Rating: FRT
Pairing: B/G
Feedback: Always :-)
Distribution: Once More With Feeling; Gabi, Dword if they want it. Anyone else please ask. I usually say yes <g>
Disclaimer: Joss gets the characters, I get the fun. <g>

Summary: Buffy is missing Giles and goes to England to search for him, only to discover that her father is in trouble. A Christmas story with a fairy tale twist.

Buffy Summers sat by the fire and rubbed her arms unconsciously. The room was no longer cold and the red gold flames from the kindling were radiating the kind of heat one usually sat back from.

She stared into the dancing flames, fascinated by their blue, sometimes green, hearts, unable to make herself do anything else. Nothing would ever be the same. For the first four years he was her Watcher, Buffy had barely given him a thought at Christmas apart from the obligatory card and small gift, but the emptiness of this Christmas without him had been almost unbearable.

The clock began to chime. It was midnight. Dawn was asleep, the others out. It was true…it had been worse without him there for her birthday. He had been at all her birthdays since…

A frown formed between her brows. When he didn't call for either the previous Christmas or her birthday, it had hurt, but when there had also been a no show at Xander's wedding despite Anya's express invitation, they'd all been surprised and a little hurt. Now he was away from them yet again and no one seemed to be able to catch him on the phone at his new flat to find out why. In the end Buffy had swallowed her pride and contacted the Watcher's Council to find out what was going on, only to be told that he'd been assigned and was, until further notice, un-contactable.

Buffy lowered her head to the arms folded on her raised knees. More than anything else in the world she wanted to hear his voice break the warm silence of the living room; drown out the lonely crackling of the fire. A small sob escaped her. She didn't know why she wanted him back so achingly badly, only that his complete disappearance made her feel like she'd been cleaved in two, that she was truly, irrevocably alone. To her very core she wanted him there, to hear him, whimsical or cranky; to see him, grumpy or boyishly pleased, to feel those protective arms just once more…

Spike's words about them echoed back at her. She looked up, blinked and dismissed them again with a wrinkle of her nose, but her eyes grew very still and very bright.

And then she blinked again, and swallowed, the frown deepening as she thought about that embrace. Giles had never held her like that before she died, never allowed himself to reach out…even to touch her hand. She shivered a little. She hadn't wanted him to release her, not ever. It was the first and only time since she had discovered that she was the Slayer, that she felt truly safe and loved…

God, she wanted to hear his voice again…

Buffy got up slowly, ignoring the fire's whimpering pleas for more fuel, and moved to the telephone.

The jumbo landed without drama, despite the snow flurries blowing across the airfield and the wind-chill factor of the thirty-knot gusts, almost strong enough to close the runway they were blowing across.

Buffy exhaled as the plane slowed and the roar of the reverse thrust faded before they began a sedate taxi to their gate. It crossed her mind to be worried about whether her father would be there on time to meet her or not, but not enough to stop her thoughts from drifting back to the reason she had enlisted the Scoobies to patrol for her, Willow to watch both Dawn and Xander, and had convinced her father to finance a return ticket to London, England. It, of course, helped that he had been in the UK for six months working on a business deal. She scowled. Her father should have married his business. He'd spent more time on it than all the years she'd been alive…and dead, and alive…

She chuckled at her own wry silliness. He had sounded almost exactly the same, yet strained somehow, almost haunted, despite his efforts to be cheerful and excited about the prospect of seeing her again. For her own part, seeing Hank again was a side benefit. The real reason, the real purpose of this visit, was to find the missing half of herself, to find out what was so important that he didn't even call…

The terminal was bustling and there were many family members and friends waiting outside the exit doors when Buffy finally cleared British Customs and thrust her luggage cart through them. Amid the sea of faces she could see none that resembled Hank Summers, but she wasn't trying very hard, more interested in not getting bustled and knocked by the other passengers exiting with her, and in keeping her overnight bag from sliding off the suitcase it was perched on.

“Buffy!” a voice eventually rose out of the din. She looked up from rescuing the errant bag once again.

Her father. Only he had aged shockingly, at least from her point of view. She didn't remember him having any grey hair before…and there was an aura of fragility about him that belied his still solid build.

