TITLE: Anchor (Part 6/16)
AUTHOR: Kerry Blackwell
PAIRING: Genfic - B/S and X/A as on the show
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Through "Wrecked" on Buffy and "Dad" on Angel
TIMELINE: Imagine it's about six weeks after those episodes and the ones we saw didn't happen.
DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy and Angel belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, UPN, FOX and Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. I own only my genius (yeah, right!)
DISTRIBUTION: My site - White Hats - http://www.whitehats.co.nz (as soon as I'm well enough to code it and upload it) Any one else please ask first
FEEDBACK: Yes please!
THANKS: To Sarah for her editing assistance, and to Sarah and Ang for being ready to brainstorm with me when I begged appropriately.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I started this after seeing "Wrecked" and "Dad". My take on what could have happened next. It got totally Jossed immediately of course and since it takes me a long time to write anything, it got more and more AU as time went by. I had hoped to post it in the break, before anything _more_ happened, but I didn't manage it. Anyway, here it is. Just forget what happened after those two episodes and read my version. Please...

Giles was back in Sunnydale in just under twenty four hours – an amazing and exceedingly expensive miracle.

Xander and Anya were waiting for him at the airport as they had arranged when Giles had called Buffy back.

"It's still my shop," Anya announced as soon as she laid eyes on him, while Xander took his travel case without a word and started heading for the baggage claim area.

"That's it," Giles said mildly. "_Our_ shop," he added more forcibly to Anya.

Xander stopped and turned around to look at him. "Where's your luggage?"

"That's it," Giles admitted. "I didn't have time to pack any more."

"You did kind of rush, didn't you, G-man?" Xander agreed, and lead the way towards the car instead.

"Once I decided to come, it was easier just to get on with it," he explained, for once ignoring the unwelcome nickname. There was something as familiar about it as there was annoying and it reinforced his awareness that he was back in Sunnydale. "How's Buffy?" he asked, the question sneaking out before he could help it.

But Xander just grinned. "You know what, I think she might be ready to turn back into Buffy, instead of being the zombie monster from hell."

"Heaven," Anya corrected helpfully. "She was in heaven, remember?"

Xander's face sobered. "I remember," he agreed shortly. "I'm not likely to forget."

Giles decided to change the subject. "Tell me about this baby," he asked as if he hadn't heard the last exchange.

"He's a boy and he's got two arms and two legs and brown eyes and black hair," Anya answered all in a rush, taking the question literally.

"That's helpful, honey," Xander commented. "We don't know who he is and we don't know exactly who's after him," he told Giles. "Buffy saw some kind a vigilante vampire killer when she was out on patrol last night after she called you. We don't know if he's connected to Rupert, but she said he had some pretty good moves. He had a girl with him. No-one sent a new Watcher and Slayer to Sunnydale while we weren't paying attention, did they?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Giles answered. "Of course, they might not tell me. I can call some contacts to check when we get to…" He broke off. "I can get a hotel room or something," he offered. "My arrival is rather sudden."

"The Buffster's got it covered," Xander told him firmly. "She's sharing with Dawn, Willow's in Buffy's room for the duration and you've got Dawn's. They've been playing musical bedrooms all morning."

"They didn't want my help," Anya said reprovingly. "Willow got most annoyed when I tried to help her sort her books."

"I think the constant 'in the magic shop' comments got to her," Xander told her a little sharply. "Kind of like rubbing salt in the wound, you know?"

"I was only trying to help."

"How _is_ Willow?" Giles asked before an argument could start.

"Still on the wagon," Xander answered as they reached the car. "She's finding it hard, but it's nice to see the old Willow again. She's been 'Net girl lately. All we need's the library and it could be the old days again."

Giles shuddered as he settled into the back seat. "No thank you. Let's just keep moving forward, don't you think?"

Xander sighed and nodded as he started the ignition. "I guess so. But life was easier when all we had to worry about were vampires, pop quizzes and the end of the world."

"It's called growing up," Giles said with a laugh. "I'm sorry Xander, but I'm afraid you can't stop it."

