Chapter Text
Chapter 4
Even the morning light looked tired.
It filtered through the trees in dull streaks, touching nothing warmly. The fog hadn’t lifted; it had only learned to disguise itself as air.
Wesley helped Giles back to his feet. They’d rested long enough for the fire to die, long enough for the silence to begin feeling like a warning. The older man’s weight leaned heavy against him, but Wesley didn’t complain. The road ahead wound between black pines and old telegraph poles that looked like crosses.
“Left or right?” Wesley asked.
“Does it matter?” Giles’s voice was barely more than breath.
“It might.”
Giles peered down both paths. Each looked identical — gray, slick, endless. “Then right,” he said. “At least we’ll be wrong consistently.”
They started moving. Gravel shifted underfoot; the sound felt much too loud. After a few minutes Wesley realized that Giles had fallen completely silent, his gaze distant, his expression glassy.
“Rupert?”
A pause. Then, faintly, “Don’t let them take the books.”
Wesley frowned. “What books?”
“The Council archives,” Giles muttered. “They’ll burn them to hide what we did.”
He blinked, looked around, and seemed surprised to find the forest instead of stone walls. “Did I—?”
“You’re wandering,” Wesley said gently. “You were dreaming out loud.”
“Dreaming,” Giles echoed. “While walking. That’s new.”
“It’s exhaustion. And blood loss.”
“It’s memory,” Giles said, his tone sharpening. “They blur at the edges when you’ve seen too much.”
The fog thickened again, gathering low to the ground. Wesley felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “We need to keep talking. Stay awake.”
“So ask something,” Giles murmured. “Something trivial.”
Wesley thought for a moment. “Did you ever actually believe in the Council’s creed?”
Giles gave a soft, bitter laugh. “Which part? The control? The obedience? Or the part where they teach children to catalogue evil before they’ve learned kindness?”
“All of it.”
“I believed because I was afraid not to,” Giles said. “We were raised to think that doubt was sin. You of all people should understand that.”
“I do,” Wesley admitted. “Too well.”
The road curved and dipped. Fog filled the hollow ahead, silver-white, motionless. Wesley tightened his grip around Giles’s arm. “Careful. The ground’s uneven.”
But Giles had stopped walking. His attention was fixed on the fog. “Do you see it?” he whispered.
“See what?”
“The lights.”
Wesley followed his gaze. There was nothing there—until the mist shifted and a faint glow appeared, like candles in a distant window. The smell of old paper drifted through the air.
“The library,” Giles murmured, stepping forward.
Wesley caught his sleeve. “That’s not real.”
“It looks real.”
“That’s how it works.”
Giles stared into the haze. “I can hear them. Buffy, Willow, even Jenny. They’re studying. Waiting for me.”
“You’re hearing it, not seeing it. Listen to me—none of this is real.”
“I left them,” Giles whispered. “Every time, I leave them to clean up my mistakes.”
The glow brightened, flickered, spread. For an instant the forest became shelves and tables, dust motes turning in shafts of lamplight. Wesley smelled wax and polish, heard the rustle of pages. Giles took another step.
“Stop!” Wesley shouted.
Giles froze. The vision trembled, the air humming with tension. Then Wesley’s voice cut through again, lower, steady. “Rupert, if you go toward it, it wins. You understand? That’s not them.”
Giles’s eyes cleared slightly. He looked down. His boots were half-submerged in mist that wasn’t fog anymore; it clung, thin tendrils winding upward as though reaching. He pulled back, shuddering.
The illusion broke. The light vanished. The forest returned, darker than before.
They stood there, breathing hard. Wesley glanced sideways; Giles was shaking but upright.
“It wants you to walk into it,” Wesley said. “Don’t give it the satisfaction.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Giles said, voice hoarse. “Though I suspect I’d make excellent bait.”
“You already are.”
He managed a faint smile. “Then let’s keep the monster guessing.”
They walked again, slower now. The fog followed at a distance, whispering softly, the words just out of reach. Giles didn’t try to listen this time. He kept his focus on the rhythm of their steps and the warmth of Wesley’s hand on his arm.
