Title: Be Careful What You Ask (You Might Not Like The Answer)
Author: Ness
Contact: sessa1_2@yahoo.com
Written: 08/20/2003
Pairing: None.
Rating: PG Angst!!
Spoilers: Season 5, "The Gift"
Summary: Giles finally tells Buffy the truth about what happened to Ben.
Distribution: Anyone that already has permission. Anyone else, please ask first.

Disclaimer: We all know who owns 'em and it ain't me. Joss and Co. are gods in their universe, I'm just a peon in mine.
Dedication: This one is for Morr. She not only beta'd it for me, she's the one that threw the bunny on me when I least expected it. *BG*

Giles and Buffy circled each other, sweat dripping off of them to dampen the practice mats. They traded blows, each one attempting to throw the other off-balance. To the casual observer, Buffy would have looked to be holding her own.

Giles knew better.

"Buffy, is something wrong?" He asked as he dodged a blow that should have clipped him squarely on his chin.

"No." But she wasn't putting even a half-hearted effort into the training.

"Buffy," he admonished her gently.

"Okay, so I'm not all gung-ho girl here, what do you want from me? She sighed as she blocked a punch. "I was dead, that has a tendency to make me grouchy," she muttered, half to herself.

"I understand you're feeling disoriented and distracted, but if there is something wrong, it might help to talk to someone." He gave her a sympathetic look as he circled her. "I really would like to help."

"I'm worried about Dawn," the blonde Slayer admitted.

"Why, she seems to be very happy that you've returned." Giles couldn't keep the confusion out of his voice.

"I'm worried about Glory coming back." Buffy didn't notice his stunned reaction, nor did she notice his attempt to recover.

"What do you mean? We defeated her." Giles' mind was working furiously, trying to remember if he had let anything slip as to what had happened to Ben. Her next words assured him he hadn't, but presented him with an entirely different problem.

Buffy was sparring on automatic pilot. Her focus was on the problem she'd been wrestling with ever since she'd come out of the stupor after being raised from the dead. "I've looked in all the hospitals, clinics, hell, I've even looked in the morgues. You have no idea how strange that was."

"Who have you been looking for?" He asked.

"Ben," was the distracted reply, her mind still on the problem of where he could be.

Giles' guard completely dropped at the mention of the young intern's name.

She didn't notice his sudden lack of motion or his ashen face as she threw a punch that should have been easily deflected. Instead, she clipped his jaw with enough force to send him sprawling flat on his back.

"Giles!" She ran to him and squatted down. "I'm sorry, I thought you were gonna duck that one." She was close to tears. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt her Watcher.

He sat up slowly, trying to shake the effects of the blow off.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she helped him to his feet.

"I'm fine," he replied curtly.

Buffy recoiled. "I already said I was sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Giles mentally cursed himself. "It's not you, Buffy."

"Then what?" She suddenly realized what she'd been discussing before she'd knocked him down. "Was it what I'd said about Ben?" Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know where he is?"

"I can only tell you that Ben is no longer an issue." Giles turned away from her, but wasn't allowed to complete the action because she grabbed his arm.

"What do you mean, 'he's not an issue'?" She demanded. "Do you know something I don't?" Her anger was overcoming her remorse at hitting him in a hurry.

"Buffy, let it be," Giles asked softly. He would not tell her what he'd done on her behalf. Both because she hadn't asked it, and because he was unsure of how she would view him once she knew.

"I don't think so." Buffy planted herself in front of him. "Why are you so sure that Dawn's safe from Glory?"

"I'm sure, isn't that enough?" He was weary beyond belief.

"Sorry, not good enough, Giles. I want to know what the hell you did." Buffy was unprepared for the sudden flare of fury in his eyes.

"You wish to know what I did?" Giles asked in a deceptively mild voice.

"Yes," Buffy answered, but her tone indicated that she might be less than ready.

The Watcher looked at her for a moment, before the fury drained from him and he shook his head. "No, no you don't." He went to move around her.

"Don't walk away from me." She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her.

"I bloody killed him!" He shouted. "I smothered him! Are you happy now?" He took in her shocked face and shook his head sadly. "I told you that you did not want to know," was the quiet reminder before he walked away.

Buffy was left in the middle of the training room trying to digest that her Watcher was a murderer.

****

Giles walked to his flat, cursing himself every step of the way. How bloody stupid could he have been? Telling Buffy that he killed Ben?

He sighed. Well, it was done now. Nothing else for him to do but wait for the fallout.

Would there ever come a time when he wouldn't be forced to keep life-altering secrets from the ones he loved?

A sigh escaped him once again as he pushed open the door to his flat.

