Title: Something Borrowed
Author: Darsynia
Summary: What would happen if you woke up one morning in what appeared to be the future, with no memory of the past two years? Would you be able to accept it as amnesia, or would you be convinced that the reason is more... hellmouthy? For the 'Caught in a Spell' challenge at good__evil.
Challenge/Rating: Scenario Challenge ('Caught in a Spell,' in this case) Rating? Err, make it 12, I've no idea, really.
Story Notes: Set after Lover's Walk, before Cordelia makes The Wish (Season 3), Willow and Giles 'arrive' in season 5, right after the episode where Buffy is told about Dawn's true nature. The episode 'Family' happens directly afterwards, but with the altered timeline, Tara is no longer a Scoobie. My apologies to Tara lovers...

Something Borrowed

Something old, something new,
Something borrowed, something blue--
And a silver sixpence in her shoe.
-Unknown

Part I: Something New

Something felt wrong. She wasn't sure what it was, but as Willow slowly drifted towards the conscious part of awake, she started noticing things that felt... off. First of all, there was a very noticeable absence of lumps in the mattress beneath her--which, though comfy, didn't really feel like her old springy bed. The fall of sunlight on her face caused her to automatically shift her face farther to the left on her pillow, a habit that did not relieve her of the bright rays this morning, though she did notice in doing so that the fabric of her pillowcase seemed to have gotten a good deal softer overnight, which was also peculiar. Still half-asleep, Willow decided that the combination of these things could bear a more closer examination-- after she took advantage of them, of course. As for the sunlight, well, that could be remedied by a good old-fashioned rolling over. She opened her eyes slightly as she did just that, her vision filled mostly with sunlight and the colorful quilt she'd taken to using after she'd found out Angelus had been in her room. After she'd shifted positions, however, Willow discovered the fourth (and most disturbing) oddity of the morning:

She wasn't alone in the bed.

Willow's eyes popped open immediately and she froze, wondering how she could have completely missed the more obvious signs of this development in favor of playing the Princess and the Pea and mentally whining that her mattress was-- 'Wait, wouldn't that be Goldilocks?' she asked herself blearily; her mind usually had trouble keeping focused when she just woke up. The subtle shift of movement next to her along with the low sound of a man's breathing reminded her just how unfocused she could get. The man--it wasn't Oz, she knew it couldn't be because he'd once told her that he was frightened of suffocating, and the person in her bed had a pillow over his face. The rest of his body was covered in her quilt, excepting one shoulder that appeared to be clothed in some kind of flannel pajama top.

Her first thought was that she must have gotten drunk. She didn't feel 'headachy,' but perhaps her own personal kind of hangover was the type where she hallucinated strange men in her bedroom...

Willow froze again as the figure beside her twitched violently and shifted his hand from beneath the bedcovers. As she waited in frightened fascination for him to wake up, she felt her face growing hot from more than embarrassment--the morning sunlight was particularly fierce--and it was coming from a completely wrong direction! She finally allowed her eyes to survey the room, not daring to move lest her apparent night's companion rouse himself, forcing her to deal with a situation she wasn't mentally prepared for just yet. What she saw convinced her even more firmly of that conclusion--she wasn't in her own bedroom. For one thing, it was larger, and the window through which the light was streaming was situated to the left of the bed, not across from it. The decor was much more subdued, and she found herself liking the overall effect even as she was horrified at what she appeared to have done. Moving ever-so-carefully, she sat up a little to take in the rest of the room. The nightstand at the other side of the bed seemed to match the one next to hers, and the morning light was glinting off of an object resting on a handkerchief there. Willow wondered if it might give a clue as to whose ( *gulp* ) bedroom she was in, so she tried to sit up even farther in order to lean over and get a better look. The more precarious her position, the more blurry the stupid thing looked, until finally she was nearly leaning over the unidentified man.

It was Giles' onyx pinky ring. Willow let out a loud gasp and fell back onto her side of the bed, and the stack of pillows she usually slept with fell over on top of her. She frantically tried to bat them away, her heart pounding with shock and embarrassment even as she heard the man-- Giles?! --mutter a muffled-sounding curse. The quilt and sheet that covered her started to slip away as he sat up, and Willow clutched desperately at them, understanding the whole 'security blanket' phrase a lot better now.

