Title: Wounded Heart 1/11
Author: Ness
Contact: sessa1_2@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Season 6
Summary: Buffy must fight for Giles after his world changes radically.
Rating: PG for now
Feedback: Um--please? With sugar on top?
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. Please don't sue.
AN: Thanks to Morr for being my beta on this. Any mistakes that are found are
all mine, though.
The man sitting across from Buffy Summers' home wasn't entirely sure what he was there for. He knew he wanted to see her, wanted to talk to her. He just wasn't sure why. He just wanted an explanation for her actions--he didn't think he'd get one, but he had come all the way to California just the same. He shrugged as he squared his shoulders. No time like the present--time waits for no man. All the silly clichés. He shrugged again and got out of his car. He walked up the sidewalk and rang the doorbell.
****
Buffy heard the doorbell and called to Dawn that she would answer it. She opened the door and her jaw dropped. She blinked several times to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. She opened her eyes the last time--nope, he was still there. What was he doing back in Sunnydale?
****
The man walked in the door uninvited. He turned to glance at a dumbfounded Buffy.
"What are you doing back in Sunnydale?" she finally asked.
"I wanted to see you."
"Why?"
"I wanted to see what a selfish, manipulative bitch looked like," he answered.
Buffy's angry hiss was heard seconds before the crack of her hand hitting his jaw echoed in the suddenly quiet room.
His head snapped back and he back-peddled several steps in an effort to keep his balance. He straightened and wiped at the corner of his mouth. He looked at the blood for a moment before intentionally licking his finger and grinning at her.
"As welcoming as ever, I see."
"What the hell do you want?" Buffy was trying not to hit him again--but she didn't know how much longer she could hold out.
"Like I said--."
"Say it again and I'll knock your teeth out and feed them to you," Buffy told him furiously.
He gauged how far he could push her before she carried out her threat--not very far if the look on her face was any indicator.
"Is that anyway to talk to an old friend?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You're not a friend," Buffy stated emphatically. "What do you want, Ethan?"
Ethan Rayne considered letting her stew a bit longer--but then decided he wanted an answer too badly to string her along any longer.
"I'd like to know when you decided that Ripper was no longer any of your concern. I'd also like to know why you haven't even called him--he's been in that wheelchair for six months and you've not even picked up the phone to see if he's alive or dead."
"Wheelchair? What wheelchair?" Buffy felt two steps behind in this conversation.
"The wheelchair that he's been in since the explosion that crippled him," Ethan told her.
He looked at her puzzled face for a moment before comprehension dawned.
"I'll be damned--you didn't know." He should have known that Ripper--self-sacrificing bastard that he was--wouldn't have told the Slayer he had been paralyzed.
Buffy swayed as she felt the floor drop out from beneath her.
****
Ethan caught her before she hit the floor. Which, considering his shock, was something in the nature of a minor miracle. He hadn't expected that reaction at all. He thought that the Slayer had left Ripper to rot in that wheelchair--that she was done with him because he wasn't of use to her anymore. He had been a bit stunned to learn that she didn't even know. Then, to have her faint on him, well--that was unexpected, to say the least.
"What did you do to my sister?" Dawn demanded as she stormed down the stairs.
Ethan was so surprised that he almost dropped Buffy.
"What did I--? I didn't do anything to her!" he exclaimed.
"Look, she was fine, she answered the door and let you in, and now she's passed out. You'd better start explaining before I get mad." Dawn did her best to look intimidating. She knew there was no one else here, but she had to do something.
Ethan, having recovered from his shock, repressed the urge to laugh. He laid Buffy gently of the sofa and raised his hands.
"I didn't do anything to her. I told her some news that she wasn't prepared for. She fainted, that's all."
"Look, mister. I don't know who you are, but my sister has faced--." Dawn almost said death and apocalypses, but caught herself. "My sister has faced a lot of stuff and not fainted," she finished weakly.
Ethan tried not to laugh at the quick cover-up.
"It was about Rip--Rupert Giles."
