Title: Living Backwards
Series: Magic Season (9/12)
Author: Kerry Blackwell-Dustin
Email: magicbox@whitehats.co.nz
Pairing: B/G, W/T, S/Dawn
Further disclaimers etc in part 0
The silence in the room was deafening.
Giles was still staring at Greg Falconer. After all their years together, Buffy could almost see the wheels turning in Rupert's head. Whirring and spinning, they were taking all the pieces and trying to put them all together in the right order. Buffy had no idea what those pieces were or what kind of picture they were going to make, but she knew she would find out when he had the answer worked out.
Willow, full of a mother's concern, wasn't so patient.
"Giles, do you know this man?"
Giles shook his head, the gesture more one of confusion than anything else. "I don't know," he admitted quietly, almost speaking to himself.
He looked Greg Falconer over once more and shook his head again, more certain this time. "I think I may have known your father," he said finally. "Or possibly even your grandfather. He was an old man when I knew him, and that was many years ago. You confused me for a moment; I thought you were him, young again."
Now it was Falconer's turn to hesitate. He returned Giles' gaze carefully, as if trying to reach a decision. Finally, just as Dawn was about to say something - anything - to break the silence, he smiled slightly. It was just the quirking of once side of his mouth, barely a movement at all, but it was so familiar it made something inside Giles tie itself into knots. Elaborate, Celtic ones of the kind old Hakwesbury had taught him to use as a focus for meditation.
"It's me, Rupert," the young man said softly. "Not a son or a grandson, for I am still denied those, but myself."
Giles sat, abruptly, and would have landed on the floor if Buffy hadn't snaked out an arm and dragged him towards her. Instead, he fell into her lap, shaken, confused and embarrassed.
She gently helped him regain his balance, her expression full of worry and concern. "Rupert, what's going on? Who is this guy?" Her voice, already quiet and for his ears only, dropped lower still. "Should I have the boys throw him out?"
His insides lurched again, in a nice way this time. She might still occasionally have trouble showing it, but he was married to one of the most compassionate and loving woman on the planet, and the only person that failed to realise that was Buffy herself. He leaned over and kissed her temple. "I don't know if they could," he whispered against her skin.
Falconer had finally stepped away from the door, but he stopped again a few paces into the room unsure of his reception.
Tara was watching Giles, her eyes wide with worry. She reached back blindly to touch Willow, who clasped her hand in her own, giving Tara's fingers a comforting squeeze. Willow had never moved her gaze from the man courting her daughter with magic. He was powerful; he had it dampened down and most likely only Willow, who had touched powerful magic in the past, could sense that it was there.
"What do you want with my daughter?" she asked abruptly when Giles didn't appear to be about to say anything more. "Why did you choose her and not someone else?"
The man twisted his hands together, a nervous gesture that didn't sit well with his general calm composure.
"Ah..." He turned warm, brown eyes on Willow. "May I sit? This is rather complicated."
"Not really," Willow said sharply. "You set an attraction spell on my daughter. I want to know why."
"Not exactly," Giles interrupted, unable to let the inaccuracy go by. "All indications are that he performed a seeker spell that Hazel answered. It's not the same."
"He's stalking our girl," Willow retorted.
"I am not." The words were sharp and authoritative, falling abruptly into the air. There was a quiet authority in them of the kind Willow associated with Giles.
This time, Falconer sat without waiting for permission, facing Willow and Tara, clearly aware they were the ones whose support he needed most. "I have done nothing of the kind," he said firmly. "When Hazel responded to my seeking, it was Ms Summers' agent who contacted me. Until today, all my dealings have been either with Mr Andersen or, over this last week, with Ms Summers herself."
"That's true," Dawn offered helpfully. "Hazel doesn't even know I invited him here."
"This is a world where magic is little understood - or elsewise completely misunderstood," Falconer said quietly. "I have done as I required to live, but I have never and I would never turn the Art to the Dark. You daughter has nothing to fear from me. I ask only to meet her, to learn if my search is finally done." He glanced over at Giles, who was sitting at Buffy's side, listening intently. "Rupert knows this, knows me. He will vouch for me."
