They made it back to Cordelia's car seconds after the thunderstorm cut loose. Xander hauled the rear door open and bundled Willow inside, then turned to get Giles. The man was leaning heavily against the side of the car with his eyes shut, all physical reserves having been apparently exhausted by the walk back.
"Com'on, G-man," Xander urged, pulling Giles' arm over his shoulder. "Just a few steps more."
Giles climbed, then fell, into the car. Xander shoved his legs up and in, then got in after him and slammed the door shut.
"Nobody said anything about rain," Cordelia was complaining from the front seat as she pulled wet strands of hair from her face. "A little warning next time would be nice."
"Cordy, shut up." Xander edged past Giles to check on Willow, who was shaking violently against the opposite door. "Do we have extra blankets in the car?"
Cordelia was already leaning over the back of the seat, unfolding a soft pink blanket over Willow. "No," she said irritably. "Since you were supposed to be Caution Man tonight, I'd thought I'd leave all the planning to you. God knows, I couldn't think that something might get fucked up and plan for it." She unfolded a second blanket, and Xander tucked it around Giles. "Are they going to be all right? Maybe we should drive to the hospital?"
"Just drive, okay?" Xander snapped.
Cordelia turned around wordlessly and flipped on the headlights. The rain was pouring down by now; even with the windshield wipers on high, it was impossible to see more than a few inches in front of the window. "Maybe you'd like to try driving in this, Xander, but I'd prefer it if some of us made it back to Sunnydale in once piece." She turned on the radio, but only managed to get static.
"All right, all right," Xander said. "Do you have any more blankets up there?"
A scratchy wool tartan blanket hit him in the face. Xander unfolded it and tucked it over the first around Willow. Cordelia bent over the seat to throw another blanket over Giles. "How is she?"
Willow gave him a shivery smile. "Okay, I think." He turned around to check on Giles. The Watcher lay curled on his side, half on and half off the seat, eyes still shut. Xander felt his cold hand and frowned.
"What?" Cordelia said, still hovering anxiously over them.
"I don't know." Xander pushed the blankets more closely around Giles. "I'd feel better if he were shaking like Willow though. Turn on the engine and get the heater going for a few minutes."
"Giles?" Willow pulled her blankets around her and sat up to look at him. Squeezing past Xander, she settled next to Giles' head. She took his right hand in hers and rubbed at it.
Giles moaned and started to shiver.
"That got it going," Xander said. "Guess he just needed a jump start. Cordy, do you have that thermos of tea up there?"
"In the picnic basket," she said. "Behind on the beach. Where you told me to leave it."
"Right. In the picnic basket," Xander said. He turned to Willow. "Okay then, what the hell did you guys think you were doing? When I said 'go ahead', I meant go ahead and fine tune that 'two tin cans and a string' spell you were supposed to be doing."
Willow winced. "We're sorry. When we got into the spell, something kind of clicked. Don't blame Giles. He wasn't expecting it. But since we'd already done the casting, we decided to go with it. We couldn't really come back and get your okay."
"What happened?" Cordelia urged, hanging over the seat again. "Did you get to talk to Buffy?"
Willow looked up at Cordelia, then down again at Giles. "Yes," she said.
"Well, finally. When's she coming home?"
"She isn't," Giles said in a raw whisper.
"But you talked to her, didn't you?" Xander insisted. "Didn't you tell her what's going down here?"
"We let her know we needed her," Willow said. "She -- she wasn't really hearing what we were saying."
"She gave you the raspberry," Cordelia declared. "Well, great. That was a big fat waste of time and energy."
"It was my fault," Willow declared, glaring at her. "We shouldn't have tried to talk with her in her dreams. You say stuff in your dreams you'd never say in real life."
"You're honest in your dreams." Cordelia turned back to the steering wheel. "The rain's letting up now. I'm getting us out of here now."
"We can try again tomorrow," Willow said as Cordelia pulled the car out of the lot. "We'll make sure she's awake this time."
"No," said Xander. "That's it. If you and Giles want to keep up this casting stuff, you can find yourselves another Watcher. Because Cordy and I aren't going to help you get yourselves killed. And Cordelia is right -- if Buffy gives you the raspberry in her dreams, she's not going to change her mind awake."
Giles struggled to sit up, finally managing to prop himself up against the other door. Willow scooted over to sit next to him and took hold of his hand again.
