Buffy woke at dawn, as she had almost every day since she was called. It took her several moments to put it all together and remember where she was and why she was asleep on someone's shoulder…and why the air smelled like a mixture of charcoal, rain and leaves just after you rake them in the fall.

She closed her eyes again and explored the feeling of being against someone warm. It had been a very, very long time. They'd gone to sleep back to back, but somehow, in their sleep, she'd found her way to the one spot in the universe at the moment in which she could feel truly safe. Giles would probably be either royally pissed or extremely embarrassed when he woke up, but for now it was nice to just feel him breathing and feel how, well, *warm* he was, while the brisk morning air chilled her back.

He smelled vaguely of his familiar cologne and his own personal body scent, which was male, yet understated, even if it probably wouldn't be so understated in a couple of days without soap, showers or clean clothes. And neither would hers, she realized with dismay. His breathing was deep and regular, a small sound emanating from his parted lips that couldn't quite be described as a snore. Buffy described it to herself as cute. And those whiskers would be longer. She wasn't at all sure she was going to like bearded Giles. Unshaven, maybe…that way often lay actual sexiness, but not…

Her eyes popped open. She was doing it again. Now her mind's eye had Giles dressed in the black shirt, the designer jeans, contacts, and a couple of day's growth of beard to go with it. Next she'd be redesigning his hairstyle and choosing an earring or something. It was time to try and get up without disturbing him. Morning Buffy was entirely too attuned to morning Giles for her own good. Much longer and she was going to need a cold dunk in the stream.

She extracted herself gingerly from the comfortable hollow of his arm and lifted the leg that was resting on his right one, off, so that she could turn and sit up. That done, she sat for a moment, pleased with her success and wondering what to do next.

“Good morning.”

She jumped what felt like a foot in the air. “I thought you were still asleep?” Her tone was edgier than it should have been, made worse by his quiet chuckle.

Giles drew himself to a sitting position. “I've been in and out of a light doze for the last hour or so. It was rather difficult to go back to sleep with a beautiful woman on my arm.”

She turned and searched his face. “I'm beautiful?”

His head tilted to one side. “Fishing for more compliments? You are not a beauty in the classical mould, but you already knew that. You are, however, a very lovely young woman. Satisfied?”

Her nose wrinkled. “I'll have to think about it for a while. The trouble with you is half the time a person doesn't know whether they've been complimented or insulted.”

He barked out a laugh that was spontaneous and natural. Buffy watched him in amazement. It changed his whole face. It was open and strong and not anything like when he was trying to hide an embarrassed giggle.

“I think its time we both had a wash, and found something to store water in besides that farting little Holy Water bottle of yours. Besides, we don't know if we're going to need it later, or not,” he said when he sobered.

“I vote for 'not'. This place is more likely to have vampire bats than vampires. So who gets the first bath and the first drink?”

Giles made a grand gesture. “Be my guest.”

By the time Buffy had weathered the cool spring and put her clothes back on over her damp person, Giles had restarted the fire. She was glad of it for a few minutes, while her body shook off the chill of the water and her clothes aired, but the day was rapidly warming up and looking pretty non-fire needing.

“So what's the fire for? We don't have anything to cook…or cook in, and I don't see any beastie things to frighten off.”

“It's substituting for towels, mostly. Also I was rather hoping to guddle something from the stream for breakfast.”

“Guddle? Sounds disgusting. Do I want to know?”

He rolled his eyes as a matter of form. “It means catching fish with one's hands.”

“Oh. Well, I didn't see anything that looked like fish. I saw lots of bugs… none of which I'm going to eat, by the way, *ever*, and some birds that kind of looked like big white ducks with shaggy red hair…or ostrichy stuff, or something, on their heads. Oh, and there were a couple of lizards sitting on rocks in the sun, and one snake came out of the grass on the bank and swam downstream. It looked like the pretty one from yesterday. I'm not sure I want to eat any of those, either. The ducks were kinda cute.”

Giles processed all this information. The 'ducks' possibly meant meat and quite probably nests with eggs. The snake wasn't a terribly comforting thought and if it came down to survival, Buffy bloody well would find herself eating bugs, but he thought better of telling her so, or that they were frequently very nutritious, if not terribly palatable, until it was absolutely necessary.

