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Training had been so much more fun when it had been with Giles. She really hadn’t ever appreciated enough how unannoying Giles was by comparison with…other people. Buffy gritted her teeth as Wesley continued to breathlessly pontificate at her in between telling her to improve her muscle tone and kick height. This from a guy who had tottered out of yesterday’s training session with Faith looking as if he was going to need an adrenaline shot. One would have thought that after completely falling apart when being questioned by the first demon who captured him and then screwing up over Faith that he might have been a little less inclined to tell people who had been successfully guarding the Hellmouth for years how it was done and a little more inclined to – well…shut up!

Her anger spiked and she lashed out harder than usual, her heel catching him hard in the ribcage. As he doubled over, she told herself that any vampires he encountered weren’t going to be pulling their punches, but as his left knee buckled and he went down gasping, falling onto his hands and knees and making a whimpering sound, she did grimace.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He gasped for breath for a moment and then looked up at her, his left hand clasped to his side; his gaze for a moment wasn’t pompous or cocksure, but hurt and shocked.

She winced and held out a hand. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to… Are you okay?”

The apology seemed to have reassured him that she hadn’t done it on purpose and he nodded. “Just need to – catch my breath. But – that’s what I mean about accuracy, Buffy. You need to make sure you are directing your undoubted strength efficiently.”

She caught him by the wrist and yanked him to his feet, making him hiss and whimper again. She tried not to roll her eyes but he was such a wuss compared with Giles.

“I know. Preparation, preparation, preparation, right?”

He sighed. “I know you don’t…. I know you think… I do think you’ve been a little unfair, Buffy. I didn’t ask to be sent here.”

Buffy put her head on one side. “Why does that strike me as unlikely? Why do I have an image in my head right now of you sitting behind a little desk waving your hand in the air and saying ‘oh please, sir, pick me, pick me!’?”

Wesley gave her one of his patented snooty Watcher looks. “It doesn’t exactly work like that, Buffy. One is put on the active Watchers list and then assigned to either a potential or an active Slayer as and when the Council deems one fit for the task. They sent me here because Rupert Giles had proven himself unsuitable and – ”

Buffy loomed at him as much as she was capable of looming at a guy a foot taller than her. It seemed to work pretty well as he took an immediate step backwards.

“Giles is the best Watcher your stupid Council has ever had,” she told him shortly.

“My ‘stupid Council’ has been helping Slayers to – ”

“To do what exactly…? ‘The Watchers’ Council – helping Slayers to die young since sixteen eighty-six’. Do you have it on a plaque somewhere?”

Wesley opened his mouth to say something prissy and pompous and then just sighed and shrugged. “Fine, take it out on me because Giles got himself fired. I’m sure it’s easier than blaming him for not following the rules.”

“What we do here isn’t about rules, Wesley,” she told him shortly. “I don’t care what the Council thinks matters. A Watcher is only as much use to a Slayer as she trusts him. And in the case of Giles I trust him with my life. That’s what a Watcher has to earn. It doesn’t just get handed to him because he turns up in a nice suit saying that the Council have decided he’s going to be their representative now. He has to prove himself. The difference between you and Giles isn’t that he got fired and you got chosen to replace him. The important difference is that I trust him to make the right decision to keep me alive. You haven’t earned that yet.” As she walked out she thought angrily And if you don’t cash that reality check sometime soon you’re never going to earn it either.

She suspected that her lecturing of him in the training room was the real reason why Wesley chose to be extra snooty to Giles in the library. She personally thought that if he had seen Ripper unleashed upon Ethan as she had done, not to mention met ticking time bomb-rebel without a cause teenage Giles that he would have kept his prissy little mouth shut – and probably gone and hidden under a table somewhere.

“Are you honestly telling me that you are now proposing to confiscate my mail?” Giles was demanding as Buffy walked in.

Wesley was holding a padded envelope while wearing one of his most annoying Junior Watcher expressions. “As I have endeavoured to point out, this isn’t addressed to your home as would be post specifically intended for you as a private individual. It is sent to your place of work and it mentions not your ‘cover’ occupation but your actual occupation: ‘Rupert Giles, Watcher, the Library, Sunnydale High, Sunnydale et cetera…’ Clearly this package is not intended for you but for whomsoever happens to be the active Watcher for the active Slayer and that means it’s true recipient should be me.”

Giles narrowed his flinty green eyes. “Wesley, you may have the blessing of the Council but I know the location of every graveyard in this town and I promise you it could be a very long time before they found your corpse…”

Wesley backed up uneasily, giving a sickly attempt at a smile. “Ah yes, threats… Very droll. I’ll be sure to notify you if this package contains anything of significance…” And then he was gone at a speed that could just about be classified as dignified withdrawal although Buffy thought it had more a hint of ‘running for the hills’ about it.

“By the way, if we’re voting, I’m all over the ‘let’s murder Wesley and bury him somewhere quiet’ idea,” she observed conversationally.

Giles poured himself a cup of tea in some irritation. “Can we just take it as read that I answered that with something suitably reproving?”

“We can,” Buffy assured him.

“Although I have to say he really is the most pompous irritating little…” Giles broke off as Xander and Willow came into the library.

“If you’re bitching about Wesley please don’t stop on my account,” Xander observed.

Willow gave Buffy a rueful look. “Cordelia and Wesley are making sheep’s eyes at each other in the corridor again.”

“Can anyone tell me what she sees in that guy?” Xander demanded. “I mean is there anyone who has ever met Wesley ever who doesn’t think he’s gay except for Cordelia? And I’m sorry, Giles, no offence but the accent is annoying. The clothes – also annoying. Who needs to wear six layers of clothing in California? Except for anal tweed-diapered Watcherpeople…?”

Buffy lingered after lessons to see how Giles was doing. “I could go round to Wesley’s, beat him up and steal your parcel back, if you like?” she offered.

Giles looked amused and then reproving. “Buffy… In light of what Faith did recently perhaps we should be a little more aware of how dangerous your strength could be. And besides – you wouldn’t need to beat him up, just threaten him a little.”

She grinned back. “Scout’s honour, I would only frighten him.”

Giles waved a dismissive hand. “Oh let him have it. If it’s interesting enough perhaps it will keep him out of my hair for a few days and we can get on with the important things. Call me if you come across anything on patrol tonight.”

“Would that be at your home or here? Oh wait – you have no life. It will be here.”

He gave her a lofty look. “I’ll have you know I have a very full and exciting life.”

“Who doesn’t find cross-referencing a pulse racer…?”

“Well, quite.” He waved a hand at the exit. “Off you go.”

For all people’s comments about cross-referencing, Giles had to admit that he did find it fascinating. The school emptied at last, day became evening and everything was peaceful. He was working very happily on references to the ‘ascension’ when there was a tap on the door and an all-too-familiar voice said: “Happy Anniversary, Ripper…”

He looked up to see Ethan carrying a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a long-stemmed rose. Bizarrely, despite having just said his name, Ethan did a violent double take at the sight of him.

“You…” Giles rose to his feet.

“Ah…” Ethan grimaced. “Damn it, Ripper. You never could just cooperate, could you?”

Giles ran at him and then Ethan was dodging and Giles realized he was weaponless just before what appeared to be a very good bottle of Bordeaux cracked him on the head. As he hit the ground he thought: Of course, the parcel and then…Wesley! Then everything went dark.

***

Buffy found Giles groaning on the library floor as she arrived at school. He was lying in a pool of what she had first thought was blood but which had turned out to be red wine. He had mumbled something at her in which the words: ‘Ethan’ and ‘Wesley’ had at first made her mind go to a scary place before she had understood what he was telling her.

On their way to Wesley’s apartment with a still very grumpy and she suspected slightly concussed Giles, Buffy did feel a little anxious but she was also quite curious to see what Ethan had had in mind this time. It seemed pretty clear that he had sent the parcel to Giles to work its magic and then had intended to call on him in his changed state. Giles had been a little sheepish about the wine and glasses and when Buffy had pointed out that that sounded pretty much like Ethan had been expecting a…date, Giles had given her one of his patent pending Watcher glares and she had decided they had probably better not talk about that aspect of it any more.

The point, as Giles had gritted out, in between dabbing at the lump on the back of his head, and picking up his car keys, was that Ethan had clearly sent the package and as it had been intercepted by Wesley there was a good chance that it had had the same effect upon him as Ethan had intended it to have upon Giles.

As it hadn’t happened to Giles, whatever it was, Buffy had to admit that as well as being a little concerned for Wesley she was also a lot curious. So far Ethan’s little tricks had been…bothersome, but not actually all out evil. Turning them into their Halloween costumes and making people regress to teenage behaviour had probably been a lot of fun for him but it hadn’t felt as if he wanted to kill Giles on either occasion, just annoy and inconvenience him, and if that were the case, she couldn’t say she was exactly broken-hearted about the prospect of Wesley being annoyed or inconvenienced. And she would certainly much rather it was him than Giles. Giles, however, did look concerned. As they walked up the stairs to Wesley’s apartment, Giles was frowning.

“It may be on his own head but I’m not at all happy at the prospect of Wesley having visited upon him something that Ethan intended for me. Irritating though Wesley is, he doesn’t deserve Ethan’s idea of a prank.”

“He’s the one who insisted on stealing your mail,” Buffy pointed out. “He’s the one who insists on telling you ten times a day that he’s the Watcher now, not you. So, forgive me for thinking a little ‘serves him right’ if he’s now having to wear a dress or walk on his hands or whatever.”

“Given the boarding school he attended, I imagine he’s had to do both of those things in the past.” Giles frowned. “But – Ethan can be truly nasty.”

“I remember him trying to turn me into Eyghon chowder in his place.”

“Well – quite. Wesley’s lack of experience in the field may be frustrating but it’s also just a fact that someone like Ethan could be a horrible shock to his system.”

“Are we sure his system doesn’t need a little shocking?” Buffy countered.

Giles grimaced. “I think Ethan may be a shock too far for a Wyndam-Pryce. I suspect there are nuns in closed orders who have seen more of the world than Wesley has.”

“Isn’t that up to him?”

Giles sighed and took off his glasses to clean them. “Not really. I gather that he was told he was going to be a Watcher from early childhood, never given any choice in the matter, and told to put his head down and work hard to achieve that aim. I think that’s why he finds your outlook a little…bewildering. He assumed you would have the same attitude as him.”

“Well, excuse me for not being stuffy and pompous.”

Giles smiled at her fondly. “I think his imaginary Slayer was a lot more like Kendra.”

Buffy thought of the other girl and winced. “Was yours…?”

“Well…” Giles grimaced. “That is rather how we’re told Slayers are. Girls with a mythic destiny who live and breathe vampire slaying. I think you…bewilder and frighten him. He doesn’t understand why you haven’t read the Slayers’ Handbook, why you should want to have any other kind of life or why I haven’t impressed upon you that life is real and earnest and dangerous.”

“Because we know it is. We live it.”

Giles nodded. “Exactly. But Wesley hasn’t been in the field long enough to know that yet.”

“He’s just so annoying.”

“He is very young, Buffy. This business with Ethan has really put things into a little more perspective for me. Wesley really hasn’t had a life as yet.”

Buffy couldn't help noticing that she was expected to take on the responsibilities of a grown-up whereas Wesley got a free pass, apparently, despite being about a decade older. Even more oddly, she did feel older than him on most days, probably because her life experience was so much more extensive than his was. “I know that, but don’t you think that just makes it even more important that he should listen to the people who have? The people who have been doing this job for the past few years while he’s been…doing whatever really stuffy pompous people in England do?”

“That would have been nice. But I think his heart’s in the right place. He’s a different person with Cordelia.”

“Yes, incoherent and embarrassing.”

“No, they were in the library yesterday. She asked him for some help with her homework and although I think he did understand it was actually her way of flirting with him, he did help her with her homework and he got…very interested in the whole project.” Giles frowned at the memory. “It was strange to see him so enthusiastic and unguarded.” He thought about the boy Wesley had appeared to become in front of him then, Giles pretending to be busy with the books while keeping an eye on the two of them so as to prevent Wesley making a total tit of himself if that was at all possible, for Cordelia’s sake as much as his, and had been surprised by the way the same person who couldn’t seem to communicate with Buffy or Faith without putting their backs up, could show Cordelia the possibilities in her project.

“You were saying you were more interested in the fashions of that era than the social history, Cordelia? But if you think about it the two were really connected. To understand the fashions of that time you have to understand the strict social hierarchy in place and also the place of women in society. Whalebone corsets are not symptomatic of a society that allows its women to be free and unrestricted in thought, mind or deed.” Wesley turned through the pages, finding a reference for her. “Here, this is a description of what it felt like to wear one of them. Women were dealing with constantly restricted breath. That’s why there was so much fainting. They would also have been in considerable pain.” He looked down at her shoes. “I don’t know anything at all about women’s fashions but I gather those shoes of yours are fashionable, yes?”

She smiled at him when anyone else would probably have died for that remark. “Well, duh.”

He smiled back, only fluttering a little. “Are they comfortable?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Said with another smile that showed she entirely got his point.

He nodded his head. “Well, there you are. You think the pain is worth it. So did those women. But with them it was to do with a need to conform to society’s expectations of them as much as personal preference. I suppose what this project is asking you to decide is if your fashion decisions are made because of peer pressure or individual choice. Do you wear shoes that hurt your feet because of the pleasure you get in looking at them or because of the reaction other people might have to seeing you wearing them?”

Giles had to concede, if only privately, that Wesley had managed to deal with Cordelia’s project tactfully and without making her feel that her assignation was some kind of comment on her perceived shallowness. He had also given her some pointers that might make her do a much better job than she would otherwise have done. Giles certainly knew he would not have taken the hour Wesley had just done to help her understand what was required of her.

Cordelia pointed one elegant foot to show off her shapely ankle. “Well, what reaction do you have to seeing me wearing them?”

Wesley swallowed hard, adjusting his tie, flushed, and then looked at her shoe. There was a pause before he said, “Honestly…? I’m now worried they may be hurting your feet.”

Cordelia’s smile was unexpected and looked more genuine than any expression Giles had seen cross her face since her break up with Xander. “No pain, no gain, Wesley.”

Wesley averted his eyes. “I’m sure someone who liked you would like you in trainers.”

“But that comes after. First you have to get them to like you, and no one likes a girl in trainers.”

Wesley looked at her and then back at the project. “Perhaps you should concentrate in your project on whether or not things have really changed for women? Are they still turning themselves into…male constructs through fashion, or are they in fact only dressing for each other – sort of signals of rank and hierarchical standing.” He still looked flushed and breathless when gazing at her but Giles had to admit that if one overlooked his ridiculous fluttering over – presumably – the first pretty girl to ever pay him any attention, he was talking some sense. After another pause he looked back at Cordelia, eyes kind and concerned. “And, given the nature of the Hellmouth, wouldn’t trainers be…safer? I’d hate you to get captured by a vampire because you were a slave to your…who does make those shoes?”

Cordelia kicked off one shoe and held it up, the heel pointing at Wesley who flinched. “Good for close combat.”

He examined the shoe heel closely. “Are they made of wood?”

And then Xander and Willow had come in and Cordelia had hastily replaced her shoe and Wesley had sprung to his feet and looked guilty, and said something pompous and Xander had sneered at him, and he had fallen back and darted a look at Cordelia who had collected up her work, said something withering to Xander and left.

“Giles…?”

Giles collected himself as Buffy recalled him to the present. She waved a hand in front of his face. “You sort of drifted off there.”

“I was just thinking of the way Wesley was with Cordelia.”

“Embarrassing and annoying?”

“No…well, yes, that too, but he seems to do better…without witnesses.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying if we just shut him in a room by himself he’d be all useful, sensible, non-annoying guy.”

Giles frowned. “I think we – fluster him.”

“Giles, he needs to learn to interact with real human people and not just Cordelia.”

“I know.” Giles snatched a breath. “He’s just…horribly and embarrassingly inexperienced. Every time he says something particularly inane I see myself in his shoes and just want to smack him for showing me up.”

“I want to smack him every time he opens his mouth, just because,” Buffy admitted.

Giles looked at the number on the door of the apartment. “This is it.” He knocked on the door. “Wesley…?”

There was a long, long pause when nothing happened and then Giles thought he heard something. He knocked on the door sharply. “Wesley? Wesley, I need you to open the door.”

He wouldn’t have put it past Ethan to give him an ass’s head or turn him into a hobgoblin but either way they needed to know the worst. Thinking of the man’s background, Giles decided to play the ‘male authority figure’ card and said sharply: “Wesley, I’m well aware that Ethan may have enchanted you with what it was in that parcel you insisted on taking home with you, but we can only reverse what he’s done if you let us in. Now open the door this instant.”

There was a noise from the other side that sounded like a stifled sob and then the sound of something being laboriously dragged around the room, a thump as it hit the door, and then the rattle of chains being struggled with. Giles waited with unconcealed impatience as bolts were pulled very slowly and locks struggled with – had Ethan given the bloody fool horns in place of hands? – and then a small voice said pathetically: “Wait…” There was the sound of something heavy being dragged away and then the door was pulled open a crack and someone who did not sound like Wesley said: “I’m not allowed to invite you in.”

“That isn’t necessary, Wesley.” Giles pushed the door open and then stopped dead.

Buffy gasped and clasped a hand across her mouth.

They both stared at a boy of surely no more than six who was without a doubt the thinnest child either of them had ever seen. His dark hair stuck up from his head and his blue eyes were enormous in his narrow face. He had obviously been crying and tear tracks were visible on his face. He was swamped by a blue and white striped pyjama jacket that he had tried to fold back to reveal his hands. Buffy had never seen wrists that thin in her life.

Giles darted a glance at her anxiously, afraid that she might laugh, but she looked a long way from making fun of the boy Wesley had presumably turned into.

“Wes-Wesley…?” Giles asked.

Wesley nodded wretchedly. He looked up at Giles fearfully. “Did I get sent away?”

Buffy sank to her knees in front of him. “Do you know who we are?”

He shook his head and then wiped his hand across his eyes again. “No, and I don’t know where I am and I can’t find my clothes. Is it because I broke Mummy’s vase? I didn’t mean to.”

“Tell me your name?” she asked.

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

She took his hand, shocked by how thin it was. “I’m Buffy Summers. This is Giles.”

As Giles crouched down in front of him, Wesley flinched, clearly afraid to meet Giles’s eye. Giles managed a smile. “Wesley, you have been the victim of a spell. You had contact with something…mystical and it seems to have turned you into – who you are now.”

Wesley looked down at himself in shock. “But this is always who I am.”

Buffy muttered to Giles, “He only remembers being a kid.”

Giles asked, “Wesley, do you know what a Slayer is?”

Wesley appeared shocked and looked around anxiously. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

That did simplify things a little. Giles put his hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “Wesley, Buffy is the Slayer.”

Wesley’s eyes widened and he gazed up at Buffy the way people looked at movie stars. “You’re…the Slayer?”

Buffy was looking around the room, thinking what it must have been like for this confused little boy to wake up here and not recognize a single thing or have any memory of how he came to be here. She looked at the chair he’d had to drag across the room to stand on to undo the bolts and chains. “I’m Buffy,” she repeated quietly. “And I’m going to get you some clothes that fit you and find you some breakfast, okay? Are you hungry?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Giles saw that look from Buffy and said, “Oh yes, probably a good idea. Let me just…” As he went off to find the contents of the parcel Ethan had sent, Buffy folded back the sleeves of Wesley’s pyjama jacket more neatly and gave him a reassuring smile. “There was a spell, but it’s going to be okay. We’re going to take care of you and work out how to make things…better. Okay…?” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile and it seemed to work as she got a glimmer of a smile back. “I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Because you have bare feet and you’ll hurt them on the ground.” He nodded, and she picked him up. He weighed…nothing. So frighteningly light that the lump in her throat got bigger, especially as he gave a little whimper of pain as she held him. “What’s wrong…?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he whispered, burying his face in her neck.

She put a hand on the back of his head and stroked his hair. “Don’t be frightened. We’re going to take care of you.”

“Is Daddy angry with me…?” he breathed.

“No, Wesley,” she said raggedly. “No one’s angry with you.” She looked up to find Giles with something wrapped in a towel, that she presumed must be whatever Ethan had sent. He also had Wesley’s keys in his hand. She nodded at the door and he held it open for her, and then locked the door behind them.

She could feel Wesley’s wet eyelashes against her skin, his bony little arms wrapped around her neck. She looked up at Giles and mouthed: “He’s so thin….”

Giles nodded, and held open the next door for them, Wesley blinking at the sunlight. He gazed up at the apartment building in confusion. “Is this London?”

“It’s Sunnydale in California in America, Wesley.” Giles unlocked the car and held open the passenger door.

Wesley gazed up at him in fearful confusion. “Did I get sent away?”

“No, you came here to…work. Let’s not worry about that now, Wesley. Let’s just get you some clothes and breakfast as Buffy suggested.”

The department store was mostly empty at this time in the morning and Buffy sent Giles to buy Wesley socks, a t-shirt and underpants first so he could try clothes on without being naked. Giles paid for them in some embarrassment, murmuring something about losing the boy’s suitcase at the airport. Buffy thought the bored salesgirl was pretty remiss in the way she just shrugged and shoved Giles’ credit card through the machine. If ever a boy looked as if he had been abducted from his bed, it was Wesley, after all.

She hissed angrily to Giles: “We could have kidnapped him for a child porn ring for all she knows!”

Giles shrugged. “I know but let’s just be glad she’s so lacking in any sense of social awareness as it certainly does simplify things. Shall I take him into the changing room?”

Wesley’s arms tightened around Buffy’s neck at the prospect and they both saw the flash of fear in his eyes as he looked up at Giles. She sighed. “I’ll do it.”

In the changing room, she gave him a reassuring smile and unpacked the shorts and socks, letting him pull those on under the cover of the pyjama jacket, then she unbuttoned the jacket and told him they could go and pick some really nice clothes for him, talking brightly until she peeled back the jacket and saw the bruises on his ribs. She gasped and lifted his arm so she could take a better look, touching the purple skin gently. There was an angry mark spreading across half of his left ribcage, and other bruises on his arms. She let the jacket fall to the floor in the changing room in her shock. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Tears came into his eyes again. “It was like that when I woke up.”

“Does it hurt?”

He nodded mutely and she gathered him into her arms very gently. His body felt warm and light but terribly bony and she kissed the top of his head. As she did so she had a sudden memory of losing patience with adult Wesley in the training session and kicking him in the ribs, of him gasping and doubling up. Her eyes widened in horror as she realized how he had come by the bruises. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped.

He gazed up at her as if she was the nicest person in the world. “It’s not your fault, Buffy.”

She got to her feet, still holding him, and took a moment to collect herself. She snatched a breath. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

He shivered. “I was clumsy. Daddy was cross with me.”

She looked at him in the mirror and winced at the sight of his narrow little shoulder blades. The child was just skin and bone – and bruises. Way too many bruises, purple and blue marks all over his back. Not all of them could have come from her training sessions with him and she suddenly remembered that he had been moving stiffly even before they began. Faith had evidently taken out some of her annoyance on him as well. Buffy closed her eyes as it occurred to her that, given how much stronger they were than Wesley, they hadn’t been behaving much better than the child batterers they now appeared to be.

“Buffy…?” Giles asked cautiously from outside the changing room. “I’ve found Wesley some clothes that I think might fit him.”

Still holding Wesley so his head was against her neck, the little boy curled up against her quite comfortably, as if this was a treat for him and he wasn’t going to do anything to stop it; she turned and twitched back the curtain. Giles saw the bruises and she saw the flicker of shock in his eyes, and then he was hastily looking away and removing his glasses under the pretence of cleaning them. When he turned back there was a sickly smile on his face. “Okay, Wesley…?” he said brightly. “Would you like to try these on?”

She felt Wesley tremble against her and he slipped down at once, carefully not making eye contact with Giles as he murmured, “Yes, sir.”

Giles swallowed. “Do call me ‘Giles’, Wesley.”

“Yes, Mr Giles,” the boy said obediently.

Still keeping to his bright voice, Giles said heartily: “Well, try this on, Wesley. Let’s see if they fit you.”

As Wesley struggled with the clothes, Giles just looked at her and Buffy said quietly: “The ones on his ribs were me. I think the ones on his back may have been from Faith.”

“For God’s sake, Buffy,” Giles hissed at her. “How long has this been going on?”

“I only did it once.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t know Faith was… I’m sorry.”

Giles looked down at the little boy currently trying to pull on a pair of trousers. “I’m sure you are.”

The clothes did not fit. Buffy and Giles looked at the way the trousers hung off his narrow hips and the shirt sleeves dangled past his hands while Wesley gazed mournfully at his fingertips.

“Perhaps a t-shirt and some jeans…” Giles went off to find something slightly less junior Watcherish, while Buffy picked Wesley up, his arms automatically going around her neck, and his legs wrapping themselves around her so he could sit on her hip. She stroked his hair and he gave a sigh of contentment.

When was the last time anyone cuddled you? she found herself wondering. She carried him out into the store and hunted for shirts and t-shirts, she and Giles collecting a pile of jeans, mini cargo pants, shoes, and clothing that probably said more about their personalities than Wesley’s.

Giles also bought a large box of safety pins and said hesitantly, “Do you know anything about sewing?”

“Not much,” she conceded. “But perhaps my mom…”

Giles got that embarrassed look he always got now when any reference was made to Joyce. “We may have to call upon her services. I don’t think Wesley is exactly an off the peg size.”

