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Training had been so much more fun when it had been with Giles. She really hadn’t ever appreciated enough how unannoying Giles was by comparison with…other people. Buffy gritted her teeth as Wesley continued to breathlessly pontificate at her in between telling her to improve her muscle tone and kick height. This from a guy who had tottered out of yesterday’s training session with Faith looking as if he was going to need an adrenaline shot. One would have thought that after completely falling apart when being questioned by the first demon who captured him and then screwing up over Faith that he might have been a little less inclined to tell people who had been successfully guarding the Hellmouth for years how it was done and a little more inclined to – well…shut up!

Her anger spiked and she lashed out harder than usual, her heel catching him hard in the ribcage. As he doubled over, she told herself that any vampires he encountered weren’t going to be pulling their punches, but as his left knee buckled and he went down gasping, falling onto his hands and knees and making a whimpering sound, she did grimace.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He gasped for breath for a moment and then looked up at her, his left hand clasped to his side; his gaze for a moment wasn’t pompous or cocksure, but hurt and shocked.

She winced and held out a hand. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to… Are you okay?”

The apology seemed to have reassured him that she hadn’t done it on purpose and he nodded. “Just need to – catch my breath. But – that’s what I mean about accuracy, Buffy. You need to make sure you are directing your undoubted strength efficiently.”

She caught him by the wrist and yanked him to his feet, making him hiss and whimper again. She tried not to roll her eyes but he was such a wuss compared with Giles.

“I know. Preparation, preparation, preparation, right?”

He sighed. “I know you don’t…. I know you think… I do think you’ve been a little unfair, Buffy. I didn’t ask to be sent here.”

Buffy put her head on one side. “Why does that strike me as unlikely? Why do I have an image in my head right now of you sitting behind a little desk waving your hand in the air and saying ‘oh please, sir, pick me, pick me!’?”

Wesley gave her one of his patented snooty Watcher looks. “It doesn’t exactly work like that, Buffy. One is put on the active Watchers list and then assigned to either a potential or an active Slayer as and when the Council deems one fit for the task. They sent me here because Rupert Giles had proven himself unsuitable and – ”

Buffy loomed at him as much as she was capable of looming at a guy a foot taller than her. It seemed to work pretty well as he took an immediate step backwards.

“Giles is the best Watcher your stupid Council has ever had,” she told him shortly.

“My ‘stupid Council’ has been helping Slayers to – ”

“To do what exactly…? ‘The Watchers’ Council – helping Slayers to die young since sixteen eighty-six’. Do you have it on a plaque somewhere?”

Wesley opened his mouth to say something prissy and pompous and then just sighed and shrugged. “Fine, take it out on me because Giles got himself fired. I’m sure it’s easier than blaming him for not following the rules.”

“What we do here isn’t about rules, Wesley,” she told him shortly. “I don’t care what the Council thinks matters. A Watcher is only as much use to a Slayer as she trusts him. And in the case of Giles I trust him with my life. That’s what a Watcher has to earn. It doesn’t just get handed to him because he turns up in a nice suit saying that the Council have decided he’s going to be their representative now. He has to prove himself. The difference between you and Giles isn’t that he got fired and you got chosen to replace him. The important difference is that I trust him to make the right decision to keep me alive. You haven’t earned that yet.” As she walked out she thought angrily And if you don’t cash that reality check sometime soon you’re never going to earn it either.

She suspected that her lecturing of him in the training room was the real reason why Wesley chose to be extra snooty to Giles in the library. She personally thought that if he had seen Ripper unleashed upon Ethan as she had done, not to mention met ticking time bomb-rebel without a cause teenage Giles that he would have kept his prissy little mouth shut – and probably gone and hidden under a table somewhere.

“Are you honestly telling me that you are now proposing to confiscate my mail?” Giles was demanding as Buffy walked in.

Wesley was holding a padded envelope while wearing one of his most annoying Junior Watcher expressions. “As I have endeavoured to point out, this isn’t addressed to your home as would be post specifically intended for you as a private individual. It is sent to your place of work and it mentions not your ‘cover’ occupation but your actual occupation: ‘Rupert Giles, Watcher, the Library, Sunnydale High, Sunnydale et cetera…’ Clearly this package is not intended for you but for whomsoever happens to be the active Watcher for the active Slayer and that means it’s true recipient should be me.”

Giles narrowed his flinty green eyes. “Wesley, you may have the blessing of the Council but I know the location of every graveyard in this town and I promise you it could be a very long time before they found your corpse…”

Wesley backed up uneasily, giving a sickly attempt at a smile. “Ah yes, threats… Very droll. I’ll be sure to notify you if this package contains anything of significance…” And then he was gone at a speed that could just about be classified as dignified withdrawal although Buffy thought it had more a hint of ‘running for the hills’ about it.

“By the way, if we’re voting, I’m all over the ‘let’s murder Wesley and bury him somewhere quiet’ idea,” she observed conversationally.

Giles poured himself a cup of tea in some irritation. “Can we just take it as read that I answered that with something suitably reproving?”

“We can,” Buffy assured him.

“Although I have to say he really is the most pompous irritating little…” Giles broke off as Xander and Willow came into the library.

“If you’re bitching about Wesley please don’t stop on my account,” Xander observed.

Willow gave Buffy a rueful look. “Cordelia and Wesley are making sheep’s eyes at each other in the corridor again.”

“Can anyone tell me what she sees in that guy?” Xander demanded. “I mean is there anyone who has ever met Wesley ever who doesn’t think he’s gay except for Cordelia? And I’m sorry, Giles, no offence but the accent is annoying. The clothes – also annoying. Who needs to wear six layers of clothing in California? Except for anal tweed-diapered Watcherpeople…?”

Buffy lingered after lessons to see how Giles was doing. “I could go round to Wesley’s, beat him up and steal your parcel back, if you like?” she offered.

Giles looked amused and then reproving. “Buffy… In light of what Faith did recently perhaps we should be a little more aware of how dangerous your strength could be. And besides – you wouldn’t need to beat him up, just threaten him a little.”

She grinned back. “Scout’s honour, I would only frighten him.”

Giles waved a dismissive hand. “Oh let him have it. If it’s interesting enough perhaps it will keep him out of my hair for a few days and we can get on with the important things. Call me if you come across anything on patrol tonight.”

“Would that be at your home or here? Oh wait – you have no life. It will be here.”

He gave her a lofty look. “I’ll have you know I have a very full and exciting life.”

“Who doesn’t find cross-referencing a pulse racer…?”

“Well, quite.” He waved a hand at the exit. “Off you go.”

For all people’s comments about cross-referencing, Giles had to admit that he did find it fascinating. The school emptied at last, day became evening and everything was peaceful. He was working very happily on references to the ‘ascension’ when there was a tap on the door and an all-too-familiar voice said: “Happy Anniversary, Ripper…”

He looked up to see Ethan carrying a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a long-stemmed rose. Bizarrely, despite having just said his name, Ethan did a violent double take at the sight of him.

“You…” Giles rose to his feet.

“Ah…” Ethan grimaced. “Damn it, Ripper. You never could just cooperate, could you?”

Giles ran at him and then Ethan was dodging and Giles realized he was weaponless just before what appeared to be a very good bottle of Bordeaux cracked him on the head. As he hit the ground he thought: Of course, the parcel and then…Wesley! Then everything went dark.

***

Buffy found Giles groaning on the library floor as she arrived at school. He was lying in a pool of what she had first thought was blood but which had turned out to be red wine. He had mumbled something at her in which the words: ‘Ethan’ and ‘Wesley’ had at first made her mind go to a scary place before she had understood what he was telling her.

On their way to Wesley’s apartment with a still very grumpy and she suspected slightly concussed Giles, Buffy did feel a little anxious but she was also quite curious to see what Ethan had had in mind this time. It seemed pretty clear that he had sent the parcel to Giles to work its magic and then had intended to call on him in his changed state. Giles had been a little sheepish about the wine and glasses and when Buffy had pointed out that that sounded pretty much like Ethan had been expecting a…date, Giles had given her one of his patent pending Watcher glares and she had decided they had probably better not talk about that aspect of it any more.

The point, as Giles had gritted out, in between dabbing at the lump on the back of his head, and picking up his car keys, was that Ethan had clearly sent the package and as it had been intercepted by Wesley there was a good chance that it had had the same effect upon him as Ethan had intended it to have upon Giles.

As it hadn’t happened to Giles, whatever it was, Buffy had to admit that as well as being a little concerned for Wesley she was also a lot curious. So far Ethan’s little tricks had been…bothersome, but not actually all out evil. Turning them into their Halloween costumes and making people regress to teenage behaviour had probably been a lot of fun for him but it hadn’t felt as if he wanted to kill Giles on either occasion, just annoy and inconvenience him, and if that were the case, she couldn’t say she was exactly broken-hearted about the prospect of Wesley being annoyed or inconvenienced. And she would certainly much rather it was him than Giles. Giles, however, did look concerned. As they walked up the stairs to Wesley’s apartment, Giles was frowning.

“It may be on his own head but I’m not at all happy at the prospect of Wesley having visited upon him something that Ethan intended for me. Irritating though Wesley is, he doesn’t deserve Ethan’s idea of a prank.”

“He’s the one who insisted on stealing your mail,” Buffy pointed out. “He’s the one who insists on telling you ten times a day that he’s the Watcher now, not you. So, forgive me for thinking a little ‘serves him right’ if he’s now having to wear a dress or walk on his hands or whatever.”

“Given the boarding school he attended, I imagine he’s had to do both of those things in the past.” Giles frowned. “But – Ethan can be truly nasty.”

“I remember him trying to turn me into Eyghon chowder in his place.”

“Well – quite. Wesley’s lack of experience in the field may be frustrating but it’s also just a fact that someone like Ethan could be a horrible shock to his system.”

“Are we sure his system doesn’t need a little shocking?” Buffy countered.

Giles grimaced. “I think Ethan may be a shock too far for a Wyndam-Pryce. I suspect there are nuns in closed orders who have seen more of the world than Wesley has.”

“Isn’t that up to him?”

Giles sighed and took off his glasses to clean them. “Not really. I gather that he was told he was going to be a Watcher from early childhood, never given any choice in the matter, and told to put his head down and work hard to achieve that aim. I think that’s why he finds your outlook a little…bewildering. He assumed you would have the same attitude as him.”

“Well, excuse me for not being stuffy and pompous.”

Giles smiled at her fondly. “I think his imaginary Slayer was a lot more like Kendra.”

Buffy thought of the other girl and winced. “Was yours…?”

“Well…” Giles grimaced. “That is rather how we’re told Slayers are. Girls with a mythic destiny who live and breathe vampire slaying. I think you…bewilder and frighten him. He doesn’t understand why you haven’t read the Slayers’ Handbook, why you should want to have any other kind of life or why I haven’t impressed upon you that life is real and earnest and dangerous.”

“Because we know it is. We live it.”

Giles nodded. “Exactly. But Wesley hasn’t been in the field long enough to know that yet.”

“He’s just so annoying.”

“He is very young, Buffy. This business with Ethan has really put things into a little more perspective for me. Wesley really hasn’t had a life as yet.”

Buffy couldn't help noticing that she was expected to take on the responsibilities of a grown-up whereas Wesley got a free pass, apparently, despite being about a decade older. Even more oddly, she did feel older than him on most days, probably because her life experience was so much more extensive than his was. “I know that, but don’t you think that just makes it even more important that he should listen to the people who have? The people who have been doing this job for the past few years while he’s been…doing whatever really stuffy pompous people in England do?”

“That would have been nice. But I think his heart’s in the right place. He’s a different person with Cordelia.”

“Yes, incoherent and embarrassing.”

“No, they were in the library yesterday. She asked him for some help with her homework and although I think he did understand it was actually her way of flirting with him, he did help her with her homework and he got…very interested in the whole project.” Giles frowned at the memory. “It was strange to see him so enthusiastic and unguarded.” He thought about the boy Wesley had appeared to become in front of him then, Giles pretending to be busy with the books while keeping an eye on the two of them so as to prevent Wesley making a total tit of himself if that was at all possible, for Cordelia’s sake as much as his, and had been surprised by the way the same person who couldn’t seem to communicate with Buffy or Faith without putting their backs up, could show Cordelia the possibilities in her project.

“You were saying you were more interested in the fashions of that era than the social history, Cordelia? But if you think about it the two were really connected. To understand the fashions of that time you have to understand the strict social hierarchy in place and also the place of women in society. Whalebone corsets are not symptomatic of a society that allows its women to be free and unrestricted in thought, mind or deed.” Wesley turned through the pages, finding a reference for her. “Here, this is a description of what it felt like to wear one of them. Women were dealing with constantly restricted breath. That’s why there was so much fainting. They would also have been in considerable pain.” He looked down at her shoes. “I don’t know anything at all about women’s fashions but I gather those shoes of yours are fashionable, yes?”

She smiled at him when anyone else would probably have died for that remark. “Well, duh.”

He smiled back, only fluttering a little. “Are they comfortable?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Said with another smile that showed she entirely got his point.

He nodded his head. “Well, there you are. You think the pain is worth it. So did those women. But with them it was to do with a need to conform to society’s expectations of them as much as personal preference. I suppose what this project is asking you to decide is if your fashion decisions are made because of peer pressure or individual choice. Do you wear shoes that hurt your feet because of the pleasure you get in looking at them or because of the reaction other people might have to seeing you wearing them?”

Giles had to concede, if only privately, that Wesley had managed to deal with Cordelia’s project tactfully and without making her feel that her assignation was some kind of comment on her perceived shallowness. He had also given her some pointers that might make her do a much better job than she would otherwise have done. Giles certainly knew he would not have taken the hour Wesley had just done to help her understand what was required of her.

Cordelia pointed one elegant foot to show off her shapely ankle. “Well, what reaction do you have to seeing me wearing them?”

Wesley swallowed hard, adjusting his tie, flushed, and then looked at her shoe. There was a pause before he said, “Honestly…? I’m now worried they may be hurting your feet.”

Cordelia’s smile was unexpected and looked more genuine than any expression Giles had seen cross her face since her break up with Xander. “No pain, no gain, Wesley.”

Wesley averted his eyes. “I’m sure someone who liked you would like you in trainers.”

“But that comes after. First you have to get them to like you, and no one likes a girl in trainers.”

Wesley looked at her and then back at the project. “Perhaps you should concentrate in your project on whether or not things have really changed for women? Are they still turning themselves into…male constructs through fashion, or are they in fact only dressing for each other – sort of signals of rank and hierarchical standing.” He still looked flushed and breathless when gazing at her but Giles had to admit that if one overlooked his ridiculous fluttering over – presumably – the first pretty girl to ever pay him any attention, he was talking some sense. After another pause he looked back at Cordelia, eyes kind and concerned. “And, given the nature of the Hellmouth, wouldn’t trainers be…safer? I’d hate you to get captured by a vampire because you were a slave to your…who does make those shoes?”

Cordelia kicked off one shoe and held it up, the heel pointing at Wesley who flinched. “Good for close combat.”

He examined the shoe heel closely. “Are they made of wood?”

And then Xander and Willow had come in and Cordelia had hastily replaced her shoe and Wesley had sprung to his feet and looked guilty, and said something pompous and Xander had sneered at him, and he had fallen back and darted a look at Cordelia who had collected up her work, said something withering to Xander and left.

“Giles…?”

Giles collected himself as Buffy recalled him to the present. She waved a hand in front of his face. “You sort of drifted off there.”

“I was just thinking of the way Wesley was with Cordelia.”

“Embarrassing and annoying?”

“No…well, yes, that too, but he seems to do better…without witnesses.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying if we just shut him in a room by himself he’d be all useful, sensible, non-annoying guy.”

Giles frowned. “I think we – fluster him.”

“Giles, he needs to learn to interact with real human people and not just Cordelia.”

“I know.” Giles snatched a breath. “He’s just…horribly and embarrassingly inexperienced. Every time he says something particularly inane I see myself in his shoes and just want to smack him for showing me up.”

“I want to smack him every time he opens his mouth, just because,” Buffy admitted.

Giles looked at the number on the door of the apartment. “This is it.” He knocked on the door. “Wesley…?”

There was a long, long pause when nothing happened and then Giles thought he heard something. He knocked on the door sharply. “Wesley? Wesley, I need you to open the door.”

He wouldn’t have put it past Ethan to give him an ass’s head or turn him into a hobgoblin but either way they needed to know the worst. Thinking of the man’s background, Giles decided to play the ‘male authority figure’ card and said sharply: “Wesley, I’m well aware that Ethan may have enchanted you with what it was in that parcel you insisted on taking home with you, but we can only reverse what he’s done if you let us in. Now open the door this instant.”

There was a noise from the other side that sounded like a stifled sob and then the sound of something being laboriously dragged around the room, a thump as it hit the door, and then the rattle of chains being struggled with. Giles waited with unconcealed impatience as bolts were pulled very slowly and locks struggled with – had Ethan given the bloody fool horns in place of hands? – and then a small voice said pathetically: “Wait…” There was the sound of something heavy being dragged away and then the door was pulled open a crack and someone who did not sound like Wesley said: “I’m not allowed to invite you in.”

“That isn’t necessary, Wesley.” Giles pushed the door open and then stopped dead.

Buffy gasped and clasped a hand across her mouth.

They both stared at a boy of surely no more than six who was without a doubt the thinnest child either of them had ever seen. His dark hair stuck up from his head and his blue eyes were enormous in his narrow face. He had obviously been crying and tear tracks were visible on his face. He was swamped by a blue and white striped pyjama jacket that he had tried to fold back to reveal his hands. Buffy had never seen wrists that thin in her life.

Giles darted a glance at her anxiously, afraid that she might laugh, but she looked a long way from making fun of the boy Wesley had presumably turned into.

“Wes-Wesley…?” Giles asked.

Wesley nodded wretchedly. He looked up at Giles fearfully. “Did I get sent away?”

Buffy sank to her knees in front of him. “Do you know who we are?”

He shook his head and then wiped his hand across his eyes again. “No, and I don’t know where I am and I can’t find my clothes. Is it because I broke Mummy’s vase? I didn’t mean to.”

“Tell me your name?” she asked.

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

She took his hand, shocked by how thin it was. “I’m Buffy Summers. This is Giles.”

As Giles crouched down in front of him, Wesley flinched, clearly afraid to meet Giles’s eye. Giles managed a smile. “Wesley, you have been the victim of a spell. You had contact with something…mystical and it seems to have turned you into – who you are now.”

Wesley looked down at himself in shock. “But this is always who I am.”

Buffy muttered to Giles, “He only remembers being a kid.”

Giles asked, “Wesley, do you know what a Slayer is?”

Wesley appeared shocked and looked around anxiously. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

That did simplify things a little. Giles put his hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “Wesley, Buffy is the Slayer.”

Wesley’s eyes widened and he gazed up at Buffy the way people looked at movie stars. “You’re…the Slayer?”

Buffy was looking around the room, thinking what it must have been like for this confused little boy to wake up here and not recognize a single thing or have any memory of how he came to be here. She looked at the chair he’d had to drag across the room to stand on to undo the bolts and chains. “I’m Buffy,” she repeated quietly. “And I’m going to get you some clothes that fit you and find you some breakfast, okay? Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Giles saw that look from Buffy and said, “Oh yes, probably a good idea. Let me just…” As he went off to find the contents of the parcel Ethan had sent, Buffy folded back the sleeves of Wesley’s pyjama jacket more neatly and gave him a reassuring smile. “There was a spell, but it’s going to be okay. We’re going to take care of you and work out how to make things…better. Okay…?” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile and it seemed to work as she got a glimmer of a smile back. “I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Because you have bare feet and you’ll hurt them on the ground.” He nodded, and she picked him up. He weighed…nothing. So frighteningly light that the lump in her throat got bigger, especially as he gave a little whimper of pain as she held him. “What’s wrong…?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he whispered, burying his face in her neck.

She put a hand on the back of his head and stroked his hair. “Don’t be frightened. We’re going to take care of you.”

“Is Daddy angry with me…?” he breathed.

“No, Wesley,” she said raggedly. “No one’s angry with you.” She looked up to find Giles with something wrapped in a towel, that she presumed must be whatever Ethan had sent. He also had Wesley’s keys in his hand. She nodded at the door and he held it open for her, and then locked the door behind them.

She could feel Wesley’s wet eyelashes against her skin, his bony little arms wrapped around her neck. She looked up at Giles and mouthed: “He’s so thin….”

Giles nodded, and held open the next door for them, Wesley blinking at the sunlight. He gazed up at the apartment building in confusion. “Is this London?”

“It’s Sunnydale in California in America, Wesley.” Giles unlocked the car and held open the passenger door.

Wesley gazed up at him in fearful confusion. “Did I get sent away?”

“No, you came here to…work. Let’s not worry about that now, Wesley. Let’s just get you some clothes and breakfast as Buffy suggested.”

The department store was mostly empty at this time in the morning and Buffy sent Giles to buy Wesley socks, a t-shirt and underpants first so he could try clothes on without being naked. Giles paid for them in some embarrassment, murmuring something about losing the boy’s suitcase at the airport. Buffy thought the bored salesgirl was pretty remiss in the way she just shrugged and shoved Giles’ credit card through the machine. If ever a boy looked as if he had been abducted from his bed, it was Wesley, after all.

She hissed angrily to Giles: “We could have kidnapped him for a child porn ring for all she knows!”

Giles shrugged. “I know but let’s just be glad she’s so lacking in any sense of social awareness as it certainly does simplify things. Shall I take him into the changing room?”

Wesley’s arms tightened around Buffy’s neck at the prospect and they both saw the flash of fear in his eyes as he looked up at Giles. She sighed. “I’ll do it.”

In the changing room, she gave him a reassuring smile and unpacked the shorts and socks, letting him pull those on under the cover of the pyjama jacket, then she unbuttoned the jacket and told him they could go and pick some really nice clothes for him, talking brightly until she peeled back the jacket and saw the bruises on his ribs. She gasped and lifted his arm so she could take a better look, touching the purple skin gently. There was an angry mark spreading across half of his left ribcage, and other bruises on his arms. She let the jacket fall to the floor in the changing room in her shock. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Tears came into his eyes again. “It was like that when I woke up.”

“Does it hurt?”

He nodded mutely and she gathered him into her arms very gently. His body felt warm and light but terribly bony and she kissed the top of his head. As she did so she had a sudden memory of losing patience with adult Wesley in the training session and kicking him in the ribs, of him gasping and doubling up. Her eyes widened in horror as she realized how he had come by the bruises. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped.

He gazed up at her as if she was the nicest person in the world. “It’s not your fault, Buffy.”

She got to her feet, still holding him, and took a moment to collect herself. She snatched a breath. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

He shivered. “I was clumsy. Daddy was cross with me.”

She looked at him in the mirror and winced at the sight of his narrow little shoulder blades. The child was just skin and bone – and bruises. Way too many bruises, purple and blue marks all over his back. Not all of them could have come from her training sessions with him and she suddenly remembered that he had been moving stiffly even before they began. Faith had evidently taken out some of her annoyance on him as well. Buffy closed her eyes as it occurred to her that, given how much stronger they were than Wesley, they hadn’t been behaving much better than the child batterers they now appeared to be.

“Buffy…?” Giles asked cautiously from outside the changing room. “I’ve found Wesley some clothes that I think might fit him.”

Still holding Wesley so his head was against her neck, the little boy curled up against her quite comfortably, as if this was a treat for him and he wasn’t going to do anything to stop it; she turned and twitched back the curtain. Giles saw the bruises and she saw the flicker of shock in his eyes, and then he was hastily looking away and removing his glasses under the pretence of cleaning them. When he turned back there was a sickly smile on his face. “Okay, Wesley…?” he said brightly. “Would you like to try these on?”

She felt Wesley tremble against her and he slipped down at once, carefully not making eye contact with Giles as he murmured, “Yes, sir.”

Giles swallowed. “Do call me ‘Giles’, Wesley.”

“Yes, Mr Giles,” the boy said obediently.

Still keeping to his bright voice, Giles said heartily: “Well, try this on, Wesley. Let’s see if they fit you.”

As Wesley struggled with the clothes, Giles just looked at her and Buffy said quietly: “The ones on his ribs were me. I think the ones on his back may have been from Faith.”

“For God’s sake, Buffy,” Giles hissed at her. “How long has this been going on?”

“I only did it once.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t know Faith was… I’m sorry.”

Giles looked down at the little boy currently trying to pull on a pair of trousers. “I’m sure you are.”

The clothes did not fit. Buffy and Giles looked at the way the trousers hung off his narrow hips and the shirt sleeves dangled past his hands while Wesley gazed mournfully at his fingertips.

“Perhaps a t-shirt and some jeans…” Giles went off to find something slightly less junior Watcherish, while Buffy picked Wesley up, his arms automatically going around her neck, and his legs wrapping themselves around her so he could sit on her hip. She stroked his hair and he gave a sigh of contentment.

When was the last time anyone cuddled you? she found herself wondering. She carried him out into the store and hunted for shirts and t-shirts, she and Giles collecting a pile of jeans, mini cargo pants, shoes, and clothing that probably said more about their personalities than Wesley’s.

Giles also bought a large box of safety pins and said hesitantly, “Do you know anything about sewing?”

“Not much,” she conceded. “But perhaps my mom…”

Giles got that embarrassed look he always got now when any reference was made to Joyce. “We may have to call upon her services. I don’t think Wesley is exactly an off the peg size.”

“Not unless there’s a line of refugee wear around here somewhere we haven’t found yet.” Buffy took him back into the changing room and got him into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a shirt, which, with the cuffs folded back, was a reasonable fit. She sat him on the check out counter so the sales assistant could run the bar code gun over the labels on his clothes. He giggled when it beeped and the girl did briefly pause in her gum chewing to nod to Buffy. “Cute kid.”

“Yes, he’s adorable,” Buffy returned.

Wesley looked at up at her in surprise and then gave a shy little smile as he realized she wasn’t joking. Giles also looked at her in some surprise and then said, “He’s my nephew. He’s over from England on a visit.”

“Oh…” The girl shoved their purchases into a bag. “Welcome to America.”

Wesley said, “Thank you,” shyly. Then Buffy had scooped him off the counter and was carrying him back to the car.

“I think he must be five or six,” Giles pointed out. “And the shoes are about the only thing that fit him properly. I’m sure he can walk.”

“He likes being carried,” Buffy said firmly.

“I’m eight,” Wesley whispered to Buffy.

She looked down at his undersized little body. The Wesley they knew wasn’t exactly bulky but he was tall and…normal looking. For the first time she wondered what Wesley really looked like under all those layers of clothing. It was hard to believe that a child as fragile as this had grown up to be very substantial.

“Good Lord,” Giles murmured. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

At Buffy’s insistence they took Wesley to a place where he could have some pancakes for breakfast instead of the boring cereal that Giles had been suggesting. The little boy’s high quiet cultured voice in all its Harry Potter Britishness sounded particularly incongruous in a fast-food restaurant that seemed to epitomize everything American. He ate very neatly, with his elbows jammed into his sides, chewing everything carefully.

Neither of them was quite sure why they decided to take him to the library, except perhaps that a problem this enormous needed the full quotient of Scoobies dealing with it.

Wesley’s already over-sized eyes looked even bigger when he saw the library. He gazed around at it the way another child might have looked at Disneyland. Giles said, “Would you like to have a look around, Wesley?”

As always when Giles spoke to him, he dropped his gaze and hunched his narrow little shoulders nervously, then caught himself doing it and hastily straightened up. Giles could almost hear it in his mind; some scary authority figure snapping: Stand up straight when I talk to you, boy. Wesley said: “Yes, please, sir,” nervously.

“Please call me ‘Giles’, Wesley,” Giles sighed. He held out a hand and Wesley tentatively took it. Giles showed him around the library but the boy was much too nervous to take in anything he said to him. Whenever Giles started to tell him something he looked like a deer in headlights, clearly fearing that he was going to be tested on it later and wouldn’t remember. And he wouldn’t remember, of course, because he was too scared of forgetting later to comprehend it now. Giles found it more upsetting than he would have liked to admit that Buffy, the person who had been bullying Wesley in their training sessions – and if she had not already been feeling as bad about that as it was possible for a person to feel, he would certainly have had a whole lecture to deal about that – was treated as someone safe and comforting, while he was regarded as an ogre. And yet he was surely more familiar than an American high school girl…

Giles flinched inside as he realized that, of course, that was the problem. Giles was the kind of man Wesley knew of old: British, tweed-wearing Watcher, just like his father. He was frightening exactly because he was so familiar.

Speaking as gently as he could, Giles took him into his office and said, “Would you like to sit with a book for a while, Wesley?”

Wesley nodded. “Yes, please.”

“What are you reading at the moment?”

Giles knew it was unlikely that there would be anything of the right age group for the boy here but he wondered if Buffy or Willow might have some of their old children’s books.

“This one.” Wesley pointed at a copy of Hartley’s Lesser Demons of the Lowerworlds. It was written in Greek and had proven to be very useful at highlighting demon habits. It was also something adult scholars might have struggled with.

Giles blinked and picked up the book, wondering if Wesley had mistaken it for something. “This one?”

Wesley took it from him very carefully and laid it down on the desk. “I was halfway through chapter five. But I couldn’t find my notebook.”

Giles dazedly watched him turn to the correct page and handed over a notebook and pen as they were shyly requested. It was only as Wesley snatched a deep breath and then leant over the volume that he snapped out of his trance-like state. “Wesley – I don’t mean what are you reading as part of your…lessons. Don’t you have something that you’re reading for – enjoyment?”

Wesley looked up at him out of those huge blue eyes. “I’m only allowed to read for fifteen minutes before lights out.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s still lesson time.”

Giles looked up to see Buffy in the doorway with a look on his face that perfectly matched the way he was feeling.

“It’s holiday time, Wesley,” he managed a little hoarsely.

Wesley sighed. “Demons don’t take days off.” It was clearly something that had been said to him many times before.

Giles looked around for inspiration and saw a dog-eared copy of Roger Lancelyn Green’s Tales of the Greek Heroes. That might possibly pass for schoolwork and yet was at least written for children and enjoyable. He snatched it off the shelf and held it out. “You’re having different lessons while you’re staying with us, Wesley. I’d like you to read this instead.”

“What language do I have to translate it into?” Wesley looked anxious.

“You don’t. I just want you to read it in English. Okay?”

Wesley looked confused by that concept, but obediently took the book that Giles handed to him and went to sit at the table in the library.

As he went and sat down, Giles snatched a breath and Buffy came over to say quietly: “I hate your stupid Council more than I can ever put into words.”

“Right now, that makes two of us.”

She looked back at Wesley. “When did he ever get to be a kid?”

“He didn’t.” That was what Giles had finally realized. Of course, he hadn’t. He had to know everything anyone could possibly need to know who advised a Slayer, and given all the demons and vampires and monsters and spells and curses in the world, a Watcher could never know too much. So there wasn’t time to be a child; and all childhood was to some Watchers was evidently a period of learning all the things they would need to know later.

“We have to do something,” Buffy hissed.

“Yes, we have to change him back.” Giles turned his attention to the amulet that Ethan had sent which he had retrieved from Wesley’s room.

Buffy put a hand on his arm. “No, we have to help him – that little boy. We have to make it not be like this.”

Giles looked up at her and said gently: “Buffy, it was like this and it’s too late to change that.”

“We keep him,” she hissed. “Keep this little boy and we don’t let them take him back and we let him have…fun.”

“It didn’t happen.” Giles held her gaze. “Wesley’s childhood is what it was. Just like yours. Just like Xander’s. We need to help the adult Wesley.”

“He doesn’t need to grow up the way he is.”

“He is the way he is.” Giles put away the book he had got down. “Let’s just try to get him back…”

***

It was lunchtime when Willow came into the library, Willow saying: “Giles, have you seen…?” And then she saw Wesley and her eyes got that soft look and her face that ‘aww’ look that Buffy’s had been wearing all day. “An adorable little boy…”

“Actually, yes, we have one right here.” Buffy smirked at her.

Wesley rose to his feet, looking up at Willow with something like wonder on his face.

“What is it…?” Buffy asked him.

He leant in to whisper in her ear: “She’s so pretty.”

Having overheard, Giles couldn’t stop a smile crossing his face and Willow just gasped in helpless adoration. “You are so cute…” she breathed.

He held out a hand. “I’m Wesley.”

“‘Wesley’…?” Willow shook his hand in surprise. “That’s such a coincidence, because we have…” Seeing Buffy and Giles shaking their heads and pointing at the little boy, her eyes widened and she gaped at the child in disbelief. “Wesley?”

He looked up at her nervously, as if somehow being identified as who he was would be enough to get him punished. “Yes.”

She turned to Giles. “But how…? I mean and…when…?”

“A present from Ethan,” Giles said succinctly. “Wesley opened the package meant for me by mistake.”

Buffy said: “Wesley doesn’t remember anything except being a child.”

He looked between them all in confusion and Willow hastily gave him a smile. “I’m Willow.”

“Pleased to meet you, Willow,” he said politely, shaking her hand.

“Cute munchkin, Buff,” Xander observed casually, eating an apple. “But where were you all morning? You know Snyder is always on the prowl for any wrongdoing.”

“Wesley meet Xander.” Buffy indicated the man.

Wesley took a step back, clearly intimidated, and then cautiously proffered a hand, murmuring shyly: “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

Xander blinked in confusion and hastily wiped the apple juice from his hand before taking hold of Wesley’s. “And you.” He slowly turned to Buffy. “Wait – did you say ‘Wesley’?” His eyes widened. “Wesley as in Wesley…?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes.”

Xander crouched down in front of the little boy who was regarding him nervously. “What the Dickens, Hawthorne, and Mark Twain happened to you?”

Wesley swallowed. “I think I was sent away. I was clumsy and Daddy was very angry with me. And then I woke up here. So I think I’m being punished, but I don’t mind…” He gazed up at Buffy. “I like it here.”

“You’re not being punished, Wesley.” She picked him up and sat him on her lap. He immediately gave a little sigh of contentment and curled against her, his head against her neck. “There was a spell and it turned you from the person you were here when you were here to the person you used to be when you…weren’t here.”

“Why was I here before…?” He frowned in confusion.

“You were helping Giles be my Watcher,” she said.

His already oversized eyes got even bigger as he lit up with excitement. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“They let me be a Watcher? Really?”

“Yes.” Giles winced inside as he saw how much it meant to this little boy. He had never wanted it like Wesley had obviously done. It had been something inflicted on him, a duty and responsibility he really had wanted. But to Wesley it really had been everything, a true raison d'être.

“But Daddy said…” He broke off, looking deflated.

“What did he say…?” Buffy enquired.

He squirmed against her, ducking his head and then whispered: “He said I wouldn’t be any good and I’d never get picked because I’m too stupid and clumsy and I don’t work hard enough.”

Over his head Buffy mouthed savagely at Giles: ‘There are no words for how much I hate his father.’

Giles sighed. “Well, you obviously did work hard enough, Wesley, because the Council sent you here to be Buffy’s Watcher.” There didn’t seem to be any point in confusing him by mentioning Faith right now.

Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “But I’m too little.”

“That’s the spell,” Buffy assured him. “The spell made you small again. Before that you were all…grown up.”

“Like Mr Giles.” Wesley darted a nervous glance at the older man.

“Not quite that grown up,” Buffy conceded. “But twenty-something.”

His eyes looked huge as he looked at Xander. “Like Mr Xander?”

Xander glanced across at Giles. “I really like this kid.”

“Xander’s only eighteen,” Buffy explained. “Like me and Willow.”

Wesley looked across at Willow and then blushed, snuggling in against Buffy more comfortably as he gazed at her; his thumb strayed towards his mouth and then he realized in horror what he was doing and quickly shoved his hand behind his back, looking around quickly to see if any of them had noticed. Buffy felt him tremble and quickly dropped a kiss into his hair, but his thin body was still quivering with the anxiety of almost having done something that was clearly very wrong. She turned to Giles: “So, the whole not killing humans thing, is that a rule or just a guideline?”

“Definitely a rule,” he said warningly.

As Willow pulled up a chair next to Buffy and began to gently ask Wesley questions, Xander drew Giles to one side and looked at him pointedly. “So – in the place of incredibly pompous Watcher guy we now have an incredibly thin kid. What gives…?”

Wearily, Giles explained about Ethan and his spell, while Xander kept darting glances across at the little boy curled up in Buffy’s protective grip.

“None of which explains why he’s so thin,” Xander pointed out.

“Well, English cooking will do that for a growing boy,” Giles sighed. “I’m sure we can reverse the spell. We really need to find Ethan. I imagine he’s still in town. He won’t be able to rest until he knows what went wrong with his plan.”

“What was his plan?”

Giles mentally worked out the date and the age he would have been if he had also lost eighteen years as Wesley had done. Grimacing, he realized that it would make him exactly the age he had been when he and Ethan had been at their most reckless and…companionable. Perhaps the only person on the planet who would have been impressed by the forty-something Ethan and his life as a shit-stirring chaos mage was the twenty-something idiot Giles had once been.

Giles loosened his tie. “Just – making mischief for the fun of it.”

When Oz walked in and the whole introducing of Wesley had to be gone through all over again, Giles decided it was going to be a very long day. Luckily Oz had never been big on asking for long complicated explanations and just said ‘cool’ then shook Wesley gravely by the hand.

The hubbub of so many of them all talking at once did not help his still-throbbing head. Nor did the sight of Wesley curled up on Buffy’s lap while she stroked his hair and looked as if only brute force was going to wrench him out of her grip. Clearly, Wesley’s father had been someone who tended to the strict discipline and long hours of study mode of parenthood as opposed to the cuddles and puppies school of parenting that Willow and Buffy evidently considered more appropriate. But in some ways he supposed the man had been justified by the results. Wesley had become Head Boy. He had been put on the Active Watcher list. He had been given two Slayers to Watch for. Perhaps that had happened only because of his upbringing.

Giles tried to tell himself that there was nothing wrong with strictness but it was hard to keep believing that when Wesley was so pathetically grateful for those cuddles from Buffy. It looked as if no one had ever hugged him before in his life. He had none of a little boy’s usual disdain of being fussed over, it was clear that this was a new and wonderful experience for him, and he was confused by it but absolutely basking in the attention. He was practically purring like a stray kitten that unexpectedly finds itself in a warm lap. Oz seemed to know that he needed to keep a distance from the boy, letting Wesley get used to him, and Xander, after the boy had flinched a couple of times when Xander spoke to him or got close to him, was being tactful about not looming as well.

In theory, they were all researching the amulet, but in practice Xander was feeding Wesley junk food in bite-sized amounts, holding out pieces of Snickers and inviting the boy to take it as if Wesley was some shy little creature he was hoping to tame; Oz was quietly intriguing the boy with laconic remarks, and Willow and Buffy were cooing over him while he gave his contented kitten impression and snuggled into Buffy as if she were the safest place in the world.

Giles suspected that quite apart from the novelty of having a remarkably well behaved, quiet and obedient little boy to play with, they were slacking off from the research in part because they had no interest in restoring Wesley to his adult form. They hadn’t liked the adult Wesley. They did like the child Wesley. He could see that Buffy felt the real mission here was to prevent the one from turning into the other; the exact opposite of what Giles knew he had to do, which was ensure that the adult version was restored.

If they left it too long it was going to feel as if they were somehow destroying the little boy who at the moment was a living breathing person that Buffy could hold in her arms. The truth was, of course, that that little boy had grown up many years ago; this was not the right timeline for him. Ethan had forced this regression on Wesley and in doing so undone all those years of…

All those years of what…? All those years of conditioning that had turned this nervous, scholarly, and perhaps over-serious, but undeniably sweet child into the pompous annoying little twerp who regularly drove them all up the wall? It was, on reflection, very difficult to see that as any kind of achievement. It was certainly not something of which either the Council or Wesley’s father had any reason to be proud.

He looked up in surprise as Wesley giggled and saw that Xander had won his trust enough to be able to tickle him with one forefinger. The boy clasped a hand over his mouth, evidently not thinking himself permitted to be noisy, but then giggled again as Xander said, “I knew you were ticklish. I can always tell…” and wiggled his finger between Wesley’s oversized shirt buttons to tickle his tummy. Wesley laughed out loud and then clamped his hands across his mouth again, but his eyes were shining and he looked more like a normal little boy than he had done all day. He began to giggle helplessly, squirming on Buffy’s lap as Xander tickled him, and then gave a peal of laughter and flung out his arm, knocking over Xander’s can of Coke.

Everyone snatched up the books while Willow shouted: “I’ve got it!” dabbing at the sticky liquid with a hankie. Everyone except Wesley who had gone white as death, shot one panic-stricken look at Giles, and then dived under the table.

Having seen the abject terror in his eyes, Giles felt abruptly sick. He saw Oz catch Willow by the arm as she made to get down to Wesley’s level and reassure him, giving an almost imperceptible nod of his head in Giles’s direction, while Xander caught Buffy’s arm and did the same. Buffy gave Xander a reproachful look, clearly wanting to dive straight after Wesley, but Xander also nodded at Giles.

Giles could almost taste the little boy’s fear in the air. Not knowing what to do or say, he walked over to where the Coke was still dripping onto the floor and said as gently as he could: “Wesley…?”

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry…” The boy was murmuring it in a breathless whisper.

Giles crouched down to his level and saw that Wesley had jammed himself under the table, hunched up, lips working as he kept repeating his apology, but as Giles appeared on his level, he flinched, tears sprang into his eyes, and he gave the man a look of panic-stricken fear.

Giles snatched a breath of his own. “Wesley, it’s all right. It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

“I spilled… on the books… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

“I know you didn’t.” Giles held out a hand to him. “Wesley, please come out.”

The look the boy gave him was still one of the terror, but he obeyed, of course; that was what he did. Giles realized with another sick lurch of comprehension that even if the boy believed he was going to be beaten he would still come out when he was told to because disobedience was not even to be thought of.

Wesley crawled out from under the table and stood up, shoulders hunched, and shaking violently. “I’m very s-sorry,” he whispered, the shaking making him stutter. “I d-didn’t mean to...” He was breathing much too fast, snatching the air into lungs working like a bellows as the panic attack took hold.

“I know…” Giles tried to keep his voice as gentle as he could when what he really wanted to do right now was get on a plane for England and go and punch Roger Wyndam-Pryce very hard. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Things get spilled sometimes. It happens.”

Wesley darted a terrified look at him, still shaking so hard Giles could hear his teeth chattering. He looked over at the staircase up to the stacks, his fingers clutching at his overlong sleeves as he clearly tried without success to stop himself from trembling. The door to the understairs cupboard seemed to be hypnotising him like some hideous monster under the bed.

“Please don’t…” Wesley gasped. “I promise I won’t… I’ll never do it again…”

Giles risked a look at the others and saw that Willow had tears in her eyes, Buffy looked torn between sobbing and punching someone, Oz was very still and Xander very shocked. The sound of Wesley’s teeth chattering was now even more audible, and Giles abruptly reached out, picked the boy up and held him. Wesley started to cry, silently, in fear of the punishment he thought was coming. Giles could hear his heart hammering against him, his thin warm little body reverberating with terror.

Rubbing his back very gently as he carried him to his office, Giles said again: “I’m not angry, Wesley. You didn’t do anything wrong. No one is angry with you.”

The boy gave a little whimper of fear as they passed the staircase and Giles wondered if he even wanted to know what the boy thought he was going to do to him. He carried him into the office and then set him down very carefully so he was sitting on his desk. Then he reached into his drawer – a stupid move, he realized, as soon as he’d made it as, of course, the boy thought he was reaching for a cane or ruler and more of those strangled sobs of fear spilled from his throat – and produced a packet of chocolate digestives. As the boy gazed at him in confused terror, Giles took a biscuit out of the packet, broke it in half and put one half between Wesley’s fingers, saying again, very gently: “No one is angry with you, Wesley. Now, be a good boy and eat your biscuit and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea.”

Wesley gulped in confusion a few times, swallowing sobs, while Giles filled the kettle and put it onto boil, very aware of those huge blue eyes watching every move he made. Inside he was thinking: ‘Wyndam-Pryce, you son of a bitch, what did you do to this poor child?’ Out loud he said: “Do you want sugar in your tea, Wesley?”

He turned to find the boy still gazing at him, the half a biscuit still clutched in his fingers. Wesley gulped a few more times and then whispered: “Yes, please.”

Giles exhaled in relief. At least the boy had stopped hyperventilating before he went into shock; that was something.

“Milk…?”

Wesley snatched another almost normal breath and managed another whispered: “Yes, please.”

Giles poured out the tea, making sure the boy’s had two heaped spoonfuls of sugar to help with the shock, and lots of milk so he could drink it down quickly. “Here you are.”

It clattered in the saucer as Wesley took it, and Giles gently took the saucer from him and, as the tea began to slosh like a millpond in his shaky little fingers, held the cup to his lips so he could sip. Wesley gulped down the tea gratefully, his long thick lashes wet with tears, still shuddering with the aftershocks of his fear. Giles helped him to drink his tea, eat his now half-melted half a biscuit, then took him to the bathroom, waited outside as he relieved himself and washed his hands, then suggested that perhaps he should settle down in the sickbed in the corner and have a nap.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “What if I wake up somewhere else?”

“You won’t,” Giles promised him. “You’ll wake up here, and I’ll be here, I promise.” He unlaced the boy’s shoes for him and then posted him into the bed, covered him with a tartan blanket and then walked out to where the others were still sitting in horrified silence.

Buffy said quietly: “Now do I get to kill his father?”

Giles sighed. “I’m afraid not, Buffy.”

Xander breathed: “Did you see how scared he was?”

Willow had evidently been crying in silent sympathy with Wesley’s fear and Oz had his arm around her. “Not the best advert for the English way of child-rearing,” Oz said quietly.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to find a way to restore Wesley to his proper form and…”

“No, we need to make sure it stops!” Buffy said furiously. “We need to make sure that Wesley never has to go back to the people who did this to him! We need to make sure he grows up with normal people and normal human kindness and…”

“And it’s too late for that,” Giles told her sharply. “Face it, Buffy. Wesley is twenty-six years old. Whatever happened to him has already happened. It’s in his past now and we can’t do anything about it. That little boy in there isn’t the child it was done to. He’s an adult who has been regressed to that age and has the memories of being that age, but he isn’t the little boy who…”

“Say it, Giles,” Buffy demanded as Giles stuttered over finishing that sentence. “Say he isn’t the little boy who, because he spilled some soft drink on the table, is so terrified that he can’t even speak.”

Giles snatched another steadying breath. “We need to undo what Ethan did. We need to give Wesley his real life back.”

“He doesn’t have to be the way he is! He could be…!”

“He is the way he is and it’s his right to be who he is. Wesley is a grown man.”

Buffy gazed at him in disbelief. “Don’t you even care?”

Giles felt something inside himself perilously close to snapping. He lowered his voice still further to say shortly: “Of course I care. If Roger sodding Wyndam-Pryce were here right now I would punch his bloody head in. But he isn’t here and everything that was done to Wesley was done eighteen years ago.” As she continued to look at him as if he was callous, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you understand, even now? Wesley wanted to be a Watcher. That’s what he studied for. That’s what he went through all that misery and cramming and not spilling orange juice on the furniture for. All that little boy wants to be when he grows up is what he is already is – active Watcher to an active Slayer.”

Buffy ran a hand through her hair. “You mean the active Slayer who nearly crushed his ribcage because she was feeling tetchy during training?”

Giles sighed. “I can’t excuse what you did but I will say that you’ve been given a chance to make amends and I suggest you take it.” He pushed a book towards her. “And that means finding a way to reverse this spell.”

For a moment they all looked mutinous and then Willow sighed and sat down, followed by Oz and then Xander and lastly Buffy. Reluctantly, the books were opened again, the amulet examined, pencils began to scratch on paper.

Giles went back into the office to take a look at the boy; not at all surprised to find that he was already fast asleep, long black lashes still wet with tears, thumb slipped into his mouth for comfort. He tried not to think about making this child cease to exist. That wasn’t what they were doing. This child had existed eighteen years ago and was now a grown man with a right to have his life back; that was what he needed to hang onto. He looked down at the boy and tried to see the adult Wesley in him, and it was a shock abruptly to realize that the mouth was the same, and the line of the jaw. This must be what his hair was really like when not tamed with brylcreem; unruly clipped dark locks that wanted to spring out from his head into a soft short shock of bed-hair.

With a sinking feeling as he looked down at the small boy and for the first time saw all the ways in which he really was Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, he wondered if, to the adult Wesley, they had seemed like only the latest in a long line of bullies; and if Giles, as the one who most closely resembled Wesley’s father, had seemed like the biggest bully of them all.

***

Wesley was tentatively drinking chocolate milk and working on some Latin translation when Snyder walked in. Wesley had slept for a few hours in which time Giles had persuaded Buffy and the others to go back to their classes, promising that he would take care of the boy and they could come and see him again after school. He really wanted to avoid Buffy taking Wesley home with her if possible. He thought Joyce would take his side when he explained that the adult Wesley had been the victim of a spell and would undoubtedly want to be returned to his normal age, but he couldn’t be sure. Willow had certainly sided with Buffy in the time it took for the child Wesley to give her a look of shy adoration from those ridiculously big blue eyes. Both Oz and Xander had looked down their nose at Giles for not wanting to effectively kidnap the child and bring him up secretly far away from the Watcher’s Council and his father. If Joyce sided with Buffy and Willow, he was not going to be able to overwhelm her with his authority as an adult in a way he might – possibly – be able to do with Buffy and the others. He wasn’t sure that even Joyce was going to be proof against the underfed affection-starved cry to mothering instincts that Wesley represented in his current form.

When Giles mentioned the rights of the adult Wesley, their argument was that they were looking out for those rights when planning to bring him up to be a sensible well-adjusted and happy member of society instead of a screwed up, uptight, socially-retarded Watcherlite. Thinking about how sweet the child Wesley was and how annoying the adult Wesley was Giles had so far found it a little difficult to counter that argument.

Giles had found that the boy was so unused to having time off that he started to fret if not given some kind of lessons. Wesley was programmed to be working and trying to not be any trouble and possibly earn a few crumbs of longed-for praise. He knew Buffy and Xander would probably have insisted on taking the boy off to a playground but he felt that might be too much of a culture shock for someone used to ten hours of lessons a day so had found the easiest text he had in Latin and given him that to translate to occupy him.

Snyder now took one look at the child, curled his lip in disgust, and said to Giles: “We have a policy of no pets in the school grounds.”

Giles gave Snyder a Look that would have made even Buffy back down and said crisply: “This is my nephew. He’s staying with me for a few days. I thought it would be instructive for him to see the American educational system.”

Snyder sniffed and looked around the library. “Where’s your new ‘assistant’?”

Giles thought the man could hardly have made the inverted commas clearer but refused to rise to the bait. “He’s attending a rare book fair.”

“I don’t see why we need an assistant librarian for a library where the only children who ever come in are the troublemakers like Summers and the halfwits like Harris.”

“Willow has also been known to use the library from time to time,” Giles pointed out, keeping an eye on Snyder in case he went near Wesley. The little boy was still working on his translation in between very quietly drinking his chocolate milk, savouring each sip the way he savoured every cuddle from Buffy and Willow. Giles knew very well that Nesquik was available in England, as was Ribena, but apparently they had not found their way to Wesley’s schoolroom.

“Now Rosenberg at least shows some sparks of normality. You should be encouraging her to dump her loser deadbeat friends.”

Giles mentally counted to ten as Snyder moved behind Wesley to look at what he was doing.

“Is there something I can help you with, Principal Snyder?” he enquired.

Snyder peered at what Wesley was doing and then frowned. “Are you a practising Satanist?” he demanded.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “No, sir.”

“What are you writing?”

Wesley swallowed. “I’m translating some Suetonius, sir.”

“What language is that?”

“Latin, sir.”

“Satanists use Latin.” Snyder glowered at the child. “I know you’re never too young to be playing your records backwards and pledging yourselves to Lucifer. What does that say?”

Haltingly, Wesley began to read out each word: "Suscepto… igitur… civili… bello… ac… ducibus….”

Snyder looked around suspiciously, as if expecting the Goat of Mendes to appear. “All right, that’s enough of that.”

Giles loomed over him in what he hoped could in no way be mistaken for anything other than a threat. “If you’ve quite finished quizzing my nephew, Principal Snyder, I do have rather a lot of work to be getting on with.”

Snyder gave Wesley’s translation a last suspicious look and then walked out, muttering that he knew ‘Summers’ was around here somewhere.

Given the trouble Wesley had been given by reading the words aloud, Giles wondered if he had set him much too difficult a task but when he looked over his shoulder he saw that he had written a translation in his childish but confident hand that was remarkably accurate.

"Having begun the civil war, and having sent officers and troops into Italy before him, in the meanwhile he went across to Alexandria, to accept the keys of Egypt."

Giles couldn’t help wondering exactly how much the child knew. “Can you translate that into Greek? Don’t worry, if you can’t. I’m just curious as to how far you’ve got with your studies.”

“Yes, Mr. Giles. Do you have a Greek dictionary I could use?”

“Yes.” Giles picked the book off the shelf and then hesitated. “Wesley, what dictionaries do you usually use in your lessons?”

“Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and German.”

Giles picked up the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and carried them back to the table. He wondered why he had never asked the adult Wesley what exactly he knew. So irritated by what he conspicuously didn’t know and wouldn’t admit he didn’t have – experience in the field – that it hadn’t occurred to him to find out just how useful Wesley was capable of being. He could in no way approve of the punishing schedule of lessons to which this child had been subjected by his clearly stern – and quite possibly even cruel – father, but it had certainly been more intensive than even Giles’ own system of learning.

On a whim he carried through a tower of books and put them on the table. “Wesley, leave that translation for a moment. Can you tell me which of these books you have at home?”

Wesley looked at the books carefully and pointed them out. “That one. And that one. And this one. I don’t know that one. I’m not allowed to touch that one.” He put his hands behind his back as he said it and Giles looked at the volume to check. It was a guide to demons with some particularly grisly woodcuts. It was also extremely rare and valuable. He wished he could believe it was off Wesley’s reading list because of the first attribute rather than the second, but somehow thought Wyndam-Pryce senior more the type to think that it would just be molly-coddling a boy to protect him from pictures of hideous demons eating the entrails of screaming victims.

Wesley went on picking out books which showed that he was currently studying the languages he had mentioned plus cuneiform, was apparently expected to recognize Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and to have at least a working knowledge of some of the simpler demonic alphabets. This was a level of study Giles had not reached until he was twice Wesley’s age. But then, of course, Giles’s father had been a responsible, kindly and sane man who did not resent his son having a childhood, even if it had not always felt like that at the time. Giles thought back to the resentment he had felt at having his destiny dumped into his lap at the tender age of ten. At the time he had thought his father selfish in the extreme to have robbed him of the rest of his childhood. Now he was grateful for the years he had been left in blissful ignorance. Roger Wyndam-Pryce seemed to have been standing over his child’s crib since he was born, with a stopwatch in one hand and a cane in the other, demanding that Wesley grew up at once and knew everything that an adult would know.

Wesley had also confirmed that he wasn’t prohibited from contact with the grislier books because of their contents, only their value, as he continued to point out those with which he was familiar. Some of them had some very nasty accounts in them of things vampires had done to their victims.

“Do you have ever have nightmares?” Giles asked.

Wesley’s eyes widened. “No,” he said at once. “Never. Only cry-babies have nightmares.”

Giles felt another of those hot spikes of anger and took a moment to collect himself before saying carefully: “What happens to cry-babies who have nightmares?”

“They have to f-face their fears.” The boy’s lip trembled and his eyes were full of fears that did not seem to have been banished by being faced.

“How would they do that, Wesley?”

At once the boy’s gaze darted to the stairs and the cupboard underneath them. Giles had to think about it for a moment and then thought he understood. It bothered him more than he could say that it really didn’t take him that long to put himself into the mindset of Wesley’s father. “Do they have to – become used to the dark…?”

Wesley nodded mutely.

“I see.” Just for a moment – and it really was a moment – Giles thought about paying Ethan to go and do something very chaotic to Roger Wyndam-Pryce, and then reminded himself that he was one of the good guys and Ethan was one of the bad guys and he absolutely could not descend to his level, however tempting it might be.

“How do they become used to the dark, Wesley?”

Wesley swallowed and tears sprang into his eyes again. He bowed his head and whispered: “They have to go under the stairs.”

Giles closed his eyes, understanding some of the boy’s paralysed terror of earlier. Because what was more reasonable when a little boy was afraid of the dark than to terrorize it out of him by locking him up with the shadows and the spiders, and presumably punishing him even more cruelly if he dared to have hysterics or beg to be released?

He came to a decision and rose to his feet. “Wesley, would you like to go to the park?”

Wesley looked up at him in shock and then at the clock. “Isn’t it…lesson time…?”

“I have a headache and I’d like some fresh air. Would you like some fresh air?”

Wesley looked at the doors to the library and then back at Giles. “Yes, please.”

Giles held out his hand. “Come on then.”

Shyly Wesley put his hand into Giles’ and then gazed up at him, still a little fearful but with a glimmer of hope behind it that Giles might not actually be going to tell him off or punish him if he did something wrong. In another child that would not have seemed like much of a breakthrough, but with Wesley Giles could only look on it as something of a personal triumph.

***

Giles felt they had done rather well. He and Wesley had visited the park and eaten ice creams with only moderate spillage on to their clothing and a much briefer-than-usual spasm of blank-eyed terror from the little boy at the upset before he had listened to what Giles was gently telling him and realized that he wasn’t going to be punished for the fact that ice cream melted in the sun and gravity pulled things downwards. Giles had side-stepped not being an ogre rather neatly he thought by segueing into talking to Wesley about gravity and how it worked, meaning that the poor child didn’t suffer too much of a shock to his world view while out with a tweedy male authority figure. He discovered that Wesley actually knew rather a lot about a number of things, but didn’t cope well with being put on the spot. If he was just left alone he could recount what he knew quite well but any suggestion that he was being asked to perform in front of others and he started to gibber. Giles had learned that by trial and error. The information was in Wesley’s head but direct questioning made the boy freeze up.

After a couple of false starts when he had tried to ascertain what Wesley knew about Sumerian culture and the Rosetta Stone and had reduced the poor child to blushing, fumbling incoherence, he had learned to be a little more lateral in his approach. After the gravity conversation Giles had essayed a hopefully casual: ‘Now, was it Newton or Einstein who was obsessed with alchemy, I always forget…?’ Which disclosed the fact that Wesley actually knew rather a lot about Newton and alchemy and how it related to spell-casting, and – when eating an ice cream in a sunny park – could talk about it quite coherently whereas if Giles had demanded that he explained it he had no doubt that the boy would have gone to pieces.

They had eaten in a MacDonalds where it had taken a little while for Wesley to comprehend the concept of ‘you can order anything you like’. Giles thought about what that said about Wesley’s father, who certainly wasn’t going to be needing to sell off the family silver to get his roof repaired any time soon, that the eight year old Wesley knew how to hex a demon in ancient Aramaic but didn’t understand the concept of being able to order any dessert from the menu however much it might cost.

They had visited a book shop where Wesley had been persuaded after a little bit of verbal sleight of hand from Giles that it was all right for him to go and pick out five books that were just to be read for enjoyment because this was a special treat and anyway, Wesley had completed all his studies already, years before, and become a grown up, and been made a Watcher, so was surely entitled to the reward of a few books. He had picked them with as much care as if these were the only books he was ever going to be allowed to have in his life that weren’t connected with schoolwork, and then brought his selection to Giles in some trepidation, presumably in case Giles thought they were frivolous or showed signs of being the choices of a bedwetting cry-baby who would have to go into the under the stairs cupboard to learn a little more about being a man. Giles presumed that at some point in the future he would stop being angry about the under the stairs cupboard thing, just not at any time soon. He was also upset to realize that if the adult Wesley had mentioned in passing his father’s idea of fitting discipline he would just have thought Wesley was whining again; thinking of the adult; not fully taking on board that even annoying twenty-six year olds really had once been frightened little eight year olds.

Giles had then realized that he had also qualified as a Watcher and was therefore also entitled to buy some books and did so, realizing that he also never bought books just to read for fun, or to read aloud to small children for fun, and it was perhaps high time that he did both of those things.

Once the idea had occurred to him, he realized that there were a vast number of books that he had enjoyed when he was a child and thought that he would definitely enjoy reading aloud to another child – The Narnia books, Alan Garner, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Silver Sword, E. Nesbit, The Otterbury Incident, Stig of the Dump, even – rather shamefacedly – some of the books his cousin Emily had loaned him when he was staying with her parents, such as – shame of shames – Ballet Shoes, most of which had been written by, well, girls. E. Nesbit, he remembered, had always been acceptable as no one knew what the ‘E’ stood for so one could pretend it was Eric or Ernest rather than Edith.

That settled it. Even if Buffy did call in reinforcements in the shape of Joyce, Wesley was coming home with him that night. Now decided, Giles went shopping for pyjamas and a toothbrush. He had just put their books and other purchases in the boot of his car when he noticed the toyshop. It wasn’t Hamley’s but it was big and brightly painted.

“Did you have a teddy bear, Wesley?” he asked.

Wesley nodded. “Yes. Cuthbert. I don’t suppose I still have him, do I?”

Giles thought it unlikely. “Well, just in case you don’t, shall we try to find something similar?”

Wesley looked confused. “How?”

Giles nodded at the toyshop and Wesley looked as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “But it isn’t Christmas.”

“No.”

“And it doesn’t help one to become a good Watcher to play with a lot of silly toys.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Giles was starting to enjoy himself. “But I think we should do it anyway.”

He personally thought that it would have been worth paying a great deal more than even the rather large amount he ended up expending in the toyshop just to see the look on Wesley’s face as he was led into a place piled high with pointless frivolity and told that he could choose a birthday present.

“But it’s not my birthday.”

“Well, it is your birthday one day this year and I may not be around for it, so go and choose something.”

They looked all through the toyshop and Giles noticed a number of things that he thought might be entertaining and many games he hadn’t played in a long time. Wesley gazed at the Playmobil castle and knights on horses for a while, looking as if he had time-slipped from the Victorian age rather than the 70s, it was clearly so remote from his experience of being a child. It obviously didn’t occur to him even for an instant that he could have something that expensive and he looked at the card games instead, although his gaze kept going back wistfully to the castle. Meanwhile, Giles had found a set of draughts in the proper wooden box, Snakes & Ladders, Ludo, Cluedo, and Monopoly, all of which he piled into his shopping trolley. He added a very grand kite in the shape of a Chinese dragon.

When he looked up he saw that Wesley was gazing at the Playmobil castle again, which had been set out on a table to entice children to play with it. Giles noticed that as well as the castle there were a number of knights on horses, various royalty, wizards, ghosts, and a cave for the wizard to mix up his potions. Wesley watched two other children playing a wonderful game of storming the castle with the attacking knights for a while, looking more and more wistful. Giles watched him examine the game carefully and then look back at Giles, and held his breath wondering if Wesley was going to take him at his word and ask for the castle. He crossed his fingers behind his back and could barely contain a smile as Wesley walked up to him, looking nervous.

“Did you find something…?” he asked in his most encouraging tone.

“Yes. Can I…?” Wesley faltered and then swallowed and then abruptly held out two small boxes, both of which contained a Playmobil jousting knight on a horse. “Could I have two knights so they can fight each other?”

Giles looked at his anxious face at what he clearly thought was a very risky request that could well lead to a scolding.

“Or I could just have one,” Wesley said hastily.

Giles took the knights from him and said, “Two is fine. In fact – more than two would also be fine. In fact, come with me – ” He took Wesley by the hand and led him over to where the bank of mediaeval Playmobil figures were stacked up ten feet high, picked up the largest castle he could find, and put it in the shopping trolley. Wesley watched him open-mouthed.

“A whole castle…?” he breathed.

“Someone’s having a special birthday.” Giles turned to see a woman regarding the heaped trolley with a smile.

“He works very hard all the year,” Giles explained. “He deserves a little fun. In fact, he deserves more fun than any child I’ve ever met.”

Giles noticed that as well as the castle he had selected, and the wizard with his potions in his cave, there were siege towers, catapults, a drawbridge, special sections of the castle wall that gave way when catapulted, a round tower, a guard tower, a battle tower, a castle gate, mediaeval houses, jousting equipment, a ghost, all kinds of knights with and without jousting equipment and various weaponry, a dragon that fitted – so the box assured him – the dungeon of the castle, and a dragon-slaying knight with a horse with extra special battle armour. They all went into the trolley. Next to that was a much twee-er fairy tale castle with various equally twee dining rooms and bedchambers, which he thought would be rather fun to overrun with marauding plastic clip-together mercenaries. He had no shame about also plundering from that section a magic tree, a crystal cage, a unicorn, an oak tree with a secret hideaway, and various small plastic royals who could be either defended or have their heads lopped off depending on whether Wesley felt like overturning hereditary tyrannies or bravely defending the monarchy in any given game. It was a matter of seconds to add a magical fairy bower.

Giles beamed across at Wesley. “Well, that’s the equipment for your Middle Ages studies sorted out. Now, I think Viking Culture would also be important. There are a lot of excellent curses and spell reversals hidden in Viking runes.”

Wesley was still gazing at the heaped trolley in disbelief. “You can’t buy all of it,” he protested.

“I can do what I like,” Giles assured him. “One of the benefits of being a grown up.”

“But it’s too much.” Wesley reached out to touch the castle and then moved his fingers back.

Now whistling nonchalantly, Giles added a Viking Longboat, Viking Longhouse, Viking Camp, a smaller boat, a superbly green sea serpent and various assorted Vikings. “There you go. All historically accurate, I have no doubt. Shall we find the checkout?”

Wesley took his outstretched hand automatically but his eyes were still the size of saucers and he kept looking between Giles and the heaped trolley in disbelief. Giles felt his small fingers grip his more tightly as they got closer and closer to the checkout, looking up at Giles as if he was trying to decipher the language in which he was written.

The sales assistant’s eyes widened a little at the sight of so many toys but she began to ring them up while Wesley watched each one go through in silent amazement.

Giles refused to flinch at the eighteen hundred dollars total. It was absolutely worth it to see Wesley’s expression. The little boy still did not seem quite convinced that they really were buying all these toys. Only when Giles had solemnly wheeled them out to the car park and was lifting carrier bag after carrier bag into the boot of the car, did Wesley seem to believe it.

“You spent all that money,” he gasped.

“I missed your other birthdays,” Giles pointed out.

Wesley was doing frantic maths in his head. “But that still makes two hundred and twenty five dollars per birthday!”

“Not if you divide it by twenty-six,” Giles pointed out, closing the boot and opening the passenger door for him.

Wesley struggled in silence with the maths for that until they were pulling out the carpark before squeaking, “But that’s still about seventy dollars for each birthday!”

“Doesn’t that sound about right?” Giles enquired.

“But you spent it on toys!”

“Is there something you would rather have?” Giles remembered the teddy bear. “Damn – I mean – drat – I was going to get you a teddy bear…”

Before he could turn the car round, Wesley said, “No, please, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”

He seemed quite panicked by so much money having been spent on him; the action so very much a departure from the proper order of things that he couldn’t seem to comprehend it, darting worried looks at Giles who he was perhaps now mentally consigning to the realm of the insane.

Giles drove them to the adult Wesley’s apartment. “Let’s see what you brought with you, shall we?”

Wesley looked nervous about entering what was to him obviously a very scary place, sticking close to Giles who had to admit to feeling rather pleased that the boy was now using him as a buffer between scary things and himself rather than treating Giles as if he were one of the scary things the world contained.

The room was Spartan and very neat. The adult Wesley had clearly not burdened himself with too many possessions either, but there were some books, one of them a dog-eared copy of The Once and Future King which Wesley pounced upon eagerly. He opened it with trembling fingers and then gave a little cry of surprise as he saw his name written neatly in the flyleaf.

Feeling a little like a trespasser, Giles opened the suitcase and had a look inside. “I’d really like a photograph to show you,” he explained. “So you can see what you look like as an adult.”

That wasn’t entirely the truth. He wanted a photograph of the adult Wesley to remind himself that while this child version existed the adult one did not; he was lost in the limbo of Ethan’s spell. Giles very much feared they were all going to need reminding of their obligations to that adult version before too long.

The suitcase contained very little; reference books, notebooks, nothing else. Giles opened the wardrobe and found that Wesley had his one suit hung up in it next to three neatly pressed shirts. Rummaging in his chest of drawers produced some underwear, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that it was hard to imagine the stuffed shirt of the library ever wearing. In his shoulder bag there were a few crucifixes, two stakes, and three bottles of holy water, an address book, in which were three photographs, and a very battered-looking teddy bear.

“Cuthbert!” Wesley fell on the teddy bear joyously and hugged him.

Giles was thinking: That pompous annoying little twerp that I find so irritating was once the little boy whose father used to lock him in the dark, who never had a proper childhood, and who still loves his teddy bear. For some completely illogical reason the realization that Wesley had kept his teddy bear made him feel ten times worse about his lack of patience with the young man.

Wesley giggled and Giles sat down next to him. “What is it?”

Wesley held up Cuthbert and Giles saw that the bear had a little shoulder-bag of his own. Wesley peered into it and then pulled out a tiny crucifix and miniature perfume bottle onto which a label with a large black cross had been stuck.

“Did you make him that?” Giles enquired, smiling.