When the road curved again, they saw the faint outline of rooftops far ahead—maybe a farmhouse, maybe another trick. But it was direction, and that was enough.
Wesley glanced at him. “Still with me?”
“For the moment.”
“That’ll do.”
They kept walking, two dark figures moving through a world that no longer seemed sure it wanted them. Behind them, the fog gathered itself again, patient, breathing.
⸻
The road dissolved into forest again, as if it had never been paved at all. The fog wove between the trees like breath, heavy with a smell that wasn’t quite natural—ozone and something faintly metallic.
Giles moved as if guided by instinct rather than sight. His steps were careful but unfocused, the way of a man walking through a dream he half remembers. Wesley stayed close, one hand hovering at his elbow, ready to catch him. The older man’s weight had grown unpredictable—light one moment, leaden the next.
“Rupert,” Wesley said, low, steady. “Talk to me. Tell me where you are.”
“The woods behind the school,” Giles murmured. “We used to train Buffy here. She hated it. Too quiet.”
Wesley’s heart sank. “We’re nowhere near Sunnydale.”
Giles blinked slowly. “Aren’t we?”
He stopped. The trees ahead were changing: trunks thinning into columns, bark rippling into plaster. For a moment Wesley saw nothing unusual—just fog and light—but Giles was staring at something else entirely.
“Do you see it?” Giles asked.
“What am I supposed to see?”
“The library. The smell of dust. The sound of her boots on the stairs.” He smiled faintly. “She’s here somewhere. Buffy always is.”
The forest folded inward; the smell of pine gave way to books and candle wax. The shift was so subtle that Wesley almost believed it, until his hand brushed the trunk beside him and came away damp with sap.
“Rupert, listen,” Wesley said sharply. “It’s the fog. It’s using memory as a map. If you walk toward it, you’ll—”
But Giles was already moving.
“Buffy!” he called, voice breaking in the mist. “Stay back! It isn’t safe!”
The reply came instantly, too close, too perfect. I’m fine, Giles.
He froze. The voice was Buffy’s, but softened, dreamlike, threaded with echo. He turned toward it.
You can rest now, it said. You’ve done enough.
Wesley caught his arm. “No, look at me. Not it—me!”
Giles wrenched free, staggering forward. The ground shifted beneath him, forest floor becoming cracked tile, fog turning to lamplight. He was standing in the school library, or something that wanted to be it. Jenny was at the table, smiling gently. Buffy sat on the railing, legs swinging. It was wrong, all wrong—the air too still, the light too warm—but the comfort of it hurt more than the pain ever had.
“You see?” Jenny said. “It’s finished. You can stop now.”
Giles’s throat tightened. “I can’t. They still need me.”
“No one needs you,” the voice whispered, still wearing Jenny’s shape. “Only you believe that.”
Behind him, Wesley’s voice tore through the illusion. “Giles! Listen to me—it’s feeding on you!”
The library flickered. The figures distorted. Jenny’s smile warped into something colder, her eyes hollowing into pits of light. The walls shuddered; the shelves dissolved back into fog. The forest snapped into place again.
Giles stumbled, catching himself on a tree. He was trembling violently, breath ragged.
Wesley grabbed his shoulders. “You’re bleeding through the barrier. It’s using your guilt as a door.”
“Then close it.”
“I can’t. Only you can.”
Giles pressed a shaking hand to his temple. “I’m trying, but it knows where to find me. It knows the shape of my thoughts.”
“Then think of something it can’t use,” Wesley said.
“Like what?”
Wesley hesitated, then said quietly, “Hope.”
Giles laughed—short, bitter. “You sound like a sermon.”
“Desperation makes philosophers of us all.”
They stood there, both breathing hard. Then the fog shifted again—not around Giles this time, but around Wesley.
The forest darkened. A man’s voice, deep and precise, spoke from behind him. You failed them, Wesley.
He turned. A tall figure stepped from the mist, wearing his father’s coat, his father’s expression of measured contempt.
