What happened? How had he gotten here? Giles vaguely remembered being at home, waiting for Anya. What was he doing here, with his guitar in his hands? He looked around to find familiar surroundings. Of course! It was that coffee shop in Chelsea, the one where he'd met Olivia. He hadn't been back in years, not since before he first went to America. Strange, it hadn't changed at all since then. Still the same stage he used to sing from, the same furnishings as when she introduced herself by showing him the sketches she'd made of him while he was performing. Even the faces of the help and the audience looked familiar. But when he looked again, they began to change. The eyes took on a reddish glow. The teeth grew into fangs, the hands into talons. Demons! They rose up from the tables and chairs and began advancing on him. He looked behind him and the stage had disappeared, the whole room had evaporated. All around him was a bleak, rocky plain, the only thing on it a great black building with darkened windows. He raced for it, hearing the screeching of his pursuers close behind. He flew through the open door, slamming and locking it behind him.
His back braced against the door as he prepared for an assault, Giles found himself in an immense empty room. "Good Lord, what have I gotten into?" he thought, then realized that the noise outside had ceased. Looking through a window, all he could see was an empty plain. No more demons.
But when he turned back around, the huge room was gone. Instead a long corridor stretched in front of him, with a multitude of doors on either side. It seemed to go on without end, and he wondered whether it might be better to go back outside. Then he heard it. The music. It was a theme from Brahms, played on the piano in a way he'd heard it a thousand times by... but how could that be? He walked cautiously down the hallway, listening at each door until he could tell where the sound was coming from. When he found the room, he entered and knew he was right.
This was a room that he knew would never change. It looked the same when he went to visit just last Christmas as it had when he was a child. The long shelves filled with books, the table where the research materials were laid out, the piano in the corner. The piano! No one was sitting there. Where had the music...?
"I stopped playing when I heard you coming."
It was him. He hadn't changed either. It always seemed to Giles that he never changed. When he saw him a few months back he'd noticed that his hair was completely white now, but nothing else seemed different.
"Father, what am I doing here? What are we doing here?"
Giles Sr. spoke kindly. "This is the place for us, Rupert. Where else would we be?"
"What place? I don't understand."
"The place for failures, son. We failed, both of us."
"Failed? Failed at what?"
"I failed by making you become a Watcher. Family tradition and all that. You didn't want it, but I insisted. I'm sorry, Rupert. I can see it now. Your failure is my failure, too."
"I haven't failed."
"Haven't you? You've fought evil, killed vampires and demons, but what's really changed? Evil still exists, it returns over and over. There are always more demons, more vampires. The battle is futile, we should accept that. Instead, we break our hearts over a fight we can never win. I don't want that for you anymore, son, it hurts me to see it put you in so much pain. Don't you see that?"
Giles felt stunned. "I... I've never heard you talk like this before."
"I should have done it long ago. When you dropped out of Oxford, I should have let you go. It's too late now, too late..."
He walked out through the far doorway. Giles followed, but he was gone. He was out in the long corridor again, but it was different now: Smaller, dingier, yet somehow familiar. He could hear music again, more well remembered chords, this time a spacey guitar, coming through an open door:
[So, so you think you can tell/Heaven from Hell/Blue skies from pain/Can you tell a green field/From a cold steel rail/A smile from a veil/Do you think you can tell?]
Everything was just as he remembered it: The gray cinderblock walls, the never-made bed, the perpetual pile of unwashed dishes in the sink. And in the corner, the terrible shrine to Eyghon, the one where they'd...
[How I wish/How I wish you were here/We're two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl/Year after year]
"So, old man, are you glad to be home?"
He knew that voice, and it filled him with cold rage. "This was never home, Ethan. This was just a place I ran away to."
"Oh, come now, Ripper, that's not true. This was your real home. You were more yourself here than anywhere else. Both of us were."
"This is where we killed a man!"
"Randall? He knew the risks. We all did. Eyghon took him and that was that. No point in feeling guilty. All you have to do is accept it. I have."
"Yes. And look where it's gotten you!"
"We're both here, old man. How do you account for that?"
"I... I can't. But I don't have to stay here."
[Running over the same old ground/What have we found/The same old fears/Wish you were here]
"Suit yourself, Rupert. Run back to your books, the way you always did. You'll find them across the hall.
I'll stay here and tidy up a bit until you get back. Be seeing you."
Giles walked through the open door that led to the long rows of bookcases. Wandering through the stacks, again there came the sense of familiarity, and before he reached the end, he knew what he would find there: The short stairway and, at the bottom of it, the Sunnydale High library. The surprise was the woman waiting for him.
"I wonder why I never came here before. It's nice here. Quiet. No wonder my daughter spent more time here than at home."
"Joyce, I wasn't trying to take her away from you. I had the best intentions..."
"I understand that. I understand a lot of things now. Good intentions, we know where those lead, don't we?"
"She misses you. Terribly."
"And I miss her. But I don't blame you. I would have died anyway. You were doing everything you were supposed to do. But did it help me? Or her? Or you? I was alone at the end. Just like she's alone now. We're always alone when the worst happens. You remember what that's like."
"Remember?"
"Just go up those stairs."
Giles turned to look, and the stairs had changed. They were no longer the library stairs. On each step was a glass with a candle burning in it. He could smell the aroma of the rose petals and hear the music, Puccini's La Boheme. His throat tightened at the thought of what he knew was upstairs. A new voice stopped him.
"Rupert, don't go up there. You don't have to see it again."
He couldn't turn. He couldn't look at her. She came to stand in front of him, looking solemnly up at him.
"Jenny... I'm sorry... I loved you... "
"And I loved you. But that didn't change anything. What happened to me wasn't your fault. You were doing the best you could do. But that didn't change anything. I would have been murdered anyway. Don't you see? Nothing we do can change anything. All you have to do is accept that. That's what this place is all about."
"Then I can't stay here. I can't accept it. There has to be a way out!"
"You can't leave, Rupert. This place was made for you. Everything you were, everything you are, is here. You can't escape from it anymore than you can escape from yourself."
"No. There has to be a way." He pushed past her and out the door. Rushing out the corridor, he looked for a familiar door. And found one, white with 1630 on it. His hand shook as he took hold of the knob and turned it. He found himself in the Summers living room. A wave of dread washed through him at what she'd say. There she was, standing in the kitchen doorway. She looked small and worn.
"I thought you left. I thought you weren't coming back."
"I know you're not real. I know you're just a demon's illusion."
"I'm real enough. I'm what you expect."
"No, you're what I fear."
"Isn't fear real? It is here."
"You mustn't give up."
"Mustn't I? Didn't you give up on me?"
"No. You know I didn't. I could never give up on you."
"You should leave now. You were right. You can't help me anymore than I can help you."
Buffy retreated back through the kitchen door. His legs heavy and unsteady, he followed, even though he knew she wouldn't be there.