Title: One Word 7/7
Author: Darcy Galvin
Feedback: will be shellacked and framed. Send good words. Feed a starving artist.
Disclaimer: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ain't mine and neither are the BTVS characters or the song "Inside Her Eyes" by Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. This particular fic idea and Tyler Remmington are the only things I own.

"Buffy, can we talk?"

"Tyler?"

"I have to see you and explain about the other night."

Buffy twisted the phone cord in her hands as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. "When?"

"Tonight, at the Bronze? Please? I just have to talk to you. Alone."

Buffy frowned. "Is eight o'clock good?"

"I'll see you there," he said, and then a hollow dial tone filled Buffy's ears. She clicked the receiver back into place and sighed, strolling back into the living room where Giles sat on the couch. She lowered herself into his waiting arms and leaned against his broad, warm chest.

"Well, that was the elusive son," she said. "He wants to talk, so I'm meeting him at the Bronze tonight."

"Just you?" Giles asked quietly.

"Don't go all green on me," Buffy smiled, kissing his chin, trying to assuage the tension she heard in his words. "He just said that he needed to talk to me alone. I think he had some...issues, seeing us together."

"I gathered as much," Giles said sadly. This was not at all how he'd imagined things would go with his son when Tyler had first introduced himself. Buffy heard the sadness in his voice and something inside her clenched up. Her poor, sweet Giles. He'd finally found the family he'd never known he had and it had been uneasy at first, but things had slowly been looking up. Now, because of her, things had crashed down around them.

"He kissed me a while back," Buffy felt Giles tense and she stroked her hands up and down his arms, soothing him, "but I don't think it went as he planned," she chuckled a little, "I practically jumped out of his arms because I suddenly found myself wondering how you kissed." Giles arched an arrogant eyebrow. "I knew it wasn't really a good idea for us to go out, but I thought that because we just went as friends it would be okay. Wrong again and now to work with the damage control." She blew a sulky shock of hair away from her eyes and leaned tighter against Giles. She loved this feeling of giddy newness. The physical contact in and of itself was nothing new, but the meaning behind it, and now the complete emotional freedom of the touch, was incredible. This was a whole new aspect of their relationship and Buffy was joyously and selfishly reveling in every minute of it, though suddenly the joy was tinged with guilt at the rift it had caused in the delicately new father-son relationship.

"W-well, I suppose that you should speak with him," Giles conceded and said nothing more.

Buffy tilted her chin up to look at Giles with a soft, understanding smile. "As soon as we're done I'll come right over." She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into the curve of his throat and spoke quietly. "I'm sorry."

When Giles returned to his apartment that evening, he fixed himself a sandwich and sat on the couch. Midway through his snack he let out a huge yawn. With a chuckle, Giles stretched out and...heard a knock at the door. With a half yawn, half grunt, Giles rose and answered.

"Tyler," he said in surprise. "I thought that you were going to go talk to Buffy at the Bronze."

"Oh, I'm going over there after I talk to you."

"Oh," Giles nodded. "Ah, what did you want to talk about?"

Tyler laughed, but Giles didn't know if it was altogether pleasant. "I think that you've probably already guessed."

"Last night?" Giles spoke.

"Yeah. I wanted to apologize for following you," Tyler said smoothly. Giles started. Tyler was admitting that he had followed them? "I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay."

"Why wouldn't everything be okay?" Giles asked, perplexed.

Tyler shrugged and wandered farther into the apartment, Giles following him. "So what's going on between you and Buffy?"

Giles was once more startled by his son's words. "Tyler, I'm not sure--"

"Oh, come on, Rupert, you can tell me. Are you two...a couple now?" He grinned at Giles and raised an eyebrow. The tone of Tyler's voice was somewhere between joking and disconcerting, but Giles began to smile a little unsurely. Tyler's smile widened. "Yeah, I thought so. I have to know one thing before I leave, though. Are you going to leave Buffy like you left me and my mother?" he asked, his tone suddenly cold. Giles' eyes widened.

"What?"

"You know, love them, leave them?"

"How dare you suggest such a thing?" Giles intoned, his stomach twisting dreadfully. What was Tyler doing?

