Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Nine

Day Of The Dead

A/N okay we are slipping into a slight reality change, the one from CH10, so read that again if you need a refresher.

London, the world without shrimp - November 2nd 2006

When Giles opened his eyes the empty street was gone. So was the endless white of the Higher Realms. He felt like the whole ordeal had been a bad dream he wished he could forget. But then he rolled over, and there she was. Asleep and perfect and wearing one of his shirts. He didn't know how this was supposed to work, he didn't feel any different, but there were new memories roaming around in his head. An image of their wedding - the photographs in frames around the flat. Two distinct lines, two distinct lives he'd lead. One without Jenny, the way he'd always known it, and this one with Jenny. This new life seemingly imagined for him. He knew the Powers were well, powerful. But he had no idea they were capable of this, and for what reason, he didn't deserve this.

But it didn't matter. How could it, when she was right there? Giles picked up his glasses from the bedside table slipped them on, he was ignoring the fact that he'd woken up in a completely different flat on the other side of the world, for a minute because he wanted to know what she remembered. Would she know how the fates had changed? Or would she completely oblivious. Giles vowed to himself that if she didn't know, if she'd only lived this reality, he'd never tell her what horrors he'd seen. It would break her. It would break him to have her know. And how could it matter now?

He smiled, trying to forget everything else, just looking at her. He took in her sharp features, the line of her cheekbones, her soft mouth, the short ragged hair that lay over his pillows. She hardly looked different from the last time he'd seen her, with the exception of two thick pink scars he could see on her leg. His mind provided him with the story, they were fighting something together in the desert, husband and wife tag team. A wicca and a watcher. He smiled despite the fact it'd injured her, it was a good memory, one of hundreds he could now access.

He lifted a finger to brush the hair out of her eyes, his skin brushing over her forehead to reveal another scar. She stirred softly and mumbled something into the pillow. Then her eyes flickered open and found him gazing at her. Her lips parted into a smile, "morning Rupert."

"Hello," he said, his hands pulling her face gently towards his as their lips met in a kiss he had been waiting years to return.


"Hello, yes Buffy, hi." Giles said into the telephone later than morning. Although he remembered how things had unfolded, he wasn't sure what Buffy or anyone else's recollections were going to be.

"Hey Giles, how you doing?" Buffy said chirpily on the other end of the line. In this reality she was still worried about Spike, but she hadn't told Giles that. He was too far away to really do anything, and he had Jenny to think about. "How's Jenny?" She added, a year ago she probably wouldn't have asked just because it'd seemed like they were doing so well, with the wedding and everything. But Jenny had been calling her, asking to speak with Willow who refused some of the time and gave in the other half. There was a bond there, but it was thready at best, and fraying at the edges. Dark magic had taken it's toll on the group a little more than Buffy would've liked, but that was the way it was, nothing to be done.

"She's fine I think, look Buffy there's something I have to talk to you about. It is about Jenny, but it's also about me." Giles wondered what she meant by that other than their shared past. Jenny seemed fine to him at the moment. Were the group stepping with caution, or trepidation? Why? His memories told him it'd been a long while since she did any real damage to them. That they were past that. Maybe his absence...?

"Okay, I'm listening, shoot!" Buffy replied.

"Something happened last night - Ethan- he showed up on my doorstep. It's a long story, but-"

"Wait, Ethan Rayne?" Buffy interrupted, disbelief flowing through the phone line. "Giles, he's dead. The funeral was last week, you said it was- wait have you been dreaming about him again?"

"Oh." Giles said sadly, he had hoped, but no. "No-no-no Buffy, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. Just listen for a minute. Something happened, Jenny she-I." Then he remembered his vow not to tell anyone, to let the secret of Jenny's death stay with him. "Um, nothing. Actually, just ignore me. Jenny's fine, we're fine, we're happy Buffy." Then his voice began to break as he looked around the flat and saw Jenny in his clothes, humming as she boiled the kettle and put bread in the toaster.

"Awe, that's great Giles! I mean we were all really worried for a second that you two were you know..." She stepped cautiously, twisting the phone cable around her fingers.

"What?"

"Well, she kept calling, and then you kept calling and well we had our suspicions you might be splitting up. Whatever happened last night, whatever it was you did, and I definitely do not want the details, but whatever that was, must've worked. I'm glad Giles I really am," Buffy trailed off, thinking that was going to be end of the conversation.

"Hey wait, before you go. How's Spike? Still getting those nightmares?" Giles said, caringly, he could hear the anxiety in her voice, it must've been getting worse.

