Part Seven
By drawing the heavy drapes and refusing to turn on a single light, Jenny had secluded herself in the dark all day long. In fact, she wasn't even sure what time it was. By the time she returned from her disastrous meeting with Rupert and the teens at the library, it had barely been morning. The sun was up, but the dew had still been on the grass, the heat of the day yet to burn it off. Now, though, hours later, it could have been afternoon or even early evening, and she wouldn't have known the difference.
It didn't matter, though. She wanted to be in seclusion, and the depressing nature of her surroundings fit her mood. The smiling sun would have mocked her pain, and the unnatural illumination of a lamp or even the television would have taunted her, because it was just another reminder of how fake her own existence was. For the computer expert, the light had gone out of her life, and she had no one to blame but herself.
She felt it was fitting as well. After all, she had sentenced a young, beautiful, incredibly promising girl to an eternity spent in darkness. It was because of her selfishness that Buffy was now a vampire, so Jenny wouldn't grant herself even the simplest of pleasures. Light, for the brunette teacher, now fit into that category.
She wouldn't be alone forever, though. Inevitably, someone would stop by, and chances were that person would not be appearing on her doorstep out of a sudden need to pay a social call. Whether it was Angel fulfilling his promise to take matters into his own hands should dusk come and no cure have been discovered, Rupert searching for answers only she could provide, or Buffy needing to face the woman who had helped to curse her into becoming a vampire, she had no doubt that, eventually, there would be a knock at her door, and she would be forced to face the music.
When she had left earlier that day, her destination set upon the school, Jenny had possessed every intention of telling the man she loved and the children he mentored exactly what had happened to their slayer and friend, respectively, but, when she walked into that library, when she saw Rupert's expectant face and the trust radiating from Willow's bright and expressive orbs, she took the coward's way out yet again.
Perhaps it was because of the crowd, she wasn't sure. During the long, dragging hours, the Gypsy descendent contemplated her own actions, and she had found herself wondering if she had held back the truth because the teenagers had been there. If she had been alone with Rupert, she believed, she hoped that she would have been brave enough to confront his hurt and disgust, but, to inform him of her betrayals in front of the very children he loved, the children who looked up to him, all that would have done was prove to embarrass him as well. Weren't private humiliation and the turning of his slayer enough torture for the watcher to endure in one solitary day?
The reasoning sounded good, especially after an entire morning and, perhaps, even an entire afternoon spent thinking about it, but Jenny knew that it was less of an explanation and more of a paltry attempt at excusing her own actions and granting herself, at least, temporary absolution. When she lied to the man she loved and Buffy's closest friends, she had only been attempting to spare herself. No one else. That was the harsh and ugly truth, perhaps the only truth she had been capable of in a very long time. Such self awareness was a decidedly unpleasant pill to swallow.
Despite recognizing the error of her own ways, the computer teacher knew that, even if given a second chance to confess her sins, she would have taken the very same shameful path over and over again. And so she remained there, seated, silent, sickened by her own actions or, more precisely, her own inactions. Perched upon the very same ottoman Angel had collapsed upon early that morning when he had arrived at her apartment seeking knowledge, her back ached, but, still, she didn't move. Rather, she just stared straight ahead, seeing nothing at all.
She didn't notice the comfort of her own furnishings. She didn't recognize the fact that she was still wearing the exact outfit she had put on the day before. She never heard the phone ring, and she certainly missed the soft sounds of the postman stopping before her front door and dropping her bills and flyers through the mail slot. Though actually there, she really wasn't; though awake, she wished that she was actually suffering though a very long, very detailed, very cruel nightmare, but her hope was gone, and wishing was an empty action. There was no mercy for the merciless.
Breaking the stillness of the gloomy apartment, there was a knock at her home's entrance, but Jenny never stirred to answer the call. There had been so many previous, imagined knocks, at that point, even if the latest was a reality, she wasn't sure she would be able to tell the difference until someone took the silent invitation that her unlocked door presented and entered without her bidding them to do so. She had envisioned what she would say, what she would do when someone finally showed up to confront her for so long that the lines between what was real and what was not had been blurred beyond recognition.
"Why didn't you answer the door?"
