FIC: Daybreak Postponed (5/12)

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Daybreak Postponed [approximately] (5/12)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy -- etc etc as in part (0/12). Some ideas have been borrowed for elsewhere to illuminate this story: they did once belong to Other Companies (and still do, I imagine), but since they are by way of being generic concepts, Idon't think anything's awry.
SUMMARY: Okay, trime to get in out the weather, and find out a little moreabout what's going on. Minimal smoochange, unless you count implicit G/E off-screen
ARCHIVING:: All enquiries welcomed
SPOILERS: None (except some people's lunches for implicit excess smoochage
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. 
 

 
DAYBREAK HAS BEEN POSTPONED

By Soren Nyrond

Part Four - The Hall

  

"I know we're pressed for space, guys - " Xander said, from hiscold and damp (absence of) refuge.

Buffy and Willow were both about to suggest that they and Samantha could manage to squeeze in a little closer when Giles spoke first:

"We could do to get in out of the weather. Elspeth - does the third windowon the left-hand side of the refectory still have a defective catch ? Only I'd rather not have Quentin knowing that I'm here."

Elspeth nodded, and Giles said "Right - I'll lead the way, just in case" and set off. Xander and Willow followed and Samantha was coming too when Elspeth called her name, in a critical tone. Buffy hung back, at the edge of the door, and heard Samantha's reply, before she set off into the rainy chaos.

"I'm sorry, Miss Jennings - I didn't have time to dress properly."

"Or at all, it would appear. Go on with you."

 

Buffy caught up with Giles and the others poised outside a window, which Giles seemed to be trying to open.

Samantha ran forward, out of the darkness.

"Here - let me : it sticks sometimes."

She pushed the lower sash just so, and the window gave slightly and slid upward.

"Here - I'll go first, just in case."

She knelt on the sill, and popped through (giving everyone else a flash of white underwear tightly wedged between her bum-cheeks) and then turned back.

"It sounds quiet - who's first ?"

Willow managed to get hold of Xander's shirt before he could launch himselflustfully on the girl, and Giles was the first through the window, followed by the others (though Buffy and Willow made sure that they were last, so that they could share a fast, if soggy, cuddle outside).

 

Once inside Giles led the way through the darkness unerringly to a door, across a hallway, through a second door, and finally into a panelled room. With that door closed he risked switching on a light . to find it curiously ineffectual.

"It's been like that ever since . " Elspeth began.

The effect was as though the light were being absorbed - close to the bulb everything was bright but once you got about ten feet away the shadows werealready clustering and by twenty feet there was little if any illumination.

"Perhaps a Moedaar effect," Giles said.

"I had wondered," Elspeth replied; "Or one of the Ehzkarakh rituals."

"I thought that they were forbidden."

"According to Quentin, you aren't really a respecter of the forbidden."

"Erm, people - comprehension is an issue," Buffy said. She was cuddling Willow comfortingly, while Xander eyed Samantha. It was better out of the rain, and a little warmer, but not really comfortable . 

"I'm sorry," Giles said: "Just trying to work out exactly what - "

#Atchoo#

"Sorry," Xander said, looking it.

"We could do with a better refuge," Giles said; "On the other hand, we could also do to be here."

The room was the annexe to the Watchers' library, its panelled walls, couple of desks and some comfortable chairs giving an air of (slightly decadent) British class. It took Buffy and Xander a couple of minutes to rearrangethe furniture into a slight, but definite, shield against casual observation.

"I can get blankets and so forth from the linen closets," Elspeth said: "And you, Samantha, should be back in bed - " (a comment which triggered differing images in various of the minds there) "- and I can get some food from the buttery, but . "

"We shall be all right," Giles said, on their joint behalfs. Elspeth and Samantha slipped out of the door and Giles looked round at his charges.

"We need rest, a dry-out, and some planning," he said; "Probably in that order." Then, wearily, he pushed his glasses up his nose and rubbed at the aching bridge. He respected the instinct that Buffy had employed to bring them here, and there was no doubt in his mind that Something wasWrong, but he had no idea of how to start Putting Things Right. Clearly he needed to get to the books in the next-door Library.

Elspeth returned with blankets and - wonder of wonders - dry clothes - "I borrowed some from Mike Garstang, and Samantha had some clean" -as well as a small pile of food (pork pies, fruit cake and ginger beer - all comfortably familiar to Rupert).

"Thank you - I really ought to start some research."

"But you need rest," Elspeth protested. Then her face brightened. "If I were to come and help you . "

Giles looked slightly enlivened at that, and he took some of the midnight snack, leaving the rest for the other three, and he and Elspeth slipped away.

"Do you think she'll get round to anything more than research ?" Xander asked, over a mouth of cake. He turned round, to find (with disappointment) that Buffy and Willow had managed to change into dry clothes without him getting a chance to ogle them. And now Buffy was holding out his new clothes to him with a twinkle in her eye.

But there were compensations . he merely had to walk to the farcorner from the light to be, effectively, invisible to them in the gloom. He returned to find that the girls had made a nest of blankets for themselves and were already looking halfway to sleep. He was about to start some merry banter, when it occurred to him that banter was probably not a good idea in the heart of the Watchers' Council headquarters. So he sipped at hisginger beer, wincing slightly at the unfamiliar taste of the English version of the beverage, and then grabbed the last blanket, switched off the light, and curled up.

 

At some stage he dimly heard a sound, but he was deep in sleep and hardly roused, even when his blanket was untucked, and a body spooned in behind him. Later, finding himself warm, he shifted position, but comingacross another body, he simply fitted himself round it.

And in the morning it seemed quite natural (after other, earlier sleepovers) to find that he, Buffy and Willow were tumbled together like puppies. That Samantha was there too - now that was something none of themhad expected.

Nor had they expected that Giles would not have come back. He returned about half an hour after they had woken, with Elspeth, bearing breakfast in the form of cereal bars, and a pitcher of milk.

And a number of books from the library.