They drove out of the parking lot and onto the wide, familiar Californian streets.

"That's what I was afraid of," Xander admitted.

Buffy met him at the front door, her arms full of baby. She stepped forward, as if she was going to hug him, then stopped, unsure of her welcome. Giles solved the problem for her by walking into the house and wrapping his arms around both her and the little boy.

"You came back," she murmured, letting herself rest her head against his chest for a moment.

"I came back," he agreed softly.

She pulled out of the hug and gave him a tremulous smile. "See, no leaning." She stomped her feet, making the baby blink in surprise at the unexpected bounce. "All standy on my own feet."

Giles smiled, a wave of affection for her sweeping through him. "Good for you."

"It's hard," she whispered.

"Life is," he agreed seriously.

"Better than death, though?" It was still a question, but only barely.

Giles nodded and she smiled, just a little, and nodded back.

"Giles!" Dawn had had enough of this serious stuff. She rushed Giles, almost jumping into his arms. He steadied himself against the whirlwind, hugging her tightly.

"Did you miss me, Dawn?" he asked ironically.

"Duh!" she said without letting him go. "I only told you so, in _all_ my letters."

"So you did," he admitted.

She let him go, stepping back and giving him a speculative gaze, suddenly an aloof teenager again. "Are you staying this time?" she asked, and he winced inwardly at the barely concealed vulnerability in her words.

"I don't know," he said honestly, not planning to start lying to her now. He glanced at Buffy, standing there cuddling Rupert and watching them in silence. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe so."

"Cool." Dawn's attempt at indifference didn't manage to hide her relief, but Giles, conscious of her fifteen year-old dignity, made a point of pretending not to notice.

He walked over to the third member of the current Summers' household. "How are you, Willow?"

She gave him a rueful smile. "Just Willow," she answered. "Plain, old Willow here."

"I like Just Willow," he said seriously. "She's a very special person."

"Maybe." She looked embarrassed.

"I know it's hard," Giles said softly. "But I have faith you can do it."

For an instant she looked confused, then understanding flared in her eyes. "Been there, done that, huh?"

He nodded.

"Maybe…" She hesitated. "Maybe, sometime… if you're staying…" She swallowed. "Maybe we could talk."

He nodded again, and she managed a small smile.

"So," she said briskly. "I guess we ought to tell you about the latest evil, huh?"

"We don't know what the latest evil is," Buffy said with a sigh. "That's the problem. We're just afraid it's after Rupert."

Giles had turned back at her voice. "I think you'd better introduce me to Rupert," he suggested.

Buffy laughed, and he was startled by the sound, only realising as he heard it, how much it had been missed. She walked over to stand in front of him. "Mr Giles, this is Rupert," she said formally, although she was smiling. "Rupert, this is Mr Giles. He's Rupert too, so you'll have to call him Giles, like we do." She used her free hand to hold out the baby's small arm. Going along, Giles lightly held the tiny fingers and shook hands.

The baby gurgled at him, and he immediately understood how they had all been instantly smitten by the child. There was something innocent and pure about him. Not to mention the fact that he was totally cute. Whoever his parents were, it was a safe guess that at least one, if not both, of them was good looking.

"Tell me everything," he said firmly.

Buffy sat on the couch with Rupert on her knee and Xander draped himself across a chair. Anya took another chair and Willow joined Buffy on the couch. Giles sat across from the all, ready to listen.

If you ignored the fact that it was Rupert there instead of Tara – and that Tara would _never_ sit on Buffy's knee – it was possible to imagine that nothing had changed.

Except, of course, that everything had.

Rupert had fallen asleep in Buffy's arms and been put to bed in the old master bedroom. When Giles had last been in America, Willow and Tara had been sleeping there. Now, it was filled to overflowing with Buffy, Dawn and the baby. He had offered once again to get a hotel room, but Buffy had refused to listen, insisting that while he was helping them, he would stay with them.

"If, afterwards, you decide to stay," she had said hesitantly, "then we'll sort out something else. For now, you stay here. And _not_ on the couch," she added before he could suggest it. "Bossy Buffy says so."