"How-?" Buffy whispered then shook her head, magic, she thought, or Giles had finally developed the ability to read minds. Which was not something she wished on anybody, but right now it was coming in handy. She broke down a little, a tremor appearing in her voice as a tear welled in the corner of her eye. "I don't know what do Giles, he gets these headaches and then he doesn't remember a thing afterwards. He doesn't even talk about it anymore, he always fights me off when I ask about it. And he's always in such a sour mood."

"He's not hurting you though is he?" Giles responded, mentally working out when he could get over to California if Spike was going crazy again.

"No, nothing like that. If anything he's pushing me away. Like he doesn't want to see me, his behaviour it's kind of crazy sometimes, like mood swings, anger, just from nowhere. Tara had him drinking serenity tea but I don't think it did anything." Buffy explained, glancing at the clock on the wall, she was running late for work. "Look, Giles I have to go. I have work, but call later yeah? Maybe with some sort of plan, anything, I hate to ask but maybe Jenny knows something Willow and Tara don't? It's worth a try, right?"

Giles nodded, then remembered Buffy couldn't see him. "Yeah I'll ask her," he said.

"Thanks, Giles. Byee!" Buffy called then hung up the phone, so he put the handheld back in its cradle. He sighed with relief that she seemed okay, that everything seemed to be relatively how he remembered it. But he would have to do something about Spike, that much was clear. He'd ask Jenny about it later, but for now he was sidling up to her in the kitchen and wrapping his arms around her waist.

Of all of the memories he now found in his mind, the previous night was drawing a blank. Giles figured it had something to do with whatever had happened with the Powers. "Hey," he said lightly, watching her spread the warm toast with butter and marmite. He placed a kiss on her cheek and then poured two cups of tea, to his recollection he knew Jenny liked it with milk and two sugars, sweet to his plain. In his own time, Giles remembered only drinking tea with sugar for six months after Jenny died, despite how sweet it was, just to think of her.

They sat down at the table, Giles ignoring his instinct to read the paper and drink his tea without saying a word, as he did when he was alone. "Jenny," he said, the word sounding sore coming out of his mouth after so many years. She looked up from her toast and smiled, a twinkle in her eye.

"Yes, honey. Everything alright?" She resisted calling him Rupert again, after last night everything was back to relative normalcy and she was pleased. Things had been rocky for a while, since they decided to start a family. Since they found out they couldn't - that she couldn't. She could tell underneath it all that he resented her for it. That she'd ruined the possibility of a future with dark magicks. But last night, last night he'd changed everything.

"What happened last night?" Giles was treading lightly, not pushing her too hard. Careful to stick to the rules of this reality, when all he wanted to do was go back to bed.

"What do you mean?" She replied, unsure of what he meant. Was he going back on what he said? After the funeral, after Ethan, last night he'd come in from a walk - his usual stroll around the nearest graveyard, something he did to think. He was so placid, it was like something had changed, something had clicked. "You came back from your walk..."

"Oh, did I?" He had no recollection of this, but he felt like he was on the edge of something big and he just couldn't get his head around it.

"Yes Rupert," she sighed lightly, pushing down her anxiety that something was wrong with him. "You came back all different, you said that after Ethan, you didn't want to think about anymore loss." She broke down slightly, "you said you loved me, despite everything. That it didn't matter anymore." Giles put down his cup, and looked at her.

"I do love you. I-" then it hit him. Everything he'd forgotten. The last bit of the Powers' miracle setting into place.

"I want us to be happy. I want us to be a family Rupert. I want-" she hesitated. They didn't talk like this very often and her nerves got the better of her. "I want you to be happy, I want you to be a father if that'll make you happy."

"But you know that we CAN'T!" He'd screamed, so much anger inside of him. How could he have done that to her.

"I-I remember." He stood up abruptly and adjusted his glasses. He looked back at her, dressed in only his shirt, his robe loosely tied around his waist. "We fought, about us. About the future. I said I couldn't talk about it anymore. Jenny I blamed you, I'm so sorry." He knelt down at her side, her fingers tracing his cheek. "I do want us to have a family, of course I want that. But I want you too. I wouldn't be the same without you. I wouldn't be happy without you, trust me." He cut himself off, and wiped a tear from his puffy eye. He chuckled softly to himself, "I love you so much."

Jenny closed her eyes and took in a breath, her hand fell to her belly, rubbing over scars Giles couldn't see. "Rupert, you do mean it, don't you?"

He brushed her hair behind her ear and stood up, he kissed her, softly at first and then harder. Resting their foreheads together, "I've never meant anything more." They kissed again, a sensation that melted the years between them doing this, because for her this was everyday. This was his life now, and he wasn't going to waste it.