Spoiler: One tiny reference to season six "Afterlife".
Notes: Written in the hiatus between S5 & S6. AU regarding S6.
****************************************************************************
Moon is up
The sun is down
You can't have it both ways round
Ooh babe, won't you listen to me
We are worlds apart, you see
(Jagger/Richards)
Chapter One
Early November.
When travelling in public transport and sitting in a comfortable chair, it is possible to enter a peculiar state of rest that can never be achieved in a familiar bed. The eyelids become so heavy that the eyes roll up in their sockets when one tries to keep them open. The bones turn to jelly, the ears become acutely sensitive, and the heart leaps and beats hard at the slightest noise.
High above the Atlantic, Rupert Giles had entered this state some time ago and the voices of the other passengers played havoc with his rest, turning his dreams into a nonsensical, half-aware kaleidoscope that made him shift restlessly. With his head lolling and his legs stretched comfortably before him, he slumbered in first-class and dreamed of cool grass and wine-glasses and sunbathing vampires.
*
The pilot's voice jerked him awake and he stretched, peering through the tiny window to see late morning sunlight spearing through clouds onto patchwork land far below. Heathrow was not far away. Feeling tired and a little sad, he sighed and set about tidying himself up.
*
They were waiting for him as he came out of passport control and he spotted them immediately...two men and a woman in sharp neat suits: Watchers, patiently awaiting the arrival of their brother.
As he answered their cliched questions with cliches of his own, Rupert found that he was studying them as if he'd never seen their like before. They were so painfully polite and well-mannered that he felt an urge to express some of the phrases he'd heard countless times in the past few years. He wanted to say 'you bet' instead of 'yes'. He wanted to say 'bite me', but he was too tired to bother.
Perhaps he was jaded. He had good reason to be.
With minimum fuss the men took his luggage, and the woman politely indicated with a genteel wave of a manicured hand that they should proceed this way, please.
When they reached the car, the driver dropped the keys into an oily puddle. "Bugger," he muttered quietly.
Hearing this small curse, Rupert relaxed a little. Perhaps he should just give everybody a chance. Perhaps living at Council Headquarters for a few weeks wouldn't be so bad after all. Perhaps, he thought, he might even make it through without having to kill anyone.
The car was a white limousine with dark windows and a bar. Rupert accepted a scotch, and the small talk continued until he fell asleep again. The one-hour journey to Brockworth continued then in silence.
*
Rupert's arrival at Headquarters was low-key, to his relief. He stood in the enormous oak-panelled entrance hall and looked around, hoping to feel as if he`d come home. But he felt nothing. He was disappointed. He`d spent a good portion of his life in this building, and had left here nervous and excited...and not a little worried...going off at a time of prophesies to meet with his Slayer at the mouth of hell. Now he felt as if he`d only ever seen this place in a dream. All that driving enthusiasm - had the Hellmouth burnt it all away? He had never before felt so dull.
At least it wasn`t raining.
The men took his luggage up to his room and the woman asked him if he needed anything. Irrationally, he was tempted suddenly to to tell her to go to hell and write a report about it. All he wanted was food and time to himself.
"I`ll just give Michael a quick ring," the woman said, referring to a man Rupert had come to know very well during his years at Headquarters. "He wanted to see you when you arrived." She smiled, seeing the look on his face. "Just a quick hello, nothing deep, then we`ll leave you to it. He`s in his room upstairs, he won`t be long. Come into the lounge and sit. I can make a start hanging up your things if you like?"
"No. No, that`s all right. I'll do it tomorrow. Thank you."
"Oh," she turned at the door. "About Michael. Try not to be too surprised when you see him? He's not well."
Rupert sat down and realised that not one name had been exchanged during the journey from the airport. Feeling numb, he let his head rest against the back of the chair.
When Michael Greco entered the lounge it took Rupert a moment to recognise him. Michael had appeared fit and well when Rupert had seen him last, yet here was a grey scarecrow with a cane and a careful walk. Michael was sixty-seven and looked ninety. The man seemed full of death.
Rupert's mouth fell open and the words tumbled out before he could stop them. "Good god, Mike, what's happened to you?"
Quentin Travers' second in command chuckled ruefully and waved the question away. "That's for later, Rupert, I'll not depress you with my troubles today. I'll just give you the welcome back speech and let you go." He thumped Rupert on the arm and looked into his face with weary eyes. "Can`t let the return of my old friend go unrecognised. How was the flight and all that rubbish?"
