Dawn watched Buffy flipping channels on the television, sometimes so fast she couldn't have been taking notice of what was on the screen. The younger girl shook her head. It was wiggy enough that her sister had returned in such a depressed and listless state. It wasn't like the new Buffy had ever actually qualified at any point as 'cheerful'.

Since coming home she had said very little aside from the fact that it was going to be almost impossible to find Giles.

Anya had volunteered as much information as she could on demon dimensions and the Kobi world in particular, but it had been of little value without knowing where the portal Giles had gone through had opened.

Phillip Trentham had settled himself in a hotel and came and went in a rental car, with information gleaned from countless phone calls to England, as frustrated as the rest of them about the results of Buffy's inquiries. There had been no word of Jaif resurfacing in Britain, from Trentham's meagre demon and Council contacts, nor could his friend Celeste, now herself safely hidden from the Watcher's Council, add anything to what she had already reported witnessing.

"You want something to eat?"

"No," Buffy said without looking up.

Dawn frowned. It was too early for Buffy to patrol, and there was little the Slayer could do to help Willow research, but it was obvious to the schoolgirl that her sister needed to be doing something.

"Suit yourself. I'm starving."

Buffy did not look up from the miracle hair removal infomercial playing on the television.

With a sigh, Dawn turned to go and call…

She stopped, tears filling her eyes. Her first impulse had been to call Giles. Instead, she sniffed hard and went to call Xander.

She was on the kitchen extension when the back door opened.

"Niblet."

"Call you back," she told Xander swiftly and hung up.

"Spike. What are you doing here? You know how Buffy feels. You know what Giles said about coming to the house."

"Yeah, well, the wanker isn't here, is he? Gave up the right to give orders when he picked up and went home to sulk."

"Shut up, Spike," Dawn growled.

Spike paused, surprised by the vehemence and emotion in her voice. She was genuinely upset about the old bugger.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" he demanded.

"Giles is missing."

"Too bloody right he's missing—"

Dawn sniffed again. "No, I mean he's really missing. He chased a demon through a portal and now he's lost somewhere and there's no way to know what dimension he's stuck in."

Not what the vampire expected to hear. "Bloody hell. So what's your sister doing about it?"

"Nothing," she growled.

Again Spike was surprised. "Now that's not like the Slayer. Don't tell me none of you are doing anything?"

"Of course we're doing stuff," Dawn retorted angrily. "Buffy went to see some Kobi demons a-and Willow's been researching like crazy and Anya helped and…"

"You don't have a damn thing," he finished.

Dawn turned away and pulled out some coffee mugs and the cocoa. "No," she admitted reluctantly.

"Kobi demons, you say?"

She nodded.

"Never seen one m'self. Heard of them. They've got quite the range of, well, 'recreational' substances, if you know what I mean. Nothing special to them, except as herbal medicine, but plenty of fun for the rest of us. So what did she find out?"

"That the one Giles was chasing is insane and that the portal they went through is unstable. There was a storm where it was supposed to open. The Kobi say the storm might have disrupted the portal. He could be literally…anywhere."

Spike thought about that for a moment. "So where's the bugger he was chasing?"

Dawn shrugged. "Nobody knows, not even his family."

"Yeah? His family?"

"Um, yeah. That's who Buffy went to see. They're the only Kobi demons in Sunnydale."

"Is that right?" Spike lit a cigarette. "Where's your sister now?"

"In the living room. You better put that out," she added.

Spike straightened and rolled his eyes before moving to the kitchen sink to butt the cigarette.

Dawn watched sombrely as his back disappeared through the door. In her current mood, Buffy would probably punch him on the nose…or do him on the living room floor. Her face screwed up.

"So…that looks intellectually stimulatin'."

Buffy clicked off the demonstration of a stain remover. "What do you want, Spike?" she asked, picking up a cross from the coffee table, without looking up.

He stared at the top of the fair head. Her voice was flat and emotionless and she was behaving exactly as she had before their little interlude.

"You know, you never showed this much emotion about the blighter when he was ali—here, which is probably one of the reasons he left."

