"Everything's Eventual"
by Katharine
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Giles/Anya
Summary: What if Giles hadn't left Sunnydale? Would things really have been so different? That's the question he's asking.
Feedback: Would be lovely... it's my birthday, so it'd be particularly lovely :)
Archiving: My site, http://lose-my-faith.net/rapture/ . Which reminds me, I've changed addresses - if you're nice enough to link to me, please update the link. Also, please do ask if you'd like to archive this fic. I'll say yes, but I like to know where my fic's gone.
Notes: Spoilers for Grave. Thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta, Wesleysgirl.
Improv #49: Steven King Title Challenge
Disclaimer: Property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy et al.
He was a gambling man. He had gambled away his youth. Poker had been his pastime, usually playing for higher stakes than simple cash. His poker face was flawless, his bluff convincing. His philosophy: Quit while you're ahead, take the prize, and run.
He had sworn he would never play again.
Suddenly, in his insomniac state, his life is a game of cards. In this game, fate had dealt them a poor hand, and he had folded and fled.
How different things might have been.
He spends yet another sleepless night playing this statement over and over in his head, a tiny personal theatre of misery, showing the same film with excruciating frequency.
The sheets are rumpled, carelessly and quickly dragged out of the overflowing linen cupboard. The furniture in the apartment is still covered over. There has been no time for simple comfort; drawing the fate of the world from the clutches of a girl he has known and trusted for the previous six years has been the sole mission of the last few days.
He blames himself. For not being there. For dropping the cards in fear, and bluffing his way off the continent. He laughed, and now he reflects.
He imagines a different reality, a reality in which the all-bloody-knowing Rupert Giles didn't desert the group of people who needed him the most, to be led on a wild goose chase across Europe, their lives slowly uncoiling with each step he took in the opposite direction.
Buffy. He has no idea which part of her life over the last year to start to rebuild in his alternative world. Could he have prevented her relationship with Spike from turning sour? He doubts it, but wonders. He wonders if his being there as a confidante would have changed matters, thinks that he should have been, even simply for moral or financial support, when she clearly needed him the most. He wonders what finally drove her into the arms of the enemy. He's being melodramatic, but in his current state of feeling, sod restraint. He knows he should have been there for her to pour out her pain to, to lean on. The very reason he left. She leaned too hard, and he collapsed, wanting her to make her own decisions, lead her own life. Play her cards by herself, without instruction. Instead of guiding her, he had left.
Dawn, Xander... Willow. And Tara. His heart sinks at the thought of what might have been. His heart breaks at the thought of what is. Death, lies, chaos, and ultimately pain.
Anya. He's been thinking about her the most. She's the newest remaining addition to his ever decreasing social circle, and something inside him tells him that he should, by rights, be less personally involved in her life than in those of the three young people he considers the closest thing he has to family. But, of them all, he's spent the most time with her over the last few days. In the poker of life, she hasn't had the worst hand. He lays her cards on the table - she lives, she breathes. And yet, he grieves. She seems so downtrodden, so broken.
He feels the most guilt over her situation. He'd like to think that this is because he could have changed the outcome of the wedding, could have given Xander Harris a good, heavy hit over the head, maybe with a blunt object; made him see some sense. Made him see what he was leaving behind, the broken woman left standing in her gown, tears streaking her cheeks, guests whispering around her, entirely alone.
Aces high.
This isn't why he feels guilt. He feels guilt because now, he realises the true reason he didn't attend the wedding. He couldn't bear to see her marry a man entirely unaware of what he was getting. A man who couldn't, maybe still cannot see what a wonderful woman she has become - no thanks to Harris's constant correcting and humiliating. He sees her in the wedding dress, and she is luminous; to his dismay, he imagines that he would have tried to prevent her marrying that great oaf.
He knows this is unfair to Xander. If the boy could only display for Anya a fraction of the love Giles knows he feels for Buffy or Willow, he would drag them both to a church himself, and force Harris to make good on his word.
His mind returns to the image of her that has been established through various different accounts of the disastrous day. A lone figure, garbed in white, crying as if her heart might break a little more.
Cards on the table, no secrets here.
In his mind's eye, things change.
In this picture of the wedding, he, Giles, is standing next to her. She turns and buries her face into his shoulder, moisture soaking his jacket, and he wraps his arms around her, rubbing her back as the sobs wrack her frail form. He whispers words of comfort in her ear, and finally lifts her into his arms, carrying her out of the hall, and into the small room she has used as a dressing room.
He nearly chuckles as he realises the perversity of this image - the wrong man carrying the bride away. Not that he even pretends to believe that there's a 'right' man in this scenario, that there ever was.
The preparations would have been much the same. He probably would have even joined Xander's alcoholic relations at the bar, drowning his own sorrows.
When Anya telephoned him to invite him to the wedding, she had asked him, in her own inimitable fashion, to act as father of the bride.
