Chapter 12 – Burying the hatchet
AN: Hello, readers, I cannot to begin to say how sorry I am for this awfully long break - I've had a tough time, and had to sort out a lot of things, but I am now confident that I'll be able to update more often from now on.
Also, thank you so much to those who had left a review, normally I used to reply to everyone in a pm, I didn't get to it last time, also 'cause I wasn't around fanfiction much, so I only noticed some of them very late, very sorry again, I did appreciate your input though, and value every thought in your comments, so please, share your ideas and notes at any time.
"Hello, father. Happy Birthday."
There was silence for a moment, and Giles imagined his father sitting at his large walnut desk on the ground floor in the east wing of the British Museum. It would be late over there, given that his father answered the phone he judged that his secretary had long gone home.
"Thank you, Rupert," came the reply at last sounding more like it's been exhaled rather than spoken.
"Still in the office? Shouldn't you be-uh... having a party... of some sorts?" Giles asked, even to his own surprise without a single trace of mockery or anger in his voice.
His father laughed a little. "Dear me, no! I am far too old for shindigs like that. Your mother has invited a few people for dinner tomorrow, but that's as closest to any social gathering as I was willing to let her go."
"I see." Giles' stared blankly into the space in his office, feeling a sudden guilt and remorse for not having seen his mother for so long. For a second he had to fight the urge to hang up and run to the airport and fly to England to see her and to atone and ask for forgiveness – even though he knew he didn't really owe anything to neither of them.
It was as if his father had sensed his thoughts. "She's well," he said in an almost calming tone, and Giles suddenly realized that he had missed him too, had missed talking to him. He felt regret for barely knowing the man, for letting precious years stride away, for missing on those years that should have been most intense between a father and a son.
There was another brief silence, as both men were nervously waiting for the other to say something and at the same time trying to find something to say themselves.
"Ho-how are you doing?" Rupert asked finally, feeling a bit awkward. "Still at the museum as I hear. Aren't you tired of it?"
Henry laughed. "A bit, I guess."
"But not enough to quit just yet?" Giles asked with just a little edge in his voice. He didn't know why he found it so irritating that his father was still working at his age.
"Well, not just yet. The UCL has been trying to recruit me to read medieval history, apparently they have a vacancy they can't fill; but I keep refusing, although lately I think it might be a nice-eh... send-off to retirement. Still, I'd like to stay at the museum for one more year – we have some important acquisitions planned in the coming few months that I'd just like to see through before I go."
Still the same, Giles thought, but actually smiled despite himself this time – that he could understand. His father had worked for the museum for about thirty years. He had helped bringing it up to the shape it was now in, and acquisitions of some of the most notable items in the century would have to be credited to his hard, persistent and tireless efforts. It seemed only natural that he would have troubles letting go.
There was another pause on both ends.
"And?" The older Giles asked with a poorly hidden expectant curiosity in his voice, "how are things in-eh... where you are?"
Giles grinned. For a historian who could recite works like Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain by heart, when it came to current things and circumstances, Henry Giles' memory was like the one of a goldfish. "Sunnydale," Rupert said, then took a deep breath, not knowing where to start or what to say. "Well-uh, my slayer, Buffy, is-uh... almost of age now, I am preparing her, and myself, for the cruciamentum."
"Oh," Giles could almost see his father nod his head in his omniscient way. "I see. So I suppose you are busy preparing yourself," Henry said in a slightly amused, almost teasing tone that made Giles frown, but before he could say yes, his father turned more earnest: "A word of advice on that note, though: while the council's there to evaluate your performance, best keep your friend Miss Thornton out of their way."
There was a moment of silence, while Giles was processing those words. He was about to ask why, when Henry said in a much more jovial tone: "How is she? I trust she's better, colour returned to her cheeks since Christmas? I thought she looked a bit pale then... but then, I had only just met her."
Now Giles was rendered entirely speechless. "What-? How-? When did you-?... Did you two meet?" He finally uttered a question, now being completely confused and a little suspicious.
