Winter Of Discontent 3
Author: Gileswench
Contact: gileswench@yahoo.com
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. Praise abjectly sought.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc., etc., etc. I
just let them have all the fun Joss won't. I own nothing except my
twisted mind which you really don't want. Please don't sue.



"Oi! Mate!" Spike called.


Parker turned.


"Well if it isn't Father Doesn't Know His Ass From a Hole In the
Ground," the fledgling drawled. "Looking for another fight?"


"Aren't we cocky?" Spike responded. "Had to wait until I was
unconscious and tied up before you could take me, didn't you, boy? Well
now I'm awake and I've got a bellyful of blood. I doubt you'll be so
lucky again."


"Cut the crap, Spike. You're not the badass you pretend to be. You're
the Slayer's pet."


"Better the Slayer's pet than Harm's."


Parker laughed.


"I threw Mommy Dearest out a while ago."


"But you're still playing dress up, aren't you?"


"I don't know what you mean."


"All dressed up in Daddy's clothes because you know you'll never be a
real man on your own, aren't you? That's my sodding duster, and don't
you try to deny it. I stole it fair and square. Give it back."


"No way!"


Parker backed up as Spike approached. He looked menacing despite the
too large clothes and the loafers he still wore.


"So you want a fight, eh? Well that's just fine with me."


*****


Leo waited patiently at the kitchen table. He knew if he stayed there
long enough, another of his flock, as he liked to think of them, would
come to get a snack or clean up a few dishes. There were two in
particular he wanted to talk with, if they would just come to him.


Sure enough, he heard Rupert's soft step in the doorway moments later.


"Somehow I thought I would see you here tonight. Don't even try to
reach for that bottle."


"I wasn't planning on reaching for it, thank you very much. I just
wanted to clear away these dishes."


He took the tray to the sink and began to clean its contents. Leo got a
second teacup and poured as Giles put the last dish in the drainboard.


"I thought you might want a word tonight," he said.


Giles slid into a chair.


"Not especially, but I can see that you do. There's really no need,
Leo. Buffy and I already talked."


"What about the others?"


"I have no desire to discuss any of this with anyone at all, let alone
Willow and Xander."


Leo shook his head.


"Don't you understand yet that you're in America?"


"What has that to do with it?"


"People here think everything from homosexuality to communism is
contagious. You can talk on their terms or you can talk on your terms.
It's up to you."


"It's none of their bloody business."


"Buffy made it their business tonight."


"Am I to have no privacy whatsoever?"


"No. You live in America now. Privacy is something we give lip service
to, but don't really believe in. I bet you heard when every one of them
lost their virginity, didn't you?"


Giles smiled wryly.


"No, actually, but since they did they've never bloody stopped talking
about their sex lives. And one another's. I'd have offered them cash to
stop telling me all this long ago, except I doubt I could afford Anya's
price."


"Well now they'll expect the same candor from you that they've shown
you."


"But I never wanted it."


"Doesn't matter. These kids were raised in a world in which secrets are
suspect. Plus America has never lost her puritan roots. They need to
know all so they can disapprove of all. If you want your marriage to
last, you'll have to give up some of your privacy."


"So that Willow and Xander can lose all respect for me?"


"So that Buffy can understand you."


*****


While Giles was off taking the dishes to the kitchen, Buffy decided it
was time to look at those photographs in her drawer again and decide
which to put in the scrapbook she was making. After all, she might get
over her guilt at telling Giles' secrets a little faster if she did
something nice to make it up.


Somehow she felt sure Leo would be in the kitchen, too. He seemed to
have a way of being on tap when anybody had a crisis.


"It's a wonder he gets any sleep since we all moved in here," she
muttered to herself. "We're nothing but one big bundle of crisis."


She shuffled through the photographs. There were a few of Giles from
various stages of his childhood and adolescence. The happy, naked baby
on the bearskin rug gave way to a wide-eyed boy of five or six, looking
with confidence and curiosity at the camera. That one looked so much
like her own Giles in research mode that Buffy had to laugh a little.
The intense gaze, the slightly parted lips, the wonder in his eyes
looked just like the grown man discovering something exciting in one of
his musty books.


Buffy traced the younger version of his well-loved features with a
quiet smile. Giles had been adorable. Here was the proof.


Next came the sad and severe picture of Giles at ten; a resentful boy
with the weight of the world on his slim shoulders. It reminded Buffy
of the first pictures taken of her after she learned of her destiny.
She'd fought tooth and nail at fifteen to avoid her fate. What must it
have been like at ten to learn your life is not to be your own?


Slipping that one to the bottom of the pile, he found a startling
photograph of a young girl. Actually, there was nothing so odd about
the picture itself. It merely showed a girl of fifteen or sixteen
smiling a bit shyly as though she was unused to having her picture
taken.


What was startling about it was the astonishing resemblance to Giles.
The girl had brown, curly hair, the same murky green eyes, the same
high forehead, straight brows, and inimitable smile.


"Okay, this has got to be either his Mom or his sister."


Mother, she decided, from how old the clothes looked. Except Giles had
described his mother to her once and said that his mother was elegant.
This girl could in no way be described as elegant. She looked as though
she'd been in a few scrapes in her time, from the wary eyes and
discreet scar on her cheek.


Unless Giles' mother had a dark past a juvenile delinquent, too, this
was someone else.


Buffy wondered who.


*****


Not for the first time, Wesley found himself staring at the worn
photograph he kept in his wallet.


His finger traced the contours of her face delicately, yet again.


How he missed her sometimes.


And how he missed Cordelia now, as well.


"Perhaps I was never meant to be truly happy," he mused darkly.


How was it that happiness always seemed within his grasp and then
turned to smoke on the wind just as his fist closed around it?


*****


Crystal looked long and hard at her wedding photo. Everything had
seemed so easy that day. Sure, Hank hadn't exactly been the knight in
shining armor she'd thought he might be when he swept her away from her
lousy homelife, but it hadn't all been bad either. When he thought
about it, he was charming and kind.


It's just he didn't think that often once the ring was on her finger.


And now there would be no second chances. No way Hank could make it up
to her or the baby.


As if on cue, Crystal felt a tiny kick within her womb.


She hadn't meant to get pregnant. She'd just gone to the party because
her friend, Michelle, had dared her to go and pick up a guy. She had no
idea what had possessed her to choose someone that much older...or to
assure him she was on the pill when they went to bed.


It really was her fault just as much as Hank's.


But then he'd been so nice; breakfast in bed, and little presents for
no reason at all.


All she'd wanted was someone to take care of her.


She felt a surge of panic. Now she had to take care of herself and her
child. She felt completely overwhelmed.


"What are we going to do, kid?" she asked as she smoothed her blouse
over her belly.


"I wish Joyce was here."


Her eye was caught by the glint of her wedding ring.


A single tear slipped down her cheek as she took it off and laid it in
a drawer along with the photograph.


She'd never felt so alone.


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