Orange Pekoe
(Post-"Grave")
Millions of thanks to my meticulous and inspiring beta, Eirian!
*********************************************************************** ***********************************************************************
Giles pours out tea. Orange Pekoe, brought from home. He takes a sip.
Ahh.
He'd packed in a hurry, but there's always room in a small case for Orange Pekoe. Giles isn't a tea-fascist - PG or Tetley's will suffice, always - but the stuff Americans drink!
Really. Lipton's. Beyond the pale.
He takes another sip.
Carefully, he leans his still-bruised head back against his armchair. Violence, Lipton's, shrill-voiced girls. Back in the land of the free. Oh, he isn't going anywhere. Bath and his flat, Elaine from the British Library café - it can't have been five weeks ago that he set out for America, but they seem like cosy memories from a vanished era. Real life is here in Sunnydale, made of calamity and Californian bread (easy to tell them apart, for the trained eye), of his ruined shop and Anya's sharp tones. Not that they're as sharp as they used to be, of course. Poor girl.
He pours himself another cup, and leans back slowly, thinking of his expenses. Caved in walls. Those ravaged black arts volumes. Morgana's writings had gone of course, and the Life of Mephisto. Worth a fortune, those two alone. Ah well. Thousands of pounds worth of dust-traps and tourist-fripperies. Dollars, rather.
He reaches out his right hand for the list Anya has drawn up for him, and her estimated total cost of refurbishment. Meticulous work. He sighs. A bright girl, very. She ought to have gone to college, read Economics perhaps. She's vastly under-estimated the cost of repairs - of course she has; she's twenty-one. Young enough to think two and two can be relied on to give you four. Jenny - that's how Jenny had thought. You get what you pay for. Honesty is speaking your mind. A computer reverses curses.
These girls remind him of Jenny, sometimes. Anya, perhaps, more than the others. The same self-assurance, bright eyes, style. Well, not style, exactly. Some of Anya's dresses are frankly gaudy. Frills, flowers, ruffles, ribbon. She dresses like those girl-students of his father's that his mother, long ago, used to call cheap. Of whom his father would say, 'She has a brilliant mind,' and his mother would say, coldly, into her coffee, there's no need to come to dinner dressed like a dancing girl from a music-hall act. Not that Anya looks cheap, not to Giles. An old man, he supposes, finds it easier than a wife does, to forgive vulgarity in a lovely girl.
Curious that he remembers them, those students, after all these years. There was one in particular, Ariadne, she was called (though his mother knew the family and would insist she'd been christened Jill). A stretchy dress with big red flowers; her hair had been in waves, like all the girls', but it glowed reddish. He'd thought her the most beautiful person on earth. He couldn't have been more than ten.
He leans forward to feel the cheek of his teapot. Cold. He'll put the kettle on again, he thinks.
***********************************************************************
He wakes.
There's a little dribble on his shoulder. Disgusting. Asleep in his chair like an old man, the old man he never thought he'd be. You're only as old as you feel, as they say, those authoritative Californian ladies of a certain age. Older than sin, Giles feels today, old and decrepit.
I don't want to see you suffer.
Servile old hypocrite that he was, he'd lied to her, to Buffy, that day he'd left Sunnydale. Her pain wrenched him, true - but he could withstand such compassionate misery quite comfortably, knowing the benefits she'd no doubt reap from her greater independence. It was his own pain he couldn't bear.
The nibbling ache that had kept him awake on that terrible transatlantic journey had been the thought of his empty, abandoned English life; the knowledge that he'd arrive to King's Cross taxi rank in the night and in the rain; the thought of seeking a small, expensive, slightly smelly hotel room; and of the lonely days and years that would begin to pile up after that. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Deadlock.
It was himself he could have wept for, when Buffy's dear, bright face, vivid with the fear of abandonment, had appeared before his eyes during that horrible aeroplane ride. He knew she'd go on without him, go from strength to strength. It was the loss to him, the loss of her. The certainty that the future held some other Buffy - self-assured and self-possessed, with no desperate daughter's love in her eyes; or worse - one that looked with the same agony of need on some other father or lover, while he, Giles, grew old playing endless games of Patience and Watching nothing but the drizzle.
Self-indulgent slosh, of course. He ought to exert some self-discipline. Finish checking through the accounts. Perhaps write to Willow's guardians in Devonshire. He'll put the kettle on in a moment.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. He hadn't noticed the pain in his head so badly before. He thinks about Angelus and torture, and then about vomiting, and then tries to pull himself together. After all, a man trained as a Watcher has certain skills. He might be of valuable aid - perhaps to Dawn.
He winces. Better to die quietly and alone.