You were never a Watcher. You were a child pretending to be useful.
Wesley gritted his teeth. “You’re not real.”
You left them. You watched them die.
He swung the broken pipe instinctively through the air. It met no resistance—only fog—but the sound that came out of it was unmistakably human, a choked laugh.
Still violent. Still trying to fix what you ruined.
Giles’s voice cut through from somewhere nearby. “Wesley! What do you see?”
“My father,” Wesley said through clenched teeth. “And he’s enjoying himself.”
“Then he isn’t your father.”
The fog folded again, collapsing in on itself. The voice broke apart into whispers that carried both men’s names, weaving them together until neither could tell which was which. Rupert-Wesley-Watcher-Failure.
Wesley reached Giles just as the older man swayed again. He caught him, felt the tremor in his frame.
“You’re burning up,” Wesley said.
“It’s trying to pull us in.”
“Then we keep moving.”
Giles looked at him, eyes bloodshot but steady. “You can still leave.”
“No,” Wesley said simply. “We finish this together.”
The fog hissed, retreating for the moment, as if the sound of agreement displeased it.
They leaned on each other and started forward again. Behind them, the forest shifted shapes—branches stretching into rafters, bark bleeding into stone—but they didn’t look back. Every step was a negotiation with exhaustion, with pain, with memory.
By the time the ground sloped downward toward open country, both men were breathing hard. Giles’s voice was a whisper. “It’s quieter now.”
“For the moment.”
“Then we’re winning.”
Wesley almost smiled. “That’s one interpretation.”
They reached the edge of a field where the fog thinned to a pale veil. The silence felt earned. For the first time in hours, the world seemed almost solid again.
Giles sank onto a rock, wiping a hand across his face. “If this is victory,” he said softly, “I’d hate to see defeat.”
Wesley crouched beside him. “You’ll live to make the comparison.”
The older man closed his eyes, too weary to argue. The fog waited beyond the trees, patient as always.
⸻
Evening bled through the trees without warning.
One moment there was the pale gray of daylight; the next, the forest had taken on the bruised colour of twilight. The fog returned as if it had been waiting for permission.
Wesley built a fire out of habit, though the wood was too damp to catch properly. The smoke curled low, hiding among the roots. Giles sat a few feet away, his back against a tree, staring at nothing. The light made hollows under his eyes.
“You should drink,” Wesley said, offering the canteen.
Giles didn’t move. “I keep seeing doorways.”
“Doorways?”
“In the fog. Every time I blink, there’s another one. My flat in Sunnydale. The Magic Box. The library. All open. All waiting.”
“They’re not real.”
“They’re mine,” Giles said softly. “That makes them dangerous.”
Wesley crouched beside him. “You’re losing ground. The thing’s feeding on what it can still reach. Focus on the here-and-now. The smell of smoke, the sound of the fire.”
Giles nodded, trying, but his gaze drifted past Wesley’s shoulder. His breathing changed—slow, uncertain.
“What do you see?” Wesley asked.
“Her,” Giles whispered. “Jenny. She’s standing behind you.”
Wesley turned sharply. Nothing. Just fog and trees.
“She’s smiling,” Giles went on. “Exactly as she did before—”
He broke off, eyes wide with something between longing and dread.
Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. “Rupert. Look at me, not at it.”
“She’s asking me to come home.”
“That isn’t her.”
“It feels like her.”
“I know.” Wesley’s tone softened. “But feeling isn’t proof.”
The air rippled. For an instant the forest vanished, replaced by walls lined with books and the faint hum of electric light. Giles was on his feet before Wesley could stop him.
He was back in his apartment in Sunnydale. The kettle hissed softly on the stove. Jenny stood by the window, hair catching the afternoon sun.
“This isn’t possible,” he said, but his voice trembled with hope.
She turned, smiling. “You always said you’d come back when it was quiet.”
He reached toward her. His hand passed through air that felt too cold to be real. The room flickered. The light grew harsh, colour draining from everything. The smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes.