“Dad,” she managed, plastering on a smile. “Long time no see. No…um…y'know…this time?”

He frowned for a second, then got it. “Oh, no. Marisa couldn't leave her job in New York and six months is a long time…”

Buffy's eyes flashed a wry gleam. “Last one I remember was Louise. You doing them alphabetically now?”

At the look of pain that lanced across her father's face, Buffy decided not to ask what had happened to Louise. Instead she moved forward and dutifully put her arms around his neck and hugged him, surprised to feel the fervour with which he returned the salute and the stark difference between this embrace and the last one she'd been given. .

“It's good to see you,” he whispered near her ear.

“Me too,” Buffy responded, too surprised to think of anything more appropriate. It seemed to be enough for Hank.

He took over the pushing of the trolley and its recalcitrant cargo. “C'mon, let's get you home.”

Buffy looked up from the book she was reading, curled up in a very expensive armchair by a gas fire in her father's luxury apartment. It wasn't quite Hyde Park, but only a couple of blocks from it. Her father seemed to think proximity to Hyde Park was quite the status symbol. She half smiled to herself even as she looked for the source of the noise she had heard.

As bad as he looked, Hank had actually been a lot more like the man Buffy remembered from her childhood, the one who used to take her to Ice Shows, the one she'd loved so very dearly. They had spent the past week getting to know each other again. By day Buffy made calls, investigated leads, even took an early train to Bath one day, trying unsuccessfully to locate Giles, and in the evenings she went to movies, theatre, restaurants and sometimes ate dinner in and watched the late movies, all with her father. It had been one of the most soul-restoring weeks of her life, despite her concern about Giles. She had seen Hank visibly come alive again over the course of it. She smiled again. He had actually turned off his beeper and diverted his calls to his service on most of those nights. They had even found and decorated a Christmas tree with newly purchased decorations. Buffy had been decidedly impressed with Harrods.

My dad, she thought wryly.

There was that noise again.

She rose and made her way toward the door, unsure why she didn't just call out to her father to see if it was he making the noises. When she reached it, she finally opened her mouth to call, just as the lock rattled one more time and the door flew open.

“What the…?” she demanded as two burly men burst into the room, one broad and neck-less and the other tall and way too buff for his cheap suit, which fit in all the wrong places. But they didn't fight. They simply moved, one to each side of the door, like some 'B' grade movie, while another individual entered the room.

Buffy's Slayer senses screamed. The guy looked human, but her senses knew better.

“Where is he?”

“Where's who, lame-O? Didn't anyone ever tell you that if you knock, people actually open doors?”

“Where is he?” he repeated.

Buffy put her hands on her hips. “Who?”

The newcomer, just a few inches taller than her, but built like a tank, narrowed his beady violet eyes.

“The debt must be repaid,” he said simply.

She rolled her eyes. “Dad!” she called, finally. “Visitors!”

It was some time before Hank Summers reluctantly emerged from the kitchenette.

“Cyrelle. I wasn't expecting…”

“No,” Cyrelle growled, rolling his eyes at his companion. “They never are. You have not fulfilled your side of the bargain.”

Her father cringed a little, Buffy noted, watching his body language closely.

“It wasn't my fault. I-I didn't know…I didn't know what he was when I made that deal. I didn't know.”

“A contract is a contract,” Cyrelle recited, the laziness of his tone impressing upon both father and daughter his extreme lack of caring.

“Contract?” Buffy demanded.

Cyrelle looked from one to the other. “She's a little young for you,” he said finally, a gleam in his eyes.

“What contract?” Buffy repeated, this time in a tone that wouldn't be ignored.

“I-It's not important,” Hank stammered, ignoring Cyrelle's leering. “I had some business dealings with the creat…man Cyrelle works for. Why don't you go start dinner, honey?”

Buffy scowled. “Because a: I don't cook, b: you're not going to deal with Huey, Dewey and Louie on your own, and c: I'm not some dime store novel maiden swooning all over the place. Will somebody PLEASE tell me what's going on, before I start breaking heads?”

Hank's eyes widened and the two henchmen started to laugh.

Cyrelle looked down his rather unfortunate nose at her. “Mister Summers had a business agreement with my employer. He has not fulfilled his side of the agreement.”

