Author: Kathryn A Pantaleo

Rating: FRM

Disclaimers: All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, Mutant Enemy, and whomever else he shares them with! I can only dream!!

Buffy, her friends and sister moved carefully along the dock. The warehouse where the Knights of Byzantium were holding Giles was right in front of them.

As they approached, she saw a Knight on guard duty patrolling on the roof. She pulled the small, hand held crossbow she had found in Giles glove compartment, ("Typical Giles" she had thought.) aimed, and shot him neatly off the roof. As they ran up to hide behind the white van, the stricken Knight plunged to the street with a THUD.

The door of the warehouse opened, and two more guards came out to investigate the noise. The Scoobies moved in. Buffy clubbed one into unconsciousness, and Xander pressed the muzzle of his automatic under the second guards’ chin.

"Not a sound!" he hissed at the guard. He and Buffy backed the guard up against the van. Buffy slammed him against the side, one side of his face mashed up against the cold metal.

"Be very, very careful of what you say in the next few minutes…" she said in a dangerously soft voice. "Your life depends on your answers. Do you understand?"

The guard nodded. "Good boy!" she said. "The Watcher. They have him here?"

"Y-yes," the guard said.

The next question caught in her throat…"Is…is he alive?"

The guard didn’t answer. Xander pressed the gun against the mans’ temple, hard ."Yes! Yes! He is alive! The Knight Marshall questions him!"

Buffy felt a quick surge of exhalation. Giles was alive! That was something to cling to!

"How many are inside?" the Slayer asked.

"Ten, plus the Knight Marshall." Buffy and Xander exchanged a look.

"Is that all we needed, Xander?" she asked.

"Think so."

Buffy knocked the guard out with the butt of the crossbow, and he slipped to the ground.

They turned, and with Buffy leading, followed by Xander, and Anya and Dawn trailing behind, they moved into the dark and musty warehouse. From darkness to darkness, it didn’t take long for their eyes to adjust to the dank interior. They moved inward, towards lights and voices. Ancient packing equipment provided all the cover they needed.

In the center of the warehouse, a large living area had been cleared out. One area had a neat row of cots. Several black-clad men lounged there. Two were working at a small camp stove. One was near them, running a whetstone along the length of his sword. A camp table and chairs stood almost at the exact center of the open space, and, just beyond that….

The battered form of Giles hung helpless before his captors. Two men stood near him, heads bowed in conversation. There was no sign of life from the Watcher.

Buffy nudged Xander, and made a hooking motion, indicating that he was to go around and come at them from behind where Giles was being held. She looked at Anya and Dawn…both had eyes as big as saucers, and Dawn was crying again.

She pointed to some machinery to her left, the direction that Xander had gone, and motioned for them to hide there. Anya nodded, and moved off silently, leading the younger girl.

Buffy moved to the right. Coming silently up behind the Knight sharpening his sword, she grabbed him suddenly from behind. One hand grabbed the chin, the other the side of the head, and she snapped his neck and caught his sword before it could hit the ground. On silent feet, she moved into position near the sleeping Knights.

Time had lost all meaning for Giles. His tormentors knew their work. They did not need to strike him any longer. A simple poke to his ribs produced waves of agony. A raised fist produced a cringe, and they delighted in his fear.

Giles tried to collect his thoughts, as he hung, shivering, in his saturated clothes. When he had blacked out, Sir Broken-Nose had brought him back to consciousness by the simple expedient of throwing a bucket of cold water on him.

Crude, he thought, but effective.

Giles had settled on a simple course of action. He considered himself already a dead man. He knew he was badly injured, and as his pain and exhaustion increased, he knew that he could not try to outsmart his enemies. He had little more value to them alive than dead. As they had said, they would be able to use him as bait, regardless, to lure Buffy into a trap.

The thought tore at his heart, but he knew there was nothing he could do about that. He had no hope of rescue, as there was no way that he knew of for his friends to discover his whereabouts. There was only one thing left in his power to do, and that was to deny his kidnappers the information they so desperately desired.

