Well, of course.

What an odd bit of feedback. But I'm glad that we're doing right by you.

I'm thinking of answering ita's challenge about 'Widow's Pique'... I know that others are going to do so, but it'll be interesting to see the different stories. Especially given my personal slant on Willow.

Elena, DO IT.

And thanks for the kind words!

Here's a thought. Say four of us write a story about this. We put it all together, in four parts, with the proper headers, under the title. I think it would be cool.

Hmm. I like that idea, s.a.

Who's up for some of the next bit of Vamp!Giles? Assuming the host cooperates ...

"Should we be doing this here?" Xander asked Buffy.

"The Magic Box is a public place," she answered, keeping watch on both entrances. "Besides, his name's on the lease. We couldn't keep him out if we tried."

Xander traced a pattern on the top of the counter. "I don't know if I can do this, Buff. My brain is yelling 'Evil vampire,' but my--my heart is going 'But, it's Giles.'"

"I know."

After a moment, the young man put his arms around Buffy, who rested her head for just a moment on his shoulder. "You're nice to lean on. You've got good shoulders."

Xander blushed, and Anya, behind the counter, fidgeted unhappily. "My shoulders," she muttered. "Mine to lean on." But she didn't say it loud enough for anyone to make a fuss over.

At the table in the corner, Willow and Tara were holding hands. "We've got protection spells up," Willow said. "He won't catch us again."

"Thanks, Will."

"Though he is good," the red head mused further. "I mean, if he's doing summonings and negotiating with dark powers and expecting them to listen to him--" She broke off as Tara nudged her arm and shook her head.

Buffy wasn't listening anymore. Straightening from Xander's hold, she stared at the door. "Vampires. Two of them." She glanced at Xander, who drew back into a corner, where two loaded crossbows waited. Buffy pulled Mr. Pointy out of her pocket.

The knock on the door startled everyone. "Uh, come in!" Buffy called.

The door opened slowly. Spike scanned the whole room, marking everyone's location before stepping in. "Evening, folks."

"Spike, you knocked."

"Formal occasion, pet." He glanced around once more, then gave Buffy a questioning look. She stared at the doorway behind him, then nodded. Spike nodded to someone outside, then stepped in and to one side.

Giles appeared in the doorway and paused, likewise scanning the room. He wore blue jeans and a pullover under his leather jacket; behind the glasses, his expression was slightly apprehensive. Tara and Willow only met his eyes briefly, Tara looking nervous and Willow uncertain. Xander looked back for a moment, then divided his attention between the two vampires, his hand resting pointedly near the two crossbows.

Then he looked at the Slayer. She stared at him, her jaw muscles tight. "Hullo, Buffy," he said softly. Buffy blinked rapidly, then turned away.

Giles nodded to himself before looking at Anya. "Hello, Anya. I do apologize for abandoning you and the store like this."

The ex-demon stood back against the shelves behind the counter, out of the easy reach of vampires. "The distributors keep asking where you are. And then there's the bank. Life does go on, you know--well, at least for some of us."

Giles couldn't help laughing. "I've always admired your work ethic." He reached under his jacket. "This should make things easier." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Xander put a hand on a crossbow and the two witches raise their hands. He pretended not to notice and pulled out a legal envelope. As he handed it across the counter, he noticed the cash register--and the cross leaning against the cash drawer. Anya saw his gaze and raised her chin unrepentantly, then took the envelope.

"I've already sent copies to all the distributors and I called the bank," he went on. "You should be able to take care of anyone I missed."

"What is it, Anya?" Xander asked tensely.

She stared at the document she'd pulled out of the envelope. "Formal transfer of ownership and the lease of the Magic Box to me," she whispered. Then she frowned. "For the price agreed upon." She glared at Giles. "What price? I've negotiated with vampires before, what am I agreeing on?"

Giles blinked, then smiled again. "That was just a bit of legal misdirection. No price needed between us, Anya."

"I don't think so." She grabbed her purse and pulled out her wallet. "I have fifty dollars. Xander--"

Willow cleared her throat. "Um, in situations like this, one dollar is traditional, just to show that a transfer of something of value took place."

Anya held out a dollar bill. Giles hesitated, then accepted. She picked up a pen and added the words "the sum of one dollar" to the transfer statement. "There, everything legal and aboveboard. Except that dead men can't sign contracts. Stupid mortal laws."

She smiled brightly and almost leaned forward to hug Giles, catching herself partway.

"You're welcome," Giles said. "One less thing to worry about. I'm sure you'll do well. And thank you, Willow." The witch went pink with pleasure.

Xander didn't take his hand off the crossbow. "I'm sure you're glad to be rid of the place. Running a store would probably get in the way of the carnage and the whole plotting world destruction thing. Isn't that what all the unsouled, unchipped vampires want these days?"

