(notes and disclaimer with part one)

All three of them went 'between' again, Buffy finding herself in the emergency room of a British hospital. She looked around frantically when she realized Rupert was gone.

“What have you done with him?” she demanded, jumping up to face the demon, only to find an old lady who was sitting next to her quailing at her aggression. “Sorry,” she said uncomfortably. “Not you.” She started to pace, wondering why she was still there at all. If Rupert were there, somewhere, he was probably being dissected by now, not helped. “Cyrelle!” she hissed through her teeth, but there was no answer. Her next thought was the payphone. She sprinted for it, but had no coins, nor a phone card, to operate it.

That led to her racing back to reception. The Nurse couldn't find any record of any patient named 'Rupert' being admitted, and suggested that he was still being examined in casualty, or waiting to be warded, since things were busy and there was a two-to-four hour delay in getting the new admissions processed. Buffy's eyes lighted on the phone at the young nurse's fingertips. She explained with as much pathos as possible that she was an overseas visitor with no money, no wallet and no papers and that she absolutely had to contact her father to bring all of those things to the hospital. The young woman was sympathetic and after a furtive look around to make sure no one more senior was in view, pushed the phone towards Buffy and told her what to do to get an outside line.

Three attempts got Buffy only a disconnect signal. Without letting the girl at the desk know, she dialled her home number, the international dialling codes memorized after regular calls to Dawn, while staying with her father before Cyrelle's arrival. She didn't realize how tightly she was holding the receiver until it started to make sounds like plastic threatening to disintegrate. She relaxed her hand as the strange collection of sounds of international dialling came to an end, and the silence was followed, finally, by ringing. Her heart moved to her mouth. There was no way it was going to work…

“Hello?”

“Willow?”

“Buffy!! God, where are you?? Are you okay?”

“How is this possible?” Buffy demanded. “They won't let me talk to anyone. I should be getting a disconnect signal…”

“To do that they would have to do some kind of spell. Don't you remember, Buffy? When I put all those wards on your house…even on the phones and Dawn's computer and everything?”

“So you're blocking their magic…or whatever…with your own? Still power-girl, huh?” she asked, ecstatic to be talking to a familiar voice again.

“That'd be me,” Willow confirmed, a smile in her voice. “Where exactly are you?”

“In a hospital somewhere. Probably Yorkshire. That's where I've been all the time, in an old mansion on the edge of the moors. It had a spell on it to stop Rupert and me leaving…”

“Rupert?”

“Long story. And I have to find him. Have you heard from Giles since I left?”

“You mean he's not…you didn't find him?”

The crashing disappointment in Willow's voice gave Buffy her answer. She closed her eyes, willing herself to put aside the pain of that until she'd found Rupert and gotten them both out of the hospital and preferably out of the country.

“Will, you have to help me. Call my Dad. He knows everything. Tell him I think I've escaped and that I'm in a hospital…” Buffy paused to look down at the paperwork the Nurse was working on and read off the upside down letterhead to Willow. I don't know if I-we'll be here when he gets here. There's a possibility we'll be sent back to the mansion before…”

“I'll get on it right away, Buffy. He'll be there as fast I can get him to you. I wish we knew where Giles was. He could help with this.”

“Speaking of helping with this,” Buffy added, looking at the helpful nurse and turning away to speak quietly. “Do you think you could do something to stop this call going on the hospital's phone records? I don't want to get anyone in trouble and I'm pretty sure the hospital staff aren't supposed to let people make international calls at work.”

“No problem,” Willow confirmed. “And Buffy…don't let them take you away again,” she added, fear and worry evident in her voice.

“I'll try,” Buffy promised wryly, “but I can't exactly argue with guys who have no form or substance. Gotta go now. I have to find someone.”

When she cradled the receiver, Buffy found her hand trembling. She looked around the room swiftly. No sign of Cyrelle. Either he was wherever Rupert was, or he was being kept away, so as not to make a scene, maybe. Buffy kind of thought that the appearance of Rupert in the ER…or Casualty…as it was called there, would have made a big enough scene all by itself, but there was no sign of any disruption in the large hospital emergency ward and waiting area.

She thanked the little nurse effusively then melted into the background, wishing that it wasn't quite so busy. The number of staff and patients coming and going made it impossible for her to sneak into the treatment area. She'd already been intercepted twice, leaving her even more frustrated about where Rupert was and whether he was okay. Suddenly all she wanted to do was cry. What was it with everyone she loved being taken from her all of a sudden? When her legs got rubbery she sat down hard on one of the moulded plastic seats.

She was still there, head bowed, when her father arrived two hours later.

