Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rupert Giles’s life had settled into a relatively consistent routine in the last few years, especially after he handed the reins of the new Council over to Faith and Buffy. His mornings were early and solitary—porridge, or some eggs and toast, and then driving to the London offices. He arrived at eight in the morning sharp—early enough to water the plants, say hello to Anya, and continue to attempt sorting out the mess of complicated documentation required to resurrect a semi-secret mystical organization after its violent and enforced dissolution. Between nine and twelve were his office hours, during which he was consulted on anything that needed senior Watcher consultation.

Given that the primary goal of the Council as it existed now was to quietly phase Watchers out of existence, handing the power over to the senior Slayers, it was not often that anyone visited his office to utilize office hours for their intended purpose—which, of course, led to situations such as this one.

“D-4.”

“Miss. Dude, you suck at this.” Kicking up her feet, Kira very nearly knocked one of the framed photos off of Giles’s desk. Giles, who had gotten quite used to keeping an eye on his belongings when Kira was in the room, steadied it without looking up from the paperwork he was trying to do. “Aren’t you supposed to be like a master fuckin’ tactician or some shit?”

“I am endlessly impressed that you know the word tactician,” said Wesley, arching an eyebrow. “Seems a bit above your intellectual capacity.”

“Oooooh, nerd burn.” Kira chewed on her lip, narrowing her eyes at her grid. “A-1.”

“Miss. And you were saying that I’m the one who needs to work on my strategy?”

“Oh, is it hang time?” said Anya, poking her head in to give Kira a smile and a wave. Kira, who adored Anya, waved back with a bright grin. “Has Rupert relaxed the no-snack policy? I just got this really amazing cookie tin that somebody sent over for our department, and I was thinking I might share it with everybody this time.”

“Again, Anya, these are my office hours—I’m sorry, this time?” said Giles indignantly. “Is that where the fruit basket from Helena went? I thought it just hadn’t been delivered—”

“Boo,” said Kira. “If you’re gonna steal snacks, at least have the decency to give me some! Hoes before bros, Annie.”

“That’s a derogatory term for women, you know,” Anya informed her.

“You’re a derogatory term for women,” said Kira. “Giles, we can eat in here, right?”

“Seeing as Anya has apparently been utilizing my no-snack policy to steal my snacks, I appear to have been backed into a corner,” said Giles, narrowing his eyes at Anya.

Unbothered, Anya placed the open cookie tin down on Giles’s desk with perhaps more force than was necessary, sending crumbs all over Giles’s papers. Ignoring Giles’s outraged sputter, she picked a cookie from the very middle. “Here you go, you oatmeal-raisin-loving freak,” she said with a bright smile, holding it out directly in front of Giles’s mouth. “That’ll probably make your day just a little bit better.”

Giles took the cookie and took a bite. It did help a bit, though he would die before telling Anya. “I’ll be taking my lunch break in thirty minutes,” he reminded the room at large, “and I am going to leave, and no one here is allowed to be in this room without my supervision, so I would suggest—”

“Just eat in here,” said Anya impatiently. “Send one of the baby Slayers to go get you a sandwich or something.”

“I’m not gonna do it,” said Kira immediately.

“Nobody’s asking you, pipsqueak. You’re a really shitty gofer.”

“I asked her to get me a coffee,” said Wesley to no one in particular, “one small, black coffee, no milk, no sugar, and she came back with magic beans. I still don’t even know how she did that—”

From anyone else, a comment like that towards one of the youngest, angriest baby Slayers would be met with a swift punch to the face—but it was Wesley, and so Kira responded with a burst of raucous laughter. “There were extenuating circumstances, asshole!” she giggled. “You know that! Jesus, you’re such a dick, bringing that up like I do it all the time—got the coffee totally fine next time, didn’t I?”

“From what I recall, you got my order so phenomenally wrong that Willow thought you were bringing her coffee.”

“Didn’t say I got it for you.”

“Skating by on a technicality, there, Kira—”

Leaving Wesley and Kira to their Watcher-Slayer banter, Anya turned expectantly to Giles. “How’s the world’s best lackey?” she asked, giving him a winning smile.

“Anya, please,” said Giles.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is flunky a more politically correct term? Henchman? Stooge? No, those last two are a bit too villainous for your taste, I expect. You know you are wasted—”

“Do not start.”

“—wasted on work like this, Rupert, and most of it isn’t even work at all—”

“You do this every day. Don’t you ever get tired?”

“—and nobody’s asking you to stay behind a desk doing busy work that the rest of the Scoobies don’t want to do because of how boring and unimportant it is,” Anya continued, ignoring Giles entirely. “Like, come on. Writing letters to every single Council connection you can remember to see if they have links to the Council connections you don’t? Looking over the fifth draft of the Slayer Handbook for typos? Triple-checking emergency visas for baby Slayers who need to be relocated, even though we have a team of magical lawyers who can handle stuff like that?”

“We don’t have a team of magical lawyers yet, Anya, and I’ll thank you not to trivialize the work I do by cherry-picking deliberately unimportant examples,” said Giles flatly. A year ago, he might have been incensed enough to start an actual argument, but they’d been having this fight long enough that he had marked it as a semi-regular lunchtime occurrence in his appointment book. “I’m needed here.”

“You say you’re needed because you can’t handle not being needed.”

“And you give me unsolicited advice because you want to feel more important than you are,” Giles countered. “If we are saying hurtful and entirely untrue things to each other.”

Anya let out an exasperated breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “You’re saying something hurtful and entirely untrue. I’m trying to get you to stop looking for typos in a book that’s already primed for distribution on Monday. Buffy gave it to you to read, Giles, not to look over.”

“Did you come in to tell me that, or merely to flaunt your snack thievery?”

“Little bit of column A…” Anya took a cookie from the tin, taking a bite. “Mm! I’m always a sucker for white chocolate macadamia.”

“I’m fine not being needed,” said Giles, more for his own benefit than for Anya’s. “I don’t mind it. I’m happy to help in the places that could do with a bit of extra support, regardless of how redundant my work is or isn’t.”

“It is,” said Anya.

“Thank you, Anya. That’s very helpful.”

“I’m trying to be.”

“God, you two fight like an old married couple,” said Kira, hopping off of the sofa to snag a chocolate chip cookie from the tin. “If I didn’t know any better—”

“Oh, I am way out of his league. He wishes he could handle me.” Anya patted Giles on the hand in a way that was clearly intended to be comforting. “Besides which, he’s much too high-maintenance. Dating a Watcher means dealing with all of the emotional repression and daddy issues, and I got enough of that with Xander.”

“I’m high-maintenance,” said Giles disbelievingly. “Me.”

Anya patted Giles’s hand again. “The first step is admitting it, so you’re doing a really good job!”

Giles tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. It wasn’t that he minded them all crowding about in here, exactly—Anya, he knew, wanted to keep him company, and Wesley and Kira weren’t on the friendliest of terms with any of the other Watcher-Slayer duos. It was just that in the handful of years they’d been running this operation, not once had his office hours ever come into conflict with Anya, Wesley, and Kira’s daily impositions, and that alone stung quite a lot. Not once had they been interrupted by an anxious Willow, a businesslike Buffy, a tensely jovial Xander—no, those meetings were happening somewhere that Giles wasn’t.

He preferred it that way. Truly, he did. His presence in the lives of those children had only hindered their growth, and it was truly incredible to watch them blossom from a distance, aiding their efforts in any way he could. Perhaps it was the mundanity of his life that had the second bite of oatmeal raisin cookie tasting flat and miserable. Perhaps it was the boredom of routine that made every day tired and gray. There was little else it could be. There was little else in Giles’s life outside of routine.

This was not, strictly speaking, true. Giles amended it a few hours later as he was walking out of the office. The one moment of sunshine in his relatively tedious day came about during his lunch break, when he walked down to the nearest museum to get lunch in the café and eat within view of the sculpture garden. Seeing as the rest of his day would be spent doing the paperwork sent his way, and seeing as most of his work was not, in fact, time-sensitive, he was generous with his definition of a “lunch break,” spending an hour after his meal was finished in the museum itself.

He did love the paintings, the ambience, the quiet stillness; it settled him, in the strangest of ways. His life was quiet enough as it was—predictable enough that, if he put enough time and energy into thinking it over, he could likely map out his day to the very second—but there was a kind of joy in art that didn’t seem to exist in the drudgery of paperwork and never-used office hours. He couldn’t quite capture that joy himself, so he viewed it—the paintings like windows into something different. He’d never minded being a casual observer.

Sitting down on a bench in front of a particularly art-heavy wall, Giles surveyed the nearest painting and tried to think only about—the brushstrokes, the colors, the composition, the scene. It was getting harder than it had once been, these days. There wasn’t much else to think about, and that lack of anything—

“Excuse me.”

Slowly, Giles turned to look at the small boy standing by the bench. He was dressed a bit like a confused tourist—Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and a floppy hat that was much too big to belong to a child. As he often did when approached by a child in a public location, Giles scanned the area for parents; he had had to return a wandering youth to concerned adults more than once, especially at museums. Concerningly, the room they were in was entirely deserted. “Are you all right?” he asked.

The boy frowned. “What? Me? I’m fine. I’m looking for my dad.”

“…ah,” said Giles. This was a remarkably levelheaded young child. Usually, at this age, they seemed to be quite tearful when separated from their parents. “Do you—would you like to go to the front desk, see if we can get them to make an announcement?”

The boy’s eyes widened. “They can do that?”

“W-well, yes. They’ll tell the museum that there’s a little boy who’s gotten lost, and then your father can come and—”

The boy’s face fell. “No, you don’t get it,” he said impatiently. “I’m looking for my dad! He doesn’t know I’m here, so he’s not gonna be able to come get me.”

“Well, if he’s here—”

“I don’t know if he’s here either.”

“Then—” Giles was entirely at a loss for words. “Wh—how on earth did you end up in the middle of a museum without knowing whether or not your father is in it?”

“It’s a very complicated situation,” said the boy politely, and did not elaborate.

“Well—” Giles cast around for any remotely helpful questions. “Do you have any parents who do know that you’re here?”

The boy bit his lip and looked off to the side. Then, entirely ignoring Giles’s question, he said, “Anyway. I don’t know much about my dad besides his name, and my mom said I’m not allowed to say his name to anybody ‘cause he’s a superhero so it would put the whole world in danger. But he lives here, probably, ‘cause he likes art. My name is Art,” he added conversationally.

Children, thought Giles, trying not to laugh. It probably wouldn’t help the situation all that much. Getting a straight answer out of this child was, most likely, impossible. “Why don’t we go to the front desk,” he began, but was thankfully interrupted by a clatter of footsteps and a sparkly purple blur of movement.

“Arthur, you little menace!” A lanky, dark-skinned teenager had pulled a squirming Art into a tight hug. “Jesus, I cannot believe you! Your mom is going actually insane—how did you even get in here?”

“Stace-yyyy,” Art whined. “I’m on a mission!”

“You are not on a mission. You are seven. I got put on a mission by our moms to track you down before you got yourself kidnapped by some British weirdo. You know they’re even weirder than American weirdos, according to my mom—”

Seeing that Art was very clearly safe with someone he knew, Giles stood up, intending to head out of the gallery. Art, however, finally squirmed free from Stacey’s hug to call, “Wait, Mr—um, please don’t go! Do you know—um, do you know my dad? He’s—”

“Oh, Art.” Stacey’s miffed expression gave way to one of deep sadness. “Is that why you ran away?”

So there was a bit more to the matter of Art’s father, even if the truth was tangled up in fiction and fairytale when relayed by Art himself. Giles felt very much like he should leave, but Art’s expression was holding him in place. Children looking for their fathers, finding their way to him instead—God, it never really left him, did it? “I don’t think I do, no,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I do hope you find him at some point.”

Art sighed—a tiny little puff of air—and slumped quietly against Stacey’s shoulder. “Probably not gonna,” he mumbled. “Thanks anyway.”

The interaction stuck with Giles far longer than it should have. The half-hidden misery in Art’s eyes, the set to his jaw—he had thought, almost immediately, of a girl he hadn’t talked to one-on-one in years. Buffy had been busy after the fall of Sunnydale—taken some time off to be with Dawn and Tara—and the Council branch she headed was in Los Angeles, which made communication somewhat difficult even without the weighty history between them.

Probably not gonna. Thanks anyway.

And it was the hopelessness that grated and hurt, because Giles had seen that look on Buffy’s face before. He’d put that look on Buffy’s face before. And it didn’t matter, didn’t have to matter, it was years ago and by all accounts she was happy now, she was better—

She wouldn’t want him there. She wouldn’t want him there. Don’t think like that, he told himself, just because you met a child in a museum, just because he was looking for his father the superhero. Children sneak under your defenses much too easily. You are too old to dwell only on regrets—you are carrying so many regrets already. You will be crushed if you let yourself think about any of them. She isn’t running through museums in foreign countries looking for you. She is a woman now and she does not need you, and when she did, you turned away. And she was better for it.

They’re all better for it, he thought. All of them. You were never going to be capable of what they needed.

Upon his arrival home, Giles found that Anya had sent him a glossy invite to the summer gala in the mail—a glitzy, silly event that thrilled the young Watchers and Slayers. He had gone to the first one, reminded of the Council galas he’d attended, studiously, every year; he had walked in to realize that he was the only member of the old Council there, save Wesley—who, of course, had been too young and bumbling to receive an invitation during his brief tenure as a Watcher. Old Council events had been a distinguished thing, invitations given only to a select few. It had taken Giles a decade and a half of tireless, thankless work to prove himself worthy of such an honor.

That first gala—the only one he had attended—he had looked around the room and saw absolutely no one familiar. All of the faces were younger than his. More than a few of them were Slayers who were Watchers, training other Slayers now that they’d been trained themselves. The Council of Watchers would have been horrified by the notion of Slayers being involved so closely in the shaping of their own destinies. It was vital, they said, for the girls to be controlled and controllable. Young and unknowing. Giles had never enjoyed that aspect of the mission, but the Council had framed it as a necessary evil—one girl’s innocence in exchange for hundreds, sometimes thousands of lives saved.

That first gala, Giles had begun to understand that it had never been necessary.

Where did that leave him, then? A relic from a less developed time, fading quietly into obscurity. He wasn’t needed, he knew that, and yet there was nothing else that he knew how to do. What else was there to do, other than carry on with what he could manage and do his best not to think about all the rest?

Giles did not throw away the gala invitation. He tucked it, instead, inside a drawer in his desk. It would be against the protocol of the old Council to disrespect such a prized and precious invitation. Never mind that they were given out to just about anyone, now. Never mind that these were parties instead of societal functions—joyous, wonderful things where a group of truly noble young people gathered together to celebrate the incredible work that they were doing. It could still matter that he was in that group, even if he was somewhat vestigial in comparison. It could. It did.

Giles sat down at his desk and opened a bottle of scotch.

Mom was quiet the whole drive back to the hotel. Usually when Mom was quiet, it meant that she was either really mad or really sad, so it was kind of hard for Art to pay attention to Bella’s story about the butterfly she’d seen in the park while they were all eating lunch. Bella noticed about two minutes in that Art wasn’t listening, tried to get him upset by saying something mean that Art also didn’t listen to, and then the car dissolved into general anarchy as Aunt Nora told Bella to stop that and Bella told Aunt Nora that Art isn’t listening and Stacey told everyone to shut up and Aunt Nora told Stacey that she wasn’t allowed to tell people to shut up. It continued like that pretty much all the way back to the hotel.

Mom got out of the minivan first, then opened the door to help Art out. She exchanged a little look with Aunt Nora, then wiggled her fingers towards Art and said softly, “Baby, can we take a walk? I want to talk to you about something.”

She didn’t sound mad. Art hesitated. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, and meant it. “I thought I’d be able to find you again after—” and then stopped. The dad stuff was hard for Mom too.

Mom let out a little whuff of breath and blinked a couple of times. Her eyes looked kind of wet. “Yeah, I—I kinda figured,” she said. “Look, Stacey told me that you were asking some guy in the museum if he knew your dad.”

Art’s stomach turned over. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, I—no,” said Mom.

“Can I be in trouble?”

That got a wry little smile out of Mom. “Oh, so you want to be in trouble now?”

“If I’m in trouble, you’re probably not sad right now,” said Art. “You look sad. I didn’t mean to make you sad. I really thought I’d be able to find you again, Mom—”

“Honey, I…” Mom sniffled, then sighed. “I know how much you want to know your dad.”

Art didn’t really want to look at Mom when she said stuff like that. Quietly, he said, “You said he can’t be here and that you miss him. I thought maybe I could just find him a-and see him. I wouldn’t have to say hi, I just wanted to see him. But I didn’t know how to find him, and the guy on the bench looked—he looked smart.”

Mom blinked, then pressed her lips together in that way that meant she was trying not to laugh. “Was he wearing glasses?”

“…nnnyeah,” said Art reluctantly.

“Art. Again. Someone wearing glasses is not automatically smart.”

“You wear glasses!” said Art. “And you’re smart!”

“They’re reading glasses.”

“Those are the smartest kind of glasses!” Mom was starting to really laugh, which made Art feel better. If Mom was laughing, it was probably okay again. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said again. “Really sorry. Really, really sorry—”

“Okay, okay!” Mom pulled him in for a hug. “I get it. I do. But I do think I want to make sure that you don’t run away without supervision again, so…” She frowned, then turned back to the car. “Nelly?”

“Mm?” Aunt Nora was getting Bella out of her booster seat.

“How would you feel about holding Art’s hand while we’re on vacation for the next week or so?”

“What?” said Art, horrified. He was way too old for hand-holding! He had just convinced Mom that she didn’t have to hold his hand all the time when they went places, and now he was going to have to hold Aunt Nora’s hand? Mom might loosen her grip to let him look at something for a few seconds, but Aunt Nora could not be swayed.

Mom raised an eyebrow. “No more escape attempts and we’ll reevaluate.”

“Mom—”

Kneeling down in front of Art, Mom placed her hands on his shoulders. “Arty,” she said. “I was worried sick about you. You are my only child, the most precious thing in my life, and if anything happens to you, I don’t know what I’ll do. I would rather you spend the entire vacation sulking with Aunt Nora than run the risk of losing you—and I know that you’re going to try and look for your dad again.” She smiled a little sadly. “It’s what I’d do if I were you.”

“Then can’t you?” Art had been patient about this for a really long time. He had. But his dad lived here, and he could be anybody, anywhere— “Why can’t you look for him with me? You could tell me who he is, I could just look, we wouldn’t even have to say hi, Mom, please—”

Mom’s determined little smile was trembling at the corners.

“Hey, Art, why don’t you help me with these bags,” said Uncle Donovan abruptly, rounding the corner to tug Art quickly away from Mom. Art looked back at Mom and saw that Aunt Nora was already swooping in, placing a hand on Mom’s shoulder and saying something in that crisp, short tone of voice that—for Aunt Nora—was about as comforting as she could manage.

Mom was standing up, still looking a little lost and really sad all of a sudden. Art felt awful.

“You know, she really loves your dad too,” said Uncle Donovan. “She hates that you don’t get to see him. Probably even more than you do. But your mom’s got good reasons for doing what she does, even if they don’t make sense to you right now, okay?”

Art swallowed. “I don’t want to make her look sad,” he said. “But—I want to see my dad. Just once.”

“Give her some time,” said Uncle Donovan. “When you’re older—”

“I am older.” But this wasn’t looking like a point that anybody was willing to budge on. Art sighed, then followed Uncle Donovan to the trunk of the car.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: today

Hey Rupert, I know you literally never check your email because for some goddamn asinine reason you STILL do not own a computer (it is 2006, I am begging you to get with the times) but I kind of wanted to see if this could reach you anyway? And if it doesn’t, that’s good, probably. I don’t like apologizing to people. I try to avoid it as much as humanly possible, actually.

That said, I’m sorry. I push you a lot. I know that. It’s just the weirdest and worst form of psychological torture, watching you do this to yourself. We got put into a shitty department. You know it, I know it, hell, even Wesley knows it. You’re the only one who’s not willing to call it like it is. This is just a job, for us—Wesley has Kira to look out for when he’s not doing useless Council paperwork, and I have made it my mission to sleep with every available young man in London, so THAT takes up a lot of time—but you have absolutely nothing outside of the Council. I think you think that it’s better that way. I don’t.

The kids miss you. You know that, right?

I don’t really know what I’m gonna accomplish, sending you this. Maybe someday you’ll see it. Today was just…hard, for me. I care a lot about you, and every single day you’re getting more and more weird and walled off. I wish I could tell you to just cut your losses and quit the Council without you acting like I’m telling you to shoot Buffy in the face or something. Like it’s that ridiculous a thing for you to do.

Check your email some time, dinosaur. It says something when the thousand-year-old vengeance demon knows how to surf the Net better than you.  

Anya

Chapter Text

“All right, move it, skipper,” said Anya as soon as Giles entered the office. “There’s something going down by that tourist-trap of a café a few towns over and it’s my job to make sure it gets handled, so we are off on a mission.”

“A—what? Anya, I’m—your job is supplying magical ingredients, not field work! And for that matter, if it’s your job, why do I need to go?” Hanging up his suit jacket, Giles turned to face Anya, who was holding out what looked like a child’s lunchbox. Bemused, he took it. “I have quite a lot of work to do here—”

“Oh, are you done editing the book that’s already been printed?” Anya arched an eyebrow. “We’re going.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I have more information than a vague location and an even vaguer description,” said Giles firmly.

“So you’re saying you’d rather stay inside on a hot summer day, looking through paperwork that no one is asking you to complete?”

“Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Anya stared at him without blinking for a very long time. Finally, she said, “Something is wrong with you and I do not have the patience to dissect it today. You’re coming with me or I’m gonna get Kira to dismantle your office.”

“Anya, that’s vandalism—”

“So? She won’t get in trouble. Buffy and Faith are under the impression that she’s a feral little child who is poorly contained by Wesley. At the most, she’ll get a talking-to, and you’ll have to deal with somebody coming down to help you put your office back together, which I know you hate. You’re annoyingly particular about where everything goes.”

Giles doubted that Anya would actually follow through on her threat. For all of her determined aggression, she shied carefully away from causing any lasting damage to him or his personal belongings. He did, however, recognize that she was exasperatingly persistent when she got a particular idea in her head—and privately, the thought of helping her with a mysterious mission did seem a bit better than a hot, stuffy office. “…fine,” he grumbled. “What exactly do you need me for?”

“I’ll tell you in the car!” said Anya cheerfully, turning on her heel and hurrying out of the office.

Lovely. Already, this day was deviating from its expected schedule. Sulkily, Giles picked up his jacket again, donning it as he followed Anya into the sunlight. “You could have at least given me some degree of warning,” he griped. “This is entirely short-notice—”

“Oh my god, how are you the same guy who used to save the world back in Sunnydale? Supernatural shenanigans don’t exactly consult with your daily planner, Rupert.” Anya had unlocked the doors to her bright pink convertible, waiting impatiently for Giles to get into the passenger seat. “Jesus, is your masculinity too fragile for a car like this?”

Giles gave Anya a withering look. “I don’t want to go anywhere,” he said. “In any car.”

“You sound like a five-year-old. Get in the car.”

Giles got in the car.

“Ooh, you wanna hear what’s on the radio?” Anya fiddled with the dials, tongue between her teeth.

“Is this not a bit time-sensitive?” said Giles pointedly.

“So is music! If we don’t have the right mood for this car ride, it’ll ruin the whole day—”

“And how is the right mood important when it comes to world-saving?”

“Rupert, I’m the one who knows where we’re going. You need to stop talking while I pick a station.”

Giles let his head fall back against the headrest. Hard.

“Have you concussed yourself again?” Finally settling on a station—some sort of country-pop thing that seemed much more appropriate for America than England—Anya floored the gas, tearing down the road at an alarming rate. “God, this is nice! I love the breeze you get in a model like this. So have you had breakfast? We can get breakfast if you want.”

“Anya,” said Giles. “You said you would tell me in the car. We are in the car.”

“Oh, I didn’t say when I was gonna tell you. I guess that’s on me.” Anya made a frankly terrifying right turn. “You do seem kinda hangry. Maybe it’s good that we’re heading towards a café. Pick me up a sandwich when I drop you off, okay?”

“When you what?” Completely ignoring a red light, Anya turned entirely away from the road to look at Giles. “Eyes, Anya!”

“You’re such a front-seat driver,” scoffed Anya, turning back to the road for a handful of seconds before looking back at Giles again. “Look, Rupert, I know you’re not gonna be happy when I tell you where we’re going, which is why I’m going to give it a few more minutes, because there’s a very real chance you try to jump out of this car and I want to at least make it marginally difficult for you to get back to that office. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have to resort to such childish tactics if I thought I was dealing with an adult who would listen to me, but you are impossible to communicate with, so really, this is your fault.”

“Anya,” said Giles, “please tell me you aren’t doing something deranged and unprofessional.”

“Professionalism is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Anya—”

Making a left turn that very nearly hit a mailbox, Anya said, “Rupert, I am forcing you to take the day off.”

“What?”

“That café we’re going to is near a really nice library, a park, a whole bunch of adorable shops—”

Giles probably would have jumped out of the car if Anya wasn’t going so terrifyingly fast. “This isn’t a motorway, Anya,” he said through his teeth, attempting to open the passenger-side door.