Wesley shook his head. “Not me – me. When Uncle Richard gave him to me he didn’t have a bag with him. He was much fluffier the last time I saw him too.” He examined the bear critically, small fingers stroking the bare patches. Cuthbert looked like a bear who had been very well loved.

The photographs showed one of a group of people in formal wear evidently on their way to a dance. Wesley looked very much as Giles knew him and he held it out for the little boy to see. “That’s you, Wesley. That’s what you look like – grown up.”

Wesley gazed at the photograph a little fearfully and then in some relief. “I don’t look like Daddy,” he said after a moment. He went on gazing at it. “I look more like Uncle Richard.”

“Is Uncle Richard nice?” Giles prompted hopefully.

Wesley looked up at him out of troubled eyes. “He was very nice, but then he died.” His lip trembled for a moment and then he said quietly: “Boys don’t cry. Only girls cry.”

“Boys cry all the time,” Giles told him. “So do men. There’s nothing wrong with feeling grief at the loss of someone we love. It would be worse to not feel anything.”

“A vampire killed him. Mummy said he didn’t suffer. Daddy said he was very brave. He said that it’s important to be brave.” Wesley looked up at Giles and whispered: “I’m not very brave. I don’t like pain and I get scared.” He winced as he made the admission, steeling himself to do it. “Sometimes I get very scared.”

Giles said hoarsely: “You’re eight years old, Wesley. You live in a world where you know there are demons and vampires. Of course you get scared. Everyone gets scared. I get scared all the time, that something’s going to happy to Buffy or Willow or one of the other children, or to me.”

They looked at the other photographs together; one of a middle-aged couple; the woman pretty but thickening around the waist and with a timid expression; the man unmistakably the Roger Wyndam-Pryce Giles had met in London.

“Mummy and Daddy.” Wesley gazed at the photograph for a moment and then sighed and put it away.

The last one was one of Wesley in cricket whites in front of wicket. He looked about fifteen, gawky, narrow, with unruly dark hair, an expression of great concentration on his face. Wesley turned the photograph over and saw a press clipping sellotaped to it. It made reference to the lower sixth having won a victory over the touring team from another school. Wyndam-Pryce had apparently bowled out six men and scored a hundred and twenty runs.

Wesley smiled as he read through the clipping and beamed up at Giles. “I can play cricket!”

“You can do lots of things.” Giles looked around the Spartan room.

“What other things can I do?” Wesley asked.

Giles grimaced internally: Fold at the first sign of pressure; make an idiot of yourself over women; put people’s backs up for your country; follow orders from people across the sea who have no idea about the situation we’re dealing with….

Wesley’s face fell. “I can’t do anything, can I?”

“Of course you can.” Giles put the photographs away carefully. “You’re a Watcher, remember? Not to mention you were Head Boy of your school.”

“Head Boy?” Wesley gazed at him wide-eyed. “Really?”

“Really,” Giles assured him.

There was another pause before Wesley said very tentatively: “Do you…like me…? The big me…?”

Giles didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Mentally he was adding I do now, but he had spoken with such emphasis that the boy was reassured. He gazed up at Giles for a moment, lit up with pleasure, and then had to duck his head in embarrassment to hide a pleased little smile.

Giles found he needed a moment to get his voice back under control and then he said brightly: “Shall we go and find Buffy? Introduce her to Cuthbert?”

Wesley smiled at that idea and then faltered looking at the bear. “Mr Giles…?”

“Yes, Wesley…?”

“Do you think Willow will think I’m silly for still having a teddy bear…?”

Giles wasn’t sure if Wesley meant that ‘still’ to refer to the grown up Wesley or the one who had attained the grand old age of eight. Either way he was quite certain that Willow would not think it silly at all. He was very much afraid that she would find it adorable.

“I think you’re safe,” he told him and got a smile in return that he had to admit he found absurdly sweet.

When they walked out of the apartment, Wesley slipped his hand into Giles’ without needing to be prompted, and with Wesley carrying his shoulder bag with Cuthbert safely secured inside it, they drove back to the school in companionable silence.

***

“Giles, where the hell have you been?”

Giles stopped in his tracks as he stepped into the Library and was confronted by a furious Buffy, still with the phone in her hand. Willow was standing next to her also looking most uncharacteristically cross. Oz gave Giles a rueful ‘you’re in it now and I can’t help you’ grimace while Xander just shook his head.

“Boy, are you in trouble….” he observed.

Buffy slammed the phone back down onto the handset. “Big trouble.”

Giles gently eased Wesley into the room so the doors could swing closed behind him, the little boy gazing up at him with big scared eyes. “They’re not cross with you,” Giles assured him.

“Wesley…!” Buffy threw herself across the room and scooped the little boy into her arms, giving Giles another glare as she carried him over to the Library table. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She sat him down on the table and began to gently pat him for injuries.

Wesley nodded up at her, wide-eyed. “I’m very well, thank you, Buffy.”

“Giles, how could you just take him off like that without leaving a note?” Willow demanded. “We didn’t know where you were. Buffy’s been going crazy. We sent Xander round to your house, but you weren’t there. We were calling and calling!”

Buffy glared at Giles. “If you’ve been making Wesley do stupid Watcher lessons…”

“We went to the park,” Wesley told her quickly, clearly worried about Giles getting into trouble. “Mr Giles bought me ice cream.”

Buffy looked slightly mollified although she was still stroking Wesley’s hair.

“I need to hug him,” Willow explained, putting her arms around the little boy and hugging him as gently as if he was made from crystal.

Wesley went bright red with happiness and gazed up at Willow in shy adoration.

“Would you like to introduce them to Cuthbert?” Giles suggested. The little boy was already blushing up to his ears, so he thought he could hardly blush any more.

Shyly, Wesley produced Cuthbert from the adult Wesley’s shoulder bag that he had insisted on slinging over his own diminutive body. As expected, at the killer combination of cute child shyly proffering very battered teddy bear, Willow practically melted. She took the teddy bear, made little squealing noises about his cuteness, then noticed the little Watcher bag with its contents and was entirely lost to all normal speech for at least a minute.

“Cuthbert is a very cool name for a bear,” Oz observed.

Wesley lit up once again at some praise and then lowered his head to hide how happy that had made him.

Buffy picked Wesley back up and deposited him on her lap, presumably so that Giles couldn’t make another dash for the hills with him. “You can’t have been at the park all afternoon…?” She felt Wesley’s forehead. “You weren’t there all day, were you? Because it was hot and you don’t have a hat and…”

“No, we just had ice cream and then we fed the ducks and then we had lunch in a Mac-Something place.” Wesley beamed up at her as Xander solemnly shook Cuthbert by the hand.

“Look at the teeny weeny holy water bottle!” Willow showed it to him.

Oz smiled at the contents of the bag along with Xander. “That is beyond cool,” Oz observed.

“Did you make this yourself?” Xander asked.

Wesley looked around casually. “I suppose so, but not yet. Maybe I did it when I went to boarding school.” He looked at Giles. “I did go to boarding school, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Giles assured him.

Wesley smiled. “Good. I was looking forward to that.”

They all exchanged a look while Giles thought grimly: I bet you were. It got you away from Daddy.

Buffy was still glaring at Giles. “You didn’t make him do lessons, did you? Because if you did I may have to do something we’ll both regret.”

Wesley looked up anxiously. “We went to a bookshop and Mr Giles bought me some books.”

“School books?” Buffy enquired.

“Reading-for-fun books.” Wesley struggled a bit over the ‘reading-for-fun’ idea; it was clearly a novel concept to him.

“Were they in English?” Willow pressed.

Wesley nodded, adding in surprise: “All of them.”

Giles met Buffy’s eye over Wesley’s head. “Apparently, he was only allowed to read Winnie the Pooh in Latin.”

“You look hungry to me, Wesley.” Xander examined him critically. “I think you need chocolate.”

“Chocolate?” Wesley looked shocked at the idea. “But it’s not my birthday.”

“Well, you’re in a different country now,” Xander explained. “With different customs and culture, so you need to join in with those different customs or you could risk offending the natives. Over here, small boys eat Snickers bars at regular intervals. Otherwise they can’t have the requisite sugar rush that makes them run around being very noisy and climbing on the furniture.” Xander held out his hands and Willow, Oz, and Buffy all contributed their change.

Wesley watched wide-eyed as Xander went off to feed the snack dispenser. “I’m not allowed to climb on the furniture.” He looked genuinely worried that that might be required of him. “And I’m not supposed to make any noise unless I have a question.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “Because God forbid you should just get to talk like a normal child.”

Wesley looked downcast. “You don’t think I’m normal?”

Buffy looked into his eyes. “I think you’re adorable.” She pulled him into a hug, rocking him in her arms and then gazed up at Giles in renewed indignation. “How could you just run off with him like that? Didn’t you know we’d be worried sick?”

“I was actually thinking about Wesley.” He went to put the kettle on so as to avoid the reproachful eyes from Willow and Buffy. “I didn’t realize you were going to call out the Coast Guard because I decided to take him to the park.”

“And MacDonalds.” Oz gave Giles a sly look.

Giles couldn’t quite conceal a smile. “All right, and MacDonalds and a bookshop and a toyshop. But then we went back to Wesley’s apartment to collect a few of his things.”

“Back up…” Xander ordered imperiously, coming in with an armful of assorted unhealthy snack food which he dumped onto the table. “Did I hear the word ‘toyshop’ in there?”

“We may have paid a brief visit, yes.”

Xander turned to Wesley. “Did Uncle Giles buy you something in a toyshop, Wesley?”

Wesley looked at Giles. “Am I allowed to tell?”

Giles smiled. “Yes, Wesley.”

Wesley looked at Buffy. “You won’t be cross with him?”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “That depends on whether or not he bought you a bunch of boring educational toys or if he bought you something…fun.”

“He spent rather a lot of money.” Wesley winced in anticipation of her wrath. “I told him not to.”

“You did.” Giles came out with the tea and handed it round. “You did your absolute best to stop me but I wouldn’t listen to reason.”

Xander looked at Giles sideways. “Giles, did you forget to be stuffy and British while in charge of a credit card?”

Giles sighed in mock regret. “I’m afraid I did.”

Xander jumped off the table and held out a hand. “Car keys. Me like toys. Me want to see toys. Me want to play with toys.”

As Xander ran off in the direction of Giles’ car, Wesley called after him diffidently: “You may need a…trolley…”

“‘Trolley’…? Like a shopping cart…?” Willow turned to Giles. “How crazy did you go…?”

Giles shrugged. “I did miss twenty-six of Wesley’s birthdays.” He handed him his cup of weak, milky sweet tea and the boy accepted it gratefully.

Buffy accepted her tea from Giles. “I’m debating whether or not to start liking you again.”

“Oh, please like him, Buffy.” Wesley gazed up at her earnestly.

“Did you have fun?”

“Lots of…fun.” He did stumble slightly over that concept but there was no doubting his sincerity.

There was the crash of the double doors as Xander backed into the room, completely hidden behind a towering pile of boxes. Willow and Oz hurried to help him, plucked the smaller boxes from the top of the pile and helping him to put them down on the table.

Buffy looked at the boxes in disbelief. “You weren’t joking about forgetting to be stuffy, were you?”

“There’s more.” Xander beckoned to Oz and the two of them headed back to the car while Giles smiled smugly and sipped his tea and Willow gazed at the boxes.

“Oh, I always wanted one of these castles!” She turned to Wesley. “Are you going to open them?”

Wesley looked up at Giles. “May I…?”

“Of course.” Giles nodded his head. “Open all of them.”

By the time Xander and Oz returned with another pile of boxes and carrier bags, Buffy and Willow had cleared the table of all extraneous non-toy-related things and were starting to build the Fairytale castle.

“We are so going to besiege you.” Xander undid the box containing the enormous mediaeval castle while Oz picked Wesley up and sat him on their side of the table.

Oz whispered to Wesley: “If we’re building this castle we get a better view of Willow than if we were right next to her.”

Wesley gave him a shy smile and whispered back: “She’s very pretty.”

Oz looked across at Willow who smiled at him. “I can only concur with that viewpoint.”

“I like her hair,” Wesley added in another whisper.

“Me too,” Oz assured him.

Giles sipped his tea and sat back on his chair to enjoy the view of Oz and Xander encouraging Wesley to eat chocolate in between fitting together the plastic sections of castle. He was pleased to notice that Wesley had a very good grasp of the way a mediaeval castle would fit together, diffidently suggesting where the gate would go and how the battlements would work. Buffy and Willow were having way too much fun building the fairy tale castle.

It was a shock to everyone when Cordelia walked in, saying, “I was just looking for a book on…” She broke off at the sight of everyone fitting together playmobil castles. “Did everyone take a regression pill or are we having a ‘let’s all be as dumb as Xander’ day?”

“We’re having fun, Cordy,” Xander retorted. “You can look that word up in your ‘things not in my dictionary’ dictionary.”

She rolled her eyes, still looking around the library. “Where’s Wesley?”

The little boy had been gazing at her in some anxiety and his eyes now widened in fear. He took a tentative step forward. “I’m here.”

She turned eagerly and then seeing no one of Wesley’s height dropped her gaze and saw the little boy. Much to Giles’ amazement she immediately crouched down to his level and beamed at him. “Well, aren’t you adorable? What are you doing in here with this bunch of losers?”

Wesley looked shocked. “They’re – my friends.”

“That accent is to die for.” Cordy looked up at Giles. “Who knew they could sound like that right from when they were kids? Wait…? Did you say you were called ‘Wesley’ too? That is so cute.” She looked around the library. “Is Wesley your uncle? Please tell me he’s not your father because I was so hoping he was single…?”

“He’s me,” Wesley explained awkwardly. “I was him and then I wasn’t. I don’t remember being him though.”

Cordelia straightened up, fixing Giles with a steely glare. “One, that isn’t funny. Two, dragging a kid into your stupid practical jokes – so not cool.”

“Cordelia…” Giles fixed her with his most quelling glare. “Before you say anything you might later regret – well, that someone else might regret – Ethan sent me a package which Wesley opened. This was the result.”

“Halloween costume and wacky candy Ethan?” She looked down at child Wesley and her face fell. “Okay. Now I’m angry.”

Wesley looked up at her fearfully. “I’m sorry.”

Cordelia amazed Giles further by immediately sinking back down to the floor and saying gently: “Not with you, sweetie. Just with all the other people in this room who were too stupid to keep Wesley from being burned by Giles’s old flames.”

Willow gasped and Buffy grimaced. “We so weren’t going there,” Buffy murmured.

Cordelia glared up at Giles. “How could you let Wesley handle something of Ethan’s…? Oh ewww...! That so didn’t come out right. It’s bad enough you used to let Ethan handle…”

“Cordelia!” Willow squeaked. “Remember – very small child, not supposed to be hearing about things like that. And I don’t want to either.”

“Can I go on record as saying a big ‘me too’?” Xander put in.

Wesley said tentatively: “Do you have any sisters?”

Cordelia automatically straightened his shirt collar, checking the label as she did so. “I can’t believe they didn’t at least take you to Gap. What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Like Cordelia in the play…?” He looked at her shyly. “She had two sisters who were bad.”

“Actually Cordy’s the Webster’s definition of an only child,” Xander supplied helpfully.

“What play?” Cordelia asked him.

“King Lear. Cordelia is the good daughter who really loves her father but he sends her away even though she loves him. But in the end he realizes that she was the one who loved him all the time.” He gazed up at her. “And he feels very sorry that he sent her away.”

Cordelia checked the label in the little jacket Giles had bought him and shook her head. “No sisters. I think my mom just thought it was a pretty name.”

“I think it’s a very pretty name,” Wesley told her earnestly. He dropped his gaze to say: “It suits you.”

Willow and Buffy exchanged a glance. “He’s a regular heartbreaker, isn’t he?” Buffy observed.

Cordelia gazed at the little boy for a moment and then held out her hand. “Let’s you and me build a condo.”

Buffy pushed her the box with the fairy bower. “Here you go.”

Cordelia sniffed. “What, no penthouse?” She picked the boy up and sat him on the table. As everyone stared at her, she said: “What? So, I like kids. Get over it.”

“When you used to say you liked children, we always assumed you meant as a snackfood,” Xander observed.

As Cordelia expertly began to assemble the fairy bower, she said to Giles: “And I presume there’s a good reason why you’re just sitting around instead of trying to find the spell to turn Wesley back into a grown up, right?”

There was a moment’s awkward silence and then Giles sighed and got to his feet. “Yes, I was just about to continue my research into that…”

As he headed off for his office, Buffy glared at Cordelia. “It may not be possible to turn Wesley back but that doesn’t matter because we like him fine just how he is.”

“Well, unlike the rest of you I actually liked him the way he was before as well…”

There was a stricken silence as Wesley looked up at Cordelia and then across at Buffy. “Did-Didn’t you like me before…?”

“Yes, we did.” Buffy gave Cordelia a look that threatened ritual dismemberment if she dared contradict her. “We liked you before and we like you now.”

Cordelia made to argue, looked at the little boy’s shocked face and said quickly: “Yes, of course, they liked you. Who wouldn’t like you…? You were adorable then and you’re adorable now. You’re just shorter and not so well dressed.” She peered at the label on his jeans pockets. “I really need to take you shopping. Hold on…” She fished a comb out of her purse and combed his hair carefully, wiped his face with her handkerchief, straightened his cuffs, and then nodded in satisfaction. “You like to be tidy,” she told him.

He looked across at Buffy again, clearly needing more reassurance. She picked him up and cuddled him and he automatically curled up against her neck. “Did you really not like me…?” he whispered.

“We didn’t know you…” Buffy whispered back. “We’d hardly got to know you when you changed but I love you now and I am not going to let anything happen to you. Do you understand? Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again.”

Oz looked up at her. “That’s quite a promise.”

Buffy rubbed her cheek against Wesley’s. “I’m going to keep it.”

Cordelia looked at Buffy and seemed to get a lot of things in a moment. “Giles, would I be right in thinking that if there were spells that could just turn back time with no side effects and no problems that everyone would be doing them…?”

Giles came back out with a book in his hand. “Well, Ethan is a chaos mage. He does have unusual powers.”

Cordelia grimaced. “I really don’t want to know about Ethan’s ‘unusual powers’, Giles.”

“Power of magical ability,” Giles said tersely.

“So, if this spell is so hunky dory wonderful how come he hasn’t turned himself into a twenty-something again?”

Giles opened his mouth and then took off his glasses. “That’s a good point.”

“Yeah, I thought so. And maybe what we need to focus on right now is not just how adorable Wesley is but how alive we want him to stay.” She gave Giles a fierce look. “It’s not as if Ethan doesn’t think the world can spare you, now, is it?”

With a jolt, Giles realized that she was absolutely right. He had been so busy fighting a rearguard action against falling in with Buffy’s plan to keep Wesley as a child that he hadn’t fully considered just how dangerous a spell this could be. This time when he turned back to the books it was with a renewed sense of purpose and a whole new anxiety.

Cordelia snapped together a few more pieces of plastic and said, “Okay, there’s your fairy bower up and running. Wesley, what do you say we ask Aunty Willow to cast a nice protection spell over the whole enchanted fountain thing?”

“So vampires can’t come in?” he asked.

Cordelia blinked. “You know about vampires.”

Xander passed over the teddy bear and nodded at the bag. She examined the tiny crucifix and holy water in silence for a moment and then said: “You know what would also be good here? A mirror. That way Teddy here – ”

“He’s Cuthbert,” Wesley explained.

Cordelia looked at him and bit her lip. “There really are no words for how cute you are.” She took a compact out of her purse and held it up. “See? A mirror so Cuthbert can always check if someone has a reflection. That way he’s extra safe.” She dropped the compact into the bag, earning herself a big smile from Wesley.

“What if you have a hair emergency, Cord?” Xander observed.

Not bothering to glance at him, she said, “I’ll manage. I survived dating you. After that, death kind of loses its sting.”

Wesley looked between them wide-eyed and Willow elbowed Cordelia in the ribs. “Can you not fight in front of him, please?”

Xander looked a little ashamed and muttered, “Sorry.”

Cordelia straightened Wesley’s shirt again, gave him another bright smile, and said, “I’m going to go and help Uncle Giles with the research now. Why don’t you help Uncle Xander and Uncle Oz build their castle and then we can besiege it later and push the walls down. Won’t that be fun?”

He smiled at her shyly. “Yes.”

She kissed him on the forehead and looked at Buffy. “We all want the same thing here.” Then she was heading for Giles’s office, her heels going click-click-click on the floor.

This time when Buffy tightened her grip on Wesley it was with a new anxiety. Fiercely, she repeated: “Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again.”

Wesley looked up at her. “Bad things just happen sometimes. They’re not anybody’s fault. Like spilling,” he added bravely. “Sometimes – that just happens.”

“Yes, it does.” She kissed the top of his head and he curled in against her contentedly, drowsily watching Willow as she filled the Fairy Tale castle with dining tables, princesses, and unicorns. But mentally Buffy was adding a fierce: But not to you. No more bad things are going to happen to you – while the sick feeling in her stomach was telling her exactly the opposite.

***

Wesley was happily playing storm-the-heavily-fortified-plastic-mediaeval-castle with a mixture of siege tower, unicorns, and various over dressed royalty, and Willow’s magical assistance, while Oz and Buffy rebuffed them with volleys of plastic arrows, when Xander came back into the Library. Giles and Cordelia were both at the other end of the table still working on their research, Cordelia kneading the back of her neck from time to time but not stinting in her work. Wesley had kicked off his new leather shoes as they were giving him blisters and everyone had told him it was all right for him to just wear his socks.

“Ethan’s current address…” Xander waved a piece of paper under Giles’s nose. “I beat it out of Willy the Snitch.”

Buffy looked at him sideways. “ ‘Beat it out of him’?”

“With my wallet,” Xander conceded. “But the point is, Giles was right, chaos guy is still in town.”

They all looked at Wesley who gazed up at them in some anxiety. “How are we going to do this?” Xander asked. “Because I think Buffster and G-man are both going to be needed to deal with Ethan but that leaves the munchkin…”

“I don’t want Ethan to see Wesley.” Giles turned his grave concerned gaze onto Wesley. “As far as Ethan knows, his spell didn’t work. If he thinks there is nothing to lose, he may be more willing to talk than if he knows he has something we want.”

“We’ll take care of Wesley.” Willow smiled at him.

Buffy looked anxious and Oz and Xander nodded to her. “It’s okay,” Xander assured her.

Cordelia looked up from her research and said matter-of-factly: “Think of it this way, Buffy. Any harm comes to Wesley over my dead body so either way you’re a winner.”

Buffy held her gaze. “Trust me, Cordelia, that wouldn’t be any kind of compensation.” She snatched a breath and then gripped Wesley’s shoulders lightly. “I won’t be long, okay? You stay here with Willow, Oz, and Xander, and Giles and I will be back very soon.”

“Yes, Buffy.” She squeezed him into a hug and he felt another kiss pressed into his hair. It was strange to be hugged and kissed so much but he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t really like it.

She said to Xander in a way that was half an order and half a plea: “Take care of him.”

“You know we will,” Xander assured her quietly.

After the door closed, Cordelia said: “So, what’s the cover story on Wesley?”

Willow blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t think we should tell everyone who wanders in here to borrow a library book that Little Wesley is…Wesley. What if it got back to the Council? They’re very strict. He might get his pay docked for the days while he wasn’t able to be a Watcher or whatever. I mean if those guys are happy to lock Buffy into a room with a vampire when she doesn’t have her super powers I’m guessing they wouldn’t be slow about doing other nasty things.”

They all looked at Wesley who fidgeted uncomfortably under their scrutiny. His father was a Council member and he certainly would have thought it had to be Wesley’s fault that he hadn’t been available to do his duty so Cordelia was probably right. Shyly he said, “When Principal Snyder was in here earlier, Mr Giles said I was his nephew, and he said the Big Me was away at a book fair.”

Oz nodded. “That works.”

“Do you want to go on pretending to be Giles’s nephew, Wesley?” Willow asked.

He nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, if anyone comes in here and asks about you we’ll tell them that the Big You is away for a few days and that the Little You is Giles’ nephew – Wesley.”

“Presumably we’ll also tell them that every other guy in England is called ‘Wesley’,” Xander murmured.

Willow said firmly: “I think Wesley has enough to put up with being eight years old and in a strange country surrounded by strange people and having to remember that Giles is his uncle now without having to remember a different name as well.”

“I don’t think you’re strange,” Wesley offered tentatively. “I think you’re nice.”

Cordelia looked at him in fond exasperation: “How weird is your home life if you don’t think that Willow the Witch, Oz the Werewolf, and Xander the Loser are strange?”

“Not to mention Cordelia the Princess,” Xander retorted.

But Wesley was gazing at Oz open-mouthed. “Are you really a werewolf?”

“Only for three days a month,” Willow said hastily. “The rest of the time he’s just Oz.”

He had seen woodcuts of werewolves, and they were huge and slavering and evil. He looked at Oz, who looked very unhuge, not at all slavering, or remotely evil. But he had read what werewolves did to people – to girls who went walking the woods and were found torn to pieces, and to…children. He gulped and looked at Willow then looked at the castle he had helped build with Oz; remembered the young man lifting him up to reach the taller towers, unwrapping the chocolate for him and handing it over. Oz seemed so nice but if he were really a werewolf – he thought how angry his father would be with him for being friends with a werewolf, and the Council would probably never allow him to be a Watcher if they ever found out he had played with a werewolf all afternoon and not even tried to kill him. He felt a lump in his throat as he thought about killing Oz. Willow loved Oz, he could see it in the way she got that light in her eyes when she looked at him, and Oz loved Willow. Worst of all, Wesley really liked Oz. He had felt safe when he was with him. At the thought of having to shoot him with silver bullets, he began to tremble.

“I was joking,” Cordelia said quickly. “I’m not a real Princess either and Willow is still definitely a wannabe when it comes to witchery. Xander is a real loser though.”

Wesley looked at Oz sadly. “Are you a werewolf?”

Oz nodded. “Yes.”

Wesley swallowed painfully. “Do you – kill people…?”

“No.” Oz held his gaze. “I’m lucky. I have people who care about me and every month when it’s the full moon they lock me up and make sure I can’t hurt anyone.”

Wesley felt the weight on his heart lift a little. “So, you’re not a bad werewolf?”

“No, he’s a good werewolf,” Willow assured him. “Very good.”

“Are we still friends?” Oz asked. “Because it’s cool either way, but I’d like to know.”

Wesley knew that his father would never accept that as an excuse, that people locked Oz up and stopped him killing anyone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it as an excuse. If it came out he could tell his father that he hadn’t thought that he would mind because Oz never hurt anyone, and perhaps his father would never find out anyway. It occurred to him that if he was really twenty-six then perhaps his father liked him more. Perhaps he just didn’t like him now because he was a child and his father had no patience with children. He knew that because his mother was always saying it: ‘You have no patience with him, Roger.’ ‘He doesn’t need patience, he needs discipline. Do you think the vampires are going to be patient with him? He needs to do what he’s told when he’s told to do it!’ But as he evidently had done what he was told when he was told to do it and had been made Head Boy and become a Watcher, just the way Daddy wanted, perhaps now they were friends and if he told his father that Oz was a good werewolf who didn’t eat people then everything would be okay? Wesley thought about that for a moment and then decided that was something he couldn’t really take on trust.

He glanced up at Oz cautiously. “As you don’t kill people and you’re a good werewolf I don’t see why we can’t still be friends. Just – please don’t tell my father.”

Oz held out a hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

They did so solemnly and Oz said with an odd sort of smile: “And, trust me, if your father and I ever had a conversation there would be other things we were discussing.”

“A-men to that…” Xander murmured.

“Heya…”

Wesley looked up to see another pretty girl walk in. She was slight and dark-haired with lots of eye make up and wore shiny trousers that clung to her body and a red-coloured top that was cut quite low. She wore dark nail varnish too. When she walked it was as if she owned the whole room.

“So, you all just…hanging out…?” the newcomer enquired. She sounded casual but Wesley didn’t think anything she did was really casual, not given the way she was looking all round the room, noting where everyone was and what they were doing.

There was a muted murmur of greeting from the others. “Pretty much,” Oz said. Wesley noticed that Xander’s eye had started to twitch and Willow looked terse and unhappy. Wesley thought it was strange that this girl was acting as if they were all her friends but they weren’t responding to her the way they did to Buffy or even when Cordelia had walked in. Even though Xander had said rude things to Cordelia he had still made space for her as if he had done it so many times before he didn’t even notice he was doing it. But they were all acting as if they wanted this girl to go away and not come back.

“Anything up…?” the newcomer enquired.

“Nope,” Willow said in a way that seemed cheerful but somehow wasn’t. “Just…hanging out.”

That was when the girl saw Wesley and she stopped moving. “Who’s the kid?” she demanded, and there was an edge to her voice that made Wesley wonder if she really didn’t like children.

“Giles’ nephew,” Cordelia put in so smoothly it was as if she wasn’t even lying. “Another Wesley, would you believe? I guess they don’t go so much for Tom, Dick and Harry over there.”

“Well, what’s he doing here?” the girl demanded. “Isn’t it kind of…irresponsible, having a kid on the Hellmouth?”

Willow said: “His – his mom was sick and Giles was the only person who could take care of him while she was sick so – so that’s why he’s here even though it’s a Hellmouth.”

“He doesn’t have a dad?” The girl was still acting as if this was a really bad thing for Wesley to be here and he didn’t really understand why unless she was allergic to children, the way some people were allergic to bee stings.

Xander looked up and said, “Unfortunately, yes, but let’s just say there are good reasons why the kid doesn’t get left with him.”

Wesley saw the girl flinch and he wondered why, then she was turning away and he could almost see her thinking. When she turned back she had a big bright smile on her face that looked as if it had no business being there. “Well, why don’t I take Mini Giles here over to the park?”

“Because it’s dark…?” Xander returned. “And that would be a really dangerous thing to do…?”

“Hey, who’s he going to be safer with than me?”

“He’s fine where he is.” Cordelia looked up briefly as if this other girl wasn’t even worth bothering with. “Which is why he’s going to be staying where he is.”

The girl came right over to Wesley. “He looks like a brave kid to me. Don’t you want to come to the park with me…?”

“I’ve already been to the park with Mr – with Uncle Giles.” Wesley couldn’t help gazing at her. She was so pretty and yet somehow so – dangerous.

She gritted her teeth. “Well, let me take you out for some – take out. You can’t be in America and not get some fries.”

“I already had some in Mac-somewhere. They were very nice,” he added in a placatory tone. “But I don’t think I could eat any more just yet.”

Xander held up the empty chocolate wrappers. “We’ve been kind of pushing the sugar on the kid all afternoon, Faith.”

“Where’s B…?” Again there was that edge to her voice.

“She and Giles had to go and check out a crypt.” Xander’s voice was steady but his eye was still twitching. Wesley wondered if it did that when he lied.

“They didn’t call me first?”

“Small crypt,” Oz put in. “More of a closet really.”

“Well, what are they looking for?”

Cordelia shrugged. “Who listens when Giles goes into lecture mode? Some finger bone or magical kneecap or something. I don’t know.”

“To stop the ascension?” There was still that edge to her voice and she was still looking at Wesley as if she really didn’t like him being around.

Cordelia shrugged again. “I guess. Like I said – who listens?”

“Why don’t I take the kid back to my place where he can watch some TV with me?” she suggested. “It’s got to be past his bedtime anyway.”

“Never made you for the maternal type, Faith,” Xander said.

“He’s staying here.” Willow rose to her feet. “He’s staying here with us until Giles and Buffy get back.” There was an edge to her tone and her smile looked forced as she added: “But you’re welcome to stay here too, if you like.”

“I don’t need permission from a civilian,” Faith told her shortly, and then she was striding out of the room.

Her face had looked so pinched and unhappy that Wesley felt sorry for her and he ran after her. His socks were slippy on the floor but at least they didn’t make any noise and somehow running didn’t seem such a punishable thing to be doing when it was quiet. He slipped out through the doors after Faith – they were heavy but they had swung back so he could get through without needing to push them – but she was already talking into her mobile phone:

“Yeah, I know I said it was all systems go, boss, but there’s a kid in there. A little titchy kid. I tried to get him out but no go. We need to abort. Get Glinda another time…”

Wesley had a sudden feeling that he should not be hearing this conversation and Faith would very angry indeed if she turned around and found him there. He also thought that Faith might be scary if she was angry.

“What do you mean it’s too late…?”

She sounded so agitated now that Wesley decided that nothing he said to her was going to make her anything except even more cross. The doors were still swinging and he darted back through them hastily straight into Oz who had obviously run after him and who immediately crouched down to his level to see if he was okay. Wesley put a hand across Oz’s mouth as he opened it to say something, and pointed back to the table. Oz carried him over there swiftly and silently and stood him on it.

“I think something’s wrong,” Wesley said breathlessly.

“Wrong how?” Willow asked.

“Wrong why?” Xander enquired.

“Faith sounded upset that I was here. She said she tried to get me out. She said that something shouldn’t happen and then she was cross because it couldn’t be stopped.” He looked up at Oz. “Doesn’t that sound as if…?”

“We should go.” Oz picked up Wesley’s jacket and held it up for him and Wesley wriggled into it quickly.

“Out through the stacks?” Xander suggested.

“Isn’t Faith a Slayer?” Cordelia enquired. “Isn’t she – you know – all on the side of good and right and so on…?”

“She killed a guy,” Xander said flatly. “And she – well, if hadn’t been for Angel she may have killed another one. Maybe it’s nothing and maybe it’s a whole lot of dangerous something, but as we’re responsible for Wesley now, I suggest we high-tail it to Giles’s place and worry about the reasons later.”

Oz picked up Wesley’s shoulder bag and put Cuthbert and his shoulder bag into it then looped the bag over Wesley’s neck. Oz gave him a reassuring smile. “Okay?”

Wesley nodded. “Okay.”

That was when the doors burst open and he saw his first real life vampire. In fact he saw his first five.

“Take him!” Oz pushed Wesley into Willow’s arms and snatched up a sword. Xander was fumbling with a crossbow. Cordelia grabbed Willow and shoved her and Wesley under the table; she stroked Wesley’s hair and gave him a big safe reassuring smile even though her eyes were as scared as he felt when Daddy was cross with him, then Wesley heard the click click click of her heels as she ran away from them and he knew she was drawing the vampires away, even though it was dangerous and she was a girl, just because he was a child. He heard the clash of a sword, and snarling sounds that made his blood turn as cold as the ice cream he’d had earlier, but he couldn’t see anything because Willow had pulled him in against her chest and wrapped her jacket around him. He could hear her heartbeat and the way she was snatching little panicky breaths, but she kept whispering: “It’s okay, Wesley. It’s okay” all the time she was holding him.

Wesley knew it wasn’t okay. He heard crossbow bolts clattering and a scream from Cordelia that was cut off by what sounded like a slap, and something with an unearthly voice snarl: “Where’s the witch…?”

He heard Xander start to say something that Wesley just knew was rude and then the slap of something hitting him and Willow gave a little gasp of horror and then there were more horrible sounds of people being hurt and she said: “Oz…!” and started crying. And then the vampires were coming for them, Wesley wriggled around so he could look out and he saw their dirty boots getting closer and closer and Willow whispered urgently: “Stay here, Wesley, stay right here. I’ll be back soon…” But then she was scrambling out, and he heard her knock over a chair and he knew she had done it on purpose because she wasn’t coming back at all, she was leading them away from him so they wouldn’t hurt him. And he was crying silent tears of terror, thinking that he should have been big and a Watcher and then he could help them.

He heard Willow cry out and a horrible voice jeer: “Got you…” And then there was a crashing sound and a snarl that was much deeper and louder and angrier than all the others, it sounded like a lion before it tore out something’s throat, and then a voice that came from deep in someone’s chest and sounded as if it had to pass through far too many teeth said:

“Let her go!”

And then it was all chaos out there; things crashing and people grunting and snarling and horrible sounds like bone hitting the edge of a table and then a snap and a howl of pain and then the sound of bone crunching and then a sound like a very light rain falling.

As the snarling and crashing went on, Wesley peered out and saw Cordelia lying on the floor; she seemed to be unconscious but he could see her chest rising and falling, which meant she wasn’t dead. He wanted to run to her and wake her up and see if she was okay, but Willow had told him to stay where he was. He tried to see Xander but all he could see was a hand with some blood on it. He thought it was Xander’s hand and he hoped it was attached to an arm which was attached to the rest of his body and that his body was still alive but he couldn’t see anything except his fingers and they weren’t moving. He craned his neck and thought that if he saw Willow he was going to run to her whatever happened, but he couldn’t see her or Oz and he didn’t know what to do.

Something heavy abruptly hurled through the air and he saw a vampire land on the floor and then spring up and then there were somebody’s feet and then there was dust. And then there was a sudden silence in which he could hear a faint groaning sound and then he saw the feet begin to come towards him. He could see black boots and black trousers and he saw the edge of what looked like a long black coat. He fumbled in his bag – the one the grown up Wesley had packed – and took out a bottle of Holy Water and then remembered that Cordelia had given Cuthbert her compact. He dug it out from Cuthbert’s bag with shaking fingers and then held it up so it would reflect those black-booted feet. There was just floor. He looked again, twisting the mirror so he couldn’t make a mistake, but there were the feet getting closer and closer and there was the mirror not reflecting them.

Shaking all over, he unscrewed the top of the holy water and waited for the vampire to come close enough. He knew that he would only have once chance to burn it and then run away very quickly. Snatching a breath he saw the boots take a last step and then there were knees bending, legs coming into view as the vampire crouched down and then a hand –

Wesley splashed the holy water onto the outstretched hand – there was a surprised yell from the vampire and the smell of burning skin – and then dived between the black-clad legs, blinded momentarily by a flapping coat, and then was running for the door.

There was a snarl of fury from behind him and he couldn’t help looking back to see that the black-coated figure was even taller than he had feared, big and broad shouldered with dark hair that rose straight up like the fur of an angry cat, his eyes were yellow and his face was an ugly mask of pure rage. Wesley cried out in fear and turned to run for the door – only to cannon straight into the legs of someone else.

“A snack…!” A hand grabbed for him, and he darted a fearful glance up at another vampire with stringy fair hair.

Then the dark-haired vampire grabbed Wesley around the waist, snatched him out of the reach of the second vampire and stood him on the table. He said firmly: “Stay!” and then launched himself at the fair-haired vampire. Wesley could see the burn mark on the back of his hand where he’d splashed him with the holy water. Then he was onto the other vampire and they were snarling like animals as they rolled around on the floor. Wesley decided that this was one time when his father would not expect him to do as he was told and he looked around desperately for Willow, Oz, and Xander. Willow was crumpled against the book shelves, looking sickly white. He scrambled down from the table and ran across to her, throwing himself at her and grabbing her hand.

“Willow! Willow! We have to go…!” He tugged at her frantically. “Willow…!”

She groaned and said blearily, “Just five more minutes…”

“No! We have to go now! There are vampires…!”

And then there was a horrible bone-cracking sound and he turned to see that the dark-haired vampire had snapped the other one’s neck and then jammed a stake into his heart. The vampire turned to dust right in front of him.

Wesley tugged at Willow’s hand, crying with fear. “Willow! Willow, please wake up…! Please wake up…”

But the vampire was coming straight at him. It was so tall and broad-shouldered, and with its coat flapping behind it the resemblance to a huge bat was overwhelming. It looked exactly the way Dracula looked in his nightmares. It jumped up onto the table and as it did so its face changed so its eyes became brown and its face was normal and that was somehow even more scary, that something so terrifying could look so handsome and kind and as if it would never hurt Wesley in a month of Sundays. It jumped down from the table again, moving with such grace and quiet strength that it reminded Wesley of the black panthers in the nature films; but now it was coming right at them.

“Willow…!” Wesley wailed and then when she just slumped back against the stacks, he snatched another bottle of holy water out of his bag and brandished it at the vampire. “Get away from her!” he shouted. “I won’t let you hurt her!”

The vampire stopped, clearly debating for a moment, and then crouched down so that he was on a level with Wesley’s eye-line but about five feet away. He had looked so tall and scary a moment before, but now he looked young and handsome and as if he were really very good-natured. Wesley began to tremble because Oz wasn’t moving and Xander wasn’t waking up, and there was no one to help him and he didn’t know how to keep Willow safe.

The vampire said gently: “I’m not going to hurt Willow. I came here to help her and the others when I heard what the Mayor was planning.”

Wesley kept holding up his bottle of holy water. “You’re a vampire and I’m not listening to anything you say!”

“Okay.” The vampire backed up. “You take care of Willow and I’ll see how the others are doing.”

Wesley didn’t know what to do as the tall vampire strode over to where Cordelia was lying. He felt he should run after him and stake him before he touched her, but he didn’t see how he could stake him unless he obligingly got down onto floor level for him to be able to reach and then didn’t move while Wesley tried repeatedly to jam a piece of wood into him. The vampire examined her gently and then went into Giles’ office as if he knew where everything was kept and came out with a cloth and a bowl of water. He dabbed the cloth in the water and gently wiped Cordelia’s face until she started and began to come around. Then he went to Xander and slapped his face lightly a few times and said his name, and then grimaced at the sight of the cut on Oz’s head, and quickly wiped off the blood, then picked Oz up and carried him into Giles’s office.

He’s going to kill Oz, Wesley thought desperately, and he knew that even if Oz was a werewolf, he couldn’t bear it if that happened. He started to run towards him, but then the vampire came out of the office and he had to scamper back to guard Willow.

The vampire came up and held up the wet cloth and said, “Catch.”

Wesley dropped the bottle of holy water as he snatched at the cloth and stared at it in dismay as it ran all over the step.

The vampire said urgently: “Careful. Don’t move.” He wrapped a towel around his hand and pushed the pieces of broken glass to one side so there was nothing between him and Wesley and Willow. The towel fizzled as it touched the broken pieces of glass.

Wesley tugged at Willow’s arm desperately. He whimpered her name and she opened her eyes and said: “Wesley…?” And immediately put her arms around him and held him close. Then she looked at the vampire and Wesley tried to tell her that it was a vampire and not to be trusted but she squinted at it and then said, “Hi, Angel, where’s Buffy…?” And then she sat bolt upright, clutched Wesley to her the way he clutched Cuthbert when he was locked under the stairs, and sprang to her feet, saying, “Oz!”

“He’s okay.” The vampire caught her by the shoulders. “Willow, he’s okay. He’s just knocked out. They’re all okay. But you’re going to pass out if you don’t take it easy.”

And then to Wesley’s horror, the vampire was scooping Willow up into his arms and he was being carried by someone who was being carried by a vampire, straight into Giles’s office where Willow was put into a chair and he found himself still clutched in her arms with a vampire gazing down at them curiously and saying: “Who’s the kid and why does he smell like Wesley…?”

“He is Wesley.” Willow sat up straighter and put a hand to her head. “There was a spell. I think Ethan was trying to get Giles to um…be like he used to be again or something. We’re not exactly sure what happened but Wesley woke up the next morning the way he is now.”

Wesley tugged at her sleeve desperately and she looked down at him and smiled in relief. “Oh sweetie, thank goodness, you’re okay.”

Wesley hissed: “He’s a vampire.”

“Oh.” Willow collected herself. “Yes, he is but he’s good. I mean he a soul. His name is Angel.” She looked up at the vampire she had called ‘Angel’. “Wesley doesn’t remember anything except up to the age he is now.”

Angel put his head on one side. “Which would be… Six…?”

“I’m eight,” Wesley said reproachfully. “And there aren’t any good vampires.” He gazed up at Willow, very worried that she had been mesmerised by the vampire as he had read happened sometimes. “Buffy wouldn’t want us talking to vampires, Willow.”

“Are the others…?” Willow winced as she looked around.

“Just knocked out,” Angel assured her.

“Who died in my head…?” Cordelia demanded plaintively.

Angel hurried over to her and Wesley watched in horror as the vampire bent over her and she gave him a dazzling smile and then took his hand as if it was an every day thing to talk to vampires. As the one called Angel was helping her to her feet, Wesley heard her say: “Are the others okay…?”

And then there was another groan and Angel went to help Xander who was crawling onto his hands and knees and saying: “Kill me… kill me now…” Then he looked up at Angel and said: “Always got to make the grand entrance, haven’t you? Couldn’t get here five minutes earlier than needed and just get rid of the bad guys painlessly, oh no, it has to be the seventh vampire cavalry every damned time.”

Angel said: “You’re welcome. And – before you ask – Willow, Oz and Cordelia are fine.”

Xander spun around anxiously. “There was a little boy here…?”

“He’s fine. And sneaky.” Angel held out his hand so Xander could see the burn mark. “Does he have any shoes? There’s broken glass on the stacks and he’s in his socks.”

Xander clutched at Angel’s wrist to examine his hand and then shook his head. “God, I love that kid.”

Angel rolled his eyes but hauled Xander to his feet. “Where’s Buffy?”

“She and Giles are looking for Ethan.”

“Was it Willy who told you where he was?”

Xander nodded. “After I beat him up with fifty dollar bills he was very cooperative.”

“It was a set up. The mayor wanted Giles and Buffy out of the way so he could kill Willow. He knows she’s the one who’s been accessing his records.”

“Faith.” Xander hung onto Angel as he stood up a little shakily. “Wesley overheard her on the phone. She was trying to call it off.”

Angel blinked. “Attack of conscience?”

Xander nodded his head at the office. “I think even she baulked at having a little kid served up as a vampire appetizer.”

“Does she know who he is?”

“No. We told her he was Giles’ nephew.”

“Probably just as well.” Angel picked up Wesley’s shoes and carried them into the office.

Oz was just beginning to wake up. Willow put Wesley into the chair and slipped over to hold Oz’s hand. Wesley watched their fingers intertwine as Oz smiled at her blearily. As Angel came in carrying Wesley’s shoes, Angel nodded at Oz and said “Oz” and Oz nodded back and said “Angel”. Wesley waited for them to talk about the fact that Angel had saved Oz’s life and Oz had been very brave but that seemed to be all they were going to say and, bizarrely, it seemed to have covered everything.

Then Angel was crouching down in front of Wesley and looking up at him as if there was something amusing about him but he was trying not to show it. “Are you going to splash me with some more holy water if I put your shoes on?”

Wesley looked around at the way everyone was just talking to Angel as if he were the same as they were and then shook his head.

“Good.” Angel slipped one shoe on carefully and laced it up. “How did you know I was a vampire? The way you were positioned I wouldn’t have thought you could see anything except my feet.”

Wesley held out his hand with Cordelia’s compact in it. Angel nodded his head. “That was quick thinking. I can tell you’ve had Watcher training.”

Angel slipped the other shoe on and laced that one up. “So, am I the first vampire you’ve seen close up?”

Wesley nodded.

“What do you think?”

Wesley thought he was terrifying but doubted that was the sensible thing to say. Feeling suddenly very small and very unequal to the situation, he said: “I want Buffy.”

As if in answer to an incantation, there was the sound of the doors being flung open, and then running feet, before Buffy flung herself into the office, snatched Wesley up out of the chair and hugged him so tightly he could hardly breathe. “You’re safe, you’re safe…”

“There were vampires…” he whimpered.

“Angel saved us,” Willow said.

Buffy put her arm around Angel’s neck and suddenly Wesley was being smooshed right up against the black fabric of the vampire’s coat as Buffy hugged him while still holding Wesley. She sounded as if she was crying as she said: “Thank you.”

“Wesley got me.” Angel held out his hand and Buffy and Giles examined the burn mark.

Thinking of how much Buffy seemed to like Angel, Wesley was afraid he might be in trouble and looked up at her fearfully.

“You are so clever.” She hugged him again.

Giles also looked at the burn. “Yes, very well done, Wesley.”

“You know, I could throw holy water at Angel all the time, but would I get praise for it…?” Xander queried.

“You could be a little more grateful to the guy who enabled your pointless existence to continue to…exist,” Cordelia observed.

“Is everyone okay?” Giles looked around them anxiously. Oz and Willow were hugging, Oz looking pale and a little greenish but able to give a thumb’s up.

“Wesley defended Willow from me.” Angel was looking at Wesley with a disconcertingly kind expression. “He stood in front of her with a bottle of holy water and told me not to come any closer. Pretty brave for someone who’d just seen his first vampire.”

Wesley became aware of everyone looking at him, and blushed, burying his face in Buffy’s neck.

Giles said: “I really think, Buffy, that Wesley should come home with me tonight…”

Buffy said flatly: “If you think I’m letting him out of my sight even for a second after what happened tonight...”

“And if you take him home with you how are you proposing to explain him to your mother?”

Buffy looked at Giles narrowly and then said to Willow: “Will, I think my mother needs to think I’m staying with you, and, Giles, I think you need to make up your spare bedroom because I am taking care of Wesley tonight and anyone who tries to stop me dies a horrible painful death.”

“Willow was the target, Buffy,” Xander pointed out. “The Mayor was trying to kill her because she’s too scarily clever to allow to live.”

Buffy nodded. “Right, so Willow, Wesley, and I are staying at Giles’ tonight.”

“I want Oz to be there too…” Willow said plaintively.

“And no way am I going home alone,” Xander insisted.

Giles sighed. “Fine, everyone get your pyjamas and toothbrushes and take over my home as per usual.”

Cordelia looked a little wistful and Wesley said, “Cordelia drew the vampires away to try to save Willow and me.”

Everyone looked at Cordelia who muttered: “It was a moment of weakness. It won’t happen again.”

Giles looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced. “You don’t look too well. Is there someone at your house who can keep an eye on you tonight?”

Cordelia shook her head and Giles was abruptly brisk and fatherly. “Then I insist you come and stay with the others. You may be concussed.”

Angel said: “Do you want me to try to talk to Faith?”

Giles met his gaze and sighed. “I think it’s too late for that, Angel. I really think that for the greater good we now have to treat Faith as the enemy within…”

There was more conversation happening over his head, but now he was in Buffy’s arms again Wesley felt as if he could perhaps just let it all slip away and go to a nice quiet place in his mind where there were no good werewolves and good vampires or bad vampires or people he cared about being hurt; there were just plastic Playmobil castles and books to be read for fun and glass after glass of chocolate milk…

The last thing he heard as he drifted off to sleep was Buffy whispering: “Nothing bad is going to happen to you, I promise…”

***

Giles wondered if there was some kind of mathematical formula already proven that dictated that however much room one had one would automatically have more teenagers invite themselves to stay with you than it could comfortably accommodate. He just knew this evening was going to be chaos – which was fitting, perhaps – given that this entire situation had been engineered by someone who had sold his soul to chaos.

Oz and Willow had taken his van to go and collect night attire before heading back to Giles’ house, and Xander and Cordelia had said they were going to tidy up in the library and then follow in Cordelia’s car, stopping off for ‘jammies’ on the way, which left him with Buffy, Angel, and Wesley to transport. Buffy automatically handed Wesley to Angel as she got into the car and the little boy woke up from his nap and gazed up at the vampire in shock.

Angel said gently: “I’m really not a bad vampire, Wesley.”

Wesley still looked petrified but said: “I’m sorry I burnt your hand, Mr Angel.”

“It’s just ‘Angel’,” Buffy pointed out.

“Actually it was very quick thinking to burn my hand,” Angel told him. “It gave you enough time to get away. If you hadn’t stayed to protect Willow you could have escaped.”

“I couldn’t leave Willow!” Wesley looked shocked at the idea.

Angel got into the car, still carrying Wesley, who looked longingly at Buffy in the front seat. As Giles and Buffy both looked at him, Angel said, “It’s safer for him in the back.”

Buffy looked unconvinced. “But…”

“It’s safer,” Angel insisted, doing up his seatbelt pointedly.

“Be careful with him,” Buffy said.

“I will be.”

Wesley continued to gaze up at Angel out of huge eyes as Giles drove them home.

“Don’t you have any questions you want to ask me?” Angel prompted.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “What sort of questions?”

“Helping you kill vampires when you’re grown up questions?”

Wesley bit his lip, clearly casting around for something to ask. “Um – do you like being a vampire?”

“Not really, I’d rather be human. I miss the sunlight and I am sorry for the things I did before I had my soul. But it does mean I have a lot of strength to fight other vampires, which is useful.”

“What was it like being turned into a vampire…?”

“At the time, it wasn’t so bad. But, waking up is odd, you feel very disorientated, and, of course, you’re in a coffin under six feet of soil.”

Wesley shuddered. “That must be horrible.”

“It’s horrible until you realize you don’t have to breathe so being under the soil doesn’t matter – and you’re strong enough to dig your way out.”

“Do you have other vampire friends?”

“Not any more. Not since I had my soul restored.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“I did until I met Buffy.”

Giles listened to the question and answer as he drove, thinking that Angel had been surprisingly canny at getting Wesley to talk to him. Wesley was so used to being the one having to answer the difficult questions that it was probably a nice change for him to get to be the one asking them.

“How old are you?”

“I’m two hundred and forty-two.”

Fibber, Giles thought. You’re two hundred and forty five if you’re a day. And that’s not counting your human years.

“That’s not that old really, for a vampire. I thought that vampires were older than that. Have you seen anything really interesting? Like Nelson dying or Wellington? Did you ever meet Queen Victoria…?

Giles and Buffy exchanged a look as Wesley suddenly realized the possibilities of asking someone who had been around for two and a half centuries all the questions he had ever been set in his History lessons and the questions began to pour out of him. Angel worked hard at not smirking and tried to answer each one sensibly.

“…and did you fight in any of the wars? I wish Sherlock Holmes was real because then you might have met him and you could tell me what he was like…”

Angel looked smug at having succeeding in unlocking the floodgates to get Wesley to talk to him.

“Have you always lived in America?”

“No, I was born in Ireland and I travelled through Europe a lot until I came to America.”

“Do you know Hampshire? That’s where I live.”

Giles saw Angel bite his lip because Wesley looked so eager at the prospect of Angel having visited his home county and yet when Angel had last been that way he had been eating pretty much everyone he encountered. Angel nodded however, “Yes, but I haven’t been there for more than a hundred years. I remember it was very pretty.”

“Did you eat a lot of people before you were a good vampire?”

“Yes, hundreds.”

Wesley looked at him sideways. “Were any of them little boys?”

“Some of them, yes.”

“But you don’t still eat little boys?”

“Not any more, no.”

By the time they had reached his house, Wesley seemed a lot more at ease with the vampire and only looked a little bit wistful when it was Angel who carried him out of the car. Buffy was clearly itching to snatch him back, but Angel had the little boy held very comfortably and safely and she was forced to let the vampire keep him a little longer.

They were barely through the front door before Cordelia and Xander arrived – arguing, of course – but with a boot full of Playmobil people.

Wesley’s face lit up when he saw Cordelia carrying in his castle. “You saved them!”

“Of course.” She beamed at him; the real thousand watt smile that she certainly hadn’t squandered on any of the rest of them in a long time. “As soon as we wiped a bit of vampire dust off them they were fine. Well, mostly. I think one of the towers got crushed, but the rest of it looks okay.”

“Let me take him now…” Buffy held her hands out to Angel.

He hung onto the little boy, grinning at her. “Make me.”

“Don’t think I won’t…” she warned him, narrowing her eyes.

“Ooh, scary face.” Angel held Wesley up. “Do you really want to go to the Scary Slayer, Wesley?”

Wesley held out his arms to Buffy. “Yes!”

She snatched him from Angel at once and he wrapped his legs around her and burrowed in against her neck with a contented little sigh. She tilted her head so he could fit in against her perfectly, rocking him automatically.

Cordelia shook her head. “You are so laying up trouble for yourself.”

“Am not,” Buffy retorted. She frowned. “How am I?”

“You know how.” Cordelia straightened Wesley’s collar for him. “You can play with these toys tomorrow, okay? Tonight you need to go to bed and get some sleep.”

“Yes, Cordelia,” he said drowsily, his thumb slipping into his mouth before he noticed.

Cordelia sighed. “You are so adorable.”

Xander put an armful of Playmobil parts onto Giles’s dining room table. “So glad you’re not laying up trouble for yourself, Queen C.”

Wearily, Giles set about allocating people somewhere to sleep. It was difficult not to be distracted by Angel, of all people, entirely forgetting to be preternaturally cool as he tickled Wesley’s tummy – Wesley giggled helplessly at that –, by Buffy cooing over Wesley, Cordelia looking at him all misty-eyed, and Xander handing him his teddy bear.

“Perhaps if you got him into his pyjamas and encouraged him to brush his teeth, Buffy…?” Giles suggested.

“He’s too tired to brush his teeth…” Buffy began but as she carried him into the bathroom, Wesley’s sleepy eyes opened and he automatically reached for his toothbrush with the hand with which he was not holding onto Cuthbert’s paw. Giles watched from the doorway as Wesley stumbled through cleaning his teeth – neatly rinsing and spitting when Buffy offered him the beaker – peeing groggily but accurately into the porcelain, dutifully washing his hands very thoroughly, before he was swept up by Buffy to be carried off to Giles’ bedroom, Giles having realized that the only way to accommodate so many people was for him to give up his room to Buffy, Willow, and Wesley, let Cordy have the spare room, grab the couch for himself and allocate the floor to Xander, Oz and Angel. That also sidestepped the problem of any – hanky-panky going on for which he would feel morally responsible and for which Buffy, Willow and Cordelia’s mother might blame him.

Oz and Willow arrived in time for Willow to squeal helplessly at the sight of Wesley in his pyjamas, earning a sleepy ‘Willow…!’ and arms held out to her. He was then thoroughly kissed and cuddled by Willow while Oz looked on, smiling, and then carried around by Buffy for goodnight hugs from everyone else.

Knowing how much it would irk the miserable old bugger, Giles did take a rather bitter satisfaction in the fact that the son of Roger Wyndam-Pryce had just received goodnight cuddles from a werewolf and a vampire. Cordelia rebuttoned Wesley’s pyjama jacket for him, straightened out the creases, and then promptly put the creases back in again by swooping him into a hug. Giles couldn’t help noticing that everyone seemed rather reluctant to hand him back after their ‘goodnight’ and that Buffy hovered anxiously the whole time as if only she could hold a little boy without dropping him.

Giles didn’t even attempt getting the now very sleepy little boy out of Buffy’s arms, but just bade him ‘Goodnight’ and reminded Buffy not to trip over anyone if she had to take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Then there was the whole crush of people all trying to use the bathroom before they went to sleep, while Xander complained about how long Cordelia took, and Giles quietly handed Oz some aspirin to deal with his obviously thumping head.

He had thought that he would never be able to sleep on the uncomfortable couch, especially with Xander snoring on the floor a few feet away, and Angel staying in his house – because, however much he tried to overcome it, it was difficult to be in this place with the vampire and not think about what Angelus had left for him in the bedroom – but the strain of the day had the benefit of leaving him too exhausted to even notice the way the couch springs were digging into his hip, before he was fast asleep and dreaming, oddly enough, about pilchards.

He was woken in the night by Buffy hissing at Angel. Blinking blearily, Giles reached for his glasses and put them on to see Buffy in striped pyjamas, standing over a sleeping Xander and whispering urgently to a now no-longer-sleeping Angel: “…so can you tell if someone has a fever just by smelling them…?”

“I doubt he has a fever, Buffy,” Angel sighed.

“Well, he seems really hot to me, and Willow thinks so too.”

Sighing as wearily as Angel, Giles reached for his dressing gown. “Would you like me to…?”

“Oh yes, please…” As Giles got up, Buffy blinked at him. “You have the same PJs as Wesley – big Wesley, I mean – are they like – Council issue?”

Giles refused to dignify that with an answer, just reaching for his dressing gown and then stepping over Xander, who grunted and turned over in his sleeping bag, before following Buffy up the stairs to his bedroom.

He found Willow there, also in her pyjamas, anxiously feeling Wesley’s forehead. The little boy was still fast asleep, curled up with Cuthbert under one arm and his thumb in his mouth. He looked – Giles had to admit if only in the privacy of his head – absolutely adorable. He had clearly been sleeping in between Willow and Buffy. Giles and Angel exchanged a glance of amusement.

“Have you been er…cuddling him…?” Giles enquired.

“Both of you…?” Angel added.

“Well, yes…” Buffy looked nonplussed. “We thought he might have nightmares.”

“We wanted him to feel safe,” Willow explained.

Giles put a hand on the little boy’s forehead and then smirked at Angel. “Given the fact he’s been sandwiched between two over protective warm bodies under a duvet while wearing brushed cotton pyjamas, I’d say he was pretty much the temperature one would expect.”

“You’re going to smother him, Buffy,” Angel added kindly. “He isn’t me – he needs to breathe.” He also felt Wesley’s forehead and then nodded at Giles. “That’s definitely ambient heat, not fever.”

Willow looked dismayed: “Are you saying we can’t…snuggle him…?”

“I think some moderate cuddling is probably acceptable but try not to suffocate him with kindness.”

Buffy looked pouty but climbed back under the covers, Wesley immediately sliding contentedly into the dip between the two girls. She automatically went to cuddle him against her chest and then pouted again. “Okay, no smothering.” But she and Willow were both instinctively curling themselves around the child and he seemed perfectly contented that they should do so. Giles and Angel exchanged another smirk.

Giles said, “Do try not to have another irrational panic before morning if you can manage it, Buffy. I would really like to get a few hours sleep tonight.”

Angel said, “I’d better head off before daylight.”

Buffy looked up. “No, because there could be another attack from the Mayor. And, anyway, you haven’t got to play with any of the toys yet.”

“We could keep the curtains across tomorrow,” Giles shrugged.

“Okay.” Angel flashed Buffy an unexpectedly dorky grin.

Giles said a firm: “Goodnight, Buffy, Willow…” and left them to their Wesley-cuddling, glancing sideways at Angel as he closed the door behind them. “Vampires play with toys…?”

Angel looked sheepish. “Sometimes.”

Giles looked at Angel’s ubercool black clothes, perfectly gelled hair, and stylish swish of long black coat. “You want to build Playmobil castles and besiege fairy bowers?”

“Xander said there was a Viking ship,” Angel muttered defensively. “I was thinking it could attack the castle from the sea. Sea isn’t difficult to make.”

Giles narrowed his eyes. “I have to live here. I draw the line at papier-maché landscaping.”

“We only need a few feet of coastline. Maybe some baking foil? Or that shiny Christmas wrapping… You didn’t think of getting the Pirate ship as well…? That way we could have a sea battle.”

Giles remembered that the Pirate ship had looked rather splendid as well. Trying not to concede anything, he shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t break the bank to get a few more odds and ends.”

“That siege tower did get broken…”

As Giles stepped carefully over Oz and Xander to get back under his sleeping bag on the sofa, he wondered why he was not more surprised that Angel, a two hundred and forty-five year old vampire, wanted to spend the day hanging around with a bunch of teenagers playing with an eight year old boy. As he drifted off to sleep, it occurred to Giles that perhaps his lack of surprise came from that fact that he, a forty-two year old Watcher, wanted to do exactly the same thing.

***

Giles left a message for Faith in the morning, explaining what had happened at the library, suggesting she kept her head down for a few days in case she was targeted and telling her that everyone else would be doing the same thing. There seemed no point in letting her know that they knew she was now working with the Mayor, after all. He had then discussed with Angel the possibility that Willy the Snitch did know where Ethan was and that perhaps a visit should be paid to him as soon as possible. Angel had suggested that he and Buffy handled that as the guy would be less inclined to bullshit the two of them, Giles had countered that he knew Ethan best and in the end it had been decided that they would leave it to the evening but Giles and Buffy would go. This meant that, even with amulet research to do, Giles had almost the equivalent of a day off. Which was just as well, because from the moment Buffy came down with a pyjama-wearing Wesley, any plans he had for the day were immediately overruled.

It wasn’t that Wesley was in any way a demanding child. Quite the opposite. If it had just been him and Giles – and Giles thought longingly of when he had been allowed to have the boy to himself – it would have been peace and quiet and some companionable reading, but, with Buffy in charge, Wesley immediately became a full time job. The first thing on Buffy’s list of demands was Xander being asked to go and buy him a better breakfast.

“He can’t eat cornflakes!” she said in horror.

Wesley timidly tugged at her sleeve. “I like cornflakes, Buffy.”

“You do?” She looked at him in confusion.

Xander already had his coat on – over his pyjamas, Giles noted – and was stumbling blearily for the door, but now paused. “You like cornflakes?”

“Yes.” Wesley looked at them in confusion. “I do. Can I have some for my breakfast, please?”

Buffy snapped her fingers imperiously at Xander. “We need milk.”

“I have milk,” Giles protested, getting out a bowl, a spoon, the sugar, and the milk to go with the disdained packet of cornflakes.

“We’ll need more,” Buffy insisted.

Shrugging, Xander stumbled on out to Cordy’s car, pulling his jeans over his pyjamas as he did so. Cordelia had to go after him in her pyjamas to give him the car keys and a shopping list.

Giles sighed, made a pot of tea, and began to make toast in enough quantities to feed a small squadron. Xander then came back with pancakes, as well as what seemed to be several gallons of milk, and yet the toast still went, as well as the best part of a jar of marmalade. After breakfast – which took an hour longer than he was sure it would have taken if it had just been him and Wesley – there was then the protracted process of giving Wesley a morning bath to make up for the fact he hadn’t had an evening bath before bedtime on account of being busy fighting vampires at bath-time. This also took a long time, as Buffy, Willow and Cordelia all insisted on cramming into the bathroom to bathe him. Giles did try pointing out that Wesley was at the age when he would probably prefer to be bathed by males – Xander, Oz and – bizarrely – Angel all looked up hopefully and he just knew they were planning to spend an hour in there, playing boats with the boy rather than just getting him clean – but Buffy snorted at that idea and told Giles that, of course, Wesley would rather be bathed by them.

Wesley was much too smitten with Willow, Buffy and Cordelia by this point to think of arguing with her, so just gave Giles a ‘help me’ look before being swept off to the bathroom to be cooed over, and half-smothered, while Cordelia argued with Buffy about the right way to wash his hair, and everyone got upset about his bruises. This was, of course, Cordelia and Willow’s first chance to see them and Giles could hear the terse questioning from Cordelia, and Wesley explaining innocently that he just woke up with them, while Buffy said nothing at all.

Wesley then was wrapped in the fluffiest towel that Giles possessed, and carried out to be sat in front of the fire Buffy had insisted Giles lit in the hearth – despite it being July in California and him having very adequate underfloor heating – in case Wesley caught a chill. Wesley then had to have his bruises examined by everyone while Buffy looked more and more guilty and everyone pointedly didn’t mention how it was all her fault although Cordelia looked absolute daggers at her, then smiled sweetly at Willow, asked her to look after Wesley for a moment, then grabbed Buffy’s wrist and dragged her outside. Giles looked through the window to see Cordelia gesticulating furiously while Buffy just hung her head and looked wretched.

Giles dared to open the window a crack and then flinched from Cordelia shouting: “You had no right to do that to Wesley when he was an adult, Buffy! You know how much stronger you are than him. If when he’s big again you ever even think about hurting him, I will stake you myself, Slayer or no Slayer!”

Once again, it occurred to Giles that Cordelia was the only person there who liked the adult Wesley as much as they liked the child. It was more than a little galling to realize that in this instance the person who seemed to have shown the most insight into their newest arrival was the least insightful amongst them.

When Giles looked back through the window, Buffy was crying and Cordelia was looking shocked. She hastily scrambled for a handkerchief from her purse and held it out while Buffy sobbed guiltily and Cordelia looked around for reinforcements. She tentatively patted Buffy on the shoulder and essayed an awkward: “There, there. I didn’t mean it. Well, I did, but I didn’t think you were going to start going all…cry-Buffy on me. Sheesh, what happened to the girl who always yells back?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him…” Buffy said brokenly.

Cordelia sighed, suddenly looking a lot more human. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry I yelled – okay? And he’ll be wondering where you are so you should go back inside and get him some clothes – not that those clothes you and Giles picked out for him are anything other than frightening but I suppose they’ll do and we don’t want him catching a chill.”

At the magical word ‘chill’, Buffy hastily wiped her eyes. “You’re right. He could catch cold.”

“Yes, he could…” Cordelia said in her most encouraging ‘talking to the half-witted’ voice. “So, you’d better stop crying and go and take care of him, hadn’t you?”

As Buffy scampered back into the house, Giles watched Cordelia roll her eyes and mutter: “Yes, because pneumonia is such a risk in a heated house in high summer…”

Buffy then had to console herself for her guilt by cuddling the towel-wrapped Wesley, who clearly had no idea why he was back on her lap and being cuddled again, or why she was sniffing, and stroking his hair, but was just so glad of the attention he certainly wasn’t going to ask any awkward questions that might in any way stop the cuddling.

Xander watched Buffy and Willow cooing over Wesley for a while and then looked at Giles. “Doesn’t he ever say ‘enough already’?”

“Not as yet. So far he seems to rather like it.”

Xander shook his head. “That is one scarily affection-starved kid.”

Giles supposed that if Wesley being a child went on long enough, at some point, Wesley might disentangle himself from Buffy’s smothering embrace and start to act a little more like an eight-year-old boy, but that was clearly not something that was going to happen any time soon.

Cordelia managed to use the magical word ‘chill’ to coax Buffy and Willow to stop cuddling him for long enough to get him out of the now damp towel and into his clothes, and as right in front of the fire was deemed the only place warm enough for him to be dressed, everyone in the room got to see how painfully thin he was. Oz winced and Angel grimaced at the sight of not only the bruises but his visible ribs and bony little shoulder blades.

Giles said, “I really do think he’s naturally skinny rather than…deliberately starved.”

Xander said grimly, “If you say so.”

