CHAPTER TWENTY: ETHAN (II)
Monday: 6pm
12th January 1998
California: Sunnydale
Giles and Ethan stared at each other uncomfortably. Giles finally broke the silence by standing up and moving to the kitchen. He got out two glasses and a bottle of Scotch, sitting it on the table in front of him.
"You seem rather taken with her," Giles commented, pouring them both a glass. He handed the glass to Ethan who took it gratefully.
"I am. Have been since I met the girl," Ethan replied.
"It shows."
Ethan nodded, knowing that Beth had changed his life. He couldn't imagine the type of person he would be if she hadn't have come into his life. He knew that he would have ended up miserable if her hadn't have met her.
"She's hard not to like," Ethan said.
Giles gave a little laugh and nodded. He had always been taught that becoming attached to your Slayer would be detrimental to being a Watcher. He had found it to be incredibly useful. It motivated him to get things right the first time so that Beth would be safe.
"She does tend to grow on you," he admitted.
Ethan scoffed and downed his glass in one gulp. "Admit it, you were enamoured the second you bloody met her."
"Well…yes, I rather was."
Ethan grinned and refilled his glass. "I think Quentin bloody Travers is about the only one who didn't fall in love with the girl on first sight."
Giles' gaze narrowed. "Is it true what they say about him? About what he did to Beth?"
"If you mean the beatings and the punishments? Yes. It's true," Ethan said sadly.
Giles fumed, and Ethan silently agreed. It had been a long time since Beth had been terrorised by Travers, but the memory was still there for both Beth and Ethan.
"You've seen her back I take it," Ethan said.
Giles nodded. "Part of it. She fairly jumped away from me when I went to have another look. I asked her who'd done it, but she refused to answer. Looked herself in her room for the afternoon if I recall correctly."
"She's…she's strong, my Buffy," Ethan said. "But she hated Travers. I think the poor girl was frightened terribly by him."
Giles frowned and downed his own glass of Scotch, drinking only half of it. He swirled the remaining half around the glass.
"Is that why…"
"Why what?" Ethan asked.
"When she first became the Slayer…she…she wouldn't let me touch her," Giles said.
Ethan narrowed his eyes, glaring at the Watcher. "What were you trying to touch her for?"
Giles rolled his eyes. "Not like that," he snapped. "When she was injured. She wouldn't let me help her unless it was a wound on her arms. Anywhere that she had to take her shirt off, she wouldn't let me even look at it, no matter how serious."
"She hasn't had a lot of luck with men I'm afraid," Ethan said sadly.
"Did Travers-"
"No," Ethan replied, understanding what Giles was implying. "He didn't. One of the trainers tried to. For weeks she couldn't stand being alone with anyone with a-"
"Yes, I get the point," Giles said, cutting him off. "That's probably why she jumped away from me when I tried to look at her wounds. I just assumed she didn't trust me."
"Not you. Men in general," Ethan explained. "She seems to be alright now though."
Giles nodded. "I'd say so. She formed a fairly solid friendship with a priest in Ireland, I think he helped her tremendously."
"Father Pat?" Ethan asked.
"How do you know about him?" Giles asked.
Ethan pulled out a bundle of letters from him coat pocket and spread them over the table.
"A years worth of letters," Ethan replied.
Giles picked up the letters and scanned over them. It was Beth's handwriting, he recognised it quite easily. He read over some of the words, unable to believe how open she was with Ethan.
"She thinks the world of you Ripp," Ethan said softly.
Giles looked up in surprise. "Really?"
Ethan just nodded. "When you turned out to be nothing like Travers…and when she realised that she could trust you not to betray her…she loves you."
Giles looked down at the letters again and saw his name in the middle of the page.
Giles has been really great lately. He's pretty much the only one I can talk to, cos I can't speak Russian. Stupid Russian language. I think I'm driving him nuts, but he tries not to show it. I just wish there were more English speaking people here so I wouldn't bug him so much. (Oh, remind me to tell you about Dimitri!!) I'd hate for him to end up hating me. You'd probably like him Ethan. He kinda reminds me of you a bit.
"I had no idea that she felt like that," Giles commented.
"She's been pretty lonely. Slaying's a hard thing to do. And Buffy's someone who needs others near her," Ethan explained. "She needs a reason to keep fighting the good fight."