“Oh, I child-locked that,” said Anya cheerfully. “Kinda thought you’d try something funny. Anyway, I packed you a lunch, just in case you didn’t have any money when I kidnapped you from the office—”

Slowly, Giles stared down at the lunchbox in his lap. “This is for me?”

“I even gave you crustless sandwiches! I was reading a parenting blog or two in preparation for this, because a lot of my skillful mechanisms when it comes to taking care of you come directly from people who deal with obstinate five-year-olds, and apparently obstinate five-year-olds really enjoy crustless sandwiches.”

“Taking care of—Anya, I am in my fifties.”

“And I’m in my thousands. You’re basically a baby. Less of a baby than someone like Xander, but still a baby.” Anya pulled to a stop in front of a bustling café, beaming at Giles. “I’m not taking you back, by the way, and I’ve warded my car keys so that anyone who touches them without my approval will get a near-fatal electric shock.”

“Well, that’s—I’m sorry, near-fatal?”

“Buffy found it unethical when it was fatal,” said Anya ruefully. “She made me change it. Apparently it’s not fatal to Slayers—”

“Have you been electrocuting Buffy? No, you know what, never mind.” Now that the car was stopped, Giles could clamber somewhat awkwardly over the door, doing his best to glare at Anya all the while. “This is asinine. What got it into your head to do something as cruel as this?”

He was surprised to see Anya’s eyes widen. For the first time, she looked genuinely worried. “Cruel? Rupert, I—”

“I am happy,” Giles snarled, “where I am. I have made my bed and I am going to lie in it without your attempts to fix something that is already irreparably broken. Acting as though there is a way for me to change what I am when this is all I know how to be—it’s entirely cruel, Anya, and someone as old as you should know that. After all, you’ve had years to adapt to being a human, and still seem entirely unable to grasp basic human decency—”

Something had dropped from Anya’s face. She no longer looked so determinedly oblivious. “Rupert, I am trying so hard with you,” she said. “I tried subtlety for a year, I tried gentle poking for another year—this kind of clownish idiocy on my part is what happens when none of the adult stuff gets me or you anywhere. You are miserable. You know it, I know it, hell, even Buffy knows it and you haven’t talked to her in years. If I make myself into an annoyance for you to be frustrated with, at least I’m getting you out of that fucking office. That’s worth something to me. But I’m not going to keep trying if it’s gonna get me insulted.” Her knuckles were white against the steering wheel. “I love you, you asshole. You’re my best friend. I don’t understand how that happened, and I know you don’t feel the same way, but I don’t know if I can stay working with you if it means watching you wall yourself off from everybody who even tries to love you.”

There was a strange ringing in Giles’s ears. He felt a bit like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Anya—”

“I’m leaving,” said Anya, and tossed her wallet at him. Instinctively, Giles caught it. “Use that to get yourself some bus fare back to the stupid office. Give it back to me or don’t—I don’t care. I’m sick of this shit.”

Giles watched her drive off, shaking with a mixture of rage and shame. He wasn’t quite sure which one would win out. By the time the convertible had rounded the corner, however, he had turned towards the café, walking somewhat detachedly inside without entirely knowing what he was planning to do.

“—two black coffees—”

“Three!” piped up a startlingly familiar voice. Giles did a double-take: the little boy from the museum was holding the hand of a dark-haired, tight-lipped woman about ten years Giles’s junior. “Three, Aunt Nora, remember? Stacey said—”

“Stacia is fifteen. She’s not drinking coffee any time soon.”

“Still three,” persisted Art. “I wanna try some.”

“Take a sip of your mother’s, then.”

“Mom never puts sugar in. Can I try some of yours?”

“Arthur, if I’m not letting my fifteen-year-old drink coffee—”

“Oh!” said Art abruptly, eyes landing on Giles. His face lit up, and he tugged on his aunt’s sleeve. “Aunt Nora! Aunt Nora, it’s the museum guy!”

“It’s the—what?”

Giles, who was in no mood to be noticed by anyone…found it quite hard to look away from the shining smile on the boy’s face. No one had looked that profoundly delighted to see him since—well. Not in a long time. Awkwardly, he smiled back, giving Art a tentative little wave.

Art waved back as frantically as if they were separated by an entire ocean. “HI!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, getting the attention of nearly everyone in the café. “HI MR. STRANGER DANGER! WE’RE GETTING BREAKFAST DO YOU WANT BREAKFAST?”

“Arthur Cervenak!” said Nora sharply. “Did we not have a conversation last night about talking to strangers in a foreign country?”

“No, this is—” Art beckoned Giles over. Giles, entirely bewildered and very touched, took a few steps forward without thinking. “This is the smart museum guy!”

Giles went a bit pink. “Oh—that’s—”

Noticing the pleased look on Giles’s face, Nora said flatly, “It’s because you’re wearing glasses.”

It took Giles a moment to connect the dots, and another moment to attempt not laughing. It didn’t work very well. “That doesn’t seem a very solid policy,” he said, his voice shaking with suppressed laughter. “What should happen if you come across a genuinely dangerous fellow who happens to be wearing glasses?”

“My mom wears glasses,” said Art, as if this in any way refuted Giles’s statement.

Nora’s face had relaxed, but only slightly. “Well,” she said. “You’re the one who made sure Art didn’t run any farther than he already had, hmm?”

“I was about to take him to the front desk,” said Giles somewhat apologetically. “I only thought—”

“No, you did the right thing,” said Nora, and almost smiled. “He’s quite a slippery little child. Keeping an eye on him is the only way to ensure that he doesn’t get some fool idea into his head and run off to try and find his mother himself.”

“I-I was much like that as a little boy,” said Giles with a small laugh. “Quite the handful.”

“You were little?” Art sounded positively fascinated by the concept. “But you’re so tall!”

Nora snorted, then glared at Giles as though daring him to mention it. Giles very politely averted his gaze. “I grew a bit when I hit my teens,” he said modestly. “All of the men in my family are rather tall.”

“Are all of the men in my family rather tall?” Art asked Nora, who shook her head. He made a face. “None of the men in my family are rather tall.”

Nora’s phone buzzed. Taking it out of her purse, she squinted at the screen, then winced. “Your mother wants to know where the food is,” she said to Art, rummaging in her purse with the hand not holding his. “I suppose we’d better deal with that before—ah, damn, I think I grabbed her wallet.” Opening the wallet, she sighed. “Only American bills. That woman is an absolute nightmare.”

“She didn’t wanna go to England,” Art informed Giles. “She likes America way better.”

“Well, England is certainly an acquired taste,” said Giles lightly. “I lived in America for a little while, actually, so I can entirely understand why a native American might bristle upon relocation.” Something else occurred to him, then. “Sorry, does that mean you two won’t be able to buy breakfast?”

Art’s face fell.

Nora sighed. “I’m sorry, sweet thing,” she said to Art. “We’re going to have to go back to the hotel and get my wallet. Perhaps the café can be another day.”

“But we had room service yesterday night and Mom got food poisoning! What if she gets sick again?”

“We have some leftovers from lunch at the museum—”

“But they’re cold!”

“I can pay,” said Giles.

Art and Nora both turned at the same time. Art’s eyes had lit up; Nora, however, looked somewhat reticent. “If this is some attempt to make a pass at me,” she began icily.

“Wh—no, no, absolutely not,” said Giles hastily.

Nora arched an eyebrow. “Absolutely not?”

“Aunt Nora, he said he’d pay,” said Art, tugging at Nora’s sleeve. “Did you hear him say he’d pay? He said he’d pay—”

“A-ah, just—I-I’m not looking for—um, it’s, it’s—” Abruptly, Giles’s eyes landed on the ring adorning Nora’s finger. “You’re married,” he said with great relief. “And I am…simply being chivalrous. To the best of my abilities, that is.”

“You are an absolute jellyfish of a man,” said Nora, her mouth twitching. “Do you make it a habit of putting your foot in your mouth so thoroughly?”

“Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve been quite so easily rattled in years,” said Giles with a weak laugh. “I will pay, though, if you like. My colleague left her wallet with me to pay for bus fare, but—”

“She left her whole wallet?” Art sounded positively delighted. “Does that mean we can buy stuff on her credit card?”

“That—no. It does not mean that.” Nora narrowed her eyes at Art, who narrowed his eyes right back. She was very clearly trying not to laugh as she turned back to Giles. “Thank you, ah—”

“Giles,” said Giles with a small, warm smile. He had long since abandoned his first name; these days, going by his surname made things much simpler.

Nora’s easy smile froze on her face. “Giles,” repeated Art. “That’s a weird name. Everybody British has weird names.”

“W-well, it’s my surname,” said Giles, amused. “My first name—” He considered. “Isn’t much better, to be entirely honest.”

“So what’s—”

“If he doesn’t want to tell you, it’s fine,” said Nora a bit too loudly. “He introduced himself as Giles, Arthur, that’s enough of a name for you.”

This seemed a somewhat unusual reaction. “Is everything all right?” asked Giles, confused.

Nora was staring at Giles quite intently, eyes skimming his face with the focused dedication of a field researcher. Evidently she saw something, because when her eyes met his again, there was a new, almost suspicious note to her expression. Her voice, however, seemed a bit less guarded. The contrast was thoroughly bemusing. “Giles, then,” she said. “We’ll get in line and place our order, won’t we, Art?”

“Your voice sounds weird,” said Art, frowning a little. “Doesn’t her voice sound weird, Mr. Giles?”

Politely, and because it was not at all his business, Giles said, “I’m sure she’s perfectly fine.”

“Thank you, yes,” said Nora, giving Giles a small, tight smile. “I am perfectly fine. Art, would you kindly remind me what everybody asked for?”

Pulling out a somewhat crumpled list from his pocket, Art began to read out loud. “Two black coffees, one chocolate milk, one hot chocolate, one iced coffee, Mom said she wanted a blueberry muffin, you want a bagel with cream cheese, Uncle Donovan wants a chocolate croissant, Stacey wants a scone, Ezra wants one of those bagel sandwich things, and Bella wants a cupcake.”

“Bella’s getting a bagel. What do you want?”

Art considered, then said, “Oatmeal.”

“I’m quite the fan of oatmeal myself,” said Giles with a small smile. “If I hadn’t had it this morning, I’d likely be getting it now.”

“My mom hates oatmeal,” said Art conversationally. “She says it’s too gloppy. Do they have oatmeal here?”

“I think—” Giles squinted towards the menu, “—they do, so long as you don’t mind fruit and sugar.”

“Who has oatmeal without sugar?” Art sounded fundamentally disturbed by the idea. “It would just taste like glue.”

“Have you been eating glue?” said Nora with some alarm.

“No-o, but it tastes like what I bet glue would taste like,” said Art a little too fast. “If I tasted glue. Which I didn’t.”

Nora and Giles exchanged a look. “Children,” said Nora tiredly, turning to the cashier and taking the list from an obliging Art. “All right. Two black coffees—”

Art tugged on Giles’s sleeve, an extremely serious look on his face. Giles, expecting some sort of soul-searching question, braced himself, and was therefore quite discombobulated when Art said, low and determined, “I did eat glue. It got my mouth all sticky.”

It took everything in Giles not to start laughing. “That’s—don’t do that, you’ll make yourself sick.”

“I did,” said Art seriously.

Nora nudged Giles. “That’s the total,” she said, looking warily up at him as though expecting him to back out abruptly. “So—”

“—yes, that’s entirely fine,” said Giles, rummaging in Anya’s wallet. “I’ll be paying Anya back anyway.” Thinking about their argument—where they’d left things—put an abrupt damper on the good mood he’d unexpectedly found himself in. “I…rather think I owe her an apology, to be honest.”

“Well, yes. Taking someone else’s wallet isn’t exactly good manners.”

“Aunt Nora, didn’t you take Mom’s wallet?” said Art unexpectedly.

Nora went bright red. “That’s—we—different circumstances, Arthur!”

For Nora’s sake, Giles bit back another laugh. He was, however, still smiling, even in the face of her deadly glare. “Ah, Nora,” he said, “I…thank you. Both of you, really. I wasn’t in very high spirits when I stepped in here, and it’s truly lovely to make some new friends. Or reunite with older ones,” he added, nodding to Art.

Art’s face lit up. “We’re friends? Aunt Nora, I made a friend and he’s a grown-up!”

“If you need anything while you’re in England,” Giles began.

“Absolutely not,” said Nora.

The sharpness to her tone took both Giles and Art aback. Giles couldn’t help but feel a bit hurt, though he knew it was somewhat unreasonable. “I’m sorry?”

Upon closer inspection, however, Nora looked unusually flustered. “That is—” She took a steadying breath. “My cousin—Arthur’s mother—doesn’t take very kindly to new people around her son, especially people she doesn’t know. I wouldn’t want to call upon you without her express permission, and—”

“But we could have her meet him!” Art persisted. “I bet she’d really like him.”

“Well—” Nora looked like she was struggling with something.

“I certainly don’t want to impose,” said Giles gently, taking one of Anya’s business cards out of her wallet. “It’s only an invitation. You’ll reach me fairly easily at the second number on this card—don’t call the first one, that’s Anya,” he added hastily. “And I do understand how protective your mother must be of such a wonderful child,” he said to Art, who glowed. “But I…it’s been a while since I’ve made any new connections. If anything, this might prevent Anya from removing me from my place of business under false pretenses in an attempt to give me the day off.”

Nora laughed—a nasal, oddly familiar sound. “You must have your nose to the grindstone if your business partner is giving you the day off!” she said, and gave him a genuine smile. “I can’t…make any promises,” she said. “I’m here with my family, after all. But I have been told by my cousin that I am a bit…reticent…when it comes to social engagements outside of my immediate community.”

“Which is mostly just family,” said Art.

“Which is mostly just family,” Nora agreed, taking the card from Giles. That strange shadow crossed her face as she read the names embossed upon the card, though it passed quickly enough that Giles decided not to worry too much over it. Anya’s name was a bit familiar to anyone involved even tangentially with the occult, after all. Her expression was entirely clear when she looked up. “Thank you for paying for our breakfast,” she said. “His mother in particular will be quite grateful. She doesn’t eat nearly as much as she should.”

“You say that about everybody, Aunt Nora,” said Art, rolling his eyes. “You say Bella doesn’t eat enough, and she steals food from me!”

“Bella’s my daughter,” said Nora in a low voice to Giles. “Youngest. She’s close enough in age to Art that there’s some…friction.”

“She’s a bridge troll,” said Art. “She lives under a bridge and eats rats.”

Nora gave Art a flat look. “Now you know that’s not true.”

Seeing as the breakfast situation was resolved, Giles found himself thinking about some more pressing matters. “I…should really be off,” he said with a small, apologetic smile. “I have a conversation with Anya that is truly long overdue. I’m glad to be of assistance, and I hope I’ll see the two of you again at some point.”

Nora smiled too. She was looking at him with that same strange expression, still, but it had softened somehow. “You take care of yourself, Mr. Giles,” she said.

“You as well.” Giles inclined his head to Nora, grinned at Art, and stepped away from the two of them, heading out of the café. He had something important to settle.

Anya was behind her desk when Giles finally arrived in the office again. She looked up at him with no small amount of worry. “It took you a while to get back,” she said. “What’s going on?”

Without a word, Giles crossed the room to take Anya’s hands in his, pulling her up and out of her seat before tugging her into a gentle hug. Anya made a soft, surprised noise, then hugged him back. He didn’t quite know what to say; he was thinking, mostly, about her sharp, angry words, the tears in her eyes. I don’t know if I can stay working with you if it means watching you wall yourself off from everybody who even tries to love you.

“Are you okay?” Anya whispered.

Giles pulled back to get a good look at her. A thousand years old, and the uncertainty in her eyes was still so impossibly young. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I…I do know you’re trying, in your own way. I know I’ve been reticent to that. But Anya, you must understand, I…” He swallowed. “It hurts, when you try to pull me away from this,” he said. “It feels as though you’re telling me that I’m not even good for the one thing I know how to do.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to tell you at all!” said Anya anxiously. “I just—you’re not happy, Rupert. I want you to be.”

Giles sighed. “I…I really don’t know if I can be,” he said quietly. “And your conviction that removing me from the Council will help, I…this is the closest to happy that I know how to be. This, right now.”

But Anya shook her head. “That’s not true,” she said. “That just cannot be true. If it was really true, you would still be mad at me right now, ‘cause I disrupted your perfectly organized routine for a stupid joyride that left you stranded in Tourist Central. You know you’re miserable, you just don’t know how to not be miserable.” She sniffled. “And I don’t know how to help you with that.”

“It doesn’t have to be you who—”

“Nobody else is going to, Giles,” said Anya tearfully. “They’ve all given up. Willow, Buffy, Xander, they aren’t staying away ‘cause they don’t want to be around you, they’re staying away ‘cause it hurts to see you like this. I’m the only one who—” She was starting to cry. “Who’s seen worse in my thousand years here, so I can be here, but they can’t. They don’t know how to help you, and neither do I.”

“I don’t need to be helped,” said Giles quietly.

“Maybe not.” Anya’s eyes were wet and bright. “But you do need something that you don’t have right now.”

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: About This Summer

Hey Giles,

I know how infrequently you check your email, so there’s a solid chance you don’t even see this. Thing is, though, I also know that this summer might end up being really big in terms of stuff that might happen in your life—call it witchy intuition—which means that maybe you’ll be dusting off that secondhand laptop I gave you and checking for mail of the electronic kind. And if that happens, I thought it might be nice to have a word from Willow to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Don’t give up, okay? It’s going to be hard, but the really good stuff always is. There are a lot of people that want to see you get through this, and your Ms. Cervenak is absolutely one of them. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Love,

Willow

Chapter Text

Anya had bought Giles some clothing that she deemed “summer-appropriate” and “much better than your horrible all-tweed ensembles.” Giles, who had stopped wearing tweed almost immediately after the very therapeutic process of watching Sunnydale High explode, resented this; he had plenty of appropriately summery wear, and simply chose not to wear it. A suit, however, wouldn’t be appropriate for a brisk walk through Hyde Park—not when he was going with Anya, who he was fairly certain intended to try and get him into a bloody rowboat—so he reluctantly donned the short-sleeve button-down and linen shorts that she had purchased for the first of their excursions.

She was waiting by the statue of Achilles, just like she said she would be—bouncing delightedly on her toes with a picnic basket slung over one arm. “Rupert, you came outside!” she sang delightedly, as though she wasn’t the whole reason he was going through with this. He might not be capable of change, but he could step a bit outside of his comfort zone if it meant making Anya smile. “Look at you, all fashionable and uncomfortable-looking. Are you ready for a day of unscheduled, unstructured chaos?”

“Anya, I work with you. Every day is unscheduled, unstructured—”

“That is not true and you know it. I respectfully limit the chaos to your office hours, when you are both officially and unofficially begging for people to spend time with you.” Patting Giles’s shoulder, Anya handed him the picnic basket. “So! I was thinking—the rose garden is super close to here, obviously, but it’s only a ten minute walk to the boat rental place! Do you think they let us bring food? Don’t answer that, actually, I bet I can sneak the basket on the boat anyway. I’m really good at being sneaky.”

“It is abhorrently hot out,” said Giles a bit sulkily.

Without missing a beat, Anya dug in the picnic basket, fishing out a bottle of water. “There you go,” she said, smiling up at him and looking extremely pleased with herself.

Giles blinked, then smiled a bit sheepishly. “Thank you,” he said, taking a long sip before handing it back to Anya. “Should we—”

Anya, however, had been distracted by something directly to the left of Giles. Following her gaze, he saw that her attention was fixed upon a particularly lovely young gentleman reading a book on a nearby bench. “Oh my god,” she mumbled, one hand moving to toy with a strand of hair. “Jesus. How can a man be that hot?”

Sensing a chance to avoid a potentially disastrous rowboat excursion while still exploring the park like Anya wanted, Giles said casually, “Anya, would you perhaps like to say hello to—”

“None of that, mister,” said Anya, but her eyes were still on the fellow on the bench. “This is your day, we’re doing this for you—”

“You got me out of the office, didn’t you?” Giles pointed out as innocently as he could. “You can always count that as a success and move along to your newest romantic conquest.”

“He’s not a conquest yet.” But Anya was already rifling through the picnic basket, tugging out a compact mirror to check her makeup. “And don’t think I’m going to spend all day flirting with him, Rupert, I just want his number—”

“I’ll go and look at the roses,” said Giles.

“Please,” said Anya, shoving the basket into his arms and all but sprinting over to the bench.

Well. Deeply amused, Giles began to make his way towards the rose garden, shifting the basket until the handles were in one hand and he was idly swinging it by his side. It was hot out, but the sort of hot that was almost pleasant in the shade, and it was strange but lovely to be around so many people. He had spent quite a lot of time in that office; it had been a while since he’d had the time to see anyone new. Families, and couples, and—

Art.

“Art!” said Giles, quite surprised. Really, that boy did turn up in the most unexpected places. “What on earth—?”

Art, who had been standing in the middle of the path, whirled at the sound of Giles’s voice. His lower lip trembled, and before Giles had time to react, he hurtled down the path, throwing himself bodily into Giles’s arms.

The picnic basket very nearly went flying as Giles caught Art in a startled hug.

“Mr. Giles,” said Art tearfully into the front of Giles’s shirt. “I can’t find my mom! I got really turned around and this park is really big and I think she said she was going to the rose garden but I can’t find her, I was supposed to wait by the bathroom while Aunt Nora used the bathroom but I thought I’d try and find my mom and now I don’t know—”

“Sh-sh-sh, it’s all right,” Giles murmured somewhat instinctively, reminded a bit of Buffy in one of her fits of teenage exhaustion. Pulling back to look at Art, he was struck by a sudden pang of—something—at the strangely familiar expression upon the boy’s face. “You said your mum’s in the rose garden? That’s very close to here. Why don’t we go there together and see if we can track her down?”

“Really?” Art sounded greatly relieved. Mopping clumsily at his eyes, he gave Giles a wobbly smile. “I-I’m usually really good at finding stuff,” he said. “I help Mom with the groceries all the time ‘cause she always forgets. Aunt Nora gives me the list and then I get to read it out. B-but this is a really big park, and I got really nervous, and—”

“It’s all right,” said Giles, giving Art an encouraging little grin in response. “It is a big park. I’m here with my friend Anya, but she’s—” Probably sexually propositioning a gentleman in a way entirely unsuitable for a seven-year-old to witness. “—a bit busy at the moment.”

“So you’re by yourself too!” Art beamed. “You’re by yourself a lot, Mr. Giles. Do you have a family?” The question cut a bit more than Art had intended. Giles coughed, struggling to find a response, and was thankfully saved by the attention span of a seven-year-old. “I have a family,” Art informed him. “I have a mom and an Aunt Nora—she’s my removed cousin really but I call her aunt ‘cause she’s older—and I have a cousin Stacia and a cousin Bella and a cousin Ezra. Ezra’s my favorite ‘cause he’s a boy. We have four girls in the family and three boys. We’re outnumbered.”

“That’s quite a big family,” said Giles, relieved at the excuse to steer the conversation away from his family.

“Yeah!” said Art. “It’s really loud in the car sometimes.” Abruptly, he tugged on Giles’s hand. “Mr. Giles,” he whispered, “it’s a squirrel. My mom said that British squirrels are like American squirrels except they don’t check the accuracy of their academic sources.”

“Your mother certainly sounds interesting,” said Giles, amused.

“Mom’s really silly,” said Art, lighting up. “You’ll get to meet her soon! She’s in the rose garden right now. She loves roses. Her favorite kind are the orange ones ‘cause she says they mean enthusiasm and desire, but she likes the red ones too. She says my dad gave her red roses once.”

“Oh?”

“Mm-hmm! Six roses.”

“That’s quite a special number, you know,” said Giles conversationally. “Six roses—in flower language, that means I want to be yours.”

“Mom didn’t know that then,” said Art with a giggle. “She said it took forever for her to figure it out. I was three before she figured it out.” He considered. “Mr. Giles, do you know any superheroes?”

Giles considered this question carefully; he thought he might know where it was coming from. Finally, he said, “Well. Superheroes aren’t exactly known for being up-front about it, are they? Most of them have secret identities to keep from being attacked by any supervillains on their off days.”

“…I guess,” said Art. He looked a little frustrated.

It wasn’t Giles’s place. It wasn’t, but—

“Your father,” said Giles. “What do you know about him? I…I have a substantial array of connections, as it happens. I might be able to find something.”

Art’s eyes widened, but he looked a bit guilty. “I gotta ask my mom first,” he said.

“O-of course.”

Art seemed to be thinking about something. After a moment, he reached for Giles’s free hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’m mostly too old to hold hands,” he explained at Giles’s startled expression, “but Aunt Nora said I’m not allowed to wander around England without holding the hand of a trusted adult, and she knows you so it won’t be a problem.” He considered. “Mom might be weird. I can tell her you’re the museum guy, though. She says thank you, by the way.”

They were nearing the rose garden. “Does she?”

“She does! She says you sounded like you were really nice to me and she bets you have experience with kids my age.”

“Here and there,” said Giles. “I was a high school librarian for a brief period of time.”

Art stopped in his tracks. His hand tightened around Giles’s. “A—a high school librarian?” he said. “And you’re—Mr. Giles, what’s your first name?”

