"Lost & Found" ~ Part 2

SPOILERS: Set post-"Chosen" in my own little Joss-comic-free AU.
RATING: FR-M [mature situations, angst]

DISCLAIMER: Without Prejudice. Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and concepts are copyright ©1997-2002 20th Century Fox, WB Television, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN Television. No Infringments of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. While certain places herein are based on real geographical locations, the details are drawn purely from my own imagination. No resemblance to any real place and/or its populace intended. My original characters are not based on any real people, and no resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is intended.

Part Two

"Are we lost?"

Giles jumped a little in the driver's seat. Those were the first words Buffy had spoken in the entire hour they'd been on the road. After perking up the other night over their shared ice cream moment, she'd reverted to depressed silence on the way into work the following morning, and for most of the trip down the motorway yesterday to Cardiff. Over dinner last night, too, she'd been far less talkative than usual, despite the casual atmosphere and the encouragement for some of their old banter, making Giles more determined than ever to do whatever he could to help her before they returned to London.

"Of course we're not lost," he said confidently, although he'd never admit otherwise. Luckily, a faded, face-saving sign drifted past on the left shoulder of the road. "We're coming up on Pwll-y-wrach."

He caught Buffy's wry look from the corner of his eye. "I'm so glad you were the one who had to pronounce that."

The narrow dirt lane they were on ran between two sturdy, hand-built, stone fences that had stood exactly as they were for several generations. There wasn't much margin for error at speeds above thirty kilometers-per-hour, especially in the slippery, muddy areas. A lapse in concentration meant the difference between clear and unobstructed passage, and putting a fender ding in the Council-owned Range Rover. Nonetheless, Giles diverted a small portion of his attention to the seven-inch LCD display mounted high in the leather dash between him and Buffy, tapping the dark screen with an annoyed finger.

"Of course, it would help," he conceded grumpily, "if the bloody navigation system worked like it was supposed to. When we get back, I'll be having stern words with those chaps from the motor pool. Paid under false pretenses, if you ask me."

Buffy's giggle was unexpected but welcomed. "My Giles . . . Mr. Council Tightwad. Who'da thought?"

He harrumphed on cue. "Someone has to keep an eye on the purse strings."

"So where are we going again?"

"Ffostyll."

"Which is . . . ?"

"Very nearby." Off her scowl, he clarified, "It's the site of an ancient cairn--a stone circle--a landmark close to where you need to go. It's as near as I can take you, physically. Remember, Buffy, this is a spiritual quest."

She nodded. "Will I have a guide again?"

"I'll do my best to summon one."

"I wish you could be my guide," she announced glumly, looking at her hands in her lap.

Giles risked another glance at her. For years, he had been her guide and mentor in the physical world. To know that their unique bond meant she trusted him to be the same on a spiritual level meant a great deal to him.

Access to Ffostyll was through a private gate, which Buffy volunteered to open. Once she had, Giles carefully edged the Range Rover between the narrow breach in the stone fence that had clearly been constructed with the dimensions of a much smaller vehicle in mind. Stopping on the other side to wait while she closed the gate again, he leaned forward on the steering wheel to cast a wary eye up out of the tinted sunroof.

The gray clouds that yesterday raced wildly across the azure sky in their haste to pass, had today begun to slow and gather in a mildly threatening manner. A storm seemed possible, but as was often the case in these parts, certainly not imminent. It could just as easily blow over again. And if it didn't . . .

Pausing mid-thought, he turned his attention to the view beyond the windshield. The track to Ffostyll was little more than twin ruts carved into the moor-grass, winding its bumpy and often boggy way across the upland toward their destination. Outcrops of limestone and millstone pockmarked the landscape for miles ahead, although the predominant rock formations came from the old red sandstone for which the area was famous. The lower sections were ripe for potential problems, since they were often perpetually waterlogged, and, when mixed with the mud and moor-grass, formed peat.

Perfect for getting stuck in.