"I never thought I'd see the day when Ethan Rayne was advocating someone fighting for the forces of goodness," Giles said.
Ethan smirked and folded the letters back up, putting them safely back in his pocket.
"I'm fairly certain that Buffy could charm the devil himself if she put her mind to it," Ethan said proudly.
Giles nodded and sat back in his chair, finishing his drink. He went to pour another but thought better of it. He had noticed that Beth didn't like him drinking and would be jumpy around him on any night that she found him with alcohol around him.
"Is what you said about her mum true?" Giles asked.
Ethan nodded. "I wouldn't lie to her, especially not about something like this."
"How did you find out?" Giles asked.
"I have to admit I never really thought about her parents before," Ethan said. "But when I heard that you were being relocated to California, it made me think about her real family. Her dad was killed in the car accident, and her mum went into a coma for about a week."
"And meanwhile, little daughter Beth is being kidnapped by sorcerers working for the Council," Giles said angrily.
"Look, you can blame me all you want, but no matter which way you look at it, Buffy Summers was going to end up as the Slayer, no matter what I did," Ethan protested. "She told me as much when she was eleven years old."
Giles sighed, knowing that it wasn't technically Ethan's fault that he had been following orders. He had probably been very handsomely rewarded for it.
"So…what do you know about her mum?" Giles asked.
"Not a lot. I could only get so much out of the old hospital records. She was checked in as J.A Summers. Chances are that her middle name is Anne, seeing as that's Buffy's as well. But the J could stand for just about anything," Ethan said.
"Did you find an address?" Giles asked.
"I did. And yes, I've checked it out. She no longer lives there. I asked the couple who live there now, and they just told me that she had moved away from LA to start over," Ethan explained. "And for all we know, she could have bloody been married again."
Giles sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Would the Council have records of Beth's parents?" Giles asked.
"Probably. But I'm not exactly on the Council's 'most favourite' list," Ethan said.
"No. Nor am I."
"But…you're a Watcher," Ethan said.
"I'm a Watcher to a Slayer that Quentin Travers described as rebellious and headstrong. He estimated that she would only live for three months before the next Slayer was called," Giles explained.
Ethan glowered and stood up, beginning to pace.
"I never understood what that pillock had against her. Ever since she was a tiny squirt, he's had it in for her," Ethan said.
"I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised with her abilities," Giles said. "I had expected her to be incompetent from the way Travers was going on."
"One thing I've learnt about Travers is that the words 'heartless bastard' fall short when trying to describe him," Ethan said.
Giles and Ethan sat in thoughtful silence until Giles had one horrifying thought.
"What happens if her mum doesn't want the girl back in her life?" Giles asked.
"Are you kidding?" Ethan asked incredulously. "If that girl was my daughter, I'd fight tooth and nail to try and get her back."
Giles pondered Ethan's statement for a moment.
"Here's a thought," Giles said. "If you were a parent, and your only child went missing…what would be the first thing you would do?"
"Besides go completely insane for a few hours straight? Report it," Ethan said.
"Exactly. Which means that her mum would have reported it," Giles explained.
"Would the case still be open? It's been over a decade," Ethan said.
"I don't think they ever close those cases," Giles replied.
Ethan thought about that for a moment.
"So, chances are, we'll be able to track her through police records," he said.
"If we can get our hands on the records without alerting the police. The Council must know that Beth's mum is still alive. Travers seemed reluctant to send us to California in the first place, which makes me think that Beth's mum might still be in LA," Giles said. "He expressly forbid us to go to there."
"And you Ripp? You're meant to be following their rules," Ethan said. "Are you gonna keep Buffy from seeing her mum when we find her."
Giles shook his head. "If there's anything I've learned about Beth, once she's found out about something and put her mind to doing it, there's no stopping her. Like it or not, her mum's gonna get the shock of her life."
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Beth found herself outside of Faith's motel, her hands still shaking. She'd completely by-passed all of the cemeteries, not feeling fit to be out slaying. She stood nervously and eventually knocked on Faith's door. Faith answered and took one look at her friend before grabbing Beth's shaking hands and pulling her inside.
Without a word, Beth let her tears flow while Faith just sat her down on the bed and held her as she cried.