He stepped on the gas and drove off, scaring the life out of Wesley as he nearly ran him down.

Wesley cleared his throat, trying to regain his dignity. "Right. What's our situation?"

Edmund, a young watcher fiercely loyal to Wesley, looked at him grimly. "They're mobilizing. They want to get to her before she gets her strength back."

"From what I know of Mister Giles, I think it's safe to say she already does."

"Then she's safe?"

"She had her strength before and she lost. And Giles is in no shape for fighting, as far as I can see."

"Then we have to do something."

"That's what we're here for Edmund."

Buffy listened to the steady beat of the heart she was resting against. They were sitting on the swing outside her front door, looking at the stars in the suddenly cleared up sky. Giles' arm was around her, weak but warm.

She recognized Xander when he was still at the corner and nudged Giles back to the real world. They got up, Giles still somewhat unsteady, and breathed a sigh of relief when they saw no one was after him.

Xander reached them, leaning his hands on his knees and trying to breathe. Giles put his hand on his back, rubbing it gently. "Xander, did something attack you?"

"Wesley… council… they're here."

Giles looked up sharply, trying to pierce the darkness. "Get inside, both of you."

"Xander where's the car?" They looked up at Joyce.

"Flat tire."

"Inside, now. Move it." Giles pushed them both in the direction of the door. Xander went in willingly, needing a drink. Buffy lingered.

"Aren't you coming?"

"I just want to have a look…"

"And if they're here? They'll take you back."

"They won't." He said weakly.

"They will." She reached her hand out to him and when he took it, led him inside.

They sat in the living room, looking grimly at the fireplace. "What now?"

Joyce sighed. "Maybe Buffy and you should leave." She looked up at Giles. "For a few days… until we get this worked out."

"There is no working this out, mom. We have to fight them."

"You can't fight. Giles can't move, you're not half as good as you used to be and even then, you lost."

They all stared at Xander. "Well, excuse me for being the voice of reason."

Giles cleared his throat. "Xander is right. Fighting is not an option at our current condition."

"Then we're leaving? I just got here. I don't want to leave."

"I don't want to leave any more then you do, but what other choice is there? We can not sit here and allow ourselves to be captured. This time they will not try to re-educate you Buffy. If they get their hands on you again, they will call the next slayer."

He did not have to spell it out for them. They all knew there was only one way of calling another slayer. "Then we have no choice."

Joyce looked in the direction of the kitchen. "What do I tell your father?"

"Tell him I'm at Will's. He'll be too ashamed of not knowing who that is to ask anymore questions."

Giles was about to say something when there was a rapid knock on the door. He got up, Buffy behind him with a stake in her hand.

Wesley did not expect to be punched, not as soon as the door opened at any rate. He had forgotten just how much strength Giles could find within himself when he was worried about Buffy.

"Mr. Giles, please…"

He was punched once more in the gut and kicked just under the knee before Buffy slammed him against a wall. "Buffy… I'm here to help you."

"Sure you are."

"Buffy! Get off him you big goon!!"

"Cordy???"

Giles looked with unconcealed trepidation at the dozen watchers gathered in the house. Some of them he knew from his time in England. They were mostly young, but some members of his own generation were also there.

One young man especially caught his eye. He was familiar, and he bowed his head as if ashamed when ever Giles would look at him. Wesley called him Edmund, and seemed to have complete trust in him.

He smiled at Cordelia when she happened to look at him. She was still beautiful, but she seemed more mature, and perhaps a better person for it. She was, for once, adequately dressed for battle.

Buffy was pressed to his side on the sofa, her eyes darting from one watcher to another. She did not trust any of them, but she trusted Cordy, and she trusted Wesley. More or less.

"We tried finding you for a long time Buffy. And you Mister Giles. I'm still not sure how you managed to find her so fast."

"I have some resources… someday I might introduce you to them."

"I see… yes, well. There it is. You're here, they're coming after you."

"So now what?"

"We hide you, we fight."

Giles looked at him. "You and what army?"

Wesley looked at him, then pointed at the watchers.

Buffy buried her head in her hands. Giles got up, moving to stand near one of the bigger watchers. 5 seconds later that watcher was on the floor. Giles breathed in heavily, and turned to Wesley, a bit unsteady. "A couple of hours ago I couldn't open a pickle jar, yet I can bring this man down. You will need much more than untrained, office dwelling watchers to beat the council and its thugs."

