White Magic

"There's something wrong with Buffy. You need to come."

Those words had broken through the Watcher's natural hostility, the automatic wall that went up anytime he heard the voice that had spoken them. He wanted as little to do with Angel as possible, soul or no soul, but he could not ignore the urgency in the vampire's voice, and the pang of fear that struck his heart at the thought that his Slayer was in some kind of trouble.

If Angel was desperate enough to call him...it had to be bad.

Assured by Angel that there was no time to waste with details, Giles had hung up and called for a cab, then called the airport to arrange to be on the next international flight to L.A. Nearly twenty-four hours later, after a brief layover that felt excruciatingly long to the anxious Watcher, he found himself at the airport in Los Angeles.

The city of Angel - and the last place he wanted to be.

Arriving at the Hyperion, he briefly considered knocking, but reminded himself that it was a place of business, and there was no need to announce his presence...or show any greater courtesy to the establishment's owner than was absolutely necessary. He walked into the lobby, a bit taken aback by the large group assembled there...none of whom, he noticed immediately, was his former charge.

Some of them he recognized, others were completely unfamiliar. Dawn sat on the strange circular sofa, next to a green-skinned demon of some sort. Giles' immediate instinct was to rush forward and rescue the girl, but no one else seemed to perceive the creature as a threat, so for the moment, he reluctantly refrained.

An unfamiliar but very pretty brunette was behind the reception desk with Anya and Wesley, dutifully studying the rather limited resources which Angel had at his disposal, almost all courtesy of Wesley's personal collection, no doubt. Willow and Xander sat in chairs near a corner of the room, talking quietly in low, intense tones; they appeared to be arguing.

It didn't help Giles' opinion of him. In fact, he found it rather infuriating.

"Where's Buffy?" Giles demanded without preamble.

"We'll get to that," Angel replied, clearly having expected that sort of greeting. "We need to talk to you before you see her. A lot of strange things have been happening these past few months."

"I won't talk to you or anyone until I've talked to Buffy," Giles insisted impatiently. "Where is she? What sort of trouble have you gotten her into now?" When it became clear that Angel had no intention of telling him, the Watcher strode boldly past the vampire toward the stairs, muttering angrily, "I'll find her myself."

"Wait." Angel caught his arm as he passed, pulling him back around to face him. "You don't want to go up there."

Giles' eyes went cold as he stared down at the vampire's firm hand on his arm, then looked up at him with an icy smile. "And you don't want to leave your hand on me a moment longer," he stated, and there was a dangerous tone to his deadly soft voice.

With a regretful grimace Angel dropped his hand, and Giles turned back toward the stairs. Before he could take a step, however, Dawn spoke up, rising to her feet, and the sound of her young, trembling voice stopped the Watcher in his tracks. He slowly turned to face her, his expression softening with compassion on her haunted, uncertain eyes, far older than they should have been.

"Giles...he's right," Dawn told him in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. "You really *don't* want to go up there. Trust me. Spike and Tara have been up there for...well, for days, really, at this point."

Giles' eyes widened at the way her nose wrinkled in distaste and the knowing sound of her voice, making it clear that Spike and Tara had been upstairs for precisely the reason it sounded like. "Tara, and...and Spike?" he echoed in bewilderment, utterly at a loss.

Dawn nodded. "Besides," she added with a little shrug, "Buffy's not up there."

Giles scanned the room again, taking in the numerous sets of troubled eyes focused on him, and finally lowered his gaze with a weary sigh and a humorless half-smile of resignation. He turned his face back toward Angel, who was still waiting patiently for the Watcher's decision, not quite meeting the vampire's eyes as he finally came as close to relenting as he was going to come, his voice quiet and clipped and painfully polite.

"Will someone *please* tell me what the bloody hell is going on here?"

******************************

"Please...Buffy, don't..."

"Shut up. You just keep your stupid mouth shut, do you hear me, Spike?"

The sound of several brutal blows was unmistakable to the Watcher, even through the tinny speakers of the small tape recorder in Angel's hand. He frowned, troubled by the cold sound of the Slayer's voice, but not yet willing to admit that the situation was as bad as they were making it sound.

"So she's done a bit of damage to Spike," he scoffed, shaking his head with a nervous laugh. "He's a vampire. She can hardly be blamed for the occasional..."

"Shut up and listen."

Giles raised an eyebrow at the vampire's harsh command, but went silent as the voices on the tape continued, Buffy's cold and frighteningly calm, Spike's steadily increasing in panic and desperation.

"You're gonna do what I tell you to do, Spike. If you can't keep your mouth shut, I'll just have to help you. Now what did I tell you to do, Baby?"

Giles was not sure which was more upsetting to him, the suggestive tone of Buffy's voice and her use of intimate terms of endearment toward Spike, or the sheer terror in the vampire's submissive voice as he replied to her.

"O-open my mouth...please...oh, God, Buffy, please don't do this..."

"What was she doing to him?" Giles demanded. "Who made this tape? What exactly are you saying has happened, here?"

"Just listen," Dawn interrupted, her voice trembling with pain, and the Watcher looked at her, alarmed to see her face streaked with tears. "It gets worse."