"Xander says it's a human custom for the maiden to be accompanied by her father on her walk to the altar. I think it's stupid, and I'm not a maiden, and you're definitely not my father, but Xander says you might as well be his, and I'd - we'd like it if you could be there, and, uh (a voice in the background prompted her), give me to him."
Giles give Anya to Xander. There were many levels to that proposition, and a very strange veiled significance, if you turned it over in your head as many times as he had.
Of course, he had declined. He was hunting a demon, bribed by the council into working for them. Or perhaps he was sitting at home, drinking Jack Daniels, and feeling a little miserable. It was a mixture of these things - the council had indeed sent him on a wild goose chase, and he had returned on the day of the wedding, and sat, sifting through his record collection, and drinking whisky.
In his parallel universe, he would arrive in Sunnydale on time, rather than simply sending the would-be bride and groom the flowers he knew Anya had so desperately wanted, but could not afford. His tuxedo would be crisp and freshly dry cleaned, and he would be responsible for co-ordinating the whole affair.
He would be responsible for the bridesmaid's dresses, and perhaps even have a quiet but persuasive word with Anya about their general appearance. He had, indeed, seen the salvaged wedding photos.
He would be responsible for getting the bride to the hall, and would do so in style. He wonders if he would have been able to hire a vintage Rolls Royce in Sunnydale.
He would be responsible for preventing the guests from killing each other. He isn't sure how he would have achieved such a feat, but is sure that he would have managed it somehow.
He would be responsible for informing the assembled company that the wedding was not to be.
And then he, rather than her old demonic friend and employer, would take her home and stay with her as she cried.
"I am so sick of crying," she says to him as he holds a box of tissues.
"Anya, cry as much as you need to, I'm not here to judge you," he says to her as he wipes a trail of mascara from her cheek. "And no-one is judging you. No-one has any reason to judge you. On the other hand, that wanker..."
She giggles a little, and he smiles wryly.
"If I wanted you to, would you hurt him for me? Just a little?"
She smiles, and he smiles back at her.
"Oh, come now. I was planning on knocking some sense into the boy, and I think that might take more than a little violence."
She sniffles, and he takes her small hand into his own.
"Did I... did I do something?"
He frowns. "Anya, how could you even think that?"
"I could think that very easily. Mortals do things for a reason. You get to see that when you do what I did. Sometimes vengeance was called for, but other times... well, you had to wonder. And I never seem to be able to act exactly as a normal woman should do. Maybe my dress wasn't perfect, maybe the flowers were wrong, maybe... maybe it's just me. Maybe he just couldn't love me."
The floodgates open again, he sits next to her on her bed, gently gathers her hair back from her face and tucks it behind her ear.
"I can't see how that's possible. You're a wonderful woman. There's not one thing about you that is difficult to love. Harris is quite obviously both utterly blind, and a complete fool."
She nods solemnly, the tears easing off a little. "Why couldn't I have fallen in love with you?" She says this absolutely seriously, and Giles is caught off guard. "You're always so nice to me, even if you do find me very irritating sometimes, and we made a very nice couple. And I don't think our kissing was a very bad experience, either."
"Not bad at all," he says.
She looks up at him. In the darkened room, the light of the sole lamp makes her tears glitter. Her eyes are wide from crying.
Reading his mind, she lowers her gaze, embarrassed. "I must look horrible," she says, bringing a hand up to her pale cheek.
He catches her wrist before the hand reaches her face, and gently smoothes the tears away with his own, rough-skinned thumb. She leans her face towards his hand. He looks into her eyes.
"Never."
She smiles a little, and her eyes flutter closed as her face draws tantalisingly nearer his own.
He feels her breath on his lips.
He lays a hand on her shoulder, stilling her, pushing her away.
Her face falls.
"That's okay," she whispers. "It's obviously the day to reject me. I just wish someone had warned me. A big sign would have been nice, with -"
Her wide eyes meet his own as his lips press against hers. Before she can relax into the kiss, he pulls away again.
She blinks. "You're taking advantage of me."
"Yes. Yes, I suppose I am."
"I don't mind."
He moves away from her a little. "I do."
Her shoulders sag in disappointment, but she nods, biting her lip.
"If this is to happen between us, Anya, I don't want it to be on the eve of your abandoned wedding to another man. And I certainly don't want to wonder, in years to come, if you were driven into my arms by the disappointment of today."
"Oh."
"You'll thank me in the morning," he says, with a slight smile.
This is how it plays in his head. He realises how fundamentally wrong it is to imagine a near seduction on that particular evening, but this doesn't stop him from pondering the possibility. He is equally unsure if he really would have had the strength of character to resist her advances.
In all truth, he would probably have kissed her properly, and made her feel loved. Over and over again. It was what she needed. He is faintly disgusted with himself, wondering how he could ever have thought himself a gentleman, when his basest desire would have been to thoroughly ravish her.
No matter what might have happened, there is one thing that screams in his consciousness.
