**************THE END***************

Giles rubbed at his shoulder, but refrained from acknowledging that Buffy�s fist would probably leave a bruise.  Even after all these years she didn�t realize how strong she is.  �I�ll have you know that this impossibly old man is still quite capable of holding his alcohol, and I dare say that I could drink any of you children right under the table!�  Of course Buffy was no longer a child, and then there was Angel, who was about as far from being a child as anyone could be.  Nonetheless, Giles would stand by his claim, and put it to the test this evening. 

Precisely what he was doing here at the Globe Theatre was still a mystery to him.  Willow had offered an explanation, of sorts, something about a Louraxon demon and events that occurred in 1880 but didn�t really happen.  As with many things that came out of her mouth, Giles was at a loss to comprehend it.  He had long ago attributed such failures in communication to a generational gap, or perhaps a continental divide, in that he was from the Old World and Buffy and her friends were from the New World.  However, he had come to learn that it was just part of the quirkiness of his relationship with these friends and companions that had, over the years, become his family. 

They did the whole hug fest thing for a while.  But Giles looked confused and dazed, in shock and awe or something.  Shell-shocked.  Buffy patted his shoulder, �Its ok, Giles, short-term memory loss.  It�s one of those unavoidable consequences of being as impossibly old as you are.�  He glanced at her, worry lines between his brows. The poor man looked emotionally bruised.  �Giles! �I�m just messing with you!  Come on, everything is going to be just fine.  Maybe we should take Faith�s suggestion and run with it.�  Buffy had to admit that sometimes Faith had a good idea.  �I hear they have good beer in England.  We could find a pub with an interesting name like The Three Legged Mare, or the Drawn and Quartered Blacksmith, or maybe the Bull and Spectacles.  We could drink flagons of ale, play games of darts, and try to understand the locals when they get drunk as skunks.�  She playfully slugged Giles in the shoulder, �Come on, Giles!  As my watcher you must know that slayers just wanna have fun  every once in a while.  Faith knows that better than anyone.�

Of course they still had a loose end.  Didn�t they always?  Anya was still sitting in lock down back at the watcher�s council. 

�Giles!�  Willow jumped up on the stage and gave her old friend a big hug.  She was soon joined by Buffy.  �Giles, Giles, Giles!  We got you back!  It worked!�  But he didn�t seem to remember.  �Oh I get it, when you guys banished the Louraxon demon back in 1880, all of its magical spells, including the one that sent you to 1880 in the first place were cancelled out, meaning you never went to 1880, which of course means you don�t remember it because it never happened!�  She brightened, �Yeah, but I have proof, right here in my pocket!�  She searched her pockets for the two old, yellowed notes written by Giles in 1880.  But of course they were gone, because he never wrote them. 

�No I guess I don�t have proof.�  She wondered if the rest of them, from 2015, would begin to forget this whole episode.  Maybe, but maybe not, because they still did what did, right?  Whether or not Giles was ever in 1880.  Of course if Giles never was sent back to 1880, then they wouldn�t have had a reason to do what they did.  It was so confusing! Willow would back burner that whole train of thought for now, what mattered was that they had Giles back! 

�That�s is it?� Faith was frustrated as she watched Giles stumble out of the portal alone. �Good to see you G man. Long story. B have to tell you about it some time,� mission accomplished, but it was anticlimactic. There wasn�t a demon. There wasn�t a final battle. It was all resolved without even throwing a single punch. She was a little disappointed.

Giles was confused. He thought he had fallen asleep. He didn�t appear to remember his trip through time. It was probably for the best. �Must have been a hell of a dream bet it was real life like,� a smile formed on the corner of her lips. �Anybody wanna go throw back a few?� cocked her head looking at the rest of the crew. �I can�t just stand here. Girls got to get her rocks off somehow,� there had been all the buildup and no action. In the past she go looking for a fight or take someone home. She had matured a bit and would settle for drinks. Although the other stuff wasn�t completely out of the question.  

With the Louraxon demon banished to a dimensional prison, all the magic tricks it had executed over its long life were extinguished, as if they never happened.  Giles stepped out of the portal onto the stage at the Globe Theatre, and as he did, the portal quickly contracted and vanished behind him.  He was disoriented, and the memory of his time in 1880 London was quickly fading, like a dream when one is awakened abruptly in the night.  Giles� presence here in 2015 meant that he had been in this world in 1986, when he and Ethan Rayne had unintentionally summoned the demon Eyegon.  Subsequent spells to counter their mistake resulted in the demon�s death and its own special place in hell.  So they had cycled back to the beginning, negating Anya�s vengeance spell and Eyegon�s plans for revenge against Rupert Giles.