The question struck Giles as a bit unusual. He was opening his mouth to answer it when—

Years later, Giles would swear that a flurry of rose petals accompanied the moment that his eyes landed on Jenny. There was certainly a breeze, he would remember that much—the skirt of her white floral sundress rustling around her knees, one hand on her hat to keep it from blowing away. Her hair was longer, but not by much; there was a small leather satchel slung over one of her shoulders. Framed by rosebushes on either side, she stood frozen in place, as though if she moved, she might shatter the terrified moment between recognition and realization.

Art, however, had no such qualms. Letting go of Giles’s hand, he cried out a wholly relieved “Mom!” before dashing forward to tackle Jenny in a hug. She caught him effortlessly, tucking him into her side. Her eyes were still on Giles.

Six roses, Art had said. My dad gave my mom six red roses.

“Jenny—” said Giles, his voice shaking.

But the single word spurred Jenny into action. Yanking herself free from Art, she turned tail and ran, sprinting out of the rose garden at a breakneck pace. Her hat, entirely forgotten, blew neatly off of her head, landing serenely at Giles’s feet.

“Janna—Christ,” said Nora, rounding the corner to see Giles and Art—the former stunned, the latter bordering on tearful. “Art—”

“Aunt Nora,” Art wailed, stumbling forward to hug her too. “I didn’t mean to get lost! I thought I’d go find Mom, I wasn’t looking for my dad this time, I promise—”

“Eleanora Kovacs,” said Giles shakily.

That got Art’s attention, and Nora’s. “Sweet thing, go to Uncle Donovan,” she said shortly. “He’s over by the trees with your cousins.”

“Aunt Nora—”

“You’re not in trouble. I need to talk to your—” Nora inhaled, sharply, through her teeth. “To Mr. Giles. Alone.”

Art, who still seemed a bit out of sorts from his accidental adventure, obeyed without question.

“You—” Giles was fumbling for words. It was quite a lot of information to process in only a handful of seconds. “Jenny mentioned you. You’re her older cousin.”

Nora looked almost apologetic. “It wasn’t my truth to tell,” she said.

“Not Art’s either, from what I can gather.” My dad’s a superhero. “Should I—” Giles gestured in the general direction that Jenny had headed.

Nora blew out a breath. “Janna is…somewhat delicate when it comes to things like—”

It was then that Giles felt someone yank at the back of his shirt, forcing him to turn around. Stumbling a bit, he found himself looking down at a flushed, breathless Jenny, whose eyes were alight with the kind of terrifying fire he had only seen on the unfortunate day he had made the mistake of calling computers a pointless waste of time, funding, and energy. “You stay away from my family,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “You hear me? This is my family. I don’t care what you think you’re entitled to based on a handful of seconds with your s—with my son, my son, I don’t care, I made a decision not to tell you and I wasn’t ever planning to tell you. You are not a part of this.”

“Janna!” said Nora reprovingly, stepping up to yank Jenny away from Giles.

Giles, however, was having trouble registering any of what Jenny had said. He was thinking, instead, of Art’s startlingly green eyes, the crooked Giles smile that had been his dad’s, his grandad’s, and now his son’s. His son’s. That remarkable little boy was his son. “You, you were pregnant,” he said slowly, his voice shaking. “When Angelus—”

Jenny flinched, viscerally, at the name. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, but she hadn’t moved.

“Jenny, I-I—”

“He might not even be yours, you know,” said Jenny, glaring at him.

“Why are you like this,” said Nora into her hands.

"Jenny, I-I have never once in my life seen someone with such a-a striking resemblance to myself. Not even m-my own father shared a-as—um, as many features with me as-as Art does." And it was true, now that he knew what he was looking for. One didn’t exactly compare every strange child to their old baby photos, after all. But he had looked like Art when he was that age, solemn eyes and a bright smile—shyer than Art’s, certainly, but still the same off-center tilt. The dark hair, the pale complexion, that was Jenny; everything else, however, was strikingly Giles.

Jenny opened her mouth, then shut it, brow furrowed. Shortly, she said. “Well. There’s still no way of knowing he’s not somebody else’s.”

A combination of bemusement and dizzy delight made it impossible for Giles to keep the laugh out of his voice. “I-I’m sorry, Jenny, are you saying that you had time to have illicit liaisons w-with someone other than me while you were spending every second of your free time on the Hellmouth with me?”

“Thank you,” said Nora. “Janna, go take a walk to cool off. I want to talk to Rupert.”

“I will not just—”

Nora placed a hand on Jenny’s arm. “Seeing as you did physically accost him not a minute ago,” she said, “I do think it prudent that you take some time to yourself before you and he discuss how to go forward with this.”

“There’s no going forward!” snapped Jenny. “I want him to leave—”

“Janna,” said Nora.

There was a strange, still moment, Nora’s eyes locked pointedly on Jenny’s. The two of them seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes alone, right up until Jenny said, sharply, “Fine,” and stalked away, stepping directly on her still-discarded hat in the process. She didn’t seem to notice.

Giles stooped to pick up the hat, nervously dusting it off before handing it carefully to Nora. “I—” He had absolutely no idea what to say.

Taking the hat, Nora let her fingers rest gently over his for a moment. Her smile, so terse in the café, was now very sympathetic. “I’m sorry you found out like this,” she said. “I recognized your name on the business card, but I thought that London was large enough for us not to cross paths again—and certainly not with Janna in the mix.”

“It’s…quite a lot to process,” said Giles, managing a shaky smile in return. That had been his son, colliding with him in the middle of Hyde Park. His son’s small hand in his. “I-I don’t want to, to impose, not if it w-would cause Jenny more distress than it already has—”

“I’ll talk to her,” said Nora. “We have your number on that business card of yours.” She sighed. “I don’t exactly think that she’s going to want to talk to you any time soon, but…we’re in England for a few more weeks. There’s time.”

“Of course,” said Giles.

Nora hesitated. After a moment, she said, “He loves…peanut butter, and tea with honey. He has a comic collection that he inherited from my daughter Stacia, and he is endlessly fascinated with nature and running about in it. He is incredibly impatient and stubborn, and his mother is his favorite person in the world. And he’s grown up very loved, if you were worried about that at all.”

Giles blinked, then smiled. He thought that he might be crying, a bit. “Th-thank you. Thank you.”

Biting her lip, Nora smiled somewhat sadly back. “I hope this isn’t the last time we see each other,” she said. “Art already adores you, and that’s without knowing who you are. He would be so happy to have his father in his life.”

This was, Giles realized, a moment where doubt was supposed to prick through the tentative soap bubble of happiness rising in his chest. This was where all logic and reason was supposed to compound in his mind and tell him you are a terrible father; you have never done right by the children who needed you. He was supposed to feel terror, and yet—

His son. Jenny’s son. Jenny, the one person who had dragged him out of musty old libraries and made him happy to be out in the sunlight. Happy to be anywhere, so long as it was with her. He had wanted children, though he had refused to admit it; thought, more than once, about what children with Jenny might look like.

Without a word, Giles stuck out his hand. Nora shook it. He was looking for it, now, and he could see; she and Jenny had the same wry little smile. “Thank you for taking care of my son,” he said. The words felt strange and wonderful in his mouth. God, he wished he’d hugged Art just a second longer.

“Thank you for helping make him,” said Nora, grinning a bit wickedly and startling a laugh out of Giles. Dropping his hand, she stepped back, then headed over towards a small group by a nearby grove of trees.

Giles watched her go, heart pounding—and a hand on his elbow made him jump. Expecting Jenny, he was further surprised to see Anya standing behind him, her expression uncharacteristically serious. “Bloody hell!” he yelped. “How—wh-what—”

Simply, Anya said, “Maybe today’s not a boating day for you, Rupert.”

The drive back to Giles’s apartment was full of Anya’s inane and meaningless chatter, which Giles found himself entirely grateful for. Listening to her talk about the Potential Slayers or the irritating supplier she’d been haggling with or the latest ridiculous thing that Kira had done was thoroughly grounding—which was, he suspected, her intention. He wasn’t quite sure how much of the conversation she’d overheard, but she seemed to have picked up enough to glean that he had quite a lot to process.

She dropped him off with the picnic basket. “Most of it I made for you anyway,” she explained with a small smile, leaning out of the convertible to kiss him on the cheek. Startled by the gesture—and sensing that it, like her endless talk, was an attempt to comfort him—Giles smiled back. “Just return the basket on Monday, okay? I’m gonna use it for my date with Trevor.”

“Trev—oh, Trevor the park bench lad?” Giles laughed at Anya’s smug grin. “Not a conquest yet indeed.”

Anya’s expression was quite fond. “Take care of yourself, Rupert.”

And then Giles was left to his own devices—to enter his home, place the picnic basket down on the kitchen table, and sit heavily down in a chair, still with that confusing, elusive feeling hanging around him. It was hard to sort through the all-encompassing joy, but he felt that it was necessary; there was something else lurking under the surface.

She hadn’t told him.

Seven years. Almost a decade to think things over, to figure out how to tell him, and he’d found out because she had just happened to be in London on the same day Anya had dragged him out to Hyde Park. Had he not met her there, he would never have known that Art was his son. She had been so blazingly angry with him, as though it was his fault she was across the pond in the country he’d been born in, as though he was the one responsible for causing her son unnecessary upheaval—

Giles’s hand tightened around the bottled water and he felt a crunch of plastic. Swallowing, he dropped it on the table, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Seven years he’d missed. Another child he’d abandoned, only with this one, he had never even been given a choice when it came to trying.

Something tightened in his chest. What did it say, then, that Jenny—Jenny who knew him, Jenny who loved him—had refused to even tell him of his son? Jenny, who had wanted nothing more than to make things up to him, had run from Sunnydale to raise their child away from him.

It didn’t matter. What Jenny thought of him—it was inconsequential. She had made that decision before Art was even born, back when he was just as much Giles’s as Jenny’s. She had made the decision to cut Giles out of Art’s life as cleanly and efficiently as possible, to the point where Art had met him three times without even a spark of hopeful recognition in his eyes. Giles had missed years of his only son’s life because Jenny was angry with him, because she had been selfish and childish and stubborn.

He drew in a hard, shaking breath, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. His chest burned with rage. After years and years of nothing at all, it was quite an unusual feeling.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Giles,

Today I was in therapy and I told my therapist, “you know, I send these long, dumb emails to my dad all the time, ‘cause he is totally technologically illiterate and I know he’s never gonna see them.” And my therapist—she knows by now that when I say “dad” I’m talking about you, obviously—she was like, “well, what happens if he actually DOES open up his email and sees the backlog of stuff you’ve sent him? Is any of it stuff that you actually want him to see?”

I thought about that all day today. I mean, most of this stuff is stuff that you know, or maybe stuff that I’ve tried to tell you when you just weren’t listening. There’s really only a super small fraction that’s stuff I hope you never find out, like, y’know, the fact that my therapist knows that “dad” is shorthand for “Giles” these days even though you and I haven’t really talked since Sunnydale. I figure that you’d have to change a LOT to ever stumble on one of the many Buffy missives, and if you’re adaptable enough to learn how to work an email account, maybe you’re open-minded enough to not totally freak when I say you’re the closest thing to a dad I’ve ever had.

That’s fucked up, probably. That you’re the best parental figure in my life (my mom tried, but you know how she was), and we haven’t talked—really talked—in years. We have these brief conversations on the phone where I can tell that all you want is to hang up. When I was in my teens, I used to think that you put so much distance between us because you had other stuff going on—Ms. Calendar, the Council, a whole bunch of boring adult stuff that didn’t leave much time for some needy little Slayer with daddy issues. Thing is, though, from what I hear from Anya, you don’t have a single thing in your life to distract you from the people you care about.

I guess this is my really long-winded way of saying that I miss you so much it hurts sometimes, and I’m afraid that if I tell you that, I’m gonna lose you forever. So I just keep my mouth shut and let you think that I’m the one drifting away, ‘cause it’s better than losing what little we have.

God, I hope you read this someday.

Buffy

Chapter Text

Giles’s office hours were entirely devoid of visitors for the two days following his encounter with Jenny, a fact that he was entirely grateful for. Wesley, Kira, and Anya, while well-meaning in their attempts to provide him with some kind of companionship, also seemed to think that the way to get through to him was by annoying the living daylights out of him, getting cookie crumbs all over his furniture, and staying in his office even after his repeated and consistent attempts to get them to leave. He had been able to tolerate it when it was the closest thing he had to social interaction, but now—

Well. Now he seemed to be having feelings again. More specifically, one feeling, and it was a kind of white-hot anger that would not take kindly to Kira’s muddy boots all over his newly-cleaned carpet, or Wesley’s cool indifference in response to the idea of this being Giles’s office instead of his own, or Anya’s—actually, Giles had softened quite a bit on Anya lately, but historically, he’d had some trouble with her continued prodding and poking regarding what he wanted his life to be. Her persistent observations regarding the Council being all he had might feel a bit different with the added context of one Arthur Cervenak. It meant a lot to him that she seemed to recognize that.

He felt as though at some point he might get around to missing the company, but right now, it took everything in him just to get through the day without throwing something fragile at the wall to watch it break. He kept on thinking—about Jenny, about Art, about what he could have had, what he hadn’t even known was a possibility until that sunny afternoon among the roses. About Nora, and the genuine sympathy in the way she had looked at him.

He’s grown up very loved, if you were worried about that at all.

Giles had known from the moment that he’d met Art that this was a child who had wanted for nothing. Art was precocious and difficult in the sort of way that came from being the baby of a bustling, loving family, and he spoke of his mother with stars in his eyes. The way he’d run to Jenny upon seeing her—

Giles’s fingers tightened around the pen he was holding until his knuckles turned white. Two days. Two days, and nothing from Jenny or Nora or anyone. He was supposed to sit and wait, instead, wait for anything that would allow him even a glimpse of his son—and Jenny had treated him like he was the one who needed to be kept away from Art. Like he was such a horrible father that—

Unbidden, the image of Buffy’s tearful face swam into view. I can’t do this without you.

There was a knock on his door. “No,” snapped Giles reflexively.

Anya, being Anya, ignored him entirely, opening the door just enough to poke her head in and give him a small smile. “Hey, Rupert,” she said. “Technically speaking, I am still your secretary, right? Should I tell you that you have a visitor?” 

Giles was still struggling with…everything, really. “A visitor,” he echoed.

Opening the door all the way, Anya stepped aside, letting Jenny into the office.

Oh, damn, thought Giles, and tried in vain to grab onto the anger before it left him entirely. But Jenny—the mother of his child, the one person who had seen him, loved him, exactly as he was—she was here, and not nearly as openly defensive as he had expected her to be. It had been easy to hold onto his fury when he was faced with Jenny’s blazing rage, but the way she held herself was guarded and miserable in a terribly familiar kind of way.

“These…are your business hours, right?” she said tentatively, taking a nervous step into the room. “I didn’t want to call you after—I mean, you probably have plans, or—”

“N-no, no,” said Giles hastily, motioning for Anya to shut the door. Anya, after mouthing good luck, obliged with sparkling eyes. “I don’t—” Mid-sentence, he realized that telling Jenny about his entirely meaningless Council position wasn’t exactly a very impressive way to start…whatever this conversation was. “Um. My, my office hours are intended to create a space for unexpected visits within my relatively rigorous schedule. So you’re—that is—”

“I’m sorry,” Jenny blurted out.

This took Giles entirely by surprise. “I—what?”

A miserable pink flush rose to Jenny’s cheeks. She dropped her eyes to the floor, taking an unsteady breath in before looking up again. “I don’t really want to talk about why I chose not to tell you,” she said. “I figure that’s more my business than yours. But you didn’t deserve to find out like that, and—I’m sorry. Just about that,” she added, raising her head to glare at him again. “I’m not sorry about anything else.”

He had been angry at her for two whole days. Why was it so impossible to stay angry at her right now? “I-I-I’m not asking for an apology,” said Giles, casting about somewhat desperately for all the things he’d been so sure he’d want to say to her. “I’m asking for—clarity, I think. There’s so much I don’t understand, and—”

“What do you want to know?”

“I-I—”

“That’s what I came here to ask you,” said Jenny. “What do you want to know? I figure—” She huffed, looking somewhat frustrated. “Nora says that I should actually find out what you want to know about—Art,” her voice caught somewhat on the name, a fact that did not escape Giles, “before I get all up in arms and flee the country. And I don’t know what you want, because I, I didn’t really stick around long enough to find out, so I guess I can’t really know whether or not I’m mad at you until I know what you want from this situation.”

“It’s quite a lot to process,” said Giles disbelievingly, “and it’s only been two days. I can’t even begin to tell you what I want.”

Jenny raised her eyebrows, her voice taking on a challenging tone. “So you haven’t been thinking about our son these past two days?”

“That—no, I—” How was he already fucking this up? “I-I have been, that is, I just, with the—I do have a job, Jenny—”

“Far be it from me and my baby to get in the way of your job,” said Jenny archly. “You know, if you don’t know what you want, maybe it’s better if I just—”

Without really thinking about it—and if he had thought about it, he probably wouldn’t have done it—Giles sprung up from his desk, knocking over a stack of papers in his rush to cross the room and grab Jenny’s arm. He heard her breath hitch when he pulled her closer, and instantly realized what a terrible call this had been, jumping back fast enough that the heel of his shoe slipped on one of the papers. He probably would have fallen all the way back had Jenny not grabbed his elbows, holding him in place long enough for him to steady himself. “Ah, that’s—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jenny, I just, y-you do have a habit of leaving rather—abruptly,” he stammered, heart pounding, “and I don’t—I don’t want you to misunderstand me as, as I struggle to make myself clear. I don’t know what I want, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Do you always keep your office this cluttered?”

The abrupt change of subject was impossible for an already flustered Giles to follow. “What?”

Stepping away from him, Jenny knelt down to begin picking up the papers that Giles’s mad dash had scattered. A few of them had crumpled, and she methodically smoothed one out, examining it as she did so. “A report on magical activity in northern Portugal,” she read aloud, squinting thoughtfully at the text. “Sounds juicy.”

For lack of a better response, Giles weakly managed, “That’s confidential.”

Ignoring him entirely, Jenny continued to read the report, brow furrowed as she mouthed the words. “For confidential material, this thing is incredibly boring,” she finally decided, picking up the somewhat haphazard stack of papers and plopping them down on Giles’s desk. Looking at what had once been an impeccably organized array of material to be looked over, Giles fought the urge to wince. “So is this what you do all day? Reading incredibly boring top-secret reports?”

“You came here to talk,” said Giles, desperate to get the conversation at least vaguely back on track. “You wanted to know—”

“I mean, I got what I came here for,” said Jenny, leaning back against the desk and giving him an appraising look. “I wanted to know what you wanted, you said you don’t know, I decided that that is a terrible answer and I never want to see you again—”

“Jenny.”

The look on Jenny’s face, then—it was just for a moment, but she froze, just like she had in the rose garden. It seemed to take her a moment to recalibrate. She stepped back, reaching to tightly grip the edge of the desk behind her, and said flatly, “I am really fucking angry at you, you know.”

“I’ve been getting that sense,” said Giles, managing a weak laugh.

“Really angry. I didn’t want to run into you like I did.”

“And how exactly did you think this would play out?” said Giles disbelievingly. “I—I know you didn’t plan to see me here, but for Christ’s sake, Jenny, this is London. The Council headquarters are here, and even back when we were dating, you knew I would regularly visit England in the summer. You can’t have ruled out the possibility that we would see each other at some point.”

“I didn’t!” Furious tears had sprung to Jenny’s eyes. “Nora was the one who was saying oh, it’s a big city, Jenny, and you can’t know he’s going to be in this one, you don’t even remember what part of England he lived in, I told her I wanted to stay back, she was the one saying that I needed to stop letting my stupid fucking paranoia run my life, and look where we are now! You’ve run into Art and now you probably want some kind of relationship with him, and I don’t want to co-parent with some guy I haven’t seen in seven years, but you seem to think you have some antiquated claim to him just because you helped make him even though you haven’t been here—”

“I’m not asking to co-parent,” said Giles quietly. “I would never ask that if it might make you or your family uncomfortable.”

“Don’t say that,” snapped Jenny. “Don’t act like you—like you’re not—” She seemed positively immobilized by her own anger. “You’re his dad, Rupert!”

“You just said—”

“I know what I said. You don’t get to just cut him off now that you know he exists—”

“Damn it, Jenny, are you hell-bent on being angry with me no matter what I say?” Giles burst out. “Either I’m a terrible father who shouldn’t be allowed to see his children or I’m a terrible father because I don’t want to see my children! I can’t be both at the same time! You need to—” Midway through the sentence, he realized what he was saying. “Y-you need, you need to pick one,” he finished a bit shakily. “Because—”

Jenny, no longer quite as visibly combative, now looked somewhat abashed.

“I don’t know what you want to hear,” said Giles shakily. “I don’t know what—what you came here for, if all you’re going to do is decide arbitrarily that I’m unfit for even a brief conversation with your son—”

“I didn’t say that.”

Jenny’s words startled them both. Giles, who had been caught in a tumultuous mix of anger and shame ever since their encounter in the rose garden, felt something a bit more terrifyingly warm as he looked at her—and Jenny, very clearly recognizing the look in his eyes, immediately looked away. “Then what are you trying to say?” said Giles very softly.

“I—” Jenny wrung her hands, staring down at the floor. Slowly, she looked back up at him. She no longer looked quite as blazingly angry—rather, she looked quite a lot like she had in those months before she’d left Sunnydale for good. Repentant, and a hair away from terrified. “I don’t want to introduce Art to his father unless his father is absolutely committed to being there for him,” she said. “I don’t want you to be that fun summer dad who takes him out for ice cream and brings him back to me all sugar-crazy. You’re so much better than that.”

Giles couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh at that. “You really haven’t heard the news, have you?” he said, smiling tightly. “I’m hardly capable of the kind of parenting you seem to think I am. If you want a father for your child, Jenny, find someone who isn’t a washed-up has-been. Don’t settle for less just because of genetics.”

Something tightened in Jenny’s expression. Then she said, “You know, when I found out I was pregnant with Art, I was terrified. I didn’t know the first thing about babies, and I definitely didn’t think I was qualified to give maternal guidance when I’d just gotten myself knocked up by a Watcher who had fallen out of love with me. But I committed, Rupert, because you don’t fuck around with kids. There’s no way to be a halfway-there parent without breaking somebody’s heart.” Roughly, she brushed a stray tear from her cheek. “You don’t get to act like this is just something I was born with,” she said. “You don’t get to act like this is something I’m magically capable of and you’re not. I put work in every day to be there for my baby, and it is so hard, but it is so worth it.”

Her words were digging into old wounds. “I-I’m not capable of fatherhood,” said Giles desperately. “I’m not. I can’t be.” If he was capable now, after everything he had put Buffy through, those children who sent him Christmas cards and photo strips still tucked away in his locked desk drawer—

“Then I guess that’s it,” said Jenny shakily, and took a step back. “I’m—sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, and I—” She pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes squeezing shut, and drew in a sobbing breath before continuing. “I kinda hoped this would be different. I guess—” She sniffled, shaking her head. “I don’t know. If you…if you ever think you can be there for him, I…I’ll leave my number with your secretary, okay? I’m really sorry to bother you like this.”

This wasn’t—she wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t leaving. “Jenny—”

Jenny turned on her heel and walked out in fast, uneven steps, her pace speeding up until she was all but running to wrench Giles’s office door open. As the door swung shut, he heard Anya saying, “Oh—oh, sweetie, what’s wrong? Did Rupert—” and then he couldn’t hear anything at all.

He wanted to follow her, but didn’t know what he could possibly say. He had to be right. This had to be right. He was not capable of anything more than this, no matter what—

And that was when it fully registered with Giles.

No matter what Jenny thought.

Jenny thought that he could be a father. Jenny had come here to try and allow him an avenue to be a father. Their relationship had ended in heartbreak and misery, she had left him for reasons she still seemed unwilling to elaborate upon, and yet she had come here asking him to be there for her son. She had told him that she didn’t know what she was doing on a good day, tried to get him to believe in his own capacity to step into a paternal role. You’re so much better than that.

Jenny Calendar, even after nearly a decade away from him, believed in him.

Seven years ago, Giles might have sprinted out the door after her—caught her hand and tugged her close and made promises he couldn’t possibly keep. Now, Giles was left stricken with the image of a tearful Jenny hurrying out of his office, apologizing for bothering him with the happiest news he had received in years.

“Anya?” he called.

Anya opened the door. Giles was not too surprised to see her looking incredibly disapproving. “Yes, Rupert?” she said archly.

“Do you—” Giles fumbled to string a sentence together. “D-did Jenny give you her number? I-I think—”

“Jenny,” said Anya, “is crying in the hallway outside. I think that you should deal with that before any kind of follow-up phone consultation.”

“Wh—she, she didn’t leave?”

“Seeing as she’s too busy crying in the hallway outside—”

“—yes, thank you, Anya,” said Giles shortly, hurrying past her into the waiting area outside his office.

