Jenny's uncharacteristically quiet tonight, considering she's dusted a couple of rising vamps as Buffy coached from the beside the lines. Usually she soaks up the praise Buffy and Xander offer, humming with energy that reed-thin body can barely contain, but something's distracting her.

As they're on their last circuit of the graveyard, Xander prompts, "Want to tell me?"

"What?"

"Something's on your mind. If it's something I can help with..." He's not sure if he's going about this the right way. Giles, he thinks, was a little more hands-off when they were teens. Wasn't he? Maybe she needs some space, needs not to feel he's monitoring her every thought or mood. Should have kept his mouth shut.

Jenny shrugs. "Just wondering about some stuff."

There's a pause. Does that mean he should nudge her to go on? He also doesn't want to seem like the autopilot teachers and counselors he had such contempt for back in high school, who never followed up because it might mean effort. "Anything I can answer, just let me know." Buffy drops back to give them some privacy.

"How come Faith doesn't come when we patrol?"

"This type of slaying isn't her speed, most of the time. She likes a good fight. Goes out to the vampire hunting grounds, down in the bar districts. Those vamps have been around awhile, so they're tougher, more cunning." He grins. "You know Faith. She's a competitor."

"She came to play, Alex," Jenny says in her dumbass-sports-announcer voice. They've adopted a running joke in these last couple of weeks, spouting sports cliches whenever they can. He's Alex whenever she's J.J. the clueless commentator. "Can I patrol with her?"

"Get some more kills under your belt, and we'll talk."

"This is like shooting fish in a barrel. Actually, more like dynamiting a pond and scooping up the fish in a net."

"Now you're sounding like Faith. Keep in mind that these vamps can be just as deadly as the ones who've been around awhile. Don't get so cocky you forget that, because sometimes these newbie vamps can surprise you. This work might not be as flashy, but it's just as important. And don't forget, J.J., there is no 'I' in 'team.'"

"How right you are, Alex." He knows she says that because it's their stock answer. She can't wait to get into a serious dust-up. It worries him a little that she's so eager to throw herself into real danger, nothing like the other girls in the house. (Then again, considering what they've been through, who can blame them?) But this fire is what makes her who she is, made her that way before he ever met her, ready to storm the male bastion of professional baseball -- at least until she found a new calling she couldn't ignore.

"Something else," she says. "Ever since that first night we were here, I've been wondering about stuff you and Buffy said."

"Like what?"

"Her parents. She said they broke up after she became the slayer."

"That's true. I don't feel totally comfortable talking about it, but there was more to it than just that. Things are always more complicated between two people than it looks from the outside."

"My dad doesn't like it here."

"Jen, nobody likes it here. It's the hellmouth. It's Cleveland."

She tries to scrape up a smile, but the joke falls flat.

"Sorry," he says. "I won't lie to you. Change is hard on everyone. Uncertainty is hard. Your dad's had a plan for your life since you were little -- it was a plan you shared. Now you're onto another program, and he's not sure about it. Just give him time."

They cut across the old part of the cemetery, headstones with worn lettering, crumbled edges. Some of the dates range back to the Civil War. Jenny's fascinated with this section, and they keep meaning to come during the day, but it hasn't happened yet.

"They're trying to fight when I can't hear them, but I've caught them a couple of times."

"Couples fight," he tells her. "God knows I can testify to that. It doesn't mean they don't love each other."

"I know," she says, but she sounds so miserable. "But I don't think love is always enough. Do you?"

Xander wants to tell her of course it is, that her folks will find a way to work things out, that it's only been two weeks since they moved out here. But he thinks of Anya, and the memory's like a stone in his chest. "No," he says, his voice rough. "It isn't always enough."

"So how come you told them?" she asks.

"Told them?"

"About me being the -- a slayer. Buffy said it was a big secret from her parents. So isn't this against some rule?"

"It seems more like something that's on an individual, or maybe cultural basis. I met a slayer once, from the Caribbean, who didn't even remember her parents -- they'd given her up to her watcher to raise."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

She stops, as she always does, by the three tiny headstones topped with lambs, all from the same family. He lets her have a moment as he and Buffy keep an eye on their surroundings.

"Giles and I talked about all this," he says once she's turned away again. "He left it up to me. I'd been around to see how difficult the secretiveness made things for Buffy -- and for Joyce, her mom. They had some real problems between them. I thought it was worth trying things a new way. This work is lonely enough."

She picks up a piece of trash from a grave, stuffs it in her pocket. "Her mom didn't come to Cleveland?"

"No. Joyce died a few years back."