He thinks of Anya, her gaucheries, her blundering goodwill. Once he'd wished he could shut her in a box, her and her talk of capitalists and orgasms. Now a sympathetic lenience steals over him. How could she have been expected to know better, after all, under Xander's inept tutelage? Mightn't the guidance of a real watcher benefit her, fit her for the world? Really, she has the makings of a fine woman.
Giles stirs uneasily in his chair. He has the feeling that these aren't his real thoughts, that what really draws him to the idea of Anya is that he very much likes being adored.
Her glad eyes when he'd turned up to save the day. At the time he'd been preoccupied with Willow's home-made apocalypse, but in retrospect... He feels teased by a warm, fluttery sense of flattery.
The supplication in her voice, her softened tones an act of audible devotion: 'I'm blonde, too.' Flagrantly, tastelessly, Marilyn-Monroe blonde, in fact, but on Anya the effect was rather fairy-on-the-Christmas- tree, he thinks, than teenage-experiment or prostitute-chic.
He'd wondered, in those far-off days when Anya had trailed in and out of his flat in Xander's wake, discussing her personal life with medical- dictionary precision. He'd wondered what made her bearable. Lack of competition, frankly, he'd thought. No queues around the block for the post of Mrs Xander.
How could he have missed it, is what he wonders now. That talent for idolatry, for pouring her heart into a saucer and laying it at her hero's feet. All those years, he'd seen her amber eyes glittering with greed and casual lust - he realises now how little it takes to make them glow with utter adoration. Xander, after all, has the self-esteem and patriarchal authority of a bed-wetting nine-year-old, and Anya loved him with a single- minded strength of passion that Giles finds almost exotic.
He clears his throat. Thoughts wandering again. Is he going senile? He hasn't turned a page for an hour. It's beginning to seem darker in the room. He thinks about supper. He's forgotten to buy it, but he knows there's a tin of soup left in the cupboard. He thinks about getting old, eating tinned asparagus soup in a room on his own. He hasn't even made his cup of tea yet. He thinks about putting the kettle on and leans back against the headrest of his chair.
**********************************************************************
She clatters the door open. There's a bunch of peonies in her arms. She bustles about the kitchenette, setting things to rights. She looks practical, as though her face is made of cast-iron, but he knows it isn't. He sees her put a pie in the 'fridge. She puts the kettle on.
(Post-"Grave")
Millions of thanks to my meticulous and inspiring beta, Eirian!
*********************************************************************** ***********************************************************************
Giles pours out tea. Orange Pekoe, brought from home. He takes a sip.
Ahh.
He'd packed in a hurry, but there's always room in a small case for Orange Pekoe. Giles isn't a tea-fascist - PG or Tetley's will suffice, always - but the stuff Americans drink!
Really. Lipton's. Beyond the pale.
He takes another sip.
Carefully, he leans his still-bruised head back against his armchair. Violence, Lipton's, shrill-voiced girls. Back in the land of the free. Oh, he isn't going anywhere. Bath and his flat, Elaine from the British Library café - it can't have been five weeks ago that he set out for America, but they seem like cosy memories from a vanished era. Real life is here in Sunnydale, made of calamity and Californian bread (easy to tell them apart, for the trained eye), of his ruined shop and Anya's sharp tones. Not that they're as sharp as they used to be, of course. Poor girl.
He pours himself another cup, and leans back slowly, thinking of his expenses. Caved in walls. Those ravaged black arts volumes. Morgana's writings had gone of course, and the Life of Mephisto. Worth a fortune, those two alone. Ah well. Thousands of pounds worth of dust-traps and tourist-fripperies. Dollars, rather.
He reaches out his right hand for the list Anya has drawn up for him, and her estimated total cost of refurbishment. Meticulous work. He sighs. A bright girl, very. She ought to have gone to college, read Economics perhaps. She's vastly under-estimated the cost of repairs - of course she has; she's twenty-one. Young enough to think two and two can be relied on to give you four. Jenny - that's how Jenny had thought. You get what you pay for. Honesty is speaking your mind. A computer reverses curses.
These girls remind him of Jenny, sometimes. Anya, perhaps, more than the others. The same self-assurance, bright eyes, style. Well, not style, exactly. Some of Anya's dresses are frankly gaudy. Frills, flowers, ruffles, ribbon. She dresses like those girl-students of his father's that his mother, long ago, used to call cheap. Of whom his father would say, 'She has a brilliant mind,' and his mother would say, coldly, into her coffee, there's no need to come to dinner dressed like a dancing girl from a music-hall act. Not that Anya looks cheap, not to Giles. An old man, he supposes, finds it easier than a wife does, to forgive vulgarity in a lovely girl.
