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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

This story was done for the 2016 Summer of Giles.

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Part I

Jenny had stopped shivering, or seemed to have done, but Giles was taking no chances. “Here,” he said, setting the hot tea in front of her. “And I’ve brandy available, if you’d like me to add a bit.”

She didn’t answer immediately, but took a first long sip, her hands wrapped about the cup to soak up additional warmth. There were dark circles under her eyes and stress lines at her mouth that made her look older. He had been prepared for far worse, feared for worse beyond his imagining, but he still felt a fresh spasm of rage at the sight. Really, he’d have thought that would have been long since exhausted by the hours of dread, and then frantic planning, and then determined action, capped finally by near-paralyzing relief. It was still there, however … and soon, very soon, he would have to turn his not inconsiderable intellect and imagination to finding a means of making Angelus pay properly for what he’d done …

Jenny set the cup down carefully, her hands shaking only a bit, her wrists still showing the marks of the shackles from which they’d freed her. She tried to speak, but her throat caught; clearing it, she managed what was barely more than a hoarse whisper: “How long?”

“How long did they have you?” Giles gently brushed a few strands of her hair away from her cheek, rejoicing once again at the simple fact of her being alive. “Somewhat over a day would be my guess, but that would depend on when you were taken. I didn’t even know of it till the following morning, when I found the message from Angelus; but, even then, it seemed to me that you must have been captured earlier, during the dark hours, and I hadn’t seen you since before school let out Friday.”

Jenny nodded, her eyes momentarily very far away. “It felt like … but I knew it couldn’t be.” She shook her head, the movement overriding and masking what might have been a shudder. “Time was … blurred. I faded in and out, even when I was conscious I wasn’t always there —” She shook her head again. “I don’t know if Drusilla caused that, with her little … chats … or if my mind called it up as a defense mechanism against her. But it felt … it felt like longer than just a day.”

Giles had already taken pains to ascertain her physical condition (little damage, actually, past the cold from the bare stones gradually leaching away most of her body heat, and even that seemed more from indifference than deliberate cruelty), but his gaze sharpened now. “What did she do?” he asked, keeping his tone even with brutal self-control.

“She just talked,” Jenny said. Her voice was perhaps a bit stronger now. “Rambling, mostly, and giggling, and what might have been bits of prophecy but I couldn’t tell because they were coming from the lips of a lunatic.” She looked to Giles with a horror only partially softened by crushing weariness. “We already knew she was crazy, but you can’t know what it’s like till she’s with you. She isn’t lost in madness, Rupert, she belongs there. It’s her element, like the sea to sharks. Insanity is home to her, it’s reality, and she’s so … so casual about it all, it’s like the insanity is going to swallow you as well.” She stopped, and Giles had the impression she might have lost color if she hadn’t been already at the limits of that. “Sometimes … I think sometimes she did try to pull me in with her. She’d stare at me and stroke my temples and sort of croon, Be in my eyes …” It was unquestionably a shudder this time, and her lips were pinched. “I think that may be why I was … gone for so much of the time, because part of me was convinced that if I ever let her draw me in, I’d never come out again.”

Giles placed his hands gently over hers on the small tea table. “You’re safe now,” he told her. “We got you out, and I shan’t let you come to harm again.”

He knew, and knew that she knew, that he could enforce no such guarantee. He meant it all the same, and could see that she drew comfort from it.

At the moment his thoughts began to turn darker, Jenny seemed to feel it, for she said, “Angel … Angelus … he left me alone. Drusilla wouldn’t let him near me, so it was … everything I went through, it was all her.” She drew one of her hands away from his to pick up the teacup again. “He was angry, I think, and trying not to show it, but she was … very firm. It’s hard to imagine — or at least it used to be, for me — but I think he’s actually a little afraid of her.”

Just now, Giles had no desire even to try to imagine it. He said only, “He must have been, to allow her to take his, his prey from him.”