The door to the hallway was ajar, and sure enough, he could hear restrained, hiccupping sobs that sounded heart-wrenchingly familiar. Stepping out into the hallway, Giles wavered: Jenny’s face was buried in her hands, and she didn’t seem quite aware that he was there. He could always—

Jenny raised her head. Giles was struck with the rather childish impulse to run away. Her attention, however, was on her phone; pulling it out of her pocket, she dialed a number, waiting as it rang. “Hello—hey. Nelly. Yeah, I—” She sniffled. “Yeah, I talked to him. It didn’t go so great.”

Giles, who was beginning to feel a bit like an interloper in his own hallway, cleared his throat.

Jenny jumped, eyes widening as they landed on him. “Oh, uh, hold on,” she said hastily, “he’s—here? I’ll just—yeah yeah love you too give Arty a kiss from me bye.” Her hands were shaking as she hung up—enough to send the phone tumbling to the ground.

“Oh, here—”

“No, it’s—”

Somehow, in the process of trying to get the phone to Jenny, Giles found himself with his hands around Jenny’s instead. It would probably be the decorous and emotionally intelligent thing to pull away, he thought, and didn’t.

Jenny had gone very still. Unsteadily, she said, “I really don’t want to humiliate myself in front of you again.”

“No, you—” Giles swallowed. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said. “I’d like…as little as possible of that. Your son seems a marvelous child, I…” Now, he knew, was the time for some actual honesty. He had never been very good at that with Jenny, but if there was even the slightest possibility that the truth might bring her some degree of comfort… “I wonder if it might be better for all parties if I remain uninvolved,” he said quietly. “You see—”

Jenny tugged her hands away, letting the phone land on the floor between them. Ignoring this, she took his hands, looking intently into his eyes. “You are a Grade A imbecile if you think that it would be better for your son not to have you in his life,” she said. “He is a weird little nerd who cries at the happy parts of Disney movies because he’s just so happy for the characters. Do you know what he asked me for as a birthday present? A monster book. And not one of those kitschy little books that people who don’t know about magic buy for their seven-year-olds, he wanted a real monster encyclopedia.”

Giles drew a shuddering breath in. “I want to be a part of his life,” he whispered exactly as he thought it. “Badly.” Hearing his words aloud, he stumbled. “But I don’t…that is, I can’t…”

“Is that what you came out here to tell me?” Jenny let Giles’s hands drop. “Because that’s kind of a dick move.”

“No, I…” Truthfully, Giles wasn’t entirely sure what he’d wanted to tell Jenny. “I don’t like that I hurt you,” he said clumsily. “I didn’t intend to. I don’t—know—how to fix it, and I want to.”

Jenny looked surprised, and a little touched. “That’s…look, Rupert, I came here for Art. I’m really not an important factor here.”

“You’re the mother of my only child,” said Giles softly. “How could you not factor into my decision?”

He’d half-expected Jenny to preen and beam the way she always had when they were romantically involved—or perhaps laugh a bit nervously and change the subject, the way she always had when he’d made his love for her a bit too transparently obvious. He was therefore quite surprised when Jenny drew in a panicked breath and darted away from him, placing a good six feet between them before she spoke. Her voice was shaking. “Don’t,” she said.

Startled, Giles said somewhat reflexively, “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—” Jenny hugged her elbows, staring almost helplessly at him. “It’s…” She shook her head a bit. “It’s a me problem. I’m dealing with it.” Before Giles could ask what exactly that meant, she said smoothly, “And if you want to fix things, I think being there for Art—”

“You’re asking a lot of me,” said Giles, frustrated. “You’re asking a lot of anyone. I’ve known that I have a son for two days, and you’re telling me that either I have to be his full-time parent or I will not ever be allowed to see him? There has to be some sort of happy medium, Jenny—”

“I’m not in the habit of lying to my kid,” said Jenny flatly.

“I’d never ask you to—isn’t there some way I can just—”

“I have thought about this from every angle.” Jenny’s voice shook. “I don’t want you to be some family friend that he finds out years later is his dad. I don’t want you to be his part-time dad who he only gets to see over the summer—”

“We live in different countries. Are you planning to move to England to rectify that?”

“I don’t want you to treat your child like he’s somebody you can leave!”

Fumbling for anything to say in response to that, Giles managed, helplessly, “I don’t want to keep—keep leaving. I don’t. I do it because it’s—I don’t want to, to stay and make things worse, I—”

Jenny moved forward, then, scooping up her phone from the ground to pocket it. She stepped up to him, placing them very nearly toe-to-toe. Softly, she said, “And what happens if you stay and you make things better, huh? What happens if you meet your son—”

“Your son.”

“—our son, and he loves you, and it turns out you’re capable of more than you think you are right now?”

“I can’t know that that will happen,” Giles persisted. “I don’t want to make promises to you when I don’t know for certain that I’m capable of keeping them. I—” He swallowed. “I have hurt people I love, terribly hurt them, with promises that I could not keep.”

I can’t do this without you.

“I don’t want to fail another child,” said Giles unsteadily.

He saw it, then—the moment of comprehension in Jenny’s eyes. Quietly, she said, “You told me that you want to be a part of his life.”

“I-I—”

“You said that to me. Take away the qualifiers and the what-ifs and the I’m-a-horrible-person idiocy that you use to distance yourself from absolutely everybody, because it’s not gonna work on me. You said that you want to be a part of your son’s life.”

Giles opened his mouth and found himself almost too terrified to speak.

“So if you want it,” said Jenny, “you need to take it."

From the Journal of Rupert Giles

What I want has never been a priority in my life.

I know what I am supposed to be. I know that the Watcher I am has no place in this new world, and perhaps didn’t fit very well into the old Council either. I know that if I look at my life through the lens of what I was raised to do, what I was meant to be—I have succeeded. Certainly not in a very traditional way, but the goal of a Watcher is to prolong their Slayer’s lifespan, to eradicate as much evil as possible, and to efficiently devote their life to training and guiding their Slayer until their Slayer is dead. The old Council would never have conceived of a situation such as Buffy’s, and time with Buffy has made it clear that approaching her from a Council-oriented mindset could not be half as efficient as the support I have provided her as a Watcher.

And yet Jenny tells me to take what I want. Jenny told me as much years ago, without saying a word.

The way I felt when I

She was

She is still so beautiful, and

This is asinine. She acts as though it’s so simple, to know what I want, to pursue it with aplomb. My desires are selfish things; I want to be respected, needed, integral to something, even when I have absolutely nothing to offer the rest of the world. I have done what I can for my Slayer. There is not much else that the world needs from me.

I want to love

I want to be a better father than

I remember what I wanted—what I dared to want—when Jenny was in my life, all those years ago. I remember so distinctly that night when I cooked dinner for her—we curled up on the sofa, after, and I talked about some book I’d been sent by a Council friend, and she listened all the way through. After she left my life…I don’t know what it was about her, about us, but I have never met someone so enraptured by me as Jenny. There have been dalliances, of course, but she took such genuine pleasure in my company.

She is so different from the woman I remember. One moment she’s a blazing forest fire and the next she’s a timorous field mouse. I can’t understand why she is so angry, and I understand her fear even less. She is the one who left, after all.

Chapter Text

“If you’re about to ask me whether Jenny has left you any kind of message, you should know the answer by now,” said Anya before Giles could even open his mouth. “It is still no. I told you, if she calls the office when you’re not in, I will immediately text you. And do you know why I will immediately text you?”

“Because I asked you to seven different times in the last week and a half,” said Giles wearily.

“Because you asked me to seven different times in the last week and a half.” Despite her snippy tone, Anya was looking at Giles with unhidden sympathy. “She’s going to call you back, you know. Give her time.”

“You don’t know Jenny like I do,” said Giles.

“See, we have had this conversation,” Anya informed him. “Multiple times. You say that I don’t know Jenny like you know her, I ask you what Jenny is like if she’s not gonna call you back, you say that she’s stubborn and she takes a long time to do things that she doesn’t want to do, I remind you that it’s not like she doesn’t want you to be a part of Art’s life—”

“And you’re sure she didn’t leave her number?”

In response, Anya tipped her chair back, staring exasperatedly up at the ceiling. “Wesley’s coming for lunch today,” she said, “and when he is here, you’d better goddamn believe that I’m gonna ask him if his office has room for my department.”

“Anya, you’re my secretary.”

“Yes, as a professional courtesy to you and to make sure you don’t die of loneliness! Technically speaking, I work as the official magical-ingredient supplier for the Council, which is a one-person department and which is also why I get to choose what my own salary is.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Usually I just ballpark it. Wesley’s too scared of me to argue about signing off on pay raises.”

“You—that—honestly, at this point, I don’t know why I’m surprised,” said Giles tiredly, heading into his office.

There were zero new messages on his answering machine. He was half tempted to check his email, but the thought of Jenny Calendar attempting to contact him through email was so laughably far-fetched that he didn’t think it worth borrowing Anya’s computer to investigate. She was quite protective of the thing—had been, ever since he somehow managed to “blue-screen” the ridiculous contraption.

Giles sat down in his office, staring somewhat blankly at the now much larger stack of papers that he had not yet gotten around to sorting. Generally, he was decently good at keeping track of all the forms to be filed, signed, and/or organized, but over the course of the last week and a half, it had become quite impossible to think about anything other than…well. Roses, and a little boy clinging tearfully to his middle, and Nora Kovacs shaking his hand with that terribly sad smile. Jenny crying in the hallway as though her heart was breaking—flinching away from his kindness, drawing closer only when she saw signs of reticence and frustration.

Was he supposed to pretend at aloofness and disinterest? Act as though he didn’t want Art in his life? Yet when he had said as much, Jenny had been reduced to tears. He had absolutely no idea what she wanted from him, and that fact terrified him. There would be no way to prove himself to her, to Art, if he couldn’t fathom what—if anything—was to be done to bridge the seven-year gap between them.

Closing his eyes, Giles tried to bring to mind the face of a boy he had known for only a few fragmented days. It was perhaps his determined concentration that made him entirely miss the startled gasp from the waiting area outside his office—but he was jerked back to earth when he heard Anya say, with shaky relief, “Jenny! Oh, Giles has been so worried, I’m so glad you came back! He hasn’t gotten any work done in the last week and a half—”

Scrambling to his feet, Giles yanked the door open. He had meant to at least stammer out something to distract Jenny from Anya’s embarrassing truths, but the rush of dizzying warmth he felt upon seeing Jenny knocked him thoroughly off balance. Stop that, he told himself sternly, and wasn’t sure how well it worked. “…Jenny,” he said, smiling weakly. “Would you like to step into my office?”

Jenny, however, looked mortified. “Have you just been worrying about whether I’d let you see Art this whole week?” she said, sounding absolutely horrified by the prospect.

Too startled to mince words, Giles said, “W-wasn’t that your intention?”

A slow blush spread across Jenny’s face, her eyes very wide. “Uh,” she said. “Yes?” Wincing a little, she tried again. “Yes. Yes. Yeah, I was—I was, uh, testing you! To see if—”

“You are a genuinely terrible liar, you know,” said Anya matter-of-factly, giving Giles an encouraging smile when he turned reproachful eyes on her. “She is! But that’s a good thing, right? Whatever reason she does have for leaving you hanging for basically two weeks—”

“—would you like to step into my office?” said Giles again.

“…yeah,” said Jenny gratefully, giving Anya an awkward little wave before following Giles into the secluded privacy of his office.

Once she had shut the door, Giles said slowly, “So, ah, why did—um, y-you didn’t leave your number with Anya, like you said you would. I-I-I assumed you’d had some second thoughts, or—”

Jenny was beginning to look extremely embarrassed. “Yeah, uh, in my haste to not cry in front of you—which I apparently did not do a great job of—I completely forgot to give Anya my number,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you call again? I could have—”

Jenny groaned. “Do I have to tell you this?”

“Um, n-no, but—” Giles stopped. There was something strangely familiar about the way Jenny was holding herself—a kind of petulant frustration that wasn’t directed at him.

Slowly, and without looking at him, Jenny said, “See, I was still really, really upset when I left, so a lot of our meeting was a total blur to me. I just assumed that I must have left my number with Anya and forgotten about it, and I figured you would call me if you wanted to know about Art.”

Alarmed, Giles said, “But you didn’t—”

“Yeah,” said Jenny flatly. “Well aware of that, Rupert.”

“A-and then—” Giles was beginning to put the pieces together. “This week and a half—” Damn. Now was not the time to laugh. “You’ve been waiting for me to call you?”

Jenny turned her gaze to the ceiling, her blush deepening, and did not respond.

Oh, she hadn’t changed a bit, Giles thought, and felt a strange and lovely feeling that he was startled to label as delight. “Well,” he said, warmly enough that Jenny did look at him with an entirely startled expression, “I’m certainly glad you made your way here eventually. I-I won’t lie, I was a bit…” He laughed unsteadily. “I, I’ve had a lot of time to think in your absence—which I now realize was not your intention, though at the time I thought it was perhaps a motivating factor—”

“You thought I wasn’t calling you back in some passive-aggressive attempt to get you to think more about what you were doing?” After a moment of consideration, Jenny frowned thoughtfully. “That…does actually sound a lot like me. Fair point.”

Giles smiled.

“You look pretty happy for a guy whose psycho ex just admitted she’s not above playing weird mind games,” said Jenny archly.

It was all but impossible to lie to Jenny. It might have been easier nearly a decade ago, but he simply couldn’t now. “Jenny, I’m glad to see you,” said Giles simply.

This seemed to knock Jenny off balance. “Oh,” she said unsteadily.

“And I…” This was the terrifying part. “You’re right,” said Giles, his heart pounding. “If I want to be a part of Art’s life, i-it’s my responsibility to own up to that. And I do. Want to be a part of his life, that is. I don’t—know—what that would look like, but—do leave your number, this time, so that we can work it out.”

Jenny swallowed hard. Tears were welling in her eyes.

“Jenny,” said Giles with no small amount of worry. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Mm-mm, no!” said Jenny hastily, shaking her head frantically. She brought a hand up to her face, shakily wiping away her tears. “I just—I, I’ve always—” She drew in a breath, cutting herself off. “Um, I’m really, really glad to hear that,” she said unsteadily. “Art’s gonna be so happy. He really loves you.”

“I did gather that.” Giles hesitated. “Do you—want to have this conversation now, or—?”

“Yeah! Now is fine.” Sniffling, Jenny moved forward to sit down at Giles’s desk. Giles, realizing that she had taken his seat, floundered for a moment before sitting down on the sofa adjacent to his desk. “So, I…I mean, do you want…” She took a steadying breath, then stopped talking entirely, looking somewhat expectantly at Giles.

“Jenny, these are your terms to set,” said Giles immediately. “I’ve not been involved in Art’s life at all. You more than anyone would know how best to—” He smiled shakily. “H-how to i-integrate his father into his life.”

Jenny looked a little overwhelmed. “To be totally straight with you, Rupert, I have no idea where to start,” she finally said. “I don’t love the idea of introducing him to a parent who lives so far away from him. It’s not like I can just fly him over on weekends—”

“I could,” said Giles. At Jenny’s immediately disapproving expression, he hastened to elaborate, “N-no, I don’t mean—I wouldn’t want to put your seven-year-old on a plane, I just—I could fly out and visit. I have a fairly significant disposable income and quite a lot of inherited wealth, a-and it really has just been sitting there not doing much. I’m not one for extravagance.” Something else occurred to him. “This is a separate conversation, of course, but if you’d like any kind of monetary child support—retroactive and current, of course—”

“Rupert, oh my god, slow down!” Jenny now looked entirely overwhelmed. “You haven’t even asked for a paternity test and you’re willing to spend your inheritance on some kid you met for two seconds in a park one time?”

“Technically speaking—” Jenny leveled a pointed look at him before he could finish. Giles winced. “Am I…coming on too strong?”

“It’s just a little…fast. And we haven’t seen each other in years.” Jenny seemed somewhat conflicted. “I don’t want you throwing a whole bunch of money away—”

“Jenny, is he my son?”

Jenny swallowed. Tentatively, she said, “I just…I feel like you should put up a little more resistance to the concept. If he wasn’t your son—”

“Is he?”

“That’s not what’s important.”

“It’s the very premise that this conversation is built upon,” said Giles, who was beginning to feel a twinge of extremely familiar irritation. “It seems the most important aspect of our discussion if it’s to go any further. Despite making it clear to me in all of our previous interactions that I have no reason to believe otherwise, you have for some unfathomable reason introduced the possibility that he might not be my son, so is he my son?”

Jenny stared at him for a long moment. It took her quite a while to respond. “I didn’t think you’d be so ready to believe me,” she said softly. “I thought I could—I don’t know, hide it somehow, if we ever met again. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want him, and—” She let out a sobbing laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, of course he is.”

Bemused, Giles said, “And why on earth wouldn’t I believe you?”

Jenny gave him a disbelieving look. Slowly, she said, “Rupert, have you forgotten the way things ended between us? You have a lot of reasons not to trust me.”

That felt entirely out of left field. “What could you possibly have gained from such a ridiculous masquerade?” said Giles incredulously. “You were frightened, defensive—you clearly hadn’t planned any part of what happened. I only wish that I had handled things better than I did.”

“I’m not talking about the rose garden,” said Jenny testily. “I’m talking about—”

“—Sunnydale,” said Giles quietly. “So am I.”

He had pushed too far. Jenny stilled, then said very stiffly, “You don’t have to make me sound better than I was back then.”

“No, I—”

“I’m not trying to appeal to your chivalrous side. I’m just saying—” Jenny exhaled through her teeth, all but glaring at the desk. “I think you should be a little more judicious when it comes to your time and your money. Get a paternity test going before you start talking about giving me child support money.”

“You’re saying that your word shouldn’t be enough for me to believe you?”

“I’m saying that after you broke things off with me seven years ago because I lied to you, it makes no sense for you to immediately decide that this has to be your son!”

Christ, she was fucking impossible to talk to. “Do you want me to ask for a paternity test?” Giles said exasperatedly. “I’ll do it if it makes you feel better—”

“Yes!” Jenny snapped. “It would! Look, it’s one thing if you want to spend some time with him, but you’re talking about giving money to some random lady you haven’t seen in seven years! What if some kid you’d never met showed up at your door, said he was yours? Would you just write him a blank check to cover all the years you missed?”

“Of course I wouldn’t—”

“Then why are you doing that with me?”

“Because—” Giles’s chest seized. “You’re—it’s—it’s you, Jenny, that’s different—”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Jenny shot back derisively.

“Jenny—”

“I don’t want you giving your inheritance to someone you haven’t seen in years just because they say they’re the mother of your child!” Jenny exploded. “That’s so fiscally irresponsible and it could land you in a world of debt! What if I asked you for a million dollars, huh? Would you say yes to that? What if I told you that I actually had twins and needed double the money—”

“Do you?” said Giles, his heart jumping.

“Of course I don’t! What is wrong with you?”

“I wouldn’t do this for anyone who wandered into my life, Jenny.” Giles knew he was pushing the envelope—knew there was a chance that this could trigger yet another argument—but this felt too important not to say. “Our time together—”

“Don’t.”

“—when you were with me—”

“Don’t. I am not fucking around, Rupert.”

“—I was happy, Jenny, in a way that I never was before and never have been again—”

“Okay, you know what, FINE!” said Jenny very loudly. “Fine, you—you don’t have to take a paternity test, I won’t ask you to take a paternity test, you can just give me all of your stupid English blood money and I’ll buy Art like ninety PlayStations or something, just stop talking about Sunnydale!”

Disbelievingly, Giles said, “You know, I don’t think most women would fight tooth and nail not to get child support.”

“Yeah, well, you know I’m not most women,” said Jenny snippily, slouching back against the sofa in a rather juvenile way that reminded Giles a bit of Faith.

Giles wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that without somehow starting another argument. He settled instead for changing the subject. “In terms of what being Art’s father looks like,” he said carefully, “what do you envision? I’ve been absent for the first seven years of his life—”

“He’s turning eight in September,” Jenny corrected him.

“Eight in Sep—” Doing some quick mental math, Giles had to bite back the impulse to say, incredulously, and you were trying to get me to believe that he could be anyone’s but mine? “Right. The first eight years, then, which only further proves my point—I don’t want to unintentionally, um, undermine any of your own parenting efforts by being—what was it you called me?”

“A fun summer dad.” Jenny was looking at him a bit warily.

“Yes. That. I, I want to be there for—” Giles stopped himself, just in time, from saying for you. “I want to be there for him,” he said with firm relief. “In whatever capacity you see fit. You say you don’t want me with one foot out the door—what does both feet in look like for you?”

Jenny’s eyes were fixed on a point directly ahead of her. Without turning to look at Giles, she said somewhat flatly, “Honestly, Rupert, I don’t think you’re capable of the stuff I have in mind.”

Giles was startled to find the sting of Jenny’s dismissal lessened by a rush of exasperation. “Jenny. That isn’t an answer.”

Jenny stiffened, pressing herself against the arm of the sofa. She seemed to be trying to create as much distance between them as possible. “Well—that—”

“If you don’t want to tell me what you want from me, I don’t see how this can progress.” Giles couldn’t keep the plaintive note from his voice. “I want to see Art, Jenny, but I cannot possibly feel comfortable doing it if I know I may be upsetting his pre-existing family dynamic. Upsetting his mother.”

A strange, miserable fury flashed across Jenny’s face. “Fine!” she burst out. “You know what, you asked, so I’ll tell you—I want Art to have a father. I want Art’s dad to show up for birthdays and holidays and weekends and call him every day he’s not there. I want Art to never once doubt that his father loves him with every goddamn fiber of his being. I want Art to grow up loved, like—” She stopped, pressing her lips together. “I want Art to be first in his father’s life,” she said, her voice shaking.

Oh, that hurt. “And you think I’m not capable of that?” said Giles unsteadily.

Jenny squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She didn’t say anything at all.

“Jenny, i-if you think that I wouldn’t love my son—”

“I’m sorry,” Jenny forced out. “That—that’s not what I mean. It’s—” She buried her face in her hands. “God, he wasn’t able to shut up about how sweet you were with him. I know you care a lot about him. I know you. I just—”

“I’d happily make Art a priority.”

“Rupert, you already have a child to think about!”

The statement was entirely bewildering. Giles stared at Jenny for a handful of seconds, waiting for her to explain herself, but she met his gaze with a sort of blazing fury that implied he should already know what she was referencing. “I’m sorry, what?” he finally said. “Y-you think—Jenny, the only child that I know I have is Art.”

“Don’t get all literal on me now,” said Jenny disbelievingly. “There’s no way you don’t know what I’m talking about here.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Giles, who was now deeply confused. “Why on earth would you think I’ve another child to think about besides my son?”

Now it was Jenny’s turn to look bewildered. “What, have you just stopped talking to Buffy?”

This was the very last thing that Giles had been expecting her to say. Jenny had known them so long ago—Buffy young and fiercely optimistic, Giles fumbling to keep the Watcher-Slayer distance intact even as the two of them drifted ever closer. Buffy had confided in him without hesitation, back then. He had always assumed that Jenny had seen Buffy as a necessary responsibility. He had always assumed that Jenny had seen Buffy as his student. He had never thought that Jenny had seen Buffy as his daughter.

Jenny’s immediate acquiescence in response to Buffy’s vindictive anger had now taken on a newly painful dimension.

“Yes,” said Giles, quiet and hollow. “Buffy and I…aren’t on the terms that you remember.”

“I mean, regardless of how well my memory works, I think my point still stands,” said Jenny with bemusement. “Buffy sees you as a dad.”

“You remember her at sixteen.” Now it was Giles’s turn to look away. “Things are different now.”

He wasn’t quite sure how he was expecting Jenny to react—

“Oh, come on!”

Startled by the vehemence to her tone, Giles looked back at Jenny—then stared at Jenny. Her miserable anger had given way to a terrifyingly familiar exasperation—one that tugged at something old and long-buried in his heart. “Jenny—”

“No! You do not get to talk when you are being an idiot of epic proportions.” Picking herself up from the sofa, Jenny strode over to the opposite side of the room, plucking down one of the few photos adorning Giles’s walls. She turned expectantly around, holding it up to him. “When was this taken?”

“Jenny, you don’t know anything about—”

“Shut up and answer my question. When was this taken?”

“…three years ago,” said Giles. “But—”

“Again, Rupert, you do not get to talk. This was taken three years ago. You were taking cute little Disneyland photos with Buffy and the crew three years ago.”

“That is plainly Knott’s Berry Farm,” muttered Giles.

“Really. That is your argument. That this picture is of Knott’s Berry Farm instead of Disneyland. So, what, you take family to Disneyland and workplace associates to Knott’s Berry Farm? Is that how that works?”

“You’re missing years of context, Jenny, you can’t just assume—”

“I am not assuming a damn thing.” Jenny’s eyes were flashing. “Girls without dads don’t just jump from father figure to father figure, Rupert, they find one and they latch on until the guy is dead. If you’ve been in Buffy’s life long enough for you to be in cutesy amusement park photos with her family that you hang in your office, there is no way she does not think of you as some kind of father to her.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this—”

“Why? ‘Cause you know I’m right?”

“Because you are so woefully underinformed about the situation at hand that your opinion isn’t worth listening to anyway!”

“Oh my god, you are still the same snob you were eight years ago! How is that even possible?” Jenny shoved the photo into Giles’s hands, glaring furiously at him. “You know what, if Buffy’s so not your daughter, then you shouldn’t have any problem telling her about Art!”

