Bookends Series

Title: New Pasture

This probably won't make sense unless you've read some of the others.

AU Buffy and Giles about five years after Chosen. Ignoring all comics.

Giles blinked as he heard a very odd question.

"Rupert, can you tell me where you are?"

Someone had removed his glasses and he was sitting down – he knew that much. It took him an effort to remember that he'd heard that voice before and quite recently and as he puzzled over where, he became aware that there actually two other people in the room with him. Both crouched either side of him and both looking concerned.

"Eh?" he grunted, dimly conscious it wasn't a terribly polite way to join the conversation.

"Do you know where you are? Who I am?"

Giles took a deep breath to clear his head. "You are Dr Clarke and this is your office," he replied slowly.

The younger man in slacks and lambswool sweater smiled and handed him back his glasses before rising to his feet. But before Giles could put them on, the second figure, who had been checking his pulse and who he had belatedly realised was the doctor's receptionist, smartly flashed a pocket light into his pupils causing him to flinch.

"You gave us a bit of scare," she said with a voice warm with relief. "You were shut down there for quite some time." The light snapped off as she appeared satisfied and then she too rose allowing Giles to finally slip his glasses back on and clear his throat.

"I'm fine, really," he replied. "Must have nodded off. Sorry. It is quite warm in here." He ran a finger round the back of his damp shirt collar.

Clarke meanwhile had moved to the water cooler and fought free a couple of plastic cups from the side arm. Filling both he returned and put them on the small coffee table in front of Giles.

"How many times have you experienced these kinds of episodes before?" he asked.

Giles ignored the water. "I haven't. I probably just fainted. I can't have been out for more than a few seconds."

"You appeared to freeze on us for nearly six minutes, Mr Giles," the receptionist said gently. "Your pulse and breathing were fine. You just…stopped."

Clarke restated his earlier question but with a new insistent edge. "Has this happened before, Rupert?"

Giles stood shakily and fidgeted in his pockets for his bus pass.

"Six minutes?" he said airily. "Really? Well then our appointment must be over by now. I'm so sorry to have inconvenienced you." He made for the door but Clarke's voice grew firmer.

"We have to talk about this now, Rupert."

"With respect, no we don't. We can pick this up next month."

"Rupert." Clarke's blue eyes hardened to steel. "If I'm not satisfied, I have a responsibility to report such events to the relevant authorities. The Driving Agency for one. If there's a risk you could blank out like that behind the wheel of a car, I have to report it."

"Oh fuck it all, man," Giles exclaimed in exasperation but then, remembering the receptionist and his manners, he blushed and added a sheepish, "sorry." To which she returned him a wry smile, nodded to the doctor and then left the two men alone in the therapist's office, the door closing behind her with a firm click.

"Would you like to sit down again?" Clarke asked politely.

"Not really," Giles admitted. Pushing over towards the window, he leaned his back against the far wall obscuring the framed print of a non-descript English hillside scene, and folded his arms. Clarke in turn moved to face him, leaning against the back of his own chair and subtly blocking the exits. He was a tall man with a thickset chest and had, Giles thought, the confident air of a man who'd played formidable rugby at an expensive boarding school. Giles didn't fancy trying to tackle him certainly.

"You were telling me about the vampire you staked when you were in London. It was an old tramp you said, in a car park?"

"Are you trying to repeat the experiment? See if I can blank out again. Like a party trick?"

Clarke shook his head. "It's highly unlikely you would react the same way again. Mentally, whatever triggered it wouldn't be as much a shock the second time around. But it is important we understand what just happened and to go over everything whilst everything is still fresh in your memory. I know this is hard for you but we have to go through everything again and this time, tell me what you were thinking about, tell me what you were feeling as we talked."

"You don't want much do you?" griped Giles.

"You were telling me about London. About the vampire," Clarke continued, ignoring the interruption. "And about seeing Buffy again. Now start from the beginning when you first came in for your appointment."

Giles sighed heavily but began.

"Hello Rupert, So tell me, how have you been?"

Giles sat down confidently in the armchair opposite Dr Clarke and maintained a steady eye contact.

"I've been good, actually, very good. In fact I even killed a vampire last month," he said assertively.

If he'd been hoping to shock, he'd failed because Clarke just nodded encouragingly as if it were everyday news or at least the sort of news he'd been expecting to hear.

"OK then," Clarke re-joined brightly "Why don't you start by telling me about that? What happened exactly?"