“Fine. Watch the fire and I'll see what I can do about breakfast. I don't suppose you noticed anything we might make into a bowl or any kind of utensil to hold water?”

She shook her head and watched him sigh and head off to the creek.

Giles washed himself slowly, enjoying the briskness and the feeling of being clean again…or at least as clean as one could get without soap or hot water. None of Buffy's creatures were to be seen when he reached the water. She'd made a good job of flushing everything out and frightening them away for the time being.

He was finishing up and reaching for his boxers when it broke cover for the first time. *Wonderful*, he thought. Not a stitch on, no sword… and even if Buffy arrived on the scene she'd be too busy falling about laughing to fight the bloody thing.

The coal black feline, as big as a healthy lioness and as heavily muscled as a leopard, sniffed the wind, which thankfully was blowing the other way, then padded down to the bank on the other side of the stream. Giles stood as still as a statue while it put its head down. Unfortunately it must have been some time between drinks, because it took so long to finish that he was starting to get a cramp in his right thigh. Not to mention a sudden need to find a bush. Bloody fruit…

When the cat finally lifted its head again its large yellow eyes looked straight at him. Adrenaline coursed through every pore in his body, the flight reflex making every muscle scream to run, but he held his ground and stared back, even as the shoulder muscles on the silky black back seemed to bunch.

*Oh Lord, it was going to pounce…*

“Gi-yu-ules! I'm starving. Have you found anything to eat yet?”

At the sound of Buffy's voice at ear-splitting decibels, the cat's pointed ones flicked back and flattened against its head.

“Giles? Are you all right down there?”

The creature made a sound halfway between a leopard's scream of rage and a housecat's mutter of discontent, wheeled and sauntered off into the scrub once again. Giles sank to his haunches in the water, his leg muscles still trembling. He didn't have the wherewithal to shout a reply for a moment. Nothing like facing one's mortality to start the day…

“Giles?” Buffy appeared at the top of the slope down to the water. “Giles, are you okay? Did something bite you?”

He finally lifted his head. “I'm fine. Now. Give me a few moments to get dressed.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to interrupt your nakedn…um…bath. You've been gone a long time and I was worried.”

“Yes, quite. Not to mention starving, I'll warrant,” he said dryly.

“Well there is that. I ate my share of the left over fruit, but my stomach wants food, not frutcose.”

He sighed. “If I might be allowed to get out of the rather cold water…?” He started to stand, cramping up now, and tired of waiting.

“Giles, you're naked!” she squeaked, turned on her heel and hared off back to the campsite.

“So I am,” he said, with weary patience then managed a small, self-satisfied smile as he climbed out and dried himself with his t-shirt, before dressing swiftly. He had an urgent date with a bush…

There was no breakfast to be had. They spent the better part of the next several hours going back to the stream-mouth and the beach and fossicking for food and useful items to make a shelter, weapons or anything that might hold food or water.

Buffy didn't ask what happened at the stream and Giles didn't feel inclined to re-live the experience just yet.

“Giles, didn't you used to work for a museum or something?”

He turned another rock in the hopes of flushing a crustacean or shellfish they could eat.

“Yes.”

“Well, does that mean you know about primitive people and how to find food and make like, fish traps and spears and lean-tos and all that stuff? Or were you just like… the museum librarian?”

Giles grimaced. “Yes, Buffy, I spent all my time cross-referencing bloody bones. Well done.”

Buffy looked up from her job of scanning the shallow water for anything that moved. “There's no call to get snippy. I didn't even get to go to college, remember...at least not for very long. Besides, how unfair is that, anyway? You've never, ever told me…I mean us, anything about yourself except that you wanted to be a fighter pilot or a grocer when you were ten, and that you really wished you'd never got into raising demons,” she abridged carefully. “ I don't even know if you had parents, or a dog…or if you played a sport, or even a bunny in your school play. Most of Rupert Giles is all big empty spaces…no details. You should be happy I even knew there *was* a museum. It's not like you ever told me about it.”