“No,” Jenny said. “She wouldn’t let him take me from her.” She looked up, letting her eyes meet his. “It was Drusilla who kidnapped me from the school.”

“Truly?” Giles said, startled. He’d been so certain … because Angelus was the one given to such games, because it was he who had left the taunting challenge, and set the trap, the whole thing had seemed so much like him …

“I think he was planning to do it himself,” Jenny said. “I … I can’t really remember, things all run together, but from things he said I think she warned him about what I was planning, and then decided to … to intervene herself, while he was still gloating over the possibilities of what he might do to me. Like I said, I believe he was angry at her, but then he pushed it back and smiled and said he’d just use me as bait, then, while she played with me.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed. “He did that indeed.”

“And …” Jenny’s eyes were haunted. “When he said that, part of me wondered if I could make them kill me, so they wouldn’t have me as bait … but you wouldn’t have known, you’d have come ahead anyway, so then I started thinking it would have been better if she’d just killed me at the school and left my body … or if Angelus had made it there ahead of her, he’d have never been able to resist a bit of slaughter —”

The burst of hatred Giles felt, even at the thought, told him that her … ‘wishful thinking’, there … wouldn’t have helped. Knowing her dead, he’d have come anyway, with fire and fury and devastation, no inhibitions or limitations because he’d not have cared about the consequences. Kerosene bombs, actual bombs … hell, he’d have razed the factory with a bloody bulldozer and a flamethrower at his side —! “Well, you’re alive,” he told her, squeezing the hand he still held. “And, all things considered, I believe I prefer it that way.”

It was the kind of stereotypical British understatement that would have had her teasing him in the past, and he’d deliberately offered the opening so she could do exactly that. She just looked at him, however, through those bruised eyes, and said simply, “You came for me.”

“I did,” Giles acknowledged. “And successfully, for which I am quite, quite thankful.”

She sat back in the armchair and closed her eyes as if strength were draining out of her. “I’ll have to give Buffy my thanks. Or have you do it, if she’s still not willing to speak to me.”

“Buffy —” Giles cleared his throat. “Buffy was, was not involved in this venture.”

Jenny’s eyes opened. “What?” she said; and then, “But … then, how?”

“I had help,” Giles said, and sighed. “Decidedly … unconventional help.”

*               *               *

“Can you explain to me again why we’re doing this?” Xander complained to Giles, hefting the double-bladed axe with a meaningful glance at the third member of their party. “Because I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that you actually think you can trust this character.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be wise at all,” Ethan said with an oily smile. “And I’d say there’s little chance that Rupert trusts me the least bit. On the other hand, I have managed to acquire an entertaining collection of useful skills. Not that you’re likely to be familiar with the concept of being useful.”

“Shut up, Ethan,” Giles said, in a manner that suggested the response was all but automatic by now. To Xander he went on, “It’s true, though, that his, er, eclectic knowledge base, added to my own, should offer us better odds of navigating whatever set of snares Angelus has prepared. And I do wish you’d allow us to hazard this on our own.”

“Angel doesn’t know diddly about magic,” Xander shot back. “If you’re right about this being a bunch of mystical booby-traps, he’d have had to contract it out.” His eyes rested on Ethan with what, while less than full-on hostility, held no slightest trace of regard. “And guess who’s the most likely candidate for a job like that?”

“And if that were the case,” Ethan answered cheerfully, “then I’d be absolutely the ideal person to bring along. I’d know exactly where everything was and exactly how to disarm it all, plus I’d get the delightful bonus of turning my coat on my employer after taking his money.” He sighed theatrically. “Alas, not so, which means I’ll have to work my way through with just my wits. Got plenty of those, fortunately … unlike, say —”

“Shut up, Ethan. No, Xander, I know his style, and the traces I could detect are nothing like the techniques he customarily uses; and, believe me, he never could resist signing his work.” The quick, dismissive assessment Giles directed at Ethan was, all the same, more nearly neutral than Xander’s had been. “You’re both correct, I’d be a fool to trust him. In this particular instance, however, I do think he’s telling the truth.”

