Title: An Honest Man 2/4
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters.. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
Buffy was up for most of the night, nearly sick with worry. She had dark circles under her eyes when she reported for work later that day. The Slayers she trained couldn’t seem to do anything right as she snapped at them to keep their shoulders up and to quit telegraphing their blows. Everyone was relieved when they had to break for lunch. Robson, Giles’ right hand man, came up to her as she listlessly munched a sandwich.
“Not feeling quite the thing, Buffy?”
“Sorry, Tom. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Robson knew the eldest Slayer was deeply troubled by recurring nightmares.
“Bad dreams?”
“No. Giles is being a prick.”
The Watcher choked. He’d never heard Buffy use such language, especially not about Giles whom she practically worshiped. He gave her a concerned look. “What’s he done now?”
“He’s making me go on a date with him.”
“Ah, and this is a bad thing?”
“I know how you men operate. He just wants me to fall in love with him so he can find some new way of breaking my heart.” She gave him a black look.
“Um, perhaps he just likes you?”
“Hah!”
“I, um, see. Well, perhaps I’d better be going now.” He beat a quick retreat and headed to the Senior Watcher’s office. Knocking on the door, he stuck his head inside when Giles answered with an absent ‘come in’.
“I’ve been speaking to Buffy, Rupert. Ah, she seems rather unhappy with you.”
Giles ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to convince her that I’m not going to use her and betray her. What did she tell you?”
Robson repeated her comments. “I’m worried about her, Rupert.. I had no idea she had such a deep distrust of men.”
Giles snorted. “She dated a string of pillocks and users, weak, whimpering Nancy boys that couldn’t understand her Calling, or felt threatened by it, and those were the humans. Let us not forget the two vampires she was involved with, her bastard father, and even her friend Xander. She doesn’t have many shining examples of men who’ve stayed with her, I’m afraid.”
“But you, yourself…”
“I left her when she was sick with grief at being resurrected. In retrospect, it was an error, but I thought she needed to stand on her own feet for a while. I never intended it to be permanent.”
“I take it that she rather resents that?”
“God, yes! I even had the unmitigated gall to tell her it was for her own good. As if anyone wants to hear bad news delivered with that caveat.”
“Oh. I really don’t know what to say.”
“Say that I’m a bloody fool.”
“Well, um, perhaps you handled things less than, ah, well, than you had hoped, but your intentions were for the best. I suppose you just need to convince Buffy that you are sincere in your intentions. Er, that is, I’m assuming you are?”
“Yes, I am. But how can I prove to her that I mean to be in her life for the rest of it?”
Robson patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, old man, but you are strictly on your own in this.”
The afternoon didn’t go much better. Buffy was a nervous wreck before her last class at three. She wished she could just go out and kill something. That had always worked in the past. The trouble was, since the Hellmouth had closed, and a gazillion new Slayers had been Called, finding a vamp to stake was hard work. And she was sure she wouldn’t be able to find one in the daytime anyway. She kicked a rock and watched it ricochet off a mailbox and take out a store window sixty feet in front of her. She quickly looked down, hoping the store owner would think she was too far away to have thrown the rock.
Deciding that taking the route that would lead directly past the now broken window wasn’t in her best interests, she opted for the long way home and set off down a back alley at a jog. It took her an extra half hour to get there and Dawn was waiting for her.
“Look, sis. I know you probably don’t want to talk about this, but I think dating Giles will be a good thing for you.” The younger girl looked earnest.
“I don’t. We’re perfectly happy not dating. Why rock the boat?”
“Are you perfectly happy? I don’t think so. You have an awful lot of energy to burn off—why not with Giles. He’s a decent guy and he loves you to pieces.”
“And I love him. That’s why this is a bad idea. Every time I invest myself in a man, he turns into a bastard that has to leave me for my own good. If Giles leaves me again, I’ll die from it.”
Dawn looked at her seriously. “I didn’t know you were such a big wuss.”
“What!”
“Chicken. Cluck, cluck, cluck.”
“I am not a chicken! I’ve been hurt and I’m being cautious!”
“Giles ought to take you out and get you some grain. That’s what chickens eat. I dunno why he’s wasting a whole dinner on you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Sure I do. You’ve had some bad experiences and you got burned. You took some time off to heal. Now you need to get back on the horse.. Giles is a great man. You know that.”
Buffy looked stubborn. “He left me.”
“Oh, right. Like you didn’t leave him?”
“When did I leave?”
“You ran away when you were seventeen. You didn’t even bother to leave him a note. He’d been badly tortured by your boyfriend and you just left town without a word. Giles didn’t hold that against you for even a minute. Yet when he leaves hoping to shock you back into normal, he’s a bastard. You’ve got your priorities mixed up, sis. Giles has forgiven you time after time. Yes, he left, but he came back and he’s promised never to do that again. I’ve always found him to be a man of his word.”
