Not All is As it Seems...6

Oleecia thought hard on his question. Could she go live amongst humans...? Would they accept her...? She looked towards Giles. Could she live with him...? Could she really have what her heart, right now, desired more than anything else...? She again looked down at the man lying beside her, beseeching her with his eyes. She smiled and came to a decision. Nodding an affirmative, she said, "Yeah, okay, I'll come back with you..."

"Splendid..." he murmured around his smile.

Oleecia returned his smile and then moved to help him sit. "You're going to have to heal first, though. You won't get far like you are at the moment."

He nodded, "I... I agree, but my friends would be concerned. They *might* have started a search..." He answered her bewildering look. "I should have returned to them sometime ago. Perhaps I would be missed... missed enough that they would deem a search practical...?"

She couldn't help but detect the despondency in his voice, the self-worthlessness that had come out in his words. She frowned with puzzlement. Why would he feel that way...? She placed a hand, comfortingly, on his shoulder and whispered, "*I* would search for you, Giles..."

He looked down at her with eyes a little wider than normal. Tears quickly filled them, making them glisten in the moonlight. He then moved a little forward and enveloped her in a hug. "Thank you..." he whispered.

She hugged him back, careful of his wounds, silently wishing that she could hug him for all her worth.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the front of the cave. The moonlight was obliterated by a beam that flickered, left and right, through the greenery that surrounded the mouth of the cave. The stillness of the air was shattered by several voices calling Giles' name. He turned, just as the quietness of the cave was rented with the sound of someone pushing their way inside.

"In here..." he heard that someone call to the others... Xander...

Giles breathed a heavy sigh. One that expressed his relief that he'd been found and also because a search *had* been deemed practical. He then turned back to Oleecia, wanting to tell her it would be okay now, but he stopped when he saw her look of fear. He didn't blame her. He imagined that her previous meetings with humans had been few and far between, and those that she had had, had most likely been in confrontation, rather than with a hand of friendship. "No matter what," he whispered to her, trying to re-assure her, "No matter *what* occurs in the next few moments," He was thinking of Buffy's reaction to finding him here with a Vampire, "No matter what, you *are* still coming back with me... Are you not...?"

Oleecia plied her eyes away from the young man that stood in the front of the cave and looked Giles directly in the eyes. It had been okay with her, when it had just been her and him, but now, in the reality of it all, she began to fear her decision. What had she been thinking...? She could feel, almost taste, the wave of suspicion emanating from the young man. He was different to Giles. Giles had welcomed her, accepted her and had promised to take her in and care for her, but this, from the young man, was different. He wasn't as welcoming. Then a girl with Red hair appeared beside him.

She shrank away from the embrace that Giles had given her, and as she moved away, she silently shook her head.

"Oleecia, please... No harm will befall you... I promised, and still promise, you this..." Giles begged of her. He then went to reach for her, but the wounds to his chest protested it, but still, he moaned through the pain. "Please, I said I'd die first..." Just then, Buffy came rushing into the cave, with a quip that, quite frankly, he thought, did not help matters.

"I smell a Vampire..." she announced with distaste. All thoughts that Giles had been found left her and she went in search, with her eyes, for the thing that she hunted on a nightly basis. Her eyes then lit upon Oleecia. She pointed a stake at her and accused. "You... It's you..." She snarled and started forward. "What... been keeping him alive, just enough to keep you going...? Well, time to say night-night, little girl..." she spat.

He had no idea where the strength came from, but before he could think how, Giles stood and moved to stand in front of Oleecia. "Buffy..." he angrily called, "I will *not* have you speaking to her in such a manner..."

That stopped her in her tracks. She blinked at Giles and then at the Vampire behind him. Her brow furrowed briefly in confusion, then they rose a little when she thought of something. "She's got you in her thrall, hasn't she Giles...? Don't worry, I'll fix that when I stake her..." With that, she moved forward again and raised the stake in her hand.

Giles' eyes blazed angrily at Buffy, as he felt a hand fist itself with fear in the back of his shirt. He could feel it shaking there. "You will do *no* such thing." He angrily informed his Slayer, "She *saved* my life, when she had every right to end it. You will *not* stake someone, whom I care about. You will have to go through me first... Do you understand...?"

"But she's... she's a Vampire, Giles..." Buffy muttered incredulously. Giles was defending her... Why...?

"I am fully aware of what she is and isn't, Buffy, and if you were to pay attention once in a while to what I tell you, you would understand that she is *not* like *other* Vampires..."

"Oh right," Buffy laughed at him, "next you'll be telling me that she doesn't suck blood to keep her alive..."

Giles' anger started to rise further in him, so much so that his reply came out at Buffy through gritted teeth, "That's *exactly* what I am trying to tell you... What I *have* told you..." He knew that only his determination that Buffy should understand, was keeping him upright, but it kept him standing and that's all he cared about. "Time to choose, Buffy..." he whispered.

"But... but she's a Vampire..." she whined.

"Yes," he acknowledged the correctness of that fact, "but a Vampire that *saved* my life..." He could feel his strength dissipating rather rapidly, but he fought against it... He had to know... He looked at Buffy and waited, fighting all the time.

Only the snapping of twigs could be heard; no matter how hard he tried, Xander found it impossible to keep still; as Buffy thought hard about what Giles was doing and saying. "Alright..." she finally conceded, but completely against her instinct. "Alright, but if she so much as makes the tiniest of moves against you, or any one of us, then she's dust..."