He should have been there.
He should have pushed aside the coward within, and been there to hand her tissues.
And as a result, she would still be human.
He gives up on sleep and, grabbing his dressing gown, pads downstairs to the dusty kitchen.
"Well done, Giles," he mutters as he knocks over the tin of tea bags, and with a dull metallic clank, it falls to the floor, scattering its contents. He looks down at the bags, strewn across the marble slabs. He starts to lean to pick one up, but his healing ribs tell him otherwise.
"Bugger."
In another reality, he had been the one engaged to her. He wonders what might have happened between them if Willow's spell had not been broken as soon as it was. He chuckles, remembering the kiss they shared. If that was anything to go by, their relationship might have progressed to intimate without their having any say in it.
"Don't leave me."
"Oh, Anya..."
A straight flush of hearts.
The cold counter presses into his palms as he leans against it, hard.
He heads upstairs again, without the caffeine he had craved, feeling as frustrated and restless as before.
She told him that he had been responsible for making her human the first time, in an alternate universe Cordelia has wished for herself. A universe without Buffy Summers. Cordelia brought Anya into their lives. He has her to thank. He makes a note of this, and plans to dig out the telephone book in the morning.
Cordelia's alternate reality was more disastrous than their own. Anya told him this. She told him a good deal about the other Sunnydale, including how exactly he had made her human.
"You'd find it in your books, anyway," she'd shrugged. "At least I can save you a few wrinkles."
She'd trusted him with this secret. Was there a reason? He wonders what might happen if her amulet was destroyed a second time. He would try, but he does not want to risk her safety. He is sure she isn't happier as a demon, but he won't do anything unless she asks him to. He cannot control this particular event.
He cannot control her, doesn't want to. This he has learned. Xander tried to control her, and this did nothing but crush her spirit. A spirit so unique, so precious, so fragile.
He pulls the sheet over his body, feeling a sudden chill.
In the days when the Magic Box was more than a crisp, burnt-out shell, they'd spent hours just talking. The very thought of spending ten minutes alone in a room with her had dismayed him. She was irritating and obnoxious. She spoke her mind without thinking, and thought of nothing but sex. He'd been pleasantly surprised. Having forgotten that she was a great deal older than her body, it had been a shock when she was able to speak of things she appeared far too young to even understand, let alone remember. She told tales of civil war in England, of peasants and famine in Russia, of rebellion in China, of beheading and chaos in France.
"Those were the best days..." she had reminisced. "The blood never stopped flowing. Just walking down the street, you could smell it. Of course, demons were responsible. There were lots in the government system, and they stirred up the trouble." She paused at his sceptical expression. "You thought Madame Guillotine was human? I shared a portal with her in Arashmahar. Anyway, the classier vampires throw the best parties. That's how I first met Dracula. I maimed a nobleman, and he complimented my skill."
The tales she spun were generally hugely morbid, and truly fascinating. He sometimes contributed his own stories, comparatively mediocre dealings with the supernatural, and she beat him every time.
She held the royal straight flush to his pair of twos.
She still does. And always will. Her youthful appearance is surface only, a deception more elaborate than any normal human could imagine. It covers a wealth of knowledge and experience, a cynicism beyond her years, and complexes accumulated over years of betrayal and revenge.
He realises now that there are no hands left to play, no cards left unsinged. Poker faces have fallen, and all emotions are laid out to be read by anyone who happens by.
In the game of life, there are few winners. Merely some who have played their hand a little better, others who have bet and lost more than they can possibly afford, and yet more who have suffered even greater losses.
Perhaps this is for the best. No more games. It's pointless thinking about how the past might have been changed, because, in the end, all combinations are the same. Loss or gain, everything's eventual. It just depends how long the players can continue to bluff.
The sheet stirs, the arm that had been slung over his chest moves, and a warm hand runs gently over his stomach.
She yawns. "Are you still brooding? Because it's really not that attractive." As awake as he is, she rolls over, and onto his body, straddling him, careful to avoid his various colourful bruises. "And I can think of much better things you could be doing."
He wraps one arm around her, and tangles the fingers of the other hand in her hair. He smiles.
"I'm sure you can," he says, and kisses her as she rocks her hips against his, causing him to almost entirely lose his train of thought.
And the funny thing is, in all the realities he imagines, they end up together. He has fallen completely in love with her, and likes to imagine she harbours some strong emotion for him.
"Giles?" She breaks away from him, still in his lap.
"Mmm?" he replies, finding it difficult to form words at this particular point in time.
"What were you thinking about?" she asks, a frown crossing her face. "Sleep is very necessary, and I'm worried about your health."
"You. I'm always thinking about you," he replies honestly.
"Oh." She starts to smile, and his heart melts. "That's..." and she kisses him again, with more passion, as he pulls her flimsy nightdress over her head.
Everything's eventual.
In this reality, he's eventually found a true Queen of Hearts.
And he intends to win this hand.
FIN