Whilst writing this chapter, which includes a confrontation between Giles and a scheming Roger Wyndam-Pryce, I happened upon a new story Lizbeth Marcs is writing in her live journal which includes a very similar scene, and is a post-Chosen Scooby reunion-bonding fic as well! And of course, it will be a million times better than anything I could write. Sigh.
Nonetheless, I will persevere. After all, Lizbeth is one of the writers who inspired me to get into the terrifying world of fanfic writing. I highly recommend you go read all her stuff (she's linked in my Favorite Authors page). In the mean time, I hope you enjoy my own latest humble scribblings. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, I appreciate it!
Rupert Giles stood at the window in his office in the new Council Building, watching the London traffic outside, and thinking about lost opportunities. He had been stunned by Willow's news from Los Angeles. Wesley, Cordelia, and Charles Gunn were dead. Angel and Spike captured and taken to a hell dimension. And an Old One was loose on the Earth, and Willow wanted him to ally with it!
He had never met Winifred Burkle, a woman Willow and Faith had described as shy, pleasant, and brilliant. A hot thread of shame ran through his heart as he recalled Angel's plea for help when she had been stricken with an unknown malady, and how he had dismissed the vampire. Willow's on the astral plane, he had said. She can't help you.
And it had been true, but Giles had not even bothered to consider other options, to offer Angel any help at all. He had been suspicious of Angel's intentions from the first moment he heard the vampire and his people had joined Wolfram and Hart, and the intelligence he had received since then had done nothing to allay his suspicions.
But now he began to wonder if he had been too quick to judgment. What if Angel had not been corrupted after all? What if ...? Ah, the two most frustrating words in the English language. He had said them to himself many times in his life, most often in the last eight years.
Rupert Giles was a man who had made many mistakes in his life. Some of them had cost lives. He wondered now if his refusal to help Angel had cost Winifred Burkle her life. He wondered if his unwillingness to risk contact with Wolfram and Hart had cost Wesley, Cordelia, and Mr. Gunn their lives. Along with who knew how many others.
He crossed over to the cabinet and poured himself a glass of scotch. The ice cubes tinkled musically as they fell into the glass, and crackled as the amber liquid covered them. He took a sip and sighed in pleasure at the dark, smoky taste, and at the warmth that seeped down his throat. Giles knew he drank too much, but his next duty certainly called for one.
Sitting down at his desk, he keyed the intercom. "Yes, sir?" his secretary's clipped, upper-crust voice came through, tinnily.
"Margaret, is Roger in the building?" He was pleasantly surprised at how calm his voice sounded.
"One moment, sir." He heard the rustling of paper as Margaret checked the day's schedule for the Deputy Head of the Watchers' Council. "Yes, sir," she said after a moment. "He is in a meeting with Mr. Macnair and some of the younger Watchers in the main conference room."
"Would you page him and ask him to come see me as soon as he's done?"
"Of course, sir." Margaret was very efficient, and Giles sometimes felt that she, more than anyone else, kept the Council up and running.
He leaned back in his chair and sipped meditatively at his scotch. The old Council's contacts in the Los Angeles area had been his primary sources of information about the goings-on at Wolfram and Hart over the past year. He had a few Slayers in southern California whose missions occasionally took them into L.A., but they were under strict orders to avoid contact with Wolfram and Hart, and they didn't make the best spies anyway.
Andrew actually had a few contacts in the city's demon underground, but they were unreliable sources at best. Not to mention the fact that the boy was prone to exaggeration and the excessive use of pop culture references - even more so than Xander and Buffy had been when they were teenagers. Andrew Wells was twenty-two, but Giles frankly despaired of ever turning him into an adult.
So he was left with only the Council's collection of paid informants and ex-intelligence types that lived in the area. He knew none of them personally, and he was beginning to wonder if they had been telling him everything they knew about Angel's tenure as head of the L.A. branch of Wolfram and Hart. He was beginning to wonder if these agents had divided loyalties.
When Giles had begun the herculean effort of reconstructing the Watchers' Council a year ago, he had sometimes envied Sisyphus his boulder and hill. He was faced with the task of locating and contacting an unknown number of Slayers across the globe, most of whom would have no idea what had happened to them. And most of the Council's employees had been killed in the First Evil's assaults, especially in the destruction of the old headquarters building.
In sheer desperation for warm bodies to fill critical positions, Giles had reached out to a number of people who had retired from active duty with the old Council. He had not only needed them for personnel reasons, but to assist him in gaining control of the Council's financial assets (though Willow's computer forensic skills had aided tremendously in this regard).