The sound of the passenger door closing was Giles' cue to sit back against the buttery Oxford leather upholstery, and look at Buffy. They exchanged a smile, and he waited until she had refastened her seatbelt before putting the vehicle back into drive. Sharing the silence, they jostled along the rock-strewn dirt track at a blistering ten kilometers-per-hour.

"So are we trespassing?" Buffy asked suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"The closed gate. Are we on private property?"

"We are. But we're not trespassing," Giles said. "The stone cairn falls under the protection of the historical trust. Even though it's on private land, access for study and categorization must be made available to archeologists and students."

"Which we look like."

"Which we do. Although just to be sure, I called the landowner from London, informed him of our intended visit and obtained his permission, too."

Motioning into the backseat with a flick of her head, Buffy grinned mischievously. "I gotta say though, 'Professor', as your 'student' I have to wonder if your intentions are purely academic."

He knew she was kidding, but scowled, nonetheless, at the hint of any moral improprieties suggested by his earlier actions. Before leaving Cardiff that morning, he'd laid the back seats of the Range Rover flat, inflated an air mattress, and covered it all with a soft, down-filled sleeping bag and a couple of pillows.

"I simply plan to be comfortable," Giles said in self-defense. "I was bloody freezing out in the desert waiting for you the last time."

"Sure, you and I both know that," Buffy agreed. "But I still gotta wonder what it looks like to the locals. You, me, the seclusion . . . and a backseat that looks like a shagmobile. If we hadn't spent last night in separate hotel rooms, I might be kinda worried."

"'Shagmobile?'" he asked, amused by her choice of colloquialisms.

She shrugged a shoulder. "Brit soaps are rubbing off on me."

Then the ramifications hit. "Dear Lord, you're right! I never stopped to consider what other people might think." Giles paled visibly. "When we filled up with petrol and I asked that woman for directions . . . the look she gave me when she glanced in the back . . . Bloody hell! She thought I was taking you out here to . . . that I'm a . . . "

"Yup and yup." Buffy grinned at his sound of exasperation. "Small town, too," she mused seriously, "I bet gossip travels faster than the speed of light around here."

His tone dripped sarcasm. "Thank you for making me feel better."

Buffy smiled brightly. "You're welcome."

"Give me the phone," Giles ordered grumpily, putting out a hand as they bumped out of one deep rut and into another. "I need to call the landowner to let him know we've arrived."

"Just don't mention the shagmobile," Buffy advised, managing to keep a straight face. Opening the center console/armrest lid, she retrieved Giles' cellphone from a padded compartment, looked at it, then made a sound of disgruntlement. "Nnh . . . "

"What?"

She held up the phone for him to glance at the color display. "No signal out here in the boonies." Slipping it back into its place, she added, "Hope that doesn't mean the guy will come after us with a shotgun or a chainsaw or something."

"This is rural Wales, Buffy," Giles chided, still mildly miffed about the unfair blot on his good character. "Not the hillbilly backwoods of Tennessee."

She laughed heartily, and he eventually broke into a helpless grin, then a chuckle, just from the sheer contagious sound of her honest glee.

However, as they continued on their way, his inner frown returned. Not known for being one to rush to join the throngs of popular modern fads, Giles hadn't realized how valuable it was to carry a mobile phone until his position as the Council's Director dictated that he made himself available, day and night. With his link to the outside world now cut, he found the loss of a cellphone signal oddly disconcerting. They were expected by the landowner, even if he neglected to report their present whereabouts, so it wasn't that.

Perhaps it was Buffy's remark about the backseat of the Range Rover that put him on edge. While his goal truly had been for his own comfort, he would only be lying to himself if he insisted that the 'shagmobile' idea hadn't crossed his mind. The fact that Buffy had noticed too, and that she found it amusing rather than disgusting, left a whole lot of other possibilities open to new interpretation.

