Okay this is really three mini-chapters in one, but I decided to post them all together because the first part is just basic connective tissue to finish up the alternate "Beer Bad" story and the second part isn't connected to anything but I thought the addition of Buffy and Wesley in "Rm w/a Vu" would be hilarious. The third part is the most important. It starts getting into "Wild at Heart" territory. I probably could've finished this chapter sooner if it hadn't taken me so long to give up trying to make all these parts feel like a cohesive whole or long enough individually to be entire chapters, but I decided I don't really care about that anymore, so you get all of it at once! Enjoy!

Part I: The [Re-]Evolution of Man

As Giles's intelligence gradually returned to normal (accompanied by a splitting headache such as no hangover had ever given him before), he was able to take note of his unfamiliar surroundings. He was in a small rectangular room with paneled white walls, floor, and ceiling, except for the one wall made of glass, which he instinctively knew would be unwise to touch. Through this wall, he could see that there were similar cells branching off a long hallway in both directions.

Giles's memories of the last couple of days were extremely fuzzy. He knew he'd been in the university library at one point and that it had been crucial for him to acquire as many books as possible, but there was no logic to any of it, and he was having trouble piecing it together. What the hell had been in that beer?

Two of the cells he could see were occupied by college students in clothes as tattered as his, both asleep on the floor. A third contained...a caveman, also asleep and wearing tattered clothes. Yet, before Giles's eyes, he slowly transformed into an ordinary college student like the other two. The long, shaggy hair retracted into the scalp, the forehead flattened, and most of the body hair vanished.

Giles looked down himself again. "Oh. Dear." He peered as far down the hallway as he could without touching the glass. "Is anyone out there?"

After a minute or two, a man in a lab coat appeared, strolling down the hall pushing a medical cart. "Excuse me, sir!" said Giles. "My name is Rupert Giles! What is this place and why am I being kept here?"

The lab coat stopped in front of Giles's cell. "Well, Mr. Giles, it looks like our information about your condition was accurate. We're with the CDC, and you and these young men were detained because you were all temporarily turned into neanderthals by tainted beer and were running amuck on campus."

"Ah," said Giles. He'd suspected as much. It certainly explained the content of some of those dim memories. He'd never heard of a CDC facility in Sunnydale, though, but it seemed unwise to show skepticism towards a government organization while he was still locked in one of these cells.

"I'm just going to draw some blood and run a few tests to make sure all traces of the toxin are gone," said the lab coat, touching something on the wall next to Giles's cell, which caused the glass wall to slide open. "If the tests come back clean, then all of you will be free to go."

Giles submitted willingly to the blood draw and a small battery of other tests, happy to cooperate if it saw him out of this place sooner.

Once the lab coat had everything he needed from him and the four students, he supplied them with plain white t-shirts to replace their ruined upper garments, and in the cases of two of the boys, pairs of gray sweatpants as well. They followed him to a room as sterile as the cells had been, which contained several chairs but little else, and were instructed to wait there for the test results.

The four boys sat close together, eyes nervously flitting around, not speaking. Giles made no attempt to break the silence, and after what seemed quite a long time, the lab coat returned and pronounced them clear to go home. A second lab coat led them to an elevator that they rode up for what felt to Giles like an improbably great distance for a CDC facility. This opened onto a garage, empty but for one windowless van.

†

Riley had been assigned to oversee the debriefing of the former cavemen at the Initiative's CDC annex. The doctors and nurses who worked there had probably expected to do more actual disease control, but roughly 90% of what they actually did was patching up survivors of demon attacks and convincing them they had merely been mauled by wild animals. Most patients wholeheartedly accepted these fictions, because that was easier to cope with than the alternative.

All the Englishman and the four grad students needed was to be escorted somewhere low-profile so they could be picked up by their emergency contacts. The grad students were swiftly retrieved by a younger sibling of one of them. The Englishman, a Mr. Rupert Giles, remained in the nondescript waiting room for fifteen more minutes, and then a gaggle of people Riley mostly recognized from Intro Psych arrived and swarmed him. Willow, Oz, and Buffy, as well as the taller, floppy-haired kid who'd told him the caveman situation was caused by tainted beer.

