Chapter 5:

Pub was here misleading. Rupert was glad he dressed down for the occasion, opting for faded jeans and a tee-shirt. His leather jacket was in his flat somewhere but he thought that might be a bit of overkill. He didn't want to look like he was trying too hard. That's exactly what he was doing, planning carefully to not appear out of place, but he didn't want it to look that way from the outside. He even wore a pair of jeans that weren't creased up the legs from a long time being folded over a hangar.

The Stomping Grounds was not a pub. At least, not in the sense of what he knew of the traditional English pub. Yes, drinks were served but it was not a bar foremost and certainly not the "little pub" Liliana brushed it off as being. He had a hard time imagining her in a place like this. He'd seen enough thrasher clubs in his youth to know when he was standing in front of one and, ladies and gentlemen, he was standing before one now - music blasting and audible from the outside while smoke poured out every time the door opened. The band hadn't started yet but they were on stage setting up their instruments. It was a small crowd as Liliana predicted but loyal fans. He looked through the glass before going in, taking stock of the situation. People were milling about, talking and drinking, small tables with stools scattered around the interior. There were cigarettes everywhere, lit and smoking and he didn't need to be inside to know it would be hard for him to breathe. Scotch would help him ignore his rasping lungs. That was the blessing he took with him as he pushed the wooden door open and stepped inside.

The sound of music and the quieter din of talk and laughter bombarded him at once. He was amazed at just how much he hadn't heard outside. The warning was not enough to prepare him for the blast of life he encountered once he was inside the club. It had been a long time since he'd stepped foot in this kind of a scene, been a part of youth and exuberance in public. Being in the Bronze used to irritate him quite a bit, assailing his ears with more noise than music. Now here he was for the sake of his sons. Roddy was easy to pick out on stage, guitar in hand talking to the others in his crew and laughing. He tried not to start while he got the first good look at his son. His hair was a darker shade than his own, a testament to Lilla's chocolate locks. He couldn't make out the eyes but the face was unmistakably his own. Rupert could trace the features of himself in the boy woven pleasingly with all the best of his mother. He was in love immediately, his heart aching that he hadn't been there to see him born and hold his hand as he grew from a boy to a man.

He turned to the bar an ordered a shot, his voice gruff with emotion. It was out of place and earned him a skeptical look but he shook his head and threw back the shot with an easy grace and apparently earned some respect with the practiced gesture. He put the glass back onto the counter and turned to look for Alistair. His eyes scanned the smoky room from one side to the other and it didn't take long for them to settle on the form of his other son.

Alistair was everything Roland was not. Everything his mother was, Rupert imagined. He carried himself well, back ramrod straight, even here in this club. He wore a casual polo and slacks and looked horribly out of place, not to mention the exact antithesis of his brother. Roddy was wearing. His eyeglasses were becoming on him. He looked more scholarly than Roddy's rebel without a cause. Then the band's lead singer took the microphone and cleared his throat. Giles eyes were immediately drawn to the stage. The boy looked over the crowd and strummed a few notes on his guitar.

"Thanks for coming out. We're Pure Poison."

With that they launched into a thrashing punk song before Rupert could blink. He turned back to the bar and ordered another drink with his head bowed. He closed his eyes and carefully picked apart the melody and the harmony and found the line of Roddy's guitar underneath the main. He was looking for it, listening to each note plucked against the pounding drums and beneath the lead singer's raspy lyrics. His son's hand was good, well practiced. He could follow the strong notes up and down in succession while he sipped at his scotch on the rocks. If he concentrated on it like this, broken down, he actually could view it as music. Too bad the lead singer was a bit flat and the drum line sounded like a child beating at the pots and pans with a wooden spoon. At least the bass was good as well, strong.

Of course the song was about anger and rebellion. What punk song was not?

He eventually turned back to the stage and watched Roddy's presence on it. He stood behind the lead singer and off to stage left by the drummer. Even in a band his son seemed shy, preferring to play without recognition. He certainly didn't do anything to draw attention to himself. And there was a strange look on his face as if he couldn't think of anything else but the music. The expression on his face was a cross between concentration and bliss. Alistair had his eyes glued and though this didn't look like the kind of music he enjoyed Rupert could see the pride on the young man's face. The young man who caught him looking in his direction. He didn't know why but Rupert turned away and picked up his glass of scotch, taking a swig from it.