Then Wesley was obediently putting up his arms so his t-shirt could go on. The closest he came to rebellion was saying shyly: “I know how to dress myself, Buffy.”

“Yes, but you have pulled muscles from fighting vampires and from…before…” Willow said hastily. “So, we should dress you this time.”

Giles was quite certain that even allowing for small boy coordination Wesley could have dressed himself a lot faster than Buffy and Willow, who managed to get every item of clothing inside out or upside down in their distraction at the boniness of his body or the adorable cuteness of his sticky up hair.

“It’s going to be lunchtime before he’s dressed at this rate…” Giles murmured.

Oz put his head on one side. “Well, at least Buffy and Willow are having fun.”

“Yes, they have their own walkin’, talkin’, livin’ mini-Watcher doll.” Xander strode over to where Buffy was trying to get Wesley’s clothing to fit with safety pins. “Buff – enough with the dressing already, Wesley has other things to do today.”

Wesley immediately scrambled down and stood up straight in front of Xander, saying, “I have my lesson books. Mr Giles gave me a notebook yesterday and I have a pen in my bag.” He quickly grabbed his bag and held out the pen as if this would ward off a scolding.

Xander crouched down in front of him. “You don’t need a pen for these lessons. You just have to be prepared to have some serious fun.” Then he scooped Wesley up, tickled him until he curled up like a puppy and giggled helplessly, and deposited him on one of the chairs by the dining room table. “Today, we’re going to study the way pathetic magical fairytale castles put together by Girlies can’t withstand a sustained assault from neighbouring baronial castles put together by Men.”

“I wanted a sea battle.” Angel had already installed himself in the chair opposite Wesley and was starting to clip together pieces of plastic. “But I suppose that can wait.”

Cordelia frowned and looked at Buffy. “I thought Angel was cool?”

Buffy also looked at him in some confusion. “I suppose he’s taking the day off from being cool.”

Oz grabbed another chair eagerly and began to reassemble the parts of the castle knocked over by the vampire assault.

As Buffy and Cordelia both looked to Willow for an explanation, she shrugged. “I suppose Oz is taking the day off from being cool too.”

“They’re scaring me a little,” Cordelia observed, then seemed to realize what Xander had said. “What was that about ‘castles put together by Girlies’? You are so going to get your asses kicked!”

“You can’t attack the Fairytale Castle!” Willow protested. “It’s a place of harmony and being at one with nature. Why can’t we just have a nice little community where everyone lives in a spirit of peace and mutual cooperation?”

Angel said, “It’s a bastion of tyranny run by hereditary…tyrants. They have to die.”

Oz looked at Angel sideways. “Isn’t this a baronial castle?”

“He’s a republican,” Angel insisted. “Does this place come with a little plastic guillotine? Or I suppose we could make one with a pulley system and a razor blade…”

Willow said desperately: “Giles – stop them!”

“I’m not really much of a monarchist either,” Giles admitted, grateful to have his armchair back and grabbing it quickly.

Buffy said, “Don’t worry, Will, we can take them. We have magical forces on our side, remember?”

“We have a wizard.” Xander held out the as-yet-unpacked wizard in his magical cave.

Cordelia sniffed. “Do you have an actual human wizard on your team? Because we have an actual witch.”

Xander turned to Giles quickly. “Don’t you think you should be banning people from using magic in a frivolous way?”

“They have a siege tower!” Willow protested. “All we have are unicorns and a fairy bower!”

Giles sipped his tea and opened a book. “I’m keeping out of it.”

Giles spent a very entertaining morning, pretending to sigh in disapproval, while actually thoroughly enjoying watching the increasingly dirty battle taking place on his dining room table. Angel proved that Angelus had not entirely departed by constructing a working guillotine with worrying dexterity, while Willow kept altering the rules of magical engagement. Wesley actually turned out to be rather good at strategy and was the one who pointed out that there needed to be a point to the game or else they would just end up razing each other’s plastic castles to the ground. It was decided after much heated discussion that the object for the baron’s side was to imprison but absolutely not behead the royal family from the Fairytale castle, who if they were captured had to be treated as prisoners under the Geneva Convention, a great disappointment for Angel who was already trying to make up a torture chamber to go with his guillotine. It was finally agreed that he could dunk the king into the well a few times on the grounds that the Baron was probably evil, being a baron, even if a republican one, and he had to reluctantly settle for that, although Giles noticed that didn’t stop him creating a little rack out of matchsticks and wire.

The object for the Fairytale side was to rescue the dragon in the dungeons of the baronial castle as it could then be assumed that if the dragon were at large it would be burning all the fields of the baronial people leaving them to starve to death.

“It’s a deterrent,” Willow insisted. “We don’t actually let the dragon do that but knowing we have it and he could do that means you have to give in. So there.”

“It says here that ‘…when the drawbridge has been sealed using the winch this magnificent castle is impervious to attack’!” Xander complained, after a particularly sustained magical assault. “You’re not sticking to the rules! We’re impervious to attack right now!”

“It also says it’s a ‘King’s castle’,” Buffy retorted. “But I don’t see ‘Angel-I-used-to-be-Irish-and-I-work-for-no-king’ sticking with that part of the rules.”

“I’m still Irish,” Angel protested. “You don’t just stop being Irish.”

“Oh please.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in America longer than any other American who isn’t you know – undead or totally ga-ga. That makes you American.”

“So how come your ‘baron’ is wearing a little crown?” Buffy demanded. “He looks kind of kingly to me…”

“He’s just mocking the trappings of hereditary tyranny,” Angel insisted, yanking off the crown and tossing it. “So there.”

As well as the battle over which side was winning the Playmobil war, there was also the ‘who gets to have Wesley on their side’ war, with the males insisting that he was on the Baronial side of the divide due to his gender, and the girls insisting he was on their side due to them saying so.

Giles did intervene then to say sternly: “You are not to put that child on the spot by making him choose. Draw straws for him or agree to share.”

Willow said, “But, Giles, if you would just come and join us then it wouldn’t be a gender war and you could be teaching Wesley…Watchery things about strategy and…”

“Besieging plastic castles?” Giles looked over his glasses at her and then at a begging look from Wesley found that he was getting up, putting down his book, sighing heavily but complying.

“Okay, so now there are three of us and five of you,” Xander points out. “That means we get Wesley.”

“It’s only fair.” Oz picked him up before Buffy could snatch him and hastily handed him over to Angel who stuck him on his shoulders out of her reach then looked smug.

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m seeing a whole new bad side of you today.”

Cordelia nodded. “He’s like Dorkus Vampirus. It’s scary.”

Angel just gazed up at Wesley. “So, how do we safeguard the dragon, Wesley?”

Wesley examined the castle and then diffidently pointed out possible areas of attack. “…And there are trapdoors in the rooms, so they could send people up through those and then sneak down to the dungeons.”

Buffy looked at Willow. “There are trapdoors? Why aren’t we using the trapdoors?”

Xander and Oz quickly positioned crossbow-wielding soldiers in front of each trapdoor. “Try it, little pixie people,” Xander invited. “See how far you get...”

Giles found that it was surprisingly enjoyable to be utterly…childish for a morning. He told himself it wasn’t that he was slacking on the research to bring Wesley back, just taking a day to recharge the mental batteries. And, of course, if they succeed in capturing Ethan, then it would be much quicker to simply – hit him repeatedly until he admitted what was necessary to turn Wesley back. It certainly wasn’t a case of him wallowing in denial while his subconscious tried to find a way to let the boy stay as he was.

He looked across at Wesley, who was giggling helplessly at something Oz had said as Angel reluctantly passed him over to Xander, who was insisting it was turn to have Wesley as his ‘military advisor’.

“Could you be any cuter?” Xander asked of no one in particular.

“Nope.” Buffy grinned at him. “It is a scientifically proven fact that it is impossible for any child to be cuter than Wesley. And you get him for ten more minutes and then we’re trading you Giles for Wesley.”

“As a hostage?” Xander said hopefully.

“As an advisor,” Buffy said witheringly.

“So we can’t tie him up?”

Buffy looked at Willow. “Boys are strange.”

Willow nodded. “We should take Wesley away from them before they’re a bad influence on him.”

Cordelia was already lifting Wesley from Xander’s arms. She carried him back to the safety of what she termed the ‘sane side of the table’ while Buffy waved to Giles. “You can go and help them now, but remember that if you help them too much we won’t let you play with Wesley.”

Giles said, “You do realize that’s completely illogical – and unfair.”

“Not to mention contrary to the rules of engagement,” Oz pointed out. “As agreed by the covenants governing Playmobil battle tactics.”

“And all tactical matters relating to the deployment of plastic people in a designated war zone.” Xander pointed a finger for emphasis.

Angel’s response was to use the catapult to lob debris at the Fairytale Castle. Willow glared at him and responded with a spell that Giles thought he had better pretend he hadn’t noticed which caused all of the defenders on the Baronial Castle to fall over. Then there was general plastic carnage as minor spells and major debris were hurdled backwards and forth, at the end of which Willow smugly held aloft the dragon and proclaimed the world safe for Fairy Bowers once more.

Xander and Angel exchanged a look and Angel said: “We could beat them at sea.”

Xander nodded, grimly, and Giles noticed that he, Oz, and Angel all turned away to pool their money; Angel shoving folded twenty dollar bills at Xander.

“What are you doing?” Cordelia demanded.

“Oz and I are off to buy us all lunch, Your Queenliness,” Xander assured her. He jerked his head at Oz, who gave Willow a farewell kiss, and then headed off with him.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “They looked sneaky. Why did they look sneaky?”

“No reason,” Angel said. “Wesley, do you want to help me put the Viking Ship together while Uncle Oz and Uncle Xander buy lunch?”

Wesley nodded brightly, all fear of the vampire evidently banished during their battle strategizing together.

Giles looked at his dining room table, which was large enough to sit eight but seemed a great deal smaller when it was also required to double as a battlefield. “Shall we move the – plastic people to the floor?” he suggested. “So we can sit up and eat at the table in a civilized manner?”

“Kind of missing the whole day of fun thing, aren’t you?” Buffy observed, but then began to push the furniture back against the walls to make a much larger space for them to expand their plastic empire.

Giles forbore from pointing out that he was actually the one who had purchased the Playmobil castles in the first place. As he turned his head he saw Angel and Wesley sitting on the floor together, tortured vampire back from hell, and Watcher-to-be who had never been permitted until now to just be a child. They were both smirking at something Angel had said, Wesley shaking with laughter so much that he could hardly fit the plastic pieces together. Angel gently guided his hands, and the pieces of longship snapped together properly. Wesley beamed up at him and Angel smiled back. When Giles looked up he saw Buffy gazing at them with adoration on her face and Giles winced as he realized that in her heart Buffy was still a teenager, and still dreamt that she could somehow have this: partner, child, happiness, with an – infertile – vampire while she was the only Slayer left able to defend the world from darkness. Wesley giggled again and Buffy sat down next to him, Wesley in between her and Angel, her beaming at them both as she handed over a mast. Giles took a step back, physically and mentally, thinking that if this was to be the closest that Buffy and Angel ever came to having a family life, even as a temporary arrangement from a lie based on a spell, then who was he to interfere?

He turned around and found Cordelia looking at him. She said quietly. “Wesley has rights too. And a life he was living. The adult Wesley. He didn’t come here so that Buffy and Angel could play house, Giles.”

“I know.” Giles removed his glasses to give them an entirely unnecessary clean. “I know that.”

“Please remember it,” Cordelia said, and her expression was pleading not demanding. “Because I don’t think anyone else here is going to.” And then she was beaming at Child Wesley as if no one could have been happier than her and ordering Willow imperiously to help her build the Viking Longhouse.

Giles sighed, replaced his glasses, and tried not to think how easy it would be if the spell simply couldn’t be altered and it was no one’s fault if Wesley had to stay like this and be brought up anew, this time by people who actually liked him.

***

The day went much too fast, Xander thought. He and Oz had purchased the pirate ship and accessories aplenty, and enough lunch to feed even all of them. Lunch had been eaten. Then he, Angel, Oz and Wesley had put the ship together in double quick time then launched an assault from the piece of shiny wrapping paper standing in for the sea on the Baronial castle. That had been all kinds of fun. As had been the epic sea battle between pirates and Vikings that followed, despite Giles bringing the whole funtime thing down by wanting to talk to Wesley about what era the Vikings came from and when pirates had been at their most common and if it was likely they ever would have met geographically. They had all had to yell at Giles quite a lot to get him to stop bringing lessons into the playroom and man the cannons instead, but he had then done so with a ruthless efficiency that had been quite fun to watch.

Then there had been a brief pause to eat a lot more food, and then a trawl through the channels to find out what was on children’s TV, which Angel, bizarrely, had ended up watching with Wesley, as apparently he didn’t have a TV in his mansion so the whole moving picture thing was pretty exciting for him.

Unfortunately, it had then become evening again and while Angel went out to stock up on his blood – and ewww that there was now some of it sitting in Giles’ fridge – they had been forced to call around everybody’s parents. Willow’s mother was too vague and intellectual to mind and Xander’s parents were too indifferent to care but Buffy’s mom had taken quite a lot of fast-talking from Buffy and Giles to convince her that it really was crisis time, although a crisis that wasn’t actually very dangerous, really.

“Why can’t you just show her Wesley and let her know the truth?” Cordelia demanded.

Giles and Buffy grimaced. “She’ll want to adopt him,” Buffy explained. “I know what Mom is like with little kids. I wouldn’t get him away from her with a whip and a chair.”

“Gee, lucky for the rest of us you’re not all weird and hyper-possessive then….”

In the end the calling had been done and Buffy and Giles had decided to head out in search of Ethan; Xander just hoped that they didn’t get turned into newts by demon-raising, costume-selling, wacky-candy-pimping guy.

He felt decidedly on edge with both Buffy and Giles out of the way. Angel was here, of course, to take care of Willow, but who was to say the Mayor wouldn’t send a bunch of people armed with Holy Water this time? Or if Faith was really in cahoots with him, send her? She didn’t need an invitation to push her way in and she could kick Angel’s ass. On the other hand Willy was even more scared of Buffy than he was of Angel and they did need to find Ethan.

He thought about there maybe being some horrible side effects to the spell, or Wesley just getting younger and younger until he wasn’t even a baby any more, just a foetus. There were some things he couldn’t take happening, and one of those was harm coming to Willow from the Mayor, and another of those was harm coming to little boys who had never apparently known much in the way of kindness before and were just so grateful for any affection.

The amulet Giles had taken from Wesley’s apartment was still wrapped up in a corner. Giles and Willow had done some kind of neutralizing spell in case it was still – whatever amulets were when they could zap you – active, live, whatever, but it still gave Xander the creeps and he was avoiding that part of the room. Willow and Oz were on the couch, she was half-dozing with her head on Oz’s shoulder, he with his arm around her. Xander remembered when there would have been four of them. Oz and Willow and Cordelia and Xander. He didn’t know who to blame for the ruination of that; he and Willow for giving into temptation when they thought they were going to die, or Cordelia for not being able to forgive him for a momentary lapse. Which reminded him – where was Queen C? He heard the sound of her voice talking quietly and crept over to the kitchen, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to know if everything was okay.

She had Wesley sat on the countertop while she dried the clean dishes on the draining board. Wesley was helping her, wiping very carefully with a teatowel and then handing her the sparkling glass or clean mug with even greater care.

“Why don’t you think they’re your friends…?” Wesley was asking in some puzzlement.

“Because they don’t really like me.” Cordelia said it with a smile, as if didn’t really matter. “They just – tolerate me because I used to go out with Xander.”

Actually, we tolerated you before you and I dated, Cordy, Xander thought. You’ve always kind of been one of us. Perhaps with the emphasis on ‘kind of’….

“You used to go out with Xander?” Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “Are you going to marry him?”

“No.” She took a glass from him and put it away in a cupboard. “We’re so over. There aren’t words for how over we are.”

Wesley looked at her mournfully, saying tentatively: “Do you get…lonely…?”

Cordelia grimaced. “Yes. You know why I’d be lonely right now, though, Wes, if you weren’t here…?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not here. That’s who I’m missing right now. I’m missing someone who doesn’t – judge me every time I talk to him. Someone who likes me and doesn’t act like there’s something wrong with me. I’m missing you.”

Wesley gazed up at her. “Big me?”

“Yes. I miss Big You.” She looked at his face and smiled at him. “Except I’m not – because I have Little You, except – I’m still missing Big You, I’m just not missing him as much because I have you to talk to. And you know what? Even though you’re only eight years old now, I’d still rather spend time with you.”

Wesley looked mournful. “If I get big again will you miss – me me…?”

Cordelia took the glass from his hand, put it away, and then picked him up carefully. “Oh God, yes. So much.” Xander saw in some dismay that there were tears in her eyes as she pressed a kiss into the little boy’s hair. He backed up quickly, wondering just how far she had invested, in him, in Wesley the Watcher. It had been clear from the beginning that she saw him differently from the rest of them; saw something in him they didn’t see. Had she been seeing him as the possible answer to her problems? A way out of Sunnydale? Out of her recent history with him? Did she feel as if she had burnt all her bridges just because she had dated someone her friends didn’t approve of and who had exchanged one solitary kiss with a childhood friend?

Wesley isn’t going to solve that, Cord. Even as a twenty-six year old with a salary and a really nice suit, he’s just a guy, with problems of his own. And now we know even more problems than we ever guessed before. You’d actually be exchanging one screwed up guy with self-esteem and daddy issues for another.

He snatched a breath and then hummed a jaunty tune, before arriving in the doorway with a big smile on his face. “Need a hand there, you two?”

Cordelia quickly wiped her eyes. “No, we’re fine.”

“Is your head okay?” Xander looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced.

She nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Well, mine is kind of thumping, wanna share some Tylenol and some good old fashioned…tea…?”

Cordelia did smile then. “Wow, that’s the most exciting offer I’ve had all day – and isn’t that the sad admission?”

Xander put the kettle on. “Want me to take the munchkin?”

“He’s fine.” Cordelia bent her head to rub her nose against Wesley’s. “Not the heaviest child I’ve ever met.”

Wesley grinned at her. “Uncle Richard used to say that soaking wet and with a rock in my pocket I weighed almost as much as Cuthbert.” He looked down at the floor. “It didn’t sound mean when he said it. It was just funny.”

“It is funny, Wes,” Xander assured him.

Wesley leaned his head against Cordelia’s neck. “Is Buffy coming back soon?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” She handed Xander the teabags. “She’ll be home soon.”

“I like Buffy,” he said drowsily. “She makes me feel safe.”

Xander saw the way Cordelia’s fingers automatically strayed to that bruise on his ribs that Buffy had left there, but all she did was kiss him on the forehead and say without a tremor: “She makes us all feel safe. That’s what she does.”

“I like you too.” Wesley’s eyes were closed and he was so close to being asleep it made no difference. “I like all of you. If I can’t be big again can you not tell Daddy? Then I can stay here with you…” And then his thumb was in his mouth and he really was asleep.

Cordelia said urgently to Xander, “Please, take him.”

Xander hurried to do so, lifting the boy into his arms. Then Cordelia sat down on the chair and her shoulders began to shake, and then she was sobbing, silently, but wretchedly, while Xander watched and felt useless, automatically rocking the boy he held so as to keep him asleep.

“Cordy… what is it…?” he whispered.

She wiped her eyes after a minute, got up, and shook back her weight of long brown hair. “It’s everything…” she said. And then she snatched a long deep breath and looked across at him. “It’s nothing. Life’s just… sometimes it just sucks, you know…?” She came across to where Xander was holding Wesley and looked down at his sleeping face. Wesley had the longest thickest eyelashes Xander had ever seen on a boy, and the palest skin. He should have been all round and pink, but he was narrow and white instead. Cordy said, “Can I have him back, please?” and it wasn’t imperious, just pleading. Xander handed him back into her arms without a word, still shocked by her outburst of grief, and then she was rocking Wesley and humming to him softly, and Xander was busying himself making tea, while the tear tracks dried on her face, and he knew that neither of them were ever going to refer to what had just happened ever again.

***

They were all watching a late night movie when Buffy and Giles finally came back. Cordelia and Xander had bathed Wesley and gotten him into his pyjamas – he had been too sleepy by that point to do anything except shove his arms into the jacket as directed without really opening his eyes – but they hadn’t wanted to put him to bed until Buffy was back. None of them wanted to go to bed until Buffy and Giles were back and they knew Wesley wouldn’t be happy if he woke up and she wasn’t there. So, a trawl through the channels had produced something in black and white with sound so bad you could hardly make out the words but a plot that didn’t look too scary for an eight year old boy should he wake up. Wesley was asleep with his head on Willow’s lap, his body on Oz’s lap and his feet in Cordelia’s, she was rubbing them absently to keep them warm. Angel was sitting on the floor with Xander, saying: “I remember when this one first came out. I queued to see it.”

“Man, you’re old,” Xander observed.

“They sure drank a lot in those old films…” Cordelia observed.

And then Buffy and Giles came in and everyone beamed at them in relief while putting their fingers across their lips and pointing down at where Wesley was asleep. Buffy yanked Ethan forward and they saw he looked as if he had probably been a little pummelled, and Giles clasped a hand across his mouth when he attempted to make a jaunty hello, and dragged him into the kitchen and tied him to a chair.

“Do I need to gag you?” Buffy demanded.

“Uh – no, on reflection, I think not. Not that I don’t enjoy a bit of bondage as much as the next man – supposing the next man is Ripper… All right, I’ll be good...”

Buffy came back in, whispering: “How is he?”

Willow, Oz, Cordelia and Xander all pointed at the little boy wordlessly and Buffy immediately felt his forehead.

Angel barely contained a smirk. “Buffy, he’s asleep, and, no, he doesn’t have a fever.”

“I know.” She gave him a look but did withdraw her hand.

Giles had hung up his coat and now hurried over to the couch. “Everything okay?” He felt Wesley’s forehead.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Giles, he’s just asleep. Don’t be such a worrywart.”

Wesley stirred, his long eyelashes fluttered, and then he opened his eyes. When he saw Buffy his face broke into a beaming smile and he held his arms up to her. She immediately picked him up and cuddled him while he sighed blissfully and snuggled in against her.

“Cordy said you’d come back,” he said sleepily. “She said you make everyone feel safe.”

Buffy looked across at Cordelia, still feeling the heat from the little boy’s side where she had bruised his ribs, and Cordelia gave her a look that made it very clear she was just being tactful. Buffy was still grateful though. She mouthed ‘thank you’ at the girl and took Wesley over to the dining room table where he could sit comfortably on her lap.

Giles sat opposite her as Wesley snuggled back in comfortably. He wasn’t quite asleep but there didn’t seem much chance of him taking in what they were saying.

Buffy nodded at the kitchen. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

Giles grimaced. “Usually if Ethan’s lips are moving then he’s lying.”

She looked down at the little boy in her lap. “Giles, if something happens to Wesley when he’s like this, I don’t think I can…”

He held her hand. “Nothing is going to happen to him. Well, except for him being turned into a very vulnerable little boy, of course.”

Wesley wriggled sleepily out of Buffy’s grasp. “Can I get myself a glass of water?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said absently, still trying to think of a way to get Ethan to tell the truth about the amulet. He was insisting that he had sent it to Giles just as a matter of curiosity as he had no idea what it did and thought Giles might know. He’d thought they could discuss it over a glass of wine but Giles had flown off the handle when he saw him and they’d never been able to have that conversation. He hadn’t even pretended he wasn’t lying but he had kept right on lying all the same. She lifted Wesley down and he moved off, still drowsily. She sighed. “Isn’t there something that matters to Ethan? Something we could threaten? Or something he wants that we could offer to get him in exchange for his help?”

Giles shook his head. “I think all he wants these days is to cause as much trouble as possible and anything he wanted would not be something we could – in good conscience – ever give him.”

“Hello, Mr. Rayne.”

They both looked at each other in horror as they heard Wesley’s casual greeting and turned to see the little boy reaching up to the taps to get himself some water.

As everyone in the room rose to his or her feet in horror, Ethan said: “Hello, Wesley. Good Lord – Wesley…? What are you…?” And then there was a silence as Ethan’s agile mind obviously dealt with the problem. He darted one look over his shoulder at Giles and then turned back to the boy, saying conversationally: “So, I forget, how old are you now?”

“I’m eight.” Wesley turned around with a glass of water in his hand, looked at Ethan for a moment and then said: “Would you like a glass of water too?”

“No, thank you, Wesley, I’m fine. Eight…so…I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your Uncle Richard. He was a very…decent man. Cuthbert well, is he?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr Rayne.” Wesley stood in front of Ethan gingerly sipping his water. “Why are you tied up?”

“I asked Rip…Mr. Giles if he would tie me up so I can practise undoing knots. That can be very useful when you’re in a dangerous situation.”

“Oh.” Wesley looked intrigued. “Can you show me how to untie knots, Mr. Rayne?”

“Another time, I’d be glad to. Now, Wesley, would you be a good boy and go and ask Mr Giles to come in here? There’s a good lad.”

Wesley came back out with his glass of water in his hand – watching the glass carefully all the time in case it looked like spilling – and said, “Mr. Rayne would like to speak to you, Uncle Giles. Can I practise untying knots too tomorrow?”

“Perhaps.” Giles patted the boy awkwardly on the shoulder and dived into the kitchen, while Buffy nodded to a bewildered-looking Angel who picked up Wesley while she also headed into the kitchen.

“Close the door,” Ethan ordered.

Giles did so, looking at him curiously. “You know Wesley?”

“Yes, I know Wesley. More to the point I knew his uncle. Very well.” His gaze flickered to Giles briefly. “I liked Dick Pryce, and you know how few people there are on this planet that I have ever actually liked, Ripper, but he was one of them. He was a good man and more to the point he was bloody good company and he managed to ‘do his duty’ as defender of the oppressed and all that nonsense without turning into a sanctimonious little prig, unlike some people not a million miles away from where I’m standing right now who used to be fun and then got oh so incredibly boring.” His gaze turned on Giles contemptuously.

Buffy shifted her feet. “You knew Wesley when he was a little boy?”

“Yes, which by my calculations was eighteen long years ago. I don’t need to ask why he is now that age again.” Ethan glared at Giles. “And you were going to tell me about this, when exactly?”

“Never,” Giles retorted. “The last thing I ever like to give you is an advantage.”

“How charming.” Ethan thought hard. “Well, things are serious now, so perhaps you and your little vamp-slaying cheerleader pal will stop wasting my time with half truths and evasions and tell me what exactly happened and when?”

Buffy could only watch in confusion as Giles grudgingly told Ethan everything that had happened.

Ethan nodded. “Okay. That sounds pretty much as if it worked to plan. Has he shown any side effects?”

“No,” Giles admitted. “He seems to be pretty much as one would expect an eight year old boy raised by a miserable bastard like Roger Wyndam-Pryce to be.”

“Don’t even talk to me about that insufferable ass,” Ethan said darkly. “The rows Dicky had with him. Dick loved that little boy, which was just as well, because no other bugger did. I was still trying to get him to agree to us just pushing Wyndam-Pryce senior into a nice swirling vortex when Dicky came a cropper himself.”

Buffy put a hand up to her head. “You’re telling me – you like small children now?”

“No,” Ethan told her shortly. “I detest small children and think they are all admirably suited to be demon brunch. But I liked Dicky Pryce and he liked that little boy. Why on earth was Wesley here anyway?”

“Another Watcher,” Giles explained.

“I was afraid he wouldn’t rebel. Poor little sod. Dicky used to come up from his duty calls to the old family pile seething with rage about the way that kid was treated. Did you know his father used to lock him under the stairs?”

“We worked it out,” Giles admitted.

Ethan put his head back. “Damn, if I’d known it was going to get him instead of you I’d have been a bit more careful with the spell. Still, it should be all right.”

“’Should’?” Buffy demanded.

“Well, in theory it should wear off in about ten days. I just skimped on some of the prep work because some of the ingredients the old books were so fond of just aren’t available at cost. It’s like Mrs. Beeton, isn’t it? Who can afford to use all those eggs these days? Of course, you cut corners.”

Giles gritted his teeth. “How many corners did you cut?”

“Don’t panic. I just made substitutions. There was a slight risk you might melt into a puddle of goop after a week or so but it was a very slight risk and frankly I didn’t much care. But as it’s Wesley, I think a little counter-spell work to stabilize the incantation might be a good idea. And then it should wear off as normal.”

“There is nothing ‘normal’ about this!” Buffy said shortly. “Going around sending people mystical amulets to make them halve their age overnight isn’t normal, Ethan. It’s weird. And wrong.”

“Oh, do spare me the Enid Blyton lecture, darling,” Ethan retorted. “I’m more invested in fixing this than you are anyway.”

“You are not,” she returned, trembling with rage. “No one is more…”

Ethan looked at her and then nodded. “Oh, I see. Well, I wouldn’t let me know that you’re fond of the boy, Buffy, or I might think that the fun of watching you squirm outweighs even my lingering affection for his late uncle.”

Giles said quietly, “Ethan, if there is even a shred of normal human decency left in you, will you please help us to undo what you did?”

Ethan looked at Buffy again. “Are you sure that’s what we want? Some people seem to have something of an investment in him staying the way he is.”

Buffy looked at him. “Is there a way to make that happen?”

Ethan sighed. “There’s another spell but it’s very dangerous and there’s only a one in five chance of it working without killing him. But your choice. Twenty percent chance of successfully keeping him a child or eighty percent chance of stabilizing the spell until it wears off and he returns to being an adult. Take your pick.”

Buffy didn’t hesitate. “We stabilize him. We’ll do it tomorrow. Willow can help. But I swear, if you are lying or…”

“Actually, for once, I’m not, and it almost pains me to have to admit it, but I am actually being honest. It’s an odd sensation and I can’t say I’m enjoying it.” Ethan grimaced then looked up at Giles. “You can, of course, keep me tied to a chair all night and have the joy of trying to make breakfast for the small commune you seem to have living with you around my bound and by then probably urine-soaked body, or you can let me go and I can research this spell a little more, get the ingredients I need, and turn up here tomorrow.”

Buffy looked at Giles aghast. “You can’t trust him.”

Giles looked at Ethan for a long moment and then reached for the knife on the side. He held it to Ethan’s throat. “Understand this, Ethan. If you don’t come back tomorrow, I will hunt you down and kill you. If you make a ‘mistake’ in your spellcasting, I will hunt you down and kill you. In fact if anything happens to Wesley as a consequence of this spell, I will hunt you down and kill you. Is that clear?”

Ethan winced as the blade touched his throat. “Crystal clear, Ripper.”

Buffy grabbed his hair. “And I’ll be the one hunting you down with him.”

There was the sound of the door opening and closing and then Angel said quietly: “Just to make things clearer, I’ll be the one killing you, and I can make it last for a very long time.” He morphed into fang face, momentarily pure demon. “Look up Angelus if you’re not sure of all the details.” He changed back into his normal face but his gaze was grim.

Ethan looked between them. “You know, you people are all wound awfully tight. Have you thought about taking a holiday?”

Buffy clenched her fist near his face. “Have you thought about the benefits of plastic surgery? Because you’re going to need plenty of it if you don’t do exactly what we say.”

“Understood.” Ethan shrugged as well as he could with his hands tied behind his back.

Giles cut him free and Ethan winced and rubbed his wrists then got to his feet. “I’ll be back tomorrow – with the spell and the ingredients. You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to pick you out a nice dress as well, Buffy? I seem to remember you rather liked my taste in costume wear…”

“Bring a dress here and you’ll be the one wearing it,” she told him.

He essayed mild regret. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Until tomorrow then,” Giles said grimly.

Ethan nodded, straightened his creased jacket and headed for the door. Angel stood in front of him, glaring at him balefully, and then stepped back to let him through.

In the sitting room, Ethan said jauntily, “Well, goodnight all. So nice to see you again, Wesley. I’ll be back tomorrow and we can do some of those spells that you always liked.”

Wesley looked up from his place on the floor. “Good night, Mr. Rayne.”

Then the door had closed behind Ethan and Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia were giving Buffy and Giles ‘what the hell?’ looks. Buffy noticed that Wesley was sitting on Xander’s chest where Xander was lying on the floor and Willow was absently cuddling Cuthbert.

“Apparently Ethan knows Wesley from way back,” Giles explained carefully. “And was very close to Wesley’s late uncle, Richard. He has something of a personal investment therefore in ensuring Wesley’s well-being.”

“You believe that?” Xander demanded.

Giles nodded. “For once, yes, I actually do.”

Wesley said innocently. “Mr. Rayne knows lots of spells. He taught me some of them.” He sighed. “But Daddy got angry and I wasn’t allowed to play with him any more.” He looked up at Giles anxiously. “You don’t mind me playing with him, do you?”

“Not if supervised,” Giles returned. “Very carefully supervised.”

Buffy said briskly: “Okay, bedtime now. Do you want to watch the end of the movie, Will?”

“I’ll be up in five minutes,” Willow said drowsily.

Buffy picked up Wesley from Xander’s chest. Xander murmured, “Hey, no fair, we were having some men’s time.”

“You can have some more ‘men’s time’ tomorrow, doing manly things like playing with little plastic sailboats…” Buffy carried Wesley around for his goodnight cuddles with everyone and Giles had to fight hard not to find adorable the way Wesley was now so at ease with them that he quite happily put an arm around Angel’s neck, hugged Giles, kissed Cordy – who straightened his pyjama jacket for the fiftieth time – and hugged Oz, Xander, and Willow again, who – torn between snuggling with Oz for another five minutes and cuddling Wesley in bed – gave a little whimper of indecision.

Oz smiled, kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s okay. You can go and cuddle Wesley. I know you still love me.”

“I do! I so do.” She beamed at him, kissed him again, and then darted after Buffy, saying, “Wait! I have Cuthbert!”

Oz watched her go then looked at Xander. “They’re not going to be like this when Wesley’s big again, are they? Because that would be…kind of disturbing.”

“They’d better not be,” said Cordelia tartly. “I have dibs on him.”

Giles said, “It would definitely be contrary to every rule in the Watcher’s Handbook for a Watcher to um…snuggle with a witch and a Slayer every night.”

“What about now…?” Xander enquired. “Isn’t Wesley sort of breaking the rules a little bit now?”

“Wesley’s in New York, attending a Rare Book Fair,” Giles observed calmly. “So, clearly cannot be here playing with little plastic people or – snuggling with Slayers. Now, would you mind getting off my couch?”

Oz slid onto the floor next to Xander and Cordelia slid down next to him, all three of them still watching the television.

Giles said, “Um – Cordelia, I don’t feel entirely comfortable changing into my pyjamas while you’re here.”

She nodded at the bathroom. “It’s just over there.”

Sighing, Giles, took his pyjamas into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and came back out to find that Angel was now sitting next to Cordelia, all four of them using his couch as a backrest while raptly watching what looked remarkably like a Hammer Horror film about vampires.

“This is so full of stereotypes,” Angel snorted.

“Not to mention screaming women,” Cordelia pointed out. “How come they all fall over when they run away?”

“What is with the sleeping in the coffin thing? There are no vampires who sleep in coffins.”

“But there are sexy vampire chicks who molest lonely young men, right?” Xander pressed. “And please tell me the lesbian subtext is canonical, because otherwise so many good fantasies are just killed right there.”

A shot of a full moon gave way to a howling wolf. Oz frowned. “Do I sound like that?”

“Kind of…” Xander admitted, passing him the popcorn.

“That’s actually kind of cool.”

Angel accepted the popcorn from Oz while never taking his eyes off the screen. “Again with the coffins!”

Giles thought about asking them to switch off the TV or say – shut up – but then realized it was probably hopeless and so climbed over the arm of the couch, pulled a blanket over himself and said a firm: “Good night.”

“Night, Giles.” Angel handed back the popcorn. “Can you believe the clothes this guy is wearing?” Everyone looked at Angel who looked down at himself. “What? I don’t wear evening dress. Or a cloak.”

“That coat is kind of affected though, isn’t it?” Xander pointed out.

“It’s useful.”

“For what?”

“It doesn’t show stains. And what is with the bat thing? I don’t even like bats.”

“He is kind of sexy,” Cordelia admitted, accepting the pail of popcorn.

“Cordy, you live on a Hellmouth,” Xander pointed out. “How can you of all people find vampires sexy?”

“I like movie vampires. They always dress well and they never try to get into my home…”

When Giles finally drifted into sleep, Oz and Xander were debating the merits of why there weren’t more werewolves and fewer vampires on the grounds that everyone had something vaguely stake-shaped in their house but almost no one kept a stash of silver bullets.

“For which I’m personally quite grateful,” Oz admitted.

Angel still seemed to be objecting to everything Bram Stoker had written and Cordelia was critiquing the nightgowns every single female in the film seemed to wear at all times.

“All I’m saying is no way do you get that kind of lift without corsetry, so were these bodiced nightgowns or are we just supposed to believe that they had time to pull on their corset under the nightgowns before they got bitten…?”

It was a great relief to Giles when sheer exhaustion intervened and he drifted off to another dream about vampires, corsetry, and the inevitable pilchards.

***

Ethan surprised everyone, perhaps including himself, by turning up on Giles’s doorstep at ten a.m. He was carrying a bag full of magical ingredients, and had a cheerful smile for Wesley, who looked nothing other than pleased to see him.

“Hello, Mr. Rayne.”

“Hello, Wesley. How are you today?”

“Very well, thank you, Mr Rayne. How are you?”

“I’m very well too.” Ethan looked across at Giles. “And I’d really like to stay that way.” He ruffled Wesley’s hair and made his way across to the dining room table where he offloaded his bag with a grunt. “I suppose this is a lesson to me in why we were always told never to cut corners in spell preparation, but, have you seen the price of twice-blessed sage these days?” Looking around at their anxious and hostile faces, he rolled his eyes. “A cup of tea would be nice, Rip – ” Glancing across at Wesley’s curious face, he coughed. “Rupert. Earl Grey if you’ve got it.”

“You can have Tetleys and like it,” Giles told him shortly.

Buffy glowered at Ethan. “Remember what we told you last night.”

“Oh, will you people lighten up? I’m here as agreed and I have the ingredients as agreed.”

Wesley watched with interest as Ethan unpacked his bag and Ethan leant down, picked him up – everyone took a step forward and hissed at that – and then placed him carefully on the table where he could see what was going on. “Wesley likes magic, don’t you, Wesley?”

Wesley nodded, watching wide-eyed as Ethan removed crystals, an orb, bones, a clawed foot, and various bags of herbs and powders from his rather battered Gladstone bag. “Yes, Mr. Rayne.”

Ethan looked across at Giles, who was hovering anxiously. “He had a lot of potential when he was a child. Unfortunately his father didn’t like him exploring that area of his talents. Much too much like having fun. How good is he as an adult?”

Giles exchanged a glance with Buffy. “Well… he hasn’t really been in Sunnydale very long. There hasn’t been much cause to… We don’t know.”

“Do you want to know what marks you got at school, Wesley?” Ethan enquired.

Wesley looked at him open-mouthed. “Can I do that?”

“You did all the work so I don’t really see why not.” He turned to Giles. “Did they send you his paperwork?”

Giles remembered Wesley flourishing some credentials at him on the first day, to which he had not paid much attention, too busy phoning the Council to check that this Watcher wasn’t actually…freelance.

“I think so.”

“And you didn’t check them?”

“I checked them, I just didn’t read them.” Giles went to the briefcase in which Wesley kept his paperwork and opened it. “Here it is.” He wasn’t even sure why he was letting Ethan push them all around except that Wesley seemed to like him, which meant, miraculously, that in his previous meetings with Wesley, Ethan had never actually done anything unpleasant to him.

Ethan opened the folder and then went still and Giles saw he was looking at the identification picture of Wesley in the top right hand corner. “You look like Dick,” he said. He glanced at the little boy again. “So much like him in fact that if…” He didn’t finish that sentence and as Giles had no doubt it would have contained an unwarranted slur about the virtue of Wesley’s mother, he was glad he hadn’t done so.

Wesley peered at the papers curiously and Ethan turned them over to find his final marks. “Look at that, Wesley. You got an ‘A’ in Mystical Studies in your finals. That’s the theory and practical. Well done.”

Wesley smiled up at him as Ethan went through his marks. “Good Lord, Wesley, you got ‘A’s in everything. How many languages were you taking?”

Wesley looked under Ethan’s arm at the page with his final marks. “I studied Demonic Languages! I always wanted to learn those.”

Ethan’s eyes widened as he counted up the classes take and exams passed. “You know more than Uncle Rupert here. Actually, although it pains me to say it, I think you know more than me.”

Wesley’s face fell as he read on. “It says that I have problems with social skills and find it difficult to make friends, and that I have a problem with self-confidence that could cause me to react badly to pressure or criticism. It says here ‘there is still a question mark concerning Wesley’s leadership abilities’.”

Ethan gazed at the little boy in mild amusement. “Well, given Daddy’s idea of building up your self-esteem, I think that’s to be expected, don’t you?”

But Wesley still looked downcast. “I sound really stupid.”

Ethan waved the exam marks under his nose. “No one who can get an ‘A’ in fifteen different subjects is ‘stupid’, Wesley. But I would imagine that the level of study required to achieve these marks probably didn’t leave a lot of time for…socializing.”

Wesley grimaced. “I’m a boring little swot, aren’t I?”

Ethan laughed. “Quite possibly. But I’m sure you can grow out of it.”

“Uncle Richard wasn’t boring, was he?”

“No, Wesley, he certainly wasn’t, which means the sparks of rebellion must be in you somewhere. We just need to…feed the flames.”

Buffy looked at Giles. “Are we accepting Ethan as a role model for Wesley now?”

“Most emphatically not,” Giles assured her.

Ethan was still avidly reading his file. “It says here that you can read and translate Geshundi, Wesley. That’s an absolute bi- um bugger of a language. And – my goodness – you took extra classes in early Fallorian on top of all your other studies and passed with flying colours.”

“Good Lord,” Giles observed.

Buffy said, “What? What’s wrong with that?”

Giles took off his glasses. “Nothing, it’s just – remarkably difficult.”

“Didn’t you fail your Fallorian exam?” Ethan observed.

Giles glowered at him. “Yes, and thank you for reminding me.”

“I remember Doctor Lister read your exam paper out in class and said that your translation of a passage of Shakespeare into Fallorian had Benedict doing something most unseemly to a chicken.”

“It’s a very difficult language,” Giles protested. “An inverted serif can alter the meaning of an entire passage.”

Oz frowned. “So – Wesley – Big Wesley being able to do magic and translate all these different languages that even Giles doesn’t know – isn’t that something we should have known about? It sounds as if it would have been useful.”

“Yes, it does rather.” Giles grimaced. “We’ve all been rather busy, of course…”

Wesley looked down at his hands. “I’m not being very useful like this, am I? Willow and Cordelia and Xander and Oz all got hurt trying to protect me because I’m too little to protect myself.”

Giles and Angel exchanged a brief glance as they silently acknowledged that Wesley hadn’t been a lot of use at protecting himself when adult either.

“Hey, it was the least I could do,” Cordelia observed. “You saved my life, after all.”

Wesley looked surprised. “I did?”

“He did?” Buffy and Giles both chorused.

Cordelia frowned. “Didn’t I mention it? When that evil Willow was here. I let her out of the book-cage and then she – vamped out and was going to kill me only Wesley turned up and waved a crucifix and some holy water at her and she went away again.”

“No, Cordelia,” Giles said crisply. “You didn’t mention it. And when we came back to the Library there was no sign of you or Wesley.”

Cordelia grimaced. “Well, I was too shaken up to drive so I had to ask him to take me home.”

“You were putting the moves on him,” Xander said disdainfully.

“He was a perfect gentleman,” she retorted.

“Much to your disappointment.”

Wesley looked between them wide-eyed and Buffy nudged Cordelia just as Willow elbowed Xander who looked at Wesley and said, “You didn’t hear any of that, okay?”

Wesley nodded. “Okay.”

Giles snatched a breath. “Cordelia, you could have called me to let me know that the – Vampire Willow was at large, and you could also have mentioned to me that Wesley had saved your life.”

Cordelia shrugged. “I figured Willow was a vampire and you probably knew. She was locked in your bookcage. And why did you need me to tell you Wesley saved me anyway? Isn’t that pretty much what Watchers do?”

Giles grimaced. “Well, yes…” He glanced across at Buffy. “Absolutely. It would just have been nice to know.”

Buffy drew him to one side and murmured: “So, apart from us finding out that Wesley’s actually pretty brave, resourceful, chivalrous, and top of his class in…everything, nothing’s really changed, has it?”

Giles sighed. “I think perhaps my allowing my – resentment at being replaced to prevent me from utilizing someone who could obviously have been an asset, is perhaps something I need to address but for now, no. We need to stabilize this spell and then continue to take care of Wesley as he is now. But, perhaps when he’s an adult again…”

“Giles, we all made up our minds about Wesley in about thirty seconds – and that includes Cordelia. If she hadn’t been on the rebound and he hadn’t looked pretty in a suit then she would have written him off as well.”

“Wonderful, so we were all as insightful as Cordelia in our dealings with him. Oddly enough, I’m not finding that such a comfort. Although in fairness to us, Wesley certainly did hide his light under a whole cartload of bushels.”

Giles turned back to find Ethan making a circle out of the magical ingredients on the floor while Wesley eagerly assisted him. “There’s a good lad. Chicken feet next. You’re supposed to do this with a piece of string attached to a pair of compasses to make a perfect circle but I usually do it by eye – and actually, if I’m showing you how to do it perhaps we ought to do it right.” Ethan glanced across at Giles. “Have you got a pair of compasses, a piece of string, and a piece of chalk, Rip-Rupert?”

Giles wordlessly found some and held them out, still thinking about those exam marks of Wesley’s that he hadn’t even bothered to look at, and that casual mention from Cordelia of Wesley having saved her life. Glancing across at Buffy he saw she was thinking the same thing.

When he looked back, Wesley was carefully drawing a chalk circle under Ethan’s direction while Ethan gave Giles the kind of smug look that suggested he knew very well Giles had written Wesley off three minutes after he walked through the door.

“Maybe when he’s big again he can give you a crash course in Fallorian, eh?” Ethan observed.

Giles refused to rise to the bait, looking at the little boy again who was following Ethan’s directions so obediently and with such absolute precision. He had saved Wesley’s life, it was true, but he had taught him absolutely nothing since he arrived in Sunnydale, except to feel defensive and to act pompous to compensate. “Maybe he can,” he returned mildly. “We’re none of us too old to learn.”

Ethan shrugged and handed Wesley a crystal. “Next to the sage, there’s a good lad…”

Giles insisted that Ethan went through with him exactly what the stabilizing spell would involve, while Ethan rolled his eyes at Giles’ objections. “Yes, I need some of his blood, but we’re talking a pinprick here…”

“It’s it being mingled with yours I’m not so keen on.”

“I’m the spellcaster, he’s the…spellcastee. I need to establish a link between us so that I can stabilize the spell. Now, do you want the spell stabilized or not, because if not I may as well show Wesley some nice easy levitation spells he might enjoy.”

“Oh.” Willow looked interested. “Could you show them to me too?”

Giles gave her a Look and she subsided, murmuring: “Sorry.”

“You really have got horribly boring, Ripper.” Ethan shook his head. “Magic is meant to be fun.”

“Magic is a serious and dangerous business that risks corrupting those who access it and opening gateways to worlds of…”

“Oh do put a sock in it,” Ethan pleaded. “I had quite enough of all your sanctimonious claptrap in the good old days. Now, do you want me to stabilize the spell or not?”

“If any harm comes to him…” Giles began.

“Yes, I know, your pet demon gets to peel my skin off. Charming. Now, shall we get on?”

“I’m not Giles’ pet,” Angel protested.

“No, you’re Buffy’s, big diff,” Cordelia retorted. “Let’s let Band Candy guy do his whacky magic mojo, shall we?”

“I’m not anyone’s ‘pet’,” Angel muttered petulantly, as Ethan picked up a knife and stepped into the circle. He sat down cross-legged and nodded to Wesley.

At a reluctant nod from Giles, Buffy very unwillingly picked up Wesley. “Ethan, if you have any shred of decency…”

“Actually, I don’t. This has nothing to do with decency. Now, are you going to let me do this or not…?”

Buffy placed Wesley in the circle and he looked at Ethan expectantly. “What do I have to do, Mr Rayne?”

“Sit opposite me, on the other side of the amulet, that’s right. Now, I’m going to have to cut your hand with this knife and it is going to hurt a little bit. Can you be a brave for me, Wesley?”

Wesley gazed up at him trustingly. “Yes, Mr. Rayne.”

They were both sitting in the circle, with the amulet between them, only a foot separating them and the knife in Ethan’s hand. Giles could not in any way feel that this was a good idea and yet what other choice did they have? It was Ethan’s spell. He and Buffy exchanged an anxious look and she whispered: “There are no words for how much I don’t like this set up…”

Ethan took Wesley’s hand in his and cut across his palm. Wesley winced with pain and tears sprang into his eyes but he bravely didn’t cry out. Ethan held his palm over the amulet and let the blood drip onto it, then cut his own palm and let his blood drip on top of Wesley’s, then he clasped his bloody palm against Wesley’s, took his other hand in his and began the incantation.

Wesley looked scared but fascinated, as Ethan’s eyes went black, a wind began to whistle around them both, snatching up all the crystals, herbs, claws and stones that surrounded them and dissolving them into dust. There was a flash of purple light and a bang and then everything was still and Ethan’s eyes returned to their normal colour. He snatched a breath and smiled at Wesley. “I told you magic was fun.”

“It is.” Wesley looked around in excitement. “Can we do some more?”

“Not right now.” Giles looked a question at Ethan who nodded and Giles picked him up and sat the little boy on his hip. He was aware of Buffy hovering anxiously, but right now, after seeing Wesley in that circle with Ethan, he needed a moment with the boy to calm his shattered nerves.

“He has it in him.” Ethan rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “I can always tell.”

“Oh…” Willow looked at him hopefully. “Do I have any power?”

“Will, you re-ensouled Angel, you must have,” Buffy said. “And there’s the whole – pencil spinning thing.”

Ethan looked at the playmobil battlefield and then glanced at Willow. “Want to find out…?”

Giles became aware that Buffy was bandaging Wesley’s hand with the care one might usually lavish on a sucking chest wound as opposed to a shallow cut. “It doesn’t hurt that much,” Wesley reassured her.

She felt his forehead anxiously. “You’re sure you feel okay?”

“Yes. Did you see the way those things all swirled around?”

“Yes, Wesley,” Giles assured him.

“Wasn’t it great?” He looked so excited that Giles didn’t have the heart to give him the ‘magic is very dangerous and should only be performed when no other options are available and only when very carefully supervised’ speech, but suspected that he was going to have to deliver it often after Ethan had left to make up for the rush of being in the middle of such a powerful spell.

“A cup of tea would be nice, Rupert,” Ethan observed casually, sitting on a cushion by the slightly battered battlements of the Baronial castle.

Giles opened his mouth to retort and then became aware of Wesley looking up at him and was forced to swallow the first three things he wanted to say.

“Why don’t I put the kettle on?” Buffy suggested, quickly. “Then we could all have tea…” And not fight in front of Wesley her eyes added.

“Fine.” Giles carried Wesley to where Willow was sitting and sat down next to her, still keeping Wesley on his lap where Ethan could not reach him easily. For all the little boy’s excitement he was still trembling slightly, the shock of the pain of having his hand cut, and then the adrenaline rush of the spell, leaving him limp and more than a little shaken. He seemed quite content to sit quietly on Giles’ lap even as Ethan began to direct military operations from the castle, and Xander, Oz, and Angel began to move the pieces around.

“I’m not doing this because you said so,” Xander told Ethan firmly. “Just because it makes sense.”

Ethan said casually to Willow: “We are going to overrun your peaceful little fairyland and slaughter all the inhabitants just for fun unless you stop us. I’m sure you’ve practised a few harmless little animaviva spells…?”

Willow glanced up at Giles nervously. “Well…maybe one or two but only because they could be useful…”

“There is no such thing as a ‘harmless little’ spell, Ethan,” Giles pointed out.

“Oh, do stow it, Rupert.” Ethan waved a hand and the pirate ship began to slide towards the fairy bower, the pirates slowly raising their weapons, while on the castle battlements the now-animated plastic knights were picking up their swords. “A brief skirmish, I think,” Ethan glanced across at Willow and Giles in amusement. “Just to demonstrate what we can do…”

Wesley watched wide-eyed as Ethan magicked the pirates down from the ship and had them throw up little grappling hooks to the castle walls.

“You know you could do that just moving the pieces around,” Giles pointed out.

“But doesn’t it look so much cooler like this?” Ethan purred.

“He really is corruption incarnate,” Giles observed to Willow.

She said, “Ye-es…” but she was wide-eyed and fascinated all the same and Giles could see her fingers twitching as she longed to join in.

Wesley said in wonder: “The pirates are climbing up the castle walls.”

“That is so cool.” Xander looked across at Giles. “In a – really bad way. Colour me so not impressed by this frivolous misuse of the dark arts.”

“ILM eat your hearts out,” Oz murmured.

Angel looked at the pirates curiously. “I always had my doubts about Harryhausen. The word on the street was that he was just a warlock and the whole stop-motion animation thing was a cover story.”

Buffy came in with the tea and said in confusion: “The pirates are moving – and the little knight people… Giles, why are the people moving?”

“Ethan is showing off,” Giles returned. He handed Wesley his tea and the little boy sipped it without even blinking, so intent was he on watching the pirates climbing up the walls and the knights waving their swords and firing arrows down at him. His eyes were huge and he was rapt with excitement. Seeing the look on his face, Giles didn’t have the heart to tell Ethan to pack it in, even though he was setting such a bad example.

There was a volley of arrow fire from the playmobile archers, cannonfire from the pirate ship, cannonfire from the castle defenders and then the pirates were falling down the battlements and the knights were waving their swords in the air in triumph. Wesley looked up at Giles, anxiously, clearly loving the display but worried it might be wrong, and Giles plastered on a smile. “Do you want to go and play?”

“May I?”

“Of course you may.” Giles looked across at Ethan. “I’m sure Mr. Rayne will make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

Ethan smiled at Wesley and patted him on the head as he came over to join them. “When you’re older, Wesley, I really must introduce you to the pleasures of pure chaos, but for now I think we’ll stick with manning the battlements…”

Giles was sure that Ethan knew very well that it was no picnic for him to have to sit here and be civil to the man while he played around with magic in front of his young, impressionable charges, but Ethan also seemed to be enjoying making Giles squirm so much that he wasn’t doing anything to justify Giles kicking him out. He supposed if it put a leash on Ethan’s more anti social behaviour for a few hours it was probably worth it.

Xander and Wesley both looked equally wide-eyed at the sight of Ethan’s little plastic army turning into a well-oiled machine, all raising their swords in unison. Ethan looked across at Willow: “If you’re going to mount a defensive barrier, you really had better do it now because we will be fire-bombing your little glade otherwise…”

Willow said primly: “I don’t use magic for frivolous matters because…”

As a hail of flaming arrows shot through the sky she hastily muttered an incantation and the arrows were all doused on her invisible barrier. She looked sheepishly at Giles. “He made me do it.”

Giles looked back at Ethan’s smug smile and just knew the man wanted him to join in, to wallow in the pleasure of frivolous magic one last time. It would, of course, be a very bad example to set both Willow and Wesley and, ultimately, what did it matter if Ethan’s side won a skirmish taking place between inanimate…?”

Ethan flicked his fingers and a cannonball thudded into the fairytale castle and splatted the fairy princess into the wall. Giles looked at Willow’s dismayed face and then said shortly: “All right, Ethan, you’re on…”

“Finally!” Cordelia picked up a chicken foot and held it out. “So, what do we do?”

Within minutes Ethan was sending Xander for ingredients from his bag and Giles asked Buffy and Cordelia to fetch his spell books. “This is a one off,” he warned them. “This must never happen again.”

“Just make sure you beat him!” Cordelia retorted.

Wesley winced as Ethan sent more flaming cannonballs into the fairytale castle and hurried over to pat Willow’s hand sympathetically. Buffy said, “Okay, now we have two Watchers and a Witch and the boys’ team only has one old chaos mage.”

“Less of the ‘old’ if you don’t mind, Ms Summers,” Ethan retorted.

Willow was already scrambling through spell books trying to find animation spells while Wesley helped her, Buffy and Cordelia fetched ingredients under Giles’ directions and ducked fiery arrows that Ethan kept sending across.

“Wow, this rocks…” Xander exclaimed. “Although only in a totally irresponsible and never to be repeated, yes sirree, kind of way.”

“Yes, indeed,” Oz confirmed. “I could hardly be more disapproving.”

“Me too.” Angel pointed to the Viking ship. “Can you animate that?”

“No fair!” Willow protested. “You have the knights and the cannons and now you get the ship as well?”

“But you have two Watchers to help you,” Xander protested. “We need the Viking ship to balance things up.”

Ethan waved his fingers and the prow of the Viking longship that was in the shape of a dragon’s head turned from plastic into scales and began to belch fire. Willow said anxiously: “Little fairy glade under attack!”

Giles shoved an open spell book under her nose and muttered a quick incantation – pausing midway to say to Wesley: “Don’t try this at home” – before causing a breeze to billow the longboat sails the other way and send it swirling backwards.

Willow pounced on the spell Giles had given her and said: “Oh yes!” Then looking across at Xander, Oz and Angel who were all gazing at her, said, “Or – ‘oh no’ as in ‘I haven’t yet located the correct spell so you can just continue in blissful ignorance and the expectation of imminent victory’…”

“And suddenly Willow’s projected career as a professional poker player isn’t looking so rosy,” Xander observed. He turned to Ethan. “Can you make napalm?”

Willow began to whisper urgently in Wesley’s ear and he nodded and scampered off to fetch half the contents of the herb rack.

Giles had to concentrate to keep off the Viking longboat that Ethan was trying to send back to pillage their fairytale castle. He was quite certain that animated Vikings getting into the Fairytale castle would produce scenes that Wesley should certainly not be seeing and that would probably traumatize Willow for life.

“Incoming arrows!” Cordelia flapped at them with a tea cloth.

“That’s cheating!” Xander protested.

“Yes, Cordelia, I really think it is,” Giles observed. He muttered an incantation that sent the longboat spinning across the floor and threw up a protective shield as the next wave of arrows came across. “That however is entirely permissible.”

Willow was holding Wesley’s hand as she did the incantation while he solemnly handed her the objects she asked for, sprinkling sage onto the fairy glade as directed, and then adding a pinch of various spices.

“What are they doing?” Xander enquired suspiciously.

“Something defensive,” Angel said.

“Something sneaky,” Oz guessed.

Wesley tossed another handful of spice over the main tree in the fairy glade and everyone on the other team looked at it anxiously.

“It’s going to go all Treebeard on us, I just know it…” Xander murmured.

Willow murmured something, waved her hands and as Giles and Ethan battled for supremacy of the Viking longboat, she looked up with her eyes black and said: “Something very sneaky…”

Which was when the animated dragon sprang up from the dungeon and flapped its wings, breathing magical fire down onto the playpeople knights who all dropped their swords and cowered on the ground.

Wesley tugged urgently at Willow’s sleeve. “The barrier!”

Willow said: “Oh!” and began to look through the book while keeping the dragon under imperfect control, it now swooping over the battlements a little drunkenly but keeping off the arrows aimed at it by bellows of magic fire. Then Giles quickly muttered an incantation, the barrier around the fairytale castle dissolved, and the dragon flew triumphantly over the battlements.

“We win!” Cordelia shouted.

“You so lose,” Buffy added.

Angel, Xander and Oz exchanged looks of dismay which turned into a smirk of pride from Oz as Willow picked up Wesley and swung him around, saying: “Classic use of misdirection! As instructed in chapter three!”

Wesley giggled and said triumphantly to Xander: “You thought it was the fairy glade! But it wasn’t!” He was still giggling helplessly as she put him down. He pointed at the herb-sprinkled oak tree. “That’s just thyme. It isn’t even magical!”

“Very well strategised, you two,” Giles told them warmly. He grimaced as he saw the dragon was still animated and tramping around the fairytale castle. “But – um, Willow, you might want to – de-animate the dragon now…?”

Willow and Wesley exchanged a look. “We didn’t look that up yet,” Wesley admitted.

“We’ll do it now.” Willow hastily opened the book while Cordelia and Buffy also grabbed spellbooks.

Xander said, “You do know your dragon is like – totally trashing the fairytale palace there, Willow?”

“We still won!” she protested fiercely.

Ethan shrugged. “I think they’ve just demonstrated a pyrrhic victory for all to see.”

While scrambling through spell books himself, Giles said automatically to Wesley: “Do you understand that reference, Wesley?”

“Yes, Uncle Giles,” the little boy was still frantically turning pages. “It means when the victors’ losses are as great as the losers’, and it comes from when Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at…um…was it Asculum?”

“Yes, it was.” Giles beamed at him proudly and turned to Ethan. “You know this boy really is extraordinarily advanced for his years…” As everyone just looked at him, he coughed. “Not that I’m condoning his father’s approach to child-rearing, I’m just pointing out that Wesley is – well, anyway – de-animation spells…”

It took ten minutes to de-activate the animated dragon, by which time the fairytale castle was looking distinctly scorched, however the victory for what Buffy persisted in annoying Giles by referring to as the ‘Girls’ team’ still held.

Ethan rose to his feet with what looked like an expression of genuine regret on his face. “Well, I’d better go. Chaos doesn’t just happen by itself – well, it does, actually, but one can always have more.”

Giles accompanied him to the door. “Well, Ethan, I suppose thanks are in order. Actually, no, come to think of it, they’re not. It’s your fault Wesley’s a child in the first place. This really was the least you could do.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Gracious as ever, I see, Ripper.” He held out a hand to Wesley who came up and shook it politely.

“Goodbye, Mr Rayne. Thank you for showing me those spells. They were wonderful.”

“You’re very welcome, Wesley.” Ethan patted him on the head again and looked at Giles with a grin. “I hope to get an opportunity to corrupt you further when you’re restored to your normal age.”

“Don’t count on it,” Giles told him grimly. “Ten days, you say, before the spell wears off and Wesley’s restored…?”

Ethan nodded. He looked at the playmobil debris over which Oz, Cordelia and Xander were already arguing as they set up another game. “You’d better make the most of it.”

Buffy picked up Wesley who snuggled in against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She looked at Ethan levelly. “We intend to.”

Ethan reached out and ruffled his hair again. “Be good, Wesley – but not too good. Remember, everyone needs a little chaos in their lives…”

And then he was gone and Giles and Buffy exchanged a sigh of relief. “That was so much fun,” Wesley said in awed tones. “Can we do some more spells tomorrow, Uncle Giles?”

“Perhaps,” Giles said. “But in the meantime, why don’t you go and get ready for lunch and perhaps if we ask Xander very nicely he’ll go and buy us something unhealthy that we can all enjoy.”

Xander had already sprung to his feet. “Fries, pizza, and donuts?”

“I don’t know if I mean quite that unhealthy…” Giles looked anxiously after Wesley.

“Giles, he’s going to be a little kid for ten more days. You can feed him entirely on deep fried Snickers bars if you want to, it’s not going to make any difference.”

Giles sighed and handed over his wallet. “Whatever you say. But if you find something with some green vegetables in it, I’d be grateful.”

Buffy looked at Xander: “He’s so not getting this, is he?”

“Never mind, there’s still time to educate him.”

Giles watched the two of them head off to get food, while Wesley, having washed his hands, ran over to see how the new game was progressing, Angel automatically perching the little boy on his shoulders before going back to arguing with Cordelia about the acceptable range of a cannonball.

“It’s going to be a very short ten days,” Willow sighed.

Giles looked down at her. “Yes, I’m afraid it will be.”

As Cordelia poked Angel in the chest and waved a unicorn at him, Giles grimaced. “Or perhaps not….”

***

Chapter Text

The rest of the day passed very fast. Oz and Giles were persuaded to get out their guitars, and Xander kept the junk food coming, but Giles was not exactly surprised that as evening fell, Joyce put her foot down when Buffy tried to get out of going home for the second consecutive night. Buffy gave him a pleading look: “Can you talk to her?”

“I’ll have to tell her about Wesley,” he warned. Buffy sighed and conceded defeat and Giles took the phone and began to explain to Joyce how useful Buffy was being at helping him to take care of his nephew. “He has become…awfully fond of her,” he fumbled for the right words. “And she of him. What was that…? Yes, I’m sure we’d be delighted. I’m sorry, it’s a little noisy in here…hang on a moment….” He glared across at the others. “Could you keep the noise down for five minutes? Sorry, Joyce.” He concentrated on what she was saying and then nodded. “Well, um…pretty much everyone actually. They are all finding looking after a little boy something of a novelty, but he has attached himself particularly to Buffy. Well…Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Angel, Oz, Buffy and myself. Actually, no, he’s a remarkably well-behaved little boy. His…his father is something of a disciplinarian.”

When Giles got off the phone he found Wesley and Buffy both looking at him anxiously. “Does Buffy have to go?” Wesley asked.

Giles sighed. “Would that be so terrible, Wesley? If it were just you and I for one night?”

“No.” Wesley looked up at Buffy. “But she has bad dreams and I can wake her up and tell her that she’s just dreaming.”

Buffy picked him up and hugged him, still gazing at Giles in a ‘make everything be the way I want it to be’ way. “You do. You do that very well.”

“And Buffy can wake me up and tell me I’m just dreaming too,” Wesley added bravely.

“Well, for one night you are going to have to manage without her, but Joyce has suggested that everyone comes round to dinner tomorrow night so she can meet Wesley for herself.” Giles looked around at everyone. “Including you, Angel. Can you eat – normal food?”

“I can.” He nodded. “It just doesn’t keep me alive or taste that…special. But I can eat it.”

“She asked me to check.” Giles looked around at all their depressed-looking faces. “Why don’t you all go home this evening – Angel, you might want to escort Willow to her home and keep an eye on things there. Then perhaps the rest of you could – say – attend school tomorrow, just as a suggestion, and then we can meet up at Buffy’s house tomorrow at seven o’clock. It sounds like quite a…formal dinner, so I suggest that everyone gets themselves…spruced up.”

Everyone looked at everyone else and then down at themselves, Xander apparently noticing for the first time that he was still wearing his pyjamas under his clothes, Angel brushing an imaginary crease from his silk shirt, Cordelia looking around for a mirror in something approaching panic.

“You have twenty-four hours,” Giles pointed out.

“But there’s washing and hair drying and finding clothes.”

Willow looked anxiously at Oz who said, “I was thinking of going for the shirt over the t-shirt and jeans look myself.”

Willow looked at his t-shirt and jeans and shirt and smiled in relief. “Yes, that would look nice.”

Oz looked across at Buffy. “Unless you think your mother wants us to wear…the full evening dress?”

“It’s a dinner party, not the Prom.” Buffy looked around at everyone. “I think as long as we’re all clean and relatively uncreased…” She gazed back at Giles. “Mom really says I need to go home?”

“I don’t think she likes the idea of me using you all as unpaid babysitters while I renege on my duties as an uncle.”

They all looked a little tragic at the prospect of leaving and Giles wondered if they had intended to just camp out in his house for ten days until Wesley was restored to his adult size. “I’m sure your parents would like to see you…” he suggested.

“Why would they? They never have before,” Xander countered.

“I ate my parents two centuries ago.”

Xander looked at Angel sideways. “You really ought to get that put onto a t-shirt.”

“My parents are away,” Cordelia added.

Buffy looked at the tall brunette. “You’d better come and stay with me. I don’t think you should be in your house alone right now. Willow, you should come with me too. Just so we know you’re safe.”

It took a few more phonecalls but in the end it was agreed by all relevant parents that Xander could stay with Oz – Giles still couldn’t see the point of that except that Xander presumably felt safer with someone else around, Willow and Cordelia could indeed stay with Buffy, and Angel was deemed safe to stay by himself. This meant that Giles finally had Wesley to himself again, which he was rather pleased about, but pretended not to be so as to not seem as if he were gloating. Cordelia was driving Willow to Willow’s house and then to her own house so they could pick up more overnight things, and Oz was driving Xander home. Again, Angel was considered safe to make his own way, although one wouldn’t have known he was actually eternal and quite close to invincible from the way Buffy fussed over him when they said their farewells. And then finally, Buffy was in his car with Wesley on her lap, pointing out all the reasons why it wasn’t safe for Wesley to travel in the car alone because the seatbelt wouldn’t fit him.

“It fits him perfectly well, Buffy. We went to the park together, remember?”

“Well, what about bedtime?”

“I think I’m capable of reading him a story.”

Buffy sighed and hugged Wesley closer, but got teary-eyed as they reached her house. “It’s going to be twenty-four hours until I see him again!” she wailed.

“Twenty-four hours, yes.” Giles tried not to let his pleasure at the prospect get into the voice. “Well, I’m sure we’ll struggle by somehow.”

“You’re not going to do…lessons with him tomorrow, are you?” Buffy demanded.

“I’m sure we’ll find some way to fill our time,” Giles assured her blandly. And then they were finally at Buffy’s house and Buffy carried Wesley out so she could say goodbye to him properly, Giles sighing, switching off the engine, and getting out himself.

Joyce looked out in some confusion and Giles gave her an apologetic grimace. “Buffy’s just saying goodbye. Um, Wesley, this is Buffy’s mother, Mrs Summers.”

Wesley held out a hand, looking up at Joyce a little fearfully. “How do you do, Mrs Summers?”