He had done the only thing he could. He agreed. He'd learned a long time ago that there was no point in arguing with the Slayer when she used that tone of voice.

Xander and Anya had gone home, promising the return for a council of war in the morning, before they both went to work. And Willow had tactfully drawn Dawn away with a promise to help her with her computer homework, leaving Buffy and Giles together in the living room.

"Come and sit outside?" Buffy asked. "I… We need to talk." She flushed slightly. "Or I need to talk to you, anyway. Will you listen?"

Giles nodded. "Of course."

"Mom and I used to sit out here and talk," she said as they walked out to the front porch together. "And with the notable exception of Spike, vampires tend to stay away from the house."

"Spike's still around?" Giles asked, sitting down on the porch swing.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, flushing scarlet and immensely grateful Giles was looking out over the lawn instead of at her red face. Even in the dark, she didn't imagine he could miss it. She felt like a neon sign.

"Is he behaving?"

Buffy thought about it. "You know," she said slowly, "I think he is." This, she decided, was not the moment to tell him Spike could hit her. Or that the two of them were having dark, mind-blowing sex at regular intervals.

Maybe later. Maybe never. What she did have to say was going to be hard enough.

She sat down beside him, unconsciously setting the seat swinging gently. "Giles…" she began and stopped.

He waited, silent, but she didn't say anything else.

"Buffy?" he said gently.

No reply.

"Buffy, look at me."

She looked up reluctantly from her in depth inspection of her fingernails.

"Buffy, you can tell me anything," he said gently. "I won't judge you, I'll just listen. And if I can, I'll try to help."

"This is so hard," she whispered. "I think it's harder than being alive."

Giles looked at her carefully, seeing the tightness in her posture, the tension and near-fear in her eyes. "Just open your mouth and see what comes out," he suggested. "I know you," he added with a smile. "I have confidence _something_ will come out."

She chuckled, as he had intended. She set her heel against the wood and gave the swing another push. This one was harder than she had intended and the seat rocked precariously so that they tipped into each other, each catching the other for balance.

"Ooops." She shook her head. "I'm the Slayer. How come I can be such a klutz?"

"The phrase you're looking for is 'don't know you own strength'," Giles offered helpfully.

"I'm sorry, Giles," she blurted suddenly.

Buffy was still leaning against him, and the words were spoken into his chest. Giles gently helped her sit up again and she turned in the seat so that she was facing him, one leg tucked under her. But she wouldn't look at him, intently checking out her nail polish again.

"What for?" he asked quietly. "Surely not for trying to tip over the swing?"

She looked up at that, the barest trace of a smile on her face. "For everything," she said simply. "For never listening to you, for treating you like you were nothing." She glanced down, then back up again. "For treating you like shit," she clarified. "For being such a complete and total bitch."

He was staring at her, completely at a loss for words. Buffy had reduced him to incoherent speechlessness before, but nothing had prepared him for this.

He took his glasses off, automatically cleaning the lenses, and was further startled when he heard Buffy chuckle softly. "You've been sprung, you know," she said. "I know you clean your glasses when you don't want to look at us." She stopped abruptly, drawing in a harsh breath. "Can't you bear to look at me, Giles?"

"What?" He shoved his glasses back on his nose and resisted the urge to shake some sense into her.

Instead, he put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Buffy, that is the silliest thing I have _ever_ heard you say. You… I…" Giles stumbled on the words, not knowing how to say what he needed to, until he remembered a conversation they had had a very long time ago. "Buffy, I told you once; if you're looking for guilt, I'm not the one to come to. You will always have my support, and my respect." He hesitated, then added something he couldn't have done then. "And my love."

Buffy smiled up at him, looking like she was going to burst into tears.

"But I was so horrible to you. I've been horrible to everyone. It's been worst since…" She took a deep breath. "…since I died and they brought me back. But Giles, I've been thinking about it. I've always been horrible to everyone. I'm a horrible person."