When he turned around Alistair's eyes were back in the stage glued to his brother. The set took an hour, all of the songs sounding much like the last one. People danced in front of the stage, throwing themselves against one another in random moshing. One guy was pushed to the ground and slid a few inches before he shook himself off and got back up. The Watcher would never understand it, couldn't. He'd been involved in rough things but never anything as meaninglessly destructive as mosh pit dancing. When, at last, the music fell silent Rupert breathed a sigh of relief. He stood from his stool at the bar and finished off his second drink. The first hadn't dimmed the headache. The second had. He was feeling rather optimistic. He was turning into such a lightweight now.

He straightened his tee shirt and made his way toward the stage, determined to introduce himself to Roddy, first as a fan and then later as a father. Before he could get there he felt a hand on his elbow and turned to find Alistair looking seriously back at him. It was like looking at a mirror twenty five years ago. Alistair paused a moment and yanked his father behind a pole and out of view of the stage.

"I wouldn't go up there if I were you."

The young man looked at him appraisingly, dragging the confused Watcher out the front door of the pub and a small distance away, out of view of the windows.

"I know who you are." he began. "And I know why you're here."

"Do you?"

"It's not hard to figure out. Between your looks and how loopy mum's been acting since you rang, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. You're my father."

"I am." Rupert shifted, unsure of how to feel. Alistair's tone wasn't exactly friendly and it wasn't really unfriendly. He was very matter of fact, as if stating items on a list and not revealing this secret twenty five years in the making. "You're Alistair. Your brother Roland was on stage."

"I s'pose Mum told you we'd be here, did she?"

The Watcher nodded and smiled. "And told me to bring some aspirin. She thought it would be an unobtrusive way to meet you two on your terms." Then he paused. "Why didn't you want me to go speak to Roland after his show? Why have you been hiding me from him?"

He thought perhaps it was some small gesture of possession. Alistair obviously knew who he was and the Watcher suspected that maybe he simply wanted to be with his father first, to feel him out on his own without his twin around to serve as a distraction for one or the other. Or maybe Alistair wanted to protect his brother from a possibly destructive new force coming into his life. Perhaps it was an innate instinct to protect him.

"He's with his mates."

"And?" The older man was confused, his son's answer not conducive to what he was expecting.

"It'll go worse for you if you meet him with his mates. You've been absent our entire lives and if you come in now, no matter your intentions, Roland will attack. I know him. I've seen how much hurt not having a father caused him. If his friends even caught a whiff of who you are they'd pounce, too. As it is Roland would simply attack because he wouldn't know how to react and he'd want to show off for his friends. Since he fell in with that crowd he's wanted to prove just how tough he is no matter how much of a prat he has to be to do it."

"And I suppose you sank into your studies instead to avoid the questions you couldn't answer?"

His words didn't hold any judgment. Avoidance was a perfectly normal way to deal with issues that have no real answers. He'd done it himself with his own destiny and in one way or another his sons were echoing his life. Alistair, in return, only looked at him and gave his response.

"A man's got to make something of himself."

If the statement was a dagger it was intended to go straight through the heart. Rupert didn't mistake that in his son's tone or wording. The word 'man' was emphasized for effect, as if Rupert were not considered one in the boy's eyes. He gulped, knowing from the beginning that this wasn't going to be easy and that there would have to be resentment from them both to overcome. There wasn't anything he could do but take it and hope that it abated when they got to know him and understood why he was never there for them. It hadn't been by choice, not really. The liquor was helping to this effect, anyway, making the world shine a little as he stood there.

"What is it you want to be?" he asked mildly, trying to keep the talk light.

"I want to be a Watcher."

That truly took the father by surprise. He shivered in a breeze or maybe just a random chill. "Following in my footsteps?"

"No!" his son turned, pacing a few steps away. "I didn't know you were a Watcher. Not until tonight when I placed you as the man who telephoned mum about the Council."

"It's a family trade, Alistair. Your grandfather and great grandmother were Watchers. Your entire family has taken up the calling. You made the choice to be this on your own. I was told it was my destiny when I was ten years old, frightened of the man I'd become."

"I have a granddad and a grandmother?"

Of course! Rupert should have remembered; Lilla's parents were dead. She was raised by an aunt. Her mother died on assignment for the Council and her father in a traffic accident before she was born. The boys had no living grandparents now.

"No. I mean, you do, obviously, but my parents died. My father was in the Council building when it exploded and my mother followed him only a few weeks later. They're buried in Bath, in our cottage outside of the city. If you like I can take you there sometime. Its beautiful country and we have magnificent horses. I'm due for a visit myself."

