Chapter 39

Giles was used to being the first person awake in the mornings. While they'd been in Spain, he'd had at least an hour and a full pot of tea to himself before the others stirred. So, when he woke up on Saturday to find warm tea in the pot and the patio door open, he was somewhat thrown. He knew who it was, of course. While there were other tea drinkers in the house, only one was likely to be awake at this hour, since Wesley and Penny had arrived late the previous night after having worked all day.

As he prepared his cuppa, Rupert debated what to do. He'd been keeping a distance from William. His memories contained a seemingly random mixture of pleasant conversations, snarky bickering, severe mistrust, and the sense that Spike could be a force for good. He wasn't quite sure what to make of all of it, or even if 'William' should be considered the same person as 'Spike', though Buffy thought of him that way. So, he'd been hanging back and observing. Maybe this was his opportunity for a conversation? Without interference from the girls, perhaps they could clear the air. Decision made, Giles took his teacup and headed for the patio.

As he pushed through the curtain to step outside, Rupert felt a jolt of surprise at the sight of the former vampire sitting in the sun. He'd yet to get used to it, honestly. He couldn't imagine how the others were processing it, let alone William himself. With his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses and an empty teacup on the table beside him, Giles couldn't tell if the other man was awake, so he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

William turned his head in Giles' direction. "'Ello, Rupes. See you found the tea."

"Hmm," Giles wondered suddenly if he should have taken a cup. "Yes, thank you for taking the initiative. I hope it was intended for sharing."

William chuckled. "Drink as much as you like, it's no good once it's gone cold. Least I could do, you've been on tea duty all week. " He picked up his cup, shifting his legs off the lounge chair he'd been laid out on. "Should go get another cup while it's still good myself. No use sitting here wool gathering." He grabbed the cane leaning against his chair back and pushed himself upright. "Back in a tick."

Giles watched William walk slowly across the patio, pushing the curtain back out of his way as he went inside, making his progress visible until he disappeared into the kitchen. He pictured Spike chained in his bathtub demanding blood and TV privileges, and shook his head at the idea that they were the same. Then he remembered a somber, grieving Spike tutoring Dawn, urging her through make-up school work after Buffy's death. He wondered what made the difference. It couldn't be all the soul, that had come after both memories.

William reappeared with a tray balanced between one hand and his hip, the other occupied with the cane, and Giles rose to start toward him, intending to take the tray. "Sit down, Rupert." William called quietly, a frown on his face. "I may not be fully recovered, but I'm still stronger than you, mate. Can handle a teapot, anyroad."

As he regained the patio, Giles saw that the tray held the teapot, William's cup, and the basket of rolls Dawn had gone out for the night before, with some butter and jam. "Oh, I say, there was no need to do all that," He protested. "I could have helped you carry that, or gotten it myself."

"No need, got it done." William sank into a chair at the table with a satisfied sigh. "I hate feeling incapable. Now that I can get up to a brief walk-about, it's nice to do something productive. Gettin' peckish, at any rate." He reached for the cup and teapot, and Giles sat across from him.

"I'm surprised to see you up so early, honestly." Giles ventured, reaching for a roll. "You've been something of a late riser since we've been here."

William shrugged, "I'm not what you'd call a morning person; too many years of bein' awake all night. Then again, between construction at the Hyperion and my meds schedule when I was laid up, I've been getting up 'round seven since May. Of course, between time zones and Buffy's night-owl tendencies, I'm all screwed up now. Didn't sleep well last night, though, so I finally needed to get out and get some air."

"Oh, I hope you aren't in any pain." Giles frowned at the other man, examining his posture and facial expression for clues. He didn't seem to be in discomfort, but with the sunglasses still in place Giles wasn't sure.

"Eh, I'm always in pain; unless I'm drugged off my gourd, and I can't stand that feeling. So, pain. It's not so bad. My spine healing, that was the worst. All the nerve endings re-attaching, firing off signals harum-scarum." He reached for a plate and a roll. "The good thing about this injury, as opposed to the other, is I've had proper medical care. X-rays, physical therapy, drugs, all the lot. Vampires aren't exactly known for helping the weak, no way I could've drugged myself for the back and been safe. Had to stay on alert. And no one was anyone gonna help me stretch or build up my muscles. Did the whole recovery stone sober, on my own."

