I cannot write anything short when I write for this man! I was originally going to use the hospital scene, but the one of him listening to his records in Forever I found particularly...touching.

If you don't like the songfic, lemme know. I'll take the words out.


Brave Ulysses

"So…Buffy told you she found out?" asked Joyce, as Giles stood on the doorstep of the house.

"Ah…y-yes."

Joyce sighed. "I'm so sorry. I tried to stop her from reading my mind and then it just got…kind of worse."

"How did she take it?" he asked, dreading the answer. Buffy had seemed to take it well when she'd confronted him about it, but he suspected that he'd gotten off easy because her mood had been allieviated by causing him to walk headfirst into a tree.

"Let's just say I' m going to be shelling out money for a therapist until she's old and gray."

"Oh, dear…"

"I'll talk to her," Joyce assured him. "I'm batting a decent average with the mom-to-daughter talks. Maybe I can help things blow over a little quicker."

"Um…am I required to be present?" asked Giles nervously.

"Oh, yes," said Joyce promptly. "We have to go over all the details of what happened…"

Giles suddenly had to lean against the doorframe. "Oh my god…"

She smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm kidding. Don't collapse on me."

He exhaled heavily in relief. Then:

"You are an evil woman. I can see that Buffy comes by it honestly."

She laughed. "I choose to take that as a compliment. Oh, by the way…"

She pulled something off of the coat rack and held it up, and she laughed as Giles almost collapsed again at the sight of the gaudy coat he'd stolen several nights ago.

"Think I should wear this during the talk?" she asked playfully.

"You…you kept that?"

"It's a nice coat," she said. "I could never have wasted the money on it in any normal frame of mind."

"You didn't waste the money on it anyway," Giles pointed out wryly.

"That's true. You know, even if she gets over the critical emotional scarring…Buffy's never going to let us forget…what happened that night."

"I have no doubt."

"But I guess that's how it always is." She cast him another smile, and it was the tired smile of a parent. "We parents practically exist to be made fun of, isn't that right?"

The statement through him for a moment…then, he returned the smile. "Yes. I suppose we do."

Joyce flung the coat over her shoulders. "Still…it was fun, Rupert. I'll never forget having that much fun."

"Yes. It was fun, Joyce. I certainly won't forget it, either."


And now Joyce was dead, and it was the night after her funeral, and Buffy had pressed the coat into his hands and insisted he take it.

"You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun."

Before he'd realized it, suddenly the record containing "Tales of Brave Ulysses" was playing. He'd gotten home, hung the coat in his closet where he wouldn't have to look at it, and suddenly that song was playing.

Numbly, Giles poured himself some wine. He hadn't drunken anything alcoholic since last year, when he'd blacked out on most of the day despite the fact that it had involved most of the Scoobies fighting with each other.

But, right here and now, he felt he needed to be numb. He wanted to be numb.

"And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips."

He hurt. His head, his heart, his bones. Giles hurt. If he so much as blinked, he saw Buffy, standing there flustered and confused and in pain.

"No…no, you can't…stop! We're not supposed to move the body!!"

He had known at that moment that he would be needed. Needed as the one able to stay calm and keep things moving.

No matter how much he wanted to hide from the world and try desperately to disbelieve the events of today, of the funeral, or of yesterday when he'd found Buffy home alone with her mother's body…he couldn't. Because he was needed, and he was needed because he could be the adult.

So, if Buffy needed him, he would be the adult.

Now, for Buffy, he was the only adult left.

And now he was left to bear the small wounds in his heart, the small wounds that all parents got when their children were in danger. He was left to bear them alone, because the remarkable woman he'd bonded with was empty and dead, just a body.

Giles wished he didn't feel the same.

That night had been…fun. Reliving their teenage mentality had been an experience that had done them both good. After so long of being "the adults" of the Scooby gang, they'd spent a day in the hazy, heady, careless haze of being teenagers. Even after waking up to the mockery of "the children", which had continued for years after, they'd only look at each other and exchange embarrassed smiles before one or both would make up an excuse to leave the room.

And even past that day, they'd been…allies, of a sort. They'd shared the difficult job of being the adults to the gang of kids who had never really stopped being "the children".

Perhaps that had been why seeing them at college had been so hard. He hadn't been able to rationalize it in his head.

And maybe that was part of the reason he'd always been so…fond of Joyce. At points…more than fond.

The two adults, at the mercy of the mockery of…their children.

Because it was good to know that he had an ally in a difficult job. That he wasn't the only one who worried the way he did about the growing gang of children.

To know that he wasn't the only one who suffered the small little wounds in his heart, because he had to be strong and could never, ever let on that they were there.

"The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter."

Because, although he hoped to whatever god existed in heaven that they hadn't seen, the events of the last few days had left their own much deeper wounds on his heart and in his soul. From the moment he'd stumbled into the house to see Buffy standing there with so much pain in her eyes to now, when he was listening to their song in the peace of his own apartment after the funeral, he'd been hurting just as much as the others.

But now the one person who could understand those wounds, who could understand how much they hurt and why he could never, ever let on that they were there…was gone. The remarkable woman who had shared tea with him and who, in many ways, had taught him as much as he'd taught her daughter…was dead. Just a body, empty and dead.

"Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.
"

It was just like the night when Jenny had died, but he didn't have an Angelus to hunt down in a rage. No, Giles had to stay calm and together, because he was the adult and he was the only adult Buffy and Dawn had left.

Because their wonderful mother was just a body, empty and dead.

"The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter."

Giles wished he didn't feel the same.