Disclaimer in part 1.
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“Buffy!” After all this time, searching, and she just walks through those doors by herself.
Buffy looks at her friend. “Hey, Willow.” She turned towards the others. “Xander. Oz.”
Xander nodded his head. “Buffy.” He wished he could drum up more excitement. He hadn’t realised until this moment how angry he was at her. Oz inclined his head toward the Slayer. He had no real beef against her, but he knew how upset Willow had been over her friend’s disappearance. And that made him pretty pissed. Willow sensed the tension between the three. She’d hoped for a happier reunion. But so much had happened. She felt awkward. At first she was going to go over to greet Buffy. Now she found she couldn’t move. Buffy looked at her friends. No happy homecoming here. But then, what had she expected. A Welcome Back Buffy party? More like a Why Did You Come Back, Go Away Again party. Well, she couldn’t. Her Watcher was in trouble. He needed her.
She sighed and moved forward. “How’s Giles?”
“What do you care!?” Xander hadn’t meant to say that. It just came out.
“Xander!” Willow couldn’t believe her friend.
“You just disappeared. Without a word to any of us. We’ve all been scared something happened to you. You didn’t care about the pain you caused us. How much Giles suffered not knowing where you are...”
“He knew.”
“What?” He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.
“Giles knew where I was. Well, at least where I was heading.”
“No. He didn’t. He would have told us. He was as worried as the rest of us.”
Willow thought back over the past few weeks. Something made sense now. “He wasn’t so worried a few weeks ago. I mean, he let us keep looking. But he said he had faith in you.”
Xander turned to the hacker in disbelief. “You can’t think he’d do it deliberately. Let us suffer all this time.” He turned back toward the Slayer. “You’re lying. So that you can feel better.”
“I saw him.”
“Now I know you’re lying. He never left Sunnydale.”
“I was on a bus. Leaving the town I was in. I sensed something. I looked out the window, and there he was. He sensed it too. He looked up. I know he did.”
Oz had been watching this in silence. He thought he knew Giles’ motives. “Xander, when Buffy first disappeared, you all went to pieces. Looking for her gave you a purpose. Then, when first Cordelia, then I left, you had something to occupy your time.”
Willow added her opinion. “That was why he wasn’t so upset when we made new plans too?”
Buffy looked at them all. “You left town? You left Giles on his own? And you dare to condemn me?”
Willow felt her own guilt rising. That caused her anger come to the surface. “He encouraged us to go. At least he knew where we were!” At the stricken look on the Slayer’s face, her anger fell away. “Oh, Buffy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” She stepped forward and enveloped her friend in a hug. “We’ve all missed you so much.”
Buffy felt the tears rise to her eyes. She’d wanted somebody to hug her for so long. To tell her it was going to be allright. Trouble is, it wasn’t. Not unless she did something. She pulled away from Willow. “This isn’t helping Giles.” She turned toward Xander. “What do we know?”
“We know that somebody wanted to get rid of us. Leave Giles on his own.”
Willow looked at him. “We do?”
“Yeah. It was too much of a coincidence. Besides, Giles had guessed it too. Why he went along, I don’t know yet.”
“We’ll ask him when he’s free. What are the charges?” She knew of his arrest, but not why.
“Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. You.”
“But I’m not a minor.”
“You were when you first met Giles. When you came to Sunnydale, and became Public Nuisance Number 1.”
“Who brought the charges up?” She had an idea of the answer. But she had to hear him say it.
“Your mother.”