For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1
Chapter 33: Before the Show
(Giles's POV)
Travers will be arriving tomorrow with Kralik and that means that the charade is about to go into full swing. It's strange to be back in my old place but for the next couple of days we'll have to be very careful. Joyce and the girls know something is going on, of course, and I can tell that they are all more than a little curious but right now I don't dare answer any of their questions. There's too much at stake and the less they know, the less likely they are to say or do something that could possibly make matters worse... something that could possibly let Travers know that I'm no longer the puppet he believes me to be.
I know I can trust them, all three of them, that is not the issue but the problem is that I also know how Travers thinks better than they do. He is a suspicious bastard who always has a hidden agenda on top of a hidden agenda and the truth is that as much as I trust my girls the fact remains that they are just girls. Vampires and demons they can handle but I fear they would be totally out of their depth if I were to try and bring them into the power games that are part of life when it comes to the highest levels of the Council's structure. What we have here is nothing less than a struggle for control over the slayer line and under the circumstances I can't afford even the smallest mistake.
That means I have to make absolutely sure they and Buffy in particularstay perfectly in character through the whole thing and the only way I have to make sure that they act as they are supposed to is if they know as little as possible about what is going on. Their best defense is just to be themselves and that means that the only thing I've really told them is that, to keep the Council from having me replaced as their watcher, I've been forced to conceal the fact that I'm married to Joyce and that we are Faith's legal parents. I know it is a dangerous game for us to play but the thing is that the safest thing for them is to keep acting as themselves for the time being... and the best way to ensure that is not to tell them what is going on.
I don't like it but the stakes are too high for me to take a chance and the fact remains that while Buffy is a lovely girl, with plenty of great qualities, she is most definitely not a good liar.
Of course, Buffy is only one of my concerns, true, she is the most immediate one seeing how she is the one who is going to come under Travers's direct scrutiny but I don't want to take a chance on either Joyce or Faith making a mistake either. In fact what began as a simple stratagem intended to keep Faith safe when Buffy decided to try and set me up with her mother has grown into a fairly convoluted series of measures and countermeasures that would make Travers proud if he weren't the intended target... the only problem is that I still don't have a clue as to what the final outcome of all of this will be and I can't deny the fact that I'm deeply worried for all our sakes.
The thing is that Joyce has known ever since I proposed that there was going to be some rather unpleasant Council business that we would have to deal with around the time of Buffy's birthday but that is the only thing she knows. Luckily she trusts me and she is not exactly a big fan of the Council herself so she has been more than happy to go along with me. That has been a blessing and it's also been the one defining element that has made everything else possible. It's what enabled me to set my own plan into motion, it is what has made it possible for me to make the necessary arrangements to keep the girls safe. Without Joyce's cooperation we would really have been at Travers's mercy... and the fact is that he didn't get to head the Council by being a nice guy. He is both incredibly ruthless and incredibly powerful. The Council has been around for literally thousands of years and even though few know of its existence it has resources I seriously doubt Joyce and the girls can even begin to comprehend... and I am well aware of the fact that keeping the girls safe from those resources won't be easy.
I know Joyce doesn't like being kept in the dark about what is going on but so far she has respected the fact that even now I don't feel comfortable betraying my oaths, though I must admit that's only part of my problem. It is true that I no longer believe in the institution I am supposed to serve and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep it from hurting my girls, up to and including openly betraying those oaths if it becomes necessary, but so far it hasn't really come to that. Of course, in a way dealing with Joyce is the easy part... the girls know even less about what is going on and that is likely to turn out to be both a blessing and a curse in the next few days, especially because I suspect some ghosts from their pasts are going to come back to haunt them... and that is one aspect I know I should probably have paid more attention to back in the beginning, though it is too late for me to worry about that now.
The thing is that there are a few aspects that are likely to come into play over the next few days, perhaps too many aspects, and some of them have more to do with Buffy and Faith as girls than with Buffy and Faith as slayers. I've tried to organize things in my mind and the truth is that this whole mess has grown to be far more complicated than I ever expected it to be but still I have no regrets. The problem is that not only do I have to make sure that Buffy and Faith are safe from the Council, I also have to make sure I won't hurt them in my attempt to keep them safe in the first place and that is likely to be more difficult than I could possibly have anticipated.
I freely admit that part of that problem can be traced back to a mistake I made back when I was trying to come up with the first stages of my plan, though perhaps calling it a mistake is a bit much, seeing how it was truly unavoidable. Whatever I call it, the fact is that back in the beginning I made one key decision that right now is in danger of backfiring: I decided to keep the girls in the dark over the reasons behind the decision to adopt Faith.
The problem with that is that while Faith may be doing better right now I fear that saying anything that could possibly lead her to believe that we only adopted her to keep her safe from the Council will be a devastating blow for her. It was true that that was one of our primary reasons but it was not the only one and it has taken us this long to get her to truly believe that we do want her. That is one thing that has become increasingly apparent as she has allowed us to get past her defenses. Faith is both incredibly strong and incredibly fragile and while it is true that she will find out the whole truth soon enough, to tell her a partial truth right now would not be a good idea. I am confident that she will understand once I can tell her the whole story though I know she will be more than a little angrybut I still fear that even if she forgives me, that revelation may cost us at least some of the progress we've made so far.
The thing is that right now I'm lying on all sides. I'm lying to the Council and I'm lying to the girls when I tell them that the reason why I've moved back to my place has to do with the fact that I'm packing for when we finally move into the new house next week. To make matters worse, even though Joyce knows the real reason why I moved back is 'some sort of Council business', I haven't been able to tell the girls even that much and they are resenting the temporary separation... especially Buffy who I suspect is being painfully reminded of what happened before her parents' divorce. She hasn't said anything about that, not openly, but she has told me about a dozen times that she doesn't want me to leave her... and on top of that she is dealing with the effects of the Cruciamentum serum in her system.
The thing is that each time Buffy tells me that she's feeling weak, each time she asks me to look into the cause of her ailment I find myself hard pressed to keep myself from telling her everything. The guilt is killing me. I hate doing this to her and yet I know it cannot be helped, not really. I wish I could spare her, but with the way things have played themselves out I felt it would be safer to wait until after the test to make my move. For months now I've been quietly setting things in motion to protect Buffy and Faith, even if right now hurting Buffy to a degree is the lesser of two evils.
The good news is that it is almost over, that once Buffy's Cruciamentum is behind us I'll finally be able to come clean to her and then there will be no more need for secrets between us... and the fact remains that, for all his scheming nature, Travers is so blinded by tradition that working around him has been surprisingly easy.
The pompous fool is so full of himself that he has totally forgotten the fact that there are actually two slayers. He is so used to thinking of the Chosen One, that not once has he even considered the implications of there being a Chosen Two. It's not just that he hasn't told me to keep Faith away from Buffy's Cruciamentum, it's that he hasn't even considered that once Buffy undergoes the test there will be no way for him to catch Faith unawares on her eighteenth birthday... not that that is going to be much of an issue if I can have my way.
We have a window of opportunity here and I intend to take full advantage of it.