Buffy looked up very slowly and blinked. It was clear that she was trying to process what he'd just said.

It amused him, because he didn't intend it to provoke any kind of real thought, only to annoy her. He long had more than a mild suspicion that the Slayer was more than just fond of her Watcher, even if the silly bint didn't know it yet. Not that he actually wanted her to realise it any time soon…

"He's not dead," she said slowly, vehemently.

"Didn't say he was. So what are you going to do about it?"

"I can't do anything until I know where he is."

"Really? Have you been to the Kobi homeworld, then?"

"No. Giles isn't there."

"Oh, right, a demon tells you something and you believe it right off. Is anyone watching the family in case psycho-boy gets homesick?"

"What do you think?" Buffy muttered irritably.

"I think you should stop wallowing in whatever it is that you're wallowing in and start thinking with both sides of that tiny little brain of yours. In your limited experience, where do disturbed young individuals such as your favourite hair-gel, poofy boy in his natural state, first go to express themselves and their newfound penchant for sadistic violence?"

Buffy's eyes flashed with annoyance. "You think Jaif will go home?"

"That his name, is it? Couldn't say for certain, but if he hasn't already, it's as good a chance as any, and as predictable a reaction as any for your average self-respectin' creature of darkness."

She sighed. "The only other place he might go is the Council, to get whatever they paid him to masquerade as a Jemm'ra demon, but he hasn't been back there either, as far as we know."

"So get someone to watch the family, then you'll have everything covered."

The blue-grey eyes focused on him.

"Oh no, no way," he said quickly. "I'm just offering some common sense, not hours of mind-numbing boredom chasing down leads to find a poncy great wanker who begrudges me even a bowl of Weetabix, let alone proximity to either his precious Slayer or her kid bloody sister."

The wide eyes grew larger and even bleaker. "Please," she asked, so completely out of character that he said yes before he even realised what he was doing.

*******

"He hasn't been sighted."

Buffy stared at the older, taller man. He looked jaded and tired but there was a comfortable familiarity about him that made it easy to listen to him.

"If he was around, somewhere, wouldn't he have reported in by now?"

Phillip Trentham rolled his eyes. "You would think so, wouldn't you? All I can tell you is that my most trusted contact assures me that the Council are just as interested in Jaif's whereabouts as we are."

"Great," Buffy growled then relented a little at the bleak look on her companion's face.

"It's not your fault. You couldn't know any more than Giles could, that a portal was going to open. I mean…I still don't really get how Giles ended up going through it. It's not like he was like, in a runaway car or something, you know? How hard is it to stop running when you see something that weird?"

Trentham half smiled before his face became sombre. "I believe there was a struggle."

"Oh," Buffy said softly, imagining for the first time a wounded, disabled, or worse Giles lying somewhere with no one and no way to get to him.

"We'll find him," Phillip said immediately, surprised at the intensity with which she was radiating distress without as much as a tear or a single tremble of her soft lips.

"We will find him," Buffy repeated vehemently. "I don't know how yet, but there has to be a way. Could there be some kind of locator spell for missing Watchers? Or people lost in other dimensions…or…?" She looked up suddenly. "Watchers and Slayers!

Giles and me…we're connected. Giles said it…when I was communing with my inner spirit guide-thingy, back before…well, anyway, he said he had to hand over his um…what was it? I know: his guardianship of me, for a while. There has to be a way to use that connection, maybe with magic, a spell, or something, so I can maybe even talk to him, find out where he is. You know, like me going on another one of those spirit journey thingies, but looking for Giles this time," she babbled.

Trentham almost chuckled, but his eyes were bleak despite the amusement in them.

"You Americans watch far too much television. The bond you're talking about doesn't work like that. I wish it was that easy. I truly do."

Hearts in their shoes, they both looked up as the front door flew open.

"Spike!" Buffy exclaimed as a blanket covered figure stumbled in, smoke rising from several different points as it straightened, and threw off the tartan rug.

"In the flesh, so to speak," he grinned. "I notice nobody came to relieve me up at demon central," he pointed out, miffed.