Giles felt his own confidence wane slightly. He hadn't really anticipated the man would want the details, he'd just wanted him to be impressed and leave it at that. He wasn't ready to share all the aspects and insights of that night. His mind raced and his focus shifted the framed landscape print on the wall to the doctor's right. It was a tranquil, pastoral scene that showed a shepherd and two dogs driving a flock of sheep from a green open field through a gate into a new pasture that wasn't in view.

"Rupert," Clarke prompted gently, "Tell me what you can about what happened."

Reluctantly, Giles left the sheep to fend for themselves. "Oh, it wasn't particularly special. An old tramp. Not very experienced - probably quite new. It wasn't a great battle or anything like that. I just killed it."

Clarke let the silence grow and Giles became aware he'd resorted to nervous, clipped sentences that always attracted the other man's interest.

And indeed the therapist pulled on his earlobe slightly and asked, "Where was this?"

Giles, wondering if perhaps he had been somewhat misleading, sought to clarify the exact location. Of course, vampires did not flourish in his present academic town because of the Old Magicks and so perhaps he had in some way alarmed the younger man. Clarke wasn't Council. He'd probably never seen a vampire in his life.

"Oh, it wasn't around here," he reassured. "It was down in London. I had to attend a thing. For work. The college that is. A ball. There was dancing." He fought to keep the narrative on track. "A car park. It was in a car park. Buffy was there," he added by way of corroboration.

That only seemed to pique Clarke's interest further. "But you killed it? Not Buffy?"

"She wasn't there then," Giles clarified, fearing the story was in danger of slipping away from him. "She came later, she came out to the car park later I mean." He hated to feel himself fluster in front of this man. He wanted to be free of him and his professional concern and decidedly free from his comforting smile and the friendly blue eyes that tried to rip open your soul and trap you into saying things. "She was inside dancing with someone else which left me to deal with things. But that's not why I'm telling you this. The thing is, when I killed it, something happened. I suddenly had a strong flashback, a memory, if you will, of what happened, what happened that night."

"The night your father was turned?" The bastard would want him to clarify that.

"Yes." Giles gripped the arm of the chair slightly. "I remembered killing him." He felt proud at the matter of fact way he'd managed to speak the last part. He'd known he would have to say it out loud at some point to the doctor and had actually practiced in front of the bathroom mirror. "I remember it all now."

"Go on," said Clarke, exhibiting his usual dispiriting habit of skipping all of Giles' little triumphs and demanding he push himself further. "What exactly happened with your father?"

That was a question too far, too soon, and Giles shut it down quickly. He wasn't ready to discuss that night with anyone. Not even with Buffy. "That's private and I really don't have to tell you the details."

Clarke smiled warmly. "Not if you don't want to, no. Not yet."

"I don't. And it's not really important for you to know." Giles' anger came quickly, fighting with the adrenaline to get his point across. "I only agreed to come to these sessions because I couldn't remember what happened that night. Well, now that I can, I think that's the end of it. I don't think we need any further appointments."

He should have risen at that point and run, but his arms felt heavy and his legs felt weak as if he were pinned to the chair. His delay gave the therapist an opportunity to raise a broad friendly hand as if in submission and acceptance of the situation.

"Of course, and I see your point," Clarke said softly. "But as we still have time on the clock. Why don't you humour me a little while longer?"

Giles folded his arms. "I'm not discussing my father."

"OK, tell me some more about the tramp."

"Why?" Giles was genuinely surprised at that switch in the interrogation. "He's really not important."

"You thought he was important enough to be a threat. Important enough to kill."

"All vampires are important enough to kill," Giles replied coldly.

"How did you know he was a threat?"

"I saw him following one of the elderly guests from the ball. And when he attacked her I intervened. I'd say that was pretty threatening."

"But how did you know he was a vampire? Did you see his face?"

Giles didn't like where he thought Clarke was taking things.

"Look, he really was. He turned to dust when I put a stake in his heart. I didn't just kill an innocent man," he said hotly. He wanted to stand, to pace, but something always held him in that damn chair, talking to that damn doctor.

"I was just curious how you knew that's all. I don't have your field knowledge."

Giles grumbled, shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and started to count the sheep in the picture. There had to be at least twenty. His mother had once told him as a boy that there had to be at least twenty before they could be considered a flock.

"I knew he was a vampire because he was clumsy," he replied finally. "He was inexperienced enough to show his face and his intentions. As they learn they get more cunning. He was clearly just attacking the first target he saw. I mean, imagine it, some vampire turned a homeless person for fun and left him to fend for himself. That's sick really. He wasn't going to do much damage."