“Not unless there’s a line of refugee wear around here somewhere we haven’t found yet.” Buffy took him back into the changing room and got him into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a shirt, which, with the cuffs folded back, was a reasonable fit. She sat him on the check out counter so the sales assistant could run the bar code gun over the labels on his clothes. He giggled when it beeped and the girl did briefly pause in her gum chewing to nod to Buffy. “Cute kid.”

“Yes, he’s adorable,” Buffy returned.

Wesley looked at up at her in surprise and then gave a shy little smile as he realized she wasn’t joking. Giles also looked at her in some surprise and then said, “He’s my nephew. He’s over from England on a visit.”

“Oh…” The girl shoved their purchases into a bag. “Welcome to America.”

Wesley said, “Thank you,” shyly. Then Buffy had scooped him off the counter and was carrying him back to the car.

“I think he must be five or six,” Giles pointed out. “And the shoes are about the only thing that fit him properly. I’m sure he can walk.”

“He likes being carried,” Buffy said firmly.

“I’m eight,” Wesley whispered to Buffy.

She looked down at his undersized little body. The Wesley they knew wasn’t exactly bulky but he was tall and…normal looking. For the first time she wondered what Wesley really looked like under all those layers of clothing. It was hard to believe that a child as fragile as this had grown up to be very substantial.

“Good Lord,” Giles murmured. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

At Buffy’s insistence they took Wesley to a place where he could have some pancakes for breakfast instead of the boring cereal that Giles had been suggesting. The little boy’s high quiet cultured voice in all its Harry Potter Britishness sounded particularly incongruous in a fast-food restaurant that seemed to epitomize everything American. He ate very neatly, with his elbows jammed into his sides, chewing everything carefully.

Neither of them was quite sure why they decided to take him to the library, except perhaps that a problem this enormous needed the full quotient of Scoobies dealing with it.

Wesley’s already over-sized eyes looked even bigger when he saw the library. He gazed around at it the way another child might have looked at Disneyland. Giles said, “Would you like to have a look around, Wesley?”

As always when Giles spoke to him, he dropped his gaze and hunched his narrow little shoulders nervously, then caught himself doing it and hastily straightened up. Giles could almost hear it in his mind; some scary authority figure snapping: Stand up straight when I talk to you, boy. Wesley said: “Yes, please, sir,” nervously.

“Please call me ‘Giles’, Wesley,” Giles sighed. He held out a hand and Wesley tentatively took it. Giles showed him around the library but the boy was much too nervous to take in anything he said to him. Whenever Giles started to tell him something he looked like a deer in headlights, clearly fearing that he was going to be tested on it later and wouldn’t remember. And he wouldn’t remember, of course, because he was too scared of forgetting later to comprehend it now. Giles found it more upsetting than he would have liked to admit that Buffy, the person who had been bullying Wesley in their training sessions – and if she had not already been feeling as bad about that as it was possible for a person to feel, he would certainly have had a whole lecture to deal about that – was treated as someone safe and comforting, while he was regarded as an ogre. And yet he was surely more familiar than an American high school girl…

Giles flinched inside as he realized that, of course, that was the problem. Giles was the kind of man Wesley knew of old: British, tweed-wearing Watcher, just like his father. He was frightening exactly because he was so familiar.

Speaking as gently as he could, Giles took him into his office and said, “Would you like to sit with a book for a while, Wesley?”

Wesley nodded. “Yes, please.”

“What are you reading at the moment?”

Giles knew it was unlikely that there would be anything of the right age group for the boy here but he wondered if Buffy or Willow might have some of their old children’s books.

“This one.” Wesley pointed at a copy of Hartley’s Lesser Demons of the Lowerworlds. It was written in Greek and had proven to be very useful at highlighting demon habits. It was also something adult scholars might have struggled with.

Giles blinked and picked up the book, wondering if Wesley had mistaken it for something. “This one?”

Wesley took it from him very carefully and laid it down on the desk. “I was halfway through chapter five. But I couldn’t find my notebook.”

Giles dazedly watched him turn to the correct page and handed over a notebook and pen as they were shyly requested. It was only as Wesley snatched a deep breath and then leant over the volume that he snapped out of his trance-like state. “Wesley – I don’t mean what are you reading as part of your…lessons. Don’t you have something that you’re reading for – enjoyment?”

Wesley looked up at him out of those huge blue eyes. “I’m only allowed to read for fifteen minutes before lights out.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s still lesson time.”

Giles looked up to see Buffy in the doorway with a look on his face that perfectly matched the way he was feeling.

“It’s holiday time, Wesley,” he managed a little hoarsely.

Wesley sighed. “Demons don’t take days off.” It was clearly something that had been said to him many times before.

Giles looked around for inspiration and saw a dog-eared copy of Roger Lancelyn Green’s Tales of the Greek Heroes. That might possibly pass for schoolwork and yet was at least written for children and enjoyable. He snatched it off the shelf and held it out. “You’re having different lessons while you’re staying with us, Wesley. I’d like you to read this instead.”

“What language do I have to translate it into?” Wesley looked anxious.

“You don’t. I just want you to read it in English. Okay?”

Wesley looked confused by that concept, but obediently took the book that Giles handed to him and went to sit at the table in the library.

As he went and sat down, Giles snatched a breath and Buffy came over to say quietly: “I hate your stupid Council more than I can ever put into words.”

“Right now, that makes two of us.”

She looked back at Wesley. “When did he ever get to be a kid?”

“He didn’t.” That was what Giles had finally realized. Of course, he hadn’t. He had to know everything anyone could possibly need to know who advised a Slayer, and given all the demons and vampires and monsters and spells and curses in the world, a Watcher could never know too much. So there wasn’t time to be a child; and all childhood was to some Watchers was evidently a period of learning all the things they would need to know later.

“We have to do something,” Buffy hissed.

“Yes, we have to change him back.” Giles turned his attention to the amulet that Ethan had sent which he had retrieved from Wesley’s room.

Buffy put a hand on his arm. “No, we have to help him – that little boy. We have to make it not be like this.”

Giles looked up at her and said gently: “Buffy, it was like this and it’s too late to change that.”

“We keep him,” she hissed. “Keep this little boy and we don’t let them take him back and we let him have…fun.”

“It didn’t happen.” Giles held her gaze. “Wesley’s childhood is what it was. Just like yours. Just like Xander’s. We need to help the adult Wesley.”

“He doesn’t need to grow up the way he is.”

“He is the way he is.” Giles put away the book he had got down. “Let’s just try to get him back…”

***

It was lunchtime when Willow came into the library, Willow saying: “Giles, have you seen…?” And then she saw Wesley and her eyes got that soft look and her face that ‘aww’ look that Buffy’s had been wearing all day. “An adorable little boy…”

“Actually, yes, we have one right here.” Buffy smirked at her.

Wesley rose to his feet, looking up at Willow with something like wonder on his face.

“What is it…?” Buffy asked him.

He leant in to whisper in her ear: “She’s so pretty.”

Having overheard, Giles couldn’t stop a smile crossing his face and Willow just gasped in helpless adoration. “You are so cute…” she breathed.

He held out a hand. “I’m Wesley.”

“‘Wesley’…?” Willow shook his hand in surprise. “That’s such a coincidence, because we have…” Seeing Buffy and Giles shaking their heads and pointing at the little boy, her eyes widened and she gaped at the child in disbelief. “Wesley?”

He looked up at her nervously, as if somehow being identified as who he was would be enough to get him punished. “Yes.”

She turned to Giles. “But how…? I mean and…when…?”

“A present from Ethan,” Giles said succinctly. “Wesley opened the package meant for me by mistake.”

Buffy said: “Wesley doesn’t remember anything except being a child.”

He looked between them all in confusion and Willow hastily gave him a smile. “I’m Willow.”

“Pleased to meet you, Willow,” he said politely, shaking her hand.

“Cute munchkin, Buff,” Xander observed casually, eating an apple. “But where were you all morning? You know Snyder is always on the prowl for any wrongdoing.”

“Wesley meet Xander.” Buffy indicated the man.

Wesley took a step back, clearly intimidated, and then cautiously proffered a hand, murmuring shyly: “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

Xander blinked in confusion and hastily wiped the apple juice from his hand before taking hold of Wesley’s. “And you.” He slowly turned to Buffy. “Wait – did you say ‘Wesley’?” His eyes widened. “Wesley as in Wesley…?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes.”

Xander crouched down in front of the little boy who was regarding him nervously. “What the Dickens, Hawthorne, and Mark Twain happened to you?”

Wesley swallowed. “I think I was sent away. I was clumsy and Daddy was very angry with me. And then I woke up here. So I think I’m being punished, but I don’t mind…” He gazed up at Buffy. “I like it here.”

“You’re not being punished, Wesley.” She picked him up and sat him on her lap. He immediately gave a little sigh of contentment and curled against her, his head against her neck. “There was a spell and it turned you from the person you were here when you were here to the person you used to be when you…weren’t here.”

“Why was I here before…?” He frowned in confusion.

“You were helping Giles be my Watcher,” she said.

His already oversized eyes got even bigger as he lit up with excitement. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“They let me be a Watcher? Really?”

“Yes.” Giles winced inside as he saw how much it meant to this little boy. He had never wanted it like Wesley had obviously done. It had been something inflicted on him, a duty and responsibility he really had wanted. But to Wesley it really had been everything, a true raison d'être.

“But Daddy said…” He broke off, looking deflated.

“What did he say…?” Buffy enquired.

He squirmed against her, ducking his head and then whispered: “He said I wouldn’t be any good and I’d never get picked because I’m too stupid and clumsy and I don’t work hard enough.”

Over his head Buffy mouthed savagely at Giles: ‘There are no words for how much I hate his father.’

Giles sighed. “Well, you obviously did work hard enough, Wesley, because the Council sent you here to be Buffy’s Watcher.” There didn’t seem to be any point in confusing him by mentioning Faith right now.

Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “But I’m too little.”

“That’s the spell,” Buffy assured him. “The spell made you small again. Before that you were all…grown up.”

“Like Mr Giles.” Wesley darted a nervous glance at the older man.

“Not quite that grown up,” Buffy conceded. “But twenty-something.”

His eyes looked huge as he looked at Xander. “Like Mr Xander?”

Xander glanced across at Giles. “I really like this kid.”

“Xander’s only eighteen,” Buffy explained. “Like me and Willow.”

Wesley looked across at Willow and then blushed, snuggling in against Buffy more comfortably as he gazed at her; his thumb strayed towards his mouth and then he realized in horror what he was doing and quickly shoved his hand behind his back, looking around quickly to see if any of them had noticed. Buffy felt him tremble and quickly dropped a kiss into his hair, but his thin body was still quivering with the anxiety of almost having done something that was clearly very wrong. She turned to Giles: “So, the whole not killing humans thing, is that a rule or just a guideline?”

“Definitely a rule,” he said warningly.

As Willow pulled up a chair next to Buffy and began to gently ask Wesley questions, Xander drew Giles to one side and looked at him pointedly. “So – in the place of incredibly pompous Watcher guy we now have an incredibly thin kid. What gives…?”

Wearily, Giles explained about Ethan and his spell, while Xander kept darting glances across at the little boy curled up in Buffy’s protective grip.

“None of which explains why he’s so thin,” Xander pointed out.

“Well, English cooking will do that for a growing boy,” Giles sighed. “I’m sure we can reverse the spell. We really need to find Ethan. I imagine he’s still in town. He won’t be able to rest until he knows what went wrong with his plan.”

“What was his plan?”

Giles mentally worked out the date and the age he would have been if he had also lost eighteen years as Wesley had done. Grimacing, he realized that it would make him exactly the age he had been when he and Ethan had been at their most reckless and…companionable. Perhaps the only person on the planet who would have been impressed by the forty-something Ethan and his life as a shit-stirring chaos mage was the twenty-something idiot Giles had once been.

Giles loosened his tie. “Just – making mischief for the fun of it.”

When Oz walked in and the whole introducing of Wesley had to be gone through all over again, Giles decided it was going to be a very long day. Luckily Oz had never been big on asking for long complicated explanations and just said ‘cool’ then shook Wesley gravely by the hand.

The hubbub of so many of them all talking at once did not help his still-throbbing head. Nor did the sight of Wesley curled up on Buffy’s lap while she stroked his hair and looked as if only brute force was going to wrench him out of her grip. Clearly, Wesley’s father had been someone who tended to the strict discipline and long hours of study mode of parenthood as opposed to the cuddles and puppies school of parenting that Willow and Buffy evidently considered more appropriate. But in some ways he supposed the man had been justified by the results. Wesley had become Head Boy. He had been put on the Active Watcher list. He had been given two Slayers to Watch for. Perhaps that had happened only because of his upbringing.

Giles tried to tell himself that there was nothing wrong with strictness but it was hard to keep believing that when Wesley was so pathetically grateful for those cuddles from Buffy. It looked as if no one had ever hugged him before in his life. He had none of a little boy’s usual disdain of being fussed over, it was clear that this was a new and wonderful experience for him, and he was confused by it but absolutely basking in the attention. He was practically purring like a stray kitten that unexpectedly finds itself in a warm lap. Oz seemed to know that he needed to keep a distance from the boy, letting Wesley get used to him, and Xander, after the boy had flinched a couple of times when Xander spoke to him or got close to him, was being tactful about not looming as well.

In theory, they were all researching the amulet, but in practice Xander was feeding Wesley junk food in bite-sized amounts, holding out pieces of Snickers and inviting the boy to take it as if Wesley was some shy little creature he was hoping to tame; Oz was quietly intriguing the boy with laconic remarks, and Willow and Buffy were cooing over him while he gave his contented kitten impression and snuggled into Buffy as if she were the safest place in the world.

Giles suspected that quite apart from the novelty of having a remarkably well behaved, quiet and obedient little boy to play with, they were slacking off from the research in part because they had no interest in restoring Wesley to his adult form. They hadn’t liked the adult Wesley. They did like the child Wesley. He could see that Buffy felt the real mission here was to prevent the one from turning into the other; the exact opposite of what Giles knew he had to do, which was ensure that the adult version was restored.

If they left it too long it was going to feel as if they were somehow destroying the little boy who at the moment was a living breathing person that Buffy could hold in her arms. The truth was, of course, that that little boy had grown up many years ago; this was not the right timeline for him. Ethan had forced this regression on Wesley and in doing so undone all those years of…

All those years of what…? All those years of conditioning that had turned this nervous, scholarly, and perhaps over-serious, but undeniably sweet child into the pompous annoying little twerp who regularly drove them all up the wall? It was, on reflection, very difficult to see that as any kind of achievement. It was certainly not something of which either the Council or Wesley’s father had any reason to be proud.

He looked up in surprise as Wesley giggled and saw that Xander had won his trust enough to be able to tickle him with one forefinger. The boy clasped a hand over his mouth, evidently not thinking himself permitted to be noisy, but then giggled again as Xander said, “I knew you were ticklish. I can always tell…” and wiggled his finger between Wesley’s oversized shirt buttons to tickle his tummy. Wesley laughed out loud and then clamped his hands across his mouth again, but his eyes were shining and he looked more like a normal little boy than he had done all day. He began to giggle helplessly, squirming on Buffy’s lap as Xander tickled him, and then gave a peal of laughter and flung out his arm, knocking over Xander’s can of Coke.

Everyone snatched up the books while Willow shouted: “I’ve got it!” dabbing at the sticky liquid with a hankie. Everyone except Wesley who had gone white as death, shot one panic-stricken look at Giles, and then dived under the table.

Having seen the abject terror in his eyes, Giles felt abruptly sick. He saw Oz catch Willow by the arm as she made to get down to Wesley’s level and reassure him, giving an almost imperceptible nod of his head in Giles’s direction, while Xander caught Buffy’s arm and did the same. Buffy gave Xander a reproachful look, clearly wanting to dive straight after Wesley, but Xander also nodded at Giles.

Giles could almost taste the little boy’s fear in the air. Not knowing what to do or say, he walked over to where the Coke was still dripping onto the floor and said as gently as he could: “Wesley…?”

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry…” The boy was murmuring it in a breathless whisper.

Giles crouched down to his level and saw that Wesley had jammed himself under the table, hunched up, lips working as he kept repeating his apology, but as Giles appeared on his level, he flinched, tears sprang into his eyes, and he gave the man a look of panic-stricken fear.

Giles snatched a breath of his own. “Wesley, it’s all right. It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

“I spilled… on the books… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

“I know you didn’t.” Giles held out a hand to him. “Wesley, please come out.”

The look the boy gave him was still one of the terror, but he obeyed, of course; that was what he did. Giles realized with another sick lurch of comprehension that even if the boy believed he was going to be beaten he would still come out when he was told to because disobedience was not even to be thought of.

Wesley crawled out from under the table and stood up, shoulders hunched, and shaking violently. “I’m very s-sorry,” he whispered, the shaking making him stutter. “I d-didn’t mean to...” He was breathing much too fast, snatching the air into lungs working like a bellows as the panic attack took hold.

“I know…” Giles tried to keep his voice as gentle as he could when what he really wanted to do right now was get on a plane for England and go and punch Roger Wyndam-Pryce very hard. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Things get spilled sometimes. It happens.”

Wesley darted a terrified look at him, still shaking so hard Giles could hear his teeth chattering. He looked over at the staircase up to the stacks, his fingers clutching at his overlong sleeves as he clearly tried without success to stop himself from trembling. The door to the understairs cupboard seemed to be hypnotising him like some hideous monster under the bed.

“Please don’t…” Wesley gasped. “I promise I won’t… I’ll never do it again…”

Giles risked a look at the others and saw that Willow had tears in her eyes, Buffy looked torn between sobbing and punching someone, Oz was very still and Xander very shocked. The sound of Wesley’s teeth chattering was now even more audible, and Giles abruptly reached out, picked the boy up and held him. Wesley started to cry, silently, in fear of the punishment he thought was coming. Giles could hear his heart hammering against him, his thin warm little body reverberating with terror.

Rubbing his back very gently as he carried him to his office, Giles said again: “I’m not angry, Wesley. You didn’t do anything wrong. No one is angry with you.”

The boy gave a little whimper of fear as they passed the staircase and Giles wondered if he even wanted to know what the boy thought he was going to do to him. He carried him into the office and then set him down very carefully so he was sitting on his desk. Then he reached into his drawer – a stupid move, he realized, as soon as he’d made it as, of course, the boy thought he was reaching for a cane or ruler and more of those strangled sobs of fear spilled from his throat – and produced a packet of chocolate digestives. As the boy gazed at him in confused terror, Giles took a biscuit out of the packet, broke it in half and put one half between Wesley’s fingers, saying again, very gently: “No one is angry with you, Wesley. Now, be a good boy and eat your biscuit and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea.”

Wesley gulped in confusion a few times, swallowing sobs, while Giles filled the kettle and put it onto boil, very aware of those huge blue eyes watching every move he made. Inside he was thinking: ‘Wyndam-Pryce, you son of a bitch, what did you do to this poor child?’ Out loud he said: “Do you want sugar in your tea, Wesley?”

He turned to find the boy still gazing at him, the half a biscuit still clutched in his fingers. Wesley gulped a few more times and then whispered: “Yes, please.”

Giles exhaled in relief. At least the boy had stopped hyperventilating before he went into shock; that was something.

“Milk…?”

Wesley snatched another almost normal breath and managed another whispered: “Yes, please.”

Giles poured out the tea, making sure the boy’s had two heaped spoonfuls of sugar to help with the shock, and lots of milk so he could drink it down quickly. “Here you are.”

It clattered in the saucer as Wesley took it, and Giles gently took the saucer from him and, as the tea began to slosh like a millpond in his shaky little fingers, held the cup to his lips so he could sip. Wesley gulped down the tea gratefully, his long thick lashes wet with tears, still shuddering with the aftershocks of his fear. Giles helped him to drink his tea, eat his now half-melted half a biscuit, then took him to the bathroom, waited outside as he relieved himself and washed his hands, then suggested that perhaps he should settle down in the sickbed in the corner and have a nap.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “What if I wake up somewhere else?”

“You won’t,” Giles promised him. “You’ll wake up here, and I’ll be here, I promise.” He unlaced the boy’s shoes for him and then posted him into the bed, covered him with a tartan blanket and then walked out to where the others were still sitting in horrified silence.

Buffy said quietly: “Now do I get to kill his father?”

Giles sighed. “I’m afraid not, Buffy.”

Xander breathed: “Did you see how scared he was?”

Willow had evidently been crying in silent sympathy with Wesley’s fear and Oz had his arm around her. “Not the best advert for the English way of child-rearing,” Oz said quietly.

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to find a way to restore Wesley to his proper form and…”

“No, we need to make sure it stops!” Buffy said furiously. “We need to make sure that Wesley never has to go back to the people who did this to him! We need to make sure he grows up with normal people and normal human kindness and…”

“And it’s too late for that,” Giles told her sharply. “Face it, Buffy. Wesley is twenty-six years old. Whatever happened to him has already happened. It’s in his past now and we can’t do anything about it. That little boy in there isn’t the child it was done to. He’s an adult who has been regressed to that age and has the memories of being that age, but he isn’t the little boy who…”

“Say it, Giles,” Buffy demanded as Giles stuttered over finishing that sentence. “Say he isn’t the little boy who, because he spilled some soft drink on the table, is so terrified that he can’t even speak.”

Giles snatched another steadying breath. “We need to undo what Ethan did. We need to give Wesley his real life back.”

“He doesn’t have to be the way he is! He could be…!”

“He is the way he is and it’s his right to be who he is. Wesley is a grown man.”

Buffy gazed at him in disbelief. “Don’t you even care?”

Giles felt something inside himself perilously close to snapping. He lowered his voice still further to say shortly: “Of course I care. If Roger sodding Wyndam-Pryce were here right now I would punch his bloody head in. But he isn’t here and everything that was done to Wesley was done eighteen years ago.” As she continued to look at him as if he was callous, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t you understand, even now? Wesley wanted to be a Watcher. That’s what he studied for. That’s what he went through all that misery and cramming and not spilling orange juice on the furniture for. All that little boy wants to be when he grows up is what he is already is – active Watcher to an active Slayer.”

Buffy ran a hand through her hair. “You mean the active Slayer who nearly crushed his ribcage because she was feeling tetchy during training?”

Giles sighed. “I can’t excuse what you did but I will say that you’ve been given a chance to make amends and I suggest you take it.” He pushed a book towards her. “And that means finding a way to reverse this spell.”

For a moment they all looked mutinous and then Willow sighed and sat down, followed by Oz and then Xander and lastly Buffy. Reluctantly, the books were opened again, the amulet examined, pencils began to scratch on paper.

Giles went back into the office to take a look at the boy; not at all surprised to find that he was already fast asleep, long black lashes still wet with tears, thumb slipped into his mouth for comfort. He tried not to think about making this child cease to exist. That wasn’t what they were doing. This child had existed eighteen years ago and was now a grown man with a right to have his life back; that was what he needed to hang onto. He looked down at the boy and tried to see the adult Wesley in him, and it was a shock abruptly to realize that the mouth was the same, and the line of the jaw. This must be what his hair was really like when not tamed with brylcreem; unruly clipped dark locks that wanted to spring out from his head into a soft short shock of bed-hair.

With a sinking feeling as he looked down at the small boy and for the first time saw all the ways in which he really was Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, he wondered if, to the adult Wesley, they had seemed like only the latest in a long line of bullies; and if Giles, as the one who most closely resembled Wesley’s father, had seemed like the biggest bully of them all.

***

Wesley was tentatively drinking chocolate milk and working on some Latin translation when Snyder walked in. Wesley had slept for a few hours in which time Giles had persuaded Buffy and the others to go back to their classes, promising that he would take care of the boy and they could come and see him again after school. He really wanted to avoid Buffy taking Wesley home with her if possible. He thought Joyce would take his side when he explained that the adult Wesley had been the victim of a spell and would undoubtedly want to be returned to his normal age, but he couldn’t be sure. Willow had certainly sided with Buffy in the time it took for the child Wesley to give her a look of shy adoration from those ridiculously big blue eyes. Both Oz and Xander had looked down their nose at Giles for not wanting to effectively kidnap the child and bring him up secretly far away from the Watcher’s Council and his father. If Joyce sided with Buffy and Willow, he was not going to be able to overwhelm her with his authority as an adult in a way he might – possibly – be able to do with Buffy and the others. He wasn’t sure that even Joyce was going to be proof against the underfed affection-starved cry to mothering instincts that Wesley represented in his current form.

When Giles mentioned the rights of the adult Wesley, their argument was that they were looking out for those rights when planning to bring him up to be a sensible well-adjusted and happy member of society instead of a screwed up, uptight, socially-retarded Watcherlite. Thinking about how sweet the child Wesley was and how annoying the adult Wesley was Giles had so far found it a little difficult to counter that argument.

Giles had found that the boy was so unused to having time off that he started to fret if not given some kind of lessons. Wesley was programmed to be working and trying to not be any trouble and possibly earn a few crumbs of longed-for praise. He knew Buffy and Xander would probably have insisted on taking the boy off to a playground but he felt that might be too much of a culture shock for someone used to ten hours of lessons a day so had found the easiest text he had in Latin and given him that to translate to occupy him.

Snyder now took one look at the child, curled his lip in disgust, and said to Giles: “We have a policy of no pets in the school grounds.”

Giles gave Snyder a Look that would have made even Buffy back down and said crisply: “This is my nephew. He’s staying with me for a few days. I thought it would be instructive for him to see the American educational system.”

Snyder sniffed and looked around the library. “Where’s your new ‘assistant’?”