"Oh." he looked disappointed. "You're loaded aren't you?"

"My family comes from wealth but I rarely think about it. I maintain my flat in London with my pay from the Council. The cottage in the country is cleaned twice a year and rarely used." He looked around. People were starting to come out of the club and Alistair began to notice they weren't alone anymore in their discussion. As if expecting Roland to appear he glanced at the door. He looked in the windows and saw the band packing up, close to being finished.

"Do you want to continue this somewhere else?" His father did, very much, and nodded. "Alright then. There's a diner up the street. I usually go there after Roddy's shows. We can have a cup of tea?"

"Sure." The Watcher wasn't in a position to turn down any offer of prolonged contact with him. He noticed Alistair changed and called his brother Roddy after being careful to call him Roland beforehand. As they started to walk he gave a sideways glance at his son. "Do you call him Roddy or Roland usually?"

"I grew up calling him Rolly but he hates the name now. When I want to annoy him I'll call him Roland to his face. I think of him as Roland. But when I want to avoid a fight I give in and call him Roddy like he asks."

"Has he gotten into anything...dangerous?"

It was a veiled question to see if Roland truly was living up to his father's example for young adult life. There were so many ways his boys seemed to be echoing his life and his interests. Rupert wasn't so foolish as to think that their mother wasn't an influence, indeed the major one, but it was funny how things come round even when you don't know they will. They were approaching the diner and Alistair stopped and looked at his father.

"No. His mates may not be the best people in the world but he's not into anything dangerous – drugs or crime."

That wasn't what he'd meant but he'd take it. If Roland was into dark magic it would be hard to hide from those closest to him. His brother sounded so sincere on Roddy's behalf that it was hard not to believe him. Rupert pushed the door open to the diner and held it for his companion to step inside first. They took a booth in the corner and Rupert only ordered coffee. Alistair ordered a hamburger with extra tomato – certainly his mother's son. She ordered her sandwiches the same way. The waitress walked away and Rupert rose the coffee cup to his lips. He only drank the stuff on occasion, much more in America then he did here.

"We never even had a stepfather." Alistair said softly. "She won't tell us what happened. I want to know what happened, why you weren't there for us."

"I think I should wait for both of you to be together before I tell that story." he replied gently, not wanting to relive it twice.

The chimes on the door rang and he didn't think much of it but Alistair stood up. His other son appeared a few minutes later. Alistair groaned. "You're late." Rupert lifted his eyes and saw his other son standing there looking annoyed. He looked down at the interloper and scowled. He was rather good at scowling.

"Who's this, then?"

"Just sit down Roddy. I'll explain."

The twin obediently slid into the booth opposite his father. He continued to stare, perhaps recognizing what Alistair had. The same features of his own face echoed in this stranger. Alistair sat down after him, locking him into the booth with his body. That was for the best, anyway. Roland wasn't known for an even temper.

"Roddy and I meet here after every one of his shows. You could call it tradition. Mum comes, too, when she actually makes it all the way through the set. You can guess how often that's happened."

Rupert nodded reasonably and Roddy narrowed his eyes. "Who is this guy? Why are you explaining everything to him?" His twin now sounded suspicious on top of his already surly attitude. Alistair gestured toward his father.

"This is Rupert Giles."

"You're the geezer that rang for Mum a few days ago. What are you doing here?"

His older son gave him a look as if to say that he wasn't providing any more information. Whatever would be said would have to be of his own choosing now. He cleared his throat. Having Alistair approach him was a lot easier than facing down having to break the news to Roland. "I came to see your show. I don't know if your Mum ever told you but I love music. I play the guitar myself sometimes."

A blank expression and all Rupert heard were the generic sounds of the diner in the background. He could imagine crickets chirping. His son didn't look impressed. "So? Why would Mum care to tell us anything about you?"

"I'm your father, Roland."

"You're joking!" the words practically dripped with disdain as he looked the man over with new eyes, eager to find the chinks in his armor and the criticisms he could find. He looked to his brother. "You knew about this?"

"No. Not until tonight."

"And you trust him at his word?"

"It's hard to miss him, Roddy. He looks just like us. Not to mention how through the loop mum's been acting since he rang. I don't doubt it's him."