Riley was somewhat perplexed by this showing, even though these four were the same ones who'd been worried on Mr. Giles's behalf when they subdued him and took him away. As per standard protocol, the Initiative had run background checks on all five cavemen. Riley didn't think of himself as a paranoid person, but the information they'd turned up on Mr. Giles had been almost suspiciously clean. He had been the librarian at Sunnydale High for the two and a half years prior to its destruction, a museum curator in England before that, and an Oxford graduate. He owned property in the Cotswolds and was in the process of securing dual citizenship. ...And apart from names of relatives, who were also squeaky clean, that was everything they could find on him.

The non-paranoid explanation for the way Willow and Buffy simultaneously tackle-hugged Mr. Giles, exclaiming that he was back to normal, while Oz and the other boy gathered in close (the latter looking extremely awkward) was that they had been Sunnydale High students who had spent a lot of time in the library and were consequently fond of the librarian. But Riley couldn't help wondering if something else was going on. All five of them seemed remarkably unfazed by the strangeness of what had happened to Mr. Giles, and the circumstances of the explosion at the high school suggested that major demonic activity had taken place there. Maybe Mr. Giles knew something about that, and maybe he'd been irresponsible enough to involve minors.

"We've confiscated the rest of the tainted beer, Mr. Giles," said Riley, interrupting the group's reunion. "But you should come straight back here if you notice any symptoms cropping back up. We still aren't entirely sure how the transformative compound works."

"Assuming I have the presence of mind to seek help from the CDC if I return to the mindset of a caveman," said Mr. Giles dryly.

"Riley?" said Willow. "You work at the CDC too?"

"Oh, hey, Willow," said Riley, feeling uncomfortable. "I don't really work here, but I volunteer whenever they get something involving drugs and mental conditions. My thesis has to do with altered states of consciousness. It doesn't get much more altered than cavemen, right?" He forced a laugh. None of them joined in, and he stopped quickly.

"Well, thanks for helping Giles," said Buffy. "I guess we'll see you in class tomorrow?"

Grateful for the rescue from the awkward moment, Riley turned his attention to her. "Of course," he said.

She looked at Giles, who was on her left, giving Riley a clear view of the right side of her neck. There was a raised scar there. Most people probably wouldn't notice it, but they didn't have his training. The scar was healed but still tender-looking, and it was in the unmistakable shape of vampire fangs. He resisted the impulse to grab her by the arm and immediately begin questioning her. She seemed happy and healthy, and she was already leaving with Mr. Giles and the others. He let her go, but he planned on keeping a closer watch on her in case that scar wasn't just a relic of one close call in her past.

†

Part II: Apartment Shuffle

Cordelia couldn't believe it. So much for Doyle's gallant offer to let her stay at his place if she had a problem with her apartment. Considering all the passive-aggressive flirting, she would've thought he'd at least answer his damn phone when she called. But no! It turned out he was completely useless, which was why she was carrying everything she owned that could fit into a mere three suitcases and one duffel down the stairs to Angel's basement apartment. Maybe she could've tried Wesley, but the memory of that mortifying slobbery kiss was still too fresh on her mind, and she would've had to come to the office to get his number anyway, so she might as well try Angel first.

She rapped her knuckles sharply on his door, then waited. Roughly ten seconds went by with no response, so she knocked again. Finally, the door opened.

"Oh god, Angel!" she said, dumping the two smaller suitcases into his arms and striding past him into the apartment. "It's so terrible! Oh, my gosh. Don't even look at me. I am such a mess!" She showed him her stained shirt from the gross brown water that sprayed out of her kitchen sink. "I am the lowest of the lowest, and you're going to want to get my other suitcase out there in the hall."

She continued to explain her situation while he just sort of stood there, barely reacting (rude), but his unsatisfactory skills as a host were far less important right now than her need to get the stink of the projects off her skin.

"You can just dump my stuff on the couch, or let me have the bed. Whatever you feel good about," she said. "Also, my suitcase is still out in the hall. Your shower is in here, right? You have mousse?" Stupid question. "Of course you do."