"Calm down--I'm not going to take the whole thing," Giles said in a gravelly voice that did nothing to comfort her about the fact that she'd woken up in his bed. 'But... why is my quilt here?' a quiet voice in the back of her mind asked curiously. Willow ignored this in favor of not suffocating due to the attack of four clearly rabid pillows. "You're just bouncing them against the headboard and back onto--" the librarian's voice sounded resigned, almost sad--until he lifted the last cushion from her face. "Willow?!"

His incredulity was completely natural, but for some reason it triggered her defensive reflex, and she reacted without thinking. "Who did you think you were talking to?" she demanded. She regretted the question immediately, as a sort of shadow crossed his face, something that was incredibly sad even for the bare instant it was displayed there. He seemed poised to try to escape the bed, but the two of them had reached a sort of truce on the amount of quilt they held onto, and each seemed loath to get up and allow the other to see... anything.

"I was--" he stopped in the act of replying, the confusion on his face giving way to horrified bewilderment. "What on earth are you doing here?" Willow snatched the pillow back from his hand and held it to her chest protectively, pulling her knees up against it and scooting as close to the edge of the bed as she could.

"I can explain--well, no... I can't," she confessed, having started a typical disclaimer before realizing it really didn't apply at all in this situation. "I just sorta... woke up here," she offered, gifting him with a weak smile. When he continued to stare at her, she looked down in embarrassment before looking back in his direction, noticing for the first time that he, too was clutching a pillow to his chest, almost certainly unconsciously. "I figured I must have gotten really drunk..." He closed his eyes for a long moment at that, a grimace crossing his face that would have been slightly offensive if she wasn't so mortified. "Do you have a hangover?" she asked him impulsively, looking down at the quilt again, afraid of his reaction. "I don't, but--"

"I don't think I was drinking yesterday," came the reply, but his tone had such a strange note in it that she looked up quickly to see what the matter was. Giles was looking at her so oddly that she began to feel self-conscious-- more self-conscious, if that were even possible. "You would have to be the only person I know that would think to get a haircut drunk, rather than something more rebellious like a tattoo--"

"Or sleeping with her school librarian?" Willow said, automatically. The instant the words came out she became so appalled that she scooted away from him again--and promptly fell off of the edge, taking the bedcovers with her. Giles called out as she started to slide, but he couldn't reach her and the awkward silence that ensued after she landed stretched to fill the room. Willow could still hear herself saying it over and over again, until she couldn't bear it and had to speak again, if for no other reason than to distract her mind from repeating her faux pas. "I could have gotten a tattoo, too," she said in a small voice. "Wait--" Willow struggled to sit up in the tangle of blankets and pillows that had accompanied her to the floor. She reached up a hand and found to her astonishment that her shoulder-length hair was gone. "You'd think I would have remembered..." she started to say, both hands tracing the new contours of her red locks. Willow looked up to see Giles clad in a long black bathrobe and a sour expression, and again realized she'd put her foot in her mouth. "I'm just full of 'em today, aren't I?"

"So it would seem." He looked as if he were going to sit on the edge of the bed, but thought better of it. "Willow... whatever happened--I-I know I would never..." he paused, having no idea how cruel his choice of stopping point was to her. No matter how uncomfortable this situation was to Willow, a certain part of her was disappointed that she couldn't remember anything, if indeed anything had happened. She focused her attention back to Giles, who was stammering on and looking increasingly nervous as he did so, pacing about the room in an agitated way that would have been endearing if the situation had been different. "I could never take advantage of you in that way, you must know that," he finally said.

"I know." Willow smiled shyly, adding, "A-and, I wouldn't let you--I mean, you could get fi--never mind. I'm going to stop talking for the rest of the day," she finished miserably. Giles seemed not to have heard her, however--he was looking at something on the wall, but his body blocked her view of what it was.

"I'm sorry, what?" he said absently, then without waiting for her reply, he turned and held up a woman's robe, staring at it as though it were alive. "Is this... yours?"

Willow gulped and nodded. "Ma-aybe we were both sick with some sort of hellmouthy thing that required a quarantine!" she suggested, a new enthusiasm coloring her voice. "And I was nursing you back to health and fell asleep by accident?" He looked thoughtful rather than dubious as he handed her the garment, which struck her as a good sign. He turned away as she stood up and she noticed that the belt of his robe was twisted in the back--but she didn't dare try to fix it.