At the very top of the escarpment they had been gradually climbing for the past twenty minutes, Giles pulled the Range Rover to a stop. Having never been to Ffostyll before, he expected something as awe-inspiring as Stonehenge, but it certainly wasn't what he found. Dating from the Bronze Age, the dozen, small, knee- and waist-high, grey-green stones had been quarried from the nearby hills and placed in a circle by ancient hands. Unfortunately, only three quarters of the original stones remained, which meant the 'circle' was now more a 'crescent' in appearance. The largest of them bore a significant slant, which to the layman's eye might look as if it had simply toppled with time, the victim of soft eroding soil, or the persistent wind that swept over the treeless hilltop with an unstoppable force. To Giles' eye, however, it was clear that the standing stone had been precisely set to face the eastern horizon, toward the fire point of the ritualistic circle, the rising sun.

They exited the vehicle together, both shivering at the chill wind that cut across the summit. Without trees, the moorland was completely unprotected and at the mercy of the elements. Retrieving their coats from the backseat, Giles handed Buffy hers, donning his leather coat over his sweater as he walked toward the stone cairn. Despite the fact that it wasn't why they were there, he couldn't help but look at it with curiosity and admiration.

He crouched, one hand reverently touching the nearest of the cold, damp stones. This was still a very special place; he could feel it calling to him as a tingle in the depths of his subconscious. Although the stones were weather-beaten and strewn with lichen, and the circle incomplete, Ffostyll had lost little of its compelling sense of magic and ancient power. How much blood had been spilled there, both animal and human, in the name of sacrifice to appease a pagan god?

Giles closed his eyes, for if he listened hard, he could still hear the old druidic rituals whispered faintly on the breeze . . .

"You hear that?"

Startled, Giles spun on his haunches to look at Buffy. "Hear what?" He wasn't sure if she shared his overactive imagination, or whether her acute slayer hearing had actually picked up on something he'd missed.

"A sort of . . . hiss," she said, turning around in search of the mysterious source.

He listened again, concentrating on the present, but could hear nothing but the relentless, wild whistle of the wind.

"Are there snakes here?" Buffy asked nervously. "'Cause, like--" she gave a dramatic shiver "--snakes."

"Even if there are, I suspect it's too cold for them at this time of year." Standing, he favored her with a compassionate smile. "I think you can safely consider yourself snake-free for the duration."

Buffy thanked him in a look, then dismissed whatever she thought she'd heard with a nonchalant shrug. "So, you gonna do your hokey pokey dance and get this party started, or what?"

At her request, Giles set to business, retrieving his spellbook, a bundle of birch twigs, and a hollow, dried gourd from a cardboard box in the back of the Range Rover. Her destination was a guarded metaphysical place of slayers, reached only by a chosen one and the summoning of a spirit guide to lead the way. That meant he could not accompany her, in any form, but was instead required to transfer his guardianship of her to an entity more befitting the journey. The birch twigs cleansed a spot on the windblown hillside for his casting circle, and shaking his gourd while executing some appropriate footwork completed the transference spell.

That was the easy bit. For the next step, he and Buffy needed to part ways. He saw her off with an impromptu hug, which she returned without hesitation, much to his heart's delight. Then, while she wandered the heath and heather, detached from the world thanks to his transference spell and in search of a trance-like state of mind, he sat in the sanctuary of his birch circle and read from his spellbook, chanting the Swahili incantation that would bring her ever closer toward the enlightenment she sought.

Hours later, with twilight encroaching and all that he could do done, Giles broke his circle and retreated to the back of the Range Rover with his gathered supplies in hand. Placing everything back into the cardboard box, he leaned a hip against the cold metal, and blew a warming breath into his red, almost numb fingers. Rubbing his hands, he looked up at the gray sky, noting with a frown, how the clouds had clustered while he'd been busy casting, forming an ominous dark knot so thick that they negated any warmth the setting sun might have otherwise provided. He momentarily thought of Buffy, worried if she were appropriately dressed, before deciding that her slayer constitution meant she was far better equipped than he to handle the unexpected wintry nip in the evening air. Instead, he eyed the thermos of hot tea he had brought along, and the inviting warmth and luxurious comfort that awaited him inside the 'shagmobile.'

