The sun was just beginning to bathe Sunnydale in shades of rose-gold when the sound of a key scraping in the lock drew Giles' attention away from the newspaper laying forgotten on his lap. Letting a stern expression chase away the one of relief, he turned to face Buffy.

It was flagrantly obvious how she had spent her early morning hours. Hair that had been smooth and neat when she left the apartment now fell over her shoulders in a golden tangle. She was flushed and her eyes still smoldered with satisfaction.

A black velvet shirt, Angel's, judging by the way it swallowed the petite Slayer, replaced the tanktop she had been wearing. She hadn't noticed him, sitting by the window. Giles watched as she unloaded the crossbow and lay it on the hall table.

"You're late. Or rather, shall we say, early."

Buffy spun around, startled. "Oh! Giles, I'm sorry. . . were you asleep?"

Setting his teacup down, he crossed the room, his green eyes cool behind his wire-framed glasses. "It's. . . " he glanced at the clock, ". . . five-thirty-nine. If you are going to be late, I would very much appreciate a phone call letting me know."

Buffy sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, but allowed no other indication of her hurt to cross her face. "I'm sorry. I patrolled until midnight, then I, um. . ."

"Ran into Angel? Buffy, I don't object to your friendship with Angel, but I do object to being unduly worried by the fact that you don't call or check in after patrol. I’ve allowed it until now because I realize you are used to having your space, but I really must insist on better communication."

She was trembling, her eyes shimmering with suppressed tears. "I. . . didn't mean to. I should've called, but we. . . I mean, the time wasn't. . . " she faltered, unwilling to put into words the facts that Giles already knew.

The hateful words tumbled out before he could stop them. "You were too busy getting fucked." He paled as soon as he realized what he had said. "Oh, Buffy. . . I-I'm sorry..."

She had turned a deathly white and, for a terrifying moment, Giles feared she would pass out. He stepped forward, his face crumbling in remorse. Buffy stumbled back, one hand in front of her as if to ward him off. She swallowed convulsively in an attempt to keep her tears at bay. "I. . . I'll go take a shower. The meeting. . . "

"Buffy, the bloody hell with the meeting! I never meant to hurt. . . "

She escaped to the stairs, avoiding his reaching hands. "It's okay. I know. I know. I'll get ready."

Giles slumped bonelessly to the couch, tears of self-recrimination welling in his eyes. His terror at the thought of her laying dead on the lonely streets, a victim of the prey she hunted, had haunted him throughout the early morning hours. Finding her well and knowing that, at the expense of his composure, she had been indulging in the pleasure of her lover's arms, had galled him.

But, now, after selfishly lashing out, Giles berated himself for his intolerance. Buffy had lost so much, was so alone in the world, how could he have thought to begrudge her any small comfort? Now, he feared their relationship, growing into the easy devotion of a father and daughter, was irreparably damaged.

Gazing blankly into the empty fireplace, he vowed to regain whatever ground had been lost.

The Sunnydale High School auditorium had a seating capacity of 2500 and it was nearly full. The monthly City Council meetings were as much a social event as they were a necessity of civic government. It was a reason to dress up, a reason to see and be seen. Young women, garbed in the trendiest fashions Sunnydale had to offer, flirted and preened, giggling in small cliques while being checked out by teenaged boys. Their mothers chatted amongst themselves, about the same subjects they always discussed; their children, their homes, their husbands.

But, never their fears. Or the knowledge that Sunnydale was rapidly becoming a mass grave for their friends and families. Yet, the stubborn ones remained, the ones who had been born here, whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had been born here. They wouldn't go without a fight.

Oz and Larry were already seated and had saved seats for Buffy and Giles. The Watcher spotted Larry's raised arm and indicated it to Buffy. "Down there," he said.