"Sorry," Buffy said vaguely, not terribly sincere in her contrition.

Trentham was still looking more than a little incredulously at the smoking figure standing in front of them.

Spike tilted his head and stared back. "Council sent another bloody Watcher already? Name's not Wyndham-Pryce, is it?"

"Spike, this is Phillip. Phillip, Spike," Buffy said uncomfortably, as Spike surveyed the tall, tweed-clad figure next to her. "Phillip is a friend of Giles'. He's the one who told us what happened. He's been helping."

"Oh yeah," the vampire drawled, turning to the other man. "What's in it for you, then?"

"Would you like me to kill it for you?" Trentham drawled as he eyed the bleached figure in front of him.

Buffy looked painfully self-conscious but covered it with humour. "No…no, that's okay. We've actually learned to tolerate him. He's kind of neutered, but not really housebroken."

Spike was mildly outraged. "Oh very funny, Sweets. Tell the world about my problem why don't you? You know, anybody else would have asked me why I'm here by now. Are you sure you really want to find—?"

Buffy leaped up and thrust him back against the front door. "Don't push me, Spike," she said between her teeth. "If you know anything you should have said so when you walked in, and if you do you'd better spit it out while you still can!"

"Oh that's gratitude for you," he complained. "Drag my sorry arse all the way across to watch that bleedin' house for you lot and then spend days bored out of my mind, watching perfectly good meals go by while I get hungrier and hungrier, and what do I get from you?"

Buffy threatened very convincingly, to get rough.

Spike capitulated. "All right, all right. This Jaif character turned up a few hours ago. I wasn't sure until the door opened and the whole family seemed to get more than a little excited, all of them switching in and out of demon face until my head hurt, kids bouncing and squealing and carryin' on. It was some reunion. I don't speak the language, so I have no idea what was said but they were deliriously happy to see him."

She let go of him and backed up a couple of paces. "You came all the way here to tell us you didn't find out anything?

"Now did I say that?" Spike drawled. "I had a little talk with him later, in my own time, my own way. He was very co-operative."

Buffy shook her head. "It can't be that simple."

"It isn't…yet," he told her, unimpressed. "He is certifiably insane, this Jaif, but I spoke to him in the kind of language we all understand…beat him senseless, actually…well, not quite senseless… and I told him I'd off his family if he didn't spill the information," the vampire added when Buffy looked at him suspiciously.

"And…?"

"Watcherboy has been in the Kobi home dimension all along. The storm disrupted the portal, causing it to open in a wilderness area, according to our boy. They were fighting. Jaif thinks he either knocked out or ki…well, anyway, he left the Watcher there in a hurry when the portal started to close.

The colour left Buffy's face.

Spike shifted uncomfortably. "Ay, this is supposed to be good news. If you're not careful you'll get stuck like that and everyone'll think you're a vampire."

"How do we find this wilderness area?" she demanded, not reacting to his teasing.

"I think the real question is: how do we find a portal?" Spike drawled. "I think it's time to talk to the wicked wiccan and her sidekick."

"I can't lose him," she said softly, almost to herself. "I can't do this without him. I can't do any of it without him…"

Spike frowned, as much to cover the sudden sadness in his eyes as anything. Then, instead of replying, he lit a cigarette, much to Buffy's annoyance. He took a drag on it before looking up again, his expression now nearly blank. "Well, done my bit. I'll leave it to you, now," he announced unexpectedly, drew the tartan rug over his head and was gone before Buffy could even raise her voice to him.

She blinked. Spike could be so weird sometimes.

Trentham, who was sitting quietly, finally spoke. "You must be the first Slayer to have a tame vampire," he said incredulously.

"Actually," Buffy said absently, "two. First one, there was the whole deal with the soul and the gypsy curse and the off again on again goodness. Second one: chipped and neutered very conveniently by the Initiative." Continuing self-consciousness prompted her to go on, not quite truthfully: "God knows where his good intentions come from, though. It's not like they gave him a soul. Not so long ago he wanted my entrails on a stick. It's also not like he hasn't already killed two Slayers. But now? Now, he's…he's…well, he helps," she finished awkwardly.