Buffy was sprawled in one of the second row seats, her legs crossed and draped over the seat in front of her.  She yawned and examined her nails.  Willow was doing something over at the right side of the stage with what looked like dried weeds.  Must be magic stuff.  Faith was smoking a cigarette under the No Smoking sign.  Wesley was a dozen or so seats away from Buffy in the first row, leaning forward and alert, staring at the stage like the greatest show on Earth was playing up there.  And Angel� where was Angel, anyways?

Buffy looked at her watch.  Except she didn�t have one.  She left it back at the hotel.  �Am I the only one who�s thinking this is a bust?  Wouldn�t be the first time that��  Something shimmered up on stage for just a moment.  It was subtle, and if you were looking elsewhere, you wouldn�t have seen it.  �Hey, did you guys see that?�  Buffy swung her legs off the seat in front of her and stood up.  Wesley reacted � he must have seen it, too. 

Then abruptly it was like a hurricane blew through the back of the theater; a phantom wind that wasn�t a wind almost knocked Buffy off her feet, the red velvet curtains at the back of the stage tore loose and careened over Buffy�s head, landing in the seats behind her.  Lightning flashed and then a blue-purple glow in the center of the stage began to grow and swirl, and as it did, the center darkened until it was like a black hole.  �Show time, ladies and gentlemen!� 

The Globe Theater was kind of a miniature Renaissance fair sort of thing.  Little craft shops and restaurants, acrobats and mimes wandering the short cobble streets.  But this being a weekday, there weren�t many people around, which was just as well.  Because they didn�t know precisely where the portal would open up.  It could be inside the theater itself or, and this was more likely, around the shops and cafes.  In fact, Wesley said the most probable place was the Apple Wren Caf�.  Willow peaked inside, smiled, and waved to the waitress.  There weren�t any customers, which was good.  The waitress, a redhead in a peasant dress, smiled and waved back.  She was cute!

Bostick had given them a little mechanical whatsit that was supposed to help focus the portal.  It wasn�t the portal generator itself, which was being set up at the Council chambers.  The idea was to triangulate, well not a triangle, because they only had two points � one here in 2015 and one in 1880 � what would that be?  Biangulate?  Anyway, this was just something to help lure the portal to an exact place.  It might or might not work.  They decided to set it up inside the Globe Theater, on stage.  Angel had to break the lock to get inside the theater, because no plays were scheduled for tonight. 

�Plan? There�s a plan?� Faith raised an eyebrow.  She wasn�t exactly known for coming up with those type of things. Plus last one she had cooked up backfired big time. The only thing she had in mind was smashing the things to bits. Throw a few punches, but hey she had an idea rolling around in her head she was all ears. Wes mentioned pushing the two things, people, or whatever they were back into the portal. She was down with that. It most likely involve the violence she had in mind.

They arrived at the vacant theatre. She paced about hands jammed in her pockets in the standing room floor as they toyed with the set up for the portal on the stage. Mechanical devices and magic things of that nature she left to the others. She decided to keep an eye out for intruders coming in around the balconies or ground floor seats. Angel had slipped in and was checking the back.

It was daytime, so Angel stayed behind with Bostick while the others went to the Globe Theater.  The sun would go down, though, an hour before the portal was scheduled to open, so Angel would be there when he needed to be.  He remembered the Globe � not as it is now, but when it was in ruins.  For a while, in the early 19^th century, Angelus and Darla would take victims there.  For torture and pain.  Angel knew where the bodies were buried. 

As it turned out, and not unexpectedly, he was fairly useless in helping with the portal generator.  He was all thumbs when it came to assembling delicate devices, and he had about as much aptitude and interest in such things as he did for singing and dancing.  So he wandered away from the conference room where Bostick had brought together some nerdy youths, students apparently, who were gathered around the table in a goon huddle, hunched over the instructions from Giles and fiddling with gadgetry.  Looked like they were improvising some, as they had some circuit boards and other electronics that didn�t exist in 1880.  Whatever.

Angel�s feet found a spiral staircase that led to a bell tower, sans a bell.  He had no idea why the Council would have ever had a bell tower, but apparently they didn�t need it anymore.  There was just enough shade for Angel to view the city while escaping incineration.  London was bustling at this hour.  Some people had gotten off work early, others were making the rounds, running errands, business and otherwise.  As always, the vast majority of the people out there were completely unaware of the predators, the monsters that lurked in the shadows.  They wrote off the mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders to human deviants, never considering the possibility that their city might be infested with demons and vampires.  Because the truth was too frightening to bear.