Chapter Text
Art was the first one to greet Giles when he finally re-entered the house. The rest of the family seemed to have retreated to the bedrooms, but he hadn’t moved from where Giles had last seen him, and he lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as he saw his father. There was no trace of the miserable terror that had so devastated Giles to see. “Hi!” he said—slightly more subdued than usual, certainly, but in a way that seemed more about respecting Giles’s sadness than expressing his own. “Everybody went upstairs. Mom said I could wait for you if I wanted.”
“…Oh?” said Giles carefully.
Art nodded. After a moment of hesitation, he said, “Aunt Nora’s really scary when she’s mad.”
Wryly, Giles said, “I’m inclined to agree.”
Slowly, Art sat down on the stairs, looking shyly up until Giles finally got the message and sat down next to him. “Mom said you and Aunt Nora had a fight ‘cause Aunt Nora thought it was Buffy’s fault that you weren’t here, and you got mad,” he began somewhat tentatively. “And Mom always said that it wasn’t anybody’s fault that you weren’t here, it was just circumstance. But I guess—” He hesitated. “I asked Mom how come Aunt Nora was mad at Buffy if it was just circumstance, and Mom said that Aunt Nora just really needs to be mad at somebody. And I asked Mom how come Aunt Nora would be mad at somebody if it wasn’t their fault, and Mom didn’t have an answer. So I asked her if I could ask you, and she said if he’s comfortable, and, um…” He fiddled with the cuff of his jacket. “Are you comfortable?”
Giles acted on instinct. Tucking an arm around Art’s shoulder, he tugged his son gently into his side, feeling the small shoulders drop and relax as Art settled against him. “It’s not an easy question to answer,” he began.
“I know that,” said Art, startling a quiet half-laugh out of Giles. “Mom knows everything. But whenever she doesn’t know something, she always says your dad would probably know, so…?”
The clawing feeling of inadequacy was not one that Giles was willing to let color this moment. He shoved it down, reaching instead for the most honest answer that he could give Art. “Your Aunt Nora loves your mother very much,” he said softly. “And…” The truth was coming to him as he spoke. It was an effort to keep himself steady. “Your mother…she has always wanted us to all be a family,” he continued, training his eyes straight ahead. “The fact that we haven’t been able to be together has always made her very sad, and she has always felt as though it’s her fault.”
Horrified, Art said, “But she said it’s not anybody’s!”
Privately, Giles thought that if the blame lay with anyone, it most likely lay with him, but this was not the sort of observation that would actually help this conversation. “Sometimes the truth doesn’t always match up with how we feel about it,” he said instead. “Your mum, she…she feels as though she could have done more to keep us all together. And your Aunt Nora, she doesn’t like seeing your mum sad, so she wants to be angry at someone about it.”
“But that’s not fair!”
“That’s what I thought,” said Giles.
Art blinked a few times, taking this in. Then he pressed his cheek against Giles’s forearm and said, “But then how come you got mad at Aunt Nora if you know she’s just upset about Mom? And how come you’re not upset at somebody about Mom being sad?”
“I’m upset at myself,” said Giles quietly.
Art sniffled. In a small voice, he said, “I don’t think that anybody should be mad at you, Dad.”
“Yes, well, that was part of why Nora and I were having our argument,” Giles pointed out. “She seems to think the same way that you do.”
Art’s brow furrowed. “So who’s right?”
“Welcome to the world of grown-up arguments,” said Giles dryly. Met with a pair of blankly inquisitive green eyes, he let out a soft, sad laugh and clarified, “There isn’t always right and wrong when two people have an argument, Art.”
“Yes there is,” said Art.
“No, there’s—”
“Yes, there is,” said Art pointedly.
“Yeah, that seems about right,” said Jenny, who sounded like she was trying not to laugh.
Giles stiffened. Art, missing this entirely, perked up and said, “Mom, Dad says Aunt Nora’s mad at Buffy ‘cause she’s upset about you being sad!”
Jenny blinked, eyes widening. “That’s…apt,” she said. “Art, do you mind giving me a minute alone with your dad? I want to talk to him about some stuff.”
Art gave Jenny a flat look and burrowed further into Giles’s side.
“Oh, somebody is getting comfortable!” said Jenny, moving forward to pry Art off of Giles. Art responded to this with a loud, indignant whine, to which she said, “Baby, words.”