"What in the--" Giles said suddenly, catching himself before he swore aloud, whirling around with another piece of clothing in his hand, this time a sweater. "This was in one of my drawers!" he frowned at her disapprovingly.

"Starting to really think this is a hellmouthy thing," she said warily, hoping his demeanor would improve. "Giles, there's no way I'd sneak my stuff into your bedroom." She raised her eyebrows for emphasis, throwing her hands out and turning in a slow circle. She meant it as added significance to her words, but small details in the room started to stand out to her as she completed her turn. Shooting Giles a spooked look, she rushed over to the wardrobe next to the window and put her hand on the latch, waiting until his curt nod to open it.

Half of the clothes hanging inside were of muted earth tones, with greys and blacks mixed in. The other half were a brilliant mix of colors, everything from bright pink to a spring green. Willow stared at the contents with her jaw hanging open for a full minute before Giles walked over and shut the door.

"Something 'Hellmouthy,' then," he uttered in a quiet voice. "I'm going to make some tea." He turned and walked out of the room in a daze, leaving Willow to drift over to the bed and sink onto it, trying not to look around for fear of finding more evidence of her presence in his room, his bedroom , but finding them all the same. The silver rings that held the long curtains back were hers, and the fuzzy green rug that she'd fallen onto used to be, should be in her bedroom at home--she hated having cold feet in the morning, and usually sat up and rubbed them against the soft fibers before starting her day. She had a sinking feeling that when she went into the bathroom she would find two toothbrushes instead of one...

Willow dressed quickly, deciding to take advantage of the odd situation of having her clothes there, since it would be far less uncomfortable to try to figure out what was going on in street clothes, rather than fuzzy long pajamas with butterflies on them. Giles' had been tan and white stripes, she recalled-- 'No!' she told herself violently. What was wrong with her? It was barely two weeks since she'd literally 'fallen on (Xander's) lips;' she wasn't sure if Oz was ever going to forgive her, knew Cordelia wouldn't, and Xander himself...

Suddenly she realized that her first thought should have been of Oz--but it hadn't been. She'd actually thought about what Giles looked like in his nightclothes before she thought about what her boyf... what Oz would have thought about all of this! Willow told herself this was because she'd been flustered. It was because she'd felt so guilty for sneaking around behind his back with Xander. It was because of whatever this curse or spell or Hellmouth thing was, that was it. Besides, she felt guilty--she did! The problem was, she felt more guilty that she didn't feel... more guilty. It was like she'd given up already... and she didn't think she was that kind of person.

"Well it's not like he's not going to give up on you once we try to explain what strange new Bad we have to deal with," she told the empty room in a depressed voice.

___

"...tea," he heard himself say, as he propelled himself out the door, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. There were vibrant purple hand towels in the drawer with the tea leaves, but he tried not to notice. The refrigerator now sported a massive amount of small magnets that appeared to be various words--but he let his eyes slide over them as if they weren't there. Giles repeated a nonsense phrase in his head to clear his mind, said it over and over again as he stared resolutely at the kettle and tried not to mock himself for acting like an escapist. Finally the water began to boil, and he nearly spoke the phrase aloud until he spilled the scalding hot liquid in shocked reaction, narrowly missing his hand--it had turned out to be one of the mixed-up lines of words on the fridge.

'Her magic tastes like sweet destiny.'

"This is ridiculous," he said, instead. Giles wanted to go on to say that he was officially calling out whoever was tampering with his house, his life, and his mind, but he didn't... because he was afraid that whatever that was happening to his house was specific to his mind and his life. Willow had asked him to whom he'd thought he'd been speaking, and he'd instantly thought of Jenny--but the truth was, he had been shocked to see the redhead there because that wasn't the first time he'd imagined her in his bed... although he'd never pictured her in a soft pajama set adorned with colorful butterflies.

He'd always justified his attraction to her as a natural reaction to her energy and intelligence. After all, it was a common occurrence for teaching staff to identify with certain students--hadn't Buffy herself been possessed by the restless spirit of a young man who had been involved with his teacher? Yet, that was the very problem. Relationships like those were inherently dangerous, not to mention illegal. He had never intended his... affinity for Willow to be known to any but himself. How had some malevolent being managed to read his innermost thoughts and cause this cruel charade to take place? He couldn't very well ignore it--everywhere he looked, he saw her touch, evidence of what would appear to be a long-term relationship, sham though it clearly had to be.