Giles glared at him, and Xander flinched, but he didn't look away. After a moment, Giles took breath to speak. "I have no interest in the destruction of the world. That's why I'm here."

"So the whole screaming, mayhem, blood in the streets thing doesn't get you off, unlike some undead people we could mention." Xander glared at the smirking Spike and missed the expression that flickered across Giles' face. The Ripper look, they'd come to call it, a flash of viciousness and unholy glee.

"Personal proclivities aside, I don't particularly want to see the world overrun by hellbeasts and demons as Glory rips open the dimensional walls and saunters home."

Buffy turned slowly. "And to stop that you were willing to kill my sister."

Giles met her eyes without flinching. "Yes, I was. It would have solved everything."

"Everything except for the fact of you killing my sister." He nodded in resigned acceptance. Buffy clenched her fists. "You're not even sorry, are you."

"I did regret the grief you would feel, but I felt it was necessary."

Now she believed he was a vampire. "Were you always this ruthless?"

The look he gave her was calm. "Yes, actually, I was." He glanced around the room. "Where's Dawn?"

"As if I'd tell you!" Her heart ached at the familiar scolding glance he gave her.

"There are other beings looking for her. The whole point of this is to make sure Glory does not get her hands on the girl."

"She's somewhere safe."

Giles glanced around the room, obviously wondering who was doing guard duty if everyone was here. His eyes fell on Spike, who leaned against a bookcase.

"I would take the Slayer's word for it, Rupert," the blond vampire said quietly. "Don't worry yourself about Dawn."

"I most certainly shall worry myself about the location of the magical crux of this upcoming apocalypse--"

"Leave it."

The humans in the room shivered as the vampires glared at each other. Buffy took a cautious step back, feeling rage and violence rolling off her former mentor. Spike never shifted from his casual pose, but his eyes were not something anyone who might be considered prey wanted to see. She heard a very faint growl from one of them, refusing to admit that it could be Giles who was acting the part of the wild, vicious demon.

There was no Sire-Childe dynamic between the pair of them to force Giles to submit to Spike. The memory of the fight on the lawn, though, still twinged in his mended bones. He could gain the upper hand any time he wished, just by setting off a binding spell before he made his move. If he went that route, though, he'd best be prepared to go the whole way and finish Spike.

He fondled that thought a moment, staking Spike, being free of him and his assumptions that he was the dominant one. Free of the companionship, the guidance in this strange new world, the respect from the others that having Spike behind him brought. Yes, he had power, and those vampires who knew him walked carefully around him. But he had no illusions that he would be perceived as anything but a fledgling that was getting above himself by anyone else.

For a while, at least, he still needed Spike around. Knowledge and magic were one thing, a century of experience was something else. For now, they were stronger as a partnership than apart.

He remembered the night before, when Spike had appeared in his bedroom and Giles hadn't thrown him out. The partnership had its perks.

He glared at Spike a moment longer, then carefully shifted his gaze just enough to show he was conceding the point. The notetaker in his mind jotted a memo to investigate wolf psychology.

Spike did nothing more than smile very faintly in acknowledgement of his victory. Giles turned away from the other vampire and looked at Buffy. "How is Joyce?"

Buffy blinked for several seconds, catching up with the change. "Um, OK." Giles gave her a painfully familiar look that said "I know you speak English, could there be a few more words to that explanation please?" She would have smiled at the familiarity if she hadn't been so close to crying. "They're going to let her try walking in a couple of days. The speech therapist says she's doing really well."

Giles closed his eyes and nodded. "Good, that's very good."

"See? Told you it would mend itself," Spike said quietly. Giles glared at him, but he just smirked.

Buffy looked back and forth at the two of them. There were sub-texty things going on, things that made her think of stuff she'd read in the books about how vampires related to each other. The two--the two vampires looked at each other the way two people who knew each other pretty darned well would look.

Giles muttered something too low for any but vampire ears to hear, Spike snickered, and Giles turned back to the Scoobies. "We have work to do. What do we have on Glory?"

There was little new information. Giles let it be cautiously known that denizens of other dimensions were interested in the outcome of the situation. Both Buffy and Spike twitched at that, but Willow leaned forward in fascination.

"So there are creatures in other worlds who keep an eye on things here? Do they keep watch? How do people find out the stuff about other dimensions, anyway?"

"Travellers, mostly," Giles told her. "Though few of them are willing travellers. Creatures come through as the victims of spells gone wrong, scholars quiz them on the conditions of the places they come from."

"But you could go there willingly, right? They're not all icky nasty hell places, are they?"

Tara looked at her lover's eager face and frowned slightly. She took one of Willow's hands and held it in both of hers.

Giles smiled at her eagerness for knowledge. "I've never been to any myself, but from what I hear there are dimensions that are not inherently inimical to human life."