Testily, Art said, “I don’t wanna go upstairs! Everybody’s all sad and Stacey’s crying.”
“Stacey’s crying?” Jenny took this in. Slowly, she turned to a frozen Giles. “Rupert, did she…say anything to you?”
“…Um,” said Giles.
Jenny squeezed her eyes tightly shut, taking a deep breath in through her teeth, and muttered something in Romani that elicited a reproving “Mom!” from Art. Opening her eyes again, she said, “Is anybody talking to her?”
“Aunt Nora’s been in the bathroom with her for forever,” said Art. “Mom, you’re not allowed to say those words.”
“I know, baby. I’m sorry. Look, can you—” Jenny waved a hand. “Is it possible for you to stay put while Rupert and I take a minute?”
“I don’t want to be by myself!” Art objected, wriggling out of Jenny’s reach.
“So go be with the rest of the family.”
“I don’t want to be with the rest of the family!”
Firmly, Jenny said, “Art, there aren’t any other available options.”
“Yes there are!” Art protested, trying to attach himself to Giles. When Giles carefully removed Art’s arms from around his waist, his son’s face crumpled. “Dad—”
“Ooh boy,” said Jenny softly, moving forward to kneel down in front of Art. “Arty, what’s really happening here?”
“I don’t know!” Art all but wailed. “Everybody’s mad and it doesn’t make sense! And I don’t wanna go upstairs if Aunt Nora’s still mad!”
Jenny closed her eyes for just a moment. She looked impossibly sad. When she opened them again, she said something soft and conciliatory in Romani, pressing a kiss to Art’s forehead.
Art sniffled, staring with great relief at Jenny. “Really?”
“Really,” Jenny confirmed.
“You’re sure?”
“I will get you anything from the toy store back home if I’m wrong,” said Jenny. “That’s how sure I am.”
Art wavered. “…Can you be wrong?” he asked almost hopefully.
Jenny’s mouth twitched. "You're a slippery little fish," she said, taking Art’s face in her hands to bump her forehead gently against his. “Go upstairs and bother your cousins.”
Art reached up to close his hands over his mother’s. Just for a moment, they stayed like that, quiet and tender—and then he pulled back, somewhat reluctantly, to make his way up the stairs.
“…What did you say to him?” Giles asked somewhat tentatively.
Jenny looked a little surprised by the question. “Did I—oh.” She blushed. “Um, I really just said that Art and his cousins are pretty much the only people who Nora absolutely isn’t going to be mad at right now. She…” Jenny swallowed. “She grew up in a really difficult house. She does a lot of work to make sure that the grown-up fights don’t ever touch the kids. This is probably the first time that anything like this has happened.”
“Oh,” said Giles. Shame returned to him in spades.
Jenny bit her lip as she looked at him. She seemed to be struggling with herself. Just as Giles was about to say—something, anything, he wasn’t sure what—Jenny met his eyes and said, somewhat unsteadily, “I am really sorry about this, Rupert.”
This was not at all what Giles had expected. “You’re—you’re sorry?” he echoed, utterly bewildered.
“Nora was way out of line,” said Jenny. “And Stacey—” Her voice caught. She raised a shaking hand to her face. “God. Neither of them should have pulled that shit. I have no idea how I’m going to handle any of this. Nora’s talking to Stacey right now, but I don’t know if she’s actually helping, because she is just fucking refusing to bend on the whole Buffy thing, so for all I know she’s up there saying that all of this is Buffy’s fault and Stacey should be directing her anger there. I just, I wanted—” She sniffled, looking up at Giles with the same tearful expression that he had seen on Art’s face hardly a minute ago. “I know things are just astronomically awful between us,” she said, “but I don’t know who else can tell you that you didn’t deserve any of this.”
“I’m not sure if that’s entirely the case,” said Giles carefully.
Tears were beginning to spill down Jenny’s face. “Rupert, please don’t take this to heart,” she said unsteadily.
“You misunderstand.” Giles took a careful step forward, only barely tamping down the urge to take Jenny’s hands in his. “I…” It was hard to sort through the maelstrom of whirling thoughts. He settled on the simplest one. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said. “About—some of the things that Nora said.”
Jenny stiffened. He could practically see her guard going up. “Nora doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she said immediately.