She nodded silently, her expression perfectly composed and frigid. The short drive to the school had been conducted in complete silence, broken only by the rattle of the Citroen's muffler. At each of the five stops between his apartment and the school, Giles had turned to study Buffy's profile. She had stared resolutely out the window, utterly unaware of her heartbreaking beauty. He rarely saw her in the morning light and he wanted to cry at the injustice of her life having to be spent in darkness. Sunlight shimmered off of her platinum-gold hair, which was piled atop her head in artful disarray, and giving her flawless skin a warm sheen. She was dressed in the nicest thing she owned, a coral and champagne-flowered sundress, the baby-soft cotton clinging to her curves and revealing as much as it covered up.

Giles let Buffy slip into the aisle before him and she sat next to a dazzled Larry. The young man stared at Buffy with ill-concealed admiration. "Buff, you look. . . wow. I mean. . . wow!"

She smiled faintly as Oz dug an elbow into the other boy's ribs. "Thanks."

Giles sat next to her and let himself be wrapped in the fleeting sense of contentment he always felt at having these children around him. A sharp pang gripped his heart as he thought of Nancy, dead these many months since Buffy had come to Sunnydale and changed their lives.

A soft giggle from Buffy, amused by Larry's antics, made him smile. She was so different from the battle-hardened young woman who had come to Sunnydale to fight her last fight. The trip that she had thought would herald her death had instead given her new life. For that, Giles was forever thankful for his decision to call Merrick and request Buffy's attendance. His desperate decision had been, by far, his most inspired.

As the Council filed onto the stage, Giles felt a feather-light tug on his fingers. Looking down, he watched with a tremulous smile as Buffy slipped her little hand into his, her fingers sliding between his own. His heart made a little catch and he had to swallow the tears that threatened to spill over his cheeks. He glanced over at her and found her staring back, tears glimmering on her unadorned lashes. He smiled with warmth and love and the ice in Buffy's green gaze melted. She leaned into his shoulder, her face pressed against the rough tweed of his blazer. Their fingers tightened on each other's until Giles winced in pain.

Buffy gulped back a sob as he loosened his hand only to wrap his arm around her bare shoulders.

"There, there, love, don't cry. Everything is fine. Just fine," he murmured, loud enough for only Buffy to hear.

"Y-you hate me. . . "

"I most certainly do not! I care for you very, very deeply, Buffy, don't you ever forget that!" Giles fished in his jacket pocket for his handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. "Here, dry your tears before your face gets all blotchy. I know how young ladies hate to have blotchy faces."

She giggled and wiped her eyes with the snowy white fabric. "I don’t care about things like that."

"Of course you do or you wouldn't have gotten all beautiful this morning," Giles teased. "Did you still want to go look at the house on Revello Drive today? Perhaps Oz and Larry can go with us."

Buffy snuffled into the handkerchief and smiled. "I really do. Does it have a yard?"

"A big one, with trees and flowers and things like that."

"I like it already."

Giles brushed a strand of golden hair back from her face and smiled softly. "I thought you might."

With mutual sighs of relief, all was right once more with the Slayer and her Watcher.

The house was perfect. Standing in one of the upstairs bedrooms, Buffy allowed herself the luxury of imagining herself in a place so suited to her and Giles. The room that she had already chosen for herself was big, with a dormered ceiling and three large windows, two of which overlooked the shaded front yard. Revello Drive was quiet and peaceful, close enough to town to be useful to Giles as a base of operation, yet on the far side of town from the Bronze.

Pushing open the window and leaning out, Buffy smiled as a warm, ocean-scented breeze lifted the fine hairs around her face. Most of the houses on the tree-lined street seemed to be deserted, like so many others in this town under siege, but several still showed signs of a semi-normal life. The house across the street, for example, was nicely landscaped and toys littered the front porch. Only the presence of a large wooden cross, bolted firmly to the door, belied the appearance of normalcy. Drawn to the brilliant red geraniums blooming in terra-cotta pots lining the walkway, Buffy leaned farther over the window ledge so she could look at their own overgrown yard. She wondered if Giles would mind if she planted some flowers. She’d never done anything so domestic before, but her mother had always enjoyed pretty flowers and plants and she could learn to do the same.

