TITLE: Late
AUTHOR: clarrie
DISCLAIMER: Obviously don't own Giles, Wesley, Buffy, Anya and the Scooby gang. Alice Boston and others are mine, most of the info about watchers and the watchers council was made up by me and is based on my interpretation of it as an institution.
All witchy stuff made up by me and bares little resemblance to say, Wicca or any of the other old faiths.
Lines taken from 'The Angel and the jerk' by Billy Joe Armstrong and Penelope Housten.
RATING: about a 12 or PG13, younger readers may be grossed out by the suggestion that old people may, possibly, once, have had sex.
SPOILERS: mild up to mid season 3, but as if faith and the mayor had not existed and Anya and Xander had got together earlier. Does include Wesley character though.
At the time of story Oz had ginger hair.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Americans, kindly note that I used the word (ick pah) 'soccer' instead of football. So don't say I never do anything for you.
Alice stood outside the door which separated Gile's office and the staff facilities from the rest of the library, she held an apple and took deep horselike bites as she spoke.
'Go on lad! Better out than in.'
From within the office 'Hoick! Hoick Hoiiiick, hack , hack hack, grrruuuuurgh. Hoick.'
'Gosh, that was a big one.' Said Alice, almost to herself.
'Hoick! Hoick Hoiiiick, hack.' A series of revolting sounds issued from within the office. 'Hack hack, grrruuuuurgh. Hoick.Hack, hack, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaack kuk, knug.'
'Cooee!' Seeing Buffy and Willow enter the library Alice straightened herself and waved the apple in a cheery greeting. 'Cooee!' She sprayed a selection of chewed apple at them. 'Gosh! Sorry. Excuse the fruit.'
'hack, hack, hack, grrruuuuurgh. Hoick. Roalph.'
Buffy and Willow smiled wanly and placed their books on the table.
'Alice, is everything alright?' Said Buffy, brushing herself down.
'What? Oh… oh, that. Poor Squiz has a bit of a jippy tummy.'
'Hoick! Hoick Hoiiiick, hack , hack hack, grrruuuuurgh. Hoick. Hack, hack, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaack kuk, knug.'
'Yeh alright in there Squirrel?' Alice finished her apple and tossed the core into a nearby wastepaper basket.
'Hoick! Mumble, mumble kuk, knug. Mumble, Hoick! Mumble dammit woman!'
'Well he's a perky little camper.'
A concerned look crossed Willow's face. 'Are you sure he's alright? He sounds really bad.'
Alice peered through the window of the office, 'He's alright. Xander's gone out to get him some… I don't know, liquids or something.'
'How's the English patient?' Xander grinned, brandishing bottles and packets of every cold medicine known to man.
'Still shouting for Ralph.' Alice opened the office door slightly. 'I don't know why he doesn't just GO HOME.' She called in a stage whisper.
A low moan issued from the office and Giles emerged looking pale and drawn. 'I cannot, just, go, home.' He blew his nose noisily causing Willow and Buffy to grimace. 'I have unfortunately spent all my sick days recuperating from the various head injuries received in the service of the Slayer.' He rubbed his temples wearily. 'I do not have the time to spare for flu.'
The youngsters jumped back as he was seized in a gigantic sneeze.
'Ah, don't worry.' Alice rubbed his back as he slumped over the desk. 'I threw up a lung myself this morning. Right as rain now though.'
Giles glared at her. 'I'm so glad for you.' He doubled over as another sneeze hit him.
'Tissue for the English patient!' Xander grinned. 'Stat!'
Giles sighed wearily and looked painfully towards the girls. 'He's been calling me that all morning… Doesn't he have classes?'
'It's the flu.' Willow smiled sympathetically, 'There's a big teacher shortage.'
'Aah,', Xander kicked back and folded his arms behind his head. 'The Flu Gods are merciful and the teens of Sunnydale rejoice.'
'Oh dear God.' Giles sat back in his chair and viewed the group through half closed eyes. 'Aspirin?'
Xander popped a brace of the small white pills from their sealed plastic packet and passed them to Giles.
'Are you going to be alright for my housewarming tonight Squirrel?' Alice spoke through a mouthful of hairpins as she refastened her bun. 'Free beer.'
Giles swallowed the painkillers with a glass of water and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. 'I dare say I shall rally round.' He rolled his eyes. 'If only for the free beer.'
