Title: Hello Goodbye Part 6 of 12

Author: Jeanny

Summary: The PTB are sending the Scoobies on mysterious and dangerous quests; Buffy's future hangs in the balance.

Disclaimer: Joss, Fox, and Mutant Enemy rule the world - or at least these characters. I only own my undying gratitude towards them for their wonderful creations.

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Rupert Giles frowned to himself. He knew that the others would be looking to him for further guidance on what was to come, and he was just as much at a loss as any of them. He searched his brain for any bit of information that might serve useful, anything that might get them all through. Xander and Anya both seemed unnaturally quiet, but Willow had begun to babble about needing to study. He gave her a fond smile.

"I don't expect we're facing that manner of test, Willow. Although the entire matter is distinct from any situation documented by the Watchers' Council to my knowledge," Giles said, mildly proud at how not like 'I have no idea what I'm talking about' that sounded. "It appears somewhat closely related to some rite of passage rituals I've read about from a few Native American tribal cultures. Warriors are sent to prove their worthiness by retrieving some object of ritual value and along the way attain visions from the gods." *Vision quest, * Giles thought to himself. *That sounds entirely possible...likely, even. *

"I seek the Grail," Xander interrupted with his usual ill-timed attempt at humor. Giles understood the reference, of course, and was about to comment when he heard Dawn laugh. He knew that they all needed to release tension, so he let it go.

"The interesting and alarming part is what Cordelia said about the risk. We risk losing what we seek to gain."

"To gain for Buffy," Dawn corrected quietly. Giles saw that she feared that he was forgetting the reason this was happening. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the possibility of getting his Slayer back that was keeping him together through it all. He had to remain strong, for all of them, but most of all for Buffy. He was not going to let her down again.

"Yes, of course," he said, trying to convey those feelings to Dawn through his expression. He wasn't sure if he was successful. Sometimes being British made these things difficult. "No matter what is going to happen, we really must be on our guard at all times. I believe that the mystic forces we are dealing with may be forces of good, but they can still be quite dangerous. It is also unclear if the failure of one of us will affect the group as a whole. There could be dire consequences, perhaps for all of us." He could see from the others' expressions that only Willow and Tara seemed to be actually listening, and that his speech had made things worse for them. Giles was silently berating himself when Xander began to speak.

"That's it, Giles, from now on you don't get to make the big pre-battle speech, because you're"

Hot. He was outside, and he was hot. Giles shaded his eyes as he squinted across the horizon. He was in a desert, one with which he was singularly unfamiliar. The heat coming off of the sand was stifling, to be sure, but that alone could not account for the extreme discomfort in which he found himself. When he looked at himself he realized why. He was dressed in a tweed suit he hadn't worn since the library burned to the ground.

"Ah, good, you've arrived. And on time, off to a good start, then." Giles started back from the figure that had suddenly appeared directly in his line of sight. Some kind of mirage or ghost was his first thought, but he seemed terribly real. He moved in a bit closer, trying to assure himself it wasn't some trick of the light... or of his mind.

"Is that really you, Father?" The elder Giles cracked only the barest hint of a smile, but his son knew that for him this was extreme emotion. He looked his son over quickly, nodding.

"Rupert, I believe I taught you not to ask questions to which you already know the answers. You look...adequately presentable. Watch your posture, boy." Giles automatically stood straighter. The elder Watcher turned from him and started to walk across the seemingly endless expanse of sand, his son hurrying to follow.

"Sir, if I may ask, where are we going?"

"Not we, boy. You. I believe you're already aware of what is happening. You're going on a journey, a vision quest, I believe you called it." His father sniffed in disdain. "Sounds rather pointless to me, but it certainly is not my decision. Furnishing guidance, that's what a Watcher is supposed to do."

"Father..." The elder Watcher's eyes had grown distant, but at the sound of his son's voice he snapped back to attention. He eyed his son intensely.