“So, do you like it?” asked a gentle voice from the doorway.

Buffy looked over her shoulder, a dazzling smile on her face. “I love it! But you knew I would, didn’t you?”

Giles walked into the sunshine-filled room, imagining what it would look like, decorated with all the pretty, frilly things girls Buffy’s age liked to surround themselves with.

Like what, Rupert? Stakes and holy water? Crucifixes? Buffy Summers is hardly the frilly type.

“Well, I certainly hoped so. It’s fortunate that it’s big enough to accommodate my library, as well as ourselves.”

Buffy laughed with carefree warmth. She leaned back against the windowsill and gazed around the sunny room. "Gosh, Jeeves, we're just two people. How much room do we really need?"

He smiled sadly. "Yes, very true. And with you spending all of your time with Angel. . . "

Buffy's smile faded as she looked at the man she had come to think of as a father. "Giles. . . no one means more to me than you do. You took me in, you believed in me, you respected me. Not only as the Slayer, but as a human being. I don't remember the last time anyone cared about me without expecting payback."

Before he could reply, she held up her hand and walked closer to him. "All of my life, I was nothing more than a spoiled little girl. I was an only child and my parents doted on me. I was a cheerleader. I was a beauty queen. I took ballet lessons and figure skating lessons. I played the piano. I was always popular in school and well-liked by my fellow students. I wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but I was always a decent student."

Pausing, she glanced at the floor, trying to gather her courage before continuing. "Then, it all changed. Merrick came to me on a Wednesday afternoon and told me I was the Slayer." She laughed lightly. "I'd never been asked to be anything other than pretty, Giles, and here was this guy telling me that I was the only girl in all the world who could fight demons. I thought he was tripping."

Giles smiled and nodded sagely. "Yes, I suppose you found it quite ludicrous."

"I wasn't stupid, by any stretch. He asked me to meet him at the cemetery and I thought he was a total perv. But, something. . . I don't know. . . something inside told me that he was telling me the truth. It was as if I'd been waiting all my life for my true purpose and there it was. But, I had no idea what was in store for me. No idea."

She fell silent, gazing up at the angled ceiling. "Do you suppose it would be too hard to put wallpaper up in here? And a border?"

The librarian followed her attention and shrugged. "No. If we get Larry and Oz to help us, it shouldn't be too difficult."

She smiled, but Giles could tell that her mind was still on her unfinished story. "Tell me what happened to your parents, Buffy."

At first, he wondered if she had heard him, since she didn't react to his request. Then, she straightened and turned back to the window, shutting and locking it. "Let's go outside."

On one side of the porch, in front of the dining room window, a porch swing swayed gently in the breeze. Buffy sat on it, pulling her bare legs underneath her. Giles joined her, his eyes fixed on her solemn face.

"My mom had filed for divorce, while we were still living in LA, but my dad really wanted to work things out. He thought it would be best if we left California, so he managed to get a transfer to Cleveland. I'd been the Slayer for only a few months and, despite my initial acceptance, I hated it. Loathed it. So, I was all for moving to Cleveland. Moving anywhere for that matter."

Picking at the hem of her sundress, she continued, "I hoped that if we left, I could escape my destiny, as Merrick called it. I was having all kinds of trouble at school and at home and I know my parents wanted to get me out of LA. Away from the "bad element", so to speak. So, in May, when I burned down the high school gym in my attempt to take out Lothos and his gang, that made up their minds about the move. Dad had us packed and moved within a week."

"That must've been traumatic enough for you."

Buffy smiled in memory. "Yeah. They were so disappointed in me. I had changed so much in such a short time and they were terrified that I was on drugs. If only it had been that simple."

"Anyway, I was ecstatic. I thought leaving LA meant leaving Merrick and the vampires behind. . . "

Giles interrupted. "Did you not tell him you were leaving?"

She shook her head, long strands of sunlit gold falling over her shoulder. "Nope. Not a word. I hadn't even told him that Mom had filed for divorce. He was not a happy camper when he finally found me."