'Goodo.' Alice grinned widely and patted her already disintegrating hairdo. 'Xander dear, I hate to press you but do you know where I might find some more fruit?'
'Fruit?'
Alice yawned. 'Apples, pears, kumquats. Fruit, been living off the damn things for the last week. It's great stuff.'
'The canteen sells, you know, stuff. I think one of the vending machines sells fruit.' Xander gave a puzzled frown. 'But that's like, prunes and things.'
'Lead on MacDuff.' Alice picked up her handbag and gestured in the general direction of out. Xander shrugged and led Alice away.
Giles relaxed back into his chair and took off his glasses. 'Kumquats?'
Buffy leant back against the desk and threw the ball up in the air, catching and throwing two balls at a time, keeping them in the air together. 'This is training?' Buffy arched her eyebrow. 'What am I Buffy Summers the tumbling Slayer?'
'Wesley is organising the Watcher diaries, and I am just not up to combat training.' Giles wiped his glasses. 'This improves our balance and reflexes.'
'Our balance and reflexes?'
'Alright, your balance and reflexes. Just keep juggling.'
Buffy caught another ball as Willow threw it across the library and added it to two already in the air. She stared out of the window at Alice and Xander and smiled. 'Giles?'
'Hhmmph?' Giles patted at his red raw nose with a tissue.
'How come you and Alice are friends?' She watched as Alice began to explain a complicated, and by the looks of the hand movements, obscene, joke to Xander. 'I mean she's like so… And your so….'
'We've known each other a long time.' Giles paused. 'Do you know she was one of the highest graded witch to- well to graduate from...'
'There are grades?' Willow looked up from her book in surprise.
'In some disciplines. Not the one you're currently studying.'
Willow looked relieved. 'But the one Alice follows, that has grades right?'
'Well yes, and no. That is, I- Alice has mastered, or at least attained a high level of competency in most of the major disciplines,' he rolled his eyes, 'the trouble is if none of it works she has a tendency to just mumble something in Italian and hope for the best.' He paused to blow his nose noisily. 'The truly infuriating thing is that it invariably works.'
'Wow.' Buffy added another ball to the three already in the air. 'Hey, I think I've got a talent here.'
Willow smiled. 'Yeah, b-because that whole fighting evil thing was going nowhere.'
Buffy grinned. 'So you haven't really answered our question, how come you're such good friends. All you do is bicker.' She shifted her weight and changed the throwing pattern. 'I mean, were you… You know.'
'What?'
'You know.'
Giles blushed. 'I am capable of being friends with a woman without…' Giles made an obscure hand movement who's inaccuracy Buffy put down to the flu or poor memory. 'I-I mean, God, no.'
'God no what?' Alice stood grinning at the doorway of the library.
'You and Giles were,' Buffy caught a tissue and passed it, without stumbling over her throwing pattern, to the now crimson librarian. 'Hooplah! Never an item.'
'Gosh no, ' Alice paused, 'I'll try to take the vehemence of your denial as a compliment shall I Squizz?'
'Oh, I-I- didn't mean…'
'No, no, I'll just take the obvious revulsion in your voice as a sign that you respect me too much as a person.'
'I-I-I….'
Alice grinned widely at Gile's embarrassment and gestured towards the door. 'We're having a kick about out there, is anyone else up for it?'
'We?'
'Myself, Xander,' She turned to Willow, 'Your thingy, whathisname, Oz. Jumpers for goalposts that sort of thing. So who's up for it?'
'Um- Sort of doing stuff.' Buffy juggled pointedly.
'Giles?'
'Oh, please be joking.' The flu-ridden librarian blew his nose noisily.
Alice turned to Willow. 'What about you? Even up the sides, you and Oz versus me and Xander?'
'It sounds fun, but n-no.' She lifted up the book she was reading. 'I-I have stuff too.'
'Oh come on, I'll tell you what, we'll have a championship match. Boys versus Girls. World supremacy depends on the outcome.'
Buffy and Giles watched as Willow found herself being dragged outside to join the impromptu Soccer match.
'Is it because she doesn't have to care for a Slayer?'
Giles looked up at Buffy. 'Pardon?'
'Is that why she's more relaxed? I-I mean, don't take it the wrong way, but I can't imagine any of the other Watchers I've met playing Soccer with Xander and Oz. Sorry.'
