"Oz, I can trust you not to tell the others can’t I? It would spoil this week and I want it to be as normal as possible. I don’t want a fuss."

"OK. Just between us two, I understand. Thanks for my present Giles."

From upstairs they heard the tell-tale creaking floorboards. The guests were waking. Jack came downstairs first he came into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He took a deep breath and whirled round. He was surprised when he saw Oz. The two men regarded him quietly and finished smoking.

Jack’s expression hardened. Giles pinched the end of the joint and put it in his tin for later. Oz looked from father to son and decided to go outside for a walk and leave them to their argument.

"You know I don’t like you smoking hash Dad!"

"It’s my house and I can do what I damn well please!" Giles shook a little as his chest began to constrict.

"The doctor says" Jack continued. Giles got up and started to pace.

"Screw the doctor! My lungs are shot Jack! There’s no miracle for me! If you ask me a smatterin’ of pot would do you some good. You really do need loosening up." He looked so indignant that Giles couldn’t help laughing in his face.

Jack sighed. It was indecent having a rebel as a father. He sometimes thought of him as much younger than his real age perhaps forty or so. He started on breakfast and was heartened when his father said he’d have some cereal.

Anya and Xander came downstairs all out of breath. Giles looked at them over the morning paper. His cereal bowl was empty so far so good, no lurching yet. He smiled at Anya.

"I thought you’d stay in bed longer this morning." He teased. She grinned at him. Then Cordelia breezed in and gave Giles a ’Good Morning’ kiss.

"I like being seventy! I get lots of kisses from beautiful young women." Giles quipped gallantly. Cordelia glowed pink only Giles could flirt at such an ungodly hour.

"So Cordelia, do you want to take me into the village and choose a tree for the living room? There’s lunch in it for you."

Jack froze by the tea-pot. His father wasn’t really up to excursions.

"Yes of course, have you got transport? Tell me it’s not the Citroen." She laughed Giles joined her clasping her hand in his gently.

"Good God no! That one’s long gone Spike crashed it. In England I drive a different car, perhaps you’d like to try?"

"You drive on the left here, right?"

"Right." Giles grinned.

"No, left!" She laughed hitting him playfully on the arm.

Jack saw his fathers shoulders tense and knew that something was wrong. Giles slipped out of his chair pausing to kiss Cordelia on the top of her head on his way out.

"Bless you." He murmured and moved swiftly upstairs to the bathroom. Jack excused himself and followed him up the stairs. The bathroom door was a-jar. There were just a few tiny blood splashes in the toilet bowl where his father had failed to clean them off. He backed out and went into his father’s bedroom.

He was sitting on the bed, his shirt was blood stained and he held what used to be a white handkerchief to his mouth. Jack picked up the phone and called the doctor.

Jack paced outside the bedroom waiting for the doctor’s diagnosis. Oz sat atop the stairs. The others were downstairs exploring in Giles’ library.

The doctor came out Jack looked expectantly at him.

"He isn’t going to last the week. How many times a day has he been vomiting?"

"This is the first time." Jack looked mystified at the question but then realised this was the first time he’d noticed something was wrong. His father was very adept at hiding things. He hid his love for Willow for years! The doctor shook his head.

"Try to get him to rest and not exert himself. He won’t rest I know, but try? Don’t make him eat or drink. He doesn’t have much functioning stomach left. I’m leaving you some morphine for him."

Jack stared at his father’s door the tears stinging his eyes.

"I’ll let myself out." Oz moved out of the way. Jack knocked and went in not sure that he wanted to see his father. As the door opened he saw Giles dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown standing at his easel painting!

"Hello Jack!" Giles loaded his brush without pausing to study his son’s shocked expression. He could imagine the stance though, the same one Willow used when she realised that he and Jack had gorged themselves on ice cream just before dinner. He smiled at the memory.

"Dad, the doctor said not to exert yourself!" Who was the son and who was the father?

"This isn’t exertion," he gestured to the painting. "This is relaxation." Oz peaked round the edge of the canvas and the figures seemed to move toward him.