"We --" Giles swallowed painfully and began again. "Dreams aren't conducive to rational discussion." He kept his eyes shut, as if trying to marshall some missing inner strength. "It was a mistake to approach her there."
"And what argument are you going to feed her in the here and now that will get you any further with her?" Xander said. "You guys get an 'A' for Optimism. Now it's time to move on to another class."
Giles pulled his hand out of Willow's grasp and turned away to stare out the window. She bit her lip and huddled into her blankets, her damp hair falling limply about her face.
"Hey," Cordelia said after a long period of silence. "The storm's clearing." She flipped on the radio and managed to tune into a station. Sarah McLachlan blasted through the car, and she hurriedly shut it off.
The Sunnydale city limits sign flashed by. "So where to now?"
"Why don't we stop by the Bronze?" Xander said tentatively. "Or would you guys like to have a stab at All You Can Eat Night at Bucky's Fondue Hut?"
"You decide," Willow said listlessly.
"Look, I didn't start this," Xander said angrily. "You and Giles dragged Cordy and me into this without a by-your- leave. You scared the wiggins out of us, got me decked out in a paisley tie, broke promises, and now you're trying to go turtle on us."
"We didn't break any promises," Willow said, tears in her eyes. "Okay, we should have stopped the spell and come back and told you what we were doing, but we didn't know what was going to happen. And Giles told you the spell was unpredictable."
"So what went wrong?" Xander demanded.
"Nothing. The spell was a success," Giles said. He sounded and looked exhausted, but at least there was some life seeping back into his voice. "I have never been more than a merely competent spell caster, but I have a sense for the fine details. Willow is gifted, but she has an unreliable grasp on the intricacies of magic. Separately, we are wobbly spell casters. Together. . ."
"You're this really good team. Like Abbott and Costello," Cordelia said.
Giles stared at her a moment, then sighed. "I hadn't realized the extent to which our abilities complemented each other," he admitted. "That's what happened when Willow reinforced my casting -- instead of a 10 percent increase in power we got 1000 percent."
Xander slumped back against his door. "And you went ahead with it anyway?"
"We had the spell under control," Willow insisted.
"Barely," Giles murmured.
"Okay, so -- some things got thrown at us that we weren't expecting." She was sitting straight up, looking intently at Xander. "But we did it. It was a successful casting."
"What's the point," Cordelia said, "if Buffy's not coming back?"
Willow opened her mouth and shut it again.
"Look," Xander said. "Nobody's saying that you and Giles didn't give it your best shot. You gave it your all and you came through --"
"Yay Team," Cordelia interjected.
Xander glared at her. "Hey, I'm doing my best Watcher imitation here, okay? We're all busting our butts trying to cope. Except for Buffy. Well, maybe it's time we stop wasting our energy trying to pep talk the No Show and spend it on the Home Team instead."
"Xander," Willow said angrily.
"Where are we going?" Cordelia said as she braked at a red light. "Around in circles, like this argument?"
"So?" Willow said, ignoring Cordelia. "We give up on her? Is that what you're saying?"
"I didn't mean that," Xander retorted. "Mostly I didn't mean that, I mean. But we need to start thinking self- reliance here --"
"You said --" Willow started.
Giles opened the car door, stepped out, and slammed it shut again.
"Giles!" Willow turned around wide-eyed to see him cross around behind them and over to the sidewalk. He rounded the building at the corner and disappeared.
"Xander," Cordelia said, "I'm all for being blunt and everything, but that was more like a baseball bat to the head."
"Oh god," Xander said. "I forgot about these post-spell casting mood swings. Hey!" He grabbed Willow as she shoved the door open to jump out.
"We've got to catch up with him," Willow said desperately. "It's not good for him to be alone out here right now."
"Don't worry." Xander hauled her back in and shut the door. "We'll catch him."
"Question of the night: What do we do with him when we catch him?" Cordelia said in a faux-cheerful voice. "I forgot to bring my big butterfly net, Xander."
"Xander will apologize," Willow declared, with a furious look at him.
"If that's what it takes, okay I will," Xander snapped. "The light's changed, will you turn already? Or are we giving Giles a head start here?"
Cordelia grabbed the steering wheel, turned left, and hit the accelerator. She left a trail of rubber racing to the end of the block. But Giles was nowhere to be seen.