Giles blinked. He hated it when she was right…and righteous with it. “All right, fine. I was a curator at the British Museum. I have a degree…a doctorate…in archaeology and some knowledge of anthropology, palaeontology, zoology, botany and natural history. Happy now?”

“Only if you can make traps to catch us some dinner…and maybe make us somewhere a little less buggy to sleep.”

“Does madam want satin sheets with that, or will palm leaves do?” The sarcasm was dripping from every word.

“Giles, you can be so…Ooh!”

He shifted swiftly to see what had caught her attention. The tide had turned some time in the last hour or so and was now running in rather well. Buffy was pointing to something moving on the sandy bottom.

“Crab,” Giles announced. “A bloody big one.”

Bickering forgotten, Buffy looked up at him like an excited six year old. “Can we eat it?”

He laughed. “We have to catch it first.”

“So…” she urged. “Go.”

Giles looked down at the mud-crab sized crustacean, orange-red with huge cream coloured claws held up like weapons.

“Be my guest.”

“But…”

“You are the Slayer.”

Buffy turned tail and Giles thought she was flouncing off. He was about to level another burst of sarcasm at her when she kicked off her shoes and shucked her jeans then bent, giving him heart failure again, and picked up one of the swords from the bank. Finally, she waded into the water and happily skewered the hapless crab in one impressive thrust.

“Lunch,” she announced, holding up her, now dead, prize, then looked him in the eye. “Wimp.”

“Oh, really? I'd look behind you before you say that again.”

She turned her head and squinted down into the water behind her. At least two or three more, even bigger, crabs were scuttling sideways towards her, all of them with terrifyingly large pincers cocked and ready for action.

She shrieked and ploughed out of the water while Giles fell about laughing.

“Asshole,” she muttered when she reached the bank and dropped her loaded sword. A moment later she picked up the other one, catching his eye as he sobered again. “Your turn.”

Once they'd secured four crabs, Giles realized that they didn't have anything to cook them in and he doubted roasting them would do them justice.

“You know if this was a movie, there'd be coconut palms or a gourd tree or something,” Buffy complained as they walked along the beach looking for anything, even a sizable seashell.

“You've seen too many movies. And I've read too many books. If this was the Swiss Family Robinson there would be a marvellous array of barrels and supplies washed up on shore by now.”

“You mean like 'Danger, Danger Will Robinson'?” she quoted. “I thought they were American and lost in space, not on an island.”

“Americans,” Giles muttered. “Never mind. I say, I think we're about to have a one of those moments after all. Look.”

Buffy looked down at the item Giles had spotted and screwed up her face. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

“I think I can clean it up,” he said appraisingly. “It's mostly dried out anyway.”

Her eyebrows went up. “You are so not bringing that back with us.”

“True enough. I'm going to find a way to anchor it in the mouth of the stream and hope that in a few days, between the current and the interested feeders, it will be clean enough for us to use for water or carrying all manner of things. I will do a final polish with sand when it's dry just to make certain all the unpleasantness is gone before we use it.”

Buffy looked down at the bizarre looking, but very large, sea turtle shell…and remaining, very stinky guts, and then back at Giles. “You're going to expect me to carry this, aren't you? You could at least wash it and clean out some of the grossness with your sword first.”

In the end they made a fire on the beach and roasted the crabs on the end of their swords, Giles mourning his fine blades as they blackened in the heat of the flames. Their catch turned out to be full of meat with the texture of rock lobster and the colour of butter. Though his instinct was that it would have been better for him to try it and then wait to see what happened, he didn't have the heart to make Buffy go hungry again after the effort they'd gone to, and the pleasing aroma of the cooked crabs.

With a prayer to anyone who'd listen, he cracked open all the shells with the hilt of his sword, being careful not to mush the thick legs and claws in the process. By the time he was done they were cool enough to pick up. Amazingly Buffy waited, turning to him instead.

“It smells great. Do you think it's okay to eat? I mean, I could just try a piece and we could see if I'm barfing in the morning. The rest will keep under some leaves, in the shade, to have cold like crab back home, later, right?”

