TITLE: Second Chances 2/7
AUTHOR: Rari Coss
DISCLAIMER: It all belongs to Joss, the real king of the world, the
WB, UPN, Fox, Mutant Enemy and anybody else who feels they own it.
I'm just borrowing, and then giving it back, memories wiped clean.
Please, no one send me money, I don't wanna get in trouble.
FEEDBACK: Absolutely.
It had been two months since Giles' body had disappeared and there had been no trace of Ethan. Their efforts had started falling off, and they all began to believe that whatever Ethan had planned to do had failed. The cemetery had refilled the hole in, but Buffy never went back. He wasn't there anymore. She felt rootless, and plagued by unease. She had started losing weight and they all worried about her. They knew Spike was bailing her out. He'd show up every now and then asking Xander for money and he paid him. He was too afraid not to. Too afraid that she'd be dead without Spike's help. All of the rest of them were still grieving but life was pulling them. All that was pulling on Buffy was death, and she was tired of it.
Xander got desperate and actually called Angel for help. "Deadboy. It's Xander."
"No kidding."
"You have to do something to help Buffy."
"I tried. I've come up there twice, she barely spoke to me."
"Can't you come up with some sort of demon crisis down there that you have to have a slayer to deal with? She needs something to focus on. She's wasting away up here."
Angel paused, thinking. "Let me talk to Wes and Cordelia and see if we can come up with something."
Xander spoke, "Make it snappy, deadboy."
Angel sighed and hung up.
Angel called Buffy the next day, asking for her help. She protested but he insisted and she finally agreed. Xander put her on the bus and Wes picked her up. He was appalled at her appearance. He took her back to the office and Angel filled her in on the mission. She started patrolling that night.
It was on her second night of patrolling that she saw him. Her heart started racing and she told herself she was mistaken but there couldn't be someone who looked so much like him. She felt like she was having a heart attack. She started making her way over to the bar. He was sitting at a table next to the window. She hung in the shadows, needing to be sure. He wasn't wearing his glasses and he was dressed differently but it was still his face, still his eyes. She watched him pick up his drink and saw his pinky ring. She ran inside, running up to him. "Giles?" Her heart was in her throat.
He turned to look at her, smiling, "Why hello there." It was his voice, his smile, well sort of his smile, but close enough. Her heart was singing. She threw herself in his arms. "Giles!"
The man squeezed her back, looking over at his friend, "Well Ethan, I'd say our plans for the evening just took a turn for the better. This woman wants to play!" He moved his hands down to Buffy's butt and squeezed. She gasped and jumped back.
"Giles?"
"Why do you keep calling me that? It's my last name. Call me Ripper." He raked his eyes over her, "Or for that matter never mind, you can call me anything you like." He grinned at Ethan.
Ethan spoke up, "Ripper, you don't want this one."
"Why on earth not, Jesus, look at her."
"This was your slayer."
Ripper stood up, a look of disbelief on his face, looking at Buffy. "This was my slayer?"
"Yes." Ethan waited.
Ripper threw some money down on the table and motioned to Ethan. "Let's go, I need some fresh air."
Buffy followed him outside, grabbing his arm. "Giles, it's me, Buffy."
"I know who you are."
"Why are you acting this way?" She turned angry eyes on Ethan. "What did you do to him, why is he so different?"
Ethan laughed. "I just explained the facts of life to him, slayer, like how you made a mockery of his life and then killed him." Oh, this was wonderful. He shot her a look of triumph.
Buffy turned entreating eyes back to Giles. "Giles, that's not true. We loved you. We still do. We need you." Her eyes begged him to believe her.
There was no answering recognition in his eyes. He removed her hand from his arm as if it were distasteful. "I don't give a fuck what you need. Get the hell away from me." He motioned again to Ethan and the two of them started to walk away.
She grabbed his arm again, hard, and swung him around. "Giles, you have to listen to me. He did something to you; this isn't how you are. You have to believe me. Maybe we can fix it, maybe you can remember."
He laughed, and it sent a shiver down her spine. That wasn't a sound that had ever come out of Giles. He shoved her hard, away from him. She started to approach him again. He glared at her. "You come near me again and I'll hurt you. I don't usually hold with hurting women but with you being the slayer I don't really have to worry about that, do I?" He smiled unpleasantly at her. "I don't want you in my life. I don't want to be your watcher. I don't want anything to do with you. Go rip somebody else's balls off. Am I being clear enough?"
She stood there, looking at him, tears in her eyes, feeling his death all over again. Except this felt worse, because he was right there standing in front of her. She fell to her knees, starting to cry. He frowned at her, something in him responding to the tears. Ethan took his arm and pulled. Ripper shrugged his shoulders and responding to Ethan's tug, turned and disappeared into the night.
Buffy just knelt there crying. A couple of people asked her if she was okay but she ignored them and they eventually left her there. Angel finally found her, huddled against the wall after she had missed their prearranged rendezvous time. If he hadn't seen the shape she was in when he found her, he wouldn't have believed what she told him. After she'd cried herself out she curled up in a ball on the sofa and wouldn't talk to anybody. Angel went out looking for Giles.
-----
Ripper was feeling uneasy. He knew he'd been dead. Ethan had explained that to him, and had helped fill in the holes where his memory was hazy. He'd been having a hell of a time since. He and Ethan had slipped right back into being the best of friends. The two of them had plowed through half the women in the city. And the magic they'd practiced had been unbelievably powerful. Many of the front- page headlines were due to the chaos they had caused. Nothing too deadly; just enough to inconvenience a lot of people, the more important the better.