"This is going to require all of your skills, all of your Watcher training. Remember everything you've been taught. Fortunately the actual task you must perform is simple. You will cross this desert to get to that mountain." Giles squinted in the direction his father was pointing. The mountain in question was very small on the horizon.

"That seems quite far," he muttered. His father nodded agreeably.

"It does. Quite. Now, once you've arrived you will climb the mountain."

"Climb?" Giles asked weakly. His father gave him a stern look.

"I do believe that is what I said. Listen carefully, Rupert, anything I say might have the utmost importance to your success. Now near the top of the mountain you'll find a small cave, more like a crevice, really. In that opening you'll find an ancient scroll and a talisman. You will return with those items in hand to this very spot. At that time you'll be asked to explain your visions." Giles looked around. The spot they were at looked in no way distinguishable from any other spot.

"Visions?"

"Yes, visions, Rupert. You really must listen more closely, you're missing everything that's important. The visions will help you to answer the question, and the question is the entire point of this exercise."

"I know I'm going to regret this, but...what question, Father?"

"What question?? What question??" his father exploded. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't even know the question? You haven't changed at all; you never listen; the girl told you...might as well never begin at all if you don't yet understand the question!" Sudden inspiration hit Giles and he interrupted his sputtering father.

"The question is what is my gift for the Slayer? And I will lose it if I don't succeed." His father calmed down immediately. It was as if he had never made the outburst.

"Indeed. If you do not succeed, my boy, you never had it in the first place. Now, you'd best start. Sooner gone, sooner back, is what I say." Giles looked towards the mountain with a sigh. He had no supplies, and the tweed suit was stifling. He waited for his father to continue, but there was only silence.

"And what are you going to..." Giles trailed off. His father was gone. Giles took another look at the distant mountain and sighed again. The heat was unbearable. He swiftly removed his jacket and tie. He thought for a moment, then removed his shirt as well. His undershirt offered some coverage, although he was certain he was in for quite a sunburn. He used the necktie to fasten the dress shirt over his head in a makeshift turban, then gathering his jacket in his arms started off with as much dignity as he could muster.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he collapsed. Without any water and with the relentless beating down of the sun, he felt as if he had been burned to a crisp, not much left. A fragment of a conversation he had had with Buffy flitted through his mind, something about how long it took to bleach bones. He remembered telling her it would take weeks, but he was beginning to think he might have been wrong about that time frame. He sprawled on the sand, lacking the energy or the will to move any further.

"Well, this is disappointing," his father's voice came from above him. He looked up at the man standing next to him. His father looked ridiculously crisp despite the heat, and wore an all too familiar frown.

"I...cannot..." Giles rasped, the dryness in his mouth making just speaking those two words difficult. His father shook his head.

"So it seems, my son. So it seems. More's the pity. Any Watcher worth his salt would have been able to get there and back by now. And I had such hopes for you," the elder Giles added mournfully.

"Now see here, I simply don't see where that's at all possible!" Giles managed to speak indignantly despite the sandpaper feeling in his mouth. His protests fell on the desert wind, as his father had once again disappeared. "I do wish he would stop doing that," Giles muttered. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered on.

Some time later he looked up and saw birds circling overhead. They were buzzards, and he was fairly certain they were not part of any vision. He fell down again, moaning through lips cracked and blistered from the sun. He heard a sound over the slight wind and sighed. If it was his father again, he was in no hurry to explain himself. After a moment he realized that the sound was more...growly...than his father had ever been. He looked up into the eyes of a lion, standing just a few feet from his nose and regarding him somewhat skeptically. Giles gasped, then realized what the lion must be.

"Ah, good. You would be a vision, yes? Some kind of spirit animal, perhaps, here to impart wisdom to me?" The lion tilted its head slightly and sniffed. To Giles it sounded quite disdainful. Then it moved in closer, and Giles felt its hot breath in his face. Hot breath that smelled...not so great. There had been nothing in any of the books that Giles had read about hot, smelly spirit animal breath. Despite his dry throat, Giles swallowed. "Ah, so this would be a real lion, then. I see."