Jenny's hand flies to her mouth, a gesture that looks oddly dainty on her. "Oh god. You told me, but I never --" She's blinking back tears. "I never thought--"

"No. Jenny--" He stops her, takes her by the shoulders. "It's not like that. Joyce was sick. She had a brain tumor, and there were complications after the surgery. Nothing supernatural at all." Is he being dishonest? There were enough close calls over the years.

"But it's possible. You said."

He takes a breath, lets it out. "Yeah. It's possible."

Buffy sings out behind them: "Vamp, two o'clock!"

Jenny pulls her stake from her jacket pocket and runs full-tilt across the grass, yelling like a maniac. His breath stops until the dust flutters to the ground around her. Xander almost feels sorry for the poor sonofabitch.

"Kiss that one goodbye," she says in her J.J. voice. "It's outta here!"

Xander drops Jenny off at the house Vince insisted on renting. She chides him for walking her to the door. "I can take care of myself."

"I know," he tells her. "Can't be helped -- all that 'Goofus and Gallant' when I was a kid. It's a thing."

She snorts. "Need me to walk you back to the car?"

"Hey. I've been kicking demon ass since you were watching Teletubbies."

"I'll have you know I never watched Teletubbies."

"Sure. Say goodnight, Tinkywinky." He ruffles her hair. When the door closes and locks behind her, he heads back to the car.

"How is she?" Buffy asks.

"Worried. It's finally sinking in, some of what we told her when she first came here. About your parents splitting up. She's afraid the same might happen to her."

"You told her, though, the situation's not the same--"

"Well, it's really your story to tell, but yeah, I tried to get that across. But she'll need a little time to work through it."

The street lights flare and die across Buffy's face as the car passes underneath. "How are you doing?" she asks. "You look like you're settling into the watcher thing. It's like seeing you when you found carpentry, how you just grew into Confident Guy."

A smile teases at the corner of his mouth. "You thought I was Confident Guy?"

"Absolutely. Didn't you think?"

"I guess so. More than now. I keep realizing what's at stake here. It's a little more than Measure Twice, Cut Once. I make a mistake, it could kill her."

"You've been at all my deaths," she says lightly. "I can't think of anyone I'd trust more in the old life-and-death."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he messes with the car heater. October's come on crisp these last couple of days. "Buff," he says. "There's something I'd like to ask you about."

She catches his tone, studies him. "Of course. What's up?"

"Would you tell me about the guy you worked with before Giles? Merrick. I'm trying to take in everything I can about this, avoid mistakes--"

"Here's one to avoid," she says tartly. "Dying."

"That was kind of the hope. Look, I know you never talk about him, that I'm asking a lot. But the diaries are gone, and all I can do is find whatever scraps--"

"It's okay," she says. "But not back at the hacienda, okay?" That's become its official name by now -- even Giles calls it that. "Let's go to the waterfront. Down by the Hall."

They walk along the edge of the lake, stakes at the ready. It's a little late for action here, since most of the tourists are back in their hotels or drinking in the Flats.

"What was he like?" Xander asks.

"Remember that I was Shallow Girl -- even more so than when I met you and Will. So I mostly had him pigeonholed as 'weird old guy.'" There's no sound for a moment but that of their feet on the pavement. "I liked him. I knew he liked me. He wasn't the raging bibliophile Giles is, but we weren't on the hellmouth facing every known species of nasty. It was pretty simple -- vampires. Though that was bad enough. There was this one, Lothos. Very old, very smart. Setting himself up to be the master of L.A."

She falls silent as they continue walking. As always when they patrol together, she's on Xander's blind side, giving them a wider sightline on possible attackers. He suspects, though, that tonight Buffy doesn't mind being out of his view. He's long used to the disembodied voice thing, but on this night it feels a little eerie as she starts speaking again.

"I saw him die."

"Lothos."

"Yes and no. He got Merrick. He was quick and powerful, and he'd killed who knows how many slayers. He was on him, faster than anything I'd ever seen." She takes in a ragged breath. "Merrick had a gun. He shot himself."

"Holy god. You saw that?"

"I saw it. Thousands of times -- every time I closed my eyes. The only thing I can think is Lothos threatened to turn him. He was saving me having to face him as a vamp." A sob bursts from her. "God damn him, Xander. He never gave me a chance to try to save him."

He stops walking, draws her into his arms. When was the last time he saw her cry? Xander can't even remember. "He's the first one you lost, isn't he?"

She nods against his chest. "I wasn't good enough. If I'd been a better slayer, he would have trusted me to help him."

"I don't believe that."

Buffy pulls back, her gaze searching his face.

"Look how many times you saved Giles, the rest of us. The way I see it, the failure was Merrick's. If he'd been a better watcher, he'd have trusted you. That's what I'm taking away here. Train Jenny, then trust her. That, and it's a damn sight better to be rescued than avenged."