Giles grunted, not sure how to respond, or what would have been appropriate to ask about that time. He wondered if Drusilla had cared for Spike at all during his convalescence. On some level he'd assumed the vampiress had nursed her paramour, although considering her mental state perhaps that wasn't very logical. He was impressed that Spike had survived to regain his strength. "Dare I ask what kept you up, if not the pain?" He asked, wondering if he wanted to know, but reminding himself that he was here trying to make a connection.

William shrugged and blew out a long rush of air. "Nightmares, mostly. I 'spect I picked up on Buffy's tension about today and it triggered something. That happens sometimes." He glanced up at Giles, "When she was first resurrected, and she was still having the 'trapped in her coffin' nightmares, I started having them again, too. Hadn't had a dream like that since just after I was turned, hardly dreamed at all for years at a time; then suddenly I'm having dreams, nightmares." He shook his head, as though he couldn't believe the audacity of his brain, pushing up the sunglasses to rub at his eyes. Giles was unsurprised by the dark circles under them.

"Trapped in your coffin nightmares," Giles muttered, shaking his head. "That seems terrifying, and oddly specific."

"Well, when you've woken up buried alive, and know a bunch of others who have done, you tend to notice it's a common nightmare." William hunched over his plate, taking a sip of his tea. "I was claustrophobic before I was turned, which didn't help. And Buffy's always had a fear of being buried alive…"

Giles nodded, "Yes, from seeing earthquake rescues on TV as a child, I remember that from high school. There was a child who was projecting nightmares…Buffy's was about being buried alive."

William sat up, his cup hitting the tabletop with a noticeable clink. "Did…Did the others know about her fear? Red and Harris?"

"Well, in the sense that they knew the nightmare involved her being buried and rising as a vampire…I'm not sure whether we ever worked through as a group what portion of what nightmare-come-to-life belonged to one or the other of us. Some of the fears represented were too raw to speak of again, I fear."

"Buffy doesn't have a fear of becoming a vamp." William said. "Or, maybe she's gotten over it, but…"

"Err, no. That's rather what I'm talking about. Buffy being turned was my fear, not hers. I told her that, and she told me of her fear of being buried alive. I don't know that either of us shared those specific details with the other children." Giles pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think back. "Honestly, I wanted to put the whole incident behind me once it was over. I never even did any follow-up research into how such a thing was possible." He met William's intense, contemplative gaze. "Why do you ask if Willow and Xander knew of Buffy's fear?"

William shook his head, running a hand over his short hair. "I've tried hard to give them the benefit of the doubt for her resurrection. They didn't know where she was, I tell myself. Willow was in the grips of addiction, and probably being manipulated by The First Evil. Harris's never been a deep thinker, was raised by people with poor coping skills, he was just looking to fix his grief. But, despite all the excuses I can make for them…If they had any indication that she feared being buried alive, why in hell didn't they dig up that coffin?"

Giles was surprised that William was shaking with emotion. He shook his head, "Perhaps it's because I wasn't in Sunnydale at the time, or because of the spells I was under, but I've honestly not thought much about the conditions of Buffy's resurrection before." He took a deep breath, considering it. "I wonder if they didn't believe the spell would work, or if they just didn't accept that Buffy has fears like anyone else. They often treated her as though her emotions healed as easily as her muscles, when they were younger." The other man snorted, and Giles subsided into silence, adding jam to his roll.

"I think Red's just learned to appreciate Buffy's emotional vulnerability in the last year or so," William responded. "Not sure Harris ever really got it. I'd thought he was better when I got back with the soul, but…"

"I believe his relapse into assuming his own emotional needs exceeded those of others was temporary." Giles responded, ready to defend the younger man. "He was extremely supportive of Buffy's grieving process after your death in the Hellmouth."

