Rating: FRT
Pairing: None
Feedback: Yes, please!
Distribution: Once More With Feeling, Riposte and those with permission.;
Disclaimer: All the characters of BtVS belong to Joss Whedon and whoever else owns the right to make huge amounts of money out of them. No copyright infringement is hereby intended and as for profit, don't make us laugh. There's no use suing us, as it won't even cover the lawyers' dry cleaning bills.

Summary: Everyone is stuck in a hotel en route to Cleveland and something keeps happening to Giles' clothes.

Thanks to Gileswench for her super-quick beta!

"Faith? It's Giles. Run into a spot of trouble, I'm afraid."

The cell phone was a long way from the transmitter, but the faint voice on the other end still had its unmistakable edge of cynical amusement.

"Slayers and trouble. There's a thing. If it's the regular demony kind, put all the greenhorns on it. Get 'em to bitch at it 'til it loses the will to live."

"Ha, ha," shot back Giles. "We're in a small town called, er..." He squinted again at the cards pasted on the motel notice board. "...Sloan, some miles short of Las Vegas. The bus broke down at a road junction and we couldn't re-start it; the mechanics at the local garage don't hold out much hope. So, if we're to rendezvous as we agreed, it will have to be here, and you'll need to bring transport for all of us. The only buses I've seen around here are not for sale."

"Sure. Got a handful of quarters right here in my pants pocket: should cover it easy."

Giles snorted impatiently, turning as he did so to watch the lobby as it filled with dirty, bloodstained, exhausted and ill-tempered girls.

"Robin has access to the funds held for the School. Talk to him about it when he's well enough. What do the doctors say?"

"Still kinda gutted. Must be havin' to put up with me stayin' all night." Faith paused, teasing. "Y'know, like in a chair, in his hospital room?"

Another snort. "Yes, well. Thank you for agreeing to stay with him, Faith. I'll phone again in a couple of days, all right?"

"Have wacky fun meantime."

Wacky fun. Haring across America with a bevy of talkative young women and two uncharacteristically silent young men, headed for another Hellmouth via all points east of California. Giles switched off the phone and trudged back to the reception desk, where the sound of raised voices drowned out attempts by the clerk to find out who was in charge and what they all wanted.

"Chao Ahn spilled potato chips inside my sleeping bag two days running!"

"Ladies, can we..." He tried to make himself heard.

"No' me. No' my chips. Faith chips."

"Chantal's addicted to baked beans and garlic bread. *No-one* wants to room with her."

"Buffy's with me, right? Right?"

"Just listen a minute, would you...?"

"I *so* do not snore; my Mom says..."

"Do."

"Do not."

"Says you."

"Buffy, tell her to lay off me. Big bully."

"WILL EVERYONE PLEASE *BE QUIET*!"

A couple of the youngest slayers actually jumped, and all of them turned wide eyes in Giles' direction in the ensuing stunned silence. He admitted to himself that it was somewhat gratifying.

The desk clerk sighed loudly with relief and looked at him expectantly, pen poised over her bookings diary. She was a plump matron with a weathered tan and blue rinsed hair, the epitome of polyester-clad ordinariness; he only hoped she'd had plenty of experience dealing with the extraordinary in other people. She had been eyeing the group askance, taking in their extreme state of dishevelment, and Giles decided that a cover story was in order.

"These, um, students...were the victims of an earthquake; you might have heard about it on the news: Sunnydale?"

The blue rinse quivered sympathetically as she nodded.

"Terrible, terrible. You've lost dear ones?"

Giles looked involuntarily to the edge of the group where Xander stood, hands in pockets, and looking sideways at the floor.

"Some of us, yes, I'm afraid so. We desperately need to rest and recuperate. We're willing to double up, or more, if you're short of rooms."

"Well, now. We did just lose a big group booking, so I might be able to squeeze you all in. And a special rate for that *darlin'* accent, sugar." She positively simpered, and Giles reddened as a chorus of half-hearted giggles and sniggers rose up from the slayers. He coughed, cleared his throat and ploughed on.

"Could you just see what you have? I think it's clear that Xander, Andrew and I will be sharing."

//Needs must...//

Willow leaned over the counter and peered into the back office.

"Don't you have it all computerised?"