It wasn't the promise he'd hoped for, but coming from Buffy, knowing what she was and what she was going against with her dubious promise, Giles accepted it, sighed with relief and then let the weariness take him. He suddenly pitched forward and collapsed to the floor before anyone had had the chance to move.

Oleecia was beside him in a moment, her fear of the others gone, overridden by her concern for Giles. She knelt at his head and started to smooth a hand over his forehead. She then looked up when she heard some more twigs breaking. The girl with the Red hair was looking at her with a question in her furrowed brow. Oleecia smiled and explained. "He wakes up if I do this."

Willow's eyebrows rose in surprise at that. "He does.?"

Oleecia nodded then turned her attention back to Giles. He'd started to shift a little. He was starting to awaken. She knew it wouldn't be long before his eyelids would flutter and then he would be looking at her. She couldn't wait. Something in his eyes always gave her hope, took away the fear she felt.

There, it was beginning...

And there was the look...

She smiled down at him and then giggled when he admitted that his bouts of unconsciousness were beginning to annoy him. He'd groused it at her, and that had started her giggling.

"You know," he further added, "I could think of far more comfortable-a-places to lose consciousness. My bed, springs to mind." He then looked at the others, one by one, and then he smiled. "Thank you, for looking for me."

Xander looked to the floor of the cave and, whilst kicking at the loose shingle there, he mumbled a "You're welcome..."

Willow placed a hand on Giles' shoulder and, returning his smile, she said with conviction, "What else did you expect of us, Giles...? 'Course we looked for you... We were lost without you..."

He chuckled at that, "I rather feel that *I* was the one that was lost..."

Willow couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. She playfully slapped his arm and giggled out at him, "You know what I meant..."

His face grew serious, "Indeed I do," he admitted and added, "and thank you for that..."

Willow smiled her appreciation at him and tenderly rubbed at his arm. "You're welcome," she beamed at him.

Giles then looked for and found Buffy, away from the rest of them. He tried to sit, and managed it, with a little help from Willow on one side and Oleecia on the other. "Buffy, please, come closer..." he beseeched her, then sighed a little when she moved towards him. "I... I imagine this is a little difficult for you... I understand... but Oleecia cannot feed from another human. Well, that is, more that she won't..."

"She got a chip, like Spike...?"

He smiled when he heard Oleecia behind him mutter her surprise that he *had* been telling the truth. But his attention was on Buffy. He *had* to make her understand. "No, she is quite free to harm humans, but her Soul chooses not to..."

"Her what...?"

"Her Soul, Buffy..." He then felt a wave of tiredness again, and he really did not want to waken here again. "Please, Buffy, I... I promise to explain it all, but I want you to promise me that you will do nothing against Oleecia, until I *have* explained..."

"I already have, haven't I...?"

"Please," he begged, "even if it might appear to you that she is going to hurt one of us... I must have your promise..." He knew he was asking a lot of Buffy. She did not know Oleecia as well as he did, but he personally knew that what he asked was not as a huge-a-request as Buffy would be thinking it was. He was hoping, despite her recent, obvious, lack of faith in him that she might discover a little in her anyway and promise.

Eventually, Buffy looked him directly in the eye and said, "Alright, Giles, I promise, but if you die because of that, I will kill you... You got that...?" Then she let rip with a short, sharp burst of laughter, even though it was self-deprecating. "Oh good one, Buffy, killing a dead man... Oh great..." She then sighed a sigh that made it clear she thought she had completely lost her mind, then stomped from the cave.

"Right," Giles muttered, as his eyes followed, with concern, Buffy's leaving, "now that the world has once again returned to its correct rotational pathway, I say we leave this place..." He looked at the others that had remained and mumbled, "Hmm...?"

Oleecia giggled...

Xander took the couple of steps it took to get to them, and frowned, "You understood all that...?" he asked Oleecia.

She shook her head, still giggling, and said, "Not one word, but that's why I laugh... He talks funny..." And laughed a bit louder.

Giles harrumphed with indignation. "Might I please dispose myself upon you three and demand that we leave here, now...?"

Xander laughed right along with Oleecia's continued giggling. "There he goes again, with the Giles-speak. We keep telling him that if spoke English, then we'd know what he wanted..." Having said that though, he really knew what Giles wanted. So, he went to one shoulder, whilst Willow, trying desperately to hide her grin, went to the other, and with an exaggerated heave, both then pulled the older man, and their friend, to his feet.

Oleecia, though less fearful than before, but still scared enough not to let go of Giles' shirt, suddenly thought of something. "Does Giles really have a Vampire living with him...?"

Willow brightly answered her. "Oh yeah, but he's lost his Grrrr!!!"

Oleecia frowned, "His... his Grrrr...?"

"Yeah, his Grrrr!!!... The ability to feed from, or hurt, Humans... He's not that bad anyway, no matter what he tries to make us believe. Sometimes I think he prefers to play the hero, to playing the baddie. He might not admit that, well, he *wouldn't* admit that, but *I* think it's true..."

"Do you... Do you think he'll like me...?" Oleecia whispered uncertainly.

Giles moved his arm around Xander; who ducked beneath it; and pulled Oleecia to his side. "He'd better," he promised, "because, were it to be otherwise, then he would, quite simply, have to find somewhere else to live..."

Oleecia looked up at Giles and smiled, feeling warmed, for the first time in her Vampire life, at his words, his promise. She weas looking forward to living with this man. Already she knew he was fiercely protective of her, but what else made him tick...?

End of Story One in the series.




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