"No." He shook his head, not sure how to explain something to her that was so fundamental he had no words for it.

"Buffy, you're the Slayer. Possibly the first Slayer ever to maintain such close and loving ties with her family and her friends. Most Slayers are trained to focus solely on the slaying. They have a blinkered vision so they don't see much else – remember Kendra? It's amazing how much you've managed to stay in tune with the world. How much you can love and be open to love in return."

He was making a hash of it, and he knew it.

Sure enough, Buffy was shaking her head. "I'm selfish," she said miserably. "I'm not there for my friends when they need it, even when they're there for me. I run away from my problems. I ran away from you all after…" She trailed to a halt, but Giles knew exactly what she was thinking about.

"After Angel," he said softly.

Buffy nodded dismally. "You were all hurting and I just ran away. _You_ were hurting." She looked up at him. "I still don't know what he did to you. Was it bad?"

Giles was about to brush the question away, just as he always did, when something in her face stopped him. Finally, she was ready to have the question answered. "Yes," he said instead, the word bland and without emotion.

"Very bad?"

"Yes," he said again.

She nodded. "I'm sorry. Sorry my actions got you hurt, sorry I ran away." The teary smile returned. "I remember when I came back. Everyone else had something to say, something to blame me for. You just looked at me and said 'Welcome home, Buffy'. Do you remember that? 'Welcome home, Buffy.'"

"I remember," he agreed with a nod. "I was afraid you were so badly hurt you'd just keep right on running and never come back."

"I always run away from my problems," she said sadly. "Some kind of hero I am."

"You _are_ a hero," Giles said with such simplicity she actually looked up at him, her expression surprised. "And because you are, your hurts are so much greater. Buffy, look back at the things that have happened in your life. At sixteen, you drowned and were revived. That would be traumatic if it happened in the _bath_. You were bitten by a master vampire and left to drown. At seventeen, you had to choose to send the man you loved to hell. You didn't even do it by accident, you had to _choose_ to do it. At eighteen you were betrayed _twice_. First by me and then by your sister Slayer who tried to have you blamed for a murder _she_ committed."

He smiled, almost reluctantly. "Not to mention the giant snake at your graduation and Angel leaving you. At twenty you died _again_, this time by choice, to save the sister you love. Then, once you'd found peace and rest, your friends dragged you out of _heaven_ for God's sake. Because they love you, which made you feel guilty about being angry with them about it, didn't it?" he added perceptively.

Buffy nodded slightly. "I hated them," she admitted. "And then I felt really bad, cause they only did it to help me. They didn't know."

"They should have done their research better," Giles said, unsurprised to find he still carried his own share of anger over the entire mess. "Buffy, I am beyond delighted to have you back, but they were wrong."

"When you put it like that…" she began slowly. "But I was still blind and selfish and horrible."

"I'm not saying your behaviour was perfect," Giles told her. "It was rather awful in fact, and no-one could get through your pain and your defences. I left because I was unintentionally helping you build them up, not break them down."

"I hated you, too," Buffy admitted in a small voice. "When you left me."

"There was a part of me that hated me, as well," Giles said. "But staying would have been worse, for both of us. You were too deep inside your pain for me to help you."

"See, I ran away again. Selfish Buffy."

"Sometimes you need to be selfish to heal," he told her quietly. "You need to go inside yourself and use all your energy to survive and find your way back again. That's what you did. I'm not saying it was a pleasure to watch – or be on the receiving end of – but it was necessary. That's how you deal with the horrors life throws at you Buffy. You retreat until you can heal. It's a classic survival behaviour, being selfish. It's okay."

"So long as you stop sometime," Buffy whispered.

"So long as you stop sometime," Giles agreed.

"I have," Buffy said more strongly. "I've stopped."

"I know," he assured her. "I can see it. In your face and in your eyes."

"I won't do it again," she promised.

Giles laughed. "Buffy, it's part of who you are. It's how you heal. Don't make promises you can't keep. Just, if there's a next time – and God forbid, there won't be – but if there _is_ a next time, try to be open to help from your friends."