He grinned at the colloquialism, hearing Buffy's voice in his head, his smile widening further as he recalled her subsequent teasing. But his good mood quickly ran afoul of the present, as something completely unexpected caught his eye.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Giles complained in utter annoyance, kneeling to check the rear passenger tire.

Sure enough, it was flat. Evidently, he'd discovered the source of the mysterious hissing sound. He ran his fingers over the tread until something sharp made him snatch back his left hand. Closer inspection revealed that a broken splinter of carboniferous limestone, common to the area's geology, had punctured the rubber just as surely as a railroad spike. It was a fluke that his tire had caught it at just such an angle to cause damage. A one in a million shot. Just plain bad luck.

Getting to his feet again, Giles kicked the flat tire in frustration. "Wonderful."

So much for his lazy doze in the back of the bed-ready Range Rover. Worse, now he had to tear it all out in order to reach the spare tucked away in the well beneath the floor of the cargo hold.

He swore a blue streak as he shoved aside the pillows and sleeping bag, which he repeated almost verbatim when he found himself wrestling with the inflatable mattress for a comical moment. It threatened to take flight on the breeze, then to take him paragliding with it, before he finally got a good grip on the thing, folded it, and stuffed it unceremoniously across the front seats for safekeeping. Returning to the rear of the vehicle with the flashlight he'd snagged from the front console, he lifted the hinged lid in the trunk floor to reveal the spare tire. Given his luck thus far, he'd almost expected it to be flat as well, but it wasn't, and the motor pool chaps at Council headquarters thus retained their gainful employment for another day.

The tire bounced as Giles lifted it out onto the ground, testament to its usable condition. He let it donut onto a patch of moor-grass beside the Range Rover while he searched for the other tools he needed, namely a lug wrench and jack. He then scoured the immediate area with his flashlight for a couple of suitably-sized chunks of rock to act as chocks for the front wheels, on the off chance the emergency break failed at an inopportune moment. Without wasting any more time or breath on the sheer bloody unfairness of it all, he dropped to one knee, positioned the flashlight, and got to work. The sooner he started, the sooner he finished; that is, the sooner he'd be out of the freezing cold and sipping a nice hot cup of tea in the comfort of soft pillows and down-filled warmth.

He'd just loosened the last lug nut when a flash and an ear-splitting boom of a thunderclap directly overhead made Giles stop what he was doing and look up. Night was close at hand, but even in the darkness, he recognized the threat.

Cold fear abruptly replaced the look of petty irritation on his face. The smell of burnt ozone drifted over him, prompting basic animal instincts to take immediate precedence over those of the well-educated, rational, and often fearless man he was. Once, a lifetime ago, he'd told Jenny Calendar that smell was the most powerful of human senses, capable of triggering memories long buried or forgotten with a single whiff. And with that whiff, now, Giles was instantly transported back into his boyhood past. Before the low growl of thunder had completely died away, snatched by the persistent wind and scattered across the empty heath, he relived one of the most terrifying events in his life that, although buried deep in his memories, had never truly been forgotten. He'd been just eight years old at the time, and had felt safe inside the car in which he'd taken refuge from a storm not unlike the one brooding angrily above him, until it had taken a direct hit from a jagged bolt of white hot lightning . . .

He literally jumped three feet as lightning from this storm sliced open the sky. A rush of adrenaline made his heart beat faster, as multiple fingers of it clutched toward the nearby stone circle then withdrew in the blink of an eye. Another thunderclap quickly followed, the shockwave of its proximity making him drop his lug wrench and cower rather pathetically against the slick, polished side of the Range Rover. As it rumbled into the distance, adult Giles fought to conquer his childhood fear. After all, he'd lived through many a violent thunderstorm in his fifty-two years, witnessed display upon display of nature's electrical fury, all without repeat incident of what happened so many years ago. Why, then, this particularly storm held such sway over his sensibilities was a mystery.