Giles heard the phone ring, but he didn't move, certain that the caller would turn out to be whoever had put these strange events in motion. He had no intention of allowing some demonic evil to hold his private fantasies for ransom, blackmailing him with a relationship that would not, could not exist. He didn't stop to think about the implication that she was there, sharing this experience rather than it being simply the addition of her belongings to his empty house.

___

Willow flew down the stairs, her hands held against the sides of her face as literal blinders against whatever might be hung on the walls in the hallway or stairwell. Giles appeared to be frozen solid in the kitchen, so with a confidence she didn't feel, she picked up the receiver and answered.

"Willow? Thank god--we were worried," Buffy said in a relieved tone. It suddenly occurred to Willow that she should probably be in school right about now--but why would Buffy know to call Giles' house to reach her? 'Maybe my magical quarantine idea isn't so farfetched after all!' she thought, cheering slightly.

"I'm sorry to worry you," she replied carefully. After all, the others might not know about the virus's (disease? plague?) amnesiac properties.

"The two of you need to get over here right away," her friend said next, bringing up all of Willows' earlier anxiety and guilt with an innocuous phrase.

"The two of--no!" she exclaimed, immediately jumping to the conclusion that Buffy meant she and Giles as a couple, rather than just two people. "There is no two! There's one and... another one, but no two ! Two would mean that t-technically, there were three," Willow had squeezed her eyes shut during her protests, trying not to think about Oz, Xander, and Giles--by now she was seeing stars against the blackness--but she babbled on. "A-and that's... three makes me a--" Somewhere behind her, she could hear Giles muttering something about 'flailing hands' (which she supposed she was doing) before Buffy made a remark so outrageous in such a casual way that Willows' cheeks flared bright red and she started on an entirely new disjointed tirade. "What?! Woah... that's puttin' the cart before the horse before the horse even got there--"

Giles wrested the phone from her clammy grasp and pointed to the couch in a manner that brooked no refusal. "Hello, Buffy?" he said in a supremely calm voice. Willow headed to the couch, but something on a nearby bookcase made her jaw drop and caused the blush that decorated her face begin to travel down from her ears into her neckline. In a quick, jerky motion, she reached out and pulled the picture frame down so that it lay flat on the shelf, the picture inside completely invisible. She risked a glance at Giles, and saw that he'd settled himself on a chair nearest the phone, facing away from the living room as a whole. She couldn't hear his side of the conversation--all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat, the blood rushing too quickly through her veins.

She had to hide the rest of them! By the time Giles had hung up and walked over to her, Willow was staring frantically at a photographic montage on the wall, complete with pictures of all of their friends in tuxedos and fancy dresses. She saw him move to stand next to her, a stunned look on his face that told her he'd probably heard corroborating evidence from Buffy on the phone while she was busy trying to conceal what she'd found.

"I couldn't hide this one," she said simply. "I couldn't lift it from the wall." Behind them were at least four differently sized picture frames, all lying face-down on their respective surfaces. One corner of a large professional photo album was still visible under the sofa.

"I don't think that would help, anyway," he said in a similarly detached tone, holding his left hand in front of her face so she could see it clearly. Along with his customary onyx ring, a thick gold wedding band shone from his third finger. She stared at it for a long minute, the blush returning, solidly determined not to look at his face for fear of seeing either disgust or happiness. She didn't think she could handle either at this point. "It won't come off." he said, as if he were commenting on the weather. At this, she felt a nearly impossible-to-resist urge to touch his hand, either to comfort him or to try to remove the thing herself--but his comment reminded her that if he wore a ring... With a gasp, Willow turned away from Giles and ran for the stairs.

___

Was she running off to cry? To laugh? To try a spell in order to free them from... This last conclusion was what sent Giles following Willow, first checking the spare room in which he kept most of the books he really wanted to keep from her--from the students in his charge. She wasn't there, and nothing looked disturbed. He heard her voice coming from across the hall, and went into his ( their?! ) bedroom to find Willow sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her own left hand.