*******

Giles emerged from his lean-to as the red sun spread its dappled rays through the forest canopy.

Today he would find something decent to eat. That was his goal. Tomorrow he would scout a new campsite, but today was for finding some solid sustenance, to stop him from feeling any more lethargic than he already did. The fruit was upsetting his stomach more and more, but he had persevered with it in the knowledge that he required the nutritional value of them regardless of the…after-effects.

He pulled on the shorts but didn't worry about much else except his shoes, which were vital, as were his dedicated efforts to preserve his socks for as long as possible. Mobility was vital to his survival, which meant taking care of both his feet and their only protection.

Breakfast was another miniature loaf and water from the stream. As he drank, the monster fish broke the surface of the water as though taunting him then disappeared just as quickly.

He sighed at the thought of fried fish then sat up when there was another splash. He sat for long moments peering into the crystalline waters around the area of the noise, and eventually realised that he hadn't even thought about the possibility of smaller fish in the stream.

With the most excitement he'd been able to muster in days, he went upstream a little to dig some of the shellfish, then raced back to camp to snatch up his experimental fish-trap. He tied several opened shellfish inside, added a length of his homemade twine to haul it in with and happily set it in the stream near the reeds, before heading off on his quest for new food sources.

He passed many more examples of the fruit he'd been eating, and filled his sacks with seed, but even a couple of hours later had not sighted anything even remotely resembling a deer or a rabbit or even a decent rat. They were probably all in that grassland to the south…

There were also precious few birds around. He wondered if his scent or even just his presence had frightened them all away. After all he'd seen more than a few feathers on the forest floor, some of them quite beautiful…

Hunger and thirst were becoming an issue when he eventually decided to stop and find a place to drink at the stream. The undergrowth was much thicker this far downstream. A fact he had thought would enhance his chances of finding suitable poultry or game. Eventually, he decided to simply tromp through the narrowest section of reeds, since there didn't seem to be a single inch of bank that wasn't swallowed up by bramble-like overgrowth or reeds or thick, tall ferns.

He was about halfway through the reeds, which reached higher than his head, when a commotion of fluttering and bizarre half honking, half shrieking calls startled him. A bird that looked like a cross between a cape-barren goose and a vulture was racing at his lower body with a very nasty looking beak wide open in apparent temper.

He dodged it several times, trying to work out how he could despatch it, his mouth watering at the idea of roast goose, but it unfortunately proved that it was more than capable of flight the moment he lunged toward it, leaving him face down in the marsh water. Crestfallen, he hauled himself up and continued forward to almost stumble over a nest only moments later.

There were twelve large, blue eggs dappled all over with black flecks. He lifted a few of them and tested their weight, held them up to the light to check the contents. Finally he packed the six freshest ones in the seed in his pouches to keep them safe, and continued down to the stream's edge for his drink. He knew that if the bird was anything like it's Terran counterpart it would simply continue to lay until it felt it had produced its quota, and no harm would have been done. He sighed again. Roast goose…or whatever it was…would have been heavenly…if only he had a decent weapon…

He was almost back onto solid ground when he saw it. Another of the feline predators was sauntering down to the water either for a morning drink, or to perhaps find itself a goose breakfast.

Giles froze, but only for a couple of minutes, because it's magnificent head, nose raised to the almost non-existent breeze, had detected something. It turned its pale emerald eyes in his direction, making his heart beat an almost painful tattoo. With great care he slowly lowered his pouches to the dry bank and started to move very, very slowly towards the nearest trees.

The cat shook its huge head and snorted. Giles froze again and thrust a hand into his left pocket. At all times he kept three small but sharp rocks in it for just such a purpose. When it took its eye off him again to bite its own shoulder rather like a housecat, he took more steps toward the trees.

There were a lot of trees, but the majority were not climbable. They had lived too long and their lowest branches were far too high for him to reach. His only hope was a multi-limbed monstrosity that had branches, if they could be called that, all the way down to the ground. Getting to it, however, was going to take some artistic footwork and a modicum of luck, particularly since his companion was now fully focused, its head lowered and it's body coiled in preparation to strike as it stalked towards him.