Giles refused to answer them…Regardless of what they did to him, he was determined that he would not betray his Slayer.

Sir Victor stood and regarded the Watcher with something very close to respect. The man was very strong. And he was brave, and very, very foolish! Most of his victims were broken by this point. But he would break Rupert Giles.

"My compliments, Mr. Giles," he said. "Your courage, like your fighting skills, do you credit. It is a shame that you are an infidel and an enemy. In another time, and another place, I believe we could have been friends." He was moving away, to where two sweating Knights were laboring over the camp stove.

Giles raised his head. "Never…happen," he ground out. He drew another labored breath. "Choose friends…rather carefully. You…don’t qualify."

In the shadows, Buffy’s heart surged with relief at the sound of her Watchers voice. He was alive! But he sounded weak...terribly weak.

The big Knight Marshall smiled a chilling smile, and picked up glowing piece of iron off the camp stove.

Giles uninjured eye went wide, as the significance of the hot iron sank in. "Oh, bloody hell!" he murmured.

Sir Victor started back towards him. "Now, about that key…"

There was a twang, hssst, thunk!, and the gaunteleted hand holding the iron rod suddenly sprouted a crossbow bolt. With a cry of pain, the Knight Marshall dropped the hot iron and it clanged to the floor.

Buffy stood in the clear, the small crossbow in her hand. "Stay the HELL away from him, you bastard!" her voice rang out.

A weak smile crossed the Watchers’ face. "About bloody time!" he said softly.

Sir Joram turned quickly to where Giles hung suspended, pulling a long knife from his belt. He found himself staring into the muzzle of an automatic pistol. He backed away slowly, hands coming up, as Xander advanced into the light. A motion of the pistol, and the knife dropped to the floor.

The Knights on the cots had come to their feet, and stood uncertain, as Buffy and the Knight Marshall took each other’s measure. "GET THEM!" the Knight Marshall roared, and the Knights charged the Slayer.

Xanders’ eyes darted to where Buffy leapt to the attack, distracted for just an instant. Sir Joram launched himself at the young man, grabbing the wrist that held the gun. The pistol discharged into the air, and the two went down in a tangled heap.

Xanders head struck the edge of a piece of factory equipment, and he lost his grip on the gun. A nasty fight ensued at the very feet of Giles. Sir Joram ended up on top of Xander, and he was inflicting some punishing blows with his gaunteleted fist.

Straddling the smaller man, he reared back for a massive blow. But he was close to Giles. Very close.

In an act of sheer will, Giles twisted his bound wrists, and grasped the metal hook with his swollen, numb hands. Ignoring the explosion of pain in his battered body, he swung his legs up together in a powerful kick.

A swarm of black, fuzzy gnats seemed to encroach on his vision as he came close to passing out again. But he had the satisfaction of seeing Sir Broken-Nose sail backward off his stunned friend.

Sir Joram was a trained warrior. He rolled to his feet and came up with his sword in his hand. With a snarl of rage, he raised it over the fallen man… Then three shots rang out, hitting him squarely in the chest. He sank to his knees, and toppled over.

Dazed, Xander twisted his head around, and saw Anya standing there with the pistol in her hands. He blinked. That girl never failed to amaze him!

Knight Marshal Victor was astonished. The Slayer was killing his Knights.

Since her first cry, Buffy Summers fought silently. She was, he thought, less a person than she was a natural disaster. She fought without expression. She fought without hesitation. She fought with whatever weapon presented itself, or with her fists, or with her feet. But his best men could not so much as mark her, including himself, as they crossed swords.

One by one, his men died. Finally, when only himself and two others remained, and he knew that only desperate measures could save his own life, he backed away from the fray, and pulled his dagger. He needed a distraction to get away.

Buffy, with a sword in one hand and the faithful battle-axe in the other, whirled as she felled the last attacker standing. In an instant, she saw that the Knight Marshall had a dagger in his hand, drawn back to throw. Several things flashed through her mind at once.

He was going to throw the dagger, not at her, but at Giles. She was too far away to reach him.