Giles thought the man could hardly have made the inverted commas clearer but refused to rise to the bait. “He’s attending a rare book fair.”

“I don’t see why we need an assistant librarian for a library where the only children who ever come in are the troublemakers like Summers and the halfwits like Harris.”

“Willow has also been known to use the library from time to time,” Giles pointed out, keeping an eye on Snyder in case he went near Wesley. The little boy was still working on his translation in between very quietly drinking his chocolate milk, savouring each sip the way he savoured every cuddle from Buffy and Willow. Giles knew very well that Nesquik was available in England, as was Ribena, but apparently they had not found their way to Wesley’s schoolroom.

“Now Rosenberg at least shows some sparks of normality. You should be encouraging her to dump her loser deadbeat friends.”

Giles mentally counted to ten as Snyder moved behind Wesley to look at what he was doing.

“Is there something I can help you with, Principal Snyder?” he enquired.

Snyder peered at what Wesley was doing and then frowned. “Are you a practising Satanist?” he demanded.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “No, sir.”

“What are you writing?”

Wesley swallowed. “I’m translating some Suetonius, sir.”

“What language is that?”

“Latin, sir.”

“Satanists use Latin.” Snyder glowered at the child. “I know you’re never too young to be playing your records backwards and pledging yourselves to Lucifer. What does that say?”

Haltingly, Wesley began to read out each word: "Suscepto… igitur… civili… bello… ac… ducibus….”

Snyder looked around suspiciously, as if expecting the Goat of Mendes to appear. “All right, that’s enough of that.”

Giles loomed over him in what he hoped could in no way be mistaken for anything other than a threat. “If you’ve quite finished quizzing my nephew, Principal Snyder, I do have rather a lot of work to be getting on with.”

Snyder gave Wesley’s translation a last suspicious look and then walked out, muttering that he knew ‘Summers’ was around here somewhere.

Given the trouble Wesley had been given by reading the words aloud, Giles wondered if he had set him much too difficult a task but when he looked over his shoulder he saw that he had written a translation in his childish but confident hand that was remarkably accurate.

"Having begun the civil war, and having sent officers and troops into Italy before him, in the meanwhile he went across to Alexandria, to accept the keys of Egypt."

Giles couldn’t help wondering exactly how much the child knew. “Can you translate that into Greek? Don’t worry, if you can’t. I’m just curious as to how far you’ve got with your studies.”

“Yes, Mr. Giles. Do you have a Greek dictionary I could use?”

“Yes.” Giles picked the book off the shelf and then hesitated. “Wesley, what dictionaries do you usually use in your lessons?”

“Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and German.”

Giles picked up the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and carried them back to the table. He wondered why he had never asked the adult Wesley what exactly he knew. So irritated by what he conspicuously didn’t know and wouldn’t admit he didn’t have – experience in the field – that it hadn’t occurred to him to find out just how useful Wesley was capable of being. He could in no way approve of the punishing schedule of lessons to which this child had been subjected by his clearly stern – and quite possibly even cruel – father, but it had certainly been more intensive than even Giles’ own system of learning.

On a whim he carried through a tower of books and put them on the table. “Wesley, leave that translation for a moment. Can you tell me which of these books you have at home?”

Wesley looked at the books carefully and pointed them out. “That one. And that one. And this one. I don’t know that one. I’m not allowed to touch that one.” He put his hands behind his back as he said it and Giles looked at the volume to check. It was a guide to demons with some particularly grisly woodcuts. It was also extremely rare and valuable. He wished he could believe it was off Wesley’s reading list because of the first attribute rather than the second, but somehow thought Wyndam-Pryce senior more the type to think that it would just be molly-coddling a boy to protect him from pictures of hideous demons eating the entrails of screaming victims.

Wesley went on picking out books which showed that he was currently studying the languages he had mentioned plus cuneiform, was apparently expected to recognize Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and to have at least a working knowledge of some of the simpler demonic alphabets. This was a level of study Giles had not reached until he was twice Wesley’s age. But then, of course, Giles’s father had been a responsible, kindly and sane man who did not resent his son having a childhood, even if it had not always felt like that at the time. Giles thought back to the resentment he had felt at having his destiny dumped into his lap at the tender age of ten. At the time he had thought his father selfish in the extreme to have robbed him of the rest of his childhood. Now he was grateful for the years he had been left in blissful ignorance. Roger Wyndam-Pryce seemed to have been standing over his child’s crib since he was born, with a stopwatch in one hand and a cane in the other, demanding that Wesley grew up at once and knew everything that an adult would know.

Wesley had also confirmed that he wasn’t prohibited from contact with the grislier books because of their contents, only their value, as he continued to point out those with which he was familiar. Some of them had some very nasty accounts in them of things vampires had done to their victims.

“Do you have ever have nightmares?” Giles asked.

Wesley’s eyes widened. “No,” he said at once. “Never. Only cry-babies have nightmares.”

Giles felt another of those hot spikes of anger and took a moment to collect himself before saying carefully: “What happens to cry-babies who have nightmares?”

“They have to f-face their fears.” The boy’s lip trembled and his eyes were full of fears that did not seem to have been banished by being faced.

“How would they do that, Wesley?”

At once the boy’s gaze darted to the stairs and the cupboard underneath them. Giles had to think about it for a moment and then thought he understood. It bothered him more than he could say that it really didn’t take him that long to put himself into the mindset of Wesley’s father. “Do they have to – become used to the dark…?”

Wesley nodded mutely.

“I see.” Just for a moment – and it really was a moment – Giles thought about paying Ethan to go and do something very chaotic to Roger Wyndam-Pryce, and then reminded himself that he was one of the good guys and Ethan was one of the bad guys and he absolutely could not descend to his level, however tempting it might be.

“How do they become used to the dark, Wesley?”

Wesley swallowed and tears sprang into his eyes again. He bowed his head and whispered: “They have to go under the stairs.”

Giles closed his eyes, understanding some of the boy’s paralysed terror of earlier. Because what was more reasonable when a little boy was afraid of the dark than to terrorize it out of him by locking him up with the shadows and the spiders, and presumably punishing him even more cruelly if he dared to have hysterics or beg to be released?

He came to a decision and rose to his feet. “Wesley, would you like to go to the park?”

Wesley looked up at him in shock and then at the clock. “Isn’t it…lesson time…?”

“I have a headache and I’d like some fresh air. Would you like some fresh air?”

Wesley looked at the doors to the library and then back at Giles. “Yes, please.”

Giles held out his hand. “Come on then.”

Shyly Wesley put his hand into Giles’ and then gazed up at him, still a little fearful but with a glimmer of hope behind it that Giles might not actually be going to tell him off or punish him if he did something wrong. In another child that would not have seemed like much of a breakthrough, but with Wesley Giles could only look on it as something of a personal triumph.

***

Giles felt they had done rather well. He and Wesley had visited the park and eaten ice creams with only moderate spillage on to their clothing and a much briefer-than-usual spasm of blank-eyed terror from the little boy at the upset before he had listened to what Giles was gently telling him and realized that he wasn’t going to be punished for the fact that ice cream melted in the sun and gravity pulled things downwards. Giles had side-stepped not being an ogre rather neatly he thought by segueing into talking to Wesley about gravity and how it worked, meaning that the poor child didn’t suffer too much of a shock to his world view while out with a tweedy male authority figure. He discovered that Wesley actually knew rather a lot about a number of things, but didn’t cope well with being put on the spot. If he was just left alone he could recount what he knew quite well but any suggestion that he was being asked to perform in front of others and he started to gibber. Giles had learned that by trial and error. The information was in Wesley’s head but direct questioning made the boy freeze up.

After a couple of false starts when he had tried to ascertain what Wesley knew about Sumerian culture and the Rosetta Stone and had reduced the poor child to blushing, fumbling incoherence, he had learned to be a little more lateral in his approach. After the gravity conversation Giles had essayed a hopefully casual: ‘Now, was it Newton or Einstein who was obsessed with alchemy, I always forget…?’ Which disclosed the fact that Wesley actually knew rather a lot about Newton and alchemy and how it related to spell-casting, and – when eating an ice cream in a sunny park – could talk about it quite coherently whereas if Giles had demanded that he explained it he had no doubt that the boy would have gone to pieces.

They had eaten in a MacDonalds where it had taken a little while for Wesley to comprehend the concept of ‘you can order anything you like’. Giles thought about what that said about Wesley’s father, who certainly wasn’t going to be needing to sell off the family silver to get his roof repaired any time soon, that the eight year old Wesley knew how to hex a demon in ancient Aramaic but didn’t understand the concept of being able to order any dessert from the menu however much it might cost.

They had visited a book shop where Wesley had been persuaded after a little bit of verbal sleight of hand from Giles that it was all right for him to go and pick out five books that were just to be read for enjoyment because this was a special treat and anyway, Wesley had completed all his studies already, years before, and become a grown up, and been made a Watcher, so was surely entitled to the reward of a few books. He had picked them with as much care as if these were the only books he was ever going to be allowed to have in his life that weren’t connected with schoolwork, and then brought his selection to Giles in some trepidation, presumably in case Giles thought they were frivolous or showed signs of being the choices of a bedwetting cry-baby who would have to go into the under the stairs cupboard to learn a little more about being a man. Giles presumed that at some point in the future he would stop being angry about the under the stairs cupboard thing, just not at any time soon. He was also upset to realize that if the adult Wesley had mentioned in passing his father’s idea of fitting discipline he would just have thought Wesley was whining again; thinking of the adult; not fully taking on board that even annoying twenty-six year olds really had once been frightened little eight year olds.

Giles had then realized that he had also qualified as a Watcher and was therefore also entitled to buy some books and did so, realizing that he also never bought books just to read for fun, or to read aloud to small children for fun, and it was perhaps high time that he did both of those things.

Once the idea had occurred to him, he realized that there were a vast number of books that he had enjoyed when he was a child and thought that he would definitely enjoy reading aloud to another child – The Narnia books, Alan Garner, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Silver Sword, E. Nesbit, The Otterbury Incident, Stig of the Dump, even – rather shamefacedly – some of the books his cousin Emily had loaned him when he was staying with her parents, such as – shame of shames – Ballet Shoes, most of which had been written by, well, girls. E. Nesbit, he remembered, had always been acceptable as no one knew what the ‘E’ stood for so one could pretend it was Eric or Ernest rather than Edith.

That settled it. Even if Buffy did call in reinforcements in the shape of Joyce, Wesley was coming home with him that night. Now decided, Giles went shopping for pyjamas and a toothbrush. He had just put their books and other purchases in the boot of his car when he noticed the toyshop. It wasn’t Hamley’s but it was big and brightly painted.

“Did you have a teddy bear, Wesley?” he asked.

Wesley nodded. “Yes. Cuthbert. I don’t suppose I still have him, do I?”

Giles thought it unlikely. “Well, just in case you don’t, shall we try to find something similar?”

Wesley looked confused. “How?”

Giles nodded at the toyshop and Wesley looked as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “But it isn’t Christmas.”

“No.”

“And it doesn’t help one to become a good Watcher to play with a lot of silly toys.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Giles was starting to enjoy himself. “But I think we should do it anyway.”

He personally thought that it would have been worth paying a great deal more than even the rather large amount he ended up expending in the toyshop just to see the look on Wesley’s face as he was led into a place piled high with pointless frivolity and told that he could choose a birthday present.

“But it’s not my birthday.”

“Well, it is your birthday one day this year and I may not be around for it, so go and choose something.”

They looked all through the toyshop and Giles noticed a number of things that he thought might be entertaining and many games he hadn’t played in a long time. Wesley gazed at the Playmobil castle and knights on horses for a while, looking as if he had time-slipped from the Victorian age rather than the 70s, it was clearly so remote from his experience of being a child. It obviously didn’t occur to him even for an instant that he could have something that expensive and he looked at the card games instead, although his gaze kept going back wistfully to the castle. Meanwhile, Giles had found a set of draughts in the proper wooden box, Snakes & Ladders, Ludo, Cluedo, and Monopoly, all of which he piled into his shopping trolley. He added a very grand kite in the shape of a Chinese dragon.

When he looked up he saw that Wesley was gazing at the Playmobil castle again, which had been set out on a table to entice children to play with it. Giles noticed that as well as the castle there were a number of knights on horses, various royalty, wizards, ghosts, and a cave for the wizard to mix up his potions. Wesley watched two other children playing a wonderful game of storming the castle with the attacking knights for a while, looking more and more wistful. Giles watched him examine the game carefully and then look back at Giles, and held his breath wondering if Wesley was going to take him at his word and ask for the castle. He crossed his fingers behind his back and could barely contain a smile as Wesley walked up to him, looking nervous.

“Did you find something…?” he asked in his most encouraging tone.

“Yes. Can I…?” Wesley faltered and then swallowed and then abruptly held out two small boxes, both of which contained a Playmobil jousting knight on a horse. “Could I have two knights so they can fight each other?”

Giles looked at his anxious face at what he clearly thought was a very risky request that could well lead to a scolding.

“Or I could just have one,” Wesley said hastily.

Giles took the knights from him and said, “Two is fine. In fact – more than two would also be fine. In fact, come with me – ” He took Wesley by the hand and led him over to where the bank of mediaeval Playmobil figures were stacked up ten feet high, picked up the largest castle he could find, and put it in the shopping trolley. Wesley watched him open-mouthed.

“A whole castle…?” he breathed.

“Someone’s having a special birthday.” Giles turned to see a woman regarding the heaped trolley with a smile.

“He works very hard all the year,” Giles explained. “He deserves a little fun. In fact, he deserves more fun than any child I’ve ever met.”

Giles noticed that as well as the castle he had selected, and the wizard with his potions in his cave, there were siege towers, catapults, a drawbridge, special sections of the castle wall that gave way when catapulted, a round tower, a guard tower, a battle tower, a castle gate, mediaeval houses, jousting equipment, a ghost, all kinds of knights with and without jousting equipment and various weaponry, a dragon that fitted – so the box assured him – the dungeon of the castle, and a dragon-slaying knight with a horse with extra special battle armour. They all went into the trolley. Next to that was a much twee-er fairy tale castle with various equally twee dining rooms and bedchambers, which he thought would be rather fun to overrun with marauding plastic clip-together mercenaries. He had no shame about also plundering from that section a magic tree, a crystal cage, a unicorn, an oak tree with a secret hideaway, and various small plastic royals who could be either defended or have their heads lopped off depending on whether Wesley felt like overturning hereditary tyrannies or bravely defending the monarchy in any given game. It was a matter of seconds to add a magical fairy bower.

Giles beamed across at Wesley. “Well, that’s the equipment for your Middle Ages studies sorted out. Now, I think Viking Culture would also be important. There are a lot of excellent curses and spell reversals hidden in Viking runes.”

Wesley was still gazing at the heaped trolley in disbelief. “You can’t buy all of it,” he protested.

“I can do what I like,” Giles assured him. “One of the benefits of being a grown up.”

“But it’s too much.” Wesley reached out to touch the castle and then moved his fingers back.

Now whistling nonchalantly, Giles added a Viking Longboat, Viking Longhouse, Viking Camp, a smaller boat, a superbly green sea serpent and various assorted Vikings. “There you go. All historically accurate, I have no doubt. Shall we find the checkout?”

Wesley took his outstretched hand automatically but his eyes were still the size of saucers and he kept looking between Giles and the heaped trolley in disbelief. Giles felt his small fingers grip his more tightly as they got closer and closer to the checkout, looking up at Giles as if he was trying to decipher the language in which he was written.

The sales assistant’s eyes widened a little at the sight of so many toys but she began to ring them up while Wesley watched each one go through in silent amazement.

Giles refused to flinch at the eighteen hundred dollars total. It was absolutely worth it to see Wesley’s expression. The little boy still did not seem quite convinced that they really were buying all these toys. Only when Giles had solemnly wheeled them out to the car park and was lifting carrier bag after carrier bag into the boot of the car, did Wesley seem to believe it.

“You spent all that money,” he gasped.

“I missed your other birthdays,” Giles pointed out.

Wesley was doing frantic maths in his head. “But that still makes two hundred and twenty five dollars per birthday!”

“Not if you divide it by twenty-six,” Giles pointed out, closing the boot and opening the passenger door for him.

Wesley struggled in silence with the maths for that until they were pulling out the carpark before squeaking, “But that’s still about seventy dollars for each birthday!”

“Doesn’t that sound about right?” Giles enquired.

“But you spent it on toys!”

“Is there something you would rather have?” Giles remembered the teddy bear. “Damn – I mean – drat – I was going to get you a teddy bear…”

Before he could turn the car round, Wesley said, “No, please, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”

He seemed quite panicked by so much money having been spent on him; the action so very much a departure from the proper order of things that he couldn’t seem to comprehend it, darting worried looks at Giles who he was perhaps now mentally consigning to the realm of the insane.

Giles drove them to the adult Wesley’s apartment. “Let’s see what you brought with you, shall we?”

Wesley looked nervous about entering what was to him obviously a very scary place, sticking close to Giles who had to admit to feeling rather pleased that the boy was now using him as a buffer between scary things and himself rather than treating Giles as if he were one of the scary things the world contained.

The room was Spartan and very neat. The adult Wesley had clearly not burdened himself with too many possessions either, but there were some books, one of them a dog-eared copy of The Once and Future King which Wesley pounced upon eagerly. He opened it with trembling fingers and then gave a little cry of surprise as he saw his name written neatly in the flyleaf.

Feeling a little like a trespasser, Giles opened the suitcase and had a look inside. “I’d really like a photograph to show you,” he explained. “So you can see what you look like as an adult.”

That wasn’t entirely the truth. He wanted a photograph of the adult Wesley to remind himself that while this child version existed the adult one did not; he was lost in the limbo of Ethan’s spell. Giles very much feared they were all going to need reminding of their obligations to that adult version before too long.

The suitcase contained very little; reference books, notebooks, nothing else. Giles opened the wardrobe and found that Wesley had his one suit hung up in it next to three neatly pressed shirts. Rummaging in his chest of drawers produced some underwear, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that it was hard to imagine the stuffed shirt of the library ever wearing. In his shoulder bag there were a few crucifixes, two stakes, and three bottles of holy water, an address book, in which were three photographs, and a very battered-looking teddy bear.

“Cuthbert!” Wesley fell on the teddy bear joyously and hugged him.

Giles was thinking: That pompous annoying little twerp that I find so irritating was once the little boy whose father used to lock him in the dark, who never had a proper childhood, and who still loves his teddy bear. For some completely illogical reason the realization that Wesley had kept his teddy bear made him feel ten times worse about his lack of patience with the young man.

Wesley giggled and Giles sat down next to him. “What is it?”

Wesley held up Cuthbert and Giles saw that the bear had a little shoulder-bag of his own. Wesley peered into it and then pulled out a tiny crucifix and miniature perfume bottle onto which a label with a large black cross had been stuck.

“Did you make him that?” Giles enquired, smiling.

Wesley shook his head. “Not me – me. When Uncle Richard gave him to me he didn’t have a bag with him. He was much fluffier the last time I saw him too.” He examined the bear critically, small fingers stroking the bare patches. Cuthbert looked like a bear who had been very well loved.

The photographs showed one of a group of people in formal wear evidently on their way to a dance. Wesley looked very much as Giles knew him and he held it out for the little boy to see. “That’s you, Wesley. That’s what you look like – grown up.”

Wesley gazed at the photograph a little fearfully and then in some relief. “I don’t look like Daddy,” he said after a moment. He went on gazing at it. “I look more like Uncle Richard.”

“Is Uncle Richard nice?” Giles prompted hopefully.

Wesley looked up at him out of troubled eyes. “He was very nice, but then he died.” His lip trembled for a moment and then he said quietly: “Boys don’t cry. Only girls cry.”

“Boys cry all the time,” Giles told him. “So do men. There’s nothing wrong with feeling grief at the loss of someone we love. It would be worse to not feel anything.”

“A vampire killed him. Mummy said he didn’t suffer. Daddy said he was very brave. He said that it’s important to be brave.” Wesley looked up at Giles and whispered: “I’m not very brave. I don’t like pain and I get scared.” He winced as he made the admission, steeling himself to do it. “Sometimes I get very scared.”

Giles said hoarsely: “You’re eight years old, Wesley. You live in a world where you know there are demons and vampires. Of course you get scared. Everyone gets scared. I get scared all the time, that something’s going to happy to Buffy or Willow or one of the other children, or to me.”

They looked at the other photographs together; one of a middle-aged couple; the woman pretty but thickening around the waist and with a timid expression; the man unmistakably the Roger Wyndam-Pryce Giles had met in London.

“Mummy and Daddy.” Wesley gazed at the photograph for a moment and then sighed and put it away.

The last one was one of Wesley in cricket whites in front of wicket. He looked about fifteen, gawky, narrow, with unruly dark hair, an expression of great concentration on his face. Wesley turned the photograph over and saw a press clipping sellotaped to it. It made reference to the lower sixth having won a victory over the touring team from another school. Wyndam-Pryce had apparently bowled out six men and scored a hundred and twenty runs.

Wesley smiled as he read through the clipping and beamed up at Giles. “I can play cricket!”

“You can do lots of things.” Giles looked around the Spartan room.

“What other things can I do?” Wesley asked.

Giles grimaced internally: Fold at the first sign of pressure; make an idiot of yourself over women; put people’s backs up for your country; follow orders from people across the sea who have no idea about the situation we’re dealing with….

Wesley’s face fell. “I can’t do anything, can I?”

“Of course you can.” Giles put the photographs away carefully. “You’re a Watcher, remember? Not to mention you were Head Boy of your school.”

“Head Boy?” Wesley gazed at him wide-eyed. “Really?”

“Really,” Giles assured him.

There was another pause before Wesley said very tentatively: “Do you…like me…? The big me…?”

Giles didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Mentally he was adding I do now, but he had spoken with such emphasis that the boy was reassured. He gazed up at Giles for a moment, lit up with pleasure, and then had to duck his head in embarrassment to hide a pleased little smile.

Giles found he needed a moment to get his voice back under control and then he said brightly: “Shall we go and find Buffy? Introduce her to Cuthbert?”

Wesley smiled at that idea and then faltered looking at the bear. “Mr Giles…?”

“Yes, Wesley…?”

“Do you think Willow will think I’m silly for still having a teddy bear…?”

Giles wasn’t sure if Wesley meant that ‘still’ to refer to the grown up Wesley or the one who had attained the grand old age of eight. Either way he was quite certain that Willow would not think it silly at all. He was very much afraid that she would find it adorable.

“I think you’re safe,” he told him and got a smile in return that he had to admit he found absurdly sweet.

When they walked out of the apartment, Wesley slipped his hand into Giles’ without needing to be prompted, and with Wesley carrying his shoulder bag with Cuthbert safely secured inside it, they drove back to the school in companionable silence.

***

“Giles, where the hell have you been?”

Giles stopped in his tracks as he stepped into the Library and was confronted by a furious Buffy, still with the phone in her hand. Willow was standing next to her also looking most uncharacteristically cross. Oz gave Giles a rueful ‘you’re in it now and I can’t help you’ grimace while Xander just shook his head.

“Boy, are you in trouble….” he observed.

Buffy slammed the phone back down onto the handset. “Big trouble.”

Giles gently eased Wesley into the room so the doors could swing closed behind him, the little boy gazing up at him with big scared eyes. “They’re not cross with you,” Giles assured him.

“Wesley…!” Buffy threw herself across the room and scooped the little boy into her arms, giving Giles another glare as she carried him over to the Library table. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She sat him down on the table and began to gently pat him for injuries.

Wesley nodded up at her, wide-eyed. “I’m very well, thank you, Buffy.”

“Giles, how could you just take him off like that without leaving a note?” Willow demanded. “We didn’t know where you were. Buffy’s been going crazy. We sent Xander round to your house, but you weren’t there. We were calling and calling!”

Buffy glared at Giles. “If you’ve been making Wesley do stupid Watcher lessons…”

“We went to the park,” Wesley told her quickly, clearly worried about Giles getting into trouble. “Mr Giles bought me ice cream.”

Buffy looked slightly mollified although she was still stroking Wesley’s hair.

“I need to hug him,” Willow explained, putting her arms around the little boy and hugging him as gently as if he was made from crystal.

Wesley went bright red with happiness and gazed up at Willow in shy adoration.

“Would you like to introduce them to Cuthbert?” Giles suggested. The little boy was already blushing up to his ears, so he thought he could hardly blush any more.

Shyly, Wesley produced Cuthbert from the adult Wesley’s shoulder bag that he had insisted on slinging over his own diminutive body. As expected, at the killer combination of cute child shyly proffering very battered teddy bear, Willow practically melted. She took the teddy bear, made little squealing noises about his cuteness, then noticed the little Watcher bag with its contents and was entirely lost to all normal speech for at least a minute.

“Cuthbert is a very cool name for a bear,” Oz observed.

Wesley lit up once again at some praise and then lowered his head to hide how happy that had made him.

Buffy picked Wesley back up and deposited him on her lap, presumably so that Giles couldn’t make another dash for the hills with him. “You can’t have been at the park all afternoon…?” She felt Wesley’s forehead. “You weren’t there all day, were you? Because it was hot and you don’t have a hat and…”

“No, we just had ice cream and then we fed the ducks and then we had lunch in a Mac-Something place.” Wesley beamed up at her as Xander solemnly shook Cuthbert by the hand.

“Look at the teeny weeny holy water bottle!” Willow showed it to him.

Oz smiled at the contents of the bag along with Xander. “That is beyond cool,” Oz observed.

“Did you make this yourself?” Xander asked.