Hank was looking very pale and fragile again, and his hands were trembling. “I-I…Buffy, things have taken a turn for the worse with the business. I needed investors and there just weren't any…the markets…”

“So you got money from a loan shark?”

Hank shook his head. “Mancor Industries made a fine offer. It solved almost all of my problems.”

“Then what…?”

“I had to sign two contracts. I found out months later that the head of Mancor industries isn't…he's not…” He looked up at Cyrelle and swallowed. “The second contract was to provide certain collateral if I couldn't keep my part of the first contract.”

Buffy was starting to feel antsy from the screaming of her Slayer senses, and decidedly spooked by the terror in her father's voice, eyes and body language.

“So there was a legal contract for everyone to see, and another one nobody else knows about?”

Hank nodded miserably. “He's not human,” he said, as though if he didn't get it out then, he never would.

The hackles rose on Buffy's neck and a shiver went down it. “Not…Human? You mean like, he's a Chihuahua or something?” she asked warily.

One of the henchmen almost blew a blood vessel in his neck trying not to laugh.

Hank cleared his throat and cast an uncomfortable glance at Cyrelle. “No. He's a… Well, he's a demon. I know you're going to think I'm off my rocker…”

Buffy didn't know whether to laugh or cry, literally. All her mother's resentment of her father's insulation from dealing with the badness that was their lives and now this…

Finally, she shook her head. “I know all about the demons and the vampires and the darkness,” she told him dryly and produced one of her hidden stakes for effect. “It's kinda my specialty.” Hank looked confused and the henchmen suddenly looked uncomfortable. “What do they want?”

Hank finally met her gaze and held it. “Me,” he said simply.

Cyrelle reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a document, letting it unfold as he flicked it around for her to see.

Buffy stared at the pulsating seal and sneered. “I knew you guys were 'b' grade movie material. Hokey, guys. Can you get any hokier?”

“The loan was secured,” Cyrelle persisted. “Mister Summers must come with us now.”

“And if he doesn't?” Buffy demanded, moving forward aggressively.

“He will die now,” Cyrelle said simply, his smooth baritone darkening just enough to send a shiver down her spine.

“Die…right…now? Here? And if he goes through with this…what happens to him?”

“He belongs to the Overseer.”

Buffy was about ready to kill something. “And what will this 'Overseer' do to him?” she demanded, her patience at an end. “And this time tell me all of it. I'm sick of playing twenty questions with you.”

“The Overseer has a quota. Your father will help fill that quota.”

“I have to go with them, Buffy,” Hank said quietly. “The contract says that if I try to break it, I'll die. But where they're taking me, I don't get to come back.”

“He is now the property of the Overseer and Mancor industries.”

“No,” Buffy growled, “he isn't.” It took her only a couple of minutes to deck the henchmen, aware that they were bleeding green instead of red as she turned to Cyrelle.

“Still want to take him?” she drawled.

Cyrelle looked irritated. “Even if you kill me, he's still dead. He signed the contract. If he has not submitted himself by the designated hour on the designated day, he will die.”

Buffy paled several degrees. If there was ever a time she needed Giles' knowledge and ability to research a situation…but there was no Giles.

“Who the hell is the 'Overseer'?” she demanded angrily.

“Buffy, sweetheart…” her father protested faintly.

“Summers, your bimbo is getting boring.”

“Bimbo?” Buffy snorted and in a matter of seconds had spun, delivered several kicks, two punches and a knockout blow. The recovered henchmen ran.

“M-my God, Buffy, have you been taking classes?” Hank gasped.

Despite the severity of the situation, Buffy almost laughed. “Long story, dad, but I'm guessing not nearly as long as the one you're about to tell me…”

While their visitor remained unconscious on the floor, Buffy secured the apartment and joined a disconsolate Hank on the couch.

“I have to go with them, honey. It's one of those drop-dead-on-the-spot deals. No execution. Even if you fight them off until the deadline, I still die.”

Buffy frowned. “So what made you believe them? I mean, this all had to sound like garbage to you.”

Hank looked up slowly. “I-It did…before I saw…I saw one of them. Buffy, it was horrible, but it was no Animatronics toy and no latex face mask.”