Without thinking, she threw the battle-ax. It was an off balance cast, and it glanced off the chain mail on his back just as he threw the dagger.

As her enemy staggered, she saw the dagger flash towards Giles. Her blow, however, had struck in time to knock the Knights’ aim off… Instead of its’ intended home in his heart, the dagger struck the Watcher in the shoulder, and sank in almost to the hilt.

"GILES!" she screamed.

She saw the Knight Marshall fleeing, hesitated a heartbeat, and then her sword dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers, and she ran to her Watcher.

Xander, scrambling to his feet again, was trying with Anya and Dawns’ aid, to free the injured Watcher. She reached them as Anya finished cutting through the ropes that bound his wrists, and he slumped into Xanders’ arms. Gently, they lowered him to the floor, Dawn cradling his head on her lap.

He was deathly pale, shivering, wet. A dark red stain was slowly spreading from the dagger wound. As they stretched him out on the floor, his uninjured hand came weakly up, as if to pull the dagger from his body.

Buffy caught his hand. "No, Giles, please, don’t move!" Giles didn’t seem to hear. He was struggling weakly against her.

Xander took the knife from Anya and began to saw at the ropes that bound his ankles.

Buffy gently turned his face to her, a hand on each cheek, ignoring the sticky blood there. "Giles! Giles, can you hear me?"

He squinted, blinking. "…Buffy?" he said, confused. "How?"

"Shhhhh," Buffy told him. "It’s ok. We’re here now."

She looked at Xander. "We have to get him to a hospital."

Giles hand reached up and caught hers, drawing her eyes back to him

"No…Buffy..." A labored breath…"No…hospital…Too dangerous."

"Giles, you need a doctor, now! We’ll….we’ll stay right with you! You’ll be safe. We won’t leave you!"

Giles squeezed his eyes shut…The black gnats were back. He had to make her understand!

"Knights…watching."

Xander said, "It’s ok, Giles." He looked across the carnage behind them. "They’re all…gone now."

Giles shook his head again. His eyes opened, slightly dilated and fever-bright. He squeezed his Slayers’ hand harder. "Heard…them talking. Power struggle…This dissenting faction.. Aligned with…evil…power."

"With Glory?" Buffy asked.

A nod. He closed his eyes briefly.. He had to hold on…Had to warn her!

"They…watch" another wheezing breath, each one tearing at her heart.

"Take…another hostage…Trap." His eyes opened and met hers again.

"Trap…for you!"

"Me? They want me?" Buffy asked.

Giles looked up, at the young girl who was cradling his head. "They want…the Key."

"Oh, no…" Dawn said softly. "Not me…not because of me. Oh please no!"

Buffy didn’t hear. Giles pulled her closer. His face intent. "No…hospital…Too dangerous. Promise me!"

"Giles, you need a doctor! Whatever happens, we’ll just have to deal…"

"NO!" The Watcher said, struggling to raise himself. The flow of blood increased. "Your word!..Buffy.. Promise me!"

Buffy’s mind flashed back…Years ago, to another time and place. A much younger Buffy, in a cheerleaders’ uniform, holding her first Watcher, a tall, sardonic Englishman named Merrick, in her arms as he died. Merrick had found her and awakened her to her destiny as The Slayer. He had died defending her from an enemy she had not been prepared to face. More images chased through her mind, of the past 5 years with this man who was her friend, and her Watcher, and her father in every way that had mattered.

"Giles, I won’t let you die! I’ll find a way. Don’t you quit on me!"

He smiled at her. Then he cried out as Xander tried to examine his shoulder…His eyes rolled back in his head, and the darkness engulfed him.

Moments later, they carried him back to the van, and carefully laid him in the back, wrapping him warmly in the blankets that were there.

Xander jumped out and then hesitated a moment before closing the van doors. "Buffy…."

She reached over and squeezed his arm. "I know, Xander…Go now. We’re counting on you!"

He heard Anya starting the engine, nodded once, and slammed the door. He turned and ran to the red sports car as the van sped away.