Wesley’s voice broke through, muffled but urgent. “Giles, you’re not there. You’re standing in the forest—talk to me!”
Giles pressed his palms to his temples. “Stop shouting, you’ll wake her!”
“She’s not asleep, Rupert. She’s gone!”
The room darkened. The windows melted into black mirrors. In them he saw not Jenny but himself—older, wearier, eyes full of the same mistakes. The reflection spoke in his own voice:
You can’t keep saving them. You can’t even save yourself.
He stumbled back. “I know.”
Then why keep trying?
“Because it’s all I have left.”
The reflection reached out; the glass rippled. Cold flooded his chest, dragging him forward. He felt the ground tilt, the illusion swallowing him whole.
Wesley lunged, grabbing his arm. The world shattered—soundless glass breaking. The apartment dissolved into fog. They hit the ground together, the impact driving the breath from both of them.
Wesley rolled first, dragging Giles upright. The older man sagged against him, shaking, eyes unfocused.
“Still with me?” Wesley asked.
Giles nodded weakly. “That wasn’t memory. That was temptation.”
“It’s the same thing to this creature.”
Giles’s lips twitched in a semblance of a smile. “Remind me to compliment it on its thoroughness.”
“Later.” Wesley steadied him. “Can you walk?”
“For now. Though I suspect my definition of ‘walk’ has become liberal.”
They began moving again, both limping, both silent. The forest seemed wider now, every tree an echo of the one before. The fog withdrew but didn’t vanish; it hung at the edge of sight like a thought waiting to be finished.
After a while Giles spoke, his voice small but clear. “It showed me peace.”
“And you didn’t take it,” Wesley said.
“I never do.”
They walked until the sound of the river reached them—distant but real, a thread of ordinary life. They followed it downhill until the trees thinned and the ground leveled out into the beginnings of a road.
When they stopped to rest, Wesley lit another small fire. Giles sat across from him, head bowed, breathing shallow but steady.
“What now?” Wesley asked.
“We keep moving,” Giles said. “Until something gives. Preferably the fog.”
The fire crackled between them, its light painting their faces in brief, uneven strokes. Behind them, the mist gathered again, patient, reshaping itself.
Neither man noticed.
⸻
The Magic Box was too quiet.
Even the ticking clock sounded hesitant, as if it wasn’t sure it belonged there anymore.
Willow sat behind the counter with the phone pressed to her ear for the fourth time in as many hours, listening to the dead click of the dial tone. She hung up, sighed, and tried again. Same hollow sound.
Xander, slouched in one of the chairs near the display table, spun a crossbow bolt between his fingers. “You know, I think the phone’s trying to ghost you,” he said. “And, uh, not the fun kind of ghosting.”
Willow shot him a look, somewhere between exhaustion and affection. “Not helping, Xand.”
“Just trying to keep morale up. If the apocalypse hits again, I want my sarcasm to die doing what it loves.”
Tara looked up from the open book in front of her. Her voice was soft but steady. “It’s been over a day. Maybe… they just lost signal?”
Willow shook her head. “No. Giles doesn’t lose signal. He finds payphones in dimensions where phones don’t exist.”
Buffy, leaning against the window, didn’t look away from the street outside. Her reflection hovered faintly in the glass — pale, still, unblinking. “He said it’d be quick,” she murmured. “A couple of hours there, a couple back.”
“He’s with Wesley,” Xander offered. “Guy’s a walking safety manual. I’m sure they’re fine. Probably having a riveting discussion about demon taxonomy or whatever gets Watchers all hot and bothered.”
“Ew,” Anya said from behind the counter, not looking up from the cash register she was balancing. “Nobody gets hot and bothered about taxonomy. Except possibly you, if you’d admit it.”
Buffy turned from the window, crossing her arms. “It’s not funny.”
The words came out sharper than she meant, cutting through the room. Anya froze mid-count, Xander looked down at the bolt, and Willow’s hand stilled on the phone.
“I wasn’t joking,” Anya said, a little too fast. “I was deflecting. It’s a coping mechanism. You know, instead of crying or screaming, which is what I really want to do.”