Lifting her lashes, the brunette watched as the man far across from her on the other side of the room let himself into her home and simply just stepped over her puddle of dropped and ignored mail. There was no greeting, no expressed concern over the fact that she had left her front door unlocked in Sunnydale of all dangerous towns, and the voice that delivered the harsh opening remark was so cold and detached she wouldn't have been able to identify it had she not been able to see the body that possessed it with her own two, weary eyes.
"Hello, Rupert."
"Miss Kalderash," the librarian returned stiffly, folding his hands behind his rigid back. His usually soft, warm gaze never came close to even touching upon her bent and figuratively broken form.
"So, it's come to that already," she realized, a solitary tear leaking out of her right eye before she squared her resolve and promised herself that she wouldn't cry anymore until she was, once again, alone. "You can't look at me. You can't even call me by my first name."
"One traditionally, in polite society," the watcher snobbishly retorted, "does not refer to a stranger by their given name, and, frankly, I have no idea who you are."
"And you're not going to give me a chance to explain?"
"Oh, no," Giles disputed. "I most certainly want to hear what you have to say for yourself. However, there is nothing you could possibly say that could change how I feel right now."
"From where I'm sitting," Jenny whispered, curling her trembling fingers together into a tight knot of frustration and pain. "You're not feeling much of anything."
"To the contrary, but you forget that I have more than a decade of watcher training. We are both skilled and practiced at restraining and disregarding our emotions, especially when we are face to face with the enemy."
"But isn't that just it, Rupert," the computer expert contended. "Aren't we in this position right now because you're incapable of not allowing your feelings to rule you when it comes to Buffy?"
Raising both his voice and his gaze for the first time, the British man glared at the teacher. "Never say her name again."
"And you just proved my point."
He ignored her. "We're here because you kept something life altering from me, something potentially life ending; we're here because you lied."
"I did," Jenny agreed without argument. "I lied to you over and over again. I lied to you about my identity, I lied to you every single time that we were with Angel and I never told you that I knew him, and I lied to you this morning when I didn't tell you about the clause. And I'm sorry. Don't you think that, if I could, I would change everything?"
"I don't know," the librarian stated. "I feel as if I don't know anything anymore. Nothing makes sense. Would you, would you really have done everything differently?"
"Of course," she exclaimed, pleading with the man she loved to believe her. "The happiness clause never should have existed. How my family could have been so selfish to include it, to risk the safety of so many innocent people, I'll never know or understand."
Exploding, Giles yelled, "I don't care about the bloody clause. The curse was made a hundred years ago, long before either you or I were alive. You couldn't have possibly done anything to get rid of it, but you could have helped us prepare for it. What I want to know is if you would have done anything differently? Would you have confided in me your true identity when we first became friends, would you have put your damn, foolish vengeance aside to have told me the truth earlier? For crying out loud, what if Angel would have lost his soul again? Can you imagine what he could have done to Buffy?"
Cocking her head to the side, the cyber pagan observed the man before her. He was quivering in rage but, at the same time, cowering in fear, not of her but of the situation. "That's what this all boils down to, doesn't it? You really don't care that I lied to you; all you care about is that what I lied to you about concerned Buffy?"
"She's… she's my slayer," the man she loved excused his own feelings.
"And you're her watcher, I know."
"It is my sacred duty to train, instruct, and protect her."
"Because," Jenny completed the words that the librarian himself had failed to mention, "in every way that counts, she's your daughter."
Gathering himself, the British man said, "what I may or may not feel for Buffy is immaterial at the moment and, frankly, none of your business."
"I disagree," the computer expert stated. "At this point, it makes no sense for us to go back and forth about what I did wrong. I lied. I broke your trust in me. Those two things are inexcusable, and, if I were in your shoes, Rupert, I would probably feel the same way that you do. But your love for Buffy does matter, because this is the end of us, and the only reason we're over is because I hurt the girl you love. It has nothing to do with the fact that I hurt you.
"And that's okay," the teacher stated simply, shrugging her shoulders. "In fact, it's admirable. Buffy deserves your loyalty and your affection, and I know that she feels just as much for you as you do her, but don't make this break up about my mistakes. We never could have worked together as a couple, because I never would have been first in your life. It was a doomed relationship from the start. We just didn't see it until now."