This time even the more stunning beauty of the creature at such close quarters wasn't enough to stop him from turning and sprinting to save his skin.

Giles made it to the tree, just, and couldn't remember how he got about ten feet up it in just moments. For a long while he simply clung to the trunk trying to catch his breath and hoping he wasn't going to have a heart attack, while his hapless pursuer paced in frustration around his refuge.

A couple of hours later his companion was still contemplating its dinner, fortunately without any clue as to how to get it. Giles thanked God the branches of his tree were so numerous and so close together that it would be almost impossible for the huge cat to climb it the way many of its Terran analogues might have. He also added an irritable word or two about how stiff he was getting from not being able to move and having to hold on for dear life, not to mention a rider about the slowly growing need to pee.

Again he considered the rocks in his pocket. The first one missed. The second hit the beast in the shoulder, making it flinch and stop, startled. Giles aimed the third one and prayed. It hit the creature, not between the eyes, where he was aiming, but on the sensitive end of its nose. It roared in pain, and rage, and sprang off into the forest. Giles prudently decided to give it at least another twenty minutes to change its mind before giving up the high ground.

To pass the time he moved out on the branches enough to pick one of the flowers growing on a sort of strangler vine dangling from the canopy, almost to the ground. He'd been catching a scent the whole time he was up there and, as he suspected, it was from the flowers. The bloom was large, white and waxy with a purple flush at its centre and bright pink stamens. It looked vaguely like an orchid, but the back of the flower was bulbous and the perfume was far too strong.

Its scent was a cross between vanilla and honey, far too pungent up close for Giles' taste, but provocative at a distance. He guessed probably more so for the insects required to cross-pollinate them. When he finally let it go, he discovered his fingers were covered with a sticky sap-like substance. They smelled like the flower. He touched his tongue to them and felt his jaw prick quite painfully at the first really sweet taste he'd experienced since being lost.

The taste wasn't quite as overpowering as the smell. There was that hint of vanilla, but mostly, Giles decided, it was rather like particularly aromatic, though thin, honey. By the time he'd picked and dropped a dozen blooms, enough time had elapsed to be fairly certain the big cat wasn't lurking near by, especially since the bird had returned to its nest and a couple of ground birds, blue and brown, small and fat and partridge-like, had wandered down to the water's edge looking for moisture.

He made the ground as quietly as possible and crept back to his pouches, adding the flowers to them and slinging them over his shoulder, tied together as they were by more of his homemade string. In the process he inadvertently flushed the partridges, watching longingly and hungrily as they flew out of the undergrowth and back into the forest, before heading off to finish his expedition.

The only accessible protein he'd found so far on this trip were the eggs, which might or might not be edible, and he wasn't letting himself get too optimistic about the fish-trap. He craved something solid to eat, something that would allow him to sleep peacefully, instead of lying awake for hours listening to his stomach rumble.

It irked him that he hadn't been able to improve his weapons status. He knew enough from his museum days to at least be able to string a primitive but useful hunting bow, given the right materials, but neither his crudely made twine nor the type of timber in the area were conducive to amateur efforts to produce even the most primitive weapons.

After an hour of hiking he decided that he'd gone far enough. He'd picked fruit to stave off his hunger and thirst as he walked, but they didn't provide the kind of energy required for sustained marching after his little interlude earlier with the king of this particular jungle. Rather than cover the same ground, he chose to go back a different route to the camp, ever hopeful of finding something else to add to his larder on the way.

By the time he was just a half hour from his base, he'd filled another palm-leaf cone with a new fruit and for the first time, some promising-looking nuts, and was resigned to the fact he wasn't going to accomplish any more that day. Nor was he until he stumbled across a shrub he hadn't seen before. It wasn't its tiny yellow flowers, or long, slender fronds that caught his attention. It was the woody, pumpkin-sized base of the plant.