“I’d be happy to tell anyone about Art!” snarled Giles, taking a step forward.

“Fine! Then tell her!” Jenny took another step forward, placing them toe-to-toe.

“Fine! I will!”

They were close enough that, if Giles moved forward half an inch, they would be touching—yet somehow the distance between them still felt unfathomable. Jenny was looking at him with unbridled rage; Giles was feeling a mixture of fury and confusing, half-buried hurt. If he moved just half an inch closer—

Jenny stepped back, breathing hard, her eyes still fixed on his. Tightly, she said, “Tell Buffy about Art. I’m not gonna let you see him until you do.”

Giles stared at her. “What? Jenny, you can’t be serious—”

“If you’re serious about your son, there shouldn’t be any problem with you telling people about him,” Jenny shot back. “And maybe you don’t think Buffy sees you as a dad, but if she does—” She drew in a shaking breath. The anger in her eyes faded, just a bit. “She deserves to know about Art,” she said. “I want her to know about Art. I wouldn’t feel right having you in Art’s life with the knowledge that something so important is being kept from Buffy. I’ve done that before. I don’t want to do it again.”

“You seemed perfectly fine not telling anyone about him for eight years—”

“That’s different. No one knew then. If she finds out that you knew now and kept it from her…” Jenny trailed off, wringing her hands. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I am woefully underinformed. Maybe there is a rift between you and Buffy and she doesn’t see you as a dad at all. But Rupert, the girl I remember would be so hurt by the fact that you’re even considering keeping such a huge secret from her.”

Giles couldn’t come up with anything to say to that.

“Tell Buffy about Art,” said Jenny again.

“And if I do?” said Giles. “Will you let me see him?”

Jenny let out a disbelieving half-laugh. “Yeah, sure. If you tell her, I’ll let you see him.”

[Transcript: July 4th, 2006, 19:34]

BUFFY: …Giles?

GILES: Buffy, yes, it’s, it’s me. I have some news, I [laughs] I suppose it’s better told in person, but if—

BUFFY: Is everything okay? You don’t exactly make calling a habit.

GILES: It’s a complicated situation. You see—

BUFFY: Would it be better if I was there?

GILES: I don’t want you to go out of your way to—

BUFFY: Look, just answer the question. Would this be a better conversation to have face-to-face? If whatever’s happened is big enough to warrant an actual call from you, there’s clearly something pretty significant going on.

GILES: Buffy, I’m sorry.

BUFFY: What? [laughs] Oh my god, no, you—no, no, don’t think I’m trying to guilt you or anything. Please don’t think that. I just mean that you’re not exactly Mr. Reachable these days, and usually you get Anya to call one of us if there’s something that you think needs our attention, and look, I can fly out! I can totally fly out. My schedule is completely free right now and we haven’t seen each other since Xander and Sonia’s housewarming party last year. Do you want to have this convo in person? Would you be okay with that?

GILES: Yes, that…[sighs] I would feel better about telling you this news with you physically here and in front of me. Over the phone seems…horribly impersonal, given the circumstances.

BUFFY: Of course! Okay! I should totally get on booking a plane ticket, I think I can make it over by tomorrow—

GILES: Could you? Time is of the essence.

BUFFY: God. Yeah. Yeah, of course, Giles.

Chapter Text

Even in the middle of the day, Heathrow was bustling with activity—people holding signs, waving their hands, doing everything in their power to draw attention to themselves so that their returning traveler would find them amidst the crowds. As Buffy’s plane landed, Giles thought he might be the only one trying to blend into the mix. He hadn’t seen her in years, and now, after a brief phone call a little over twelve hours ago, she had rushed across the ocean at his request. Never had he expected her to be willing to do something like this. If she had asked this of him—

She did ask this of you. She needed you in Sunnydale, and what did you do?

The right thing, Giles told himself. Years ago, it had sounded steadfast in its certainty; now, all it sounded was hollow and empty. The right thing had left him with an ocean between himself and his Slayer, even when they were in the same room together. The right thing had felt very startlingly like running away—from the look in Buffy’s eyes, the tremor to her voice, the overpowering desire to throw time and love and money in her direction until her smile was bright and blazing again.

Giles swallowed and trained his eyes towards the escalator. A squabbling family with a gaggle of children—a worn-looking businessman checking his wristwatch—

There. A young woman in her mid-twenties, chin-length honey-blonde hair falling to loosely frame her face. Dark sunglasses to hide her eyes—she was never very good with long flights, and hated the dark circles left by her sleepless, restless attempts to nap on the plane. She looked just as tense and nervous as Giles felt. Older than he remembered. But it had been over a year since he had last seen her, after all.

“Buffy,” he said softly. He couldn’t bring himself to shout.

Buffy’s Slayer hearing picked him up anyway. She took the last few escalator steps at a run, tugging her carry-on luggage behind her. “Giles,” she said, and half-lurched forward, then froze, settling for a brief, awkward pat on his shoulder before stepping back. Giles realized with a small jolt that she had wanted to hug him. “You—it’s—” Pushing her sunglasses up to get a better look at him, she pressed her lips together, then nodded a little tightly. “You said you had news for me, right?”

Ah. Right to business. “Yes, I-I suppose I shouldn’t take up too much of your time,” said Giles immediately.

“No, it’s not—” Buffy looked quite upset. “Um. I mean. I don’t have a lot going on right now, I thought—” She shook her head. “Never mind. Yeah. Uh, maybe not in the middle of an airport, though, right?”

“Anya can drive us somewhere,” Giles suggested.

Buffy stared at him. “Anya? Oh—oh, right, she works with you now. Did she drive you here?”

“I think it was a mixture of professional courtesy and professional nosiness,” said Giles dryly, gratified to see that that earned a snicker from Buffy. Feeling a bit guilty, he added, “Though she really is a trusted colleague and an incredibly exceptional worker, of course.”

“Of course,” Buffy agreed gamely. “So, what, we head out to the car, Anya drops us off somewhere a little less busy, you tell me—” Her smile trembled. “Whatever it is that you wanted to make sure you had me in front of you to tell me. You know you could’ve just teleported over or something, right?”

Giles hesitated. “I’m, ah,” his thoughts drifted to Art and Jenny, “not quite up to leaving England at the moment.”

Buffy was no longer smiling. “No surprises there,” she said quietly.

It didn’t seem as though her comment had been intended for him to respond to, so Giles let it lie. Now didn’t feel like starting old arguments, especially not when—his stomach turned—it was entirely likely that the news he would soon be sharing with Buffy would upset her in a completely new way. Considering Buffy and Jenny’s history, not to mention the way things had ended between Giles and Jenny…well. Giles couldn’t imagine Buffy happy about the fact that Jenny had hidden his child from him.

It would be best, he decided, to focus his diplomatic energy on that. Motioning for Buffy to follow, Giles began to walk her towards the parking lot, casting around in his head for potential topics of conversation. “So, um, how’s…” Damn, he couldn’t remember who she was dating. Was she dating anyone? He had heard that she was living with one of the Scoobies for a time, and that it was a relatively serious situation—

Buffy gave him a wry little look, as though she could tell he was already spinning out in his head. Some part of him felt strangely warmed by that—that even with years between them, they still had that. “Dawn and Tara are fine,” she said. “Dawn’s been doing great in college. She just declared her major, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. History. I think she says she wants to see if she can utilize that as a Watcher, but she’s keeping her options open.” There was a touch of maternal pride to Buffy’s voice. “She says there’s always a chance she goes into education instead.”

“That’s…” Education. High school education. Computer science. God, everything was making him think of Jenny. Jenny, one of the two subjects that would dominate Buffy and Giles’s impending and almost certainly relationship-ruining conversation. Not that he and Buffy had much left to wreck these days. “Certainly a noble pursuit,” Giles finished lamely.

Buffy stopped walking to give Giles a wry look. “You are so twitchy right now,” she said. “Calm down, okay? We still have…I don’t know, however long it takes to get us to the car and somewhere private, ‘cause I am not having a big life-changing conversation in front of Anya of all people.”

Giles might have jumped more easily to Anya’s defense had she not successfully kidnapped him from his office a handful of weeks ago—and lord, it felt like it had been so much longer since that tense, terse ride in her convertible. So much had changed. So much still would. “I shall endeavor to remain cool-headed,” he said weakly. “I’m sure you’ll understand when I explain the situation in more detail.”

Buffy’s small smile trembled. “Yeah. I’m sure I will.”

Giles and Buffy were both surprised to find that Anya was not quite as willing to fill the car with endless, grating chatter. She gave Buffy a small smile and a warm greeting, but turned on the radio, landing on some mournful little ditty that didn’t seem much like her usual peppy pop romanticism. Gray, quiet and tired and mean, picking at a worried seam—

Buffy, who Giles had graciously allowed the passenger seat, kept on stealing looks at him as the song wound on. Though the dark sunglasses hid her eyes from view, she didn’t seem accusing or frustrated, or even exasperatedly inquisitive in the way he had expected after such an unclear phone call. But he hadn’t expected her to cross the ocean, either.

The road gets cold, there’s no spring in the meadow this year—

Buffy turned her attention to the road ahead, leaving Giles to stare at the back of her head. She’d kept her hair long when she was younger, he thought, and wondered what had prompted her to cut it shorter than he had ever seen it. Short as Jenny’s when they had met, all those years ago.

Anya drove them to a nearby park. It was, thankfully, a relatively short drive. “I figured it might do you good to stretch your legs,” she said to Buffy, surprising a warm smile from Buffy in response. “Cooped up on that plane for as long as you were, and all that.”

“Thanks, Anya,” said Buffy, leaning in to give a surprised Anya a brief, gentle shoulder hug. Getting out of the car, Giles got the door for her; she gave him a small, grateful little grin. “You know I’m not exactly the kinda lady who needs doors open for her,” she joked, a tremor to her voice.

Giles was beginning to think that Buffy was a bit more upset than she was letting on. “Buffy—”

“Oh, don’t start the conversation while I’m still here!” said Anya hastily, leaning across the passenger seat to try and tug the car door shut. Obligingly, Buffy nudged it closed with her hip. “Thank you. I’m going to go drive in circles seeing if I can attract a hot, single British gentleman. Call me when the two of you are done.”

“Bloody single minded woman,” said Giles with amused disbelief, watching Anya’s convertible peel away. Turning to face Buffy, he saw with a small pang that she was holding herself with familiar rigidity. Even with those damned glasses hiding her eyes, it was abundantly clear that she was very affected. “Buffy—ah, actually, let’s walk and talk. I do think Anya has a point about stretching your legs.”

Buffy nodded tightly, falling into step with him. “Sunny out,” she said thinly, hugging her elbows to her chest.

“Quite.” Giles dared another look at Buffy, rather lost for words. He’d written up the salient points on a handful of notecards, but speeches with Buffy rarely stayed on script.

“Buffy, I…” Best to bite the bullet. “I found out a few weeks ago that I have a child. A son.”

Buffy stopped mid-step. Slowly, she turned to face him. God, he wished he could see her eyes. “A son?” she echoed, a strange, shaky note to her voice.

“A son,” Giles echoed.

“How old?”

“Seven.” Giles winced, then corrected himself. “Eight in September.”

“Eight in—” He could easily pinpoint the exact moment that Buffy figured it out. Pushing her dark sunglasses up onto her forehead in one smooth motion, she stared at him with wide, wordless sea-green eyes. She didn’t say anything at all.

Giles found it suddenly very hard to look at her. Turning to stare at a point on the horizon, he said in a quiet, shaking voice, “I, I’m sure you came to the obvious conclusion regarding…his mother.”

A weak laugh. “Could it be anybody else?”

Rattled, Giles said, “I would never—”

“—no, no, that’s what I mean. You were crazy over Ms. Calendar eight years ago. You would never.” Buffy let out a shaky laugh. “So it’s—so you’ve got a son. Cool. Okay.” Another laugh, this one sounding more like a sob. “A-and you called me to tell me ‘cause it’s really big and you wouldn’t want to tell me over the phone. About your son. Your son.”

Startled by the lack of any anger to Buffy’s words, Giles dared a look at her—and was shocked to see that she was smiling. Though tears were beginning to fall down her face hard and fast, her eyes were locked hungrily on his, her fingers pressed to her mouth and half-obscuring her blindingly bright grin. “Buffy, are you quite all right?” he said nervously. “I had thought—I mean, you and Jenny weren’t exactly—”

“Jesus, Giles, I thought you were gonna tell me you were about to die!” Buffy burst out, letting out another sobbing laugh. “I thought you had contracted some, some weird mystical disease and you didn’t wanna tell me over the phone ‘cause that was too impersonal! Or maybe it wasn’t even—I mean, my mom, she had—” She was beginning to really cry. “Oh my god, who even cares, you have a son with Ms. Calendar, whatever, I’m so so glad you’re not—”

“Oh, Buffy,” said Giles, his voice breaking. Before he could stop himself, he moved forward, enfolding her tightly in his arms.

Perhaps it was that he was still thinking about Art—that son he was still terrified Jenny would change her mind about and spirit away to parts unknown. That son he had hugged for half a second, a stolen moment that had really been more accidental and compassionate than anything. Perhaps it was that feeling of loss and terrible sadness—years wasted thanks to inattention and obliviousness—that had him drawing Buffy close as she sobbed. He was startled by how small she was in his arms—how strong her grip was on the front of his shirt. Hard enough to bruise. They had so rarely been close like this.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Buffy sobbed. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Giles.”

Giles closed his eyes hard, tears spilling down his own cheeks in a brutally quick sort of way. “Dear child,” he whispered. “What on earth do you have to be sorry for? I was never—” Never the father you needed, he thought, but—that wasn’t this. Couldn’t be. She had been a lonely little girl seeking some kind of stability. She was a grown woman now, with no need for—

“I’m sorry,” Buffy wept. She didn’t seem able to stop apologizing.

“Shh. It’s all right.”

“It’s not! This is—we don’t talk and I miss you I miss you but you’ll go away again if I say it you’ll go away—”

Giles tangled a hand in Buffy’s hair. His chest hurt. He wanted better words than the ones that he knew—the perfect words, the ones that would soothe Buffy’s tears and stop her from shaking. Years and years ago, he had hated himself so profoundly for wanting that when the fate of the world hung in the balance. But if he had known that one day the burden of the world wouldn’t be on Buffy’s shoulders alone—

If he had known—

Would he have been a father to her?

“I’m sorry.” The words stilled Buffy’s tears. “I have wanted to bridge the gap between us for…so long, Buffy. I didn’t want to cause you more pain than I already have. I thought you would—” Giles floundered. “I assumed that, that given our history, you would prefer me staying at a distance.”

Slowly, Buffy raised her head, staring disbelievingly at him. “Giles, have you ever even read our history?” she said shakily. “Pretty much chapters one through seven are all Buffy Asks Giles To Stay, Even When Giles Does Really, Really Fucked Up Stuff.” She sniffled. “I didn’t know how to say I loved you when I was a kid,” she said. “I was afraid that if I said it, you’d freak, ‘cause you’re supposed to be my Watcher, not my—” She swallowed hard and didn’t finish her sentence. “So I just kept telling you that I could never lose you. How do you get me not wanting you around from stuff like that?”

“It’s been years—”

“Yeah, it has.” Buffy stepped back, rubbing awkwardly at her nose.

Carefully, Giles tugged out a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing gently at Buffy’s eyes and nose. She stared at him with the same bright, breathless expression that she’d had—Christ, years ago, right after the Cruciamentum. Had she been hurting like that all this time? Hurting, and getting better at hiding it? He felt a strange, half-repressed rush of paternal emotion—anger at himself for missing this, horror and sadness that Buffy had been in pain and he had ignored it.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

Buffy leaned forward and into his touch, closing her eyes when the side of his hand brushed her cheek. She smiled—a sweet, tremulous thing—and said, softly, “I’m just really glad you’re okay. It’s—the whole son thing, I’m probably gonna have to process it when I’m a little less jet-lagged and emotional, you know? I’m just really glad you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry for that, then. I didn’t mean to make you think—” Giles winced. “Well. I suppose after years of only phone calls, you’d have reason to jump to conclusions.”

“And you are getting up there in years,” said Buffy with a wicked little grin.

“Oh, don’t,” said Giles indignantly, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at Buffy’s wobbly, triumphant laugh. Still a bit dizzy with emotion, he leaned in to pull her into an awkward shoulder hug, and was a bit startled when Buffy responded by nestling herself securely into his side. “Buffy,” he said very softly, feeling a rush of terrifying warmth.

“You are!” Buffy was pressing her cheek against his chest in a squirmy, playful way that reminded Giles a bit of Art. “Anya says you still haven’t retired even though you’re working the most annoyingly boring Council position ever! You should retire, Giles, you should enjoy—” She perked up, grinning hugely. “You’re a father now,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean you gotta retire and take some time off to be with your family?”

“That—you—” It was taking everything in Giles not to laugh. “Buffy. Do not weaponize my son to try and manipulate me into—”

“Into what?” Buffy batted her lashes innocently. “Relaxing?”

He did laugh, then, and—perhaps he wasn’t quite at the place where he could pull her closer, but he found himself surprised by the fact that he could now admit he wanted to.

The drive to Giles’s apartment was still a rather quiet affair, but the silence had shifted to something more intimate. Buffy was smiling very softly as she leaned back in her seat, her sunglasses tucked safely away in the glove compartment. Eyes shut, shoulders relaxed, she looked so much more settled than he’d ever seen her.

It was only upon their arrival at the apartment that the silence was broken—companionable mutterings of “here you go” and “there you are” as Giles helped Buffy and her luggage out of the convertible. Anya, who appeared to have arbitrarily decided that she had done quite enough helping for the day, donned Buffy’s sunglasses and busied herself with applying lipstick in the rearview mirror.

“She really doesn’t change,” said Buffy affectionately, shutting the trunk and strolling over to Giles.

“So—will you need to head back now that you have the news? Or—” Giles floundered. “I-I don’t mean to insinuate that you need to go, of course, this was a long flight and I do appreciate you coming—”

“Jeez, Giles, you’re jumpier than a B-U-N-N-Y,” said Buffy with an incredulous laugh. (“I can still spell, Summers!” said Anya waspishly from the convertible.) “I’m taking a summer break, remember? I’ve got a good couple of months before it’s back to the grind again.”

“W-well—”

Buffy’s easy smile flickered. “Unless you don’t want me to stay?”

“Perish the very thought,” said Giles immediately. “I simply didn’t think you would want to, to spend summer with—”

“With my Watcher?” Buffy arched an eyebrow. “After he’s been dodging my calls and ignoring my emails for the last few years?”

Giles flushed. “Yes, well. Point taken. I—emails?”

To his surprise, Buffy went a bit pink. “Oh, you know. Boring memo stuff. Hey, do you think we can go to a mall tomorrow?”

Anya snickered. “Yeah, Rupert. Wanna go to a mall tomorrow?”

Giles gave Anya a sour look. To Buffy, he said, “Why on earth is a mall at the top of your itinerary?”

“Oh, I have no idea what’s in my carry-on,” said Buffy with a shrug. “I was way too freaked to pack like a normal person. I’m pretty sure I’ve only got two full outfits and no pajamas.”

Softly, Giles said, “You were that worried? Buffy, I’m so sorry. I would have told you the news on the phone if I had thought—”

“No, I’m—” Buffy sniffled, then smiled. “I’m glad. I feel like if I’d flown over and you’d told me that news after years of nothing, and I hadn’t known—what it felt like to realize that we didn’t have time to un-screw up everything between us—maybe I would have wasted a bunch of time being mad at you, or, or mad at Ms. Calendar, or really sad that some random kid gets to—” She stopped herself. “Well. You know what I mean.”

Giles didn’t, but something in his heart did. “His name is Art,” he said. “Short for Arthur.”

Buffy stared. “Ms. Calendar named her baby Arthur? Like the aardvark?”

“Arthur is a perfectly dignified name—”

“Yeah, but Ms. Calendar seems more like the kind of person who would name her baby, I don’t know, Joshua. Dylan.”

“Are you sure that those aren’t just taken from your list of baby names?”

“Ms. Calendar’s a woman of taste,” said Buffy with great dignity.

“Yes, I’m sure she is.” Giles picked up Buffy’s carry-on, giving Anya a small smile. “Thank you, Anya, for providing such stylish chauffeur services.”

“No problem!” Anya beamed. “I already used your credit card to buy some really sexy lingerie, so we can just call it even.”

“I’m sorry, you what?”

Anya hit the gas and the car tore away.

“The absolute exhaustion of dealing with that woman on a daily basis,” said Giles very loudly over Buffy’s hysterical laughter. “You cannot even begin to imagine the trials she has put me through.”

“Faith said she kidnapped you one time—”

“Ah, apparently news gets around,” said Giles exhaustedly, tugging Buffy’s carry-on along. “Come along. My guest room is exceptionally comfortable.”

“Oh—I can stay with you?”

Giles turned to stare at Buffy. “Where else on earth would you stay? Hotels are a ridiculous expense when I have more than enough space for a houseguest.”

Buffy stared at him for a long moment, then stepped forward, pulling him into a quiet and much less desperate hug. Softly, she said, “Am I okay to say I love you now?”

There was a lump in Giles’s throat large enough to very nearly prevent him from answering. “I, I think you are. Yes.”

“’Kay.” Buffy pressed her forehead against his chest. “I’m gonna tell you really soon.”

“So what’s he like?”

Giles, who had been chopping onions, stilled. “I’m sorry?”

“Your son!” Buffy leaned over the kitchen island to playfully bop his nose. (“Buffy, don’t do that while I’m holding a knife.”) “Arthur Calendar—”

“Arthur Cervenak,” Giles corrected her.

“…Cervenak?” Buffy’s brow furrowed. “What, did Ms. Calendar remarry?”

Giles’s stomach jumped. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Jenny might have some kind of significant other in the mix. She’d been with Nora and that fellow—Uncle Donovan, Art had said, so he must be married to Nora and not Jenny. But perhaps she had someone serious enough to bring round the family but not serious enough to go on family vacations—

“Oh, wow,” said Buffy with a soft laugh. She looked almost fond. “It’s still her, huh?”

Giles’s heart was pounding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said a bit too fast. It was patently absurd, anyway. Jenny had been nothing but belligerent, difficult, and utterly terrible through this entire process. It was a vestigial remnant of something long gone. It was nothing. It was less than nothing, it was—

“Arthur Cervenak,” Buffy echoed, trying it out. “Does he have a middle name?”

“…I don’t know,” said Giles quietly.

Buffy looked a little worried. “Do you—I mean, you guys have met, right?”

“Yes and no.” At Buffy’s bemused expression, Giles elaborated, “We, we met very briefly a handful of times, entirely by accident. I ended up running into Jenny when Art got lost in Hyde Park and I attempted to return him to his mother, a-and he and I haven’t been in contact since.”

Buffy exhaled. “God, that must have been hard for Ms. Calendar.”

That wasn’t at all the reaction that Giles had been expecting. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she left Sunnydale around the time she probably found out she was pregnant, right?” Buffy tugged the knife away from Giles, sliding the cutting board across the island so that she could continue chopping the onions herself. “So that means that she wasn’t planning to involve any of the Sunnydale crew in any of this. And we…” She paused, then began to chop again, brow furrowed. “We kinda ran her out of town. All of us. I’ve never been totally okay with that.”

They had never talked about Jenny like this before. Never had Buffy indicated that she felt bad about the way things had panned out with Jenny. “Buffy,” said Giles softly.

“No, it’s…it’s okay,” said Buffy quietly. “I just…I blamed her for stuff she didn’t know about and couldn’t control, and all this time, I thought that I’d hurt her so much, she decided to cut her losses. I know I was really mad at her when we were in high school, but…I’m not in high school anymore, you know? And she was really in love with you.” She was staring very resolutely at the onions, eyes a bit red. “I guess I always thought I ruined one of the best things you had going.”

“You—”

“I don’t need you to tell me that I didn’t, Giles,” said Buffy, not unkindly. Finished with the onions, she slid them across the table to him. “Feelings are weird like that. But…the point I was trying to make was that she must have been so scared and—and so sad, to take her kid away from his dad. That doesn’t seem like something Ms. Calendar would want to do. And then you show up out of the blue…” She trailed off. “I hope she’s okay,” she said quietly. “This can’t be easy for her either.” Anxiously, she added, “And I hope you’re okay too! Or, I don’t know, okay-ish? God, there really isn’t a manual for situations like this one.”

Giles laughed unsteadily. “I…am doing better, I think,” he said.

“Are you going to get to see him again?”

“She wanted me to tell you about Art before she introduced him to me officially.”

Buffy stilled. Softly, she said, “She wanted me to know about Art?”

It felt, for a moment, like he was looking at the tiny, tearful seventeen-year-old with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Somehow, he knew what to say to her. “You were so young, Buffy,” said Giles simply. “And Jenny never was one to hold a grudge, if the Ritual of Restoration she rediscovered is any indication. I don’t think that she harbors any ill will towards you, even if you seem to think her entitled to it.”

“Yeah, but there’s not harboring ill will and there’s making my knowing about her baby a condition that you’ve got to fulfill before you see him.” There was a shy, hopeful light in Buffy’s eyes. “That’s a lot, Giles. Especially from a lady who wanted to keep her son a secret.”

