A/N: Not going to disclaimer, of course I don't own Buffy. The only thing I own is the original stuff I've come up with for this fic.
So I'm now up to Season 6 (literally just finished 5 and it destroyed me.) and I have SO many ideas. I might do some drabbles alongside this when things are a bit more developed.

Thank you for the favourites and follows and reviews so far! I hope you continue to enjoy!

"I suppose you have questions?" Giles said sitting down opposite her and handing her a glass of gin.

"What did they give him?" Maria asked and it wasn't the question Giles was expecting. He leaned forward to put his glass on the table and took his glasses off to clean them. They weren't dirty but he needed something to do with his hands, something to help him recalibrate the way he'd thought this conversation was going to go.

"Normal vampires don't, they don't react like that. Not from what I read. And how long has this been happening? He was so happy to die. So happy it was finally over." Tears started to shine in her eyes and Giles returned his glasses to his face. "I'm supposed to be smart, if I'd just paid more attention. I could have helped him. God I could have done something. I could have-"

"I-I don't think there's anything you could have done." Giles replied.

After some deliberation he'd run Maria a bath so she could soak the aches away. He hadn't been sure what else to do, and she'd been so numb and compliant after her outburst at the car that it had seemed like the right, the only thing, to really do. It turned out he was correct.

He'd had to help put the shirt on her, she'd shouted him, voice hoarse and still slightly shaky. She'd asked him, towel held together in front of her so tightly that her knuckles were turning slightly white, if he'd do the buttons up. Her cheeks had been slightly pink, and he couldn't tell if it was residual heat from the bath or embarrassment.

"Of course, I could, I could have helped find a way round it." Maria replied, gripping the cup hard, her gaze moving to the liquid at it's centre. She seemed to have worked through a few things in the bath, come out of it less catatonic, more curious. He was surprised given that she'd only been up there a couple of hours, but he imagined a couple of hours stuck in the confines of your own mind, with nothing but questions, could feel like a lot longer. Time was a funny thing when it came to shock and grief.

"Let's say you could. Let's say you found out earlier, what would you have done? He wasn't turned because he got attacked on the way home from work Maria. The mob would have caught up with him eventually and I can't see how you could have stopped that." Giles pointed out.

"I-" Maria started.

Giles raised a brow at her, and Maria conceded looking down at her drink.

"I think, if I'm being honest, that you're thinking about this the wrong way. This wasn't simple, a vampire didn't attack him, and he didn't panic about what to do. He was turned, he was used. He borrowed money from the wrong people and they, as they often do, caught up with him. You saw him, he was feral, Maria. I've never seen anything quite like that, even in werewolves." Giles said.

"Werewolves?" Maria asked. "You've seen an actual werewolf?" Maria's eyes lit up with excitement and curiosity and Giles smiled at her. It was good to see that look back in her eyes, even if it was only for a moment.

"I just- I don't know how I feel. Every time I think I'm going to cry I start thinking about things and then I just get angry." The excitement disappeared, replaced with a blazing anger, her eyes glazed over, tears were shining in them but not falling.

"I moved here for him. I had a life in New York, I had friends, I had, I was-" Maria stopped herself, but Giles could feel the unsaid words on the air. There had been someone there, someone she'd cared a great deal for. "-I moved here for him. I left everything behind so I could take care of him because he told me he was sick. He told me they hadn't nailed down what it was. That he'd had tests and x-rays and he described symptoms to me and- and I did so much reading that I could probably do bloody brain surgery myself. It was all a lie, everything, and it's not even like he was protecting me because I would have been fine if he'd just moved away. I'm so angry and then I feel guilty about being angry and I keep thinking about that look on his face and how happy he was to die. I always thought he was brave, and he wasn't, he was a coward and- and- and he left me." Maria put her head into her left hand that wasn't in a sling and started to cry again. Giles moved to hug her, but Maria held her hand up. "I'm sorry." She apologised, downing the remnants of gin in her glass and enjoying the slow burn of the alcohol as it moved down her throat.

"You don't have to apologise." Giles smiled gently at her.

"I can't believe I dragged you into this." She said rubbing her forehead and hissing as she caught the bruise.

"I would have been sooner or later anyway." Giles pointed out, because he would have via Buffy.

"I didn't think of that, but I suppose you would-" Maria's expression glazed over for a moment and Giles wished he could see inside her head again. He had no idea what she needed, what would make her feel better. This wasn't simple. Her father hadn't just simply been killed, there was so much more that this was wrapped up in and he had no idea what she was going to ask next. He had no idea what she was going to feel next and he didn't think she did either, which made this all worse.

"I suppose you feel betrayed?" He asked, he had to know. He had to know if she thought he'd betrayed her by not telling her the truth about him. About this world, when she'd clearly shown interest.