****

Several hours later, Giles was awakened by a pounding on his door. He steadied himself, knowing it could only be one person. He sighed before pulling on shoes and clothes and walking to the front door.

"Hello, Buffy," he said, opening the door.

"You can't just drop a bombshell like that and leave." Buffy pushed her way past him, her anger rolling off in waves. She'd been walking around town for hours, trying to sort this out in her mind, but not having much luck. She'd even dusted half-a-dozen vamps to try and work off the anger she felt before talking to him, but that hadn't helped either.

She was still pissed.

"What exactly would you have me do?" Once again, his ire was surfacing to meet hers.

"Not leave, that's for damned sure." An accusing look was thrown his way before Buffy plopped down on his sofa, studying her hands in an attempt to avoid looking at him. When he'd told her that he'd killed Ben, the first thought that had went through her mind had been of him being a murderer. Now, she didn't know what to think.

Giles shrugged, unaware of the inner turmoil in his Slayer, and said, "Perhaps, but you seem to be the one here with all the answers, you tell me what I should have done."

"You didn't have to kill him," she whispered softly, bringing the conversation back to the crucial point.

"Yes, I did." His reply was just as quiet, as though saying it loudly would destroy the few remaining bonds between them.

"We don't kill innocents, Giles, we protect them." Buffy looked from her hands to stare at him, the accusations causing shadows to swirl in her eyes.

"We do what is needed when the greater good demands it." Giles sat down on the chair opposite her. It was time for her to understand that hard decisions had to be made and, more often than not, she would be the one required to make them--or at least, she would be if he were no longer around. He would spare her having to make them as long as he could.

"Like when you said we would have to kill Dawn." Remembered fury snapped between them.

He simply inclined his head in acknowledgement of the truth of her accusations.

"I can't accept that." Buffy stood and began to pace, trying to reconcile the man standing before her with the man she thought she'd known.

"I know you can't, that is why I chose to make the decision that would forever deny Glory access to this dimension." Giles' eyes were weary and sad. Could his Slayer understand and forgive the decisions that he had made in order to spare her exactly this? Or would she condemn him out of hand?

"How can you be so cold?" She whispered, condemnation ringing in every word.

He closed his eyes against the pain. Each syllable was like a physical blow. In his mind, he'd known that her understanding would most likely be denied him, but his heart had hoped and prayed that she would look past his deeds to the man he was and understand them.

Evidently not.

"It had to be done," was all that was said.

Buffy shook her head in denial of the calm acceptance of murder in his voice.

"Buffy, I'm not sure what you want me to say. Do you want my everlasting guilt for what I've done?" Giles stood now, walking away from her, going into the kitchen to begin a pot of tea. "I do not enjoy having to do things like that, but if I hadn't, Glory would have had free access to this dimension anytime she chose once she'd regained her strength. That was not an option. Or would you rather have had Dawn be in constant danger? Because that is what would have happened. Dawn, and everyone else in this world, would have been living on borrowed time waiting for a god to come and destroy them." He quirked a question brow. "Is that what you truly would want?"

"No!" She burst out, following him.

"Then what other option did we have?" He ran a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to shake his Slayer. She saw things in black-and-white, and unfortunately, this world consisted of nothing but shades of gray the majority of the time.

"I don't know, but there had to be something else that we could do." Buffy refused to believe that Ben dying was all that could have been done.

"There wasn't."

"You didn't try very hard to find anything else, did you?" She shot back.

Giles recoiled as though she'd slapped him. "Do you really believe that?" He asked hoarsely. "Do you believe that my first reaction was to kill that young man? To destroy a life that hadn't asked for Glory's presence?" He left the kitchen and walked to the front door and opened it. "If you do, we have nothing left to talk about."

Buffy had known she'd crossed the line when she accused him of wanting to kill Ben out of hand, but she also knew if she walked out now, they would never get past this. "I'm not leaving," she said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly, pushing down the surge of guilt that hammered at her because of the unfounded accusation. Giles wasn't the type of man to kill for no good reason and she knew it. "You owe me an explanation." She refused to believe he wouldn't have one. He had to have one. He just had to. Because if he didn't then she had to admit to herself that he did it--for her Just as he'd done everything else--for her. And she wasn't sure she could deal with all that implied about their relationship.

"You don't have a choice." Giles clenched his teeth in frustration, refusing to acknowledge her demand. How bloody much was he supposed to take? How much was too much where Buffy-bloody-Summers was concerned?

"I'm not leaving," she repeated.

"Fine, then I will." He grabbed his jacket, only to find the door slammed shut in his face.

"You're not going anywhere either." Buffy was in full Slayer mode and that meant she was accustomed to being obeyed.