That seemed to clench it in the younger's mind, finally accepting a face that looked like his and eyes that sparkled jade like his own. He scowled and Rupert gathered that was a standard look for his son. Roland slammed a fist onto the table, fleshy side down to muffle the thump of it against Formica. Other patrons looked in their direction, a few shaking their heads and muttering about the people without class, Roddy in his leather jacket and Rupert in his faded jeans and plain shirt. Only Alistair looked civilized at their table. What else could they expect from hooligans?

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, "Go piss up a rope! We don't need you here! We did just fine without you!"

"Roland, please." Giles inserted gently, trying his best to understand his son's rage. He could see where it stemmed from, the sudden burst of chaos after years of being in the dark. He couldn't imagine he was on much of a pedestal in person. As he said himself, he was only a human and was subject to faults found within them all. He didn't want to be more than a supportive father, possibly a friend. He was determined for that, anyway. The boys would decide on their own what his place in their life would be. He'd have to follow their opinions. "Believe me when I say that I wanted to be there for you."

This time Alistair stepped in, making a small gesture with his hand. "I'm sorry, father, but why would we believe you when you were never there? It seems to me that if you wanted to be you would have found a way. Can you tell us what happened between the two of you? Mum never told us. She only says how you two met."

"Ah, yes, our courtship was brief...but I loved her." He smiled at the memory of her brand new and on his bed, smiling up at him in the moonlight. She was so radiant with the silvery streaks in her brown hair and they were so comfortable together. It was as if she was an extension of his own body. "The ending was complicated and we really weren't prepared for it."

"You said you'd tell me," the older twin reminded gently. "I want to know."

"Very well. Your mother got pregnant nearly immediately, I suppose. We'd only been together two months or so when I found out about it. I wasn't in a position to raise children. I was barely a child myself, freshly out of my own rebellion of chaos and dark magic, anything for that next high." Best to have out with it and the truth. If he lied to them now and they found out he would lose them and with it all hope at a relationship. "My and my gang practiced dark magic and for a long while I was into petty crimes and finding the next warm bed. When I met your mum I'd only just rejoined the Watcher's Council with plans to go back to the Academy and go back to attending at Oxford. When she conceived you two that changed."

He paused, closing his eyes, seeing Travers on his high horse in front of the panel of Elders condemning him once again for breaking the rules. The man never did like him after that and now he was dead, rest his soul. He took a sip of his coffee to hide the memories in a swig of bitter liquid before he continued.

"The Council had a rule that pregnant women or women with small children cannot be active Watchers. Due to Lilla's age..."

"Lilla?" That was Roddy.

"My nickname for you mum. Doesn't anyone else use it?"

"No." A pointed reply. The younger twin was still suspicious of him, and hostile about it.

"Anyway, since she hadn't joined the Academy officially yet they took me to trial for taking advantage and told us to decide what we wanted to do. Her mother was a Watcher, killed while on duty and it's always been her dream to be a Watcher. I come from a long line of them myself and was never given a choice about what I was going to become. My father explained this to me when I was very young. You might say I never developed a taste for it and it triggered my rebellion. At the time, though, my friend had just died from our foolishness thinking we could control evil and I needed to take my place in the Council. But we couldn't both fulfill those ideas. It had to be one or the other. Or neither, which we never considered. In the end your mum let me go on to uphold my family legacy, a legacy you'll continue Alistair, and they paid her for it...to cut me loose. The condition was that I could not see her or contact her again."

"Why didn't you choose to be with her?"

"I was young, stupid. I was caught up in the world of supposed to instead of listening to what I wanted to do. I wrote your mum for years while I was in the Academy. I phoned and wrote everywhere I could think of to find her, to see how you both were. I never even knew she was pregnant with twins until she told me a few days ago. She never got my letters and never returned my phone calls. After five years I gave up, assuming she wanted nothing to do with me. I had no other options to try short of storming the Council myself and demanding her address after resigning."

He fell silent a moment, both of his sons staring across the table at him. In their eyes he saw a thousand questions and the unmistakable horror of finally comprehending a story too painful for their mother to relive. He also saw the sting of betrayal in their eyes for a father that chose the legacy of the past over the future family he could have had. He didn't regret the decision most nights. Indeed, after a while he convinced himself that Liliana chose not to contact him and carried on with his life. Eventually that life was in Sunnydale with Buffy.

"It wasn't all bad. I got to live on the Hellmouth with the Slayer. It was terrifying and, well, extraordinary. Buffy is remarkable." He paused, watching Roddy perk up at the mention of a real life Slayer. "Still, sometimes I'd dream of a life with you two and your mother somewhere here in England and wonder how you were. I never tried to phone again, thinking it was too late for this. After I heard about the fate of the Council building I tried desperately to locate all of you but the records were destroyed in the blast. I'd never have known she was alive at all if she wasn't involved in the Council's finances."