“Oh, preaching to the converted,” she drawled. “But seeing one creepy-crawly wouldn't have made you believe you could just drop dead from signing a piece of paper.”

Hank looked away. “No. But seeing a guy I worked with for eight years just vanish from his chair at work…” He made himself look at his daughter. “He…ah…he was the one who made the connection, helped me out when I needed the money fast. I-I didn't know…I mean, he didn't really believe…”

Buffy put a hand on his arm. “It's okay, dad. It's all a bit much to believe at first. You should've seen mom the first time she saw…” She stopped, biting her lip, but at Hank's startled look, continued. “There's a lot more you don't know about me, apart from basic things like my grades, did I graduate and how old I am,” she told him dryly.

“You're coming of age soon,” he said quietly, apropos of nothing really.

“Came of, dad, months ago. Came and went. Not exactly the celebration of the century. No mom, no you…no…” She shook her head. “Never mind. The thing is: mom and I have known about the badness for a long time…years even. Mom went into denial at first. It's kind of complicated…”

Hank rubbed his hands over his face. “Like now…like my life. I didn't stay away from you and Dawn because I wanted to. I almost lost the business, and when I saved it with that loan I thought I was going to be able to make everything up to you both…then the markets took a nose dive and I had to work ten times as hard to try and pay back that money…”

“That's it? That's the reason you didn't come to mom's funeral? Your stupid business?”

He looked up, startled. “No…no,” he admitted. “That was different. Buffy, I can't…funerals…I just…I can't handle them, never could.”

Giles could, Buffy thought sadly, remembering how much it helped having his large, solid presence shadowing her and Dawn, never crowding, but always there.

“And after…afterwards Cyrelle started visiting, reminding me that I was behind, that I had to find a way…I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm sorry about all of it. I just…I don't know what I'm going to do…”

Buffy moved to shake the unconscious figure on the floor awake. He came around groggily.

“So, how about you take me to see this boss of yours?” She asked.

Cyrelle sneered. “The Overseer does not give audiences to trollops.”

Buffy lifted his short, two hundred and fifty pound frame off the floor, one hand around his throat, the other rammed into his crotch.

“So, bozo, you want to explain that to me again?”

Cyrelle's fearful violet eyes narrowed. “You…you're the Slayer?”

Buffy squeezed everything a little harder, noting that for a hefty little creep, he was still a very 'small' fellow.

“And I'm guessing you're a demon. Pleased to meet you. Now answer my question before I change your name to Cyrette and make you sound like Sydney Greenstreet at the same time,” she growled, almost cutting off his air supply now as well as the blood supply to something else.

When he started to turn green, she released his throat enough for him to let out a piercing squeal, prompting Buffy to release his crotch.

He was breathing heavily when he looked her in the eye. “Bitch,” he hissed. “If you want the Human to survive you had better bring him with you.”

Buffy shook him hard before dropping him heavily onto his feet. “Just remember who you're calling a bitch, pink eyes.”

Cyrelle snarled. “Be at Nelson's statue tomorrow, at four. No later.” And then he was gone. Buffy wasn't sure he'd even used the door. She turned to find her father staring at her.

“Um, dad?”

“You didn't get that strong from working out,” he said dazedly.

“Kinda,” she said awkwardly. “Working out, and killing demons and vampires.”

“H-how long?”

“Since my first Watcher came for me, when I was fifteen…”

“Fi-fifteen? All that trouble…the school…?”

Buffy nodded. “You're a lot quicker than mom, I have to give you that,” she added dryly. “I'm the Slayer. The one girl in all the world…yadda, yadda….” Even as she was drawling the words a pain that was almost physical lanced through her.

Where was he?

She collected herself and faced her father. “Sorry. But yeah, your offspring is the Slayer: mystical defender of all that's good against the forces of evil, etc, etc.”

Hank blinked. “Like Superman?”

Buffy laughed aloud. “I'm not an alien, dad, and I'm so not immortal.” But even as she said the words her heart contracted with pain. “I'm really your kid, only with some extra powers, and way too much responsibility for way too long.”

“Powers? X-ray vision? Can you fly?”