Until he recognized the very real danger of his present situation.

Schoolboy science lessons quickly played in his head. Lightning consisted of negatively charged electrons seeking the quickest path to the positively charged earth below, usually via the tallest structure, be it tree or building or whatever. Since he was presently standing on the top of a completely exposed hilltop, he had just become the unfortunate 'whatever'.

No sooner had he finished the thought than he slid down the side of the car until he was crouching on the ground, instinctively positioning his body lower than the vehicle. He stayed there a moment, catching his breath while looking at his left hand, the fingers of which were splayed over the cold, conductive metal in a grasp of absolute horror.

Metal.

Giles snatched his hand away just as the lightning came again. He crab-crawled backwards away from the vehicle, inadvertently making himself even more exposed in the open. Thunder followed, and then the heavens opened up and rain bucketed down on him in cold, hard pellets. Instead of getting to his feet and running for cover, Giles stayed frozen to the spot, sitting on the moor-grass across from the forgotten spare tire. He was drenched to the skin within a few short minutes, but still made no attempt to seek shelter in the only place available--the Range Rover. Because he would not--could not--climb inside it while the traumatic memory of that boyhood experience remained so uncomfortably close.

Hunkering down, with torrents of icy water streaming off his soaked clothes and the storm continuing to rage so violently around him, he knew that his behavior was both pitiful and stupid. His rational side was extremely thankful Buffy was not around to see him in his present state, while the terrified little boy inside him silently screamed himself hoarse in his desperate need for her company and comfort. Concern for her rose briefly, hoping she had found a sheltered outcrop or rocky overhang somewhere out on the heath, and for a moment, he thought to go in search of her. But the notion quickly faded, as he was forced to admit that he presently lacked the resolve to accomplish any task so bold.

Giles screwed his eyes shut against the next flash of lightning, and tucked his chin to his chest in a futile effort to shut out the sound of thunder. Gritting his teeth against the icy dribble that slithered down the back of his collar, and the relentless wind that whipped around him, chilling him to the bone, he willed himself to get a grip. He was a grown man, no longer that petrified child, and--

"--lightning never strikes in the same place twice," he said, completing the thought aloud.

It was not in reference to his geographical location, which in southern Wales was off from his boyhood home by several hundred miles, but rather to the vehicle that had sustained the direct hit. The odds that another vehicle in which he took refuge would be struck again were staggeringly high; his luck could simply not be that bad.

Could it?

"Lightning never strikes in the same place twice," Giles repeated, teeth beginning to chatter.

His fingers and toes were numb, and he'd started to shiver uncontrollably as his body struggled to maintain heat. He knew he needed to move, to pick himself up and get out of the wind and rain before he froze to death. To survive, Giles knew he needed to climb inside the Range Rover for shelter and warmth. There, he could just ride out the storm, then fix the tire, collect Buffy and leave.

"Lightning n-never strikes in the s-same place t-twice," he chattered in the cold. His voice was barely a whisper in the raging tempest, his conviction all but gone.

But he also knew a monster lurked close by, just as vicious and deadly as any of the vampires or demons he'd been fighting all his adult life. He saw this monster every time the sky opened up and reached toward the heath, trying to pluck him from life, heard it when thunder growled, like the empty belly of a ravenous beast.

In a lull, he opened his eyes to find the rain and the gloom had closed his world to the circumference of his flashlight. He was on one side of the circle of light, the Range Rover on the other. But the vehicle wasn't the safe haven his sensible side kept insisting it was; it was the monster's trap, waiting to ensnare him.

Again.

As the beast clawed and growled at him anew, Giles drew his knees up to his chin and again ducked his head. He knew what he needed to do, but so did the frightened child.

With his childhood fears completely overwhelming his adult rationale, he screwed his eyes shut again and sank ever deeper into the abyss of the past, until the terrified little boy became well and truly lost.