She turned and headed for the bathroom, only for a sopping wet, towel-wrapped Buffy to emerge from it. "Cordelia," she said. "We weren't expecting company."

Cordelia froze in her tracks, mouth open. Then she rounded on Angel. For the first time, it fully registered that he must have been halfway through a shower of his own when she arrived, because, like Buffy, he was dripping all over the place and was clothed only in a towel. "Oh, yuck! I can't believe you two were—I'm never going to get that image out of my brain!"

"Did you forget I was staying with Angel this weekend?" said Buffy, and she actually had the nerve to sound annoyed, as if it wasn't her fault Cordelia's evening had just gone from horrible to traumatizing.

"No," said Cordelia defensively (if she had known about it, the sight of all those roaches had driven it straight out of her head), "but I didn't think you'd be in the shower together."

"Have you tried Wesley yet?" said Angel.

"No, but I sure as hell won't leave him as the last resort next time!" And she stomped back over to him so she could retrieve her bags, then left as quickly as she could. How long was this gross honeymoon phase of theirs going to last?

†

Buffy and Angel's weekend was destined for several more interruptions, the first of which occurred the following morning. They were curled up together on the large armchair in front of the TV, attention only half on the Humphrey Bogart movie that was playing, when the elevator started up. Buffy groaned. "Your friends are so much worse at this than mine."

Angel chuckled and kissed her on her temple. Neither of them made any effort to become presentable for guests. They were too comfortable, so anyone who walked in on them uninvited was going to have to deal with the fact that Buffy was sitting on Angel's lap and their clothing totaled one full outfit of his.

"Angel, you around?" said Doyle, stepping out of the elevator.

"Yes, and so is Buffy," said Buffy pointedly. Doyle didn't so much as look embarrassed, he simply went straight for Angel's fridge. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Please tell me you have a better reason for being here than cockroaches in your apartment," said Angel.

"Cockroaches?" said Doyle, shutting the fridge with a confused grimace.

"Cordelia tried to crash here last night," said Buffy.

"What?" said Doyle, face falling. "But...I told her she could stay with me if she had any trouble."

"She said she tried calling you first, but you wouldn't answer," said Angel. He noticed the bruises on the back of Doyle's hand and narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, well, I suppose I was busy last night," said Doyle, visibly uncomfortable. "Some timing. Where'd she end up staying, then?"

Almost in response to this question, the door to the apartment flew open and a half-crazed Wesley came stalking in. "Dear Lord, please get that woman out of my flat. It's only been one night, most of which she spent moving my carefully arranged books to make way for cheerleading trophies and getting midnight snacks all over my sheets!"

"Cordelia stayed at your flat?" said Doyle.

"Yes, unfortunately," said Wesley. "What call could anyone have to spend four hours in the shower? I shudder to imagine what my utility bill will look like. And wet towels all over the place."

"Wes," said Buffy.

Wesley turned to face Buffy and Angel for the first time, then gave a small yelp and spun around. "I'm so sorry! I forgot you were staying here this weekend."

"Yeah, so did everyone else," said Buffy, eyes on Doyle, who finally did seem to realize that he'd intruded on their morning. He ran a hand through his hair, looking sheepish.

"Where's Cordy?" said Angel.

"Upstairs," said Wes, at which Doyle perked right up. "I suppose this would be why she refused to come down here."

"Yeah, hopefully she'll remember that the next few times I'm here," said Buffy.

Wesley and Doyle both took the hint and headed upstairs. Buffy wrapped her arms around Angel's neck, smiling. "Alone at last."

Angel grimaced.

"What?" said Buffy.

"As much as I want to stay here, something's up with Doyle and I need to find out what it is."

"You think he's in trouble?" she said, frowning.

"Did you see those bruises on his hand?"

She shook her head.

"I'm betting he didn't get those by mistake."

†

Buffy had to return to Sunnydale for the next week of classes before everything was resolved, but it turned out that Doyle owed money to the wrong group of demons. Angel and Wesley dealt with Doyle's problem in exchange for Doyle getting Cordy out of Wesley's apartment. The slight hitch in that plan was that the apartment Doyle found her was haunted by the ghost of an old lady who kept murdering the new tenants and making it look like suicide.

