tarnished -- part one -- trekker |
Chapter One | |
Home Again |
Deep red sky, like a smear of blood behind the black of the distant windbreak trees edging the field. The sun settled just below the horizon, the last tinge of light still coloring the underside of the clouds.
Rupert Giles sat alone on the pale brick patio outside of his family home, an estate a few miles outside of Bath. They had a small plot of land. The house was old and stately, and now, behind him, the light through the windows cast a soft yellow glow out across the fields.
He looked out across the fields, a forgotten mug of tea gone long cold in his hand, resting on his knee. He thought of nothing. Nothing important, that is. He thought instead of clouds, and of the scent of this place, so different than the scent of Sunnydale. Even breathing was a reminder.
But then, that was what he wasn't supposed to be thinking, wasn't it?
Sunnydale. Thousands of miles away, and no longer his concern. No one there his concern.
He moved his head, shaking off those thoughts, and lifted the mug to his lips. The cold touched his lips and he grimaced, then stood and walked to the end of the patio, tossing the dregs out onto the grass. The mug he set aside on the low brick wall and then he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
A night breeze picked up and swirled around him and he shivered. California never seemed to get quite so chilled. His blood had thinned.
Behind him, the patio door clicked shut and footsteps approached.
"Still here?" his mother said, coming up alongside him.
He smiled slightly, his eyes still fixed on the black trees that shifted in the cold breeze.
The smile did not hold for long.
"Watching the sun set," he said. "And thinking, I suppose."
He looked at her, then, and again was startled. She looked... old, for want of a better word. Straight grey hair and crinkles around her eyes and mouth. Lines that deepened as she smiled and touched his arm. A hint of melancholy in her eyes.
"How are you doing?" she asked, and he had to look away again, the weight of that question too heavy to bear straight on.
"How should I be doing?" he asked. "I-- I don't even know if I've done the right thing."
"Perhaps you didn't. Or perhaps you did. Only time will tell."
"Sounds remarkably simple when you put it like that," he said. "But it isn't. Nothing ever is."
He looked down at his feet now, standing on that pale brick, possibly several thousand miles from where they should be.
"Ah, yes. Of course. But it's a mother's job to make it seem simple."
He smiled again, more easily and more genuinely. But that moment of ease, too, did not last for long. He turned and sat down on the wall and from that angle his mother looked taller and brought back memories of a long-ago youth that, for a split-second, he yearned for with a passion unlike any he'd felt in months.
"That was all Buffy wanted, I suppose," he said. "For it to be simple."
His mother sat as well, and put her hand on his knee.
"You were never meant to be her father, Rupert."
"I know."
"So don't feel you should have been. She's a Slayer and you are her Watcher. I know how these things work, love. Don't think I haven't been watching you, and your father, and your brother. I may not be one of you, but I know."
"I'm not sure anyone knows. I certainly know that I don't know. I--"
The wind picked up again, whipping around them both, pulling strands of his mother's silver hair about her face. He couldn't miss her shiver and her small wince. He stood up again and offered her a hand.
"Let's get inside, shall we? Chilly tonight."
She looked grateful as she took his hand and she struggled, for a moment, when she stood. A part of him, a horrible part that he shied away from, cringed.
Edwin was in Africa, and Margaret had children and a Potential Slayer to deal with, and god knew Paul wouldn't know responsibility if it up and introduced itself. All of which meant that someday, though likely not soon, per se, his parents would need somewhere to stay, and there'd be no one but him there to take up that--
The word that came to mind was burden, and he briefly hated himself for his diction.
She leaned on his arm only slightly as they walked to the door.
Just inside the door, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders--so much thinner--and pulled her into his side, kissed the top of her head and said, "I should head home. Love you, mum."
Her eyes glowed as she returned the words, then she headed off towards the kitchen at a slow amble. He watched her go, wondering just how much of a hypocrite he truly was, then he turned and headed for the den.
His father was embroiled in books; barely seemed to hear him come in. Giles had an odd moment of understanding, thinking perhaps this was how he seemed to the Scooby gang when he himself was deep in research. Closed off to the world, focused, distant.
"I'm... heading home," he said.
"Hmm?" His father said.
"Goodnight."
Only then did his father look up.
"Leaving?"
"Driving back to Bath."
"Right, yes." His father turned in his chair. "Goodnight."
And then he paid Giles no more mind. Not that Giles had been expecting anything more. He knew that no matter what his mother said, or even what gestures towards politeness his father may make, what he'd done was completely unprecedented.
Past experience told him his father was not overly fond of anything unprecedented.
The house was silent as he walked back out into the cold night air.
***
Bath was a nice town. Small and old and heavy with history. Bath gave the impression of something long there and long-lasting. Sunnydale only ever gave the impression of lurking evil and consumerism.
Outside his own apartment, there were people on the streets and cars passing but, as soon as the scuffed old oak door shut behind him, that silence returned in force. The only sound was the hollow clomp of his feet on worn wooden steps, echoing about the stairwell and far too loud. Every time he climbed these stairs, he expected to be shouted at by a neighbor but so far it hadn't been an issue and he'd never had a problem with the noise of others.
This old worry should have inspired a sensation of being home, he thought. After all, he'd lived in this building longer than he'd lived in Sunnydale. He knew its personality and its quirks and his neighbors, all of whom had welcomed him back with the usual detachment of distant acquaintances. Friendly but empty, in a way that normally would have been warming.
Nothing, now, seemed warming.
He reached the third floor and the door to his flat and stepped inside. For a moment, before he could set his keys aside and flip on the lights, it seemed perfectly dark and still inside. He almost wanted to simply turn around and leave.
Having the lights on did not do much to improve things.
His possessions, for the most part, were still stacked in boxes in the disarrayed living room and in the hall. Bookshelves stood empty, waiting for him to summon the energy to unpack and re-alphabetize his collection. It simply seemed insurmountable at the moment.
He'd intended to make something for dinner, settle in for a night of light reading, but suddenly, all he really wanted was to lie down, to not-deal with the massive project of getting his life, such as it was--if he even had one--back on track.
So he told himself he could get started trying to get his bedroom back in order and that was enough of an excuse to get him down the hall and into his bedroom and once he was there, he dropped the pretense. Dropped everything, in fact, and flipped the lights back off and settled down on his back on the bed with his hands knotted behind his head and his shoes still on, staring up at the single band of light on the ceiling.
As far as he knew, no one even knew where he was. What he was doing. No one would knock on his door. No one would need his attention.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
tarnished -- part one -- trekker |