Buffy looked up at the sound of her name, tired, depressed and frazzled.

Hank smiled at her, his expression one of profound relief, fear still evident in the strain around his eyes, but there was real joy on his face as he came to her.

Buffy rose and threw herself into his arms with the same vigour as that with which he was gathering her up. It was some time before they parted again.

“I don't understand why the Overseer let this happen,” Hank told her, finally. “It makes no sense.”

“Well, it was either do something or let their Ace Research guy die,” Buffy pointed out. “And they didn't exactly plan to let me come too. I just wish I knew where he was.”

“It's still strange that you haven't been sent back,” Hank pointed out.

“I'm guessing they can't read me here. I think they thought it was safe because they'd put a spell on the place, or me, to stop me communicating with anyone…except Willow warded the phones at home, so…”

“Well that might explain why they haven't come for you yet, but it doesn't explain why no one is guarding you. I'm starting to think maybe they can't reach you here at all. Something is definitely wrong. I mean, where the heck did Cyrelle go?”

“Frankly, Dad, right now I don't care. I just need to find Rupert before they vivisect him or something. Grand Central Station is quieter than this place,” she added, looking across at the entrance to the treatment area. For once it wasn't crowded with people or gurneys, or more frustratingly, orderlies or doctors, coming and going. Best of all there didn't seem to be anyone official there to intercept her if she tried to get through again.

Without any more prevarication, Buffy marched through the swing doors and started checking examination cubicles and gurneys, her father trailing behind and explaining to all comers that his daughter was distraught about her injured boyfriend and that he would take her back out as soon as she'd seen him and reassured herself that he was alive.

They were running out of cubicles when Hank asked a harried intern who was trying unsuccessfully to stop Buffy going any further, whether he knew if there was a patient named Rupert in the treatment room.

“You have to leave,” the young man told them, lines deeply etched from the corners of his eyes to his mouth, and dark circles under those eyes. “You're not authorised to be in here.”

“I'm afraid she's not going to be stopped,” Hank apologised, continuing the boyfriend ruse. “She loves the guy. I can't stop her, but if she finds him and he's okay, she'll probably go right away, especially if he tells her to.”

“Well, she'd better be quick,” the intern growled. “Security is on its way.” At the miserable look on Buffy's face and the frustration on Hank's, the younger man relented a little. “Look, there's a Rupert two beds down, but she might be disappointed. At any rate, she's going to have to hurry.”

Buffy ran, careening around the screens to get to her friend, terrified that he might already be dead, or gone.

She slid to a halt, freezing as she laid eyes on the bed and its occupant.

“WHAT…?” she squeaked.

“What the…?” Hank exclaimed as he arrived.

But Buffy was too stunned, too numb to react for a moment. Then she walked forward slowly and touched the sleeping figure's arm, brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers.

He stirred against the pillows that propped him up, his green eyes fluttering opening after a couple of beats.

“Buffy…what are you doing here?” he asked in a croaky voice.

“What am I…?” she gobbled. “What are you doing here? How did you get here? Where have you been…?”

His eyes closed again. “Where I've been is a very long story. What I'm doing here is recovering from almost not being revived. I was rather hoping they'd be a little quicker. My head is about to explode.”

“What are you talking about and where is Rupert?” she demanded, about to burst into tears, overwhelming joy crashing into crushing disappointment and distress, and threatening to amalgamate into one huge migraine.

“Rupert?” he managed, obviously exhausted.

Buffy swallowed tears and the overwhelming desire to throw herself into his arms. “Rupert: fairy tale guy…hairy, no name, big teeth…?”

After a few moments in which a number of expressions crossed his handsome, but pale face, the figure in the bed laughed without opening his eyes. “Well, the teeth are a little smaller now…”

Buffy grew very still. Suddenly it all made perfect sense…except it had been right in front of her face and she hadn't seen it…like a lot of things over the last few years...

“Where have you been, Giles?” she whispered helplessly. “God, I missed you so much.”

He looked up at her. “To hell,” he said quietly. “They came up with the perfect solution…the perfect prison.”

“So when Rupert said he felt like someone was inside him crying…trying to get out…that…that was you?”

Giles looked away. “I…he…had no memory of you…but I was still there inside…a part of the creature which couldn't communicate with anyone. I knew who I was and that I was in all likelihood trapped there forever… It was a cruel spell…to make me a prisoner more or less in my own body. I'm sorry...”

Buffy's eyes filled with tears. “God, Giles, please don't…It's just…Rupert…I've lost…I feel like I've lost a part of me…even though the truth is I've got another part back. I've missed you so much…”

He turned back to look at her as she inched closer to him. “Don't cry for me, love,” he said softly as she leaned down to rest her brow against his shoulder and his arm curled around hers.