“Well—”

“…Do you have her number?”

The question took Giles off guard. “I—yes, I do, but why—?”

“I kinda want to talk to her,” said Buffy. “I think it’s important.”

[Transcript: July 5th, 2006, 16:47]

JENNY: Rupert. What’s up?

GILES: Jenny. Would, would it be all right if I put Buffy on the line?

JENNY: What? Oh. Oh. Uh, okay.

[rustling]

BUFFY: Hi.

JENNY: Hi.

BUFFY: Hold on, let me just step outside for a second. What? No, Giles, it’s—I promise I’m not gonna say anything weird. Oh my god. I promise. [rustling, laughter] Okay. Sorry about that. Just wanted to make sure I had some privacy. [pause] Um, I just…I wanted to say…thank you.

JENNY: …what?

BUFFY: Or maybe sorry. Maybe sorry first and then thank you.

JENNY: Still a little lost here.

BUFFY: No, ‘cause—look, I don’t really know why you decided to make sure Giles told me about, um, Art, but it means a lot that you trusted me like that. Especially after the way things ended between us. I mean, god, I basically ran you out of town—

JENNY: Oh. Oh, Buffy. Is that what you think happened?

BUFFY: What I’m saying is that I was a totally heinous bitch to you, and—

JENNY: You were seventeen. You had a lot going on.

BUFFY: That doesn’t excuse—

JENNY: No, it doesn’t. But I was old enough to understand that it wasn’t really me you were mad at. [pause] Was I wrong?

BUFFY: …No. You weren’t.

JENNY: And…it’s not about trusting you, Buffy, or not trusting you. You deserve to know. He’s your dad too.

BUFFY: [inarticulate]

JENNY: He’s also a serious goddamn idiot, which is why I made sure he told you. I didn’t want him keeping something like this a secret. I didn’t want you to feel…excluded. [pause] I didn’t want to keep secrets from you, intentionally or not. Felt a little like something he should tell you, though, so I made him.

BUFFY: He’s—you—

JENNY: Maybe I want to say thank you too. [laughs] Um, sorry first and then thank you? I wasn’t expecting you to…not be mad at me. For keeping Rupert’s kid from him, or—

BUFFY: Jesus, Ms. Calendar, after what we put you through, I’m surprised you even stayed on the line when Giles said he was gonna put me on.

JENNY: You were a kid. It was almost a decade ago. Honestly, I’m just…I hope it hasn’t been a hard decade for you. I’ve worried about you sometimes.

BUFFY: You…oh. I. R-Really?

JENNY: You were so young, you know. I wish I could have been there for you more than I was, but we barely knew each other, and…God, I don’t know. Being a high school teacher, you get a little bit of a sense of how tiny these monster-fighting kids are, but then you’re a mom and it’s…

BUFFY: [inarticulate]

JENNY: Oh, honey. Oh, don’t cry.

Chapter Text

Generally speaking, Giles was usually a punctual and early riser, but the emotional exhaustion brought on by a tentatively positive reunion with Buffy—especially when he had been mentally preparing himself for a knock-down, drag-out fight—had caused him to sleep right through his alarm. It was the sunlight streaming through his bedroom window that woke him up, and once he had dealt with the consistent beeping atop his bedside table, he ended up lying in bed for a good fifteen minutes before finally, reluctantly, untangling himself from the covers to brew himself a cup of tea.

Buffy was on the phone when he entered the kitchen, sitting on the counter in one of Giles’s t-shirts and talking in a low, sleepy voice. She gave him a little wave as he entered. “Yeah, I know,” she was saying. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to freak you guys out. Mmhm.” She yawned, then laughed softly. “So what? I’m jet-lagged, Tara. Give me a break—oh! Can you call my therapist? I don’t wanna make more than one international phone call. That is so not in my cell phone plan.”

At the word therapist, Giles stilled.

“Thank you, you’re an actual angel. Literally. Heaven-sent.” Buffy laughed again. “Okay, fair. I love you.” A slow smile spread across her face. “Uh huh. Tell Dawnie I love her too. Totally. Bye-e,” she sang out, then hung up the phone, giving Giles a warm, sleepy grin as though nothing at all was the matter.

Carefully, and a bit rigidly, Giles said, “I, I wasn’t aware you were in therapy.”

“What? Oh.” Buffy’s smile flickered. “Um, yeah. I had a really bad depressive episode about a year after Sunnydale, and Tara and Dawn both really pushed me into going to therapy and dealing with my, you know, stuff.” She waved a hand somewhat dismissively, but her eyes were still nervous and searching.

Christ, she was looking at him like he could make or break her world. She had looked at him like this when she’d come back from the dead—visibly desperate for his comfort, visibly afraid to ask for it. A Watcher would push her away, neatly detach himself from a conversation veering into emotional attachment—

“How did you find a therapist qualified to deal with the more, ah, supernatural aspects of your trauma?” Giles asked quietly.

Buffy blinked, tears springing to her eyes. For a moment, Giles was terrified that he had overstepped—but then she gave him a shaky, grateful smile, ducking her head a little, and a wave of ashamed understanding rushed over him: she had expected him to disapprove. “W-well,” she said, “that’s actually a really big part of the new Council? Faith and I have been working on a mental health initiative for the last year and a half. It is kind of hard to find therapists who also know about magic and stuff, but a couple of Slayers who got activated are therapists, or have family members who are therapists, so we started the recruitment pool there. And I think we’ve got some recruits who are training to be therapists—” She cut herself off with a nervous laugh. “Oh my god, I am totally rambling.”

“No, it’s…” Giles managed a wobbly smile of his own. “I, I don’t know all that much about therapy, but it’s…is it helping you?”

“…Yeah,” said Buffy. “It is.”

“That’s…good, then.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy again. Her smile was starting to fade a little as she looked at him. “Giles—”

“I’ll likely have to call Jenny today,” Giles blurted out, in what was perhaps one of the most graceless evasive maneuvers he had pulled in his entire life. They had been edging a bit too close to a conversation about the years they had spent apart, and how those years had started. He didn’t feel ready for that. “To talk about—”

Briefly, a frustrated shadow crossed Buffy’s face, but she didn’t press the issue. “Art, right?” she said lightly, smiling a little. “Are you gonna get to see him any time soon?”

“It’s, ah, we haven’t—” Giles turned to rummage in the kitchen cupboard for the tea kettle. “That’s likely to be the subject of the next conversation she and I have.”

“You never did get around to telling me about him,” said Buffy casually.

Tea kettle in hand, Giles turned to face Buffy with some surprise. “Didn’t I? I thought—”

“You told me about how you guys met a couple of times. So not the same thing.” Still perched upon the counter, Buffy scooted away from the sink, leaving Giles plenty of space to step up and fill the kettle. “What’s he like? I know you don’t know a lot, but you’ve gotta know at least a little bit more than me.”

“Not by much,” said Giles quietly.

Buffy was studying him with an expression that Giles found nearly impossible to decipher. Softly, she said, “That’s probably pretty hard for you, huh? I’m sorry.”

“It’s…” Giles trailed off. It did sting—the thought of his son having grown into a small, precocious person with hopes and fears and dreams while Giles had been busy…doing what, exactly? Running across the pond when he’d been begged to stay? Settling himself in a job well below his capabilities because he was too afraid of being anything other than what he’d been intended for? There was so much he didn’t know about his child. So much he wished he had been there for.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Buffy said a little hesitantly. “Or, um, anything, I guess. We can keep it breezy.”

Shutting off the water, Giles set the full kettle on the stovetop, replacing its lid and turning the burners on. Without looking at Buffy, he said, “It hurts to dwell on the fact that my child spent so long without me. I don’t…I have been absent from the life of someone that I love for such a very long time. There is so much I’ve missed, and all because I wasn’t…”

“Wasn’t what?” Buffy’s voice was almost purposefully light.

Giles stared at the kettle for a long and awful moment. “You’re in therapy,” he finally said. “Now. Were you experiencing depression profound enough to impair your daily functioning when you came back from the dead?”

“Thought we were talking about Art here, Giles—”

“Buffy.”

A shaky sigh. “Giles, you—I’m not mad at you about that.”

“But if you were—”

“You didn’t know. I didn’t have the words to tell you, and I don’t think you’d have listened anyway.”

It hurt to hear her say it so frankly, as though his inability to be there for her was a flatly uncomplicated fact. He’d wanted—but wanting had never gotten him anywhere, and he’d have happily taken on slaying vampires in her stead if it would have made her feel safer, and he had feared that had he let her rest, she would never have gotten up again—

“Giles,” said Buffy softly. “I’m not mad at you.”

“You have every right to be furious,” said Giles. His hands were shaking. “Christ, Buffy, I—”

He heard her hop off the counter—heard the soft footsteps behind him—and then Buffy had wrapped her arms around his stomach from behind, pressing her forehead into his back. She was breathing in unsteady little hiccups, like she was trying so hard not to cry. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Giles closed his eyes hard, tears spilling furiously down his cheeks.

“I know you didn’t know. I know that.”

God, he wanted her to be angry at him. He wanted her to leave England and live her life and never be encumbered by a foolish old man like him. He had been her Watcher and despised every moment of it—this bright, brash, impossible girl, and every day with her tarnished by the unshakable knowledge that he would watch her die. He couldn’t have stepped into the role of her father, not after he had lost her for the second time, not knowing that it was her duty to charge back into the fight and die again—

“I have wanted for so long to be strong for you,” Giles whispered. “The kind of father you could be proud of.”

Buffy was starting to cry herself.

“You are so much stronger than I will ever be.” Even now, she was holding him steady. “So much braver and kinder than I know how to be. In your position, I would not be so forgiving.” Giles reached for her hands, clasped around his stomach, and took one of them, lacing their fingers together. “In my position…”

“I just want you here,” Buffy whispered.

He’d always known that. Always. He’d told himself that she was a damaged little girl looking for stability, landing on him because he was the only possible option—that it would be better for all parties if she let go, stopped loving him, stopped expecting him to catch her when she fell. He’d told himself that no father would ever send a daughter to die—that he, then, was no father, no matter what she seemed to think. That eventually she would die, and he would live, and the grief of losing a daughter was not something he was strong enough to bear.

And yet he had borne it. So many times over, he had borne it.

“Slayers are fated to die,” he said. “We never—talked about that. Never. We talked as though it was some sort of eventuality that could be politely delayed and skirted around until it happened. You, I think, had made your peace with it far before I could. I never did. I couldn’t lose you again.”

“You’re not gonna lose me, Giles.”

“I know that now. I didn’t, then. And I—created—such deliberate distance between us to try and, and make it easier—”

“And now we’re living on different sides of an ocean,” Buffy finished, letting go of him just as the kettle went off. Giles turned down the burners; Buffy nudged the teapot towards him so that he could pour the hot water. Years, and they were still in sync. “Seems like your master plan worked pretty okay, then, if you were trying to keep your distance.”

“I was.”

“You look kinda miserable for a guy who did everything right.” Buffy’s words were light, but her gaze was piercing.

“I am,” said Giles quietly.

Buffy sniffled, then stepped forward, one hand reaching to gently grip the front of Giles’s shirt. “I love you, okay?” she said. “I love you. I miss you. I still want you in my life. I’m working a super boring Council desk job and I haven’t seen field work in years, so you don’t have to worry about me dying on you anymore, if that’s what keeps you so far away. And you—you were a really shitty dad, Giles, but you were an amazing Watcher. The best.”

Giles placed his hand over Buffy’s, pressing it to his heart. “I don’t take much pride in being a good Watcher,” he said unsteadily, “but it means—more to me than you will ever know—that you once considered me anything close to a father.”

Something strange and almost guilty flashed across Buffy’s face. She bit her lip, then sighed, tipping her head forward and stepping into Giles’s arms without a word.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I mean, what was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to tell you then. You clearly haven’t read the weird email backlog if you think that the dad stuff is past tense. Is it easier for you if it is? I don’t know. I don’t want to put more parenting baggage on you when you’ve already got an ACTUAL kid to deal with.

I’m twenty-five. That’s old enough to not need a dad. But I’ve been old enough to not need a dad for such a long time now. I think I found out that I was old enough to not need a dad when I turned fourteen and my parents started fighting all the time. Maybe I still want a dad. Maybe I still want it to be you. Is that such a bad thing?

I don’t know how to deal with you anymore. You’re so patient with me, just like you always are, but sometimes I feel like if I say the wrong thing or step too close you’ll start shutting me out all over again. I’m happy to be here with you, Giles, and I really have missed you, but I’m so, so scared that I’ll disappoint you again.

It took Giles almost an hour to build up the courage to call Jenny. Still wrung out from his morning conversation with Buffy, he took his time making breakfast for them both—opting for fried eggs and bacon instead of porridge, which Buffy greatly appreciated—and offered to wash the clothing that she had worn on the plane, seeing as her carry-on luggage contained only a mesh top meant for clubbing and a paisley skirt that very clearly belonged to Tara.

Buffy, however, was not willing to entertain his weak attempts to delay the inevitable. “Just call her,” she said firmly. “And—you know what, maybe you can do my laundry while I’m at it, ‘cause I still want to go to the mall and pick up some new clothing. But you have to call her first.”

Which left Giles leaning against the rattling dryer, phone to his ear, heart pounding as he listened to it ring. He had, after all, done what she’d asked; now it was time to see if Jenny was willing to stick to her end of the deal. Considering her tendency to be impulsive, stubborn, and impossibly difficult to talk to, there was a very real chance that—

“Rupert!” Jenny answered on the third ring. “You want to schedule something with Art, right?”

Well. That was—well. Giles managed a few vague attempts at speech before giving up entirely.

“Great. Does tomorrow work for you? We were thinking of throwing together a picnic in Green Park.”

“Ah—w-we?”

“You know.” There was a sliver of ice in Jenny’s voice. “Art’s family. Unless you’ve got a problem with them being there too?”

This felt more than a bit pointed. “N-no, no,” Giles stammered. “I wouldn’t—um, wouldn’t want to meet Art on any terms that aren’t, well, yours. Or his.”

A half-surprised silence. “…I appreciate that,” Jenny finally said.

“I, I hope I can…live up to his expectations.” Giles hesitated. “And yours.”

The sound of the dial tone was so abrupt that it took Giles a moment to realize what had happened. After a moment of indignant consideration, he sighed, hanging up the phone himself. He was getting rather used to Jenny’s fits of pique, though he still had yet to discern what exactly caused such abrupt shifts in their dynamic.

His phone buzzed; Jenny had sent him a text.

Is noon tomorrow an okay time to meet?

Works perfectly, Giles sent back, just as the dryer went off.

“Oh, thank God,” Buffy burst out from the living room, tearing into the kitchen and elbowing Giles out of the way to wrench her clothing out of the dryer. “I’ve been a fashion don’t for the last hour. Look at this—no, no, don’t look,” she amended, holding her t-shirt protectively up in front of her. “I look like I’m Tara’s slutty cousin or something.”

Giles did his best to hold back a laugh. It didn’t work very well. “You certainly haven’t lost your way with words,” he said affectionately, handing Buffy her jeans. “If you’d like to get changed, we can go to the mall—”

“What, together?” Buffy looked a mixture of startled and touched. “You don’t have to—”

“Buffy, in your mad dash out of the country, did you manage to bring along any non-American money?” When Buffy colored, Giles knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “Please. Allow me the small luxury of financing your summer wardrobe.”

Slowly, Buffy said, “You know I probably need a lot of clothes.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“Like a lot. Like, we’re talking multiple hours of shopping here.”

“I think I can handle that.”

Buffy bit her lip, looking at him with a shy, tentative softness the likes of which he had only seen once before. She’d looked at him like this when she’d asked him about that—that ice show, he realized. The one she’d only ever gone with to her father. “…You sure?” she said.

“Anything goes.” Giles reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Buffy’s ear. Something jagged and hurting in his chest was beginning to dull and soften. “I’m happy to support you, Buffy.”

The pool at the hotel was awesome, in Art’s expert opinion, and he could not even slightly understand why Stacey was still in a bad mood. Ezra had told him and Bella to not bother Stacey too much, and Art was adhering to that to the best of his abilities, but Bella…was Bella. The most annoying person on the face of the planet. Which meant that five minutes after Stacey had walked them all down to the pool, Stacey and Bella were fighting over a pool noodle while Ezra tried to get them both to stop.

Usually, Art would be trying to get the pool noodle away from Bella (and also from Stacey, because pool noodles were super fun and you could hit Bella with them), but today he had more important things on his mind. He hadn’t liked getting lost at all, not when it was a really big place like a park and he hadn’t meant to do it in the first place. Exploring the entirety of London to find his dad didn’t seem like such a great idea when London was so big and he might get so lost that Mom wouldn’t be able to find him. And then Art wouldn’t have Dad or Mom, and the thought of not having Mom made him feel awful.

He was thinking about this, not really sure what to do with all of it, when Mom came down to sit by the side of the pool. She was wearing a swimsuit, too, which was weird, because today was supposed to be the day where Mom and Aunt Nora and Uncle Donovan had an Adult Break Day while Stacey watched them at the pool. “How come you’re here?” said Art, realized that this might be mistaken for him not wanting Mom there, and hastily tacked on, “Uh, I mean, hi Mom!”

Mom, who always got it, just laughed. Art grinned back. “I wanted to spend some time with you,” she said. “There’s something I want to—oh, god,” she groaned, eyes landing on the Stacey-Bella pool noodle fight. “Anastasia Kovacs, we have talked about this. Do you want that new cell phone or not?”

Stacey let go of the pool noodle so fast that Bella was thrown back a few feet.

“You gotta get in the water all the way,” said Art plaintively, tugging at Mom’s leg until she finally obliged. “I wanna go into the deep end.”

“Art,” Mom began, hesitated, then took one of his hands in hers, tugging her a little closer. “Wow, this is a weird place to have this conversation. You think we can get out of the water?”

“It’s too hot,” said Art resolutely.

“…okay.” Mom bit her lip. “Art, I…I was just on the phone with your dad.”

Art’s breath caught in his throat. Wordlessly, he stared at Mom, waiting for her to say something else—something like but you still can’t see him, or but he still doesn’t know about you, or one of those other awful things he’d heard way too many times to count. But Mom just kept looking at him like she was waiting for him to say something. “My dad?” he said in a small voice.

“Yeah.” Mom gave him a wobbly little smile. “You, um, actually kind of already met him.”

That Art hadn’t been expecting. “No, I didn’t,” he said immediately. “I never met him, Mom, remember?”

“Yeah, uh, that…” Mom sniffled. She looked really happy and really sad all at the same time. “That’s not technically true. Do you remember that guy you met in the park, the one who walked you back over to me? Mr. Giles?”

Art went very still. He had to grab the wall to keep himself from sinking.

“I, I didn’t want to tell you until I told him,” said Mom. “I wanted to make sure that he wanted to see you, and—” She was crying a little. “And he really does. We were talking about some kind of—um, picnic, tomorrow? You, me, everybody else, and he’s going to come too.”

Mr. Giles was his dad? Mr. Giles who paid for breakfasts and walked him back to his family and liked oatmeal just like him? He’d thought—for just a second, he’d thought that it could have been Mr. Giles, but then he’d seen Mom again and he’d been so happy to not be lost that he’d forgotten all about it. And Mr. Giles was his dad. Mr. Giles wanted to see him.

“Baby, are you okay?” said Mom shakily. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner—”

Art let go of the wall and flung himself at Mom. He didn’t really know how to do anything else. The hug was kind of wet and splashy, and the sunblock on her shoulder was a little sticky, but he didn’t mind, really. Mom was hugging him really tightly, and he was hugging her back.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Letter from Art and Jenny

Hi dad!

Mom is helping me write an email to you! My name is Arthur Cervenak and I am seven years old, almost eight. I really like reading, especially about superheroes and monsters. My favorite color is rainbow, which IS a color no matter what everybody else says. My second favorite color is glitter. I like peanut butter and oatmeal, but not together because that would probably be really disgusting. I have three cousins, and their names are Stacey, Ezra, and Bella, like I told you in the park. Stacey is grumpy all the time because she’s a teenager, and Ezra is my best friend, and Bella is my worst enemy. Someday I’m going to fight Bella like Luke Skywalker fought Darth Vader, except I’m going to keep both of my hands.

What’s your favorite color? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Mom doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, just Aunt Nora. Do you have parents? Mom says you have a whole bunch of monster books and I was wondering if you could show me one sometime. Are you really fifty-one years old? Aunt Nora says that you’re fourteen years older than Mom. I don’t know how much older that is than me though. I don’t want to do math during summer vacation.

I can’t wait to see you tomorrow! I love you!

Love,

Arthur Cervenak

(Hey Rupert, it’s Jenny – I tried to explain to Art that we’d be seeing you tomorrow, AND that unless some sort of cosmic shift occurred in the last eight years, you definitely do not check your email, but he’s seven, impatient, and has no idea what “cosmic” means. He did not settle down until I helped him write this for you. I’m not too worried about you not seeing it, because he’s going to ask you all of these questions in person tomorrow anyway – but feel free to write a reply back if you do.)

Chapter Text

Buffy and Giles arrived at Green Park half an hour early, largely because of Giles’s determined efforts to make sure they left the apartment long before they had to. He didn’t want Jenny or her family—his son—to think him anything less than punctual. He wanted to make it clear to Art from the very second they officially met that Art was an important and beloved priority. All of this, however, hinged on his ability to form complete and coherent sentences, and the overwhelming anxiety he was currently battling made it all but impossible to speak.

Buffy seemed to be similarly afflicted. Arm tucked into Giles’s as they walked down a tree-lined path, she kept her gaze trained firmly ahead, lips pressed nervously together. Despite it being a somewhat cloudy day, she’d donned her dark sunglasses, yet again hiding her eyes from view. “If Ms. Calendar doesn’t want me there, I can totally go,” she said. “I just figured—you know. You might like some company.”

“Quite,” said Giles a bit thinly, but he reached over to briefly squeeze her hand. He did appreciate the company. He had a strong suspicion that without Buffy’s firm grip on his arm, he might have collapsed into a puddle of nerves. “And you, you don’t have to go anywhere if—that is, I’d like you to meet him as well, but—”

Buffy turned her head a bit to look at him—at least, he assumed she was looking at him. The glasses made it quite hard to tell. (He was beginning to suspect that that was the point.) “I really appreciate that, Giles, but you said that Ms. Calendar’s still on the fence, right?” she said softly. “I’d hate to ruin your chances with your kid.”

Giles didn’t quite know what to say to this. He managed a tense, fluttery smile, squeezing her hand again, and directed his gaze back towards the path ahead.

“—exasperating situation to find myself in, to say the least,” came a familiar voice from around the bend. Giles froze, pulling Buffy to a stop with him as Nora and Jenny rounded the corner. “For one thing—oh!” Nora blinked, eyes landing first on Giles, then on Buffy. “…Rupert?” she said, a disapproving edge to her voice.

Jenny’s jaw dropped. “Buffy?”

Buffy let her hand drop from Giles’s arm, taking a step away from him to nervously hug her elbows. “Um, Ms. Calendar!” she said in a high, shaking voice. “Hi! I hope I’m not intruding, I just—I mean, I’m here because—”

Startling absolutely everyone, Jenny rushed forward to pull Buffy into a tight, fierce hug.

“Oh,” said Nora suddenly, eyes widening with comprehension—and then, to Giles’s confusion, a quiet, half-hidden disapproval. “This must be—”

“Oh, look at you,” said Jenny, pulling back with a bright, fierce smile that knocked the breath out of Giles’s lungs. She reached up to remove the glasses from Buffy’s face, stroking Buffy’s cheek with her thumb. “Oh my god, you’re all grown up! I can’t believe this.”

Buffy was beginning to smile too—trembling and nervous, but just as happy. “Y-you’re not—? I mean—I was a totally awful kid, and—”

“I’m sorry, I thought we had this conversation.” Jenny’s eyebrow quirked, her mouth twitching. “Did we not come to the conclusion that you were a kid when all that stuff went down? You know I’m not mad at you, and I’m pretty sure you’re not mad at me—”

Buffy laughed tearfully. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Yeah, you too!” Turning to Rupert, Jenny’s smile faded into something flat, terse, and altogether much more familiar. “Rupert,” she said curtly.

How is that fair, thought an indignant Giles, who would have quite liked the sort of reception Jenny had given Buffy. Voicing his frustration, however, seemed entirely unwise; he decided to let it lie. “Jenny,” he said, managing a nervous little grin. “I-I wasn’t expecting—that is, you said noon, didn’t you?”

“We got here early,” said Jenny shortly.

Buffy’s eyes were darting between the two of them with genuine bemusement. Visibly deciding not to address the tension, she said instead, “Ms. Calendar, I can clear out if—”

Jenny looked startled. “Buffy, would you…like to meet Art?”

Color rose to Buffy’s cheeks. “I wouldn’t want to impose—”

“You wouldn’t be imposing at all!” Jenny looked towards Giles as if daring him to contradict her. Giles, who had never once harbored any delusions of agency with regards to situations involving Jenny, made a vague and nervous hand gesture that he hoped would convey his agreement. “See? Rupert wants you here too.”

The look on Buffy’s face was well worth Giles’s decision to not fight Jenny on this particular point. “He does?” She looked shyly up at Giles. “I-I mostly just came to walk you here, but if you could—I mean, he’s gotta be a really cool kid if he’s yours,” she babbled nervously.