“I quite agree,” said Giles quietly. “She refuses to blame me for my part in your decision to leave.”
Jenny drew back in a single rigid movement, all but flattening herself against the nearest wall. Her eyes were fixed on Giles with the same half-furious desperation that he’d seen in trapped animals. “Don’t fucking do this,” she said. “I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“And I’ve respected that,” said Giles. It wasn’t an effort, this time, to keep himself steady. Jenny needed him steady for this. “But at this point, it’s starting to touch your family.”
Jenny flared up. “You’re blaming me for this?”
“We need to talk about this, Jenny.”
“We absolutely do not!” Jenny tried to back up, seemed to realize that there was a wall behind her, and pressed her shoulders against the wall with a panicked breath in. “Rupert, please, I—”
“Why did you come down here?”
The change in topic, as Giles had expected, was well received—or at least as well received as it could have been, given the circumstances. Jenny’s shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. “I, I wanted to talk to you,” she said.
“About what?”
“About—how this isn’t your fault. I didn’t want you to feel like—”
“Like what?” Giles pressed, taking another step forward. “Like I was thoughtless, irresponsible, careless with your heart? Like the woman I love still has absolutely no idea that I never truly forgave myself for the way that she left my life? Like my actions have created a situation where you refuse to entertain the possibility that I have always cared about you, always, and always will? You can’t talk me out of this, Jenny. There is absolutely no way around it. You have to stop trying to make this easy for me.”
“You think I’m trying to make this easy for you?” Jenny demanded, furiously disbelieving. “I’ve been a heinous bitch since the first day!”
“Yes, and it would have been very easy for me if I decided to despise you because of that,” Giles countered. “I could have blamed you for leaving. I could have called you selfish, cruel, cold-hearted, and washed my hands of any responsibility when it came to your decision to leave. But I didn’t. And when that didn’t work, when you couldn’t find a way to get me to despise you, you tried to get me to at the very least avert my eyes from the fact that you have been punishing yourself for leaving me.”
Jenny’s breath was coming in rapid, tearful gasps. She shook her head violently, refusing to look at him.
“That’s why you’re not upstairs with Nora," said Giles fiercely. “It’s not that she’s angry with Buffy, not just that—it’s that she won’t ever be angry with you. No one in your life blames you for what you decided to do for our son, and do you know why that is?”
“Stop,” Jenny all but sobbed. “Please.”
“Because you are a good mother,” Giles whispered, taking her hands tightly in his. “You have given everything up to raise your son, and he has grown into the most wonderfully precocious little boy because of it. You’ve seen Buffy, Jenny, you know I didn’t make the most of these eight years without you. You know I wouldn’t have been the sort of stability that Art needs—that Art deserves. And I can promise you in this moment and every other that I will try for the rest of my life to be the sort of father that your son can rely upon, but we both know that if you had stayed, he wouldn’t be half as happy or as trusting as he is now. He would have grown up on the battlefield. He would never have had the family that you provided him with when you chose to bring him to Nora. You were right to leave me, Jenny. You were right about this, and you were right about every decision you’ve made in pursuit of Art’s happiness.”
Jenny’s eyes met his, wet and glassy. She stared at him, frozen statue-still.
“And I cannot abide by the notion of you refusing to believe me when I tell you this.” Giles was now near tears himself. “I know—I know that I should have told you, should have followed you, should never have just let you go like I did, and I—I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that. But I can’t let you keep trying to shield me from everything that I have done wrong when it comes to the keeping of your heart. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you can even accept that I should be apologizing to you, let alone the apology itself, but Jenny, I, I’m begging you to listen, to hear me when I say that I was never blameless in this affair. You did everything that you could.”
Jenny let out a sobbing breath. Her head fell forward as she twined her fingers tightly with Giles’s, pressing her forehead into his shoulder.
Dizzy with relief, Giles’s knees gave way. He all but tumbled to the floor, Jenny falling with him, and found her tucked into his arms. He remembered this. Giving in to instinct, he buried his face in her hair, feeling a rush of warmth when she wrenched her hands free to wrap her arms tightly around him. She was really crying, now, sobbing into his chest, and it was everything he could do not to start crying himself. He pressed a fierce kiss to the top of her head and held her. “You’re all right,” he whispered. “You’re perfect.”