It was a long time before Giles spoke, as if he was at a loss for words; he the Watcher, who had always had words enough and spare for himself and those around him. "If you are indeed Peter Hawkesbury," he said slowly, "then I doubt I have ever known you at all."
"Yes," Falconer insisted softly. "You do."
"No," Giles insisted. "I don't. How can I?"
"Woah," Buffy interrupted before the exchange of monosyllables could continue. "Who's this Hawk-guy, what does he have to do with him..." She pointed in Falconer's direction, not caring that she had spent years trying to teach her children that this was the ultimate in rudeness. "...and what does any of it have to do with Hazel? This is me, remember? Non-magic woman."
"Peter Hawkesbury was my tutor in magic when I was at Oxford. You remember, I've told you the story before. I was studying history by day, and magic and the occult by night. With Hawkesbury. I was young, eighteen, and he was old then." He looked up at the young, vigorous man in front of them. "That was almost seventy years ago. How can you be him?"
Falconer actually looked embarrassed. Very, very embarrassed, possibly even ashamed. His gaze had left Willow now, all his attention focussed on Giles. "A long time ago, in my youth, I was..." He hesitated, searching for the right word. "...unwise with my power. It was a time when magic was just beginning to grow rare and I was a foolish boy who did not take care of the secrets he was taught." He gave Giles a wry, self-deprecating look. "I know about rebelling against destiny, but like you, I discovered it has a very long arm."
"What happened?" Giles found himself asking. This was personal, deep and painful, and shouldn't be discussed in a room full of people. The question slipped free all the same, as if it had been drawn from him.
That was the way it had been in the old cottage on the outskirts of Oxford so many years earlier. It hadn't been the magic he had run from; it had been his father's relentless pressure and the Damoclean threat of Watcherdom hanging over his head. He had loved cycling through the street to Hawkesbury's cottage, full of both trash and treasure. The old man had been full of knowledge that young Rupert had been so eager to learn. He had drawn curiosity and questions out of the boy and had always answered whatever was asked, even if sometimes those answers were not what Giles had wanted to hear. He had gone out and misused that knowledge, but Hawkesbury had taken him back with barely a scolding and taught him how to do better.
Had he understood because he had done something similar? How could such a thing be? Could it be true that Falconer and Hawkesbury were the same man? It seemed impossible, but if Giles had learned anything through the years it was that there was very little - if anything - that was truly impossible. There were a great many things that should not be done, but very few that could not be.
He found himself looking into familiar eyes and for a moment he really thought it was old Hawkesbury sitting across from him. Furious that he might be being manipulated, he sharpened his focus and the illusion wavered and vanished so that it was Greg Falconer in from of him again. But the eyes were exactly the same.
"What happened?" Giles repeated softly.
"I was cursed," Falconer answered with awful simplicity. "By the Powers Above. They doomed me to grow old, but not to die. In fact, to begin to grow young again over centuries, without love or solace until the day I found my soulmate. And if I should not find her, I would finally die an infant."
His gaze slid back to Willow. "I have been looking for so very long and I am beginning to run out of time. In all those years of seeking, only one has ever answered."
"Hazel," Willow whispered.
He nodded. "Please," he begged. "Let me at least meet her. Soul magic is strong, but it is not tainted by the Dark. Truly."
"He's telling the truth," Tara said softly to Willow. "Think of what we have and multiply it by ten. By a hundred. That's what the bond between soulmates is meant to be like." Willow was still frowning, and Tara touched her hand gently. "We always knew Hazel was special; this is a part of that. I say they should be allowed to meet and see if it is true between them. We have no right to deny Hazel that chance."
"I don't want her to be hurt," Willow whispered.
"I couldn't hurt her," Falconer promised. "Not even if I wanted to, which I never would."
"I..." Willow still looked troubled.
Tara smiled at her, the same gentle smile Willow had loved for so many years, and turned back to Falconer.
"I know who you are," she said softly. "I can't decide if your reputation works for you or against you, or if any of it is even true, but I am willing to let you meet my daughter."
Falconer was staring at her, as if he had never met anyone quite like her before. "I don't..." he began, but Tara silenced him with a single shake of her head.
"I know who you are," she repeated. "Merlin."