Title: Laura Giles Part 7a
Author: Laura Curtis
PAIRING: none.
FEEDBACK: Will be appreciated
E-MAIL: abf1teddybear@yahoo.com
SUMMARY: The night before Giles meets Buffy. Laura gets to have a long awaited experience.
DISCLAIMER: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. The story was written for the enjoyment of the readers. No money is being made from its publication on Live Journal.
This is for the Watcher’s First Ficathon. Mythichistorian thought up this idea and when I saw one of the choices I knew I had to try one for once. I choose Earthquake, At home, Amusement and I placed it in my Buffy Universe of Laura Giles, from part 7, the evening before Laura heads back to England after she helped set up everything for Rupert’s work in Sunnydale. In the Buffy Universe it would take place the night before Giles meets Buffy.
It had been a long three days. Setting up the library for Rupert so that he could train the slayer had exhausted her; the computer alone took a day. If it hadn’t been for Willow’s help it might have been longer and if it hadn’t been for Willow, Xander and Jesse’s help her and Rupert still might be there.
She was tired but kept pacing around Rupert’s apartment. She just couldn’t seem to settle down and rest. She had a long flight tomorrow home and her and airplanes were, how did Willow put it, an unmixy thing? Laura, smiling at Willow’s simple yet precise words, stopped pacing for a moment to think. Did anything else needed to be done before she left the next day to return home to England? The things they had done kept running through her mind. They had gotten the weapons locker set up, Rupert’s office set up, the computer set up for research, and the front part of the library set up so the slayer could train. The upper stacks as well and the back section of the books, Rupert’s flat, setting up his bank accounts as well as getting his car from the shipper. After another moment of thought Laura nodded her head. Everything was ready for Rupert to continue the training Uncle Merrick had started.
Laura walked to the window and stood staring out it. She would miss Uncle Merrick.
Rupert, sitting on the couch resting his head against back, looked up at her. “Laura you need to sit and rest. Tomorrow will be almost as exhausting for you as the past three days has been for all of us. You know you don’t travel well on an airplane.”
Laura looked at her brother and smiled. “I know. I just feel just so full of energy even though I’m tired.”
“I’m exhausted as well. Between setting up the library, my apartment and all of the site seeing we’ve done while you were here. We did do everything you wanted to this time didn’t we?”
“There was one more thing I kind of hope to experience, one final amusement, while I was here but it didn’t happen.”
Rupert looked at Laura confused. “What more were you looking to experience while you were here? We went to the San Diego Zoo, China Town in L.A., that street where you bought the Mexican souvenir for Elizabeth. I know you wanted to go to Disneyland but we can go the next time you’re here.”
She looked sheepishly away from him and started walking around the room straightening this and that.
“Laura? What?”
Laura looked back at him while she was still moving. “You’re going to think this is crazy of me.”
“No I won’t, now what is it?”
“You remember my friend Faye the US Marine I met from the American Embassy in London?”
Rupert smiled. “Yes, a charming girl. What about her?”
Laura stopped walking about but slightly swayed from side to side. “Well we got to talking one time and she told me about being stationed here in California after her basic training. She told me all the things she did here, San Diego Zoo, Alvera Street, China Town in San Francisco, and Disneyland thus me wanting to see them.”
“Yes.”
“Well she told me about something that happened to her once. She had gone to sleep one night and the next morning before her alarm could go off she woke up to her bed ‘walking’ across her barracks room because of an earthquake. Ever since then I had this kind of secret wish to feel an earthquake. Silly I know but…”
Rupert started to say something when he felt his couch raise and fall like if he was sitting on a giant’s stomach and the giant took a deep, slow breath. He smiled. “Laura do you feel that?”
“What?”
“I think we’re having an earthquake right now.”
Still swaying Laura shook her head. “I don’t feel it.”
“It’s like the floor is breathing, up and down slowly.”
After a moment Laura shook her head again, “No I still don’t feel it.”
“Sit down and don’t move and maybe that will help.”
So Laura sat down on the floor and at first she didn’t feel anything then the floor beneath her slowly rose and fell. Laura’s eyes widened and a smile appeared on her face. After the third time it stopped and like a kid in a candy story Laura jumped up and hugged Rupert. “Oh my God Rupert, that was so amazing. I never felt anything like it before. Like you said, it was like the floor was breathing.”
Rupert hugger her back, “Well I’m glad you had your final amusement before you headed back home to England.”
The End.
Let me know what you think.
AN: Both earthquake experiences really happened. The one to my sister in the 70’s while in California. And the other happened to me when my husband and I first moved to California to live there while he was at a Navy base there. Only for me I had wanted to feel one ever since she told me about the one she went through. When the first one happened after moving there I was sitting on the floor holding our two month old son. I had to put him down and stop moving to feel it. It was exciting: to me at least. But I didn’t jump up and hug anyone.