Title: Ripper (Part 3)
Author: Weezer
Summary: Giles returns to England after Buffy’s death (the one with Glory), but is there still a place for him here?
Spoilers: Mention of Buffy’s death after Glory, her confrontation with Travers when she gets Giles’ job back, and some mention of Ethan, but nothing specific.
Pairing: Eventually G/other
Rating: G/PG (except maybe some bad language)
Feedback: Very Welcome! Especially constructive criticism!
Use: No problem, if you want it, just shoot me an email at Weez2424@aol.com
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine (belong to Joss-the-Magnificent, et al.), and I'm just having fun with them. Some may say too much fun . . .

Author's Link: http://www.geocities.com/weez2424/ASH_addict.html

Giles’ first taste of magic came when he was only 8 years old. He had left school early again, complaining of a stomach ache. Of course, as usual, he had just been incredibly bored. With all the sick days he’d taken, he was surprised no one admitted him into a hospital to test for some rare disease. Likely, his acting was not as great as he had thought, and everyone knew full well he was just faking it. They just didn’t care. Even at the age of eight, Giles was already a somber kid. His teachers all commented on it, but none really took the time to find out why. Hell, Giles didn’t even know why himself; he just always felt completely out of place. Empty. His studies were not challenging in the least, so he had no problem keeping stellar marks despite his distraction, daydreaming, and frequent absences. That was likely why no one cared about his absences at first. IT really couldn’t be all that bad if he was still performing at school, right? Well, eventually they could all become worried, but by then his father had made everyone too terrified to inquire. Even after Giles’ stellar marks fell markedly, but that didn’t come until later. This particular time, Giles had been a bit more than bored. Halfway through his second class, Giles felt a sudden desire to be home. Like a physical tug at his chest, trying to pull him out of his desk. He had no idea why, but the urge was very specific and extremely intense. For some reason he just knew he needed to be home. As he looked back on it now, he realized it was likely one of the earlier signs of his own “intuition” asserting itself. He’d been right, after all; he had been needed at home. But, he didn’t trust his instincts, and so he was a bit late. Giles would often find himself arriving “too late” throughout his life. Perhaps it was his curse, his punishment. Despite his frighteningly accurate instincts, he would too often find himself too late to do anything useful with them, until of course, he would never again have the opportunity to be “too late” again—with respect to his family, at least.

It had been a sweltering day, odd for that time of year. Giles practically dragged his bag behind him, his shirt collar opened, his tie tugged out of place, and his sleeves rolled up in a failed attempt to cool off. He had started out from the school at a run, but the intense heat seemed to creep up unexpectedly, causing his breathing to become labored and his body temperature to rocket. Finally, he succumbed to it and was forced to walk the rest of the three miles home. With each sluggish step, his uneasiness about the delay in getting home, amplified his guilt at not being able to fight beyond the heat and force himself to run.

When Giles finally arrived home, he found his father’s car in the drive. That was the first sign of trouble, and had the hairs on his neck not been matted to his skin from the sweat, they’d have likely stood on end. By that time, his father had been with the Council for only two months. He had been working late into the evening every day of those two months in some effort to prove himself. Giles had sensed the change in his father immediately. And while Giles figured his father liked the power and the way people treated him once he joined up, Giles was sure that at least half of his reason his father spent so much time at work, was so he didn’t have to be around Giles.

>From the day his father joined the Council, Giles became certain his father hated him. His mother tried to convince him otherwise, but Giles could sense it, and in the little time his father did spend at home, he did not miss the man’s cold stares, disapproving glances and disgusted scoffs. For the life of him, Giles couldn’t figure out what he’d done to make his father so angry. After a while, he stopped caring and stopped to trying to win his father’s approval. That’s when it slid into conduct slid more into actions specifically intended to antagonize his father. Perhaps not on a conscious level, but Giles had to admit even when the man was on some tirade and punishing him, inside Giles couldn’t help smirking. Perhaps it was a taste of what his father got out of being with the Council. The power that comes from knowing you’ve instilled fear in another. Because that’s what Giles smelled from his father at those times – fear. He had no idea what an 8-year-old boy could possess that would instill such fear into a grown man, well not at that time anyway. And his father did his best to keep it from him. Until he tried to steal it from Giles, that is.

