In spite of his resolution to wait up for her, a combination of exhaustion and illness saw Giles find himself waking at daybreak, events of the previous hours flooding back to him as he sat up. Exasperated, angry, and then alarmed when he realized that he didn't even know if Buffy had come back at all, he swore several oaths and got himself to his feet.

The camp was deserted. Even the fire was cold…as cold as his blood was now running. He was still weak from the residual of his illness, but he made himself move swiftly, finding his sword and a stake then following in the direction he believed Buffy had run the previous night.

It hurt…pushing himself. He had no energy, and little strength in his muscles. His lungs burned and his chest ached, but he kept going, all the while conscious of the fact that he had no guarantee that he wasn't hurtling away from her, instead of to her aid. There were now at least four tracks out of the camp, not including the one across the stream and he knew she could be on any of them...or none.

Twice he stumbled, before he finally caught a staggering foot in a bush that had become strangled by an opportunistic vine, and went sprawling. For a few seconds he struggled to force his body back up…then everything went black.

When he roused from the faint some several minutes later he immediately became aware that he wasn't alone. He swallowed, unsure where the sword was. Very slowly, by necessity as well as caution, he moved until he was able to sit up and look around.

Directly behind him, and about ten feet away, stood the magnificent black cat.

They stared at each other, Giles once again aware that he was being sized up. It flicked its tail once, without batting a lash or moving a muscle, but made no move to attack.

Sweat pricked out on his brow, Giles inched his hand toward the sword he'd finally located about a foot from his right hand side, without looking at it. When his fingertips brushed the hilt, the cat growled a low, lazy growl. He snatched at the handle. The cat roared as he picked it up and pointed it defensively, its eyes boring into his. As though mesmerized, Giles found himself driving the blade into the ground in front of him without knowing exactly why, his eyes never once leaving the powerful yellow ones.

The cat's bunched muscles relaxed again and its tail flicked once more.

Giles wanted to find Buffy. Hell, he wanted a good stiff drink. Buffy could be anywhere, lying ill, or dead, or in trouble and here he was playing chicken with an uncooperative feline, and quite helpless. Well, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to do something. Without taking his eyes from his captor, he pulled himself up, using the pommel of the sword to steady himself.

The cat remained motionless, except that its gaze slid to the left.

Giles swore silently. Another cat had emerged…or appeared…from nowhere to come to a halt a few feet away, blocking the pathway that he hoped would lead to Buffy. It held his gaze briefly then sat down, as though deferring to the other, larger animal.

He didn't understand their behaviour, bizarre by known solitary, or even pack or pride, hunting patterns. He supposed they might simply be more intelligent: holding him until the whole group…pride…whatever…arrived to share the spoils.

Though, strangely, that primitive inner sense that guided all prey animals on a raw, instinctive level was no longer screaming his impending end to every nerve ending and muscle in his body.

Giles looked from one cat to the other. For the most part they looked disinterested, even bored, but when they caught each other's glance there was a connection between them…a look that was eerie in its intelligence and recognition.

Whatever their intention, he had to do something.

“I-I can't stay here,” he said, making no assumptions about the creatures, but taking no chances. “I have to help her.” He drew the sword from the ground, carefully turning the handle so that he held it in his hand with the blade pointing behind him: a neutral position, and took a step away from both cats…and then another. The only escape was back the way he came. He had a choice: stay and continue the stand off, and perhaps become brunch, or flee back toward the camp and hope that by some miracle he could evade them long enough to get to the shelter and use it to protect his back, while fending them away from the door with his sword.

He rolled his eyes. It was a horrible, futile plan, but if he was going to die anyway, he was going to die trying to get to Buffy…

They followed him unhurriedly all the way back to the clearing, and kept coming, moving between him and the shelter, so that he was forced to continue to stumble towards the stream.

He was now certain it was some bizarre hunting ritual or game and that he was going to be cat food long before he had a chance to find Buffy. When he crested the top of the slope down to the bank, both cats came to a halt there, one after the other dropping into a sitting position.

Giles took a deep breath and slowly stopped trembling. He wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but if they were going to keep playing this game, he wasn't going to have the energy to do his part much longer.

He turned around and staggered down the slope, thoughts of fording the stream followed immediately by visions of getting halfway across and either having his legs collapse from under him or the big cats, tired of playing with their food, arriving to begin dinner.

When he reached the bottom, he slid a little down the bank and stepped in the water…still no movement. He began backing into the stream. One of them yawned tidily. He kept backing, knowing it wouldn't go over waist height. By the time he was halfway across he knew he'd have to turn around to continue. The cats seemed to be dozing.

He barely managed to crawl out on the other side, sitting down to catch his breath, and fervently wishing there was a defibrillator close by. After a couple of minutes he made himself get up, his legs still trembling violently, and started down the almost-path created when they had beaten and chopped their way through to the stream on their first day of being lost. He was considering what the hell to do next, and where Buffy could possibly have gone, when he heard a noise…a distinctly human-sounding noise. He waited for several torturously long moments. And then he heard it again.

A surge of adrenaline lifted him and carried him into the undergrowth, stumbling toward it on failing legs. He broke into a vast clearing and found himself staring into yellow eyes yet again.

