Chapter 1 Mr. Giles' Occupation

(Author's Disclaimer: I have no connection with the creators or producers of Buffy, and I seek no profit from this story. My only motive in writing this is to have some fun and hopefully share it.)

"Name?" asked the immigration official.

"Rupert Giles."

"Date of Birth?"

"October 25, 1950. In London, England, if that was your next question."

The official nodded and wrote down the extra information. "Occupation?"

Giles suddenly felt awkward. Up to a year ago, of course, he had been the librarian at Sunnydale High School. But the high school no longer existed, having burned down after the 1999 graduation, and the clerk must know that perfectly well. And he didn't want to discuss his real vocation. "I do research."

"What kind of research?"

That was definitely something Giles didn't want to go into. He could scarcely say that he was an operative in a secret, centuries-long gods-and-demons war, his specific task being to identify supernatural threats and how his protegee, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, could best handle them. "Old history, here in Sunnydale…" Inspiration struck. "I'm a writer. I'm working on a book about Sunnydale's colorful past. For example, did you know that this area was once known as 'La Bocca de Infierno', the Mouth of Hell? Quite a different image from 'Sunnydale'. I hope to trace the development—"

"Yes, yes," said the bureaucrat, losing interest now that she got a definite answer. Giles didn't mind; he had defused an awkward situation by mixing fact and fiction. The proposed book didn't exist, but the morsel of history he had quoted did, and "Hellmouth" was as good a name as any to describe what went on in Sunnydale.

The official asked a few more questions, all safe from Giles' point of view, then clicked on SAVE on the computer screen. "That's it, Mr. Giles. The renewal of your visa will take a few days, but I don't foresee any problem. In fact – have you consisted applying for citizenship? You've satisfied the residency requirements."

"I've thought of it. But I have ties both to England and to here. I'm not ready to take that step." Olivia in England, Buffy in America, but the official did not have to know that.

"Very well. Just know that the option is there."

As Giles descended the stairs of the government he thought over the questionnaire. That question about "occupation" bothered him more than he thought it would. Even his personal answer – "I'm a Watcher" – didn't completely hold up under scrutiny.

PROBLEM: his Watcher position hadn't been official for more than a year. The Watcher's Council had sacked him after a bitter argument over how to handle Buffy. Buffy, thank God, had refused to recognize the dismissal and continued to treat him as her mentor, but it all depended on Buffy's choice.

PROBLEM: Buffy needed him less and less. Throughout most of history few women had received a decent education, and most Slayers had been illiterate, desperately in need of an experienced Watcher's guidance. Buffy, on the contrary, was now about to start her second year of college. And in terms of hands-on experience, she had been Slaying for five years, far more than most Slayers lived before going down in battle.

PROBLEM: There were actually less vampires to worry about than ever before. The U. S. government had had a secret project called the Initiative in Sunnydale, tracking down all the monsters who lived near the Hellmouth. The Initiative had had its own agenda, and was no longer operating in Sunnydale, but in the process most of the local vampires had been neutralized, like Spike, or had fled, like Drusilla. Indeed, Buffy had found matters calm enough that she could risk going off on a "honeymoon" with her boyfriend Riley, leaving the Hellmouth to Giles and to her teenaged friends.

Was Giles becoming obsolete? Did he really have a purpose here?

As he approached his condominium, Giles noticed a car in the lot that didn't belong there, and was startled out of her reverie. He recognized the vehicle: it belonged to Joyce Summers, Buffy's mother. Giles had always been puzzled over exactly how to deal with Joyce. She had been brought into the secret two years ago, and was proud of Buffy's accomplishments as Slayer, but she also tended to view the whole supernatural world as something alien, a threat to her daughter's safety and happiness. Nor did it help that, on the two occasions in which she tried to get involved, she had been hit by nasty spells: one of them tried to make her kill Buffy, the other had tempted her to make love with Giles himself.

Be polite. After all, there was one definite bond between them: both loved Buffy. "Hello, Joyce."

"Hello, Rupert." She looked around nervously. "Um, Willow and the others aren't here, are they?"

"Xander and Tara are at work. Willow is taking riding lessons." Willow had had a phobia about horses ever since some childhood accident, but Tara had talked Willow into trying to overcome it so that the two could go riding together. Giles didn't know how much Joyce knew about the girls' sexual relationship; it was better to keep his mouth shut on the subject.

"And Buffy's away with Riley. Good. There's something I want to discuss, but I don't want the youngsters to know." She was definitely agitated about something.

"Come in. Let me get you some tea." Americans didn't go in for teatime, of course, but it would give Joyce a chance to calm down and ease into a conversation.

As he rummaged around in his kitchenette, Joyce stood in the small living room and wrung her hands. "I'm sorry to intrude. But I had an odd dream lately. It may involve "woo-woo" as Buffy would say, and I was hoping you could interpret it. I can't talk to Buffy about it, even when she gets back."

"I'll try to be helpful."

They sat at the table, and Joyce sipped on the tea, which seemed to calm her. "The first thing you must know is, Buffy once had a sister."

"Buffy never mentioned that," said Giles, astonished.

"She doesn't know. I had my second child when Buffy was still quite little – we decided to call her Dawn. But something went wrong, and the baby died just minutes after birth."

"I'm terribly sorry."

"We never told Buffy about it," Joyce said sadly. "After all, she was too young to know what pregnancy was all about, and didn't ask questions. Later, there wasn't any point in bringing it up. After that I knew I would never have another baby, and Buffy was very precious to me. I tried to stand by her even when everyone was calling her a juvenile delinquent. Then the terrible day came when I lost my head and told her to leave—"

"The dream," Giles prompted. Actually he didn't blame Joyce for rattling on: it occurred to him that while Buffy had Giles and her Scooby Gang, Joyce had nobody to confide in. She could scarcely tell her neighbors over coffee that her daughter was a Vampire Slayer.

"Oh, yes. It first happened before I even left the hospital. There were these two monks holding a baby. One, speaking with a very thick accent, said 'This is our Key, but it is also a baby. It needs a mother, and you need a child.' Then I woke up. I had the dream several times."

"Hmm. This may not be supernatural, Joyce. It is common after a crisis for somebody to dream of it happening differently, with a happy ending. It happened to me when I lost Jenny Calendar a couple of years ago."

"Yes, I thought of that. But now it's happening again. The exact same dream, as if the fourteen years hadn't passed."

"Fourteen years. Did you say fourteen years?"

"Yes. Dawn was born and died on September 14, 1986 – fourteen years ago next month. Why?"

"It may mean nothing. But seven is a very important number, and of course fourteen is twice seven. Things sometimes move in cycles."

"I see," said Joyce, who obviously didn't.

Giles pondered. "See if you can remember the exact appearance of the monks – any odd details of their habits. I can look them up and see if they represent a known order, Christian or not. The word Key seems significant; I'll look that up too."

"Thank you. But, please, don't involve Willow. I know she's good at tracking things down, but I don't want word getting back to Buffy."

"Don't worry. Willow will never know you were here."

At that point, Giles' front door opened and Willow walked in.