Title: Coming Home 4/6
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: PG-17
Summary: Sometimes home isn’t a place.
Spoilers: post season 7
Note: If the chapter breaks seem a little weird, it’s because I wrote this as one unit but had to break it up for my beta.
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.
Giles was able to call on the resources of the Council to pack his and Buffy’s things and to move them that same day. In a matter of hours they had become residents of the Senior Watcher’s house, a large, redesigned sixteenth century dwelling. Its original small rooms had been expanded into something closer to modern taste without losing the feel of the period.
Travers had lived here, but so had countless other Senior Watchers. It was odd to walk the narrow hallways and think about the man. Buffy had hated him with all the fiery passion in her teenaged soul, but now wondered if she had over-reacted somewhat. He had been old when she knew him and unable to change—and perhaps, he hadn’t been totally wrong about Angel, though it galled her to admit it.
She looked over at Giles as she unpacked her clothing into the large dresser and armoire. He was busy hanging up suits. Buffy told him what she had thought about Travers and he had smiled slightly.
“You really are growing up, my love. However, I still tend to agree with your first opinion of the man. He was a hidebound old coot and you were asking for something as the Slayer—it wasn’t his business to question you, simply to provide it.”
“So, what you’re saying is, if one of our baby Slayers came to you and said that you needed to provide the information to save her vampire lover or she was leaving us, you’d give it to her?” She hid a grin by looking at the floor.
“Certainly not! The very idea revolts everything I’ve been trained in for the last thirty years!”
“But it was wrong for Travers to refuse me.”
“Because you are the Slayer and your decisions in battle should be obeyed.”
“They are Slayers too,” she pointed out. “Why would their decisions be less worthy than mine were?”
“They are just children.”
“Some of them are older than I was when I broke from the Council.”
“It’s different and you know it!”
She could see he was becoming upset. Putting her hand on his back she leaned against him. “It’s different because I had you to help me. I had you just for myself—they have to share you with a gazillion other girls. You were my rock.”
He gazed down at her. “I too, have learned the value of trusting your judgment, Buffy. I didn’t during the battle with the First and I was very sorry for it.”
She shrugged. “It looked crazy to you. Trusting Spike after all he’d done to us. Plus, I wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed when I came back from the dead last time. You couldn’t know that I was working with a full deck.”
“It shouldn’t have mattered. I was a fool and I betrayed you—let them toss you from your home, tried to kill Spike in an underhanded way, wouldn’t listen to you…”
“Because I was acting like a dumbass, Giles. My only excuse was that I was terrified and totally lost for ideas.”
“You went with your instincts and the world lives on, Buffy.”
She nodded. “I’m not discounting that, but I didn’t have to be so hard-headed about stuff. I could have stashed Spike somewhere—took him away and kept an eye on him. I didn’t have to leave him at home with everybody. I just did it the way that seemed best to me. I didn’t want to leave Dawn alone, but you were there, well, sometimes you were there. Willow and Xander and even Anya were there and really, she wasn’t a kid anymore by that time. I could have left her alone for a little while.”
“No, you couldn’t, just as you couldn’t leave Spike unsupervised. I knew the situation was untenable, but I couldn’t do anything to help. I was too caught up in finding all the Potentials. It seemed obvious to me that the vampire couldn’t be trusted and should be eliminated. Plus, Woods was very convincing.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She looked sad, then simply shrugged. “Water under the bridge. Did I do the right thing? I don’t know. People died. Was it my fault? Could I have prevented it? I don’t know. So much of that time was turmoil. I still wasn’t up to snuff because of the being dead thing, but that wasn’t an excuse for poor leadership.”
“We expected you to be a general. You had no experience at it. We were against the oldest, most terrible foe that ever existed and yet, we won. That was because of you and your decision to trust Spike.”
Sighing she leaned against him again and rubbed her face against his chest. “It makes my head hurt to think about this stuff, Giles. It’s over and we won and yes, bad things happened on all our parts, but we overcame it and lived. I don’t think that’s too shabby a record when all is said and done.”