Joyce’s face took on that rapt adoring look that had become so familiar on the face of unwary females over the past few days. “Very well, thank you.”

“This is Wesley.” Giles rested a hand on his shoulder as Buffy wiped her eyes and sniffed.

“Pleased to meet you, Wesley,” Joyce told him warmly, then frowned at Buffy. “Is something wrong, dear?”

“It’s just – what if he has a nightmare and I’m not there…?” Buffy’s face crumpled again.

Wesley said hastily, “There, there, Buffy. I’ll be all right. Uncle Giles will look after me and look – ” He held out Cuthbert. “If you have him with you then if you have a nightmare you can cuddle him.”

Buffy clutched Cuthbert to her and burst into tears. “But then you’ll be all – by – your – self….”

Joyce’s expression revealed her confusion, looking to Giles for an explanation.

“Buffy has been taking care of Wesley,” he explained.

“So, I see.”

Wesley was still patting Buffy’s hand and telling her that he would be fine with Uncle Giles and he would see her tomorrow. She sniffed and hiccupped and then crouched down in front of him to give him another hug, stroking his hair and pressing her cheek against his while looking tearfully up at Giles. “You can call me if you have a nightmare. Giles, you’ll let him have the phone in his room?”

“Yes, of course,” Giles said awkwardly.

“And you’ll call me if there if he doesn’t feel well, or if you hear any noises outside or if…if anything…?”

“Yes, I will.”

“You promise?” she demanded fiercely.

“I promise, Buffy, but I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Wesley put his arms around her neck and gave her another hug, saying bravely: “I’ll be fine, Buffy, I promise. And look – you’ll have your mummy with you if you are sad…” He gazed up at Joyce who began to melt all over again. Giles could see never being able to get Wesley away from these two if he wasn’t swift about leaving.

Buffy wiped her eyes and stroked her thumb under Wesley’s eyes in case he had been crying too. “Do you miss your…mummy…?”

Wesley gave her a reassuring smile. “Not when I’m with you and Willow – or with Uncle Giles.”

Buffy sniffed piteously and slowly disentangled herself from him, giving Giles an imploring look. “Giles, you’ll…?”

“You know I will,” he assured her warmly. He wasn’t sure if she meant protect Wesley with his life, call her if there were any problems, or remember to put chocolate shavings into Wesley’s bedtime hot milk, but as he fully intended to do all of those things he thought he was covered. He quickly picked Wesley up before Buffy started sobbing on the poor child again or Joyce decided they should keep Wesley with them.

Joyce automatically folded back the sleeve of Wesley’s jacket where it came down below his fingers and winced at the sight of his wrist. “He’s very thin. Has he been ill?”

“Just – naturally skinny.” Giles managed a sickly smile as he tightened his grip on the boy.

Joyce put a hand across Wesley’s forehead and Buffy immediately said: “What? Is he hot? Does he feel feverish?”

“He seems okay,” Joyce admitted. “But he is a little pale.”

Buffy looked anxiously at Giles. “Mom says he looks pale.”

“He’s English, Buffy,” Giles reminded her. He forced a bright smile. “Well, then. You have a lovely evening. So kind of you to take in Willow and Cordelia, Joyce, and I look forward to seeing you both tomorrow evening. Goodnight then.” He turned around and strode back to the car.

“Wait!” Buffy hurled herself after them, gave Wesley Cuthbert, hugged him again, kissed him on the forehead and then stood desolately on the kerb while Giles did up Wesley’s seat belt. “Don’t forget to read him a story…”

“I won’t.” Giles shut the door on Wesley and went around to the driver’s side, by which time Buffy had been joined by Joyce.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to keep Wesley here…?” she offered.

“No, really, we’ll be fine,” he assured her.

“You’ll call me?” Buffy pressed.

“In an instant.” Giles slid into the car and felt a rush of relief. Only for Buffy to immediately tap on his window. Sighing, he complied. “Yes, Buffy…?”

“Maybe Angel should stay with you just in case…”

“Perhaps another day,” Giles said through gritted teeth. He switched on the engine, sliding his foot onto the clutch.

“I was just thinking…”

He took off the handbrake and put the car into gear. “Goodnight, Buffy. Sweet dreams…” And then he was pulling out into the street and could thankfully ignore the last minute instructions Buffy was calling out to him.

“Do you think Buffy will be okay?” Wesley asked anxiously, turning around in his seat to wave at her and getting Cuthbert to wave to her as well. No doubt he thought he was being kind but Giles suspected that it would just make Buffy start bawling again as the sight of that battered bear waving its little paw was rather poignant.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s not going to be able to carry on like this when you’re big again, after all.”

Wesley looked pensive and Giles hoped he hadn’t upset him. Wesley gazed up at him shyly. “Uncle Giles…?”

“Yes, Wesley?”

“Do you mind me calling you ‘Uncle Giles’ even when no one else is around?”

“No, Wesley. I actually rather like it.”

“Uncle Giles, is being big…nice…?”

Giles thought about it for a moment. “Yes and no. It’s nice not to have to do lessons any more and to be one’s own boss, but it’s not always so nice to have responsibility for others. And, of course, although one acquires more knowledge and experience it’s not always the case that one necessarily gets any wiser.”

Wesley looked despondent. “Do you think I…liked being big?”

Giles thought about that prim, proper young man in his padded suit, all brylcreem and rules. “I’m not sure. I think you were very aware of your responsibilities but they can feel rather onerous so I don’t know how you felt when you weren’t in public view. You may have felt you were rather dropped in the deep end, to be honest. From university studies and vampires only encountered under controlled circumstances to being sent off to a Hellmouth and told to Watch for two Slayers…” He shook his head. “That’s quite a lot to ask of someone still a few years shy of his thirtieth birthday.”

“But it wasn’t just me, was it?” Wesley put in. “You were there, too, and you do have experience, so I don’t suppose it was too bad for me really.”

Giles looked at the little boy’s calm happy face, so confident that Uncle Giles would have been as helpful to his adult self as he was to this younger version, and felt a serious pang of conscience. Hoarsely, he said: “I’m not sure I was always as helpful as I could have been, Wesley. And I truly am sorry for that now.”

Wesley looked up at him sleepily, Cuthbert snuggled in against him. “I’m sure you took good care of me. You and Buffy. That’s what you do.”

Giles had to hang onto that image of himself saving Wesley from Balthazar’s people; that sudden awareness mixed in with his exasperation when he realized how frightened the boy was, that Wesley had been given nothing like enough preparation before being tossed into the Hellmouth; a pawn in Quentin’s determination to keep Council control over the active Slayer. But there were too many other memories of sniping at Wesley in front of the children; letting Buffy treat him like dirt; those bruises on his ribs and back where Buffy and Faith had clearly both found it amusing to use their training sessions as an excuse to use him as a punching bag and ‘accidentally’ pound him.

“We – could have done better,” Giles admitted. “Perhaps when you’re big again that’s something we can discuss.” He looked across at the boy for his reaction and saw that Wesley was asleep, his thumb in his mouth. Giles reached across and stroked his hair, feeling the thinness of his skill, the warmth coming through his thin skin. So incredibly fragile, and on a Hellmouth. When he parked his car, he took a moment to get out a stake in readiness, determined that absolutely nothing and no one was going to stop him gaining the safety of his house.

There were no signs of vampires, or any of the Mayor’s people, but he was still on edge. He picked up the sleeping boy and Wesley cuddled in against him, his head resting on the tweed of Giles’s shoulder, Giles tucked Cuthbert in between Wesley and his chest, and then carried them both into the house. Once inside, he laid him on the sofa, covered with him his dressing gown, and did a quick sweep of the house, checking every room, including under the beds and in the cupboards, in case Faith or another human assassin should be hiding there.

Only then did he begin to run Wesley’s bath, leaving the water running so he could pop downstairs and check on Wesley, switching on the kettle so he could have a cup of tea as well. The winking light of the answerphone told him he had a message and he went to look only to see a number ‘6’ blinking at him urgently. Giles couldn’t remember the last time he had come home to so many messages, and wondered if some crisis had occurred of which he was unaware. Anxiously, he stabbed the ‘play’ button:

“Hey, this is Xander, which you probably guessed on account of me sounding like…me. Anyway. I forgot to ask you to call me when you get back home from Buffy’s so I know that you’re…back home… I’m staying with Oz, remember? Oz’s number is five-five-five-zero-one-four-five….”

Rolling his eyes, Giles pressed the button for then next message:

“Xander again…Oz reminded me that we both wanted to say ‘Goodnight’ to Wesley. So…Goodnight, Wesley…oh yes, and Cuthbert too… And you know, if there’s any problems, any problems at all, you just call us and we can come right over. Let me give you that number again, it’s five-five….”

Giles pressed the button for the next message:

“Hey, it’s me – that’s Cordelia, obviously, oh yes, and Willow’s here too. We just wanted to check before we go to Buffy’s that you don’t need anything because I have the car so it would be really easy for us to just come over and…what…? Oh yes, Willow says, that Wesley likes his own mug, which is the one she bought him, with the Pink Panther on it – Hey, do English kids know who the Pink Panther is? I thought they had to like – watch the radio or something? Anyway…. What…? Oh right, Willow says you can call us at Buffy’s and I can bring us all over if you want us or if Wesley gets lonely or has a nightmare or anything… Okay then….”

Rolling his eyes, Giles played the next message:

“Giles, this is Angel. Just calling to say that I did a sweep of the graveyards, staked a couple of vamps, but there’s not much going on. No sign of Faith. And hey, do you want me to swing by later just to make sure everything is okay? I’ll probably do that anyway. So – okay then….”

“What is the matter with you people?” Giles murmured.

“Giles, it’s Buffy. Just checking you got home okay. Call me as soon as you get back.”

Click. Whirr. Click

“It’s me again. Buffy. Cordelia and Willow are here and they said they left a message for you and you didn’t call them back and I’m sure it’s at least half an hour since you left here so we’re thinking maybe we should come over and just check….”

As Giles went to reach for the phone it rang again and he picked it up wearily. “Yes…?”

“Where have you been?” Buffy demanded.

“Buffy, I’ve only been home for ten minutes. It’s taken me longer than the car journey here to wade through all your paranoid meanderings. Could you please tell Willow and Cordelia that we are home safely and in no need of their assistance, and that goes for you, too. Oh, yes, I’d be grateful if you would phone Xander and Oz and inform them of our safe arrival as well. If you could also inform everyone not to call me unless your lives or limbs are in peril, that would be even better.”

“You are so tetchy.”

“I just want a nice quiet evening with Wesley. Now, please just…leave us alone.”

“Oh all right, Mr Testy…” She sounded far from willing. “But you still have to call me if anything at all is wrong.”

“I will. Now just – try to enjoy your evening.” He put down the phone to find Wesley gazing up at him as he sleepily rubbed his eyes.

“They really care about you getting home safely, don’t they?” Wesley asked in wonder.

Giles smirked. “No, Wesley, they care about you getting home safely. I can assure you that all I usually get is a wave. Now, how about a bath, your pyjamas, and then some hot milk with chocolate shavings…?”

Giles had just stopped the bath from overflowing, let out half of it, refilled it with cooler water so there was no danger of scalding the boy, bathed Wesley – with some help from the Playmobil Pirate ship which floated admirably, helped Wesley into his clean pyjamas and the soft warmth of his dressing gown, and given him a mug of hot milk – in his Pink Panther mug. He was now very happily reading aloud The Magician’s Nephew to Wesley when there was a soft tap on the door. Giles thought that he would be slightly less annoyed if it was a slavering demon come to eat his intestines than if it was Buffy, Willow and Cordelia, who had talked Joyce into letting them come over to check on him. Propping the warm little boy up against the cushions and marking their place in the book, he went to the door and opened it.

Angel stood on the doorstep looking stylish, immaculately coiffured, and slightly sheepish.

“Just wondered how you both were?” He craned his neck to see past Giles.

Giles rolled his eyes. “Come in. See for yourself.”

Angel immediately beamed dorkishly at Wesley who had stood up on the sofa to beam back. Angel was across the room in a couple of strides. He swooped him up into his arms, saying, “Hey, kiddo, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine, thank you, Angel. Did you go patrolling?” Wesley’s eyes were wide with admiration. “Did you see any vampires? Apart from you?”

“Three or four.” Angel sat down in Giles’ place, sitting Wesley on his lap as he did so, and noticed the book Giles had been reading. “Oh this is a great one. How far have you got?”

“Not very far.”

Angel picked up the book and turned to the marked page, then seemed to become aware of Giles and said apologetically, “Is it okay if I…?”

“Fine, go ahead.” Giles slouched into the kitchen, feeling decidedly out of sorts, and put the kettle on. There was still a bag of blood in the fridge and he automatically put it into the microwave and fetched Angel the mug that he had been using – and which no one else would ever want to use again. Wesley’s Pink Panther mug with its hot milk tide line was sitting in the sink. It already felt familiar. So did the little pieces of damp children’s clothing drying on the radiator in the corner. It occurred to him that he had bought far more books than he could read to Wesley in ten days. He wondered if in his heart he really had thought the spell was irreversible.

Angel looked very comfortable on his sofa, Wesley cuddled in against him, both of them reading the book together as Angel read it aloud. Giles knew it was petty to feel that Angel had gatecrashed his party, but he had been enjoying sitting with the boy, reading to him, perhaps trying to make amends for any coldness or unkindness to the adult version.

And then he thought about everything that Angel had done. All the fathers he had taken from little boys like Wesley, not to mention mothers, sisters, brothers, and the lives of little boys themselves; all those victims whose memories he had to live with every day. And of that other great difference between them that although Giles might choose to spend his days researching the Hellmouth, he could still walk in daylight. He might be unmarried and childless, but he could still marry and become a father should he choose to do so. Angel never could.

He watched as Angel automatically kissed Wesley’s soft damp hair as he turned the page, not even aware that he’d done it, Wesley snuggling more comfortably against his chest, Angel holding the book with one hand, the other arm around the boy, reading the passage so well, so vivid and full of life and…pleasure. It occurred to Giles that in all the time he had known Angel, he was not certain that he had ever seen him look so entirely happy as he did now. Unexpectedly moved by the sight of a damned creature of the night finding happiness in something so small, so trivial, and so completely out of his reach, Giles picked up Angel’s warmed up blood and his own cup of tea and walked over to the couch.

Angel finished the page he was reading and then looked at Giles. “Do you want to go on with it?”

“No, it’s okay,” Giles said gently. “You do it. Wesley and I can both listen.”

Wesley smiled at him sleepily as Angel took the mug of blood from Giles, Giles sipped his tea, and, with Wesley snuggled against him, Angel read aloud the description of the mystical wood with its many pools which could lead the two children to so many possible worlds.

***

They put Wesley to bed together. Angel carried him upstairs. Giles carried Cuthbert, whom he placed into the bed, then Angel kissed Wesley and handed him to Giles so he could say ‘Goodnight’ and put him into the bed. Wesley was so sleepy from his warm bath, hot milk, and being read to, that he just snuggled up to Cuthbert and was asleep almost as his head hit the pillow. Giles looked at the doting expression on Angel’s face and realized that his own could well be mirroring his; hastily collecting himself, he whispered: “Shall we…?”

They tip-toed out of the room, leaving the bulb burning on the landing.

“You should get him a night light,” Angel said.

“Yes, I should.”

“They do ones that are especially for kids – in the shapes of balloon and clowns and things.”

“Not a clown one,” Giles said at once. “Xander has a phobia. It may be more common than one realizes.”

They made their way back down the staircase up which Angelus had once carried Jenny’s corpse and Giles had later followed, the bottle of champagne the soulless killer had left for him carried in his hand.

Angel seemed to be as aware of the irony of their current situation as anyone. He said awkwardly: “If you really don’t want me here, I’ll go.”

Giles moistened his lips. “I’m sensing a ‘but’…?”

Angel sighed. “We both know how important you are to Buffy. If the Mayor wanted to put her off her game, kidnapping you would probably seem like a good place to start. I just think she’d sleep easier if she knew there was someone here to…”

“Take care of me?” Giles gave him a look of exasperation. “I assure you I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

Angel tried to disguise a smirk. “I think you have a hospital record that says otherwise.”

“A lot of those visits were only for suspected concussion. I was released without treatment on several occasions.”

Angel sighed. “Giles, take it from someone who once devoted several months to trying to drive Buffy crazy – the place to start is with the people that she loves. That’s her mom, Willow, Xander, and…you.”

“I refuse to have a vampire babysitter until the ascension!” Giles retorted, having to stick to a fierce whisper for fear of waking up Wesley.

“Well, Xander does have a werewolf babysitter and Willow has a Slayer babysitter, right now, so I think you’re being kind of…” Angel smirked. “Okay. Just let me stay tonight so when Buffy calls you can tell her that I’m here and she can stop worrying about Wesley. Deal…?”

“Oh, all right. You can have the couch. But Buffy’s already phoned and I told her then that…” Giles broke off as the phone rang again. He picked it up. “Yes…?”

“It’s me…” Buffy said apologetically. “I was just concerned…”

“We all were…” Cordelia called from behind her.

“Please don’t be angry…” That was Willow, and of course that ruined any chance of him being angry – possibly ever, as who could be when imagining that face looking at him.

Giles sighed. “Angel’s here. He’s staying the night. On the couch, I hasten to add. Wesley has had his bath, is now wearing his pyjamas – the dark blue ones, the light blue ones are in the wash. He drank all of his hot milk in the Pink Panther mug, and, yes, I remembered the chocolate shavings. He was read a few chapters of The Magician’s Nephew and is now fast asleep with Cuthbert. Anything else you wanted to ask?”

“Nightlight…?” Buffy said apologetically.

“I’ll get him one tomorrow.”

“Not a clown one!” Willow said urgently.

“Angel suggested perhaps a balloon-shaped lamp. Now, is that all?”

“I’m glad Angel’s staying,” Buffy admitted.

“Yes, because God forbid I should have my house to myself ever again.”

“Don’t be tetchy…” Willow pleaded.

“I’m not.” Giles sighed. “I’m really not. I’m just tired and I’d really like to get some sleep.”

“Will you kiss Wesley ‘Goodnight’ from me?” Buffy asked in a small voice.

“And me?” Willow put in.

“And me,” Cordelia added.

“Yes, I probably will,” Giles admitted. “Just – try to remember he’s going to be an adult again very soon. This is just temporary.”

“I will if you will,” Buffy returned.

Giles conceded the point. “Fair enough. No one’s pretending it won’t be something of a wrench…”

“So, let’s not talk about it. Let’s just – carpe diem and carpe whatever ‘night’ is in Latin too.”

“Noctem, Buffy.”

He reassured them for a few more minutes and then put the phone down only to find that Angel was still smirking and Giles narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“I was just thinking you could still kiss Wesley goodnight for everyone when he’s an adult again…”

“Don’t try to do humour, Angel.” Giles only just resisted the urge to hit him with the sofa cushion. “It’s not your forte.”

“Well, Principal Snyder did say…”

“I’m well aware of what Principal Snyder believes is Wesley’s purpose in the Library. He can go and take a funny run.”

Still smirking, Angel sat down on the couch. Giles glared at him. “Shouldn’t you be brooding about now? Isn’t that pretty much your raison d'être?”

“I’m taking the night off.”

They both sat on the couch and looked at the Playmobil battlefield still taking up most of Giles’s floor space. The Pirate ship was lying on its side, drying off from bath-time, the Viking ship in some disarray. They exchanged a look.

“We mustn’t,” Angel said.

“Absolutely not.”

“It would be – wrong.”

“We could never tell Buffy. Or anyone.”

“Okay.” Angel sprang across the room to grab the Pirate ship. “You can be the Vikings.”

It was three a.m. before Giles could conclusively prove that Watcher strategy was superior to vampire strategy. Angel sulkily took to the couch, while Giles went upstairs. It was only natural that he should check on Wesley. Finding him fast asleep with Cuthbert under one arm and his thumb in his mouth, it was also completely natural that he should remember Buffy had asked him to kiss Wesley ‘Goodnight’. He did so, whispering “Goodnight, Wesley”.

Wesley stirred sleepily, murmured: “Goodnight, Uncle Giles” and then went back to sleep.

As he climbed into his own bed, Giles reminded himself again, that this was only temporary and Wesley was not going to be a child forever. As he fell asleep he was still mentally calculating how many hours were left and what was the best way to fill them to try to make ten days of happiness make up for an entire childhood of neglect.

***

Angel left before dawn, meaning that Giles could have a peaceful breakfast with Wesley. He had half-expected Buffy and the others to turn up but they had evidently got the message about him wanting a little ‘quality time’ with Wesley and they were left to eat their cornflakes and marmalade on toast in blissful peace. Wesley sipped his sweet milky tea and Giles sipped his nice hot strong tea and they talked about what they were going to do that day.

“I think the first thing we need to do is to buy you a nightlight.”

Wesley looked at him in confusion. “What’s that, Uncle Giles?”

“It’s a light that children have in their rooms, so if they wake up in the night the room isn’t dark.”

Wesley appeared completely bewildered by that concept. “I don’t think we have those in England. And aren’t children supposed to get used to the dark?”

“Buffy wants you to have one. I think we should probably humour her.”

Wesley nodded at that. “I wouldn’t want to upset Buffy.”

“Nightlight it is then. And then we could into LA if you like? Or would you rather have a day in Sunnydale?”

Wesley looked torn and then said, “Sunnydale, please.”

“Museum, library, zoo, beach…?”

Wesley’s eyes widened. “Can we go to the museum? Does it have…Hellmouthy things…?”

“Most of the people here don’t really admit to living on a Hellmouth,” Giles admitted. “There is a more – realistic museum on the other end of town, but I think we’d need Angel with us to go there. The everyday one is pretty…everyday really.”

“I’d still like to see it. Does it have a box-kite? Or a gypsy caravan?”

Giles dimly remembered how exciting things like that could be when you were still a child. “I’m honestly not sure. When you’ve finished your breakfast, shall we go and take a look?”

Wesley beamed at him. “Yes, please.”

They bought the nightlight in a shop that had been there for sometime and had never yet been involved in any supernatural manifestations. (The last thing Giles wanted was to purchase a haunted nightlight that would throttle the boy in his sleep.) There were several of varying designs and prices. One was in the shape of a ship and was ridiculously expensive. There were less expensive ones, of course, but the ship one was based on an illustration from an old children’s book and was really beautiful. Telling himself firmly that as Wesley was only going to be a child for ten days it was absurd to buy the expensive one, Giles looked around at the others, but the one in prime position kept calling to him. And there was something about the way Wesley looked at it as if it were a museum exhibit – something to be admired but not something there was even a chance of him having – before turning to look at the cheapest lights, that made something rebel inside him.

“I like that one best. What about you, Wesley?”

Wesley looked at him in surprise. “It’s very expensive, Uncle Giles. And I won’t need it for very long.”

“I still like it best.” He nodded to the assistant. “That one please. And a box of bulbs.”

Giles thought that watching Wesley realize that he wasn’t going to have to wake up in the dark again as he tentatively touched the lamp and that look of relief wash over his face, made it cheap at twice the price.

The Museum did not have a gypsy caravan or a box-kite but it had the skeleton of an Irish Elk which Wesley was rapt in front of for at least half an hour. It also had a model railway and a model of Early Sunnydale, various stuffed animals, a coin collection, a model volcano to show why eruptions happened, a visiting exhibition about Ancient Egypt which Wesley found fascinating, some Sumerian artefacts, some half decent paintings, and various odds and sods from different eras and areas of the natural and scientific world.

Giles would probably have been quite bored by the not terribly exciting exhibits – except that Wesley was having such a wonderful time. It was, of course, all new and different for him, and he asked Giles lots of questions about everything they encountered – tentatively, at first – clearly not sure if this was going to be something that Giles would find annoying – and then with increasing confidence as Giles responded warmly to each query.

Giles thought that no doubt Buffy would consider this a perfect day for him – a chance to go into lecture mode all morning with someone who actually wanted to hear him blather on endlessly about really dull things. And she would be right, of course. He smiled inwardly at himself. Wesley didn’t seem to know what it was to be bored. Everything was interesting to him and he moved from exhibit to exhibit wanting to Hoover up every bit of information that could be gleaned about each thing, Giles supplying what he knew. It actually felt useful to know so many things, as Wesley asked his questions and Giles could answer at least ninety percent of them; Wesley gazing up at him with an expression of such happiness at this sharing of knowledge and wide-eyed admiration that Giles knew ‘everything in the world’.

“I wish I did, Wesley.” Giles took his hand. “I know a little, that’s all. For instance, I know where the museum restaurant is situated in the building, but not what they on their lunchtime menu for the day. Shall we go and find out?”

Wesley beamed up at him happily, looking so much less fragile when he didn’t have that anxiety in his oversized eyes. He was still bony and pale but he no longer looked like someone who was regularly locked in cupboards and sent to bed without his supper. At the thought of that, Giles found himself gripping his hand a little more tightly and when they found the cafeteria, lifted the boy up so he could see the hot meals more easily, suggesting that perhaps the lasagne and all the available vegetables might be a good idea, and then some chocolate cake to follow.

He noticed that Wesley dutifully ate all his vegetables first, even the cabbage and the sprouts, before tucking into his lasagne very happily. Giles looked across at him and then mentally saw the little boy crying with terror because he had spilled Xander’s drink. He winced at the memory.

“Is everything all right, Uncle Giles?” Wesley asked.

“Yes, Wesley.” Giles smiled at him reassuringly. “Everything’s fine.”

They ate a leisurely lunch and then spent a fascinating hour in the Museum Shop where Giles found several more things they could buy, including a child-sized watch for Wesley with a velcro strap that could be made to fit even the narrowest wrist. A trip home to drop off their purchases and have a brief rest and a cup of tea, and then it was time to show Wesley the beach, which, as it was a school day, wasn’t filled with the usual blather of irritating teenagers. They made an extremely impressive sandcastle and then watched the sea come in and fill the moat, before finally overwhelming it; smiled at each other, happily, and then went back home to have another cup of tea and a biscuit – so as not to spoil their appetites for dinner – then to shower in Giles’ case and bathe in Wesley’s so that they would be sand-free and sweet-smelling when presenting themselves at Joyce’s. Giles was quite sure that whatever he chose to dress Wesley in would be considered inadequate but did his best to find him a wrinkle free shirt, uncreased jacket and the trousers that needed the least amount of safety pins to keep them up. There was some deliberation about Cuthbert but Wesley decided that he didn’t need to take him with him and he didn’t want Buffy’s mother thinking he was a ‘baby’. So, Cuthbert was left on the sofa. Giles pretended not to notice when Wesley pushed the book they were reading next to Cuthbert, presumably in case the bear felt like reading while they were out.

At Wesley’s suggestion, Giles stopped off on the way and bought some flowers and they presented themselves on Joyce’s doorstep at seven o’clock precisely, both of them checking the time on their watches.

It was Joyce who opened the door, saying, “Hello, Mr Giles” in that rather awkward trying-not-to-be-awkward voice they always used around each other now, post Ethan’s previous little practical joke. Joyce’s face got that now-familiar melting expression when she saw Wesley and she crouched down to his level to say: “And hello, Wesley.”

“Hello, Mrs Summers.” Wesley shyly held out the flowers. “Uncle Giles bought you these.”

She beamed at him and Giles. “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

“Are you schmoozing my mother?”

As Giles turned around in horror to refute it, he saw that Buffy was beaming at Wesley, and immediately swept him up into her arms for a cuddle. “You are such a heartbreaker.”

“Buffy!” His delight at seeing her again was really touching and Giles found himself beaming at them in a probably rather doting fashion.

“She’s been counting the hours,” Joyce explained. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

“She and Wesley really have…bonded.”

Joyce accompanied Giles into the dining room. “I understand his mother is ill?”

Giles fudged awkwardly. “Yes, unfortunately, yes. And his father’s very…strict. It was felt he would probably have a nicer time if he stayed with me for a little while.”

“Did he fly over by himself?”

“Well, I understand the stewardesses are very good with unaccompanied um…children.”

Giles thought about the adult Wesley flying over to Sunnydale. He wondered if he had been full of anticipation or simply a mess of nerves. It was clear that Wesley had no idea how clever he was at eight. And reading through his school reports, it had quickly become apparent that he had remained riddled with crippling insecurities. Could perform well if he didn’t feel he was being judged or was under the scrutiny of someone whose opinion made him nervous. There were numerous reports from teachers of tasks they knew he was capable of performing being botched because he would become too self-conscious about being watched. Under the hostile gaze of a senior Watcher – albeit one who had been fired – and a group of American teenagers – Wesley had pretty much buckled.

Giles watched as Wesley was greeted with every enthusiasm by Willow, who took him from Buffy to cuddle him thoroughly – Wesley blushed and gazed up at her adoringly until handed over to Oz who told him quietly that he always had just that same reaction to Willow and that Xander was changing in the van but would be in directly. Then Cordelia plucked Wesley from Oz’s arms so she could cuddle him and straighten his shirt and point out to Giles that he should have dressed him in the other one. Then Xander was at the door with a bottle of wine, looking very neatly spruced, saying “Good evening, Mrs Summers. Is he here –?”

Joyce smiled. “Yes, Xander, he’s in the dining room.”

And then Xander was snatching Wesley from Cordelia’s arms and saying: “Hey, big fellow. Missed you today. What did you do?”

“Giles took him to the museum,” Buffy said in tones of withering contempt.

“It was wonderful.” Wesley lit up. “Uncle Giles is so clever. He knows everything. And then we went to the beach and built a really big sandcastle. And the sea came in and washed it away and it was so much fun. Where’s Angel?” He looked around in concern. “Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Buffy looked up at another ring on the doorbell. “And that sounds like him.”

Angel was wearing a beautiful suit and carrying a bunch of flowers that really put the ones Giles had brought to shame; he had also brought a bottle of wine even better than the one Giles had brought. He held them out to Joyce and complimented her on her dress and Giles and Xander exchanged a look.

“Vampires…” Xander snorted. “Always with the compliments and the nice clothes.”

“You could learn from Angel,” Cordelia observed.

“Yeah right.” Xander checked his reflection and then looked smug. “See, that’s something right there that I can do and he can’t.”

“And yet he turns up looking like – that and you look like – this.” Cordelia shook her head.

Wesley said, “Angel!”

And immediately Angel stopped being the suave sophisticated two hundred and fifty year old vampire in the beautiful suit and dropped down to Wesley’s level with a dorky grin on his face. “Wes!”

He swept the boy up into his arms while Wesley wrapped his arms around Angel’s neck and beamed at him. Angel inhaled his scent in relief and Wesley gazed at his hair curiously. “How do you get it to look like that when you don’t have a reflection?”

Angel shrugged modestly. “Practise, I guess. Did you have a fun day with Uncle Giles?”

“So much fun…!” Wesley began to tell Angel about everything he had learned that day.

Giles turned around to find Buffy tugging at his sleeve. “Did you remember the nightlight?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a clown one, is it?” Xander shuddered.

“A ship.”

“Okay. Cool.”

“Are we ready for dinner?” Joyce asked, turning to give Buffy a look that meant she should be helping. Buffy scampered off to help while everyone took their places; Wesley having a little place-setting that made it clear he should be sitting in between Giles and Buffy on a cushion.

Wesley once again demonstrated his impeccable table manners while Giles felt like a fraud when Joyce complimented him on the boy’s behaviour.

They were halfway through dinner when she said casually: “Has he met the other Wesley yet? I meant to ask you to invite him too, Mr Giles, but it slipped my mind.”

“‘The other Wesley’?” Buffy said awkwardly. “You’ve met him?”

Joyce looked up in surprise. “Yes, such a nice young man. Very polite.”

They all exchanged hunted looks while Wesley looked up at Giles. Giles cleared his throat. “Yes, yes, he is. Did he happen to tell you…?”

“He said he was your assistant.” Joyce helped Wesley to more vegetables. “He was sitting behind your desk and I was worried you’d been…replaced or something and he said, goodness, no, the school couldn’t run without you.” Everyone looked at Giles then except for Wesley, who evidently found nothing surprising in this remark. Joyce continued blithely: “He made me a cup of tea. He was really very kind. I was upset because of Principal Snyder.”

Buffy grimaced. “We’re all upset about Snyder.”

“He was complaining about you again,” Joyce admitted apologetically. “And I know I shouldn’t listen to him but it really upset me. But the young man – I didn’t catch his last name – he told me that as far as he could tell Snyder hated all the children at the school just on principle and that I shouldn’t pay any attention to him. He said that Buffy was under a lot of pressure from her various responsibilities and I should try to be patient and understanding if I could. He said he was often guilty himself of forgetting how much pressure the children were under.”

Willow and Buffy exchanged a hunted look while Giles sighed and looked down at his plate. Wonderful. Given the chance to pay them back for the way they had treated him, Wesley had reassured Joyce and tried to get Buffy out of trouble.

Joyce sighed. “I asked him what he’d seen of Sunnydale so far and he didn’t really seem to have seen any of it. He said he’d been busy with research. I feel bad I didn’t invite him to dinner now. He’s very thin, isn’t he?”

Giles looked at her helplessly, very aware of Wesley’s bony little child-sized wrists next to his. “Is he…? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, he was wearing this suit with lots of padding, but I could see it was just padding. I asked him if he missed English food and he said that no one who had ever had to eat English food would ask that.” Joyce smiled. “He was really very sweet.” She looked at Buffy. “We must have him over for dinner.”

“Yes, we should definitely do that.”

Buffy gave Giles the ‘help me’ eyes and he said hastily: “I’m afraid he’s away at the moment. At a Rare Book fair.”

“Well, Buffy, remind me to ask him over as soon as he’s back. He seemed a little lonely to me.” Joyce looked at child Wesley for a moment, putting her head on one side as she gazed at him. “Have you stayed with your uncle before, Wesley? You look – familiar.”

“No, Mrs Summers.” He looked up at her wide-eyed and Giles saw his fingers start to tremble on the adult-sized cutlery.

He took the knife from his hand as it began to rattle against the crockery. “Shall I cut that up for you, Wesley?”

Wesley gazed up at him gratefully. “Thank you, Uncle Giles.”

Xander quickly leapt in with an anecdote from school in which Snyder played a prominent and unflattering part and Giles carefully cut up all the meat on Wesley’s plate; hoping that the young man hadn’t grown up to be a vegetarian. He was more than a little ashamed that he had no idea about any of the adult Wesley’s preferences, and it now seemed to be the case that the only person, apart from Cordelia, who had shown him any real kindness since his arrival here had been Joyce.

Throughout dinner, Joyce kept heaping food onto Wesley’s plate until Buffy reminded her that he wouldn’t have any room for dessert. Wesley looked absolutely wide-eyed about the trifle Joyce had made – it had some fancy name but it was definitely trifle, and she ladled an extra large portion onto his plate. He ate it very, very slowly, savouring every mouthful and then told her with great sincerity that it was the nicest trifle he’d ever tasted. Giles thought it was definitely going to be touch and go if he got Wesley away from Joyce at the end of the evening.

After dinner when Buffy had carried Wesley off to the sitting room to be cuddled and fussed over some more by her, Willow and Cordelia – and judging by the complaints from the males about not getting their turn – Xander, Oz and Angel also, Joyce put her hand on Giles’s arm and drew him to one side.

Speaking quietly she said, “Is everything – okay at home for Wesley?”

Giles realized that lying was the only way forward here. “Oh yes.”

“He just seems so…nervous of adults.”

“His father’s a little strict, as I said, but he’ll be going away to school soon. He’s looking forward to that.”

“He seems so young to be away from his mother.”

“Well, Buffy’s been filling in admirably. He’s really very fond of her.”

Joyce gazed into the sitting room where Buffy tickling him on the couch. Wesley was giggling helplessly. “So, I see. He’s like a different person when he’s with her.”

As they watched, Angel snatched Wesley from Buffy and sat him on his shoulders. Giles watched the three of them, Wesley gasping with laughter as he gripped Angel’s hair unselfconsciously, and Buffy tried to jump up to reach him and Angel mocked her shortness. Giles felt the smile die on his face as he remembered again that they could never have this; Angel and Buffy and a child. The only way Buffy could be a mother was if she could learn how not to be in love with Angel. Turning he saw the look on Joyce’s face and realized she was thinking exactly the same thing.

“You do know…” she began.

“Yes.” Giles took off his glasses. “I know.”

“Does Buffy?” she asked.

He sighed. “I imagine it’s something she tries not to think about.”

“Then Angel needs to think about it for both of them.”

Giles looked at the vampire who was gazing up at the boy on his shoulders and grinning dorkishly. “It’s difficult for him too. I had no idea – well, he clearly has…paternal feelings also.”

“He made his choice a long time ago,” Joyce said quietly. “Buffy still has her life in front of her.”

Giles thought about how short a Slayer’s life could be. They weren’t encouraged to have children although Nikki had, of course. What could they really offer a child other than the constant possibility of being orphaned? The council didn’t really encourage Slayers to do anything except Slay, and yet Buffy had broken the mould once already by collecting a group of friends around her; and broken it again by falling in love with a vampire. Perhaps she could break it for a third time by managing to live to old age with a husband and children.

Buffy had snatched Wesley from Angel and passed him to Willow. The boy was still giggling helplessly. Giles wondered if he had ever done that before he came here. If anyone had just let him be…silly even for a few minutes.

“I don’t think it’s my place to talk to her about her…romantic attachments,” he offered after a moment.

Joyce looked at him sideways. “Coward.”

Giles couldn’t entirely suppress a smile. “Acknowledged.”

Joyce continued to gaze at him. “I’m just wondering what you’re all not telling me this time.”

Giles looked at Wesley and grimaced.

“I will find out,” Joyce added conversationally. “I always do, sooner or later...”

Giles had hoped to escape with Wesley so they could have a quiet evening together but found that Oz and Xander had been allocated as their escorts for the night. Buffy looked pleadingly at her mother when it came to saying goodbye and Joyce said tentatively that perhaps Wesley could come and sleep over for a few nights during his stay? And after another begging look from Buffy sighed and said that perhaps also Buffy could stay at Giles’ another night or two if she really felt that Wesley needed her.

“Oh, he does,” Buffy said urgently.

By the time Giles had managed to get Wesley back from the inevitable round of hugs and kisses as they took their leave, he seemed to have been handed some kind of rota for all the things they were going to do over the next week and who would be staying with him and who Wesley would be staying with.

Joyce crouched down to say goodnight to Wesley, checking the buttons of his coat as she did so and feeling his hands to make sure that they were warm. He gazed at her shyly and said: “Thank you for having me and for cooking such a lovely dinner, Mrs Summers.”

Joyce did that melting thing again. “You’re very welcome, Wesley. And I look forward to seeing you again on – is it Wednesday?”

“Thank you, Mrs Summers.”

Giles thought it was probably just as well that Wesley had no idea what it did to even quite sensible females when he gave them the big shy eyes or he could have grown up to be the world’s worst Lothario. Thinking of his utter ineptitude with Cordelia as an adult, even when the girl was practically throwing herself at his feet, he felt another pang. Clearly no one ever had told Wesley, even once, that he was attractive. He had thought it rather amusing when Wesley had observed that he hadn’t got this job through his looks and Buffy had so emphatically agreed but now it rather made him wince. Wesley had been an extremely appealing little boy with perfect manners and a great deal of sensitivity towards others and that didn’t seem to have been encouraged by anyone around him. It had certainly not been encouraged by Giles or any of the ‘Scoobies’ he had to admit. Not that he could think of any way to tell one’s young male replacement that he was really not bad looking at all without it sounding like a come-on, but he could perhaps have found something to praise that might have helped the boy with his self-esteem issues.

Wesley said politely: “Goodnight, Mrs Summers.”

Joyce said, “Goodnight, Wesley” then looked over his head to mouth to Giles: He’s adorable.

Giles nodded and forced a smile, but was still imagining Wesley talking to Joyce in the library, covering for the fact that Giles had been fired and Buffy had been unkind to him. Why? It was very difficult to imagine the young man he thought he knew doing either of those things. Was the young man he thought he knew not then who Wesley actually was? Was that just the disguise Wesley wore when he and the others were around because they made him nervous and flustered him and he imagined that if he betrayed weakness in front of them they would somehow turn on him and tear him apart. As they walked to the car, Giles remember the pack that Xander and those other children had turned into; not so different really from ordinary bullies at first. Had Wesley been bullied at school? He did seem to have evolved some of the strategies that powerless people learned. He thought about people picking on the physically fragile, very sensitive, easily cowed little boy, holding his hand, and felt something jolt inside him. A desire to protect him that was entirely illogical because, of course, whatever had happened to Wesley at school, had already happened.

Even a few days ago he had thought it quite amusing to imagine that Wesley had probably had to dress up as a girl at some point. It seemed to be a tradition of the school he had attended. Now the thought filled him with anger. The last thing this boy needed were any aspersions cast on his masculinity. He was already too inclined to think himself at fault or weak or stupid. He had to bite down a lot of reassurances that Wesley hadn’t asked for and didn’t need right now. The boy had enjoyed his evening. Joyce had been wonderfully kind to him and had won him over a great deal faster than Giles had managed to, and he had been surrounded by people who adored him and whom he adored. He didn’t need to be told that people were just horrible sometimes and it wasn’t a reflection on him when he was feeling perfectly contented.

“We seem to have a busy week,” he observed to Wesley as he buckled him into the car. “Perhaps I should start charging people by the hour when they want to spend time with you.”

Wesley smiled shyly and then said: “Well, Buffy says that she saw me first.”

“Actually, I think I saw you first, and I am your uncle. Buffy’s not even a relative.”

Wesley snickered about that because Giles was being silly. Giles wondered if he had even known that adults could make jokes or say silly things until the last few days.

Xander tapped on the car window. “We’ll follow you.”

“I really don’t think it’s necessary…” Giles began but Xander was already climbing into Oz’s van. Rolling his eyes, Giles slid into the driver’s seat.

Another tap on the window was Buffy saying plaintively: “You’ll remember to call this time?”

“Yes, I’ll call. Now, Goodnight, Buffy.”

He drove away quickly again, and Wesley waved to the girls more cheerfully as they stood on the pavement. “I hope they don’t get cold,” he said in concern. “Buffy isn’t wearing a coat.”

“They’ll be fine,” Giles assured him.

As they drew up outside Giles’s house, Giles saw someone waiting across the street. He looked human but one could never be sure. As he went to open the car door, Oz appeared on the pavement saying urgently: “Wait.”

Xander was already strolling across the road. “Hey, Buddy. We’re a little lost, could you maybe give us some directions…?”

Giles’s instinct was to go after Xander, but before he could open the door, the man turned around to reveal a demonic visage. He snarled: “Sure, you’re going straight to hell…”

“I don’t think so.” Xander threw the holy water and ducked at the same time. As the vampire screamed and clawed at its face, Xander staked it with a brisk efficiency that Giles had rarely seen him display before. He walked back across the road, wiping the dust from his hands.

Oz said: “Okay, you can get out now.”

Giles did so in some irritation. “That was somewhat reckless, Xander.”

Wesley was gazing up at Xander wide-eyed. “That was really brave.”

Xander started preening and then grinned, and picked the little boy up. “Want to listen to my still-hammering heart?” Wesley eagerly did so, pressing his ear to Xander’s chest, and then looked up at Xander in even greater surprise. “You were scared?”

“No, I was terrified.”

A smile spread across Wesley’s face. “Then it was even braver.”

Xander stroked the boy’s disordered hair back from his forehead. “Everyone gets scared, Wesley. Even Buffy.”

“Even Angel?”

“Well, he’s not exactly a person…” Seeing the boy’s expression, Xander sighed. “Yes, even Angel.”

“Let’s get inside,” Oz urged. “Just in case there are any more hanging around.”

Giles found himself and Wesley being ushered in like celebrities past lines of adoring fans, despite the fact that the only thing he could see threatening them at the moment was next door’s shrubbery.

The phone was ringing as they stepped inside and Giles picked it up, saying wearily: “Yes, Buffy, we’re home.”

“Is everything okay? Did something happen?”

Not feeling up to dealing with her paranoia, Giles wordlessly passed her over to Oz and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle while Wesley sidled over to where Cuthbert was sitting and gave him a furtive hug of relief. After five minutes of Oz and Xander trying to calm Buffy down, Giles handed Wesley his tea, took the phone from Xander, said: “It was probably a ploy to get you to come running over here, thereby leaving Willow undefended.”

“You’re right!” Buffy sounded breathless with anxiety. “I’ll call Angel. Send him over to you while I guard Willow. Good thinking, Giles.”

“But…” She had already put the phone down. Sighing, Giles turned to Xander. “Apparently we’re getting a vampire bodyguard for the night.”

“Oh, joy.” Seeing Wesley’s expression, Xander said. “And I really meant that.”

Wesley looked at him sorrowfully. “I wish you wouldn’t fight with Cordelia and Angel.”

Xander looked stricken and Giles noted with interest that Wesley clearly had nothing to learn even from Willow when it came to ‘whammying’ people with the sad reproachful eyes.

“I won’t, I swear,” Xander assured him. And kept to his word, practically falling over himself to open the door for Angel when the vampire arrived in what seemed to Giles to be about five minutes flat. “Hey, Buddy.” He slapped Angel on the shoulder. “How are you doing? Good of you to come over like this. Appreciated.”

Angel looked at Xander for a moment. “Wesley asked for us not to fight?”

Xander nodded. “Yep.”

“Okay then.” Angel nodded to Giles. “I’ll do a sweep.” He turned with a swirl of coat and strode back out into the night.

“That coat is so cool,” Xander observed.

“Oh, do give it up, Xander,” Giles pleaded. “You’re not convincing anyone.”

“No, I actually do think it’s kind of…cool.” Xander slumped down on the sofa and Giles wordlessly handed him and Oz their tea.

Wesley gave Xander a hug. “Thank you for trying.”

“So, what are we doing this evening?” Xander enquired.

Wesley answered brightly: “Well, Uncle Giles and Angel played with the boats last night so perhaps we could put the kite together tonight?”

Giles turned to find Xander and Oz both looking at him open-mouthed, and awkwardly loosened his collar. “Well… When Wesley says ‘played’, it was really more of a session of military strategizing, using the boats as representatives of opposing forces.”

“Isn’t that what ‘playing’ is?” Oz enquired.

“Uncle Giles won,” Wesley added.

Seeing the surprise on Oz and Xander’s faces, Giles found it wasn’t quite so bad for them to know about his playing with boats with Angel.

“Go, Giles,” Oz observed.

Wesley gazed up at Giles. “Is there time for us to put the kite together, Uncle Giles?”

Giles looked at the clock on the wall automatically, and then wondered why he was worrying about bedtimes for a child who was actually twenty-six, would be twenty-six again in less than ten days, and who, in any case, did not have to attend school on the following day, on account of already having several University degrees. “I think we can make time.”

Xander looked at him. “Wow, you’re like wild and crazy no rules guy, today.”

“Yes, it’s Wesley’s influence,” Giles deadpanned, delighted to see that Wesley got the joke and got that it wasn’t a joke at his expense, and smiled about it.

The kite turned out to be fiendishly difficult to assemble, being a very complicated Chinese dragon that needed gluing together with the enclosed glue that seemed remarkable for its adhesive qualities in sticking together anything but unpainted balsa wood. Xander, surprised Giles, by being very good with wood, and Oz and Angel – who had returned from his sweep wiping some dust from his coat while blandly assuring Wesley that there was absolutely nothing outside to be frightened of, no one out there at all – gradually handed over the assembling to him.

“I like making things,” Xander explained. “It’s satisfying. That’s the problem with schoolwork – too abstract. Now, researching demons, I get. You look up the baby-eating demon, Buffy go kills the baby-eating demon, there’s a result – space where evil baby-eating demon used to be – world a safer place for babies. But x plus y equals z – what the heck is that about? Is z happier for knowing it’s the sum total of x and y? Do x and y resolve their differences knowing they equal z? I don’t think so. I don’t think z even exists. So, who is helped by me doing that sum, eh? This is different. This is – pieces of wood that form no function, now put together in manner to make something that has a function and brings pleasure to a small boy. That, I get.”

Giles had been expecting to be making a snappy retort at the end of Xander’s dismissal of schoolwork but found himself momentarily speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then patted the boy on the shoulder. “Xander, I think you just told me more about your motivation than I have ever understood before.”

Xander looked panicked. “I can shut up. See me shutting up.”

“No.” Giles frowned. “I suppose a lot of schoolwork must seem rather pointlessly abstract, especially when you live on a Hellmouth.”

“Well, yeah. When your best friend gets turned into a vampire and your other best friend’s first date is a robot and your other best friend is dating a vampire with a soul and a gypsy curse and – man, I know we’re being friendly and all – but really pretentious hair, dissecting frogs is still really…gross. And also pointless. Which, I think was the point I wanted to make at the beginning of that sentence.”

Oz frowned. “Willow dated a robot?”

Xander patted him on the shoulder. “It was way before she knew you. If she’d known you – that robot wouldn’t have gotten so much as a look in. Also, he was freakishly unattractive.”

Oz considered the point. “Was he taller than me?”

“Yes, but he had absolutely no musical skills of any kind. And also – digitally challenged. No way was he ever going to make that diminished ninth. How’s that coming by the way?”

Oz nodded. “It’s still a distant dream at present but I think there’s been some progress.”

“I could show you if you like…?” Giles offered tentatively. “It’s not as difficult as some people believe.”

Oz sadly shook his head. “Thanks but that would be like – parachuting Lewis and Clark to the source of the Missouri – it’s the journey that counts.”

Xander said: “Who?”

Giles grimaced. “Xander, perhaps there might be a way to maintain a better balance between the theoretical and the practical in your life?”

Wesley whispered to Xander: “I don’t know who they are either.”

“Well, they’re Americans, Wesley,” Giles said dismissively. “It’s not something you would have been taught.” Oz and Xander looked at Giles who cleared his throat. “We do have rather more of our own history to study. Not having come into being five minutes ago like some people’s cultures I could mention there is rather a lot of British history to cover.”

“Really?” Angel put in. “I would have thought it was pretty simple really: England sees a country with something it wants, steals it, kills or enslaves all the locals, robs it of all natural resources, forces it to choke on whatever brand of religion England happens to be peddling at the time, bans the country’s native language, culture, sport, religion, you name it, England probably outlawed it, gets bored, leaves country to its own resources, and then when its torn apart by civil war either divides the country up or gives it ‘Independence’ or both.”

“I know America was a colony at the time of George the Third,” Wesley said helpfully. He frowned. “I think that’s the only time I remember it being mentioned though. Except Daddy said that they spell as if they’re using a Scrabble board that’s run out of ‘u’s.” As Oz and Xander moved their quizzical looks to him, Wesley ducked his head. “I’m sure he meant it as a compliment.”

Giles cleared his throat. “So – the Chinese Dragon. How does that differ from the Welsh Dragon, Wesley…?”

The kite looked spectacular when it was finished. It still needed painting, but Xander assured Wesley that wouldn’t take long.

“We can get you some paint tomorrow, munchkin. And then you can go and fly this baby.”

Wesley looked at Angel. “I only want to fly it at night so Angel can see it too.”

There was an awkward pause and then Angel said, “Wes, I don’t mind. I want you to have a good time. And you won’t be able to see it at night. Neither will anyone else.”

Wesley looked mournful. “But you helped build it. I want you to see it too.”

Giles sighed and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on again. Wesley really was a very nice little boy. Far nicer than he would have expected from meeting the adult version. Was the difference that this boy hadn’t been hardened by his experiences at school? Except it was ludicrous to think of the adult Wesley being in any way ‘hardened’. He was a boy in adult’s clothing. That was one of the many annoying things about him. Perhaps it was just because this Wesley, the child version, was being included, rather than excluded, and felt wanted and needed, not extra to everyone’s needs.

“Suggestion.” Everyone turned to look at Oz, who was wearing that quiet little smile of his. “Phosphorescent paint.”

Xander slapped him on the shoulder. “Genius at work.”

Wesley beamed up at Angel. “Everyone will be able to see it then and you can come with us.”

Angel looked so touched that Wesley wanted him there that Giles saw Xander actually swallow the snarky comment he had been about to make.

Giles carried in some hot chocolate for everyone and pointed out that it was getting rather late. “If you’re planning to go to school tomorrow…”

“But we’re not,” Xander assured him, accepting the hot chocolate.

Giles sighed. “I’m really not comfortable about being an accessory to your truancy, Xander but I suppose as you’ve already taken your exams…”

Somewhat to Giles’ surprise, Angel took the mug he had made for him too and sipped it quietly. “Who gets to read Wesley’s story tonight?”

“Me!” Xander’s hand shot in the air.

“Is that all right with you, Wesley?” Giles asked.

Wesley nodded. “Yes.”

Xander reached for Cuthbert. “And is that okay with you?” He made Cuthbert nod eagerly and Wesley giggled.

Giles watched as Oz and Xander got Wesley into his pyjamas, and carried him upstairs. Oz set up the nightlight while Xander read him his story. He and Angel both sort of drifted up after them to stand in the doorway and watch the two young men sitting on Wesley’s bed; Oz tucking Cuthbert under the covers and Xander reading the next chapter of The Magician’s Nephew with every sign of enjoyment.

When he snuggled down to go to sleep, Xander bent down and kissed his forehead. “Sweet dreams, kiddo.”

Oz touched Wesley’s hair gently and then they were both backing out of the room.

“He’s so cute,” Angel observed.

Everyone looked at him. “Stop doing the doting thing,” Xander warned him. “It’s freaking me out. You’re a vampire. Try to act like one – only not so much with the killing and maiming.”

Giles realized that he was exhausted. “You all know where everything is, don’t you?” There were murmurings of assent, the tramp of them going downstairs, muffled snipings from Angel and Xander, quiet commonsense from Oz, then the low murmur of the television. Giles went into Wesley’s room, said goodnight, tucked his hand under the covers so it wouldn’t get cold, and then headed out.

Wesley murmured sleepily: “Good night, Uncle Giles.”

Giles was in bed when the phone rang. There was a time when a midnight phonecall would have had him leaping out of bed expecting the worst, but now he just turned over, and let Angel answer it downstairs.

“Buffy, he’s fine…”

Still smiling, Giles drifted into sleep.

***

Xander surprised Giles the next day by offering to read up on the properties of phosphorescent paint and applying it to the kite. Giles gave him the money to pay for the paint – it was ludicrously expensive – but then left him to it, and he and Wesley had a very happy time painting the kite with the glow-in-the-dark paint. As it was then lunchtime, Giles suggested that they went to the zoo where Xander could explain to Wesley all the reasons why one didn’t go into the areas marked ‘no entry’ and they could have lunch.

Xander’s way of giving Wesley information was to make things up and not pretend he was doing anything other than making things up, which made Wesley howl with laughter.

“Lions don’t come from Australia!”

“How do you know? Did you ask them? They could have been…touring there. Next you’re going to be telling me that elephants don’t come from South America.”

“They don’t!” Wesley giggled helplessly as Xander lifted him up so he could see better. “They come from Africa and Asia.”

“Prove it!” Xander countered.

Wesley pointed triumphantly to the information posted outside of the enclosure. “It says it right here. It says these are Indian elephants and you can tell that because they have smaller ears and tusks.”

“Okay, so they should just say these kind are the ones in the ‘Jungle Book’ and the other kind are the ones in ‘The Lion King’. These people are just not hip with the contemporary culture references.”

Watching Xander and Wesley together, it occurred to Giles that he knew too many people who were unwanted sons. Angel, Xander, and Wesley clearly all had daddy issues to burn, although, thankfully, both Xander and Wesley had, as yet, refrained from eating their fathers to pay him back for their lack of love.

“Okay, and here’s where we talk about why hyaenas are really not very nice at all and how you should never ever let them put their mystical mojo on you because it never goes well…”

Giles managed to get lunch for all three of them with minimal interference from the other two, so rapt was Wesley by Xander’s account of what had happened when he was possessed by an evil hyaena spirit.

“I thought you had no memory of those events, Xander?” Giles enquired.

Xander grimaced. “Oh yes, that’s right. We don’t actually tell Buffy, Willow or Cordy – or anyone, really, about the whole me remembering it thing.”

Wesley was still gazing at him wide-eyed. “You were mean to Willow?”

“It wasn’t me! It was the evil hyaena spirit – because I would never be mean to Willow.”

“No one should be mean to Willow. Or Buffy. Or Cordelia.” Wesley noticed the tray of food and smiled shyly at Giles. “Thank you, Uncle Giles.”

“Okay – Buffy and Willow, I’m definitely on board for that, but I think there should be special dispensation for people being mean to Cordelia if she’s mean to them.”

Wesley sipped his chocolate milk and looked disapprovingly at Xander. “It’s not nice to be mean to girls.”

“But sometimes girls are really mean!”

“Are they?” Wesley looked surprised by that. “When?”

Xander blinked in confusion. “The girls at your school aren’t mean to you? I figured they would be beating you up and stealing your lunch money for sure.”

“There aren’t any girls at my school, just boys.”

Xander looked at him carefully. “Are they mean to you?”

“Sometimes. But I’m good at hiding.” Wesley picked up the sandwich Giles had bought for him and ate it slowly, savouring every bite. “This is really nice.”

“It’s something with peanut butter and jelly that Buffy made me promise to buy you. Do you really like it?”

Wesley nodded emphatically. Xander was still looking at him in concern. “So, these boys who are mean to you…? You want to – give me their names…?”

Giles rested a hand on Xander’s shoulder. “Wesley was at school eighteen years ago, Xander, remember? Those little boys would now be older than you.”

“So? I’m allowed to beat them up then, aren’t I?”

“You don’t think that continuing the cycle of violence is something to be avoided?”

“Sure, in theory. I just think sometimes it’s nice, when you’re the guy everyone else picks on, if someone stands up for you for a change.”

Giles had a sudden memory of their exasperation with Wesley after he had interfered with Angel’s plan to try to get through to Faith. He grimaced. “Sometimes, bullies don’t know that’s what they’re being. They’re just angry or feel threatened in some way.” He met Xander’s eyes and saw the blank confusion in Xander’s brown eyes turn to comprehension.

He winced. “Yeah, well, I suppose we all have it in us to be bullies.”

“When we’re possessed by evil hyaena spirits?” Wesley asked.

“Or not.” Xander sat back in his chair and summoned a smile with difficulty. “So, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, what do you want to do to work off that peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Want to watch the monkeys? How about the gorillas.”

“I was trying to learn a spell to let them out,” Wesley admitted.

“Let whom out?” Giles asked.

“The gorillas. They’re higher primates, which means they’re really like our relatives, so I thought they should be let out, really.” He looked up at them innocently. “It was a spell for dissolving iron but it was really tricky.”

Xander said blankly: “Wesley, you’re eight.”

“I know.”

Giles took off his glasses. “I think what Xander is saying is that eight is – rather young to be learning spells.”

Wesley sighed. “Daddy was cross.” He rubbed his right hand over his left reflexively. “He doesn’t like me learning spells.” He looked up at Giles anxiously. “Are you cross?”

“No!” Giles shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“But – still don’t do it,” Xander added.

Wesley transferred his anxious gaze to Xander. “Are you cross?”

“No.” Xander looked as horror stricken as Giles had felt when that question was addressed to him. “Never, Wes. I’m so not cross that I’m going to have to buy you an ice cream.”

They spent the rest of the day in the zoo – Xander watching carefully to be sure that Wesley wasn’t attempting any spells – with Wesley being fed a great deal of ice-cream, and getting so that he hardly flinched when it dripped onto his clothes by the end of the day. Xander was kind, patient, and endlessly good-natured with the little boy, and had to be prevented from spending all his allowance on toys for the boy in the gift shop. Giles put a restraining hand on Xander’s arm, knowing that the boy was not exactly well off. “Let me get it.”

Xander sighed. “Okay, but you have to let me carry him back to the car.”

Giles smiled. “Deal.”

They arrived back at Giles’s house at 5pm to find Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia all standing outside with their arms folded.

“What?” Xander demanded defensively.

Buffy tapped her watch. “We were supposed to get him from 3pm onwards. You’ve had two hours of our time.”

Wesley said: “Buffy!” and, as Xander put him down, ran to her. Buffy immediately forgot all about being angry and swooped him up into her arms for a cuddle and the inevitable feeling of his forehead. She was only allowed the briefest hug before Cordelia snagged him from her and gave him a hug of her own.

Xander looked at Giles. “See? Grabby.”

Willow was kissing him gently, while stroking his hair back from his forehead. “Did you have a nice day with Xander and Giles?”

“Oh yes, it was so much fun. We went and looked at the hyaenas and Xander told me about when…” Noticing Xander shaking his head and making rapid throat cutting motions, Wesley remembered and said: “…when he was possessed by a hyaena spirit, but unfortunately, he doesn’t remember anything that happened so he couldn’t really tell me about it…” His voice trailed off.

Oz smirked into his shirt and murmured: “Good save,” to Wesley.

Buffy gave Xander an amused look and plucked Wesley back from Cordelia. “I think you’ll find I saw him first and that gives me first dibs on the cuddling.”

Giles went indoors and put the kettle on, now quite used to everyone trampling over his floors and stealing the best places on his chairs. The girls were very impressed with the kite.

Buffy patted Xander on the shoulder. “You’re like total woodworking guy.”

“Well, he has to make a start on his life in the construction business sometime,” Cordelia sniffed.

Wesley whammied her with the reproachful eyes. “Xander is really clever at building things. I hope he does build houses and things for people. I bet they’d never fall down.”

Cordelia looked stricken. “Sweetie, I didn’t mean to be…mean. I’m sure Xander would build the best houses ever.”

Wesley looked mollified and Xander had to work hard not to look smug. Buffy made admiring noises about the kite. “So, are we going to fly this then?”

“When it’s dark,” Wesley explained. “So, Angel can be there.”

“Glow-in-the-dark paint,” Xander explained. “Oz’s idea.”

“We couldn’t fly it in the light first and then fly it for Angel after…?” Buffy suggested.

Wesley shook his head. “He has to see the first time.”

“The kid’s big with the Angel love,” Xander shrugged. “The only flaw in an otherwise perfect child.” Wesley looked at him in shock and Xander said hastily. “Teeny weeny flaw. Hardly a flaw at all really.”

Giles said quietly, “I think it’s the ‘perfect’ Wesley is having trouble comprehending, Xander.”

Buffy looked at Wesley’s face and then lifted him up. “You don’t know you’re perfect? Sheesh. And I thought you were smart.” She pulled him against her chest and kissed his hair. “You’re completely perfect.”

Wesley said tentatively. “Buffy…?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I think I just got ice cream on your blouse. There was some on my jumper and…”

Buffy peeled him off her a little stickily and Cordelia and Willow hastily began to check their own clothes for ice cream. Buffy dabbed at her front. “Okay, you’re completely perfect in a kind of sticky ice-creamy sort of way – but perfect nevertheless.”

Wesley dabbed at her blouse apologetically. “I’m sorry about the chocolate sauce.”

Giles sighed and fetched a flannel to wipe off Wesley’s face, hands, and clothing, then passed it onto Buffy and Cordelia who both attempted to remove the stains from their no doubt very expensive clothing, in between cooing at Wesley that it wasn’t his fault, and pressing kisses into his hair.

Xander shook his head. “Now, how come no one just kisses me when I do that?”

“We’re blaming you,” Buffy told him. “You bought Wesley the ice cream.”

“Would you like to go home and change your clothes?” Giles suggested. “Wesley could probably do with a bath…”

“Don’t you dare bathe him!” Buffy pointed an accusing finger. “We’ve been looking forward to bath-time for two days.”

“I’m sure it can’t be good for the boy to be shuffled from pillar to post…” Giles began.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think I won’t use force. We get him for tonight and all of tomorrow and tomorrow night. That’s the deal.”

“Buffy, I’m not trying to – steal your privileges, but as he’s going to need a change of clothing…”

“Okay, but we get to bathe him. You can go and…play boats or something.” Buffy took Wesley firmly by the hand and led him towards the bathroom. He ran along beside her, looking up a little anxiously.

Oz looked at Xander. “Like I said the first time I met her – a tense person.”

“But you’ve been able to play with Wesley for days, and we’ve hardly seen him,” Willow protested.

“We weren’t ‘playing’,” Xander said loftily. “I’ll have you know that both Giles and I have been concentrating on expanding his mind with educational field trips.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Giles handed Xander a cup of tea. “Entirely educational.”

Willow plucked a furry tiger from the gift shop bag and held it up wordlessly. Cordelia peered into the bag and retrieved a selection of plastic dinosaurs. “Yes, because tigers are so often fluffy and dinosaurs pink and spotted.”

“They may have been,” Giles countered. “Really any colouring for dinosaurs is entirely guesswork on the part of the palaeontologists. They could have been day-glo orange for all that anyone knows. There are some species of lizards with remarkably bright colouring after all.”

Cordelia’s lip curled. “No way was this an educational field trip! You just had fun all day and got to stuff Wesley with ice cream!”

“We were practising our parenting skills,” Xander returned. “Like with those egg-babies. Only not so much with the hard-boiling and eating him.”

“Oh, like either of you two losers are ever likely to be parents…” Cordelia snorted and then, remembering Wesley, put a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that in a mean way – and I’m going to go and help with the bathing now.”

Oz waited until Cordelia was out of earshot before asking quietly: “Are you going to be okay this evening? Without Wesley, I mean?”

Giles thought of there being no little boy in the bed upstairs and none of their routine before bedtime, of hot milk and reading C.S. Lewis together and sighed. “Well, you know, it’s not as if I usually have a child here.”

Xander put a sympathetic hand on his arm. “Want us to stay over?”

Giles grimaced. “If you wouldn’t mind…?”

They watched the sun go down together; Buffy holding Wesley in his arms as they watched it sink behind the sea.

“Does Angel ever get to see any sunsets?” Wesley asked.

“I think so, sometimes,” she said. “If he’s indoors and in the shade, I think he can watch them.”

“Does he miss seeing things in the daylight?”

“I suppose after two hundred years you probably can’t remember living any other way.”

Wesley cuddled in against her; the temperature already noticeably cooler as the sun sank and the darkness came in. Giles watched them and thought that Buffy could either have this, motherhood, someone to take care of who wasn’t just the faceless public, and who would love her in return; or she could have this half a life with Angel.

When Giles turned around, he saw that Angel was watching Buffy and Wesley, and the expression on his face was so full of yearning that Giles had to look away. Joyce had said that Angel had ‘made his choice’ but he somehow doubted that Darla would have asked before she bit. He had been murdered and damned, that was the reality of it; and then had murdered and damned others, before being punished with the restoration of his soul. He had probably been rather a stupid young man; the records seemed to suggest he had been a sorrow to his father – a god-fearing and hard-working linen merchant – and had no doubt been a drunken useless layabout; but he had still not been offered a choice before he was robbed of his life and his soul and doomed to walk in darkness.

Then Wesley turned around and Angel plastered a smile onto his face that looked as if it had always been there and walked forwards to say, “Hey, Wes. Did you stop Xander getting hexed by any evil hyaena spirits at the zoo?”

“Yes, Xander said the secret is to eat lots of ice cream.” Wesley let himself be lifted into Angel’s arms, then sat on his hip as if there had never been a time when he didn’t have an Uncle Giles who shared his parenting amongst a Slayer, the Scoobies, and a vampire with a soul. “It works really well too.”

Angel frowned. “Your hair is damp.”

“I had a bath.”

“Before coming out at night?”

“In California,” Giles pointed out. “It’s not exactly Alaska.”

Buffy said anxiously: “Do you think he’s going to catch a chill?”

“He is wearing a t-shirt, a shirt, a sweater, and a jacket, Buffy,” Oz pointed out. “The chill is going to have to work some to reach him.”

“Still, damp hair at night…” Angel murmured.

Cordelia said: “You know, it’s probably a good thing that vampires can’t breed, because quite apart from never being able to get the kids to daycare when the sun’s out – totally paranoid.”

Wesley licked his finger and held it up. “It’s quite windy. Do you think it’s dark enough for the paint to show up?”

“Only one way to find out.” Oz held up the kite.

Xander gave Wesley the kite string to unwind and carefully smoothed out the long carefully-painted tail. It was clear that the paint was going to show up admirably as they could only just see each other’s faces but they could see the Chinese dragon undulating very well.

“You know what to do?” Xander asked him. “You throw it up into the wind and then you let out the string. Okay? And don’t worry if it takes five or six attempts because it usually does. Well, it does when I do it anyway. It’s really down to luck if the wind catches it right and no one knows when that’s going to happen.”

Giles watched the tension that had been building up in Wesley lessen a little as Xander added that last couple of sentences.

Wesley said tentatively: “There isn’t a right way to do it?”

Oz shrugged. “Well, maybe, but none of us know it so you may as well just – toss and hope.”

Wesley looked a little less stressed about being the cynosure of all eyes. He took a deep breath, put his shoulders back, and tossed the kite up. It immediately fell onto the beach with a dull thud. Wesley bit his lip.

“I’m so glad it isn’t just me that always happens to,” Buffy said.

“Me too!” Willow added. “I used to think my kites were cursed.”

Angel said, “Do you think it’s windier when you’re up higher?”

Wesley picked the kite back up, Buffy crouching down to make sure the string wasn’t tangled. “It could be.”

“Shall we try it from my shoulders?”

Wesley smiled in relief. “Okay.”

Angel picked him up and swung him onto his shoulders. “Does it feel any windier?”

“Much,” Wesley told him.

“Okay, do you want to try throwing it up into the air again and see what happens? Try to get it to hit Xander if it falls down because that would just be really funny.”