Wesley looked around casually. “I suppose so, but not yet. Maybe I did it when I went to boarding school.” He looked at Giles. “I did go to boarding school, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Giles assured him.

Wesley smiled. “Good. I was looking forward to that.”

They all exchanged a look while Giles thought grimly: I bet you were. It got you away from Daddy.

Buffy was still glaring at Giles. “You didn’t make him do lessons, did you? Because if you did I may have to do something we’ll both regret.”

Wesley looked up anxiously. “We went to a bookshop and Mr Giles bought me some books.”

“School books?” Buffy enquired.

“Reading-for-fun books.” Wesley struggled a bit over the ‘reading-for-fun’ idea; it was clearly a novel concept to him.

“Were they in English?” Willow pressed.

Wesley nodded, adding in surprise: “All of them.”

Giles met Buffy’s eye over Wesley’s head. “Apparently, he was only allowed to read Winnie the Pooh in Latin.”

“You look hungry to me, Wesley.” Xander examined him critically. “I think you need chocolate.”

“Chocolate?” Wesley looked shocked at the idea. “But it’s not my birthday.”

“Well, you’re in a different country now,” Xander explained. “With different customs and culture, so you need to join in with those different customs or you could risk offending the natives. Over here, small boys eat Snickers bars at regular intervals. Otherwise they can’t have the requisite sugar rush that makes them run around being very noisy and climbing on the furniture.” Xander held out his hands and Willow, Oz, and Buffy all contributed their change.

Wesley watched wide-eyed as Xander went off to feed the snack dispenser. “I’m not allowed to climb on the furniture.” He looked genuinely worried that that might be required of him. “And I’m not supposed to make any noise unless I have a question.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “Because God forbid you should just get to talk like a normal child.”

Wesley looked downcast. “You don’t think I’m normal?”

Buffy looked into his eyes. “I think you’re adorable.” She pulled him into a hug, rocking him in her arms and then gazed up at Giles in renewed indignation. “How could you just run off with him like that? Didn’t you know we’d be worried sick?”

“I was actually thinking about Wesley.” He went to put the kettle on so as to avoid the reproachful eyes from Willow and Buffy. “I didn’t realize you were going to call out the Coast Guard because I decided to take him to the park.”

“And MacDonalds.” Oz gave Giles a sly look.

Giles couldn’t quite conceal a smile. “All right, and MacDonalds and a bookshop and a toyshop. But then we went back to Wesley’s apartment to collect a few of his things.”

“Back up…” Xander ordered imperiously, coming in with an armful of assorted unhealthy snack food which he dumped onto the table. “Did I hear the word ‘toyshop’ in there?”

“We may have paid a brief visit, yes.”

Xander turned to Wesley. “Did Uncle Giles buy you something in a toyshop, Wesley?”

Wesley looked at Giles. “Am I allowed to tell?”

Giles smiled. “Yes, Wesley.”

Wesley looked at Buffy. “You won’t be cross with him?”

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “That depends on whether or not he bought you a bunch of boring educational toys or if he bought you something…fun.”

“He spent rather a lot of money.” Wesley winced in anticipation of her wrath. “I told him not to.”

“You did.” Giles came out with the tea and handed it round. “You did your absolute best to stop me but I wouldn’t listen to reason.”

Xander looked at Giles sideways. “Giles, did you forget to be stuffy and British while in charge of a credit card?”

Giles sighed in mock regret. “I’m afraid I did.”

Xander jumped off the table and held out a hand. “Car keys. Me like toys. Me want to see toys. Me want to play with toys.”

As Xander ran off in the direction of Giles’ car, Wesley called after him diffidently: “You may need a…trolley…”

“‘Trolley’…? Like a shopping cart…?” Willow turned to Giles. “How crazy did you go…?”

Giles shrugged. “I did miss twenty-six of Wesley’s birthdays.” He handed him his cup of weak, milky sweet tea and the boy accepted it gratefully.

Buffy accepted her tea from Giles. “I’m debating whether or not to start liking you again.”

“Oh, please like him, Buffy.” Wesley gazed up at her earnestly.

“Did you have fun?”

“Lots of…fun.” He did stumble slightly over that concept but there was no doubting his sincerity.

There was the crash of the double doors as Xander backed into the room, completely hidden behind a towering pile of boxes. Willow and Oz hurried to help him, plucked the smaller boxes from the top of the pile and helping him to put them down on the table.

Buffy looked at the boxes in disbelief. “You weren’t joking about forgetting to be stuffy, were you?”

“There’s more.” Xander beckoned to Oz and the two of them headed back to the car while Giles smiled smugly and sipped his tea and Willow gazed at the boxes.

“Oh, I always wanted one of these castles!” She turned to Wesley. “Are you going to open them?”

Wesley looked up at Giles. “May I…?”

“Of course.” Giles nodded his head. “Open all of them.”

By the time Xander and Oz returned with another pile of boxes and carrier bags, Buffy and Willow had cleared the table of all extraneous non-toy-related things and were starting to build the Fairytale castle.

“We are so going to besiege you.” Xander undid the box containing the enormous mediaeval castle while Oz picked Wesley up and sat him on their side of the table.

Oz whispered to Wesley: “If we’re building this castle we get a better view of Willow than if we were right next to her.”

Wesley gave him a shy smile and whispered back: “She’s very pretty.”

Oz looked across at Willow who smiled at him. “I can only concur with that viewpoint.”

“I like her hair,” Wesley added in another whisper.

“Me too,” Oz assured him.

Giles sipped his tea and sat back on his chair to enjoy the view of Oz and Xander encouraging Wesley to eat chocolate in between fitting together the plastic sections of castle. He was pleased to notice that Wesley had a very good grasp of the way a mediaeval castle would fit together, diffidently suggesting where the gate would go and how the battlements would work. Buffy and Willow were having way too much fun building the fairy tale castle.

It was a shock to everyone when Cordelia walked in, saying, “I was just looking for a book on…” She broke off at the sight of everyone fitting together playmobil castles. “Did everyone take a regression pill or are we having a ‘let’s all be as dumb as Xander’ day?”

“We’re having fun, Cordy,” Xander retorted. “You can look that word up in your ‘things not in my dictionary’ dictionary.”

She rolled her eyes, still looking around the library. “Where’s Wesley?”

The little boy had been gazing at her in some anxiety and his eyes now widened in fear. He took a tentative step forward. “I’m here.”

She turned eagerly and then seeing no one of Wesley’s height dropped her gaze and saw the little boy. Much to Giles’ amazement she immediately crouched down to his level and beamed at him. “Well, aren’t you adorable? What are you doing in here with this bunch of losers?”

Wesley looked shocked. “They’re – my friends.”

“That accent is to die for.” Cordy looked up at Giles. “Who knew they could sound like that right from when they were kids? Wait…? Did you say you were called ‘Wesley’ too? That is so cute.” She looked around the library. “Is Wesley your uncle? Please tell me he’s not your father because I was so hoping he was single…?”

“He’s me,” Wesley explained awkwardly. “I was him and then I wasn’t. I don’t remember being him though.”

Cordelia straightened up, fixing Giles with a steely glare. “One, that isn’t funny. Two, dragging a kid into your stupid practical jokes – so not cool.”

“Cordelia…” Giles fixed her with his most quelling glare. “Before you say anything you might later regret – well, that someone else might regret – Ethan sent me a package which Wesley opened. This was the result.”

“Halloween costume and wacky candy Ethan?” She looked down at child Wesley and her face fell. “Okay. Now I’m angry.”

Wesley looked up at her fearfully. “I’m sorry.”

Cordelia amazed Giles further by immediately sinking back down to the floor and saying gently: “Not with you, sweetie. Just with all the other people in this room who were too stupid to keep Wesley from being burned by Giles’s old flames.”

Willow gasped and Buffy grimaced. “We so weren’t going there,” Buffy murmured.

Cordelia glared up at Giles. “How could you let Wesley handle something of Ethan’s…? Oh ewww...! That so didn’t come out right. It’s bad enough you used to let Ethan handle…”

“Cordelia!” Willow squeaked. “Remember – very small child, not supposed to be hearing about things like that. And I don’t want to either.”

“Can I go on record as saying a big ‘me too’?” Xander put in.

Wesley said tentatively: “Do you have any sisters?”

Cordelia automatically straightened his shirt collar, checking the label as she did so. “I can’t believe they didn’t at least take you to Gap. What’s that, sweetheart?”

“Like Cordelia in the play…?” He looked at her shyly. “She had two sisters who were bad.”

“Actually Cordy’s the Webster’s definition of an only child,” Xander supplied helpfully.

“What play?” Cordelia asked him.

“King Lear. Cordelia is the good daughter who really loves her father but he sends her away even though she loves him. But in the end he realizes that she was the one who loved him all the time.” He gazed up at her. “And he feels very sorry that he sent her away.”

Cordelia checked the label in the little jacket Giles had bought him and shook her head. “No sisters. I think my mom just thought it was a pretty name.”

“I think it’s a very pretty name,” Wesley told her earnestly. He dropped his gaze to say: “It suits you.”

Willow and Buffy exchanged a glance. “He’s a regular heartbreaker, isn’t he?” Buffy observed.

Cordelia gazed at the little boy for a moment and then held out her hand. “Let’s you and me build a condo.”

Buffy pushed her the box with the fairy bower. “Here you go.”

Cordelia sniffed. “What, no penthouse?” She picked the boy up and sat him on the table. As everyone stared at her, she said: “What? So, I like kids. Get over it.”

“When you used to say you liked children, we always assumed you meant as a snackfood,” Xander observed.

As Cordelia expertly began to assemble the fairy bower, she said to Giles: “And I presume there’s a good reason why you’re just sitting around instead of trying to find the spell to turn Wesley back into a grown up, right?”

There was a moment’s awkward silence and then Giles sighed and got to his feet. “Yes, I was just about to continue my research into that…”

As he headed off for his office, Buffy glared at Cordelia. “It may not be possible to turn Wesley back but that doesn’t matter because we like him fine just how he is.”

“Well, unlike the rest of you I actually liked him the way he was before as well…”

There was a stricken silence as Wesley looked up at Cordelia and then across at Buffy. “Did-Didn’t you like me before…?”

“Yes, we did.” Buffy gave Cordelia a look that threatened ritual dismemberment if she dared contradict her. “We liked you before and we like you now.”

Cordelia made to argue, looked at the little boy’s shocked face and said quickly: “Yes, of course, they liked you. Who wouldn’t like you…? You were adorable then and you’re adorable now. You’re just shorter and not so well dressed.” She peered at the label on his jeans pockets. “I really need to take you shopping. Hold on…” She fished a comb out of her purse and combed his hair carefully, wiped his face with her handkerchief, straightened his cuffs, and then nodded in satisfaction. “You like to be tidy,” she told him.

He looked across at Buffy again, clearly needing more reassurance. She picked him up and cuddled him and he automatically curled up against her neck. “Did you really not like me…?” he whispered.

“We didn’t know you…” Buffy whispered back. “We’d hardly got to know you when you changed but I love you now and I am not going to let anything happen to you. Do you understand? Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again.”

Oz looked up at her. “That’s quite a promise.”

Buffy rubbed her cheek against Wesley’s. “I’m going to keep it.”

Cordelia looked at Buffy and seemed to get a lot of things in a moment. “Giles, would I be right in thinking that if there were spells that could just turn back time with no side effects and no problems that everyone would be doing them…?”

Giles came back out with a book in his hand. “Well, Ethan is a chaos mage. He does have unusual powers.”

Cordelia grimaced. “I really don’t want to know about Ethan’s ‘unusual powers’, Giles.”

“Power of magical ability,” Giles said tersely.

“So, if this spell is so hunky dory wonderful how come he hasn’t turned himself into a twenty-something again?”

Giles opened his mouth and then took off his glasses. “That’s a good point.”

“Yeah, I thought so. And maybe what we need to focus on right now is not just how adorable Wesley is but how alive we want him to stay.” She gave Giles a fierce look. “It’s not as if Ethan doesn’t think the world can spare you, now, is it?”

With a jolt, Giles realized that she was absolutely right. He had been so busy fighting a rearguard action against falling in with Buffy’s plan to keep Wesley as a child that he hadn’t fully considered just how dangerous a spell this could be. This time when he turned back to the books it was with a renewed sense of purpose and a whole new anxiety.

Cordelia snapped together a few more pieces of plastic and said, “Okay, there’s your fairy bower up and running. Wesley, what do you say we ask Aunty Willow to cast a nice protection spell over the whole enchanted fountain thing?”

“So vampires can’t come in?” he asked.

Cordelia blinked. “You know about vampires.”

Xander passed over the teddy bear and nodded at the bag. She examined the tiny crucifix and holy water in silence for a moment and then said: “You know what would also be good here? A mirror. That way Teddy here – ”

“He’s Cuthbert,” Wesley explained.

Cordelia looked at him and bit her lip. “There really are no words for how cute you are.” She took a compact out of her purse and held it up. “See? A mirror so Cuthbert can always check if someone has a reflection. That way he’s extra safe.” She dropped the compact into the bag, earning herself a big smile from Wesley.

“What if you have a hair emergency, Cord?” Xander observed.

Not bothering to glance at him, she said, “I’ll manage. I survived dating you. After that, death kind of loses its sting.”

Wesley looked between them wide-eyed and Willow elbowed Cordelia in the ribs. “Can you not fight in front of him, please?”

Xander looked a little ashamed and muttered, “Sorry.”

Cordelia straightened Wesley’s shirt again, gave him another bright smile, and said, “I’m going to go and help Uncle Giles with the research now. Why don’t you help Uncle Xander and Uncle Oz build their castle and then we can besiege it later and push the walls down. Won’t that be fun?”

He smiled at her shyly. “Yes.”

She kissed him on the forehead and looked at Buffy. “We all want the same thing here.” Then she was heading for Giles’s office, her heels going click-click-click on the floor.

This time when Buffy tightened her grip on Wesley it was with a new anxiety. Fiercely, she repeated: “Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again.”

Wesley looked up at her. “Bad things just happen sometimes. They’re not anybody’s fault. Like spilling,” he added bravely. “Sometimes – that just happens.”

“Yes, it does.” She kissed the top of his head and he curled in against her contentedly, drowsily watching Willow as she filled the Fairy Tale castle with dining tables, princesses, and unicorns. But mentally Buffy was adding a fierce: But not to you. No more bad things are going to happen to you – while the sick feeling in her stomach was telling her exactly the opposite.

***

Wesley was happily playing storm-the-heavily-fortified-plastic-mediaeval-castle with a mixture of siege tower, unicorns, and various over dressed royalty, and Willow’s magical assistance, while Oz and Buffy rebuffed them with volleys of plastic arrows, when Xander came back into the Library. Giles and Cordelia were both at the other end of the table still working on their research, Cordelia kneading the back of her neck from time to time but not stinting in her work. Wesley had kicked off his new leather shoes as they were giving him blisters and everyone had told him it was all right for him to just wear his socks.

“Ethan’s current address…” Xander waved a piece of paper under Giles’s nose. “I beat it out of Willy the Snitch.”

Buffy looked at him sideways. “ ‘Beat it out of him’?”

“With my wallet,” Xander conceded. “But the point is, Giles was right, chaos guy is still in town.”

They all looked at Wesley who gazed up at them in some anxiety. “How are we going to do this?” Xander asked. “Because I think Buffster and G-man are both going to be needed to deal with Ethan but that leaves the munchkin…”

“I don’t want Ethan to see Wesley.” Giles turned his grave concerned gaze onto Wesley. “As far as Ethan knows, his spell didn’t work. If he thinks there is nothing to lose, he may be more willing to talk than if he knows he has something we want.”

“We’ll take care of Wesley.” Willow smiled at him.

Buffy looked anxious and Oz and Xander nodded to her. “It’s okay,” Xander assured her.

Cordelia looked up from her research and said matter-of-factly: “Think of it this way, Buffy. Any harm comes to Wesley over my dead body so either way you’re a winner.”

Buffy held her gaze. “Trust me, Cordelia, that wouldn’t be any kind of compensation.” She snatched a breath and then gripped Wesley’s shoulders lightly. “I won’t be long, okay? You stay here with Willow, Oz, and Xander, and Giles and I will be back very soon.”

“Yes, Buffy.” She squeezed him into a hug and he felt another kiss pressed into his hair. It was strange to be hugged and kissed so much but he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t really like it.

She said to Xander in a way that was half an order and half a plea: “Take care of him.”

“You know we will,” Xander assured her quietly.

After the door closed, Cordelia said: “So, what’s the cover story on Wesley?”

Willow blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t think we should tell everyone who wanders in here to borrow a library book that Little Wesley is…Wesley. What if it got back to the Council? They’re very strict. He might get his pay docked for the days while he wasn’t able to be a Watcher or whatever. I mean if those guys are happy to lock Buffy into a room with a vampire when she doesn’t have her super powers I’m guessing they wouldn’t be slow about doing other nasty things.”

They all looked at Wesley who fidgeted uncomfortably under their scrutiny. His father was a Council member and he certainly would have thought it had to be Wesley’s fault that he hadn’t been available to do his duty so Cordelia was probably right. Shyly he said, “When Principal Snyder was in here earlier, Mr Giles said I was his nephew, and he said the Big Me was away at a book fair.”

Oz nodded. “That works.”

“Do you want to go on pretending to be Giles’s nephew, Wesley?” Willow asked.

He nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, if anyone comes in here and asks about you we’ll tell them that the Big You is away for a few days and that the Little You is Giles’ nephew – Wesley.”

“Presumably we’ll also tell them that every other guy in England is called ‘Wesley’,” Xander murmured.

Willow said firmly: “I think Wesley has enough to put up with being eight years old and in a strange country surrounded by strange people and having to remember that Giles is his uncle now without having to remember a different name as well.”

“I don’t think you’re strange,” Wesley offered tentatively. “I think you’re nice.”

Cordelia looked at him in fond exasperation: “How weird is your home life if you don’t think that Willow the Witch, Oz the Werewolf, and Xander the Loser are strange?”

“Not to mention Cordelia the Princess,” Xander retorted.

But Wesley was gazing at Oz open-mouthed. “Are you really a werewolf?”

“Only for three days a month,” Willow said hastily. “The rest of the time he’s just Oz.”

He had seen woodcuts of werewolves, and they were huge and slavering and evil. He looked at Oz, who looked very unhuge, not at all slavering, or remotely evil. But he had read what werewolves did to people – to girls who went walking the woods and were found torn to pieces, and to…children. He gulped and looked at Willow then looked at the castle he had helped build with Oz; remembered the young man lifting him up to reach the taller towers, unwrapping the chocolate for him and handing it over. Oz seemed so nice but if he were really a werewolf – he thought how angry his father would be with him for being friends with a werewolf, and the Council would probably never allow him to be a Watcher if they ever found out he had played with a werewolf all afternoon and not even tried to kill him. He felt a lump in his throat as he thought about killing Oz. Willow loved Oz, he could see it in the way she got that light in her eyes when she looked at him, and Oz loved Willow. Worst of all, Wesley really liked Oz. He had felt safe when he was with him. At the thought of having to shoot him with silver bullets, he began to tremble.

“I was joking,” Cordelia said quickly. “I’m not a real Princess either and Willow is still definitely a wannabe when it comes to witchery. Xander is a real loser though.”

Wesley looked at Oz sadly. “Are you a werewolf?”

Oz nodded. “Yes.”

Wesley swallowed painfully. “Do you – kill people…?”

“No.” Oz held his gaze. “I’m lucky. I have people who care about me and every month when it’s the full moon they lock me up and make sure I can’t hurt anyone.”

Wesley felt the weight on his heart lift a little. “So, you’re not a bad werewolf?”

“No, he’s a good werewolf,” Willow assured him. “Very good.”

“Are we still friends?” Oz asked. “Because it’s cool either way, but I’d like to know.”

Wesley knew that his father would never accept that as an excuse, that people locked Oz up and stopped him killing anyone, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it as an excuse. If it came out he could tell his father that he hadn’t thought that he would mind because Oz never hurt anyone, and perhaps his father would never find out anyway. It occurred to him that if he was really twenty-six then perhaps his father liked him more. Perhaps he just didn’t like him now because he was a child and his father had no patience with children. He knew that because his mother was always saying it: ‘You have no patience with him, Roger.’ ‘He doesn’t need patience, he needs discipline. Do you think the vampires are going to be patient with him? He needs to do what he’s told when he’s told to do it!’ But as he evidently had done what he was told when he was told to do it and had been made Head Boy and become a Watcher, just the way Daddy wanted, perhaps now they were friends and if he told his father that Oz was a good werewolf who didn’t eat people then everything would be okay? Wesley thought about that for a moment and then decided that was something he couldn’t really take on trust.

He glanced up at Oz cautiously. “As you don’t kill people and you’re a good werewolf I don’t see why we can’t still be friends. Just – please don’t tell my father.”

Oz held out a hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

They did so solemnly and Oz said with an odd sort of smile: “And, trust me, if your father and I ever had a conversation there would be other things we were discussing.”

“A-men to that…” Xander murmured.

“Heya…”

Wesley looked up to see another pretty girl walk in. She was slight and dark-haired with lots of eye make up and wore shiny trousers that clung to her body and a red-coloured top that was cut quite low. She wore dark nail varnish too. When she walked it was as if she owned the whole room.

“So, you all just…hanging out…?” the newcomer enquired. She sounded casual but Wesley didn’t think anything she did was really casual, not given the way she was looking all round the room, noting where everyone was and what they were doing.

There was a muted murmur of greeting from the others. “Pretty much,” Oz said. Wesley noticed that Xander’s eye had started to twitch and Willow looked terse and unhappy. Wesley thought it was strange that this girl was acting as if they were all her friends but they weren’t responding to her the way they did to Buffy or even when Cordelia had walked in. Even though Xander had said rude things to Cordelia he had still made space for her as if he had done it so many times before he didn’t even notice he was doing it. But they were all acting as if they wanted this girl to go away and not come back.

“Anything up…?” the newcomer enquired.

“Nope,” Willow said in a way that seemed cheerful but somehow wasn’t. “Just…hanging out.”

That was when the girl saw Wesley and she stopped moving. “Who’s the kid?” she demanded, and there was an edge to her voice that made Wesley wonder if she really didn’t like children.

“Giles’ nephew,” Cordelia put in so smoothly it was as if she wasn’t even lying. “Another Wesley, would you believe? I guess they don’t go so much for Tom, Dick and Harry over there.”

“Well, what’s he doing here?” the girl demanded. “Isn’t it kind of…irresponsible, having a kid on the Hellmouth?”

Willow said: “His – his mom was sick and Giles was the only person who could take care of him while she was sick so – so that’s why he’s here even though it’s a Hellmouth.”

“He doesn’t have a dad?” The girl was still acting as if this was a really bad thing for Wesley to be here and he didn’t really understand why unless she was allergic to children, the way some people were allergic to bee stings.

Xander looked up and said, “Unfortunately, yes, but let’s just say there are good reasons why the kid doesn’t get left with him.”

Wesley saw the girl flinch and he wondered why, then she was turning away and he could almost see her thinking. When she turned back she had a big bright smile on her face that looked as if it had no business being there. “Well, why don’t I take Mini Giles here over to the park?”

“Because it’s dark…?” Xander returned. “And that would be a really dangerous thing to do…?”

“Hey, who’s he going to be safer with than me?”

“He’s fine where he is.” Cordelia looked up briefly as if this other girl wasn’t even worth bothering with. “Which is why he’s going to be staying where he is.”

The girl came right over to Wesley. “He looks like a brave kid to me. Don’t you want to come to the park with me…?”

“I’ve already been to the park with Mr – with Uncle Giles.” Wesley couldn’t help gazing at her. She was so pretty and yet somehow so – dangerous.

She gritted her teeth. “Well, let me take you out for some – take out. You can’t be in America and not get some fries.”

“I already had some in Mac-somewhere. They were very nice,” he added in a placatory tone. “But I don’t think I could eat any more just yet.”

Xander held up the empty chocolate wrappers. “We’ve been kind of pushing the sugar on the kid all afternoon, Faith.”

“Where’s B…?” Again there was that edge to her voice.

“She and Giles had to go and check out a crypt.” Xander’s voice was steady but his eye was still twitching. Wesley wondered if it did that when he lied.

“They didn’t call me first?”

“Small crypt,” Oz put in. “More of a closet really.”

“Well, what are they looking for?”

Cordelia shrugged. “Who listens when Giles goes into lecture mode? Some finger bone or magical kneecap or something. I don’t know.”

“To stop the ascension?” There was still that edge to her voice and she was still looking at Wesley as if she really didn’t like him being around.

Cordelia shrugged again. “I guess. Like I said – who listens?”

“Why don’t I take the kid back to my place where he can watch some TV with me?” she suggested. “It’s got to be past his bedtime anyway.”

“Never made you for the maternal type, Faith,” Xander said.

“He’s staying here.” Willow rose to her feet. “He’s staying here with us until Giles and Buffy get back.” There was an edge to her tone and her smile looked forced as she added: “But you’re welcome to stay here too, if you like.”

“I don’t need permission from a civilian,” Faith told her shortly, and then she was striding out of the room.

Her face had looked so pinched and unhappy that Wesley felt sorry for her and he ran after her. His socks were slippy on the floor but at least they didn’t make any noise and somehow running didn’t seem such a punishable thing to be doing when it was quiet. He slipped out through the doors after Faith – they were heavy but they had swung back so he could get through without needing to push them – but she was already talking into her mobile phone:

“Yeah, I know I said it was all systems go, boss, but there’s a kid in there. A little titchy kid. I tried to get him out but no go. We need to abort. Get Glinda another time…”

Wesley had a sudden feeling that he should not be hearing this conversation and Faith would very angry indeed if she turned around and found him there. He also thought that Faith might be scary if she was angry.

