Many Happy Returns
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Buffy: Couldn't reach her... again. She hasn't been hanging out much.
The Wish
Buffy: Sorry. It's just with Faith on one of her unannounced walkabouts, I feel like somebody should be patrolling.
Giles: Well, Faith is not interested in proper training, so I must rely on you to keep up with yours.
Helpless
December 10th 1998
There were many issues and traditions Giles disagreed with the Watchers Council about. The Cruciamentum ranked number one for him presently in rituals which by all rights should have been left behind in the Dark Ages in which they originated.
A girl's eighteenth birthday should be a time where she finally entered a pub without the paranoia of having her ID checked, or here in the U.S. shagged her boyfriend without him worrying about committing statutory rape. It shouldn't be observed by putting a slayer stripped of her powers into a locked house with a vampire. It was barbaric, completely barbaric and he needed to betray Faith this week and Buffy next month.
Going over to his liquor cabinet in his apartment Giles poured himself a whiskey. The Council telephoned him this week and informed him they were coming over with a crated vampire in tow, to make sure he went through with the loathsome ordeal.
An ordeal for young Faith, not Giles of course. Faith was an accident waiting to happen. The kind of unstable girl this test was designed to weed out. Which meant a younger more biddable Slayer would be called in her place. Of course twelve times in recorded history a nineteen year old potential came into her power. Normally upset a few apple carts when that anomaly occurred.
One nineteen year old Swedish girl in the eighteenth century flat out refused to slay. The Council 'disposed' of both her and the young watcher she'd fallen in love with and who aided and abetted her flight to the New World.
No danger of Giles falling in love with either Faith Lehane or Buffy Summers. Faith would have attracted him as a teenager but he outgrew her 'I'm on a downwards spiral, baby, let me take you with me' type by thirty. Buffy he thought of as his… slayer. Nothing else, he maintained his professional distance with Buffy at all times.
'Ripper' would call him a crawling bastard being prepared to go through with this.
And where the hell was Faith in any case? She hadn't kept an appointment he made with her in the library this afternoon. How could he hypnotize the poor girl and pump her full of muscle relaxants if she didn't bloody show up to be tricked to begin with? Could she somehow found out of the plans the Council held in store for her? Had her previous watcher been indiscrete?
Giles knocked on the door of Faith's motel unit. This dive of a place the only thing she could afford on the allowance the council sent her. It had been like getting blood out of a stone for Giles to wrangle the paltry weekly grant from them in the first place. She could hardly sleep on the sofa in his one bedroom apartment.
"Hey. Real sorry about not showin' up yesterday, Giles." Faith didn't look sorry in the slightest. "Do you wanna come in? Is this a social visit? Because it's kinda a bad time right now."
"Seeing how you missed your training yesterday. I thought we could possibly catch up today." Giles fingered the crystals in his jacket pocket guiltily. "This private training is entirely for your benefit not mine."
"Damn, I'm still gonna hafta take a raincheck." Faith opened the door to him. Giles saw a packed bag on her bed. "I'm flying back to Boston tonight. Grandma's funeral, me and the old broad were like that." Faith crossed her fingers tightly in demonstration. "My Uncle Pat sent me the air fare."
"You must be devastated." Giles frowned.
"Cut up like you wouldn't believe." Faith shrugged carelessly.
Giles didn't.
"I said Faith's not going to be in Sunnydale this weekend." Giles informed Travers over the phone. "No, I arrived at her motel and she'd already left…. There was nothing I could do I'm kicking myself of course... New York I believe after asking her motel manager or perhaps New Jersey?" Giles suspected Faith fled to Los Angeles, where else could she afford to go? Or perhaps she remained hiding in Sunnydale, holed up and free-loading off some gullible male unable to believe his sexual luck. "Yes I suspect she'll be back. Damn shame indeed, the Cruciamentum must be performed the actual day of a slayer's birthday, but keeping to tradition is rather important I've always felt."
Hooray.
January 7th 1999
"Why hello Rupert." Joyce smiled nervously at him as he entered her art gallery in the late afternoon. "Is something wrong... something to do with Buffy?"
"Good lord no. I'm here because I drew the short straw to choose an engagement present for the School Secretary." Giles was indeed a member of the Sunnydale High School faculty social club, but Emma Greenstein would be receiving a gift voucher from the staff in recognition of her upcoming nuptials.