“You are a very remarkable person, Buffy. I want you to know that, not only do I love you deeply, I admire you from the very heart of my being.”
She decided to lighten the atmosphere. “I’ll remember that when you’re yelling at me for doing something stupid.”
He smiled sweetly down at her. “I didn’t say you weren’t challenged, just that I love and admire you.”
“Challenged! Hey!”
He picked her up, twirled her around and dropped a happy kiss on her upturned face. “It feels very liberating to be able to speak to you of love.”
“It does feel good. To hear it and to say it. I love you, Giles. I love you, Rupert.”
Even thought they made no outright announcement of their new relationship, word spread through the compound like wildfire. Within three hours of their move, they had received phone calls from Dawn, Willow, and finally Xander demanding an explanation. On the whole, their friends and family had been pleased, though stern cautions were issued to both of them not to ‘screw this up’.
The younger Slayers, of course, thought it was cool that their two most senior authority figures were getting together, though most of them wondered how people so old could care about sex. Buffy and Giles, caught in a linen closet during emergency smoochies, had all they could do to restrain their laughter when they heard this.
“God, they are so young!”
“It seems to me, I remember similar comments being made by a certain young Slayer a few years ago? Now who could that have been?”
She slapped his arm lightly. “Cut me some slack, OK? I was raised to be a Valley girl. It’s a wonder you could even understand me when we first met.”
“Ha! I understood about one word in three!”
They fell against each other, laughing and trying to maintain their secret hiding place. Buffy waited till the coast was clear before extracting herself and her new lover from the closet. She straightened his shirt and wiped a bit of lipstick off his lips and chin. He finger combed her hair and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that wouldn’t fool a twelve-year-old.
He grasped her chin in his hand. “Oh dear.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid you have, um, a slight case of whisker burn, love.” He looked very contrite.
“I can put on some powder or something,” she said with a shrug. “But you’d better wear a high collar for a couple of days.”
“Why?”
“I, um, well, I nipped you on the neck and it’s going to leave a bruise. Sorry.”
“I don’t mind being marked by you. I find it very erotic to wear the sign of your affections on my body.”
For some reason, Buffy felt surprised. “I guess I just figured you’d be embarrassed.”
“Nothing you and I do embarrasses me,” he told her, looking toward the linen closet for emphasis.
~*~
A few days later, Giles was working in his office when he received a phone call from Angel asking for Buffy. Of all the threats to their new relationship, this creature featured as the most dangerous. Giles put him on hold while he thought about what to do. By the time he got back on the line, Angel had disconnected. It was subtly pleasing.
He pressed his intercom button and called Andrew into his office. The young man entered with trepidation clearly written on his features. He wondered what he had done wrong.
“I have a mission for you, Andrew.”
The young man perked up considerably. Giles explained what he wanted him to do. “Do you think you can do that?”
“Um, sure? But what’s Buffy going to say?”
“I will take care of that. All you need to do is accomplish your mission.”
“Got it, chief!”
An hour later, Andrew was in flight to Rome where he would take an apartment, strew some of Buffy’s clothes around the place, and pretend that they were living together as room mates.
Less than a week later, Andrew called Giles to report that not only Angel, but Spike had shown up looking for Buffy. He told the Watcher that, as according to plan, he had implied that Buffy and the Immortal were an item. The blonde girl he had hired to impersonate Buffy was seen dancing with the Immortal. It confirmed every thought both vampires had secretly had; that Buffy wouldn’t wait to form a new relationship and that neither of them had a chance with her. They had returned to LA chastened and somewhat miffed that Buffy was so free with her affections.
In the meantime, Giles had dispatched half-a-dozen Slayers to LA to keep an eye on the situation there. Something big was brewing, they told him. Angel was freaking everybody out and seemed to be hiding a secret alliance with a group of baddies called the Black Thorn.
Two weeks after that, it was over. Wesley, Gunn, Angel, Spike and Fred/Ilyria were all no more. Still, they had taken out more than five hundred assorted demons, vampires and other Hellspawn as well as their masters. The Dark had been seriously crippled in LA by their actions. His team of Slayers had eradicated the rest. He debated what to tell Buffy. She would be angry with him that he had refused to help Angel; but if she found out about it later, if he lied to her, she would be homicidal.
