tarnished -- part one -- trekker |
Chapter Five | |
Where the Heart Is |
His mother invited him to dinner a few days later, and he couldn't exactly say no, so he went. The meal itself went well, but afterwards, as they settled in the living room with brandy, his father casually inquired, "When are you returning?"
"I'm sorry?" Giles said.
"To Sunnydale? How long are you planning to stay away?"
He'd been hoping that wasn't what his father was talking about. "I'm... I'm here indefinitely. I'm not sure I will be going back."
His father's voice remained level and matter-of-fact as he said, "But you must. It's your calling. Your responsibility."
"She doesn't need me, now."
Giles looked down and swirled his brandy. This was the last thing he wanted to be discussing.
"All Slayers need Watchers."
"She didn't want me to be her Watcher," Giles said, trying to match his father's calm tone, "She wanted me to be her mother. I couldn't stay."
"So, you left because she needed you?"
"I left because she *didn't,*" Giles said, losing the battle to remain cool and collected. "She believed she did, and it was destroying her, letting her believe that. She has never needed me, as anything more than, than a walking encyclopedia. She was ordering me around when she was barely sixteen."
"Then go back and be her bloody encyclopedia, Rupert."
"I can't. She wouldn't *let* me. Not the way she was."
"For God's sake, don't you see this is ridiculous? A Watcher simply abandoning his Slayer? Leaving her alone to face the Hellmouth? It's not done. It's completely irresponsible. It's not like you."
His father paused then, and it was all Giles could do not to cringe, knowing what his next words would be. "Or perhaps it is."
"This isn't the same," he said, softly.
Although he was apparently taking up with Ethan again.
No, he wasn't.
"You've abandoned your destiny before."
"I love her, Dad. She's the number one priority in my life. I would never-- I was bloody well sacked for it, and I didn't leave then."
"Well, perhaps you should have. Wyndam-Pryce would have--"
*That* was going too far.
"That berk would have got her killed," he snapped, standing up.
"Rupert!" his mother objected.
He walked to the window, but mostly only saw his own reflection frowning at him.
"Sorry, mother."
Then that silence fell over all of them again, and eventually, he said he should be getting home.
***
Halfway back to Bath, he pulled off on the side of the road and got out of the car. A shock of cold air and a sharp scent of cow manure did something at least to clear his head. Cattle stood a few yards off behind a wooden fence, large dark living masses in the almost equally dark field.
Giles tucked his hands in his pockets and walked down to the fence. Long grass brushed around his knees and rustled underfoot, the sound mingling with the distant sigh of the breeze. Somewhere, an owl called. It was cold and the world seemed empty of humanity.
He stopped at the fence and leaned his head back, looking up at the stars that peered through the dark rifts in cottony grey clouds. His breath rose in a white puff and dispersed away.
He had to wonder.
Was his father right? He'd felt so sure it had been a selfless act, leaving Sunnydale. He hadn't *wanted* to leave her. He'd wanted to help. Hell, he would have even been willing to play the role of mother. But it wouldn't have been good for her. She needed the independence, her own life, the way she'd always craved.
But then... it had been misery, being there. He'd been so sure he was quit of Sunnydale with its demons and death. And Buffy was suffering so much, it hurt him desperately to watch, and to feel so utterly helpless.
So perhaps there had been an element of selfishness to it. He had the ability to get out, and he had. None of the others had that option.
He hung his head and walked back to his car, with nothing at all worked out in his mind.
tarnished -- part one -- trekker |