“Angel…” Wesley gave him a reproachful look.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, big guy, but a really big stake jammed into your heart still turns you to dust every time.”

Oz murmured quietly: “You do know that doesn’t rhyme or in any way scan, right?”

“Please throw the kite, Wesley,” Giles pleaded. “And if you could somehow injure both Xander and Angel with it while doing so, I would be eternally grateful.”

Wesley threw the kite up into the air and a breeze snatched it up and whisked it up into the air. Giles was only just quick enough to see that little finger waggle and toss of herbs from Willow and didn’t know whether to be glad she had done that or to worry about her using magic frivolously.

Except it didn’t look like a ‘frivolous’ use of magic when he saw Wesley’s face. The boy was letting out the kite string while gazing up at the shimmering pale dragon undulating in the wind, its tail waving sinuously, and the pride and pleasure on his face as the kite climbed higher and higher, made it seem like there could be no better use for magic. Angel lifted him down carefully so he would be standing on his own two feet while flying the kite, and the wind caught at the kite even more strongly, making it surge upwards, Wesley with his feet planted on the sand, his thin wrists braced against the pull of the kite.

Giles just enjoyed the pleasure on the little boy’s face for moment; his wonder at something working for a change; the kite doing as kites were meant to do, only this one being so much grander and the glowing paint giving it a beautiful, supernatural appearance. Then Giles looked at Angel and immediately wanted Wesley to see it too. He walked around behind them and gently put his hand on Wesley’s arm, then when the boy look at him in enquiry nodded his head at Angel. Wesley turned and saw what Giles had seen: Angel gazing up at that kite with as much wonder as Wesley, watching it gyrate and float in the wind, the long body of the dragon seeming to ride out the wind with perfect rhythm, the glowing kite tail sinuous as a snake, and behind it the starlight. Giles wondered how long it was since Angel had seen a kite and how much longer still since he had flown one.

Wesley seemed to have the thought at the same time and held up the handle. “It’s a bit strong for me, Angel. My hands are tired. Can you hold it?”

Angel took the kite string from him almost dazedly, still looking up at the kite riding out the breeze, shimmering backwards and forwards in the wind, a glow of white light against the velvety midnight blue backdrop. He smiled as the wind caught at it and the dragon appeared to be floating there, beautiful and strange, and Wesley gazed at him with so much compassion and pleasure because Angel was happy.

Giles turned to see that Xander and Oz and Willow and Buffy were also all watching Angel fly the kite and Wesley watching him and smiling. After a moment Buffy slipped her hand into Xander’s and said softly: “Thank you.”

Xander was still looking at Angel’s face as the kite was snatched up by the wind and then left to float on another eddy, that wonder and pleasure on his face because he hadn’t done this for more than two hundred years and thought he would never be able to again. “For what?”

“Putting the kite together. Painting it so carefully.”

Xander looked back at Angel and Wesley watching Angel before he turned to Buffy. “It was worth it.”

There was something very serene and quiet about Angel even after they went back to Giles’ place. He kissed Buffy dreamily in farewell, and said ‘Goodnight’ to everyone as if partly under the influence of a trance. Cordelia looked at him with narrowed eyes and then elbowed him hard in the ribs, completely jolting him out of his serene place.

“Is another way for you to achieve perfect happiness to let you fly a kite? Because you’re creeping me out.”

Angel winced and clutched his ribs. “I’m not evil. I’m just…happy…”

“How happy?” she demanded.

“Not perfectly happy,” he insisted. “A good way to never achieve perfect happiness is to know that if you do you’re going to turn into a soulless monster who tortures and murders all the people around you.”

Wesley gazed up at him in confusion. “You’re not evil. You’re good.”

“I used to be evil.”

“Long time ago,” Buffy said quickly.

“Water under the bridge,” Giles added quietly.

“We have to take Wesley now.” Buffy looked a little guilty. “Mom said we had to bring him home for dinner.”

Giles tried – and he suspected failed – to not look stricken. Wesley looked a little upset himself. As Giles crouched down to say goodbye, Wesley put his bony arms around the man’s neck and gave him a hug.

Xander held out Cuthbert and Oz handed him The Magician’s Nephew.

“We’ll take really good care of him,” Willow promised. “Extra special care.”

“We promise,” Cordelia added.

“I know you will.” Giles hugged the boy gently and tried to sound bright and cheerful. “Have a good time with Buffy, Wesley.”

The boy looked across at Giles’ books. “Is there something I can look up for you while I’m there? I like looking things up.”

Giles looked around for a book that wasn’t too graphic and was in English. “Well, if you have the time, Wesley, you could look up demons in their pure forms. I think there’s a chapter in here you could read and tell me about later. Would that be all right?”

Buffy had been about to remonstrate when she saw how Wesley lit up at the thought of being useful. He held out his hands for the book eagerly. “Pure demonic forms, Uncle Giles?”

“Yes, it would be useful in dealing with the Mayor to have as much information about that as possible.”

“I’ll do it tonight!”

Buffy grimaced at Giles who said: “Not tonight, Wesley. But if you could find time tomorrow, that would be wonderful.”

“I need to get my notebook.” Wesley hurried off to get it, beaming happily.

Xander shook his head. “Okay, it’s bad enough that they make those Watcher kids work all the time but it’s somehow even worse that they make them think they enjoy it.”

“Maybe he does enjoy it,” Willow put in. “Maybe he gets a tingly buzz from doing good work and getting good marks and knowing things.”

Xander looked at her and sighed. “One day, Will, I need to get you to learn that school work equals Boring. Fun equals – fun.”

“I can do fun.” She looked at Oz. “Aren’t I fun?”

“You’re Fun City in a sombrero,” he returned.

“Why a sombrero?”

“Did you ever see a sombrero that didn’t look as if it was having fun? That’s a happy piece of headgear.”

Cordelia had already collected up Wesley’s toothbrush, pyjamas, slippers, robe, and clothing, and packed it with lots of careful folding. Buffy sat through the debate about what toys to take while Wesley happily packed his little Watcher bag with notebooks, pens, pencils, and a research book from Giles, arriving back at the front door, beaming with accomplishment.

Buffy waited while everyone hugged him and Xander, Oz, and even Angel looked all dorky and woebegone. She felt guilty but reminded herself that they had been having fun with Wesley for the past two nights while she and Willow and Cordelia had been stuck having pyjama parties with all the fun siphoned out of them. And then Giles crouched down to straighten his little jacket and Wesley gazed at him and got tearful and said, “Goodnight, Uncle Giles. Please be careful and don’t open the door to any vampires.”

“I promise I won’t.” Giles smiled at him gently.

They both said: “Well, except for Angel” at the same time and then beamed at one another.

“Blood will out,” Xander observed. “I’m seeing the family connection more and more.”

Wesley gave Giles another hug and then he was holding his arms up to Buffy and she picked him up quickly so he could hide the fact he was crying, and she felt awful about taking him away from Giles.

“I know you’ll be careful with him, Buffy.” Giles accompanied her to the car. “And not let him overeat or get a chill or stay up too late or anything of that kind. So, I’m not going to fuss at you with lots of instructions but just – take a step back and leave you to your own devices, knowing that you’re a responsible person who will take her…responsibilities towards someone so physically and emotional vulnerable very seriously indeed.”

Buffy began to feel a lot less awful about taking him away from Giles. “So glad you’re not going to fuss at me. Giles, nothing and no one is going to hurt Wesley while he’s in my care. Just concentrate on researching the Mayor and generally…chilling.”

And then finally they were in Cordelia’s car, and Buffy was sliding into the back with Wesley who was curled up comfortably in her arms, with his little bag and his teddy bear and Willow carrying his luggage, and he was waving out of the window at the line of four depressed looking males all watching them drive off with him.

“We really need to get Giles a pet,” Cordelia observed.

Buffy sighed with contentment as Wesley snuggled in against her. It had felt just wrong not to have him to cuddle at will for the past couple of days. She stroked his hair and felt his warm bony little body against hers and thought If only he could stay like this forever and then caught herself thinking it and felt ashamed. Wesley was so eager to grow up and be useful and in point of fact already was grown up, although not terribly useful on the last count.

As they were driving home, it occurred to her for the first time that annoying though he undoubtedly had been, adult Wesley had identified those Eliminati swords in no-time flat, and known which book to look in to confirm it. And no one had said ‘Well done’ to him about it, even though, if adult Wesley was anything like child Wesley, he would work all day and all night for a little bit of praise and feel all glowy with accomplishment because of it. He must have thought they were a mean-spirited lot. Always sniping at him because he wanted to do things the Council’s way instead of their way, when the Council was all he knew and he didn’t know them from Adam, Eve or the Garden of Eden.

Wesley looked up at her in concern. “Are you okay, Buffy?”

She stroked his hair. “Just thinking.”

“What about?”

“About you growing up again.”

He grimaced. “Do you think it hurts…? Getting big really fast…?”

“I don’t know. When you woke up and you were small, did you feel achy?”

He thought about it. “Only in my ribs and my back a little bit. Not all over.”

She winced internally at the thought of that bruise on his ribs. “That doesn’t sound as if it hurts when you get bigger or smaller. It should be okay.”

“Did I hurt myself falling over?” Wesley asked. “Because I know I can be really clumsy. It makes Daddy cross. But I was hoping I wouldn’t be clumsy when I grew up, but I suppose I always will be.”

“You’re not clumsy.” She didn’t know if he was or not. She hadn’t noticed the way Wesley moved around or thought about it. He was just the annoying Watcher Guy in the annoyingly neat suit that kept trying to tell her what to do even though he didn’t know anything and should just shut up. “Oh – but, I bet I know why you fall over when you’re little – it’s because you need glasses.”

Wesley looked horrified. “I wear glasses?”

“Like Giles,” Buffy said quickly. “You have glasses like Giles.”

“Oh.” Wesley brightened at that. “Do I take them off and clean them when I don’t want to talk about something?”

“Yes, you do.” She grinned at him. “You see – it’s genetic.”

“Giles isn’t really my uncle, Buffy,” he reminded her gently.

“Would you like him to be?”

“Oh gosh, yes. I’d like that more than anything. Well, I’d like it if you and Cordelia were my sisters too.”

Willow looked hurt. “You don’t want me to be your sister?”

Wesley blushed. “No, because then I wouldn’t be able to…”

“Marry you,” Buffy explained. “When he grows up again.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe this! Now, Willow’s stealing another of my boyfriends!”

“Cordy, he’s eight years old. I think some humouring is in order.”

Cordy looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Okay. Be all quibbly.”

Joyce was delighted to see Wesley again and he went delightfully shy and quiet and terribly well brought up. The accent – so annoying on the older version – was just the most adorable thing ever on the little version of Wesley and his murmured little ‘Yes, Mrs Summers’ turned Joyce pretty much to a puddle of maternal yearnings.

Giles called – of course, on some pretext of checking that they had remembered to pick up Wesley’s coat, and then Angel called to check if they had Cuthbert with them, and Buffy rolled her eyes and said they were a pair of worrywarts, and everything was fine, and they should try to remember how it felt to have lives, and then remembered that those two hadn’t really had lives before, so to scratch that last suggestion.

Then there was the trying-to-stop-Mom-force-feeding-Wesley-to-near-bursting-point dinner, where Joyce could only just be restrained from heaping more things onto Wesley’s plate by Buffy taking her into the kitchen and saying: “Mom, Wesley has been brought up to eat whatever is put onto his plate. He has to eat his vegetables first. If you keep giving him more vegetables, he’s never going to eat the nice steak pie which, incidentally, I notice you never bother cooking for just me. Also, I know you made him more of that pudding thing, and you want him to have room for it, don’t you?”

“He’s just so thin,” Joyce said apologetically.

“Giles says it’s just an age thing. He’ll fill out when he’s older. Now, am I getting a promise of restraint on the force-feeding thing?”

Joyce sighed. “Yes, dear.”

“And don’t ask him too many questions. Every time you do that he has to chew what’s in his mouth, put down his knife and fork, and then answer you. And he’s shy about talking to people he doesn’t know.”

“I’m trying to get to know him. And, frankly, I’m worried about his home-life. Did you see the way his hand started shaking when I asked him about his father?”

Buffy thought about Wesley’s father. Thought about Wesley crying in fear because he spilled a drink, but still coming out when he was told to do so even though he had clearly thought he was being told to come out to be punished. She thought of him clinging to her, his thin little body so warm and pliant, never complaining once about being hugged or cuddled or fussed over, because it was clearly such an incredible treat for him to be shown any physical affection. In a brittle tone she managed, “His father’s just strict. And he has a lot of studies to get through. Watchers have to study a lot more than normal kids.”

“He’s going to be a Watcher?” Joyce looked horror-stricken. “Oh no, Buffy, it’s bad enough that this…Council has you young girls working as Slayers but at least you got the first fifteen years of your life to be normal, but they can’t just choose little boys and little girls at birth and make them be Watchers, can they?”

“They don’t choose, Mom. It’s a hereditary thing. Like with Giles. His father was a Watcher, Giles has to be a Watcher. Same with Wesley. He doesn’t mind. He wants to be a Watcher. No one’s told him it’s this really stuffy thing to be and he’ll just end up wearing tweed and the whole deal.”

“How can you joke about it…?” Joyce protested in a whisper. “That sweet little boy has to learn about vampires and demons and things that go bump in the night? Never gets to have a proper childhood and…?”

“And what else do you propose I do except joke about it as I can’t change it?” Buffy retorted.

“What if I called his father?” Joyce suggested. “I could explain to him what it’s like being the mother of a Slayer and…”

“Mom, he already knows. He’s a Watcher himself. It’s what he’s wants for Wesley and it’s what Wesley wants too.” She thought of that young man in his shiny suit, all wet behind the ears, and eager beaver, shiny hair, shiny face, shiny expectations. “He can’t wait to grow up and start Watching.”

“But if I explained to him that the reality is so much worse…”

“Mom,” Buffy put a hand on her arm. “It’s too late.”

“Buffy, he’s only eight years old!”

“It’s still too late. Just – take it from me.” And then Buffy jerked her head back at the dining room and they went back in while Joyce tried to make bright conversation with everyone while looking at Wesley anxiously as he quietly and very politely ate his way through his dinner.

Then they could finally take him upstairs and Buffy had hoped they could play a game or several but Wesley could hardly keep his eyes open.

“That’s Giles and Xander’s fault,” Cordelia pointed out. “They tired him out at the zoo. Those two are so selfish.”

“I had so much fun at the zoo,” Wesley murmured sleepily. “Please don’t be cross with them, Cordelia.”

He was persuaded to brush his teeth and get into his pyjamas, with his eyes already almost closed, and then he was too sleepy for a story and Buffy had to be content with just slipping him into her bed and then climbing in next to him, and Willow climbing in the other side, and Cordelia looking sad that she didn’t get to cuddle him too. “Don’t smother him,” she warned as she went off to her own room. It was really much too early for adults to go to bed and Buffy and Willow were very clear on that for the five minutes it took for them to tell each other how much too early it was for them to be in bed before falling asleep with Wesley as a sleepy little hot-water-bottle between them.

Buffy woke up a couple of hours later and realized that she had to patrol. Groaning inwardly, she kissed Wesley on the forehead, woke up Willow to tell her she was going out, and then climbed out of the window. She dusted two vamps, saw no sign of Faith or the Mayor’s people, and came back to find that Wesley was looking even more adorable than she remembered and was now curled up in Willow’s arms. Buffy peeled off her clothes, pulled on her pyjamas, and climbed back into the bed. Willow sleepily opened one eye and murmured: “Hey…”

“Hey back.” Buffy smiled at her across Wesley’s sleeping head. “Get in some good cuddle time?”

“He’s so warm and snuggly,” Willow murmured, still sleepily. “And it’s so cute the way he sucks his thumb.”

Buffy sighed and slid over so she could kiss the back of his head. “Let’s face it – little Wesley is definitely perfection.”

Willow whispered: “I feel bad about how we treated him when he was big.”

“You don’t need to,” Buffy pointed out. “You weren’t mean to him, I was.”

“You were just being loyal to Giles. But we can make it up to him, can’t we?”

Buffy nodded and snuggled in next to the warm little boy in the centre of the bed, stroking a hand through his hair gently. “Yes, we can.”

Joyce got up an hour earlier than usual so that Wesley would have home-cooked waffles for breakfast, with maple syrup. He was so fascinated by the waffles that she made another batch so he could watch the batter being poured into the iron, lit up with excitement because he was learning something new.

Then he was sat down in front of a mountain of waffles and invited to tuck in, while Buffy, Willow and Cordelia also helped themselves while looking at him dotingly.

Joyce sighed wistfully as she looked at him. “I miss that – all that eagerness to learn things. Small children are so delightful.”

“And so much nicer than teenagers, eh?” Buffy enquired.

Joyce glanced at her. “Well, that goes without saying. Isn’t everything nicer than teenagers…?”

“Don’t think I won’t get you for that later,” Buffy assured her.

Joyce pointedly gave Buffy her work number before leaving. “Mom, I know your number. I have it on every speed dial, and, look, it’s written right there on the board.”

“Just in case you’re out somewhere and you don’t have your phone with you and you need to call me. That’s all.” Joyce crouched down next to Wesley and looked at him anxiously. “Will you be okay with Buffy, Wesley? Because I can take you into work with me if you’d rather?”

“No, thank you, Mrs Summers.” He gazed up at her. “I’ll be fine with Buffy.”

Joyce had Buffy accompany her to the front door where she murmured: “I know I don’t need to tell you to be extra responsible.”

“No, you don’t – so…don’t.”

Joyce looked anxiously back at the little boy in her kitchen. “Just – call me if there’s any problem. Any problem at all.”

Willow had had the inevitable crisis about missing a day of school and Cordelia had sighed and driven her in, leaving Buffy with Wesley, who, when asked what he wanted to do, asked if he could do that research for Uncle Giles? Reluctantly, Buffy conceded, and had to endure two hours of Wesley happily making notes about the chapter he’d read, before he could be persuaded to come and watch some cartoons.

Then it was nearly lunchtime, and Buffy suggested they baked some home-made cookies – home-made in the sense that they would use the cookie dough already prepared but put it into the oven themselves. Wesley really liked that idea and they spent fifteen minutes watching through the oven door as the cookies turned from chilled bits of dough to chocolatey cookies. Then Willow and Cordelia were back, bearing food; Willow unable to bear to stay away from Wesley for any longer, and so now officially cutting classes. She had brought a spell book and a few ingredients and asked Wesley diffidently if, after lunch, he’d like to learn a really easy non-dangerous spell.

“Oh yes, please!” He was so excited about that even Buffy couldn’t feel it was a bad thing. He could barely eat his lunch in his eagerness to be doing the spell and Buffy wondered how many times he had asked to do spells in the past and been told ‘not now’.

“It’s a very safe spell,” Willow assured her. “It can’t hurt him. But it still feels as if you’re doing magic and it will help him get used to channelling it through him.”

She and Wesley spent a long time carefully making little bags of herbs, adding pinches of things to them, and sprinkling holy water on them, while Cordelia and Buffy watched and ate cookies. Buffy hid the cookie dough roll and told Cordelia they were ‘home-baked’. Cordelia looked unconvinced but ate them anyway.

Then Cordelia and Buffy helped Willow and Wesley set up, and then Willow asked Wesley to sit opposite her and for Cordelia and Buffy to complete the circle and hold their hands. Willow gravely asked Wesley to read the spell, which was in Latin, which he did, while she repeated it in English, and then there was the swirl of coloured lights and Willow’s eyes went dark and Wesley gave a little gasp as the magic passed through him and the little bags in the centre of the circle and glowed for a moment and then Willow sat back and smiled.

“You know what you just did?” she asked Wesley.

“Something wrong?” he returned anxiously.

“You helped make scapulas for everyone. So, we can be protected against mystical dark forces.”

Wesley smiled in relief. “It felt – tingly.”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Buffy admitted.

“Neither did I,” Cordelia said.

“Well, you two were just there to complete the circle. Wesley and I were the ones doing the spell. He has quite the latent magical ability vibe going on.”

Wesley looked happy about that and then his face fell. “Daddy doesn’t like me doing spells.” He rubbed the back of his hand as he talked.

“Daddy doesn’t like you doing anything you might actually enjoy,” Buffy said darkly. She noticed he was still rubbing his hand as if he were smoothing away old hurts. His hands were very small, soft little fingers that it was hard to imagine could ever be adult-sized, let alone already had been once. She thought about someone deliberately hitting him on the back of those hands with a strap or a ruler and then her head was filled with white noise and she just wanted to kill someone. She had to take a deep breath to pull herself back from the edge. She pulled Wesley into her lap and planted a kiss in his hair. “Can we do something fun now…?”

“Time’s up!” Xander bounded in through the front door like an unleashed Irish Wolfhound and rushed over to sweep Wesley out of Buffy’s arms and into his own. “How are you doing, big guy?”

“I researched some demons and then Willow and I made protective…things,” Wesley beamed at Xander.

Xander sat him on his hip and looked around at the girls. “This is your idea of having fun? Homework and…homework. I think I need to confiscate him forthwith.”

“No, you don’t.” Buffy snatched him back. “He’s ours and we’re keeping him.”

“You had your chance, Summers. You blew it. Now he’s ours again.” Xander snatched him back again and Wesley began to giggle helplessly as he was jolted from person to person, while Willow hastily cleared up the spell debris before Giles or Joyce arrived to see it.

Buffy didn’t remember inviting everyone to just come around to her house, but Giles was there half an hour after Xander, saying, “I just thought you might need someone to watch him while you patrol.”

“Uncle Giles!” Wesley threw himself at Giles who swept him up into his arms and beamed at him.

Buffy looked at Giles with a child and realized how weird it looked to her. Giles didn’t play with kids. Giles certainly didn’t look for a minute there as if he was a father. Giles was…Giles. He Watched therefore he Was. But Giles looked years younger and suddenly carefree as Wesley wrapped his bony little arms around his neck, clearly so touched by the child’s enthusiasm and love for him. She wondered with a pang if he had ever thought about marrying Jenny. If he had imagined a future where he Watched during the day and went home to her at night. If they had thought about having children.

“What did you do today, Wesley?” Giles asked him, and Wesley told him with great enthusiasm and a complete confidence that was very nice to see.

“I see.” Giles looked across at the girls. “So, Buffy made you do homework and Willow helped you to dabble in the dark arts. And I get criticised for buying you too much ice cream…”

“I felt the magic go through me.” Wesley tugged at Giles’s hand to show him the scapulas that Willow had been unsuccessfully trying to conceal behind her back. “It was all tingly.”

“He has latent magical ability,” Willow explained apologetically. “When I’m channelling – I can feel it. I think he may have quite a lot.”

“Well, as he got that ‘A’ in Mystical Studies, I imagine that he did. Doctor Pennycade is a notoriously tight marker. But, Willow, please tell me you were careful? These are very powerful forces and…”

Wesley held up a scapula proudly. “Look, Uncle Giles. Willow and I made some for everyone.”

Giles took the scapula he held out to him and smiled gently. “That’s a really good piece of work, Wesley. It’s very neatly tied and you’ve managed to offset a lot of the sulphur fumes while maintaining its integrity.”

“Willow showed me how. Willow’s really clever.”

“Well, that is one of the many reasons why I love her, although on reflection it’s mostly for that little thing she does when she wrinkles her nose that is so indescribably cute…”

They all turned to see Oz carrying donuts. Cordelia said, “Oh, Krispy Crèmes. My favourite!”

“I figured it was probably snacktime,” Oz explained.

Giles clearly thought about remonstrating – Buffy could see him about to say lots of boring things about spoiling their appetites – and then visibly gave up and snagged a donut for himself. Xander was in donut heaven and Wesley was tentatively nibbling on a donut, saying in surprise: “It doesn’t have jam in it.”

Buffy grinned at him. “No, it’s all krispy and creamy instead. Not so much with the jammy.”

Xander shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about all those little English kids queuing for their gruel when the rest of the world is eating Krispy Crèmes.”

Oz looked at Wesley. “Normally I’d think the gruel theory was a little out there but I can see how it would explain a lot.”

Wesley presented his notebook to Giles. “I read about demons for you, Uncle Giles, and I need to cross-reference with this book about Demon Dimensions and this one called Studies in Demonology and this one called A Spirit Guide to the Lowerworlds. It says there’s one in German and one in Latin. If you could lend them to me, I could check these references for you and write some more.”

Xander grimaced. “How come, he stays two days with Giles and he’s party animal Wesley, and then we leave him alone with Buffy for a few hours and he’s mini Watcher research junkie again?”

“I think he can only take short holidays,” Willow explained. “And then his inherent need to be a Watcherness has to find a release in Watcherwork. I totally understand that because I’m the same way. And I think tomorrow Cordelia and Buffy should take him shopping so they can buy him clothes and then they might stop complaining about them and later I could do some more spells with him.”

Xander looked at Oz. “Let’s reclaim him for funsville. You start the van. I’ll grab him.”

Willow put a restraining hand on Xander’s arm. “He likes doing schoolworky things, Xander. He just doesn’t like doing them all the time without a break and still being told he’s stupid and never getting any praise and getting smacked or scolded even though he’s done his best and then being locked in a closet.”

They all flinched at that image, including Willow. Xander said tautly: “Have I mentioned today how much I hate his father?”

Cordelia looked at him and Giles together, Giles reading through what Wesley had written while Wesley waited anxiously. He kept neurotically rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand as he waited, becoming more and more nervous as Giles read on. Giles looked up and smiled at him. “Wesley, this is excellent work. I had completely missed that reference in the Spirit Guide.”

“It was in the next chapter.” Wesley quickly turned the pages so he could see. “Under the woodcut, called ‘fig.27’ it says that it’s taken from a picture in the Spirit Guide and it’s a demon in pure form so I think there should be more references there. Yes?” He looked at Giles nervously, clearly not sure if his work had been thorough or efficient enough.

Giles beamed at him. “Oh, I’m sure there would be. This is very helpful indeed. Thank you very much, Wesley, this is excellent work.”

Wesley lit up at the praise and stopped protecting his hand.

“You deserve another donut.” Giles snagged the last one for him and held it out and Wesley beamed in relief and happiness.

“I wish he could stay little,” Cordelia said abruptly.

They all looked at her in confusion. “But, you said…” Buffy began.

“I know what I said. And I like adult Wesley so much, but…look at him. He’s so happy with Giles and Giles is kind to him and doesn’t tell him he’s stupid or lock him up in the dark. And Giles looks happy too. And if Wesley could just stay little he wouldn’t have a horrible childhood with a horrible father and Giles wouldn’t just be a big loser with no life.”

Xander grimaced. “Cordy, you’re kind of where we all were a week ago. And you’re not wrong. But…it’s not going to happen.”

“But he’ll still look like that when he’s older when he changes back because of all those years and years when no one ever said anything nice to him.”

“Maybe he doesn’t?” Buffy suggested. “Maybe he grew out of it when he went away to school. He probably liked school.”

“He does look like it. I’ve seen him look like that when he’s been working on something and then Giles comes in and he gets all nervous and defensive and Giles tells him he’s done something wrong and he looks so crushed.”

Giles looked across at Cordelia in shock and Buffy had a sudden memory of Giles the night after Wesley had tried to arrest Faith for the Council. She had been exhausted from it all and had gone back to the library to find Giles alone with Wesley. Both of them standing there, all straight-backed and British, arguing with one another. The bruise on Wesley’s cheekbone had looked as if it had really hurt and she’d been glad about that. She had thought Serves you right.

“I don’t care if you thought you were acting for the best! You didn’t know the situation here and neither did the Council. You should have consulted with us, not sneaked off on your own.”

Wesley was all shoulders back and stiff necked. He really did look as if something had been jammed up his…spine, just like Faith said. “I didn’t ‘sneak’ anywhere. I became aware of a situation where a Slayer had accidentally killed a human being and I phoned head office for instructions on how to proceed. It’s standard procedure!”

“Well, it was bloody stupid and it may have done that girl incalculable harm. It’s up to you if you work with us or against us. But if you persist in working against us then you are going to find yourself closed out of all the important decision making.”

“I already am,” Wesley retorted. “At no point did you include me in any of your discussions about what to do about Faith. If you could have presented me with a coherent argument as to why you thought your plan was best then perhaps I would have seen the merit in your strategy but when you plot behind my back when I am the official Watcher here….”

“Oh yes, do let’s rub that in some more.”

“It’s not my fault I was chosen to be your replacement.”

“No, but it is your fault that you’re an insufferable prat. These are people’s lives, Wesley. You can’t just follow the rulebook and be a good boy for the Council. You have to take responsibility.”

“You were fired by the Council. Why should I trust your judgement?”

“Because Buffy does and without Buffy you have no place here. Now, I am trying to keep my patience with you in front of the children but you are testing it to breaking point. Either be useful or be quiet because you are not going to win Buffy’s trust unless you start acting as if you’re on the side of the Slayer, not the Council. There is always going to come a point when you have to choose and if you aren’t prepared to back your Slayer, you aren’t fit to be a Watcher. And, no, you won’t have learned that in the Academy, because they don’t teach it there. And make no mistake, Wesley, you cannot function as Watcher without the trust and respect of your Slayer. And, so far, you have done nothing except alienate both Buffy and Faith since you arrived here. Now, shape up or ship out.” Giles had stormed out of the library and Buffy had seen a brief glimpse of Wesley slumped with his head down, looking shaken up and wretched, rubbing the back of his hand, and then reaching up to rub his aching cheekbone, before Giles had seen her standing shocked in the doorway and pulled her outside.

“You didn’t hear overhear any of that.”

“No,” Buffy said sombrely. “I didn’t.”

“He is the Council’s representative and as such deserves to be treated with a modicum of respect.”

“Is ‘modicum’ one of those words that means a very teeny weeny amount? Because I could probably manage that….”

Buffy and Giles exchanged a glance and Giles hastily picked up Wesley. “Shall we try to get some of this donut stickiness off you before Mrs Summers comes home?”

“Yes, Uncle Giles. Do you have those books? I could look at them tonight if you like?”

“He’s the little praise-junkie, isn’t he?” Xander said fondly.

“Watcher Kids, work for praise,” Buffy sighed.

“Well, I guess anyone looking at Wesley could tell it wasn’t for food,” Cordelia shrugged.

When Giles came back out of the kitchen with Wesley’s coat in his hand, Buffy said, “Oh no, you don’t.”

“I’m just going to fetch those books. I thought Wesley could come with me to help me choose the right titles.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Hey, the fact we’re even letting you do research with him on our time is a concession, that doesn’t mean you also get to sneak him out of here to steal some extra time with him.”

“I assure you, Buffy, I had no intention of…” Giles took his glasses off then shrugged. “Well, it was worth a try. I’ll be back in an hour or so, Wesley. Try to keep Buffy amused until then. You know how she gets when she’s bored.”

Wesley giggled and watched Giles go with an adoring expression on his face. “Uncle Giles is funny.”

“In his dreams, he is.” Buffy scooped him up into her arms. “What do you want to do this evening?”

“Can I come on patrol with you and watch how you kill vampires?”

Buffy looked at him aghast. “No!”

He looked hurt. “Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous and people would be lining up to kill me if I even thought about it, with Giles at the head of the queue.”

“Trust me,” Xander said grimly. “I would outsprint him.”

Buffy nodded at Xander. “See. It would be all Death to the Slayer time.”

Wesley looked at Xander. “But I want to go. And I’d be very good and quiet and do as I was told, but I’d know how to be a Watcher better if I could see what Slayers do.”

Xander gazed back at him. “You know, you’d think a kid that cute with eyes that big would be able to get his own way on anything, wouldn’t you? But, what do you know, the answer’s still the biggest fattest ‘no’ you can think of.”

Wesley looked sulky and something very like a pout slid onto his face. Oz brightened. “Is that a pout? Because that would be like – resistance to authority, sense of injustice, sense of self, general seeds of rebellion being sown.”

Wesley was definitely pouting now and looked a hair away from a footstomp. “I want to go with Buffy.”

“Well, you can’t,” Xander told him. “You’re not old enough to go out patrolling in graveyards where there are killer vampires around who will bite your throat and suck out all your blood. That’s one of those things eight year olds don’t get to do.”

“But if I’m really grown up…?” Wesley’s eyes lit up. “If I’m really a grown up then I’m older than you and you can’t tell me what to do.”

Xander reached out and high-fived Oz. “Okay, I may need a manly hug.”

Oz nodded. “I think we all need to take a while just to drink in the moment.”

“He’s arguing with authority, he’s sulking, and he’s using sneaky arguments to try to get his own way. Wesley…” Xander picked him up. “You are now officially acting like a normal child.”

“You’re teasing me,” Wesley protested.

“Yes, I am. Because I’m bigger than you and that’s one of the things that I get to do just because you’re really little and can’t hit that hard yet.”

Cordelia said, “Just a thought but we do we actually want Wesley to grow up like Xander because I’m voting for ‘no’?”

“Something else I get to do just because I’m bigger than you? That would be tickling.” Xander proceeded to demonstrate, making Wesley giggle helplessly.

When Joyce walked in, Willow was encouraging Wesley to hit Xander with the couch cushions. Cordelia and Buffy were shouting tactical advice and Oz was saying he would have to be ‘Belgium’ on this one.

Cordelia looked at him in confusion. “Don’t you mean Switzerland?”

“Well, I thought about being Switzerland, on account of the neutrality angle seeming the most appropriate, but then I thought…cuckoo clocks.”

Joyce coughed discreetly and Xander said, “Oh, hi, Mrs Summers. Did you have a nice day at the gallery?”

But Wesley looked absolutely stricken at the sight of authority and immediately dropped the pillow and sat down on the couch. Buffy could tell just by looking at him that his heart was thumping like he’d run a race. As she moved over to him, he looked up at her anxiously. “I stood on the furniture.”

“It’s okay.” Willow rushed over as well. “You took your shoes off first.”

“But I’m not supposed to.”

Xander gave Joyce a pleading look and the woman quickly stumbled into the breach. “It’s fine, Wesley. You took your shoes off. No one minds you standing on the couch when you’re not wearing shoes.”

He hastily smoothed out one of the pillows. “I didn’t mean to crease the cushions.”

“It’s really okay, Wesley.” Joyce sat down next to him and patted his hand gently. “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat before supper?”

He was trembling and looked up at her fearfully. “I’m sorry I stood on your sofa, Mrs Summers.”

“That’s quite all right, Wesley.” Joyce gave his hand another tentative pat. “Let me get you a soft drink?”

The thought of soft drinks in proximity to the couch was obviously too much for him after the near-miss scolding of standing on the furniture and he shook his head. “No, thank you, Mrs Summers.”

“Okay then.” She gave his hand another pat and then beckoned to Buffy to follow her into the kitchen. She closed the door. “Why is he so frightened?”

Buffy grimaced. “His father is kind of strict about things like that – spilling things and knocking things over and standing on the furniture. We’re trying to – wean him out of it. He’s much better now but I think he just freaked because he doesn’t know you yet. You’re still – potentially scary adult to him.”

“Mr Giles doesn’t scold him, does he?”

“Oh no, Giles pretty much dotes on him,” Buffy admitted. “He bought him everything Playmobil had ever made and another half a toy store on top.”

Joyce looked a little mollified. “Okay. If you say so.”

“Trust me, Mom. Giles is probably Wesley’s favourite person on the planet.” She grimaced. “Which kind of sucks, because he liked me best a few days ago. Giles has just been buying his affection with toys and games and things. Can I have my allowance early this week? I want to buy his affection too.”

Joyce sighed. “Well, I didn’t like to say anything when Mr Giles was here, but those clothes… None of them fit him.”

“You know, I tried to persuade him to just get something less…mini-Watcherish, but no, he wouldn’t listen.”

“If you wanted to take him somewhere and buy him some clothes – just for his visit, of course – I wouldn’t like his mother to think we were making some kind of value judgement – but it’s a different climate here and I think a few more relaxed clothes might be better for…playing on the beach.” Joyce opened her wallet and handed Buffy a wad of money.

Buffy thought about how Wesley was only going to be a child for a few more days and all those outfits her mother hadn’t bought for herself because she had to budget for the mortgage and the groceries. “He’s only going to be here for a few days.”

“Still…they’re kind of dreadful. I wouldn’t want the other children on the beach to make fun of him.”

“I think it’s just because he’s so skinny. It’s not that easy to find things that fit him. I don’t think Giles would want you spending your money, Mom.”

“Perhaps I could do something with the sewing machine?” Joyce looked through at Wesley and grimaced. “I mean that shirt looks as if it was made for an orang-utan.”

“We did pin the sleeves back,” Buffy protested. “It just must have come…unpinned.” She hurried off to do some more work with safety pins while wondering if her mother had enough food in the house to cook for so many people, or would even have enough energy after a day at the gallery.

Giles phoned a few minutes later to suggest that he brought dinner with him to save Joyce having to cook for so many people. She thanked him and asked for permission to buy Wesley some clothes, which he tactfully refused, and then to make some alterations to the clothes he had, which he accepted after a little persuasion. After a little more discussion with Cordelia and Buffy chiming in it was agreed that Buffy and Cordelia could spend fifty dollars, and no more, which Giles would supply, on purchasing new clothes for Wesley, and Joyce would make alterations to some of those already purchased.

Joyce smiled triumphantly and slipped Buffy another twenty dollars, saying that she seriously doubted ‘Mr Giles’ knew how far fifty dollars went in a children’s clothes store anyway.

Giles arrived bearing books and no food, but explained that it was being delivered, from an Indian restaurant that had recently opened in the area and about which there had been no complaints or reports of supernatural activity. He had ordered a number of different dishes for them to try. He said he doubted it tasted authentically ‘Indian’ as obviously one could only find that in Birmingham, but as they were Americans and didn’t know any better, they would probably enjoy it.

Angel had arrived around the same time as Giles and pointed out that the British only knew about Indian food because of invading their country and trying to turn it into one big grocery store run by the East India Company. He and Giles then had a disagreement about whether or not it was proper to refer to the war they wanted to argue about as the Indian Mutiny or the First Indian War of Independence.

“Well, it was called the Indian Mutiny when I was growing up,” Giles retorted.

“That’s a completely Imperialist name for a completely Imperialist viewpoint.”

Xander said quietly to Willow: “Where is India again?”

“It’s where the elephants with small ears come from,” Wesley whispered.

“I think it’s a whitewash of the British annexing of the country to change the name of it now. That was the perception of the war at the time in Victorian England. If you change the name of it you make it sound as if the perception was objective at the time. If Victorians had been calling what was happening ‘The First Indian War of Independence’ there wouldn’t have been a problem because they would have been in a different mental place to start with. Change history as you like but in all contemporaneous reports it was called ‘The Indian Mutiny’.”

“Of course it was! All the reports you’re referring to were written by Englishmen!”

“You two have some really dull arguments,” Buffy pointed out. “I mean – scarily dull. And Wesley doesn’t like you arguing, so stop it.”

Angel snapped his teeth together with an audible click and looked across at Wesley. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s called ‘The Indian Mutiny’ in all the Sherlock Holmes stories I’ve read too, though.”

Giles looked smug and Angel looked as if he was silently counting to ten. It was a relief to everyone when the food arrived and Giles and Angel could let go a little.

Buffy helped Wesley to a spoonful of everything so he could see what he liked best while Giles passed him the menu so he could learn what ‘agoo’ and ‘sag’ and all the other interesting new words meant in English. By halfway through the meal, Wesley could remember what everything was, the new words filed away in what was evidently the reference library in his mind while Xander was still saying ‘So, which one is the cauliflower again?’

Wesley was passing a dish to Buffy when the disaster struck. The bowl was a little heavier than he had anticipated and it dipped as he passed it, clipping the top of her glass and sending water spilling across the table. Wesley immediately froze in horror and Buffy quickly took the bowl from him, saying, “Wes, it’s okay.”

Xander sprang to his feet and mopped at the spill, saying rapidly: “Hey, no problem. Look at how the water didn’t even hurt anything.”

Willow babbled rapidly: “Xander’s so right! Nothing hurt at all. And no one’s mad with you. Spilling is just something that happens.”

Wesley darted a scared look at Joyce, still riveted to the spot with what were clearly the contradictory impulses to flee under the table and not get into any more trouble.

Willow quickly massaged his shoulders, saying, “Breathe, Wesley. That’s right. Just keep breathing in and out.”

Joyce looked at Giles for an explanation and the man said quickly: “Would you mind telling Wesley that it’s all right that he knocked over that glass? I’ll explain later.”

Joyce frowned in confusion. “Of course, it’s all right, sweetheart. How could you possibly think anyone would be mad at you about that?”

He was still trembling but Willow was rubbing his back gently and Buffy was still murmuring to him that it was fine while Xander tried to get the glass and the proof of spillage out of the way as quickly as possible.

Cordelia looked at Giles. “What is going on?”

“He’s a sensitive little boy, he needs reassurance, that’s all.” Giles took off his glasses so as not to meet anyone’s eyes.

Buffy lifted Wesley into her arms, whispering to him rapidly as she stroked his hair. Angel had risen to his feet and was looking at Oz. Quietly, he said: “What did I miss?”

“There was a previous…spillage,” Giles explained. “In the Library. Wesley was…upset.”

Angel looked at the little boy for a moment and Giles had no doubt that he could sense his fear. It was greatly reduced from last time, but it was still apparent, as was the trembling of his limbs. Angel looked at Giles and Giles saw his expression and grimaced. “Angel, you have a soul now, remember?”

Joyce looked between Angel and Giles and then at Wesley who was still in Buffy’s arms, being kissed reassuringly by Willow, who had ducked down to smile at him comfortingly and reiterate for the fiftieth time that no one was mad at him. Xander was forcing a smile and indicating how tidy the table was now, no more water anywhere. Cordelia was looking as bewildered as Joyce felt but was making reassuring noises. Oz just looked quiet and closed off; Angel as if he wanted to kill someone.

Joyce said, “Could I have a word with you, Mr Giles?” And then jerked her head at the kitchen.

Giles sighed and followed her in. “I’m sorry about the spillage. He’s really very careful…”

“I don’t care about that,” she whispered fiercely. “I care about the fact that you all knew he was going to be that upset by something so trivial. Exactly how ‘strict’ is his father?”

Giles rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache begin to throb. “Joyce, it’s not as straightforward as…”

“Does his father…hurt him…?”

“Joyce, I can assure you that if Wesley’s father was physically abusive to him I would never let him go back to England…until he was an adult.”

“He looked terrified! That isn’t normal.”

Giles grimaced. “I don’t pretend that everything about Wesley’s home-life as a child was – is perfect, but what’s done is done and…”

“For goodness sake, he’s eight years old! He isn’t ‘done’.”

“What I mean is that Wesley’s mother made her choice. She married a Watcher and Wesley’s father has certain expectations of his son. He does subject him to perhaps unreasonable pressure when it comes to schoolwork, and he is a disciplinarian, but you have to trust me on this, Wesley’s father is not…not a problem for Wesley.” As he said it, Giles realized that he was probably lying. No, the man would no longer be able to reduce him to quivering terror by the threat of locking him under the stairs, but he was probably still a problem all the same.

Joyce was looking at him in bewilderment. “I don’t know how you can stand there when that little boy is so terrified and tell me that his father isn’t a problem.”

Giles closed his eyes. “Joyce – you have to trust me on this. I am – very fond of Wesley and if there was any possibility of his father being cruel to an eight-year-old boy I would keep him here. You have my absolute word on that. If…something should happen that means Wesley is… If it should fall out that Wesley’s father…” He held up a hand. “Please, just trust me.”

“I just can’t bear to think of that little boy being – scolded or punished so severely that it leaves him terrified.”

“Neither can I.” Giles thought of the scene in the library. “It’s a…most distressing thing to contemplate.”

“You do recognize that this is different, don’t you? I’m expected to let my only daughter go out and risk her life every night because I’m told it’s her destiny and she’s the chosen one and no one else can do it. And I do accept it. I don’t like it. But I accept it. But this isn’t…hocus pocus or destiny. This is a little boy who I need to know is going to be protected not from demons and vampires but from his father being cruel to him. Now can you give me that assurance?”

Giles gazed at her and felt his guts twist, because the answer seemed to be that no one had protected the child Wesley had once been from his father being cruel to him. He kept using words, in his own mind as well as elsewhere, like ‘disciplinarian’ and ‘strict’ but the boy had been terrorized as systematically through impossible targets and unreasonable criticism as might some poor child of a drunken lout cringing in fear of another alcohol-fuelled fit of cruelty. No doubt Roger Wyndam-Pryce had never lost his temper in his life. No doubt every lesson Wesley had been taught had been measured and, in the man’s eyes, just. Perhaps Wesley’s father thought always of the inevitable challenges that life was going to throw at his son and sought only to prepare him. But any means that led to an eight year-old boy cowering in terror because he spilled a drink were not justified by any end.

Bleakly, he said: “I really am going to have to ask you to trust me.”

Joyce moistened her lips. “Just tell me if there’s more to this than meets the eye. Is something…Hellmouthy going on?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“I’d rather have the permission of the person whom it most closely involves and at the moment he isn’t here to give it.”

Joyce looked at him aghast. “Please don’t tell me that nice young man I met in the library is Wesley’s father?”

Giles blinked. “Good God, no. Wesley barely knows how to say ‘good morning’ to a woman, let alone how to go around making babies with them, and thank goodness for that.” He winced. “Did I just say that out loud?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, you certainly did.” She looked at him for a moment. “So – baby-making not something that gets taught in the Academy then?”

Giles had a vivid memory of the two of them on that police car. He cleared his throat. “Um – no. Any studies on that subject are strictly extra-curricular.”

Joyce took a deep breath, turning away as the moment between them became a little heated and potentially embarrassing. “I will try to trust you. But, if I ever find out that Wesley’s father has laid a finger on that little boy and that you let him go home to him just because the Council needs more Watchers and it’s Wesley’s mythic destiny…well, I won’t answer for the consequences.”

Giles nodded. “Fair enough. If I did do that I think I’d probably deserve any consequences it brought me.”

They went back into the dining room where Buffy was rocking Wesley on her lap, whispering to him gently, Willow still rubbing his back. Wesley still looked pale and shaken up but less scared than before. Buffy stroked his hair back and kissed his forehead while Xander had Cuthbert do a tap dance along the table top which summoned the glimmer of a ghostly smile from the boy. Angel was pacing the room, very much the caged tiger, practically thrumming with pent-up rage.

“Would anyone like some dessert?” asked Joyce brightly. Her gaze softened still further as it fell on Wesley. “Would you like some, sweetheart? It has toffee in it.”

“I’m having some,” Xander said at once. “And if you don’t you’ll just regret it later because Joyce’s dessert with toffee in it – not to be missed.”

Willow and Buffy also expressed enthusiasm for the toffee-related dessert while Cordelia beamed as brightly as if auditioning for a toffee-dessert commercial. Joyce crouched down by Wesley, smiling up at him while her eyes were full of concern. “Would you like to come with me and help?” She held out her arms to him.

Wesley gazed at her and evidently realized that the scary adult was positively radiating love and sympathy for him. He nodded shyly and Joyce immediately swept him from her daughter’s lap and carried him into the kitchen, talking to him with the same warmth and kindness.

Buffy held out her empty hands. “Mom stole my child substitute.”

“That’s Moms for you. Mine just pretends not to know who I am even when she’s looking right at me. I wouldn’t mind so much except I’m an only child.” Xander frowned.

“Can you have a child substitute who’s actually a real child?” Willow asked. “Isn’t he just a…child?”

“Well, he’s not my child,” Buffy pointed out. “So, he’s kind of a child-substitute.”

“What’s the deal with the spilling?” Cordelia hissed.

Giles interrupted quickly. “Cordelia, I really think that Wesley should have the option of telling you himself if he wants to share. I’m already having qualms about… well, some of the…intimacy he’s been forced into with the rest of us.”

Buffy looked sulky. “Are you saying that when Wesley’s a grown up again we’re not allowed to bring up Bath Night?”

Giles just looked at her. “I’m presuming he will have no recall of these events in the same way that he had no recall of any of us when he became a child again. So, perhaps the less he knows about certain things the better.”

“You just don’t want Big Wesley to know you played boats in the bath with him.”

Angel stopped his pacing in front of Giles, saying tautly. “Did you know? About Wesley’s father? Before, I mean…? When he was a child before, did you know?”

“Of course not,” Giles retorted. “I’d never met Wesley until he turned up in the library, and on the one occasion when I met his father, Wesley would already have been an adult and the question of child rearing methods never came up. It’s not as if the man wears a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘I burnt my copy of Doctor Spock and bought a set of leg-irons instead’.”

“What about his teachers at school? Didn’t they think it was a bit odd the way he jumped to attention every time they cleared their throat? Didn’t they wonder what the price was for him knowing so many things so damned young?”

“I have no idea. If they did they didn’t mention it in his school reports. Perhaps he was happy at school. He was certainly very successful there.”

“Yes, he made no friends and learnt how to fold under pressure every time anyone who looks or sounds or acts anything like his father asks him a question or sets him a task. Let’s strike up another success for the Watchers’ Council.”

“Would you both mind shutting up?” Buffy demanded in a hiss. “I don’t want Wesley hearing any of this. And neither should you. Angel – stop taking it out on Giles just because there’s no one else here from England for you to blame. And Giles…stop being reasonable all the time. It’s really annoying.”

“My apologies. Would you prefer it if I smashed some crockery?”

Cordelia, Xander and Buffy all said: “Yes!” in unison.

Giles picked up a sideplate and Buffy squeaked: “No, wait! That’s the company china!”

Giles smiled smugly and put the plate back down on the table.

“Here we are!” Joyce was still using her bright, cheerful, nothing-wrong-at-all voice, but she held a big dish of sticky toffee pudding in one hand, and held Wesley’s in the other and he looked a lot happier. She placed it on the table and lifted Wesley up onto his place. “Let me help you to some dessert, sweetheart.”

She did so and he gazed up at her in a way that suggested he had decided to fall in love with all of the Summer’s family indiscriminately, and given the way Joyce practically gave at the knees under the full force of Wesley’s big shy eyes, it appeared to be reciprocated.

“You are so adorable,” Joyce said helplessly.

Xander looked at Oz. “I’d think it was a spell he goes around casting on unsuspecting females except I kind of know where they’re coming from.”

Oz shrugged. “He does appear to have been at the front of the cute line when it was being handed out.”

Joyce stroked his hair back from his forehead in just the same way that Buffy did and handed him a spoon as if still under the influence of an enchantment. Wesley waited politely for everyone else to be served and Joyce said, “Oh, it’s okay, just tuck in – please.”

Wesley did so tentatively, dipping his spoon into the pudding and putting it into his mouth. Then he closed his eyes in pleasure and looked up at Joyce in shock. “It’s so nice. It’s so…really, really nice.”

Giles looked at Joyce. “Old recipe handed down through the generations…?”

“Shop bought,” she murmured back. “Plucked from the ice box and defrosted in the microwave. Do I need to tell him that?”

“Let him keep his illusions,” Giles returned.

Buffy had to pretty much shove all the males out of the door at the end of the evening. Angel offered to patrol in her place – which she gratefully accepted. Wesley asked if he could patrol with Angel – and then looked sulky and cross when everyone recoiled in horror from that suggestion. Joyce said anxiously that he was probably over-tired and Xander pointed out that he was just learning to be a real live boy. Buffy swept him up into her arms, very relieved that it was Angel being whammied with the ‘you big meanie’ eyes instead of her. Wesley sulked sleepily against her shoulder but obligingly hugged everyone who asked for a hug as they said ‘Goodnight’.

Angel said, “Don’t be like that, Wesley. You can come on patrol with me and Buffy when you’re…bigger.”

Buffy noted and approved the neat sidestepping of ‘older’ there, which would have probably led to Wesley protesting that he already was older, so there.

Wesley still looked mutinous until Angel was almost out of the door when he looked panicky. “But, you shouldn’t go by yourself! What if there were lots of vampires and they surrounded you! There won’t be anyone to tell you they’re behind you. Buffy should go with you to protect you.”

Joyce looked between the six feet tall Angel and the five feet tall Buffy. “Isn’t that a little…strange? That Wesley thinks of a girl like Buffy as someone who needs to take care of a big male vampire?”

“Buffy’s a Slayer,” Wesley explained. “They’re stronger than anyone. Even Angel.”

Buffy looked smugly at Angel. “The urge to stick my tongue out is almost impossible to resist.”

“Buffy has to stay here to take care of Willow,” Giles explained. “But I’m sure if you ask him then Angel will promise to be careful and not to take any foolish risks.”

Angel gave Giles an ‘I’ll get you for that later’ look which he transferred to Xander when the young man said brightly: “And to call you as soon as he gets home to say he’s arrived safely.”

“I’m a vampire,” Angel protested.

“Hence the pretentious coat. Doesn’t mean you get out of the calling home thing.”

Wesley gave Angel an imploring look. “Please, Angel, otherwise I’ll think something bad has happened to you.”

Willow and Buffy added their ‘please, please’ looks and Angel rolled his eyes and gave in. “Okay, fine. I used to be the vampire with a soul. Now, I’m the vampire who phones home. Goodnight.” He stomped off, turned around, came back – Buffy brightened in expectation of a kiss – kissed Wesley on the forehead, murmured ‘Sweet dreams’ to him and then walked off.

Buffy said: “Huh!”

Cordelia inclined her head. “That guy is so over you.”

Wesley looked after Angel and got a look of resolve on his face that was very worrying, especially as he then ducked his head so no one could see his resolved face. Xander nudged Giles as Buffy also looked at the man. Willow grimaced at him and Xander also made head jerking motions in Wesley’s direction.

Giles lifted Wesley out of Buffy’s arms for his goodnight to Wesley and Wesley curled up against him for a moment.

“Shouldn’t they just be shaking hands in a manly British way?” Xander enquired.

Wesley looked worried. “Should we?”

Giles said, “Ignore Xander, Wesley. He’s an idiot.” He hugged the boy gently but his voice was stern: “I’m trusting you to be sensible and to do as you’re told and not leave the house unless Buffy or another adult gives you permission and is with you at all times. Is that understood?”

Wesley looked up at him a little fearfully. “Yes, Uncle Giles.”

“I don’t want to have to scold you.”

“No, Uncle Giles.” Wesley looked horrified at the idea. “I’ll be good.”

“I know you will.” Giles gave him a gentle hug. “Good night, Wesley.” He handed him back to Buffy, nodded to everyone else and then reeled out of the door.

Xander and Oz both patted him gently on the back as the door closed. “Had to be done, man,” Xander said.

“It’s okay, Giles. We’re here for you,” Oz added.

Giles took off his glasses and wiped his brow. “Oh good Lord, did you see his face? Perhaps I should go back and…”

Xander and Oz both grabbed him. “Giles, he was working up to a flit out of that window after Angel the second everyone else was asleep. We all know it. It was time for the Stern Voice.”

“Well, next time you’ll have to do it,” Giles told Xander. “I’m not going through that again. It was worse that when Willow does that…look.”

Xander and Oz both grimaced at the thought of the Willow look. “When the eyes go all ‘how could you?’” Xander shuddered. “Let’s not even go there.”

“It’s the lip tremble that really hurts,” Oz shivered.

“I need a drink.” Giles looked at the company he was in and sighed. “I really need to get some friends of my own age.”

“Well, you could always call Ethan…?” Oz suggested.

Giles gave him a Look that he hoped spoke volumes and as Xander and Oz climbed into Oz’s van and Giles got into his car, it occurred to him that even if Wesley wasn’t technically his ‘own age’ he was at least legally old enough to drink, and did know what a Test Match was. He decided there and then that when Wesley was big again, even if he was as much of an insufferable prat as he had been before – and given that he wouldn’t remember anything about this time as a child, there seemed no reason for him to change – Giles was still going to invite him out for a drink and some discussion of Merrie Old England.

***

Buffy knew that Giles had been right to call Wesley back from the precipice of disobedience on which he’d been tottering. This town was just too dangerous for a little boy to go running around at night trying to be unofficial stake-carrier for a Slayer or a vampire. But it still hurt to see how crushed he was. He gazed after Giles wretchedly and slumped with dejection as the door closed.

Joyce quickly asked him if he’d like some hot chocolate and marshmallows. Wesley shook his head, said ‘No, thank you, Mrs Summers’ and asked if he could please read before bedtime. Joyce said, of course, and gave Buffy a look as if to say that she passed all decision-making over to her. Buffy asked brightly what he wanted to read. Wesley was already looking at the books Giles had brought over earlier. “Please could I read by myself?”

Buffy sighed and looked at Willow who said gently: “Don’t you think you could work better in the morning when you’re not so tired, Wesley?”

“I just want to read one chapter.” He picked up his notebook and his pen. “And make a few notes.”

Joyce and Willow both looked at Buffy who now realized she was going to have to be the ogre. Which sucked. “Not tonight, Wesley. It’s late and you need your sleep.”

“Please let me read it.” Tears sprang into his eyes. “I want to be good.”

Willow looked as if she was about to start crying just in sympathy. “Sweetie, you’re always good. Giles isn’t cross with you. You do know Giles isn’t cross with you, don’t you? He just wants you to be safe because he couldn’t bear it if anything bad happened to you.”

Buffy sank down next to him. “Do you think you have to do homework to make Giles happy?”

“I don’t want him to be angry with me.”

“I promise you, cross my heart and hope to die, that he’s not angry with you, Wesley. You can do all the work you want to tomorrow, okay?”

Cordelia made a strangled noise and jerked her head at his clothes. Buffy grimaced. “Okay, you can work for two hours tomorrow morning after breakfast. And then you can come shopping with Cordelia and me, and then you can have lunch, and then you can work all afternoon if you want to. But tonight you need to get some sleep.”

“Yes, Buffy.” He sadly put his notebook and pen back down again, looked longingly at the reference books but took her hand when she held it out to him. He was clearly afraid of being scolded again.

They took him upstairs where he sombrely brushed his teeth and got into his pyjamas, sitting miserably in the bed even when Willow tried to get Cuthbert to perform a happy little dance for him. Buffy produced his C.S. Lewis with a flourish but he just got tears in his eyes again and had to bite his lip and they realized it was just bringing back memories of the happy days when Giles hadn’t been forced to scold him because of his appallingly bad behaviour of contemplated disobedience.

When the phone rang, Buffy pounced on it desperately and at that tentative stammer on the other end, said, “Oh thank god.”

Giles said tentatively: “Is he…upset…?”

“Yes.”

“Does he think I’m angry with him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think I should talk to him?”

“Yes, please.” Buffy handed the phone to Wesley, saying, “It’s Giles, he wants to talk to you.”

Wesley looked big-eyed with anxiety and took the phone tentatively. “Uncle Giles…?”

Buffy watched anxiously as Wesley talked to Giles. She saw the boy’s fingers relax a little on the phone after a moment. Then there was a smile. And then a laugh. Willow and Buffy exchanged a look of relief. Then Wesley laughed again and then nodded and said, “Oh yes, I’d really like to do that. Buffy says I have to go shopping but afterwards I can do some research for you…”

Buffy could hear Giles on the other end of the phone saying: “Well, only for a few hours at a time, Wesley. Then you must remember to take a break and go and do something else.”

“Am I allowed to do another spell with Willow, Uncle Giles?”

“Yes, as long as it’s something that’s very safe and very well supervised. Tell Willow that I’m trusting her to be sensible.”

“Yes, Uncle Giles.”

“Do you want to say goodnight to Xander and Oz…?”

“Yes, please.” There was a pause and then Wesley giggled again and said, “That’s silly!” and then rolled his eyes but held the phone to Cuthbert’s ear, then listened and then giggled some more. By the time he handed the phone back to Buffy he was laughing as if he’d been tickled and Willow hastily distracted him with more Cuthbert play.

Buffy said in relief: “Thanks, Giles.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. I guess he really needs approval from those male authority figures…”

“I’m afraid he probably always will. Goodnight, Buffy.”

“Goodnight, Giles.” She put down the phone and said to Willow: “We’re all starting to sound like the Waltons.” Turning to Wesley, she added brightly: “Are you sure you don’t want that hot chocolate with marshmallows because Willow and I are going to have some…?”

He lit up at that and said tentatively: “If it’s not too much trouble, Buffy, yes please.”

“It’s no trouble at all.” She kissed him on top of the head and then scooted out into the corridor where Cordelia was standing anxiously.

“Is he okay?” Cordelia asked. “Should we call Giles?”

“Giles phoned. Wesley’s fine. Do you want hot chocolate?”

Cordelia looked tempted. “Do you have marshmallows…?”

Five minutes later she and Cordelia were raiding the kitchen for cookies, marshmallows, and hot chocolate while reassuring Joyce that Wesley was fine now and would presumably be extra safe on account of never wanting to risk the ire of Giles again.

“Parenting really sucks though,” Buffy observed in between nibbles of a cookie.

Joyce looked at her. “Gee, who knew?”

“Okay, if you could switch off Sarcastic Mom mode, I’m just saying, no one ever told me that you tell them they can’t study all night or go out and kill vampires and they look at you as if you’re the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and you get all the guilt but you have to do it anyway because otherwise they could get themselves overtired or killed and…”

“And again I’m right there with the ‘who knew?’” Joyce retorted.

Buffy and Cordelia looked at each other, decided they weren’t going to get any sense out of Joyce in this situation, and headed back to Buffy’s bedroom, where they found Willow and Wesley excitedly discussing what spell they could do tomorrow. Buffy gave Willow a reproving look and Willow held up her finger and thumb. “It’s a really small spell. Ooh, cookies!”

Cordelia looked lofty, but still sat on Buffy’s bed, sipped her hot chocolate, ate cookies and was seen playing with Cuthbert when she thought no one was looking. By the time they all got back into their beds – Cordelia looking more and more reluctant at having to return to the lonely comparative grandeur of the guest bedroom – Wesley was filled with cookies and hot chocolate, happy, giggling, and sleepy. He curled up between Willow and Buffy as Buffy kissed his head and Willow petted him absently as if he were a kitten. By the time Angel woke them up by calling to ask how Wesley was they had been asleep for almost ten minutes, and by the time Giles phoned to double check that Wesley really was all right and not still upset they had been back to sleep after the Angel call for fifteen minutes.

Buffy put her woolly hat on the phone to muffle any further calls and rolled over, snuggling Wesley against her. “Sheesh those guys are paranoid,” she murmured as they drifted back to sleep for the third and final time.

***

The next day, Wesley could hardly wait to get back to his researching. The phone call from Giles had reassured him and let him have a good night’s sleep but he was clearly still desperate to win Giles’s approval. Willow headed into school – she admitted it was difficult for her to help herself – while Buffy and Cordelia applied their nail polish and make up while keeping an eye on Wesley’s swot-a-thon – as Cordelia had named it.

At eleven o’clock exactly, Cordelia said firmly: “Time’s up.”

Wesley gave her the big pleading eyes. “But I…”

“But nothing. The books aren’t going anywhere and I’m so bored I’m about ready to eat this nail polish. It’s time you got some clothes that fit.”

Buffy realized that in some ways Wesley really was just like other little boys as although he loved to be in their company and was very impressed with Cordelia’s bitchmobile (as Buffy was very careful not to call it in his hearing), buying clothes just didn’t interest him at all. The only difference between him and the other little kids in the clothes’ store was that he didn’t whine ‘Mo-om… Must I…?’ every time Cordelia produced a new item of clothing and demanded that he tried it on.

Buffy was surprised to find that the same Cordelia who didn’t seem to have a clue about anything to do with politics or literature, not to mention ethics, had a mind like a steel trap when it came to knowing exactly what clothing went with what. The stores Buffy had been thinking of, Cordelia said they weren’t even going to enter. She dragged Buffy into a designer place where she insisted there would be extra narrow fittings that would be more appropriate for Wesley. She had a very clear idea of how she wanted Wesley to look, and Buffy found herself constantly overruled as she tentatively suggested that shirt looked good, or how about those pants…?

She did manage to find some jeans and a t-shirt in an extra narrow fitting that did actually fit and Cordelia allowed those to pass but then they reached an impasse until finally Buffy said: “Here’s a novel idea. Why don’t we let Wesley choose?”

Cordelia looked at Wesley. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“You like his suit, don’t you? Big Wesley’s suit.”

“Yes, but for all we know his mother chose it for him.”

“Let’s have a little faith…”

Wesley surprised probably no one by picking corduroy pants and button down shirts. Cordelia was distracted by a very nice charcoal grey flannel dress pants and vest until Buffy pointed out that they alone cost a hundred and fifty dollars, a hundred dollars over their budget, and would only be suitable for Wesley going to weddings.

“But they’re the closest thing I’ve seen to what he wears as an adult,” Cordelia pointed out.

“But he’s a kid now. He should be able to do the whole childish things…thing.”

“Oh!” Cordelia snatched a shirt off the rack. “Look at this classic blue pinpoint oxford dress shirt! Isn’t it to die for?”

“And look at the $54 price-tag for one shirt, Cordy. Think budget, here.”

Cordelia came back after a moment with a pair of cargo pants and a pair of chinos. “These are reduced from thirty dollars each to half price. They’re a steal!”

Buffy conceded to her on the cargo pants but made her give back the chinos, gave in on the polo shirt, suggested they took the button down oxford shirt Wesley had liked, decisively vetoed the blue gabardine pants with double pleats, and pounced on a couple of cotton weave plaid shirts that were on the reduced rack and which Wesley also liked. But they both fell hard for the tan and navy pullover sweater with navy twill pants. Buffy put in ten dollars of her allowance and Cordelia said, “Oh what the he…heck” and put in forty dollars of her own money. Which meant that the no more than fifty dollars agreed with Giles ended up being no more than fifty dollars of Giles’ money but another seventy dollars of Buffy, Cordelia, and Joyce’s.

Buffy winced guiltily at the checkout and distracted Wesley so he wouldn’t see the total and gasp in horror. Cordelia said firmly, “What Giles doesn’t know, can’t hurt him, and at least now Wesley has some clothes that fit.”

Buffy then insisted on darting into the bargain clothing place with Wesley – Cordelia refused to even set foot inside the place – and grabbed some khaki shorts and t-shirts that weren’t a perfect fit but were better than the ones she and Giles had grabbed when in a hurry to clothe a confused and tearful child wearing only a pyjama jacket.

Cordelia sniffed haughtily, told Buffy she had no taste, but then surprised the girl again by buying lunch for all of them in a really good restaurant, where Cordelia and Buffy preened over Wesley’s perfect table manners as if they had actually played a part in him having them. In fact the family at the next table had children with equally perfect table manners but Wesley had an English accent to go with his, which Buffy and Cordelia both felt meant that he won on points.

Given how much fun they had had buying him clothes it was a little bit upsetting that he was so much more excited to be able to rush back to the pulse-racing thrill ride that was his reference books. Buffy sighed. “Well, at least we tried the retail therapy route.”

Cordelia shrugged. “I feel soothed.”

They watched Wesley turning pages rapidly and making notes for a moment and then looked at each other and conceded defeat. “It’s not that he doesn’t know how to have fun,” Buffy offered. “He just really wants to help Giles with this pure demons thing.”

“Yeah, that’s it. If he wasn’t so keen on making Giles give him the praise Daddy never did then he’d be out there floating boats on the lake like a normal little boy.” Cordelia sighed and ate some chips. “Who am I kidding?”

Buffy looked at her. “You still like Big Wesley though, right?”

Cordelia shrugged and took another handful of chips. “I don’t know how I’m going to feel. I mean – I love little Wesley. I want…nothing bad to happen to him ever. But it’s going to be kind of strange looking at this guy who was so…mysterious and new and different again and knowing that I gave him a bath.”

“Giles doesn’t think he’ll remember any of this.”

Cordelia bit her lip. “I hate that.”

“Why? Won’t it get round the whole awkward thing?”

“But this is the childhood he never got to have. Don’t you think he’d be happy to remember it?”

Buffy thought about that uptight guy in his shiny suit. “I don’t think he’d want us to see him vulnerable and…small and scared. Big Wesley’s all about the image, isn’t he? All about being the Council’s representative, and the power invested in him, and in control guy who wears the right clothes and says the right things, and never ever lets it all spiral away from him. There’s not much that’s in control about being eight years old again. Especially as it obviously pretty much sucked for him the first time around.”

Wesley spent the afternoon writing at a frantic rate, checking and rechecking things until he was clearly past the fun stage and well into the very, very anxious stage. At a look from Cordelia, Buffy suggested a snack and a drink, and perhaps a walk? Wesley agreed to the snack and the drink but looked upset by the idea of the walk, clearly not wanting to leave the reference books.

“How about if I read through it for you?” Buffy suggested.

Wesley gazed up at her. “Do you read these languages?”

Buffy looked at the essay and realized that there were several indented paragraphs in entirely different scripts and/or languages. Wesley had evidently copied these out painstakingly from the original source and then translated them underneath. Which explained why this had taken him so long.

“Couldn’t you just put the name of the book and the page number and let Giles look it up himself when you come to something in – what language is this anyway?”

“It’s Hebrew.” Wesley turned the page. “That’s German. That’s Latin. That’s Akkadian.”

“It’s scary how much you know,” Buffy observed.

“But I don’t know enough!” he protested. “I don’t understand this part of the German and I don’t think I got that line right, and I think I’ve got the Latin wrong, and my cuneiform is all squiggly and it’s supposed to be clean straight lines!”

Buffy picked him up and he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck. “I’m so stupid,” he said miserably. “And my head hurts.”

“Oh, sweetie, you’ve got to stop driving yourself so hard.” She stroked his hair gently. “You have no idea how clever you are.”

