to his daughter. It was a family shot, taken shortly before their move from Sunnydale, before the Watcher Council had enforced its baby bounty. It portrayed him holding his newborn daughter, wearing the deliriously happy expression of a new father, with Buffy literally draped across his shoulders and nuzzling his cheek with such affection that her whole body seemed to shout 'you're my husband, and I love you so much' for the entire world to hear.

Carma studied it for a moment. "Is that . . . really me?"

"Indeed it is." Shifting his gaze from the photo to Carma's profile, Giles watched the girl look at her mother's face for the first time in almost sixteen years. Oblivious to his scrutiny, Carma gently traced her thumb over Buffy's faded image, making Giles long for the ability to read minds, if only for a few seconds, to share the whirlwind of emotions that must be going through her head.

Abruptly, she handed it back. "She loved you very much. That's pretty obvious."

"She loved us both," he said gently, meaning it with every fiber of his being. They held each other's eyes for a few scant seconds, before Carma looked away, preferring to stare out across the empty red dunes than at a past she didn't know. She sniffed back what might have been a tear of regret, which Giles pretended not to notice as he tucked the precious memento away.

An awkward moment settled, and he busied himself retrieving his glasses from his shirt pocket and putting them on. Finally, he glanced at her. He did not want to push, for fear of pushing her away, but he wished she would open up to him, just a little bit. She had to be thinking, and feeling, some sort of an emotional backlash after seeing her mother's picture. What was her heart telling her? Giles wanted Carma to release sixteen years worth of bottled emotion, of not knowing her real mother and father, and he wanted to be both the chest she hit and the shoulder she cried on when she did.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. "Please talk to me."

"We should get going again," Carma said flatly. She stood before he could stop her, either verbally or physically, and put some distance between them with several determined strides.

* * *

Coming to a stop, Giles used his grubby shirtsleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow. The relentless heat and the exertion it took to simply keep going were enough to make him thankful that they had, at long last, arrived at their destination--or rather, at what he assumed to be their destination, since Carma had not spoken to him since their rest break at the bore. Whatever was troubling her, beyond that it was undoubtedly something to do with the photograph he had shown her, remained a mystery.

He checked his watch, surprised to discover they had only been walking for twenty minutes. All he needed now was a little silence and solitude, plus a nice cool place in which to meditate, and he could ease the throbbing ache in his leg. Unfortunately, none of those things seemed to be immediately forthcoming.

Still, grateful for the brief respite, Giles crossed to sit on a horizontal stack of rotting wood, which itself seemed an incongruous find in such desolate surroundings, until one took into account the ridge that rose from the desert before them. Some sort of opening, framed by the same coarse timber on which he now rested, had been cut into the base of the rock.

It appeared they had discovered an abandoned mine. Possibly an old gold mine, he decided with a healthy dose of caution. Carma, however, did not appear to share his concern. She forged on, completely ignorant of the fact that the planks boarding its entrance were meant to deter access. The DANGER, KEEP OUT sign, although sun-faded and riddled with bullet holes, was another clear warning to which she paid absolutely no heed.

Giles' gaze flicked over the ridge itself. It was slightly higher than any they had crossed so far in their journey, but covered with the same tortured red earth and thirsty vegetation that made this region of the country so forbidding. History told of the Outback's hidden riches, the lure of vast seams of gold and other metals, of unmapped fields of precious gems and stones. Indeed, ever since the first discovery of payable gold in Australia, prospectors, miners, and treasure hunters alike had been drawn to the wilderness like proverbial moths to the flame, their gluttony for instant wealth inevitably defeated by the harshness of this remote and unforgiving land.

"I say, um, Nikki--?" he called as she started pulling on the planks barring the mine entrance. He stopped short as she lifted up the middle one of three, almost as if it were on a hinge, to reveal a way inside. "Never mind."

With a level glance at him, she ducked across the portal, to be consumed by thick blackness just a few feet within. Against his better judgment, Giles stood and hurried after her on his cane, worried about what sort of underground warren lay within, and how the devil he would find her in such a maze of dark tunnels if she proceeded too far ahead.