It took a very long time for Jenny’s sobs to die down. Giles held her through every second, warmth flaring to life as he noticed her tears beginning to slow. He took one of her hands in his, pressing it to his heart, and breathed with her until she was breathing evenly again. When she finally did raise her face to his, she pressed her forehead against his own, their faces close enough that he could all but feel her breath on his lips.
As gently as he could, Giles placed some distance between them, carefully helping Jenny stand. “Do you need some time to yourself?” he inquired.
In a small voice, Jenny said, “I want to be with you, Rupert.”
Giles smiled sadly. “I’m not entirely sure that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” said Jenny, “and—Nora and Don, they’re going to want to talk. I can’t take that.”
After a moment of consideration, Giles gently suggested, “Can I take you to them? I don’t know that they’ll be happy to see me, but I should at least be able to explain the situation.”
Jenny pulled a face. “Nora’s not exactly one to cool off easy,” she said.
“I simply…” Giles hesitated. “I don’t think that these are conversations that are helped by your avoiding them,” he said. “Particularly not when they lead to explosions as violent as this one. Nora’s worried about you, a-and from what I’ve seen, she has reason to be.”
Jenny responded to this by letting out an exhausted breath and slumping against Giles’s shoulder. Giles decided to take that as some degree of acquiescence and lead her up the stairs.
Donovan met them when they were halfway to the landing. When he saw the way that Jenny was leaning against Giles, his eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t comment. In a tone that was almost too cool and careful to be believed, he said, “Nora’s resting in the master bedroom, and the kids have all found their own space, so—”
“God, single bedrooms,” said Jenny. “What a concept.” She carefully removed herself from Giles, turning to give him a small, unsteady smile. “I’m gonna go lie down,” she said. “Take care of yourself, okay? We can work out the rest of this tomorrow.”
“…Okay,” said Giles softly.
Jenny hesitated. Briefly, her eyes darted towards Donovan. Then, in one quick, fluid movement, she stepped forward, pressing a kiss to Giles’s cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, so softly that Giles almost thought he’d imagined it, and stepped back to let Donovan lead her towards the bedrooms.
Giles didn’t dare look at either of them. Turning almost robotically away, he descended the stairs back into the front room, stopping just outside the front door to wait until he’d heard the sound of Jenny’s bedroom door shutting. As soon as he was certain that he was entirely alone, he sat down heavily on a nearby chaise longue, letting himself finally relax.
Relax was perhaps not the right word. It was more like the terrified tension keeping him upright had finally fled, leaving him practically boneless. So much had happened in only a handful of hours, and it felt an eternity ago that he’d been wracked with miserable anxiety over the notion of returning to this strange, ancient place. The house seemed quieter, now, subdued by the ferocity of Nora’s rage—or maybe it was just that he was too tired for its disapproval to really mean anything to him. He wasn’t quite sure.
Rupert.
Giles closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall, and listened.
Go get some rest. This wasn’t the ancient chorus of echoes—this was just one voice. Familiar in a way that didn’t fill him with exhausted dread. Seems as though you need it.
Almost unconsciously, Giles’s fingers ran along the spine of Flower Arranging for Beginners, still carefully tucked underneath his dressing gown. He didn’t want to let the thought—the hope—form all the way, but he allowed himself that single touch before finally, reluctantly, standing again. Tonight was not the night to go chasing ghosts.
Excerpt From the Diary of Alice Edmunds: August 20, 1945
I have no idea how to begin this. The last time I wrote in a diary, I must have been all of six years old, and I lost patience with the whole affair as soon as I realized that a diary was supposed to be private and I couldn’t show it to anyone. I’m really not the sort of person who keeps secrets. I’m “refreshingly direct,” at least according to Lizzy and Ramona, and they’re the only ones whose opinions matter to me all that much anyway—or they USED to be, anyway, but now there’s another person on that list, and no one has any idea. Or—well, I suppose everyone knows, but they don’t KNOW. It’s become appallingly complicated and I don’t know what to do.
I suppose I should start with the simplest part: I’ve always wanted to be a Watcher. Always. Back when Duncan was alive, my parents were much more willing to entertain the notion—they thought it quite adorable, actually, and encouraged me to study alongside my brother—but when I was twelve years old, Duncan was killed. Routine training mission, they said. No idea it could have gone that way, they said. He hadn’t ever even seen the field, and just like that, he was gone.
