(notes and disclaimer with part one)

She woke to a much brighter day, the drapes slightly parted to allow the sunlight in. She was in her bed, snuggled under the covers. Her boots and her jacket had been removed. With less alarm than she might have expected, she realised that he must have carried her to bed. She must have fallen asleep by the fire…

He was in his den, or study or library or whatever. It had taken her, by process of elimination, some time to work her way through the house looking for him. He looked up slowly from the huge old volume he was studying with a magnifying glass, the equally huge, bony, clawed fingers holding the lens awkwardly, lacking the dexterity to hold the small piece by the handle.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Buffy,” he said softly.

A shiver went down her spine. She had no idea why, only that it had to do with his voice…or something.

“You…you came back, last night?”

His eyes glistened with amusement. “You would have caught a chill.”

“I thought you said the firewood would last as long as I wanted it to?”

“And so it would, were you to keep adding it. The enchantment is not on the fire, it's on the fuel, to make an endless supply from the bucket.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Wouldn't it be easier to just put a whammy on a couple of pieces of the stuff to make them burn forever?” she growled.

“A grand plan, were there such a spell. I will mention it to the Overseer,” he told her, unable to keep the chuckle from his voice.

“You put me to bed?” she finally blurted.

He nodded again. “As I said, you would have chilled, perhaps become ill. I made you comfortable, and I watched until I was certain you were settled.”

“Watched?” Buffy asked uncomfortably.

“I sat in your chair, and I waited until you were in a peaceful slumber…then I went back to my books. Have you had any breakfast?”

“Um, no. I was kind of more interested in how I got to bed.”

“And now that you have solved that mystery, shall we go and find you something to eat?”

He was getting harder to resist. The more patient he was, the more Buffy found herself wanting to do as he asked.

“Fine. Feed me,” she said finally.

In the end they made breakfast together. It turned out that he hadn't eaten either, nor slept, instead working all night on his latest, and very overdue, assignment. He didn't tell her so, but the redoubled effort was mostly to take his mind off her.

“This kitchen is weird,” Buffy muttered. “Whatever I want is either in the refrigerator or the pantry. Let me guess…magic?”

He ran a claw around the edge of the bowl of pancake mix and touched it to his tongue. “Enchantment, magic…or science so far advanced we don't recognise—”

“Enough, already, Spock,” she growled and stuck the wooden spoon in his surprised mouth before turning to the heated frying pan and pouring the first batter into it. “How are those eggs going?”

He removed the spoon, looking daggers at her for a moment, picked up a spatula and leaned over to the back element on the cook top where his cast iron pan was happily sizzling away. He poked at the eggs and the bacon while Buffy produced perfect pancakes. By the time they were done the kitchen was also filled with the aroma of toasted fresh-baked bread, fresh ground and percolated coffee and the merest hint of tea.

They set their cooking before them on the big table, and Buffy sat back, surveying the feast.

“Giles always said I never ate enough. He should see this.”

“Giles?”

He watched Buffy's face go from flushed amusement, after the heat of cooking, to wan sadness.

“A friend. I came over here to find him,” she said quietly. “And now I never will.” She watched her companion pour tea quite deftly, considering his digital impediments and felt her heart turn over. It even smelled the same…

“Isn't there anything I can call you?” she asked suddenly.

He frowned in thought for a long moment before focusing on her. “Choose something.”

“Me? God…” She stopped, her mind furiously searching for something that fit him. Nothing even remotely did, outside of Rex or Rover…or Chewie, or possibly even Vincent, she smirked to herself, but decided not to go there. “I don't know why, but I can't think of anything I'd feel comfortable calling you,” she told him.

The creature shrugged. “It doesn't matter, until I find out what my true name is.”

They ate their breakfast in silence and then he helped Buffy clear away and do the dishes. She looked up halfway through them.

“My friend…the one who's missing…he had a name.

“Giles?”

“No, he h-has another name. I never called him by it, but I think it would suit you. And somehow, I don't think he'd mind you borrowing it.”

The creature finished drying the frying pan and set it down on the counter before looking at her expectantly again.

“His name was…*is* 'Rupert,' she said finally, then promptly dissolved into silent tears and turned back to the sink. Somehow the fears, terrors and dreads of the last couple of days had found purchase in that one tiny slip. It took her some time to recover, the fact that she had finished all of the dishes and wiped the bench top, stove top and sink down before her tear ducts and her emotions were under control, not lost on her.

The creature had continued to wipe up and put things away until they were both finished and Buffy finally looked up at him again. His gentle eyes held hers.

“I would be honoured if you would call me Rupert, at least until your friend returns,” he told her.

Buffy half smiled, not entirely convinced that it wasn't the worst mistake she'd ever made. Being reminded constantly that the man she l… Her thoughts came to a screeching halt. She swallowed hard, blinked, then ignored herself and the surge of confusion and adrenaline that 'almost-thought' had caused. Instead she resumed the previous train of her thoughts. She really wasn't sure she wanted to be reminded constantly that she might never see Giles again, or that he might be missing…or dead…somewhere.

“So…what do we do now, Rupert?” she asked, barely keeping her voice from cracking.

“Normally I would work for a number of hours before pausing for lunch, then work again until late, sleep and then…”

Buffy held up a hand. “I get it. Okay. You didn't have a life. So what's the deal? Can I go outside? Work in the garden? Walk out there…outside the grounds…?”

