Chapter Text
He did wonder if he ought to have gone with them, but they had been so insistent that they could manage on their own and after all, Buffy was the Slayer and he was the Watcher; it was most decidedly not his job to slay. Most Watchers never went on patrol with their Slayers. He had spent the evening with his books and no doubt they had been glad not to have him along, droning on about how they should prepare for the fight, and trying to get them to be a little more organised and a little less inclined just to wing it. In the privacy of his own living room, he might admit that they were rather good at winging it, although never would he say such a thing where they could hear him. And on the occasions on which winging it didn’t turn out to be the best option, wasn’t it as well that Buffy’s Watcher knew something about research?
He was not feeling offended that they didn’t want him. He was not.
“Um, Giles? Gotta problem, sorta.”
He sighed. He loved Buffy dearly, but it would have been nice to have had a Slayer who spoke English as her first language. Or, indeed, at all.
“Yes, Buffy? Good evening, Willow. Oh! And who’s your friend? We’ve not met.” He came towards the door to meet them: Buffy, Willow and a young dog, attached to what appeared to be somebody’s belt around its neck, and Willow’s scarf attached to the belt. It was an unremarkable mongrel, three-quarters or so grown, medium sized, short haired, mostly black on top, with a tan chest and belly and black legs culminating in feet which appeared to be slightly too large to be managed comfortably. One ear pricked up and the other flopped ridiculously, and a narrow tail beat nervously from side to side.
“Well, where did you come from?” enquired Giles affably, offering the back of his hand to be sniffed. He liked dogs and in general dogs liked him; this one seemed to be no exception, squirming to and fro and nosing at his fingers.
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem, see?”
“You’ve, you’ve found a puppy? Buffy, you can’t keep a puppy at college.”
“No, already worked that out, Giles.”
“Of course I don’t know how your mother would feel about, about a dog, but you can hardly just spring one on her. And he’s in rather good condition, he doesn’t look like a serious stray – well, except for having lost his collar. I, I don’t know where you would take a stray here? Is there a, a rescue centre somewhere about? He’s probably somebody’s pet, they’ll be looking for him. Yes, you’re lovely, aren’t you? You don’t need to chew my fingers, thank you. You’re not very old and you don’t look terribly bright. Are you lost?”
“Um, Giles? Don’t tell him he isn’t bright, you’ll hurt his feelings. And he’s not lost, not exactly. That’s sorta the problem. We... there was... we hit a patch of, of something weird. Weirdness happened.”
“Weirdness.” He was serious now. “What sort of weirdness?” He was turning back to his desk, ready to gather books and reference materials. Willow took up the tale.
“We were patrolling and we went through the park, and there was a big patch of sorta glittery light, and it smelled of pineapple and it moved? When we got close it was like it recognised us and it followed us? We ran, but it was always there, it kept getting in front of us, and eventually... weirdness happened.”
“An Aspall field, yes; we knew it was coming.”
They stared at him; he stared back. “The Aspall field, Buffy? I told you last week that one was due?”
Total blankness. He began to be uneasy. “I told you,” he elaborated in his best librarian’s manner, “that the overlap with the Aspall universe would occur between about noon on Tuesday and the early hours of next Monday morning. That the Aspall field would in all likelihood feel the pull of the Hellmouth and come into existence here.”
“Oh,” said Buffy, in a small voice. “Um, yeah, I remember, you said something about it.”
His unease was increasing. “Said something... Buffy, I spent twenty minutes telling you what the likely effects of the overlap would be; I gave you my copy of Burlington’s The Imbricated Totality; I told you that you needed to read chapter five.”
“Been busy?”
His spectacles were in one hand; with the other hand he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You weren’t listening, were you? And you didn’t read Burlington. So you didn’t recognise the Aspall field.” It would not, he told himself severely, serve any useful purpose to raise his voice. It wouldn’t help to shout at Buffy, or to be sarcastic. It might make him feel better in the short term, but it would only alienate his Slayer.
“Um, Giles?”