“There are so many things I don’t know!” he wailed. “I wanted to help Mr Giles, but I didn’t do it right. I hate being small and stupid.”

She sat him on the kitchen counter. “You’re not stupid. You’re as far away from stupid as it’s possible to be. Now, stop saying that. You’re just worn out with working for too long.” She felt his forehead and it was very hot. “Your head must be pounding. Let me find you some Junior aspirin.”

She was still looking for the aspirin when Willow walked in and seemed to take in the situation at a glance. She picked Wesley up and hugged him and said how great his clothes were.

“Nice try, Willow,” Cordelia put in. “But they’re the ones he was wearing before. We haven’t got him to chance into the good stuff yet – he’s been too busy obsessing over his work for Giles.”

“Do you want a hand with that or do you want to work on a spell?” Willow asked brightly.

“I’ve finished but it isn’t any good,” he said unhappily.

“Well, sometimes, I do a piece of work and I think it sucks with all the powers of suckage but then I put it away for a couple of days and when I look at it again you know, it’s not so bad at all. So, why don’t we just put that essay over there… And just pile the books up here… And abracadabra we have a nice clear space where we can do a teensy weensy spell for moving inanimate objects. So, if you want the remote for the TV and it’s on the other side of the room and someone has his head on your lap, say, and you don’t want to disturb him but he’s asleep and you really don’t want to watch the football, especially when there’s a really good black and white film on the other channel with James Stewart in it… There you go.”

Buffy watched as Willow got Wesley to unwind. He still seemed below par to her; that brightness had gone out of him. He was having fun but it didn’t feel the as if it was fun on the same level it had been before. Was it something she or Cordelia had done? Or was his need to study and to work too overpowering? Or was it just conditioning from having tried so hard for so long to get praise from a parent who clearly almost never praised? Or was it always going to be All About Giles? Wesley loved his new adopted ‘sisters’ and ‘brothers’ but, as an only child, they weren’t people who mirrored anyone else. It was his father’s love and respect he seemed to crave the most and the only people who could provide that were those who most closely approximated to Daddy. Giles and Angel. She winced then as she realized that when Wesley had been an adult the two people he had wronged and annoyed the most were undoubtedly Giles and Angel. No possibilities of affection or praise there from the two oldest alpha males around. He had only received some affirmation from a teenage girl and although it had clearly made Wesley happy she wasn’t sure that even Cordelia throwing herself at him would have made him feel better about himself.

Wesley did smile when the spell was completed and look a little happier, but he still seemed generally out of sorts.

Cordelia looked at him critically. “If you ask me, he’s over-tired from all that thinking he keeps doing.” She rose to her feet and said firmly: “Wesley.”

He looked up at her anxiously. “Yes, Cordelia?”

“You’re coming with me to watch cartoons.”

Gazing up at the implacable young woman in her impeccable shoes, Wesley clearly did not even contemplate rebellion. “Yes, Cordelia.” When she held out her hand he took it, and she led him to the living room, the couch, and the television. A few moments later, Buffy and Willow heard the sound of cartoons.

“I guess that’s how you do it then,” Buffy observed.

Willow shrugged. “Apparently so.”

They drank tea and ate cookies until Giles arrived. Again, it hadn’t been arranged that Giles would arrive, of course, but they had both known that he would.

There was a ring on the doorbell and Buffy hurried to open it, stuffing a cookie into her mouth as she did so. Giles looked at her still chewing as she sprayed crumbs around and raised an eyebrow. “What if I’d been Angel?”

She pointed at the world outside. “Daylight.”

“Uncle Giles?”

Buffy stepped aside so Giles could come in, the man’s attention already focused on the little boy standing in the doorway. Giles’ face broke into a smile of relief. “Wesley…” Seeing the little boy still standing there, uncertainly, he strode across the room and swept him into his arms for a hug. “I had bad dreams all night that you were lost in the graveyard. They were really extraordinarily vivid…” He hugged the boy close while Wesley put his arms around his neck and just melted into the hug, the way he always did, his bony little body trying to absorb all possible affection it was offered, like a lizard in search of the sun.

“Prophetic dreams?” Buffy asked anxiously.

Still hugging the boy, Giles said, “I don’t actually have prophetic dreams, Buffy. That’s your domain. What did you dream about last night?”

“Donuts. And…math. I don’t have to take calculus, right? Because I dreamed I did and I don’t even know what it is.”

“You probably caught the end of that movie with Edward James Olmos again,” Willow pointed out. “I love that movie. It’s so inspiring.”

Giles reluctantly put Wesley back down and crouched down next to him, gazing at the boy with a smile. “I missed you. You seem to have been at Buffy’s for a week at least. I have no excuse to play with any of those toys.”

“He’s kind of pooped,” Buffy explained. “He insisted on working on that research he wanted to do for you and I think he’s just worn himself out.”

“I was making him take a break.” Cordelia looked down at Giles disapprovingly. “I was ensuring he took a rest from stuffy research things.”

“Well done, Cordelia.” Giles picked Wesley up again in a way that suggested they were only going to be separated by brute force or a flamethrower while Wesley curled up against Giles again with a little sigh of contentment.

As Wesley clung to him and Giles could sense his lethargy and anxiety. He wondered if this was all on account of the near-scolding he had received. He was an extraordinarily sensitive little boy. Things that might roll off other children like water from a duck’s back burned right into him. He was so upset by any criticism, so grateful for any praise. Thinking of him bring brought up in an environment of constant criticism and apparently no praise was almost as upsetting as thinking of all the ways in which – now he knew how the man functioned – Giles had been shredding Wesley’s self-esteem since he first arrived in Sunnydale.

“I tried to do that research…” Wesley murmured. “But I couldn’t get my brain to work.”

“Let’s have a look.” Giles sat Wesley down on the table and looked at his essay, keeping an arm around the boy as he did so. For an eight year old, it was an extraordinary piece of work, of course, but there were a few mistakes in the translations, and some crossings out. Looking on the table he could see this was Wesley’s third attempt.

“It’s not very good, is it?” Wesley gazed at him fearfully. “I couldn’t think straight.”

“It’s very good.” Giles felt his forehead, which was hot. “It’s very well set out. You’ve cross-referenced everything perfectly. I’ve taught students at college with far inferior working methods to yours.”

“But I couldn’t remember what the words meant…” Wesley slumped against him, miserably. “I’m so stupid today.”

Giles looked across at Buffy. “His head seems hot.”

“He has a headache. I’ve given him some Junior aspirin. We think he’s just worn himself out. He’s been working so hard.”

“And he had a few late nights while staying with me,” Giles admitted.

“Cartoons,” Cordelia observed. “That’s what he needs. Something to do that’s not about demons and monsters and werewolves and vampires. He needs a normal childhood.”

“It’s a little difficult to give him a ‘normal childhood’ when he’s only eight years old in the first place because of the intervention of a mystical amulet, has already begun his training as a Watcher, and is friends with a Slayer, a Vampire, and a Werewolf,” Giles pointed out.

“All the more reason why he needs cartoons.” Cordelia plucked him from Giles’s arms. “You want to spend time with Wesley, you can spend time with the Simpsons as well.”

Giles had a brief struggle with his dignity and his pressing need to be with the little boy; the fear he had felt after his nightmare not yet having left him; then his dignity lost, and he snatched Wesley back. “Fine. I’ll watch cartoons.” He carried Wesley into the living room while Willow and Buffy exchanged a look.

“I think you may have to fight to keep him tonight,” Willow murmured.

“Tonight is our last night with him,” Buffy protested. “Giles is not getting him back early.”

“He seems to need Giles so much.” Willow sat down a little mournfully and reached for another cookie.

“I keep thinking about that,” Buffy admitted. “Wondering if he needed the same things when he was…big. Someone around to approve of him, and tell him he was doing the right thing.”

Willow grimaced. “He didn’t really get that, at all, did he?”

“Well, he kind of wasn’t doing the right thing. He was kind of doing the annoying thing most of the time.” She put her head on her arms and sighed heavily. “When he changes back into Big Wesley, I’m going to miss him so much. I am never having children. And I mean never.”

“Me neither.” Willow slumped next to her. “It would be too upsetting. And what about looking at their little baby clothes after they didn’t fit them any more? And those old toys they never played with?”

“Hey, what’s the with the long faces…?” Xander demanded. “Is everything okay? Is Wesley okay?”

“He has a headache,” said Willow tragically.

Xander bit his lip. “Okay. I can see how that could be considered a major tragedy – although not necessarily in a town where vampires regularly rise up and try to kill us, half the people we were in Junior High with are now dusted members of the undead, and Buffy had to send her honey to hell to stop the world being sucked into a demon dimension.”

“You’re just quibbling,” Willow murmured.

Xander looked at them suspiciously. “You haven’t been babysitting some energy sucking eggs, have you?”

“Wesley didn’t really enjoy his spell making class today,” Willow protested.

“And he got really anxious about his research.”

Xander sighed and sat down next to Buffy while Oz began to gently massage Willow’s shoulders. “Wesley was born to be anxious. He can’t help it. He’s a Watcher. And headaches happen, even to really cute little kids. There should be a law against it, I know, but still – it happens.”

“We don’t want him to be big again,” Willow said wretchedly.

Oz said, “But being little can have something of the suck about it.”

“If he was going to stay this size, he would have to go to school,” Xander pointed out. “The Council would come sniffing around here. His father would probably find out.”

Willow looked up at him aghast. “No!”

“Logically, how would we keep it from them for ten years? Forge his handwriting and write them notes explaining that he won’t be home for Christmas…ever. The school authorities would come sniffing around. Social services would find out. Wesley being a child again only isn’t a problem because it’s temporary.”

Buffy said, “I hate it when Xander is the most sensible person in the room.”

Wesley seemed out of sorts for the rest of the day. He was clingy and quiet and tired. Giles suspected that a child who had ever been given a little more kindness and attention in the past would probably have been grizzly and whiney as well, but Wesley was just lethargic and a little tearful. He didn’t seem to mind who he was with out of all of them, although Giles and Buffy were still his favourites, but he did need to be cuddled pretty much the whole time. It didn’t help that Angel couldn’t make it. He called to say that a group of vampires had managed to eat an entire family the night before and he needed to trace them to their lair and get rid of them. Wesley got very agitated then and insisted that Buffy went with him, while Buffy was pretty agitated herself, both at the thought of Angel taking on a whole group of vampires, and of leaving Wesley.

“We’ll all be here,” Giles reassured her. “We won’t invite any vampires in and if Faith calls we won’t let her in either. And as the Mayor has probably had a chance to hide his files by now anyway, Willow may not be such a threat.”

“And let’s not forget that we’re all badass vampire killers in our own right,” Xander added.

Willow shrugged. “We did stake slightly more vampires than we let get away while you were in LA. So, I guess we qualify as ‘badasses’.”

Cordy just looked at Buffy. “Hey, you’ve seen me fight with a spatula. Just think about what I can do with a stake.”

Buffy kissed Wesley, who was in Giles’s arms, and said, “Take care of him. I’ll be back soon.”

Joyce offered everyone lots of cups of tea, and looked at Wesley anxiously, who kept cuddling up to Giles and probably would have been whining if whining had ever got him anything in the past, but as it hadn’t, just sombrely sucked his thumb and clutched Giles’s jacket as if the man might slip away with Buffy and Angel if not physically anchored. Giles read to him from The Magician’s Nephew which definitely seemed to help keep him distracted from worrying about Angel and Buffy, and, somewhat bizarrely, Giles thought, it seemed to soothe Xander, Cordelia and Willow too. Oz didn’t exactly need soothing, having apparently never learned how to be tense, but he also joined them on the couch, his arm around Willow’s shoulders as they all listened to the story. Joyce quietly sat in the corner with a cup of tea and listened as well.

In the middle of reading, Giles became aware of them all silently sitting on the couch or the arms of the couch, Willow holding Cuthbert, and all listening avidly. He paused and Xander looked at him in confusion:

“Why are you stopping? You can’t stop now!”

Giles looked around at them. “Don’t you know this story?”

“My father wouldn’t let me read these on account of them being a Christian allegory,” Willow explained. “I mean – I did, but I felt guilty and I had to hide the books. It’s really nice hearing it read aloud and without so much of the guilt thing.”

“My parents don’t believe in reading to children,” Xander explained. “Or – you know – interacting with children if it’s possible to avoid them at all times.”

“My nannies were always Mexican or Venezuelan or Portuguese or something, so they didn’t really read English that well,” Cordelia added. “They used to read to me from magazines about movie star break ups and scandals.”

“Don’t you mean Puerto Rican?” Willow asked.

“Whatever,” Cordelia shrugged.

“I read to Buffy,” Joyce offered.

Everyone looked at her and then Xander gave her a thumbs up. “Well done on the parenting thing, Mrs Summers.”

Willow nodded. “Yes, reading to kids – really good thing to do.”

“I couldn’t always do the voices,” Joyce admitted.

“The thing is you tried,” Xander assured her. “That’s what matters.”

Wesley looked up at Giles and took his thumb out of his mouth to say: “Please, Uncle Giles. I want to know what happens.”

Sighing, Giles went back to the story, wondering not for the first time exactly how many people he was parenting some days, because for an unmarried, childless bachelor, he did sometimes feel uncomfortably like a father of six.

***

“Giles…? Giles, please come quickly! Giles…?”

Giles realized he had the phone in his hand and had evidently reached for it while still more than half asleep, but the desperation in Buffy’s voice jolted him into full wakefulness with all the painful immediacy of a cold shower.

“What is it?”

“It’s Wesley.” She sounded as if she were either crying or about to cry. “Please, I know I overacted before, but this time he’s really ill. He’s burning up and he’s so restless and he’s crying his sleep. There was a break in at the gallery and Mom got called over there and Cordelia is sick and I don’t think I can drive her car. I’d be too scared to drive it with Wesley in it…”

He was already pulling on his trousers over his pyjamas. “Buffy, don’t panic. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten minutes and I’ll drive you straight to the hospital.”

As he staggered down the stairs he thought about how listless and clingy Wesley had been all evening, with what great misgivings he had said goodnight to him when all he wanted to do was take him home with him; how when Buffy had got back from Slaying without Angel, Wesley had been so upset and worried about him that they’d had to phone the vampire so that Wesley could hear his voice and know that he was alive. Buffy had promised that he would take him straight up to bed and let him sleep late in the morning so he could rest properly and how she would make sure he didn’t do any more schoolwork on the next day. He should have known that it was something more serious. He should have taken him to the hospital then instead of deciding to ‘leave it for twenty four hours and see how he is…’

Stupid, Giles told himself fiercely. Stupid, stupid decision…,

He arrived at Buffy’s house in probably more like seven minutes, having broken several traffic laws on the way, trying to keep his mind blank when it persisted in reminding him about meningitis and how fast a child could die from it, not to mention all the various demon plagues and toxins that someone could have unleashed upon Sunnydale through the Hellmouth. The door was open when he got there, the girls dressed in a combination of pyjamas and day clothes, Cordelia holding herself up with difficulty, grey in the face and swaying.

“Are you all right?” Giles asked her.

She glared at him. “Do I look all right? But it’s nothing…serious. Not like Wesley. Giles, please, you have to take him to the hospital.”

Giles thought it not unlikely that Wesley had whatever she had, but, of course, a child being so much more vulnerable would probably be hit harder. “Tell me your symptoms?” he demanded. “Wesley may not be able to and it would be helpful to know.”

“Headache. Chills. I ache all over and even the thought of food makes me want to barf. Also, I think someone died in my throat.”

“Keep warm, stay inside, drink something if you can keep it down,” he told her. Then Buffy was running along the corridor with Wesley wrapped in a blanket in her arms and Giles felt his heart turn over at the sight of that pale face against the boy’s dark hair.

He felt his forehead and it was burning, gently touching his throat he could feel it was also hot and his glands seemed to be swollen. His face looked greyish and clammy and he was obviously shivering. He opened his eyes with difficulty and said, “Uncle Giles…?” pitifully.

“Yes, Wesley, I’m here.”

“I don’t feel very well.”

“I know, and we’re going to do something about that right now.”

Giles nodded to his car and Willow rushed down to open the door for Buffy. Giles looked at Cordelia. “Are you going to be okay…?”

“I’m fine, just go…” She gesticulated towards the car and as he turned to go, caught his arm. “Please make everything be all right. Make Wesley better.” She looked so young in that moment – and so sick, that he felt an unusual spasm of sympathy for her and patted her gently on the arm.

“Keep warm and try to get some rest. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Are Xander and Oz coming to sit with you?”

Cordelia looked at him as if he were insane. “Are you nuts? They’ll be meeting you at the hospital. Angel too. I’ll be fine. Just go.”

Giles saw that Buffy was already in the passenger seat with Wesley clasped in her arms, with Willow squeezed into the back seat. He hurried to join them, sliding into the car and saying gently to Wesley that they were going to see a doctor now and he would soon be feeling better. Mentally crossing his fingers he could only hope that it was true.

As he drove, he was very aware of Willow’s frightened face, and Buffy as she murmured soothing things to Wesley, the calm words totally at odds with those tears in her eyes.

Giles took Wesley from Buffy as they reached the hospital, insisting that he could pass for Wesley’s uncle, while she certainly couldn’t pass for his sister as siblings tended to have the same accent. Buffy ran ahead, pushing open the doors and demanding a doctor.

“Please, he’s very sick…” Willow pleaded with a nurse. “He’s just a little boy and he’s so ill. Please, you have to let us see a doctor.”

They were ushered to chair and told to wait, a doctor would be with them right away. It was more like ten minutes of waiting – which felt like an eternity – in which Wesley stirred, blinked painfully at the bright lights and asked where they were. Giles wondered if he was going to start asking for his parents. He was burning up and definitely seemed to be running a fever.

“We’re in the hospital, sweetheart,” Buffy told him.

“The hospital?” Wesley looked at her in confusion. “Why…?”

“Because you’re sick.” Willow wrapped the blanket around him even more securely.

“But…I thought hospitals were for when you break your leg falling out of a tree or for having your appendix taken out.” Wesley looked anxiously at Giles. “Do I have to have my appendix taken out?”

“No. We’re just being careful,” Giles reassured him.

“What seems to be the trouble?”

Giles looked up to see a young doctor looking at them. He thought the man looked too young. He’d hoped for someone knowledgeable and reassuring, not some still wet behind the ears junior doctor who had probably been down the pub the week before drinking the goldfish for a bet.

“My nephew is sick. He has a high temperature and his joints are aching. He’s had a persistent headache all day as well and he seems to be getting worse.”

“Well, let’s have a look at him.” The doctor led the way to a curtained off area and nodded to Giles to sit Wesley down on the bed. “What’s his name?”

“Wesley,” Buffy supplied.

The doctor nodded. “I’m Doctor Forrest, Wesley. I gather you’re not feeling too well?”

“No, sir,” Wesley said shyly.

The doctor examined Wesley’s eyes, felt his forehead, peered down his throat, felt his glands, listened to his chest, and then looked at Giles with a twinkle in his eye that seemed entirely inappropriate. “I gather you don’t have any children of your own?”

“Well…no.”

“And you live over here?”

“Yes.”

“And your nephew lives in England most of the time?”

“Yes, he’s just visiting me while his mother is sick.” It was strange how familiar that lie was becoming. He had almost got to the point of believing it himself. His poor worn out sister in her hospital bed and the boy safe with him to give her peace of mind.

“You’re probably a little out of practice at being around young children then?”

Giles grimaced. “Well…yes.”

The doctor nodded. “I don’t blame you for being careful. A lot of the symptoms for meningitis and the common cold are the same. Better to be safe than sorry.”

“For the…what…?” Giles demanded.

“Common cold.” The doctor moved his stethoscope around and pushed up Wesley’s pyjama jacket so he could listen to his lungs from the back. “Your nephew has a cold. The symptoms can be a little frightening at first, but I assure you most children have tremendous resilience. For the first six or seven years of their lives it’s not unusual for them to have five or six colds a year.” Then he looked down to place his stethoscope and froze. When he looked up at Giles his eyes were much colder and all the humour had gone. “Could you leave us alone, please?” he asked in a way that made it clear this wasn’t a request but an order. “I need to ask Wesley some questions.”

Confused, Giles nodded. “Of course.”

He stepped outside, with Buffy and Willow following and saw that Buffy looked as if she were going to pass out. “Are you feeling ill?” he asked in concern.

“He saw the bruises,” she whispered. She clutched Giles’ arm. “What if he calls social services? What if they take him away?”

Giles’s heart sank like a stone and he took a step backwards. Of course. Those bruises had been fresh a week ago and although they were fading now, the mark across his ribs now looked worse than ever. It had changed from an angry red to an ominous blue-black while his back still had a mottling of yellowing contusions from where Faith had gone in for a little Watcher abuse herself.

It was a few minutes before the doctor came out, clearly angry now, and beckoned to Giles to join them. Buffy and Willow came with him and the doctor looked Giles in the eye and lifted Wesley’s pyjama jacket so he could see the bruises for himself. Giles winced at the sight of them. They really did look horrendous, especially the mark around his ribs.

“It doesn’t hurt any more,” Wesley offered tentatively.

“Can you explain how Wesley got these bruises?” the doctor asked crisply.

Giles opened his mouth and then closed it a few more times. “Well, I’m not entirely… That is, I think…”

“I fell.” Wesley pulled his pyjama jacket down to hide the marks.

“I see.” The doctor definitely had the look of a man about to call social services and Giles couldn’t even blame him. Wesley was a thin pale little boy with severe bruising that could easily have been the result of deliberate abuse.

“At school,” Wesley added. “It was going down the stairs through the tunnel between the Upper Junior and the Lower Junior playground.” His voice sounded hoarse and croaky but there was something very persuasive about his earnest conviction. “We’re not allowed to run and I didn’t, but it’s steep going around the bend and I couldn’t reach the handrail and Algy Mather pushed me. He said he didn’t, but he did. And I fell and I hit my head and my elbow too.” Wesley bent his head so the doctor could look at his skull, pointing to the place and then pulling up his pyjama jacket to present his elbow for inspection.

A little confused, the doctor looked at his head, feeling it carefully and then said, “Well, I can’t feel any kind of fracture…”

“I hit my elbow too.” Wesley held it up higher. “And Algy Mather definitely pushed me and it wasn’t an accident either. He’s always picking on me.”

The doctor looked at his unblemished elbow and said, “I can’t see anything…”

Wesley gazed up at him, eyes bright with sincerity. “It’s faded now, but it was bruised before, and it really hurt.” He looked up at Giles. “Can we go home now, Uncle Giles? I don’t feel very well.” As Giles began to answer, Wesley’s eyes lit up and he exclaimed: “Angel!”

Giles turned to see the vampire hovering anxiously, looking absurdly stylish for a two am trip to the hospital in his layers of black clothing and impeccable coiffured hair. He strode over and Wesley practically threw himself into his arms, moving him from the doctor’s terrain of the bed into the very much their terrain again. He wrapped his legs around Angel who gave him a careful hug.

“How are you feeling?” the vampire asked anxiously, feeling his forehead. “Buffy said you were really sick.”

“I am and Cordelia’s sick too. She threw up in the bathroom. I heard her. Where are Xander and Oz?”

Giles looked back at the doctor. “I’m very sorry for taking up your time like this, doctor. I really did think it was something terribly serious. He’s been a little bit under the weather all day and when his temperature spiked like that I’m afraid I rather panicked.”

“Perfectly understandable.” The doctor put away his pen. “I’d advise some Junior Nyquil, lots of rest, and plenty of liquids. Obviously, if he’s coughing up a lot of green or yellow mucus for more than ten days, or his temperature stays around the 103º mark for twenty-four hours or more, bring him back in. He’ll probably be a little restless and irritable, he may have a cough, sore throat, aching limbs…”

Giles tuned the man out as he let the relief wash over him. He could see Willow taking mental notes of everything he said. For himself, he was still stuck in the ‘Wesley doesn’t have meningitis – he isn’t going to die’ mental place and didn’t seem able to come out of it.

Buffy grabbed his arm tightly, gaze fixed on the doctor. “Back up. What was that about aspirin?”

“Don’t give him any aspirin. A cold is a viral infection and aspirin can trigger Reye’s Syndrome in children – or even adolescents – who have a viral infection.”

“I gave him aspirin!” Buffy gasped.

“How much?”

“Half an aspirin. One that dissolves. I gave it to him in orange juice.”

“I’m sure that won’t have done any harm and Reye’s Syndrome is extremely rare – there have only been about forty cases a year since 1987, but don’t give him any more. Just stick to the Junior Nyquil for now and make sure he gets plenty of liquid and warmth and rest. Okay?”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Giles said automatically.

Angel was still cautiously feeling Wesley’s forehead. He said anxiously to the doctor. “He has a temperature, I can tell. It must be up near 102º.”

“That’s why he needs the rest and fluids and warmth,” the doctor told Angel firmly. “Now take him home and let him get some sleep. Is there someone who can stay with him?”

“Yes.” Giles managed to answer a hair before anyone else. “I will be taking time off work to take care of Wesley.”

“And we’ll be helping,” Buffy insisted.

“All of us,” Willow added emphatically.

Any further answer the Doctor may have been about to make was drowned out by the noisy arrival of Xander and Oz, who ran down the corridor and came to a breathless halt.

“Is he okay?” Oz demanded.

“What did the doctor say?” Xander asked fearfully.

“He’s fine.” The doctor looked at them all. “Are you all his relatives?”

“Friends of the family,” Xander said without a pause. “Well, friends of Giles. Not friends of his parents on account of them being…” At a look from Giles he said: “English. And hence – in England. Where we’re not.”

“Not that we don’t like them on account of them being English,” Willow added hastily. “Because that would be prejudiced and anyway Giles is English, and we like him, and Wesley is too.”

“Though Angel does sort have English Issues,” Buffy admitted.

“But not with Giles or Wesley,” Angel protested. “And I wouldn’t exactly call them ‘Issues’. Just when I was younger I may have…”

Giles hissed: “Please, for the love of God, all of you Stop Talking.” He smiled at the Doctor. “Thank you again, Doctor Forrest. We’ll get Wesley some Nyquil and make sure he has plenty of rest and warmth and liquid.”

“And no aspirin!” Buffy added.

The doctor gave them what looked suspiciously like a ‘humouring the crazy people’ smile and backed away.

Giles said rapidly: “Let’s get out of here quickly before he changes his mind and phones social services. Don’t run. And, Angel, give me Wesley.”

The vampire reluctantly did so but looked at him in confusion. “Why?”

“Because I want to carry him.” Giles took the blanket from Willow and wrapped it around the little boy who snuggled in against him. They walked at what was a rather fast pace out to the car park where Giles heaved a sigh of relief. He bent his head to look at the feverish little boy. “That was very clever of you, Wesley.”

“Well, it did happen like I said. It wasn’t a fib. Except that I don’t think I got those bruises like that. But I did hit my head and my elbow. And Algy Mather did push me, but if you just go on and on about it no one wants you to talk about it any more and then they just want you to be quiet and go away and so I thought the doctor would too.”

“You’re scarily smart sometimes,” Buffy said in awe.

But Xander’s eyes were bleak. “Yeah, you know all about the fastest way to get yourself ignored. Great thing for a kid to know at the age of eight.”

Giles tightened his grip on the little boy in his arms, feeling his feverish bony body through the blanket, all angles and clammy skin. “I’m taking him home with me,” he said clearly. “Your mother has enough to contend with, without having to take care of a sick child, and the rest of you have to go to school.”

“I don’t,” Angel pointed out.

“Or can’t go out in daylight which may become necessary if his temperature rises during the day.”

“But...” Buffy began.

“But…” Willow protested.

Giles just looked at them and they both subsided. “You can take care of Cordelia,” he told them. “Wesley is coming home with me. We’ll stop off at your house to pick up his things.”

“I’ll go on with Giles to his house.” Angel got into the back with Willow before there could be any argument. “I can hold Wesley while Giles drives.”

“I can take time off from school!” Buffy protested.

“Let’s argue about it tomorrow,” Giles said. “Tonight, Wesley needs peace and quiet.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes at Giles. “There’s going to be a rota and you’re going to have to share.” She sat down on the passenger seat and held out her arms. “Gimme.”

Reluctantly, Giles handed the drowsy boy over to her. Wesley smiled up at her sleepily. “Hello, Buffy. Did you come too?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

“Is it Sports Day tomorrow?”

“No, Wesley. You have a fever. You don’t have to do anything tomorrow except stay in bed and eat soup and feel better.”

“No lessons?”

Buffy bit her lip. “No, sweetie. No lessons.”

Wesley cuddled in against her wearily, hot and shivering at the same time. “It’s bad to coddle children when they’re sick. It makes them weak. No one likes a whiny child…” And then his eyes closed and he slumped against her, fast asleep, and she wrapped him up in the blanket even more warmly.

She gazed up at Giles. “I hate his father.”

Giles deliberately made himself look in the rearview mirror instead of turning around, that way he could only see Willow biting her lip and didn’t have to see the look in Angel’s eyes which was probably promising murder. Unfortunately when he adjusted the mirror he saw that expression anyway; it was there in his own reflection. But aloud he said only: “Let’s go home.”

***

Light was spilling from the Summers’ house as they drew up outside and for a moment Giles’s heart gave a lurch as he feared the worst, but then he realized it was Cordelia and Joyce waiting in the doorway anxiously

“What did the doctor say?” Joyce rushed out to the car to greet them. “Is Wesley okay…?”

“He has a cold.” Giles opened the car door. “Cordelia – don’t stand in the draught like that. You need to wrap up warm and drink lots of liquids.”

“We brought you Nyquil.” Xander held it out to the tall brunette, who was shivering in the doorway. “And throat lozenges and a whole bunch of other stuff. All of which are nothing compared with the entire pharmacy worth of stuff we had to buy for Wesley.”

“A cold?” Joyce demanded. “Are you sure? Did the doctor do any tests?”

“He seemed pretty certain,” Angel explained.

“So, he’s going to be okay?” Cordelia pressed. “Let me see him.”

Buffy hesitated before bringing the sleeping boy any closer. “You could be infectious.”

“And he’s already infected. Let me see him.” Cordelia put her hand across Buffy’s forehead. “He’s really hot. He must have a high fever.”

Xander put a hand across Cordelia’s forehead. “Cord, so do you. In fact you look even worse than he does. You need to go back to bed.”

“Let me just…” Cordelia stroked Wesley’s hair again. “Get better soon, Wesley.”

His eyelashes flickered and he looked up at her blearily. “You look really sick.”

“It’s just a cold.” She was still shivering violently. “Which sucks but nothing like as much as us both having Hellmouth Flu or something.” She looked up. “Maybe as I’m already infected, I should take care of him?”

“Yeah, nice try, no way.” Buffy pulled him out of reach. “Cordelia, go to bed.”

The girl did so reluctantly while Giles sent the others to fetch Wesley’s things. “He could stay here,” Joyce offered. “I’d be happy to look after him.”

“Thank you, Joyce, but, no. He’s my nephew and therefore my responsibility, and I really don’t think it matters if I miss a few days of school.”

“We should record that,” Xander observed to Oz. “Play it back to Giles when he’s out of anxious surrogate parent mode.”

“Is he ever out of that mode?” Oz indicated the rest of them.

“I make him more for the bossy and stuffy and less of the anxious on a day to day basis,” Xander shrugged.

It took a while but Giles did finally manage to get all of Wesley’s belongings into a suitable bag and into his car. There was what threatened to turn into a brief tug-o-war between Buffy and Angel over Wesley as the vampire took the child from her and Buffy tried to snatch him back.

“You don’t need to come,” Angel protested. “I’ll hold Wesley, Giles can drive. We can take care of him tomorrow and you can come and see him after school.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Buffy retorted.

Joyce looked at Giles anxiously. “Don’t you think perhaps…a woman’s touch…?”

“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of looking after a sick child.”

“But I have taken care of Buffy when she was ill in the past and it would really be no trouble for him to stay here.”

“Actually, it would.” Giles gazed at her. “You have to go to work and Buffy needs to patrol, and you already have Cordelia to take care of.”

He and Angel made it back to the car with Wesley with Willow and Buffy still trailing after them saying, “But…” but Giles was firm and Angel got himself into the passenger seat with Wesley in his arms and said a firm ‘Hush…’ to Buffy indicating the sleeping child when she began to protest again. And then they were driving away and could exchange a glance of relief.

Giles realized how exhausted he was when they get home. It was the drop off of adrenaline after the spike of it, induced by his fear for the child. Wesley was asleep in Angel’s arms. It was almost disturbing how comfortable he looked there; the pale dark-haired child in the pale dark-haired vampire’s tender grip. Angel had acquired the habit of gazing down at Wesley as if he would always be a child. Giles knew he was guilty of that too.

“Better put him to bed…” he suggested.

Angel was still gazing at Wesley with all that parental tenderness as Giles opened the door for him and the vampire carried him upstairs, slipped him into the bed. It all felt too natural, too familiar. A week before Giles hadn’t known where the lightswitch was in this spare room. It was the room he never used. Now it was Wesley’s bedroom, the one with the child’s nightlight, all his books. Angel slipped Wesley into the bed, gently removing the boy’s fingers from his coat, bending to kiss him on the forehead, good night.

Giles said quietly: “It will only be a few more days now.”

“I know.” Angel slipped Wesley’s hand under the covers, pulled the duvet up higher so there was no danger of a draught finding him. Wesley’s eyelashes were so long and thick on his pale cheek. He felt the boy’s forehead and looked up at Giles. “Maybe we should get some of the medicine inside him.”

“The fever is what kills the germs,” Giles said automatically. “It happens for a reason.”

“I know… It’s just…” Angel took an unwilling step away from the bed. “He’s so fragile.”

“It’s a cold, Angel.”

Angel gazed at Giles and then smirked. “I can’t believe you panicked over a cold.”

“Oh, like you would have been any better,” he retorted.

“But…a cold.”

“Do be quiet.” Giles switched on the nightlight and pulled the duvet up higher, even though Angel had already done it. He felt the boy’s forehead – it was hot and clammy, and resisted the urge to kiss him, just because Angel was watching, and would smirk.

It was an effort to leave the room and if Angel hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have bothered, just slumped in a chair all night to watch him. When they got downstairs, he found Oz and Xander already there. Xander was answering the phone while Oz wordlessly held up Cuthbert. Xander was saying: “Yes, Buffy, we’re here. He’s fine…?” It was a question.

Angel took the phone from Xander and Giles let him deal with it, the calming words and reassurances. He waved at the couch, muttered that the blankets were where they’d left them and that he was going to bed. He took himself a cup of tea upstairs, going into his own room to change into pyjamas and a dressing gown. When he went in to Wesley’s room to just check on him again, he found Xander already there, slumped in a chair with a blanket wrapped around him.

“You don’t need to,” Giles said groggily. “It’s just a cold.”

“I’d like to. Just tonight.” Xander shrugged. “It’s kind of weird when you have a fever and you wake up and don’t know where you are. It’s not like his parents are shouting at each other from another room to ground him to reality.”

“I don’t think Wesley’s parents shout…” Giles realized that it was Xander’s own parents he was thinking of and grimaced. “Just for a few hours, Xander. You need your sleep. Call me if he wakes up or wants anything.”

“Sure.”

Then he staggered into his own room and climbed into bed, still seeing that little boy in the pyjamas curled up in that bed, and trying not to do the maths in his head that told him how little time there was left before that boy was gone forever and all they would be left with was the man who didn’t like or trust them and who they had belittled, insulted, and ignored.

***

Wesley was bewildered by his illness. Not the fever and the aching limbs and the sneezing and the sore throat or the coughs that tore through his fragile little body with such vigour that they made everyone flinch. He was bewildered by not being blamed for it. It took them all a little while to work that one out.

Xander was there on the first morning when Wesley asked croakily if he could please stay in bed for another hour, just another hour, please. Giles walked in as Xander was saying that there was no way he was getting out of bed for a day at least.

“You’re sick, Wes. You have a cold.”

“It’s not good to coddle children,” Wesley whispered.

Xander bit his lip then forced a smile from somewhere – Giles suspected it may have had to be dragged up from the soles of his feet – and told him that he needed to drink his medicine and then go back to sleep.

“We should ask Uncle Giles.” Wesley looked nervous. “He may want me to get up and do my lessons.”

“Uncle Giles wants no such thing,” Giles assured him from the doorway. “Do as Xander says. Take your medicine and go back to sleep.”

Wesley obeyed, of course, but he was confused. Giles could picture previous illnesses in his mind’s eyes. A dark bedroom, bare boards because children carry infection and no carpet gives it less places to hibernate. Wesley was a delicate child. His father would not have liked that description but Giles had no doubt a doctor would have used it at some point. Wyndam-Pryce senior would have resented the description and used it somehow as another proof of Wesley’s weakness and inadequacy. Wesley murmured things to that effect when his fever climbed higher. Giles already knew that Wesley’s house was old and cold. He was not exactly surprised by that as his own was also old and cold. But he had been allowed to take a few days off when ill. Not expected to drag his shivering coughing little body down to an unheated schoolroom to continue his studies.

He could even imagine the arguments:

You’re going to kill him, Roger!

I’m going to keep him alive. Do you know what the life expectancy is for untrained Watchers…?

Perhaps it came from a place of love. Giles didn’t want to condemn Wesley’s father out of hand, but it was difficult not to when all the usual acts of compassion that accompanied a child’s illness surprised Wesley so completely. Being sat up against soft pillows so honey and lemon could be spooned into his poor sore throat. Being read to. Being spoon-fed trifle that Joyce Summers made for him specially and brought around in her lunch-hour along with a brand new teddy bear with a pink ribbon who she thought might keep Cuthbert company while Wesley was sick. Being carried downstairs, wrapped in a blanket so he could sit and watch cartoons. His confusion because surely if he was well enough to watch television, he must be well enough to translate demonic texts from the original Ancient Greek. Being sat on Oz’s lap to eat ice cream. Being cuddled.

When Wesley threw up on the sofa, he looked terrified, and was too sick from his temperature not to cry when Xander scooped him up at once and told him it was okay, that no one was angry with him. The relief and the aching limbs proved too much for his poor hot feverish little frame and he sobbed for ten minutes while Xander rubbed his back and Oz cleaned up with supercharged efficiency. Then he cuddled against Xander, sucking his thumb while Oz wrapped them both in a duvet until Wesley’s wet lashes dropped and he fell asleep.

It was difficult not to join the dots of all the things that surprised him and all the things he expected and get to a place where hating Wesley’s father felt like the only logical response.

It was mostly Giles who got to take care of him, but there was a constant stream of visitors. The Hellmouth could have threatened to swallow them all whole and he didn’t think so many classes would have been cut. Angel was always turning up, even during daytime, presumably scuttling around in the shadows, or covering himself with a blanket. Xander usually brought different flavoured ice creams. Oz brought little things from Willow to help fever or sickness or to ward off aching joints. Willow came herself all the time, in breaks and lunchtimes, with new medicine to try that might ease his fever. Giles’s house reeked of menthol and sage. Buffy would claim the child as soon as she walked through the door. Wesley was pulled onto her lap and would stay there, curled against her, either watching TV or being spoonfed soup or more of the inevitable ice cream.

Giles and Angel read to him; taking over when the other’s voice began to fail. They read to him downstairs in the sitting room or upstairs in his bedroom. They couldn’t really stop his temperature from climbing or his joints from aching or his nose from running or his head from thumping, but they could stop him being cold or lonely or feeling unloved. Wesley had taken to holding onto Giles’ jacket when he cuddled up against him, as if that would stop him from leaving him. But, of course, Wesley was the one who was going to be leaving.

As they days went by, it was getting harder for everyone to accept that it couldn’t stay like this. Giles thought it was just as well that Ethan had skipped town. Otherwise they might start asking him for the impossible. When the child was safe in his arms, temperature dropping now, cuddled up against the warmth and comfort that Giles provided, he thought about how much he wanted him to stay like this. How he was free now from Council control and could do what he liked. They could tell the Council that Wesley had been turned, and then dusted, hence, no body to send home. A tragedy. He was brave and they were sorry, now send another Watcher to replace him. Giles would stay on as librarian; find a way to get Wesley some papers. Leave it a decent interval and then tell everyone that Giles’ poor sick sister has died. Give Wesley another surname. Above all keep him safe and let him be happy. Make it so that what he expected when he was ill was to be comforted and taken care of, not scolded for being weak. Make it so that lessons were something he could enjoy again; not a test he always failed. Make it so it wasn’t so unbearably moving for him to realize that he was loved…

Buffy arrived that day as the sun was setting, carrying ice cream of some special esoteric blend that was particularly ‘yummy’. It apparently had chocolate chunks and pieces of fudge in it and was to be regarded not as a foodstuff but proof that Wesley really was as well as he claimed.

“I’m feeling much better, Buffy, really,” he insisted, unfortunately having to break off to cough halfway through.

“I’ll believe that if you can eat your ice-cream,” she returned, sitting next to him.

Giles reluctantly rose to his feet. “Will you take care of him while I do a little research?”

She nodded and stroked Wesley’s hair. “Hey, your head isn’t so hot.”

He smiled at her. “I really do feel much better.”

“You need a few more days to rest.” Buffy played with his hair idly as he curled up against her; all of them so used to the weight of his body against theirs now; the lightness of him when they lifted him; the way he moulded himself to them so comfortably. Everyone had grown used to sitting Wesley on their hip or their lap or their shoulders, feeling his fingers curl around their lapel. Buffy fed him ice cream and smiled delightedly when he laughed out loud at the cartoons. Laughter made him cough, but it seemed worth it. He put his hand across his mouth to stifle the cough but no longer looked at Giles to see if he was angry with Wesley for being noisy and laughing too loud.

“How’s my little guy…?”

Xander also carried ice cream, Giles noticed. It was just as well the child was so thin, they were all so keen to stuff him full of sugar at every opportunity. Giles looked down at his notebooks. There were notes about the ascension it was true, but there were more about the spell that Ethan had cast, and the calendar with the days crossed off. He had cross-referenced as much as he could and they all seemed to confirm that ten days was the usual time. Tonight was the evening of the tenth day. Any way he added it up, he couldn’t squeeze another day out of this spell and it hurt far too much to think of losing this little boy. The adult Wesley had receded far too quickly. Even looking at the photograph no longer helped. They were going to lose this child that they loved and gain a person they hardly remembered. Giles knew everything about this little boy now. Could tell if his head hurt just by looking at him, if he was cold, hungry, scared. Woke in an instant if he had a bad dream. Knew the right words to soothe him. Could comfort him with a touch, with a word, with a whisper. He wondered how people bore it whose children were handed a death sentence. How did they survive day by day? He was becoming more and more sure that he would have loved to be a parent and that it was not now something that would ever happen. This spell-created child was the closest he would probably ever come and tonight he was going to lose him, just as he had become not only familiar but necessary.

Willow and Oz arrived with lots of Chinese food ten minutes before Angel arrived with the adult Wesley’s pyjamas, dressing gown, and a change of clothes. No one else had wanted to confront the reality of that transition so Angel had done it. Giles watched the vampire go upstairs with the belongings and had to take off his glasses to let everything blur. When he dared to look up again, Buffy had Wesley in her arms and a stricken look on her face. She knew Giles couldn’t make this all right for them, but somehow her eyes still seemed to be asking it.

Cordelia had stayed away. She had thought it over and then decided it would hurt less if she didn’t see the little boy again; if she just started thinking about the adult. It had sounded sensible and matter of fact when she said it to Giles, and in her phone call to the child Wesley she had clearly been bright and funny as he had laughed quite a lot despite his head cold, but Willow had told him out of Wesley’s earshot that Cordelia had cried herself to sleep every night since and blamed it on her fever. It seemed that no one was taking the imminent transition well, not even the person who had idly doodled ‘Mrs Cordelia Wyndam-Pryce’ on the back of an exercise book.

There was a forced jollity about the evening. Everyone wanted his or her time with Wesley, who was still washed out and coughing from his cold but no longer had a runny nose, a headache or a fever. Giles suspected that the coming transition was not very real for him. They had tried not to dwell on it, not wanting to frighten him. Willow had brought a cake, because, as she pointed out, they had missed his birthday, and Wesley was well enough to eat at least a few spoonfuls of cake, and jelly, and ice cream, after his few little heaped spoonfuls of special fried rice. They watched cartoons and then Toy Story, both of which Wesley enjoyed, and then it was time to read the end of The Silver Chair. Eustace had reminded Giles of Wesley, although he certainly hadn’t told the boy that. But it had given him a new liking for the character even at his worst in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and he’d revelled in his triumph into a better person in this book.

They all took turns to read a chapter, passing it along the line solemnly, while Wesley stayed awake through willpower alone, being passed from lap to lap so everyone had their time with him. Giles couldn’t decide if Cordelia had been foolish to miss this last precious time with him, or wise to make the loss of him a little less painful.

It was Giles’s turn to read the last chapter and it occurred to him that the others had worked that between them; done the maths so that he would be the last one to read to Wesley as the boy fought valiantly to stay awake and hear the end. Looking at their faces as he read the last line and Wesley smiled in relief that it had ended so satisfactorily, he saw that all of them were putting their own pain at the prospect of losing the boy behind their sympathy for him. For an Englishman he was evidently not doing too well on the stiff upper lip front. And yes, he felt devastated by the prospect of losing this child, and they clearly knew that.

“Bedtime,” he said gently.

Wesley looked up at him sleepily. “Yes, Uncle Giles.”

Buffy took him into the bathroom to brush his teeth while they crowded outside, everyone solemn. It was absurd, Giles told himself, cleaning his glasses again; all of them standing outside the bathroom while Wesley relieved himself and washed his hands as if it were a sacred ritual. Then he thought of not being able to make his breakfast in the morning; not having Xander turn up with some new exciting cereal, even though they had barely scratched the surface of the last one, so that Wesley could find the plastic toy in this new box.

Buffy came out of the bathroom, clutching Wesley’s hand and trying very hard to smile, but her eyes were shining with tears. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” she said brightly, sweeping him up into her arms for a last hug. Wesley was solemnly passed from person to person, automatically hugging them as he was placed in their arms, everyone trying to smile and sound bright and happy when they were all on the verge of tears.

Giles had already told them that he thought that they should go tonight. There was no point in them staying and he wanted the boy to just go to sleep usual, which he wouldn’t do if he knew they were all downstairs. The important thing was not to frighten him – to be as matter-of-fact as possible. It seemed to be working in that Wesley hugged them all ‘goodnight’ quite cheerfully. Then it was Giles’ turn to carry him up to bed.

“You’d better take your pyjamas off, Wesley.” He tried to sound brisk and cheerful but doubted he achieved either. “I’ve turned the radiator up so you won’t get cold.”

“Why can’t I wear my pyjamas, Uncle Giles?” Wesley was obediently unbuttoning them even as he asked the question.

“Well, if you get big again tonight, they wouldn’t fit you.” Giles tried a smile but he gathered it wasn’t as reassuring he’d hoped as Wesley looked sad.

“Will I remember everything?”

“No, Wesley. Remember we talked about this before? You probably won’t remember anything.”

“But I want to remember.”

“Well, perhaps you will. We really don’t know. The important thing is not to worry about it. We don’t even know if it’s going to happen tonight. It’s just a precaution for you to take off your pyjamas. Into bed then, quickly. Don’t want you catching another chill.” He lifted up the duvet and Wesley slipped into it quickly. Giles handed him Cuthbert and sat on the bed to switch on the nightlight.

Wesley gazed up at him. “Uncle Giles…?”

“Yes, Wesley?”

“Will you still like me when I’m big?”

“Yes.” A great deal more than you’re going to like me, given what a shit I’ve been to you since you arrived here. “Of course I will, Wesley. You’re my adopted nephew now. For bigger or smaller.”

It seemed to be the right thing to say. Wesley smiled and then put his arms around his neck and hugged him, warm bare little body still much too bony but so painfully familiar. “Goodnight, Uncle Giles.”

“Goodnight, Wesley.” He kissed him on the forehead, covered him carefully with the duvet and then watched the sleepy little boy snuggle down under the duvet. He suspected he was much too tired to stay up even to worry about the possibility of growing big again and would be asleep within minutes.

Giles backed out of the room silently and closed the door then leaned against it, taking off his glasses so he could wipe his eyes. It was perfectly absurd to feel as if this little boy were dying when all he was doing was becoming who he should always have been; yet it did feel like that all the same.

When he put his glasses back on and looked down the stairs, he saw the others standing silently by the door. They all looked as wretched as he felt and Willow was crying, although she didn’t seem to be aware of it. He went down the stairs and Buffy said, “I want to stay.”

“Buffy, think about it,” Giles sighed. “Wesley – the adult Wesley – is going to have enough to contend with realizing that he has been here for a week or so while he recovers from a mystical coma. He’s only going to be more embarrassed and upset if you’re here. He doesn’t even…”

“Like me?” Buffy gazed up at Giles and bit her lip.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say. He doesn’t know you. Or any of us. But I am probably the least…strange to him. He may not like me very much but he probably would feel the least disconcerted by waking up here.”

“I feel like I had my insides scooped out.” Buffy wiped her eyes. “God, it hurts so much. It’s just as well Ethan isn’t…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. “I’ll stay,” Angel said. “Just in case. And maybe Ethan’s wrong. Maybe he won’t change back.”

“He will,” Buffy sighed. “I know he will. When I kissed him goodnight I knew I was never going to see him again.”

“Actually you will,” Xander put in. “He’s still going to be Wesley. He’s just not going to be eight years old. But he’ll still be who he was. Maybe we’ll just be able to see it now.”

Giles looked at him warily. “That sounds worryingly profound.”

“I remember Willow and Cordy when they were kids. I can see those kids in them all the time. Maybe now we’ll be able to see that kid in Wesley.”

“But he won’t remember us,” Oz said quietly. “Or rather what he does remember – probably not going to be giving him too many of the warm fuzzies.”

“The kid Giles and Buffy found in that room was scared of them and expected to be punished all the time, remember? He changed because of the way they treated him. I guess the same thing would go for the adult version.”

Giles nodded. “I quite agree, Xander. I think Wesley, more than almost anyone I’ve ever met, probably becomes a reflection of the way he is treated by others. We know how the child version of him responded to patience and kindness. I see no reason to suppose the adult version might not also respond better to that than…”

Buffy shrugged. “Constant sniping and insults and put downs and thinly veiled contempt? Gee, I wonder…” She looked up the stairs. “Maybe, I should…”

“He’s asleep,” Angel told her. “I can hear his heartbeat. He’s fast asleep and not even dreaming. You should just go. Come by in the morning and see how he is.”

“See who he is,” Willow said sadly.

“That too,” Giles said it matter of factly. As they all looked woebegone, he added: “We all knew this time would come.”

“Yep.” Buffy looked back up the stairs. “And it doesn’t help one little bit now that it’s arrived.”

She hugged him when she left; he’d thought it was because she needed comfort, and then he realized she was comforting him. He had that reinforced when then all hugged him, except for Oz, who just nodded in quiet sympathy. Even Xander hugged him awkwardly, patting his back jerkily in a manner that was absurd and yet still comforting. Willow said tearfully: “It will be fine, Giles. He’ll be fine. He’ll just wake up and be fine and it’ll be like it never happened. Which is good. It’s all…of the good.” And then Oz gently drew her away before she made Giles any damper, and he closed the door behind them and looked at Angel who said: “I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. I’ll stay anyway.”

Giles realized that he was relieved that Angel was staying. It was only a few months ago that Angel standing on his doorstep had felt like the sickest of all sick jokes, and now he did take some comfort in him, another grown up, someone else for whom this mystically created child was probably the nearest thing he was ever going to have to a son.

“I appreciate it,” he managed.

Angel looked at Giles and then looked up the stairs. “I’ll make tea,” he said.

It probably said everything about Giles’s state of mind that he let him and, when Angel handed it to him, sipped it without another word.

***

Chapter Text

Giles missed the transformation. He woke with a jolt to find Angel on the other side of Wesley’s bed, awake, and Wesley still in the bed, as he had been when he and Angel sneaked in here and taken up their places, but no longer a child; the child gone and a young man in his place.

The night light was still on but Wesley hadn’t woken up. That seemed to answer the question about whether or not it was painful. It evidently wasn’t. Giles looked a question at Angel who whispered:

“About ten minutes ago.” And then: “It was painless.”

Again, it was the language of death, and for a moment that was what it felt like, because Giles certainly felt like one of the bereaved. Then he gazed down at the young man in the bed and took a moment to be grateful he was breathing and still sleeping. His hair was the same as the child Wesley’s, of course, that soft shock of dark bedhair. Had he subconsciously expected his hair to brylcreem its way back to the adult Wesley’s style? It was so strange to look at this sleeping young man and not just have such different feelings for him but to see him differently as well.

In the past, when looking at Wesley, the adjectives that had sprung to mind would have been ‘pompous’, ‘stuffy’, ‘prim’ and ‘ineffectual’ not to mention the constant of ‘annoying’. He was looking at the same face now, but he looked so different. For the first time he realized how young Wesley really was when not wearing the disguise of slicked down hair, that carefully tailored suit, and his face schooled into an expression of earnest maturity. Now he could see the little boy he’d been. It was there in the thick dark lashes and the line of the jaw, the line of the cheekbones as well. Now he looked so vulnerable with those shadows under his eyes, so much more fragile than he remembered. How had he never noticed how thin that boy was? Had Wesley had that suit made especially to disguise it? Because it was certainly obvious now: a thin, handsome, vulnerable-looking boy, very obviously that child grown up. He looked at this Wesley and wanted to protect him. He almost hated the man who had thrown so many casual put downs at him. My god, the boy was so sensitive; how had he not known that? He might as well have been Roger Wyndam-Pryce, Giles had carried the torch the man had passed to him so well; the next tweedy authority figure to keep reminding Wesley that he was worthless and stupid and would never amount to anything.

Wesley stirred and Angel glanced out of the window. There was light behind the curtains; not much, the first edgings of dawn; but enough to show that it was morning.

Wesley’s eyelashes flickered and then his eyes opened, shockingly blue and shockingly…familiar, those big blue eyes in that thin face under the untidy softness of his tousled dark hair.

“Wesley…?” Giles said gently.

Wesley gazed up at him and blinked in confusion. “Mr Giles…?”

And, of course, he had known that was coming. That reversion to the formal title but how much nicer it would have been to have some halting crossover from Wesley’s time as a child. He didn’t remember then, just as they’d expected. Giles tried and failed abjectly to be glad.

“You’ve been…unwell. A consequence of that amulet you took home with you. Do you remember that?”

Wesley gazed up at him in confusion, then looked down at himself, then around the room. “I don’t…? Where…? That is… why am I…?”

“You’re in my house in the spare bedroom. You haven’t been very well but you’re better now although I suspect you still have the end of a cold. You took the amulet home with you ten days ago. It’s the eighteenth today.”

“Do you remember anything?”

Wesley evidently hadn’t realized Angel was there because at that question he jumped nervously. “What?”

Angel grimaced. “Sorry. I just wondered if you remembered anything.”

“I remember taking the amulet home. I was doing some research. I was cold. I went to bed. I opened the amulet in bed. I don’t remember anything after that. Ten days ago, you say? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” Giles managed a smile. “Do you feel well enough to get up? Or would you rather rest here for a while? I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“No, I…” Wesley glanced under the covers. “I don’t appear to be wearing…”

Angel handed him his pyjamas, neatly folded. Buffy had washed and ironed them. Not something they could really tell this confused adult Wesley who clearly found it extremely disconcerting to be naked in a bed, with two men he barely knew hovering over him.

Wesley fingered the pyjamas awkwardly. “My suit…?”

“You’re not well enough to go into work today, Wesley,” Giles told him firmly. “You’ve had a very nasty cold.”

“I really think that’s my decision,” Wesley retorted.

Angel shrugged and placed a folded up pair of jeans and a shirt on the bed next to the pyjamas. Wesley touched the jeans and then the shirt and said, “Thank you.”

“I’ll go and put the kettle on.” Giles rose to his feet abruptly.

Wesley turned his head and saw Cuthbert, flushing in embarrassment. “You went through my things?”

“It seemed sensible to have familiar things around you while you were ill,” Giles returned. “You really weren’t…yourself.”

Wesley paled even further. “Did I…?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Giles assured him. “But the amulet had an effect upon you that… We were concerned for you. We found you at your flat the morning after the spell hit you and we’ve taken care of you. But as far as Snyder is concerned you’ve been at a rare book fair.”

“Thank you,” Wesley said awkwardly. He looked at the nightlight in confusion. “Do you have children?”

“No.”

Angel added: “Giles’ nephew visited recently. The room was set up for…him.”

Wesley kept looking at the nightlight. “It’s…a very nice night light. I hope he appreciated it?”

“He was very appreciative.” Giles found he was in danger of getting choked up. “He’s a very…endearing little boy. Let’s get you that tea, shall we?”

They went downstairs, Angel accompanying him and providing silent sympathy. When Giles found he couldn’t say anything, it was Angel who tentatively offered: “He seems to be okay.”

“Yes, thankfully. No ill effects.”

Another awkward pause. “Are you going to be okay?”

Giles closed his eyes. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Angel grimaced. “Sorry. Just trying to be – you know…?”

“Human?”

“Something like that.”

“I have lost nothing. I never had anything. He was never my child, or my nephew; he was an illusion. Now reality has been restored, just as we knew it would be.”

“Knowing isn’t always feeling.” Angel looked up the stairs. “I miss him so much it feels like someone stuck a stake in my heart and I just haven’t turned to dust. I have feelings of affection for that guy upstairs that bear no relation to any friendship we’ve had or the way he feels about me. I’m just a scary vampire to him. But I can’t look at him and not see that kid I…love.”

Giles knew what Angel was doing. The last person on the planet to ever share his feelings was doing it just so that Giles knew he wasn’t alone in this particular illogical place of pain. He appreciated the gesture but it didn’t really help. It still hurt. Giles suspected it was going to hurt for a long time still to come. Right now it was hard to believe it would ever do anything but hurt.

Wesley came downstairs after a short delay; wearing the clothes Angel had given him. He was clearly uncomfortable in them, running his hand down the over-sized pale blue cotton shirt in the place where a tie should have been, while pulling his jeans up with his other hand. They were a narrow fitting but they still didn’t, well…fit.

Giles looked at the young man in shock and realized that his usual suit wasn’t just camouflage, it was armour. In these clothes he looked five years younger and half his normal width. He’d had to roll his sleeves up because they were too long and his wristbones were exposed in all their fragility. Thinking of the insecurities of that little boy who considered himself ‘stupid’, Giles could see why Wesley had felt the need to cover himself up.

“Here you are, Wesley.” He handed him a cup of tea and only as he handed it over realized that he had automatically made it as if for the child version of the young man. They both looked at the pale milky brew and then Giles forced a smile. “Sorry, that’s mine. Here’s yours.” He handed over his own and then tried to take a casual sip of the incredibly weak sweet tea he had made for the boy. Feigning a cough, he went into the kitchen and hastily poured it down the sink. As he did so he found everything was blurry again; the pain of losing the child another stab as he watched the tea swirl down the plughole. He made himself another cup of tea while Angel asked Wesley how he was.

Wesley looked uneasy as the vampire gazed at him with the full force of his brooding intensity. “Fine, thank you.” A cough contradicted him and he hastily put a hand up to his mouth. “That is…a little bit washy, but otherwise fine. Did you say I was out for ten days?”

Angel pulled out a chair for him and indicated it. Wesley sat, obediently, while still darting the vampire uneasy looks.

Wesley jumped at the hammering on the door and Giles motioned to Angel to keep back while he went to open it. It was just as well they’d taken that precaution as light spilled in along with the group of teenagers who barged across his threshold the moment he opened the door.

“How is he?” Buffy demanded. “Is Wesley…?”

“He’s…himself again,” Giles said non-committally.

Buffy almost ran into the room and then looked at Wesley. Swallowing hard for a moment as she took in his restored shape, she said: “Are you okay? How do you feel?” She put a hand across his forehead automatically. “Do you still have a sore throat?”

“No, I’m…very well.” Wesley flashed her a deer in headlights look as Buffy felt his glands.

“Wesley doesn’t remember being…ill,” Giles reminded her before Buffy actually demanded that he stuck out his tongue and let her look at it.

Buffy automatically brushed his hair back from his forehead again and straightened his collar. “Have you had your medicine?”

“Um…” Wesley darted Giles a ‘save me’ look. “What medicine was I taking again?”

Giles thought of all the junior versions of medication around. “I think some paracetamol to help with the headaches and aching would probably be best.” He fetched him some from the medicine cabinet and put it in his hand while Wesley continued to look at Buffy as if she were likely to bite him.

Buffy had now been joined by Willow who also automatically put her head on Wesley’s forehead. “Do you have a headache?” she asked.

“No…” Wesley crouched down in his chair, shoulders hunched, clearly not entirely sure why these strange teenagers were now fussing over him when in the past they had always been dismissive and rude to him. “Are you all…quite well…?”

“We’re fine. Cordelia’s the only one who got the bug,” Buffy explained.

Xander had been looking at Wesley sombrely and now came forward to give him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Good to see you looking…well, Wesley.”

“I don’t think he looks well,” Willow protested. “His head is hot and I think he still has a fever.”

“I really don’t think I do…” Wesley offered meekly. “Is Miss Chase…recovering…?”

“She’s well enough to bite everyone’s heads off this morning so I think that can be taken as a sign of normalcy,” Buffy shrugged. She turned to Giles. “You’re going to make sure Wesley stays in bed and rests today, right?”

Giles grimaced. “As Wesley is a grown man, Buffy, I don’t think that’s exactly my decision.”

Buffy turned on Wesley so fast that he flinched back in his chair. “You are not going back to work today.”

“But I…”

“I don’t care about that,” she said vehemently. “Do you know how high your temperature was? You can’t possibly be thinking about going to work when you’re still all…contagious. That would just be selfish.”

“But, it seems as if the only people who I might infect have already been in contact with either Miss Chase or myself,” Wesley protested. “And if I’ve been ill for ten days there must be a great deal of work to catch up on. Has anyone been making reports to the Council?”

Giles blinked. “I was fired by the Council, Wesley. And – why were you having to make reports to them?”

Wesley grimaced. “That’s what I was told to do.”

“Your eyes are red,” Buffy observed critically. He coughed. “See – that’s a cough. Giles – make him stay home.”

Wesley waved her off. “Buffy, not that I don’t appreciate your concern, but we do have rather more important matters to attend to. What is the situation with the Mayor?”

“He sent some people to kill Willow. He found out she was hacking into his system. We think Faith may be working for him. You should really take some NyQuil.”

Wesley gently removed her hand from his forehead. “Buffy – the Mayor? You think he’s managed to recruit Faith to his cause? How?”

“She was alienated and maybe she wanted…” Buffy thought about Faith, the girl whose Watcher had turned out to be insane, and then who had only got half shares in the next Watcher sent, who, in any case, neither of them rated; who didn’t have friends of her own, only part shares in Buffy’s friends, most of whom now didn’t like her. “Maybe she just wanted something of her own.”

“A rogue slayer.” Wesley ran a hand through his hair, disordering it further. “That’s terribly dangerous.” He looked up at Giles. “We must call the Council for orders.”

“I’m not sure there’s a precedent, Wesley,” Giles said. “Perhaps we should assess the situation from this end then make a recommendation to them. What do you think? I’ve certainly heard rumours about the Council not being averse to…killing those they consider a threat and I’m not sure if I’m personally ready to be the person to cause a death sentence to be handed out against a seventeen year old girl.”

Wesley swallowed. “No… I’m not sure I… But do we have the right to leave Faith at large? A rogue slayer could be very dangerous. We know she’s killed once by accident and I understand she almost killed Xander on purpose.”

“I think Faith being arrested is not the worst thing that could happen.” Willow sat down next to Wesley and looked up at Giles. “Is there more tea?” As Buffy went to make it, she whispered to Wesley: “You know, if we talk about this here you’re still working and Buffy won’t freak about you going back to the library too early.”

Wesley looked at her in surprise. “I don’t really understand why Buffy would…care.”

“She’s a caring person,” Willow explained.

“She hides it well.” Wesley noticed Oz looking at him fixedly and reached up to adjust a tie he wasn’t wearing. “Um – is something amiss?”

“Just wondering how much you remembered?”

“Nothing from when I picked up the amulet. Was I in a coma…?”

“Not exactly.” Xander was already fetching dishes and milk and boxes of cereal. “Angel, can you make the toast? Giles, you got more marmalade, right?”

Wesley looked around in confusion. “Are we having breakfast?”

“Of course we’re having breakfast.” Buffy refilled his teacup. “You missed a lot of meals when you were ill.”

“But about Faith…?”

“What do you think, Wesley?” Giles asked quietly, placing the milk jug on the table.

The young man considered the point. “I suppose it’s a matter of responsibility. Do we think Faith is capable of killing someone? If we do we have an obligation to safeguard the public.”

“We have obligations to her too though.” Buffy sat down next to Wesley and began to pour out his cornflakes. “Do you want these or Frosties?”

He looked at her in confusion. “Um – perhaps some toast…?”

“I think you need cereal too. Cornflakes or Frosties?”

“Cornflakes then.” He cleared his throat. “I recognize your point about Faith, Buffy. I certainly feel responsible for her. I know I didn’t connect with her in any meaningful way, although goodness knows, I did try, but I think perhaps I wasn’t able to come to any real meeting of minds with the girl and I regret that. And I know you think I alienated her trust.”

“We all alienated her trust, Wesley.” Buffy heaped Cornflakes into his dish and added milk and sugar automatically before pushing it to him along with a teaspoon. “I did it when I didn’t tell her Angel was back. Mrs Post did it when she went all whacko psycho after telling Faith to trust her. You did it when you tried to get her taken into custody. At least you were doing what someone else told you to do whereas Mrs Post and I were pretty much freelance trust-alienators.”

Wesley looked down at his cereal. “Could I – have a big spoon?”

Angel handed him one as well as side plate ready for his toast. Wesley blinked in mild confusion at the six different boxes of cereal on the table. “Why do you have so much breakfast cereal, Mr Giles?”

“Xander,” Giles explained. “He has crazes for different kinds.”

“Do you usually all eat your breakfast here?”

“Well, we have been recently.” Buffy pushed his tea cup closer. “Don’t forget to drink your tea. You need to replenish liquids. Did you take your paracetamol yet?”

“I was just about to.” Wesley hastily did so, washing down the bitter pills with sips of tea. “Um – if your original plan was to confine Faith without notifying the Council, is that what you’re proposing to do now?”

Giles sat down on the other side of him. “My concern is that the Council would simply eliminate Faith so that a new Slayer would be Called, who was – less trouble. I feel uncomfortable simply writing the girl off like that. She has certainly made some very bad decisions but I do feel that we – all of us – as well as the Council may be responsible in some way. You aren’t the only one who failed to connect with her, after all.”

“But what if she kills someone?” Wesley pressed. “I don’t think any of us want that on our consciences. If we just let the Council handle it then they can make a judgement about what they feel is the best thing to do. I’m sure they would give her a fair hearing.”

“Are you sure?” Giles pressed. “Absolutely sure?”

Wesley considered the point for a moment and then sighed. “No. I was – that is – I concentrated my studies on the Hellmouth itself, things that I might expect to find here, that the Slayer might encounter, so that I could be of assistance to her. I didn’t think to read up on Council policy on rogue Slayers.”

“Do you think they’d keep that kind of thing on record?” Oz asked.

Wesley opened his mouth and then closed it again. “You have a point. They may feel that any such precedents would not be good for morale. When you’re fighting an unending battle against the forces of evil it’s not as if morale is always at its best anyway.” He sighed wearily and dug his spoon into his cornflakes.

“So, you don’t know what the Council would do to Faith if they took her into custody?” Buffy enquired. “Or if even if they were capable of holding her in custody. They didn’t do too good a job last time.”

Wesley flinched. “I know.”

She rested a hand on his arm. “No one’s blaming you, Wes. I’m just saying that if they can’t hold her and they get her pissed she might really hurt someone.”

“She didn’t kill me,” Wesley offered. “She could have done. I did try to hit her with a spanner.”

“What’s a ‘spanner’?” Xander enquired.

“Like a wrench,” Giles explained.

Xander looked horrified. “She hit you with a wrench?”

“No, she just punched me. The point is – how best do we salvage the girl and prevent her from doing more harm than she already has? And which is our first priority?”

Willow held up a hand. “If we’re voting, I think we have to protect other people from Faith more than we need to protect Faith from other people, on account of other people being innocent and maybe just trying to help her and her – you know – say, trying to strangle them.”

“Glad we’re being objective here, Will,” Buffy looked at her in mild reproach.

Wesley rubbed his forehead and Willow and Buffy immediately both reached out to feel it. He flinched away from their hands. “Um – Mr Giles…?”

“Much as I regret saying so, I think that we need to concentrate on the Mayor. It would be helpful if we could incapacitate Faith before the Ascension as he is otherwise going to have a very dangerous ally, but our main focus needs to be him.”

“Have you learned anything more while I’ve been…out of things…?”

Giles began to fill Wesley in on the information that, ironically, Wesley himself had obtained through his cross-referencing; very aware all that time as he did so that Wesley was not perhaps as unreasonable as they had always assumed. They had locked him out of every discussion they had held in the past; there had been no question of asking for his input, or valuing his opinion. Wesley had run off to tell the Council what he had overheard only after they had decided to make a decision without consulting him. Giles winced inwardly at that realization.

Wesley automatically ate his way through his cornflakes as Giles talked to him, the teenagers chiming in with their own additions from time to time. As soon as the cornflakes were finished, Angel put a plate of toast in front of Wesley.