Xander shook his head doggedly. “Even if he is, this is a guy who’ll double-cross you in a heartbeat, just for giggles.”

Ethan laughed aloud. “That does sound like a treat, doesn’t it? Why, I’m getting a warm glow just from imagining the look on his face.” His smile was amused and confident. “But, however tasty a beautifully timed betrayal can be, it doesn’t compare to the delicious prospect of actually having Rupert in my debt. So I’ll play along, never fear; this one’s just too good to lose.”

“Shut up, Ethan. Xander, I am set on this course. Whatever you may believe, my own survival is not meaningless to me, and I am soberly convinced that my odds are better with Ethan than without. There is no need for you also to be at risk, however.” He stepped closer, and his voice dropped to a murmur. “And if I should fail here, if I don’t return, Buffy will need you to help her face Angelus —”

“Forget it.” Still a boy, well short of full adulthood, Xander nonetheless spoke with the unshakeable finality of a Spartan at Thermopylae. “I’m with you that this wouldn’t be a good one for Buffy — it’s a trap, we know it’s a trap, Angel isn’t even trying to hide that it’s a trap, and all his traps are gonna be primed for a Slayer — but she can’t afford to lose you, and I know you have to do this, so let’s get to it.” He had been forceful, defiant, but now Xander, too, spoke as quietly as Giles had done, something between just the two of them. “I don’t have to survive. Buffy has to survive, and you have to be there to see that she does. And if all I am is cannon fodder to make that happen, then that’s what I’ll be.”

Giles felt his throat tighten. “You … underestimate yourself, I think,” he said at last.

“Whatever.” Xander turned away. “So are we gonna do this, or what?”

Ethan was watching them, one eyebrow raised in sardonic mirth. His lips curved again in that characteristic smirk, and Giles snapped, “Shut up, Ethan.”

Derelict in the protective sunlight, the abandoned factory lay at the end of one of Sunnydale’s less respectable roads. Giles had made sure they were well distant for their final preparations, for he had some understanding of how keen vampire hearing could be, but at least during the day, outside, they needn’t fear any of the undead creeping up on them. Now the three men turned together, and began walking toward the arena where their trials were to take place.

*               *               *

“Wait a minute,” Jenny said, sitting up. “Ethan? Ethan Rayne? What on earth moved you to call in that slimy son of a bitch? And how could you ever believe he’d want to help you, even if he actually had anything to offer?”

Ah. Yes. With dire necessity mandating desperate means, and the multitude of his personal memories of Ethan, Giles had somehow forgot that Jenny herself had emphatic reasons to hold a grudge. “Ethan is in fact quite capable, in his own … irredeemable, calamitous way. And our history together is, er, complex, and I’d been trying to keep track of him so I knew he was nearby somewhere. I was confident that his admittedly warped priorities would allow me to call on him for aid — the simple fact that I was asking for help from him, of all people, would be a triumph he could never pass up — so I sent up a spell flare of a type I knew would catch his attention. And when his curiosity brought him in —” Giles paused, coughed. “I … begged. Abjectly, hating every moment and knowing he’d see my mortification as the perfect icing on the cake.”

“Ethan Rayne,” Jenny said again, shaking her head. “Oh my goddess. And Xander … Rupert, how could you bring Xander into a nightmare like this?”

“Xander gave me no choice,” Giles said with some dryness. “Jenny, you must understand the, the entire situation. Angelus left me a message, dropped it through the letter slot of my front door: If you want your sweetie, send the Slayer in after her. She’ll be somewhere in the factory … and, who knows, if you get her back quick enough, she might even still be sane.” Giles stopped, drew a measured breath. “I didn’t know how long the message had been there before I discovered it, how long you’d been captive without my knowing it. And he’d also included a … portrait of you, a pencil sketch. He’s an accomplished artist, I must admit; I could quite clearly see the terror in your face.”