"I have to finish this. Jack, I’m all right. The doctor gave me a shot to settle things for a while. Will you take Cordelia out on the tree hunt? Oz will have to pose for me so I can finish." His father was murmuring continuously under his breath, his paint brush moving lightning fast capturing the essence of the werewolf on the canvas. Oz appeared next to Buffy, Ethan, Willow and himself five for a pentagram. They were standing on a dimly lit bridge. Waiting.

His son disappeared and left him to his work. Oz looked up at Giles seeing him filling in the background working feverishly, a fine sweat forming on his brow.

"What say we tell a story to Buffy hmm?" Giles laid down his brush. Oz glanced up at Buffy and swore she smiled at him. Then he saw his own face in the painting and stared. The man-wolf had quiet eyes that glowed with an ethereal quality not exactly a mirror but pretty damn close!

"Well now Buffy’s story. Something fun!"

It was Rag week and we were madly haring round Oxford raising money for charity. When I say ’We’ I mean my new girlfriend, Emily and me. She was a creature of sunshine, a blue-eyed blonde and I was smitten. I liked her because she was normal, she liked me because I was a little dangerous.

Ethan was tolerant of this relationship because it allowed him free access to my Watcher diaries and magic books. He absorbed them while I was absorbed in her.

One evening when I got home I found Ethan blowing up a vinyl sex doll. I thought ’ello he must be desperate! Turned out he wasn’t blowing it up for himself but for someone else. He asked me to help him dress it in bondage gear. I picked up a plastic bag and Ethan snatched it away.

"That’s your Birthday present Ripper!" said he slightly embarrassed.

I, of course wanted to unwrap it straight away I was still six in that respect. That’s another story.

The plan was to shin up the drainpipe outside the Dean’s office and place the dummy in his bed next to him. Then get an incriminating photo for the Rag magazine. Then he’d give a donation to the charity to stop publication. All good-natured fun! But! When I got in the room and I can tell you it was a tight squeeze through the window with the doll all blown up. Ethan was practically pissing himself snapping away with that damn camera of his as I tried to shove the over inflated rump past my waist. It must have looked like I was humping the thing instead of the Dean! Anyway it entered the room as if launched by catapult and I tumbled in afterwards and none too quietly either!

I grabbed the doll by its neck, slapped it a couple of times for giving me a hard time, and sallied forth to the Dean’s room. It’s amazing how many creaking floorboards’ one can find when trying to practice stealth! I heard noises from behind the door. I knelt down taking my silent partner with me and looked through the keyhole.

"Guess who I saw" Giles looked at Oz with a wicked gleam in his eye.

"Don’t know, can’t guess! Tell me." Cried Oz eager for the next part.

The dean in bed with the school secretary, going at it hammer and tongs they were. Suddenly the bondage gear Ethan had bought for the doll seemed tame compared to what they were wearing. Spiked collar and leather wrist cuffs and nipple clamps and that was just the secretary. He had chained the Dean…

"HE?!" Oz yelped.

"Yes, didn’t I mention? How very remiss of me!" Giles gave him the filthiest smirk Oz had ever seen. Ripper in full "game-face"

…To the bedpost and was ’servicing’ him. I left the doll outside the door and ran to the window. I clambered out but lost my purchase on the ledge it was two storeys up. I flung out my arm wildly and caught hold of a drainpipe bracket. It broke my descent but at the same time ripped my shoulder out of joint that’s the third and fourth reason Ethan called me Ripper. He said I was ripping good fun and I’d ripped my shoulder.

The next day I had a fight scene to choreograph for a film so my shoulder has never really healed properly.

"Now have you had breakfast yet? I’m afraid mine was a bit of a non-starter." Giles cleaned off his brushes and sighed at the painting. Nearly there now, not long to wait.

"Giles?" Oz asked the old man gazed at him his eyes and demeanour calm.

"How can you be so laid back? About everything? Dying and stuff."

"Oz, dying is easy. Living is the hard part. There are still things about me you don’t know. Perhaps some things you shouldn’t. I don’t know what will be in the stories I tell until I open my mouth and they spill out. That way you get Ripper and not me." He dropped the cloth suddenly with such a look of fury on his face that Oz shrank back.

"He’s opened the door! Bastard! Xander’s opened the door!" Giles raced from the room his speed belying his age and condition. Oz followed on behind.

End of Pt.4

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