He pressed his intercom again and asked that somebody find her and bring her to his office. She arrived well before he was ready to tell her.
“Buffy, dearest, sit down. I’m afraid I have some rather bad news.”
She dropped into a chair, looking at him anxiously. “It’s not the gang, is it? Willow and Xander are all right? Dawn’s OK?”
He spoke softly. “They are fine. This concerns our friends in LA…” He told her that they were gone, dead, fighting for the Light.
“Wesley too?” she had questioned.
“I understand that he was the first to fall. Died in a magical duel—Ilyria killed his opponent after he was gone.”
She was silent for a long time, though her eyes remained dry. Finally, he could wait no longer for her response to his news. “Buffy?”
She raised her eyes.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think I am. The girl that loved Angel is long gone. I mean, I had some fond memories of him, but I never wanted to be with him again, you know? I’m really sorry that Wes, Gunn, and Fred are gone. They all seemed like nice people—Wesley was really starting to shape up.” She sighed. “Does it seem wrong for me to say I’m sorry that the boys are dead, but I’m glad that they’re gone at the same time?”
“No, I understand. Angel and even Spike, were valuable allies, but they were like Hannibal’s elephants—just as likely to trample their own troops as the enemy.”
She nodded. “They died heroes and I honor them for that, but I have to admit, I’m relieved. Now Angelus will never come back, Spike will never lose his soul; two of the most evil creatures to ever walk the earth are dust.”
He sat beside her and took her hand. “It is all right to cry for them. I know you loved them.”
“Yes, I did.” She got up, but instead of walking towards the door, she came to him and let him wrap his arms around her. “You did the right thing. Once they were tainted by Wolfram and Hart, we couldn’t trust them anymore.”
“You aren’t angry that I wouldn’t help Angel?”
“No. If anybody has a right to be angry it’s you. He never even apologized for what he did to you. I mean, he brooded and got all depressed and everything when he came back, but I didn’t see much real remorse. It was more like; he put on his brooding like you’d put on a sweater. It was comfortable for him. I know he felt bad for his evil deeds, but he also felt like just because he was remorseful, that was enough. I’m not a very good explainer, and I’m not saying he didn’t feel bad, but he didn’t do enough about it. If that changed, if, by his death he felt he was paying back some of the misery he caused as Angelus, then his end was well spent.”
“And Spike?”
Buffy shivered despite the warmth of the office. “He frightened me because I wanted to become what he wanted me to be, if that makes sense. I was very screwed up after my latest death. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Spike took care of me when my mind was sick with grief at being back on earth. He wanted to be tender and loving, but the demon wanted pain. It was a very odd relationship. He tried to be my friend at the end, and his sacrifice was real. I’m not asking for more.”
“You are a very brave young woman, Buffy.”
She nuzzled her face into his chest. “Right now, I’m just a sad one. I think, if you don’t mind, I’m going to head over to the Chapel. I’d like to say a prayer for them all.”
“I think that’s a very beautiful and generous thing to do for them, love. I believe I will stop by myself after work.”
Buffy hugged him and headed towards the door, turning back to face him at the last minute. “Giles?”
“Yes, love?”
“There is one thing we could do… Would you mind reinstating Wesley as a Watcher? It meant a lot to him. His folks are still alive; it might mean something to them too.”
Giles nodded. “A capital idea, Buffy. His father’s a bastard, but he does set a great deal of store by the Council.”
“I wonder if we could somehow make it look like he’d been working undercover for all these years and had never really been dismissed. It would be a major honor for him if people thought he had voluntarily gone into exile… and really, he did, in a way. He could have betrayed us at any time in Sunnydale, but he stood with us in that final battle with the Mayor. I won’t forget that.”
“I shall see to it. Papers will be found explaining his assignment.”
“You’re a very good man, Rupert Giles.” She smiled at him tenderly and left the room.