"Yes." Maria swallowed and Giles felt his heart sink. "I can't believe he just let me live in that house knowing what might happen, knowing they might come for me." Maria vented, eyes blazing again. "He knew what might happen and he never even thought to tell me, never thought to warn me. Even if they hadn't been vampires, they were still the mob."

"A-actually I meant-" Giles started, and Maria looked up at him confused for a moment before it dawned on her.

"Oh- oh you mean you. No, no Rupert why would I? Did you lie to me?" She asked him.

"No, well, there may have been a few evenings I wasn't where I said I was going to be. Mostly because I was helping Buffy take down one demon or another." Giles replied not meeting her eyes.

"You hardly lied to me then Rupert. You just circumnavigated the truth. You could hardly tell me about Buffy anymore than I could tell you about my suspicions about my father, no matter how much I wanted to." Maria replied and Giles heart lifted in his chest. "Besides, it was hardly any of my business." Maria added. Giles wanted it to be her business though and actually, Maria did to.

"I wanted to tell you. There were a lot of things I wanted to tell you. A few weeks ago, you were talking about a nightmare and I wanted to tell you about the time a boy in a coma made everyone's worst nightmares come true." Giles said refilling her glass and his own. Now he could tell her, there was so much he did want to tell her. The time wasn't right now, but there was so much he wanted to retroactively tell her.

"I'm sort of glad you didn't. I'd really rather not have an army of ventriloquist dummies and zombies running around." Maria frowned and Giles saw some of the old Maria there, in the smile she did into her glass.

"Actually, there was a dummy once. He was quite nice, actually. Demon hunter by all accounts." Giles said, Maria's eyes had gone wide with fear and she stared at him slightly open mouthed before she blinked a few times and spoke.

"The fact he was a demon hunter does not fill me with confidence that there aren't more ventriloquist dummies wandering around out there. That thought is terrifying, and it is going to stay with me for months." Maria closed her eyes for a moment. "Give me back only knowing of vampires."

"He was a nice- dummy." Giles said with a nod of his head and Maria laughed, before she shuddered.

"So Buffy is the slayer, and you are much more than just a librarian, which I already knew-" Maria said after a moment.

"I'm a- I'm her Watcher. It's my duty to prepare her for the fight against demonic forces. I train her, help her and test her occasionally. I'm part of- I was part of a council." The words caught in his throat and he swallowed it down with gin, but Maria had caught it.

"What happened?" She asked.

"There was a- you know it doesn't matter right now. You don't want to hear about that after everything that's gone on." Giles said, because she didn't. Her father had just died, and he was sure her questions didn't include wanting to know the ins and outs of why he'd been fired from the Watcher's Council.

"Rupert what happened? Did something happen to the council? Were you fired?" Maria asked watching his face. When he sighed, she tilted her head. "Okay, so why were you fired?"

"There's a ritual the slayer must go through-" Giles started and the words caught in his throat. He hadn't really had to talk about it out loud. Of course, he'd talked to Buffy a little. He didn't know whether it was her youth or her stoicism that had made her gloss over the finer points and harder motions, or maybe it was that she saw how sorry he was. Maybe she had seen the regret in him but whatever it was she seemed to have forgiven him.

He didn't really think she understood it completely. The decision he'd had to make, the weight of it all, but he'd done his best to explain and he'd apologised sincerely. He hoped in time, with age, that she would come to understand. The weight of that guilt, of what he'd done, still pressed at his windpipe, like hands around his neck. Giles looked up and Maria was watching him closely, waiting to listen. He wasn't sure he wanted to tell her anymore. What if she judged him harshly? Would he judge her if she didn't judge him?

"Rupert, you can tell me." Maria said softly.

"There's a ritual the slayer must go through, a test, it's called Tento Di Cruciamentum. It's barbaric and ridiculous and it shouldn't be carried out anymore, but it is. If the slayer reaches their eighteenth birthday, they must be subjected to their powers being stripped slowly and then they must face a particularly nasty vampire." Giles said and then feeling he wasn't being entirely honest added. "The watcher must keep the Slayer unaware of the test, using hypnosis to help ensure the Slayer doesn't realise she's being injected with suppressants."

"You mean you drugged her." Maria said and her expression shifted. Giles moved uncomfortably on the couch before he got up. He shouldn't have brought this up, shouldn't have mentioned it because he wasn't sure he could deal with this right now. He'd needed to speak to another adult about this for weeks though and he hadn't been able to, not properly, not someone who understood Buffy's true power, her true potential.

"Well, yes, but I had to." Giles stopped and looked at her. The bruise under her hair was turning a nasty shade of purple now and the finger marks on her chin, now she was clean, were even more prominent on her light sandy coloured skin. "The council have always-" Giles started and then stopped himself when he looked back and saw Maria watching him, he couldn't lie to her, it was on him. What he'd done to Buffy, that was on him.