Their help had come with a price. The old guard demanded a voice in the new Council, and Giles was forced to give it to them. Their hide-bound conservatism had been a thorn in his side ever since, mostly in the person of the man he had been forced to name his deputy head of the Watchers' Council. The man who he could now hear speaking to Margaret in the outer office.
"Mr. Giles," her voice came over the intercom. "Mr. Wyndam-Pryce is here now."
"Please send him in," Giles replied. As the door opened, he stood up and came around to the front of his desk to shake hands with the man he both relied on and despised - Roger Wyndam-Pryce.
"Roger," Giles said, forcing amiability. "Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice."
"No trouble at all, Rupert," the older man replied, his voice equally filled with false friendliness. "What can I do for you?"
"Please, sit down," Giles said, gesturing toward a comfortable leather-backed chair in the corner of the office. "Can I offer you a drink?" Now that the moment had arrived, he found he was reluctant to get started. No matter what his personal feelings for Roger were, he did not relish having to tell the man his only son was dead.
"A scotch would be most welcome," Pryce replied, sitting down. Giles went to the cabinet and poured a drink for his guest. He hesitated a moment, then re-filled his own glass. Giles handed Roger the drink, then leaned against the edge of his desk and took a deep breath.
"I've just spoken with Willow in Los Angeles," he said. Pryce was aware that she had teleported there early in the morning in response to a vision she had experienced, and that the vision had involved Angel and the others in combat against hordes of demons.
"Yes?" Roger prompted him when he did not continue right away. Giles braced himself.
"I'm afraid the news is very bad," he said. "Roger, I'm sorry to have to tell you this..." Giles trailed off, then took hold of himself. "I'm afraid Wesley is dead."
Pryce said nothing, merely sipping at his scotch. His face had not changed at all.
"I am truly sorry, Roger," Giles said, allowing real grief to enter his voice. He did not offer any praise for Wesley, knowing that the older man had never accepted his son's decision to work with Angel, even before Wolfram and Hart, and did not want to hear what he would consider to be false or unearned praise. Giles spared a moment to wonder if Roger had ever considered anything Wesley had done praiseworthy.
"Is this certain?" Pryce asked after taking a few more sips.
"I'm afraid so," Giles replied. "Willow saw his body with her own eyes."
Giles thought he saw something flash through Pryce's eyes at that remark, and his face sagged ever so briefly. But the older man quickly recovered from the momentary lapse, and his face smoothed back into expressionlessness.
"I see," he said, then took a larger sip of his drink. "Thank you for telling me as soon as possible."
"If there is anything I can do, anything you need," Giles said, but stopped when Pryce waved a hand dismissively.
"What's done is done," he said, his voice steady. "My son made his choices."
Giles stared at Roger for a moment, then decided to move on. If anything, the next part of this conversation was going to be even harder. "There's more," he said. "It seems Angel was not quite so corrupted as we thought him to be." Pryce snorted, but said nothing.
"He struck hard against the Senior Partners' operations last night, crippling their power in the United States by killing a number of their high-ranking minions," Giles continued. "It was in this fight that Wesley lost his life."
Giles downed the rest of his drink. "The Senior Partners struck back, and a number of Angel's people were killed. Angel and Spike themselves were captured." He paused, waiting for a reaction from Roger. Seeing none was forthcoming, he went on.
"One of Angel's former co-workers has been possessed by an Old One. However, Willow informs me that this entity actually aided Angel in his conflict with the Senior Partners, and wishes to form a partnership with us."
"A partnership?" asked Pryce, seeming for the first time to take an interest in what Giles was saying. "To what end?"
Giles hesitated. "This Old One - Illyria was the name, Willow said - this Old One has lost much of its former strength, but remains extremely powerful by our standards. And it apparently hates the Senior Partners. Willow has offered to act as a sort of guide to this being, acclimating it to life in our world. In exchange, Illyria has agreed to assist us against Wolfram and Hart."
Giles grimaced to himself, unsure whether he should reveal what else Willow and Illyria had agreed to do. Screw it, he decided. Maybe it was the scotch, or maybe he was just sick of dancing around Pryce. "Illyria has also agreed to aid us in a rescue attempt."
"Rescue!?" Roger spluttered, his face finally showing emotion. "Rescue two vampires from a well-deserved sojourn in hell?"