Buffy closed her eyes. “I know. Sorry.”
The silence that followed was full of static — not quite comfortable, not quite hostile.
Outside, rain started again. Slow at first, then steadier, tapping against the glass in thin, restless fingers. The sound filled the space that Giles usually filled with quiet certainty. Without him, the shop felt like a house after someone’s left — still functional, but hollow.
Willow stood, restless energy crackling in her movements. “I could try another trace spell. Maybe the interference’s down.”
Tara reached out, brushing Willow’s hand gently. “You’ve done three. It’s not the signal.”
“Then what is it?”
“Something… thicker. Like fog.” Tara hesitated, glancing at the window. The glass had misted over, though no one had opened the door. “It feels wrong tonight.”
Xander tried for lightness again, though his voice was softer now. “Well, that’s Sunnydale’s slogan, isn’t it? Feels wrong tonight. We should put it on a mug.”
Buffy didn’t answer. She was still staring at the fog creeping along the street, the way it pressed against the glass but never quite touched it.
Willow followed her gaze. “It wasn’t this heavy earlier.”
“Storm rolling in?” Xander offered.
“No,” Tara whispered. “Something else.”
Buffy’s jaw tightened. “Giles said the ingredient they were getting had to be handled before dawn. If it’s dawn somewhere and they’re not back…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
The phone rang once — shrill, startling in the quiet. Everyone jumped. Willow snatched it up so fast she nearly dropped it. “Giles?”
Static answered. Beneath it, something like a voice — low, distant, a single word.
Willow froze. “Hello?”
The static deepened, almost rhythmic now, like breathing through a wall. She thought she heard her name. Then it was gone.
She replaced the phone slowly, eyes wide. “That wasn’t him.”
Buffy straightened. “Then who was it?”
“I don’t know. But it sounded… familiar.”
The rain thickened outside, blurring the world beyond the glass. For a moment, Buffy thought she saw movement — a shape, human-sized, standing across the street. When she blinked, it was gone.
Xander broke the silence with forced brightness. “Okay, that’s it. I vote we all stay put. No wandering fog walks, no hero solo acts, no late-night library detours—”
“We’re not waiting,” Buffy said.
The finality in her voice shut down any protest. She looked from face to face, eyes steady but shadowed. “We’ll give it till morning. If there’s still no word… we go.”
Willow nodded, slow and deliberate. “Together.”
Tara whispered something that sounded like a prayer.
Outside, the fog pressed a little closer. Inside, the firelight from a single candle wavered — a heartbeat trying to hold against the dark.
Buffy watched it until it steadied again.
Then she whispered, almost to herself, “Hang on, Giles.”
The candle guttered once, as if it heard her.
⸻
The clock on the Magic Box wall had stopped somewhere around two in the morning. No one noticed until much later, when Tara glanced up and realized the second hand hadn’t moved in hours. By then the shop looked less like a place of business and more like an archaeological dig—maps, notebooks, open grimoires, and a half-eaten pizza all strewn together in a mess that smelled faintly of wax and rain.
Willow crouched over a circle she’d chalked on the floor, whispering a Latin phrase under her breath. Her eyes were bloodshot, her fingers stained with candle soot. “This should work,” she said to no one in particular, her tone clipped, confident. “It’s a triangulation spell, not a locator. Totally different frequencies.”
Buffy sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, tying her hair back. “Last time you said that, we ended up summoning a choir of naked fairies.”
“That was an interpretation issue,” Willow muttered, placing a small vial of salt at the circle’s edge. “Now, silence, please. I’m calibrating.”
Anya, from her perch at the counter, didn’t look up from her ledger. “You’re always calibrating. And it always ends with someone bleeding from the nose.”
“Constructive energy, Anya,” Xander said, his head resting on his folded arms. “Think happy thoughts. Like how we’re not being eaten right now.”
“I am thinking happy thoughts,” Anya replied. “You’re just not noticing because you’re too busy pretending everything’s fine.”