"Oh," his father said cautiously. "I thought she might have...," he mumbled, then sighed and continued in admitting: "Yes, she came to see me few days before New Year's, at the museum. She told me what happened, and was very anxious about going back, very nervous." He paused a little when his son wasn't responding. "We had a lovely chat and walked around the enlightenment room, and somewhere around the bust of Sir Joseph Banks she told me she found my company very enjoyable and hoped we would perhaps get a chance to meet again," he said meaningfully.
"Hm, interesting. And yet you can't have made that great an impression on her, since she apparently forgot all about you, or even to mention your cozy little meeting," Giles felt his anger rising in him again.
"Rupert," Henry used the most fatherly warning tone he dared to, "do not blame her. Would you really have embraced her after she had told you she had met the one person you'd been even more pissed at than her? I dare say not. If anything, it shows sound judgment on her part. She clearly knew better than bringing me up as a topic for a conversation, if she wanted to reconcile with you."
Giles snorted, then frowned, and the confusion returned. "Hang on. Ho-how do you know about the embracing and the reconciling?"
"Well, it's quite the story, you know," Henry said and Giles could picture him suppressing laughter, though he had no idea what his father meant by this. "You made it on the cover of almost every evening paper tonight... Don't worry, I'll be saving them all," he paused, then said in a way as if he was proudly slapping his son on his back, congratulating him upon an achievement, "you... you-eh... dog," he said for the lack of a better word, and felt immediately awkward. Apart from that one short talk when Rupert was sixteen and wondering about asking out a fellow watcher student Charlotte, they had never discussed girls together. This was, in that aspect, an entirely new experience.
"What?!" Giles was perplexed. "You m-... you mean to tell me tha-that the photograph's been in regular newspapers as well?!"
"Yes!" Henry squeaked enthusiastically and his laughing tone was only increasing Giles' rage. "At least in all those who mean something around here."
Oh good God, Giles exhaled inwardly. This was bad. And embarrassing. And a catastrophe. And yet the second thought that occurred to him was wondering, almost gleefully, whether Angus Stratton, his old classmate at the watchers academy who had once foreseen a boring future for him stating the only female he would ever get to see naked was the Sh'tazki demon on which they had to perform an autopsy during one of the watchers' exams, had seen the picture too. After the short second of feeling hopeful that this was the case, he went right back to being horrified, and a tad ashamed.
"Has mother seen it?" He asked gravely.
"No," Henry denied, "and I promise you I'll do anything in my power to prevent her from seeing it. She would only worry."
Giles nodded to himself in relief, then frowned a little. Worry was not the first reaction of his mother's he would expect. "Worry?" He asked.
"Yes," Henry said carefully. "She would guess, correctly as I'm afraid, that this could cause some frictions within the council."
Giles was silent for a moment, he hadn't considered this angle. "What do you mean?"
Henry sighed: "Look, I don't want you to worry either...," he paused as if pondering whether or not to share his thoughts, "...just... you should be aware that the council will now with certainty know about your liaison with the wand witch – if they hadn't until now, well, now they do."
"We looked so tiny on those pictures, how would they..." Giles murmured, more to himself than to his father, and walked out into the library where the copy of the Daily Prophet still lay behind the counter.
Henry cleared his throat awkwardly before merely saying in a quiet voice: "Your tattoo."
Giles involuntarily looked at his left sleeve, then back at the wizarding newspaper. To a stranger it wouldn't mean anything, they would only see a black tattoo on a man's bare left arm, albeit on a rather unusual spot. Those who knew him, however, knew him intimately in a way, knew his Ripper past and his physique – and that was true of a number of important council members – would recognize it without much difficulties.
"Odds are, Quentin will have seen it by now, and I wouldn't be at all certain that he saw it in a muggle newspaper first. I spoke with Edgar just a few minutes before you called; apparently your little apparition had made it into their daily paper as well. And Edgar suspects that Quentin might be maintaining rather lively contacts with the wizarding world."
Giles was starting to feel swamped with all the information his father had dropped on him in less than ten minutes.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked almost exhausted.
"We don't really know," Henry said slowly, "but as I meant before – I would highly recommend for your friend to lay low while the council's there. Of course I do not know who will be coming to conduct the cruciamentum, as I am no longer on the main board I take no part in the decisions of that sort... I am now what they call an honorable member," he said and Giles could clearly hear the bitter sarcasm in his father's voice at this point and strangely he felt a sudden warmth towards him.