The beast merely growled at him in response. Giles still had that strange sensation that the lion had found him lacking, but that didn't mean he wouldn't serve as dinner. A sudden idea occurred to him, and he slowly reached for his jacket. He knew he had no chance of outrunning the animal, but perhaps distraction was possible. He reached into the jacket pocket, never breaking eye contact with the growling cat.

"You there...stay where you for just...one...more...second..." Giles rasped to the beast, his shaking fingers finally finding the thing he had been looking for. He pulled out his glasses, hoping he could do this right. While he was out of practice, this kind of illusion had been part of this Watcher's training. He took his eyes off the panting animal for a second to judge the position of the sun, noting with a sigh that it was still beating down strongly. Something nagged at the back of his mind, but not having the time or energy to devote to the thought, it was soon lost. Instead, he readied himself to perform this slight bit of magick, knowing that he would only have a few minutes before the lion recovered. He aimed the glasses towards the sun, reflecting the light off of them and into the lion's eyes momentarily. The animal growled, looking away, and that was when Giles muttered the words of the spell beneath his breath.

"Where there is one, let two appear...generotro kioo..."

There now appeared to be two of him, mirror images, and the animal turned, confused, towards the false one. As the real Giles turned and ran, the mirror Giles ran in the opposite direction, the lion in fast pursuit. Giles knew that he had scant moments before the beast would overtake his illusion and realize that it had pursued the wrong prey. He could only hope he could find a safe place to hide before that happened. Meanwhile a part of him mind puzzled over the presence of the animal. As a spirit animal it made sense, but a real lion was illogical. Not native to the environment, no reason for it to be here, there was something odd...again a flash of insight just eluded him. His legs were burning from his blundering run in the sand. The exhausted Watcher chanced a look behind him to see how close his ignominious death might be...and skidded to a stop. The lion had vanished, much as his father had.

"This is supposed to be a quest, not a bloody Siegfried and Roy spectacular!" Giles shouted into the light wind. As if in response, the wind picked up, whipping sand into his face. Giles held his jacket in front on him to shield himself from the sting of the sand, finally finding a good use for the tweed jacket. He forced himself to examine the situation. The lion should not be there...wrong climate. And the lion had disappeared, as did his father, repeatedly. That indicated there was something else going on, some kind of magick at work, some kind of illusion. But the desert was real, as real as the feel of tweed in his hands, as real as the sting of the sand on his face. Illusions didn't come in Sensaround. So if these things were real...Giles shook his head. He could make no sense of it. Still feeling the sand stinging him, he realized he needed more respite from the small sandstorm than the jacket could provide. Looking around, he saw a rock that appeared to be of sufficient size to block the wind if he hunkered down behind it. Without hesitation he did so, realizing that the side of the rock he was on gave him full view of the mountain that was his goal. It looked no nearer than it had at the start. His heart sank.

Giles knew he'd never make it. It was simply too far, and he was not up to the task. He was trembling with exhaustion and dehydration, and also disappointment. He would fail. And because of his failure, Buffy would lose her chance. He had not felt this guilty since...well, since his Slayer fell to her death. Giles closed his eyes. He would have wept if he had the moisture for tears. It was as if she was dying anew, because he was going to let her down. Again.

"Am I interrupting another bout of self-pity, Ripper?" Giles opened his eyes and grimaced. Ethan Rayne. He should have known.

"You're the one behind all this, aren't you?" Giles snarled. Ethan laughed derisively in response.

"Please, Ripper. You know full well that the only one responsible for this situation is you. Although I will admit to taking a certain amount of pleasure in your current state of misery. Honestly, what sort of Watcher gets himself into this kind of mess?"

"Killing you will make me feel so much better," Giles retorted, but he made no move. Ethan's words resonated within his soul. He felt they held a truth he could not stand against.