"How dare *I*? Why wouldn't I suggest it? You *did* abandon us. You abandoned your own *SON*," Tyler growled, his voice rising. "How dare *I*? How dare *you*! You dropped us for some school, for something that obviously never amounted to much if you live here in this little town."

"Tyler, I--"

"Don't make excuses!" Tyler shouted. "Just tell me why you left me! Why didn't you want me?"

"I didn't KNOW you!" Giles protested. "I had no idea you existed!"

"You didn't bother to wait and find out." Tyler said in a quietly choked voice.

"Tyler, I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, but I simply wasn't ready to stay," Giles said, stepping forward. "If I had known, things might have been different, but I didn't and there is nothing that can change that now. You saw Buffy slay those vampires last night. I'm the one who trains her and protects her. That's why I had to go away; I was training to be a Watcher. Tyler, I didn't even know your mother was pregnant. I never told Jillian I was staying. She *knew* that I was going away. Your mother ran away from me before I could say good bye. I tried for three days to get a hold of her. I went to her house, but she would never come down. Adeleid just kept turning me away. Not that the bloody bitch would have let me in either way."

Tyler shook his head and snorted in derision. "Slayer, huh?"

Giles nodded. "There is a girl born every generation with the ability to fight and kill vampires and other things you only think exist in movies and nightmares. Buffy is that girl. She slays--"

"Vampires, yes, you already tried to tell me that."

"Tyler, you saw them yourself. You saw them attack us and--"

"I didn't say I didn't believe in them," Tyler said with a humorless laugh. "I know much better now. No, I believe in them, I just don't know if I believe she's the Slayer."

"Oh, Tyler," Giles said quietly.

"If I *want* to believe she's the Slayer," Tyler amended in a suddenly broken voice. Giles tensed at the shockingly abrupt change in tone. The sad tired voice nearly disturbed him more than the anger. "Because then it would mean you're not just the selfish bastard who left us. You had a purpose."

"Tyler, I never meant to hurt your mother. I just didn't love her. I had never planned to stay in the first place. Much as you probably hate to hear it, it was just an affair, though I think your mother did grow to love me. In that sense you can still believe I was a selfish bastard," he said with a small laugh. "But I never intended to hurt her. I was needed."

Tyler nodded and spoke bitterly. "I came here to find out why you left us and I find out that you're not quite the prick I'd come to expect with the way Adeleid described you. I got to like you. And I got to like Buffy," he said, a sad smile tugging at his lips. "She's wonderful, not like anyone I've ever met."

"She is amazing," Giles agreed in a hush, love changing his somber expression.

"I guess you'd know that, though," Tyler said numbly. "Did you ever notice how much she looks like mother?"

"Not until you came, no," Giles replied. "But I do now."

"I really did come to care for her," Tyler stated. "At first I thought you two were just friends."

"We were, at first."

"Then the more time I spent with the two of you, the more I realized that even if you didn't know it yet, you were so much more. Do you realize how much the two of you love each other?" he asked tightly. Giles didn't answer. "Well I did, and I hated it. I looked at Buffy when she was with you and I saw Mum and I despised you. I wondered why you didn't stay with my mother and here you were with someone who so resembled her. And last night when I saw you two and the way you fought together, I hated Buffy for not being my mother." Tyler paused thoughtfully and in the sudden silence looked up at his father for the first time since he began his speech. "Do you know how much I hated you?" he asked smoothly. "Do you know how long I wanted to meet you just so I could tell you that? That I blamed you for her suicide and now I don't know if I still do or not?"

Giles balked. His legs suddenly didn't seem able to support him and he nearly went down. "Suicide?" he hissed. "Jill *killed* herself?

Tyler nodded, bright, angry tears now spilling over his dark lashes onto firey cheeks. "Sh-she loved you, so much. You left and she couldn't take care of me. She couldn't even take care of herself. Grandmother practically raised me. She started drinking, a-and smoking and doing drugs. Grandmother said she used to be so beautiful and sweet, showed me pictures." He angrily wiped his nose. "I believed you ruined her. That you killed her with your absence. Now...do you know how terrible it is to not know anymore whether or not I hate you for that?"

