Title: Snow and Fire
Author: Gail Christison

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

They met again in the master bedroom, each of them having taken a floor and gone over it with a fine toothed comb.

"Nada," Buffy announced. "You?"

Giles shook his head. "I saw a door to the attic. Do you want that, or the basement?"

"Basement," she said immediately. "The bad guys are always in the basement…and since bad guys are my specialty…"

"Just…be careful," Giles warned.

He opened the attic door gingerly, once he'd reached the landing. It was dark and dusty, and deserted, as attics were wont to be. He was about to turn and leave when he heard…something.

His heart rate picked up and he listened intently for it to be repeated: a soft moan.

Again.

With a deep breath, he moved further into the room, cursing silently when he tripped on the leg of an old coat rack, and wishing fervently that he'd brought a torch.

"I-is there anyone there?" he asked aloud and immediately felt an idiot, imagining snickering demons or vampires preparing to leap at him, until the groan was repeated. He followed it until he found a woman lying on the floor, surrounded by broken preserving jars, blessedly empty, a box on it's side next to her with just two unbroken ones left in it. He looked up, squinting. She'd been on a stool, now also tipped over, trying to get the box down from a cupboard.

"It's all right," he said softly, when she moaned again. She was terribly cold and her pulse was hard to find.

"Can you hear me?"

"Rob...s-s'at you?" she mumbled.

"Rob isn't here," he said gently. "Are you hurt very badly?"

"I-I fell."

"I know. You must tell me if you're injured."

"My h-head…" She half-frowned without opening her eyes. "My leg."

Giles did his best to check her legs, neither of which appeared to be broken, though one ankle didn't look too good, and her head was sporting a lump the size of a goose's egg on the back of it.

"H-How long?" she stammered, moving her head back and forth, but still not opening her eyes, her voice cracked and rasping.

"I don't know. When did you come up here?"

"When…" She appeared to struggle for clarity of thought for some time. "When I got home…I was…have I…missed Passions?"

He closed his eyes. As much as two days she'd been lying there, if she wasn't completely addled by the bump.

"Move your feet," he commanded and watched her fairly feeble but successful attempts to obey before scooping her up as gently as possible, though not without a long, low moan from her as he exited the attic.

He was halfway down the hallway when Buffy reappeared. "No bad guys?" she asked.

"No bad guys, apparently," he confirmed. " A mishap with a stool and some bottles. She was lucky not to be badly cut."

"I hate to tell you this, but I checked and the phones are out." The woman moaned again softly. "We should get her into bed right away. The Master is probably hers."

There was an electric blanket, which Buffy switched on immediately. Once Giles had laid the woman gently on the bed and removed her shoes, Buffy made her comfortable and made certain her clothes were loose.

When she was tucked in, and the bed starting to warm, she finally opened vivid blue eyes and looked at them.

"H-who?"

"Refuges from the storm," Giles said softly. "There's a blizzard outside. We've fed your animals and we'll stay and watch you tonight. I'm afraid the phone is out."

"Rhi…Rhiannon McAllister," she whispered scratchily.

Giles smiled reassuringly. "Rupert Giles, and my…this is Buffy Summers." He looked searchingly into the woman's eyes and could see no sign of trouble from the head wound. "How do you feel?"

She almost chuckled, but it turned into a dry cough. "Like a steer ran over me. My back aches. My ankle hurts like hell and my head feels like a basketball, when it's not throbbing."

At that moment Buffy returned from nipping into the bathroom, with a glass of water, which Mrs McAllister drained swiftly.

Giles chuckled. "Well, fortunately it looks like you might have only strained your ankle, and your back is bruised, but apparently not seriously hurt. I'm not a doctor, but judging by your speech and your perfectly normal eyes and their rather normal reaction to the light, I would hazard to guess that your bump on the head isn't terribly serious either. The main concern is the length of time you were out."

"I-I was out for a long time?"

"If you knocked yourself out before Passions last screened, you've been unconscious for a day and a half," he pointed out gently.

"Oh dear. It's my own fault. My husband is away and I haven't slept properly since he left, barely at all, actually. It must have been a combination of the whack on the head and sheer exhaustion. I do remember stirring a few times when the dog barked. P-please, Mister Giles…help yourself to some supper." She turned her head gingerly toward the window and the four-inch gap in the curtains. "It is a bad storm. Your Buffy should turn down the spare bed for you and the one in my daughter's room…maybe put on the electric blankets…" She groaned again and closed her eyes. "I think maybe I should rest now. Either that or I'll need a bucket."

"Rest," Giles told her softly. "And don't worry about anything. We'll watch the animals and we'll be close by if you need us. We're not going to leave you until the phone comes back on so that we can call for help, or the storm breaks, whichever happens first."

She smiled painfully, but didn't open her eyes. "Thankyou," she whispered. "For all of us. Y-you should let Rusty in out of the cold."