Before Buffy could rally the Scoobies for a trip to L.A. to help, Angel hastened to explain that the two problems had kind of solved each other. The ghost killed the demons who showed up looking for Doyle, and that distraction enabled Cordelia to regain her confidence enough to defeat the ghost. Now she was happily roommates with the old lady's son (also a ghost), and Doyle had agreed with all of them that he would be better off as Wesley's flatmate in a slightly better neighborhood than remaining at the apartment where demonic debt collectors could easily find him.

Buffy was glad to hear it had all worked out in the end, but she was still glad the next weekend would be a Sunnydale one.

†

Part III: Lon and the Chaneys

It had been two weeks since the Halloween party. Oz's ribs had almost completely healed, and considering how much farther Anya's arm still had to go in comparison, it seemed lycanthropy had at least one benefit. Willow and Oz had been diligently working on werewolf research, using any spare time they had between homework and Oz's band practice.

"Oh hey, this Navajo Skinwalker stuff is interesting," said Willow. "'Believed to be able to change its form at will. Was once human, but left humanity behind. I dare not write more...'" She trailed off, frowning.

"Okay. Not creepy at all," said Oz.

"That's pretty much all there is," said Willow, frustrated. "The only other thing it says is not to talk about them. Then what's the point of even bringing them up?" She shook her head. "Maybe I can find more on them somewhere else." She grabbed a different book so she could check the index.

"I dunno, that one might be a dead end."

"Well, I know the connotations don't seem great, but I'd like to know for sure. I mean, maybe the transformation magic Skinwalkers use is neutral but used by bad guys. It could be what we're looking for."

"Or maybe it's black magic that turned neutral guys bad," Oz countered. "Or black magic only guys who were already bad would use to begin with."

"Hey," said Willow, brow furrowing. "I thought you weren't gonna be pessimistic about this."

"I'm not," said Oz, reaching for her hand, "I've just got a feeling there's nothing good there."

"Yeah, maybe."

When they'd gone to Giles with their idea of finding a way for Oz to gain control over his wolf form, he had given them a list of all the different world folklore he could think of that related even tangentially to werewolves, along with a stack of reference books taller than he was. They'd only made it through a quarter of the items on the list so far and had barely touched the additional books they'd gotten from the university library, so Willow was trying to keep her optimism levels as high as possible. But it was still frustrating. She wanted so badly for Oz to be able to turn his situation around and no longer live in fear of what he might do if he ever got out of his cage again.

After a moment, she realized that Oz was watching her instead of reading the reference materials. "What?" she said.

"Ever since Halloween, you've been spending all of your free time researching werewolf stuff with me," he said. "What about your stuff? I know how much your magic studies mean to you."

"There's only a week left until the next full moon," said Willow, trying to stop her lip from quivering. "I wanted to find something for you by then."

He smiled at her with his eyes in that way that always made her feel like the most precious thing in the world. "Wil, what we're trying to do might be something no werewolf has ever done before. I do believe it's possible, I really do, but I never expected us to pull it off in under a month."

"Yeah, well maybe the only reason it's never been done before is because there have never been two geniuses working on it. The answers have to be here."

"And we'll find them," said Oz. "But we can do other things too. So I have a proposition for you."

"Yeah?"

"We split the time. You can keep helping me do werewolf research, but I want to help you with whatever you need for your magic."

How was it possible for him to be this wonderful? Still, Willow felt reluctant. "Are you sure you don't want to try to get through the rest of Giles's stuff before the full moon? My stuff can wait."

"I know it can, but it shouldn't have to," said Oz. "What's one more full moon? Even a few? The cage might not be awesome, but we know it works. Might as well get my money's worth for all the welding equipment."

†

Buffy and Angel decided to put in a cursory showing at the Bronze before spending the rest of the weekend alone, and it quickly turned into a double date with Willow and Oz. Xander had declined. He still hadn't said anything disparaging about Angel since the incident at the frat house, but he was also refusing to be in the same room with him and had opted instead for a quiet evening with Anya.