William made a non-committal humming noise, and poured both of them tea, emptying the pot. They sat in silence for a moment, Giles wondering if he should turn the conversation to other topics, when he spotted Buffy in the corner of his eye.

Unlike every other day this week, she emerged from the bedroom freshly awake, unshowered and still in her pajamas. Giles watched her blink at the kitchen doorway, then spot them and stumble across the living room. She was about halfway to them when William pushed himself back from the table and turned in her direction. "Mornin', luv." He said quietly, smiling as she staggered out the door and directly into his lap, where she curled into a ball and buried her face in his neck. Giles watched him wrap his arms around the Slayer, cradling her gently even as he winced at the weight on his thighs and subtly repositioned her.

"You weren't there when I woke up." Buffy muttered, squeezing her arms around William's ribs and pressing closer.

"Sorry, pet. Didn't wanna wake you when you'd had a rough night. Just…Had to get out, ya know?" He raised a hand from her back to run his fingers through her hair, pressing gently against the back of her neck, and turned to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Your Mom or the coffin one?" Buffy muttered, stroking along his ribs and back. Giles was starting to feel like a voyeur. He stood and grabbed the tray, then reconsidered and removed the roll basket and its condiments. He lost part of their whispered conversation with the moving around, but felt fairly secure that he didn't need to know what had driven William into the early morning outdoors, or what level of familiarity he and Buffy had with one another's nightmares. Unsure of what to do, Giles decided to start more tea and make a pot of coffee. By the time he had everything going, he heard a swish of movement behind him, and turned to find Buffy leaning in the doorway, a roll clutched in one hand. She smiled, "Morning, Giles. Sorry about the PDA, I'm not awake yet."

He shrugged, "Please, don't feel the need to censor yourself on my account. You are both adults, and you seem to be making a better go of taking care of one another than I'd ever have suspected. Obviously I've misjudged."

Buffy shrugged, "Yeah, Spike's good at hiding the fact that he's a natural caregiver under all that snark and bluster. It takes a lot of trust to get past that. Fortunately, we've had a few years now to work through it." She rubbed her eyes, "Anyway, thanks for making coffee, and for not wigging. I'm gonna shower, I'll be right back."

She stumbled back toward the bedroom, biting into her roll, and Giles smiled at her retreating back. When you only saw her dressed and ready to face the world, after she'd recovered her equilibrium, it was easy to forget that she could be this vulnerable, clumsy girl. He thought back to what he and William had said earlier about Willow and Xander not acknowledging her fears, and shook his head. He suspected this was the first true glimpse he'd had of what their relationship meant to Buffy. She had many supporters now, people to help her with her mission. There were very few, however, who could see her vulnerability and still respect her strength; whom she trusted enough to allow herself weakness in front of. He suspected that all of them were currently in this house.

He headed back to the patio to retrieve his tea. Buffy had pulled the curtain partially shut when she'd gone inside, so Giles was nearly out the door before he spotted the tears on William's face and stopped. The other man had clearly heard his approach, because he shook himself and wiped at his face. "'S alright, Rupes. Come out if you're gonna," He cleared his throat and took a sip of his tea, extracting a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his face again. Giles gave him time to stuff the cloth back into his pocket before he moved out onto the patio. William looked up at the older-seeming man, shaking his head. "Sorry, did I embarrass you? Buffy's been workin' on me about not bottling things up. Which I s'pose is fair, since I've been telling her the same. Not healthy to keep all those secrets, hide how you're feeling." He shook his head, "I sound like a right prat, don't I?"

Giles cleared his throat. "No, on the contrary. It may be uncomfortable for us, as Englishmen of a certain age, to express emotion, but I've found that I do in fact feel better afterwards."

"Englishmen of a certain age, are we?" William arched an eyebrow and smirked at Giles, looking more Spike-like than Giles had seen him in weeks. "Well, I suppose we are at that." He shook his head and smiled faintly, "Welcome to the nancy-tribe, eh?"