Clambering a tad awkwardly between the hinged planks, it was with a feeling of great relief that he found her kneeling in the dark just beyond the entrance, lighting a kerosene lamp. As the wick caught, light danced across a rough, man-made tunnel, which had long ago been toiled from the rock with pickaxes and sweat. The timber shores, which were identical to the rotting stack outside, looked like they could collapse at any moment, and did nothing to induce a feeling of even moderate safety. Nor did Carma, when she picked up the lantern and set off, without a word, deeper into the mine.

"Nikki, wait." But she didn't wait or turn or answer, so he was forced to follow.

A hundred yards in from the sunlit entrance was a solid wall of rock, from which narrow, black-as-pitch passages ran slightly downhill to the left and to the right. Carma chose the left arm of the t-intersection without hesitation, and continued on her way. At least, Giles thought as he followed, reluctant but close enough so that her light assured against a misstep on the uneven footing, at least the deeper they went into the mine, the further they retreated from the blistering desert heat. In fact, by the time Carma swung into a roughly honed rock 'room', for want of a better word, the air temperature had dropped to a point where it could almost be considered chilly.

Giles stopped, leaning a weary shoulder against the hand-chiseled doorway, as Carma crossed to light a second lamp. The cache of provisions revealed by its soft glow honestly surprised him. A low-slung wooden bench, which had clearly seen better days, ran the length of the back wall, acting as both questionable seating for miners and shelving for supplies. Several dubious towers of canned food were stacked at one end, along with some bottled water, and, of course, the other lantern. Covering the dirt floor between him and the makeshift shelving was a rumpled sleeping bag, topped with a few strewn books and a personal CD player, and to the other side, the evidence of a recent meal sat atop a small camp stove. Carma and Johnny had obviously been far more prepared for the Council's arrival than he had given them credit, stockpiling these supplies for days, if not weeks.

He stooped to retrieve something by his foot. When it turned out to be an empty, encrusted, baked bean can, her absence from the dinner table last night suddenly made sense, along with a whole lot of other things. She planned to run off with the Aboriginal man, to start a new life with him somewhere away from the Council's long reach.

If only it were possible, then Giles might have gladly let them go. But a minor inconvenience, such as 'running away', would not dissuade the Council in the least. She was their Chosen One, after all, and they had waited sixteen years for her to mature to usefulness. The Watcher Council, with its ancient creed of tradition and practice, had mapped out Carma's life from the moment she was born. It was with bitter certainty that Giles knew they would pursue her for the rest of her life, no matter where she went, or with whom--himself included. Council procedure dictated that she be trained in the ways of a Slayer, and sent out to fight evil, night after night after night. Then, if by some miracle she survived long enough to retire, her reward would be a one-room cell in one of their drafty, gothic mansions, hidden from the world and forced to procreate with an untold number of their handpicked candidates.

The very idea sickened him, so much, that he was almost ill.

Knowing he would rather die than condemn her to such a life, Giles angrily tossed the baked bean can aside. It made a sharp clatter against the rock out in the tunnel, causing Carma to start. Jadedly, ignoring her belittling look, he crossed to lower his tired and aching body onto the rickety wooden bench. It creaked ominously, like his old bones, but held his weight.

Misjudging the stricken look on his face, Carma pushed a bottle of water into his free hand. "Drink it. You need to." She took a hearty swig from similar bottle, watching him closely.

Giles uncapped the bottle and took a swallow, having no desire for it but knowing she was right. The water slid down his throat, cool and clear and sweet tasting, a sure sign his body did, indeed, require hydration. It may have helped fix the immediate problem, but did nothing to solve the long-term dilemma. Carma was an exceptional protégé, for she possessed the copious and astute intelligence of a Watcher, embodied with the vitality and proficiency of a Slayer.

Was there no way to outsmart those bastards?

"Want something to eat?" she asked, bringing him from his misery by offering a tattered package of cookies.