"I can only imagine."

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. As it turns out, Cleveland was ten times worse than Los Angeles as far as vampires were concerned. Not as bad as Sunnydale, not even remotely, but pretty bad anyway. I enrolled in school, but it was horrible. I was on probation, my grades, which had fallen while I was at Hemery, plummeted. They were so bad I was surprised they allowed me to stay in school. I was only sleeping maybe two or three hours a night and I had horrible nightmares nearly every night. I hated to go to sleep."

Her voice trailed off and Giles waited patiently. He knew how hard this must be for her and he doubted if she had ever truly grieved for the loss of her childhood and her family. Slowly, they rocked back and forth in the swing.

"Their fighting only got worse and the fact that I had turned into such a handful didn't help. Mom had caught me sneaking in my bedroom window and they tried to watch me like a hawk. I'd wait until they went to sleep and then I'd sneak out. I also did a lot of daytime hunting. Merrick would scout out possible vampire nests and I'd skip school to go take them out. It was stressful, on me and especially for Mom and Dad and they had no idea what I was really doing."

She took a deep breath. "One day, the principal from my school had a conference with them, telling them that I'd been skipping and that expulsion proceedings had started. That evening, my dad was irate. He just ranted at me and I was so tired and so overwhelmed by what my life had become that I just lost it. . . "

Giles reached over and took her little hand in his own as Buffy's eyes shimmered with tears. Her voice, husky with emotion, shook as she continued.

"I screamed at him to leave me alone, that he didn't know what kind of pressure I was under, that everything I did I was doing for them, that if it wasn't for the fact that they had their heads stuck up their asses, they would see what was happening. He slapped me. Right across the face. Giles, I had never been hit by my parents in my life and I was just. . . shocked. Hurt and shocked and angry."

Buffy wiped a hand over her face and stared out at the quiet yard. "I told him I hated him. I hated both of them. Then, I left. It. . . it was the last time I ever saw them alive."

Her lip trembled and she pressed them tightly together. Giles felt her hand shift between his, her short nails digging into his palm.

"A rogue pack of vamps had been stalking me and saw me leave the house. I never knew exactly what happened, but somehow they tricked their way into the house. When I came back, about three hours later, everything looked normal. On the surface. I crawled in the window, but I could feel it, the minute I got in the house."

She breathed in through her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to hold her tears at bay. "You could smell it, you know. Death. Thick and sickly sweet. I so didn't want to see what had happened, kept telling myself that everything was fine, but. . . I went into the kitchen first. My cat had been gutted and laid out on the table. I just stared at it, thinking how angry Mom was going to be with me when she saw the mess. I went into the living room and, God, Giles, I've never seen so much blood! It was everywhere. Smeared on the walls, pooled on the carpet, even splattered on the ceiling. And, Dad. . . um. . . he. . . he was hanging upside down from the loft railing and, um. . . "

Suddenly, she choked up and jerked her hand out of Giles' grip. She buried her face in both hands and shook uncontrollably. Giles wrapped his arms around her, but she shrugged him off.

"Buffy, you don't need to go on. . . "

"Yes! Yes, Giles, I do. You wanted to know. You need to know. You'll understand why I'm the way I am." Buffy straightened and tossed her head. "I need to tell it, before it kills me."

"Yes, I agree, my dear. You do," he murmured.

She nodded decisively and forged on. "They hadn't bothered to feed from him. They just tore him apart, limb from limb. His eyes. . . they were still open, his mouth still open in a scream and I felt like he was looking right at me. Accusing me. I had to get away from those eyes. I screamed for Mom, but she was nowhere to be found. I'd guessed that they had taken her with them. I couldn't function, Giles. I stayed there until after midnight, telling myself that she would be home soon."