'Am I to assume by that apology that I am included in that sweeping generalisation?'
'Kind of, I- I mean if they had a research championships or, like a-a Watcher superbowl but…'
'Or a stuffiness world series?'
'Yes, no, kind of.' Buffy frowned. 'Smartie had a party and no one came Giles, you might want to remember that.'
'I-I do know what you mean though, she, um, she is rather, um, ebullient.'
'Is that like peppy?'
Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Peppy? It, um, it's peppy thirty years on I think.'
Giles searched for a place to dispose of his tissue. 'Why this sudden interest anyway?'
'Just, you know, stuff.' Buffy added another ball to her pattern. 'No biggy.'
'I do have a theory, ex-excuse me.' Giles sneezed riotously. 'As you know, a person usually has his or her first magical experience during or after adolescence.'
'Is that a metaphor? 'Cos if not I didn't.'
Giles plucked a tissue from the box in front of him and blew his nose pointedly.
'But carry on… I'm sure I can keep up.' Buffy grinned apologetically. 'During or after adolescence.'
'Yes, and therefore are encouraged to treat the world of the occult with a great deal of respect.'
'Respect works for me.'
'This does tend to result in a rather serious mind set, which of course combined with the by nature cosseted and scholarly environment of the watcher community can result in - that is can produce a psyche, a- a-a personality that is…'
'Wesley?'
'Wesley would be, um, one example, yes.' Giles paused to wipe his nose. 'Although of course Mr Whyndam-Price has little more than a passing practical knowledge of witchcraft.' He watched through the window as Alice encouraged a giggling Willow to kick the ball past Xander's inept goal keeping and between the two rucksacks forming a goal. 'Miss Boston however was born into magic, she grew up with it. She was actually brought up by Simplicity Boston you know.'
'Um,' Buffy smiled apologetically. 'That should mean something to me right?'
'No-no, it's my fault. I, um, Actually though would it kill you to study a little of your heritage?'
The frown left his face as he saw Wesley enter the library. 'Why don't you ask Wesley?'
'Yes ask Wesley.' Wesley paused nervously. 'Ask Wesley what?
'Who was...'
'Is!' Corrected Giles urgently under his breath.
Buffy smiled cheerfully. 'Who is Simplicity Boston Wesley?'
The colour drained from Wesley's face. 'S-Simplicity Boston? Why is he-why would he- I didn't touch her I swear! Oh God, Not him, anything but. I'll resign, I can't- Why must they hound me so.'
'Wesley.' Buffy placed a placating hand on his arm. 'You in there Wesley? Breath.'
Wesley let out a long breath and fixed his glassy stare on Buffy.
'I read the name in a book Wesley - Thought I'd ask my watcher. Ok?'
Wesley nodded silently and swallowed nervously. 'I have to go and, um, I have to - go.' He turned and returned to the office rather more rapidly than was usual.
'A book?' Giles paused to blow his nose and smiled. 'Not exactly the most believable of excuses.'
Buffy shrugged, unable to deny the truth of this comment. 'So Simplicity Boston is like, the big kahuna of the Watchers Council?'
'I believe that is, in fact, what he puts on his stationery.'
'Oh hardy ha, ha, ha.'
Giles sipped from his cup of hot lemon drink. 'Growing up in such an atmosphere, That is, with such a prolonged exposure to the supernatural, the mystic ceases to be, um, mystical.'
'So to her it's normal?'
'Normal, normal is a very strong word.' Giles stared out of the window. 'I don't think she'd know normal if you drew her a diagram.' He smiled and turned to Buffy. 'I'm boring you.'
'No, it's nice. Psychology you know?'
'Hmm.' Giles blew his nose.
'Was she adopted?'
'What?' Giles frowned at Buffy. 'I don't see as it's any of your business if she is.'
'It's just, you said brought up by Simplicity Boston. You didn't say that Simplicity Boston was her mother or that…'
'Simplicity Boston is, note the present tense Buffy, a man. And frankly I'm beginning to feel that this pestering for information is a little ill-mannered.'
'Sorry.' Buffy shrugged. 'It's just, Sometimes you can go around and-and you think you know them but then there's a demon or a…'
'Gypsy curse?'
Buffy nodded silently.
Giles coughed into a handkerchief and shook his head sadly. 'You're worried that Alice will turn out to be like Jenny?'