Curious that he remembers them, those students, after all these years. There was one in particular, Ariadne, she was called (though his mother knew the family and would insist she'd been christened Jill). A stretchy dress with big red flowers; her hair had been in waves, like all the girls', but it glowed reddish. He'd thought her the most beautiful person on earth. He couldn't have been more than ten.
He leans forward to feel the cheek of his teapot. Cold. He'll put the kettle on again, he thinks.
***********************************************************************
He wakes.
There's a little dribble on his shoulder. Disgusting. Asleep in his chair like an old man, the old man he never thought he'd be. You're only as old as you feel, as they say, those authoritative Californian ladies of a certain age. Older than sin, Giles feels today, old and decrepit.
I don't want to see you suffer.
Servile old hypocrite that he was, he'd lied to her, to Buffy, that day he'd left Sunnydale. Her pain wrenched him, true - but he could withstand such compassionate misery quite comfortably, knowing the benefits she'd no doubt reap from her greater independence. It was his own pain he couldn't bear.
The nibbling ache that had kept him awake on that terrible transatlantic journey had been the thought of his empty, abandoned English life; the knowledge that he'd arrive to King's Cross taxi rank in the night and in the rain; the thought of seeking a small, expensive, slightly smelly hotel room; and of the lonely days and years that would begin to pile up after that. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Deadlock.
It was himself he could have wept for, when Buffy's dear, bright face, vivid with the fear of abandonment, had appeared before his eyes during that horrible aeroplane ride. He knew she'd go on without him, go from strength to strength. It was the loss to him, the loss of her. The certainty that the future held some other Buffy - self-assured and self-possessed, with no desperate daughter's love in her eyes; or worse - one that looked with the same agony of need on some other father or lover, while he, Giles, grew old playing endless games of Patience and Watching nothing but the drizzle.
Self-indulgent slosh, of course. He ought to exert some self-discipline. Finish checking through the accounts. Perhaps write to Willow's guardians in Devonshire. He'll put the kettle on in a moment.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. He hadn't noticed the pain in his head so badly before. He thinks about Angelus and torture, and then about vomiting, and then tries to pull himself together. After all, a man trained as a Watcher has certain skills. He might be of valuable aid - perhaps to Dawn.
He winces. Better to die quietly and alone.
He thinks of Anya, her gaucheries, her blundering goodwill. Once he'd wished he could shut her in a box, her and her talk of capitalists and orgasms. Now a sympathetic lenience steals over him. How could she have been expected to know better, after all, under Xander's inept tutelage? Mightn't the guidance of a real watcher benefit her, fit her for the world? Really, she has the makings of a fine woman.
Giles stirs uneasily in his chair. He has the feeling that these aren't his real thoughts, that what really draws him to the idea of Anya is that he very much likes being adored.
Her glad eyes when he'd turned up to save the day. At the time he'd been preoccupied with Willow's home-made apocalypse, but in retrospect... He feels teased by a warm, fluttery sense of flattery.
The supplication in her voice, her softened tones an act of audible devotion: 'I'm blonde, too.' Flagrantly, tastelessly, Marilyn-Monroe blonde, in fact, but on Anya the effect was rather fairy-on-the-Christmas- tree, he thinks, than teenage-experiment or prostitute-chic.
He'd wondered, in those far-off days when Anya had trailed in and out of his flat in Xander's wake, discussing her personal life with medical- dictionary precision. He'd wondered what made her bearable. Lack of competition, frankly, he'd thought. No queues around the block for the post of Mrs Xander.
How could he have missed it, is what he wonders now. That talent for idolatry, for pouring her heart into a saucer and laying it at her hero's feet. All those years, he'd seen her amber eyes glittering with greed and casual lust - he realises now how little it takes to make them glow with utter adoration. Xander, after all, has the self-esteem and patriarchal authority of a bed-wetting nine-year-old, and Anya loved him with a single- minded strength of passion that Giles finds almost exotic.
He clears his throat. Thoughts wandering again. Is he going senile? He hasn't turned a page for an hour. It's beginning to seem darker in the room. He thinks about supper. He's forgotten to buy it, but he knows there's a tin of soup left in the cupboard. He thinks about getting old, eating tinned asparagus soup in a room on his own. He hasn't even made his cup of tea yet. He thinks about putting the kettle on and leans back against the headrest of his chair.
**********************************************************************
She clatters the door open. There's a bunch of peonies in her arms. She bustles about the kitchenette, setting things to rights. She looks practical, as though her face is made of cast-iron, but he knows it isn't. He sees her put a pie in the 'fridge. She puts the kettle on.