Chapter 3
Giles finished unpacking. He was glad he decided to visit his sister before returning to England. After everything that happened in Sunnydale, he needed to unwind, and who knew how long it would be until he got to see Patricia again.
Trish, he reminded himself, she prefers Trish.
As he got ready to go to the arena, he thought back to how it all began. His mother had always acted as a buffer between him and his father. When she died, their relationship became quite strained. They hardly saw each other. When he wasn't away at school, he went on holidays with friends.
He was taken off guard when his father announced his engagement to some woman from Canada. Unsure of what to expect, he found her surprisingly charming. Though she told him she didn't intend on taking his mother's place in his life, she did help bridge his relationship with his father to some extent.
A year after the wedding, Patricia Elizabeth Giles was born. By then, most of the world saw him as the archetypal 'angry young man', but with Patricia, he was the doting older brother.
Once he entered Oxford, his father began to pressure him again. Both of them were flabbergasted when his stepmother felt that he should be allowed to choose whether or not to be a watcher. However, no amount of reasoning would sway his father so Giles dropped out of university, moved to London and dabbled with dark magic. Like most youth, he thought he was indestructible. Randell's death showed him otherwise, and the knowledge shook him to the core.
Shortly afterwards, his stepmother paid him a visit and told him that his father mentioned grooming Patricia to be a watcher. Apparently one way or another the family watcher legacy would continue. She pleaded with him to talk with his father. He agreed and made a bargain that sealed his fate. He said he would become a watcher on the condition that Patricia would not. His father conceded.
Unfortunately, his father's marriage began to crumble, and they divorced. Before she left England, Giles took his five year old sister to see Mary Poppins at a revival theatre and gave her the small cross that she wore to this day.
Despite the hardships and heartaches that followed, he never regretted his decision. He survived living on a hellmouth, helped save the world several times and had witnessed the most unorthodox slayer that ever lived in action.
A knock on his door brought him out of his musings. "Rupert, are you ready?"
He grinned, checked the mirror one last time and opened the door to find his sister waiting. "As ready as I'll ever be."