Title: Second Lesson
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: FRT
Summary: More lessons are learned, sequel to The Lesson.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
Buffy watched Giles lean back against the barroom wall as he sipped his drink. She had known she would find him here. At least two nights a week since they had stripped Kennedy of her Slayer powers Rupert Giles came here to drink. He didn't get roaring drunk, but Buffy found it disturbing anyway. She slipped into the chair next to his, signaling the bartender to bring her a soda.
"What are you doing here, Buffy?" Giles said.
"Came to see you."
He spread his arms. "I am here."
"You are worrying me, Giles."
"Moi?"
"Yes, you! I know you're still grieving over the whole Kennedy thing."
He looked down into his glass. "I took away something that was hers, Buffy. She wasn't a bad Slayer..."
"She wasn't," Buffy agreed with him. "She might have lasted a year, maybe a bit longer. But she was cruel. She picked on the other girls, cut them with her nasty temper and harsh words. The day I beat her up, she was practically flaying Valerie. Had her in tears. Giles, Val is only thirteen. She's never been away from home before and she's doing the best she can. She doesn't need some uber-bitch coming down on her because she can't do grownup stuff yet. All the other girls were scared of her, afraid of what she'd do next.. Kennedy was flushing Val's face in the toilet. She should have been their sister, not their tormentor."
He sighed. "I know. I just..." he spread his hands again. "I feel so hopeless sometimes. We've come so far, yet we still lose girls because we can't be everywhere, can't give them the individual attention that they need. Stripping Kennedy of her powers probably saved her life, but I still feel guilty. We took her, changed her life, then discarded her when she couldn't conform."
"That's one way to look at it," Buffy agreed. "Or, you could say that we gave her every chance, every possible opportunity to be an asset and not a liability, but she wouldn't cooperate. She's back home with her people now, getting caught up on her education and living the life of a rich party girl. It wasn't what she wanted, but she's alive, and has a damn good chance of living to be an old woman if she doesn't do something stupid like get into drugs or go skiing drunk or something."
Giles nodded. He knew that Buffy was right. Kennedy had been impossible. She had been worse than Dana, the insane Slayer they had rescued from Angel. Dana was responding well to therapy and meditation. She was learning that not every man was a raping, murdering subhuman. While she still had episodes of disorientation, he thought that she might eventually be able to live a semi-normal life. He had declined to take away her powers because he knew that it was one of the things that helped her feel secure. While she was strong, nothing could ever victimize her or anyone around her, ever again. Even insane, she had a better grasp of responsibility and power than Kennedy had with her life of luxury and privilege.
Giles poured himself another drink and tipped it down his throat, punishing himself with the raw burn of the alcohol. He reached for the bottle again but found his Slayer's hand there first. "Please, Rupert. You don't need this."
"I need...something, Buffy. I have no outlet at all, do you know that?"
"Tell me." She was surprised when he reached over and took her hands in his.
"You and the others...you seem to be able to make friends so easily. Somehow, over the years of fighting, I've lost that knack. I'm afraid to strike up a conversation with a woman because she's probably something that is going to try to bite my head off, literally or, if she isn't evil, she's just cannon fodder. I can't date anymore. I don't even know how. I don't have anyone to talk to and I'm bloody lonely, if you must know."
Buffy gripped his hands. "I don't know if you noticed, Giles, but all of us Scoobies are significantly otherless right now. I won't get involved with somebody who isn't in our line of work and the minute I do, they turn out to have a secret agenda. Xander is still grieving over Anya and Willow is shell-shocked over the whole Kennedy experience. You're just part of our group of dateless wonders."
"I'm forty-bloody-
Buffy was silent. It wasn't that she'd never seen that Giles was a man, because she had. She'd just never thought of him in terms of a man who might want a relationship with somebody. There'd been the whole Jenny Calendar thing and then the Olivia debacle, and a few dates here and there that were mostly fix-ups from his friend Robson, but no serious relationships that had actually had a chance to flourish. She thought about how lonely she was and she could date anytime she wanted if she was willing to settle. How much worse it must be for Giles to want a relationship and be denied because of what he was and did.
"I'm sorry, Giles. I've been a bad friend. You've been going through this whole thing and I've just been going on as if things were fine. You need to tell me when you're lonely. I'm lonely too. I understand. I just, well, this is going to sound stupid, but I just never thought of you as the kind of guy that wants all that. You're so, I dunno, self-sufficient."
"Buffy, I want what everyone wants. I want to be loved, to have a home and maybe a family. I suppose my time for that has passed me by now, but I still crave it." He raised a hand to his eyes to dash away a suspicious moisture. "Sorry, don't mean to get maudlin on you."
She leaned over to him and wrapped her arms around him. "Never think you aren't loved, Rupert Giles. I love you so much, I don't know how I could go on without you in my life."
He looked up seeing the sincerity in her eyes. "Really? After all we've been through? All the horrible, stupid mistakes I made? How can you not hate me?"
Buffy gave a little watery chuckle of her own. "Giles, I've been so mad at you, I could have skinned you and wore you as boots, but I never hated you. Not ever. Not even after the Cruciamentum. I just felt..."
"You felt you couldn't trust me. I don't blame you," he looked rueful.
"Nah. I always knew I could trust you with my life. Trust you to do the right thing, no matter how much it hurt you. But I was a kid with a kid's control of her emotions. It's never been easy for me—I came into this life involuntarily—
"How could I?" He left it at that, watching her while she thought about it.
"I guess you couldn't and still be you. Will you promise me to try to change that? Talk to me? Tell me when you're hurting? So I can be there for you like you were for me."
He looked back down at his empty glass. "I will on one condition."
"OK?"
"Come out to dinner with me. We can make an evening of it. Dinner, the theater, dancing if you want. Just you and me."
"A date?" she asked, speculation in her gaze.
He nodded. "A date. If we are to mend our fences, I believe we need to quit trying to rebuild our old relationship and work on our new one. I can't be your mentor or your guardian anymore. You don't need a Watcher. If we try to cling to the roles we adopted when you were a child, we will fail and will lose our way with each other. I'm proposing that we get to know each other as adults, as equals."
Buffy smiled up at him. "I like your plan, but I do need to tell you one thing. I've learned a lesson over the years and I have to share it with you. I may not need a Watcher any more, but you will always be my beloved Watcher. No matter where our lives take us, how much older we grow, or what happens between us, I am, and always will be, your Slayer."
"Oh, Buffy. I love you so."
She reached out and gripped his hand in hers. "I love you too, Rupert."
END