Mum was never quite the same after that. When I told her I still wanted to be a Watcher, she was furious. Dad wasn’t happy with it either, obviously, but he at least understood why I wanted to carry on our family’s history—Mum didn’t care. Mum doesn’t care about anything Watcher-related anymore. She’s never been able to forgive the Council for their inability to protect Duncan, and she is absolutely certain that they’d fail to protect me if I joined their ranks. She won’t let me follow in Duncan’s footsteps, and because it upsets her so much, Dad won’t either.
I’ve spent years begging them to reconsider. I promised to stay out of the line of fire, I offered to take a boring desk job, I even said I’d be a secretary if it meant they’d just let me be SOME kind of help to the Council, but Mum said that ANY contact with the Council’s work was dangerous and she wasn’t going to lose me. I think she thought it would be a good compromise, letting me marry a Watcher, but she and Dad have been all but shoving me in the direction of the most insufferably domineering Watchers-in-training because they KNOW that they’re the sort of boys who would never let their wives be a part of the action. And to top it all off, they’ve been acting like they’re doing me a favor! It’s absolutely ridiculous.
A few months ago, I was complaining to Tom about this at one of the dreadful parties that they always make me go to, and he got this funny look on his face and asked what my mum and dad would do if I was married to someone who would let their wife work for the Council.
“I don’t see how they could do anything,” I said, bemused by the question. “By that point, I’d likely be living with my husband. I suppose they could kick up a bit of a fuss, but they couldn’t actually bar me from the Council, especially considering how badly the Council needs new blood with the war on and all.”
“Hmm,” said Tom—only I was still calling him Thomas back then, seeing as we weren’t, well, where we are now, but I’ll keep calling him Tom here because I like it better.
“What?” I said.
Tom went a bit pink and then said, “Alice, you—you’d really be happy with even a secretary job?”
I have to admit I felt quite sheepish when he said that. Tom’s made it no secret that he absolutely despises the clerical work that he does, particularly because it’s a side-effect of Mrs. Giles not wanting to look like she’s playing favorites. Most of the Council boys his age already have a Potential to train, but Tom’s been shunted into some of the most menial work imaginable so that no one thinks he’s ahead because of his mum. “I suppose I would,” I said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to, um, insinuate that you shouldn’t be indignant about your situation, but—well, I’d give absolutely anything to even get a foot in the door. Truly, Thomas, I’d follow you around and watch you file papers all day if my parents would let me.”
Tom was watching me with an odd expression on his face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that about the work I do,” he said.
“Well, everything is important, isn’t it?” I said earnestly. “Like how blades of grass—oh, I’m no zoologist, I don’t know which animals eat grass, but I still think it’s awfully nice to lie down on in the summer. And soap! We really don’t talk enough about how lovely soap is. It’s always the things you don’t notice that matter the most, and, well, the work you do is easy for most people not to notice, but if you don’t file away information on, um—”
“Potential Slayers and their training progress,” Tom suggested softly. He was still looking at me all strange.
“Potential Slayers and their training progress!” I gratefully agreed. “Exactly that! If you don’t file away that information, we won’t know how prepared the newest Slayer is! Valentina, that lovely Spanish girl who got Called last year, wasn’t it your record that had made a note of the fact that she hadn’t yet been properly trained in the art of the quarterstaff? She and her Watcher knew to work on that before anything else because of your filing, and I’d bet quite a lot of money on the fact that that kept her in the field of battle quite a bit longer than she would have without you.” I blinked, then winced. Mum’s always said that gambling isn’t a ladylike pursuit. “Um. Hypothetically speaking, obviously.”
Tom has this habit of going really quiet and just looking at me sometimes. I still haven’t figured out what he’s thinking when he does that, but he does have the loveliest eyes—all big and warm, like a kitten. (THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM, DIARY.) When he finally did say something, it was, “That’s a very generous description of what it is that I do.”
“Don’t you argue with me,” I said firmly. “Even just a drop of good intentions can save a life, you know, and you’re positively full to brimming with goodness.”
“Oh?” said Tom, who had gone a bit more pink.
“You’re the only Council boy who’s actually ever listened to me,” I said, “and—and, well, I like spending time with you, and you make parties less dreadful, so—you’ve at least saved my life, Thomas, if that means anything at all to you, because if I’d had to dance with Travers tonight, I’d have stepped on his toes and committed a homicide.”