“Yes, Willow?”
“Wasn’t here last week. What’s an Aspall field?”
He started to clean his spectacles; he knew that they knew that it was a displacement activity, but he hoped that they didn’t know what it was a displacement for – that he did it most often when he felt an all but overwhelming urge to clip one of them heavily around the ear. Deep breaths, Giles.
“Very simply, when the Aspall universe overlaps with ours, it leaks raw... well, raw magic, I suppose. It, it happens once a decade or so, it’s fairly easy to predict, and once every century or thereabouts the leakage happens somewhere... unhelpful. Usually it’s at sea or over one of the Poles or whatever and all we get is peculiar weather patterns. This time it’s due at the Hellmouth and the, the interference is likely to cause something more extreme. It’s not precisely dangerous, as long as it doesn’t affect anything which is magical in its own right, but it’s a bloody nuisance. I did warn Buffy” – he was unable to hold that one back, and it sounded rather acid – “that an Aspall field would hit Sunnydale some time over the next few days and that she should stay clear of it. So, so should you, Willow. The, the scent of pineapple is typical, as is the glow. But as long as it didn’t touch either of you – it didn’t, did it?”
They looked at each other and something passed between them. “No,” said Willow hesitantly, “but...”
“Well, if you see it again, stay away. It will be drawn to you, so if you’re too close it will, will lock onto your magical signature, and follow you.”
“Right,” said Buffy, also hesitantly, “but... what other effects does it have? And like, are they permanent?”
“All this is in Burlington, Buffy; that’s why I gave it to you. I, I know you don’t care to listen when I tell you things; I thought you might prefer doing your own research since you’re bored by mine.” Shut up, Giles. Not helping. But good Lord, what might have happened if a Slayer had fallen within an Aspall field? He had to find some way of telling whether she had her brain turned on when he spoke to her; she was disturbingly able to give appropriate answers without anything he said taking root in her head.
“Yeah but... just give me the cheat sheet summary? Just the effects?”
He counted slowly to ten in Sumerian. “A magical living entity which enters an Aspall field will hit a binary condition between our universe and the Aspall universe. It will, will, flicker, if you like, between the two until the field moves far enough away from our universe for... well, it’s like grounding something electrical. And then anything can happen. It, it might end up here, or there, or be torn apart between the two. That was why I mentioned it to you. You can’t live in the Aspall universe, and you can’t live if you’re ripped in half by the shift. Slayer healing won’t cover your body being here and your head being there.” He knew he was being unkind, but he was quite willing to be cruel if it frightened Buffy enough that she might pay attention to some of the things he told her in future. It seemed, though, that it was Willow who was frightened; she had made a small whimpering noise, and slid down to wrap her arms around the neck of the puppy at her feet, which was engaged in licking her face.
“Don’t let it do that, Willow, it, it’s unhygienic. You don’t know where it’s been.”
“Do, actually,” said Buffy in a rather unhappy tone. “Out with us. And there was a Labrador on the way back... ‘Kay, Giles, now tell me about a non-magical something in this field.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t generally do any lasting harm.” Both girls sighed. “Temporary transfiguration, usually, until the field passes. If it’s an animal, it doesn’t matter although a domesticated animal can end up more than a little confused. There’s a story in Burlington about a horse being transfigured into some sort of wild cat; apparently it returned to horse shape after a few days but its temper was irrevocably spoiled.” The girls were exchanging unhappy glances; it appeared to be Giles’ turn to sigh. “All right. What got caught in the field?”
They looked at the puppy, which appeared to be embarrassed by the attention; it looked up at Giles, and flattened its ears to its head, turning completely round twice and then sitting and solemnly offering him a paw.
“Does... does having had bad mojo-type stuff happen to a non-magical person... make them into a magical person who might get ripped in half?” asked Willow in a very small and apprehensive voice. Giles shook his head.
“No.”
“Oh. Good.”
It took him a moment to catch up, to look down into anxious brown eyes and to work out what was missing from the evening’s entertainment.
“Xander?”