"Rusty?"

"The dog. He sleeps in the house when the weather is bad. He's t-trained. Don't worry… he'll stay with me," she said sleepily.

Giles motioned Buffy out of the room.

Rusty was indeed pleased to be allowed into the house, addressing both Giles and Buffy with the same enthusiasm before scampering off to find his owner.

"Hungry?"

Buffy looked up at Giles. "Are you kidding? Starving wouldn't come close to describing it."

"Then let's investigate the sleeping arrangements, and find something to fill the empty spaces."

The spare bed turned out to be a very large double bed, perfect for Giles' long frame, but the McAllister daughter's bed was a tiny white and gold painted single brass bed, in a very pretty child's room.

Buffy snorted. "Trade?"

Giles chuckled, but shook his head as Buffy reluctantly turned the covers down. He watched her as she worked. Her hair was damp and the coat was far too big for her, but her face was flushed and her natural beauty undiminished. He sighed silently, wondering if she was ever going to be allowed a real Christmas…if she was ever again going to know a real life.

She turned to find the green eyes watching her and stopped, stayed somehow by the look in them, the expression on his face.

"Giles?"

"What?" He shook himself out of his thoughts. "Oh. It's nothing. I'm just sorry you're going to miss Christmas, once again."

Buffy shrugged. "Yeah, well, last year wasn't horrible, even if I did spend most of it missing Riley and listening to my dad fighting with his girlfriend…who's not, these days, by the way. I think I preferred her to the secretary, though. At least Irina was anything but cliché."

Giles let his gaze linger a few moments longer, silently fighting strong feelings about the depth to which her father's recent indifference had hurt her. A surge of something else quickly followed it, and made him clear his throat suddenly.

"Yes...um…well, I'm going back to the car to get our bags so that we can get out of these wet clothes. Will you check on Mrs McAllister? If she's still awake, we should try and force some more fluids, and perhaps find some clear soup for her.

Buffy immediately slid out of the coat and handed it to him, tilting her head aggressively when he started to shake his head.

"Yes, Giles. At least it's dry in here. You can't go out there in just your shirtsleeves again. I don't want you in bed with pneumonia, either."

He took it reluctantly and slid the wet leather over his shirt. It was warmed by her body and smelled of her perfume, mixed with the less than salutary aroma of damp hide.

Only half surprised, he ignored his body's unexpected reaction to the borrowed intimacy and composed his face into its usual calm lines.

"See to Mrs McAllister. I won't be long," he managed, and made his escape.

On the porch, he hesitated. It was even darker than when they'd arrived. It was an eerie kind of dark, not night, because it was too early, and no longer day either. The sun had been all but obliterated and the light that did struggle through had been refracted through so much dark cloud and moisture that it was as soft as gauze and as difficult to see through.

The snow was still coming down heavily, blown now by a fairly strong wind, and visibility beyond a few feet had become an issue. Still, the garage was in a straight line with the right hand corner of the house. If he kept a straight course for a chain or so, he would find it easily, and the reverse with the return.

He had no trouble finding the garage, though he took a lot of buffeting from the wind, and the incredible cold from both the snow and the wind chill factor had already numbed his uncovered fingertips and cheeks.

Some time later, Buffy slipped out of Rhiannon McAllister's room and frowned when she realised Giles wasn't back yet. The older woman had managed another glass of water, this time with a little juice mixed in, and approved of the pitcher and glass Buffy left by the bedside, before slipping back into a relatively peaceful doze.

From the back porch, Buffy could see nothing, not even a light in the garage, only a driving wall of white. She waited another twenty minutes or so, her instincts growing more and more panicked by the minute, until she decided she had to something.

She knew where the garage was and set off, to be almost knocked over when she stepped off the porch, before gathering herself and using her slayer strength to launch herself into the wind.

He wasn't there. The bags were gone, though the BMW was still there. There was a trail of snow from the trunk of the BMW towards the exit, most of which was now obscured by the billow of snow blown in when Buffy opened the garage door.

Her heart began to pound. That meant Giles was out in the snow somewhere. How the hell was she going to find him? How…? She was too terrified and too angry to cry. Not Giles! No way was fate going to take Giles away from her now…

Then, as though a soft cool breeze had suddenly sprung up on a stiflingly hot day, the memory of the sound of his voice came to her. Whispering, calming, reassuring…the chant from her mediation exercises…

She ran out of the garage and stopped, unclenching her fists, closing her eyes and deliberately relaxing every fibre of her being, despite the freezing cold. Slowly her mind reached out, finding no demon or vampire nearby, but pushing beyond that, trying to do something she'd never done before.

Buffy had done a lot of things lately that she'd never done before. More and more she turned into herself, focusing, reaching, trying to find what she was looking for.

Moments later, to the observer it would have looked like Buffy had been shot out of a barrel, the way she launched herself into the storm, surely, swiftly, cutting through in a forty five degree angle to the house.