“What do you mean it’s too late…?”

She sounded so agitated now that Wesley decided that nothing he said to her was going to make her anything except even more cross. The doors were still swinging and he darted back through them hastily straight into Oz who had obviously run after him and who immediately crouched down to his level to see if he was okay. Wesley put a hand across Oz’s mouth as he opened it to say something, and pointed back to the table. Oz carried him over there swiftly and silently and stood him on it.

“I think something’s wrong,” Wesley said breathlessly.

“Wrong how?” Willow asked.

“Wrong why?” Xander enquired.

“Faith sounded upset that I was here. She said she tried to get me out. She said that something shouldn’t happen and then she was cross because it couldn’t be stopped.” He looked up at Oz. “Doesn’t that sound as if…?”

“We should go.” Oz picked up Wesley’s jacket and held it up for him and Wesley wriggled into it quickly.

“Out through the stacks?” Xander suggested.

“Isn’t Faith a Slayer?” Cordelia enquired. “Isn’t she – you know – all on the side of good and right and so on…?”

“She killed a guy,” Xander said flatly. “And she – well, if hadn’t been for Angel she may have killed another one. Maybe it’s nothing and maybe it’s a whole lot of dangerous something, but as we’re responsible for Wesley now, I suggest we high-tail it to Giles’s place and worry about the reasons later.”

Oz picked up Wesley’s shoulder bag and put Cuthbert and his shoulder bag into it then looped the bag over Wesley’s neck. Oz gave him a reassuring smile. “Okay?”

Wesley nodded. “Okay.”

That was when the doors burst open and he saw his first real life vampire. In fact he saw his first five.

“Take him!” Oz pushed Wesley into Willow’s arms and snatched up a sword. Xander was fumbling with a crossbow. Cordelia grabbed Willow and shoved her and Wesley under the table; she stroked Wesley’s hair and gave him a big safe reassuring smile even though her eyes were as scared as he felt when Daddy was cross with him, then Wesley heard the click click click of her heels as she ran away from them and he knew she was drawing the vampires away, even though it was dangerous and she was a girl, just because he was a child. He heard the clash of a sword, and snarling sounds that made his blood turn as cold as the ice cream he’d had earlier, but he couldn’t see anything because Willow had pulled him in against her chest and wrapped her jacket around him. He could hear her heartbeat and the way she was snatching little panicky breaths, but she kept whispering: “It’s okay, Wesley. It’s okay” all the time she was holding him.

Wesley knew it wasn’t okay. He heard crossbow bolts clattering and a scream from Cordelia that was cut off by what sounded like a slap, and something with an unearthly voice snarl: “Where’s the witch…?”

He heard Xander start to say something that Wesley just knew was rude and then the slap of something hitting him and Willow gave a little gasp of horror and then there were more horrible sounds of people being hurt and she said: “Oz…!” and started crying. And then the vampires were coming for them, Wesley wriggled around so he could look out and he saw their dirty boots getting closer and closer and Willow whispered urgently: “Stay here, Wesley, stay right here. I’ll be back soon…” But then she was scrambling out, and he heard her knock over a chair and he knew she had done it on purpose because she wasn’t coming back at all, she was leading them away from him so they wouldn’t hurt him. And he was crying silent tears of terror, thinking that he should have been big and a Watcher and then he could help them.

He heard Willow cry out and a horrible voice jeer: “Got you…” And then there was a crashing sound and a snarl that was much deeper and louder and angrier than all the others, it sounded like a lion before it tore out something’s throat, and then a voice that came from deep in someone’s chest and sounded as if it had to pass through far too many teeth said:

“Let her go!”

And then it was all chaos out there; things crashing and people grunting and snarling and horrible sounds like bone hitting the edge of a table and then a snap and a howl of pain and then the sound of bone crunching and then a sound like a very light rain falling.

As the snarling and crashing went on, Wesley peered out and saw Cordelia lying on the floor; she seemed to be unconscious but he could see her chest rising and falling, which meant she wasn’t dead. He wanted to run to her and wake her up and see if she was okay, but Willow had told him to stay where he was. He tried to see Xander but all he could see was a hand with some blood on it. He thought it was Xander’s hand and he hoped it was attached to an arm which was attached to the rest of his body and that his body was still alive but he couldn’t see anything except his fingers and they weren’t moving. He craned his neck and thought that if he saw Willow he was going to run to her whatever happened, but he couldn’t see her or Oz and he didn’t know what to do.

Something heavy abruptly hurled through the air and he saw a vampire land on the floor and then spring up and then there were somebody’s feet and then there was dust. And then there was a sudden silence in which he could hear a faint groaning sound and then he saw the feet begin to come towards him. He could see black boots and black trousers and he saw the edge of what looked like a long black coat. He fumbled in his bag – the one the grown up Wesley had packed – and took out a bottle of Holy Water and then remembered that Cordelia had given Cuthbert her compact. He dug it out from Cuthbert’s bag with shaking fingers and then held it up so it would reflect those black-booted feet. There was just floor. He looked again, twisting the mirror so he couldn’t make a mistake, but there were the feet getting closer and closer and there was the mirror not reflecting them.

Shaking all over, he unscrewed the top of the holy water and waited for the vampire to come close enough. He knew that he would only have once chance to burn it and then run away very quickly. Snatching a breath he saw the boots take a last step and then there were knees bending, legs coming into view as the vampire crouched down and then a hand –

Wesley splashed the holy water onto the outstretched hand – there was a surprised yell from the vampire and the smell of burning skin – and then dived between the black-clad legs, blinded momentarily by a flapping coat, and then was running for the door.

There was a snarl of fury from behind him and he couldn’t help looking back to see that the black-coated figure was even taller than he had feared, big and broad shouldered with dark hair that rose straight up like the fur of an angry cat, his eyes were yellow and his face was an ugly mask of pure rage. Wesley cried out in fear and turned to run for the door – only to cannon straight into the legs of someone else.

“A snack…!” A hand grabbed for him, and he darted a fearful glance up at another vampire with stringy fair hair.

Then the dark-haired vampire grabbed Wesley around the waist, snatched him out of the reach of the second vampire and stood him on the table. He said firmly: “Stay!” and then launched himself at the fair-haired vampire. Wesley could see the burn mark on the back of his hand where he’d splashed him with the holy water. Then he was onto the other vampire and they were snarling like animals as they rolled around on the floor. Wesley decided that this was one time when his father would not expect him to do as he was told and he looked around desperately for Willow, Oz, and Xander. Willow was crumpled against the book shelves, looking sickly white. He scrambled down from the table and ran across to her, throwing himself at her and grabbing her hand.

“Willow! Willow! We have to go…!” He tugged at her frantically. “Willow…!”

She groaned and said blearily, “Just five more minutes…”

“No! We have to go now! There are vampires…!”

And then there was a horrible bone-cracking sound and he turned to see that the dark-haired vampire had snapped the other one’s neck and then jammed a stake into his heart. The vampire turned to dust right in front of him.

Wesley tugged at Willow’s hand, crying with fear. “Willow! Willow, please wake up…! Please wake up…”

But the vampire was coming straight at him. It was so tall and broad-shouldered, and with its coat flapping behind it the resemblance to a huge bat was overwhelming. It looked exactly the way Dracula looked in his nightmares. It jumped up onto the table and as it did so its face changed so its eyes became brown and its face was normal and that was somehow even more scary, that something so terrifying could look so handsome and kind and as if it would never hurt Wesley in a month of Sundays. It jumped down from the table again, moving with such grace and quiet strength that it reminded Wesley of the black panthers in the nature films; but now it was coming right at them.

“Willow…!” Wesley wailed and then when she just slumped back against the stacks, he snatched another bottle of holy water out of his bag and brandished it at the vampire. “Get away from her!” he shouted. “I won’t let you hurt her!”

The vampire stopped, clearly debating for a moment, and then crouched down so that he was on a level with Wesley’s eye-line but about five feet away. He had looked so tall and scary a moment before, but now he looked young and handsome and as if he were really very good-natured. Wesley began to tremble because Oz wasn’t moving and Xander wasn’t waking up, and there was no one to help him and he didn’t know how to keep Willow safe.

The vampire said gently: “I’m not going to hurt Willow. I came here to help her and the others when I heard what the Mayor was planning.”

Wesley kept holding up his bottle of holy water. “You’re a vampire and I’m not listening to anything you say!”

“Okay.” The vampire backed up. “You take care of Willow and I’ll see how the others are doing.”

Wesley didn’t know what to do as the tall vampire strode over to where Cordelia was lying. He felt he should run after him and stake him before he touched her, but he didn’t see how he could stake him unless he obligingly got down onto floor level for him to be able to reach and then didn’t move while Wesley tried repeatedly to jam a piece of wood into him. The vampire examined her gently and then went into Giles’ office as if he knew where everything was kept and came out with a cloth and a bowl of water. He dabbed the cloth in the water and gently wiped Cordelia’s face until she started and began to come around. Then he went to Xander and slapped his face lightly a few times and said his name, and then grimaced at the sight of the cut on Oz’s head, and quickly wiped off the blood, then picked Oz up and carried him into Giles’s office.

He’s going to kill Oz, Wesley thought desperately, and he knew that even if Oz was a werewolf, he couldn’t bear it if that happened. He started to run towards him, but then the vampire came out of the office and he had to scamper back to guard Willow.

The vampire came up and held up the wet cloth and said, “Catch.”

Wesley dropped the bottle of holy water as he snatched at the cloth and stared at it in dismay as it ran all over the step.

The vampire said urgently: “Careful. Don’t move.” He wrapped a towel around his hand and pushed the pieces of broken glass to one side so there was nothing between him and Wesley and Willow. The towel fizzled as it touched the broken pieces of glass.

Wesley tugged at Willow’s arm desperately. He whimpered her name and she opened her eyes and said: “Wesley…?” And immediately put her arms around him and held him close. Then she looked at the vampire and Wesley tried to tell her that it was a vampire and not to be trusted but she squinted at it and then said, “Hi, Angel, where’s Buffy…?” And then she sat bolt upright, clutched Wesley to her the way he clutched Cuthbert when he was locked under the stairs, and sprang to her feet, saying, “Oz!”

“He’s okay.” The vampire caught her by the shoulders. “Willow, he’s okay. He’s just knocked out. They’re all okay. But you’re going to pass out if you don’t take it easy.”

And then to Wesley’s horror, the vampire was scooping Willow up into his arms and he was being carried by someone who was being carried by a vampire, straight into Giles’s office where Willow was put into a chair and he found himself still clutched in her arms with a vampire gazing down at them curiously and saying: “Who’s the kid and why does he smell like Wesley…?”

“He is Wesley.” Willow sat up straighter and put a hand to her head. “There was a spell. I think Ethan was trying to get Giles to um…be like he used to be again or something. We’re not exactly sure what happened but Wesley woke up the next morning the way he is now.”

Wesley tugged at her sleeve desperately and she looked down at him and smiled in relief. “Oh sweetie, thank goodness, you’re okay.”

Wesley hissed: “He’s a vampire.”

“Oh.” Willow collected herself. “Yes, he is but he’s good. I mean he a soul. His name is Angel.” She looked up at the vampire she had called ‘Angel’. “Wesley doesn’t remember anything except up to the age he is now.”

Angel put his head on one side. “Which would be… Six…?”

“I’m eight,” Wesley said reproachfully. “And there aren’t any good vampires.” He gazed up at Willow, very worried that she had been mesmerised by the vampire as he had read happened sometimes. “Buffy wouldn’t want us talking to vampires, Willow.”

“Are the others…?” Willow winced as she looked around.

“Just knocked out,” Angel assured her.

“Who died in my head…?” Cordelia demanded plaintively.

Angel hurried over to her and Wesley watched in horror as the vampire bent over her and she gave him a dazzling smile and then took his hand as if it was an every day thing to talk to vampires. As the one called Angel was helping her to her feet, Wesley heard her say: “Are the others okay…?”

And then there was another groan and Angel went to help Xander who was crawling onto his hands and knees and saying: “Kill me… kill me now…” Then he looked up at Angel and said: “Always got to make the grand entrance, haven’t you? Couldn’t get here five minutes earlier than needed and just get rid of the bad guys painlessly, oh no, it has to be the seventh vampire cavalry every damned time.”

Angel said: “You’re welcome. And – before you ask – Willow, Oz and Cordelia are fine.”

Xander spun around anxiously. “There was a little boy here…?”

“He’s fine. And sneaky.” Angel held out his hand so Xander could see the burn mark. “Does he have any shoes? There’s broken glass on the stacks and he’s in his socks.”

Xander clutched at Angel’s wrist to examine his hand and then shook his head. “God, I love that kid.”

Angel rolled his eyes but hauled Xander to his feet. “Where’s Buffy?”

“She and Giles are looking for Ethan.”

“Was it Willy who told you where he was?”

Xander nodded. “After I beat him up with fifty dollar bills he was very cooperative.”

“It was a set up. The mayor wanted Giles and Buffy out of the way so he could kill Willow. He knows she’s the one who’s been accessing his records.”

“Faith.” Xander hung onto Angel as he stood up a little shakily. “Wesley overheard her on the phone. She was trying to call it off.”

Angel blinked. “Attack of conscience?”

Xander nodded his head at the office. “I think even she baulked at having a little kid served up as a vampire appetizer.”

“Does she know who he is?”

“No. We told her he was Giles’ nephew.”

“Probably just as well.” Angel picked up Wesley’s shoes and carried them into the office.

Oz was just beginning to wake up. Willow put Wesley into the chair and slipped over to hold Oz’s hand. Wesley watched their fingers intertwine as Oz smiled at her blearily. As Angel came in carrying Wesley’s shoes, Angel nodded at Oz and said “Oz” and Oz nodded back and said “Angel”. Wesley waited for them to talk about the fact that Angel had saved Oz’s life and Oz had been very brave but that seemed to be all they were going to say and, bizarrely, it seemed to have covered everything.

Then Angel was crouching down in front of Wesley and looking up at him as if there was something amusing about him but he was trying not to show it. “Are you going to splash me with some more holy water if I put your shoes on?”

Wesley looked around at the way everyone was just talking to Angel as if he were the same as they were and then shook his head.

“Good.” Angel slipped one shoe on carefully and laced it up. “How did you know I was a vampire? The way you were positioned I wouldn’t have thought you could see anything except my feet.”

Wesley held out his hand with Cordelia’s compact in it. Angel nodded his head. “That was quick thinking. I can tell you’ve had Watcher training.”

Angel slipped the other shoe on and laced that one up. “So, am I the first vampire you’ve seen close up?”

Wesley nodded.

“What do you think?”

Wesley thought he was terrifying but doubted that was the sensible thing to say. Feeling suddenly very small and very unequal to the situation, he said: “I want Buffy.”

As if in answer to an incantation, there was the sound of the doors being flung open, and then running feet, before Buffy flung herself into the office, snatched Wesley up out of the chair and hugged him so tightly he could hardly breathe. “You’re safe, you’re safe…”

“There were vampires…” he whimpered.

“Angel saved us,” Willow said.

Buffy put her arm around Angel’s neck and suddenly Wesley was being smooshed right up against the black fabric of the vampire’s coat as Buffy hugged him while still holding Wesley. She sounded as if she was crying as she said: “Thank you.”

“Wesley got me.” Angel held out his hand and Buffy and Giles examined the burn mark.

Thinking of how much Buffy seemed to like Angel, Wesley was afraid he might be in trouble and looked up at her fearfully.

“You are so clever.” She hugged him again.

Giles also looked at the burn. “Yes, very well done, Wesley.”

“You know, I could throw holy water at Angel all the time, but would I get praise for it…?” Xander queried.

“You could be a little more grateful to the guy who enabled your pointless existence to continue to…exist,” Cordelia observed.

“Is everyone okay?” Giles looked around them anxiously. Oz and Willow were hugging, Oz looking pale and a little greenish but able to give a thumb’s up.

“Wesley defended Willow from me.” Angel was looking at Wesley with a disconcertingly kind expression. “He stood in front of her with a bottle of holy water and told me not to come any closer. Pretty brave for someone who’d just seen his first vampire.”

Wesley became aware of everyone looking at him, and blushed, burying his face in Buffy’s neck.

Giles said: “I really think, Buffy, that Wesley should come home with me tonight…”

Buffy said flatly: “If you think I’m letting him out of my sight even for a second after what happened tonight...”

“And if you take him home with you how are you proposing to explain him to your mother?”

Buffy looked at Giles narrowly and then said to Willow: “Will, I think my mother needs to think I’m staying with you, and, Giles, I think you need to make up your spare bedroom because I am taking care of Wesley tonight and anyone who tries to stop me dies a horrible painful death.”

“Willow was the target, Buffy,” Xander pointed out. “The Mayor was trying to kill her because she’s too scarily clever to allow to live.”

Buffy nodded. “Right, so Willow, Wesley, and I are staying at Giles’ tonight.”

“I want Oz to be there too…” Willow said plaintively.

“And no way am I going home alone,” Xander insisted.

Giles sighed. “Fine, everyone get your pyjamas and toothbrushes and take over my home as per usual.”

Cordelia looked a little wistful and Wesley said, “Cordelia drew the vampires away to try to save Willow and me.”

Everyone looked at Cordelia who muttered: “It was a moment of weakness. It won’t happen again.”

Giles looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced. “You don’t look too well. Is there someone at your house who can keep an eye on you tonight?”

Cordelia shook her head and Giles was abruptly brisk and fatherly. “Then I insist you come and stay with the others. You may be concussed.”

Angel said: “Do you want me to try to talk to Faith?”

Giles met his gaze and sighed. “I think it’s too late for that, Angel. I really think that for the greater good we now have to treat Faith as the enemy within…”

There was more conversation happening over his head, but now he was in Buffy’s arms again Wesley felt as if he could perhaps just let it all slip away and go to a nice quiet place in his mind where there were no good werewolves and good vampires or bad vampires or people he cared about being hurt; there were just plastic Playmobil castles and books to be read for fun and glass after glass of chocolate milk…

The last thing he heard as he drifted off to sleep was Buffy whispering: “Nothing bad is going to happen to you, I promise…”

***

Giles wondered if there was some kind of mathematical formula already proven that dictated that however much room one had one would automatically have more teenagers invite themselves to stay with you than it could comfortably accommodate. He just knew this evening was going to be chaos – which was fitting, perhaps – given that this entire situation had been engineered by someone who had sold his soul to chaos.

Oz and Willow had taken his van to go and collect night attire before heading back to Giles’ house, and Xander and Cordelia had said they were going to tidy up in the library and then follow in Cordelia’s car, stopping off for ‘jammies’ on the way, which left him with Buffy, Angel, and Wesley to transport. Buffy automatically handed Wesley to Angel as she got into the car and the little boy woke up from his nap and gazed up at the vampire in shock.

Angel said gently: “I’m really not a bad vampire, Wesley.”

Wesley still looked petrified but said: “I’m sorry I burnt your hand, Mr Angel.”

“It’s just ‘Angel’,” Buffy pointed out.

“Actually it was very quick thinking to burn my hand,” Angel told him. “It gave you enough time to get away. If you hadn’t stayed to protect Willow you could have escaped.”

“I couldn’t leave Willow!” Wesley looked shocked at the idea.

Angel got into the car, still carrying Wesley, who looked longingly at Buffy in the front seat. As Giles and Buffy both looked at him, Angel said, “It’s safer for him in the back.”

Buffy looked unconvinced. “But…”

“It’s safer,” Angel insisted, doing up his seatbelt pointedly.

“Be careful with him,” Buffy said.

“I will be.”

Wesley continued to gaze up at Angel out of huge eyes as Giles drove them home.

“Don’t you have any questions you want to ask me?” Angel prompted.

Wesley gazed up at him fearfully. “What sort of questions?”

“Helping you kill vampires when you’re grown up questions?”

Wesley bit his lip, clearly casting around for something to ask. “Um – do you like being a vampire?”

“Not really, I’d rather be human. I miss the sunlight and I am sorry for the things I did before I had my soul. But it does mean I have a lot of strength to fight other vampires, which is useful.”

“What was it like being turned into a vampire…?”

“At the time, it wasn’t so bad. But, waking up is odd, you feel very disorientated, and, of course, you’re in a coffin under six feet of soil.”

Wesley shuddered. “That must be horrible.”

“It’s horrible until you realize you don’t have to breathe so being under the soil doesn’t matter – and you’re strong enough to dig your way out.”

“Do you have other vampire friends?”

“Not any more. Not since I had my soul restored.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“I did until I met Buffy.”

Giles listened to the question and answer as he drove, thinking that Angel had been surprisingly canny at getting Wesley to talk to him. Wesley was so used to being the one having to answer the difficult questions that it was probably a nice change for him to get to be the one asking them.

“How old are you?”

“I’m two hundred and forty-two.”

Fibber, Giles thought. You’re two hundred and forty five if you’re a day. And that’s not counting your human years.

“That’s not that old really, for a vampire. I thought that vampires were older than that. Have you seen anything really interesting? Like Nelson dying or Wellington? Did you ever meet Queen Victoria…?

Giles and Buffy exchanged a look as Wesley suddenly realized the possibilities of asking someone who had been around for two and a half centuries all the questions he had ever been set in his History lessons and the questions began to pour out of him. Angel worked hard at not smirking and tried to answer each one sensibly.

“…and did you fight in any of the wars? I wish Sherlock Holmes was real because then you might have met him and you could tell me what he was like…”

Angel looked smug at having succeeding in unlocking the floodgates to get Wesley to talk to him.

“Have you always lived in America?”

“No, I was born in Ireland and I travelled through Europe a lot until I came to America.”

“Do you know Hampshire? That’s where I live.”

Giles saw Angel bite his lip because Wesley looked so eager at the prospect of Angel having visited his home county and yet when Angel had last been that way he had been eating pretty much everyone he encountered. Angel nodded however, “Yes, but I haven’t been there for more than a hundred years. I remember it was very pretty.”

“Did you eat a lot of people before you were a good vampire?”

“Yes, hundreds.”

Wesley looked at him sideways. “Were any of them little boys?”

“Some of them, yes.”

“But you don’t still eat little boys?”

“Not any more, no.”

By the time they had reached his house, Wesley seemed a lot more at ease with the vampire and only looked a little bit wistful when it was Angel who carried him out of the car. Buffy was clearly itching to snatch him back, but Angel had the little boy held very comfortably and safely and she was forced to let the vampire keep him a little longer.

They were barely through the front door before Cordelia and Xander arrived – arguing, of course – but with a boot full of Playmobil people.

Wesley’s face lit up when he saw Cordelia carrying in his castle. “You saved them!”

“Of course.” She beamed at him; the real thousand watt smile that she certainly hadn’t squandered on any of the rest of them in a long time. “As soon as we wiped a bit of vampire dust off them they were fine. Well, mostly. I think one of the towers got crushed, but the rest of it looks okay.”

“Let me take him now…” Buffy held her hands out to Angel.

He hung onto the little boy, grinning at her. “Make me.”

“Don’t think I won’t…” she warned him, narrowing her eyes.

“Ooh, scary face.” Angel held Wesley up. “Do you really want to go to the Scary Slayer, Wesley?”

Wesley held out his arms to Buffy. “Yes!”

She snatched him from Angel at once and he wrapped his legs around her and burrowed in against her neck with a contented little sigh. She tilted her head so he could fit in against her perfectly, rocking him automatically.

Cordelia shook her head. “You are so laying up trouble for yourself.”

“Am not,” Buffy retorted. She frowned. “How am I?”

“You know how.” Cordelia straightened Wesley’s collar for him. “You can play with these toys tomorrow, okay? Tonight you need to go to bed and get some sleep.”

“Yes, Cordelia,” he said drowsily, his thumb slipping into his mouth before he noticed.

Cordelia sighed. “You are so adorable.”

Xander put an armful of Playmobil parts onto Giles’s dining room table. “So glad you’re not laying up trouble for yourself, Queen C.”

Wearily, Giles set about allocating people somewhere to sleep. It was difficult not to be distracted by Angel, of all people, entirely forgetting to be preternaturally cool as he tickled Wesley’s tummy – Wesley giggled helplessly at that –, by Buffy cooing over Wesley, Cordelia looking at him all misty-eyed, and Xander handing him his teddy bear.

“Perhaps if you got him into his pyjamas and encouraged him to brush his teeth, Buffy…?” Giles suggested.

“He’s too tired to brush his teeth…” Buffy began but as she carried him into the bathroom, Wesley’s sleepy eyes opened and he automatically reached for his toothbrush with the hand with which he was not holding onto Cuthbert’s paw. Giles watched from the doorway as Wesley stumbled through cleaning his teeth – neatly rinsing and spitting when Buffy offered him the beaker – peeing groggily but accurately into the porcelain, dutifully washing his hands very thoroughly, before he was swept up by Buffy to be carried off to Giles’ bedroom, Giles having realized that the only way to accommodate so many people was for him to give up his room to Buffy, Willow, and Wesley, let Cordy have the spare room, grab the couch for himself and allocate the floor to Xander, Oz and Angel. That also sidestepped the problem of any – hanky-panky going on for which he would feel morally responsible and for which Buffy, Willow and Cordelia’s mother might blame him.