She slips her arm around his waist, snugging her body tight against his as they resume walking. (It's safe now -- he's a married man.) "Have I said lately how much I love you?"

"Not nearly often enough," he says lightly. But as they walk back to the car, he thinks about the vow he's just made -- he knows it is a vow, not just a matter of policy. Thinks of his visions, the outcomes his trust could buy him if things go sour -- himself, vamped, reveling in bringing death, scattered into dust. Or, as another vision had it, tearing out the throat of his slayer.

He hopes he's not setting himself on a course to make a mistake just as devastating as Merrick's.

The house is quiet when he and Buffy return. Faith's still out -- her shift's just getting cranked up. He ghosts around the parlor floor, the kitchen, the back garden, trying to shake off this mood, but nothing can budge it.

He finds himself tapping at Giles's door. (How many times have they roused this man in the middle of the night? And how long before Jenny first drags him out of a sound sleep?)

Giles appears, still wrestling with the sleeve of his robe. "Xander. Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly. Not yet."

Giles step back, opens the door wider. "Come inside. Another vision?" He takes in Xander's street clothes. "Apparently not."

"I'm getting used to those, believe it or not. This -- I don't really know where to start."

Giles does. He switches on another light, takes up his electric kettle and disappears into his bathroom, telling Xander to have a seat. There's a rocking chair by the fireplace, and he drops into it. Where most of the rooms in the brownstone still have the feel of the previous owner, the master bedroom -- especially this sitting area -- is distinctly Giles. A pair of nesting tables, one on either side of the chair, holds books and Giles's tea things. Xander picks up one of the books -- an old text in some obscure language -- and begins leafing through it as Giles returns and plugs in the kettle.

"Sorry, no salacious woodcuts in that one."

"Let's get the acquisitions committee on that, why don't we. Or maybe Hustler has a library rate." Xander grins. "I haven't gotten that good a shudder from you in ages."

Giles moves his desk chair by the fireplace. "I found that one in Toronto. Stumbled onto a good source up there, and left a copy of our wish list with them. So tell me. What's on your mind?"

There was a time, not that long ago, when Xander wouldn't even have been able to imagine those words from Giles. "An exciting parade of every mistake I've ever made, pretty much."

"Ah, you're right on schedule." The kettle begins to rattle, on the edge of coming to the boil. Giles shovels loose tea into the pot. "You're realizing your responsibility here. That a young girl's life depends on you. And everything's telling you you're woefully unprepared for the task."

"Maybe we should have noticed this before. Why didn't you--"

"Xander. Your doubts are perfectly natural. But they don't mean you're unsuited for this work. The fact that you're questioning yourself proves to me that I made a good choice." The kettle steams, and Giles pours boiling water over the tea. "Why don't you tell me your concerns."

"I think of all the mistakes I've made, the suffering I've caused. Mostly my intentions were good, though occasionally things were murkier than that. But good intentions aren't going to count for shit if I'm standing over the body of my slayer."

"Do you want to give me an example?"

Xander looks away. "No." But this is what he asked of Buffy tonight, to expose one of her worst moments, the painful truth about what she saw as her own failure. "All right. When we brought Buffy back, we all thought we were doing the right-- No. Y'know, that's a lie, and it's one we all like to tell ourselves in our little Raising the Dead gang. I had a lot of questions about what we were doing. Tara even said, 'This is wrong.' But it was Buffy, and Willow convinced us that she was in some hell dimension suffering years of torment for every minute we screwed around arguing about it. So. It wasn't right. But we wanted to bring her out of that. And god, for weeks after, we're seeing how shattered Buffy is, and we keep telling her that's perfectly natural after the torment she was in, but hey, she's all rescued now, we made it all better. Jesus. How arrogant could we be?" Dammit. There goes the left eye again. He dabs at moisture gathering in the corner. "It was bad enough when we realized we'd left her there to dig her own way out of her grave because we were too stupid to think things out. Then to find out we'd yanked her out of heaven -- This is the asshat who's supposed to keep Jenny safe from death and five thousand other worse things. God help us all, Giles."

Giles says nothing, just hands him a cup of tea on a saucer, and even as Giles blurts "Careful!" Xander raises it and takes a gulp. It's searing hot, but his body's reaction is to freeze for a long second and then not to spit it out but to force it down. It burns, it burns like fuck, and now tears are rolling down both cheeks as he coughs. Giles takes the cup before he does himself further damage, sets it on the low table, murmuring apologies with a vaguely scolding tone.

When he can speak, Xander says, "Tea: England's secret weapon." He palms the tears from his face. "Does this disqualify me from the W.C.--" he loves calling the Council this because it's so entertainingly irritating to Giles -- "being too stupid to drink tea?"

"One would wish."