“I’ll butter it for you,” Willow said. “I always butter it because you…I mean, I just like buttering toast. It’s a hobby.”

“Yes, you should humour her.” Buffy patted Wesley’s arm. “It would be a kindness.”

Wesley looked down at Buffy’s hand on his arm in confusion then looked at Willow buttering his toast. He glanced up at Giles for an explanation and the man grimaced. “You know how women are with sick people, Wesley. It brings out all their…maternal; instincts.”

“Oh.” Wesley quietly removed his wrist from Buffy’s patting hand. “I see. But I really feel quite well now.”

“Don’t spoil their fun,” Angel whispered to him, making Wesley, who had evidently not known the vampire was there, jump violently.

Willow went to put the butter knife in the marmalade and both Wesley and Giles made hissing noises in anxiety. She carefully put down the butter knife and picked up a clean knife to delve into the marmalade. Then handed Wesley his plate of marmalade on toast, neatly cut into quarters for him.

“Tomorrow, you should have the rice crispies,” Xander observed. “They really do snap, crackle and pop.”

“I usually just have a cup of tea,” Wesley returned.

“No wonder you’re so skinny,” Buffy said critically.

Wesley looked down at himself in confusion. “I’m not ‘skinny’.”

Angel snorted and then at Wesley’s hurt look, said, “Sorry, I thought you were making a joke. Do you want some more toast…?”

“No, thank you.” Wesley looked up at the clock. “Shouldn’t Buffy and the others be on their way to school?”

Buffy glared at him. “How can I go to school if I don’t get any assurances from you that you’re going to rest and take your medicine and take care of yourself if I’m not here…?”

At the thought of Buffy spending the entire day ‘taking care’ of him, Wesley looked like a fox that had just been sighted by hounds. He darted a desperate look at Giles who intervened in the interests of mercy. “Buffy, I’m sure that Wesley will bear in mind his convalescent state and behave sensibly.”

Buffy looked unconvinced. She stood up, looming over Wesley who looked up at her wide-eyed and open mouthed. “You’re going to stay here with Giles? And work on – research and things that are quiet and no running around getting worn out or giving yourself a headache working on Council…paperwork?”

Meekly, Wesley said, “Yes, Buffy.”

He seemed more surprised than she was at his instinctive obedience to her, but she only nodded. “Okay then.” She looked down at his clothes. “Maybe you should put on your robe. That doesn’t look warm enough to me. Xander…”

Xander had already headed upstairs to fetch the robe. Wesley watched him go in confusion, still hunching as Buffy loomed over him. She felt his forehead again and shook her head. “I think you still have a temperature.”

“I’ll make sure he has a quiet day of researching,” Giles assured her. “But you really are going to be late for school if you don’t leave now.”

Xander came down with Wesley’s robe, pyjamas and Cuthbert. He put the teddy bear in Wesley’s arms – he took him automatically – and hung the robe and pyjamas on the back of the chair. “You’ll get a lot less grief from the Buffster if you’re wearing those when she comes back this afternoon.”

“Comes back?” Wesley looked horrified. “But, what about our nice quiet day of research…?”

“If you’re here you’re much further away from Buffy than you would be in the school library,” Willow pointed out in a whisper. “She can come and check up on you in between lessons there.”

Still clutching Cuthbert, Wesley received a friendly nod from Oz, a sympathetic pat from Xander, a sweet smile from Willow and a last feeling of his forehead from Buffy who said firmly to Giles: “Make sure he rests.”

Giles held the door open for them and waved them off then closed it with a sigh of relief. “I’ll stick around,” Angel explained. “I can’t leave until evening now anyway.”

After the door closed, Wesley said faintly: “Did something…happen, while I was affected by the amulet that you’re not telling me about?”

Giles cleared his throat. “I told you, Wesley. You were unwell. Everyone took a turn in taking care of you. It’s going to take Buffy a while to adjust to you not…needing her care. You may have to be patient for a few days.” He held Wesley’s gaze. “And there are worse things than being fussed over, aren’t there?”

Wesley looked down at his teddy bear and then back at Giles, flushing a little as he said, “Yes, yes there are…”

Giles nodded. “Right then, perhaps another cup of tea and then we can get on with some research…?”

***

Wesley wasn’t sure that he was in the right dimension. He had read of such things, people slipping from their world to another one; and that was starting to seem like a reasonable explanation. Everything was the same and yet…different. Particularly Mr Giles. Ever since Wesley had arrived in Sunnydale, with his research notes in his head, a smile on his face, and his hand held out to shake theirs, Buffy, Faith, their ex-Watcher, and all of their friends – with the exception of the lovely Miss Chase – had done nothing but rebuff him, ignore him, insult him, and dismiss him. He had never been so achingly lonely in his life.

He had told himself that they would get used to him. Things would improve. This was a temporary setback. He’d never made friends easily, at school or out of it, but people had usually come to accept his worth after a while. But it had become increasingly obvious that dismissing and despising him was a habit these Sunnydale people had no intention of breaking. Buffy was always going to roll her eyes at everything he said, or shrug, or look through him to Giles, and Giles was going to make waspish hurtful little remarks that made Wesley snap back in spite or temper that just dragged him down to their level.

He had been the most hurt by Giles’ attitude. The man was an Englishman and a Watcher and his own diaries made it clear that he had found Buffy difficult at first as well, but there had been not a trace of simpatico in his attitude towards Wesley. Wesley had been treated as the irritating young interloper who dared to challenge the present incumbent, even though it was hardly his fault if Giles had got himself fired.

Every day had been something to be endured. Trying not to snap back when put down; trying to get his point across when no one wanted to hear it; trying to find a way to impress people with his authority and taking refuge in mimicking his father and tutors in a desperate attempt to convince people that something he said might be worth listening to. He had been at best…tolerated; at worst…snubbed, ignored, dismissed. It had been the nightmare from which he simply couldn’t wake up. The frustration of knowing that he did actually have something to contribute and being instead sent on errands by a irritable teenager; feeling every time he opened his mouth that he had thirty seconds precisely before Buffy’s eyes glazed over or she said something snide to him or someone interrupted. He had felt as if every single day he was being forced to retake an exam he had already passed.

And then there had been the amulet. Nursing his aching ribcage as he climbed painfully out of his suit, hung it up as he had always been taught, so that there would be no creases in the morning, and then getting into bed, wincing as the pain in his back and ribs stabbed at him, and only remembering at the last minute that he still hadn’t looked at that damned package he had confiscated from Mr Giles. He had been a little nervous, not of the package itself, but of the reaction. Buffy would make him pay for putting Giles down, and Giles would make him pay as well; more belittlings and dismissals in front of as many people as possible; every day feeling as if he was being handed the dunce’s cap and told to go and stand in the corner.

Groaning at the prospect, he tore open the envelope and shook out what it contained. At first he’d mistaken it for a horse brass; wondering if someone had sent it to Giles as an in-joke and reminder of nights spent in smoky pubs. Even the thought of being back in England, playing darts while sipping a pint of real beer had made Wesley ache anew with homesickness. He picked the amulet up and tried to read the writing around the rim. As he did so, it had warmed as it touched his skin, and he’d realized it was the first thing that had touched him since he arrived here. No, that wasn’t quite true. Giles had touched him when he shoved him out of harm’s way after that debacle over Balthazar. Wesley cringed at the memory of it; the confusion of being captured, threatened, facing imminent death, his own abject cowardice, and then that tall young man whom he had guessed must be Buffy’s boyfriend had strode in and revealed himself to be a vampire. He had still been reeling from that when Giles had started acting like Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Wesley had found himself shoved to safety as if he were no more useful than a B-movie damsel in distress. He had been thinking of that as the amulet began to glow. He had still been staring at in confusion before it occurred to him that dropping it might be a very good idea.

Then…white light. He thought there had been a light. And then…nothing. Nothing until he had woken up in Rupert Giles’ spare bedroom, naked and extremely confused.

But now everything was subtly different. There had been that bizarre breakfast where all of the ‘Scoobies’ arrived, apparently to see how he, Wesley, was feeling. He had been included in decisions instead of scorned and dismissed. People had actually asked for his opinion on things. Buffy had been as bossy as ever, but it had been a protective, nurturing kind of bossiness rather than the usual impatient dislike from her. And now there was Giles and the vampire-who-was-not-now-Angelus being patient and considerate towards him.

“I suggest, Wesley, that we try to cover ground a little more quickly by extending out research. I’ve got some Fallorian texts on order – I understand you can translate Fallorian?”

“Yes, Mr Giles.” Wesley wondered how Giles knew that.

“It was in your paperwork,” Giles explained. “It’s not a language I really know. If you’re agreeable, I was thinking that I would stick to these mediaeval German, French and Turkish texts, that seem to have reference to unusual demonic activity and you take the Hebrew, Sumerian and – when it arrives – Fallorian.”

“Also, I could use some help with this Gehsundi,” Angel put in. “I read some of it but I’m getting bogged down with the tenses. If it’s saying ‘net-an di’urak kelkash’ is that ‘demons of the pure blood’ or ‘blood of the pure demons’?”

“Can I see?” As Angel went to fetch the parchment, Wesley nodded to Giles. “That sounds like a sensible division of labour, Mr Giles. Do you have some particular texts in mind? And my Fallorian is a little bit rusty but I’ll certainly do my best. Have you found a reference to a Fallorian account of an ascension?”

“To pure demonic forms and an ascension. And there seem to be several references to both of those things. Do you know the Fallorian Ak-Nethyanak-An?”

Wesley was relieved. “Oh yes, it’s the text I was asked to analyse for my finals. It’s a fascinating account of the earliest demons and their attempts to hold onto their purity as the ‘plague carriers’ arrived. We’re the ‘plague carriers’, of course. It does give one a sense of perspective to read a text in which one’s own race play the role of rattus rattus.”

“Well, it should be here tomorrow.”

Wesley thought about the cost of such a volume. “Why don’t you let me pay for it? I can charge it to the Council as an essential expense? And you’re only getting it for Council work, after all.”

They haggled for a little while until Giles agreed. As they were discussing it, Wesley caught sight of the man’s post. Giles credit card bill was frighteningly high and the majority of it seemed to have been spent in Toys’n’Games Inc. Giles followed his gaze. “My nephew’s visit,” he explained.

Wesley tried to imagine someone spending that amount of money on one child, and his mind just baulked at it. “You must be very…fond of him…?” he offered tentatively.

“Yes, I am.”

Giles looked so tense that Wesley was afraid to say anything else but tried to keep the man’s mind on cheerful things. “Well, he must have had an absolutely smashing time with all those toys to play with. I’m sure you’re his favourite uncle.”

Giles kept gazing fixedly into his teacup and Wesley had a horrible feeling he’d just said something crass. He expected the man to snap at him any minute and tell him to be quiet and not to talk about things he didn’t understand, and almost flinched in anticipation. But when Giles looked at him his gaze was kind and sad at the same time. “He was – is a very lovable little boy and his father is very…strict. It was a chance to let him have some fun for a change. At home he is pretty much expected to study full time.”

Wesley certainly knew all about that. Hours of study in unheated bedrooms – everyone knew heating made little boys soft – until the brain just gave up and the deadline for when the work had to be handed in drew closer and closer. Work that was rarely satisfactory and when it was would be greeted only with a grunt or the most grudging ‘it’s acceptable, I suppose’. More often there would be criticism, scolding, punishment.

Giles said shortly: “His father is a most unreasonable man. My nephew is a very – sensitive, very intelligent, very hard-working and conscientious little boy, and as far as I can tell all he ever receives as a reward for all his hours of diligent study is criticism and punishment.”

Wesley flinched inside. That hit too close to home. He wished Giles would stop talking about his nephew. He didn’t want to think of another child out there right now enduring a childhood like his. “I suppose it’s a fitting preparation for life anyway,” he sighed. He caught sight of a plastic castle up on the sideboard and his eyes lit up. “Is that what you bought for him?”

“Yes.” Giles still looked depressed.

Wesley went over to examine the castle better and saw that it had a siege tower, not to mention a little portcullis that pulled up, a vast number of knights, many of them on horses. “Goodness, what a wonderful present.” Seeing Giles still looking depressed, he hurried to reassure him. “Mr Giles, my own father was – is – a strict sort of man, and I can assure you that if your nephew’s childhood was anything like mine then this would have been the most marvellous present for him.” He picked up one of the knights and dislodged a precariously balanced tower that slid off onto the floor. “Sorry,” he flinched. “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t think it’s broken.” He hastily picked up the tower and put it with the rest, backing away before he did any more damage.

“It’s fine, Wesley,” Giles said gently. “Thank you for what you said. I hope he had a nice time here.”

“I’m sure he had a wonderful time. Goodness…” Wesley caught sight of a pirate ship and remembered the size of that credit card bill. “You certainly bought him a lot of things.”

“His father doesn’t believe in toys.”

Wesley grimaced. “Yes, well, my father was just the same way. He thought they were frivolous. I did have some lead soldiers, which I was awfully fond of, although I was only allowed to play with them when I’d done all my lessons.” He noticed the dragon piled into the castle and looked at it with longing. This was exactly the kind of toy he would have loved to play with when a child. He had so enjoyed stories about knights and dragons and his father had always been so irritated with him for wasting him time on anything that wasn’t strictly to do with the schoolwork.

“I’m fully intending to play with all of those toys in his absence,” Giles observed, coming over to look at the castle with him. “I’ll have to invite Xander over to give myself an excuse.”

Wesley was surprised at Giles admitting to such frivolity in front of him but pleased as well; it was the kind of thing one would say to someone that one…liked. He tried to answer in turn. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly be averse… I mean, one could always say that it was a means of honing one’s skills as a strategist. To assist the Slayer in coming battles.” He had gone too far, he knew it. Now Giles would tell him that he certainly wasn’t going to let someone like Wesley play with his clearly much-loved nephew’s toys. He was almost afraid to look at Giles and see that scornful expression on his face. But Giles was smiling at him gently.

“That’s an excellent idea, Wesley. In fact, I think we should do that tonight. With the dragon standing in for the Mayor, obviously.”

“Here’s the Geshundi text.”

They both jumped as Angel thrust the parchment at them. Giles said in exasperation, “Could you whistle or something?”

“Not in tune,” Angel admitted. He looked at Wesley. “Can you translate this?”

Wesley looked at the text and then became aware of Giles and the vampire both looking at him fixedly and began to feel hot under the collar. He would mess up the translation, of course, and Mr Giles would sneer at him about it, tell him he was stupid and it was a mystery to him how such a foolish boy could ever have achieved those marks. He snatched a much-needed breath, reminding himself that Giles was not his father.

“Why don’t I go and put the kettle on?” Giles suggested. “I hate translating with someone breathing down my neck. Are there any texts that would help with the transliteration?”

Surprised, Wesley gave him a look of gratitude. “Do you have the Filimer Codex? Or the Kyndethian Mysteries?”

“I’ve got the Codex at home.” Angel looked outside. “I can get it this evening.”

“And the Mysteries are in the library,” Giles called from the kitchen. “Why don’t you leave the Geshundi until tomorrow and work on the Sumerian reference works today? I’ve got all of those here.”

“Whatever you think.” Wesley rolled up the Geshundi carefully and sat down at Giles’ table once more.

The man smiled at him as he handed him his tea and Wesley realized in shock that it was the first time anyone except Miss Chase had smiled at him before today since his arrival in Sunnydale. Except for Buffy’s mother. She had been a truly pleasant woman and the only other person to actually welcome him to the town. Giles certainly had not smiled at him until now.

“Some biscuits?” Giles offered. “I have some I hide from the children.”

Wesley found himself installed at Giles’ table with Giles on his right and Angel opposite him, the vampire sipping a mug of warmed blood from a bright pink mug, while he and Giles sipped English Breakfast tea and nibbled chocolate hob-nobs. Giles handed out pens and paper and then allocated texts for translation.

“You get the Mediaeval French, Angel.” Giles handed it over, took a musty German manuscript for himself and held out a book of Sumerian demon accounts to Wesley. “Or do you want to swap?”

“No, I like cuneiform.” Wesley took the book gratefully, glanced at the pictures and winced. “Of course, it would be nice if they ever displayed the texts the right way up.” Resignedly, he turned the book on its side and began to translate.

Wesley was surprised to find that two hours had gone by with nothing but offers of more tea and the pleasant sound of pen nibs on paper. Angel’s handwriting was neat but old fashioned; like something from the eighteen century – which, of course, the vampire was. Wesley was fascinated to see that although his accent had altered, and his choice in grooming and clothing had also evolved over time, his handwriting still had more than a hint of copperplate about it. Angel cricked his neck back into place at the end of his translation, distracting Wesley, who wondered if vampires got pulled muscles like lesser mortals, and then pushed it over to Wesley.

“I think this is about a sewer beast who fed on the poor and was probably either a vampire or a Hukandar demon. They’re calling it ‘pure’ because its intentions were purely evil, but I think it was just the worst thing that had ever happened to them in their village, not that spectacular on a global scale.”

Wesley read through the account and nodded. “It could even be a Telmutar. They could certainly carry children from their beds and I wouldn’t want to meet one on a dark night.” He noticed that Angel had done an illustration in the corner as he tried to make sense of their descriptions. “I didn’t know you could draw.”

Angel winced. “It’s a hobby I indulged in when evil as well as…now.”

“Still…” Wesley gazed at the picture, those few lines that had conjured that creature so well. “It must be wonderful to have a talent.”

Giles said: “Wesley, I’ve read your school reports and seen your marks, don’t tell me you don’t have a talent.”

Wesley grimaced. “Well, you know, good all rounder. Not really outstanding in any one field.”

Giles gazed at him levelly. “Is there some mark they give out these days that’s higher than an ‘A’ that I don’t know about?”

Wesley realized belatedly that the man was praising him and had to drop his gaze quickly, to hide that shocked smile of pleasure. He was afraid he might blush if he wasn’t careful. It was so long since anyone had given him the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head, he felt almost unready to deal with it. He had handed that final school report to his father and waited eagerly for the praise that surely must now be forthcoming. The man had read it through then grunted and said, “Well, I suppose you acquitted yourself reasonably well. You didn’t actually disgrace the family name for a change, and for that I suppose I should be grateful.” Wesley had had to tell himself very fiercely in his bedroom afterwards that it had been praise; even high praise; but the tears had still burned at his eyes.

Angel was smiling at him gently when he looked up. The vampire said: “I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”

Wesley gaped at him in shock and then realized what he meant and hastily shoved the paper at him. “The size of the demon described seems to invalidate the account, unfortunately. If this were accurate it would have been big enough to curl under an entire city.” He looked across at Giles. “It says that a great city was destroyed by the unfurling of a scaled beast of terrible size and hunger, and that those who were not killed by the falling buildings were devoured ‘in their thousands’.”

“Does this account predate the fall of Sodom?” Angel enquired.

“Well, if Sodom was Bab Edh-Dhra then that would be about 3100 BC which would be bang on target for its destruction to be recorded in Uruk contemporaneously. This is a later translation of an earlier text – probably more like the Early Dynastic period, possibly when Enmerbaragesi was king of Kish.” Wesley noticed that Giles was looking at him and wondered if he’d said something wrong. “Not that I’m an expert.”

Giles gazed at him curiously. “Did you take archaeology at university?”

“No. I just read around the subject a little. It’s impossible to study demonic texts without putting them in historical context.”

“And yet people do, all the time,” Giles observed. “I’ve had conversations with Ebley of the Council who clearly has no idea that the Aztecs weren’t contemporaries of the Olmec.”

“Well, Ebley is…” Wesley cleared his throat. “Um…what’s the polite word for ‘unbelievably stupid’ again?”

Giles grinned at him; a genuine grin from one equal to another, sharing a joke. “I think the Council usually uses ‘an expert in his own field’ although what Ebley’s field actually is remains to be seen.”

“What if the Sumerian account is accurate?” Angel put in.

Wesley thought about the carnage he had read and winced. “Um – that would mean that when a demon or half demon ‘ascends’ it becomes incredibly big and savage.”

Giles shrugged. “Well, if it does involve a rapid period of growth then it would logically make the creature very hungry.”

“When you change from human to demon you have a hunger that I can’t even begin to describe,” Angel admitted. “It feels as if every cell in your body is screaming for blood.”

“Well, such a transition probably does put a strain on what is in some ways still a human body,” Giles acknowledged. “A vampire that didn’t get to feed would probably be weakened – perhaps even permanently. Some studies suggest that the vampire’s first actions after it’s – reborn decide what kind of a vampire it becomes, strength and dominance wise.”

Wesley looked at Angel. “You ate as soon as you rose, didn’t you?”

“Ate and kept on eating,” Angel acknowledged. “So did Darla. She was quite wealthy, as I understand it, although not at all respectable, and as she didn’t have any family, there were a lot of people hanging around hoping to get her jewels. The Master made sure none of them got away and Darla dined in style.”

Giles passed over the translation he had done of the German text. “This is a brief account of people trembling in fear of the coming ‘ascension’ and then a report from a few days later of an entire town in the Schwarzwald being turned into a big hole in the ground. No bodies were found and no living people either. It was a town of perhaps two hundred and fifty people.”

Wesley tapped his fingers lightly on the table as he thought. “If it’s a physiological alteration that turns the one ‘ascending’ to a demon of great size and that demon has a hunger proportionate to its size and if a vampire, that is a half demon, and still of human size, needs to eat…?”

“Five people would be the minimum,” Angel shrugged. “Ten is more what you want. I think Darla ate about twenty-two. I didn’t stop until I ran out of villagers.”

“And both you and Darla became vampires of unusual strength and ferocity.” Wesley turned to Giles. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Giles shrugged. “That really depends on whether or not you’re thinking that if the Mayor ascends to a demon in its pure form and that demon is possibly going to be big enough to curl up under the ruins of Bab Edh-Dhra that it’s going to need to eat an awful lot of people.”

Wesley nodded. “Who will have to be gathered together in one place for him to eat.”

Angel grimaced. “Graduation Day. Everyone conveniently gathered in one place.”

“Teachers, parents, and children.” Giles snapped a biscuit in half. “That will probably make for a very good appetizer before he starts devouring the whole town.”

“We should call Buffy.” Wesley looked back at the account of the destruction of what could have been Sodom. Not an earthquake then, and not the wrath of God. An enormous demon with an overpowering hunger. “She needs to know what she’s up against.”

Angel held out his pyjamas. “Good idea.”

Giles just looked at Wesley who said defiantly: “I’m not afraid of a teenage girl.”

Angel tossed him the pyjamas. “She’ll be here at lunchtime. Do you want to spend half an hour talking about why you’re still dressed when she told you to wrap up warmly in your pyjamas or an hour talking about the ascension?”

Groaning, Wesley took the pyjamas and headed for the bathroom. “Really, Mr Giles, I do think you could have made her slightly less…abrasive company in your time as her Watcher.”

“You should have met her three years ago,” Giles assured him. “She’s a purring kitten these days by comparison.”

Sighing, Wesley began to pull of his clothes and pull on his pyjamas. It was a shock when he caught sight of himself in the mirror and realized that his hair was still quite disordered and that in his pyjamas and dressing gown he looked far younger than the age he had been trying to project since arriving here. He had worked very hard to come across as – he hoped – thirty-odd, rather than the twenty-six he actually was, especially as he had frequently been told with some scorn that no one would believe he was even twenty-six and it was a miracle he could ever get served in a pub.

Seeing his reflection – he looked like a skinny, dark-haired schoolboy in these pyjamas – his immediate impulse was to demand his suit and start combing his hair into that mature style he preferred, but then it occurred to him that perhaps the reason why Giles and Angel had been so kind to him today was because he had been…himself. Not pretending to be thirty, or insisting that they remembered he was the Council’s representative; just being the Wesley he was when he closed the door at night and was alone. Perhaps they could have been a great deal kinder to him in the past but perhaps he also had to take his share of the blame for the way they had responded to him. He seemed to have been in his pyjamas for the past week or so as he was in his – whatever it was, mystical coma-come-cold patient condition, and Buffy and the others seemed to have changed from scorning and ignoring him to fussing over him neurotically. It wasn’t that he particularly liked the neurotic fussing – he thought Buffy was slightly more frightening as a Matron from Hell than she was as the Slayer – but she had at least seemed to care whether he lived or died, and that was certainly new.

He pulled on his dressing gown, belted it, and went back into the living room to find Angel smirking at him.

“What?” he demanded.

The vampire handed him his teddy bear. “You look like Christopher Robin.”

“Oh, please.” Even to make a point he couldn’t toss Cuthbert aside. He was much too precious an ally and friend. Cuthbert was the only person to keep him company in all those lonely frightening hours locked up in the dark. He defiantly tucked the bear under his arm. “Christopher Robin was blond.”

He looked up to find Giles was also barely stifling a smile as he handed over another cup of tea. “Here you are, Wesley. Now, shall we tackle those Akkadian texts or would you prefer a reading from The House at Pooh Corner?”

Wesley made to make a retort and then saw the kindness in their eyes; the gentle mockery that came from a place of undisguised fondness. He had never known that before. His father had always scorned and belittled him. The boys at school had called him names and made fun of him in the hope that they could get him to cry or stop putting his hand up in class.

He took his seat at the table with great dignity, hesitated, and then sat Cuthbert on the table. “He’s good at Akkadian,” he said, half-admitting them to the world of his childish imagination, where Cuthbert had been wiser than Merlin and knew the answer to every single question in every single book.

Angel silently handed Cuthbert a pencil. “Good, we need all the help we can get.”

When Wesley bent back to his translation this time, he realized that he could probably make a start on the Geshundi even without those other reference books; he had been pretty good at sight-reading it in the past. Trying to do it quietly, he slipped the roll of parchment out of its holder and spread it out on the table beside him. Sure enough, the first few clusters of symbols were ones he recognized. Bending his head over it he began to translate, half aware that as he did so Angel and Giles were smiling at one another in a way that had everything to do with satisfaction and nothing at all to do with mockery.

***

Wesley had been intending to go back to his own flat for the night, but Buffy and the other ‘Scoobies’ – who had first paid a visit at lunchtime and then again about three minutes after school had ended – were so horrified by that suggestion that he had decided the better part of valour was giving in and staying with Mr. Giles. Before his illness, coma – he was still not quite sure which it had been – that would have been a fairly appalling prospect; Wesley expecting hours of being sniped at and dismissed and belittled; but now that was actually quite a pleasant way to spend an evening. Giles shooed them out at the end of the evening and then turned back to Wesley as if it were quite the treat for him to have Wesley to himself, rather than some hideous burden he had been lumbered with by fate.

“Brandy…?” Giles offered.

Wesley looked up in surprise. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

“If anyone asks can you tell them I gave it to you in hot milk for medicinal purposes?” Giles handed him the glass.

“Oh, absolutely.” Wesley sipped the warming spirit nervously. “Um – Mr Giles, I’m still a little confused as to what exactly…transpired while I was ill…?”

Giles sat down opposite him, glass in his hand. They weren’t brandy glasses – Wesley thought of the ones at home – they were just ordinary glasses; Wesley suspected that Giles had a somewhat schizophrenic attitude to the trappings of tradition; embracing the tweed while deliberately passing the port the wrong way after dinner, that sort of thing.

“Well, you were…ill, and we all took it turns to take care of you, and Buffy was with me when we found you and consequently has become a little over-protective, as you may have noticed. Just don’t ask her if you can go with her on patrol for a few days and everything should be fine.”

Wesley felt that was an answer and yet no answer but he didn’t really know how to ask the same question again without making it obvious. He cast around the room for more clues as to what had occurred but, with the exception of Cuthbert, there was no evidence of his visit at all, just the many many toys and games Giles had evidently purchased for his nephew. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet your nephew.”

“I’m sure he would have liked to meet you too.”

Giles always looked so sad when he talked about his nephew. Wesley was afraid that the child might have a terminal illness. That would explain the spoiling Giles seemed to have indulged in while the boy was staying with him.

“Is he…quite well…?”

“Yes, quite well. I just miss him. We all do. The children were very fond of him as well.”

“You must have had your hands full, taking care of him and me?”

Giles took a sip of his brandy. “It was fine, Wesley.”

But he could imagine the complexities of trying to amuse a small child while taking care of a coma patient upstairs. And how many bedrooms did this place have? Had he turned Giles out of his bed? Giles had still not uttered a word of reproach about Wesley touching the amulet in the first place. It made Wesley feel slightly sick inside to think about his father’s reaction if he had done such a thing, and inconvenienced the man in the process. Perhaps his father would have been worried about him – showed him some concern…? But somehow he doubted it.

“I must have been a great deal of trouble to you.”

Giles looked him directly in the eye. “You were no trouble at all, Wesley. It was a pleasure having you here.”

Wesley was touched by that and had to stare fixedly into his brandy for a moment before he rallied enough to say: “Well, at least I was quiet. And not reminding you that I was now the Council’s representative every five minutes.” He darted a quick look at Giles to see if that would be accepted in the spirit in which it was meant.

Giles gave a little smile. “Well, yes, that did make a nice change. My only real gripe with you is for having chosen the same kind of pyjamas as me. Buffy is now convinced that they’re Council Issue and that they hand them to us along with our toothbrushes and little tweed waistcoats when they send us off to be Watchers.”

“I do seem to recall a memo about ‘dressing in a manner appropriate to one’s position as the Council’s representative’. I always buy that brand of pyjamas, they’re the same as the ones I had when I was a child. I get them from Budd.”

Giles grimaced. “Ah yes, me too.”

Wesley looked at Giles’ tweed jacket. “Pooles?”

Giles looked down at it in some confusion. “Oh – yes, I…shopped elsewhere for a while but when I’d finished rebelling I realized that there is a reason why bespoke tailoring is still so popular.”

Wesley swirled the brandy around in the non brandy glass, wondering if it bothered Giles as much as it did him that it wasn’t in a brandy glass and how absurd that was; all these things dinned into him when he was a child about the correct way to dress and the correct way to behave, and how one always rose if a lady came into the room, and behind it all a nightmare array of demons. “Does it get easier…?”

“What?”

“Rebelling?”

Giles half-smiled. “I think the children would tell you that I have hardly rebelled at all.”

“And yet…” Wesley held up the glass.

Giles laughed. “Finally! Someone who recognises this as a rebellion. It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Decide no rules apply to you and you become Faith; decide all rules must be adhered to however arcane and you become…”

“Me.” Wesley took a sip of brandy, trying not to grip the glass too tightly as the alcohol heated his veins. “You become me.”

“My first rebellion was not exactly an edifying spectacle. And a few Watchers have gone rather spectacularly off the rails in the past.”

“Goodness, yes.” Wesley put down his brandy before he was tempted to gulp down the rest of it without savouring it. “Emerson.”

“Good Lord, Emerson.” Giles shook his head. “I’d forgotten him. Is he the one who became obsessed with the idea that to kill vampires one had to imbibe their strength?”

Wesley nodded. “Used to eat vampire brains to see if that gave him a greater understanding of them. Horrible, of course, as they must have been alive when he removed the brain or else he would have been eating a lot of dust sandwiches.” He shuddered. “You know… I always thought that was a grisly tale but when I think of Angel…”

“If it’s any consolation, Angelus did things equally revolting to his victims in his time.”

Wesley considered the point. “Let me see, a reminder that the Slayer’s boyfriend, and person we work with every day, used to eat his victims’ entrails while they were still trying to use them…oddly enough, I’m not consoled.”

Giles smiled. “I’ve always tried to downplay the ‘Angel as Buffy’s boyfriend’ part of the equation when making my reports to the Council.”

“Yes, I doubt Quentin Travers would be thrilled by the prospect of the Chosen One socializing with the Scourge of Europe. And yet…”

Giles waited for Wesley to finish. “Go on…?”

Wesley grimaced. “It’s just… Doesn’t the existence of Angel challenge so many of the beliefs that the Council are built upon? We train Slayers to kill vampires. We don’t socialize with vampires. The only good vampire is a dusted vampire… But if their souls can be restored…?”

“I try not to think about it…now, I mean. In the beginning, I thought about it a lot. But Angel’s circumstances were unique and because of his uniqueness there is no one with whom to compare him. Humans have souls and yet still do terrible things. The men who thought of the Final Solution all had souls. Is Angel on the side of good because of his soul alone or because of something that is in him? Would another vampire with a soul still be able to enjoy the kill? It’s remorse that prevents Angel from killing again. He admits the hunger is still with him. Perhaps another vampire might not be able to resist its call. Presumably even some serial killers feel spasms of guilt.”

“But he seems so…important. He was brought back from hell by a higher power. And an ancient evil deemed him of such danger to itself that it tried to persuade him to kill himself. Doesn’t that suggest that he has some task ahead of him which only he can perform?”

Giles blinked at that, clearly surprised by the suggestion which Wesley offered so diffidently. “The Ascension?”

“Or something beyond it. Something more important even than that. Have you ever tried researching apocalyptic scrolls to see if there are any references to someone who could perhaps be Angel?”

“The thought never occurred to me,” Giles observed.

Wesley felt awkward. “Oh well then… perhaps I’m just…”

“No, Wesley. I think you’re talking a great deal of sense.”

Wesley waited and the obvious rider didn’t come, confused he took another sip of brandy.

“What is it…?” Giles prompted.

“I was waiting for the ‘for once’.”

Giles half-winced, half-smiled. “Wesley, are you implying that I have been something of a…bitch since you arrived?”

Wesley half choked on his brandy and then couldn’t help smiling back. “I was going for ‘unhelpful’ and ‘critical’. But now you mention it ‘bitch’ pretty much covers it.” He held up a hand. “On the other hand I know that I’ve been an irritating prat.”

Giles held up the brandy glass. “In vino veritas?”

Wesley shook his head. “No, I’ll still recognize that when I’m sober. This place just…wasn’t really what I was expecting.”

“I can imagine. Actually, no, I can remember. It wasn’t what I was expecting either. The theory is so exciting, isn’t it? And the practise is so…painfully messy at times.”

“I was hoping for this…” Wesley waved a hand between them.

Giles frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“That we could be…colleagues.”

“Colleagues or friends?” Giles asked, quite gently.

Wesley looked into his brandy. “Friends would have been nice.”

“Well, let’s think of this as a new beginning, shall we?” Giles leaned across and clinked his glass against Wesley’s. “To friendship.”

Surprised and warmed more by the gesture than the brandy itself, Wesley smiled. “To friendship.”

***

Wesley had insisted on returning to work the next day. He had been too long away from the Library, he said, and needed to catch up on Council Business. Despite capitalizing the latter two words, he had managed to get through the speech without sounding overly pompous and had only twice smoothed down his tie and once fidgeted self-importantly. He had, unfortunately, insisted on wearing what Buffy called his Watcher Suit – in vain had Giles pointed out that he had never worn anything quite so stuffy while he was officially her Watcher – but Giles conceded that the young man could hardly be expected to give up all his armour overnight. It was also true, as Wesley had pointed out, that there were reference books in the library in which more information about the Ascension could be found.

There was something comforting about being back in the Library. Somehow, however often it was invaded by vampires and demons, it still felt safe. Giles wondered if it was the leather-and-paper scent of the books that he found so reassuring, or just the memories of so many times when they had researched here, finding the answers they sought in crackling parchment and the imprint of old woodcuts. Even here, of course, there were now memories of the child that Wesley had so briefly been. He knew they were all finding it strange to sit at this table and know that one of them had no memory of the child who had hidden beneath it, from punishment and from vampires.

Going into lessons, when Wesley was still both physically a little drained from his cold and mentally still grappling with their changed attitude to him and his ten days of missing time, and having to deal with being back at work, was naturally not to be thought of. He had been given no choice about whether or not he had research assistants, and his feeble attempt to suggest that they should perhaps attend their classes as usual had been forcefully overruled. Although Angel and Cordelia had gone their own way – Angel presumably to brood in the borrowed splendour of his mansion, and Cordelia to actually attend lessons – that still left a recuperating Wesley with Giles, Buffy, Willow, Xander and Oz to assist him with his research. Although Wesley had gazed after Cordelia in a manner reminiscent of a sick sheep, she had been keeping her distance from him; she had told Buffy it was because her nose was still red from her cold, but Giles suspected it had more to do with having to readjust to Wesley being an adult again. Xander had looked after the girl with some sympathy but still elected to remain with the researchers.

“Because not dying in a horrible slaughter is more of a priority with me than algebra right now,” he explained, reaching for a book on the demons of Northern Germany with only a slightly martyred air.

Wesley seemed to be more, rather than less, confused today, and was also clearly battling a doozy of a headache. He kept pressing his fingers to his forehead and then, when the ever watchful Buffy demanded anxiously if he had a fever, snatching them away in embarrassment. That had not really stopped her from pressing her palm to his head to check for herself, despite Giles giving her looks which had more than suggested she stopped doing so at once.

“Buffy, Wesley isn’t eight any more,” he whispered to her urgently as he persuaded her to help him make tea for everyone out of earshot of Wesley. “You can’t keep treating him as if he were a child.”

“You’re the one who said he wasn’t safe to be let out without a keeper,” she reminded him, rather unfairly he thought, as those were words he had uttered before Wesley’s recent metamorphosis.

“That was in the past,” he protested.

“You think he’s acquired some great new Grown Up skills being a child for ten days?”

“I’m just saying, think of the poor man’s dignity. You’ve got him jumpy as a cat on a hot plate. He’s afraid to sneeze in case you start wiping his nose for him and he has no idea why you’re suddenly so concerned for him. He keeps trying to remember what happened in his missing ten days, which just seems to be giving him a buzzing pain in his head, and all of you hovering around him like clucking hens isn’t exactly reassuring him.”

“I’m not clucking!”

Giles removed his glasses so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “Buffy, you poured the milk onto his cornflakes for the second morning running, made him drink a glass of orange juice he clearly didn’t want to keep up his Vitamin C levels, and you keep feeling his glands. He’s started to flinch whenever you come with five feet of him.”

That unfortunately only made her look woebegone. “I miss him.”

He didn’t need to ask who, of course. He missed him too. Painfully. He put his glasses back on, not meeting her eyes. “I know.”

“I keep wondering if I should have asked Ethan to try the other spell, after all.”

“There was only a one in five chance of it working. It could easily have killed him. That was never an option.” He had to say it firmly because he had been thinking exactly the same thing.

Buffy gazed across at Wesley, eyes wistful. “When he was a little boy, we could make things better for him. We could take him to the zoo, and tell him we’d keep him safe. And play games with him and feed him ice cream and make him happy, for the first time in his life, and build up his confidence.” Giles followed her gaze across to Wesley, who was trying to discreetly stifle a cough only to be met by Willow and Xander both reaching to proffer the box of tissues. Buffy sighed. “I don’t know how to help this Wesley.”

Giles said as gently as he could: “I would imagine that not treating him like a eight year old would probably help a little more with the self-confidence thing.”

“I wish he remembered,” Buffy said abruptly.

“It’s really better that he doesn’t. The poor man has enough issues as it is. The realization that we knew all about his childhood traumas would, I’m sure, in no way help him to be less self-conscious in our company.”

All the same, as Buffy sadly carried the tea back over to the table – heroically forebearing from feeling Wesley’s forehead even when he once again pressed a hand to his clearly aching head – Giles wondered how much it was doing for Wesley’s confidence to have all this mist in his mind where the last ten days should have been. Every now and then he would look around at them in confusion and Giles would see another set of questions playing on his lips. They remained unspoken though, but every now and then Wesley would give Giles a look as if pleading for enlightenment. Every time Giles had to force himself not to catch his eye and then feel thoroughly guilty about doing so. It was almost a relief when Wesley found a reference to an obscure German text, that was said to deal with the Ascension, and said that he had a friend in Berlin who might be able to help with that. On the grounds of him needing privacy to place his call, they had all retreated to Giles’s office where Xander set about chewing the skin of his thumbnail, and Willow and Buffy both gazed at Wesley anxiously.

Wesley was still disorientated, and, though doggedly holding a pen in one hand and a phone in the other as he wrote out whatever was being read to him by his friend in Berlin, was squinting painfully through what seemed to be a full strength headache.

“He looks so confused,” Willow said.

“He is confused,” Giles pointed out. “He has no memory of the last ten days and no one has furnished him with any but the most hazy explanation as to why he doesn’t remember them.”

“Which could be construed as a flaw in our strategy,” Oz observed to no one in particular.

Xander had stopped chewing the dead skin on his thumb and was now chewing less enthusiastically upon an apple. “It’s not my strategy. I’m still with the ‘let’s run away with him and never let the Council have him back’ strategy.”

Giles knew just how Wesley felt with that buzzing pain in his head on occasion. “Which could be considered behaviour more than somewhat open to misapprehension given that Wesley is now twenty-six.”

“He does seem to be having a slight case of total wig out.” Buffy gazed across at Wesley anxiously.

“Maybe we should just tell him what really happened?” Willow whispered.

Giles shook his head. “Without the memories to soften it, I think it would just sound like a terrible affront to his dignity. I think he’d be even more defensive than before.”

“So, here you are, boy.”

That whipcrack voice and the flinch and dropping of the phone from Wesley made them all look at each other in horror. A tall man with piercing blue eyes stood just inside the library doors, wearing a tweed suit.

“Father…?” With the last remnants of his presence of mind, Wesley snatched up the dropped phone and gasped: “Harry, I’ll call you back later. Must dash.” He barely had time to get the phone back on its cradle before his father’s voice was electrifying the atmosphere like lightning.

“I don’t appreciate being sent halfway around the world on a fool’s errand, just because you can’t do your job properly.”

Wesley gaped at him in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“You were supposed to make weekly reports. You didn’t. Nor did you answer your phone or respond to the messages left on it. So, I get sent here to try to clear up yet another of your messes.”

Wesley sprang to his feet clumsily, dropping his pen and knocking the book he had been cross-referencing with onto the floor, eliciting a sharp indrawn breath from his father. Wesley scrambled to pick it back up while gabbling rapidly: “Apparently I was in some kind of…mystical coma. Mr Giles wouldn’t have known about my weekly reports or I’m sure he would have notified someone. I don’t understand why the Council didn’t contact him instead of sending you.” He smoothed out the bent pages of the book and hastily placed it on the table in the library.

His father advanced on him ominously, the light of a lamp behind him sending his shadow ahead like a herald of woe. “The man was fired for incompetence. Why would the Council think of contacting him?”

Wesley snatched a breath. “Because he’s an experienced Watcher and probably the living expert on the Hellmouth.”

Wesley’s father looked him up and down. “Are you criticizing the Council?”

“No, sir.” Wesley looked horrified by the very idea. “Certainly not.”

“Because I would be singularly unamused by you first falling down in your duties, then forcing me to make a most uncomfortable plane journey to this part of the world, only to find that you have also turned renegade and need to be replaced.”

“Replaced?” Wesley squeaked in horror. “No, Father, I assure you that everything is…working smoothly here.”

“If you think for one moment that the fact you are my son would influence me in my assessment.”

“No, Father. I would never think that. Quite the opposite.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wesley looked completely deer in headlights. “N-nothing.” And Giles could see the little boy he had been so clearly in that instant that it was painful. He wanted to rush out and sweep that boy into his arms and punch Roger Wyndam-Pryce on the nose, and if Wesley had still been a child would have done so in an instant. He realized how much harder it was to deal with a situation where the damage had already been done two decades before.

“Well, do try to be more coherent, Wesley. You’ve barely said anything intelligent since I walked in here. But then you’ve barely said anything intelligent since you were born so I suppose that should come as no real shock. If you could act a little bit less like a drivelling idiot while I’m here though, I would appreciate it.”

In the stillness of the office, Buffy turned to Giles wide-eyed. “Giles, I have to.”

Xander had his arms folded. “And so say all of us.”

Giles rose to his feet, his gaze fixed on Roger Wyndam-Pryce. Wesley had already gone from standing upright to hunching and then getting snapped at for hunching and was now stake up his…spine upright but with his hands behind his back while clearly inwardly cringing. It was as if his body simultaneously wanted to be bolt upright as ordered and to slink as far as away as possible, and despite the fact he was a good few inches taller than his father, he was covering one hand with the other as if he at any moment expected to feel a ruler crack down on his knuckles. Giles thought of the little boy who had been so afraid to come out from under the table after he spilled his drink, but said automatically: “I absolutely forbid it.”

Buffy gave him a look of disbelief. “Giles…!”

Giles turned to her. “Absolutely forbid it, Buffy. This is the only father that Wesley is ever going to have. Alienating him further is not a plan that can possibly benefit Wesley, and if you tell him off for the way he treated his son when was a child he will assume that Wesley has told you about it. As Wesley’s never said a word to us about his father or his upbringing that would be very unfair on him.”

“I wasn’t going to tell him off,” she muttered sulkily. “I was just going to…hit him.”

“Well, I forbid that too.”

Xander glared at Giles. “So, he gets away with it? He’s allowed to treat his kid like that for all those years and no one says anything to him about it…?”

“Explain to me how you think telling Roger Wyndam-Pryce what you think of him will help Wesley?”

“Well, it might make him think twice before he….” Xander broke off. “Okay, I’m presuming he doesn’t still lock him under the stairs or send him to bed without supper but it might make him…”

“What?” Giles demanded. “Love him? Praise him? Tell him that he matters to him? Those things can’t be ordered as a right, they just are – or they’re not.”

Willow sat on Giles’s desk and slumped in defeat. “He was so mean to that little boy for all those years and he’s just out there and I want to tell him what I think of him so much…” She subsided, unclenching her fists. “But I don’t want to make things worse for Wesley.”

Oz said, “It’s only a week until the full moon.” He inclined his head in the direction of the book cage. “Sometimes padlocks come undone….”

Giles restrained a smile that had no right being on his face. “Oz, I don’t think you want a human death on your conscience, and I also suspect that, as snacks go, Roger Wyndam-Pryce would be somewhat stringy. I imagine you’d be picking him out of your teeth for days.”

“For God’s sake, boy! What do you mean you ‘think’ you know when the ascension is going to take place? You either do or your don’t!”

They all grimaced as Roger Wyndam-Pryce’s voice sounded like the crack of a whip.

By comparison Wesley sounded defensive and beaten for all his attempts at resistance: “We have reason to believe that the Mayor is going to need an amount of sustenance that the day of the students’ graduation will supply.”

“Who is this ‘we’ you’re speaking of? Are you the Watcher here or not?”

Wesley put a hand up to his head. “Yes, of course, I’m the Watcher here, but I only arrived a few weeks ago. There’s a difference between theory and practise, and Mr Giles and I...”

“Rupert Giles was fired for gross incompetence. His input is of no value or interest in this matter. Are you letting him ride roughshod over you?”

Giles thought how ironic it was that the reason why Wesley would have allowed Giles to ‘ride roughshod’ over him, if that were indeed what he had been doing, was the one asking that question.

Wesley quivered under the force of his father’s disapproval and said unconvincingly: “No, Father, of course not, but as Giles has been on the Hellmouth for so much longer than I have and has an extensive research library he has been lending me his resources to help research the coming Ascension. I only meant that I’m not the only one to think that it will be on the students’ Graduation Day, he concurs with my conclusions and so does Angel….”

Even as he said the word, Wesley’s slight cringe and pallor confirmed that he knew he had made a mistake.

His father stepped in closer and Wesley wilted until their eyes were level. “You’re consulting with Angelus…?”

“He’sawarriorforgoodnow….”

“Don’t mumble at me, boy! And stand up straight.”

Wesley did so, jolting his spine back into the upright position after his knees had so clearly wanted to sink through the floor. “I was only saying that someone with his centuries’ of experience who has proven himself as…”

“As a mass-murdering serial killer?” Roger Wyndam-Pryce turned and walked away, visibly trying to keep control. “Wesley, you are sorely trying my patience here. Are you standing there and telling me that you’re in the habit of consulting with the disgraced colleague you were sent here to replace and the most notorious vampire to ever walk the earth?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, I am, but that’s not who they are. It’s not as simple when you’re here. Buffy is a Slayer of unusual aptitude in no small part because of Giles’s training and Angel is...”

His father wheeled on him. “I ask you again, are you criticizing the Council?”

“Just say yes, Wesley,” Buffy murmured. “Just tell him that the Council are a bunch of stuffy pompous know-nothings who…”

“No, sir.” Wesley bowed his head. “Certainly not.”

“You have to learn to take responsibility for your own decisions.”

Wesley snatched a breath and seemed to rally a little, the injustice evidently stinging him. “I do – I am, but there are hundreds of lives at stake and I’m not prepared to risk them just for the sake of following Council protocol to the letter. I’m willing to take any help I can get from any source if I think it will ultimately…”

Roger Wyndam-Pryce was looked at the piles of books on the table. “Exactly how many ‘sources’ are you seeking help from, Wesley?”

Wesley looked defeated before he even started. “I know that the Council advocates that the Slayer’s role should be kept a secret but by the time I arrived here Buffy had already decided that she would function better with a close-knit group of friends aware of her calling and although it’s not something I would have advised it does seem to have been largely beneficial to not only Buffy herself but the people of Sunnydale as a…”

“A Slayer’s job is not to strategize, Wesley. A Slayer’s job is to Slay. You are the brains, she is the muscle. That is how it works best. You’re not here to be her friend or her mentor or her confidante or to pat her on the head and tell her how clever she is for breaking protocol and ignoring Council orders. She does what you tell her, she doesn’t tell you.”

Wesley’s fingers were twisting uncomfortably behind his back now as he attempted to go on standing up straight while his natural impulse seemed to be to lean away, like a birch in a high wind, from where the criticism was coming with such stinging force. “With all due respect, Father, Buffy is a person not an automaton. The Watchers’ Council provide us all with a wonderful grounding in theory, but, when it comes to the practise, surely a good strategist is able to improvise and compromise to achieve the best results for all…”

His father threw his arms up into the air, the contempt radiating from him: “You mean spinelessly give in to every whim of a capricious teenager who has already ruined the career of one Watcher.”

“I hardly think it should be considered a crime to care whether or not these young women live or die in the execution of their duty. Of course, one accepts that the life of the Slayer must be risked and on occasion sacrificed – without being prepared to do that there is nothing between the innocents and the demons – but the fact remains that…”

Giles sighed, murmuring: “Don’t just waffle at him, Wesley. Make your arguments concisely and with some conviction.”

“What difference would it make if he did?” Xander countered. “Do you really think that guy’s going to start listening to him now.”

Buffy nodded. “Xander’s right. As far as Torquefather’s concerned, Wesley’s still that scared little kid he used to lock under the stairs.”

“How many times have I told you that it’s the cause that matters? It’s doing what is right, whatever it may cost. These young women are the front line, and like all foot soldiers they are expendable – and replaceable. They are born with the ability to kill vampires in the way that a wolf is born with the ability to tear down a deer.”

“They’re not wild animals. They’re human beings who have been placed in an invidious position by the machination of fate. They have a destiny that condemns them to a life of secrecy and the rest of us owe them at the very least the courtesy of…”

“Are you raising your voice to me, boy?”

For one glorious moment, Giles thought that Wesley might tell the old bastard that he not only was but would continue to do so, not to mention reminding him which one of them here had been chosen as the Watcher to an active Slayer and how it wasn’t Roger Wyndam-Pryce. But, of course, that was a fantasy that lasted only as Wesley drew himself up as if to strike back and then deflated like a pricked balloon, dropping his gaze and slumping his shoulders as he said meekly: “No, Father.”

Xander groaned. “You know, Wes, there comes a point when you really have to hit them back hard enough to make them realize you’re all grown up now and if they keep pushing you around you’re going to push back.”

Giles darted a glance at the boy. Normally he would have been appreciative of Xander showing such a sound psychological grasp of the situation but in this case, given all the many little notices he had been given over the last couple of years of how Xander’s parents neglected him, it made him distinctly uneasy. Given the way Willow was looking at the boy as if she were more than a little upset, he suspected his unease had good cause.

Buffy said abruptly: “I know how to handle this.”

Wincing, Giles tried to think of any way that Buffy was going to handle this that wouldn’t involve Roger Wyndam-Pryce leaving Sunnydale with a broken nose. A part of him certainly welcomed that scenario, but he knew he was right. A person got one set of parents; substitutes were sometimes a great comfort and could fill the empty space the lack of parental love had left; but if there was any way the bond between parent and child could be held together somehow, it was generally better for all parties. None of them could make Wesley’s father love him or be proud of him or give him a word of praise, but they could at least do their part to prevent the relationship from deteriorating further due to intervention of theirs. “Buffy, I rather doubt it.”

She turned on him. “It’s make-believe, isn’t it? That Watchers’ Council sit on their…rulebooks in England and expect the rest of us to play by them, and you and I have both tried to tell them that their rules don’t work in the field, and Wesley found that out for himself the hard way. There’s nothing that you or I – or Wesley – can say to convince his father that the Council’s wrong.”

Giles nodded. “Yes, with that I would have to agree.”

“And I think one more minute of his father and Wesley’s going to lose so much of his spinal cord we’re going to have to scoop him up from the floor in a jar.”

Grimacing, Giles nevertheless inclined his head. “With that I would also have to concur.”

“So, we play it their way.” Buffy smoothed down her jeans and walked out into the library. “Wesley…?”

He turned around, already looking a little greenish from close proximity with his father and not at all relieved to see her. “Ah, Buffy, would you mind…?”

She stood in front of him with a shoulders back precision that she had certainly never adopted in the past. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Wesley, but it’s time for our morning training session. Would you like me to wait for you in the training room or should I come back later?” Her voice was polite and respectful without being a parody of the parade ground.

Giles frowned. “How come she never talks to me like that?”

“It’s make-believe, Giles, remember?” Willow murmured.

“Well, she could make-believe for me on occasion, I wouldn’t mind.”

Wesley gaped at her and then hastily collected himself. “Um, well, Buffy…. My father….”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” Buffy held out a hand to Roger Wyndam-Pryce. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce. I’m Buffy Summers.”

“I’m sure my son was about to introduce us.” Roger gave Wesley a look of exasperation, and Giles realized that his annoyance with Wesley was entirely genuine. The young man clearly was a great disappointment to him. He wondered if he actually craved the moment when Wesley would stand up to him, and if so how ironic it was that he had doomed himself to disappointment by terrorising the boy so completely and at such a young age that he had absolutely guaranteed that the only child he was ever going to have could never be the son he evidently wanted. If that ironic equation had involved only Roger, Giles would have said the man had got exactly what he deserved, but Wesley hadn’t deserved to be the victim of Roger’s unsuccessful foray into parenting, and he was the one who had grown up waiting to hear the words of affection that had never come.

Buffy was being a combination of businesslike and demure that was disturbingly…unBuffy-like. She had lowered her voice and was gazing seriously at Wesley as she shook his father’s hand and answered his questions about their training regime if she had never had a frivolous thought in her life and pretty much lived to take his son’s orders and do as he suggested.

“Wesley thought I should work on my…preparation so I’m presuming that’s what we were going to do today, but of course if he has family visiting, I can work out by myself and then report to him later as usual for his instructions for the night’s patrol….”

“Obedient!Buffy is kind of creepy.” Xander adjusted his shirt. “Also kind of hot.”

Giles waited for Wesley to get that he wasn’t being set up for some particularly humiliating fall. The way Buffy kept gazing at him steadily, with that warm supportive expression finally seemed to clue him in, and he saw him give a jolt of emotion as he realized what she was doing for him. There was the tiniest tremor in his voice as he said: “Jolly good, Buffy. Perhaps we could focus on energy saving methods of despatch? Try out a scenario where you have to conserve your strength due to an injury and work together to find the shortest distance between two points as it were.” His voice was reasonably steady but his eyes were at once thanking her and pleading with her to let him just pretend that this was how things were between them for a little bit longer.

Buffy nodded solemnly. “Point A being me and Point B being dead vampire, yes?”

Wesley managed a nervous smile. “Exactly. We have been concentrating recently on scenarios that depend upon you being in full physical fitness and perhaps we should….”

“Oh, absolutely.” Buffy nodded again. “How about if I start doing a work out and then maybe put my right arm in a sling…?”

“Perfect, yes.” Wesley turned to his father with a straight back, his upper body movement still oddly constricted around the man, but at least with his shoulders back and a readiness to meet his gaze. “Father, would you mind excusing me for an hour? I would prefer not to disrupt Buffy’s routine if at all possible. With the Ascension coming up it’s particularly important that I give her all the assistance she deserves.”

Roger nodded at once. “Absolutely. Good to see the girl has such a focused attitude. I thought with first that hellraiser Giles and then you for her Watcher, she’d been running wild with no idea of discipline.”

Wesley stiffened. “Discipline isn’t the answer to everything, Father. Sometimes, it’s amazing what a little praise and basic respect can achieve.” He turned on his heel and his father watched him walk off in some surprise.

“Go, Wes,” Xander said quietly. He turned to Giles. “I’m totally taking credit for that. That was all down to the way I bought him an ice cream at the zoo.”

“An event of which he has no memory,” Giles reminded him. He was still watching Roger watch his son walk out of the room, thinking about his own emotions when he had nursed Wesley through that illness, those little moments of confidences shared, and the boy so trusting and so fragile. It was impossible to believe that there wasn’t somewhere some spark of affection for the boy in his father’s breast. Perhaps it was buried impossibly deep but surely it must exist? He turned to the others. “Would you mind clearing off for an hour or so. I want to talk to Wesley’s father and I can’t do that if there are witnesses.”

Willow’s eyes widened. “Oh, are you going to…?” She drew a finger across her throat. “Because I found this spell that would….” Seeing Giles expression she turned the end of her sentence into a cough. “Give him a sore throat and also a slight sniffle. And I think we should leave now.”

“Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do,” Oz observed.

Xander looked at him sideways. “Weren’t you planning to rip his throat out and splinter his bones at the next full moon?”

Oz shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“So, when you say things that you wouldn’t do, you were thinking…?”

“Well, I draw the line at ritual dismemberment. Apart from that – I’m easy.”

Willow slipped her hand through his. “But I like that about you, sweetie.”

“And we’re into the too much information place,” Xander grimaced.

“Wesley, are you…?”

They all froze in horror as Cordelia breezed into the room, wearing her hair pinned back neatly but a skirt that was definitely on the revealing side. She took in Roger with a steady gaze and then stepped forward. “Hello, I’m Cordelia Chase.”

He held out a hand, disapproving and yet unfailingly polite. “Roger Wyndam-Pryce.”

“Wyndam-Pryce?” Cordelia’s voice was unexpectedly cool and measured and Giles wondered just how much she had heard. “Are you Wesley’s father?”

“I am. Are you a…friend of his?” His tone dripped with disapproval.

Cordelia faced him levelly. “I’m a friend of Buffy’s. I don’t really know Wesley well enough to call him a friend, yet. He’s been working pretty hard trying to find a way to stop the Mayor eating all of us. I’d like to get to know him better, of course. I always do when someone saves my life.”

Roger hardly troubled to hide his cynicism: “My son saved your life?”

“Yes, I was being chased by a vampire and it cornered me. He got rid of it with some Holy water. I suppose that’s all in a day’s work for you Watchers, but this is the only life I have and I was grateful to be able to keep it. Does Wesley know you’re here or would you like me to try to find him for you?”

“He knows I’m here. He’s training with Buffy at the moment.”

“He does that a lot.” She nodded to him. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Please tell Wesley I was asking for him.”

Giles had often heard Cordelia mention that she wanted to be an actress, and thought that someone who had never learned to lie or even employ a modicum of tact would be at something of a disadvantage in that profession, but she had certainly carried off the attractive-student-with-a-crush-on-fearless-efficient-young-Watcher thing rather well. Apart from the fact that Wesley was neither fearless nor particularly efficient, she was probably playing no more than a toned down version of herself, but she had still done it with conviction.

Roger watched her go with a frown on his face and Giles took that opportunity to shoo away the others and go out to meet the man.

“I’m Rupert Giles.”

As the man spun around to glower at him, Giles kept his tone even and his face as neutral as he could get it. He kept seeing that little boy in his mind’s eye, crying as he gulped with fear at the thought of the punishment he believed he was about to receive, and clearly had always received in the past. But then he thought of adult Wesley squirming with misery under his father’s disapproving eye, and swallowed down the first half a dozen things he wanted to say. “Would you like a cup of tea while you’re waiting?”

For a moment he thought Roger was going to be an insufferable ass to the end, but the man surprised him. “English Breakfast?”

“Certainly.”

“Twinings?”

“Of course.” Giles didn’t have to pretend to be a little affronted.

“Made in the pot, I presume?”

“Naturally.” Giles led the way to his office – the one that he should at least try to pretend was now Wesley’s.

“Is that young woman setting her cap at my son?”

Giles pushed out a chair for him and switched on the kettle. “Cordelia? Yes, she is, with a conspicuous lack of success.”

Roger snorted. “He always was fairly idiotic around women.”

“Well, I doubt he’s met that many, given the institutions in which he was educated, but I think he just has his mind on the more pressing matter of trying to save a lot of people from dying at the moment. I imagine that Cordelia will eventually prevail. She’s a young woman of strong character.”

“Then she’d be wasted on him. The last thing Wesley has is a strong character.”

Giles had to bite his lip quite hard not to lash out with an instinctive: And whose fault is that? Instead he poured out the tea, handed Roger his cup and saucer and said conversationally: “I can’t say I agree with you on that. I’ve found him to be a young man with a very strong sense of duty. He takes his role here very seriously indeed.”

“Oh, he’s hard working enough. He just doesn’t have what it takes.” Roger sipped his tea aggrievedly. “And don’t think it doesn’t grieve me to say it, but I have a responsibility to the Council and I know my own son.”

“Do you?” Giles couldn’t prevent that edge creeping into his voice as he met the man’s gaze. “Do you really?”

Roger sat back in his chair. “Oh, I see, this is what this is. You think you know him? You’ve seen the real Wesley, the wonderful human being that I’ve never taken the time to get to know?”

“Is that what you think?” Giles countered. “That your son is someone you’ve never taken the time to get to know?”

“It’s probably what Wesley believes. The truth is I know him better than he knows himself, and he’s not cut out for this job, whatever his teachers at the academy may say.”

“You don’t want him to be a Watcher?”

“Of course I do,” Roger snapped back. “But I want him to be good at it, and he never will be. I’ve tried, God knows, I’ve tried, to turn him into the kind of man who has what it takes, and he doesn’t.”

“Well, thank goodness you were there to build up his self-confidence so that he’d be all the better fitted for the task in hand.” Giles hadn’t meant those words to snap out of him and he knew he should take a breath and a moment and then apologize, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Roger snorted. “Been whining to you, has he?”

Giles gritted his teeth. “Certainly not. Wesley hasn’t uttered a word about his upbringing, but it doesn’t take Freud to see that he’s known a great deal more criticism in his life than praise. Given the excellence of his reports from the Academy I would have expected him to be a little more confident of his undoubted abilities, but on every occasion when I’ve had reason to offer him even a ‘well done’ he’s looked quite astonished.” Even as he said it, Giles wished that there had been a few more of those ‘well done’s. His resentment of the interloper, which had felt so justified at the time, now seemed petty and unworthy of him.

“All this modern tomfoolery in education makes me tired. Boys don’t need praise, they need discipline and training. Do you think a vampire or a demon is going to give him a ‘well done’?” Roger sipped his tea and Giles noticed the scar on his hand. Roger had been bitten by a vampire there, Giles remembered, although the worst of his injuries had been in places now concealed by his many layers of tailored clothing. It had been an epic struggle, Roger had been badly injured, several ribs broken and his arm mauled, yet the man had hung onto consciousness through what must have been excruciating pain, and had managed to thrust a snapped branch into the vampire’s breast before staggering to his car, coughing blood as he did so from a rib through his lung, and had driven himself to the nearest hospital, managing to give his name and the number of the Council for which he worked, before passing out from pain and blood loss. A man of character, undoubtedly, and courage.

He thought of that fragile child, so physically insubstantial-looking, and needing glasses even at an early age, whereas Roger didn’t seem to need them even now. Roger had never seemed to lack confidence in his own opinion, forthright and unshakeable in his convictions, whereas Wesley’s belief could be overturned by a frown. Holding that thin child in his arms, feeling the wetness of his long lashes against his neck, Giles had thought of the man now sitting opposite him as a sadist; someone who had been cruel simply because he could, enjoying the power, like some scientist in a laboratory sending rats scuttling along tunnels in which they would find electric shocks instead of food. Now he wondered if Wesley had been an experiment in parenting gone horribly awry; attempts to make him secure in his opinions simply undermining his confidence to the point where he would dither when questioned and fall apart under scrutiny; attempts to cure him of his fears only begetting more nightmares that in turn begat more punishments. Giles had always presumed that one knew instinctively the way to get the best out of a child, but perhaps Roger simply hadn’t known, or had tried to raise his son as he had been raised, and the boy had been so unlike him that when he found his methods failing, had not known how else to proceed except with more discipline and exasperation; his increasing frustration building until he gave way to what he had perhaps never realized was tantamount to cruelty.

“You don’t even have children,” Roger added, and the irritation in his voice was at least a chink in his armour. Giles wondered if Roger was aware on some level that his son had not turned out as he wished because of rather than despite of his training, or if he was still refusing to accept any part of the blame.

“No, I don’t, and I certainly don’t mean to sound as if I’m sitting in judgement on you. I can imagine that raising a child for a specific profession can be emotionally very demanding. I know how I’ve felt on occasion when Buffy has been faced with….”

“So, we’re sharing now, are we?” Roger rolled his eyes. “You tell me about your problems as a surrogate parent, I tell you about mine as an actual one, and we end up sharing a bottle of single malt and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with mawkish sentimentality and dubious tunefulness?”

“I don’t actually know the words to ‘Auld Lang Syne’,” Giles admitted. “I wouldn’t say no to a single malt if you happen to have one with you though.”

“The fact is that the boy doesn’t have what it takes. God knows I wish it were different, but he’s not made of the…right stuff – to borrow a vulgar American phrase. I admit it’s not all the fault of his mother’s breeding. They’re not out of the top drawer but they’re sensible enough. No, it’s my mother’s side of the family where the weakness of character comes in. She had a brother who had to be sent home from the front with neurasthenia. Said the men he’d seen die were talking to him. Terrible shame to his family, of course.”

Giles said, in some annoyance: “A lot of very brave men suffered from shell shock, and, whatever we may face in the way of vampires and demons as an occupational hazard, I somehow doubt that even they can compete with the horror of the trenches.”

“There’s a lot of madness in that side of the family, and what is madness except an inability to deal with reality? People side-stepping uncomfortable truths by shuffling their way into insanity. I always thought my father was a fool to marry into the Oakeshott clan. He knew he had a duty to uphold and that meant choosing a wife carefully. My mother was a woman of no inconsiderable beauty but she was also flighty, nervous, and at times positively unstable. I was careful to marry into a family of sensible farming stock with several war heroes in its background. Not Watchers, of course – in the old days they would never have chosen a Watcher from any family that couldn’t trace itself back to the Norman Conquest – but good yeoman blood all the same. My wife is an admirable woman of little imagination, which was just what the family needed. But, knowing about the inherent instability from the Oakeshott blood, I was afraid those characteristics might come out in Wesley, and, although I did my best from the beginning to offset those tendencies, I know he has them. Had I been given a say in the matter, much as I long for him to make me proud of him, I would never have selected him as a Watcher, and certainly not yet. Whatever his reports may say, he’s quite simply unready for the task and he doesn’t have the strength of character to deal with crises or opposition. That girl will just ride roughshod over him.” Roger gave Giles a level stare. “Now, is that enough sharing or do you feel the urge to tell me about your first kiss or that your mother never loved you?”

Giles said quietly: “What is it that you want him to be that you don’t think he is? By what yardstick are you judging him to decide already that he can’t ever match up to your aspirations for him?”

“I know my son.” Roger took another sip of tea. “He’s never been good at making friends because other children can sense weakness and he’s riddled with it. When he’s picked on – as he always invariably is – he whines instead of standing up for himself, and has never yet learned how to deal with a bully. He’s half a coward and at times entirely a fool. He dithers when he needs to be decisive and he fumbles when he needs to be efficient. As a Watcher he’d make an excellent librarian.” His blue gaze flickered dismissively across Giles. “He’s quite efficient at cross-referencing.”

Giles had to look down so that Roger wouldn’t see his anger. He kept thinking of the weight and warmth of that child in his arms, so unused to praise or cuddles or tenderness, so grateful for all of those things, so desperate to please and to be no trouble and to be loved. He had been so eager for Giles’ approval and so touched when he received it; something he had evidently longed for yet so rarely received at home. “Couldn’t you have been a little kinder?” he asked quietly. “Just a little?”

Roger looked as if he had slapped him. His voice roughened. “You’ve been a Watcher to an active Slayer, man. You know what it involves. You know how much preparation is needed, how much strength of character a man needs to possess. If you were raising your son for such a role would it be kindness you felt he needed or discipline?”

“I like to think I could have found a place for both.”

“My father knew the importance of discipline. Our mother was wayward and sentimental, given to ridiculous flutterings of emotion. She spoiled my brother, insisting that, as my father had the raising of me, she should be allowed to do as she liked with Richard. Of course my father put his foot down – he saw the danger of her interference as anyone could, but he was probably less diligent than he should have been at keeping my brother out of her sphere of influence. He was sickly as a child and kept at home when he should have been away at school getting the corners knocked off him. But he was a brilliant scholar and a man of great courage. He should have been a great Watcher, but he never got the chance because our mother’s lack of discipline meant that he died before he was thirty.”