He took one without comment, and found it to be chocolate chip. The sugar rush would probably do them both good. Maybe it would help his brain function, because he suddenly seemed to be stuck in a groove of hopeless despair. He had to think of a way out of this, to give her the life he and Buffy had promised her sixteen years ago. There had to be a way. There simply had to. The Council would find them eventually, and before they did, he needed to concoct some sort of plan.

Carma sat on the floor at his feet, her back propped against his bench as she refurbished her body with sustenance. Given her and Johnny's preparations, the evidence of which was scattered all around him in an unruly mess, Giles guessed his tagging along on this adventure was purely incidental to The Plan, which Carma's next words seemed to corroborate.

"Johnny will be here by sundown." Finishing her cookie, she leaned forward to tug a folded piece of paper from between two of the books, and swiveled to offer it to him along with a small item in an army-green case. "Here. A map and a compass. You'll have to, like, find your own way back to Calypso Creek."

So much for staying in her life. She was angry with him, for some unfathomable reason, and pushing him away as punishment.

Giles did not take the map or the compass; he had absolutely no plan to go anywhere without her ever again.

"Suit yourself," she said with a nonchalant shrug. She placed both items on the bench beside him. "But if you die out there in the desert, don't blame me."

Diverting her gaze, Carma sought distraction, and found it in the sudden desire to bring order to the chaos strewn around them.

But Giles was not letting her go that easily. "Nikki, I . . . " he began, but his words trailed off as his attention was caught by the sleeping bag she straightened--or more precisely, by the oversized dimensions of it.

His eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open. No one needed to tell him that Slayer physiognomy was accelerated, or remind him that Slayers matured faster than other girls because, by decree, their lives were so much shorter. But nothing could stop his paternal instincts from redlining in two seconds flat. His and every other father's worse fear was suddenly, irrevocably confirmed.

The sleeping bag was actually two sleeping bags, zipped together to form a double.

Sitting cross-legged on the thing, Carma realized her big mistake. Sucking on her lip, she tossed him a guilty look in the flickering light of the kerosene lamps.

Giles only had two words to say, and managed to pack the full weight of absolute scandal into both. "You're sixteen!"

"So?" she challenged.

Not listening, he raked his hand through his graying hair. "And God knows, you're not even that for several more days! And he's, what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?"

Carma came to her feet, temper riled. She was only a few inches taller than Buffy, but as long as he was sitting she could tower over him quite effectively. And looking down on him definitely gave her an edge in this fight. "You think age matters when two people love each other? Judging from that photo you showed me, I'd say you had more than just a couple of years on my mother."

He bristled. "We are not talking about me, we are talking about you . . . being underage."

"Bloody Pommie hypocrite!"

"Oh no, young lady. Do not think that by insulting me you can change the subject."

"Don't you dare 'young lady' me!" she yelled defiantly, stabbing him in the chest with her index finger. "What the hell gives you the right?"

"Because I'm your father, and--"

She cut in with a contemptuous snort. "It's a little late to start acting like that now, don't you think? You weren't even around until yesterday. Like you really care!"

He could scarcely believe she said that. "You think I don't?"

"I think that if you did, you would have come looking for me sooner."

Sooner? Her outburst was an unexpected slap in the face, and he rallied to it with anger rather than regret. For sixteen years, he had dedicated his life to searching the world for her. How could she possibly think he didn't care? That he had not tried to find her? How could she even entertain such a callous thought?

They frowned at one another for a moment; she had definitely inherited his temper, not to mention his wide assortment of disparaging glares. Carma backed down first, but only because she hadn't the experience of his long years of practice.

Although Giles strongly disapproved of her intimacy with Johnny, that particular issue abruptly took a back seat. And it galled him to know that she had, indeed, changed the subject.

"You have it all wrong," he began, trying to keep his temper in check.

"Do I? Then why didn't you come sooner? What kept you away for sixteen years, huh? What was so much more important than me?" She shook her head in bitter denial. "You're not my father. You're nothing to me. So why don't you, like, go on back home to Merry Olde England, and let me live my life the way I want."