Softly, Giles said, “He is.”

“Well!” said Nora briskly, startling Giles (who had entirely forgotten that she was there). “The picnic should be all but set up by now, if you’d like us to walk you over to Art. Are the two of you prepared? I won’t have any foolishness around my family.” For some reason, this seemed directed more towards Buffy than Giles.

“Nelly,” said Jenny, narrowing her eyes at Nora. Nora narrowed her eyes back.

“Um, w-we’re all set!” said Buffy hastily, reaching to clutch Giles’s arm with a bit more Slayer strength than was comfortable. “Ready to go!”

Giles managed a few stammering phonemes before giving up.

“Lovely,” said Nora dryly.

The walk was entirely silent. Nora seemed mostly focused on keeping an eye on Jenny, Jenny was as tense and rigid as usual, Buffy was entirely dedicated to clinging to Giles like a terrified spider monkey, and Giles…was doing his best to put one foot in front of the other without succumbing to a dizzy spell and losing consciousness. He couldn’t remember ever being this nervous. It had been one thing when Art was a precocious and peculiar little stranger, but he’d heard Art talk about his father. The man occupied such a large part of Art’s thoughts, and was always spoken of with such reverence and love. What would happen if he found Giles lacking? What would happen if he resented Giles for not trying to find him, not wanting to spend the last seven years with Jenny—never mind that none of those things had been possible without knowing they had been an option?

And then, a few yards away, a small crowd on a large picnic blanket: the teenager from the museum, two other children busying themselves with snacks, the dark-skinned gentleman who Giles assumed was Nora’s husband…

As Buffy let go of his arm, Giles saw his son.

Art, who had been standing by the picnic blanket, had caught sight of him and gone perfectly still, a completely unreadable expression on his face that—now that Giles was paying attention—was so strikingly like Jenny. The nervous rigidity, the longing eyes—

Giles realized very distantly that he had entirely stopped walking. Absolutely everything had distilled to the little boy staring at him.

“Giles?” said Buffy softly.

“Arty—” said Jenny with some worry.

It happened so fast that Giles didn’t have time to prepare for it. One moment, they were staring at each other, separated by a dusty dirt path and a dewy grass field, and the next Art was sprinting, so dangerously fast for such a small child that he looked only a hair away from tumbling to the ground. Though Jenny made some small and wordless exclamation, Art didn’t seem aware of the precarious nature of his wild dash—couldn’t, when all of his focus was on a still-frozen Giles. Three more running steps, face red from exertion, and he leaped, jumping up to fling his arms around Giles’s neck.

Instinctively, Giles caught Art, realizing what was happening exactly as it happened. This time, he hugged Art fiercely back, burying his face in his child’s soft, dark hair.

Somewhere very far away, Buffy was saying with great worry, “Oh—oh, Ms. Calendar, it’s okay! See?”

Giles knew that he should pull back—get a better look at Art, say something memorable and resonant and fatherly—but he could not let go of this boy. His son. His ridiculous, chattery, intelligent, altogether wonderful son. He half-expected Art to squirm free and launch into another long-winded story about his family or squirrels or breakfast foods, but for the first time since their meeting, Art was entirely still.

“Dad,” whispered Art, small and shaky.

Nerves overtook him. Dizzy with happiness, Giles dropped to his knees in the grass, still hugging Art tightly and securely against him.

“I wouldn’t hug Art too long if I were you,” the smallest of Nora’s children informed Giles. “He’s diseased. Isn’t he, Ezra?”

“Um,” said Ezra, and took a very large bite of his sandwich in a transparent attempt to avoid answering the question.

“Isabella,” said Nora very reprovingly. Bella looked entirely unbothered. “But really, Arthur, you do need to let go of your father at some point, at least to eat.”

Art, who had been tucked silently and snugly into Giles’s side throughout most of the picnic, did not respond to any of this. Though his face was mostly hidden, his bright smile had not dissipated even slightly. “Dad?” he said very quietly.

“Mm?” Giles was already thinking about how many toys he could feasibly buy Art before Jenny told him to stop.

“Do you like your sandwich?”

“What—oh, yes, yes, it’s lovely,” said Giles immediately. “It’s the best sandwich I’ve ever had.”

“Low bar, dude,” said Stacey. “We got this from a deli a block away from here.” Nora and Jenny both glared at her. “What? I’m just saying—”

Art let out a small sigh, snuggling into Giles and tightening his grip on the front of his shirt. “You know, you should eat,” said Giles softly.

“Hm-mm.” Art shook his head, bumping against Giles’s chest.

“I’d hate to be the reason you go hungry, Art,” Giles persisted gently.

A strange look crossed Jenny’s face as she stared at the two of them together. Abruptly, she stood up, said in a stilted, jerky voice, “I—the—tree over there looks really interesting gonna go check on it bye,” and all but sprinted away, followed closely by an exasperated-looking Nora.

Distantly, Giles recognized that this was something that should concern him. He decided that he would worry about it later, after Art had eaten, and after he had spent the next five to seven days reveling in this profound and terrifying happiness. “How about if I get you the sandwich, hmm? You don’t have to let go of me.”

“…okay,” murmured Art.

Leaning somewhat awkwardly to reach for the sandwich, Giles found it closer than expected. Looking up, he saw that Nora’s husband was holding the half-unwrapped sandwich out to him, making it much easier to acquire with a seven-year-old clinging to his side. “Thank you,” he said with a small, grateful smile.

The man—Donovan, Giles remembered—smiled warmly back.

“Art?” Giles nudged gently at his son’s cheek. “Sandwich.”

Art let out a shaky breath, pulling away very slightly to take the sandwich in one hand. After some fumbling, he reluctantly let go of Giles to hold the sandwich in both hands, still settled into his father’s side as he took a bite. He still didn’t seem to have very much to say.

“How’s, um, how is your sandwich?” Giles tried a bit nervously.

Art swallowed, shrugged a little, and buried his face back in Giles’s side.

“You have no idea how weird it is for him to act like this,” Stacey informed him. “He’s never quiet. I think he’s physically incapable of shutting up.”

“I did get that sense,” said Giles with a small smile. “I was quite talkative myself when I was his age.”

“And you’re not now?” said Bella with interest. “What went wrong?”

Buffy choked on her water and started giggling. Giles attempted to send her a withering look, but with his son (his son!) settled happily against him, it was impossible to even feign disapproval. “I suppose I didn’t grow up in a family as lovely as yours,” he said with a small smile. “I’m truly happy to see that Art is growing up so loved and valued.”

“I value him at two pennies,” said Bella matter-of-factly.

“That’s…” Buffy was now wheezing. Giles gave up on a reply. “Art, can you take another bite of that sandwich?”

Art obliged, looking up at Giles with a bashful happiness that was becoming quite familiar. “Are you eating?” he asked suddenly. “You only took two bites too.”

“Oooh, Giles, he called you out!” Buffy teased, nudging Giles’s discarded sandwich across the picnic blanket.

A bit pink around the ears, Giles laughed ruefully and picked his sandwich up, taking a large bite. He’d always been quite partial to a nice ham sandwich, and this one was surprisingly reminiscent of the sort that he and Jenny had used to share years ago. Some terribly secret part of him wondered if it really was a coincidence.

“I wanna play Frisbee,” said Bella abruptly.

Donovan’s eyes went to Giles and Art. “Bella, some people are still eating,” he began gently.

“Frisbee!” said Art suddenly, jerking up so violently that half of his sandwich very nearly went flying. “Dad—Dad,” he said breathlessly, “Dad, will you play Frisbee with me? You can be on my team! We can play teams!”

“Oh, I really want to see this,” said Buffy with delighted disbelief.

“Well—” Giles wasn’t exactly enamored with the idea of demonstrating his questionable athletic prowess in front of his son, but the look on Art’s face was impossible to say no to. “After we finish our sandwiches,” he finally said.

Art looked at him for a long moment before trying to cram the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth all in one movement.

“Art—Arthur,” said Giles, fighting back a laugh, “normal bites, you’ll choke. Here—” He handed Art his water bottle, smiling fondly when Art took a long drink. “That’s it. Normal bites, yeah?”

Grudgingly, Art said, “I guess.” It was then that Jenny and Nora returned—Nora looking, if possible, even more exasperated, and Jenny looking rather red-eyed and miserable. “Mom,” said Art through a mouthful of sandwich, “Dad’s gonna play Frisbee with us!”

“Oh, goddess,” said Jenny, and tried to leave again. Nora grabbed her arm.

Giles felt a sudden and profound spike of concern. Though he was overjoyed to be able to spend time with Art, he hated the thought of his happiness coming at the expense of Jenny’s—especially when she had never had any intention of telling him about Art’s existence. Catching her eyes, he tried his best to convey that sentiment without words, but wasn’t entirely sure how well it worked.

Jenny bit her lip, but didn’t look away. To Art, she said a little unsteadily, “…That sounds really amazing, honey.”

“Oh!” said Art suddenly, sounding genuinely horrified, and let go of Giles. “Mom, I’m sorry! Do you want to spend time with Dad too?”

There was then a prolonged and incredibly awkward silence during which all the adults attempted to avoid eye contact with each other. When it became quite clear to Giles that Jenny wasn’t at all able to answer, he said gently, “Art, your mum’s…a bit overwhelmed, I think. This is quite a big day for all of us.”

“Oh,” said Art again, his face relaxing somewhat. Clambering to his feet, he hurried over to Jenny, handing her the rest of his sandwich. “Are you still hungry?”

Jenny pressed her lips together. It took Giles a moment to realize that she was trying not to laugh. “Are you trying to pawn the rest of your sandwich off on me?”

“…no-o-o,” said Art very unconvincingly.

Taking the sandwich, Jenny considered, then said, “If you’re full—”

“YES I am let’s GO dad!” Art said very fast, darting back over to the picnic blanket in order to tug impatiently at Giles’s arm. Startled, Giles dropped his sandwich, which was only saved from falling into a disassembled mess by Buffy’s quick reflexes. “Come on come on come on—”

“Ease up, you’re gonna make him fall over!” said Buffy with a laugh.

Her words caught Art’s attention. Turning, he looked at her with a polite curiosity, as though only in that moment realizing she’d been there the whole time. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Buffy’s smile faltered. “O-oh!” she said, glancing nervously towards Jenny. “I’m—”

“Buffy’s the Vampire Slayer,” said Jenny smoothly. “Your dad helps her fight monsters. She’s family too.”

Buffy looked entirely overwhelmed. “I mean, I wouldn’t—uh—you don’t have t-to—” she stammered, a rosy blush spreading across her cheeks.

“Oh!” Art beamed. “Hi, Aunt Buffy!”

This seemed to be too much for Buffy, who tipped sideways to entirely hide her face in Giles’s shoulder. “Ah, Buffy’s—not quite your aunt, Art,” Giles corrected. “She’d be a bit young for that, I think.”

“No, I think she’d be a little more like your sister,” said Jenny, giving Giles a challenging look. Giles sent her a very clear do not do this in front of your family, my son, and my Slayer look back, but he had the distinct sense that she planned to ignore this entirely. “Wouldn’t she, Rupert?”

Buffy had gone very still.

“But she’s so old!” said Art. “She can’t be my sister!”

That cut the tension instantly. Nora burst out laughing, Donovan chuckled, and even Jenny had to press a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. Giles, who knew that Buffy could be a bit touchy when it came to her age, waited somewhat rigidly for her reaction—and was startled to see that Buffy was smiling too when she raised her head. “I bet twenty-five does look pretty old to you, huh, sport?” she said affectionately, moving away from Giles to stick out a hand. Art took it, smiling with the delight of a child treated like an adult when Buffy shook his hand. “How old are you?”

“Eight,” said Art.

“He is not!” Bella piped up indignantly. “He’s eight in September! I’m eight right now—”

“Don’t embarrass yourself,” said Art reprovingly, ignoring Bella’s aggrieved huff of breath in response. Turning his attention back to Buffy, he said shyly, “So you fight monsters with my dad?”

“Um, I’m kinda retired now, but I used to,” said Buffy with a little grin. “Your dad taught me pretty much everything I know.”

“Can he teach me?”

“No,” said Giles, Jenny, and Nora in unison.

“Start small, kiddo,” Buffy encouraged him. “Maybe you can get somebody to teach you how to throw a punch.”

“Are we going to play Frisbee?” said Bella abruptly. “I want to play Frisbee—”

“—yeah, yeah, come on Dad!” said Art excitedly, darting back over to Giles to tug some more on his arm. Graciously, Giles obliged.

It had been quite a while since Giles had been at any kind of social gathering, let alone one that involved Buffy, Jenny, and his seven-year-old son. Art was still a bit shyer than Giles remembered him—somewhat clumsy and bashful now that he knew he was in the presence of his long-revered father rather than a pleasant stranger—and it reminded Giles very distinctly of the way he had felt at seven around his disinterested and disapproving father. While he understood that the situations were worlds apart, the distance between father and son felt somewhat similar. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He focused instead on the lovelier things: Art’s unhidden delight when Giles threw the Frisbee in his direction, whether or not he actually managed to catch it. Buffy stepping in to referee the match and taking her job incredibly seriously in the sort of giggly, happy way he’d last seen when she was in high school. The second when he had turned away from the game, just for a moment, to see Jenny watching from the blanket, head tipped to rest on Nora’s shoulder, smiling in that quiet, absent way that meant she didn’t even realize she was doing it. She’d seen him looking and immediately stiffened into her usual guarded hostility, but just a glimpse of that smile for a second—

Dangerous waters, Rupert, Giles reminded himself as he helped Donovan re-pack the picnic basket. Jenny was talking to Buffy about something or other, very clearly pretending not to notice that he’d been looking at her. Don’t go down that road.

And yet—he was reminded so distinctly of her similarly blazing anger all those years ago, back before he’d cut through layers of frustration and stubbornness to find a sparklingly intelligent young woman who had only ever wanted him to listen to her. Jenny’s anger had never just been anger, and as he saw more and more of her, he was beginning to suspect that there was something under the surface this time as well. He couldn’t help but wonder what, if anything, she was keeping hidden.

“Arty, you ready to go?” Jenny was saying, tugging Art over to her side. “We’ve gotta get back to the hotel before it gets dark.”

“Dad’s not ready yet,” said Art.

“…what?”

“We can’t leave without Dad,” said Art, as though this should be obvious.

Oh, no. Giles wasn’t sure if his heart had just grown five sizes or snapped in half entirely. “Ah, Art,” he began uncertainly, straightening up and turning away from the picnic basket, but was silenced by a death glare from Jenny. “Th-that is—your mum should explain,” he finished lamely.

Carefully, Jenny said, “Sweetie, your dad has his own home here, remember? He’s gonna go back there for the night.”

“But I want him to come with us!” Art protested. “You said that if he knew about me he’d want to be here all the time!”

“You said that?” said Giles softly, eyes on Jenny.

Jenny went scarlet. “That’s—very out of context,” she blurted out. “And Art, I—I don’t want to, um—I mean, this is a really big adjustment. We don’t have enough space at the hotel room for your dad. You know how cramped it is in there.”

Art, however, seemed well beyond the point of being reasoned with. “Then how come we can’t go with him to his house?” he demanded, very clearly on the verge of tears. “We haven’t spent any time with him at all, Mom, not even a whole day, and I forgot to a-ask him all of my questions!” He was beginning to really cry. “I-I don’t want—him—to go away again!”

“Oh, Arty,” said Jenny shakily. She looked positively heartbroken. “I-I don’t—I mean, I don’t know if your dad’s house is big enough for guests, either—”

“I think I could find the space,” said Giles.

He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say something so blatantly untrue. His apartment only had one guest room, after all, and it was currently occupied by a guest he had no intention of pushing out. But Art had been looking for him, when they’d met—looking for someone he had loved fiercely enough to break the rules for without even knowing who they were. That sort of huge and uncomplicated love was quite a lot for such a small child to feel.

Jenny had gone very still. Her eyes moved from Art (who had lit up like a Christmas tree) to Giles (who had belatedly realized the position he had now put her in). For an agonizing moment, he debated walking back his statement—turning himself into the carefully distant father for Jenny’s sake—but he had been stepping away from children who wanted him there for far too long now. He couldn’t do it again.

“You would do that for him?” she said.

Giles hesitated. This seemed like a multi-layered question. “Yes,” he said.

Jenny pressed her lips together, looking profoundly torn. It was when her gaze landed on her son again that her face finally softened. Quietly, she said, “…We’d appreciate that, Rupert. Thanks.”

Briskly, Nora said, “Why don’t we head on back to the hotel, then, Janna? You and Art can go home with Rupert.”

“Can we, Mom?” At Jenny’s tight nod, Art darted forward, elbowed his way into his mother’s arms, and wrapped his own arms securely around her stomach in a firm, determined hug. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!”

Slowly, Jenny moved to hug Art back, drawing him close. Giles watched her shoulders relax as she embraced her son; saw the way she smiled, soft and unsteady, before her hair fell to hide her face.

Don’t, he told himself.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Art

Hey Rupert! I saw that you sent me a memo, which was adorably old-fashioned and yet again cements my belief that you have no idea how much the kids use email these days—but the point of the matter is that you sent me a memo saying you’d be taking two of your myriad of vacation days that seem to have built up over the last few years. I’m fairly certain that, were we in any position to be scrutinized by London authorities, the kind of work day you’ve been leading would be considered A) illegal and B) hazardous to human health, so I’m incredibly glad to hear that you’re at least STARTING to take the day off of your own volition.

The reason I’m sending you my reply in an email that I know you’ll never read is fairly simple: you also mentioned your son in the memo. I’m not entirely sure how you’d handle me telling you outright that I’m rooting for you—I worry that you might find it condescending, as you sometimes have in the past when I’ve attempted to express well-wishes—so I’m trying to be at least a little considerate while also still giving you the well-wishes I desire to give you.

Anyway. I hope that whatever’s happening with you and Art and Jenny is something positive. I never really got the chance to know Ms. Calendar very well, but from what I understand—and from what I’ve been picking up through your not-that-soundproof office door—she means a whole lot to you. I’m really glad that you have this chance to spend time with her again, too. I think it’s doing you some good.

Love,

Anya

Chapter Text

Though Giles’s two-bedroom apartment was sizable enough to comfortably house himself and a guest without much difficulty—just the right size to be comfortably roomy when living alone—adding two other people to the mix posed more than a few problems. Art, still thoroughly distracted by the elation of being allowed more time with his father, didn’t notice the apartment’s relative smallness—but Jenny’s eyes scanned the tiny living room, then widened with an emotion that Giles had some trouble deciphering. He’d always been able to label her anger, but she wasn’t quite as forthcoming when it came to…well, anything else.

He was, however, surprised that Jenny made absolutely no comment on the apartment’s size. Her only words to him were, quietly, “So about plans for dinner—?”

“I can cook us all something,” Giles offered, and was then struck with an idea. “Art, would you like to help me?”

“O-oh!” Art colored, smiling. “Okay!”

Buffy had been looking at Art with the same sort of unhidden adoration one generally directed at fluffy baby animals, but the mention of dinner plans got her attention. “I’ll keep you company,” she offered, smiling in Jenny’s direction. “There’s probably a lot that we have to catch up on, right? I feel like I barely talked to you at all at the park.”

Jenny looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, I was…” She trailed off somewhat awkwardly.

“Hey, no worries!” Buffy gently bumped Jenny’s shoulder. “It’s kind of a big day for everybody.”

Giles turned his attention to Art, who was shifting somewhat nervously from foot to foot. “Here,” he said, and offered his hand to Art without thinking much about it.

Art stared at it for a long and wide-eyed moment before slipping his small hand into Giles’s, lacing their fingers securely together as Giles led them towards the kitchen. He was holding on quite a bit tighter than he had in Hyde Park. “What’s for dinner?” he asked softly.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Giles truthfully. “What sort of foods do you usually like?”

“Umm,” Art chewed on his bottom lip, “peanut butter?”

“Hmm,” said Giles, realizing very abruptly that he had absolutely no idea what sort of thing Art usually ate for dinner. He couldn’t in good conscience have the very first meal he made for his son be peanut butter sandwiches—that was the sort of low-effort thing that might imply he wasn’t interested in making his child a full and nutritious dinner. Or was it possible that Jenny didn’t mind low-effort meals? She’d never been very much of a cook—

Unexpectedly, Art solved the problem by informing Giles, “Yesterday I had pesto noodles for dinner.”

“Noodles,” said Giles with great relief. “How would you like noodles with peanut sauce?”

Art’s face lit up. “I love peanut noodles!” he said delightedly. “Mom doesn’t know how to make them!”

Giles reminded himself very firmly that laughing at Jenny, who already seemed hell-bent on resenting him even without provocation, was not a good idea. “How about your aunt Nora?” he said lightly. “Does she make, ah, peanut noodles for you?”

“Hm-mm,” said Art, shaking his head miserably. “We have to eat something that everybody can eat at dinner, and Bella can’t eat peanuts.”

“Well, then,” said Giles with a small smile, “you are quite lucky that your father is a whiz in the kitchen.” Sticking his head out of the kitchen, he called, “Are the two of you all right with noodles and peanut sauce for dinner?”

Jenny, who had been talking to Buffy, whirled. “Gonna assume that Art asked you for peanut butter?” she said.

“…yes?” said Giles warily.

“And now you’re making him a full-on healthy meal based on one thing that you know he likes,” Jenny said slowly.

“Yes,” said Giles a bit uneasily.

After a long and rather agonizing moment, Jenny said in a somewhat strangled tone of voice, “…That’s fine,” and turned resolutely back to Buffy.

Giles had absolutely no idea what to make of that. “Ah, Buffy—”

“You know I’m down for pretty much anything, Giles,” said Buffy with a small grin. “Go hang with your kid.”

With a nervous and grateful smile in return, Giles ducked back into the kitchen. Art was sitting on one of the stools by the kitchen island, watching him a bit apprehensively. “Peanut noodles, then?” he said.

“…okay,” said Art, smiling tentatively.

Art’s shyly concise answers were beginning to become difficult to ignore. Giles had thoroughly enjoyed Art’s incessant chattering—reminiscent, he now realized, of Jenny’s own boundless energy—and its absence made him worry that he might be doing something wrong. Determined to forge ahead, he gently prompted, “I-is there anything you’d like to ask me? Anything at all?”

Art blinked, then brightened. “I sent you an email!” he said. “It had a bunch of questions in it. Mom said you might not see it, though.”

Giles winced, letting out a sheepish laugh. “Well, I, I haven’t checked my email in years—”

“Years?” Despite his striking resemblance to the Giles side of his family, the scandalized indignance on Art’s face was entirely, adorably identical to Jenny’s. “How come?”

“I don’t, um, I don’t have a computer in my office.”

“But how do you work without one?” Art demanded. “Computers are the future, Dad!”

Giles felt an incredibly confusing mixture of exasperation and fondness. “I’m quite a bit older than your mother, you know,” he began.

“That’s not an excuse,” said Art resolutely, glaring firmly at him. “Mom taught Bella’s puri daj how to use a computer and I bet that Bella’s puri daj is older than you.”

This seemed to be a losing battle. “The point of the matter is that I don’t have a computer,” Giles tried, “which is why I didn’t read your email, so—”

“You should get one,” said Art.

“Get—I’m sorry, get a computer?”

“Yeah,” said Art. “You should get one. That way you won’t miss it if Mom sends you an email.”

For a genuinely bizarre moment, Giles found himself seriously considering bringing Jenny in to try and mediate this argument. He was then struck with the memory of Jenny very stubbornly refusing to let him pay child support and decided that that was a thoroughly terrible idea on his part. “I’ll consider it,” he said, which seemed to placate Art somewhat. “Now. What was in the email?”

Art furrowed his brow contemplatively, then beamed. “Oh! What’s your favorite color?”

Somewhat overcome with a rush of dizzy adoration, it took Giles a moment to answer. “…Green,” he finally said. “Yours?”

“Rainbow,” said Art, and gave him a somewhat combative look, as though daring Giles to contest the legitimacy of this answer.

“Well, that’s…” Giles cast around for a response. “You’re certainly keeping your options open.”

Art, however, had moved on entirely. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” His eyes widened. “Do I have more cousins?”

Giles smiled somewhat apologetically. “Just me, I’m afraid.”

“So I’m like you!” said Art with a big grin. “I don’t have any brothers and sisters either, just the cousins you met. Someday I’m going to throw Bella in a trash compactor.”

“That’s—don’t do that to your cousin, Arthur,” said Giles immediately.

Art seemed entirely unfazed by this. “Nobody calls me Arthur unless they’re trying to tell me not to throw Bella into a trash compactor,” he informed Giles. His eyes lit up. “Do you like my name?”

Giles was beginning to get used to the rhythm of these abrupt subject changes. “Arthur is a lovely name,” he said sincerely. “Reminds me a bit of King Arthur and his knights, to be honest. I loved those stories when I was young.”

“You did,” said Art breathlessly, his smile trembling. It wasn’t a question. “Dad—I really missed you. Really really missed you. Can you come back home with us?”

