LONELY
His apartment had been cleared, her body gone, the caution tape removed. The police did not want him for questioning. It was easier for them to pretend this was a home invasion, the she had died by accident. It was easier to ignore the mocking pretense of romance, the way she had been so carefully placed. And it was easier for them not to consider him a suspect, filing this case away with all the other cases that would never be solved. That was what the Sunnydale Police Department were good at sweeping things under the rug, because it was the only defense mechanism they had.
How else would they deal with all the strange and horrible deaths being reported each night? For the most part, there was no solving cases like these, as the murderers were not human. They moved beyond the law, and while most in Sunnydale either failed or refused to notice them, the Police had no choice but to see the strange things happening, and make decisions for the greater good of the city itself. It was better that the public not be privy to all the things that came through the precinct and the hospitals.
No one would live here if they really knew what was going on.
Giles was protected by his alibi, corroborated by enough people that it was iron clad. He had been no where near the victim at the time of death, or when she was moved to his flat. Beyond clearing him of suspicion, there was nothing else the Police could do for him save platitudes and condolences, which he did not want.
There were still rose petals littering the floor, curled and brown now after being left so long from their stems. They were dead, of course, and Giles did not have the heart, at the moment, to clean them up. He could not go upstairs, either, or look into his bedroom and see the bed where she had been killed. He knew her body would not be there any more, the police had removed it and would contact him for funeral arrangements once their investigation was complete.
She had no next of kin listed, and he was the last person she was connected with.
He was sitting on his sofa, turning the note that had been left for him over in his hands. The note Angelus had written, telling Giles to go upstairs. The scene had been so romantic, so painfully sweet, and Giles had been all too eager to believe it was Jenny who had done it. He did not question how she had gotten into his house, and he did not think it was too far out of her character to think of something like that. He was wrong, in many ways, about many things. He would never be sure, though, if she was capable of such shows of romance: she had been taken away from him before he had the chance.
The image of her laying on his bed was burned into his memory. Even closing his eyes would not relieve him of the picture, and he would never be able to go to sleep with it in his mind. The bottle of scotch he had been nursing was beginning to help clear his mind, but he was not numb enough yet to undo the damage he had taken that night.
If Buffy had let him die, he would not have cared. Going to find Angelus and the other vampires had been incredibly stupid, but he had not planned on coming back after it so he did not care. He was willing to throw his life away in pursuit of some fleeting vengeance. He wanted to kill Angelus so bad, no matter who he had once been, no matter what he had once meant to Buffy. But would that have done any good, for any of them? Buffy loved Angel. She was young, it was new to her, but perhaps it had been something similar to Giles and Jenny. And to lose him in this way was hard enough for the Slayer. For her Watcher to kill him... it would be too much, for all of them.
And if Giles had died, the result would be the same. Buffy would be the one hurt in the end, and that was not something Giles wanted to do.
He tossed the piece of paper away, drinking heavily from the bottle of scotch and leaning back into his sofa. This would be his bed for tonight, since the bedroom was technically the scene of a crime.
The room was tainted. It was where she had died. He would have to redecorate. Buy new covers for his bed, shove it to another corner of the room. Make it look like it was wholly knew, so he could stop seeing her image, like a ghost, on the bed. He shuddered, looking at the bottle of scotch and having trouble remembering how full it had been when he started. It seemed awfully low now.
He missed her. He wanted to see her, to talk to her, to make sure the air was clear and to apologize for everything he had ever said. From the moment they met, to referring to her as that 'Calendar woman' with various, less than flattering adjectives attached. He wanted to tell her he cared about her, he knew they all made mistakes, he wanted to show her he could accept their differences.
All he wanted to do, at the end of the day, was sum all these things up in one simple little phrase that he had been too scared to tell her, in case it drove her away. He loved her. He wanted to love her, he wanted the chance to have a life with her. That had been taken away from him, and it was cruel. It was cutting.
The one chance he had at a happily ever after had been tied to Jenny. Without her, he was nothing. He would return to his duties, he would not notice when women looked his way. He would keep his focus and he would protect those around him by not attaching himself to them. It was unfair, dragging them into this world, this fight. They had no business, he and Buffy, the Slayer, making friends, putting them in danger. Theirs was meant to be a single, solitary existence. Lives dedicated to saving everyone, but never being known. They would die, the both of them, violently and if they had done it right, no one would ever know. A new Slayer, a new Watcher, would take their place.
That was the way of their world. But they broke with tradition. They did things their way, with friends like Xander and Willow. And Jenny. Collapsing against the arm of the sofa, drunken and in a daze, Giles had to wonder if it was worth it, just so they could not feel so alone. Even if, in the end, that was all they could be.
