TITLE: Learning Curve
AUTHOR: Blue Shoe 22
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: General for all of Buffy up to 'The Gift' and maybe some for first and second season Angel.
SUMMARY: After his return form Pylea and the news of Buffy's death Gunn witnesses the reactions of those around him and he has to wonder – who is Buffy?
CHAPTER TWO
The Watcher
Buffy?
Well, I didn't know her particularly well. I was only her Watcher for a short period of time. We didn't get along exceptionally well; I thought she was rude and stubborn and far too flippant concerning her destiny, she considered me a rookie (rightly so I suppose) and she and Faith both hated me.
What you have to understand Gunn, is that I've changed a great deal since leaving Sunnydale. Being sacked by the Watcher's Council and working for Angel – I am essentially a completely different man.
What was I like? Well I think the best way to sum it up would be 'a bloody pillock' as Mr Giles so charmingly phrased it. I was an amateur, hadn't even seen a vampire until my arrival in Sunnydale. Buffy was already wary of the Watcher's Council after her Cruciatium and resented me for replacing her Watcher who I believe was very like a father to her.
Well, no. I was a prat, a stickler for the rules. I had to have everything done by the book. Buffy had made a name for herself by then for being a very unconventional Slayer. It was foolish of me to believe I could just arrive and whip her into shape and make her the perfect Slayer.
Just before I left she rejected the Watcher's Council and their rules and regulations entirely, become, for all intents and purposes, a rogue Slayer. I suppose, now that I think about it, she could have just given up – stopped slaying altogether – but I don't believe it ever occurred to her. She and her friends continued fighting evil, protecting the Hellmouth, saving lives.
For her, every battle was personal. Her friends and such, who at the time I considered a liability, added to her determination to protect the innocents. She was unflinchingly loyal and even in the most impossible situations never gave up hope. She saved the world from the ascension. She hated me and I owe her my life.
I think what I'm attempting to say is that Buffy Summers was a hero in the truest sense of the word. More so that Angel I believe, although I don't mean to belittle his own services to humanity, because she was not motivated by guilt or remorse but only by her desire to protect those around her and, although I hate to sound cliché, make the world a better place. Sometimes I think, that were it not for her this planet would not exist at this present time.
Yes. I-I think I shall make myself a cup of tea.