He finally fell silent, bringing them to present day with his short but passionate explanation. For a while crickets chirped and no one moved, digesting his story. No one spoke but Alistair shifted uncomfortably in his seat while his brother continued to stare daggers at their father. The mention of a Slayer was not enough to get him to drop his attitude. They both knew what a Slayer was, of course, growing up with their mum and the Council's involvement with their lives. It was his older son that spoke first, this time with a hereto unheard ice in his tone.

"You created a new family. You didn't need us."

He didn't know how to deal with that statement. It was true, he had formed a new family but that was because he'd been woefully without the other for some years. He'd even fallen in love again, nearly. If Jenny hadn't been killed by a monster wearing an angel's skin he might have gotten married, had more children of his own blood. But he wouldn't be the same man as the one sitting there now. He wouldn't have the same thoughts or feelings and who knows? His distraction with love and another family might have gotten him killed. Or Buffy killed. Maybe the Council was right leaving their active Watchers unattached.

"I developed another family, yes. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Dawn: they were all my children. They depended on me. But you don't know how often I dreamed of a white picket fence with your mum and you…before I knew she had twins. I never dared dream of that."

"We depended on you!" Roddy burst out suddenly, slamming his hands down on the table. He'd have stood if he could have. Alistair touched his arm lightly, looking as alarmed by the outburst as the other diner patrons. He shushed his younger brother, encouraging him to sit down again. He added softly once Roland complied. "You don't know how hard mum's become over this. It's like her heart froze with you. She never entertained any other ideas."

"Were there others?"

His older son nodded. "Many. Most didn't seem to mind she was a mother but she never gave them the time of day."

"I hurt her terribly." Rupert agreed. "And you boys." He paused. "No longer boys now but men."

Their food came at last and the older turned the plate so that the fries faced the younger, a well practiced gesture. Rupert had no doubt this was tradition also. His cup of coffee was refilled but he'd had enough of the brew to last him a while. He'd be staying up a long time tonight anyway to need more caffeine. Roddy stared down his father.

"Do you expect us to ever forgive you?" At least he didn't believe in preamble or sugar coating. Still, he was taken aback by the bluntness of the question.

"I'd like it if you would." He answered, but knew that wasn't actually an answer to the question asked. "Yes, I do. I should like to think you understand that I'm human and you're old enough to know that I cannot change what was done. The important thing is that I'm here for you now and plan on being in your life as much as you will let me be."

Of the two children he wasn't expecting Alistair to break first. When his older boy stood, throwing money down onto the table, Rupert was stunned speechless for a moment. The boy looked genuinely sorry. "I can't do this anymore tonight. I'm not sure what you expect from us."

"Nothing. Not instant forgiveness. Nothing I'm not willing to work for."

"I can't."

His calm Alistair, the one who approached him, was leaving. It was with a pang Rupert realized he was coming to definitively think of the boys as his. He'd only been in their lives for a few hours but he was already so deeply in love with his children he'd walk through fire to keep them from harm. It was nothing he wouldn't do for Buffy or any of the others. It was amazing the wealth of parental instinct that took over. Just now it was warning him not to push either of them lest he push them away. He stood as well, pushing his coffee cup aside. He picked up the few quid Alistair dropped on the table and handed it back to him.

"Please. Let me."

It was Roddy that answered for his brother, taking the money and stuffing it into his pocket. Now that his older brother's resolve had crumbled his own will seemed to weaken. Later Rupert would turn this over in his head, figuring out just how many cues the younger brother took from the older and Alistair seemed to know this and effortlessly slid into the part of role model. Right now there wasn't time to pick apart the intricacies of brotherhood or their complex relationship as identical twins. He only saw them leaving and a panic set into his chest that was hard to shake.

"Your mother has my address, phone number. Do stop in even if it's for a chat and a cup of tea."

Neither of the boys spoke as they slid from the booth and headed toward the front door. Giles didn't have to wonder whether this went well or not. He'd replay it over in his head that night as he lay in bed, wondering if their were words he could have changed and things he could have done differently. He had to let it be their choice. How unfair it was for Alistair to grow up taking up the mantle of older brother and father figure to Roland! His thoughts plagued him until he slept at last. He made contact which was all he promised Lilla he'd do. Whatever happened next would be up to them.