Title: Going Back 5/8
Author: Gail Christison
Pairing: B/G
Rating: PG-15 for romantic stuff and mildy scary bits.
Summary: First of all, this is a sequel to a post Tabula Rasa fic I wrote a long while ago called "The Visitor,"
http://www.wickedsky.com/oncemore/omwf/fanfic_visitor.html in which Buffy goes to England to reconnect with Giles and to tell him something. They do indeed 'connect' and their relationship evolves into a ..well a relationship <g>. This sequel was written purely to explore the dynamics of that new relationship but it turned into an exploration of Giles' past, and an introduction to it for Buffy, as well as a mystery [not sure how that sneaked in there <g>] that needs to be solved.
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy, Joss..yadda yadda
Distribution: If you want it, please just ask.I like to share <g> Anyone who already has permission...go for it :-)
Feedback: After the length of the birth of this thing? Oh, Ghhhod yesss :-) chriscln@iinet.net.au
Author's notes: Following on from the summary, I should explain that this story was started in 2002. Three pages sat for 12 months before being resumed in 2003 and a healthy chunk written, Emily and Gregor arriving with it :-). Annnnd yet I managed to get stuck again...I've still only just finished it. It was one of those kind of fics. More hiccups than a Saturday night drunk <vbg>
Thanks: At this point I have to thank some people. I'm pretty sure that Ruth and Karen checked out the Scottish accents for me a long time ago, and Gileswench has been great at keeping me going on this thing as well as providing early beta-ing and feedback on parts of it. I also have to thank Karesia for the final beta at short notice and amidst great adversity. It was profoundly appreciated. :-) With over 2 years to cover I'm sure I've forgotten someone who helped or who got shanhai-ed to provide a spot-beta along the way. Whoever you are, I love you...please don't shoot me :D
Dedication #1 Happy birthday, Kim and thanks, my friend
Dedication #2 For Dawn M. B/Gers like you keep me writing. :-)
"I know. We...we should get back to the house."
"But..."
"There isn't anything we can do here now," he said sternly and turned her to the ladder.
When they were both topside, he closed the door and the hasp.
"Giles?"
But Giles was staring at the door, every inch of him rigid with unspoken grief. Buffy could feel it radiating off him, and yet he was as still as a statue, his face set in stone.
Then her eyes widened. "A half dozen...he said 'a half dozen too long'...that's too spooky. It's him...isn't it?"
Giles finally looked up. "A half dozen?"
Buffy nodded. "He was telling me about the age difference...with him and Emily. He said..." She closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly, though the hot tears crowding her eyes weren't helping. "H-he said: 'ninety-something...six...I think...winters, I've seen. About half dozen too many by these old bones, but for as long as my Emily...' something... what's Scottish for 'is here' or 'stays', or 'hasn't gone yet' or like that?"
Giles looked puzzled for a moment, then got it. "Oh. 'Bides'?"
"That's it! '...for as long as my Emily bides, so will I, God...no...the Good Lord, willing...'"
They stared at each other.
"What are we going to do?"
Giles seemed to be a long way away. "There are recorded cases of people who don't realize they're dead...who simply...continue...until they do. Oftentimes, however, they don't realize they're not interacting with the world around them, so much as reacting to it from a distance. There are also cases of people who made a deliberate choice to stay. Generally though, they have to learn to focus enough to be seen, to interact physically to a point, which means they have to be aware of their circumstances from the outset..."
Moisture flicked from Buffy's lashes. "Stay...bide...he's staying until it's Emily's time?"
Green eyes, too bright, stared back at her. After several long moments, Giles nodded slowly.
*******
"There ye are at last...and these scones just out of the oven. Emily lifted open a cloth sitting in a basket on the table. Next to it were glass dishes of blackberry jam and strawberry conserve, along with a jug of clotted cream and a china dish with fresh butter.
Buffy and Giles resisted the temptation to look at each other, instead sitting down as they were bid, and allowing Emily to bring cups and saucers and then the teapot she'd filled with the big old kettle from the Aga.
"Where is Gregor?" Giles asked, splitting and buttering a hot, fluffy scone and mechanically adding jam and cream before setting it, uneaten, on his plate.
"Laying the fires for the evening," Emily told him as she came back to the table, a basket of fresh peas and a saucepan in her arms. As Giles formulated his next question, she began shelling them.
"Has he been quite well? No health problems?"
Emily looked up at Giles and smiled at him, her blue eyes twinkling with amusement. "Gregor? No' a one. He'll outlive me yet," she chuckled.
Buffy spilled tea on the cloth and put her cup down quickly, looking down and pretending to concentrate on mopping the spill with the handkerchief Giles had immediately handed her. Moments later she pushed back her chair and fled.
"Something ails the lassie?"
Giles tried to focus. "Uh...yes, I'm afraid, well...ladies'...um..."
"Ah," Emily winked. "Enough said."
He exhaled long, but silently, giving thanks for the universality of female...problems.
