Chapter Text
Giles had always looked at Janna and seen Jenny. Part of it was the name, of course, and her mother’s dark hair and pale complexion, but another part of it was the way she carried herself—bright and proud, meeting every challenge with neither fear nor caution. Stubborn and reckless in a way that seemed more innate than deliberate. She was confident in herself, and in her choices, and the glint in her eyes was one he knew quite well: Jenny, after all, had looked at him for the first time with that exact same expression.
Bizarre as it was, it was easier to see himself in Ed. Though Ed was essentially a carbon copy of her mother in looks (save for the hair—a soft caramel that came from the Giles side of the family) she was quieter, calmer, more careful and precise with her words and her choices. She wanted to be a supernatural researcher when she was older, aiding the new Council in a less traditional fashion. Giles could empathize with that notion.
Jenny, however, thought differently of the affair. “Ed is completely her own thing,” she had always said, “and Janna is her father’s daughter.” And when Giles, bewildered by the notion of loud, brash Janna being anything other than a tiny Jenny, protested this statement, Jenny would simply raise an eyebrow and tell him to wait a few years.
Janna’s magic came on when she was twelve, in the middle of a family road trip down the coast. Giles and Jenny were having a good-natured argument about which radio station they wanted to listen to, the newest and smallest Calendar-Giles had fallen asleep in the baby seat, Ed was placidly humming along to whatever station happened to be on (switching seamlessly between songs as the stations changed), and Janna, who really hadn’t had enough to eat at the diner they’d stopped at three hours ago, finally lost her temper.
“JUST PICK A STATION,” she shouted, and the radio exploded.
Giles slammed on the brakes. Lizzy woke up and started crying. Jenny covered her face and twisted away, most of the radio shards catching her hands instead. Ed stared, then turned to Janna and said, “So you’re probably hungry. Do you want half of my Hershey’s bar?” which, Giles would realize later, was an indicator that Ed had pieced things together far before the rest of them.
Currently, however, Giles was more concerned about Jenny, who was slowly lowering her hands from her face with a rather pained expression. A few shards had managed to hit her cheeks and chin. “First-aid kit?” he said very loudly over Lizzy’s sobs.
“Glove compartment,” said Jenny through gritted teeth.
Taking his wife’s hand, Giles dropped a quick, comforting kiss to the knuckles, rather grateful that they’d been driving down a fairly deserted stretch of highway. After he had found the first-aid kit, he turned to his daughters, mostly to make sure they were all right, but also because he had a quickly-growing suspicion about the cause of the radio’s explosion.
Lizzy, too young to really understand anything beyond the fact that there had been a very loud noise, was still crying. Giles reached awkwardly into the backseat to unbuckle her from the baby seat and give her a reassuring cuddle. Ed looked a little worried about her mother, but otherwise unfazed. Janna looked horribly shaken, and there was a lingering trace of guilt that cemented Giles’s theory. “Janna dear,” he said carefully, running a hand through Lizzy’s downy hair, “what—um, what were you thinking before the radio exploded?”
Janna ducked her head. “You’ll get mad.”
Jenny caught on. “Muffin,” she said. “You’re not in trouble. We’re just asking because this raises a few new questions. What were you thinking before the radio exploded?”
Janna bit her lip, looking resentful and a little ashamed. “I was really mad,” she said. “You guys weren’t really arguing, you were just pretend-arguing, and I wanted to listen to music, and all you guys were doing was switching stations back and forth. And so I thought, it’d serve them right if the radio exploded, and then I kinda felt this, this pull—”
“It does make sense, Rupert,” said Jenny suddenly. “Didn’t Janna get her first period in that rest stop bathroom around—”
“Twenty-four hours ago,” Giles finished, remembering. Janna had been mostly distraught about the loss of her favorite pair of jeans, and calming her down had distracted him from a conversation he really should have started before—well. Something like this happened. “And my magic came on when I was twelve—”
“Wait,” said Janna. “Wait—” The stubborn anger, the guilt, the upset—all of it was rapidly fading away, replaced by a small, wondrous smile. “Magic?” she said. “Like Willow and Tara and Dad when he was younger?”
Jenny waved her slightly cut-up hands, gesturing semi-impatiently towards the first-aid kit. “Look,” she said. “This is an important conversation to have. But can we have it after my hands are fixed?”
Janna bit her lip, eyes on her mother’s hands. Giles felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Janna, no,” he said sharply, but the injuries to Jenny’s hands and face had already knit themselves back into smooth, unbroken skin, droplets of blood still lingering bizarrely where cuts had once been.
“Oh boy,” said Jenny, staring down at her hands, then up at Janna. There was a new worry to her expression. “Baby, you should not be able to do that.”
“Am I in trouble?” said Janna.
Giles really wasn’t sure how to answer that question.
“She’s stronger than me,” said Willow in a low whisper. “Giles, that shouldn’t be possible. You said Jenny was latent, right?”