"I'll try," she agreed ruefully. "Next time."

He tried to smile, and failed. "Buffy, please try not to die a third time. I don't think we could take it." He hesitated. "I _know_ I wouldn't survive losing you again."

Stunned by the emotion in his voice, Buffy could only nod. "You really do love me, don't you? All of you. Even when I'm being a selfish bitch."

"Even then," he agreed. "You have an enormous capacity for love, Buffy. To give it and to receive it. You inspire love and passion and strong emotions. You live them too, which leaves you open to being hurt." He frowned. "When you hurt, we bleed. Buffy, love isn't just hearts and flowers and valentines. It has so many layers and shades and permutations sometimes we don't even recognise them. But they're still there."

"I think I'm learning that," she said slowly. Her tone turned serious. "Giles, when I came back, everything was so bright and loud and awful. I wanted to die." She saw him flinch and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her and she smiled. "I don't want to die anymore," she promised. "I want to live. Live and live and live. I couldn't see it, but there are beautiful things in the world."

"And we can find them in the most unexpected places," he told her softly. "If we just remember to keep our eyes open for them."

"Like Rupert."

"I wondered when we were going to get to him," Giles said. "Buffy, you do know you can't keep him, don't you? He's somebody's son, and I'm sure that somebody is looking for him."

"I know," she agreed sadly. "But I wish I could. He made the world make sense again. I just have to look at him, at his beautiful little fingers and his funny smile, and I know life is worth living. The others, Dawn and Willow and Xander, even Spike, they weren't enough."

"It's called anchoring," Giles told her. "Finding someone or something that makes life make sense. It can help you feel balanced and able to cope again."

"So if I…" Buffy stopped and swallowed. "When I have to give Rupert back, I'll be lost again?" She looked up at him, fear in her eyes. "Giles, I couldn't bear that. I just couldn't."

"No, no." Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms, and she collapsed against him. He was horrified to discover she was shaking. "No, Buffy. It means Rupert is the one who helped you find that stable place inside you again. You've got it now, and you don't ever need to lose it again."

She continued to shudder, curled up defensively against his side. He made his voice firm. "Buffy, stop shaking," he ordered. "I want you to think about Rupert. Think about how he makes you feel. You said the world is a good place with him in it, remember?" He could feel the shaking easing, but he kept talking until she was completely calm again. "Remember how you know the world is a good place and how you want to live in it, to see it. Think of what a sunrise looks like and how a spring breeze feels on your face. Remember your family and your friends who love you."

Slowly, her defensive posture eased and Buffy sat up again, looking at him with an awed expression on her face. "Is that all I have to do? Remember the good things?"

"Yes," he promised. "That's all. Of course, sometimes it will seem impossibly difficult, but that's all you have to do."

"Wow," she said in a voice full of disbelief. "I can do that."

Giles laughed. "You, Buffy Summers, can do absolutely anything you put your mind to."

She chuckled. "Watch out, world. Buffy's back."

"Be afraid," Giles warned in a deliberately doom-laden voice. "Be very afraid."

"Hey, the Watcher scores a pop-culture reference!"

He didn't bother to dignify that with an answer, and she laughed.

"Do you think, when we find them, Rupert's parents will let me visit him sometimes?" she asked more seriously.

"I don't see why not," Giles answered. "Especially if you've saved him from the forces of evil."

"I guess we should find out which forces we're facing then," she said with a sigh. "I'm glad you're back, Research Guy."

"It's nice to be needed," he said ironically.

"You're needed, Giles," she said seriously. "But not in a needy way, if you know what I mean."

"Unbelievably, I do," he admitted. "You've corrupted me."

"Yay me," Buffy said cheerfully. She stilled the swing and stood up, looking down at him from the darkness. "Did we just have our first proper grown up conversation?" she asked.

"I believe so. It wasn't really that bad, now, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she agreed. "We should do it again sometime."

"We should." Giles didn't move from the seat, just gazed at her steadily. "So, do you want to talk about Spike now?"

NEXT