"Then there's Angel," he says before Giles can form a response to his last tirade. "I still don't even know if I count that as a mistake, because I knew exactly what I was doing. I just didn't know how much suffering it would cause. I went to find Buffy, get you out of that place. Willow told me if Buffy could just stall, hold Angelus off, she was doing the spell to get his soul back. She told me to tell her that." He wishes he had something to do with his hands. "I almost told her. Then something made me hold back, and I said, 'Willow said to kick his ass.' You know what happened, no need to spell that out. Buff still doesn't know what I did. I look at that sometimes, take a hard look at myself. It's true, I did it because there'd always be that danger, with the curse back in place. Angelus is like the hellmouth on legs, and it doesn't take all that much to open it up. He'll never be safe. Faith can tell you that." He reaches for the tea now. His mouth is so burned he can't really taste it. "Faith can also tell you how much good Angel's done. She'd be dead without him, or lost in some way that I don't even want to think about. So that throws some doubt on my one good reason, and all the others... There was a part of me that did it because Angel was a demon, and I blamed him for what happened to Jesse. Because I didn't like how wrapped up in him Buffy was. She's always been strong, but she could lose herself around him. And hell, Giles, because I was jealous and because I never liked him in the first place, even before I knew what he was. Think of all the misery I caused, and even my best reason doesn't entirely hold water."

"That's one of the difficulties of this business. There's no time in the heat of battle to study every angle. But after, you have the rest of your life to mull it over. One thing you might consider -- if you have the luxury of years of regret, you might have done something right."

"Shit, Giles. That's easy enough to say. 'At least everyone's alive to suffer.' You're missing the point."

"No, I'm just making another." Giles pours more tea into their cups. "You know, it took me years to notice how very hard you are on yourself. I used to pride myself on my ability to see past people's facades, but you eluded me for a long time."

"It's the shallow ones that are hardest to penetrate," he says.

"I won't lie to you, Xander." He can hear himself saying almost identical words to Jenny, echoes from the past and from the future. "This life you've chosen comes with many second guesses, doubts and regrets. It's not always the mistakes which cause the worst of those regrets."

"What do you mean?"

"You may have to make hard choices. Things you'd never dreamed of doing, but that must be done. Sometimes you don't even have the comfort of accident or ignorance."

From the stoop below Giles's window he hears the bolt slide back on the front door, its soft opening and closing. Something unclenches inside him: Faith is home. "You've lost me here," he tells Giles.

"You remember when we were preparing for the final battle with Glory. When we were casting about for anything we could think of, short of destroying Dawn."

"Sure."

"You made the suggestion that we kill Ben."

Something squirms inside him at the memory. Thanks for another float to add to the parade, Giles. "Okay, I get you. That we would be in such a desperate place that I could even conceive of--"

"I killed him," Giles says, so quietly he almost misses it.

"--you--"

"I killed him. Glory lost her hold for a moment, and he emerged. He was quite helpless." Giles's gaze falls somewhere between them, seeing something Xander cannot. He lifts a hand, palm up. "This is all it took to smother the life from him." He breaks the reverie, meets Xander's eyes. "It's what needed to be done, but it's still murder."

Xander notices at last that he's been holding his breath. He sucks in some air, the Earl Gray scent gone stale.

"This is our reality," Giles says softly. "If we're lucky enough to retire, regret will surely be our companion."

Xander rubs at the headache forming between his brows. "You might want to put that in the recruitment package. It's kind of a pisser to be hearing it now." He knows he's being unfair, knows there was a lot Giles took on himself so the rest of them could have a youth as dumb and innocent as possible under the circumstances. Wonders if he'll ever hear it all.

Faith's soft tread passes Giles's door, headed up toward their room. She's been downstairs to ransack the kitchen, but she's got more post-slay appetites to assuage.

Xander gets to his feet. "Thanks, Giles. For listening. For your honesty. For letting me haul you out of bed one more time. I suppose there's no O.T. for that--"

He smiles. "No. Though I suspect there'll be some payback in your near future." He claps Xander on the shoulder as they walk to the door. "You're doing fine. It's when you stop questioning that you find yourself in trouble."

Xander follows Faith up the stairs to the top floor. She's half undressed by the time he gets to their room, peeling off her shirt and wiping down with it. Must have had a good night -- she looks jazzed. "Hey, lover." Her dimples come out of hiding. "How'd patrol go with Jenny?" She's been working on this after a couple of recent tiffs -- the verbal foreplay before throwing him on the bed post-slay and fucking him senseless. Y'know: Hi. Maybe how was your night?

Tonight he wants none of it. All he wants is her furnacy heat, consuming doubts, sorrow -- all thought. Wants nothing more than to be senseless.

He reaches for her.