Buffy exhaled through her nose, the sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Can we maybe not do relationship therapy at two a.m.?”
Willow’s candles flared. The chalk circle pulsed once—white, then red. A faint hum filled the room, like feedback from a speaker just before it screams.
“See? It’s working,” Willow said, relieved. The map in front of her shimmered; a faint light appeared where the hills east of town should be. “That’s them. It’s faint, but that’s them.”
Tara leaned closer, her brow furrowing. “Willow… the map’s burning.”
Before anyone could react, the glowing point expanded outward in a thin, dark ripple. The parchment blackened from the center out, curling at the edges, and the smell of ozone and something sour filled the room.
Willow jerked her hands back. “That’s not supposed to happen.”
“No kidding,” Xander said. “You just made the road to Giles spontaneously combust.”
The light vanished, leaving only a small scorched hole in the paper. The candles sputtered out. The hum stopped. The silence afterward was louder than before.
Buffy stood, her jaw tightening. “So it’s blocked.”
Willow rubbed at her eyes. “It’s worse than blocked. Something’s pushing back. Like… like it knows I’m looking.”
Tara placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Don’t try again tonight. That energy—it’s not just interference. It’s hungry.”
Buffy looked around the shop, the shadows stretching long under the lamp. “If we can’t trace them magically, we do it old school. Maps, routes, logic. Giles said the ingredient was in the hills, right?”
Anya nodded. “Technically, the ingredient is a root that only grows where the veil between realms is thin. Which is either poetic or extremely bad news.”
Xander lifted his head. “So, uh, option B?”
Willow spread the map out again, careful to avoid the burn mark. “He would’ve taken the main road out of town, cut through the valley, and hit the foothills by nightfall.” She drew a line with her finger, frowning. “But the spell said they never made it that far.”
Tara whispered, “The fog.”
Everyone turned toward her.
“It’s not normal fog,” she continued. “I’ve seen mentions—in old Celtic texts. Entities that use mist to blur the boundary between the living and the dead. They feed on memory. The more you remember, the deeper you wander.”
Anya looked grimly impressed. “That’s disgusting. I like it.”
Buffy ignored her. “So they’re stuck in some kind of… ghost pocket?”
“Not ghosts exactly,” Tara said. “More like echoes. Thoughts that never died.”
Buffy paced, her movements sharp. “If it’s feeding on them, then we can’t just wait. Every hour we sit here, Giles gets weaker.”
Willow’s voice dropped. “And Wesley too.”
A brief silence. Even Anya looked down. Whatever jokes she might’ve made about Wesley’s self-seriousness stayed unspoken.
Buffy leaned on the counter, both hands flat. “Okay. At dawn, we drive out. Take weapons, first-aid kits, all the usual. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
Xander groaned. “Because wandering into the mysterious fog that eats memories worked so well for—oh right, no one ever.”
“Xander.” Buffy’s tone was firm but weary. “We’ve done worse.”
He sighed. “Yeah. And somehow we’re still here. I guess that’s proof of concept.”
Willow busied herself cleaning up the remnants of her failed spell. Tara blew out the last candle. Smoke curled upward, pale gray against the dark.
Buffy looked toward the window again. The fog outside had thickened into something almost solid, moving against the glass like a living tide. For a second she thought she saw the outline of a man—tall, wearing glasses—before the shape thinned and vanished.
Her breath caught. “Giles…”
But when she blinked, there was only fog.
⸻
By the time the fog outside lightened from iron-gray to the color of old bone, the Magic Box had begun to look like the aftermath of a siege. Half-empty cups, stacks of books leaning precariously, weapons laid out across the counter in a grim kind of order. The overhead lights had gone out sometime before dawn; only a single oil lamp flickered on the table, painting everything in amber and shadow.
Buffy stood by the door, tying back her hair with the practiced movements of someone preparing for a patrol that might not end. The sound of leather and metal—belts, stakes, the faint clink of a scabbard—broke the stillness.
Willow watched her, arms folded. “You’re not waiting for sunrise, are you?”