Oz and Willow arrived in time for Willow to squeal helplessly at the sight of Wesley in his pyjamas, earning a sleepy ‘Willow…!’ and arms held out to her. He was then thoroughly kissed and cuddled by Willow while Oz looked on, smiling, and then carried around by Buffy for goodnight hugs from everyone else.

Knowing how much it would irk the miserable old bugger, Giles did take a rather bitter satisfaction in the fact that the son of Roger Wyndam-Pryce had just received goodnight cuddles from a werewolf and a vampire. Cordelia rebuttoned Wesley’s pyjama jacket for him, straightened out the creases, and then promptly put the creases back in again by swooping him into a hug. Giles couldn’t help noticing that everyone seemed rather reluctant to hand him back after their ‘goodnight’ and that Buffy hovered anxiously the whole time as if only she could hold a little boy without dropping him.

Giles didn’t even attempt getting the now very sleepy little boy out of Buffy’s arms, but just bade him ‘Goodnight’ and reminded Buffy not to trip over anyone if she had to take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Then there was the whole crush of people all trying to use the bathroom before they went to sleep, while Xander complained about how long Cordelia took, and Giles quietly handed Oz some aspirin to deal with his obviously thumping head.

He had thought that he would never be able to sleep on the uncomfortable couch, especially with Xander snoring on the floor a few feet away, and Angel staying in his house – because, however much he tried to overcome it, it was difficult to be in this place with the vampire and not think about what Angelus had left for him in the bedroom – but the strain of the day had the benefit of leaving him too exhausted to even notice the way the couch springs were digging into his hip, before he was fast asleep and dreaming, oddly enough, about pilchards.

He was woken in the night by Buffy hissing at Angel. Blinking blearily, Giles reached for his glasses and put them on to see Buffy in striped pyjamas, standing over a sleeping Xander and whispering urgently to a now no-longer-sleeping Angel: “…so can you tell if someone has a fever just by smelling them…?”

“I doubt he has a fever, Buffy,” Angel sighed.

“Well, he seems really hot to me, and Willow thinks so too.”

Sighing as wearily as Angel, Giles reached for his dressing gown. “Would you like me to…?”

“Oh yes, please…” As Giles got up, Buffy blinked at him. “You have the same PJs as Wesley – big Wesley, I mean – are they like – Council issue?”

Giles refused to dignify that with an answer, just reaching for his dressing gown and then stepping over Xander, who grunted and turned over in his sleeping bag, before following Buffy up the stairs to his bedroom.

He found Willow there, also in her pyjamas, anxiously feeling Wesley’s forehead. The little boy was still fast asleep, curled up with Cuthbert under one arm and his thumb in his mouth. He looked – Giles had to admit if only in the privacy of his head – absolutely adorable. He had clearly been sleeping in between Willow and Buffy. Giles and Angel exchanged a glance of amusement.

“Have you been er…cuddling him…?” Giles enquired.

“Both of you…?” Angel added.

“Well, yes…” Buffy looked nonplussed. “We thought he might have nightmares.”

“We wanted him to feel safe,” Willow explained.

Giles put a hand on the little boy’s forehead and then smirked at Angel. “Given the fact he’s been sandwiched between two over protective warm bodies under a duvet while wearing brushed cotton pyjamas, I’d say he was pretty much the temperature one would expect.”

“You’re going to smother him, Buffy,” Angel added kindly. “He isn’t me – he needs to breathe.” He also felt Wesley’s forehead and then nodded at Giles. “That’s definitely ambient heat, not fever.”

Willow looked dismayed: “Are you saying we can’t…snuggle him…?”

“I think some moderate cuddling is probably acceptable but try not to suffocate him with kindness.”

Buffy looked pouty but climbed back under the covers, Wesley immediately sliding contentedly into the dip between the two girls. She automatically went to cuddle him against her chest and then pouted again. “Okay, no smothering.” But she and Willow were both instinctively curling themselves around the child and he seemed perfectly contented that they should do so. Giles and Angel exchanged another smirk.

Giles said, “Do try not to have another irrational panic before morning if you can manage it, Buffy. I would really like to get a few hours sleep tonight.”

Angel said, “I’d better head off before daylight.”

Buffy looked up. “No, because there could be another attack from the Mayor. And, anyway, you haven’t got to play with any of the toys yet.”

“We could keep the curtains across tomorrow,” Giles shrugged.

“Okay.” Angel flashed Buffy an unexpectedly dorky grin.

Giles said a firm: “Goodnight, Buffy, Willow…” and left them to their Wesley-cuddling, glancing sideways at Angel as he closed the door behind them. “Vampires play with toys…?”

Angel looked sheepish. “Sometimes.”

Giles looked at Angel’s ubercool black clothes, perfectly gelled hair, and stylish swish of long black coat. “You want to build Playmobil castles and besiege fairy bowers?”

“Xander said there was a Viking ship,” Angel muttered defensively. “I was thinking it could attack the castle from the sea. Sea isn’t difficult to make.”

Giles narrowed his eyes. “I have to live here. I draw the line at papier-maché landscaping.”

“We only need a few feet of coastline. Maybe some baking foil? Or that shiny Christmas wrapping… You didn’t think of getting the Pirate ship as well…? That way we could have a sea battle.”

Giles remembered that the Pirate ship had looked rather splendid as well. Trying not to concede anything, he shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t break the bank to get a few more odds and ends.”

“That siege tower did get broken…”

As Giles stepped carefully over Oz and Xander to get back under his sleeping bag on the sofa, he wondered why he was not more surprised that Angel, a two hundred and forty-five year old vampire, wanted to spend the day hanging around with a bunch of teenagers playing with an eight year old boy. As he drifted off to sleep, it occurred to Giles that perhaps his lack of surprise came from that fact that he, a forty-two year old Watcher, wanted to do exactly the same thing.

***

Giles left a message for Faith in the morning, explaining what had happened at the library, suggesting she kept her head down for a few days in case she was targeted and telling her that everyone else would be doing the same thing. There seemed no point in letting her know that they knew she was now working with the Mayor, after all. He had then discussed with Angel the possibility that Willy the Snitch did know where Ethan was and that perhaps a visit should be paid to him as soon as possible. Angel had suggested that he and Buffy handled that as the guy would be less inclined to bullshit the two of them, Giles had countered that he knew Ethan best and in the end it had been decided that they would leave it to the evening but Giles and Buffy would go. This meant that, even with amulet research to do, Giles had almost the equivalent of a day off. Which was just as well, because from the moment Buffy came down with a pyjama-wearing Wesley, any plans he had for the day were immediately overruled.

It wasn’t that Wesley was in any way a demanding child. Quite the opposite. If it had just been him and Giles – and Giles thought longingly of when he had been allowed to have the boy to himself – it would have been peace and quiet and some companionable reading, but, with Buffy in charge, Wesley immediately became a full time job. The first thing on Buffy’s list of demands was Xander being asked to go and buy him a better breakfast.

“He can’t eat cornflakes!” she said in horror.

Wesley timidly tugged at her sleeve. “I like cornflakes, Buffy.”

“You do?” She looked at him in confusion.

Xander already had his coat on – over his pyjamas, Giles noted – and was stumbling blearily for the door, but now paused. “You like cornflakes?”

“Yes.” Wesley looked at them in confusion. “I do. Can I have some for my breakfast, please?”

Buffy snapped her fingers imperiously at Xander. “We need milk.”

“I have milk,” Giles protested, getting out a bowl, a spoon, the sugar, and the milk to go with the disdained packet of cornflakes.

“We’ll need more,” Buffy insisted.

Shrugging, Xander stumbled on out to Cordy’s car, pulling his jeans over his pyjamas as he did so. Cordelia had to go after him in her pyjamas to give him the car keys and a shopping list.

Giles sighed, made a pot of tea, and began to make toast in enough quantities to feed a small squadron. Xander then came back with pancakes, as well as what seemed to be several gallons of milk, and yet the toast still went, as well as the best part of a jar of marmalade. After breakfast – which took an hour longer than he was sure it would have taken if it had just been him and Wesley – there was then the protracted process of giving Wesley a morning bath to make up for the fact he hadn’t had an evening bath before bedtime on account of being busy fighting vampires at bath-time. This also took a long time, as Buffy, Willow and Cordelia all insisted on cramming into the bathroom to bathe him. Giles did try pointing out that Wesley was at the age when he would probably prefer to be bathed by males – Xander, Oz and – bizarrely – Angel all looked up hopefully and he just knew they were planning to spend an hour in there, playing boats with the boy rather than just getting him clean – but Buffy snorted at that idea and told Giles that, of course, Wesley would rather be bathed by them.

Wesley was much too smitten with Willow, Buffy and Cordelia by this point to think of arguing with her, so just gave Giles a ‘help me’ look before being swept off to the bathroom to be cooed over, and half-smothered, while Cordelia argued with Buffy about the right way to wash his hair, and everyone got upset about his bruises. This was, of course, Cordelia and Willow’s first chance to see them and Giles could hear the terse questioning from Cordelia, and Wesley explaining innocently that he just woke up with them, while Buffy said nothing at all.

Wesley then was wrapped in the fluffiest towel that Giles possessed, and carried out to be sat in front of the fire Buffy had insisted Giles lit in the hearth – despite it being July in California and him having very adequate underfloor heating – in case Wesley caught a chill. Wesley then had to have his bruises examined by everyone while Buffy looked more and more guilty and everyone pointedly didn’t mention how it was all her fault although Cordelia looked absolute daggers at her, then smiled sweetly at Willow, asked her to look after Wesley for a moment, then grabbed Buffy’s wrist and dragged her outside. Giles looked through the window to see Cordelia gesticulating furiously while Buffy just hung her head and looked wretched.

Giles dared to open the window a crack and then flinched from Cordelia shouting: “You had no right to do that to Wesley when he was an adult, Buffy! You know how much stronger you are than him. If when he’s big again you ever even think about hurting him, I will stake you myself, Slayer or no Slayer!”

Once again, it occurred to Giles that Cordelia was the only person there who liked the adult Wesley as much as they liked the child. It was more than a little galling to realize that in this instance the person who seemed to have shown the most insight into their newest arrival was the least insightful amongst them.

When Giles looked back through the window, Buffy was crying and Cordelia was looking shocked. She hastily scrambled for a handkerchief from her purse and held it out while Buffy sobbed guiltily and Cordelia looked around for reinforcements. She tentatively patted Buffy on the shoulder and essayed an awkward: “There, there. I didn’t mean it. Well, I did, but I didn’t think you were going to start going all…cry-Buffy on me. Sheesh, what happened to the girl who always yells back?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him…” Buffy said brokenly.

Cordelia sighed, suddenly looking a lot more human. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry I yelled – okay? And he’ll be wondering where you are so you should go back inside and get him some clothes – not that those clothes you and Giles picked out for him are anything other than frightening but I suppose they’ll do and we don’t want him catching a chill.”

At the magical word ‘chill’, Buffy hastily wiped her eyes. “You’re right. He could catch cold.”

“Yes, he could…” Cordelia said in her most encouraging ‘talking to the half-witted’ voice. “So, you’d better stop crying and go and take care of him, hadn’t you?”

As Buffy scampered back into the house, Giles watched Cordelia roll her eyes and mutter: “Yes, because pneumonia is such a risk in a heated house in high summer…”

Buffy then had to console herself for her guilt by cuddling the towel-wrapped Wesley, who clearly had no idea why he was back on her lap and being cuddled again, or why she was sniffing, and stroking his hair, but was just so glad of the attention he certainly wasn’t going to ask any awkward questions that might in any way stop the cuddling.

Xander watched Buffy and Willow cooing over Wesley for a while and then looked at Giles. “Doesn’t he ever say ‘enough already’?”

“Not as yet. So far he seems to rather like it.”

Xander shook his head. “That is one scarily affection-starved kid.”

Giles supposed that if Wesley being a child went on long enough, at some point, Wesley might disentangle himself from Buffy’s smothering embrace and start to act a little more like an eight-year-old boy, but that was clearly not something that was going to happen any time soon.

Cordelia managed to use the magical word ‘chill’ to coax Buffy and Willow to stop cuddling him for long enough to get him out of the now damp towel and into his clothes, and as right in front of the fire was deemed the only place warm enough for him to be dressed, everyone in the room got to see how painfully thin he was. Oz winced and Angel grimaced at the sight of not only the bruises but his visible ribs and bony little shoulder blades.

Giles said, “I really do think he’s naturally skinny rather than…deliberately starved.”

Xander said grimly, “If you say so.”

Then Wesley was obediently putting up his arms so his t-shirt could go on. The closest he came to rebellion was saying shyly: “I know how to dress myself, Buffy.”

“Yes, but you have pulled muscles from fighting vampires and from…before…” Willow said hastily. “So, we should dress you this time.”

Giles was quite certain that even allowing for small boy coordination Wesley could have dressed himself a lot faster than Buffy and Willow, who managed to get every item of clothing inside out or upside down in their distraction at the boniness of his body or the adorable cuteness of his sticky up hair.

“It’s going to be lunchtime before he’s dressed at this rate…” Giles murmured.

Oz put his head on one side. “Well, at least Buffy and Willow are having fun.”

“Yes, they have their own walkin’, talkin’, livin’ mini-Watcher doll.” Xander strode over to where Buffy was trying to get Wesley’s clothing to fit with safety pins. “Buff – enough with the dressing already, Wesley has other things to do today.”

Wesley immediately scrambled down and stood up straight in front of Xander, saying, “I have my lesson books. Mr Giles gave me a notebook yesterday and I have a pen in my bag.” He quickly grabbed his bag and held out the pen as if this would ward off a scolding.

Xander crouched down in front of him. “You don’t need a pen for these lessons. You just have to be prepared to have some serious fun.” Then he scooped Wesley up, tickled him until he curled up like a puppy and giggled helplessly, and deposited him on one of the chairs by the dining room table. “Today, we’re going to study the way pathetic magical fairytale castles put together by Girlies can’t withstand a sustained assault from neighbouring baronial castles put together by Men.”

“I wanted a sea battle.” Angel had already installed himself in the chair opposite Wesley and was starting to clip together pieces of plastic. “But I suppose that can wait.”

Cordelia frowned and looked at Buffy. “I thought Angel was cool?”

Buffy also looked at him in some confusion. “I suppose he’s taking the day off from being cool.”

Oz grabbed another chair eagerly and began to reassemble the parts of the castle knocked over by the vampire assault.

As Buffy and Cordelia both looked to Willow for an explanation, she shrugged. “I suppose Oz is taking the day off from being cool too.”

“They’re scaring me a little,” Cordelia observed, then seemed to realize what Xander had said. “What was that about ‘castles put together by Girlies’? You are so going to get your asses kicked!”

“You can’t attack the Fairytale Castle!” Willow protested. “It’s a place of harmony and being at one with nature. Why can’t we just have a nice little community where everyone lives in a spirit of peace and mutual cooperation?”

Angel said, “It’s a bastion of tyranny run by hereditary…tyrants. They have to die.”

Oz looked at Angel sideways. “Isn’t this a baronial castle?”

“He’s a republican,” Angel insisted. “Does this place come with a little plastic guillotine? Or I suppose we could make one with a pulley system and a razor blade…”

Willow said desperately: “Giles – stop them!”

“I’m not really much of a monarchist either,” Giles admitted, grateful to have his armchair back and grabbing it quickly.

Buffy said, “Don’t worry, Will, we can take them. We have magical forces on our side, remember?”

“We have a wizard.” Xander held out the as-yet-unpacked wizard in his magical cave.

Cordelia sniffed. “Do you have an actual human wizard on your team? Because we have an actual witch.”

Xander turned to Giles quickly. “Don’t you think you should be banning people from using magic in a frivolous way?”

“They have a siege tower!” Willow protested. “All we have are unicorns and a fairy bower!”

Giles sipped his tea and opened a book. “I’m keeping out of it.”

Giles spent a very entertaining morning, pretending to sigh in disapproval, while actually thoroughly enjoying watching the increasingly dirty battle taking place on his dining room table. Angel proved that Angelus had not entirely departed by constructing a working guillotine with worrying dexterity, while Willow kept altering the rules of magical engagement. Wesley actually turned out to be rather good at strategy and was the one who pointed out that there needed to be a point to the game or else they would just end up razing each other’s plastic castles to the ground. It was decided after much heated discussion that the object for the baron’s side was to imprison but absolutely not behead the royal family from the Fairytale castle, who if they were captured had to be treated as prisoners under the Geneva Convention, a great disappointment for Angel who was already trying to make up a torture chamber to go with his guillotine. It was finally agreed that he could dunk the king into the well a few times on the grounds that the Baron was probably evil, being a baron, even if a republican one, and he had to reluctantly settle for that, although Giles noticed that didn’t stop him creating a little rack out of matchsticks and wire.

The object for the Fairytale side was to rescue the dragon in the dungeons of the baronial castle as it could then be assumed that if the dragon were at large it would be burning all the fields of the baronial people leaving them to starve to death.

“It’s a deterrent,” Willow insisted. “We don’t actually let the dragon do that but knowing we have it and he could do that means you have to give in. So there.”

“It says here that ‘…when the drawbridge has been sealed using the winch this magnificent castle is impervious to attack’!” Xander complained, after a particularly sustained magical assault. “You’re not sticking to the rules! We’re impervious to attack right now!”

“It also says it’s a ‘King’s castle’,” Buffy retorted. “But I don’t see ‘Angel-I-used-to-be-Irish-and-I-work-for-no-king’ sticking with that part of the rules.”

“I’m still Irish,” Angel protested. “You don’t just stop being Irish.”

“Oh please.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in America longer than any other American who isn’t you know – undead or totally ga-ga. That makes you American.”

“So how come your ‘baron’ is wearing a little crown?” Buffy demanded. “He looks kind of kingly to me…”

“He’s just mocking the trappings of hereditary tyranny,” Angel insisted, yanking off the crown and tossing it. “So there.”

As well as the battle over which side was winning the Playmobil war, there was also the ‘who gets to have Wesley on their side’ war, with the males insisting that he was on the Baronial side of the divide due to his gender, and the girls insisting he was on their side due to them saying so.

Giles did intervene then to say sternly: “You are not to put that child on the spot by making him choose. Draw straws for him or agree to share.”

Willow said, “But, Giles, if you would just come and join us then it wouldn’t be a gender war and you could be teaching Wesley…Watchery things about strategy and…”

“Besieging plastic castles?” Giles looked over his glasses at her and then at a begging look from Wesley found that he was getting up, putting down his book, sighing heavily but complying.

“Okay, so now there are three of us and five of you,” Xander points out. “That means we get Wesley.”

“It’s only fair.” Oz picked him up before Buffy could snatch him and hastily handed him over to Angel who stuck him on his shoulders out of her reach then looked smug.

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m seeing a whole new bad side of you today.”

Cordelia nodded. “He’s like Dorkus Vampirus. It’s scary.”

Angel just gazed up at Wesley. “So, how do we safeguard the dragon, Wesley?”

Wesley examined the castle and then diffidently pointed out possible areas of attack. “…And there are trapdoors in the rooms, so they could send people up through those and then sneak down to the dungeons.”

Buffy looked at Willow. “There are trapdoors? Why aren’t we using the trapdoors?”

Xander and Oz quickly positioned crossbow-wielding soldiers in front of each trapdoor. “Try it, little pixie people,” Xander invited. “See how far you get...”

Giles found that it was surprisingly enjoyable to be utterly…childish for a morning. He told himself it wasn’t that he was slacking on the research to bring Wesley back, just taking a day to recharge the mental batteries. And, of course, if they succeed in capturing Ethan, then it would be much quicker to simply – hit him repeatedly until he admitted what was necessary to turn Wesley back. It certainly wasn’t a case of him wallowing in denial while his subconscious tried to find a way to let the boy stay as he was.

He looked across at Wesley, who was giggling helplessly at something Oz had said as Angel reluctantly passed him over to Xander, who was insisting it was turn to have Wesley as his ‘military advisor’.

“Could you be any cuter?” Xander asked of no one in particular.

“Nope.” Buffy grinned at him. “It is a scientifically proven fact that it is impossible for any child to be cuter than Wesley. And you get him for ten more minutes and then we’re trading you Giles for Wesley.”

“As a hostage?” Xander said hopefully.

“As an advisor,” Buffy said witheringly.

“So we can’t tie him up?”

Buffy looked at Willow. “Boys are strange.”

Willow nodded. “We should take Wesley away from them before they’re a bad influence on him.”

Cordelia was already lifting Wesley from Xander’s arms. She carried him back to the safety of what she termed the ‘sane side of the table’ while Buffy waved to Giles. “You can go and help them now, but remember that if you help them too much we won’t let you play with Wesley.”

Giles said, “You do realize that’s completely illogical – and unfair.”

“Not to mention contrary to the rules of engagement,” Oz pointed out. “As agreed by the covenants governing Playmobil battle tactics.”

“And all tactical matters relating to the deployment of plastic people in a designated war zone.” Xander pointed a finger for emphasis.

Angel’s response was to use the catapult to lob debris at the Fairytale Castle. Willow glared at him and responded with a spell that Giles thought he had better pretend he hadn’t noticed which caused all of the defenders on the Baronial Castle to fall over. Then there was general plastic carnage as minor spells and major debris were hurdled backwards and forth, at the end of which Willow smugly held aloft the dragon and proclaimed the world safe for Fairy Bowers once more.

Xander and Angel exchanged a look and Angel said: “We could beat them at sea.”

Xander nodded, grimly, and Giles noticed that he, Oz, and Angel all turned away to pool their money; Angel shoving folded twenty dollar bills at Xander.

“What are you doing?” Cordelia demanded.

“Oz and I are off to buy us all lunch, Your Queenliness,” Xander assured her. He jerked his head at Oz, who gave Willow a farewell kiss, and then headed off with him.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “They looked sneaky. Why did they look sneaky?”

“No reason,” Angel said. “Wesley, do you want to help me put the Viking Ship together while Uncle Oz and Uncle Xander buy lunch?”

Wesley nodded brightly, all fear of the vampire evidently banished during their battle strategizing together.

Giles looked at his dining room table, which was large enough to sit eight but seemed a great deal smaller when it was also required to double as a battlefield. “Shall we move the – plastic people to the floor?” he suggested. “So we can sit up and eat at the table in a civilized manner?”

“Kind of missing the whole day of fun thing, aren’t you?” Buffy observed, but then began to push the furniture back against the walls to make a much larger space for them to expand their plastic empire.

Giles forbore from pointing out that he was actually the one who had purchased the Playmobil castles in the first place. As he turned his head he saw Angel and Wesley sitting on the floor together, tortured vampire back from hell, and Watcher-to-be who had never been permitted until now to just be a child. They were both smirking at something Angel had said, Wesley shaking with laughter so much that he could hardly fit the plastic pieces together. Angel gently guided his hands, and the pieces of longship snapped together properly. Wesley beamed up at him and Angel smiled back. When Giles looked up he saw Buffy gazing at them with adoration on her face and Giles winced as he realized that in her heart Buffy was still a teenager, and still dreamt that she could somehow have this: partner, child, happiness, with an – infertile – vampire while she was the only Slayer left able to defend the world from darkness. Wesley giggled again and Buffy sat down next to him, Wesley in between her and Angel, her beaming at them both as she handed over a mast. Giles took a step back, physically and mentally, thinking that if this was to be the closest that Buffy and Angel ever came to having a family life, even as a temporary arrangement from a lie based on a spell, then who was he to interfere?

He turned around and found Cordelia looking at him. She said quietly. “Wesley has rights too. And a life he was living. The adult Wesley. He didn’t come here so that Buffy and Angel could play house, Giles.”

“I know.” Giles removed his glasses to give them an entirely unnecessary clean. “I know that.”

“Please remember it,” Cordelia said, and her expression was pleading not demanding. “Because I don’t think anyone else here is going to.” And then she was beaming at Child Wesley as if no one could have been happier than her and ordering Willow imperiously to help her build the Viking Longhouse.

Giles sighed, replaced his glasses, and tried not to think how easy it would be if the spell simply couldn’t be altered and it was no one’s fault if Wesley had to stay like this and be brought up anew, this time by people who actually liked him.

***

The day went much too fast, Xander thought. He and Oz had purchased the pirate ship and accessories aplenty, and enough lunch to feed even all of them. Lunch had been eaten. Then he, Angel, Oz and Wesley had put the ship together in double quick time then launched an assault from the piece of shiny wrapping paper standing in for the sea on the Baronial castle. That had been all kinds of fun. As had been the epic sea battle between pirates and Vikings that followed, despite Giles bringing the whole funtime thing down by wanting to talk to Wesley about what era the Vikings came from and when pirates had been at their most common and if it was likely they ever would have met geographically. They had all had to yell at Giles quite a lot to get him to stop bringing lessons into the playroom and man the cannons instead, but he had then done so with a ruthless efficiency that had been quite fun to watch.

Then there had been a brief pause to eat a lot more food, and then a trawl through the channels to find out what was on children’s TV, which Angel, bizarrely, had ended up watching with Wesley, as apparently he didn’t have a TV in his mansion so the whole moving picture thing was pretty exciting for him.

Unfortunately, it had then become evening again and while Angel went out to stock up on his blood – and ewww that there was now some of it sitting in Giles’ fridge – they had been forced to call around everybody’s parents. Willow’s mother was too vague and intellectual to mind and Xander’s parents were too indifferent to care but Buffy’s mom had taken quite a lot of fast-talking from Buffy and Giles to convince her that it really was crisis time, although a crisis that wasn’t actually very dangerous, really.

“Why can’t you just show her Wesley and let her know the truth?” Cordelia demanded.