* * *

Giles looked up startled, at the sound of an empty glass hitting the wooden table. “Another?” Peter asked. “I need something to do during your painfully long pauses.” Giles chuckled and nodded, swigging down the last of his beer and handing the empty glass to the lad. He reached into his jeans for some cash, but Peter held his hand up, offering to get this round himself. Giles gave the boy a nod of thanks.

As Peter headed to the bar for refills, Giles let his gaze pass over the two guys still occupying the far corner of the bar. Wonder what the hell they want? Like he really had to guess. They sure as hell weren’t here for the kid. Giles had been ordered to check in the minute he set foot on English soil. The Council was without a Slayer. Buffy had died, but no other could be called because of Faith. Giles knew this shortened Faith’s life span further, but something in him was none to eager to do anything to protect her. He hadn’t the energy anymore, let alone the drive. Losing Buffy had taken what he had left. There was no more. Nothing left for anyone else, or even himself.

Needless to say, Giles didn’t fancy himself jumping to the Council Drum anymore, if ever. They bloody well fired him for Christ’ sake. Which, of course, Giles had been none too torn up about, although he did appreciate Buffy’s bullying them into putting him back on the Council payroll, retroactively even. Giles smiled at the memory of Buffy giving Travers and the lot a dose of her reality. It sure shook theirs to the core. She had so impressed him that day, and it was then that he truly understood his role in her life. And the true role of the Council, even if they had perverted the system to their own gain. He had always known that the Slayer was more than a mere tool; she was “the one.” The Council was truly impotent without a Slayer, and they as well as the Watchers should have been there to assist and to serve the Slayer, not inhibit, restrict and manipulate. Giles wondered if the true role of the Watchers Council was detailed in all those old volumes that always seemed to turn up missing. He could hardly imagine that a Council which had existed for hundreds of years, would only have written material and resources for the past two centuries. As with much of the aspects of the Council, it was just a bit too convenient. Giles knew it was more than a matter of convenience. And, as he had just explained to the boy, knowledge was power. So what better way to manipulate that power, then to destroy knowledge that doesn’t serve your current purposes. God, he hated the Council, just as much if not more than the evil he was sworn to fight.

Giles noticed the Suits studying Peter as he ordered two more pints. His hands instinctively tightened on the edge of the table, ready to propel himself to the lad’s side if need be. He had to suppress a chuckle as Peter, not oblivious in the least, fearlessly confronted the Suit closest to him, “What the ‘ell you starin’ at?” The man mumbled something, practically inviting the boy’s fist. But, the other one nudged his partner’s shoulder, causing the man to back down and return to staring at his beer.

“Thought so,” Peter spat triumphantly, then grabbed the two beers and laughed all the way back to the booth. “Two fresh pints,” he greeted, still chuckling as he slid one glass in front of Giles. “Now hopefully, this cold one will loosen that tongue of yours, so we can get through this story before I’m as old and creaky as you.”

“Fair ‘nuff. Fair ‘nuff,” Giles muttered with a laugh, then asked, “Where was I?” Giles wasn’t quite sure what part of his trip down memory lane had been vocalized and what part had lost itself in one of his “painfully-long pauses.”

“You were skipping school. It was hot. You had just gotten home and saw your dad’s car in the drive. Blah, blah, blah. So, what happened next?”

“Oh yes, well. . . ,” Giles continued, reliving each step up the drive as if it were yesterday.

* * *

Giles had approached the front door quietly, stopping to pull himself up off the ground by the window sill, so he could peer into the living room. Giles heard the raised voices even before he reached the window. His father was yelling, and he heard his mother shout something back. Giles’ stomach knotted up the minute he heard his mother’s voice. She’d sounded so angry. He’d never heard his mother speak with such vehemence before. Occasionally, she’d sounded hurt or upset, but she never really got angry. Giles had come to the conclusion that his mother was physically incapable of being mad. Most children might have used that to manipulate their parent, but Giles just couldn’t. In fact it intensified his love and respect for his mum. Her compassion and patience had always astounded him, and it was one of the things that made his mother so much stronger to him than his father ever could hope to be.

