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A blinding flash illuminated the library like a bolt of lighting. When the four teens were able to see again, Giles and Joyce were no longer there. The youths stood, mouths agape, stunned into uncharacteristic silence by the turn of events and the pyrotechnic display that had preceded it.They exchanged puzzled looks and slowly surveyed the surroundind area, still no one spoke. Finally Oz broke the silence, "Not to overstate the obvious or anything but....I'm thinking this is not good."
The others readily chimed in...
"What happened?"
"Where did they....?"
"Mom? Giles?"
Confusion reigned for a few moments until Buffy shouted, "Okay! Quiet!" Her friends compiled. "Now everyone just chill. Umm, Xander,check the stacks, the rest of us will check outside and in the hallways, anywhere near the library."
A short search yielded nothing and soon the four young people were back in the library.
"Alright, Will, check Giles' office for notes or spellbooks or, I don't know, some kind of owners manual."
"What do we do?" Oz said,more rhetorically than anything else.
"Yeah, but more importantly," Offered Xander, "What do we tell Wesley?"
"About what?", the young Watcher asked walking toward them as the doubledoors swung behind him.
Xander rolled his eyes, "How did I just know that was going to happen?"
"The mirror," Willow began, "It..."
"Doesn't work!" Buffy interupted, throwing an urgent look at her friend, "Giles tried everything but..."
"Yeah, nada, nothing, ixnay", Xander jumped in, "Nobody disappeared or anything," he stammered before a whithering look from the Slayer clammed him up.
"Well," Wesley said with a smug smile, "So the incomperable Mr.Giles was stumped, was he?"
"But no, he..." Willow attempted, to no avail, as Oz swooped in to lead her out of harms way grabbing her elbow.
"Willow, what about those Chem notes you were telling me about?" He wasn't sure what Buffy was up to witholding the truth from her new Watcher but he trusted her instincts implicitly.
"Perhaps I'll give it a try," Wesley went on, "I'm no slouch in these matters myself, you know."
"Right!" Buffy agreed, "Maybe you should...um, check your books, you might find something Giles missed."
"Quite so. Care to join me in plumbing the mysteries of the ancient texts?" he said, a bit too excitedly.
"Oh, ahh ... love to, but homework rears its ugly head. You know."
"Hmmm,of course," Wesley said with a bit of a pout. He turned and went into Giles' office.
When they were sure he was out of earshot, Buffy and Xander joined Willow and Oz at a computer terminal.
"Buffy, why do we have to hide this from Wesley?" Willow asked, "He's smart, almost as smart as Giles and knows a lot about this stuff."
"Yeah, but he's also the Watcher's Council lap dog and the first thing he'll do is go running to them and before we know it that mirror will be winging its way to England. I will not allow those pompous windbags to get their hands on my mother!"
"Woah, Buff....Issues," Xander said.
"Damn right!" Buffy practically shouted, then looked over her shoulder self-consciously and leaned closer, "Damn right issues," she whispered angrily, "If there's a way to eff this thing up any worse the Watchers will find it. Look at their track record. Besides, think of the trouble Giles would be in if they found out. No, we're not getting the Ministry of Silly Walks involved in this. So for now laughing boy is out of the loop."
"Nice analogy." Oz offered dryly.
"I say," Wesley called, popping his head out of the office, "Do any of you know where Mr.Giles is?"
The group exchanged anxious glances.
~~~~~~ "Through the looking glass? What is that suppose to mean?" Joyce inquired of Giles, not a little irritably.
"Well...um, it appears as if we have been ..... transported."
"Trans.....but where? How?"
"How is undoubtedly by the mirror. As to the where..."
They were in a fairly sizeable room of antiquated design and decor; comfortably furnished in English country style, inviting and lavishly decorated. A drawingroom circa late nineteenth century, Giles guessed, complete with roaring fire and a table set for tea. In the middle of the room stood the mirror, looking like it belonged there.
"The mirror transported us," Joyce said flatly,a healthy dose of skepticism in her voice.
"Yes. It, among other things, apparently functions as a portal."
"And you knew this before we started the spell?"
Giles squirmed, "Not...um, no, not exactly."
"Great. How do we get back?"
Giles cleared his throat, "I'm...not sure."
"Let me get this straight,you decided to just play around with a magical mirror/portal thing without knowing what it would do or how to undo it, and now we're stuck..." Joyce stopped, her attention suddenly focused on one of the rooms paintings, "...Is that an original Matisse?"
She made a bee-line to the painting as if pulled by it. Giles breathed a silent sigh of relief that Joyce had been distracted from her attack on him. He had no doubt that he would eventually be able to figure out a way back but it would be much easier if she wasn't harping at him the whole time.
He followed her lead and set about scrutinizing their surroundings; examining the books, furniture, draperies. They had only just shaken their disorientation from the the teleportation enough to really take note of the things around them. The thick, ornate draperies were drawn across the windows. Giles pulled them back to reveal a stunning view of a rolling, lush lawn stretching out acres to a distant wood. There was no sign of anyone. Joyce, more than merely distracted now, was excitedly studying the various artworks on display in the room. Famous, seemingly original, paintings, finely detailed vases,hand-carved furnishings.