Giles and Buffy grimaced. “She’ll want to adopt him,” Buffy explained. “I know what Mom is like with little kids. I wouldn’t get him away from her with a whip and a chair.”

“Gee, lucky for the rest of us you’re not all weird and hyper-possessive then….”

In the end the calling had been done and Buffy and Giles had decided to head out in search of Ethan; Xander just hoped that they didn’t get turned into newts by demon-raising, costume-selling, wacky-candy-pimping guy.

He felt decidedly on edge with both Buffy and Giles out of the way. Angel was here, of course, to take care of Willow, but who was to say the Mayor wouldn’t send a bunch of people armed with Holy Water this time? Or if Faith was really in cahoots with him, send her? She didn’t need an invitation to push her way in and she could kick Angel’s ass. On the other hand Willy was even more scared of Buffy than he was of Angel and they did need to find Ethan.

He thought about there maybe being some horrible side effects to the spell, or Wesley just getting younger and younger until he wasn’t even a baby any more, just a foetus. There were some things he couldn’t take happening, and one of those was harm coming to Willow from the Mayor, and another of those was harm coming to little boys who had never apparently known much in the way of kindness before and were just so grateful for any affection.

The amulet Giles had taken from Wesley’s apartment was still wrapped up in a corner. Giles and Willow had done some kind of neutralizing spell in case it was still – whatever amulets were when they could zap you – active, live, whatever, but it still gave Xander the creeps and he was avoiding that part of the room. Willow and Oz were on the couch, she was half-dozing with her head on Oz’s shoulder, he with his arm around her. Xander remembered when there would have been four of them. Oz and Willow and Cordelia and Xander. He didn’t know who to blame for the ruination of that; he and Willow for giving into temptation when they thought they were going to die, or Cordelia for not being able to forgive him for a momentary lapse. Which reminded him – where was Queen C? He heard the sound of her voice talking quietly and crept over to the kitchen, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to know if everything was okay.

She had Wesley sat on the countertop while she dried the clean dishes on the draining board. Wesley was helping her, wiping very carefully with a teatowel and then handing her the sparkling glass or clean mug with even greater care.

“Why don’t you think they’re your friends…?” Wesley was asking in some puzzlement.

“Because they don’t really like me.” Cordelia said it with a smile, as if didn’t really matter. “They just – tolerate me because I used to go out with Xander.”

Actually, we tolerated you before you and I dated, Cordy, Xander thought. You’ve always kind of been one of us. Perhaps with the emphasis on ‘kind of’….

“You used to go out with Xander?” Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “Are you going to marry him?”

“No.” She took a glass from him and put it away in a cupboard. “We’re so over. There aren’t words for how over we are.”

Wesley looked at her mournfully, saying tentatively: “Do you get…lonely…?”

Cordelia grimaced. “Yes. You know why I’d be lonely right now, though, Wes, if you weren’t here…?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not here. That’s who I’m missing right now. I’m missing someone who doesn’t – judge me every time I talk to him. Someone who likes me and doesn’t act like there’s something wrong with me. I’m missing you.”

Wesley gazed up at her. “Big me?”

“Yes. I miss Big You.” She looked at his face and smiled at him. “Except I’m not – because I have Little You, except – I’m still missing Big You, I’m just not missing him as much because I have you to talk to. And you know what? Even though you’re only eight years old now, I’d still rather spend time with you.”

Wesley looked mournful. “If I get big again will you miss – me me…?”

Cordelia took the glass from his hand, put it away, and then picked him up carefully. “Oh God, yes. So much.” Xander saw in some dismay that there were tears in her eyes as she pressed a kiss into the little boy’s hair. He backed up quickly, wondering just how far she had invested, in him, in Wesley the Watcher. It had been clear from the beginning that she saw him differently from the rest of them; saw something in him they didn’t see. Had she been seeing him as the possible answer to her problems? A way out of Sunnydale? Out of her recent history with him? Did she feel as if she had burnt all her bridges just because she had dated someone her friends didn’t approve of and who had exchanged one solitary kiss with a childhood friend?

Wesley isn’t going to solve that, Cord. Even as a twenty-six year old with a salary and a really nice suit, he’s just a guy, with problems of his own. And now we know even more problems than we ever guessed before. You’d actually be exchanging one screwed up guy with self-esteem and daddy issues for another.

He snatched a breath and then hummed a jaunty tune, before arriving in the doorway with a big smile on his face. “Need a hand there, you two?”

Cordelia quickly wiped her eyes. “No, we’re fine.”

“Is your head okay?” Xander looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced.

She nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Well, mine is kind of thumping, wanna share some Tylenol and some good old fashioned…tea…?”

Cordelia did smile then. “Wow, that’s the most exciting offer I’ve had all day – and isn’t that the sad admission?”

Xander put the kettle on. “Want me to take the munchkin?”

“He’s fine.” Cordelia bent her head to rub her nose against Wesley’s. “Not the heaviest child I’ve ever met.”

Wesley grinned at her. “Uncle Richard used to say that soaking wet and with a rock in my pocket I weighed almost as much as Cuthbert.” He looked down at the floor. “It didn’t sound mean when he said it. It was just funny.”

“It is funny, Wes,” Xander assured him.

Wesley leaned his head against Cordelia’s neck. “Is Buffy coming back soon?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” She handed Xander the teabags. “She’ll be home soon.”

“I like Buffy,” he said drowsily. “She makes me feel safe.”

Xander saw the way Cordelia’s fingers automatically strayed to that bruise on his ribs that Buffy had left there, but all she did was kiss him on the forehead and say without a tremor: “She makes us all feel safe. That’s what she does.”

“I like you too.” Wesley’s eyes were closed and he was so close to being asleep it made no difference. “I like all of you. If I can’t be big again can you not tell Daddy? Then I can stay here with you…” And then his thumb was in his mouth and he really was asleep.

Cordelia said urgently to Xander, “Please, take him.”

Xander hurried to do so, lifting the boy into his arms. Then Cordelia sat down on the chair and her shoulders began to shake, and then she was sobbing, silently, but wretchedly, while Xander watched and felt useless, automatically rocking the boy he held so as to keep him asleep.

“Cordy… what is it…?” he whispered.

She wiped her eyes after a minute, got up, and shook back her weight of long brown hair. “It’s everything…” she said. And then she snatched a long deep breath and looked across at him. “It’s nothing. Life’s just… sometimes it just sucks, you know…?” She came across to where Xander was holding Wesley and looked down at his sleeping face. Wesley had the longest thickest eyelashes Xander had ever seen on a boy, and the palest skin. He should have been all round and pink, but he was narrow and white instead. Cordy said, “Can I have him back, please?” and it wasn’t imperious, just pleading. Xander handed him back into her arms without a word, still shocked by her outburst of grief, and then she was rocking Wesley and humming to him softly, and Xander was busying himself making tea, while the tear tracks dried on her face, and he knew that neither of them were ever going to refer to what had just happened ever again.

***

They were all watching a late night movie when Buffy and Giles finally came back. Cordelia and Xander had bathed Wesley and gotten him into his pyjamas – he had been too sleepy by that point to do anything except shove his arms into the jacket as directed without really opening his eyes – but they hadn’t wanted to put him to bed until Buffy was back. None of them wanted to go to bed until Buffy and Giles were back and they knew Wesley wouldn’t be happy if he woke up and she wasn’t there. So, a trawl through the channels had produced something in black and white with sound so bad you could hardly make out the words but a plot that didn’t look too scary for an eight year old boy should he wake up. Wesley was asleep with his head on Willow’s lap, his body on Oz’s lap and his feet in Cordelia’s, she was rubbing them absently to keep them warm. Angel was sitting on the floor with Xander, saying: “I remember when this one first came out. I queued to see it.”

“Man, you’re old,” Xander observed.

“They sure drank a lot in those old films…” Cordelia observed.

And then Buffy and Giles came in and everyone beamed at them in relief while putting their fingers across their lips and pointing down at where Wesley was asleep. Buffy yanked Ethan forward and they saw he looked as if he had probably been a little pummelled, and Giles clasped a hand across his mouth when he attempted to make a jaunty hello, and dragged him into the kitchen and tied him to a chair.

“Do I need to gag you?” Buffy demanded.

“Uh – no, on reflection, I think not. Not that I don’t enjoy a bit of bondage as much as the next man – supposing the next man is Ripper… All right, I’ll be good...”

Buffy came back in, whispering: “How is he?”

Willow, Oz, Cordelia and Xander all pointed at the little boy wordlessly and Buffy immediately felt his forehead.

Angel barely contained a smirk. “Buffy, he’s asleep, and, no, he doesn’t have a fever.”

“I know.” She gave him a look but did withdraw her hand.

Giles had hung up his coat and now hurried over to the couch. “Everything okay?” He felt Wesley’s forehead.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Giles, he’s just asleep. Don’t be such a worrywart.”

Wesley stirred, his long eyelashes fluttered, and then he opened his eyes. When he saw Buffy his face broke into a beaming smile and he held his arms up to her. She immediately picked him up and cuddled him while he sighed blissfully and snuggled in against her.

“Cordy said you’d come back,” he said sleepily. “She said you make everyone feel safe.”

Buffy looked across at Cordelia, still feeling the heat from the little boy’s side where she had bruised his ribs, and Cordelia gave her a look that made it very clear she was just being tactful. Buffy was still grateful though. She mouthed ‘thank you’ at the girl and took Wesley over to the dining room table where he could sit comfortably on her lap.

Giles sat opposite her as Wesley snuggled back in comfortably. He wasn’t quite asleep but there didn’t seem much chance of him taking in what they were saying.

Buffy nodded at the kitchen. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

Giles grimaced. “Usually if Ethan’s lips are moving then he’s lying.”

She looked down at the little boy in her lap. “Giles, if something happens to Wesley when he’s like this, I don’t think I can…”

He held her hand. “Nothing is going to happen to him. Well, except for him being turned into a very vulnerable little boy, of course.”

Wesley wriggled sleepily out of Buffy’s grasp. “Can I get myself a glass of water?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said absently, still trying to think of a way to get Ethan to tell the truth about the amulet. He was insisting that he had sent it to Giles just as a matter of curiosity as he had no idea what it did and thought Giles might know. He’d thought they could discuss it over a glass of wine but Giles had flown off the handle when he saw him and they’d never been able to have that conversation. He hadn’t even pretended he wasn’t lying but he had kept right on lying all the same. She lifted Wesley down and he moved off, still drowsily. She sighed. “Isn’t there something that matters to Ethan? Something we could threaten? Or something he wants that we could offer to get him in exchange for his help?”

Giles shook his head. “I think all he wants these days is to cause as much trouble as possible and anything he wanted would not be something we could – in good conscience – ever give him.”

“Hello, Mr. Rayne.”

They both looked at each other in horror as they heard Wesley’s casual greeting and turned to see the little boy reaching up to the taps to get himself some water.

As everyone in the room rose to his or her feet in horror, Ethan said: “Hello, Wesley. Good Lord – Wesley…? What are you…?” And then there was a silence as Ethan’s agile mind obviously dealt with the problem. He darted one look over his shoulder at Giles and then turned back to the boy, saying conversationally: “So, I forget, how old are you now?”

“I’m eight.” Wesley turned around with a glass of water in his hand, looked at Ethan for a moment and then said: “Would you like a glass of water too?”

“No, thank you, Wesley, I’m fine. Eight…so…I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your Uncle Richard. He was a very…decent man. Cuthbert well, is he?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr Rayne.” Wesley stood in front of Ethan gingerly sipping his water. “Why are you tied up?”

“I asked Rip…Mr. Giles if he would tie me up so I can practise undoing knots. That can be very useful when you’re in a dangerous situation.”

“Oh.” Wesley looked intrigued. “Can you show me how to untie knots, Mr. Rayne?”

“Another time, I’d be glad to. Now, Wesley, would you be a good boy and go and ask Mr Giles to come in here? There’s a good lad.”

Wesley came back out with his glass of water in his hand – watching the glass carefully all the time in case it looked like spilling – and said, “Mr. Rayne would like to speak to you, Uncle Giles. Can I practise untying knots too tomorrow?”

“Perhaps.” Giles patted the boy awkwardly on the shoulder and dived into the kitchen, while Buffy nodded to a bewildered-looking Angel who picked up Wesley while she also headed into the kitchen.

“Close the door,” Ethan ordered.

Giles did so, looking at him curiously. “You know Wesley?”

“Yes, I know Wesley. More to the point I knew his uncle. Very well.” His gaze flickered to Giles briefly. “I liked Dick Pryce, and you know how few people there are on this planet that I have ever actually liked, Ripper, but he was one of them. He was a good man and more to the point he was bloody good company and he managed to ‘do his duty’ as defender of the oppressed and all that nonsense without turning into a sanctimonious little prig, unlike some people not a million miles away from where I’m standing right now who used to be fun and then got oh so incredibly boring.” His gaze turned on Giles contemptuously.

Buffy shifted her feet. “You knew Wesley when he was a little boy?”

“Yes, which by my calculations was eighteen long years ago. I don’t need to ask why he is now that age again.” Ethan glared at Giles. “And you were going to tell me about this, when exactly?”

“Never,” Giles retorted. “The last thing I ever like to give you is an advantage.”

“How charming.” Ethan thought hard. “Well, things are serious now, so perhaps you and your little vamp-slaying cheerleader pal will stop wasting my time with half truths and evasions and tell me what exactly happened and when?”

Buffy could only watch in confusion as Giles grudgingly told Ethan everything that had happened.

Ethan nodded. “Okay. That sounds pretty much as if it worked to plan. Has he shown any side effects?”

“No,” Giles admitted. “He seems to be pretty much as one would expect an eight year old boy raised by a miserable bastard like Roger Wyndam-Pryce to be.”

“Don’t even talk to me about that insufferable ass,” Ethan said darkly. “The rows Dicky had with him. Dick loved that little boy, which was just as well, because no other bugger did. I was still trying to get him to agree to us just pushing Wyndam-Pryce senior into a nice swirling vortex when Dicky came a cropper himself.”

Buffy put a hand up to her head. “You’re telling me – you like small children now?”

“No,” Ethan told her shortly. “I detest small children and think they are all admirably suited to be demon brunch. But I liked Dicky Pryce and he liked that little boy. Why on earth was Wesley here anyway?”

“Another Watcher,” Giles explained.

“I was afraid he wouldn’t rebel. Poor little sod. Dicky used to come up from his duty calls to the old family pile seething with rage about the way that kid was treated. Did you know his father used to lock him under the stairs?”

“We worked it out,” Giles admitted.

Ethan put his head back. “Damn, if I’d known it was going to get him instead of you I’d have been a bit more careful with the spell. Still, it should be all right.”

“’Should’?” Buffy demanded.

“Well, in theory it should wear off in about ten days. I just skimped on some of the prep work because some of the ingredients the old books were so fond of just aren’t available at cost. It’s like Mrs. Beeton, isn’t it? Who can afford to use all those eggs these days? Of course, you cut corners.”

Giles gritted his teeth. “How many corners did you cut?”

“Don’t panic. I just made substitutions. There was a slight risk you might melt into a puddle of goop after a week or so but it was a very slight risk and frankly I didn’t much care. But as it’s Wesley, I think a little counter-spell work to stabilize the incantation might be a good idea. And then it should wear off as normal.”

“There is nothing ‘normal’ about this!” Buffy said shortly. “Going around sending people mystical amulets to make them halve their age overnight isn’t normal, Ethan. It’s weird. And wrong.”

“Oh, do spare me the Enid Blyton lecture, darling,” Ethan retorted. “I’m more invested in fixing this than you are anyway.”

“You are not,” she returned, trembling with rage. “No one is more…”

Ethan looked at her and then nodded. “Oh, I see. Well, I wouldn’t let me know that you’re fond of the boy, Buffy, or I might think that the fun of watching you squirm outweighs even my lingering affection for his late uncle.”

Giles said quietly, “Ethan, if there is even a shred of normal human decency left in you, will you please help us to undo what you did?”

Ethan looked at Buffy again. “Are you sure that’s what we want? Some people seem to have something of an investment in him staying the way he is.”

Buffy looked at him. “Is there a way to make that happen?”

Ethan sighed. “There’s another spell but it’s very dangerous and there’s only a one in five chance of it working without killing him. But your choice. Twenty percent chance of successfully keeping him a child or eighty percent chance of stabilizing the spell until it wears off and he returns to being an adult. Take your pick.”

Buffy didn’t hesitate. “We stabilize him. We’ll do it tomorrow. Willow can help. But I swear, if you are lying or…”

“Actually, for once, I’m not, and it almost pains me to have to admit it, but I am actually being honest. It’s an odd sensation and I can’t say I’m enjoying it.” Ethan grimaced then looked up at Giles. “You can, of course, keep me tied to a chair all night and have the joy of trying to make breakfast for the small commune you seem to have living with you around my bound and by then probably urine-soaked body, or you can let me go and I can research this spell a little more, get the ingredients I need, and turn up here tomorrow.”

Buffy looked at Giles aghast. “You can’t trust him.”

Giles looked at Ethan for a long moment and then reached for the knife on the side. He held it to Ethan’s throat. “Understand this, Ethan. If you don’t come back tomorrow, I will hunt you down and kill you. If you make a ‘mistake’ in your spellcasting, I will hunt you down and kill you. In fact if anything happens to Wesley as a consequence of this spell, I will hunt you down and kill you. Is that clear?”

Ethan winced as the blade touched his throat. “Crystal clear, Ripper.”

Buffy grabbed his hair. “And I’ll be the one hunting you down with him.”

There was the sound of the door opening and closing and then Angel said quietly: “Just to make things clearer, I’ll be the one killing you, and I can make it last for a very long time.” He morphed into fang face, momentarily pure demon. “Look up Angelus if you’re not sure of all the details.” He changed back into his normal face but his gaze was grim.

Ethan looked between them. “You know, you people are all wound awfully tight. Have you thought about taking a holiday?”

Buffy clenched her fist near his face. “Have you thought about the benefits of plastic surgery? Because you’re going to need plenty of it if you don’t do exactly what we say.”

“Understood.” Ethan shrugged as well as he could with his hands tied behind his back.

Giles cut him free and Ethan winced and rubbed his wrists then got to his feet. “I’ll be back tomorrow – with the spell and the ingredients. You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to pick you out a nice dress as well, Buffy? I seem to remember you rather liked my taste in costume wear…”

“Bring a dress here and you’ll be the one wearing it,” she told him.

He essayed mild regret. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Until tomorrow then,” Giles said grimly.

Ethan nodded, straightened his creased jacket and headed for the door. Angel stood in front of him, glaring at him balefully, and then stepped back to let him through.

In the sitting room, Ethan said jauntily, “Well, goodnight all. So nice to see you again, Wesley. I’ll be back tomorrow and we can do some of those spells that you always liked.”

Wesley looked up from his place on the floor. “Good night, Mr. Rayne.”

Then the door had closed behind Ethan and Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia were giving Buffy and Giles ‘what the hell?’ looks. Buffy noticed that Wesley was sitting on Xander’s chest where Xander was lying on the floor and Willow was absently cuddling Cuthbert.

“Apparently Ethan knows Wesley from way back,” Giles explained carefully. “And was very close to Wesley’s late uncle, Richard. He has something of a personal investment therefore in ensuring Wesley’s well-being.”

“You believe that?” Xander demanded.

Giles nodded. “For once, yes, I actually do.”

Wesley said innocently. “Mr. Rayne knows lots of spells. He taught me some of them.” He sighed. “But Daddy got angry and I wasn’t allowed to play with him any more.” He looked up at Giles anxiously. “You don’t mind me playing with him, do you?”

“Not if supervised,” Giles returned. “Very carefully supervised.”

Buffy said briskly: “Okay, bedtime now. Do you want to watch the end of the movie, Will?”

“I’ll be up in five minutes,” Willow said drowsily.

Buffy picked up Wesley from Xander’s chest. Xander murmured, “Hey, no fair, we were having some men’s time.”

“You can have some more ‘men’s time’ tomorrow, doing manly things like playing with little plastic sailboats…” Buffy carried Wesley around for his goodnight cuddles with everyone and Giles had to fight hard not to find adorable the way Wesley was now so at ease with them that he quite happily put an arm around Angel’s neck, hugged Giles, kissed Cordy – who straightened his pyjama jacket for the fiftieth time – and hugged Oz, Xander, and Willow again, who – torn between snuggling with Oz for another five minutes and cuddling Wesley in bed – gave a little whimper of indecision.

Oz smiled, kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s okay. You can go and cuddle Wesley. I know you still love me.”

“I do! I so do.” She beamed at him, kissed him again, and then darted after Buffy, saying, “Wait! I have Cuthbert!”

Oz watched her go then looked at Xander. “They’re not going to be like this when Wesley’s big again, are they? Because that would be…kind of disturbing.”

“They’d better not be,” said Cordelia tartly. “I have dibs on him.”

Giles said, “It would definitely be contrary to every rule in the Watcher’s Handbook for a Watcher to um…snuggle with a witch and a Slayer every night.”

“What about now…?” Xander enquired. “Isn’t Wesley sort of breaking the rules a little bit now?”

“Wesley’s in New York, attending a Rare Book Fair,” Giles observed calmly. “So, clearly cannot be here playing with little plastic people or – snuggling with Slayers. Now, would you mind getting off my couch?”

Oz slid onto the floor next to Xander and Cordelia slid down next to him, all three of them still watching the television.

Giles said, “Um – Cordelia, I don’t feel entirely comfortable changing into my pyjamas while you’re here.”

She nodded at the bathroom. “It’s just over there.”

Sighing, Giles, took his pyjamas into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and came back out to find that Angel was now sitting next to Cordelia, all four of them using his couch as a backrest while raptly watching what looked remarkably like a Hammer Horror film about vampires.

“This is so full of stereotypes,” Angel snorted.

“Not to mention screaming women,” Cordelia pointed out. “How come they all fall over when they run away?”

“What is with the sleeping in the coffin thing? There are no vampires who sleep in coffins.”

“But there are sexy vampire chicks who molest lonely young men, right?” Xander pressed. “And please tell me the lesbian subtext is canonical, because otherwise so many good fantasies are just killed right there.”

A shot of a full moon gave way to a howling wolf. Oz frowned. “Do I sound like that?”

“Kind of…” Xander admitted, passing him the popcorn.

“That’s actually kind of cool.”

Angel accepted the popcorn from Oz while never taking his eyes off the screen. “Again with the coffins!”

Giles thought about asking them to switch off the TV or say – shut up – but then realized it was probably hopeless and so climbed over the arm of the couch, pulled a blanket over himself and said a firm: “Good night.”

“Night, Giles.” Angel handed back the popcorn. “Can you believe the clothes this guy is wearing?” Everyone looked at Angel who looked down at himself. “What? I don’t wear evening dress. Or a cloak.”

“That coat is kind of affected though, isn’t it?” Xander pointed out.

“It’s useful.”

“For what?”

“It doesn’t show stains. And what is with the bat thing? I don’t even like bats.”

“He is kind of sexy,” Cordelia admitted, accepting the pail of popcorn.

“Cordy, you live on a Hellmouth,” Xander pointed out. “How can you of all people find vampires sexy?”

“I like movie vampires. They always dress well and they never try to get into my home…”

When Giles finally drifted into sleep, Oz and Xander were debating the merits of why there weren’t more werewolves and fewer vampires on the grounds that everyone had something vaguely stake-shaped in their house but almost no one kept a stash of silver bullets.

“For which I’m personally quite grateful,” Oz admitted.

Angel still seemed to be objecting to everything Bram Stoker had written and Cordelia was critiquing the nightgowns every single female in the film seemed to wear at all times.

“All I’m saying is no way do you get that kind of lift without corsetry, so were these bodiced nightgowns or are we just supposed to believe that they had time to pull on their corset under the nightgowns before they got bitten…?”

It was a great relief to Giles when sheer exhaustion intervened and he drifted off to another dream about vampires, corsetry, and the inevitable pilchards.

***

Ethan surprised everyone, perhaps including himself, by turning up on Giles’s doorstep at ten a.m. He was carrying a bag full of magical ingredients, and had a cheerful smile for Wesley, who looked nothing other than pleased to see him.

“Hello, Mr. Rayne.”

“Hello, Wesley. How are you today?”

“Very well, thank you, Mr Rayne. How are you?”

“I’m very well too.” Ethan looked across at Giles. “And I’d really like to stay that way.” He ruffled Wesley’s hair and made his way across to the dining room table where he offloaded his bag with a grunt. “I suppose this is a lesson to me in why we were always told never to cut corners in spell preparation, but, have you seen the price of twice-blessed sage these days?” Looking around at their anxious and hostile faces, he rolled his eyes. “A cup of tea would be nice, Rip – ” Glancing across at Wesley’s curious face, he coughed. “Rupert. Earl Grey if you’ve got it.”

“You can have Tetleys and like it,” Giles told him shortly.

Buffy glowered at Ethan. “Remember what we told you last night.”

“Oh, will you people lighten up? I’m here as agreed and I have the ingredients as agreed.”

Wesley watched with interest as Ethan unpacked his bag and Ethan leant down, picked him up – everyone took a step forward and hissed at that – and then placed him carefully on the table where he could see what was going on. “Wesley likes magic, don’t you, Wesley?”

Wesley nodded, watching wide-eyed as Ethan removed crystals, an orb, bones, a clawed foot, and various bags of herbs and powders from his rather battered Gladstone bag. “Yes, Mr. Rayne.”

