Finally, I bring you some plotty goodness (hopefully!) and some explanations about the claim. Not explanations to the big question (Spike’s obliviousness) just yet, but I promise, it’s coming. =D
“Giles.”
The air filled with a shrill scream. Giles jumped and whirled around, his papers flying into the air. “Angel,” he said with a squeak, clearing his throat and straightening his necktie. “I thought I might be seeing you tonight.”
The vampire arched an amused brow and took a few steps forward. “Then why did you scream?”
“I meant to say hello.”
“What happened?”
“I misspoke.” Giles sighed irritably and started collecting his papers off the floor. “What are you doing here?”
“You just said you thought you might be seeing me tonight.”
“Yes, but I never worked out why.” He turned and headed toward the foyer. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
“Yeah, I know it’s short notice, but—”
Giles paused and glanced back at him. “Actually I meant we have to stop meeting altogether. What exactly is short notice? Oh, don’t tell me. Invading my library twice in one week, especially since the first time you left after telling me that you believe Spike has claimed my slayer.”
“You asked,” Angel objected, his hands coming up. “It was just a theory.”
He stared the vampire down for a long second, then turned again and resumed the trek to the foyer. “A theory you have since discredited as completely erroneous and absurd?”
“No.” A heavy sigh rolled off his shoulders. “Giles, I think that we might have a problem on our hands.”
“I find that I have many problems, and most of them revolve around you.”
“I think my theory has crossed that line.”
Giles placed his stack of papers atop the library checkout counter and turned, crossing his arms. “That line?”
“The line that separates things that are theories from things that aren’t theories.”
“You’re saying your theory has been confirmed since we last spoke.”
“I’m saying I have new reason to think that Spike claimed Buffy, beyond the evidence I had before.”
Giles’s brows perked. “Such as?”
“Haven’t you noticed she’s been in pain?” He paused. “Physical pain, I mean. She holds her stomach a lot and she often looks like she’s, well, sick.”
“No. Come to mention it, I haven’t noticed that. Are you sure that isn’t a natural reaction to being around you?”
Angel huffed an irritated sigh. “Look, Giles, I get that I’m perhaps your least favorite person in the world, but I am honestly here to help Buffy. And from what happened tonight, I think I have extremely good reason to be afraid for her. I think Spike claimed her.”
“Yes, we have covered this.” Giles paused. “What happened tonight?”
“She came to see me.”
“Buffy?”
Angel rolled his eyes. “No, Giles, Ava Gardner. Of course, it was Buffy.”
“You’re really comfortable taking that tone with me?”
“No,” he replied, shifting awkwardly. “It just happened.”
Giles peered at him over the rim of his glasses. “All right. What happened when she came by tonight to make you feel that your theory concerning Spike and a claiming ritual had some merit?”
“She kissed me.”
There was a long pause. “I can see where you would arrive at the conclusion that Buffy is mated to Spike because of that, only you’re completely, utterly, laughably wrong. Namely because…if Buffy is mated to Spike, she physically wouldn’t be able to withstand putting her lips anywhere on your body. Not that I understand how she managed it before, mind you, but I’m talking about a severe, physical aversion to—”
“She threw up.”
Giles glanced up, his face comically blank. “I beg your pardon?”
“Buffy kissed me. She looked like she was in pain, and she grabbed me and kissed me. Then she murmured Spike’s name, and when I reminded her that it was me she was kissing, she threw up.”
A nearly indiscernible titter rippled through the Watcher’s body. “Where?”
“On me, Giles. She threw up on me.”
From the look on Angel’s face, it was very clear that he expected righteous outrage at this revelation, which likely made the blow all the more severe. Giles couldn’t contain himself. He doubled over in loud, high-pitched chuckles, his hand flying over his mouth as his body dissolved in mirth. The visual was simply too much, and his mind provided it over and over again, in widescreen, Technicolor, and THX surround-sound.
The look on Angel’s face…he would have paid top dollar to see that.
“Oh please,” he managed between giggles, “please tell me you have this on tape somewhere.”
“Giles! We have a real thing, here!”
“Because she vomited after kissing you? Are you sure that simply wasn’t the natural reaction one has to kissing you?”
“Do you want to help Buffy, or do you want to make jokes?”
“I can do both.” The Watcher held up a hand and shook his head. “Angel, if Buffy’s reactions are that severe, you know that the worst hasn’t happened yet. There’s no way that Buffy would have accepted a claim issued by Spike.”