Giles thought of the photograph Wesley had in his possession. “Death isn’t always proof of failure. Sometimes it finds you however efficient you may be. And is that what you’re judging Wesley against? Some mythical Watcher who’s so good at his job that he never makes a mistake? Never dies? Is that what you’ve been measuring him against all this time? Trying to get him to match up to someone who’s never existed?”

“I have a responsibility to the Council. I tried to raise him to be good enough and I failed, and I regret it, but the fact remains that he isn’t good enough. You can’t be soft in this calling. You can’t indulge yourself. You made that mistake with your Slayer. They’re not a child in need of a father, they’re a weapon that needs to be honed in the service of mankind. Of course, if things were different, one would employ a different approach, but these are soldiers we’re training, you from your position and me from mine. One can’t indulge oneself with…”

“Basic human affection? Basic human kindness?”

“Sentimental twaddle doesn’t kill demons.”

“Perhaps sometimes it does. Perhaps sometimes what a young girl, who could be overwhelmed by the weight of her calling, or a young boy who has found out – at an age when most children are unaware even of their own mortality – that there are demons sharing the world that he inhabits, needs isn’t just discipline and training, but to know that she or he is loved.”

“A good Watcher doesn’t want his Slayer to be a substitute for the child he never had, he wants her to see her twenty-fifth birthday. Do you know how many members of my family have died at the hands of vampires and demons? I can’t remember the last Wyndam-Pryce who died in his bed. It was never an option to shower the boy with balloons and toy trainsets on his birthday. I could have made him my friend or I could have tried to keep him alive. My wife never understood it either but I would think that you, of all people would know….”

To Giles’ surprise, Roger abruptly shoved back his chair and walked away in agitation before saying more quietly: “I wanted to keep him alive! Is that too difficult a concept for you to grasp? Do you know how Lehane’s Watcher died?

“Yes.” Giles winced. “I do.”

“Would you want that to happen to a child of yours? There’s always a mistake that was made. One can make excuses for them, say they were in a difficult situation, they made the wrong choice, but the fact is that every Watcher who has ever died since the dawn of time has died because he or she made a mistake. They hadn’t read enough or studied hard enough. They weren’t prepared or they weren’t knowledgeable enough. I knew from the moment my son was born what his profession would be and the risks inherent to it. Only a fool would allow himself to…”

“Love a child that he may well outlive?”

“Let himself be blinded by sentiment.”

Giles rose to his feet. Sorry for the man and yet so much more sorry for the child who he had held in his arms a few days before. “Who were you really protecting, Roger? Wesley from the dangers out there that you knew he was going to face, or yourself from the pain of losing a child you loved?”

“That’s so much sentimental nonsense.”

“It’s natural to love your children, and it’s painful. And it hurts when they die. And trust me, I know.”

“You don’t know! Do you think that Slayer of yours is your own flesh and blood? Are you so deluded?”

“I know how it felt when I read the prophecy that said she was going to die.”

“And your judgement was clouded! We don’t have jobs, we have a calling. We have a duty and an obligation to others that can’t be muddied by sentiment. Wesley has a job to do. It was my duty to prepare him for it as best as I was able. It’s unfortunate for both of us that he has an inherent weakness of character that makes him unfitted to his calling. I’ve tried to overcome that weakness with training. Unfortunately, I seem be doomed to failure where he’s concerned.”

Giles shook his head in disbelief. “You know, it’s ironic, given all the courage you’ve shown over the years facing up to all manner of vampires and demons, that the son you dismiss as being so much less than you should have turned out to be so very much braver than you are. Unlike you, he’s not afraid to love.”

Roger curled his lip. “You’ve spent too long in California, Giles. You’re starting to sound like a Hallmark card.”

He was too close to the child Wesley had been; could still remember the weight of him in his arms, that thin body clinging to him. He knew that if he had been given the chance to raise that child that he would have made mistakes, as every parent did, but he would not have done to him what Roger Wyndam-Pryce had done; would not have crushed his confidence and eroded his courage until he was too riddled with insecurities to make a decision. He rose to his feet, on the point of telling Wesley’s father that he thought it was high time that he left, and then remembered that this was meant to be Wesley’s office now, and he should therefore be the one to go out and snatch in a few lungfuls of fresh air.

Clinging to his temper only barely he said tautly: “Well, if you’re in the mood for quotes, Pryce, here’s one from Austin O’Malley that seems to fit the bill: ‘Before you beat a child, be sure yourself are not the cause of the offense.’ ”

Giles walked out with what he hoped was considerable self-possession, but he knew it was hopeless. He had given getting through to the man his best shot, but Roger had invested too much time and too much of himself in his own manner of child rearing. He could not now turn around and admit that he had made mistakes, that he could perhaps have allowed himself to be loving and encouraging instead of distant and critical; that would undo too much of who he was, and the regret, perhaps, would be unbearable. Easier by far for him to continue to blame Wesley for Roger’s mistakes in child rearing, and never admit that any of the faults were his.

But as he stepped out into the sunlight, Giles realized that he didn’t care if Wesley’s dignity was affronted; his dignity would recover. What he wanted was for Wesley to remember that he had, after all, had a period of his childhood where no one had considered him a failure or a coward, and in which he had been loved by everyone who knew him. Perhaps it had only lasted for a few days, but nevertheless the experience had been Wesley’s own, won by him on his own merits, and perhaps if only he had remembered those days of ice cream and kite-flying it might have armed him a little, against those other memories of praise withheld and punishments inflicted. Perhaps, if only the spell had not vanished so completely, it might have given Wesley an aftermath of warmth inside to offset his father’s criticism. For the first time, Giles admitted to himself that he bitterly regretted that Wesley did not remember his second childhood in Sunnydale, and would never now know how it felt to be a child who was unconditionally loved.

***

Wesley always had the same reaction when he saw his father; he would immediately become clumsy and idiotic, tripping over his own feet, dropping anything he held, and talking absolute drivel, even supposing he could even get out anything approximating to human speech. Today had been no exception and he could feel himself still flushed with embarrassment. When his father was elsewhere – at home while Wesley was at school, or – even better – on the other side of the ocean, he could imagine himself making quiet, calm rebuttals to his accusations, pointing out where the man was being unreasonable with measured and unanswerable logic; but the reality was always this humiliating pantomime which left him squirming with self-loathing and wanting to slit his own wrists.

He knew that Giles and the children must have overheard at least some of it – and probably all of it. Just as he was thinking that perhaps they didn’t despise and dislike him, after all, his father had turned up to confirm them in their original assumption that he was cowardly and useless. No doubt they would revert to treating him like the gutless worm he was. He had given in to Balthazar and given in to his father, and no doubt he would continue to give in to any kind of intimidation for the rest of his life. Attempting to ward off bullies by pretending to be more confident than he actually was – one strategy that had occasionally worked in the past – had not served him well since prep school. It seemed that everyone over the age of thirteen had some instinct that told them at once that Wesley was, in fact, a complete wash out who could be intimidated by anyone over the height of four feet six.

He occasionally started to think about his good deeds – he had committed a few in his time – and to make the mistake of thinking he might not be that bad a person, after all. He had never cheated in a test, always studied harder than anyone else, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t occasionally helped out others as well. But there was something about him that just put people off. They seemed to possess some instinct that told them there was something a bit wrong with him; like wolves cutting out the injured deer from the herd. On the first day of a new term there was always that subtle testing of one another, and by some instinct that Wesley did not possess and yet other boys did, it became quickly apparent that Wesley was not someone anyone wanted as a friend.

Often in the past he had told himself that it had been his bad luck to have too many of the same boys who had made his life so miserable in prep school move up with him to boarding school, and influence the people who may otherwise have liked him into picking on him as well. The same thing had happened at the Academy, but they had been a small and somewhat incestuous circle in which everyone knew everyone else, and it seemed that there was no academic institution that he was ever going to attend where there wouldn’t be someone whose brother or sister or aunt or cousin had seen him fall off in the collecting ring of the Linton Gymkhana at the age of six and blub like a girl; or who knew one of the unsavoury nicknames which various bullies had forced him to thank them for bestowing upon him during some of the darkest periods of his life. It had felt as if he could never shake off a hundred little mistakes and moments of public humiliation as long as he was living on such a small and crowded island.

That was why coming to California had seemed in every way such a new beginning. The Council had given him its seal of approval. Certainly there had been some mutterings about his appointment, and his father had been less than complimentary about Quentin Travers’ mental capacity, but the fact remained that he had been appointed Watcher to two active Slayers, and had become the first Watcher on record to achieve such an honour. Such a shining achievement had felt like a clean slate handed to him with a bouquet. He was travelling to a place where no one knew him or anyone who knew him, armed with unanswerable credentials, and where people would have no reason to think him anything except confident and competent.

Despite a case of the needle so severe that he had been unable to eat any of the airline food and had twice thrown up in the toilets, Wesley had still been able to indulge himself in happy daydreams of Sunnydale in which his wealth of knowledge of demon dialects and characteristics was admired by all and everyone marvelled at his wisdom and courage.

The reality had been like the coldest of cold showers on a freezing February day. Despite doing his best to appear friendly and yet quietly authoritative, Buffy had taken against him within minutes and Faith dismissed him after one cursory glance. Giles, far from being an ally, or – better – already packed up and gone – had hung around the place like Banquo’s ghost, sneering at him dismissively. All of which might still have been survivable if Wesley had not ballsed things up so completely when a prisoner of Balthazar.

The memory of it could make him go hot with shame and then cold with self-loathing even on a good day; on a day like today he couldn’t prevent himself from physically flinching with embarrassment just at the thought of it. He stumbled into the gym, wondering how he could have been more of a jellyfish with Balthazar, and coming to the conclusion that without having his spine actually removed from his body it would be a physical impossibility. He was as worthless and useless as his father had always told him. He had let himself down when it mattered and for all his attempts since to impress Buffy with his authority all he had done was earn her undying enmity and scorn….

“Are you all right, Wesley…?”

It was a shock to find the girl looking at him, not with that nose-wrinkled expression of disdain on his face that he had been imagining, but with concerned and sympathetic eyes. Wesley realized that he had somehow made his way to the gym and was now meant to be involved in training Buffy; and furthermore, that far from scorning him or trying to humiliate him, Buffy had done her best to give his father the impression that she was treating him like her Watcher. The truth was, of course, that she had in the past treated him like a nuisance she didn’t want underfoot, and, more recently, like a somewhat sickly six year old, and never once like her Watcher. Nevertheless, he appreciated the gesture. In the midst of his cold sweat of shame and self-loathing it was a solitary spark of warmth.

“I’m quite well,” he said awkwardly; wanting to thank her for her intervention but knowing that if he did he would then feel ashamed all over again that he had needed rescuing by a teenage girl.

“I know I’ve been big with the fussage but you did have a temperature of a hundred and three and although the doctor said it was a cold, there are thirteen different kinds of demonic plague dust that cause similar symptoms.”

Wesley considered what he knew about demonic plagues – which was a great deal. “Actually, there aren’t anything like that amount.”

She snorted. “See, I could totally have got away with that with Xander.”

“Well, Xander, sensibly, did not spend his formative years studying demonology. I, however, was unfortunate enough to be given the kind of training that means I can state categorically that there are in fact only six demonic plague toxins that cause common-cold like symptoms, all of which are generally fatal within forty-eight hours. There would also have been a rash of some kind, and, in the case of the plague toxin carried by the – now thankfully extinct – Lesser Spotted Hornwort Demon of the East Indies – a rather noxious outbreak of pus.”

Buffy regarded him levelly. “Wes, if you do end up taking Cordelia out to dinner and you’re on the fence about whether or not to go with the pus talk – I’m voting with the ‘no’s.”

He waited for the full sting of that statement to hit him; the way if often had at school when someone had said something that on the surface didn’t seem more than mildly unkind but which, on further examination, turned out to be devastatingly cruel; and then realized in surprise that there had been no underlying nastiness at all. In fact it was the kind of thing she might have said to Giles. He caught up with what else she had said. “There was a doctor?”

She grimaced. “I overreacted a little. Well…a lot. But Giles overreacted too, and he’s older, so if anyone should have known it was just a cold and not meningitis, it was him.”

“I caught a cold while in a coma?”

“I think it was my fault, because I let you go out with wet hair.” She gazed over him as if checking for other signs of ill health. “We took you to the beach before it was dry, and, if it’s any consolation, the guilt was off all measurable scales.”

Wesley felt his head begin to hurt again. It had been doing that more and more over the past few days, a consequence of the mystical coma be presumed, a strange shifting sensation in his forehead followed by dagger points of light. It felt a little like something trying to tear itself loose. He could picture the beach for an instant, and hear the sound of the waves lapping as the sun sank behind the horizon line. “I don’t understand how you could take me to the beach if I was in a coma. Or why on earth you’d want to. Was there a wheelchair?”

Buffy was already edging away. “Gosh, is that the time? Shouldn’t we be working on that training?”

A glance at his watch confirmed that they were in indeed behind his mental schedule by an hour already. It was a schedule he had actually worked out on the plane flying over – in between bouts of stress vomiting – and there had never yet been a day when he had managed to persuade Buffy or Faith to in any way adhere to it, nevertheless it was a background tick in his mind and it bothered him to be late. “Of course. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

The training session actually went quite well. Buffy listened to his suggestions without rolling her eyes. She counter suggested a few things that, for once, weren’t actually about where he could stick a stake, and which gave him a lot more insight into the problems she usually faced. It had not really occurred to him until now, when she was standing in front of him and looked so much smaller than he was, what the reality was of a girl, albeit one with super human strength, having to fight on with painful injuries.

“Perhaps if I accompanied you on tonight’s patrol?” he suggested. Absurd, really, to be a Watcher and to never yet have seen a Slayer in action against a vampire under…well, uncontrolled circumstances.

But Buffy was looking at him in horror. “No, Wes, absolutely not.”

He felt aggrieved. “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous. You could get hurt.”

He felt hurt, not physically, certainly, but emotionally wounded. He had thought they were getting somewhere at last, and now this. “Buffy, you’ve been the first to tell me – well, the second, after Giles – that I don’t have enough experience in the field to know what I’m talking about, and then when I suggest getting some field experience….”

“I know.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, it’s just…. Well, my nerves aren’t really recovered yet. You need to give me a week to get out of Mom-mode and then I’ll be good with the accompanying. I’ll be cheerleading the accompanying, just…not yet.”

“I don’t understand where this exaggerated care for my wellbeing is coming from. It’s not as if….” But that sounded whiny. Nevertheless, it wasn’t as if anyone had cared overmuch about his welfare in the past. Angel and Giles had rescued him from Balthazar because that seemed to be what they did, and it was no more and no less than they would have done for any passing civilian. But Faith had hit him quite hard and with Slayer strength and Buffy’s concern had been all for the other girl, certainly not for him.

Buffy was looking positively stricken. “Do your ribs still hurt, Wesley?”

Something flickered in his mind, white light through the corner of a curtain, and then it was gone. But that voice, those words. No, just the one word. Buffy saying his name like…that, with all that warmth and concern. It was a shock to realize that no one ever said his name like that, as if they were saying the name of someone who…mattered.

“Wes?”

He had evidently been standing there like an idiot with his mouth open because Buffy was touching his arm anxiously. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He tried to collect his scattered thoughts, still chasing that fleeting, impossible memory, and then made the effort to get her into focus. When he looked at her face she looked different somehow, less like that scornful teenager who thought he was an idiot and persistently ignored all of his suggestions, more like someone who he liked…. More than liked, someone who made him feel safe. He blinked in confusion. “When I was ill…?”

“Yes…?” she prompted.

“Did you…take care of me?”

She looked – bizarrely – close to tears. “We all did. We all took care of you.”

It was too strange and too new to see someone looking like that as they gazed at him, and he hastily averted his eyes. He was almost certain that he and Buffy were not in any way flirting here, or doing something unseemly, but there was an intensity of connection between them for a moment with which he felt entirely unequipped to deal. He took off his glasses and began to clean them assiduously. “That must have been a bore for all of you. I’m sorry for being such a nuisance. Perhaps next time I should let Giles deal with his own packages?” He forced a bright smile that he hoped would diffuse whatever it was that was happening between them – just in case it was unseemly after all – and pushed his glasses back on.

But Buffy just kept gazing at him as if she were very close to tears. “You weren’t a nuisance. We liked taking care of you. We were sorry when….” She swallowed. “We’re glad you’re well again, of course, but we wouldn’t have minded if you’d…stayed the way you were either.”

“Well, I suppose I was quiet.” He wondered how he was supposed to respond to being told that people wouldn’t have minded him staying in a coma. Perhaps they had just been so glad not to have him underfoot that all the brow mopping had seemed a small price to pay. Seeing her expression, he felt an unexpected rush of sympathy for her. The poor girl really did look as is she was a hair’s breadth away from bursting into tears. “Buffy, is everything okay? Is your mother quite well?”

“Yes, she’s…. Oh, you’re meant to come to dinner sometime. She told me to ask you. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“Telling her that Giles was still my Watcher and that Snyder was a waste of a human life.”

“I don’t think I phrased it in quite those terms, but, you’re welcome.”

“So, will you come…? To dinner, I mean…?”

“Of course, and please do thank your mother very much for the invitation.” No doubt Mrs Summers was just being polite, but he felt warmed by her consideration. Someone had spared him a thought when he was not actually standing in front of them. That was a rare enough occurrence for him to want to savour the prospect. It was so lonely here in the evenings that even hanging around in the library cross-referencing was better than going home. Unfortunately, Giles tended to have the same idea, and then would become irritable about not having the place to himself, leaving Wesley to mooch miserably back to his rented flat. Even one evening marked on his calendar with something other than a blank was a huge relief. If Buffy would let him patrol with her a couple of times a week as well he might almost begin to feel slightly less out of place.

“Could we schedule an evening where I accompany you on patrol next week, do you think?” he suggested with what he was hoped was some authority.

Buffy looked unhappy but resigned. “Well, okay, but Angel needs to come, too, and Giles as well. Just to make sure nothing happens. I won’t let them talk during the slaying if you have to take notes, but I need them to be there so I know you’re safe.”

“Buffy, I really don’t think it’s necessary for a Watcher to be…watched over.”

“And how long had you been in Sunnydale before you got kidnapped by someone who wanted to use you to get to me?”

“I think actually he was using Giles to get to you and I was surplus to requirements….” In more ways than one, he thought, still wincing over his appalling performance. If his father ever found out about that his disgrace would be complete.

“Just look at Giles’ hospital records if you want to know what happens to Watchers if people don’t…watch over them. I can’t concentrate on my slaying if I’m worrying about you being kidnapped or tortured or sold to those demons with the fins who think that human intestines are all finger-lickin’ good and do that icky thing with the tuning fork.”

“It’s not a ‘tuning fork’ even if it does bear some small resemblance to one. It’s a paring knife, used to separate the sinews from…never mind. They’re called Deoflics, Buffy, and if Giles had actually got you to take some of the test papers which are conveniently located at the back of the Slayer’s Handbook you would know that, as you would the names of those ‘big scalies with the extra thumbs’ which are more usually referred to as ‘Egesan Gnarl Demons’ and not, as I believe you are currently calling the one inhabiting the Throxton Memorial Graveyard, ‘Shirley’.”

“Is it my fault that it looks like a ‘Shirley’?”

“In no way and I will even concede that I have in my time been known to refer to Montmyrian Sewerbeasts as ‘Nigels’, but it is still a good idea to know the correct names, habitats, characteristics and – above all – weak spots of the five dozen more common demons which are drawn to the Hellmouth, not only because Giles and I do indeed have no life – and thank you for the times you’ve pointed that out to us – but because knowing how to kill a huge slavering demon before it kills you has proven efficacious in the past as a method of extending Slayer longevity.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re just being pompous on purpose now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He nodded without shame. “I even practised in front of the bathroom mirror.”

That was a smile; and it wasn’t even a smile at him, but with him, from someone who was looking at him as if she liked him. Wesley might have worried that Buffy was following in the steps of the lovely Miss Chase, who did seem to have developed something of a…flirtatious interest in him, had it not been for his suspicion that even as she was smiling at him like that Buffy was having to work quite hard not to feel his forehead for fever or offer him a cookie.

“Don’t let your father push you around, will you?” Her eyes pleaded with him to stand up for himself but he knew it was hopeless. She hesitated in the doorway. “Remember, you’re the Watcher now, not him. And I bet he didn’t get an ‘A’ for mystical studies.”

“Actually he did.” Thoughts of his father plunged him back into gloom and he realized he was slumping despondently, hastily straightening back up before anyone saw.

“Is he going to stay a long time?”

He was grateful for her concern but he did wish that she had not realized quite so easily how things stood between his father and him. If only their meeting hadn’t been witnessed, he might have been able to bluff to Giles and the children that he and his father were on perfectly good terms.

“No. He’ll be eager to get away, I’m sure, probably within the hour. He doesn’t much care for California.” Or, indeed, for me.

But that didn’t need to be said aloud; not least because, judging by her expression, Buffy got that perfectly. And, of course, that way there was no chance of his father staying here for a few days, allowing Wesley to show him the sights, and the trip therefore being anything other than a complete nuisance undertaken only because of his son’s inadequacies. It might have turned into something that Roger found useful or – heaven forbid – enjoyed; worst of all, they might have had an actual conversation in which some affection was shown. That would never do. So, no, he knew what would happen. He would ask his father to stay, and would even suggest that his advice might be beneficial, and his father would tell him that a Watcher needed to stand on his own two feet, and make a point of catching the first flight back, just so that it would always be the case that Roger Wyndam-Pryce had been forced to take a long and tedious plane journey twice in one day just because of his son’s shattering incompetence.

Buffy was at the door before she paused and gazed at him for a moment, evidently an expert at reading glum faces. “You know what’s the best cure for parent-stress?”

“A time machine and a good abortion doctor?”

“Kite-flying. At night. On the beach. Works every time.”

Wesley blinked. “Is flying a kite you can’t see supposed to be some zen path to enlightenment?”

“No, it’s just fun.”

He had his mouth open to point out how absurd that was and how he couldn’t possibly do anything quite that foolish, when he realized that he really wanted to fly a kite on the beach at night. Even the thought of it made him feel calm and excited at once; the way he felt sometimes when he was given a task to do and forgot that people were watching him, and everything came right.

“I’ll tell Giles to pick you up at eight.”

Apparently Buffy was brooking no opposition where he was concerned and still inclined to treat him as if he were six. He opened his mouth to voice some token protest about not having agreed yet and not needing to be picked up like lost luggage, but while he was still marshalling his snappy comeback, he saw that she was gone and he was – once again – left doing a passable impression of a guppy.

***

Bidding farewell to his father had been just as unpleasant as Wesley feared. The man had once again reminded him of all his shortcomings, told him exactly why he should never have been selected to watch for even one Slayer, let alone two; observed that he had no doubt at all whose fault it was that Faith had gone so emphatically off the rails, and ended by hoping that he would not have to make any more tedious plane journeys on his son’s behalf.

“Particularly to continents where salespeople have the effrontery to wish that one should ‘Have a nice day’.”

Wesley thought about suggesting that, trite and insincere or not, it was still surely a more pleasant coda to a transaction than them, say, telling one to fuck off and die, but bit it down. He had been afraid of his father for too long to do more than mentally dabble with the possibility of not being afraid of him now; and even then that only worked when there was an ocean between them. Instead he said: “Yes, father” and not even with weary resignation, but as if he meant it; cringing a second later as he realized Giles was in the office and would have heard all of this exchange.

It was a relief when his father left, even though he took with him the possibility of them communicating as equals or Wesley receiving any praise or respect. At the moment he felt he would rather live without that hope than continue to have to manage with his father’s presence. But he felt like a wrung out dishrag and his knees felt so weak as his father slammed the door on their relationship for another year or five that he was afraid he was going to fall down.

Giles’s hand on his elbow was a shock and he almost pulled away until he realized how much he needed that steadying presence. “Why don’t you sit down, Wesley?” If the man had made it an order he would have snapped at him; but his tone was gentle and concerned. It was a surprise, once he had been helped to a chair, to look up and see the depth of compassion for him in Giles’s green eyes.

The shock of someone caring that much because his father had been unkind, on top of Buffy’s earlier kindness, was almost too much for him, and he felt the hot tears sting his eyes; hastily turning his head as he writhed inside at the thought of Giles seeing.

“Why don’t I get you a cup of tea?” Giles said tactfully, disappearing back into the office to give Wesley a chance to sort himself out.

He could see the notes he had made while talking to Harry. For a moment there, he had been getting somewhere; he had been thinking that he just needed this headache to go off and he might even feel efficient. At least Buffy and the others seemed to recognize that he was useful for research these days; that was a change from before. Before…. Before…what…? Had seeing him helpless made them like him more? But how did that explain his feeling of…affection for these people?

Earlier, Xander had gone to the vending machine and brought back a pile of snacks. Oz had opened a can of something fizzy for Wesley without thinking, while Xander had unwrapped a Snickers bar for him before he handed it over, as if he had done that before, which would have been strange in itself – as Xander had never done any such thing – if it had not felt familiar to Wesley as well. He most certainly did not sip fizzy drinks out of cans, nor need to have them opened for him by teenage werewolves, nor did he eat sugary snacks, and if he had he was perfectly capable of opening them for himself. And yet taking the things from them as they held them out felt as natural to him as it evidently felt to them to hand them over. As he had accepted the chocolate bar from the boy, there had been a moment where he seemed to slip out of time, where he felt as if he and Xander were wrapped in sunlight, sounds on the air of strange animals, the cry of unfamiliar birds, and that odd feeling of…lightness that it had taken him a moment to recognize was how it felt to feel…happy. He had stared at the boy in confusion until Xander had said gently: “Wes? You okay?”

He had snapped out of it, taken the chocolate bar, said, “Yes, of course”, darting an anxious look at Buffy as he did so – the girl had looked poised to feel his forehead again – but since when did Xander hand him chocolate bars? And since when did he call him ‘Wes’, and speak to him as gently as he spoke to Willow? None of it made any sense. Had they read to him while he was sleeping? Had there been television programmes on in the background? Had they become fond of him somehow just because he was…quiet? Because that was the oddest part of all, the way they looked at him as if they…liked him.

Wesley tried to think of a time when he had been surrounded by people who looked at him as if he mattered to them, as if it would upset them if he were unhappy, as if they cared. Absolutely nothing came to mind. Nothing before now.

“Here you are, Wesley.”

He jumped as Giles put a cup of tea down in front of him; feeling like an idiot as he realized he had entirely forgotten where he was. And there was that look again – from Giles this time – all that concern and warmth for him in those previously steely green eyes.

“Thank you.”

He lowered his head so Giles wouldn’t see how moved he was by even that, just a kind word, a kind look. What was the matter with him? Had he always been this feeble, or had his coma or cold left him in this condition? Or had he just never been faced with the difficulty of people offering him affection and concern before? He had certainly been this ludicrously over-sensitive and thin-skinned in the past, but he thought he’d grown out of it. That was what his father had said would happen, once he went away to boarding school; he would get the corners knocked off him and toughen up enough not to be quite such an embarrassment to his long-suffering parents. Wesley flinched from how much it still hurt – shouldn’t it have ceased to matter by now? His father didn’t like him or respect him; never had and apparently never would, as even now that he done everything the man asked of him, nothing had changed; what of it…? Perhaps it mattered so much because his father wasn’t the only one. Perhaps if that attitude hadn’t been replicated by almost everyone who had ever met him, then it might have been possible for Wesley to believe that his father was wrong, instead of sharing his opinion. Perhaps if only someone else had ever shown him how it was done, like a steadier horse showing a novice the right way over a new jump, then he could have followed their lead and found a way to like and respect himself.

Giles rested his hand on his shoulder, a very gentle squeeze coming, almost if he had followed his thought process. “You know, Buffy is right about the kite flying. It really is very therapeutic.”

“I just wanted to do a little more research.” Wesley wished his voice sounded stronger and less as if he were asking for permission. He looked up at Giles, and was afraid that, instead of looking efficient and in charge, he just looked like someone who had a sudden terrible need for his approval.

“Of course.” Giles’s smile was gentle. “I expect you’d like a little peace and quiet to finish your notes. All right if I pick you up at eight?”

It was kind of Giles to phrase it like a question when they surely both knew now that all it took to make Wesley fall into mindless submission was an order delivered with enough authority by any English male authority figure. “That would be super, thank you.” Wesley cringed at how schoolboyish he sounded, but, although there was now a twinkle in Giles’s eyes that acknowledged the boarding school nature of his vocabulary, it felt like a joke shared rather than at his expense.

“I’ll see you then.” Giles patted his shoulder again, and then left, a little reluctantly, and with a glance back at him from the doorway which Wesley was clearly not meant to notice, and wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been gazing after Giles, feeling his own entirely inappropriate sense of anxiety for the man. As Giles left the library, there was an actual little panic spike at the thought of Giles leaving him and going out to the car park. Good lord, was he now having inappropriateness with Giles as well as Buffy and Xander? What was the matter with him today? Why were these people suddenly mattering so much? Why did he even have this niggling fear in the back of his mind because it was so many hours since he had seen Angel? The vampire was perfectly capable of looking after himself. What harm did he think had come to him? And, if he were honest, what was it to him if harm came to the vampire or not? These people were barely nodding acquaintainces to him. They were on the same side in the fight against evil but apart from that they had not a single thing in common. They didn’t even like each other.

Except…now, they apparently did. He certainly felt as if he liked them, far more than made any sense, given the way they had treated him for most of his stay here. And they were acting as if they liked him, although he had no idea why.

As he bent back over his research notes, a sound that had been niggling at him all day, in the back of his mind, sounded again, and this time he realized what it was: a child’s laughter. Such a fleeting echo it had taken him this long to recognize it. A little boy laughing as he was tickled, Xander’s voice sounding a deeper note – for some reason Wesley was certain that he had been the one doing the tickling –, Buffy and Willow in the background, cooing as if over a fluffy kitten, Giles injecting a note of common sense; no words that he could recall, but the sounds were all there; the sense of a child being secure in a circle of attention, protection, and love. It must have been Giles’ nephew he had heard; somewhere in the deep sea of his coma, the sounds of that other life must have reached him. He found he was smiling a little painfully. No doubt the ‘Scoobies’, for all their faults, were kind to small children, and Giles’ nephew had enjoyed his stay with them. He only wished he had been awake to see it. As a child who had never got to play with dragons and pirate ships, it might have been fun to play them as an adult, and Giles’ nephew would have provided a convenient excuse, as well as it being a means to ensure that one little English boy enjoyed an experience that he had never known himself.

“Of course, you can’t ‘go to the zoo’! Who has been filling your head with such nonsense? Perhaps the ‘other children’ you are always referring to are capable of translating a very simple passage from Aramaic into English without so many shocking errors. Stand up straight, boy! Don’t slouch when I’m talking to you, and don’t sulk unless you want to go straight to bed without any supper….”

It felt too close. It always felt too close, perhaps, but this was different. Somehow his father coming to visit had reminded him too vividly of the way things had been when he was a child, as if all those miseries and humiliations had only happened weeks before, instead of years. All he had ever tried to do was what he was told, and care too much when he failed, and all it had accomplished was to make his father despise him for being a spineless cry-baby.

Despondently, he bent back over the research, a crack of light still scoring his brain, wishing vainly for some aspirin as his headache throbbed harder and harder, while that child’s far off laughter echoed in his mind.

***

Wesley was in a despondent daze from when Giles picked him up until they arrived at the beach, needing to be asked every question twice before he took it in. He was always like this after a visit from his father, reminding him, too late, of how foolish he had been to agree to a social occasion when in this kind of state. It always took a few days for the white hot licks of remembered humiliation to fade from their first painful lash. In time, they did eventually recede, albeit leaving a few more emotional scars in their wake, of course, and by then he might have been fit company even for a group of American schoolchildren.

But as he stepped onto the beach, Wesley realized that he had been here before. He could recall the salt on his tongue, the crunch of sand under his shoes, luring him to take them off and walk barefoot, the cry of the gulls overhead, snatching their last mouthfuls of food from the sea, the sense of the night wrapping itself around him as the sun sank far away on the horizon line. He remembered standing here and thinking that the only thing that could make the night more perfect would be if he saw the arching silhouette of a sea serpent before that sinking sun. And yet he was equally certain that he had never been here before in his life.

“Are you okay?”

He became aware of Buffy gazing at him anxiously. She seemed to do that a lot these days. Everyone was looking at him again, not just Buffy but also Angel, Xander, Willow, Oz and even the lovely Miss Chase, all with the same expression on their faces, as if they expected him to keel over or sprout horns any minute. It was very disconcerting.

“Fine.” He tried to find a smile, but the déjà vu was stronger than ever. Scents, sounds, the breeze ruffling his hair –

I think it was my fault, because I let you go out with wet hair…. We took you to the beach before it was dry….

He collected himself with an effort. That was why then. They had brought him here when he was in a coma. No doubt Giles’s nephew had wanted to come to the beach, and they had brought Wesley along, kind of them, in its own way, not to just leave him behind in his self-inflicted trance, and go and have fun without him. That was why this beach felt so familiar to him.

“Was it Giles’ nephew who wanted to fly a kite at night?” he asked.

There was that look in Xander’s eyes again. “He wanted Deadboy to see it. We painted it with glow-in-the-dark paint.”

“Oh…” And finally it made sense. Not an exercise thought up by Giles to learn awareness of objects in darkness, after all, as he had been assuming, and not just the ‘Scoobies’ being eccentric. They had been acceding to the whims of a younger child.

“Aren’t children generally afraid of vampires?”

And there must be something wrong with the child. Xander was looking so full of regrets as he said: “He was big with the Angel love.”

Wesley glanced around at all their faces and saw the way Oz put an arm around Willow’s shoulders, rubbing her arm gently, while she leaned her head on his shoulder as if seeking comfort. Cordelia turned her head away and he saw her reaching for a handkerchief. Angel looked as if he were brooding even more than usual, the breeze daring to lick at his perfectly gelled hair and making his coat flap in a way that was all too appropriate to a creature of the night. Buffy looked a breath away from crying; even Giles was cleaning his glasses with unnecessary concentration.

“Is he ill…?” Wesley asked breathlessly.

Buffy seemed to get his meaning. “Oh no…well, he had a cold, but he’s getting better now.”

“You all seem so….”

“He had to go away.” Buffy kept gazing at him with too much intensity. “And we miss him.”

Wesley thought of those toys in Giles’ flat; that echo of a child’s laughter that he kept hearing; those taut murmurs from Giles about the over-strictness of the little boy’s home-life. He felt a sudden sense of sadness at another boy having to go through a childhood like his. What would it have been like, in the midst of all those lessons and punishments and lectures, to spend ten days in the warm, chaotic company of these vivid, irreverent teenagers? Even if the home-life of Giles’ nephew was only half as austere as Wesley’s own had been, it must have been like sunlight after rain for that child. “I bet he misses you more,” he said.

“No one could,” Buffy said. Something that sounded very like a sniff came from Willow.

“Here.” Xander put a kite into his hands. It was in the shape of a Chinese dragon, and glowed white with phosphorescent paint. “It’s your turn.”

Wesley looked down at the kite in his hands. It was a complicated model that must have taken hours to put together. All that effort and the fun part – painting it in bright colours – had been sacrificed so that Angel could see it fly, even though it was hard to imagine that Angel would have cared. Yet as he glanced across at the vampire, he could only wonder why he was so sure that it had been worth it.

“You have to throw it high,” Xander persisted quietly, glancing across at Willow as he did so.

Knowing that it was bound to plummet ignominiously to the earth, Wesley nevertheless gathered the string into one hand and took the kite in the other, tossing it as high into the air as he could. He saw the green flicker of magic speed it on its way, snatching it up like a friendly breeze, and glanced across at Willow in shock, just in time to see her hastily shove her hands back down. He didn’t know whether to be amused or indignant that she considered him so emotionally fragile that he needed to be shielded from even the disappointment of a kite not flying first time, and found that he was too moved to leave room for any other emotion.

It was bizarre and troubling to have these semi-strangers suddenly wanting to smooth the path ahead of him all the time, to blindside his father and distract him from depression and now even to ensure that his kite flew first time. It couldn’t last, of course, sooner or later they were going to have to permit him to stand on his own two feet. But it warmed him inside that they were trying, all the same, even though it was absurd, even though he was a grown man who had tried so hard since he arrived here to convince them that he was someone whose authority they should respect…. As he carefully let out the kite string, letting it climb higher and higher, a glowing dragon dancing on a night breeze in the glitter-light of stars, he felt as new lightening in his mind and body. He realized he had been weighed down by too much armour since he arrived here; adding layer after layer after every setback or disappointment that did nothing but make him feel burdened and clumsy, and yet which was useless as tissue paper whenever anyone tried to penetrate it with an unkind word. He wondered how it would feel to just let it all go; to be what he truly was, unready, perhaps, and insecure, and not necessarily able to do this entirely by himself, and yet with knowledge and skills that could be useful if they would only allow him to be so.

And then the kite danced in front of the moon, the long tail of the dragon undulating across spits of cloud, and he knew that he had done this before; exactly this; but he had been sitting on Angel’s shoulders and he had been eight years old.

Stumbling back in confusion, more memories danced around him like friendly ghosts – the tug of the kite string as he held it and the wind caught up that glowing chinese dragon and tossed it amongst the clouds…. He let go of the string in shock. A gasp from Willow, an unsuccessful jump and snatch by Xander, and the kite was free. It spun up into the night sky, swept into skeins of cloud and starlight, a pale undulation growing smaller and smaller. He turned to Giles in confusion. “But, how…?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Wes…?”

Xander. He had been here, too. It was Xander who had put the kite together, who had painted the kite with that special paint so it would glow in the dark. It was Xander who had taken him to the zoo and bought him ice cream as well. No…. He shook his head, trying to shake free images that made no sense. He was taller than Xander, so it made no sense that in these memories he should always be looking up at him, Xander crouching down to talk to him, or picking him up….

“Wesley, are you okay? You’ve gone a funny colour….”

And then he remembered being in Buffy’s arms, the scent of her perfume the most comforting thing he had ever inhaled; a soft curl of hair caressing his cheek, her lips warm on the top of his head, not even aware that she was kissing him, she did it so often. Knowing he was safe as long as he was with her because she would never let any harm come to him.

“Give him some air. I think he’s feeling a little faint….”

And this time when he opened his eyes to find that Giles was still holding him steady even as there was a cluster of people around him, saying his name in concern, he clearly remembered Giles carrying him into the office in the school while he gulped and sobbed with fear, sitting him down on the desk and fetching him a chocolate biscuit from the drawer. Not scolding him even though he had spilled sticky fizzy cola all over important reference books, just handing him that biscuit, then fetching him tea and gazing at him with eyes full of sympathy.

The world spun away from him and even with Giles’s hands tightening on his shoulders he knew that he was falling now, and then there were arms around him and a quiet voice saying: “It’s okay, Wesley.”

Angel, the vampire with a soul; Buffy’s boyfriend; who he had first met in the Bronze when he hadn’t known his name…except that he had a clear memory of seeing him as a pair of feet a mirror would not reflect, a hand that he had splashed with holy water, and then a vampire changing from demonic face to human face as he jumped down from a table.

“I don’t understand,” he said desperately. Why could he remember events in which he could not possibly have participated? Why did he have the memories of Giles’s nephew?

He must have said it aloud because Giles’s expression changed, and suddenly everyone who had been firing questions at him fell silent. He looked at their faces, oddly pale in the twilight, and they looked different now, no longer looking like the children who hung out in the Library and refused to take him seriously, but adults who had taken care of him, who were older and stronger and wiser than he was. People who spent their money on clothes and food and treats and toys for him, and read to him, and played with him, and who had all risked their lives to keep him safe.

“Because you were my nephew, Wesley,” Giles said quietly. “Or rather, we told people that you were my nephew to explain why you were staying with me.”

And then all the memories came back at once and he rocked backwards, feeling his mind billowing like a sail in a storm. He would have fallen if Angel had not still been holding him up, the vampire’s broad chest against his back, but no breath against his neck, of course, as there would have been if it were Giles who held him. He knew how it felt to be held by Giles now, and Angel, and Buffy, and Xander, and Willow, and Oz, and even…Miss Chase, who it now felt more natural to call Cordelia.

He must have closed his eyes again, because when he opened them again, Buffy was standing in front of him, looking at him anxiously. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He remembered waking up in a dark unfamiliar room, in which he recognized nothing at all, and, when he called out, no one came. He had sat there, a frightened child, whimpering in confusion, until there had come that knock upon the door, strangers demanding that he answered so imperiously that he had not been able to disobey them. He remembered how his hands had shaken as he dragged a chair across the room with so much difficulty, fingers fumbling with the locks before he could open the door. That was when he had seen Buffy for the first time. Her eyes had been full of warmth and sympathy for him and her voice had been gentle. He could perfectly recall her crouching down to introduce herself to him; the way she had picked him up and carried him out of that scary unfamiliar room and how everything had at once felt less frightening because, wherever he was, there was someone to take care of him. He had known at once that he could trust her. “I was a child.” He didn’t understand how or why, and a part of him knew that it was impossible, but it was also true. “You took care of me.”

Buffy had tears rolling down her cheeks and he stared at them in fascination. Glittering in the moonlight, her teardrops looked like the jewels a princess in a fairy story might cry. He had known this girl for weeks now and this was the first time he had realized that she was beautiful. He had known that from the first moment he saw her when he was a child; he had known that she was kind too. In many ways he had apparently been wiser then. She didn’t seem to know she was crying; she wasn’t sniffing or wiping her eyes, just gazing at him with all that intensity and an ache in her voice that was only there for him: “Yes. We took care of you. We liked taking care of you.”

Giles said: “It was the amulet, Wesley. Ethan Rayne sent it.”

“Mr. Rayne?” And he hadn’t called him that for so many years. Watchers called the chaos mage ‘Rayne’ or on occasion ‘bloody Rayne’. One never admitted one had ever liked him, or thought his magic fun, or that he had never done one any harm and that one’s favourite uncle had always liked him.

“It was intended to make me…younger, but it made you a child.”

Willow was biting her lip anxiously. “You remember?”

And he did now. He seemed to remember everything, and he realized that his headache was gone. The memories, having succeeded in tearing themelves loose, were no longer hurting him. In fact they were filling him with a strange unfamiliar warmth. He and Willow had won a battle together; they had pretended to be enchanting the wood while all the time it was the dragon they were setting free. He wanted to gaze and gaze at her and tell her that her hair was the prettiest he had ever seen, and blush when she smiled at him and purr like a kitten when she picked him up and cuddled him.

Oz cleared his throat tactfully and he realized he must indeed have been gazing at her for a rather long time. He hastily averted his eyes. “Yes, I remember.”

“Don’t be sorry.” That was the lovely Miss Chase, who pushed past Buffy to look right into his eyes. “Don’t look as if you did something wrong. Please don’t wish it hadn’t happened.” And now she was crying as well and he had no idea how to respond to her; seeing her as at once a beautiful young woman he would like to have the courage to kiss and at the same time a friend in pyjamas with her dark hair loose, reading him a story as they sipped hot chocolate together.

“I’m not sorry.” It was a kaleidoscope of memories, playmobil archers firing their arrows into the air as the pirate ship swept into a bay of silver paper; a shopping trolley piled high with toys just for him; Cordelia combing his hair while Willow buttoned his shirt; Giles reading to him in a room where the night light was a moonlit galleon that kept all fears at bay. He had never been less sorry for any memories in his life. “Not at all sorry.”

“Oh….” And this time when Cordelia threw her arms around him it had nothing to do with wanting him to take her to dinner; even he, with his limited experience of women, could tell the difference. “I’m so glad.”

He felt the warmth of her body against his and found he had a billow of her vanilla-scented hair in his mouth. She seemed to realize she was being undignified and tossed her hair back quickly, stepping away and wiping the tears from her cheeks, giving him an embarrassed smile that made his heart do peculiar things. It was then, in the turmoil of that moment – when he realized that it had been her breasts that he had felt through the thin cotton of his shirt, and that her perfume smelt expensive and mingled perfectly with the conditioner she used – that he perceived, for the first time, quite apart from how much she made him feel overheated and confused and gave him a tingling sensation in his stomach, just how much he liked her.

“You really remember?” Buffy reached for his forehead automatically, and this time he let her, more grateful to her for every hug and cuddle and whispered assurance than he could ever say.

“Yes.” He realized they weren’t the only ones getting all choked up with emotion. They had been so kind to him. It was hitting him like the second wave of an incoming tide. It had been entirely his own fault that he had been turned into a child who needed their attention and protection, and they not uttered a single word of reproach. He turned to Giles, feeling absurdly young before the man, memories of him tucking him up in bed too fresh for him to quite meet his eye. Giles had been everything to him that his father never had; the man had gone in an instant from being a colleague who had saved his life under sufferance, to someone whose opinion mattered to him above all others. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We thought you might be…embarrassed.”

He found that he was laughing in a way that was possibly a little hysterical. “Embarrassed? To recall the only time I ever spent as a child when I truly remember being happy…?”

He broke off before he humiliated himself even further, and yet he did feel a sense of betrayal. He and Giles had become friends while the man had been ‘Uncle Giles’; they had shared confidences and established a relationship; one that he would never have known about if these precious memories had not torn themselves loose. Hadn’t Giles wanted him to remember? Had Giles wished they had never happened? The man was gazing at him as if there were a great many things he wanted to say, but Giles had to avert his eyes, take off his glasses and clean them quite assiduously before he could manage: “I’m glad you were happy, Wesley.”

“We would have kept you if we could.”

He turned to find Buffy gazing up at him with heart-rending intensity. “Willow and I were all for kidnapping you and telling your parents you were dead so we could keep you. But Giles wouldn’t let us.”

She looked so tragic that he felt some of his swirling feelings of confusion and betrayal coalesce into something that was definitely tinged with amusement. “I suspect that would have been a somewhat…impractical solution.”

“No, but we would have told people that Giles’ imaginary sister had died and he was now your legal guardian. Then we could have gone on taking care of you and kept you safe.” It was a clear that a part of the girl had not entirely given up the scheme.

He found that his smile was unable to be repressed now. He had always wondered how it felt to be a loved child – if that gave one a bank of warmth and confidence to carry a man through the difficult days, a certain resilience and elasticity before the worst things that life could throw at one, that he did not possess. Now, he realized that it must indeed be the case, because, armoured by memories of being wrapped in the embrace of people who undoubtedly loved him, he felt very different. “You do realize, Buffy, that I would certainly have sneaked out after you on a patrol before too long.”

Her gasp of horror was definitely amusing, no question about it. Wesley grimaced apologetically even as a part of him enjoyed himself. “And if you’d noticed me in time I would just have bided my time and followed Angel instead.”

The vampire looked equally aghast. “I would have picked up your scent.”

“Not if I kept downwind of you.”

Willow looked no less horrified than Buffy and pointed rapidly at Giles. “But, no, because we would have known and Giles would have used the Stern Voice.”

He remembered Giles scolding him, and how upsetting it had been; wanting the man’s approval and affection more than anything in the world, but, on the other hand, he had so very much wanted to see Buffy slay a vampire. He shrugged regretfully. “That wouldn’t have held me for ever. Look at the components under discussion – the chance to see a Slayer on a patrol – an eight year old boy – I’d give it a month of obedience at the most.”

They were all exchanging looks of horror. Xander said: “Window locks.”

“Some kind of magical wards,” Giles added thoughtfully.

“Some kind of location spell,” Willow added.

“What’s wrong with a leash?” Angel demanded.

He was definitely amused now. He cleared his throat. “It didn’t happen, remember? Nature intervened and restored me to adult size.”

Buffy said grimly: “Don’t think we’re just talking about the child version of you.”

Even an hour ago he would have been affronted, but now he just felt warmed by it. No wonder she had been fussing over him so absurdly; it was no reflection on his competence, after all, just residual concern for the little boy he had been. The little boy she had…loved.

“If you agree not to go on patrol with Buffy, I’ll buy you an ice cream,” Xander offered.

“Several ice creams,” Oz added.

“As a member of the Watcher’s Council, I don’t think I’m permitted to accept bribes.” He looked around at them again and it was like seeing them from two different perspectives at the same time, from his adult stance, and yet also as they had been when he came up to their waists and they put their own lives on hold to try to make his better. “I am, however, very grateful to you all for all you did for me….”

No, that way undoubtedly would lead to unmanly displays of emotion. He had to swallow hard because it mattered too much, not just to him, but to them; he could see it in their eyes, and more than that, he could remember how much he had mattered to them. And, bizarrely, the look in Angel’s brown eyes as he tucked him up in bed for the last time was not very different from the look in his eyes now. Wesley blinked hard and Giles put a handkerchief in his hand.

“Perhaps – pizza all round…?” Giles suggested a little diffidently. “At my house.”

In the melee of agreement from teenagers, and the scramble to decide who was travelling with whom, Wesley found himself gently eased away from the crowd. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him in an undertone.

He nodded. “Yes.” For some reason he still found it difficult to meet the man’s eyes and kept his head bowed even as he automatically walked back through the sand towards Giles’s car.

“I know this must be awkward for you.”

“It is rather.”

Giles grimaced, ducking his head to try to get a glimpse of Wesley’s face. “Is this because I gave you…a bath?”

Wesley jerked his head up in shock, astonished that the man could be so far off the mark. When Wesley had been a child, Giles would have known what was wrong. “No….” The betrayal he was feeling must have shown in his eyes because Giles stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?”

He couldn’t keep the hurt and accusation out of his voice. “Didn’t you want me to remember? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Giles stepped back as if Wesley had slapped him. “Of course I… I just thought you had enough to contend with without….” He sighed. “Buffy wanted to tell you. I thought you might be embarrassed. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you that wouldn’t…. Without your memories to soften it, I thought it would sound as if were making fun of you. It’s not as if you liked any of us very much, telling you that you’d spent a week being eight years old in the company of people who you had no reason to regard as friends….”

“What if I’d never remembered?”

“I’m sure Buffy would eventually have stopped trying to take your temperature every time you sneezed and life would have…gone on.”

He felt a little faint at the thought of never having remembered any of it; never understanding why they all looked so sad sometimes when they gazed at him, and why Oz unscrewed bottles and opened cans and Xander unwrapped chocolate bars for him. Why Buffy was so over-protective and why Cordelia had straightened his collar for him, not as one would with a man one found desirable, but a child one wanted to make presentable. He remembered her leading the vampires away from him and Willow, and Willow holding him so tightly in her arms until there was nothing to do but leave him alone if she was to have any hope of saving him. He could remember how she smelt, the taste of her hair as it touched his mouth, could remember the comfort of her body heat as he curled up next to her in bed while they waited for Buffy to come back on patrol. And yet she would just have been some odd little redhead to him again. As if none of it had ever happened.

“I don’t think we got off on the right foot,” Giles said quietly. “I wanted to give us another chance to work together – to be friends if it was possible. I had a great deal of affection for the child that you had been, but you had no reason to like me. I couldn’t see a way for us to be colleagues and equals if we began anew with me telling you about the times I’d taken you to the zoo.”

He had wanted that, Wesley remembered, now the first pang of betrayal had faded a little – to be friends and colleagues, and, indeed, to work together as equals. He had thought he wanted that more than anything, to discover that there was one Watcher in the world who didn’t think he was a complete waste of space. And yet now he found that what he wanted was to remember being a child who someone had loved.

“I understand.” It wasn’t a lie, although a part of him still felt wounded. “But I’m glad I remember, and I’m very grateful to you for….”

The beach turned into a smear of salt and he had to bite his lip quite hard. He could remember too vividly snuggling up sleepily against the comforting warmth of Giles’ tweed jacket while the man read to him of things that were not demons or vampires or duties that he had to perform. His father had never done that, not even once. “You were very kind,” he managed huskily.

“Wesley, please don’t keep saying that,” Giles said hoarsely. “I cared for that little boy – for you – so very much and giving you up was the hardest thing I’ve…. A part of me still wonders if we were wrong; if we should have let Ethan try to stabilize you as an eight year old and find a way to give you a better childhood.”

“You did give me a better childhood, Giles.” Wesley wiped his eyes surreptitiously. “You gave it to me for ten days. That’s ten days more than anyone else ever did.”

“Your father does care for you in his own way, Wesley,” Giles added. “That’s his problem. He’s too emotionally immature to deal with the prospect of feeling affection for someone who may die. He’s been pushing you away probably since the day you first smiled at him or held his finger. But there is no reason for his problems to be yours for your entire life.”

Wesley laughed a little shakily as the sand crunched underfoot. “I think the die may already be cast there.”

“Don’t say that.” Giles caught his arm. “Or I’ll call Ethan back myself.”

“I know he’s a cad of the first water, but he did once offer to turn my father into a stickleback. I’ve always been rather grateful to him for that.”

“He does have his moments….” The sideways look Giles shot in his direction was half amused and half wary, clearly wondering if the man Wesley now was had joined the dots the child he had been had not even noticed.

“There were…rumours.” Wesley risked a glance at the man beside him, a part of him still feeling like a little boy now, who wanted his approval and wanted to be Good so that he would continue to be loved. “At the Council, I mean. About you and… Well, why exactly did he want you to be twenty again anyway?”

Giles cleared his throat. “If you ever hope to play with those playmobil knights again I suggest you choose another topic of discussion.”

“I distinctly remember that you bought them for me, so, technically, aren’t they already mine?”

Giles gave him a narrow look. “I still have the till receipts, you know.”

Wesley opened his mouth to protest, feeling a sharp pang of loss not just at them going back but at the thought that Giles could let them go, and then remembered Giles and Buffy fighting over which of them got to have him stay with them for the night, the obvious pleasure Giles had taken in their quiet evenings together without the others around. It was the oddest feeling to realize that he had been wanted to that extent, that he was empowered by it now because they would be prizing those toys out of Giles’s cold dead hand before he gave them up.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t let you play with them too.” Wesley darted him another glance, trying to see if he was reading this right.

Giles’s smile suggested that he was. “You’d better or I’ll tell Buffy it’s too dangerous for you to go on patrol with her.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Watch me.” Giles opened the car door for him, still smiling as if he couldn’t quite help himself.

As Wesley climbed in, he realized that it could only have been hours ago that his father had left. Strange, usually the cold feeling his father left behind lingered for days, and yet here he was feeling as warm as if he had been sipping brandy. When he looked over his shoulder, the sea was still rolling in, smoothing the sand with every breaker, while far off in the distance there was a twist of light in the darkness that was a Chinese dragon set free to fly as high as the wind would take it.

***

Giles had not realized how much the deception had been weighing on him until that weight was lifted. One moment he was a man in mourning for a child he had lost, and the next, the pain was almost gone; the child grown up, yet with his memories intact. Perhaps that had been the problem all along, that the child had gone so completely that he did not even remember the events that were so precious to Giles. That was truly what happened with death; the dead one carried the past with them, the other half of shared memories lost forever, and the ones left behind with the living at once too thinned by absence and too precious to bear.

With a living, healthy adult Wesley sitting across the other side of the table, eating what Buffy was trying to teach him to call ‘fries’ with his fingers and laughing at some joke of Xander’s, he could see the child grown up. Wesley’s hair was tousled and when he laughed he could see the same crinkle around his eyes that he had seen in the little boy. He and Willow were recalling their victory at playmobil warfare while Xander was insisting that he and Oz had been on the point of their own tactical breakthrough.

“So, Wes.” Buffy reached across and sat Cuthbert on the table between them. “I think you need to spit it out.”

“Spit what out?” He licked some pizza cheese from his fingers – eating with fingers had been ordered by Xander, who had prevented Giles from putting out any cutlery on the grounds that they could never retrain Wesley as a proper Scooby while he insisted on eating with a knife and fork.

She held up Cuthbert’s shoulder bag. “Little Wes said that he didn’t make Cuthbert the shoulder bag. He thought you must have done it at boarding school. So, when exactly was it?”

Wesley wiped his fingers on a napkin and looked slightly shifty. “Well…a long time ago, obviously.”

“How long ago?” Cordelia asked curiously, eating from Xander’s plate without noticing she was doing it.

Wesley scratched his jaw. “Well…I can assure you that it was days before I came to Sunnydale.”

Xander almost spat out his mouthful of coke. “You were twenty six when you made your teddy bear a anti-vampire pack?”

“We were coming to a Hellmouth. I thought he should have some protection.” Wesley picked up the teddy bear and despite his obvious embarrassment, sat him on his lap.

Willow gave Wesley an impulsive hug. “It was a very good idea.” She noticed that he still had some pizza left and lent over his shoulder to snag a piece.

“The lack of a mirror was an oversight though.” Wesley nodded to Cordelia with old fashioned courtesy. “One that Miss Chase was kind enough to correct.”

“I should propose it as a business plan for extra credits: vampire-attack ready teddy bears for kids growing up in Sunnydale.”

“Their parents would have to admit they’re growing up in a town full of vampires first,” Oz pointed out.

Buffy grimaced. “Yeah, adults in Sunnydale are usually pretty happy in their denial place.”

“I meant to ask you about that.” While addressing Buffy, Wesley lifted up his plate so Willow could more easily reach the last piece of pizza. “Why is that no one in this town seems to be aware of the fact that the night is filled with the evil undead?”

“It’s not we didn’t notice how many of us used to disappear.” Xander snagged the last can of Coke. “We just liked to think they’d gone to live in Florida rather than having their entrails ripped out.”

Willow nodded. “This is the town where your parents tell you that your friends have gone to live on a farm, and they really believe it and you really try to.”

Cordelia thoughtfully ate another of Xander’s chips. “I did notice that the Bronze seemed to have a lot of people who dressed really badly. But I mean, when a guy is still doing the Duran Duran thing you tend to assume that eyeliner and big hair is coming back, not that he’s been hanging around in graveyards for twenty years sucking the life out of your classmates.”

Giles was still thinking about the adult Wesley taking the time to make his teddy bear safe from vampires. He wondered if never having the child inside you nurtured, didn’t so much as starve it out as keep it lingering into adulthood. Looking across at the man now, without his suit and brylcreem to hide behind, Wesley certainly did look very young and very much like the little boy who had been here a few days before. So, probably still an emotionally immature young man in desperate need of validation from a male authority figure. Glancing across at Angel, he thought he saw the vampire making the same assessment. Somehow, those aspects of Wesley’s character didn’t seem anything like as annoying when one had met the child he had once been, and then met the father who had made him like that. In fact, they didn’t seem annoying at all.

“So, Buffy…?” Giles leaned across the table. “We need to fix a date for Wesley coming on patrol with you or Angel?”

“I work alone,” Angel said quickly, clearly not ready to put the young man in danger yet. Wesley looked hurt and Angel said quickly: “Buffy’s used to working with other people.”

“But Wesley really wanted to go on patrol with you the most. And he had all those questions he wanted to ask you about…people you killed and stuff.”

Angel glowered at the love of his life. “But he’s a Watcher, and they’re trained to help Slayers, not vampires.”

“But you’re a vampire with a soul. That makes you a…warrior for good, and Watchers help those too.”

“You’re stronger than I am. He’d be safer with you.”

“But the demons don’t come after you the way they do after me, because they think you’re one of them, so he’d be safer with you.”

Wesley was watching the two arguing with his mouth slightly open. Giles cleared his throat. “Next Wednesday then.”

Angel and Buffy stopped arguing and gaped at him. “What?” Buffy demanded.

Giles looked across at Wesley. “All right with you, Wesley?” He made an entry in his diary as he did so. “About eight o’clock? We can go straight from the library to the graveyard of Buffy’s choice. Probably best if Angel’s there, too, wouldn’t you say? It would be a good idea to compare their fighting techniques and offer them advice afterwards.”

“I don’t need a Watcher,” Angel said a little petulantly. “I fight alone.”

“Except when you don’t,” Oz observed.

“Or when you do and get captured by bad guys,” Willow put in.

“Yeah, Buffy probably wouldn’t have to rescue quite so often if you weren’t always off doing the lone avenger thing,” Cordelia said thoughtfully.

Wesley looked up curiously. “So Buffy needing to rescue Angel is something of a regular occurrence?”

“Oh, man, he’s the original vampire in distress.” Xander shook his head. “We all got pretty sick of the ‘Oh no, Angel’s in peril again, I must save him!’ thing.”

“I didn’t mind so much,” Willow said hastily.

“That isn’t how it was!” Angel protested.

“Yes, Xander,” Giles said solemnly. “Be fair now. How is a vampire supposed to maintain his mysterious brooding creature of the night persona if we recount all the times that he had to be…”

“Saved by a girl?” Xander finished cheerfully. “I guess it does put a bit of a crimp in his perfectly coiffured style.”

Clearly some of the hero-worship Wesley had felt for the vampire when he was a child had lingered onto adulthood because he looked shocked and a little dismayed. Seeing Wesley’s expression, Xander sighed but bit the bullet: “But, okay, yeah, he does tend to be the rescuer more than the rescue..ee.”

This was clearly much more what Wesley needed to hear. “I remember him saving all of us. He was very impressive.” He darted a look at Angel that suggested his memories returning had put the vampire back on the pedestal upon which his eight year old self had been wont to place him. Although Giles did mentally sigh a little, he could imagine that the vampire had probably been very impressive indeed, if one was eight years old, and very frightened, and every other adult between you and a gang of evil blood suckers had been rendered unconscious.

Angel preened while trying to appear cool and aloof, and said kindly: “I guess I could make it on Wednesday. It’s probably best if we all stick together with the Ascension coming up anyway.”

Mention of the Ascension had them all focusing on the matter in hand. Giles and Xander cleared away the pizza boxes and cans – Xander obligingly drinking the last of all of them as he did so – so that they could begin to strategize. It took some time to convince his swing bin that it really wanted to swallow quite so much fast food-related debris, and by the time he had finished battling it, the mood had changed from a party atmosphere to council of war.

He had expected reference books, but returned to find Xander solemnly placing the fairytale castle and the dragon in the centre of the table. “Okay, so this is the school and this is the Mayor. Where are we and how do we stop him? And let’s bear in mind that if we don’t he’s going to be eating the graduating class of Sunnydale High.”

Buffy had a faraway look in her eyes and Xander snapped his fingers. “Hey, Buff. Any time you want to chip in with the big town-saving strategy would be good….”

Still with that abstracted expression on her face, Buffy rose to her feet and began to pick up handfuls of playmobil knights, plonking them down in front of the dragon in rows. Seeing what she was doing, Cordelia and Willow hurried to help her, while Oz spent some time picking a suitably squat-looking pirate to stand in for Snyder. “I couldn’t find a troll,” he explained.

Cordelia picked out a dark-haired princess in a yellow dress to represent her. Holding it aloft, she said: “Just in case anyone isn’t clear – this one doesn’t die.”

Xander was examining a small plastic person with a frown. “I’m liking the crossbow – not so much love for the feather in the helmet motif. Any knights in there who don’t look totally gay?”

Angel plucked the black knight from the box before Oz could reach it and smugly placed it in the front row. “That’s me.”

Xander took it from him. “Not in daylight it’s not, Mr. Fiery Ball of Ash. I get to be the Black Knight.”

For a moment it looked as if Angel and Xander were going to have a tug-of-war over a playmobil person when Wesley thankfully intervened to say: “Oh, that was what my friend in Germany was telling me when we were…interrupted. Apparently the ascenscion is traditionally accompanied by an eclipse.”

Angel triumphantly tugged the knight from Xander’s fingers and set it down in the middle of the first row. “Like I said – that’s me.” Oz tactfully supplied Xander with a knight in grey chainmail whose helmet was thankfully feather-free.

Cordelia had found a blonde princess to represent Buffy and was tut-tutting over the lack of any red-headed females. She held up a red-headed page. “Could we say that Willow’s going to be dressed like a boy on the day? Or a pirate?”

“We can say she’s going to be dressed as the cookie monster for all I care,” Giles observed with some acerbity. “Can we please get to the point?”

Cordelia put a redheaded page in the row to represent Willow and was in the act of adding a plastic dog that Giles very much feared was meant to represent Oz when Xander’s expression stopped her. Rolling her eyes, she said: “He changes his hair colour three times a week. Really the only constant is him being a werewolf.”

Xander snatched up a knight at random and tossed the dog back into the box. “If we can pretend that, come Graduation Day, Willow is going to be dressed as a boy, Angel’s going to look like Ivanhoe, and you and Buffy are going to be wearing wimples, we can make the leap of imagination required to pretend Oz is still going to be blond.”

With Wesley’s help, Buffy had been quietly filling in rows of spear holders and pirates, and piling extra weapons next to them. “I think you guys are missing the point.”

“Defeating the mayor isn’t dependent on my hair colour?” Oz observed.

Buffy smiled at him but held out her hands to indicate the rows and rows of plastic people all facing the dragon. “Wesley…?”

Thinking of how the little boy he had once been tended to go to pieces when put on the spot, Giles looked at him anxiously, but Wesley was gazing between the playmobil people and the green dragon with dawning comprehension. “It may be bigger, but there are more of us.” He picked up a page and clipped a bow into his hand, dropping a quiver over his neck. “Especially if we’re all armed.”

Buffy beamed at him proudly. “Exactly.”

Xander nodded. “Way to make the Mayor’s food not agree with him, Buffy.”

She gazed at the boy who had been forced to stake his own best friend and said gently: “I think the teenagers of Sunnydale have been dying for long enough, don’t you?”

“Whereas by this method they can at least die fighting?” Giles observed. Much as he approved of this idea of empowering the people who were more usually victims in this town, if two hundred and fifty burghers of small town Germany could disappear without a trace, he suspected that the Mayor in his ascended state would make equally short work of the graduating class of ’99.

Buffy held up a finger. “That’s just stage one. Wes – can you hand me something that looks like it could blow up with a really big bang?”

Perhaps it was having had the memories of being an eight year old so recently returned to him, but he happily plucked out five bags of pirate gold and some of the wizard’s potions and held them aloft without a word of protest at the inanity of their actions.

“Good enough.” She took them from him and he sat down next to her, clearly curious. Placing the potions and bags of pirate gold squarely inside the fairytale castle she looked up at Giles. “And this is stage two….”

Even as she explained the plan to them all, stressing the importance of Xander’s military skills as she did so, and Giles understood how dangerous it would be for her, and everyone else in the vicinity, a part of him was noticing the way Wesley was as much a part of this discussion as the rest of them. As the younger Watcher, with Xander’s eager assistance, obediently moved around the playmobil people as Buffy’s plan was related – including having the wimple-clad Buffy sprint through the fairytale castle while pursued by a green dragon – Giles realized that somehow he really had become that little boy grown up – someone accepted as one of them, surrounded by a circle of people who considered themselves his friends. Even as Giles was making rapid notes on his tablecloth about the amount of explosives required to bury a creature of sufficient size to swallow Sodom as an aperitif, he became aware that he had his right hand resting on Wesley’s shoulder and neither he nor Wesley had noticed.

“And that’s when I blow up the school.” Buffy sat back and looked around at them expectantly; all of them, Giles noticed, Wesley included, who, having had the dragon fall onto its back with its legs in the air was now, with Xander’s help, having the fairytale castle fall down on top of it, apparently completely on board with this strategy of Buffy’s.

“So, we’re keeping Oz’s humus plan as a fallback option then?” Cordelia enquired. “Cause – not looking so crazy to me now.”

“I think it’s a wonderful plan.” Wesley gazed up at him Buffy in a way far too reminiscent of that little boy who had thought she could walk on water.

“Yes, and can we hear from the people who weren’t until recently small children?” Giles suggested.

“As the entire plan pivots on my military skills, I’m all for it,” Xander explained.

Sighing to disguise how very proud he was of Buffy and all these other young people – even Cordelia – who put their own lives on the line for the greater good every night, Giles said: “Well, let’s try to refine it a little. Wesley – perhaps you and Xander could rebuild Sunnydale High and retrieve the Mayor and we can run through it again….”

“This time I get to be Buffy,” Wesley told Xander.

Giles nodded quietly to Buffy as the others rebuilt everything and stood up the playmobile people who had been knocked down in the melee. “Well done.”

“I noticed you didn’t back away from the ‘crazy’ word when I mentioned it.”

Giles acknowledged that with a shrug. “I’m still not ruling it out. No, Buffy, it was your child-rearing I was applauding.”

They both looked over at Wesley, who was pointing out to Xander how to clip the towers back together.

“I know, I’m so proud.” She smiled at Giles, and for all her lightness of tone, her eyes looked a little bright. “Although I’m not sure how much credit I can claim really. He’s grown up just like a cross between you and Xander.”

“Yes.” Giles grimaced. “I’m hoping that’s a temporary aberration – the Xander part. Growing up like me would, of course, be entirely acceptable.”

They watched together as Wesley tossed the dragon to Xander and received the Buffy-in-a-wimple in return, then began to stack up piles of pirate gold and a skull that Oz offered to them for dramatic effect. Looking at the man now, Giles could still see the child playing at this same table, but it no longer hurt to think of him; in fact it made him smile with nothing other than happiness. Wesley’s father had come and gone and instead of gibbering under the adult equivalent of a desk somewhere – the bottom of a whiskey bottle perhaps? – the man was here with them, being useful, and surrounded by friends. Punching Roger Wyndam-Pryce on the jaw for what he had done to that little boy might have been momentarily satisfying, but reducing his shadow to such a faint stain was so much better.

Perhaps the Ascension was coming, and undoubtedly more people were going to die, but he still felt as if they had saved a soul today. As he glanced out of the window, he could see the moon shining behind torn clouds, and imagined that, far away, he could just glimpse the distant gleam of that Chinese dragon, climbing higher and higher on the breeze.

The End