Giles gave a startled laugh, recalling the reference to their memory loss at the Magic Box. "Indeed." He waited until their chuckles died down before he spoke further, "I've wondered how much you remembered from before your transformation."

"Everything," William replied, his diction brittle. "My memory is fully intact, including both sets of memories of my youth, and all hundred-twenty and change as a vamp."

"You…You have two sets of memories from before you were turned?" He frowned, searching his memory, "How is that possible? Should I have known that?"

William met his eyes, nodding somberly, "Buffy told me 'bout the night she told you the story. She thought for sure you'd be callin' me to ask a million questions. I'd wondered why you hadn't. I s'pose that memory's gone entirely, then?"

Giles shook his head, frustrated to find yet another forgotten item from the past few years. "Err, sorry, when was this?"

"When you were in Rome visiting Buffy last. When she thought you two made so much progress at gettin' close again, and then you seemed to have forgotten or ignored a lot of what she said to you…That was half the reason she decided to go to England to check in, and bring Willow out."

"Well, I'm grateful she realized there was something wrong with me, however it came about," Rupert replied. "Vin and Soph seem to think my true memories may not have been recoverable in another six to twelve months." Giles wondered what had been done to the other man's memories. "Would you care to tell me your memory loss tale? You don't have to, of course…"

He shrugged, "Nah, I've told Buffy, Willow, and Tom already, and some to Merry and Jez. Like you said, it gets easier." He took a deep breath. "You remember that my family was with the Council, before?"

Giles nodded, "Err, yes, I've been hearing that since you came to England. Though, I do wonder why it never came up in Sunnydale, come to think of it. I'd have expected you to taunt me with your knowledge while you were living in my flat."

"Yeah," William sighed, lowering his gaze. "See, that's where the memory spell comes in. 'Bout ten years before I got turned, while I was a trainee, my fiancée was killed by vampires. I blamed the Council, and was put before the Elders…Suppose they served the same function as the Executive Committee you and Buffy dissolved…Anyway, I went on a grief-fueled rampage to avenge my Emily, and got myself banished." He raised his gaze to Giles' face. "Were they still doing banishments, before the explosion?"

"No, not for years." The Watcher's voice held a faint note of horror. "The last one was in the 1870's, and it caused such a stir that it necessitated a change in Council policy."

"Huh, wonder if that was me?" Giles couldn't tell if William looked pleased with himself or not. "Regardless, you know what a banishment entails, right? That they wiped me of all memories of the Council and the supernatural, and put a dampener on my physical strength." Giles nodded again. "Well, turns out when Red's Tabula Rasa spell broke, it put back all of my memories. It was kind of a mind-fuck."

"Huh." Giles blinked, trying to remember Spike's behavior from that time, as well as what he could recall from Watcher training about Council history. "Your fiancée's name was Emily?"

He nodded. "Emily Worthington."

"Emily Worthington, why does that name sound familiar?" Giles muttered, rubbing his temples as he tried to sort his jumbled thoughts.

William looked at him blankly for a second, then barked out a laugh. "You're a bit out of the loop, Ripper. Emily was a potential Slayer; Buffy's father was descended from her brother Michael."

Giles gasped, "Oh, good lord. That's where I've heard the name; they used her death as a cautionary tale during Watcher training. That we shouldn't be over-confident in the abilities of a Potential, no matter how promising she was." He looked at the other man thoughtfully, "You were engaged to her, and training to become a Watcher." William nodded. "When we have time, I'd love to learn more about her, and your life before if you want to tell me."

"I'd be happy to tell you whatever you want to know. Buffy's probably sick of my stories by now." William smiled faintly. "Good to have you back, Rupes. Buffy needs you on her side. You take care of her today, right?"

"Of course," Giles responded, arching an eyebrow, "You know, it's still not too late to change your plans and stay with the girls today."

William shook his head, "Rather spend time when I can talk to them, or help with Esme. And bein' almost out of the blasted chair, I'm far too antsy for long meetings lately. You'll be more help to her today than I will. Tom and I can use the time to deal with whatever I supposedly own in Barcelona, and get us all out of the country that much sooner."