Giles struggled to hold himself up by the ledge, while at the same time trying to lean his head far enough to the left to be able to see into the parlor. He couldn’t see much from this angle, except for his father’s back. Just as Giles leaned another inch to the left, bringing the parlor into view, a sharp sound of shattering glass startled him. It sounded as if it was right next to his face, and he half expected the window to be exploding out onto him. The shock caused him to lose his grip on the window sill, sending him to the ground below. He landed on his back with a thump, the impact knocking his breath from his lungs. As Giles fought to catch his breath, he tried to decipher the angered voices that were rising again. He pulled himself up and began to brush himself off, when suddenly his hand froze, mid-brush. A chill pierced his soul, when he heard his mother scream, her voice no longer laden with anger, but terror. Giles ran to the parlor window, his adrenaline quickly pulling him up by the ledge this time. He heard his mother scream again, this time a high-shrilled, “No!” His eyes cleared the ledge to settle on the scene before him, just in time to see a bolt of lightning shooting out from his father’s outstretched hands directly into his mother’s chest. A blue light immediately engulfed her. She collapsed immediately, her body curling up on itself like his baby sister did when she was younger and he was teasing her. But this was not in defense of playful poking; this was to escape pain. His mum’s cries clawed at Giles’ ears. He wanted to scream out as well, to yell “No!” or “Stop!” But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

Giles watched in horror as his father ignored his mother’s cries and continued to send the painful light into her. Giles’ arms finally gave out and he fell back to the ground. He began hyperventilating, from the combination of horror and the left over tightness in his chest from the heat. He was on all fours trying to catch his breath, when he heard his mother’s cries stop. The silence terrified him even more. Giles heeded his panic, which screamed at him to get in there NOW. He pulled himself to his feet and dragged himself, gasping for air, up the stairs and through the front door. As he turned into the parlor, he found his father standing over his mum. The sight sickened him. Literally. Giles grabbed his mouth, trying to suppress his compulsion to wretch. His father was laughing. Even as a blue smoke continued to circle his mother and her cries and pleas continued, his father just laughed. Then the laughter stopped, and his father spoke. Only it wasn’t his father. It couldn’t have been. At least that was what Giles would try to convince himself for years to come, that it had really been some impostor. That denial would eat away at Giles, until finally it killed. Only not himself of course, just everyone else around him.

The words from his father’s mouth were low and dark and dripping with hate. It was as if he were spitting on her. “Don’t EVER doubt me again.” His mother’s sobs shook Giles from his shock, and he lost it. He stormed his father, grabbing a vase on the way. “You leave her be!” he yelled, finally willing his breath to return. Giles struck out at his father’s back with the vase, doing more damage to the vase than to his father. At eight years of age, his strength was nothing compared to that of a grown man, let alone a grown man hyped up on dark magic. Giles’ froze after his first and only strike, his breath abandoning him in horror as his father’s head practically spun around on him, even before his body had turned. Giles almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of his father’s eyes. They were black. Not figuratively, but literally. Completely black. No whites whatsoever, no sign of the light blue irises that had mixed with his mother’s green eyes to give Giles his soft and unique gray ones.

Giles didn’t have time to even gasp in fear, as his father uttered one, unfamiliar word that sent Giles flying back into the bureau. It was like an invisible wave had crashed into him, and the force of it broke the doors on the bureau as well as something inside him. But he couldn’t tell what, he couldn’t decipher the source of his pain, because it was everywhere. There was no one spot. He heard his mother scream again, and realized why as he suddenly found himself engulfed by the blue light. His body involuntarily curled up on itself, mimicking his mom. It was a pain like none other he’d ever known, or had ever imagined. All of his skin was on fire, as if electricity now ran through his veins, instead of blood. The onslaught quickly overcame his small frame, and before he passed out, his last thought that at least he would die with his mother. But it was not to be. Not then, and not ten years later.

* * *

“Whoa,” Peter sighed in awe, his voice coming out in a whisper from his neglect of his beer. “T-that all true?”

Giles didn’t look up; he just downed the rest of his pint. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” he said.

“Yeah, well that’s why I believe in all that magic crap now,” Giles said, downing the rest of his beer in two gulps.

“Man, I thought my life sucked,” Peter said, focusing his attention back on his own beer.

“Well, everyone’s got something in their life. I’m sure someone’s had worse than me, as well.” Giles looked up. “Be right back. Gotta go to the ‘loo.”

Giles started to get up and Peter put a hand on his. “One of the suits just went in a bit ago,” he warned.

“Bugger,” Giles said, a bit tipsy. “I’ll just slip out back into the alley. Be back in a sec.” He swore again when he knocked his knee on the table.

“Need help, ole’ man?” Peter couldn’t help but laugh.

“I can bloody well piss on my own, ya Berk” Giles said, but secretly thankful for the comic relief. Things had started to get a bit too heavy. Giles slipped out the back door to the sound of Peter laughing.

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