Her rejection wounded him deeply. In fact, she could not have hurt him more had she ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and ground it under her boot heel.

Carma scoffed at his silence, and went to move away.

"No." Giles stood, angry and desperate. He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. "Don't push me away like this. The Watcher Council--"

"Stow it, Grandpa!" She jerked her arm free, her Slayer strength no match for his. "Whatever they have cooking, I can deal. Without you."

Her attitude shredded the last of his resolve. She had no idea of what she faced, no inkling of the ruthless determination she would soon be pitted against. "Listen to me. The Council wants you, and they will not stop until they have you. Do you understand? It doesn't matter where you go, or with whom, they will follow until they find you. No matter how much you want it to be that simple, Nikki, you cannot simply say 'no' and return to a life of your own. You are their Chosen One."

Carma scowled at him, mad enough to spit nails. "Says who? You? Until a few weeks ago, I'd never even heard of Watchers and Slayers, and all this bloody Fate and Destiny crap. I still think it's all mostly bullshit."

"Mind your mouth."

"Or what?" She put her hands on her hips in a defiant stance so reminiscent of her mother that it took him aback. "You'll go 'daddy' on me? Oooh, like I'm shaking in my boots."

"You know, you can be truly unpleasant when you try."

Without warning, a familiar voice joined the argument, calling down the mine tunnel from somewhere out in the sun. "Nik, luv, you here?"

It was Johnny Dingo, as expected but definitely not on cue. After skewering Giles with one final glare, Carma grabbed one of the kero lamps, and stormed out into the blackness of the mine tunnel to go meet her lover.

"Bloody good timing, mate," Giles murmured sarcastically. Reaching for the remaining lamp, he angrily followed.

* * *

Giles doused the lamp in the main passageway and left it next to Carma's, just beyond where the fingers of sunlight reached in through the planks covering the mine entrance. As he limped outside into the daylight and heat again, his stomach clenched into a tight ball and turned over a dozen times.

Johnny had indeed arrived, but not alone. Giles continued over to where Carma stood, and stopped at her back. The slumped set of her shoulder was as clear to him as the text in any book; he knew how disappointed she felt. With effort, he resisted the urge to touch her and offer compassion, mainly because he was unsure how she would react, given their unresolved conflict back inside the mine.

"Nik, luv, I'm sorry," Johnny pleaded, coming toward them across the parched, red sand. "But the bugger threatened to tell the cops about us!"

Behind Johnny, Wesley Wyndam-Price and his Council cronies exited a helicopter that was substantially larger and more impressive than either of the small piston-engine Robinson R22's used for mustering sheep. This one was a sleek, four-passenger, Bell Jet Ranger--the Outback equivalent of a luxury car, Giles supposed--the blades of which were still slowly spinning as the turbine engine wound down to a halt.

"You . . . brought them . . . here?" Carma asked him in a slow, stupefied voice. She looked over to the three Watchers as they fastidiously straightened their suits, then back at her lover again, disbelievingly. Johnny had sold her out to save his own ass.

Giles suddenly felt the full sting of her betrayal as surely as if it had been his own. He was watching history repeat itself. Of course, the circumstances and the players had changed, but this was surely Act Three of Buffy and Angel's forbidden love, all over again.

And once again, he was on the outside looking in, with his own heart silently breaking.

"I had to!'" Johnny implored. Reaching Carma, he tried to take her hand, but she defiantly reclaimed it. "Nik, you're not even sixteen! I could bloody go to jail! You wouldn't want that, would you? Nik? Luv?"

"You brought them here," she repeated, this time in a hard, accusing tone. "How could you? This was our plan. You and me."

Defensive now, Johnny flicked a frown toward Giles. "Yeah, and you brought him."

"That's not fair. You know I didn't have a choice."

"Neither," Wyndam-Price said, coming forward, "did Mr. Dingo." He stopped and smiled, an arrogant little smirk that Giles instantly wanted to knock down his throat.