"Should I-ah... should I be worried? About the exam?" The thoughts that had been bothering him for the past few weeks suddenly just slipped his lips without much reservation. He had been really worrying about the curciamentum ever since he had started to prepare himself and read all the records from older watchers that had gone through the same thing, watchers whose slayers had passed the exam, and watchers whose slayers hadn't.
There was a short pause while Henry Giles was thinking what to reply. He didn't want to dismiss his son's concerns with a wave of a hand, but he also didn't want him to spend the few coming weeks in a paralyzing trepidation.
"I-uh... don't know what to tell you, Rupert. You know I have never been in your shoes, I had only once in my life met with an actual slayer, and that was not during her exams..."
Rupert sighed a little disappointed.
"It is not going to be easy, that much is sure. But from what Miss Thornton had told me about you and your slayer I do sincerely believe that you have nothing to worry about when it comes to yours and her performance." And when his son wasn't answering, he said more firmly: "More than anything you should stay true to yourself."
Giles frowned at the cheesy, yet somehow meaningless line, and there was again a brief moment of silence between the two men.
"I always thought I'd be a bachelor for the rest of my life," Giles said, not really sure why he had begun with that particular thought. "Or rather I have never thought of it. I had always thought of myself as a watcher. I have, long before I had actually met Buffy, abhorred the idea of my Slayer's dying at some point. And now, it still scares me, it frightens me and makes me sick. But it's because of Buffy, not because of myself."
Again, he wasn't sure why was saying this to his father, but this was occupying him a lot lately, with almost a fascination he observed how he was no longer worried for himself, he no longer thought primarily of what would happen to him when Buffy were to die, where he would go and what his work would look like afterwards, he was rather more and more appalled by the sheer possibility of it; the idea that something could happen to her, Buffy, was becoming the more horrid, the scarier one, the more unimaginable. He cared.
Henry shifted a little in his chair on the other line. He felt a strange mixture of pride and apprehension. Already at Christmas, when talking to Helen, he had got the impression that his son's attachment to his slayer may have been more than what it was designed to be by the council's textbooks. But only now he became aware that this might bring him at odds with the council, or even jeopardize his position as Buffy's watcher. Nevertheless, he felt he owned his son the one advice: "Do what you believe is the right thing, not what you suppose the council would endorse."
For a moment Giles thought about what that meant, when Henry went on: "But that's enough of the gloomy talk!" He said jovially, "When will you bring Miss Thornton home for tea so your mother can meet her as well?"
Giles couldn't believe his ears, and even less could he believe that his cheeks actually got warm and he felt like an embarrassed teenage boy for a second. "Father, please, we're no longer seventeen," he murmured.
"I know. But you never really were... to us," Henry said and fell immediately silent, fearing he may have crossed some line by referring, even this distantly, to the "initial event" of their falling apart, "I'm sorry," he added quietly.
Giles actually smiled briefly. "Well, perhaps we could come visit you some time," he said to appease. "And her name is McGregor, you might want to remember that when we come," he added only half seriously, knowing how much Helen despised being called by her uncle's name.
"Yes! Yes, I remember, and I will," Henry laughed as he recalled Helen's own words during her short visit. "And that would be lovely – you coming... Who knows how long we'll be here," his father said lightly, and Giles suddenly felt anxious.
"You're not... ill, are you?" He asked
"No! Lord no, we're both fit and chipper. But when you start going to a funeral once in a month, you inevitably also start to wonder whether the next one might not be yours." Henry chuckled, but Giles again felt the strong urge to fly over right now.
"There is so much I'd like to tell you," Henry suddenly said in a voice that sounded more earnest and sincere than anything he had said before.
"About the council?" Giles asked.
"No," he replied awkwardly and furrowed his brows. Council meant nothing to him compared to his son and the time they had lost, "about... well, you, and me, your grandmother... And your mother would be... beyond happy to see you again."
There came voices from the library of Willow and Buffy, and Giles had to hang up. He promised his father to call again soon and let him know how the cruciamentum would go, but more importantly, he promised he would visit them in the summer, should his watcher duties allow him a few days off.
A content smile was on his face when he greeted the two girls. Yes, things finally began to fall back into place again.