Spike pulled out a cigarette and toyed with it. "Still not nice places to be," he muttered. "And the trip is never fun."

Willow turned to him. "You've been to another dimension?"

"Yep."

"What was it like?"

The cigarette went to paper shreds and tobacco leaves in his fingers. "It's not in the tour guides, Red. Leave it at that."

Willow tried not to pout too obviously as she turned away.

"Most dimensions are smelly, nasty places," Anya spoke up. "Most of them don't even have chocolate."

"The horror," Xander murmured.

Giles glanced over to give him a smile at the quip, but the familiar easy tone was not matched by what was in the young man's eyes. Xander stared back at Giles with profound distrust and betrayal. Xander couldn't hold the look long, and he shifted his gaze to Spike. Hatred was all that burned in the human's eyes then. Giles noted the way he leaned against the wall, his arms relaxed against his sides, hands less than four inches from the two loaded crossbows on tables on either side of him. His hands flexed occasionally, staying limber.

Gary Cooper, wasn't it, in High Noon?

"What else do we have on Glory?" he said, turning to the room. "For what it's worth, I believe we only have a few more days before the alignment occurs. If we can hang on till then, we should be home free."

"If," Anya murmured.

"Are we going purely defensive?" Buffy said, "or do we go after the bitch?"

"In her own form, she is fairly invulnerable. If we could find her human disguise ... She was bound to a human form so that when it died she would likewise be destroyed."

Willow played with her hair. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that her human form's lying in the terminal ward at Sunnydale General."

Giles snorted. "No, I believe those who bound her thought that being human might teach her lessons in humility and compassion." Perhaps he should have tried to make that sound a little less cynical, he told himself as the children shared looks of dismay. But Spike was smirking knowingly, and Willow, interestingly enough, looked more thoughtful than outraged.

"So, um, we're looking for someone young?" the witch volunteered.

"Adult, though perhaps not much older than you folk."

"Even if she is invulnerable," Buffy said impatiently, "do we even know where she is? She must have minions and all that, and they have to sleep somewhere."

"Some sort of rallying point, yes," Giles mused. He glanced at Spike. "Perhaps a job best suited for you or myself."

Spike shrugged. "Send the lads out, let them have a look around."

"Good idea."

"The lads?" Buffy repeated suspiciously.

Spike grinned at her. "Just a few minions we've got sitting about."

"Setting yourself up as the new master of the area, are you?"

"There's probably things going on that you don't want to know about, Slayer."

"I see your lads out bothering people, and they're going to get staked. You tell them that.'

Spike shrugged. "Fact of life on the Hellmouth, you could run foul of the Slayer. Cleans out the stupid ones."

"Vampiric Darwinism," Willow mused.

Buffy glared at her friend. "Can we save the thirst for knowledge thing for later, Will?"

"So where do we stand?" Xander asked quietly from his corner.

Giles glanced at Buffy before answering. "Spike and I shall begin inquiries into the location of Glory's headquarters. It would be very useful if we could get more information on the alignment we're waiting for, as well. Was there any reference to what specific form Glory was placed in?"

Willow shook her head. "The chronicles only refer to an infant. Kind of hard to track an infant."

"It seem so irresponsible of them," Tara said quietly. She blinked at the looks she got. "To create these human lives as the vessels for all this power. Couldn't they have turned Glory into a--a rat or something? And turning the key into a girl--poor Dawn."

Buffy leaned against a counter. "I don't think I'd care so much if the key were just a coat rack or something."

"Which is precisely the point," Giles commented. "Still, it would be nice to know where we could find Glory when she was in her vulnerable human form." The silence that greeted him reminded him that squeamish humans were in the room. Though Anya only looked thoughtful and Xander--Xander had the disturbed expression of someone who sees the absolute logic of a proposition and hates himself for it.

Spike straightened from his post at the wall. "Is that it for now?"

Buffy shrugged in frustration. "I guess so." She stared at Giles for several moments, then grabbed her jacket and headed for the door. "Wills, I'll be home in a couple of hours."

As the door closed behind the Slayer, Anya smiled at everyone in the room. "If that's the end of the meeting, then I have to close up the shop. My shop."

"I take it that's a hint," Giles said, amused.

"Yep," Xander said, "time for all the living and the dead to go home."

Spike smirked at him. "What, not going to invite us to stay for the milk and cookies?"

"Nope."

"I am not feeling the love here."

Xander rested his hand on a crossbow. "We can fix that," he said with a smile.

Giles put a hand on Spike's shoulder. "Spike, don't annoy men who are very good shots when they have crossbows to hand."

"Good point."

Xander blinked at Giles with a surprised, flattered look on his face, but he turned away before Giles could ask what he was thinking. He heard the young man's quiet mutter, though: "And it takes being the evil undead to let me know these things?"