"Buffy, let me pass." Giles had had about enough. Nothing he could say would make her understand and he was tired of justifying himself to others. Being a Watcher meant you did things that others couldn't, or shouldn't, do. He was bloody tired of explaining that.

"No, not until we talk about this," desperation ringing in her voice. Somehow, he was slipping away from her and she couldn't allow that. They had to work this out.

"We have talked. You believe I'm a murderer and I believe that I did what had to be done. I fail to see how rehashing those arguments will change anything." He shrugged into his jacket, preparing to leave.

"Giles, please don't leave me. Not again," Buffy whispered. Part of her was overwhelmed at the thought of what he was prepared to do to protect her, and part of her was absolutely horrified. What other things had she missed about her Watcher? What other things had he *done* to protect her? Her mind shuddered back from the possibilities.

His heart broke. "Buffy, I'm not leaving you, you are leaving me. You refuse to understand why I did what I did and I refuse to say that I could have done anything else. Ben had to die, nothing else would have stopped Glory. I know it, and if you're honest with yourself, you know it too." With that final statement, Giles pushed past her, grabbed his jacket with the stake he kept in it for emergencies, and left his home.

Buffy walked to the sofa on automatic pilot and dropped down, wondering just where they'd gone wrong. How did they get past this? Did they get past this? Her head was whirling. The teapot whistled and she went to the kitchen to turn it off.

A long moment later, she left Giles' apartment at a dead run. This wouldn't end this way--she wouldn't let it.

****

Giles didn't register the sound of feet pounding on the pavement until just before someone grabbed his arm from behind.

He came around swinging.

Buffy narrowly avoided getting clocked on the jaw by a well-placed right. "Hey!"

Giles immediately eased his fighting stance. "What do you want, Buffy?" He asked wearily.

"We need to talk," was the instant demand.

"There is nothing to talk about," he replied flatly.

"You killed Ben." The words still sounded so--bizarre--to Buffy. She'd known that her Watcher could do some wicked things when he needed to, but she'd never thought he could take a human life, or at least, not unless it was in self-defense. 'What about in your defense,' a small voice whispered. Buffy knew that was the heart of the matter. Could she deal with the guilt of knowing that Giles had done what he'd done to protect her? To keep her from having to make that decision? Because, if she'd survived her battle with Glory, she would have had to. Buffy looked at herself and wondered if she could have done what Giles did.

Giles, unaware of his Slayer's thoughts, felt the weight of his actions and her inability to understand. Behind the pain of that felt condemnation came anger. How dare she judge him? What gave her the right? "Why does this matter now?" He turned and stalked away.

"You should've told me," she shot back as she trotted to keep up.

"I would have had a bit of a hard time doing that, don't you think?" Giles spun around to face her, almost causing her to crash into him.

She paled at the reminder.

He cursed fluently to himself at the shock and hurt in her eyes.

"Buffy, I'm sorry, I--" He stopped, not knowing what to say.

"Why did you have to kill him? There had to be something else you could've done." Buffy couldn't help but ask a question that she'd already answered herself. Perhaps if she asked it long enough, he would give her a different answer that would allow her to keep her illusions about the man that stood before her.

Giles gritted his teeth to smother an oath. "I told you this earlier, but I suppose I must repeat myself. If you think that my first thought was to kill that young man, then we have absolutely nothing to discuss." He was torn between wanting to shake her until she understood and wanting to walk away and never return. Never in his time as a Watcher had he so wanted to leave as he did now. Not even when Jenny was killed. He took a deep, controlling breath before continuing. "Buffy, I am bloody tired of defending myself and my actions. I am tired of having to explain and excuse the things I do. I do them because no one else can, or will. I did what had to be done with Ben. Something, that, I doubt you could have done under any circumstances." He ran his hand through his hair and used it to rub his neck where a knot of tension had been forming since this ill-fated conversation had begun. "Glory was a threat to all of humanity. Ben had to be sacrificed in order to quell that threat. Did I like having to do it? Of course not. Would I do it again? Absolutely." Hard hazel eyes met startled green ones.

Buffy didn't know how to react to the calm, almost analytical way her Watcher had told her he would kill again if he thought he saw the need. "Who are you?" She whispered, unable to understand how the bedrock of her life had suddenly shifted.

"I'm simply a man, Buffy. A man who must do as he sees fit, whether you choose to agree with me or not. If, and when, you think you might be able to at least make the attempt to understand my choices and what drove me to them, let me know and we'll talk. Until then, I think we've said all we can." Giles waited for a reply, anything that might tell him she was trying to understand. When none was forthcoming, he sighed in resignation and turned away from her.

The Slayer couldn't think of anything to say that would make this right. Nothing to do that would bring back the world she thought she knew.

What would she do now?

FINIS