The Things We Never Did…
A/n: I'd just a like to say a quick thank you to the person that 1. Came up with the idea behind this fic, 2. Let me steal the idea and 3. Helped me with all the background info I was unsure of. So thanks Jess, this fic is more yours than mine!
Sat alone in the quietness of the library, Rupert Giles wondered just how much of life he had let slip by this way. Reflecting on his life, it seemed that he had spent most of it sat in libraries. If not the one he was presently sat in, based at Sunnydale High School, then another. He preferred it in libraries to most other places though. They were so quiet and empty. Whenever he needed to think, or just wanted to be alone, he would seek refuge in a library.
For reasons he wasn't sure of, he had always preferred the solitude libraries offered to the outside world. He had never been much of a people person. But people were such strange and complicated creatures…in love one day, hating each other the next…no, he had never had much tolerance for mankind.
He knew that people thought upon him as nothing more than 'the stuffy old guy', that was, if they thought of him at all. But he didn't mind that. As long as he didn't have to interact with them, they could call him what they wanted.
There were exceptions of course. Since the Slayer and her friends had wandered into his life, he had had much less time to sit alone thinking morbid thoughts. They had busied him in a way he had never been busied. If he were completely honest with himself, then he knew that they had brightened up his life.
He had always had a strong interest in the strange and mysterious and becoming Watcher of the young Slayer had been like taking a breath of fresh air into his lungs. He had felt needed, and not only felt it, but knew he was needed.
On the nights he would accompany her whilst she was out slaying, he felt young again. Well, not again, as when he really was young he hadn't felt it…he had always been very mature for his age. By the time he was ten he was acting twenty. His childhood had slipped by incredibly quickly that way.
He hadn't cared though. It wasn't as if he had felt left out. So maybe all the other guys he had been at school with had picked on him. He didn't want to be like them…he didn't see why it was so socially acceptable to be in the football team…and why they even bothered dating the cheerleaders when the only reason they did so was to brag about how much they had done in the locker areas…Why would he want to be like that?
He had felt sorry for some of the cheerleaders…some of the one's who were in the reserves team anyway. Everyone knew that being cheerleaders was their only way to popularity. And that the football-playing guys they were dating were only using them so they could get laid.
The cheerleaders who were actually popular were another matter…they, along with all the other normal people (normal being anyone but him) were the bane of his existence. As far a possible, he tried to avoid them. When he was younger, they would take his lunch money and call him the odd name. As he grew, he learned to avoid them at all costs unless he particularly desired to have his head flushed down a toilet.
But then he had started his final year. He had been happier that year. He had put it down to the fact that it wouldn't be long until he could escape to university, leaving behind all the people who had gone out of their way to make his life miserable since he was a child. But there had been something else. Or someone else.
At first, he had ignored her completely. They were lab partners in science. This was, of course, arranged by their teacher, as no one in their right mind would volunteer to work with him. But she hadn't put up much resistance. Infact, anyone would have thought that she was happy to be working with him. Which was an impossibility, obviously.
To begin with, he had found her downright annoying. She was always so bubbly and full of energy. And she always expected him to respond when she spoke to him. Having grown up used to no one wanting to speak to him; it aggravated him slightly when he found himself forced into lighthearted conversations about nothing in particular. But slowly had had grown to enjoy her company.
She had started hanging around the library, where he spent all his free time. She wasn't exactly into reading; he knew that as she'd told him. Which meant that she actually wanted to spend time with him. He had been suspicious for a while, wondered if she was being put up to it by her football player of a boyfriend. Afterall, putting it down to a cruel joke would have explained alot of things. But when he had confronted her outright and demanded to know why she had been spending time with him, she had gotten upset at the suggestion that she was playing a trick on him, and had shouted something about him being an unbearably paranoid freak. And burst into giggles at the hurt look on his face, hugged him, and told him he was being silly. No one had ever hugged him before. Well, apart from his mother...
During the conversations that soon started to blossom between them, he learnt alot about her. She was on the reserve team for cheerleading. She knew her boyfriend was using her for sex and nothing more, but explained that she didn't have many friends, and having a jock for a boyfriend was the only way she would ever be considered socially acceptable. He had asked her why she cared so much about what people thought of her...she had fallen silent for many minutes, and eventually responded with a shrug. And besides, she had told him with a grin, it wasn't as if she'd actually done it with him...apparently it was fun to string him along.
At one time, she had actually told him that she admired him, and the way he didn't need people. He remembered going red then, and she had laughed, not at him, which was nice, but with him. And then the smile had slowly left her face, as she leant a little closer to him, and their lips had met uncertainly...
It had been the start of a short but unforgettable relationship. Suddenly, every spare moment she had, she would be sat in the library, pretending to read works of literature, but really just playing footsie with him under the table...It all happened so quickly it was like a dream sequence. Sometimes he wondered if he really was living a dream and would wake up soon...but no, it seemed that Rupert Giles had finally found a girl.