Ethan looked across at Giles, who was hovering anxiously. “He had a lot of potential when he was a child. Unfortunately his father didn’t like him exploring that area of his talents. Much too much like having fun. How good is he as an adult?”

Giles exchanged a glance with Buffy. “Well… he hasn’t really been in Sunnydale very long. There hasn’t been much cause to… We don’t know.”

“Do you want to know what marks you got at school, Wesley?” Ethan enquired.

Wesley looked at him open-mouthed. “Can I do that?”

“You did all the work so I don’t really see why not.” He turned to Giles. “Did they send you his paperwork?”

Giles remembered Wesley flourishing some credentials at him on the first day, to which he had not paid much attention, too busy phoning the Council to check that this Watcher wasn’t actually…freelance.

“I think so.”

“And you didn’t check them?”

“I checked them, I just didn’t read them.” Giles went to the briefcase in which Wesley kept his paperwork and opened it. “Here it is.” He wasn’t even sure why he was letting Ethan push them all around except that Wesley seemed to like him, which meant, miraculously, that in his previous meetings with Wesley, Ethan had never actually done anything unpleasant to him.

Ethan opened the folder and then went still and Giles saw he was looking at the identification picture of Wesley in the top right hand corner. “You look like Dick,” he said. He glanced at the little boy again. “So much like him in fact that if…” He didn’t finish that sentence and as Giles had no doubt it would have contained an unwarranted slur about the virtue of Wesley’s mother, he was glad he hadn’t done so.

Wesley peered at the papers curiously and Ethan turned them over to find his final marks. “Look at that, Wesley. You got an ‘A’ in Mystical Studies in your finals. That’s the theory and practical. Well done.”

Wesley smiled up at him as Ethan went through his marks. “Good Lord, Wesley, you got ‘A’s in everything. How many languages were you taking?”

Wesley looked under Ethan’s arm at the page with his final marks. “I studied Demonic Languages! I always wanted to learn those.”

Ethan’s eyes widened as he counted up the classes take and exams passed. “You know more than Uncle Rupert here. Actually, although it pains me to say it, I think you know more than me.”

Wesley’s face fell as he read on. “It says that I have problems with social skills and find it difficult to make friends, and that I have a problem with self-confidence that could cause me to react badly to pressure or criticism. It says here ‘there is still a question mark concerning Wesley’s leadership abilities’.”

Ethan gazed at the little boy in mild amusement. “Well, given Daddy’s idea of building up your self-esteem, I think that’s to be expected, don’t you?”

But Wesley still looked downcast. “I sound really stupid.”

Ethan waved the exam marks under his nose. “No one who can get an ‘A’ in fifteen different subjects is ‘stupid’, Wesley. But I would imagine that the level of study required to achieve these marks probably didn’t leave a lot of time for…socializing.”

Wesley grimaced. “I’m a boring little swot, aren’t I?”

Ethan laughed. “Quite possibly. But I’m sure you can grow out of it.”

“Uncle Richard wasn’t boring, was he?”

“No, Wesley, he certainly wasn’t, which means the sparks of rebellion must be in you somewhere. We just need to…feed the flames.”

Buffy looked at Giles. “Are we accepting Ethan as a role model for Wesley now?”

“Most emphatically not,” Giles assured her.

Ethan was still avidly reading his file. “It says here that you can read and translate Geshundi, Wesley. That’s an absolute bi- um bugger of a language. And – my goodness – you took extra classes in early Fallorian on top of all your other studies and passed with flying colours.”

“Good Lord,” Giles observed.

Buffy said, “What? What’s wrong with that?”

Giles took off his glasses. “Nothing, it’s just – remarkably difficult.”

“Didn’t you fail your Fallorian exam?” Ethan observed.

Giles glowered at him. “Yes, and thank you for reminding me.”

“I remember Doctor Lister read your exam paper out in class and said that your translation of a passage of Shakespeare into Fallorian had Benedict doing something most unseemly to a chicken.”

“It’s a very difficult language,” Giles protested. “An inverted serif can alter the meaning of an entire passage.”

Oz frowned. “So – Wesley – Big Wesley being able to do magic and translate all these different languages that even Giles doesn’t know – isn’t that something we should have known about? It sounds as if it would have been useful.”

“Yes, it does rather.” Giles grimaced. “We’ve all been rather busy, of course…”

Wesley looked down at his hands. “I’m not being very useful like this, am I? Willow and Cordelia and Xander and Oz all got hurt trying to protect me because I’m too little to protect myself.”

Giles and Angel exchanged a brief glance as they silently acknowledged that Wesley hadn’t been a lot of use at protecting himself when adult either.

“Hey, it was the least I could do,” Cordelia observed. “You saved my life, after all.”

Wesley looked surprised. “I did?”

“He did?” Buffy and Giles both chorused.

Cordelia frowned. “Didn’t I mention it? When that evil Willow was here. I let her out of the book-cage and then she – vamped out and was going to kill me only Wesley turned up and waved a crucifix and some holy water at her and she went away again.”

“No, Cordelia,” Giles said crisply. “You didn’t mention it. And when we came back to the Library there was no sign of you or Wesley.”

Cordelia grimaced. “Well, I was too shaken up to drive so I had to ask him to take me home.”

“You were putting the moves on him,” Xander said disdainfully.

“He was a perfect gentleman,” she retorted.

“Much to your disappointment.”

Wesley looked between them wide-eyed and Buffy nudged Cordelia just as Willow elbowed Xander who looked at Wesley and said, “You didn’t hear any of that, okay?”

Wesley nodded. “Okay.”

Giles snatched a breath. “Cordelia, you could have called me to let me know that the – Vampire Willow was at large, and you could also have mentioned to me that Wesley had saved your life.”

Cordelia shrugged. “I figured Willow was a vampire and you probably knew. She was locked in your bookcage. And why did you need me to tell you Wesley saved me anyway? Isn’t that pretty much what Watchers do?”

Giles grimaced. “Well, yes…” He glanced across at Buffy. “Absolutely. It would just have been nice to know.”

Buffy drew him to one side and murmured: “So, apart from us finding out that Wesley’s actually pretty brave, resourceful, chivalrous, and top of his class in…everything, nothing’s really changed, has it?”

Giles sighed. “I think perhaps my allowing my – resentment at being replaced to prevent me from utilizing someone who could obviously have been an asset, is perhaps something I need to address but for now, no. We need to stabilize this spell and then continue to take care of Wesley as he is now. But, perhaps when he’s an adult again…”

“Giles, we all made up our minds about Wesley in about thirty seconds – and that includes Cordelia. If she hadn’t been on the rebound and he hadn’t looked pretty in a suit then she would have written him off as well.”

“Wonderful, so we were all as insightful as Cordelia in our dealings with him. Oddly enough, I’m not finding that such a comfort. Although in fairness to us, Wesley certainly did hide his light under a whole cartload of bushels.”

Giles turned back to find Ethan making a circle out of the magical ingredients on the floor while Wesley eagerly assisted him. “There’s a good lad. Chicken feet next. You’re supposed to do this with a piece of string attached to a pair of compasses to make a perfect circle but I usually do it by eye – and actually, if I’m showing you how to do it perhaps we ought to do it right.” Ethan glanced across at Giles. “Have you got a pair of compasses, a piece of string, and a piece of chalk, Rip-Rupert?”

Giles wordlessly found some and held them out, still thinking about those exam marks of Wesley’s that he hadn’t even bothered to look at, and that casual mention from Cordelia of Wesley having saved her life. Glancing across at Buffy he saw she was thinking the same thing.

When he looked back, Wesley was carefully drawing a chalk circle under Ethan’s direction while Ethan gave Giles the kind of smug look that suggested he knew very well Giles had written Wesley off three minutes after he walked through the door.

“Maybe when he’s big again he can give you a crash course in Fallorian, eh?” Ethan observed.

Giles refused to rise to the bait, looking at the little boy again who was following Ethan’s directions so obediently and with such absolute precision. He had saved Wesley’s life, it was true, but he had taught him absolutely nothing since he arrived in Sunnydale, except to feel defensive and to act pompous to compensate. “Maybe he can,” he returned mildly. “We’re none of us too old to learn.”

Ethan shrugged and handed Wesley a crystal. “Next to the sage, there’s a good lad…”

Giles insisted that Ethan went through with him exactly what the stabilizing spell would involve, while Ethan rolled his eyes at Giles’ objections. “Yes, I need some of his blood, but we’re talking a pinprick here…”

“It’s it being mingled with yours I’m not so keen on.”

“I’m the spellcaster, he’s the…spellcastee. I need to establish a link between us so that I can stabilize the spell. Now, do you want the spell stabilized or not, because if not I may as well show Wesley some nice easy levitation spells he might enjoy.”

“Oh.” Willow looked interested. “Could you show them to me too?”

Giles gave her a Look and she subsided, murmuring: “Sorry.”

“You really have got horribly boring, Ripper.” Ethan shook his head. “Magic is meant to be fun.”

“Magic is a serious and dangerous business that risks corrupting those who access it and opening gateways to worlds of…”

“Oh do put a sock in it,” Ethan pleaded. “I had quite enough of all your sanctimonious claptrap in the good old days. Now, do you want me to stabilize the spell or not?”

“If any harm comes to him…” Giles began.

“Yes, I know, your pet demon gets to peel my skin off. Charming. Now, shall we get on?”

“I’m not Giles’ pet,” Angel protested.

“No, you’re Buffy’s, big diff,” Cordelia retorted. “Let’s let Band Candy guy do his whacky magic mojo, shall we?”

“I’m not anyone’s ‘pet’,” Angel muttered petulantly, as Ethan picked up a knife and stepped into the circle. He sat down cross-legged and nodded to Wesley.

At a reluctant nod from Giles, Buffy very unwillingly picked up Wesley. “Ethan, if you have any shred of decency…”

“Actually, I don’t. This has nothing to do with decency. Now, are you going to let me do this or not…?”

Buffy placed Wesley in the circle and he looked at Ethan expectantly. “What do I have to do, Mr Rayne?”

“Sit opposite me, on the other side of the amulet, that’s right. Now, I’m going to have to cut your hand with this knife and it is going to hurt a little bit. Can you be a brave for me, Wesley?”

Wesley gazed up at him trustingly. “Yes, Mr. Rayne.”

They were both sitting in the circle, with the amulet between them, only a foot separating them and the knife in Ethan’s hand. Giles could not in any way feel that this was a good idea and yet what other choice did they have? It was Ethan’s spell. He and Buffy exchanged an anxious look and she whispered: “There are no words for how much I don’t like this set up…”

Ethan took Wesley’s hand in his and cut across his palm. Wesley winced with pain and tears sprang into his eyes but he bravely didn’t cry out. Ethan held his palm over the amulet and let the blood drip onto it, then cut his own palm and let his blood drip on top of Wesley’s, then he clasped his bloody palm against Wesley’s, took his other hand in his and began the incantation.

Wesley looked scared but fascinated, as Ethan’s eyes went black, a wind began to whistle around them both, snatching up all the crystals, herbs, claws and stones that surrounded them and dissolving them into dust. There was a flash of purple light and a bang and then everything was still and Ethan’s eyes returned to their normal colour. He snatched a breath and smiled at Wesley. “I told you magic was fun.”

“It is.” Wesley looked around in excitement. “Can we do some more?”

“Not right now.” Giles looked a question at Ethan who nodded and Giles picked him up and sat the little boy on his hip. He was aware of Buffy hovering anxiously, but right now, after seeing Wesley in that circle with Ethan, he needed a moment with the boy to calm his shattered nerves.

“He has it in him.” Ethan rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “I can always tell.”

“Oh…” Willow looked at him hopefully. “Do I have any power?”

“Will, you re-ensouled Angel, you must have,” Buffy said. “And there’s the whole – pencil spinning thing.”

Ethan looked at the playmobil battlefield and then glanced at Willow. “Want to find out…?”

Giles became aware that Buffy was bandaging Wesley’s hand with the care one might usually lavish on a sucking chest wound as opposed to a shallow cut. “It doesn’t hurt that much,” Wesley reassured her.

She felt his forehead anxiously. “You’re sure you feel okay?”

“Yes. Did you see the way those things all swirled around?”

“Yes, Wesley,” Giles assured him.

“Wasn’t it great?” He looked so excited that Giles didn’t have the heart to give him the ‘magic is very dangerous and should only be performed when no other options are available and only when very carefully supervised’ speech, but suspected that he was going to have to deliver it often after Ethan had left to make up for the rush of being in the middle of such a powerful spell.

“A cup of tea would be nice, Rupert,” Ethan observed casually, sitting on a cushion by the slightly battered battlements of the Baronial castle.

Giles opened his mouth to retort and then became aware of Wesley looking up at him and was forced to swallow the first three things he wanted to say.

“Why don’t I put the kettle on?” Buffy suggested, quickly. “Then we could all have tea…” And not fight in front of Wesley her eyes added.

“Fine.” Giles carried Wesley to where Willow was sitting and sat down next to her, still keeping Wesley on his lap where Ethan could not reach him easily. For all the little boy’s excitement he was still trembling slightly, the shock of the pain of having his hand cut, and then the adrenaline rush of the spell, leaving him limp and more than a little shaken. He seemed quite content to sit quietly on Giles’ lap even as Ethan began to direct military operations from the castle, and Xander, Oz, and Angel began to move the pieces around.

“I’m not doing this because you said so,” Xander told Ethan firmly. “Just because it makes sense.”

Ethan said casually to Willow: “We are going to overrun your peaceful little fairyland and slaughter all the inhabitants just for fun unless you stop us. I’m sure you’ve practised a few harmless little animaviva spells…?”

Willow glanced up at Giles nervously. “Well…maybe one or two but only because they could be useful…”

“There is no such thing as a ‘harmless little’ spell, Ethan,” Giles pointed out.

“Oh, do stow it, Rupert.” Ethan waved a hand and the pirate ship began to slide towards the fairy bower, the pirates slowly raising their weapons, while on the castle battlements the now-animated plastic knights were picking up their swords. “A brief skirmish, I think,” Ethan glanced across at Willow and Giles in amusement. “Just to demonstrate what we can do…”

Wesley watched wide-eyed as Ethan magicked the pirates down from the ship and had them throw up little grappling hooks to the castle walls.

“You know you could do that just moving the pieces around,” Giles pointed out.

“But doesn’t it look so much cooler like this?” Ethan purred.

“He really is corruption incarnate,” Giles observed to Willow.

She said, “Ye-es…” but she was wide-eyed and fascinated all the same and Giles could see her fingers twitching as she longed to join in.

Wesley said in wonder: “The pirates are climbing up the castle walls.”

“That is so cool.” Xander looked across at Giles. “In a – really bad way. Colour me so not impressed by this frivolous misuse of the dark arts.”

“ILM eat your hearts out,” Oz murmured.

Angel looked at the pirates curiously. “I always had my doubts about Harryhausen. The word on the street was that he was just a warlock and the whole stop-motion animation thing was a cover story.”

Buffy came in with the tea and said in confusion: “The pirates are moving – and the little knight people… Giles, why are the people moving?”

“Ethan is showing off,” Giles returned. He handed Wesley his tea and the little boy sipped it without even blinking, so intent was he on watching the pirates climbing up the walls and the knights waving their swords and firing arrows down at him. His eyes were huge and he was rapt with excitement. Seeing the look on his face, Giles didn’t have the heart to tell Ethan to pack it in, even though he was setting such a bad example.

There was a volley of arrow fire from the playmobile archers, cannonfire from the pirate ship, cannonfire from the castle defenders and then the pirates were falling down the battlements and the knights were waving their swords in the air in triumph. Wesley looked up at Giles, anxiously, clearly loving the display but worried it might be wrong, and Giles plastered on a smile. “Do you want to go and play?”

“May I?”

“Of course you may.” Giles looked across at Ethan. “I’m sure Mr. Rayne will make sure things don’t get out of hand.”

Ethan smiled at Wesley and patted him on the head as he came over to join them. “When you’re older, Wesley, I really must introduce you to the pleasures of pure chaos, but for now I think we’ll stick with manning the battlements…”

Giles was sure that Ethan knew very well that it was no picnic for him to have to sit here and be civil to the man while he played around with magic in front of his young, impressionable charges, but Ethan also seemed to be enjoying making Giles squirm so much that he wasn’t doing anything to justify Giles kicking him out. He supposed if it put a leash on Ethan’s more anti social behaviour for a few hours it was probably worth it.

Xander and Wesley both looked equally wide-eyed at the sight of Ethan’s little plastic army turning into a well-oiled machine, all raising their swords in unison. Ethan looked across at Willow: “If you’re going to mount a defensive barrier, you really had better do it now because we will be fire-bombing your little glade otherwise…”

Willow said primly: “I don’t use magic for frivolous matters because…”

As a hail of flaming arrows shot through the sky she hastily muttered an incantation and the arrows were all doused on her invisible barrier. She looked sheepishly at Giles. “He made me do it.”

Giles looked back at Ethan’s smug smile and just knew the man wanted him to join in, to wallow in the pleasure of frivolous magic one last time. It would, of course, be a very bad example to set both Willow and Wesley and, ultimately, what did it matter if Ethan’s side won a skirmish taking place between inanimate…?”

Ethan flicked his fingers and a cannonball thudded into the fairytale castle and splatted the fairy princess into the wall. Giles looked at Willow’s dismayed face and then said shortly: “All right, Ethan, you’re on…”

“Finally!” Cordelia picked up a chicken foot and held it out. “So, what do we do?”

Within minutes Ethan was sending Xander for ingredients from his bag and Giles asked Buffy and Cordelia to fetch his spell books. “This is a one off,” he warned them. “This must never happen again.”

“Just make sure you beat him!” Cordelia retorted.

Wesley winced as Ethan sent more flaming cannonballs into the fairytale castle and hurried over to pat Willow’s hand sympathetically. Buffy said, “Okay, now we have two Watchers and a Witch and the boys’ team only has one old chaos mage.”

“Less of the ‘old’ if you don’t mind, Ms Summers,” Ethan retorted.

Willow was already scrambling through spell books trying to find animation spells while Wesley helped her, Buffy and Cordelia fetched ingredients under Giles’ directions and ducked fiery arrows that Ethan kept sending across.

“Wow, this rocks…” Xander exclaimed. “Although only in a totally irresponsible and never to be repeated, yes sirree, kind of way.”

“Yes, indeed,” Oz confirmed. “I could hardly be more disapproving.”

“Me too.” Angel pointed to the Viking ship. “Can you animate that?”

“No fair!” Willow protested. “You have the knights and the cannons and now you get the ship as well?”

“But you have two Watchers to help you,” Xander protested. “We need the Viking ship to balance things up.”

Ethan waved his fingers and the prow of the Viking longship that was in the shape of a dragon’s head turned from plastic into scales and began to belch fire. Willow said anxiously: “Little fairy glade under attack!”

Giles shoved an open spell book under her nose and muttered a quick incantation – pausing midway to say to Wesley: “Don’t try this at home” – before causing a breeze to billow the longboat sails the other way and send it swirling backwards.

Willow pounced on the spell Giles had given her and said: “Oh yes!” Then looking across at Xander, Oz and Angel who were all gazing at her, said, “Or – ‘oh no’ as in ‘I haven’t yet located the correct spell so you can just continue in blissful ignorance and the expectation of imminent victory’…”

“And suddenly Willow’s projected career as a professional poker player isn’t looking so rosy,” Xander observed. He turned to Ethan. “Can you make napalm?”

Willow began to whisper urgently in Wesley’s ear and he nodded and scampered off to fetch half the contents of the herb rack.

Giles had to concentrate to keep off the Viking longboat that Ethan was trying to send back to pillage their fairytale castle. He was quite certain that animated Vikings getting into the Fairytale castle would produce scenes that Wesley should certainly not be seeing and that would probably traumatize Willow for life.

“Incoming arrows!” Cordelia flapped at them with a tea cloth.

“That’s cheating!” Xander protested.

“Yes, Cordelia, I really think it is,” Giles observed. He muttered an incantation that sent the longboat spinning across the floor and threw up a protective shield as the next wave of arrows came across. “That however is entirely permissible.”

Willow was holding Wesley’s hand as she did the incantation while he solemnly handed her the objects she asked for, sprinkling sage onto the fairy glade as directed, and then adding a pinch of various spices.

“What are they doing?” Xander enquired suspiciously.

“Something defensive,” Angel said.

“Something sneaky,” Oz guessed.

Wesley tossed another handful of spice over the main tree in the fairy glade and everyone on the other team looked at it anxiously.

“It’s going to go all Treebeard on us, I just know it…” Xander murmured.

Willow murmured something, waved her hands and as Giles and Ethan battled for supremacy of the Viking longboat, she looked up with her eyes black and said: “Something very sneaky…”

Which was when the animated dragon sprang up from the dungeon and flapped its wings, breathing magical fire down onto the playpeople knights who all dropped their swords and cowered on the ground.

Wesley tugged urgently at Willow’s sleeve. “The barrier!”

Willow said: “Oh!” and began to look through the book while keeping the dragon under imperfect control, it now swooping over the battlements a little drunkenly but keeping off the arrows aimed at it by bellows of magic fire. Then Giles quickly muttered an incantation, the barrier around the fairytale castle dissolved, and the dragon flew triumphantly over the battlements.

“We win!” Cordelia shouted.

“You so lose,” Buffy added.

Angel, Xander and Oz exchanged looks of dismay which turned into a smirk of pride from Oz as Willow picked up Wesley and swung him around, saying: “Classic use of misdirection! As instructed in chapter three!”

Wesley giggled and said triumphantly to Xander: “You thought it was the fairy glade! But it wasn’t!” He was still giggling helplessly as she put him down. He pointed at the herb-sprinkled oak tree. “That’s just thyme. It isn’t even magical!”

“Very well strategised, you two,” Giles told them warmly. He grimaced as he saw the dragon was still animated and tramping around the fairytale castle. “But – um, Willow, you might want to – de-animate the dragon now…?”

Willow and Wesley exchanged a look. “We didn’t look that up yet,” Wesley admitted.

“We’ll do it now.” Willow hastily opened the book while Cordelia and Buffy also grabbed spellbooks.

Xander said, “You do know your dragon is like – totally trashing the fairytale palace there, Willow?”

“We still won!” she protested fiercely.

Ethan shrugged. “I think they’ve just demonstrated a pyrrhic victory for all to see.”

While scrambling through spell books himself, Giles said automatically to Wesley: “Do you understand that reference, Wesley?”

“Yes, Uncle Giles,” the little boy was still frantically turning pages. “It means when the victors’ losses are as great as the losers’, and it comes from when Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at…um…was it Asculum?”

“Yes, it was.” Giles beamed at him proudly and turned to Ethan. “You know this boy really is extraordinarily advanced for his years…” As everyone just looked at him, he coughed. “Not that I’m condoning his father’s approach to child-rearing, I’m just pointing out that Wesley is – well, anyway – de-animation spells…”

It took ten minutes to de-activate the animated dragon, by which time the fairytale castle was looking distinctly scorched, however the victory for what Buffy persisted in annoying Giles by referring to as the ‘Girls’ team’ still held.

Ethan rose to his feet with what looked like an expression of genuine regret on his face. “Well, I’d better go. Chaos doesn’t just happen by itself – well, it does, actually, but one can always have more.”

Giles accompanied him to the door. “Well, Ethan, I suppose thanks are in order. Actually, no, come to think of it, they’re not. It’s your fault Wesley’s a child in the first place. This really was the least you could do.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Gracious as ever, I see, Ripper.” He held out a hand to Wesley who came up and shook it politely.

“Goodbye, Mr Rayne. Thank you for showing me those spells. They were wonderful.”

“You’re very welcome, Wesley.” Ethan patted him on the head again and looked at Giles with a grin. “I hope to get an opportunity to corrupt you further when you’re restored to your normal age.”

“Don’t count on it,” Giles told him grimly. “Ten days, you say, before the spell wears off and Wesley’s restored…?”

Ethan nodded. He looked at the playmobil debris over which Oz, Cordelia and Xander were already arguing as they set up another game. “You’d better make the most of it.”

Buffy picked up Wesley who snuggled in against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She looked at Ethan levelly. “We intend to.”

Ethan reached out and ruffled his hair again. “Be good, Wesley – but not too good. Remember, everyone needs a little chaos in their lives…”

And then he was gone and Giles and Buffy exchanged a sigh of relief. “That was so much fun,” Wesley said in awed tones. “Can we do some more spells tomorrow, Uncle Giles?”

“Perhaps,” Giles said. “But in the meantime, why don’t you go and get ready for lunch and perhaps if we ask Xander very nicely he’ll go and buy us something unhealthy that we can all enjoy.”

Xander had already sprung to his feet. “Fries, pizza, and donuts?”

“I don’t know if I mean quite that unhealthy…” Giles looked anxiously after Wesley.

“Giles, he’s going to be a little kid for ten more days. You can feed him entirely on deep fried Snickers bars if you want to, it’s not going to make any difference.”

Giles sighed and handed over his wallet. “Whatever you say. But if you find something with some green vegetables in it, I’d be grateful.”

Buffy looked at Xander: “He’s so not getting this, is he?”

“Never mind, there’s still time to educate him.”

Giles watched the two of them head off to get food, while Wesley, having washed his hands, ran over to see how the new game was progressing, Angel automatically perching the little boy on his shoulders before going back to arguing with Cordelia about the acceptable range of a cannonball.

“It’s going to be a very short ten days,” Willow sighed.

Giles looked down at her. “Yes, I’m afraid it will be.”

As Cordelia poked Angel in the chest and waved a unicorn at him, Giles grimaced. “Or perhaps not….”

***