Giles sat in his living room, pensively sipping on a mug of tea. It had grown cold, but he didn’t notice. He was engrossed in the texts in front of him; old, smelly tales of demons and warriors. Tales of the past, it seemed, were often clues to the future. Clues to the future were exactly what Giles needed most at the moment.
The latest crisis had been averted, Adam had been defeated at last and the Initiative was in ruins. Perhaps they would be lucky and this would be a quiet summer, but somehow Giles doubted it. Buffy was in no form to deal with even a minor crisis at the moment. Oh, she might seem alright to one who didn’t know her that well, and she had made it fine through the battle with Adam, but there was something very wrong. Giles feared what would happen if she went up against something unexpected in her current state.
Perhaps it was Buffy’s barely passed studies that worried her mother, but Giles was more worried about the strange apathy that had overcome her. Her friendships had already been suffering – now it was as if there was a great chasm across which Buffy could not be reached. All of her friends had noticed the increased distance. Her relationship with Riley had crumbled as a result. He had left her at the beginning of the summer saying that she had stopped caring.
Her response? She hadn’t seemed to care.
The most telling sign, though, and the moment when Giles had become truly frightened for her, was when he and Willow had confronted her about Angel’s death. No matter how things had stood between them recently, Angel had been Buffy’s first love. Giles still remembered his first love, and though their relationship had only been a fleeting thing, he knew he would shed a few tears if he ever learned of her death. The relationship between Buffy and Angel had been anything but fleeting; two years, even off and on, is a long time in any relationship. At the very least, he expected her to mourn Angel’s loss.
He didn’t expect the empty gaze he’d seen when he and Willow had faced her. He didn’t expect the careless shrug. “He was already dead and gone,” she said simply. “Now that’s just more true.” Then she had changed the subject.
At the time, he didn’t have the luxury to press the issue. Demons were over-running the town and Adam – part human, part demon, part machine, all monster – had them at a horrible disadvantage. He had to be dealt with before Giles could really take the time to deal with Buffy’s changed demeanor.
Now that battle was over, though. In contrast things in Sunnydale were almost eerily calm. One could almost believe it was a normal town. It wasn’t, though. Even at its quietest there were plenty of ways for a careless Slayer to find her death.
So Giles sought comfort in the tomes of prophecy and demon lore. If he could not figure out what was wrong with Buffy, if he could not find a way to help the girl who was the closest he’d ever have to a daughter, then at least he could help her be prepared. He could try and find out what was coming before it arrived.
He’d been at this for a while before he leaned back wearily in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t having any luck. There were no regularly scheduled rituals or even possible demonic rituals coming that he could find. “Damn it!” he muttered, banging his fist on the table in frustration.
The slight vibration caused the precariously stacked books and papers to slide, tumbling right off the table. Letting out a weary sigh, Giles crawled on his hands and knees to collect them. This certainly wasn’t helping…
One of the books had fallen open, and as he reached it a passage on its worn pages caught his eye. It had only taken one word for Giles to notice it: “angel.” The ex-Watcher, caught in the prophecies – for that’s what they were - sat back on his heels to read.
“When a dark angel falls
in the light, the Chosen One sheds no tears but dies inside.
Hidden away, the Phoenix
rises from the ashes and into the light once again.
The veil of death is before
his eyes; the Phoenix will not fight.
The Chosen One is come to
the Phoenix; the light of her heart banishes the shadows of death from
his.
Love clears the paths of
time.”
There was a long passage, too faded for him to read, and then: “The Phoenix and the Guardian are one.”
Giles stared at it for a while…he knew it was important. It seemed to scream at him, but he did not quite understand. “The Chosen One sheds no tears…” it whispered. Words jumped out at him, begging to be heard. “Dark angel” and “rises from the ashes.”
“The Chosen One” was always – or almost always – the Slayer. Of that much he was certain. The other, the Phoenix, he’d never heard of or found any reference to before but was apparently male. Not a Slayer then; someone else.
…rises from the ashes…
Ashes.
A vampire’s ashes….?
A dark angel falls in the light…
This can not be a coincidence. There’s no coincidence on the Hellmouth.
Acting on a hunch, Giles picked up the phone and dialed. A tired, familiar female voice answered. “Angel Investigations. We…”
“Cordelia, it’s Giles,” he interrupted.
A loud sigh on the other end. “Thank god you called! You’ll never believe what happened. Or…maybe you will, but…. Things are really weird here…”
“It’s Angel, isn’t it?” Giles said quickly, stopping her rambling. “He’s alive…?”
Cordelia gasped in surprise. “What…How did you know?”
Giles sighed, partially in relief. “I found a prophecy. I wasn’t sure, actually, if Angel was the one it was referring to, but… How is he?”
It was Cordelia’s turn to sigh again. “Very, very weird. I’m ready to strangle him. It is no fun dealing with Amnesia Boy.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He doesn’t remember anything or anyone, Giles. He barely even speaks…and it’s not like he talked much before, but this is just freaky.”
“’The veil of death,’” Giles muttered.
“Huh?”
“It’s…part of the prophecy I found,” he explained. “I think I may have the solution. But…”
“Giles!” Cordelia said urgently. “What is it!”
“Buffy.”
“Confused…” Cordelia replied.
“It’s in the prophecy. ‘The Chosen One is come to the Phoenix; the light of her heart banishes the shadows of death from his. Love clears the paths of time,’” Giles quoted.
“Phoenix?” Cordelia asked.
“It’s a mythological bird,” he explained. “It’s immortal, of a sort. Every certain amount of time – 500 years, 1000 years, the numbers vary in different accounts – it burns itself to death in its nest. It then rises again as a young phoenix, reborn from its own ashes.”
“So you think that Angel is this ‘Phoenix.’”
“I do.”
“And you think that Buffy can bring his memory back?”
“I do.”
Cordelia made a sound Giles couldn’t quite interpret. Disgust, perhaps, or anger. “And it just went so well the last time Buffy was here,” she replied sarcastically. “Her visit is part of what got us into this mess!”
“I don’t know that she… But besides that, if this prophecy is correct, and I’m reading it right, she’ll find her way to him anyway,” Giles said smoothly. “Aside from that…is there anything I can do to help?”
“No,” Cordelia said, her brief anger gone leaving her sounding tired. “Thanks though. If you’re right…get Buffy here. I don’t know if I can take much more of this.”
Giles nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “I’ll do my best,” he replied. “Until this all plays itself out…good luck.”
They hung up the phone together, and Giles looked at it for a moment in silence. It was he that was going to need luck. He’d need all the luck he could get to get Buffy to the city she wouldn’t even talk about.
Giles picked up the phone
and dialed once again. “Willow? It’s Giles… I need your
help. Meet me at Buffy’s house as soon as you can…. It’s about
Angel….”
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