1)
Rupert Giles has his morning routine:
Fresh loose-leaf out of the packet, into the kettle. Add bottled water. Heat. Pour muesli. Tut at presence of dried banana. Begin picking out aforementioned dried banana, contemplate research of cereal-separating incantations, at which point hell-screech of whistling kettle interrupts. Promptly panic at prospect of overbrewing tea and leap for the stove, dropping any located banana back into the bowl-
Yes, well, admittedly it is not a perfect routine but standards matter!
There is a calendar pinned above the kettle – Time-Life extras are quality craftsmanship with a charming, minimalistic (personality-free) style – and it is his own brisk penmanship in today's box that catches his eye and freezes him, one hand outstretched.
Today, he takes over from Merrick (poor man, brave man.) Today, he will meet his first slayer – Buffy, her name is Buffy, he can only hope that's a nickname or a misprint – today, Buffy will meet her destiny (again) and today –
The indignant shrieking of an abandoned kettle intrudes on his reverie. Today, his tea is overbrewed.
2)
His tea is overbrewed. One of his better suits is charred. He is missing one baseball bat, a powerful ally has become a sadistic enemy, his slayer is broken-hearted and he feels as though a carefully delineated section of his chest is being slowly taken apart.
Buffy had found the tea and the kettle and the muesli and told him in an uncertain sort of way that he needed to eat. (Giles supposes that she, if anyone, must know that sometimes what is needed and what is done can be very separate concepts.) Buffy couldn't find the milk. He didn't think he could have located it himself, either. Willow might have known, but between Buffy and Giles and their agonizing regrets the pressure of another's presence would be too much, and so Willow is not called.
Jenny would know, but Jenny cannot be called ever again.
Giles wants to ask the children, childlike himself, if it gets better, Merrick and Jesse and Angel, but he knows that his age and his position deny him that luxury. He knows he must be strong. One grating mouthful at a time, he eats his breakfast.
3)
Giles sits at his counter, by his stove, and eats his breakfast. He paid a great deal of attention to the brewing of his tea, and it is perfect. He ignores the presence of mysterious and uncanny crunchiness in his cereal. Today's square in his calendar is occupied by numbers and words in a hand much sharper than normal but this he ignores as well; he knows full well what it is he must do today. By his elbow, the formulation and the syringe are ready and waiting. He eats very slowly.
4)
His alarm clock blared and he sprang half-awake off the couch in a panic, searching for a tie with one hand and with the other thrashing about for the off-switch to cut short the tinny rendition of Rule Britannia currently being emitted. One of the children had done it, Willow in all likelihood, and as yet he couldn't work out how to reset the blasted thing. (Nothing but a punch-line and a laughing stock until they eventually forget you altogether.)
He located the switch and then paused, returning shakily to his seat with his tie only half-tied. No reason to stand on formality. No need for a tie. (No need for him anymore, not a Watcher anymore unless that's a Watcher of Life Going By, nothing but a punch-line.) It had been months since he'd saved Sunnydale, destroyed the school and put himself out of a job in one fell swoop, but the shock of it was still there, possibly because he refused to stop setting his alarm for six am. He had contemplated whether it was more pathetic to continue preparing himself for the day bright and early and then sit around hanging on a call for advice or research help that may or may not come, or to simply let everything go. On the whole, he tended to go for the former, and yet.
One of his mugs stood on the coffee table, still half-full. Reaching for it brought into view Spike, sprawled snoring on the carpet, apparently having just drifted off himself. Giles rolled his eyes a little, raising the mug to his lips.
He spat out the ensuing mouthful, which landed fortuitously on Spike's face. That mug apparently did not contain Giles'abandoned beverage. As Giles watched, still trying to work the taste from his mouth, Spike's tongue snaked out, swiping up the blood from his cheek.
He was snoring. The undead didn't snore. The undead didn't breath. Spike smirked, his eyes still shut. Giles ground his teeth together, slowly but deliberately, and tightened his grip on the mug.
"You know," came a perky and familiar voice from the doorway, "You could pour the rest on him, but he'd probably like it." Snores and smirk both ceased abruptly as Giles span towards the door. "Liking the ballet there, too," added Buffy, lounging just outside the threshold.
"Buffy? What are you doing here? Is- is everything all right?"
Buffy shrugged, keeping a straight face, although one eyebrow twitched a little at the thinly-veiled hope in Giles' tone. "Oh, you know. Early morning patrol, thought I'd stop by, see if you wanted to leave the pig's blood for the Big Annoyance here and grab breakfast."
Giles' face broke into a genuine grin; Buffy copied him, for a moment looking like nothing so much as a ten year old girl whose daddy was about to take her ice-skating. "And the others?"
"Will has classes at way-too-early o'clock, Xander won't be up before midday." They moved out of the house together. Spike, still supine on the floor, rolled his eyes. "And I've missed you."
5)
"Giles! You're awake!"
"Well, I certainly am now." Giles, appearing far less convinced of this fact than his statement would imply, eased his position on the couch to the left, wincing at his spine's protestations.
"Do you ever wonder," mused Dawn, apparently satisfied as to Giles' wakefulness and now occupying herself with a tray of indiscriminate crockery, "whether one day you just won't wake up?" Her eyes widened a little. "Not because you're old." And further still. "Not that you're old at all! I mean, because you've been knocked out so many times now! Which Buffy always used to talk about!"