"Well, now, those machines are a mystery to me and Mr. Pottschalk. This does us just fine," and she started to leaf through pages in search of vacancies. Giles brightened a little.

//Well, now//, Kennedy mouthed in anticipation, making Willow, fighting a grin, send her a reproachful look.

"Well, now," began Mrs Pottschalk obligingly, "you gentlemen can have room 24; it's on the corner with a smidgeon more space. As for all you young ladies..."

The clamour erupted again until Giles was forced to call for order once more.

"Buffy and Dawn, Willow and Kennedy. They're two pairs. The rest of you..." He begged a sheet of paper from Mrs Pottschalk, jotted down the remaining names and made ballot papers. Shuffling them in a waste paper basket, he had everyone draw them out in pairs and triplets according to the available rooms and sternly quashed any residual complaints with the reminder that this would only be for a few days and that the sooner they all rested properly, the better.

"Way to go, Giles." Buffy's quiet voice came from behind him. They watched the gang start to disperse. "I think maybe they've had enough of me pushing them around. Thanks for stepping in there."

"Straightforward application of logic. Still good for something, perhaps."

He cursed himself for the plea underlying his words, as he looked at the woman who had ceased to be, but in his heart would remain, his Slayer. She looked about as weary as he felt, which was to say, beyond utterly, and didn't reply. There were a number of things still unsaid, but now was really not the time.

Getting the key and climbing the stairs ahead of his roommates, he unlocked the door and took in the twin beds and fold-out cot, all on autopilot, before simply falling face down onto a bed and passing into blessed unconsciousness.

When he awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he stank. The second thing was that Xander also stank. The third thing was that Andrew, in the shower, couldn't hold a tune if it came with integral handles and a 'This Way Up' sign. Giles massaged his aching temples with one hand and pushed himself to a sitting position with the other. He watched Xander's restless sleep until the shower was shut off and Andrew emerged clutching a thin but clean towel around his middle.

"Mrs P. says the hot water's continuous, Mister Giles. You can go next if you want."

It had been bliss to rest, really rest for the first time in weeks. It was paradise to stand under a stream of hot water and get really clean. Then, there was the abrupt descent to earth when he remembered he had no fresh clothes to put on. Washing his socks, undershirt and shorts in the sink, he hung them out to dry on the window ledge, trusting the hot Nevada sun to do its work. His sweater was all but ruined: sprayed with motor oil and brake fluid from his futile attempts at running repairs. The cords would never dry in time if he washed them, so he just climbed back into them, lay down and dozed a while. It had been early evening when they'd arrived, was early morning now, and he could hear movement and voices in the corridor outside. His stomach reminded him how long it had been empty, but he couldn't stir enough to do anything about it.

At that moment, a knock on the door heralded Willow, doing the rounds about breakfast.

By the time Giles was able to present himself in the lobby, fed, just about clothed, and in his right mind, the whole group was assembled and it was obvious just how lacking they all were in the most basic necessities. Despite the fatuity of the mall talk at the lip of the crater that was Sunnydale, it might in fact be the necessary port of call. Everyone had discarded what they could of clothing that had been shredded to make dressings, or was too caked in blood, their own or others'. Even what was left would probably have to be thrown away pretty soon. Vi, who stood barefoot in a ripped singlet and shorts that weren't shorts yesterday, piped up:

"Um, I hate to ask, but is anyone else sorry we didn't stop at that K-mart?"

Buffy looked at her with an 'I can't believe you really said that' face.

"I think we can do better than that." She started to march out into the street, but halted suddenly, hand on her back pants pocket, realising that to shop needed more than a keen eye for this year's styles. She backed up slowly and turned around with a hopeful expression.

Giles was already looking through his wallet for his black Visa card.

One of the things he'd done, in between bouts of jetlag over the past few months, was to sort out the finance from the ruins of the Watchers' Council. A few coded calls, citing some numbered Swiss bank accounts, and he was theoretically as rich as Croesus, although he had to account for every penny to the Trustees in Zurich. Filing the last set of returns might be somewhat problematic, however, seeing as they were on the hard disk on Willow's laptop, under a few hundred tons of rubble...