"Giles? What happened to Giles?" Dawn was immediately concerned about the watcher.
Ethan didn't understand what was going on, but he intended to find out.
"Tell Buffy I'll be back," he said as he headed for the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" Dawn asked--but she found herself talking to the front door. The man was gone. She turned to her sister and tried to wake her up so she could find out what was going on.
****
"What the hell's going on? You told me she knew and didn't care." Ethan had been yelling into the phone for the past ten minutes.
"I told you that he didn't want her to know," the voice on the other end corrected.
"No, you told me and I quote 'Buffy Summers is done with Rupert Giles. She no longer has any use for him.'." Ethan was trying to remember just why he had listened to her in the first place. "That isn't 'Rupert doesn't want her to know'."
"I must have misspoken."
"Don't try that. You knew exactly what you were doing--the question now is why?" Ethan really hated being a pawn in someone else's game. He didn't mind if he were the one being the puppet master, but he despised being the puppet.
"I'm sure I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"I'll find out what's going on, Leigh, you can't count on it." Ethan hung up the phone and cursed himself for being nine different kinds of a fool. He had let himself be played--and by Ripper's sister no less.
He laughed in spite of himself. He had to admit, it was beautifully done--. He had done her dirty work--gotten the slayer the news that Ripper obviously didn't want her to know and Leigh--beautiful, sneaky, conniving, Leigh could sit back and honestly tell her brother that she didn't know how Buffy had found out about his accident.
He chuckled again. Yes, it was beautifully done.
His smiled faded as he realized that he had to face the Slayer and let her know why and how her Watcher had decided to keep her in the dark.
He locked the door of his hotel room and headed to Buffy's.
****
Leigh Giles hung up the phone and watched her brother as he sat outside in her garden. She knew that when he found out what she had done, he would be furious. No amount of dancing around the issue would convince him that she hadn't known exactly what she was doing when she had fed Ethan her carefully constructed concoction of half-truths and innuendoes.
She sighed, dreading the confrontation but knowing she could live with his anger if it meant that she could see him happy again. He was slowly fading away and nothing anyone had tried was changing that sad fact. She had tried to respect his wishes, but she was running out of options.
Leigh moved to the kitchen and began lunch--all the while, keeping an eye on her brother. He was her little brother--and nothing would change that, no matter how old he got.
If Buffy Summers, knowing what had happened, was what it took for him to lose that lost look in his eyes--well, she was going to know. The rest of the world might think that the slayer was priority, but Leigh Giles didn't give a damn about her if sparing Buffy pain meant losing her brother.
"Leigh?" Giles called to her as he wheeled himself into the living room. He had become quite proficient in the use of the wheelchair. He could maneuver it with as much ease as could be expected.
"Yes, Rupert?"
"What's for lunch?"
Leigh smiled fondly at him.
"Sandwiches."
"Good, I'm starving." Giles rolled up to his sister and pulled her into his lap and gave her a huge hug..
He tried hard not to let her see his depression. She had taken him in and taken care of him when he had been unable to tend to himself. She had had her entire home remodeled to fit his needs. He loved her dearly and he didn't want to worry her anymore than necessary.
"Let me up, you big oaf!" she demanded playfully. "If you're hungry, you had better let me go."
"Oh, you have a point." Giles pretended to begin to dump her on the floor and she grabbed his arms to stop him.
He let her up and she lightly smacked him on his arm.
"You should be very thankful that you're my brother," she told him.
"Or what?"
"Or I would let you starve."
"Oh, now that is a threat to be reckoned with."
They laughed together as he followed her into the kitchen.
****
As the siblings ate, Leigh was trying to decide how to tell him what she had done. She was about to mention it when the telephone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hello, may I speak to Rupert Giles, please?" There was a hesitation from the person on the other end of the line.
"Whom may I say is calling?" Leigh didn't recognize the voice.
"Buffy Summers."
Leigh stared at the phone for a moment before turning to her brother.
"It's for you," she told him as she handed him the receiver.
Giles took the phone.
"Hello?"