"Oh, by the way, I talked to Angel," Buffy interrupted his bliss when she threw her bag on the large table in the middle of the library, "he might stop by, he said he knew a bit about those Diaper demons we had been trying to research."
Both Giles and Willow gave her a disapproving glare and said at the same time: "It's Daih-rah, Buffy." Buffy merely rolled her eyes in amusement.
"And good, I hope he can shed some light onto this," Giles said, "I really have enough to do right now as it is without having to spend hours researching that," at seeing Buffy his mind has trailed off to the upcoming cruciamentum.
"Really? Is something else going on we need to take care of?" Buffy asked curiously.
Giles smiled unconvincingly – he could not tell Buffy what was ahead, he himself still didn't know how he would manage to administer the muscle relaxant to her without her noticing anything. What was bothering him more - he really didn't want to do that. "N-no, nothing for you to worry about," he said and cleaned his glasses.
When he put them back on his eyes he caught sight through the round window of the library's swing door of Helen's figure, she was walking towards it. She looked a little flustered, and appeared to be deepened in thoughts, clutching a pile of books to her chest. The top button of her blouse was open, her hair was just a little more dishevelled than earlier in the morning, a few loose strings were framing her face. Suddenly she looked up as if sensing his gaze on her, and their eyes locked. He noticed her speed up at once and a wide, beautiful smile appeared on her face, she looked genuinely happy. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards as he suppressed a smug grin, believing rightly that he was the main cause of it.
Giles and the Scoobies provided her with a short introduction on what was going on and what they had currently been researching, Giles gave her one of the Latin books they still needed to go through.
"That is if Angel doesn't come up with something illuminating," he said skimming his notes on what they had found out so far.
"Angel who?" Helen raised her head from the book, looking curious.
Giles frowned when he looked at her. "Angel," he said again, thinking maybe she just didn't hear right, but when Helen's confused eyes stared at him, he exchanged questioning looks with Buffy and Willow, and when he turned back to Helen he saw the confusion on her face giving way to disbelief and ultimately – to shock.
She felt cold sweat building up on her whole body, her heartbeat quicken, her hands were shaking and she put down the book. She gulped, before she spoke. "You mean t-to tell me..."
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
"We thought you knew," Willow said, feeling miserable.
Helen got to her feet abruptly and looked from one to the other, then paused on Giles. "How-... You... And you-..." She couldn't find the right words, too many thoughts and questions were swarming in her head. "You were all here last year, right?! You do remember-"
"Ok, don't freak out," Buffy tried to calm her down, but Helen's look when she turned at her silenced her.
"How could you-?!... After everything... How is this even possible?" She directed her questions at Giles now, trying hard not to become hysterical from shock. She couldn't believe this. Admittedly, she had no idea how or why he came back, but the mere fact that they just casually threw in his name, saying he would join them, made it very hard for her: It almost felt as if they had forgotten what had happened, what the vampire had done to all of them, it was as if they had a spell cast on them and they acted as if nothing had happened, as if things were exactly the same as before Angel's curse had been lifted a year ago, as if someone had erased from their minds the last year and all the sufferings Angel had caused every single one of them.
"Let's-uh... talk in my office," Giles said and motioned towards his door, then told Buffy and Willow to continue reading.
When in his office, he calmly and patiently told Helen about Angel's come-back at first, about how he had been in exactly the same place she was now when he had found out, but that he was now more or less accepting of the situation, then he spoke of Gwendolyn Post and Angel saving Willow's life, about Faith the new slayer, and finally about cruciamentum that lay ahead. He omitted the episode with Ethan and the Band Candy.
"Oh wow," Helen raised her brows, feeling somewhat swamped with all the things that had occurred while she was gone. "I've missed a lot," she murmured to herself.
After a moment of silence when she was trying to sort out through all these news, she asked intently: "And you really trust him? Trust them both? Angel and Buffy?"
Giles came closer and leant against the desk right next to her. "With some reservations – yes." He gave a firm nod with his head. She wanted to interject something, but he continued decisively: "Buffy and we all know now much more than we did before. I trust her in that respect. They now know what's at stake."
"But-"
"The mere fact that he was brought back, by whatever force, that he survived hundreds of years in hell, came back and still was able to retain his-uh... humanity... well, it all does sound a lot like there might be some higher purpose to him, to all this," Giles said in a reasoning tone.