Tom giggled. He’s the only boy I’ve met who does that. It’s awfully cute. “That’s a glowing recommendation, Alice,” he said. “You’re quite kind.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said. “Mum says I’m appallingly direct.”
“One could argue that directness is a sort of kindness, in and of itself,” said Tom. “You don’t do others the disservice of bending the truth.”
“You are too sweet,” I informed him, and decided to throw decorum to the wind by tossing an arm around his shoulder. Tom went positively magenta, so I decided to take pity on him and politely remove myself, but he didn’t seem all too happy about that either. No pleasing anyone, sometimes. “But what made you ask about marriage?”
Tom steeled himself. Then, fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out a closed ring box and sort of shoved it in my direction.
Bemused, I opened the box. The most elegant engagement ring I’d ever seen twinkled cheerfully up at me. “Oh, wow,” I said breathlessly. “Who’s the lucky girl, Thomas?”
“Um, Alice—” Tom gave me a bewildered look.
“Well, it can’t be me, can it?” I said, giving him a playfully bewildered look right back.
“I have—” Tom looked like he might keel over. “It’s—not so much a proposal as it is a proposition. I, I brought the ring because—well, we’re at a party, and if you agree, I thought that we could expediently settle the whole affair in a matter of minutes. But of course we can still—that is, if you wanted to talk about—”
Operating on instinct, I set the ring box down and took Tom’s hands in mine, giving them a good squeeze. “Don’t spin yourself up,” I said, surprisingly gently, especially considering how awful I usually am at being gentle with people. I still don’t quite understand what happened there. “Take a breath and tell me the rest.”
Tom obliged. After a deep, slow, in-and-out breath, he said, “Alice, if—if you wanted, we could—well, pretend that we were getting married.”
This was the absolute last thing that I had ever expected from someone as sweetly sensible and by-the-book as Tom. I wish I could say that I had some sort of clever rejoinder, but I’m fairly certain I just stared at him with my mouth very unattractively agape.
“Your parents, they—they want you married,” Tom continued, “and, and you marrying—or at least being engaged to marry—Edna Fairweather’s son, well…” He trailed off, looking shyly up at me. “You could come out with me,” he suggested. “To work. It really would be boring, at least mostly, but they do send me out on, on missions sometimes, just intelligence-gathering really but it’s still—that is, you would still get to be part of something. And your parents wouldn’t be too worried, considering the fact that the entire Council knows I’m on busy work.”
I had entirely forgotten how to speak. It took an inquisitive squeeze from Tom’s hands to remind me that he did need some sort of response. “Thomas, that’s—that’s absolutely brilliant!” I managed breathlessly. “Oh, I could kiss you!”
“Save that for the wedding,” said Tom, and giggled at his own joke.
I gave him a wry look. “Funny,” I said. “But this is…” Carefully, I removed my hands from his, examining the engagement ring more closely. “This is an antique!”
“I can’t exactly give Alice Edmunds a low-caliber engagement ring,” Tom pointed out.
“I just mean…” I wasn’t quite sure how to explain the complicated disbelief I was feeling. “This is, it’s, well…it’s not exactly a permanent solution, is it? What if you find someone you really do wish to marry?”
“Funnily enough, I don’t see that as a problem,” said Tom dryly. Off of my look, he said patiently, “Alice, if that happens for either of us, we can re-evaluate. But as things stand right now, I’m, I’m really not in any hurry to marry, and it seems to me as though you aren’t either.”
“Bloody right I’m not,” I said. “But that’s still not what I mean. This isn’t exactly a small thing to offer, Thomas, and—really, it seems to me as though I’m the only one actually getting anything out of it. What on earth do you stand to gain from a feigned engagement?”
Tom didn’t miss a beat. “My job is, as I’ve mentioned, terribly boring to me,” he said. “I can’t imagine that it will stay that way when I’m in the company of someone who is so genuinely delighted to be filing paperwork and filling out reports.”
“…Oh,” I said. At the time, I wasn’t sure why I felt a bit disappointed. (I UNFORTUNATELY UNDERSTAND NOW.) “So I…”
“You make the ordinary extraordinary, Alice,” said Tom, and gave me that devastatingly sweet little smile of his. “I think that we could have a nice time working together.”