"Now what?" Cordelia demanded as Xander craned out the window to look up and down the cross-street.
"I don't know," Xander said unhappily. "Back to the school, maybe?"
"Not like there's an overabundance of places in Sunnydale he could be headed for this time of night," she agreed and turned the car around.
"Wait," Willow said. "Across the street. There's an all- night mini-mart."
Cordelia looked back at Xander. "He had a royal case of the munchies after last night's spell casting."
Xander frowned, then nodded. "Okay. I'll run in for a quick look."
She turned the BMW across the street into the store's parking lot. Xander hopped out. "You girls stay here, and I'll check inside. Keep the motor running." He half-ran to the door.
"I've got to call home," Willow told Cordelia. "I'm going to use the pay phone over there."
"Okay --" Cordelia said distractedly as she watched the door to the mini-mart. She blinked, then took her cell phone off the dashboard. Scooting over to the passenger side, she rolled down the window. "Hey, Willow --!"
But the pavement by the pay telephone was empty.
Drusilla sat on top of a newspaper vending machine and waited. It had been a long night and she was hungry and that horrible moon had started its singing again. Sea chanties this time. She was going to have to find a way of smashing the thing into silence sooner or later.
She'd gotten a hat off a wandering lady last night. A nice wide-brimmed moonhat with flowers that hissed. It helped keep the moon away some, but the hissing muddied her thoughts. And so she was trying to sort out again why she was sitting here.
She needed a companion. Badly. "Naughty naughty Miss Edith," Drusilla growled unhappily. Miss Edith had run away, and Dru didn't have anyone to talk to now and tea parties didn't work very well with just one. She could never decide which cup to drink from. There was this pretty mug that used to sit on her desk and she would take it to the teacher's lounge and fill it with coffee to drink during those sunny morning hours while she drew up her lesson plans and the Watcher would come and smile at her and talk with her, and then Spike would walk in with a big red macaw in a cage. But she didn't like bird blood. It never filled the cup up.
"Naughty teacher," Dru said, running her fingers hard through her hair. Her Family had cut her adrift, left her to the mercies of this awful moon that sang and jigged overhead. And to that horrible teacher who was wandering through her head again.
The naughty teacher had gotten stuck in Drusilla's head when Dru had taken her from the Watcher's memories. At first it had been amusing. She would have the teacher to tea and would spill scalding water all over her while serving. But the naughty teacher had been sneaking in, now that Spike wasn't around to watch out for her, and had substituted some of her memories for Dru's.
Drusilla was fairly certain that she didn't need or want to know what a 'Monster Truck Rally' was, and she was more than a little confused in discovering the she felt melancholy at the thought of 'nitro-burning funny cars'. At least she hoped these notions of memories had nothing to do with her. If Spike were here, she could ask him, he would reassure her and chase the teacher away, and she could get back to the business of being Drusilla.
"Spike," she muttered, and kicked in the side of the vending machine with the back of her heel. He was never around anymore when she needed him. And Angel was no better.
She remembered now why she was here, sitting and waiting across the lawn from the Watcher's darkened flat. She cheered up at the thought. Once she took him, he'd make the irritating teacher go away, and then together they'd go find Angel and Miss Edith.
Drusilla picked her head up and listened intently. Somebody was walking rapidly up the street in her direction. She hopped off the vending machine and drifted across the lawn to the shadows of the staircase that led to the upper flats of the building.
The Watcher turned up the walk, moving at a furious pace. Drusilla prowled quietly to a position where she could intercept him; but he blew past her hiding place before she could do a proper stalk. She moved in behind him, determined to catch him before he could reach the safety of his flat -- but as she closed with him she came up against the glamour again.
He was throwing off waves and waves of that aura of raw magic. After last night she'd been expecting it, had even anticipated the taste of it. But this was something else: the tightly coiled power of cold dreams and moonlight and the wild ocean. She faltered in the face of it, and then he was opening the door to his flat and inside.
She moved to the front window of the flat and watched his shadow move upon the draperies. He would come back out to her very soon. She sensed his agitation. The magic was driving him. He was going hunting tonight.
Drusilla smiled now. The strength of the magic had surprised her, but it didn't frighten her. He was alone and new to it, and she was confident enough in her own powers that she could handle him. This could be a wonderful game.
She had a hunt of her own in mind.