Giles went back to his seat, the watcher picked himself up, flushing under the stares of the others and sitting back down in his place.

Wesley cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. The watcher Giles had brought down was their best fighter. "Point taken. What do you suggest?"

Giles looked around once more. The young man caught his eye again and he stared at him as he talked. "You will need magic, I think. And more men. Better weapons."

"We don't have time for that. They will attack later tonight."

Giles sighed, rising. "We have to leave the house. Find a different place to hide. They would have studied this place inside and out. We will have greater odds against them if we were to select the fighting place. Get all of your stuff, all of your weapons, and drive to the factory."

Edmund looked around uneasily. The old, burnt down place was unnerving, and the presence of Buffy and Giles, along with Cordelia, Xander, and the witch Willow, was not helping his ragged nerves.

Giles especially was hard to look at. He had to sit down in the corner, breathing as if drowning, after the drive over. Wesley whispered to him that Giles' must be claustrophobic, and that the stress of the situation was adding to his emotional inability to face his fears.

His slayer was inspecting the weapons, glancing at him from time to time to make sure he was as all right as can be. She gave them all a quick tour of the place, and Edmund could see the logic in selecting that place. If the council indeed had no prior knowledge of it, then the odds could shift in their favor. The dark corners and numerous flyovers catwalks overhead presented wonderful hideouts for snipers, their arrows covered in tranquilizer drugs. The large main room would allow them to fight without loosing sight of each other. And more importantly, it was a place far away from civilians.

He and Wesley both cringed when they saw how terribly out of sync Buffy was with her own weapons and fighting ability. Giles, in his corner, was of no use in battle, and Xander told Wesley he didn't think he could handle magic either.

Wesley tried to work his brain to their advantage, but was failing miserably. Buffy and Giles were always the ones to come up with strategies and plans, he was more apt at screaming and running away. But now it seemed up to him, and Edmund, who was no better at fighting, and only slightly worse in displaying courage.

Edmund, at least, had his faith.

Willow looked uneasily at Giles as they went over their supply of herbs. He didn't seem strong enough to work any big magic, and didn't remember most of the spells. But he knew he was useless in battle and was determined to make himself of some use to somebody.

"Giles, maybe, you could take a crossbow or something and sit somewhere and take them down?"

"No glasses."

"Oh."

"Now, do you know this mist spell?"

"Mister Giles."

"Wesley, why do you insist on calling me that?"

"I… sorry. Giles."

Wesley sat next to the tired man. "How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar."

"Would you rather I told you the truth?"

Wesley couldn't find a response to that. They sat silently for a moment.

"What's on your mind, Wesley?"

Wesley took a deep breath. "Are you prepared for the possibility of you loosing? Of the council taking Buffy again?"

"They will not take her again."

"Your confidence in us…"

"They will not take her again because if they get her in their grip, they will kill her. We must win Wesley, or we are all dead. And Buffy and her kind of slayers will be no more. The council will never let another self-sufficient slayer live."

"They can not just kill them…"

"What will there be to stop them? Only us, Wesley. We're the last line of defense for slayers as they were meant to be."

Xander sat down next to Edmund. They watched Buffy train, working her sword against a wooden beam. She got slightly better, remembering her lessons with Giles, but was still no match for what the council no doubt had in store. Still, they were both hoping that beam wasn't the one supporting the entire fragile structure.

"Do you think we have a chance?" Asked Edmund.

"No. But we've had zero chance before, we were never the ones to lose."

"And how is that, exactly?"

"The other side always has less."

Quentin Travers ran his fingers over the shiny weapon. "Why do we still use swords, when we have the means to kill demons a hundred feet away?"

The large man he had nicknamed brick Number 1 looked at him. "Swords?"

Quentin put the M16 down. "Never mind."

Brick number 2 added it to the rest of them, lying in a neat pile next to the hand grenades.

"Automatic weapons. Now why didn't we think about it before?"

"Think they know we're here?"

"They do."

Xander excepted that silently. Giles had a way of making things look grim without meaning too. Making the council sound all knowledgeable was not what Xander wanted from him.

"You should rest. Take a nap. You don't look good."

"When was the last time I did?"

"I'm serious."

Giles looked at him. Xander had been serious since he got back, almost never joking. "I thought Boxtree only took Buffy's sense of humor. How did he reach yours?"

Xander thought for a second. "You have no idea what you looked like when you got back, do you? I can't get that image out of my mind. I can't look at you and laugh."