Giles' heart pounded in a terrible rhythm of pain and dark sadness. This boy hadn't grown up with his father and even now he didn't realize that he had never really known his mother either.

"Oh, no, no. Tyler," Giles murmured sadly. "No, son--"

"Don't call me that!" Tyler cried. "I-I don't think I need you to call me that right now," he said more quietly. "I don't know *what* to think anymore but I do know that won't make it any better." Giles sighed in pain.

"Tyler, Jillian was sick long before I ever met her. She and Adeleid...their relationship was never what it should have been. Jillian was sad, Tyler, self-destructive. She didn't want to be, she just couldn't find any other way."

Tyler swallowed and didn't speak for a moment. "You know, if we'd had this conversation any earlier I would have called you a liar. All this time I've been spending with you, I've gotten to like you and that made me crazy. To me you were always the man that killed my mother. The older I got, the more I realized that I had to at least meet you. I didn't hate you any less, but I knew I had to give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to believe that she was like that. I want you to be the man who killed her. I want you to be the man who changed and destroyed a sweet young woman with promise." He choked a little. "But I don't think that's true, anymore. I-I always remembered her through child's eyes. The way I saw her when I was small." He looked up, his eyes filled with anger and pain. "B- but now that I'm older, a-and I know you, I c-can't believe that. So I don't know *what* to believe."

He looked up at Giles with a twisted smile. "You know, I've been watching you two training for a while now." Giles' eyes widened. Tyler had been *watching* them? *Spying* on them? Tyler continued. "When I realized what you and Buffy were becoming, all the hate that I had slowly begun to reason away came back. I want to protect her. Are you going to do to her what you did to my mother?" Tyler asked with a forced smile.

"Tyler, I would never do anything to hurt Buffy. I would die first." Tyler nodded.

"I think I know that, but it doesn't change anything." He licked his lips. "I-I can't help it. My whole life you were the bad guy. Now I see you and I can't reconcile the two Rupert Gileses. A-and I can't look at you and Buffy together."

"Tyler--"

"You'd never stay away from Buffy now, would you?" Tyler asked, that smile without warmth still on his lips.

Heavy dread sunk into the pit of Giles' stomach, but he breathed deeply and shook his head. "Nothing could ever make me stay away from her."

"Thought not. You know, I hadn't ever planned on staying more than the minimum it would require to get to know you and see if my giving you the benefit of the doubt was the right choice. The moment I met you I realized that it would take a long time and so I've been holding back everything I wanted to say for years, waiting until I came to my decision. I was going to let it all out then. But now I don't think I can stay for that long. I don't think I can be here." Giles opened his mouth, but Tyler cut him off. "Please don't try and say anything. I'm making the right decision for me. Being here with the good kind man I've come to know but still with a lifetime of hate, and seeing you with Buffy when inside I still know it should have been my mother, whether or not that's actually true; knowing she's never going to love me...it's too much. I need to be...away. Not here." He looked up once more, face devoid of expression. "When I figure this all out..." he didn't finish. Giles knew there was no answer, no way to finish that sentence that wouldn't be a lie. His lungs and heart worked on a blessedly independent system because nothing could have made it past the pain at this point. He'd just found a son and now he was losing him again.

Giles' lips parted but he could find only one word. "Tyler." He didn't know if the word was a question or plea, full of anger or sadness or pain or love. He only knew it was the one word that mattered.

Tyler pursed his lips and closed his eyes tightly, fighting through some painful emotion. When he opened his eyes, he caught Giles' gaze. They stood that way, locked in each other's eyes not knowing whether this was good bye forever or not. Giles couldn't breath. "Good bye, Rupert," Tyler spoke.

The young man gave one last smile and turned, making his way to the door. Giles didn't move as his son opened the door and stepped out into the night. He wasn't in physical control of any part of himself as that now achingly familiar figure disappeared from his life with no alert as to when or if it would return. He couldn't even wipe away the tears that now coursed down his cheeks as he dropped to the floor and that one important word mysteriously independent of his crumpled form rose from his lips. "Tyler."