Jenny’s lips moved without any sound emerging, her complexion even more bloodless than before, and the teacup jittered in her hands.

“I couldn’t reach Buffy,” Giles went on. “No answer on her phone when I called, no one at home when I went there, and then I remembered she’d said something about accompanying her mother out of town.” He looked down at his hands, lest his eyes waver if he let them meet Jenny’s. “I couldn’t reach her, and I couldn’t wait — for all I knew, Angelus had already begun vivisecting you at leisure — so I drew Ethan in and convinced him to lend me his assistance. And, while we were in my office trying to thrash out a quick plan of action, Xander came to the library on some trivial errand and overheard us, and insisted on including himself.”

Jenny had seemed to shrink into herself while he was speaking, but now she said, “You shouldn’t have let him do that, Rupert. He had no business being involved in something like that, not … not for me.”

Giles shook his head ruefully. “I didn’t let him, but he refused to be excluded. Xander can, can be rather more stubborn than you would expect. He gets … this look in his eyes, sometimes.” Giles could tell that his voice and expression had gone sober. “It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, there’s no moving him. You’d have to kill him first … and, in all honesty, I’m not altogether certain that even that would stop him.”

Jenny’s emotional state had been oscillating ever since Giles had got her back to his flat, got her warmed up in the tub and then into the sitting room with his bathrobe to preserve however much modesty might concern her: too drained by her ordeal for any activity, too keyed-up, still, to relax. Another swing had swept over her while he spoke, and now she was fighting tears. “I still … still can’t get past Ethan Rayne,” she said, hiccupping slightly in her sudden distress. “I mean, it worked, I can see that. You made it work, you won. But I still don’t understand. How could you take that kind of risk? why him?!”

Giles allowed himself a grim chuckle. “I was just as appalled as you by Xander’s insistent inclusion of himself in this enterprise. I would have kept him out if I could … though, now it’s all done, it appears fortunate that I was unable to do so. As for Ethan, however: his character is even more deplorable than you’ve had occasion to appreciate, but there were still three specific reasons that I believed — and still do — that calling him in was the right choice.

“Foremost, of course, was that he had skills that I needed. In my first hasty reconnoiter of the factory —” (Within a half-hour of discovering the message from Angelus, and only the most savage discipline had kept him from plunging inside. He had wanted to, so desperately, he would have willingly died to save her; but merciless logic had prevailed, for impetuosity would inevitably have meant his dying without accomplishing anything.) “— I could tell that the magical traces I detected were of a type Ethan had worked with before, though he had come to prefer and enjoy more devious means. With his knowledge and talents, it seemed entirely possible that we could work our way past the dangers ahead of us. At the very least, I had substantially improved our odds.

“Then there was the blunt fact that he was available. He was near, he answered my signal, and — however twisted his reasons — he agreed to join me. He was there, and I deemed it better to move with a less-than-ideal ally, immediately, than to wait for a perfectly briefed and perfectly equipped team to arrive days too late.”

“Okay,” Jenny said, exhaustion and emotional reaction making her voice vague. “I still don’t really understand, but … you got me out, and I guess that’s what it comes down to in the end.”

Giles smiled at her. “I certainly wouldn’t dare complain about the results.”

Jenny nodded, and sipped her tea. Giles stood, went to the kitchen, and returned with a fresh cup, which he set in front of her.

“You said three,” she observed abruptly.

“Yes?” Giles replied, eyebrows up slightly.

“You said there were three reasons Ethan was the right choice, but I’m pretty sure you only gave me two.”

“Ah. Yes. Well.” Giles shrugged, and his smile was relaxed, gentle, and without a whit of warmth. “The third reason I was willing to work with Ethan? I knew that, if he died, I wouldn’t shed a tear for the bastard.”