Giles stared at her, mouth agape. Finally, he gathered himself enough to say, "I really fail to see how this is relevant at the moment. My slayer is now a vampire, and you're worried about who is to blame for…"
"Just, please," she begged. At that point, she wasn't above pleading. Hell, Jenny didn't believe that she was above anything anymore. "I need to do this. I need closure. You need closure."
With the spreading of his open palms, the librarian conceded, allowing her to continue, but the computer expert could sense both his impatience and his lack of interest in what she had to say. Still, though, she pushed on. "I will always be sorry for what I did to Buffy. For as long as I have known her, and, granted, that hasn't been very long, the most important thing to her has always been to somehow find a way to maintain a sense of normalcy in her completely atypical existence. She stayed in school, made friends, she even dated, albeit a vampire, but, if I know nothing else, I know that you can't help who you love. And, now, because of my selfishness, my fear, I've taken any last chance she ever would have had at normalcy away from her. My actions will haunt me for the rest of my life… even if Angel doesn't."
Despite the brave, perhaps foolish attempt at a little levity, her poorly timed and poorly executed joke fell on deaf ears. Taking a deep breath, the Gypsy descendent stood up and took several steps towards the man she loved, the man whom she knew could never love her again even if he wanted to. "As for the curse's clause, I swear to you that I had no idea it even existed until a few days ago when my uncle called me to tell me about it. I realize you have absolutely no reason to believe me at this point, but I am telling you the truth. Through the regular channels, he heard about the slayer dating the souled vampire, and he became concerned, so he contacted me, informing me that I needed to fix the problem immediately.
"When the situation with The Judge presented itself, I jumped upon it. If I could manage to send Angel away from Sunnydale, away from Buffy, without anyone suspecting that I was involved in this anymore than in the obvious way, then I was going to take advantage of such an opportunity. With any luck, by the time he returned, Buffy would have given up on him or moved on, and I would have been able to breathe easy again.
"But it didn't end up working that way, and, before I could up with another plan, things had already spun so far out of my control, there was no hope of regaining a grasp upon the situation. While I'd like to think that eventually, after I had time to adjust to the knowledge myself, I would have told you everything, I truthfully don't know if I would have, and I'll never know. What's done is done, and there's no going back. All we can do, from this point on, is move forward."
Finally, the watcher intervened. "Now, that is what I came here to discuss with you. What can you tell me about this clause?"
"Nothing."
"Excuse me," he breathed out. Shock, dismay, and mistrust colored his two softly uttered words. "What do you mean 'nothing?'"
"Exactly that," Jenny stated simply. "All my uncle told me was that, if Angel ever experienced a true moment of happiness, the curse would be reversed, and he would, once again, lose his soul. I never thought…"
"Well, you should have," Rupert accused. "Somebody bloody well should have!"
"I agree. As for how this clause can be overturned, I have no idea. As far as I know, it can't be, but, then again, I never thought that Buffy would be turned into a vampire either, so I'm not exactly a beacon of supernatural knowledge at this point. If you would like, I would gladly help you get in touch with my uncle. While I'm unsure as to how much he could assist you either, I do believe that it is my family's duty to do whatever it is they can to return Buffy to her previous demon-free form."
"You're damn right it is!"
"Furthermore," the teacher continued as if the watcher had not interrupted her, "you're welcome to any of my books, though my collection is far inferior to your own, and Willow is more than welcome to use my computer and any of the contacts I have online. Other than that, though," the brunette sighed, once more backing away from the man she loved. "I can't offer you anything else."
Turning around, Giles returned to the door he had left standing open. Stepping on her mail, he paused momentarily. "While I believed this to be a futile gesture, I came anyway, perhaps hoping for better results. I see that I have wasted my time here."
"Goodbye, Rupert," Jenny offered.
"I'm afraid I cannot say the same in return," was the only response she received from the British man. Once he was gone, the sound of his car fading away as he drove off, she walked towards her front door, closed it, but, again, left the lock unengaged. After all, she had already seen and faced her own personal hell already; somebody else's idea of damnation, even if that person was a demon, really couldn't frighten her at that point.