"But aren't you worried that they could get close again? I mean even knowing what might happen... I am not saying they would ever consciously... break the curse... but, we both know how very little is needed sometimes to...," she blushed, "get to that point without having planned so, to cross the line."
Giles looked down at her, he understood her worries, in fact he rather thought that his own relationship with Helen had made him understand Buffy and Angel a little better. And no, he would never be able to guarantee anything, at times he even felt pity for his slayer and the vampire.
He shrugged. "I don't know what more to say. I trust they have both considered all this as well, they must be aware of it, at least I believe Angel is." He paused and turned around to see where Buffy was, then lowered his voice: "He-uh... he told me he's thinking about leaving."
"Leaving Sunnydale?"
"Yes-uh, once he-uh," again he threw a stolen glance through the window in this office at Buffy and Willow, "finds a way to-uh... say goodbye."
Angel came about an hour later. Helen shivered when he approached them. It was the very same face that had looked at her from the mirror at her house a year ago and almost snapped her neck, the same face that laughed at her feeble attempt to use magic to get rid of him, the same face she had pictured so often in her head torturing Giles at the manor, with the cherry tree painting on the wall behind him. She looked around her at the others, still having difficulties to believe that they had just welcomed him back into their lives as if nothing had happened. She knew it wasn't entirely true, Giles had told her it had caused several days, even weeks of friction among some of them, they were over now though, so that to her, an outsider who just came back, it all, their calmness and casual way they treated him looked almost surreal. She eyed the vampire distrustfully, as if ready to use a protection spell on him the instance he would do a wrong move, while he was telling them all he knew about the Daih-rah demons.
"A ritual sacrifice among the Daih-rahs is bad news," Angel was saying gloomily in his familiar calm and rather quiet voice that always had this hardly perceptible annoyed edge to it when he was talking of dark or unpleasant things.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
"They are peaceful demons, of harmless nature, one of the very few kinds that isn't out here for blood of any sort."
"Except their own," Buffy murmured, but Angel looked at her reprehensively as she interrupted his line of thoughts.
"You've met with them before?" Giles asked to bring him back.
"Eh-... yes, once, shortly after...," he looked away, "... after I had been cursed by the Romani... They live very secluded, they are a breed of their own, they prefer this dimension to any other because they're left in peace here as they can easier avoid contact with anyone."
"Yes, but what do they eat here?" Xander asked.
"Peas and rhubarb," Angel replied mechanically without a pause and without looking at Xander. "Oh, and lettuce."
"Hm," Xander shurgged, "so, vegan, good for them."
"Xander," Giles said warningly.
"Shut up? Leave? Go home?" Xander asked helpfully.
"Yes. Please. At least one of those," Giles said, then turned back to the vampire. "Do you know what that ritual means? Does it sound familiar?"
Angel gave everyone a short look to prolong the suspense before answering. "In short it simply means they are moving out. The ritual that you had witnessed is for them to ensure a safe passage to another dimension. It has to be performed on a hellmouth in order for it to work."
Buffy frowned, then said lightly, "Well, that was rather anti-climactic, but good for us, we can pack the bookwork." She already got up to her feet, glad that for once they would get a free afternoon. Giles, however, was exchanging ominous looks with Angel and Helen.
"What?" Buffy asked with a tortured grimace on her face, sensing the meeting wasn't over.
"So what are you saying?" Helen asked. "That they had found a better place to live?" She was puzzled by this new piece of information, so much so that she forgot to look daggers when she spoke to Angel.
Yet from the looks on everyone's faces it was apparent that only Giles had grasped the full implications of it all.
"In a way," he said slowly, answering Helen's question, but looking at Angel and waiting for him to confirm or deny his theory. "But from what you had said about them, it rather looks like they fear that our dimension may no longer be safe for them, that something is changing here?"
Angel nodded. "They had been living a content living here for centuries, they wouldn't have reason to go actively seeking a different place, unless-"
"Unless they felt suddenly threatened by something, or someone," said Giles.
"They haven't had real enemies here, the sorts of demons that walk the Earth haven't been a threat to them, or at least not on a scale where they would feel forced to leave, they had been able to lead a comfortable existence here."