“On the moors,” he supplied. “You may do all those things, but no matter how far you go, you will find yourself back here. It is the way the enchantment works. We cannot leave.”

“Joy,” she muttered. “If Giles were here I bet he could find a way to break the spell, or at least get us out of here.”

Rupert's lip crooked up in amusement. “Then I wish he was here, too. You care for him a great deal?” Buffy nodded silently. “He is a lucky man. I think perhaps he doesn't know how lucky,” he said almost wistfully.

Buffy's gaze flicked up to his, as though she might see beyond his words, but she found only sadness and perhaps even regret in the large, expressive eyes.

“It doesn't matter,” she said finally. “I'm never going to see him again, anyway. As long as he's okay…if he's okay, it really doesn't matter any more…”

The days passed slowly. Sometimes Rupert walked with her, sometimes, when it wasn't raining or sleeting or snowing, she walked alone, but roaming the moors became the only way to stop from going insane. There was nothing to hunt, no vampires to fight, and every day the walls of her invisible prison grew a little tighter.

Buffy found herself sitting every evening with her co-captive talking quietly about whatever came up, just for the comfort of listening to his voice, most times. She even played chess with him, and learned canasta, discussed demon and vampire texts and argued world affairs...admittedly her 'world' being pretty much confined to Sunnydale or, at best, what her own country was doing, rather than any useful knowledge of what the rest of the planet was up to…which didn't stop her putting up spirited arguments or defences against his often devastatingly well constructed criticisms and observations. And eventually she even began to help him research, rather than have enough time to brood and become any more claustrophobic or frustrated than she already was.

When Buffy discovered that not only could Rupert hold a sword, he was proficient in several versions and a number of other weapons, and had a workout room where he maintained levels of fitness and dexterity to counter the pretty much sedentary confines of his prison, she immediately instigated training sessions. They fenced, sparred and worked out together, Buffy fascinated by the creature's ability to wield weapons with his ungainly 'hands' and to manage and affect the kind of balance required on his totally weird legs.

Each day, however, started almost exactly the same way.

“You are going to get fat,” Rupert teased.

Buffy set the platter of breakfast down on the table and made a face at him. “There's nothing to do here except eat and train and read books. The moors are fun enough the first twenty-five times and twelve directions…now it's like Ground Hog Day.” The creature looked puzzled. “Movie…film … Bill Murray?” She sighed when he just looked dazed. “Pop culture. A story about the same day repeating itself over and over until the um…hero…of the story does something to break the…spell…to start time going again.”

“Ah,” he said. “You are feeling trapped again.”

“Don't you?” she asked peevishly.

He looked down his impressive nose at her. “Constantly. However I find distraction where I can.”

“Except before I came. The big “O” didn't seem to think you were finding enough distraction then.”

His head dropped and he sighed. “I have been here a long time and in all that time I have had no identity, no hope. The only thing I have,” he said, putting a large hand on his heart, “is here. The ache sometimes is almost beyond bearing. Sometimes I feel as though there is someone else inside of me…someone crying…at other times someone clawing and fighting to be free.”

“Of this place?” Buffy asked sympathetically.

He shook his great head. “Of me,” he said simply.

There wasn't much she could say to that. “It might just be your subconscious dealing with all that repressed rage and frustration…you're so calm all the time…it has to go somewhere,” she suggested.

His eyes danced, as they did when he was amused, even though he couldn't really smile, at least not in a way that didn't look totally intimidating.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “I only remember how unbearable the silence, how sore my heart with longing, and how difficult it became to concentrate on anything…even eating, for a time. Despair is a terrible thing and an impossible enemy to fight.”

“You talk like a period novel,” she teased. “Giles would love…”

Rupert watched her face change from amused affection to bleak unhappiness.

She cleared her throat and started again. “Giles would love you.”

He made a noise that Buffy recognised as his equivalent of a chuckle. “I will accept that as a compliment, but I rather think he would prefer to share his affections with someone such as yourself.”

She looked away. “Giles was…*is* the best…he was always there when I needed him. Always. But Giles and emotions: majorly un-mixy things. Except for getting angry a couple of times…with good reason…there was no sharing. There was a lot of cleaning of glasses, a lot of tea drinking, and some weird 'gluck gluck' noises according some quarters, but sharing of affections…of feelings?” She sighed. “I think he would have preferred having teeth pulled.”

“He is in your thoughts a great deal,” Rupert observed softly.

Buffy looked up slowly. “He's the reason I came to England. He's the reason I'm still alive and the reason I still want to live. I just want to be able to tell him that. Most of all I want to know that he's okay, not rotting in some prison or secretly being held by the Council, or buried God knows where…” She stopped, mortified to have blurted out her most secret fears and unable to continue the thought of a dead Giles. “I want him back,” she whispered.

The creature blinked sadly. “Would that I could give him to you, but I can no more bring him to you, than lead us out of this place…”

“Maybe that's what we're doing wrong,” Buffy said suddenly. “Maybe it's not about escaping, or beating the system. Maybe we have to join it, at least long enough to do an end run around it…”

“I do not understand,” he said bemusedly.

Buffy finally smiled. “Not yet. But you will.”