By the time she found him, he was almost covered in snow, only the red, upended over night bag sticking out of the drift, catching her eye. In seconds she was on her already frozen knees digging, pulling, feeling for a pulse. He was still alive.

She let go of the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and gasped, then choked as the freezing air cut into her throat like razors.

He was a terrible colour, and so cold. It took all of her ingenuity to get him back to the house. Because of her Slayer strength, weight was not an issue…but his sheer size was incredibly awkward for her.

Once inside a frantic dash to McAllister's room found her drowsing but not asleep. Buffy seized the chance to ask where blankets and first aid equipment could be found.

When Giles was stripped to his underwear, towelled off and wrapped up like a mummy in woollen blankets, Buffy started to bathe his face with a warm cloth. It was struggling to regain its colour, but soon two tiny pink licks appeared in his deathly white cheeks.

She hated that he was on the floor, but there was no easy way to get him up the stairs, and a man his size was not going to fit on the two-seater settee in the living room. What she hated more was not knowing if she was accomplishing anything; if she was doing the best for him that she could. She knew almost nothing about first aid, let alone helping someone who'd almost frozen to death.

The only thing she remembered was how much her hands hurt when her parents had taken her to Aspen to see snow, for her seventh birthday. She'd been excitedly making a snowman without putting gloves on until she was called for lunch and realised her fingers were completely numb. The hot water on her frozen hands had been more agonizing than the cold itself.

At that point she suddenly realized her hands were now trembling and pulled the cloth away.

"Giles?" she whispered. "Giles, please…if you can hear me, wake up. You wanted to give me Christmas…come back. You're all I want for Christmas…you hear me? Don't leave me! I…"

She stopped as if hit in the stomach and swallowed. She had been going to say 'I need you,' but the word that had almost left her lips wasn't 'need.' She swallowed again and cupped his face with her hand.

"You can't leave me, Giles," she whispered.

His eyelashes fluttered at the warm touch and she felt his jaw shift slightly.

"B-Buffy?" he rasped.

"I'm here," she managed, barely able to swallow the silent sob of joy.

"I must have…missed…the house."

She nodded stupidly, since he hadn't opened his eyes yet. "Missed it completely, probably because of the wind. You would have been bearing hard into it, and didn't know your own strength. I found you. You're going to be okay."

"Bags…?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I got them. Nothing like Slayer strength, bags slung over my back, dragging your carcass through the snow like a pack mule. There shoulda been pictures," she teased.

His brow creased into a divot. "I-I'm sorry," he said softly.

Buffy's hand moved so that her fingers were pushing damp hair off his forehead and stroking it.

"Why?" she asked gently and smiled. "I was done being mad at you by the time I found you. And it's not your fault there's a blizzard."

"P-put you at risk," he managed, and tried to open his eyes.

When they finally did flicker open and stopped squinting against the light, Buffy found herself staring into the green depths. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a part of her brain wondered where his glasses were.

"Where am—?"

"On the floor in the lobby."

He turned his head very slowly, trying not to think about the continuing gentle caresses of Buffy's fingertips, saw the pile of sopping clothes on the floor and the dripping jacket on the doorknob.

"G-good lord, am I…?"

Buffy shook her head. "I left the cute little Christmas boxers on," she told him, her eyes dancing. "But it's good the amount of colour in your face now."

He rolled his eyes. "Anya gave them too me. You still shouldn't have had to…"

"Giles," Buffy interrupted impatiently, "I'm a grown woman and I've seen my fair share…" The sudden memory of Riley's departure stopped her short for a moment, before she reclaimed her train of thought and went on. "You're in great shape, and besides, I was kind of in the middle of a major panic attack about your survival at the time, so stop being sorry." Her face cleared and a look of mischief came into her eyes. "Truth is, with those shoulders and that chest hair you're actually the sexiest guy I've ever seen in his underwear," she told him, only half teasing.

He managed a feeble snort and tried to sit up, gasping at the pain in his extremities as he did so.

Buffy's tucking was tight and she had to loosen the top blanket before helping him to a sitting position, which inevitably revealed his chest again, just as he closed his eyes against the bout of light headedness that followed.

A part of him considered whether that was more from shifting position suddenly, or from his body's reaction to the fact that his bare back was now resting against her soft body.

"If you're strong enough to move now, we should get you to bed before you do catch your death," Buffy said in a strange, almost forced, tone.

Giles nodded and suffered silently as half frozen limbs struggled to work. They both almost fell even before he was fully upright, but she steadied them and patiently helped him through to the stairs.

When she looked up at the steepness and the number of them, Buffy bit her lip. "This is going to hurt. How are the legs holding up?"

When he didn't answer, she looked up at his face and realised that he was in a great deal of pain already. She lowered him immediately to sit on the bottom step.