“She would still be sick, even if she had.”
Giles nodded. “Yes, but I’m saying, that hasn’t happened. With as well as you know Buffy—or did before you started murdering her friends—do you honestly think that she would ever, ever accept a claim issued by a vampire she loathes even more than she loathes you?”
“No. But—”
“If Spike claimed Buffy, it was decidedly one-sided.”
“You sound certain.”
“That’s because I am.” He sighed. “If a claim exists, she hasn’t accepted it. Spike’s hold on her is putting her through mental and physical agony, and it will wear off once the claim wears off. In the meanwhile…do you think it’s possible for you to convince Buffy to kiss you again? Only, make sure I’m in the room. That’s something I don’t want to miss.”
“You’re taking this very well.”
“That’s because I know that if Spike claimed Buffy, it was one-sided. We just went through this, remember?” Giles waved a little. “I was the one standing right here.”
Angel paused and licked his lips. “And what if you’re wrong?” he asked. “What if Buffy did accept?”
“She didn’t.”
“And if she did?”
“I’m standing here, telling you that she didn’t.”
“You had a front row seat, is that what you’re saying?”
Giles rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’m saying that I know my slayer, and that there is absolutely no way in this world or the next that she would have accepted a claim from a vampire she hates, whether or not that vampire helped her avert the apocalypse.”
The vampire’s eyes flashed dangerously and he took a violent step forward. “Could you just stop and allow room for the possibility that once in a while, there are people in the room as smart as you? I know that Buffy wouldn’t have accepted the claim, if she knew what it was. I haven’t yet heard anything to convince me that Buffy knows what a claim is, let alone would know not to accept.”
“You don’t think that Buffy would have the presence of mind to tell Spike that, no, she doesn’t belong to him?”
Angel was still for a long beat. “All I’m saying is, if Buffy did accept, we have an even larger problem on our hands.”
“I know. But she didn’t.”
“If she accepted, it’s permanent. There’s nothing we can do.”
“That is another thing I know.”
“If she’s accepted, the only thing that will make her feel better is claiming him back.”
“You do realize that I know quite a bit, right?”
“If she’s accepted—”
“Angel, as much fun as speculating over nonsense with you has proven to be, we still don’t know if your claiming theory is accurate.” Giles smiled thinly at the vampire’s blank look. “We need to verify that this claiming took place.”
“She vomited when she kissed me!”
“I still say that had less to do with a claim and more to do with the fact that she was kissing you.”
Angel sighed and glanced down. “We need to talk with her.”
“Yes.”
“Not that she’ll tell us the truth. Though…” He paused and glanced up, his eyes pensive. “Buffy’s birthday is coming up, isn’t it?”
Another long pause. Giles stared at him coldly. “And here I would think that you, of all non-people, would remember.”
“My point is, she’s turning eighteen. Isn’t this the year that the Council requests the Slayer go through the Cruciamentum?” Angel waited for the Watcher’s stiff nod before continuing. “If we haven’t been able to get any answers from Buffy, we might use that to gauge how Spike reacts to feeling her in danger.”
“Spike is still in town?”
“If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
Giles suspected that much was true. It certainly didn’t seem that Angel cared much for visiting him. Furthermore, had Spike left town, there would be absolutely no reason to fear something as preposterous as a claim. Especially if the claim had not been accepted. If the claim had not been accepted, there was every chance that Spike was going through even more physical and mental agony than Buffy was.
He frowned. The claim had not been accepted. He knew Buffy well enough to know that. If there was a claim, it had not been accepted.
But as much as he hated to admit it, Angel was right. If Spike had committed the monumentally stupid faux pas of claiming Buffy, utilizing the Cruciamentum to test their connection was the best bet. It would have to be controlled, of course. Monitored. He wasn’t about to put Buffy in danger for the sake of a science experiment.
Though, honestly, he didn’t have much choice. The Cruciamentum was a rite that had been performed since before the dawn of time in the most literal sense. It had to happen anyway, and while it did, they might as well make the most of it.
“We talk to Buffy first,” Giles said softly. “Give her a chance to refute.”
“She’ll refute regardless.”
“We’re still talking to Buffy first.”
Angel nodded. “Okay.”
Giles exhaled deeply.
He hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t putting Buffy in danger—at least, not in danger that she wouldn’t be in anyway. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Not in the slightest.
The knowledge did little to shake the feeling that he’d just made a deal with the devil.
To be continued…