Rupert pulled himself together. "Thank you for first class on the plane. I`ve always known I had a taste for luxury living."
"Ha! Yes, well. I told Quentin some time ago that he'll have to do a fair bit of grovelling if he wants to keep you. He agreed. By the way, Liz says you're hungry? Shall I kick the cook and make him send you up a tray?"
"Please."
Michael smiled at him. "It's good to have you back, Rupert. We've plans for you, you know."
"I'm not sure I like the sound of that. I wish I could say it's good to be back."
"Give it time." Michael held out his hand. "I'll let you go now. Visit me when you're settled."
Rupert shook hands with his old friend and went up to his room.
*
He slept deeply and awoke very early the next morning with a foul taste in his mouth and a searing headache. He remembered where he was and groaned, rolling over to switch on the bedside lamp. Last night he`d done nothing more than eat and fall into bed and now he sighed as he looked at his luggage piled neatly by the door.
Sitting up, he glanced around the unfamiliar room and found himself thinking fondly of the home that was no longer his back in Sunnydale. He was homesick already.
He found his watch on the floor and counted back from five thirty-seven. They were probably just going to bed. Or more likely, they were still at the Bronze having their last drinks and one more dance. He wondered what had happened on patrol and felt his gut turn over. God, how he wanted to be back there! For a few minutes he sat with his eyes closed, imagining himself getting up and out of there, getting on a plane and just going. Moving into Buffy`s spare bedroom, getting back into the magic shop with Anya. A small smile touched his lips.
His stomach growled. Shaking himself, he grabbed the telephone and called the kitchen, ordering a huge cooked breakfast to be sent up to him. That was one of the advantages of staying at Council property - eat and drink whenever you choose and no worries about cost because there wasn`t any: the Council of Watchers was so wealthy it was frightening.
Sitting morosely on the edge of his bed, he thought about his plans to get out and find himself a house as soon as possible. He would start now, right now. Remembering that someone was always available night or day in the office downstairs he dialed there next and asked the clerk to arrange for property details to be sent to him.
"What kind of property? Um…" God, he couldn't think. All he knew was that the price wouldn't concern him. During his last telephone conversation with Quentin, Rupert had been told not to worry; the house would be his but Council money would buy it. He knew now that he was being sweetened and it amused him. "I want something in a nice village around this area," he said. "Quiet. Detatched. I've no idea what that would cost - "
"Decent house in a nice village? Then I think we're talking up to half a million," said the night clerk. "Or much more. It depends where and how big."
"What? I don`t want a bloody mansion!"
"Villages are exclusive. Prices have gone up in the last few years."
"You`re telling me. Good god. I'll have to clear this with Travers."
"Mr. Travers has already told us that whatever you want you get, Mr. Giles. We'll take care of it. Was there anything more?"
They were lounging on colourful rugs on the lawn in his beautiful garden, laughing and chatting and drinking from crystal glasses that glittered in the warm sunlight. Olivia was smiling. A blackbird flew across to the bronze sundial and settled on the unicorn gnomon. A small breeze made the roses tremble.
"Mr. Giles?"
Willow reached across a prone Xander and handed Buffy a plate holding a thick slice of cake. Spike leaned back on his elbows and raised his face to the sun, jigging one bare foot to a beat only he could hear and talking lazily with Tara and Dawn.
"Mr. Giles, sir?"
Anya poured cream over glistening strawberries - Rupert blinked. "I need at least, ah, five double bedrooms and a good-sized garden."
"Certainly."
"That's all, I think."
"Very good. Good bye, sir."
Oh god, it was all so mundane. Rupert looked again at his luggage and felt his headache return. Quentin would be arriving this afternoon and would need to talk but for now Rupert didn`t want to think of anything except aspirin. He upturned his hold-all and emptied it onto the floor, searching for pills and toothbrush.
Suddenly he stopped and addressed the carpet. "Spike? What the bloody hell was he doing in my fantasy?"
*
After breakfast Rupert took advantage of the clear weather and re-acquainted himself with the enormous old building and its grounds. Armed with a couple of apples he made a slow circuit of the exterior, looking at the architecture and remembering this oddly unsettling stained-glass window or that particular flight of slippery stone steps leading down to a mouldy door that was always locked.
