Title: Truth to Tell
Author: Coast2Coast
Timing: Season 6 - post Gone
Pairing: G/B (implied)
Rating: PG for some harsh language.
Spoilers: Tabula Rasa and Gone although I've tweaked some things to suit my purpose.
Synopsis: Giles, having returned to England, phones Xander to find out how Buffy is doing.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belong to Joss Whedon. I am making no money by using them.
Distribution: Where I put it. All others please ask.
Author's Note: Okay, so I have Season 6 issues. The first step toward healing is admitting it; the second is writing fan fiction ;)
Feedback: Welcomed at coast2c@aol.com

"Hello?"

"Xander, is that you? Giles here."

"Hello Giles. What do you want?"

The flat tone of Xander's voice gave Giles a momentary pause and he continued with some hesitation. "I..., er, I... I'm calling to find out, um, how Buffy is getting on."

"Then you called the wrong number. I can give you hers if you've lost it."

"She doesn't answer. I was afraid..."

Xander cut him off. "It's a common practice known as screening your calls. I guess she doesn't want to talk to you. I wonder why?"

Giles flinched at the sarcasm in the young man's voice. "Xander, please. You can't imagine how difficult it was for me to leave."

"That's where you're wrong. I can. My problem is I know how much harder it was for Buffy. And it was your choice."

Giles took a deep breath and sighed, refusing to allow himself to take offense at Xander's anger. He needed to stay focused on the purpose of his call. "How is she?"

"Not dead," Xander replied curtly.

Giles waited for his normally effusive friend to continue. The silence stretched for several awkward moments.

"Was there anything else?" Xander asked, his tone clearly indicating he was unwilling to volunteer any additional information. All he could hear from the other end of the line was a little rustling over the soft rush of white noise on the transatlantic connection. "Well, then... I guess I'll be hanging up now. Bye, Giles," he added, almost sadly.

Realizing the first connection he had made in weeks to his friends of the last few years was about to be severed, the Watcher finally found his voice again. "Wait!"

"What?" Xander snapped in a peevish tone.

"I... I... need to know..."

Xander's initial resolve not to satisfy Giles' unspoken but obvious need to have news of Buffy was suddenly overridden by his bitterness that the only adult he had respected and trusted had abandoned Buffy - no, all of them - for no reason he could see. If Giles wanted to know what was going on, he'd hear about it. In spades. "Want to know how the new Watcherless training program is coming along? She works. She pays her bills. Mostly. She kept Social Services from taking Dawn away from her. Barely. She protects the worthy folk of Sunnydale from the forces of darkness and the minions of evil. This is mostly second hand, you understand, from Dawn. We hardly see Buffy any more, any of us. And when we do she barely speaks. She never asks for help and won't accept it when offered. You wanted her to be self-sufficient? Mission accomplished, G-man."

"Don't call me that."

"It's better than your other choices, believe me."

Giles gathered his resolve and mustered on. "How is she? Really. Not just what she's doing but..."

"You don't deserve an answer to this, you know."

"I know," Giles admitted, still hopeful that Xander would answer now that his earlier reticence had faded. He waited silently and finally his patience was rewarded with an answer.

"Alive on the outside, dead on the inside," Xander replied with a sigh. "Maybe she'll manage to be all the way dead soon. She won't let anyone within three feet of her, now you've gone."

"She isn't... she wouldn't..." Giles found he couldn't even form a question to clarify Xander's frightening insinuation.

"No, you're probably right," Xander interrupted, scornfully. "Maybe Buffy will take your example to heart and hang around 'til Dawn's twenty-one and doesn't need anyone anymore."

"That isn't fair. I..."

"Fair!? You want to talk about *fair*? You chicken-shit bastard!"

Silence.

"Told you you wouldn't like your other options," Xander muttered sullenly.

"She has to learn she is capable of leading her own life," Giles said, determined to overcome Xander's rage. "She needs to know she can stand on her own two feet and be strong."

Xander emitted a harsh, choking laugh - with not an ounce of humor to be heard in it. "I hear blind people gain a keener ability in their other senses. And people who are confined to wheelchairs develop remarkable upper body strength. Maybe for your next trick you can damage selected parts of her anatomy; you know, for her own good."

"You have to listen to me," Giles pleaded. "You have to understand..." It was probably just as well Xander interrupted him again. How could he justify himself to another when he was torn, conflicted and had second-guessed his actions and motivation a thousand times since he had left Sunnydale?

"No! No. You know what?" Xander gasping with the strength of his anger. "Since you seem to be so interested in any information you can get about Buffy, maybe it's about time I explained a few things to you. She needs you. That doesn't make her weak, it makes her human. She loves you. She's *in* love with you."

"Wha... what did you say?" Giles managed to choke out.

"You heard me."

"But... but... Angel, Riley..."

"Yeah. And Spike. So what? She didn't love them; at least not the way she loves you. Besides, you're in love with her and there was Ms. Calendar. And Olivia."

Too stunned to even deny the statement Xander had made about his feelings for Buffy, Giles found himself unable to focus on a word he had said except for...

"Spike?"

"It doesn't matter," Xander tossed off the unspoken part of the query with a shrug. "That's over and she didn't love him at all. But everyone needs to feel connected to someone, to feel alive once in a while. She waited for you for years. She let you be whatever you wanted to be to her, whatever you could handle because she wouldn't ask for what you weren't willing to give. The one thing she couldn't risk was to be without you completely." Another harsh, mirthless laugh - almost a sob - came to Giles across the line. "That worked out great, didn't it? You decide she needs to learn to be strong and independent. Like she's ever been anything else."

"But she... when I came back she... abdicated all her responsibilities to me. She acted like.. like... I was her... parent. She never said... never gave any sign that she might have... feelings... other feelings for me."

"Ooooooo," Xander retorted. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you to tell her the truth about how *you* feel? Pardon her for mistaking what role you were willing to go along with. It was kind of a shaky time for her; having come back from the dead and all. Do you think maybe her instincts were a little off and she might have thought she was projecting her feelings onto you? You fleeing the continent and putting eight thousand miles between you probably clinched that theory for her."

"My God," Giles breathed in a desperate whisper. "What have I done?"

Although it was clearly a rhetorical question, Xander answered anyway. "Hurt her more deeply than anyone else ever could. And that's saying something, considering what she's been through. Way to go."

"I must... What can I..."

"You can suck it up and get your ass back here and tell her the truth. Tell her you're in love with her but you left 'cause you thought she only saw you as a father figure. Maybe you both still have a chance."

Xander waited to see if Giles would reply with any sort of assurance that he would try to make things right. After what seemed too long a delay to the overwrought young man, he felt the little hope that was left in him crumble away to dust.

"Or you can stay away and leave her the hell alone."

"Xander..."

"Don't call here again."

* Click *

~ Fin ~