"Which brings us to the bonus question – why leave now?" Buffy said exasperated and sat down again.
"Something's coming," Angel said.
Though this information certainly had been helpful in the aspect that they now knew they had nothing to fear from the Daih-rah demons, the idea, however, that these creatures, though admittedly peaceful and harmless, but according to Angel also strong and tenacious, were fleeing the Earth for some mysterious reason made them all the more perturbed. Equally, Giles couldn't quite decide whether the research was now more or less urgent than before they had known this. It was all they could do so far. He let Buffy, Faith and Angel go, ordering the two slayers to patrol the cemetery where they had first observed the ritual, to see whether more of the Daih-rah demons would follow the path, so that they could try to ascertain how serious the situation was, whether the demons were coming to the hellmouth to leave en masse, or whether, what he was still hoping, it might have just been one single detached group of rebellious demon-teenagers, weary of their convenient life on Earth, and ready for some more adrenalin-challenging dimensions.
He hoped that the few texts they still needed to go through would perhaps offer them some explanations or examples of what could make the Daih-rah demons to leave, whether there had been a similar exodus in the past and what would have been the cause.
It was almost midnight and they had not discovered anything more than a detailed description of eleven different ways of how the Daih-rah used to prepare their lettuce, and what housings they preferred while living in this world.
"Maybe we should pack it for today," Helen said exhausted and Xander looked at her with the words I love you reflected in his eyes. He didn't wait for Giles to approve, got up, grabbed his backpack and turned expectantly to Willow.
The red haired girl was reluctant. On one hand she was tired, on the other hand frustrated, and she hated to go home without having found out something useful – despite having worked for hours it felt like they hadn't got anything done.
Giles laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. "You've done more than enough for one day," he said with a warm smile, as if he knew exactly why she had looked so miserable.
"If you say so," she said doubtfully and slowly closed the book in front of her.
"We'll find out more soon," he sounded much more optimistic than he felt. Angel's vague information alarmed him, it all sounded too much like a pending apocalypse of one sort or another, yet on the other hand he thought that if it was so there would have been many more signs everywhere, mysterious things happening, boiling lakes, cats being born with seven legs, an earthquake here and there... Since it wasn't so, he decided that it could not be all too urgent just yet. For a split of a second the idea occurred to him whether it would be possible to "arrange" the apocalypse while the council would be in Sunnydale for the cruciamentum, so that he wouldn't have to go through with it, and – if the council members survived it – they would give him and Buffy points for averting it.
On the staircase to Giles' apartment later that night Giles suddenly said to Helen: "Oh, by the way, I heard you've been seeing-uh... other men behind my back."
Helen spun around to look at him: "What?! No I haven't! How did you-?" She looked outraged.
Giles tried to put on an earnest, stern face, but he was failing. "I called my father today," he said with an impish smile.
Helen looked horrified for a moment, then asked sheepishly when they finally got inside: "Are you mad?"
"No," he said. "I was a little," he admitted while taking off her coat, "but my father had made a few good points, so-uh... I understand why you didn't tell me."
"Oh," she raised her eyebrows in surprise, then shrugged happily, "good."
"And?" She asked cautiously when they walked towards the sofa. "What did you two talk about? Could you clear the air?"
Giles paused, thinking about it. "Well, actually we didn't-uh... talk about the past, maybe that was for the best, I didn't have much time anyway... oh!" He remembered his father's warning. "He-uh... assumed that the council and in any case Quentin might have seen our picture, he most probably knows about our-uh... connection, so that it might be advisable for you to-uh... not be here when they send someone to conduct Buffy's cruciamentum."
Helen nodded thoughtfully. The idea of that slayer exam gave her shivers, not least because of its name. It just didn't seem right that a trial, designed to test a slayer's strength, tactics and reflexes, was derived from something that used to mean torture.
"It's in two weeks, so-uh...," he sighed and leaned back on the sofa, "we still have a little time to think about how we're going to handle it."
All of a sudden he looked tired and hag-ridden. She slid closer to him and laid one hand on his chest to open the buttons on his shirt. "But not tonight," she whispered in his ear.
AN: Thank you for reading, do leave a review! And hopefully until very soon again.