He smiled at her. “A very wise and sensible precaution,” he agreed. “But I suspect your stomach is in about the same state as mine and neither of us will get much sleep tonight if we don't eat something besides those plums.”

Her eyes lit up hopefully. “Does that mean lunch is on?”

He grinned and nodded. “Dinner is served.”

They feasted for some time, savouring the best of the meat, which did indeed taste like rock lobster…buttery rock lobster. Giles suspected a very high fat content, which would serve them well as a food source until they could do better…provided of course it didn't kill them first.

When they were finished they had a pile of very empty crab shells and very full stomachs.

Giles stretched. “Could have done with a nice Chardonnay with that.”

Buffy smiled tolerantly at him. “And I'd really like a mocha right now…and I don't guess after-dinner mints are going to be an option?”

He looked sideways at her and smiled back. “We'll get out of this, I promise you. I'm not exactly sure how, yet, but we will. And in the meantime we can keep busy trying to make things a little more comfortable for ourselves. Once we've done that, we're going to have to find a way to climb one of the big trees and get a good look at where we are, and what, if anything, there is for us to make for if we leave here.” The giant forest trees were smooth-trunked, except for a lush crown starting about thirty feet up. Their smaller cousins and various palms and ferns were interspersed with the behemoths, but the top leaves of even the largest of those barely reached the underside of the canopy.

“Even if we can't find a way, Will and the others have gotta be looking for us by now…that is if time works the same way here. What if it's only five minutes since we left or…or a hundred years? Oh, God…” Buffy's good mood vanished. “Do you think…?”

“No I don't think,” he chided. “In any case I see no point in worrying yourself until we know one way or the other. You're quite right. Willow and the others are more than capable of investigating what happened to us and finding a way to bring us home. Now, we've got about six hours of good light left to pick some more fruit for supper and more importantly, to find something to make ourselves a shelter.” He looked up at the sky. “No sign of rain, but I don't think we can put it off any longer. Besides, I want to make some kind of platform off the ground to sleep on.”

Buffy made an effort to put away her fear and to stop thinking about the hell dimension she'd been caught in back when she ran away to Los Angeles, or worse, the one in which Angel had spent a hundred years in just a few months…

“So we're going to have just one shelter? I mean, two would be kind of extravagant, when one would do, right?”

His eyes flashed with both amusement and irritation. He'd automatically thought in terms of one shelter, without contemplating the connotations of that. Trust Buffy to pick up on it immediately.

“Well start with one,” he told her gruffly. “And once that is finished we'll start on a second one. Our clearing has a number of stout trees close enough together to anchor our shelters securely.”

“Spoilsport,” Buffy teased, getting up and wandering down to the water's edge to wash her hands. When she came back he'd buried the shells and smothered the fire. “God, I'm thirsty. We have to find a way to carry water.”

“Well, various primitive peoples in this kind of environment used either gourds or the bladders or intestines of various animals they'd hunted or slaughtered, as water vessels.”

Buffy turned a little green. “Whatever happened to clay pots and jugs?”

Giles gave up trying to keep a straight face. “I doubt that most of them would have a potter's wheel or a kiln in the jungle, Buffy.”

She made a small, unhappy noise. “I hate this back to nature stuff. There has to be something we can use. It's been hours since we've had anything to drink. That can't be good for us.”

“It won't hurt,” he assured her, “but I agree it's not very pleasant. Mind you if it were ten degrees warmer today we might have been a lot more uncomfortable, perhaps even made ourselves ill exerting ourselves as much as we have without re-hydrating.”

“Whatever happened to good old pollution?” She muttered, watching the waves roll up onto the shore. “Anywhere in the good ol' US of A where there's water, there's a Coke bottle, or a beer bottle or a can floating in it: it's the American way.”

Giles made a noise suspiciously like a rude word as they headed up the beach to the path back to the camp. “Well, we'll just have to find a more ecologically sound solution, won't we? I'm sure we can find a creature around here somewhere willing to donate some steaks for our supper and give up its bladder for posterity.”

“You are so gross!”

As they disappeared into the undergrowth, Giles' shout of laughter echoed across the marshland.