"So, let me get this right, even though the Slayer proves herself over and over again. Saving the world and keeping everyone safe. This- the council expect her to prove herself, because saving the world time and again is clearly not enough." Maria pulled a face and Giles smiled at her. He felt the tiniest bit of relief spread through his chest that she wasn't judging him too harshly.

"That's about the measure of it." Giles said.

"And you went along with it?" Maria asked him, the relief stopped in its tracks. Giles moved to take his glasses off again for something to do and then stopped himself.

"Reluctantly but I did. Things went wrong though. Buffy's mother ended up involved and I stepped in to help and-"

"I never even thought about her parents. What did they say about all this? I can't imagine they were very happy with you drugging their daughter, putting her in danger like that." Maria interrupted. The words came out more tartly than she'd intended but she wasn't going to apologise for them. From the sounds of it that wasn't what Giles was looking for or needed. He clearly knew he'd done the wrong thing. He didn't need anyone trying to mollycoddle him over it after the fact.

"I don't think Buffy ever talked it over with Joyce and Buffy's father is mostly absent. That's probably what led to me being fired, the test isn't just for the slayer but for her watcher too and I failed, because in their words 'I have a father's love for her.' I was fired that evening and they've sent a new watcher. Some barely out of nappies, never set a foot wrong soft boy, who doesn't really care what happens to her as long as she continues staking vampires." Giles said bitterly.

"They fired you because you love her, because you care about her?" Maria asked and her expression shifted again. The anger she'd clearly started to feel that he'd been drugging his charge, had been complicated by his admission.

"I hadn't realised it myself until then, not really. I realised too late I was doing the wrong thing which is why it took me so long to get there to help her." Giles said quietly, he placed a bottle down on the table and sat down opposite Maria.

"But you did realise what you were doing was wrong." Maria pointed out.

"I knew from the beginning it was wrong. Stripping Buffy's powers without telling her made me uneasy from the get-go. I wrote to the council, appealed the decision. I went through all the proper channels and in the end, I invalidated the test myself by telling her. It was too late though." Giles said. "Quentin told me I was fired. Apparently caring about your charge is useless to the cause."

"And you haven't stopped beating yourself up about it since?" Maria offered, she thought about it for a moment, sipping from her gin again before she spoke.

"Guilts sticky, don't you think? Tacky. People can forgive you, try to wash it away but there's always that residue. It stays and it grows, like mould. You think you're free and then all of a sudden it hits you again and it spreads out, takes over. You should have felt guilty Rupert because you drugged her, you betrayed her and if the care you feel for her is reciprocated in the way I suppose it is, given that she forgave you, that was a big betrayal. She did forgive you though and that's worth a lot. As is the fact you stuck a middle finger up at the council to protect her. Risked your life, your job and actually your home here." Giles winced at her words, even if he knew they were true they were hard to hear.

"I think you can give yourself a break Rupert, you're only human. No matter how many what ifs you come up with, it's not going to change what happened. All you can do is move forward and make sure you don't commit the same mistakes again." Maria sighed.

"I feel there's advice in there I should be sending back your way." Giles pointed out.

"I'm like Alice." Maria said with a laugh. Giles tilted his head at her. "I give very good advice, but I very seldom follow it."

"You should though, you're right on the what ifs. It doesn't change what has happened. Nothing can change that." Giles pointed out and Maria didn't answer him she just drank from her glass.

"So, were you chosen? Like Buffy was?" Maria asked him, changing the subject.

It was nice not having to explain the ins and outs of the slayer to her. She'd clearly done her research when it had come to vampires, even if she hadn't known Buffy was the Slayer, she still knew enough about the Slayer on a whole that he didn't have to go back to the beginning.

"Yes, my father had a talk with me about responsibilities because I didn't want to be a Watcher, I didn't think I could." Giles said.

"What did you want to be?" Maria asked him curiously.

"I wanted to be a fighter pilot or a grocer." Giles replied and a smile spread across Maria's face. "What?" Giles asked her. "What?" He asked her again when she continued smiling rather than replying.

"I don't know I've just got this whole story for you in my head now. Rupert Giles living in some small village surrounded by occult books. Fighter Pilot come Grocer." Maria said. "It's all very forties rather than nineties though." She admitted, omitting the fact that in this story she was there with him, rollers in her hair, kiss on the cheek. All very soft and cosy village mystery, Miss Marple-esque.

"You're making fun of me, I just shared something very personal and you're making fun." Giles replied.

"No, no I'm not." Maria said shaking her head but not managing to shake away the smile. Even if she was making fun Giles didn't mind. It was nice to see that smile again and see it touch her eyes again.

Like I said I've a lot planned out for this. I'm so excited to keep writing. I'm having so much fun and also breaking my own heart at points too...

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If you didn't enjoy, I guess this just wasn't your cup of tea but I wish you happy hunting for something more your taste in your fanfic days!