"Buffy." Midway through cleaning his glasses Giles paused, then leapt up, ostensibly ready for action. The effect was somewhat diminished when he groaned afterwards, grasping at the base of his spine as if attempting to return it to its rightful position. "I thought the babysitting was just until midnight. Did she not come home?"
A flicker of expression passed over Dawn's face before she reschooled it to cheery, breezy, vaguely scornful. Whether the look had been hurt at being passed over, relief at a change in topic or indignation at being referred to as the subject of babysitting was impossible to say.
"She came home around two, didn't want to wake you. Said she'd just go to bed since it was a rough patrol, or something." Dawn smiled, a little too brightly. "Tea? I got loose-leaf for you, after that face you made last time." She paused, considering. "Although, for a chance to see that face again…"
Distracted, Giles accepted a cup, quite possibly one of Joyce's best that she wasn't aware Dawn was now tall enough to access. He sipped; Dawn watched somewhat anxiously. Apparently, her efforts had been successful: no expressions of disgust were forthcoming, but Giles did give her a brief smile. Dawn grinned back enthusiastically, but Giles was soon preoccupied once more.
"A rough patrol? Did she say in what sense?"
"Nope." Dawn caught herself halfway through an eyeroll. "You should probably just… you know. Ask her."
"Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, um, for the tea." Giles was out of the room almost before the sentence had finished. Now free from adult supervision, Dawn allowed herself something approaching a pout.
Outside the door, Giles sighed, removed his glasses and resumed polishing as he climbed the stairs to Buffy's room at a far slower pace. It was becoming far too difficult to maintain the necessary sense of detachment. Dawn was the Key; there was no getting around the fact, or what it might mean. One life for the rest of the world? Slayers had died for less. Watchers had ordered slayers to their deaths for less.
He needed to stay far from emotional attachments to… the Key. He needed to prepare himself. The world would thank him for it, and he - he would damn himself.
6)
The job of a Watcher was to instruct, to prepare, and to order their slayer to her death. He had fulfilled that duty admirably. The others – they could hardly be called children now, not even Dawn, not after everything they'd seen, not after Buffy- after the slayer- not after everything. The others would survive. Maybe they would move. They should move. It wouldn't be running away, for them at least. He was under no delusions about what he himself was doing, no matter how many excuses presented themselves about reporting back to the Council for instructions.
Giles accepted the styrofoam cup of coffee presented by the air hostess. It would be a long flight back to England, but he did not intend to sleep. Over the last few months, it had become evident that sleep was elusive at best. And when it did come… Giles did not intend to sleep. Instead, he sipped his coffee absent-mindedly and watched as Sunnydale receded into the distance.
7)
They are out of tea. They are out of muesli. They are out of grapes, although he's not altogether sure why Anya emphasises that one, with a pointed look at Andrew and a mutter about the number of takes necessary to establish an atmosphere.
"There is coffee, though!" she points out, brightly. Giles' face starts to take on a fixed expression, but he accepts the coffee, even deigns to sip at the coffee, before placing the coffee on the table firmly away from him, where some other poor, unsuspecting person might take it.
No-one talks about when Buffy left, or when Buffy returned. No-one talks about Spike's murders and Faith's murders, Anya with a sword through her chest, Willow's eyes solid black, Xander's eye solitary and devoid of humour. About how Dawn has grown up too fast, just as they all have over the years.
They have all lost many things, Giles thinks, but they will fight. He knows that they will fight together. Sitting in the midst of the kitchen's whirlwind insanity, surrounded by noisy Potentials and dreadful coffee, he knows that everyone around him knows it too.
?)
She is in the kitchen before him, this morning. Most mornings, in fact, because Jenny delights in remaining comfortably, charmingly (beautifully) dishabille while he looks nervous if he sits outside his bedroom for more than five minutes without wearing a tie, or so she says.
Possibly, privately, he encourages this. He is a highly respected Watcher and stand-in father to some of the world's most powerful women; being found "adorable" is maddening, frustrating, a humiliating affront to his life's accomplishments, but also, sometimes, rather pleasant.
There is a steaming mug waiting for him on the counter. Giles narrows his eyes with the righteous suspicion of one who has had questionable experiences with either unknown mugs or Jenny Calendar or both.
"You don't trust me?"
"Oh, on the contrary, I trust you with my life." His smile to her is genuine, and she mirrors it, but it soon gives way to his previous, steely expression. "Just not with my tea."
"Oh, come on. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Need I mention the frog incident?"
"That was once. Besides, you made quite the dapper frog, if I recall."
"Well, I – quite. Um. Thank you, I – what?"
Her smile turns sly, she slips down from her seat. "Or maybe you're afraid I've concocted some sort of love potion for you?"
"I. Um. What?"
"Rupert. That was the point where you were meant to go all suave and, as if I need something like that."
"Oh. Um."
Somehow, through Jenny's building amusement, Giles' arms stage a coup over the flailing of his vocal chords. Her hands meet his own halfway, their fingers intertwine. They drift together easily; whispering silence for a few, lazy, morning moments.
"Breakfast can wait."