Buffy snorted again in spite of herself, then shook her head, still amused. “Major strength, reflexes, focus.” She touched a bruise by her mouth then held up a scratched arm where fine lines were showing minor bleeding. “And Slayer healing. By morning I'll be all pretty again.”

Hank shook his head. “It's not possible. My kid is the Slayer…”

She frowned. He didn't say that like it was new. “How do you know…?”

“Once I found out demons were real, it wasn't that hard to find out the rest. There are places …especially in L.A. Vampires, demons, good and bad, all of it…and the most common topic between those critters when they're socializing? Either the Slayer, or something called Angel Investigations. Last time I was out trying get information a really ugly, annoying little guy was telling a story about how the Slayer stopped the world from ending.” He lifted his gaze and his eyes bore into hers. “He said there were rumours that she didn't survive, but was brought back from the dead a few months later…”

After a beat, Buffy nodded slowly, her face pale and her eyes clouded. “I…I had to choose…Dawn or me. I chose me. Willow…Willow brought me back months later, using dark magicks. It was kind of a rough ride.”

“No,” Hank said softly, shaking his head. “Vampires and demons…a person can see them, believe that they exist…they're other life forms…But magic? Resurrecting my daughter from the dead? A death, by the way, that nobody bothered to tell me about,” he added angrily. “No. You're friend is not God. She had no right to tamper with the natural order of things.”

“Funny, I sorta said the same thing,” Buffy mused almost bitterly. “But I think she thought there wasn't anything natural about it. She thought I'd been trapped in hell. At least I'd like to think so.”

Hank was shaking slightly, trying to come to terms with the real breadth of what had been happening to his daughters whilst he had been trapped by his own ambition, stuck in Los Angeles, and anywhere else he had to go to drum up business to survive. The Spanish and Italian connections had failed, and so had Rio and Hamburg. He knew in his heart, though, that he could have tried harder, even to find just a few days…

“Buffy, I'm sorry I wasn't there. I…this is still all so unbelievable, and it's way too late. But I want you to know I've always loved you, honey. Both of you.”

“The Ice Show,” Buffy said softly, her mind full of images of Giles, of everything that had happened on her eighteenth birthday. “You never told me why you didn't come.”

Hank looked away. “Can't blame demons for that,” he said, his voice cracking. “It was business. Kayla wanted me to ask one of the junior partners to handle it, but it was…”

Buffy's eyes flashed. “It was your call, and the male ego, among other things, dictated that you had to be the one,” she guessed bitterly.

“Something like that,” he admitted bleakly.

“Kayla?” Buffy added in an almost jeering tone. “I remember her. I was right… alphabetical bimbos.”

“Buffy!” Hank stood, angry, but without a defence. “Judge me all you want, but leave them out of it.”

“Oh, I did all my judging these last four years,” Buffy told him bitterly. “When I was holding Dawn while she cried because she missed you at Christmas, or on her birthday, or because you missed another one of her growing up milestones; when you didn't come for my eighteenth birthday, and then never explained, when you didn't even call after mom died, not even after Giles tracked you down and sent word. And again when I was standing alone with Dawn at the funeral…”

She stopped for a moment, knowing, with a stab of real pain, that wasn't strictly true, then continued. “And again when I came back from the dead and everything was a mess. No dear old dad to the rescue. How do you think Dawn felt about you not caring enough even to want to check up on her?”

“If anyone had bothered to tell me you were dead I would have moved heaven and earth to…” He trailed off.

Buffy watched him, her eyes full, her mouth trembling. She'd never seen him as disconsolate or helpless before and somehow, his refusal to make excuses or blame his girlfriends for his failures made her realise that he was just a person…a very human person, with flaws and failings, but one who still had a heart, and who, underneath it all, was still the father she remembered. At that point she understood much better why he'd aged prematurely, why the grey hairs, the lines that were never in his boyish face before.

“We're going to see the Overseer tomorrow, aren't we?” Hank asked while she was still deep in thought.

She went to him, sat down and put her arms around him, closing her eyes when his engulfed her.

“It's going to be okay, Daddy. We'll make it okay,” she whispered, and let herself be lost for a time in the memories of childhood and the security of a father's embrace.