*******
Buffy wandered into the living room, lost in her thoughts and unheeding of the telltale moisture in her eyes, only to come face to face with Gregor, coming from the other direction and dusting soot off his hands.
"We've been looking everywhere for you! You had everyone worried," she teased, to cover her unsettled emotions.
"Pish," he growled. "I'll no' go anywhere without Emily. Such a stramashin' over so little."
"Pish, yourself," she retorted. "People care about you...and besides, breakfast was getting cold."
The craggy old face relaxed into a grin. "Ye'll keep Rupert on his toes. So many years we've missed, since we said goodbye to the boy. And now ye've brought the man back to us...so much like his father, save for his mother's eyes and his mother's heart."
"You can tell all that just from seeing him again?"
Gregor's smile widened. "I've loved that laddie like he were my own since he was a wee boy...his face holds no secrets from me."
They were interrupted by Giles' voice calling Buffy from his father's old sanctum. Gregor motioned to her to go.
The room looked almost like a small cross-section of Giles' old library. The combination of dark timber and row upon row of books, scattered artefacts on various tables and shelves, and the sense of great peace and quiet, gave Buffy a painful stab of déjà vu. Giles was standing by the fireplace, next to its great heavy mantle, dark as ebony, with an antique clock in the centre of it. He looked a little shaken.
"Something wrong?"
He opened his mouth, but the sound didn't come for several more moments.
"I called the Cardiologist on that appointment card. Fortunately, they keep excellent records. That appointment was definitely for Gregor. He'd been short of breath for a while, and having small episodes. Emily had forced him to see his own doctor, who'd recommended the specialist."
Buffy's head tilted to one side. "How did you get them to tell you confidential patient details like that?"
Giles cleared his throat. "I told the receptionist I was their son, Keith, and I um..." His eyes wandered back to the big oak desk and the mortar and pestle in the centre of it, a small curl of smoke still winding up from its contents.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "So, I'm guessing he never made it to a second appointment?"
Giles nodded tightly.
"S-should we...I mean...do we need to call the police about the...you know...in the cellar?"
He rubbed a hand over his distressed features. "Lord, I don't know. If it is Gregor, moving him might disturb whatever convergence of events has allowed him to remain here for so long with Emily...and I'm not sure I can do that to her..."
"But if it isn't..."
Giles nodded. "Then someone's been missing for a very long time. I think it's time we talked to the boy who comes here to do chores."
*******
Gilbert Crouch was neither a boy, nor was he available to talk to. It turned out that Gregor's 'lad' from the village was a forty-three year old man, a simpleton who lived with his mother, and who'd done chores for Emily and Gregor since he was in his twenties. Nobody had seen him for almost a year.
When Giles had apologised gently to Gilbert's still obviously heart-broken mother and the door had closed, they turned to each other, both pale and a little shaken.
Then Buffy's eyes widened, first startled, then filling with warmth. "Giles...it's not Gregor! I don't know what's going on...but I'll bet you anything-"
"That it's Gilbert," Giles finished, looking as though a great weight had just lifted from his shoulders. "But it doesn't explain where Gregor was, or why he lied about the cellar..."
Buffy frowned. "And there's that card in his, I mean Gilbert's, pocket, too."
Giles grasped the back of his neck with a harried hand. "He was probably using one of Gregor's macks. We all leave things in coat pockets. We must report the remains. I don't know how I let myself get so distracted by such fanciful theories..."
"Yeah, we do," Buffy agreed. "And considering how tame ghosts are in comparison with our regular day, uh, night job, I wouldn't worry too much about 'fanciful' theories if I were you," she added, smiling at last.
Giles smiled back, then frowned again. "On second thoughts, we still don't know where Gregor is disappearing to. I think perhaps we might beg Gilbert's forgiveness and ask him to wait just a little longer before he goes home..."
*******
Giles and Buffy came down to breakfast early the next morning, helping Emily to start the porridge and slice the bacon and the bread.
When she was done setting out the plates, bowls and cutlery, Buffy looked to Giles, who'd just finished wiping the bacon-slicer and was about to cover it again. He turned to Emily.
"We're going to go down to the henhouse while we're waiting for Gregor to come to breakfast, Em'. Buffy would like to see the bantams 'in the flesh' as it were. Having almost no experience of farm animals, she's rather intrigued by the idea of 'bonsai chickens'," he chuckled.
"Bonsai chickens?" Buffy drawled as they crossed the house yard.
Giles rolled his eyes. "I wanted to sound convincing. I've always found it very difficult to lie, t-to deceive Emily. I thought 'bonsai chickens' actually sounded more than ridiculous enough for your unique way of...labelling things," he added dryly.
Buffy could tell he was silently laughing at her. but ignored him. "So where do you think he went? I can't hear any wood being split and I haven't heard any movem...wait..." She turned.
Giles followed her down to the stream, curious in the extreme. He knew her hearing was well beyond his, but he still couldn't hear anything. When Buffy halted it was behind a thicket of May bush, blackberry and bramble. She signalled to him to go softly.