"So how's the soul research going?" said Willow.

"Giles and I have found a few different ways it could be threatened so far," said Buffy. "And ways to counter most of them."

"I think Wes is still ahead by numbers," said Angel as he and Oz returned to the table with drinks for their ladies.

Buffy rolled her eyes even as she accepted her hot chocolate. "It's not a competition." She found it incredibly touching that both of her fired Watchers were so dedicated to this research, but the way each was passive-aggressively trying to prove his superiority with it was ridiculous. ...She was still on Team Giles, though. "Besides," she said, "Giles spent three days as an illiterate caveman last week, so of course Wes took the lead." She looked at Willow and Oz. "How about you guys and the werewolf research?"

"Nothing so far," said Oz. It was always hard to tell with him, but Buffy was pretty sure he wasn't overly anxious about the lack of progress.

"I found this one mention of Navajo Skinwalkers," said Willow. "I thought there might be something there, but—"

"You shouldn't mess around with that stuff," said Angel, so sharply that it took all of them aback. "It's not even a good idea to talk about them."

Buffy looked around at him, surprised. "You know about these things?"

"I know enough."

"Hey, I thought you were past your cryptic phase," she said, nudging him playfully with her elbow. His expression did not become less serious.

"I'm not being cryptic. They're taboo for a reason. You don't want to draw their attention, and talking about them is a great way to do it. Giles should probably get rid of whatever books mention them, or at least remove those pages."

"Ominous," said Oz. His gaze drifted to the stage, where the band was striking up the first song of their set.

Angel glanced over too, and he frowned. "I didn't know there was another werewolf in Sunnydale."

Buffy and Willow both choked on their hot chocolate. "What?!" they said in unison. "Who?" said Buffy.

"Veruca," said Oz. "The singer."

"You knew already?" said Willow. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I kinda knew," said Oz. "It didn't really click until Angel said it, though. I've only seen her a couple times. I mostly only know her because of her drummer."

"Oh." She turned to Angel. "How did you know, Angel?"

"Scent," he said. "It's pretty hard to miss."

"Are a lot of werewolves musicians too, or is that just a coincidence?" said Buffy.

Oz shrugged. "My cousin Jordy's taking piano lessons, but it's too soon to tell if it'll go anywhere."

Willow giggled. "Wouldn't that be cool? You could form an all-werewolf band and name it The Pack or Lon and the Chaneys or Werewolves of Sunnydale."

Oz's eyes twinkled. "Well now I know what to do if the Dingoes ever break up."

Willow's face immediately fell. "You guys aren't breaking up, are you?"

"If we are, Devon hasn't told me about it yet."

"So what do we want to do about wolf girl?" said Buffy.

"If you guys didn't know about her until now, it must be because she hasn't attacked anyone in town," said Angel.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "So either she's new, she's been really lucky, or she has a cage like Oz's somewhere."

"I guess I can talk to her and find out," said Oz.

"Hey, maybe our research can help her too!" said Willow.

Okay, I'll do the author's notes by parts. Part I! I didn't feel like I could reasonably skip over Giles's recovery and return to civilization, but I'm not overly fond of either of those scenes. The Riley PoV scene, at least, will connect to later stuff, so it was worth keeping.

Part II! I was going to skip "Rm w/a Vu" entirely, but then it occurred to me how hilarious it would be to have Buffy walk out of the bathroom just when Cordelia is trying to steamroll past Angel and take over his apartment. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.

Part III! Okay, so in canon, Oz starts getting distracted by Veruca in "Beer Bad." However, in this fic, that hasn't happened because he's been spending all his free time with Willow, researching ways to gain control of his wolf side. I've always felt that the biggest factor that led to Oz/Veruca badness (aside from the fact that Seth Green was leaving the show to pursue other projects) was Oz's tendency to handle his problems alone. Well, Angel pretty much just took that option off the table by sniffing Veruca out before Oz could get secretive. Thanks, Angel!

Also, after nearly six whole years, I updated "Season 9" last week, in case anyone following this fic already gave up on that one and didn't get the alert for it.