Ethan had told him about the slayer. How she had treated him, how they all had treated him. How she'd emasculated him. How she'd killed him. He had been humiliated that he'd allowed anyone to treat him that way. He'd sworn at that time that he would never let it happen again. He felt too good, too strong, too powerful, to ever be at someone's beck and call. He was strong enough to control the magic this time. He was stronger than Ethan, much stronger. He liked his life, liked that it was uncomplicated.
Seeing her tonight made him think of complications. He had felt some emotions rise, emotions that seemed to corroborate what Ethan had told him. He could almost feel her hurting him, tearing his heart out. He didn't remember any of the actual events, but the emotions were there. But, he had also felt his instinctive desire to console her when she had fallen to her knees in tears. It made him feel weak. It made him feel trapped. He scowled, "Fuck that." He called out to Ethan that he was going for a walk.
Ethan had tried but he hadn't been able to break Ripper's need to take a stake with him when they went out at night. After the first time he had used it, Ethan started carrying a spare for him. Ethan said he was a vampire magnet. There was hardly a night when one didn't come after Ripper. It was as if he had slayer scent still on him and that made him a prize target. Ripper felt for the stake in his pocket, reassured by its presence.
Someone stepped out of the shadows. Ripper stopped, the face looking vaguely familiar. "Giles?"
"No, Ripper."
"Giles, its me, Angel."
"Why is everyone calling me Giles? Does no one call me by my first name?" He paused, moving closer. "Did you say Angel, like Angelus- Angel?" Ethan had told him those stories too.
"Y-yes."
Ripper hauled back and punched Angel with everything he had. Angel slammed into the wall behind him. Ripper shook out his hand, smiling, "God, that felt good." He pulled out the stake.
Angel put his hand up. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help. Buffy is worried about you."
Ripper's eyebrows rose almost off his forehead. "Buffy was worried about me, so she sent you, the demon who killed my girlfriend and tortured me for hours? She sent you as a way to help me? Holy Christ, she really is a piece of work." He slid the stake back in his pocket and glared at Angel. He moved forward and grabbed Angel by his jacket lapel, slamming him against the wall again. "Well, Angel, you don't get staked tonight because I want you to take a message back to my sweet lil ol' ex-slayer. Tell her to leave me the fuck alone." He turned his back on Angel intending to walk away.
"What did he do to you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Ethan, what did he do? This isn't.you're not at all like you used to be."
"And what would that be exactly? Hmm? Some pussy whipped watcher who allowed a bunch of suicidal teenagers to destroy his life?"
Angel had no response to that. Even he hadn't been able to believe the amount of abuse that Giles had taken, from them, from him. Except that there had been a purpose to his life. "You used to have a purpose. Your life had meaning."
Giles just snorted. "Oh, you mean like destroying demons?" He took the stake back out of his pocket.
Angel put both his hands up this time. He obviously needed to try a different approach. "This will kill Buffy."
Ripper stopped, casually flipping the stake end over end. "What do you mean?"
"She's half dead already, missing you, needing you. This will throw her over the edge."
"Sounds fair, after all, she killed me."
"Is that what Ethan told you?"
"I read the newspaper article, I heard Ethan's explanation."
"Giles, it was an accident. She was trying to save your life. She couldn't know that would happen."
"According to Ethan, she never seems to know when the shit's gonna hit the fan, but she keeps throwing it."
"Do you want her death on your hands?"
Ripper pursed his lips. He looked at Angel. "No matter what you say, I'm not going back. I don't want that life any more. I can never be that man again, never."
Angel thought he understood. He remembered Angelus thinking about how he'd been as Angel. Feeling humiliated at how soft and weak he'd seemed. Angelus couldn't see the strength in who he'd been, as this Giles couldn't see the strength he'd had being Buffy's watcher. "Giles." At Ripper's look he started again, "Ripper, she needs you, they all do. She'll die without you. If I go back and tell her your message, she'll be dead in a day."
Ripper was cursing that he'd ever left the house. "Tell her you never found me then." He turned and walked away.
Angel leaned back against the wall. "Holy shit."
---
Ripper started having the dreams that night. Every night he dreamed about her, about them, horrible dreams. He watched them all, including himself die countless painful deaths. Ethan came in the first couple of nights to wake him up from the dreams but they happened so often every night that Ethan finally stopped. He watched Ripper grow more haggard every day. He didn't know what to do to help. He placed wards around Ripper at night to see if that would make a difference. It didn't. He got him drunk, he got him laid, he even got him high one night but nothing stopped the dreams.
After Ripper had told him about some of the dreams Ethan suspected that somehow his memory was coming back. Ethan didn't know how, but he was pretty sure that's what was happening. He had no idea what would happen if they all came back. Ethan was afraid he would lose Ripper again. He invoked his god, he researched his spell library but he could find nothing to stop whatever it was that was going on. He watched, helpless.
---
Angel sort of lied to Buffy. He told her that he had seen Giles but hadn't been able to actually catch up to him. He kept her alive on the hope that he would catch him the next night and then the next. She only ate when forced to and he could see she was slipping away. He swore, heading out the door to see if he could find Giles again. He had to make him understand before it was too late.