When they peeked through the only gap in the mass of vegetation, Giles could see why...except he wasn't thinking about any of that any more.
He wasn't thinking about anything, except the old man sitting on his mother's old grotto seat. When he was a small boy, he'd dubbed it 'The Wishing Stool'. The white-painted wrought iron garden chair was designed for two, and back then he'd spent many hours there with his mother on warm summer days, listening as she read him the classics...original versions of tales later butchered by the media to cater to modern sensibilities and marketing needs. He'd loved every moment of that time.
"Giles, who...?"
He put a hand on her shoulder. He was still coming to terms with what he was seeing. He barely remembered the slim, quicksilver figure, her short, dark hair so full of body, and glossy as a raven's wing, astonishing sky blue eyes, decadently long lashes and a mouth that could pout with the best of them...even Buffy. Gregor, predictably, was full of life, smiling and talking animatedly, chuckling every now and then.
"Giles?"
But Giles was taking Buffy's hand and leading her away. When they were back near the woodpile, they finally stopped.
"At least now we know where he disappears to...but why does he have to lie about it? Who is she, Rupert?"
Giles looked at her, his face still pale and his eyes filled with deep emotion. "It's Catriona," he said simply.
Buffy's eyes went like saucers. "That was...? But...so Gregor's definitely-maybe-not dead...but he talks to dead people...? And he has a dead people in his cellar...but he's really not a ghost?" she babbled, Willow-like.
A divot formed in Giles' brow. "Essentially, yes, I believe so. It's Catriona, as she was at the time of her death. She cannot *be*...therefore it has to be either an apparition of her...or some kind of cruel deception."
Long years of experience with cruel deception made them look at each other in a moment of shared bleakness, then Buffy seemed to gather herself.
"Then you have to go over there. Introduce yourself. If it's really Catriona, ghost or not, she'll be pleased to see you. If it's a trick...a...a vampire..." She stopped and frowned, concentrating. "Nope. Not a vampire. But maybe a demon, or some kind of shape-shifter. If it is, they're gonna scram but fast, right?"
Giles looked grim. "In theory, yes. There is also the possibility I could be putting Gregor in danger...not to mention embarrassing him terribly."
"Giles, at this point it's our only option. If it is something crappy that's somehow getting under my radar, we can't just let it keep taking advantage of him...I mean, he's already lying for it."
"I think he would lie anyway. Given his age, he may even suspect that it cannot be real and is afraid that if he told anyone, not only would she stop coming, but he might ultimately be taken away from here, or even from Emily, for his own good."
Buffy scowled. "They'd have to go through me first." She touched his arm. "Look, you have to. It'll be okay. I'd feel it if she was a vamp, and what would a demon want with a ninety year old guy?"
After a long moment he nodded, and Buffy followed him back to the thicket, watching as he stepped through.
The two heads, bowed close in conversation, immediately lifted.
"S-sorry to interrupt," Giles said gently, looking at Gregor but aware of Catriona's startled look. "We couldn't find you." He let his gaze move back to the girl, who was now looking at him through eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Rupert," she said softly, her gentle Scots brogue softening the word even more. "Poor Rupert."
Giles stared into the blue eyes. And then he knew; knew somehow that she *knew*...all of it...all of...him. "Who-who are you?"
She looked at her father and smiled reassuringly, then rose and walked toward Giles.
Buffy considered getting between them but restrained herself.
Catriona stopped just inches away and half smiled, but it died on her lips. "Leaving... seemed so wrong," she said, a faraway look in her eyes. "Thomas was so terribly unhappy...so heartbreakingly lonely..." She looked to Gregor again. "And then there wasn't a way to leave anymore..."
The old man nodded. "When Catriona chose to stay here for your father, a door closed and in all these years it hasn't opened again...not even when he died and moved on, himself."
"Why don't ye ask the lassie to come forward?" Catriona suggested, and was amused when Giles' emotionally charged expression was punctuated by two eyebrows flying up into his hairline.
Almost reluctantly, he stretched a hand backward, beckoning Buffy to him. She eased herself gingerly through the thicket and moved to his side, both of them watched by the young Scotswoman.
"Too much...there's been too much upon both of ye. Make the joy last, because it's no' done with ye yet," she said, her tone as heavy as her heart.
They looked at each other, this time with little surprise. It was no news to either of them that there would always be more...that they would never be allowed to rest.
Buffy turned back to her. "We kinda figured that out a long time ago. It's in the job description...death, mayhem, apocalypses...more death. Thing is, it doesn't matter; that's what we've learned. As long as we're there together, we'll take the good, the bad and the suckage as it comes."
Catriona smiled slowly. "Then it bids fair for both of ye." Her gaze flicked to Giles. "Now it's time to take Buffy to see the hens."
Irresistibly, Buffy and Giles looked at each other again, but when they looked back Catriona was gone...and so was Gregor. They both called out, then checked the surrounding bushes before sprinting up to the main yard.