"You would think so, wouldn't you? Killing innocents does seem to make you feel better, doesn't it, Ripper? But that's certainly a conversation for another time. Right now I believe the subject is your lovely, dead Slayer. Poor Buffy. Bad enough you let her kill herself. But then someone walks up to you and offers you her life back, gives you a simple task, and look at you? One extra-crispy Watcher cowering under a rock. Sad, really."

"Bugger off, Ethan!"

"You wound me, Ripper! I thought I was brought here so that we could have a civilized conversation about your constant screw-ups."

"You were brought...who brought you here?"

"Don't you know?" Ethan's smug smile would have made Giles' blood boil, if the sun wasn't already doing the job. Ethan then put on a look of false sympathy. "Oh, I am sorry. That's right! You don't know. It is quite the puzzle, isn't it? And the wonderful thing is, if you just figured out that one thing, everything else would just fall right into place...but it's not going to happen, is it? You just don't have it in you, Ripper. You don't have the stuff, as the Americans say." Giles looked up at Ethan and suddenly smiled. It was a cold smile that Ethan knew well, and his own grin faltered.

"Ethan," Giles said agreeably, still smiling.

"Ripper?" Ethan croaked over the lump that had developed in his throat.

"Behind you," was the simple response.

Ethan paled as he heard the low growl, giving Giles one last desperate look before he spun around to see the lion, newly returned and definitely interested in Ethan Rayne. He shrieked and began to back closer to Giles, who simply laughed.

"Ripper...Rupert...you've got to help me!"

"You were right, Ethan...everything fell into place. You might want to run, he looks very hungry." Giles had to roll to the side to keep Ethan from stepping on him. Ethan backed all the way into the rock, then slowly felt his way to its edge and took off running through the sand, screaming the entire time. The lion paused and gave Giles what he sensed was a look of grudging respect, than began to gracefully run after his new prey. Giles laughed for another moment, then stood up. "All right. Let's get this over with."

A few minutes later, he was waiting for his father at the original spot. His father showed up almost immediately, wearing the faint smile that on anyone else would be a broad grin.

"Show me, boy," the elder man grunted. Giles opened his hands, and dropped the talisman and the scroll into his father's waiting hands. His father unscrolled the parchment and read, then looked at his son with a disapproving frown that was belied by the twinkle in his eye. "Really, Rupert...'I am Henry the Eighth I am?' Not very original!"

"I thought it rather clever. After all, I did translate it into Aramaic, Father. Second verse, same as the first," Rupert replied.

"Do you finally understand?" his father asked softly. Giles nodded, and the desert tableau dissolved into the familiar cool of his father's study. Looking down at himself, Giles found himself dressed as he had before he disappeared, any sign of the desert experience having vanished. His father nodded to him, and they took seats, picking up the steaming cups of tea that had appeared.

"There are different rules here...we're creating reality...you chose my challenge because it was what I was expecting...and then because I believed it was impossible, it was."

"Not to mention you turned your spirit guide into a real lion! I must say no one expected that...gave the Powers quite a turn! And then, Ethan Rayne...never did like that gadabout...well, they rather enjoyed that part. Not to worry, both of them have been taken care of." His father seemed highly amused by the problem that Giles' lion and nemesis had caused. Giles frowned at him.

"Why wasn't it a spirit animal?"

"You know the answer, it was in your mind...you wouldn't let it be a spirit guide, because of that nagging doubt...just as well, it would have been absurdly cryptic and made it that much harder for you. And you conjured Ethan from your own sense of failure. Well, enough chit-chat. Are you ready to present your gift to your Slayer, son?"

"I am, Father. I understand what it is now. I thought it was knowledge, my experience as a Watcher...but it is not simply knowledge that a Slayer needs. It's the ability to perceive beyond the senses, to look beyond the obvious...my gift is insight." Almost immediately Giles felt himself begin to fade, but not before he saw his father actually smile in approval.

"Well done, my son, well done!"