Carma shuffled from foot to foot, as if she, too, wanted to take a swing at the smug little sod. Lucky for Wesley, he stood safely out of reach. "I'll never do anything you or your bloody Council want me to do," she yelled rebelliously. "Just remember that, mate. Never!"

Wyndam-Price's smile tightened, as if he expected to hear such insolence. "Nicole, you will do as I say."

"Get stuffed."

Wesley threw a questioning look at Giles, who was happy to supply a translation. "You heard her, pillock, sod off."

With a grunt, Wesley ignored both insults. He squared his shoulders, and clasped his hands at his back; Mr. Cool-Calm-And-Collected. Giles hoped that inside that tailored black suit, he was sweating profusely in the desert heat and, at the bare minimum, finding his choice of attire extremely uncomfortable.

"I believe it's time we were formally introduced," Wyndam-Price addressed Carma in an abrupt change of tack. "I am Wesley Wyndam-Price, Esquire, but you may call me 'sir'. It is my duty and my pleasure to inform you that, under the authority vested in me by the Council Of Watchers, I am your new legal guardian and official Watcher. And as you are now my Slayer, you will do as I tell you, when I tell you. Any questions?"

Looking up over her shoulder, Carma gave Giles a 'is this bozo for real?' look, which he returned with a sympathetic 'he likes to think so' roll of his eyes.

"Very well," Wesley concluded. "Let's try again, shall we? Nicole . . . come here."

Carma folded her arms. She had no intention of obeying, and just to make sure she stayed put, Giles hobbled a step or two in front of her. In the heat of the afternoon sun, his gaze locked onto Wyndam-Price's annoyed eyes.

"No," Giles said simply. "I won't let you take her from me again."

A pained expression crossed his nemesis' face. "Mr. Giles, this really is becoming most tiresome. The matter is entirely out of your hands." The snap of his fingers brought his two henchmen to his sides, left and right. They pulled handguns from inside their suits, and aimed them directly at Giles.

Unfazed, Giles stood his ground. But Carma and Johnny, unaccustomed to such open threats of violence, tensed behind him and instinctively reached for each other, their spat forgotten.

"Wait one bloody minute--" Johnny began, but his protest was cut short as one of the guns turned on him.

"I do so hate to carry one of those wretched things myself," Wesley continued, in a conversational tone equivalent to what one would use when talking about the weather. "Absolutely ruins the line of a good suit." He smiled pleasantly, and extended a hand toward Carma. "Now, my dear, if you'll please. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but it's hellishly hot out here."

"She's not going anywhere with you," Giles said, and whacked Wesley's outstretched hand with a quick lash of his cane.

"Ow!" Stung, Wyndam-Price snatched back the offending digits with the look of a schoolboy receiving punishment from his Headmaster. Struggling to save face in front of his underlings, he straightened his shoulders and pulled at the hem of his suit again. "Giles, please, you have interfered quite enough. Don't make me . . . assert my authority."

His words were purposely vague, but his meaning was clear. Giles had no doubt the Watcher would sooner shoot him as talk with him. Or more appropriately, have one of his brick-thick lackeys do the dirty deed for him. In cold blood, execution style--on his knees with one quick bullet through the back of the head. No one would ever find his body out here in the desert wilderness. Especially not, if they decided to drop him down a mineshaft.

Wyndam-Price's true intent he could handle. What Giles couldn't handle was the way the man's calculated gaze slipped over his daughter. In the blink of an eye, it all came flooding back, only this time it was not Buffy who lay dying in his arms after stepping in front of the bullets meant for him--the bullets ordered by Wesley Wyndam-Price--it was Carma. The memory looped in Giles' mind, until even the remotest possibility of loosing his daughter the same way he had lost his wife became the most excruciating ache he had ever experienced. He would have to cooperate, if only to prevent Carma from doing something as equally brave, unselfish, and stupid.

Before he could intervene, Carma move forward and stopped directly in front of her new Watcher. Again ign