Title: Family Matters
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.
“Rupert Giles here.”
“Giles? It’s Buffy. Can you please come over and stay with Dawn for a while? It’s important.”
“Yes, of course. What has happened?”
“Dawn will tell you when you get here,” she hung up the phone and went back in to the attorney.
“A friend of mine is coming over to stay with Dawn. You and I can go get the baby.”
“Very good,” he said in approval.
They stood. “Dawn, Giles is coming over. Would you tell him?”
The younger girl nodded silently and watched as they walked out the door. How very strange this all was. It wasn’t like when mom died, she thought. They loved their dad, but hadn’t been close to him for years. Still, he had been there and now he was gone. Setting quietly on the couch, trying to take everything in, she heard a car door slam and heard Giles’ familiar footsteps run up their front stairs. He didn’t knock but simply let himself in.
“What’s wrong, Dawn? Where’s Buffy?”
She told him what she knew. He sat down beside her on the couch and pulled her into his arms, letting her cry on his chest. Giles was more of a father to her than Hank Summers had ever been, she realized. They sat there and talked quietly. He urged her to remember good things about her father and to think of the fun and positive times they had shared.
They heard the lawyer’s car pull up again in the driveway and waited while Buffy got out and retrieved a small bundle from the back seat. It had to be the baby, they realized. It was in some sort of child-carrying device made of gray plastic. It looked very industrial.
In her other hand, she carried a large bag. Dawn wondered what it could be then realized it was probably baby maintenance stuff like diapers and bottles. It struck her how much their lives were going to change.
Buffy entered the house, sat the baby carrier down on the floor and shook the lawyer’s hand. He left her without another word. She walked into the living room with the baby. Giles noticed her eyes were glassy-looking.
“Hi, Giles. Guess what? I’ve got another kid to raise.” She showed him the baby carrier.
He looked at it, rather at a loss. What could he possibly say? Finally, he decided that offering his sympathies was in order and promptly did so.
“Thanks,” she told him. “But what am I going to do? It’s hard enough to take care of a sixteen year old, let alone a baby that isn’t even a month yet.”
“You’ve coped admirably with Dawn,” he complimented her. “I’m sure you will do equally fine with this child.”
“I quit my job.”
“We can find you something else.”
She shrugged. “The lawyer says there’s plenty of money now. I don’t see how I can hold down a job and raise a baby anyway.” She looked at him seriously. “I want to quit Slaying.”
He was shocked. Out of all the possible outcomes of this sad occurrence, it had never once passed through his mind that she might be forced to quit being the Slayer. “B, but who will guard the Hellmouth?”
“Can’t they get Faith out of prison? I have too many people depending on me to risk my life every night. If I died, Dawn and Henry would go to foster care at the very least. He would probably be adopted, but Dawn would be on her own. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“I realize that you want to protect your sister and, and your brother, but you must also protect the world.”
“Not anymore.” She was adamant. “I’ve died and come back twice and my time to do that is over now. I have nothing more to give the world. It’s taken everything twice and that’s just going to have to be enough. Do I have your support on this?”
He nodded. “I understand and will, of course, back you in your decision, but the Council is not going to be as understanding.”
Buffy bent and picked the tiny infant from the carrier. It mewed in the helpless way that new babies did. She walked over to him and put the child into his arms. “I didn’t ask to be the Slayer but I did it. I didn’t ask to be Dawn’s guardian, but I did it. I didn’t ask to have a baby to raise, but I’m going to do that too. The Council will just have to get over it.”
He cradled the baby and marveled at its tiny size. It had red hair. “Is it supposed to be this small?”
“How would I know? This is as close to a baby as I’ve ever been, well, except for Dawn but I was only five then and I don’t really remember.”
“It’s rather cute.”
The baby swung its tiny hand and wrapped it around one of his strong fingers. It gave a squeeze. “He’s such a strong little man,” the Watcher cooed.
“You’re good with him,” she commented. “Do you have baby experience?”
“No, not really. I’ve had friends who had children and of course, one makes over them, but I’ve never actually been around babies for any length of time.”
He handed the child back to her. She took him and sat down on the couch cradling the infant in her arms. “What am I going to do? What do I know about raising children? I’m now officially a single mother.”
He patted her knee. “We’ll figure out something, Buffy.”
She looked at him. “If I quit Slaying, you’ll be free, Giles. You’ll be out of it. You can go back to England.”
“Is, is that what you want me to do?” His voice was low and she heard the pain reflected in it.
“No! I never want you to leave. But if I’m giving up my destiny to raise babies, you deserve your freedom.”
He was silent as he thought about it. Free after thirty plus years of training. It was a heady thought, but his freedom would be purchased at the cost of leaving Buffy. He couldn’t do it.
“Buffy, I’m rather afraid you are my destiny. I could no more leave you than I could grow wings and fly away.”
Dawn looked up at them from her contemplation of her hands. “Do you think you’re going to have more trouble from Social Services? I mean, they barely let you keep me and I have a feeling that was just because I was so much trouble. They’d take a brand new baby in a minute.”
Buffy looked startled. “You’re right. What am I going to do?”
“Too bad Riley is out of the picture. You could have married him like he wanted and not had a bit of problem with the baby,” Dawn told her.
“Riley was a stupid and insecure butt head and there is no way I would ever have married him.” Buffy replied fiercely.
“Well, you’d better marry somebody. Social services will take our brother away from you faster than you can stake a vamp.”
Buffy clutched the child to her breast. “They aren’t getting him. He’s mine now.”
Giles looked at the woman who was his entire life. What was one more sacrifice on top of the dozens he had made for her already? “You could marry me, Buffy.”
Both girls looked at him. Dawn bopped around excitedly. “Yeah! There’s nobody more stable than Giles. It would solve two problems at the same time.”
