Watched
A man with a package was at the door, registered mail.
"He said you have to sign," Robin said. The old man grumbled and got up from behind his desk with a groan. He stubbed out his cigarette.
The study was always filled with smoke. The old Watcher had gone only for a minute, and the smoke was like a fog in the room. Robin looked at the desk. He had seen him shove something to the bottom of the messy stack of papers when Robin came in. Robin found it neatly typed and dated.
"Re Robin Wood. He shows no potential" was all he got to read before the old man was back with the package.
"Why do they tape these things so? Get me the scissors will you, Robin?"
Robin waited till the next day before he started with the questions. His whole school day had been a blur because of what he had read. He dropped his book bag and went right into the study.
"What do you do for the Council, now that you don't have a Slayer any more?" Robin asked.
"There are many jobs at the Council," the Watcher said vaguely.
"What's your job?" Robin asked almost before the old man finished speaking.
"Research," he said, and he didn't raise his head from his reading.
"What kind?"
"All kinds. I am currently concentrating on ethereal beings of a malicious nature infesting places that stand unoccupied too long," he said and raised an old, German newspaper to illustrate.
"Like poltergeist?" Robin asked, momentarily distracted.
"A little different. A family was murdered in one such house in Hamburg. I am tracing the American history of similar phenomena and trying to sort out fact from fiction."
"What else?" Robin asked, and the Watcher finally noticed his seriousness.
"Robin, why all the questions?"
"I'm just curious. I want to know about your job," Robin said without trying very hard to be convincing.
"Are you thinking about becoming a Watcher?" The old man seemed to perk up, lose that tired tone he had when Robin would question him relentlessly.
"What if I was?" Robin asked defiantly.
"I would be pleased," he said with a smile, headless of Robin's tone.
"You think I'm good enough?" Robin asked surprised that the old man looked so happy.
"Certainly, your academic achievement is outstanding," he said and beamed at Robin with pride. Robin didn't know what to make of that.
While the Watcher was out, Robin sneaked into the study. It took a while to find it again.
"No special abilities," it read, "no unusual dreams reported. The visiting magic practitioner saw nothing. The rituals indicate he is just an average child. I see no need for further intensive observation. A cursory, periodic appraisal should suffice, in my opinion."
Robin waited for a week and said nothing. He wondered if the old man would send him away now that he was finished watching him. Where he would go? Robin waited, but there was no announcement. The study was still always filled with smoke - and more and more lately - coughing.
"I'm sick of waiting," Robin said in a surly tone from the doorway.
"Waiting?" the Watcher asked confused. He raised his head from his work and peered at Robin.
"Where are you going to send me? I want to know where I'm going?" Robin asked making sure to keep his voice steady. He just wanted to know. He wasn't worried or scared. He could take care of himself just fine.
"Going? What? When? I don't understand."
"You're done with me, so where am I going now?" Robin asked speaking slower. Sometimes it took the old man a while to get his head out of his research and hear what was being said to him.
"What are you going on about?" The old man asked still confused. Robin sighed, exasperated.
"I read the report. You said, I don't need watching. Where does that leave me?"
"I..." the old Watcher stammered for a moment. "I am not leaving. You are not leaving. Things will go on just as they have. The report..." he coughed.
Robin waited for the coughing to stop, for the old man to get his breath back.
"The Council thought you might have inherited special abilities from your mother. It wasn't likely. They just wanted to make sure. That's all. It's only paperwork, Robin. A formality."
The coughing was now a constant from the smoky room. Robin was home from his first year of college.
"You should quit," Robin said from the doorway.
"I'm too old to quit. What would I do with my hands?" the old man asked innocently.
"I'm not answering that," Robin said under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing," Robin let a minute pass until the old Watcher had almost forgotten he was standing there.
"I don't want to be a Watcher," Robin told him.
The Watcher just looked at him for a while with that familiar look of confusion.
"You expressed an interest. All the studying we've done. I thought..." the old man had a little trouble getting his breath so Robin interrupted him.
"I want to do what she did," Robin said.
"But you are not like her you don't have..."
"Potential," Robin interrupted him again.
"...the strength and resilience. There is a world of difference between a slayer and an ordinary man or woman," the Watcher explained unnecessarily.
"I can do it," Robin insisted.
"Robin, why this?" the old man asked, bewildered.
"Because I can."
"But you would make a superb Watcher," he was clearly disappointed.
"I'll show you."
Robin never did show him. When the old man was sick and delirious, he still talked to Robin as if he was on his way to becoming a Watcher.
"You might head the Council one day," he said, each word a wheeze from his tortured chest.
Robin didn't disagree. But when the old man died, and Robin found the Slayer kit among his things, he kept it.
The end