"Buffy, you wouldn't hurt her...you wouldn't hurt Dawn..."

"Hurt her? Spike...you'll do what I say...or I'll *kill* her!"

Horrified, disbelieving, Giles shook his head. "That's not Buffy. She wouldn't...she would never threaten Dawn..."

"Yeah," the girl whispered, her voice hoarse with tears. "That's what *I* thought."

"This has to be some kind of trick..."

"It's not," Dawn argued, shaking her head. "I was there. It...it was really Buffy. She...she tortured him, and...and she threatened to kill me. To kill...anyone who tried to help him."

Giles frowned in confusion. "Help him...what...what exactly has she been doing to him? *Why* was she torturing him? I'm afraid I still don't understand."

"None of us do," Angel sighed, his voice heavy and troubled. "But...there's someone who was right there, all along...saw it all happening. And...and I think he's the one you should be talking to...if he'll talk to you."

*********************************

"I think it'll really help if he hears it first hand. Please, Spike. We need his help, and right now he doesn't want to give it."

Spike swallowed hard, looking away from Angel from where he sat on the bed, settled comfortably in Tara's arms. "I...I'm not sure..."

"Won't he listen to *me*?" Tara offered anxiously, glancing between Angel and Spike. She understood Angel's point, knew that Spike's first hand testimony of what happened would likely be the most effective method of gaining Giles' help, but she hated the idea of making the traumatized vampire relive his abusive experience for the benefit of the Watcher who had never liked or trusted him. "I mean...Giles knows me, trusts me. He'll listen..."

"He'll listen," Angel conceded with a grim nod. "But that doesn't mean he'll believe it. You're a very kind, compassionate person, Tara. He'll think Spike just managed to fool you into believing it was worse than it was, or something."

"He heard the tape, right?" Tara frowned.

"He says it's possible it's a fake."

Spike flinched slightly at the words, a blatant insult, an absolute disparagement of his ordeal and all that he had been through. He drew in a sharp breath, letting it out in a slow, shaky sigh, his eyes downcast. Tara gently pulled him closer to her, reaching out to gently thread her fingers through his in a silently soothing gesture.

"Maybe," she suggested cautiously. "Maybe it's...a good idea to talk to him, Sweetie..."

"He can't hurt you," Angel assured him. "I'll be right here."

"No," Spike spoke up, his voice trembling slightly. "D-don't want you...to be here. Don't want...anyone here."

Angel nodded his acceptance, having already expected as much, but Tara blinked in surprise. She swallowed hard, then slowly began to disentangle herself from Spike, releasing his hand and sliding across the mattress away from him without a word.

Spike caught her hand before she could leave the bed.

"'Cept you," he amended in a voice barely over a whisper, as Tara raised questioning eyes to his. He gave her a weak, uncertain smile and a half-shrug as he explained, "Goes without sayin', love. Want you with me. Always want you with me." He hesitated before confessing softly, "N-not sure I can do this if you're not."

Tara's heart swelled with warmth and a secret pride as she slid back across the bed, resuming her cozy position at Spike's side. "I'm right here," she assured him in a hushed, intimate tone of voice. "I'm not leaving you. I'll be right here, and if he even *begins* to give you a hard time..." Abruptly she turned her piercing gaze on Angel, raising her eyebrows expectantly as she informed him, "...the conversation will be *over*. Is that clear?"

Angel smiled, having expected no less from the usually mild-mannered young woman. "Completely. Give me a minute; I'll send him up."

*********************************

When Giles entered the room, Spike and Tara were sitting on the edge of the bed, much less overtly intimate than when Angel had talked to them, but still close enough that their postures, the slight angle of their legs toward each other, and their comfortably clasped hands made the change in their relationship clear to the observant Watcher.

Not that he would have had to be very observant to notice the tenderness between the vampire and the witch.

"Angel called me," Giles explained unnecessarily. "He said Buffy's in some kind of trouble, and yet no one has been able to explain to me exactly what is going on. Apparently, Angel and Dawn both seem to feel that you are the best person to enlighten me on that subject, Spike."

Subdued but calm, Spike nodded. "S'pose that's true, seein' as I was there for the whole thing."

"What whole thing?" There was a faint note of exasperation to the Watcher's voice as he took a seat in the chair beside the bed, folding his hands in front of him and settling back for what promised to be a rather long story. "What is wrong with Buffy?"

"That's one answer I haven't got for you," Spike sighed, a barely controlled tremor still audible in his voice.

Giles frowned, taking in the nervous sound of his voice, the trembling of his hand as he ran it anxiously through his hair. Tara squeezed his hand, whispering something tender and soothing in his ear, and he nodded his acceptance of her words with a shaky breath. Their intimate manner with each other, as well as Spike's obviously shaken appearance, set a heavy stone of unease in the pit of Giles' stomach.

He had a feeling that the story was not going to be one he wanted to hear. Still, he sighed in reluctant resignation as he removed his glasses, wiping them slowly as he suggested, "Perhaps you'd better just...start at the beginning."