It had rained during the night and the grass was wet. He wandered out onto the close-cut lawn and watched the toes of his shoes darken. When he looked back at the house he realised with surprise that he had forgotten all about the gargoyles. They were placed at regular intervals around the edge of the roof and scattered randomly between the chimneys and he knew why they were there: their reputation for scaring away evil spirits wasn't simply a myth. His old favourite lived on this side, an ugly little monstrosity of a thing that clung upside-down to the wall like a vile lizard, leering out at the distant hills. He spotted it and gave it a friendly nod.
The lawn ran down a gentle slope to thick woods. There the land fell away into a narrow tree-covered valley and Rupert knew that deep down in those woods, where it was always gloomy and damp moss grew everywhere, there was a stone circle beside a stream. There was an ancient pathway, used so often in the unknown past that it was now a permanent depression in the ground. Leading from the stone circle, this path wound through the trees along the valley floor, vanishing in places until it reached a slippery rocky area where stood the most unpleasantly curious statue Rupert had ever seen. No-one knew what it depicted; time had reduced it to a puzzle. It had been enormous once and had stood there for a very long time. Rupert couldn't explain why but he had always been convinced that it was a statue of a demon.
He left the lawn and settled himself on a stone bench. Eating his second apple, he looked over the trees to the hills beyond and let himself drift into the past.
He didn't have many pleasant memories of the time he'd spent with the Council before leaving for California to meet Buffy. He realised that the best years of his life had happened in Sunnydale and when he considered what those times had been like he knew he was overdue a good life.
Shaking himself, he looked down at the apple cores in his hand and decided to visit the horses.
*
After lunch Rupert telephoned Olivia. He'd told her a few weeks ago that he was returning and now he was looking forward to seeing her. Their conversation was short but warm and he asked about visiting her soon. Strangely, she was anxious to visit him instead.
"I'd really like to come to you actually, Rupert."
"Would you? Oh, well, I-I don't know when I'll have a roof for you to sleep under. I haven't seen any house details yet."
"If you haven't found a place by the time I come down couldn't I stay at Headquarters? Would they mind?"
"Well, you know all about the Council, so it'll hardly compromise their security - and I have an enormous bed. Yes, all right. When?"
"The next few weeks are sewn up. How does Christmas and New Year sound? Around the twenty-first of December?"
"It's later than I was hoping for but yes, that would be nice."
"I'll be there on the twenty-first, then."
Rupert gave her directions and they said their goodbyes. Almost immediately the phone rang. Quentin had arrived.
*
"Before you get to anything you want to say, Quentin," said Rupert pointedly. "You`re going to tell me one thing."
They were in Quentin`s office, a pleasantly old-fashioned cosy affair with deep leather armchairs and book-filled mahogany shelves around the walls.
"Why did you give us all that nonsense when you knew we were up against a Hell-God? That group you had with you were so far up themselves they were practically doing backbends."
Quentin sighed. "Because we thought we couldn`t help you with her. We know now that we could have done quite a lot to help keep the Key safe but we didn't know of her existence at the time, did we Rupert?"
Rupert frowned and opened his mouth but Quentin held up a hand. "Hear me out. I understand why you didn't mention her. I simply want you to know the shape of our thinking at the time. As far as we knew we couldn`t help. There was no research we could do, no spells we could give and you already had some talented friends to help you. The two witches alone were worth any twenty people we could have given you. Of course, you could have lost the battle anyway, but that's beside the point. What mattered was that everyone needed to be doing their utmost. We knew you'd do whatever you could, whatever was necessary, but Buffy -"
"Oh my god," Rupert let his head fall against the back of the chair. "Oh my god. It was a test, wasn't it - but not the one we thought it was. You were pushing to see how she`d take control. If she`d take control."
Quentin nodded. "When we arrived she wasn't in control. When we left she was, and looking stronger for it. She did it quite beautifully, too. I was impressed. Our work was done." He chuckled. "I'd told the others to be as pushy as they could. Nigel didn`t have to try very hard. A very supercilious man, that one, needs taking down a peg or two.
"We had to push her, Rupert. We were very nervous. We weren't sure what Glory's intentions were but we felt - our psychics somehow knew - that if Buffy didn't step up and fully utilise her power we'd all be lost without a whimper. All of us. Everything. When we discovered what you were up against we were shocked but we knew that of all the people it could have happened to, you and Buffy stood the best chance of winning." He took a sip of his wine and glanced at Rupert. "And her friends, of course."