“For both of you,” she qualified in a tremulous whisper. “I loved him too.”

A tremor went through Giles. “He's not that far away,” he reminded her.

“You…you remember everything?”

“I do now. Everything.”

She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes searching his.

“Everything,” he reiterated and used a thumb to wipe moisture from her cheekbone.

Buffy let herself fall into his dear, familiar gaze, wanting to say a hundred things yet unable to form even a syllable.

When the moment became too intense and the air between them impossibly thick, Giles withdrew his fingers. “I'm sorry I couldn't warn you about my plan.”

“Plan?” she managed, just, in a hoarse whisper.

“To get us out of there. The rubbish about the gems was a ruse to keep them occupied with trying to stay one step ahead of us while I worked on a simple compound to make it imperative that I be brought to a real hospital. I knew that if they had to move me back to this world quickly, they would have to release me because they couldn't present Rupert to the medical community. Nor could they send Cyrelle to any medical facility with me, because of *his* appearance. I was counting on the urgency of the situation, your insistence and your refusal to be left behind.”

Buffy worked through that. “So, you're telling me you poisoned yourself to get their attention and didn't tell me so they wouldn't read me, and so my reaction would be genuine…? You could have died! There was no guarantee they'd respond or do anything…at least not fast enough to save you!” she told him histrionically. “How could you do that?”

He looked up at her wearily.

Buffy's heart contracted at the haunted look in his eyes. “Did they say whether you were going to be okay or not?” she asked, letting it go.

Giles nodded. “Eventually. They want me here for observation tonight, but I'm not certain that it's a good idea to stay. They need me enough to come looking for me and I don't want them to find us again.”

Buffy slid her hand into his. “How did they find you the first time?”

“I don't know, exactly. Cyrelle and his men came for me at my flat...rang the doorbell for God's sake. One moment I was punching the snot out of a demon, the next I was…somewhere else, surrounded by the most vile coloured scenery.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Been there, done that. But why did they turn you into Rupert?”

“I flatly refused to help them in any way. I didn't know at that point that they could read me. I suppose it didn't take them long to realize that if I didn't know who or what I was that I would be far more malleable. Unfortunately for them it didn't quite work the way they thought it would. I'm presuming the form was arbitrary and came from the mind of someone else from this world. I assume you saw the resemblance?

Buffy nodded, wondering when Giles had time to notice such things. “I liked Rupert better, though.” Her face grew grim again. “Are we safe?”

“I honestly don't know. Perhaps. At least while we're here. If they could take us at any time, I'm sure they would have already…or at least they would have taken you. They can't reach us here and they can't send Cyrelle…at least they can't send him and maintain their low profile.”

“So…if I get us out of here…does that mean Cyrelle will be able to come after us again?” she asked, her fingers tightening around his.

Giles lifted her hand and rested it on his chest. “I would assume so.”

Buffy frowned. “Then we have to talk to Willow…or the Council…or someone who can stop them…” Her eyes widened suddenly. “Oh, God!”

“Buffy? What?” Giles demanded, alarmed.

“I escaped and broke the agreement…will they kill my father now?”

He didn't know what to say to that. “Where is he?” He asked finally.

Buffy turned around. Hank was nowhere to be seen. Without hesitating, she let go of Giles' hand and raced out into the main casualty room. Hank was there, in animated conversation with two burly security guards, obviously trying to delay them. She raced back to Giles.

“You remember that thing you did to get to Sunnydale so you could rescue us from Evil Willow? Can you still do that?” she demanded.

“What?” Giles squinted. “You mean teleporting?”

“Yes,” Buffy said urgently. “I really don't want to have to fight the security guards my Dad is stalling, but I'm not letting them take me away from you now.”

Giles shook his head slowly. “Not without the coven. It might be best if you simply wait for the guards to arrive, let them see us together and then agree to leave, calmly and rationally. They're not here to bully patients and their families, only to maintain the peace.”

“I won't leave you again,” she repeated a little desperately and took his hand again.

Giles smiled at her. “Just for a little while,” he told her.

Moments later Hank and the security guards arrived.

As anticipated, the senior one explained why Buffy couldn't stay in the area and asked her if she would return to the waiting area until her friend was warded.

“I told them you were just worried about Rupert,” Hank explained, “and that now you've seen him you're probably going to be okay to wait a while to see him again.”

Buffy's hand tightened almost painfully on his, but Giles watched her nod obediently before reluctantly letting go and following them out of the area. Feeling horribly alone, he slid down a little and closed his eyes, hoping it wouldn't be much longer before he was moved.