Buffy, Dawn and a small party of the most presentable of the slayers were delegated to accompany the walking cash machine in a trek to the out of town mall, and he waited whilst they picked out outfits for themselves. He felt sure, as he watched polka dot miniskirts and asymmetric tops being bagged, that he *had* suggested 'practical' clothes. Xander and Andrew tagged along in the second wave of locusts, er, slayers, and went for Hawaiian and clashing respectively.

They were almost out of the mall before Giles realised that he still owned nothing but the clothes he stood in, and that his pants were likely to start a new and fulfilling life of their own as vermin bait before too long. He let the others go on ahead whilst he traipsed back to the clothing store to see what they had. From behind the coffee bar in the food court, a pair of watchful dark eyes flashed in recognition. Pleading a break, their owner slipped out and tailed Giles carefully, taking advantage of his preoccupied air to escape detection.

Giles wandered amongst the racks of men's wear, wondering if indeed 'clothes make the man', or whether it was the other way round. He was momentarily attracted to a row of butter-soft leather jackets, imagining black denim and a tailored shirt to go with them. He absently fingered his left earlobe and the nearly closed piercing there. He'd worn a sleeper at night until quite recently, but now he wondered, with a faint pang, whether he shouldn't just let it go.

//Middle-aged bachelor ex-teacher, that's you now, Giles, // he told himself, trying to be resigned to it. // Better to stay good and invisible. //

He turned resolutely away and bought safe, buff-coloured cords and a pack of beige cotton t-shirts. As he paid for them, and for more clean underwear, he had the odd sensation of being observed; but the young people had long gone, he knew. He shook it off as general unease and residual tiredness.

Behind a nearby pillar, Ethan Rayne shook his head and muttered his disapproval.

"Do not go gentle, Ripper, old mate. You can do better than that. With the right incentive, of course."

He smiled.

Ethan stared at the ingredients for a long moment before going to the tiny cupboard with the kettle on and making himself a strong cup of cheap, nasty motel coffee. It went with his cheap, nasty life at the moment. If he never saw Nevada... better still if Nevada sunk into the Earth's core and was never seen again...it would still be too soon for him. But...until his magick and his body were back at full strength, there wasn't a lot he could do about it.

He was stuck in this little tin pot town, masquerading as a tourist working his way across country and fallen on hard times...he paused and shrugged. *At least that part was true*. His incarceration had been the most singularly miserable period of his life, and given his childhood, that was saying a lot. And there hadn't been a single opportunity to escape...not one, even for a such a brilliant intellect, skilled sorcerer and expert conman... He smiled at his own conceit. It hadn't done him much good while the Initiative experimented on him, or when they used a number of very un- 'American good guy' techniques to 'encourage' him to participate in even more experiments to assess his magickal abilities and power.

He clenched his fist to still his fingers and dismissed the sudden rush of sensory memories...painfully bright lights, aching hunger, the smell of singed hair and flesh, darkness, isolation...pain...so much pain.

God, he never thought he'd leave there alive...if at all. It had been pretty clear that even if he departed this mortal coil, by their hand or his own, his remains were going to be just as pored over, studied and dissected as his mind was while he lived. Never had he ever felt so much like a piece of property...

And never before had he been so happy to feel such a terrifyingly huge mystical disturbance as the recent one which had blown every sensor and data collector in the Nevada complex, setting the place on fire and creating general pandemonium and chaos in its wake. He'd felt the Hellmouth open, seen confirmation of it in the rising of the demon and vampire prisoners, many of whom rioted and some of whom escaped when the meltdown of so much electronic equipment had shorted out the complex's electricity supply, completely shutting down the grid. It had even allowed weakened, terrified Sorcerers to use what remnants of magick they could still call up to make good a getaway sent from heaven...well, from dear old Sunnydale anyway, and probably dear old Rupert and Co, if he had to guess...

What he didn't know, was what caused, first one, then a second, staggering burst of magickal energy...the last one closing the Hellmouth again just as he was 'borrowing' a vehicle from the parking lot of a loud and garish bar, to complete his getaway. Pity the owner had been so lax about keeping the bloody tank filled...and an even bigger pity that he'd had to push the thing into a ravine and walk the rest of the way to this thrice-damned town, since the car was stolen and if attention was drawn to it, rather a beacon in terms of pinpointing his whereabouts...

"Well, Ripper," he murmured as he sipped the instant coffee, "at least having a bit of fun with you will keep me from going completely bloody insane..."