Buffy ran her hand through her hair. “I know he is, Dawn. Giles is the best man I ever met, or ever will meet. But I’m afraid. I don’t want to lose what I have with him. What if, what if we aren’t compatible in that way?”
“Well, what if you aren’t? Did you stop being friends with Xander because he asked you on a date?”
“No.”
“Anya slept with him again, one last time, you know,” Dawn said conversationally. “It was just before the battle with the First.”
“Eeeeuw! I’m not even going to ask how you know that!”
“Please, people were shagging all over our house and you think there was some way of avoiding knowing?”
“So, what’s your point?”
“She finally forgave him and I think what he did to her was a hell of a lot worse than what Giles did to you. And another thing, did it ever occur to you that I was pretty devastated when he left? He’d been taking care of me for months. The one stable thing in my life. Then suddenly, you were back and I was pushed totally out of his frame of existence. He only saw you. He only cared about you. He yelled at Willow, but only because of what she had done to you. Geez, Buffy, the man lives for you, he always has. I say, damn the expense, give the canary another seed! Why don’t you go out with him, throw caution to the wind. See if you like him that way. If you don’t, he won’t hold it against you, you know that. If you do, you could have the one thing that people search for and hardly ever find. You could have true, selfless love. Go for it, sis.”
Buffy looked at her sister, not so little anymore apparently. “When did you turn into a grown up?”
Dawn grinned. “Sometime between finding out I wasn’t a human and our last apocalypse, I guess.”
Buffy threw her arms around her sister. “You know, for a long time, I wanted to kick some monk-butt for creating you and just dumping you in my lap, but now, I’m thinking that I wouldn’t know how to go on with out you. I’m glad you’re my sister.”
“I’m glad I am too. What if those dumb monks had made me your kid? Or given me to Faith instead? Geez, it makes your blood run cold, doesn’t it?”
“Well, they are men, so I guess we shouldn’t expect rational thought from them more than once or twice a decade,” Buffy admitted with a grin.
“I think you need to go upstairs and make yourself beautiful for Giles. Knock his socks off.”
Buffy chuckled at that image. “I’ll see what I can do.”
They raced upstairs together and practically dove into Buffy’s closet. Her wardrobe had been severely curtailed with the demise of Sunnydale, but she had purchased a few good gowns since then because of all the schmoozing the Watcher’s Council did. Giles dined with everyone from Royals to top CEO’s to Judges and high ranking government officials. He said it gave him a bellyache to hobnob with some of them, but it had to be done.. Council influence had to be maintained in order to provide the best aid available to the Slayers. Sometimes he was able to persuade Buffy to accompany him.
In some ways, she supposed, Rupert Giles was one of the most powerful men in the world. Oh, he probably couldn’t initiate a missile strike, but he commanded an army of Slayers, Magic users, and Watchers—the brightest and best of many nations came together under his control. If she were the type of girl to be intimidated by power, she’d be stuttering whenever he looked at her. Luckily, she loved him enough to overlook his obligations.
They finally settled on a black dress of pleasing simplicity. It was modestly cut in the front, and plunged to the base of her spine in the back, held on with laces that intersected across the bare skin of her shoulder blades. The skirt was ankle length, but slit on both sides to her hip so that it fell more like a tunic than a gown. Under it, she wore the most gossamer pair of thong panties that Dawn had ever seen. She put up her hair in a twist that allowed tiny curls to escape at her temples. For jewelry, she wore a pair of tiny pearl earrings and an antique cross. Dawn found a perfect pair of sandals that had wrapping laces that reached to just above Buffy’s knees.
They heard Giles come home and a few minutes later he knocked on her bedroom door. “Are you ready Buffy? Our reservation is for seven.”
“Just a second!” she yelled back. Turning to her sister, she whispered, “How do I look?”
“If I was a guy, I’d be salivating,” Dawn told her with a grin.
“Wrap! I need a wrap or I’ll freeze my butt off!” Buffy sounded panicky.
“Wait a minute!” Dawn delved back into the closet and returned with a stole of the finest Spanish lace. It was exquisite and Buffy had never worn it. Some diplomatic big wig had given it to her as a gift when she had attended some boring function with a contingent of Watchers earlier in the year.
“Not very warm,” Buffy had commented.
Dawn shrugged. “So what? Have Giles put his arm around you if you get chilled. Sacrifices must be made, you know.”
Buffy grinned at her. “Go tell him, five minutes. I need to regroup.”
“OK, but don’t make him wait too long. I want to see his face.”
The two young women shared an evil grin and Dawn went downstairs to tell the Watcher that Buffy was coming.