Go to Her...

They had researched this particular demon for hours and hours; possibly days, such had the time passed. He had no recollection of anything substantial since the time of Willow's passing. Only now, as he stood before the thing that had taken his love and life from him, did all of reality spike his brain into functioning properly.

He had recalled the breath of Xander leave his body with a whoosh, when the young man had been shoved away from the fray. Vaguely he remembered him lying unconscious beside a gravestone that could have been Willow's. He had watched for a while, whilst Buffy had tried to take the demon down, but he could not stand any longer on the outside and watch the thing take his charge from him.

He charged from the safety of a tree, with a stake raised high above his head, and a yell that split the silence. With all the power in him that he could muster, he plunged the stake into the back of the demon and kicked out at its legs.

Buffy got to her feet and moved to push her Watcher to safety, but he would not have any of it. He turned to her, his jaw line moving with him gritting his teeth. "This is mine, Buffy... Mine!!!" he ground out to her.

She looked up at him and nodded. She did not like it one bit, but she understood. Silently she stepped back and waited for the moment when she would *have* to step back into the fray. She was not about to let her Watcher die. She had done that once and she would not do it again.

Giles silently thanked her and then turned his attention back to the thing that lay at his feet. He kicked it once, and then again. He took the scabbard from his back and nudged the demon with the point of the sword. "Get up..."

The demon blinked at him with what could have been construed as confusion. It blinked again and then rose. It towered above the man in front of him. "Why, human, do you give me a chance...?"

Giles took a swing at it, slicing into its arm. "You will know that this is not a chance... you..." he took another swing, "will know that this is vengeance..." He took another swing, and with tears in his eyes, muttered angrily, "You will know what it is to lose your life..."

The demon stopped the swing with an outstretched arm and shoved his fist into the human's face. He watched as the force of his punch threw the human off balance. He thrust again into the human's face and watched, amused, as the human fell to his knees. He brought his knee up into the face and smiled to hear a crack of something breaking when making contact. He swatted the young blonde girl away from him and advanced on the human that had cut him, that had given him this chance of revenge.

Giles looked up from the ground at the thing that had killed his love, that had taken his life from him, and silently wished for another sword. He spied the one he had brought with him across the way. He saw the Demon take another kick at him, but dodged in time and then rolled towards the discarded sword.
He coughed blood that had gathered in his mouth, then picked up the sword and turned to face the demon. He saw him swat Buffy away, much like you would a gnat that was buzzing its way towards a source of food. He moved quickly back towards the Demon, but before he could cut off its head, he felt an enormous pressure on his wrist and winced, then cried out when the wrist bone broke.

Powerless to do anything, he watched with a sense of detachment as the point of the sword started to turn towards him. Waist height... He then felt it slice into him and move upward. The pain was not long in coming, but his brain faltered for a moment.

The next thing he knew, he was lying face down on some cold, muddy floor and the pain was intolerable. He gasped when he tried to move, then gasped again when something moved him onto his back. His eyes teared immediately. He blinked to clear his vision and saw Buffy looking down at him with so much concern and some tears of her own. "Buffy..." he whispered. "Buffy...I'm sorry..."

She started to cry with earnest then. "S-S'alright, Giles... I know..."

He blinked again, "Sorry..." he whispered back at her.

Buffy leaned forward and placed a shaking hand upon his forehead, tentatively brushing away some strands of hair. "S'alright, Giles..." she sobbed, "Got to her... Be with her...Go... go to Willow, Giles..."

He then cried a little, his body shaking with the effort not to hurt himself, and then he looked back up at her. "So, so sorry, Buffy..." he whispered.

Then his eyelids fluttered and closed. His chest rose once and then, to the sound of Buffy's Soul weeping its denial, he sighed his last breath...

THE END

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