"Priceless," she marvelled, "It's like a museum."It suddenly dawned on Giles that neither of them had yet to try to leave the room. He crossed to the double doors.
Locked.
As were the french windows. Failing that, he drifted over to the tea setting. He sniffed the tea and scones, satisfied as to their authenticity he broke off a piece and tasted it. "Mmmm, superb," he said and took an even larger piece.
"How can you eat at a time like this? We're lost God-knows-where, we don't know how to get back and Buffy is probably worried sick about me!"
"Us." Giles felt obliged to remind her.
Joyce tossed him a glare and struck an angry pose that he found frighteningly familiar. Like mother, like daughter.
"Joyce, our first course of action is to remain calm and to put aside any lingering....animosity-----though God knows it's not coming from me. I see no reason why we can't work together to think this through calmly and rationally to come up with a solution."
After a minute of thought Joyce had to admit it was the most prudent thing to do. She felt a myriad of emotions regarding Giles but now was not the time or place to address them. "Well don't just stand there," she finally said to him, "Pour me some tea."
~~~~~~ In the library, Buffy, Willow and Xander were putting the finishing touches on the set-up to attempt a reversal of the mirror's abduction of Giles and Joyce.
"But Giles said it needed a man and a woman to work," Willow was saying, "And I'm afraid we come up short on both counts."
"Yeah, but we have to try something. Unless you want to stick Synder and the Cafeteria lady in front of it."
Xander made a sour face, "Thank-you for painting that picture for me. Besides, I don't think Ferret Face qualifies as a man, anyway."
Before they could continue, the ubiquitous Wesley breezed into the library, "Ah, there you are! Good news! The Council has approved my request to take charge of the mirror. However, if I am unable to make it work within two days I'm to send it to them."
Buffy's eyes widened, "Really? Wow, that's....great. Have any ideas?" Buffy asked,hoping to glean some kind of a lead on what to do.
"Actually I have several possible...." the young man began, only to be interrupted by Buffy.
"....Willow, why don't you sit down with Wesley and go over all his plans. I'm sure he'd love to explain what he has in mind." She nudged her friend over to the Watcher.
"I...um...sure. Spells and...incantations," Willow babbled, "Let's go in to Giles' office to compare notes."
"Delighted."
Buffy waited for them to leave then said, "This is getting ridiculous, he's underfoot every time we try something."
"We need to get that mirror out of here...maybe to your house?"
"Yeah, but he practically lives here. And now, he'll never let that thing out of his sight."
"We need a distraction," Xander reasoned, "Something that will keep him occupied while we make off with the goods."
"But what? He's not interested in anything but being a Watcher ."
As luck would have it Cordelia chose that exact moment to come sashaying through the library doors. Spying the incongruous mirror in the center of the floor she walked over to it. "What's up with the mirror? Giles giving out grooming tips to the fashion-challenged? There's the blind leading the blind."
Buffy and Xander looked at each other, then at Cordelia, and smiled deviously.
~~~~~~ Giles and Joyce sat sipping tea and considering their predicament. "You said the mirror sees into the future," Joyce said, "but we seem to be in the past."
"Yes, and a strangely deserted one at that. Someone must have set this table, and recently, but...."
He shrugged, alluding to their several unsuccessful attempts to both contact any other people in the house and leave the room. To that end they had shouted and barraged the door, after which Giles attempted to pick the lock.
Nothing.
They then turned their attention to the mirror itself, duplicating their exact positions and recitations from the library in hopes of reversing the spell.
Again nothing.
They plopped back down at the table, frustrated. After a few moments of silent contemplation, Joyce mused, "I don't know how you do it."
"Do it?"
"Live your life like this; never knowing what the next day, even the next hour, is going to bring. Or, what kind of wild, fantastic, dangerous...." she looked around and threw up her hands, "....mad tea party you're going to find yourself in next."
Giles chuckled, "It does take some getting use to," he conceded, "but I've been trained to be a Watcher since I was a teenager. It's my duty, my...calling. We ultimately accept the reality into which we are placed."
A period of silence followed,during which they each approached the problem from different angles. Giles finally spoke, "Much as I am loathe to damage this beautiful furniture or anything else in this room, I suspect that we could escape by breaking the window with a chair."
"Yes, but escape to what? Shouldn't we stick close to the mirror since it's probably our only way back?"
"True but....who, or whatever brought us here may be our only hope of making it function. Besides which we can only live on tea and crumpets for so long."
Joyce sighed heavily, frowned, got up and went to the mirror to examine it closely once more, then she shook her head. "Maybe you're right," she added "We should at least find out where we are and if anyone at all is around."
She walked over to a large chair and tested its weight by pulling on an arm. Assured that it was, indeed, heavy enough, she motioned for Giles to take up a position opposite her, then she patted the chair sympathetically and said, "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you."
They each took a solid grip on an arm, lifted the chair off the ground and were poised to throw it unceremoniously through the window when the doors to the room opened inward..........
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