“You!” He exclaimed in a startled voice. Then his brows drew together. No. Another…this with a notch missing from its right ear and a fine scar across its nose that had turned the hairs white along its length...at least where they still grew. It was sprawled on a boulder, seemingly unconcerned, the ear in question flicking occasionally as it watched him.

“What do you want?” Giles asked in exasperation.

In reply it got up lazily and strolled, almost literally, off its boulder, drawing his attention with it as it crossed the clearing.

…And then Giles saw it: an arm. He ran, his legs barely carrying him, completely oblivious to the big cat disappearing into the undergrowth. He slewed to a halt alongside a crumpled figure not far behind the rock. He half-knelt, half fell, at her side.

“Buffy!!”

There was a pulse. Her tank top was bloodied and torn and her face was slashed; even the backs of her hands were gashed and torn, dried blood on both of them. He ran gentle hands up and down her arms and legs. No breaks. One ankle was swollen and on her right tricep…almost like an impact point…deep bruises were darkening. Instinct made him unzip her jeans and slide one side down enough to look at her right hip. A large area of bruising on the point of it was already a mass of purple, red and blue. She had to have been in a fight and, somehow, she must have fallen. Yet the boulder was hardly high enough for this kind of damage…

He lifted the tank top and ran even more gentle hands over her ribs, her collarbones and the hip in question. There were no obvious signs of fractures. Fingers, just as gentle, smoothed hair from her face, stroked her cheek tenderly.

“Buffy? Buffy, can you hear me…?” He took one of her hands in his. “Buffy, love, you must wake up.” His voice shook but he was too uncertain to risk lifting her into his arms without knowing for sure if there were any injuries to her back or neck.

He'd been sitting there for several minutes, exhausted and overwrought, trying to decide what he could possibly do, when her fingers finally tightened around his, and a low moan issued from her lips.

“Buffy!”

Another moan.

He stroked her hair, her cheek, and her brow, very gently. “Buffy, can you hear me?”

“Giles…?”

“Yes, love, it's me. You must tell me if you think anything is broken. Can you move at all?”

Her brow furrowed, as if it were too hard to take in, but her feet began to shuffle a little in the dirt and the fingers again tightened around the hand which had held them the whole time he'd been there.

Giles breathed a jagged sigh of overwhelming relief. “Can you…do you know what happened to you?”

“You…” It seemed like forever before she formed the next words. “…didn't want me...”

His eyes grew very bright and he couldn't stop himself from trailing a loving finger down a pale cheek once more. “I want you, Buffy. I want you more than I've ever wanted anything my life.”

The soft brown lashes fluttered, her whole face scrunching up against the glare of the morning sun as the lids finally cracked open, eyes reluctantly revealed as they adjusted to the light.

“Oh yeah,” she croaked, “don't…don't piss off the…Oroku'ahni.” She swallowed and closed her eyes again, this time against the pain she'd discovered the moment she'd tensed her muscles to instinctively try to sit up.

“The what…?”

The weak voice was disparaging. “Your pony with wings.”

He was lost for a beat then he remembered. “A-are you saying you pis—upset one of those huge birds? What did you call it?”

“The Oroku'ahni.” Buffy opened her eyes again. “Doesn't like to lose.”

He shook his head, bewildered.

A look of sudden realization darkened Buffy's eyes. “What did you say before?”

“Before?”

“Before I opened my eyes…”

He pulled his thoughts from raptors and mysterious cats and focused on her question, comprehension soon cascading across his drawn features.

His voice was very gentle. “I'm sorry I made you think I didn't want you.”

She shifted again, painfully, drawing a sharp breath when her bad hip touched the ground.

“Me too. Better things…” She took a moment to allow another stab of pain to subside. “Better things to do than fight weird giant birds.”

“Buffy, what were you doing? Why were you fighting the bloody thing?”

“I-I thought I'd screwed it up…like I screw everything up. I ran and I bawled and I got angry. Then when I cooled down I was still too mad at you to come back, so I decided to explore. I figured there might be some good stuff that only comes out at night…like those fish.” She tried to move again but a squeaking gasp was all she managed. “I want to sit up,” she grumbled crossly.

With great care, Giles supported her back with a strong arm, lifting her into a sitting position, unaware that Buffy was biting her bottom lip ferociously, tears of pain crowding her eyes.

“How's that?”

No answer.

“Buffy?”

“F-fine,” her voice wobbled horribly.

He leaned in to look properly at her face. “Damn…why didn't you tell me I was hurting you?”

“I wanted to sit up. Now I'm sitting up,” she explained in a voice that wavered between exasperation and tears.

Giles shifted so that he moved one leg around her, and drew her back against his chest.

“Better?”

A sigh answered him, and the feeling of her weight settling heavily against him

“You were telling me about your adventures last night…?” He prompted.

“I went out into the open. I wanted to go back to the spot where we…I don't know… arrived, I guess. I wanted to see…I suppose I was hoping there'd be a new portal or something. Stupid, I know.” She shrugged. “There was nothing there. Squat. Nada. Anyway, I was still mad so I kept exploring…and I found these gorgeous cubs…and we were playing…and then it came.”