"Finally, I left and headed for Merrick's. By the time I got there, I was hysterical. I needed him to be there for me, to comfort me, to help me find my mommy, but instead he. . . he was really drunk. Stinking drunk and when he was like that, he was scary and mean. I begged him to help me, to help me find Mom, but. . . he just. . . he said that it was about time he had me to himself. The bastard raped me on the kitchen floor. On the fucking floor, like I was some kind of animal." Buffy's bitterness thickened her voice and her face hardened in forgotten rage.

Giles blinked and realized that he was crying. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his wet eyes. Buffy hiccuped, but now that she had started, the story poured out of her.

"Merrick, he's a big guy, you know and I hadn't had my Slayer powers for all that long. I was still learning. I fought him, but he hit me. Over and over, he hit me and called me the most horrible things and told me it was what I owed him for ruining his life. His life! What about mine, Giles? What had I ever done to deserve losing my family, my life, my dignity? Why me?"

He could only shake his head, overwhelmed by her pain.

Buffy touched a trembling finger to her mouth, tracing the length of the faint scar bisecting her lips. "A souvenir. He was hitting me and. . . um. . . I tripped. I fell into the coffee table and knocked his bottle of whiskey off on the floor. It broke and that totally enraged him. He picked up the neck of the bottle and raised it and, Giles, I thought I was going to die! Finally. And, I didn't care. I didn't. I wanted to go."

"He cut you."

A hollow laugh sent a chill down his spine. "He cut almost all the way through my upper lip. I'm surprised it healed as well as it did. Anyway, as perverted as it sounds, seeing all that blood got him. . . excited again. He really tried to hurt me then. He was enjoying it."

"I was in so much pain, he hadn't exactly been gentle and he had taken me several times before he passed out. I crawled into the bathroom and threw up until I was just dry-heaving, then I just curled up in a ball on the floor and eventually fell asleep. The next morning, he didn't even apologize. He just told me to get cleaned up so we could go take care of the body. 'The body', that's how he referred to my dad. A body to be taken care of, to be gotten rid of. I packed a few things, some mementos, some clothes, and then we burned the house to the ground. In broad daylight. And no one even called the fire department. Cleveland has Sunnydale beat in the 'clueless citizens' category."

She fell silent again, tears slipping slowly down her flushed cheeks. Giles gently prodded her. "Your mother?"

"We found her about a week later. She had attacked a woman and her daughter in the park and she was feeding on the little girl. She looked up at me and smiled, all fangs and bloodstained mouth. I still wanted to throw myself in her arms and let her take me with her and if Merrick hadn't been with me, I'm not too sure that I wouldn't have. Instead, I put a stake in her heart and watched the body that gave birth to me disintegrate. From that moment on, my life was over. I let Merrick beat me and use me whenever he was drunk or horny or both and I prayed every single night for the courage to die. When you called, requesting that I come to Sunnydale, I hoped it would be my last battle."

She looked up at him, into his eyes, for the first time since she had begun her horrific tale. "I sure didn't count on you."

Giles gathered her in his arms, pressing his damp face into her fragrant hair, breathing in the soft vanilla scent of her shampoo. "I never counted on you, my sweet child. You came into my life and gave me hope of a better world."

"I miss them so much, Giles, so much it aches! Every day, I wake up, wishing it was all a bad dream, wishing that I would go downstairs and Mom would be cooking breakfast and Dad would be reading the paper and telling me to have a good day at school and have fun at cheerleading practice and that he loves me! And, Giles, the last words I spoke to them was 'I hate you'! I can never take that back, never ever ever. . . " Buffy sobbed, her face flooding with tears.

"I know, I know, my dear. If I could bring them back to you, I would. If I could go back in time and prevent you from being the Slayer, I would." His voice broke and he clutched Buffy tighter to his chest, feeling her bone-wracking sobs shudder through his body. He held her, rocking her back and forth, while she wept, his own tears dripping onto his collar and into her hair.

But, in his heart, he vowed vengeance on Richard Merrick. The pillock would pay dearly for his crimes against the heartbroken child sobbing in his arms.

If it was the last thing he accomplished on this earth before he died, he'd see Merrick on his knees in the dirt, begging for his life.