"I think… I think perhaps you should, for all our sakes. No sense in all of us having emotional problems. You should make Buffy laugh."

Xander looked at her from across the room, talking with Wesley. The battle hadn't yet been fought, but she acted as if they had already lost.

"Yeah, for Buffy, maybe."

They exchanged weak smiles. "But you really should get some rest."

"All right, I'll take a nap. You go cheer up Buffy."

Xander got up only to be stopped by the sound of cars approaching. The room became tense, all watchers listening for the screech of brakes and slamming of doors.

And there it was.

Buffy had no idea how it got to be just her and Giles, surrounded by heavily armed council thugs. She obeyed the instinctive need to go to Giles and he put a protective arm around her shoulders, his eyes burning with hate as they looked at Quentin Traver's smug face.

"We meet again, Ms. Summers."

"Lucky me." She said drolly.

"You're not getting her, Quentin."

At his smirk Buffy pressed herself harder to Giles, seething with hate and exhaustion. "And just how do you plan on stopping me, pray tell?"

Giles growled quietly, unable to answer. They would be taken down like dogs if they tried anything.

"Take him away."

"No!" Buffy tensed, her heart racing. "No, please, I'll do anything, just let him go, please."

A few of the thugs moved in on them. "Please!"

Giles pulled Buffy tightly against him. "I love you." He whispered. "I'll wait for you."

Buffy gave an anguished cry and jumped at the men closest to them.

It took them less then a minute to have her on her knees, a gun pressed to her head, as she watched them drag Giles away. "Please, anything you want…"

"It's too late for that now, Ms. Summers."

Buffy crumpled forward as two shots echoed in the empty factory, covering her ears as if she could stop the noise, and with it reality. "Giles…"

Quentin roughly dragged her to her feet. "Now, slayer, we will deal with you as we should have long ago."

Buffy didn't even hear him, the shots ringing in her ears, the sight of Giles dragged away burned into her eyes. Silent tears ran down her cheeks onto lips that would never smile again.

"Let her go, right now."

Giles' voice couldn't penetrate her state of shock, nor could the fact that she was suddenly allowed to crumble to the floor.

Wesley took the gun from Giles and he raced to his slayer, cradling her to him and trying to make her open her eyes. She was whispering his name in a voice that was broken and infinitely sad.

Too late, Quentin realized that they had fallen into a trap. If not preconceived, then at least a quickly taken advantage of situation. Unto each of his thugs was aimed at least one arrow, and Wesley and Xander each had a gun. "Did you shoot my guards?"

"Yes. But they won't die." Wesley's voice was smug, proud that he managed to avoid death. On the floor, Giles had gotten Buffy to look at him, and she was sobbing with relief, holding him so tightly it hurt.

"Did you really believe it was only us here? You knew I had followers in the council, you should have brought more men."

Quentin looked at Edmund expectantly. "I did."

Edmund grinned. "I am sorry to inform you, my dear uncle, that blood is thicker then water. And the slayer's blood is what I swore by. You truly are, for all your cruelty, quite naive. Who did you think released Mister Giles? Who got all these weapons? Truthfully, Uncle, I'm disappointed in you."

Giles watched, stunned. That was why Edmund was so familiar to him, and why the young man looked away whenever he met his eyes. Except now he was looking at him squarely, proud of his actions. Giles gave him a small smile and a nod, then turned to rest his cheek on his slayer's head.

Xander helped Giles climb the stairs. "What are they going to do to Quentin and his men?"

"Best you don't think about it." He fell on the bed with relief. "Gods, I'm tired."

Xander took his shoes off. "You wanna' change your clothes?"

Giles was already asleep.

Buffy was sitting in the living room with Willow, Wesley and Cordy. "Hey."

"Hi."

"Giles ok?"

"He's asleep."

"So is this it for the council?"

"I expect Edmund will have quite a bit of work when he gets home. But that should be the end of Quentin's little game."

"Little? That game was HUGE. He couldn't have done it without support from others in the council."

"I know. We're hoping that his defeat will be enough to discourage them from further actions."

"And if it's not?"

"Then we'll have another battle on our hands. Quentin is not the only man who forgot what the council was founded for, what watchers are for. We can hope he was the only one crazy enough to act on it."

Edmund lay on the concrete floor, his head bleeding heavily. Around him, watchers lay dead.

The End