“The giant raptor?” He felt her head moving in the affirmative. “And you fought it?”

“It wanted the babies. I wouldn't let it. It got pissed and took me instead. Quite the ride…Universal would be proud.”

He curled his arms around her protectively and kissed the top of the fair head. “Obviously you got 'pissed' right back at it,” he observed, a smile in his voice.

“Damn straight. We…disagreed. And I found out that things don't fly too good when you have your arm stuck up the egg delivery chute.”

“You didn't?”

She chuckled feebly. “Damn straight. Of course that got me a joy ride at canopy level…you should have seen some of the stuff up there…anyway, it's trying to make me one with the forest…literally…I'm now hanging by what little grip I've got on its ankles, because it's been trying to drop me for the last twenty minutes. None of this is doing anything for birdie aerodynamics…so it gives up before it becomes one with the forest and goes back to trying to dump me out in the open. The 'up' here is that it was flying almost ground level to try and scrape me off. When I hit the rock I didn't have quite so far to fall.”

Buffy felt Giles' embrace tighten protectively. “I'm okay,” she told him softly.

“I damned near lost you...”

There was little Buffy could say to that. “How exactly did you find me, anyway? What exactly *are* you doing all the way over here? You're supposed to be sick.” There was a moment's silence. “You are still sick. I can feel you burning up right through your shirt!” she croaked.

“Yes, fine, we're both a right pair,” he conceded…but I want to know how you knew that bird's name. Did it tell you?”

“Get a grip, Giles…it was like a giant buzzard with a very tiny brain.”

“Then…?”

Buffy remained silent for a time, before she finally spoke again. “They told me.”

Giles was getting frustrated. “They who…?”

“Them.”

He looked up. All three of the elegant felines were watching them from the edge of the clearing. After a beat, they turned, and were gone as silently as they came, leaving him to stare after them.

“They're intelligent?”

Buffy's shoulders moved in a faint approximation of a shrug, accompanied by a small gasp of pain.

“I dreamed about them and they told me. They said the Oruku'ahni takes a lot of juveniles. The ones I was playing with were the last surviving ones for this season. They said thank you.”

Giles' eyebrows went up. “Juveniles?”

“Yeah, you know…little teeny versions of the big stuff…baby kitty cats…”

“Indeed.” *That sounded more like Buffy*. His glance flicked to where the mysterious predators had been standing moments before.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just um…wondering how we're going to get back to camp. You're horribly bruised and battered and I'm not at all sure I can stand up again.”

Buffy giggled. “I feel like crap and everything hurts like hell, but if we can get one another up, I think I can get us home.”

Both of them froze for a moment, the word almost painful to hear out loud. Then they were moving again, as though nothing had happened.

Buffy arranged the saturated clothes on the all-too-frequently used drying rack, its crossed branches starting to char at their extremities from the amount of use it was getting. “You know, I'm getting really tired of being wet and cold and having to get naked, ergo colder, while I wait for my clothes to dry.”

Giles didn't even dignify that with an answer. He was barely holding his own after the effort required to walk back, including crossing the stream and the torture of getting back up the slope on the other side. Were it not for Buffy's stubbornness, he probably wouldn't have got up again after toppling over in the stream. It was cool and soothing and he just didn't have the strength or energy to move another foot, until she hauled him up.

Buffy shuffled over to him and put a hand on his forehead when he didn't speak. “You're still feverish. I hope you're not going to get delirious again after your little swim.”

“I'm fine,” he said gruffly. “You should be resting. Those contusions are severe…you don't want any complications.”

“Giles, I'm the Slayer. You know very well I've had worse at least a couple of times a year since I started this job. Do we remember the fun sparring match with Faith when she thought Angel was evil? Or that really great warm up with Glory…or here's a good one: fun with Travers' pet vampire.”

The slight amusement at her efforts to convince him washed from Giles' face and he looked away silently.

Buffy could have screamed. Everything that came out of her mouth…

A thousand words danced on her tongue to make amends, but she didn't trust any of them to come out right. Instead she sat down and rested her head against his arm.

He was the one who finally broke the tense silence. “We never really talked about it.”

“Did we really need to?” She asked before she could stop herself. He slowly turned and raised his gaze to hers. She shrugged. “Travers was an asshole. The rest…well, we dealt. It was over.”

His eyes grew very warm and he turned further, to cup her face with his hand, the atmosphere around them charged as his head bent and his mouth touched hers.

Buffy shivered, her body igniting at his touch. She could barely breathe as his lips caressed hers almost teasingly, before taking them with more raw passion than any before ever had.

A part of Giles was holding back…but the taste of her, the feel of her kissing him back, was almost his undoing. He knew now that, in spite of everything, he wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life…but there was no way that could happen…not here, perhaps not ever, which meant this was all he would have to remember…

Buffy felt the kiss deepen and responded, her fingers loving the feel of his hair, his lips, their mouths and the fiery sharing of his, and her body loving the feel of his chest hair against her soft flesh. It seemed to go on forever, and she didn't want it to stop…