"I took it off," she whispered in a horrified tone, making him wonder if she were more upset that she'd ever worn the ring, or more upset that she'd removed it. In her right hand she held the ring box, and Giles reached for it, and without knowing why, he reached for it with his left hand. "They match!" his companion crowed, holding her small hand next to his. Willow's tone held no subterfuge whatsoever--she sounded completely entranced, and he felt his heart contract against his will, the affection he felt for her bubbling to the surface. When he finally pulled back, his hand felt different... his whole body did. 'Bloody enchantment,' he said to himself, but even that denouncement sounded halfhearted to his internal critic.

When he looked back at Willow, she was staring almost through him, and he had the strangest feeling that she was looking at his arse. Some of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, because Willow's face turned a little pink.

"Your belt is crooked," she explained hastily. "I'd fix it for you but--you kinda look like you'd jump out of your skin if I touched you, so..." she trailed off and Giles suddenly remembered the most pertinent part of his conversation with the Slayer.

"Err... Buffy is coming over shortly," he said, looking down at the slippers he wore, the cuff of one of his pajama pants tangled with the sock he'd thrown on hastily, earlier that morning.

"Thank goodness," Willow said, standing up and crossing to the door. "She'll be able to help sort this whole thing out."

"I... didn't tell her." he confessed.

She gave him a blank look. "What do you mean, you didn't tell her?"

"She seems to think... it isn't just us that are affected, here--Buffy is under the impression that the two of us have been mar-marri--"

"How long?"

"What?" For one awful second he thought she was asking how long it was going to take him to actually say the 'M' word--but then he reminded himself that this was Willow . She'd simply jumped ahead. So had they, apparently. "Oh, err... two years." When her eyes widened, he hastened to add, "I asked her the date--almost two years have passed, apparently."

She looked pensive, nodding slowly as she said, "That makes sense." When he simply raised an eyebrow, she elaborated. "Well, you saw the pictures... at least, the ones I didn't manage to--never mind. We... w-we--it looks like we had, you know--a-a..."

"Traditional wedding." There, he'd managed to say that without losing his composure--and if, somewhere in his too-tense body, a blood clot was making its deadly way through his blood vessels as a result of his ironclad control over his desire to 'have the wiggins' as Buffy would put it, then whatever curse or demonic wanker who was toying with them would just have to find someone else to torment.

"Well, those take time to plan. Besides, there's the whole we'veneverevendatedandI'mstillyourstuden tthing." She was clenching her fists very tightly, and something his mother had once said struck him just then. 'Pain is temporary, Diamonds are forever.' He wasn't even sure why that particular phrase had drifted to the top--but he had a feeling it would apply. Giles reached out and gently pried her left hand apart, tracing the area where the setting on the engagement ring ('This cannot really be happening,' he assured himself with only a smidgeon of irony) had begun to dig into her palm.

"You'll want to be careful with that," he said, letting his fingertip ghost over the jeweled setting. "I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten you anything but a real diamond."

"Giles, this isn't really happening... is it?" she asked, echoing his internal denials. "I mean, we'll-- I'll wake up in a few minutes and go 'woah, now that was a dream for the diary,' right?"

He tried not to feel flattered, and failed admirably. "Have a conversation with Buffy and then tell me that." He shook his head slightly. "This is all surreal enough without her cheerful inquiries as to why we were both late this morning." He saw her blush and shared it, both of them looking away shyly.

"Speaking of which, you better get changed," Willow said in a determinedly casual tone of voice as she left the room.

"Willow?" he stopped her at the stairs, adopting a serious tone of voice and hoped it didn't carry the hint of pleading that he wanted to inject into it. "When she arrives, we may need to... play along for a short while. The things she spoke to me about on the phone... they sounded quite serious. I didn't feel it would be fair to change the subject to something so..." Giles paused, realizing that his choice of words could potentially affect the way she treated him for the rest of the day. He was already thinking like a married man--this thing had to be stopped, and soon.

"Bizarre?" she prompted, and he smiled in relief.

"You know, Giles--if you two are going to use the stairs to your advantage, you've gotta put the short person on the top or it just doesn't work," Buffy called up to them in a teasing voice. Rupert Giles took one look at Willow Rosenberg Giles' nervous face and did something he wasn't very proud of.

"Good luck!" he said, and scurried off to the bedroom to change, missing the unconsciously affectionate look she sent him as he fixed the twisted belt of his bathrobe on the way.

Send Feedback

Back to Darsynia's Stories