“Jenny and I both come from very old, very magical families,” Giles answered, casting a nervous look in the direction of his wife and daughters. Tara had sufficiently distracted Janna with a story from one of her books, but Ed seemed to be trying to listen in on Giles and Willow’s conversation. He steered Willow into the kitchen. “My magics have long since waned,” he said. “It’s what happens when you expend an intense amount of magical energy to bind your soul to a demon’s, then sever that connection. You lose quite a lot of the magic with it, and the rest of it…fades.” He hesitated. “But my magics were very powerful,” he said. “Not quite as powerful as yours, Willow, but powerful nonetheless.”
“But you said Jenny’s latent—”
“Jenny’s family is, if possible, even older and stronger than mine,” Giles finished. “There are tales of magic skipping generations. It’s likely that her children would have been quite formidable even without my family’s added influence.”
Willow considered this, taking a long sip from her cup of hot chocolate. Then she said, “So, um, yikes is the word we’re looking for right now?”
“I’d say that’s rather apt,” Giles agreed. “But Willow—” He hesitated. “What we are about to ask you is quite a lot,” he said. “I am aware of that.”
“You want me to train her,” said Willow. She didn’t look too upset by this concept, only thoughtful. “I think I could do that.”
Giles hadn’t been expecting Willow to concede the point this easily. “Really?” he said. “Last we talked apprentices, you said you had no interest in passing on your knowledge of the craft—”
“Yeah, but Giles, I’ve known Janna since she was a baby,” said Willow with a soft little smile. “She’s a wonderful kid.” Her smile faded into something a little more hesitant. “And I know what it’s like,” she said, “to be smart, and talented, and find out you’ve got a whole lot more power than you ever expected.”
The thought of his child, black-eyed and pale, sent a jolt through Giles. He took a sip of his tea to cover it up.
“I don’t think Janna’s gonna end up like me,” said Willow, and the gentle conviction in her voice settled Giles a bit. “But I think it’s easy to get in over your head, with magic like that, and I want to do everything I can to help her.”
Giles gave Willow a small, tired smile. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I-I am eternally grateful, Willow, I…”
Willow set down her mug and hugged Giles, very gently. Sometimes it was rather difficult for Giles to realize that quite a few of his children were all grown up. “She’ll be okay,” she said. “You know she will, Giles.”
Giles sincerely hoped she would. Hugging Willow back, he placed his own mug down next to hers just as Tara and his two older girls entered the kitchen. “Hello, darlings,” he said, letting go of Willow to give Jenny a quick kiss. “How was Tara’s book?”
“Enlightening,” said Ed. Her expression was somewhat clouded.
“What were you guys talking about?” Janna asked curiously.
Giles and Willow exchanged a look. Then Willow said, “Janna, your parents and I kinda think you could benefit from some magical training.”
Janna looked somewhat ashamed. “Is this because I exploded the radio?” she said. “Cause Dad always said you never needed any magical training—”
Willow and Jenny both gave Giles a Look.
“I didn’t say that exactly!” Giles protested, mentally kicking himself for his careless wording. He hastened to elaborate. “Willow was very talented,” he said, “from a very young age, not unlike yourself. It’s true that she never needed magical training to get started, but she certainly would have benefited from a guiding hand along the way.”
Janna considered. Flatly, and almost indignantly, she said, “Well, I’m not gonna go all scary dark-witch, though, so—”
“That,” said Willow, “is exactly what I thought too.” She knelt down in front of Janna, taking her hands. “Look, magic isn’t scary if you know what you’re doing,” she said. “But it can be kinda scary if you get in over your head. Having a teacher is about trusting that there’s still stuff you might need help learning, even if you think you’ve got it all under control.”
Janna wavered.
“We love you very much,” Willow persisted. “And we want to make sure you know how to use these powers without exploding radios and getting people all cut up.”
This seemed to be the point that finally swayed Janna. “So this is just to make sure I know how to not hurt people,” she said thoughtfully. “Like, not blowing up radios by accident.”
Giles decided that they would come back to that concept a bit later.
It became a part of their weekly routine. Giles would close the shop, pick Ed and Janna up from school, and drive Janna across town to Willow and Tara’s small, cozy cottage, where Janna would play with Willow and Tara’s baby and learn quite a lot about magic in the process. She was progressing nicely, Willow told him, picking things up quickly, and the fact that there was no fear or apprehension in her praise made Giles feel quite a bit better about the whole affair.
Janna used her magic carelessly and cheerfully, as children were wont to do. She followed the magical rules Willow set about as much as she followed the house rules Giles and Jenny set, which was to say: she didn’t listen and had to be corrected quite a lot. But she didn’t treat magic like a drug, or like something new and forbidden and exciting—it was a part of her life, just as mundane as school and bedtime and family dinners.
It comforted Giles, seeing his daughter succeeding where he had so obviously failed. Janna had a good head on her shoulders—he was proud of her, and he was proud to watch her grow and learn.
He supposed he should have seen it coming. Jenny had always said—Janna is her father’s daughter.