Buffy didn’t answer right away. She adjusted the strap on her jacket, checked the crossbow’s string. “Sunrise doesn’t feel like much of a friend lately.”
“Neither does the fog,” Xander muttered from the corner. He was loading silver-tipped bolts with more care than confidence. “I still say we give it another few hours. Maybe Giles and Wesley decided to camp out. Watchers love roughing it, right? Builds character.”
“Character’s overrated,” Anya said. She was counting the stakes in a neat row, her tone brisk, almost chipper. “You can’t trade it for survival.”
Buffy’s hand stilled on the doorknob. “They’ve been gone thirty-eight hours.” Her voice didn’t rise; it didn’t have to. It was the kind of quiet that made the others stop what they were doing. “That’s too long for a supply run. Giles wouldn’t just disappear. Not now. Not after…” She trailed off, but everyone knew the ending: Not after I came back.
Tara closed the book she’d been reading, a soft, deliberate sound. “Then we go after them.”
Willow turned to her, eyes wide. “Tara, you said yourself—there’s a barrier. The fog could twist our memories. If we go in, we might not come out the same.”
“I know.” Tara’s voice stayed calm. “But sitting here while it feeds on them—that’s worse.”
The word feeds made Buffy’s stomach turn. She could almost hear Giles’s dry tone correcting the terminology, could see the faint smile he’d hide behind the edge of a book. The memory hit like an ache, too sharp for nostalgia, too dull for comfort.
Anya straightened, slipping a small axe into her bag. “I’m only coming because I like this shop, and if Giles dies, Buffy will mope forever, and mopey Buffies don’t spend money.”
Buffy managed a thin smile. “Glad to know I’m good for the economy.”
“Someone has to be,” Anya said, completely serious.
Willow hesitated, looking between them. Her hands trembled slightly, the aftereffect of too many spells, too little sleep. “If the fog blocks magic, I might not be able to do much. Just so you know.”
“That’s okay,” Buffy said. “I’m not looking for fireworks. I just need eyes and hands. And someone who remembers who Giles is if I forget.”
The words landed heavier than she meant them to. The room went still again.
Outside, the fog pressed against the glass, not swirling now but breathing. Slow, deliberate. The lamp flame bent toward it, guttered, and held.
Xander stood, slinging the crossbow over his shoulder. “Okay, Operation Save the British. You’re the boss.”
“I always am,” Buffy said. It should’ve sounded smug. It didn’t.
Tara started packing herbs and charms into a satchel, whispering incantations more for comfort than effect. Willow joined her, the two of them moving in tired synchronization born of long nights and too many close calls.
Anya went to the register, opened it, and quietly slipped a few bills into her jacket. “Just in case. Funerals are expensive.”
Xander looked like he might argue, then decided against it. He only said, “Make it a round trip, yeah?”
Buffy fastened her jacket and took one last look around the shop. The empty chair behind the counter caught her eye—Giles’s chair, still pushed slightly back, as though he’d only stepped away for a minute. The tea mug beside it had gone cold, the faintest ring of dust around the rim.
She reached out, touched the edge of the table, and for a heartbeat, the shop felt like it always had: a place anchored by Giles’s quiet steadiness. Then the feeling slipped, leaving only the fog’s reflection in the window.
“Let’s move,” she said.
They filed out into the dawn that wasn’t quite dawn, the air thick enough to taste. The fog stretched down the street like a path waiting for them. Buffy led, her silhouette sharp against the pale light, the others following close behind. None of them noticed the faint echo that lingered as the door swung shut—the ghost of a voice caught in the wood and glass.
Buffy… stay where you are.
Giles’s voice, soft and fading, like breath lost in distance.
Buffy paused at the curb, turning slightly, as if she’d heard something. But there was only the rustle of fog, the faint creak of the sign above the shop door.
“Hang on, Giles,” she whispered, not knowing she was echoing him exactly. “We’re coming.”
The fog swallowed the sound whole. The last sliver of light from the shop window flickered once, then went out.
⸻