Tyler closed the door behind him and clenched his eyes so tightly his forehead and all the muscles in his face ached. His breath jerked painfully in his chest as he tried unsuccessfully to stem the flow of tears that threatened. He opened his eyes and took a step forward when he heard a soft sob. He whipped his gaze up and was shocked to see Buffy sitting in a patio chair. One arm rested on the matching table, fist clenched so tightly he imagined it must be painful. The other hand was pressed tightly over her mouth in an attempt to conceal her crying as she watched him.

"Buffy," he gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"I got nervous about talking to you," she said in a trembling voice. "I-I was going to come here for a minute before I went to meet you. Giles always knows how to make me feel better." She dropped her eyes for an instant. "I heard you."

Tyler had to work hard to breath deeply and steady himself. "All of it?"

She nodded then spoke, her voice almost inaudible. "Are you really leaving?"

Tyler nodded. "If you heard it all, I trust you won't need me to explain myself again. I don't think I'd be able to anyway."

"Tyler, do you know how much he loves you?" Buffy asked, no longer crying but not bothering to wipe her face. Tyler slowly lowered himself into the chair opposite her. "I've never seen him so happy."

Tyler smiled wryly. "I don't think that can be totally attributed to my presence," he looked pointedly at her.

Buffy nodded. "No, you're right, but all the same...He has a son now. He always thought of us as his children, Willow and Xander especially now," she smiled a little, "but I don't think even he realized how much he wanted a family of his own until you found him. You gave him back a life he didn't even know he'd lost."

"Please don't tell me that," Tyler said tightly.

"But it's the truth," Buffy moaned, leaning across the table. "I know you don't want to hear it Tyler, but it's true."

Tyler shook his head. "It doesn't change my mind. I-I can't do this. Not now, not here. One day, maybe."

"Maybe isn't good enough!" Buffy cried. "Not for Giles."

Tyler looked up at this, a new pain in his eyes, but also something warmer. "Do you realize how much I care for you?" he asked.

Buffy shook her head and leaned back. "Tyler, don't, okay?"

Tyler smiled and leaned forward as she leaned back. "I've fallen in love with you."

"Tyler if this is supposed to change anything, it's not."

"It's not," the young man said resignedly. "I just can't see you with my father and know that you're so much like my mother but you're not her. And I can't see you with him and know you'll never be mine." He stood up and moved around the table, bending down to press his lips to her forehead. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes.

"This is going to kill him," she said, her words low and thick.

Tyler tipped his head. "No, it's not. As long as he has you, nothing can hurt him." He took a few steps then paused without turning. "I'm sorry, Buffy, know that. Tell him that again. He has to know I really am sorry."

Buffy sat stiffly in her chair, her body rigid as she listened to the footsteps fade into the soft sounds of the night. When Tyler had disappeared, she slumped in her chair, covering her eyes.

"Giles," she murmured. Her head rose quickly. "Giles." She stood and moved to the front step. Taking the knob, she softly opened the door and stepped inside. Her heart broke at the sight of the tall strong frame kneeling on the ground in despair. She moved to him, in silence. Gently, Buffy put out her hand and placed it on his damp cheek.

"Oh, Buffy, what happened?"

Buffy was in tears again at the defeated tone. She placed her other hand on his face and shook her head, her throat working. "I don't know, love. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She could only repeat those words as she wrapped her arms around her lover. "He's sorry too," she said after a while.

"I had a son, Buffy," Giles said, sitting up. "I had a son and now he's gone. How did I lose him? Jillian killed herself and he blamed me; he couldn't look at me. He can't even be in the same city as me," he said, running his hands repeatedly through his hair.

Buffy softly took his hands in her own, stopping the frantic movement. "He does love you Giles, he wants to, I think. He just doesn't know how."

"He's gone."

"It's not for good, Giles. I know it." She tipped her head, caressing his cheek. "Besides, who could stay away from you?" Giles didn't smile, but Buffy saw the love and gratefulness in his eyes. She leaned forward and Giles caught her lips in a hungry kiss. "I don't know when it will happen," Buffy said, trailing light kisses across his brow, "but it will. And I'll be here with you when it does." Giles wrapped her in his embrace, his arms terribly yet wonderfully tight and they remained there, wrapped in each other's arms.

THE END

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