"How well-deserved, I wonder?" Giles replied, icily. "It seems that Angel was on our side all along. It seems that he has dealt a powerful blow to the forces of evil. It seems that our intelligence on his intentions was wrong." Giles went on, in a voice low and lethal, "it seems your intelligence was wrong."
"My intelligence," Pryce hissed. "What are you implying?"
"Our assets in Los Angeles are all the old Council's contacts," Giles said, carefully keeping his voice even. "I'm beginning to question the accuracy of their information."
Roger suddenly smirked at him. "No doubt you wish to believe only the best of Angel. After all, your Slayer was quite fond of him, was she not? Fond of them both."
"This has nothing to do with Buffy," Giles said, coldly. "I have known Angel both with and without his soul, and though I personally cannot abide him, I know that with the soul he is a good man. He serves our cause."
"He is not a man!" Roger retorted, standing up. "He's a vampire, and he cannot help his nature. And I will not allow you to risk the lives of good men and women to rescue those worthless bloodsuckers!"
"Not allow?" Giles' voice was quiet and deadly as he also stood up straight. "Need I remind you, Roger, which one of us is head of the Council?"
"You are not above question, Rupert. Would you so casually violate our policies? Would you spit on everything the Council stands for?"
"I prefer to see it as honoring what the Council stands for, Roger." With an effort, Giles put some warmth back into his voice. "The Council has always stood for fighting evil, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. Can you not see the opportunity we have here? Wolfram and Hart are the most insidious foe we face, and we have a chance to do tremendous damage to their plans, perhaps even strike them a fatal blow!"
"I see," said Pryce, his voice thick with anger. "I see you are still a pathetic excuse for a Watcher. I see you are still your Slayer's lap-dog. I see I was right to mistrust you, right to-" He stopped short, catching himself.
"To do what, Roger?" Giles replied, angrily. "To withhold information from me? Or worse?"
Roger Wyndam-Pryce stared at him, proud and arrogant. "I will fight you on this, Rupert. I will not allow you to destroy everything we have rebuilt on some quixotic crusade." He was breathing heavily, his eyes filled with fury. "I will fight you to the last." Turning, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Giles stared after him for a moment, then went back to his chair and sat down heavily. He cursed himself for getting impatient, for getting into a power struggle with Pryce without proof of the man's falsehood. And for this? For Angel and Spike? He hadn't even been certain he was going to support Willow's plan, and now he had committed himself to it! If he backed down now, Pryce would see it as proof his lack of resolve, and begin pressing him on other matters. But if Giles was forced into a struggle for power without being fully prepared, if he lost, then the Council might revert to its old, grasping, reactionary ways.
And that would be a disaster. The Council's old methods were simply not enough to deal with the new realities. The Council would fracture, and the new Slayers would become more vulnerable to their enemies, and ripe for recruitment by various power-hungry outsiders in the supernatural world.
Giles cursed again, bitterly. There was no help for it. He had to see this through, now. And to do so, successfully, he and Willow would need help. To both accomplish the rescue mission and either avert or win a power struggle within the Council, they would need their strongest, most effective comrades. Giles chuckled sardonically to himself as the ridiculous name swam up out of his memories. They would need the Scooby Gang.
It was almost nine months now. Nine months since Buffy, Xander and Willow had parted on very bad terms. In fact, their parting had been so bitter and angry that he would have sworn at the time their friendship was ended forever. Yet now he would have to persuade them to come back together, as co-workers if not friends, and to work with himself as well, though Buffy and Xander, at least, had been almost as angry at him as they had been at each other.
Since Buffy had gone to Europe, he had received the occasional phone call or post card, and she and Dawn had both come to visit at Christmas. A cold dread seized his heart as Giles realized his decision to keep Spike's return secret was now going to come back to haunt him. Buffy would be furious with him. Still, she would want to be involved.
From Xander, Giles had gotten only impersonal progress reports from Africa. And the young man had never been a big fan of Angel and Spike even before his falling out with Buffy and Willow. Should he even ask him for help? But Xander had done extraordinary work in Africa, finding more Slayers than any other single person anywhere in the Council's employ. He had also built a network of contacts and allies that stretched all across the continent south of the Sahara. And, in fact, he had pretty much accomplished all he could in his current position. Perhaps it was time to recall him to London. Perhaps it was time to see if Xander wanted new duties.
Maybe it could work, Giles thought. Maybe they all could put aside their differences and work together.
And maybe they would all kill each other, or him.
Giles sighed in resignation. There was only one way to find out. And really, he had no other choice. He picked up the phone and began dialing. It was time to talk to his Slayer.
TBC