'I just, I want to know everything - 'Cos there was Jenny, and like Angel that was a big whoa, and even you with Eyghon you know?'
'Alice doesn't have a…a big whoa.'
'It's just secrets you know? That's, that's why I'm asking I just- I want to know pressure points. So if she goes postal I can…'
Giles folded his hands under his chin and breathed in. 'Simplicity Boston is Alice's uncle. She was- Alice was only five years old when - When the darkness claimed her parents.'
'Oh.'
'From then on she spent her time divided between boarding schools and Cunnings, the Boston, or rather Simplicity's estate. Until of course the time came for her to go to Oxford.' He paused. 'Said like that it isn't anything very unusual. For a woman of her…'
'Inimitable breeding? Outstanding dress sense? Ravishing good looks?'
'I was going to say social strata.' Giles raised an eyebrow. 'Hesitating, as I do, to say breeding in your case Alice, finished your match have you?'
Willow stumbled in, giggling, on Oz's arm. 'Yup, w-we won.'
'Don't think this is the end.' Xander perched on the table and gestured towards the women. 'And frankly I think that you're going to have a little difficulty enforcing that world supremacy Will.'
'We'll have a rematch in a minute if you're up to it boys?'
'We'll k-kick your asses.'
Oz frowned thoughtfully. 'Will with the blood lust? Even in a non-literal sense am I ok with that?'
'So what were we talking about?' Alice turned to Buffy and Giles and grinned. 'Other than my social strata?'
'Giles was telling me about your uncle, and Cunnings, you know, British stuff. Big old houses, country estates, angry peasants and so on.'
'I never mentioned angry peasants.'
'You lived in-I mean you had a house big enough to be an estate?' Willow grinned. 'Were there servants? B-because that would be cool.'
'Gosh yes, like a Wodehouse novel,' Alice inspected the apple she had begun to bite into. 'Except with shagging and the Dark Ones.'
'Sounds scary.' Xander blushed. 'I-I meant the Dark Ones. Although of course Wodehouse novels can be scary too and… I'm babbling.'
'No, dude, you know, because… Aunts. '
Buffy ignored Xander and Oz's brief exchange. 'The Dark One's? Why am I getting the feeling that these are not a good thing?'
'Because they're not.' Alice returned her concentration to her apple.
'Giles?'
Giles turned to Buffy. 'The um, the Dark Ones.' He removed his glasses and began to wipe them distractedly. 'Alice's family have, for reasons best known to posterity, been entrusted with the,' He turned to Alice. 'Would you call it guardianship?'
'As good a word as any.'
'Occasionally Buffy an evil cannot be destroyed, and we are forced to -contain it.'
'Cunnings has got seven of the buggers sealed up in the cellar.' Alice grinned. 'Boston's ultimate destiny to stop 'em getting out and causing trouble.'
Cordelia dropped her books onto the check out desk.
'Trouble? Is that British for the apocalypse? Because we're pretty much familiar with the procedure.'
Alice paused thoughtfully. 'Um, yes, yes I suppose it is.'
'But they're contained. Right?' Buffy frowned.
'Oh gosh yes, no worries there. So are we ready for another…'
'Tell them what they're kept in.' Giles smiled a little meanly. 'Go on.'
'I already told them, the cellar at Cunnings. So is anyone…'
'No, that's where they're kept. Tell them what they're kept in.'
'I, I - told them already Squizz I don't know why you're…'
'They're kept in a tea caddy.' Giles sat back with an air of superiority.
'An enchanted tea caddy.' Said Alice indignantly.
Xander frowned and turned to Oz. 'Ok did I just…'
Buffy raised her hand. 'Um, I might be going out on a limb here. But aren't indestructible dark forces usually kept in, like the vessel of Spazmo or something?'
'Spazmo?' Oz raised an eyebrow.
'What? You try and think up a demon name.'
'Molchnia.'
Buffy scowled.
'It's not actually the vessel that is important. But rather the binding spells.' Alice began to search distractedly through her handbag. 'It's- well the physics are a little difficult to explain, but it basically boils down to even if the only thing you have to hand is a matchbox as long as you have the right spells you can contain it.' She looked pointedly at Giles. 'And despite what some people say, I happen to believe that as long as Apocalypse has been prevented, dignity can go hang.'