Rupert looked away into the past and winced as he recalled how that adventure had ended. He sighed. "Yes, you tested them too, didn't you? They were a great help. Friends fit for a Slayer. They`ve paid a lot for that friendship."
Quentin pursed his lips. "And Spike?"
Rupert hesitated, remembered Dawn shouting, forcing a devastated vampire to eat. "He paid too."
"I'm going to need more on that one, Rupert. The call you made here after Buffy died was garbled enough and I know you were distraught at the time - but it gave me the willies, I can tell you."
"You`ll get more, don`t worry. He`s still a puzzle to me. I - I`m still trying to work it out." Rupert shook his head. "Don`t know if I ever will."
Quentin drained his glass."He`s a puzzle to all of us. You won`t believe the ripples this is causing. There are some who are all for simply going over there and killing him, chip or not. They seem highly offended by the thought of an unsouled vampire in love with the Slayer and I`ve had a bit of trouble holding them back."
Rupert looked puzzled. "What do you mean you had trouble holding them - you don't want them to kill a - "
"You and your Slayer have taught me caution, Rupert." Quentin frowned. "Plus, I have had a recent wake-up call. Nothing is black and white anymore. But until I know what`s what concerning him I really have nothing concrete to say to the lynch-mob. They are very passionate about this."
Suddenly furious, Rupert spoke through thin lips. "Tell them this, then. For the sake of the Slayer's family Spike withstood a torture session that would have had any one of those bastards singing like birds."
Quentin's eyebrows shot up. "I will," he said, surprised at Rupert's venom. He looked at him for a moment, then slapped his knees and stood up. "Well, this is really just a courtesy call. Check your ears, look at your teeth, tell you what we need. I needn't say I want a report from you? Well, I need Spike`s story yesterday. As for the rest of it, there's no particular rush. I`m sure overall it will be a large report?"
Rupert laughed grimly. "Think Encyclopaedia Britannica."
"Well, take your time. I have to shoot back to London but I`ll be popping in often. Give me a call when you have some of it written up."
Rupert stood up and they shook hands. "Goodbye, Quentin."
At the door Quentin hesitated. "Buffy - "
Rupert looked at him sharply.
"How is she?" asked Quentin.
It was a loaded question and Rupert thought carefully. "She`s - still Buffy. She`s sad to be back when she`d thought it was all over but she`s also glad because she has Dawn and the rest of them again. She's still the Slayer. She`s Buffy. That`s all I need to know."
Quentin nodded. "Strange business. And you, Rupert. Why have you come back? You told me you were coming but you never explained why."
That one was sadly easy. "She doesn`t need me any more."
*
Willow: "I miss Giles."
Buffy: "Yeah. It`s like my father's gone away all over again. Not need him? How can I not need him? I don't get it. It`s hard."
Willow: "Poor Buffy. He said he`ll visit us, though. That`s good, isn`t it? That`s a happy thing?"
Buffy: "Yeah. Then when he goes back I'll miss him all over again."
Willow: "It`ll get better. It has to. Do you think he`s happy?"
Buffy: " I don`t know." Pause. "You know, looking back, it`s like he never really found his - found himself. Found the thing that he was."
Willow: "What do you mean?"
Buffy: "It was never…I mean, he could be so much more than a Watcher. It`s obvious now. Watching never really fitted him. Or, it fitted him at first but after a while it didn't. He was damned good, I`ll grant that. I`d have been dead a lot sooner if he wasn`t. He`s just….I dunno. I don't know what he's gonna be. He`s more than a Watcher."
Willow: "The way you`re more than a Slayer now? Slayer plus?"
Buffy: "I think we`ve both outgrown our original roles. Watchers always seem to be on the outside, you know? They're not - they're not part of the magic. I mean, it is magic isn't it, this thing I am? It's sure as shit not natural. But Watchers seem to be just regular people who get, ah, recruited. Or they follow mum and dad's footsteps. I think Giles is going to end up on the inside, somehow. He's gonna be somewhere in the middle of it all, connected. Maybe in charge in some way."
Willow: "In charge? He was in charge in the Magic Box but that's not what you mean, is it?"
Buffy: "Yeah, the shop. His training-room. No, he needs a bigger one now."
Willow: "The Council?"
Pause.
Buffy: "That would be funny."
