TITLE: Displaced part 1?
AUTHOR: Appomattoxco
FEEDBACK/EMAIL: just let me know.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not making any money off this or anything else actually so don't sue.
TIMELINE/SPOILERS: Wildly AU post "Chosen"
PAIRING/CHARACTERS: Anya/Giles of course but other pairings TBA
RATING: FRT
SUMMARY: The Council Library is blown up again and Willow gets Giles out of there the only way she can.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ezagaaikwe I know it doesn't look like it but this is the start of you Giles PI in London story. Thanks to JaneDavitt for the beta.

January 18th, 2017 Giles:

I had to laugh; there was a calendar lying in the rubble beside me. It was Buffy's birthday and even ten years after her death terrible things still happened. The laugh sounded more like a hacking cough and sent a spear of pain through my side. If anyone knows exactly how painful an actual spear through the side is it's me.

"Giles, is that you? I'm stuck, I can't move, oh." Willow's voice sounded like a sandcastle crumbling in the tide; her tears breaking the sound down and carrying it away.

"Willow, don't stop talking. I'll find you and get us out of here!" I prayed to whoever would listen that I would find her alive under the rubble that used to be the Council library. I had buried first Buffy, then last year I had beheaded Xander to keep him from becoming what he hated most. Willow was bloody well going to live to put me in the ground, if I had to speed my own death along to see it happen.

I held my hand to my bleeding side and awkwardly climbed over and around toppled bookcases and desks. Willow didn't call out again and I wondered if I had imagined her voice. I looked to my left and finally saw Willow's pale face illuminated by the faint light that found its way in through a hole in the ceiling. A beam had overturned a bookcase and trapped her under it; her legs crushed under the combined weight. I was so sure that she was dead that when she smiled I was startled. "Dear God, Willow!"

"Giles, happened - so fast - didn't have a chance…" Her voice crumbled again washing away in chunks. There was even a gurgling sound. I stroked her hair and tried to completely ignore the tears coursing down my face. If I didn't draw attention to them perhaps she wouldn't notice them in the shadowy wreck. I heard the building groan and shielded Willow from more falling debris with my body. Willow whispered, "go!" in my ear and with surprising strength shoved me backwards. I fell into a void and kept falling.

Then suddenly I was watching myself hand a book to Buffy on the day we met. Before I could even blink, I was yanked away to somewhere – somewhen?- else. I fell again and this time I had a chance to watch myself kill Ben. No one appeared to notice me; was I dead and seeing my life flash before my eyes? Had Willow opened a portal in time or to other dimensions? I looked down and the wound in my side was gone. Before I could see if I had any substance in this world I was yanked away from it.

This time I landed behind a bunch of barrels on an unfamiliar pier. It was a very good thing that I had cover because the first thing I saw when I peered around them was my own murder.