"Oh, we have the most lovely little figurines just arrived from Puerto Rico." Joyce led him over to them.
Christ, they were ghastly. "Charming, and I see they come with certificates of authentication."
"Yes, everything does." Joyce picked one up. "I adore the colors in this one."
"Very cobalt." Giles nodded neutrally. "Does Buffy ever want anything from your gallery? Does she inherit your love for art at all? I must confess I'd never noticed any appreciation of culture in her at first, but recently…."
Joyce chuckled in agreement. "I know, she used to be a total little vapid valley girl, Giles, but she's outgrowing that 'I'm pretending I'm dumber than I am' stage in her life rapidly. I'm hoping when she goes to college…"
"If you want her to study Art History, Buffy needs to see something truly magnificent to inspire her love for the subject. I know, why not surprise her with a trip to San Francisco on her birthday, to see the Art Galleries up there?" Giles suggested innocently. "Keep the expedition a total secret from her until the day in question. I'm sure she'd love the touring Picasso exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, you both would."
"Yes, well as I said, I thought I lent that book to you, but my mistake obviously. Yes, it has turned out to be a long conversation. Yes, you go off and watch E.R. I'm intending to watch it myself. Good night Joyce."
Giles got off the phone to Joyce Summers, gritting his teeth with frustration. Bloody Hank and his bloody dangling the ice skating exhibition tickets under his ever hopeful daughter's nose. Joyce told Giles she rescheduled the trip to San Francisco for the weekend.
The man wouldn't show up and if he did his daughter wouldn't be available for once because she might be dead.
The bastard didn't deserve a daughter like Buffy, if Giles had a wonderful daughter like … but he didn't and Buffy was not his daughter she was his slayer.
And he needed to get Faith out of the way urgently.
"Holy Fuck!" Faith was so delighted she forgot to put on the act she normally did with how she spoke in reality.
Giles couldn't be bothered to pretend to be shocked.
"Scuba divin' lessons in San Diego, paid for by the Council? It's too wicked good to be true!" Faith jigged with excitement.
That's because it was and arranging the last minute desperate charade cost Giles a pretty penny. The Council understood nothing, threatening a girl like Faith to remain quiet wouldn't work; it would have the opposite effect on her.
"Is B. comin' with?" Faith appeared anxious. "I mean if vampires are settin' up base under water…"
"No, we have her booked for next month." Giles lied.
"But..." Faith hesitated; she looked him straight in the eye. "Could I wait till then too? And it's Buffy's birthday this week, I kinda wanna …"
Giles would always be a better liar than Faith. "Please don't let on and spoil everything but her mother's taking her to San Francisco tomorrow for a week, the whole Ice Skating Show outing with her father is a ruse. You won't be missing out on anything."
Faith relaxed. "Man, scuba divin', this freakin' rocks!" She paused, her eyes lighting up with mischief. "I'll hafta get hold of a bikini I guess."
Giles didn't want to think about how Faith would go about obtaining her bikini and he was annoyed with himself for briefly imagining how she would look in one.
August 17th 2007
"Hiya Daddy!" Buffy threw her arms around Giles, the minute he hurried into the living room.
"Oh god, I'm too late?" Giles didn't want to face his wife. "Traffic was terrible."
Buffy smirked. "The ambulance crew are upstairs with her now, checking her over, but yours truly delivered the baby."
"You are a heroine constantly, above and beyond the call." Giles put his hand to Buffy's face in gratitude.
"Hey, I have to keep on the good side of the man who's going to give me away at my wedding next month." Buffy pushed him up the stairs.
Giles walked into his bedroom and tried to stay out of the medic's way, examining his new son with trepidation. The child closely resembled Giles and possessed all fingers and toes, how very reassuring on all counts. They'd both been worried.
"Uh, isn't today ya birthday?" His wife inquired tiredly after the ambulance crew departed.
"Yes." Giles brought their son over and sat carefully beside her on the bed.
Faith rested her head on his shoulder, staring uncertainly at the baby. She shrugged resolutely and sighed, grimly resigned to unplanned motherhood. "Well then I guess, many happy returns, babe."
Giles hid his own sigh, he didn't want to be a parent either. "He's the best present in the world darling, and you're going to be a wonderful mother."
Faith smiled shyly, Giles hugged her fondly. He could lie better than she ever could still.