When he finally reached the creek near his camp and put down his booty to wade in and wash, he was filthy, stiff and tired. Half an hour later he had a fire going and had exchanged his cut-offs for his dry boxers before making another small loaf and burying it in the coals to cook.

The new fruit appeared to be edible, it's dark skin hiding golden, juicy flesh. One of the nuts when crushed smelled bitter enough to decide him to discard them immediately. The other reminded him of Brazil nuts, which were not a favourite, but seemed as though they were safe enough. He hoped so, he mused ruefully, spitting out the half he'd chewed up as a test.

Next he considered the cooking of his eggs. He'd have given anything for a frying pan or even a small saucepan. In the end he settled for setting one of his grinding stones in the middle of the hot coals and letting it heat up. Selected in the first place for the small hollow at its centre, it held one egg…just…provided he paid attention and, using a mussel shell as a scraper, didn't let it run.

Giles watched the pinkish 'white' of the egg solidify around its reddish yoke and wondered if he was expecting too much, though it smelled fine, along with his almost cooked seed meal.

Two eggs tasting rather like rich duck egg and old cheese, a seed meal cake sweetened this time with honey from the 'vanilla' blooms, and several 'passionfruit' later, he sat back contentedly. A few weeks ago he would have found the motley, strange-tasting, cinder and grit-embedded meal fairly appalling, but tonight it was a feast. Provided the eggs didn't make him sick later, he had found another source of protein, besides the interminable and boring mussels, and, judging by his current level of contentment, he would sleep very well for the first time since his arrival. First, though, he needed to go down to the stream to drink and to wash up.

The water looked almost blood red, in one of the most vivid sunsets yet, as he drank his fill and washed his face and hands. He was about to rise when he realised that despite a lack of breeze, a significant section of the stand of reeds nearby were waving about furiously. It took a moment for him to realise why.

Within moments he was hauling his little fish trap in. The mussels inside had been stripped clean but at least one of the feasters remained to reward him for his efforts.

The sleek silver three-pounder, though similar to its Terran fellows, was unlike any fish he'd ever seen before. It was, however, with its row of black lateral markings and dusky pink underbelly, a handsome beast. It had been prevented from escaping through the hole that had already appeared in his handiwork, probably through the weight and efforts of it, and other small fish or creatures caught in the net that had since escaped. Giles' prize had inadvertently gilled itself on the cords, due to its larger size. He took both trap and fish back to his camp, inordinately pleased with himself. He would have his fish for breakfast after all, if he could keep it fresh enough until then.

The answer, he hoped, was gutting it, wrapping it tightly in wet palm leaves and burying it in the cool earth under the layers of forest debris.

When he woke in the morning his first thought, as always, was about home, and his second, as he watched the sun free itself of the horizon, was about Buffy. The momentary memory of her face, of her voice teasing him while they were training, made him smile, but only momentarily. As he walked to the stream his eyes grew bright and the lines in his face seemed a little deeper.

It wasn't until he rebuilt his fire that he remembered the fish. It was still fresh, if a little tainted by the citrus tang of the bruised palm leaves, but he had no way to fillet or fry it. Finally, it got the same treatment as his bread.

When it was done he retrieved it and pulled the flesh off the spine, discarding the cinder coated skin. The firm white flesh would have been heaven lightly fried in butter, but he savoured every mouthful, amused that for once something there tasted about the way it looked…like very good trout with a touch of lemon/lime.

When he was done he actually felt over full, but it was a good feeling. He followed it with a decision that made him feel equally good. He would not go out today. He would stay in camp and rest. He had food, and he needed to turn the plant he'd found the day before, with the bulbous base, into some kind of vessel, if it proved safe enough. If it contained white sap, or alkaloids, he'd have to throw it away. He fervently hoped that wasn't the case. He desperately wanted something with which to keep water in the camp, and, if the experiment worked, something to mix things in, to eat his meals from, and to make decent storage vessels for the grain, fruit or nuts he collected.

He sighed to himself. He really was turning into an old woman…

And with that thought, Giles snorted…and did something he hadn't done since arriving in this endless green prison: he went back to bed.