"Interesting." Clarke genuinely seemed interesting in learning more. "How do vampires gain experience when they are first turned?"

Giles relaxed. "Oh, they learn by killing," he began, feeling safe on what was for him at least, an academic topic. "Usually the easiest targets are their own families."

There was a very long stubborn pause in the room that Giles vowed he was not going to be the one to end. He began to re-count the sheep in the picture. Maybe there were less than twenty after all. Maybe some had got away. That idea pleased him a lot.

"But this tramp wouldn't have a family," Clarke reasoned.

"No," Giles agreed and pulled at his shirt collar. The doctor's office was always kept a little too warm for his liking.

Clarke lent forward to ask, "So why did he upset you?"

"He didn't."

"On some level he did. Killing him triggered some memories you haven't been able to access. Why is that do you think?"

"The violence probably. Or the familiarity of the act of dusting. I don't know. I don't think it matters."

"He seems an unlikely choice for someone to sire," Clarke continued. "Do vampires usually turn their victims?"

"No. No, they don't. It was a strange choice. He was old for one thing and not as sharp as he used to be. Vampires usually turn their victims out of amusement or for pleasure. They usually pick the young or the attractive whereas turning an older man whose faculties were declining would be a cruel joke... He'd probably just go for long walks and people would worry he'd forgotten his way home. ..And he'd be returning to a state of innocence and just playing with the dogs… Bad enough to be losing him to senility, then to have him come back as a killer…"

"Are we still talking about the tramp?"

The old fox was in the henhouse. The wolf was in the fold.

"Rupert? Are you alright? Can you hear me?"

The sheep weren't in the other field. They hadn't escaped. He could see them all clearly with their throats ripped out. He'd wanted to remember what happened and now he couldn't stop remembering it. It was everywhere around him. There was slaughter everywhere and he couldn't stop seeing it…

Giles was surprised to find they had been talking for nearly two hours. In that time the receptionist had brought in tea and they had returned to the armchairs and whilst Giles had addressed a good deal of his words at the table and carpet, he had indeed managed to get to the end of his narrative without making a fool of himself a second time.

Dr Clarke turned his body round to contemplate the landscape picture. "It's supposed to be soothingly pastoral," he said thoughtfully.

Giles cradled half a mug of now cold tea and shook his head. "It's not the picture's fault," he mused. "I thought things would be better once I remembered everything. That there would be something we'd missed or just something to help it all make sense." he swallowed hard. "I suppose I'd hoped there had been a mistake and that somehow it hadn't really been him."

"That's quite normal. You haven't consciously remembered before, but the trauma has been sitting unprocessed in your head for some time. You have been fighting to believe both it and what people have been telling you happened."

"I thought once I'd filled the gap in my memory, it would all be over," Giles admitted as he swirled the last of the tea in his mug. "But I suppose it isn't."

Clarke leant forward, earnestly seeking out Giles' eyes with his own blue ones. "But I think we have made some progress today. You have managed to be a lot more honest with me than you have been previously." He smiled. "Is it over? No. Can you go back to how things were before? No, but who among us can do that anyway? Today, Rupert, we touched on perhaps some of the reasons the traumatic event of your father's death continues to affect you the way it does. And that is progress. You were the victim of a terrible and traumatic event but we can work together to help you process the experience."

"My life has been full of traumatic events," Giles grumbled. "I've never 'blanked out' due to one of those. And I've never needed a shrink before."

"Most people don't." Clarke sat back in his chair and nodded. "I specialise in working with the police, the fire service and the military, people who see a lot of horror and are just fine about it. Until one day, something sticks and they are not fine anymore. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Do you cure them?"

"Mostly." Before Giles could interrupt the doctor continued quickly, "It's not take two tablets and see me in the morning. My patients have to work with me. And to that end I really think we should schedule our next appointments more frequently from now on."

"Of course." Giles finished his cold tea in a decisive, single gulp and rose. He'd been sitting far too long in one place, taking up too much of the doctor's time, maybe keeping the receptionist from going home for the day. He rubbed the back of his neck and decided to forego the bus ride home and to walk instead. He had some serious thinking to do and the hour or so it would take to go via the meadow lane would be free from distraction. He needed fresh air to help him think and to decide what to do next.

Clarke had also risen so Giles stuck out his hand and the two men shook. "Thank you for all your help, doctor," he said simply. "As you say, we've made progress." Clarke had a strong grip and regarded him shrewdly for a moment but eventually the doctor let go and Giles let himself out of the office.