Unfortunately, she happened to be a girl who had a boyfriend. A very large boyfriend. A boyfriend who had, on many occasions, pushed him against walls and kicked him repeatedly in the stomach for laughs, just to see how many kicks it would take until he either screamed or cried. And, although he may have looked it, he wasn't completely stupid.
He soon twigged onto the fact that his girlfriend was rapidly becoming a bookworm. He had followed her into the library one evening, just after school had finished. He had seen them kiss lightly. And that was enough for him. In less than a minute, he had Giles pinned against a bookcase. In less than five minutes, Giles was a bloody, unrecognisable mess. In less than an hour, Giles had been admitted into hospital to be treated for severe concussion. And in less than a day, he had learned from his mother that the boy wasn't going to be expelled, as, despite the fact he had just put Giles in hospital, the story he had told had apparently been so convincing they were going to give him a second chance.
Of course, their decision had nothing to do with the fact that without him Sunnydale High's football team wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Of course that wasn't it. And neither was it anything to do with the fact that half of the teachers at Sunnydale High didn't have a clue who Giles was, let alone care about the fact he was in hospital. No, it was purely because their only witness was refusing to give a story, so there was nothing they could do to prove what had happened.
She had come to see him once. The day he was released from hospital. She had glanced over both shoulders before ushering him into the back of her car, and they had driven to a secluded spot on the edge of a small wood just outside of Sunnydale. "
'With tears in her voice, she had told him that she thought it would be best if they didn't see each other anymore. She sounded genuinely worried about him, and he felt touched in a way he never had done before. She had kissed him gently on the cheek, and told him it was for the best. Then she had told him that she loved him. He had said the same back. They had gotten out of the car, and walked hand in hand for what felt like an eternity. They didn't talk, just tried to make the most of what was to be their last day together.
As the night started to draw in, they had walked back to her car. Once more, they told each other that they loved each other. They had started to kiss, and before they knew what was happening, they were atop the car bonnet, making love. Twice.
It had made it even harder to say goodbye, but they knew they had to. And so they had. He had gone back to having no friends, talking to no one and trying to avoid having his head stuck down a toilet. And she had gone back to her cheerleader friends and her jock of a boyfriend.
They passed a few times in the corridors, and didn't even exchange smiles, but they didn't have to talk for him to know that she had eventually given in to her boyfriend's demands. It was the talk of the school for a few days. And around a year and a half later, when home for summer from Uni, he learned that she had given birth to a small baby girl. The jock wasn't around much longer. He didn't even have the decency to take care of what was his. Joyce Summers had never been the same since."
'And now, sitting alone in the quietness of Sunnydale High's library, Giles wondered, as he had on many occasions, 'what if-?'. If only she had never left him. That would have been an interesting situation, with the Slayer as a daughter...he doubted that Buffy would see it the same way, but still...Shaking his head sadly, he got to his feet. What ifs were fine in small doses, but thinking of Joyce upset him more than he cared to be upset. With a sigh, he slowly headed towards his car.
Curled up at home in bed, wearing a bathrobe and attempting to read a sleazy novel, Joyce Summers had been running a few what ifs of her own through her head. If anyone had asked what the book was about, she couldn't have told them. It had been open at the same page for over an hour, and the text was covered with a photograph. A very old, very faded photograph she kept in the bottom drawer of her dresser, well hidden from prying eyes. A photograph of Rupert Giles, taken years ago, when they had been together and happy.
She dreaded to think what Buffy would say if she found that her mother kept a photograph of her mentor in her bedside dresser...but she had cut him out of her life in so many ways, she had to have something there that she could look at and remember. Maybe that was the problem. There was so much there already. From the moment she woke up, to the moment she climbed into bed, her daughter was there, reminding her how much she had lost all those years ago. For Buffy was Gile's daughter. And he could never know.
A month after they had broken up, she had discovered the terrible truth. She was only nineteen at the time, what was she supposed to do? If she told Giles, he would more likely than not be killed...all she had had to do was kiss him and he'd ended up in hospital. Admitting she was carrying his baby would not have been a wise move.
And so she had slept with the monster that had caused Giles all that pain, and told him the child was his. He stuck around for a while, longer than she had expected anyway. But a screaming toddler was enough to make anyone want to pick up and run away. And he had. Leaving her alone with Buffy.
If she had gone to Giles then, and told him her daughter was his, maybe everything would have been different. But she couldn't. She was too scared. And the longer she had left it, the harder it had become. Until suddenly, Buffy was nineteen, and so close to her father that she couldn't bring herself to admit the truth. It would turn everything upside down, and if Buffy knew that she had been living a lie for nineteen years...not to mention Giles...No. Everything was much better this way. They may not know they were father and daughter, but as Slayer and Watcher they were together at least. And wasn't that enough?"