“Two?” Buffy asked her.
“Yeah. Custody for the baby and Giles’ green card would be secure. The Council couldn’t revoke it if they didn’t like his attitude, like they’ve threatened before.”
Buffy looked interested, then downcast. “God, I must be the most selfish person on the planet to even think of letting you do this for me, Giles.”
“I think we should do it, Buffy. It would protect all four of us. The Council isn’t going to take your retirement lying down. They will do everything in their power to keep you as the Slayer.”
She looked at him, the best man she had ever known. She realized that she loved him fiercely. Their relationship had never been sexual in nature, but she thought it easily could have been if she’d been less stupid and he less careful. Looking down at the baby clutched in her arms, she came to a decision. “Dawn, could you babysit while Giles and I talk? There’s stuff we need to work out.”
The younger girl got up and took the baby. “I guess we’ll be upstairs.”
“Thanks.”
She waited till her sister had disappeared before turning to her Watcher. “This is going to be one of those conversations that you look back on and cringe, but I just can’t think of any way to get out of talking about this stuff.,” she paused. “Giles, do you, ah, I mean, um, when two people get married there’s…stuff they do together. How do you feel about that?”
He looked at her, puzzled. “Stuff?”
She ran her hand through her hair. “OK, sex. I don’t want to never have it again and I’m fairly sure you don’t want that either. I don’t believe in cheating, even when it’s a marriage of convenience. So, I guess what I’m asking is, if you and I got married, could you, um, have sex with me?”
His face was as red as a tomato. “I, I, that is, er, yes?”
She looked relieved. “So you don’t think it would be gross or anything?”
“I should be asking you that, Buffy. I know I’m not your ideal of manly beauty.”
“You’re a handsome man, Giles. I’ve just never gone there because, well, it never seemed right to risk our relationship in a romance.”
“Have you ever thought of me…that way?” he inquired softly.
“Just casual stuff and, well, a few really good dreams…uh, just forget that last part, OK?”
He looked like he didn’t want to forget it. In fact, he looked very much like a man who has struck gold.
“Have you ever had those kind of thoughts about me?” she asked curiously.
“Buffy, I’m a healthy, heterosexual male in the prime of my life. Of course, I’ve had thoughts. A man can’t work closely with a nubile, extremely beautiful young woman for years without having thoughts.”
“Really? How come you never did anything about it, then? I mean, I could see why not when I was still a minor, but once I turned eighteen…”
“I had actually planned to start courting you after graduation, but I really didn’t know how to approach you about the idea.”
“You’ve dated before. You know how to ask a woman out.”
“It’s that it never mattered quite so much to me before. There was never as much at stake if the woman wasn’t interested. And, as you mentioned, I didn’t want to jeopardize our already existing relationship.”
She let her eyes roam over his body. He wasn’t as young as Riley, but he was ten times smarter. He wasn’t as strong as Angel, but he wasn’t going to lose his soul if they had sex. There were trade offs and the more she looked at him, the more it seemed to her that she was getting one hell of a deal. He was kind, intelligent, a non-smoker, had a good sense of humor—and OK, he sometimes drank too much but that could be excused when you looked at the crap she had put him through. He was a hard taskmaster, but he drove himself twice as hard as he had ever done her. He could be bitingly sarcastic, but he liked the baby. She had another thought.
“Um, Giles? Would you want kids of our own? Besides the ones we inherit?”
He looked dumbstruck. “I never actually thought of it before as a real possibility. You don’t think I’m too old?”
“You’re forty-two, right?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“Then, no. I mean, it’s not as if you’d be having the babies yourself.”
He looked slightly alarmed. ‘How, how many were you anticipating?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we start with the two kids we already have and see how hard it is?”
“A sound plan,” he commented.
“When do you want to do this?”
“Do you think we need to be married immediately? I should like to court you. I’ve been planning things I’d like to do since you were eighteen. It seems a shame not to use them.”
The reality of her father’s death was upon her but Rupert was such a good man. He wanted to do this right and it was up to her to let him. She smiled softly. “I’d like you to court me. We can keep it low key for a while because of mourning dad, but I’m not going to let that ruin what we can have together either.”
“I’m deeply sorry about your father, love.”
“I know you are and it helps a lot, Rupert. Do you know, I haven’t seen him since I was seventeen? That’s almost six years. Why would he abandon us like that? I used to think it was because I was a bad daughter—what with being the Slayer and all, but I don’t believe that anymore. And that wouldn’t explain why he never tried to contact Dawn. When mom died, he sent a card. I didn't tell Dawn, but I think his secretary signed it for him.”
Giles was never one to speak ill of the dead, but if Hank Summers had stood in front of him at that moment, Giles could have beaten him to death quite happily. He tried to come up with some bit of comfort for Buffy, but he was running perilously low on inspiration.
“Sometimes, when people love you and can’t be around you all the time, it hurts them to see you at all. I know that’s foolish, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for your father’s neglect.”
Buffy thought about it. “It’s probably insanely generous, but I’ll take it. It sure beats thinking he didn’t care about us anymore.”
“That would be impossible, Buffy. Now, back to our circumstances…I should like to obtain the marriage license immediately. If we need to be married in a rush, we will have that taken care of. In the mean time, I can court you like you deserve. I know you don’t love me, but I’m hoping that, perhaps, over time, you might gain a certain fondness for me. Do you think that’s likely?” He sounded very hopeful.
“Not love you? Giles, I love you to pieces—yes, it hasn’t been in a romantic way, but we’ve built something together. We were partners and friends and now we’ll be lovers and that’s not a bad thing. Not bad at all.”
They spent the rest of the evening making plans. Giles agreed to move into the Summers’ home once they were married and they both decided not to tell the Council till it was a fait accompli.