Buffy had had that look in her eyes when she had asked him—begged him—to stay in Sunnydale: that tremulous, half-terrified look of a child who had been without a father for an impossibly long time. Seeing it again in the eyes of his son—the uncertainty, the fear, the sadness—was more than enough to render Giles speechless. “I-I,” he stammered, helpless. How on earth was he supposed to explain the awful, messy nuances of his and Jenny’s situation to a little boy who wanted to see his family finally reunited?

Art, however, interrupted him before he could speak. Unsteadily, he said, “Mom says you’re a superhero who fights monsters and that’s how come she didn’t tell you about me, ‘cause you’d want to come back home, but Buffy said that you used to fight vampires with her which I thought meant maybe you stopped, and Mom told you about me now too, so I thought that if you stopped you could—”

“Hang on,” said Giles softly. “Jenny—” He winced, correcting himself. “Your mother, she, she said I’m a superhero?”

Art screwed up his face. “She said something about you fighting bad guys,” he said, “and I said you were like a superhero, and she said yeah.”

That seemed quite a bit more plausible. “Art, I…” Giles hesitated. “I haven’t quite stopped in my work against the forces of darkness. Not entirely. It’s simply…a lot safer now than it was before.”

“Oh,” said Art in a tiny voice.

God help him, he couldn’t leave it there. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to spend time with you,” said Giles, gentle and firm. “And it certainly doesn’t mean that I won’t find a myriad of ways to—”

“What’s miri-add?” asked Art a bit tearfully.

“Many,” said Giles. “Many, many ways, all right, love?” The endearment slipped out surprisingly easily, and it didn’t escape his notice that Art’s shoulders relaxed just a bit in response. “I may not be able to live with you and your mum, but I’ll still find ways to be there for you in any way I can.”

Art swallowed, staring miserably at Giles. He didn’t say anything at all.

“I’m so sorry I missed so much time with you,” Giles said very softly, tugging a handkerchief out of his pocket to gently dab at Art’s damp cheeks. Art sniffled, then gave Giles a wobbly smile, leaning into his touch. “I want very badly to get to know you better, Art.”

“I’m sorry too,” Art mumbled.

“What on earth for?”

Closing his eyes, Art tipped his head forward, bumping his forehead clumsily against Giles’s. The simple touch sent a shock of nervous warmth through Giles, who still didn’t quite know what to do with such simple and unwavering love from his son. “I know you gotta go away,” he mumbled. “I just—wanted you to stay. But I don’t wanna ask you to stay if you can’t.”

Something was crumbling to dust in Giles’s chest. The thought of this sweet little boy with such profound and accepting sadness tucked into his chest didn’t feel right—and yet the idea of making promises he couldn’t keep, promises Jenny might not let him keep, felt worlds crueler than letting this awful separation continue. He let out a ragged breath, then pulled back, stroking Art’s cheek with his thumb. “You ask me for whatever you want and I will try my very best to give it to you,” he whispered fiercely. “Don’t you ever feel afraid to ask for anything from me, Art, all right? Even if I can’t give you what you want, I’ll try. I will. I promise.”

It didn’t feel anything close to what Art deserved—not after seven years of longing, loving stasis—and the unsteady, grateful smile Giles received in return felt far, far more than what he deserved. But then Art bumped his forehead against Giles’s again, more companionable than shaky, and said in a sweet chirp of a voice, “Can we make the peanut noodles now?”

“Yes, of course, darling,” said Giles, and tried his best to smile back.

Had Giles been able to think of anything beyond his son, the clear effects that his absence had had on his son, and the rather complex recipe he was following to make his son a delicious serving of noodles and peanut sauce, he might have been able to consider the potential volatility of a dinner with the mother of his child, the young woman who for all intents and purposes was a daughter he had abandoned, and the seven-year-old boy he had also inadvertently abandoned. It took him walking in with a noodle-filled serving dish and seeing Buffy, Jenny, and Art all gathered around the small dining table to realize in a flash of terrifying insight just how disastrously wrong this dinner could go. He very nearly dropped the dish.

Buffy, quick as ever, was out of her chair in a flash to steady Giles’s hands. Art watched this interchange with interest. “Easy there, Watcher,” she said with a small, encouraging grin, and Giles was reminded that there was at least one adult at the table who wanted him to succeed. “Don’t wanna send dinner flying before we’ve all dug in, do ya?”

Jenny, who seemed to have relaxed somewhat thanks to her conversation with Buffy (a sentence that Giles would have never imagined existing before today), was busying herself with explaining the concept of cloth napkins to Art. “It’s like a fancy paper towel, sweetie,” she was saying. “You know your dad’s pretty high-end, right?”

“Dad doesn’t look fancy,” said Art, frowning suspiciously at Giles as though high-end was a bad thing. “He played Frisbee with me.”

“Yeah, your dad loves you a whole bunch,” Buffy informed Art. “I cannot think of anything that would’ve gotten him to play Frisbee back in Sunnydale. Maybe your mom—” Giles and Jenny made simultaneous stop-talking-right-now motions at Buffy, noticed that they had done it at the same time, and awkwardly attempted to not make eye contact. Buffy looked flatly at them both before continuing her sentence. “—could have gotten him to do it, though.”

“Mom said she could get Dad to do anything,” said Art (Jenny choked on her wine and started coughing very loudly), “but I always thought she was just making that up. She said you’re family, though, and you know my dad, so could she get Dad to do anything?”

“Oh, your mom could totally—” Buffy began with relish.

“Buffy, please stop,” said Giles weakly. “Jenny, are you—do you need a glass of wine?”

“Wine—is—the problem,” Jenny wheezed.

“They’re just being weird ‘cause they haven’t seen each other in forever,” Buffy reassured Art, giving Giles and Jenny both reproving looks as though they were somehow the ones causing trouble.

“I know that,” said Art immediately. “Aunt Nora said.”

“Your Aunt Nora does seem like a lovely character,” said Giles, desperate to steer the conversation away from himself and Jenny. “It’s wonderful to know that the two of you have been living with such a self-possessed and charming person.”

“Yep! She’s great.” Though Jenny seemed to have recovered from her coughing fit, a rosy blush still lingered around her cheeks. “Can you pour me some more wine, Rupert?”

“H-haven’t you still got a glass to finish?”

Looking him dead in the eye, Jenny knocked back the entire glass of wine, then held it out for Giles to refill.

“That—you—” Giles gave up and poured Jenny some wine.

“Hey, you know what?” said Buffy suddenly, eyes darting between Giles and Jenny. “I think Art and I should have dinner out on the patio. You two haven’t had any time to be alone together all day.”

“What?” said Giles. “Buffy—”

But Art was looking at his parents with a shy delight. Wordlessly, he nodded, already reaching to remove his plate from the table.

“Buffy,” said Jenny through her teeth.

“Hold up, kiddo, adult content,” said Buffy, and covered a giggling Art’s ears. In a low voice, she informed them both, “You two need to have a real conversation, okay? Child of divorce talking here—parents who can’t co-parent end up with kids who don’t want to talk to them anymore.”

Giles felt the sting of frustrated shame. He didn’t dare look at Jenny.

“I wouldn’t want to take away from Art’s time with Rupert,” said Jenny quietly.

“He’s going to have plenty of that,” said Buffy firmly, “if you guys can figure it out.” Removing her hands from Art’s ears, she smiled fondly down at him. “So how much of that did you get?”

“I heard horse,” said Art. “Does Dad have a horse?”

“I mean, I don’t think so, but he is kinda on the rich side.” Buffy was already steering Art out of the kitchen. “We’ll catch up with them after dinner, okay?”

Art dug his heels in at the doorway, turning around one last time to look at Giles and Jenny. It took a gentle tug from Buffy to get him all the way out of the room.

“He really wants us to get along,” said Jenny softly. Nervously, Giles turned to look at her, and saw that she was studying the contents of her wine glass with a quietly wistful expression. “He cares a lot about you, you know.”

“That’s become…quite clear to me,” said Giles carefully.

“And I know you care a lot about him.” Jenny placed her glass down, still avoiding his gaze. “Look, I…I really don’t know where to go from here, Rupert. I mean, you know that my feelings towards you are…complicated.”

“I was beginning to suspect as much, yes.” Giles hesitated. “But Jenny, I…I don’t think it will do Art any good if you feel the need to hide your resentment towards me. Long-term, it isn’t sustainable.”

“I don’t resent you,” said Jenny abruptly. At Giles’s disbelieving look, she said stiffly, “I’m just…mad at you.”

“Can we talk about that, at least?”

“I don’t want to.”

Irritation was giving way to a worried curiosity. When they had known each other all those years ago, Jenny’s anger had never been something she’d been reticent to share. Every vicious detail regarding why, exactly, she was infuriated by his behavior had been delivered to him with the violent gracelessness of an intellectual young woman who struggled with feelings larger than superficial attraction. “You don’t want to,” Giles repeated cautiously, studying Jenny’s face.

Jenny took a long sip of her wine, eyes trained firmly ahead.

“Then…” Giles decided to return to the original subject. “Resentment, anger, whatever it is…while I certainly agree it won’t do well for co-parenting if you’re open with your feelings towards me around Art, I also don’t…I don’t want you to be placed in a position where you feel you need to consistently pretend at cordiality for his sake. If your anger at me isn’t something we can talk through, I think it needs to be—”

Abruptly, Jenny said, “Your apartment only has two bedrooms.”

Somehow, Giles was not at all surprised that she had deftly changed the subject. “That it does,” he said lightly.

“I-I was talking to Buffy,” Jenny took another nervous sip of wine, swallowing hard, “and she mentioned that she’s staying in the guest room, and then she said something about your apartment only having two bedrooms.”

“You and Art can take my bedroom,” said Giles immediately. “I can sleep on the sofa—”

“You throw out your back every single time that you sleep on a sofa,” countered Jenny.

Startled that she would remember something so mundane, Giles had to fumble for the thread of their latest impending argument. “Th-that’s—well, you’re the guest,” he managed lamely, “and it’s only right that—”

“We’ll talk it over with Art,” said Jenny decisively. “My guess is he’s gonna want the couch, and I can sleep with him there. Does your couch fold out?”

“Jenny, I’ll not have you two sleeping on a couch—”

“You volunteering to share your bed with a squirmy seven-year-old?” Jenny’s brow arched. “He kicks. And I know you’re not a heavy sleeper.”

Giles felt a bit like they had veered very drastically from the topic Buffy had been trying to get them to discuss. “Jenny,” he said, “we need to talk about what our relationship looks like—”

“I think the bed thing takes priority at the moment, actually,” said Jenny, and took a particularly long sip of wine in what was a clear attempt to end the conversation.

“Are we just never going to discuss this?”

Jenny set down her glass and motioned to her mouth, making no effort to swallow the wine.

“Somehow, I’ve had a more in-depth conversation with our son about emotional issues,” Giles informed her. “Our son. A direct descendant of,” he gestured between them, “this.”

Jenny still had not swallowed the wine, and was beginning to look a bit annoyed that she had to continue holding it in her mouth. Good, Giles thought somewhat vindictively. Behave like a child and suffer the consequences.

There was a burst of delighted laughter from the patio outside.

“For him,” said Giles softly. “It doesn’t have to be for me.”

Jenny’s eyes softened. She hesitated, then swallowed, pursing her lips before answering. “With all honesty, Rupert, I think we should set aside some real time to have a conversation,” she said. “When Art isn’t here, so that we can plan out how to handle situations like this next time. For right now, though, I…I think I can handle being cordial for a little while longer.”

“Thank you,” said Giles, giving her a small and encouraging smile.

Jenny’s reaction surprised him. Rather than drawing back or freezing up, she blushed, her eyes dropping nervously to her hands. “Um—sure,” she said hesitantly. It took her a moment to look back up at him. “Should we call the kids back in?”

“I think we should, ah, actually finish our dinner first,” said Giles, looking sheepishly down at his untouched plate of noodles.

Jenny stared at her own plate as though she had entirely forgotten it was there. “Huh! Yeah, that’s,” she laughed nervously, “wow, I can’t believe I completely forgot about dinner.”

“You were a bit preoccupied,” said Giles mildly, and felt a touch of surprisingly familiar amusement at her sour expression.

The bed thing, as Jenny had phrased it, turned out to be a bit more of a problem than Giles had expected—largely because, when the conundrum was explained to him, Art said very brightly, “Well, Mom and Dad can sleep together, and I can take the couch!” Giles and Jenny’s attempts to gently dissuade him were met only with his resolute conviction that Mom and Dad needed more time together, somehow, and besides which Aunt Nora and Uncle Donovan slept in the same bed so he didn’t see why Mom and Dad wouldn’t either.

This was, Giles thought, one of the many problems with continuing to let Art believe that he and Jenny were some sort of happily reunited couple, and he attempted to voice as much to Jenny after she had tugged him fiercely into the bedroom. Jenny, however, responded tersely with, “Again, this is something we can talk about later,” which Giles was beginning to suspect was code for never.

“Do you realize how many times you’ve told me that we’ll talk about something later,” he countered, “and then evaded the question entirely?”

“I am not breaking Art’s heart right now,” Jenny shot back.

“How on earth do you think divorced couples manage?”

“We’re not divorced, are we?”

“No, we’re not, because we were never married.” Giles attempted to leave the bedroom. Jenny flattened herself against the door, trapping him inside. “Jenny—aside from the incredible number of problems you seem to be refusing to acknowledge the existence of, never mind the fact that you seem to have created most of them, there is only one bed in this room! What on earth is your plan when it comes to solving that?”

“I have not created or ignored any problems!” Jenny shot back.

“You are ignoring the problem I just told you about right now!”

It was then that Buffy yanked the door open, accidentally sending Jenny tumbling backwards. Stepping into the bedroom (and gently pushing Jenny along with her), she shut the door behind her, sitting down on the bed and fixing them both with a look. “Art isn’t picking up on any of it,” she said, “because not only is he seven, he is way too overwhelmed about seeing his dad to process how weird you guys have been all day. But that’s not gonna fly when he’s old enough to start noticing how you two literally never talk to each other unless he’s the one talking to both of you, and it’s definitely not gonna fly if he notices you two whisper-fighting.”

“I’m not—” This felt so entirely unfair. “She’s being—”

“I can take the couch,” said Buffy firmly. “That’ll solve a whole bunch of problems.”

“Buffy, you’re just as much family as Art is,” said Giles immediately. “I’m certainly not displacing you, not when you were here first to begin with.”

Buffy looked first startled, and then incredibly touched. “…Oh!” she said, going a bit pink. “Um, that’s really sweet, Giles, but I still kinda think—”

“You’re Rupert’s kid too,” said Jenny, and Giles was surprised to see that she was almost smiling. “I wouldn’t want you sleeping on the couch either.”

Now very visibly overwhelmed, Buffy took a steadying breath. “As reaffirming and awesome as this moment is,” she said, “that still leaves you guys with one bed, one couch, and three people. Either you two bunk up or somebody sits Art down and explains to him what’s going on with his parents, because—”

“WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT,” said Jenny very loudly, all but shoving Buffy out the door to shut it behind her.

“Jenny—” But it was becoming very clear that Jenny was not willing to be reasoned with. “Fine,” said Giles. “And how exactly do you propose we figure it out?”

In response, Jenny waved a hand somewhat dismissively and opened the door again, hurrying out of the bedroom. With an exhausted sigh, Giles sat down on the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying in vain to come up with some sort of solution to this wholly ridiculous problem.

TEXT MESSAGES (July 7th, 2006)

nora: What is wrong with you (20:04)

nora: I don’t even need to be there to know that this is a message entirely relevant to whatever you are doing to that poor man right now (20:04)

nora: You have to talk to him. You can’t keep avoiding it. (20:07)

nora: If you come back from this excursion inconsolably miserable because you and Rupert had yet another argument that you instigated, I am going to kill you, and I will not feel even slightly bad about it. (20:09)

nora: I love you. (21:25)

nora: Imbecile. (21:25)

Chapter Text

Given the last-minute nature of Giles and Jenny’s joint decision to bring Art to Giles’s apartment, Art did not have any pajamas to wear. This was, however, a much more easily solved problem than the Calendar/Giles Bed-Sharing Issue, as Art was more than happy to borrow a t-shirt from Giles to sleep in. “I’m wearing Dad’s clothes,” he informed Jenny as soon as she arrived to tuck him in. “They’re way too big for me. See how big Dad’s shirt is?”

Jenny, who was carefully tucking the blankets around Art, said fondly, “You know you’re gonna need to go to sleep at some point, Arty.”

“I’m gonna!” said Art earnestly, wiggling obligingly into a lying position.

Sitting down on the sofa next to Art, Jenny did her best to gently fluff up the pillows underneath him. “You gonna be okay with me and Dad in the other room?”

“Uh huh,” said Art immediately. “I’m old enough for my own room now, remember?”

“That I do.” Jenny was looking at Art with a warm and open adoration the likes of which Giles had never seen her direct towards anyone. “Wake me up if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” said Art with a soft yawn. “Love you.”

Jenny leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of Art’s head. “I love you too, baby. Get some good sleep.”

“Can Dad give me a goodnight kiss too?”

“Dad would probably run into oncoming traffic if you asked him nicely,” said an amused Buffy, who was reading a book entitled Wicca Practices for Mental Health and Energy Rejuvenation in the easy chair by the sofa.

“Why would I ask dad to run into traffic?” Art mumbled sleepily.

Giles hesitated, eyes on Jenny. It was only when she gave him a small nod that he moved forward, leaning down to kiss Art somewhat awkwardly on the cheek. Some parts of this would take getting used to, he thought. He’d never seen himself as a very tactile person, and Art very much was one. “Goodnight, love,” he murmured. “Sleep well.”

“I love you,” Art whispered.

Giles’s heart caught in his chest. It took him a moment to answer. “I-I love you too.”

Art relaxed into the sofa, closing his eyes. The look of quiet, serene happiness on his face made Giles understand for a moment exactly why Jenny was trying so hard to avoid telling him the truth of the matter. How could one possibly look at this little boy and not want to give him the entire world? “I wanna go to a park again tomorrow,” he was mumbling, in the same half-sleepy way that Jenny used to sort out her next-day plans as she dozed off. Giles had spent many a night absently listening to a barely-awake itinerary involving quite a lot of coffee and a concerning amount of time spent staring at a computer screen. “And I wanna see a squirrel and I wanna eat more noodles and—”

As he began to trail into incoherency, Jenny reached out to tuck the blankets more securely around him, a soft smile on her face. She murmured something affectionate in a language Giles didn’t recognize, then let her hand drop, looking up at Giles with a trace of that quiet contentment still on her face. “I’m gonna go to bed,” she said.

“To—” Giles stared at her. “Bed?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “You said I could have the bed, right?”

Looking up from her book, Buffy said, “Giles, you only have two bedrooms. How exactly is that gonna work?”

“I’ll—figure it out,” said Giles, who still had next to no idea how he would manage such a thing but did not at all want to start an argument in front of his sleeping son.

Buffy cast him a skeptical look, but went back to her book without comment. Jenny, however, studied Giles with a strange expression on her face. “I don’t want to share a bed with you,” she said.

“I wasn’t suggesting that,” said Giles quietly.

“Then what were you suggesting?” When her question was met only with silence, Jenny let out an almost frustrated breath, then pulled herself up and off the couch to leave the room.

As Giles watched her go, Buffy said, “You’re cutting her a whole lot of slack, you know.”

The statement took Giles by surprise. “Last time we spoke about Jenny—”

“—yeah, I still think she’s going through a lot. That hasn’t changed. It doesn’t mean she gets to take it out on you.” Buffy’s words were calm and careful, her gaze lingering on the door Jenny had left open. “You need to draw a line with her at some point.”

When Giles finally reached the bedroom, a snoring Jenny was sprawled across the entire bed, having swapped her blue and white sundress for what looked like a pair of Buffy’s pajamas. He stared at her for a long moment, chest tight. Waking her seemed a terrible idea, and it wasn’t as though he wanted to have the bed if it meant displacing her—but he felt certain that she’d be angry at him if he slept in a place where Art might see him, so sleeping somewhere else in the apartment was entirely out of the question. Yet the thought of intruding on Jenny’s slumber—

It was then that his eyes landed on a discarded pillow, which had fallen on the floor by his bed. Though his bedroom wasn’t terribly spacious, his choices when it came to furnishing were rather deliberately sparse, leaving a significant amount of floor space free for Giles to haphazardly improvise some sleeping arrangements. He had the distinct sense that this might be seen by Jenny as some sort of passive-aggressive gesture, but the events of the day had been so positively exhausting that he was much too tired to think of anything else. He really just wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

Besides which, he’d slept in worse places before. It was still worlds better than being tortured or kidnapped or both. (Giles recognized that most normal people would consider such a line of logic a concerning and therefore invalid metric, and chose to ignore this.) Casting a nervous look in Jenny’s direction, Giles rummaged in his drawers, found a pair of pajamas, and stepped into the adjacent bathroom to get changed.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he felt an exhausted and entirely familiar rush of self-loathing. Jenny had certainly aged, but she wasn’t even forty—still impossibly young next to a man like him. The years sat on Giles in a way he felt wholly unattractive. He looked like a lined, greying man who had spent quite a long time locked up in a musty, all-but-forgotten Council office, and she…

Giles had not quite shut the door. Furtively, he glanced towards Jenny, who had fallen asleep on her stomach with the bedsheets tangled tightly around her body. No longer rigid with some emotion he still wasn’t able to place, she looked peaceful and relaxed in a way that was thoroughly, painfully familiar to him.

She is still so beautiful, he thought. Nearly a decade later, and she’s still…

He cut the thought off before it could become any more dangerous than it was. As little as he knew about Jenny, he did know enough to be certain that she wouldn’t take kindly to any foolish infatuation on his part. She seemed barely able to tolerate his attempts at making amends.

Amends for what, exactly? he thought a bit bitterly. It isn’t as though she’ll tell me what has her so determined to keep her distance.

Jenny snorted and twitched, startling Giles into moving hastily back into the bathroom. He had a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate waking up to see him lurking about. Briskly (and avoiding the mirror), he dressed for bed, stepping quietly back out into the bedroom and—ah, damn, going to the hall closet for the extra quilt was so much more energy than he could muster up at this point in time, especially when it would provoke questions from Buffy. He supposed he would just make do with the floor and a pillow.

Lying down on the ground, Giles found himself more than tired enough not to care about the lack of comfortable sleeping arrangements. It had been a wonderful, terrible, terrifying day, and he had no idea where things would go in the morning—but it was a thorough relief that he no longer had to worry about the rest of the night.

Jenny’s snoring was a comfortingly familiar sound. He hadn’t realized that he’d missed it.

And it was perhaps that Giles was…so, so tired, too tired to remember how to tell himself not to think about such a thing, but the image that drifted into his head was quiet and simple: Jenny in his arms, a close, warm weight settled comfortably against him, her snoring a soft rumble that vibrated against his skin. He didn’t quite imagine himself on the bed; he found himself wishing, instead, that she was on the floor with him. He couldn’t feel right wishing that he was with her—he wanted her to stumble sleepily out of bed to curl into him. He wanted her to want him. He wanted—

“—Jesus Christ!”

Jolted awake, it took Giles a moment to adjust. He felt too groggy and stiff to categorize the amount of sleep he had gotten as enough, and it was still dark enough outside that most of the room was in shadow. Why was he on the floor?

“Rupert, why are you on the floor?” demanded Jenny in a shrill whisper.

Oh. Right. “Um, j-just a moment,” Giles yawned, sitting up a bit awkwardly and very nearly colliding with one of Jenny’s legs. “My—apologies—”

“You said you’d figure it out,” said Jenny. “You didn’t—you didn’t have to sleep on the floor, Rupert.” There was a strange tremor to her voice.

“I was a bit—tired,” said Giles blearily, “after the events of last night, a-and I really didn’t—that is, I couldn’t find it in myself t-to come up with a solution. This seemed the most expedient and the one that wouldn’t attract Art’s attention.” Belatedly, he added, “I’m sorry I couldn’t find another room, I just—”

“Stop,” said Jenny.

It wasn’t the command that silenced Giles: it was the way her voice broke as she said it. Moonlight was streaming in through the window, illuminating Jenny’s tearful face. She looked nothing like the furious, guarded woman he had become so accustomed to carefully placating. “Jenny,” he said slowly.

Jenny dropped to her knees in front of him, inadvertently straddling his lap. Giles might have felt a rush of nervous attraction if the movement wasn’t so concerningly, helplessly clumsy on her part. “I don’t want you to keep letting me do this to you,” she said. “I keep waiting for you to—to push back like you used to, to tell me I’m being a heinous bitch. I know I’m being a heinous bitch. You’re supposed to tell me to stop, not—not sleep on the fucking floor, Rupert.”

Quietly, Giles said, “I want to make this as easy for you as it can be.”

“Stop that. Stop saying that.” Belatedly, Jenny seemed to realize how close they were—but to Giles’s surprise, she didn’t move away. Instead, she grabbed his hands, standing up and determinedly bringing him with her. She wasn’t actually strong enough to pull Giles to his feet; it was more that he followed her lead, instinctively, without even having to think about it. There was something to be said about that.

“Jenny,” he said shakily, and debated pulling his hands loose from her grip. He wasn’t quite sure what she wanted from him.

“Take the bed,” said Jenny.

“You said—”

“Take the bed.”

“I’ll not have you on the floor—”

“We can share it, okay? I—” Jenny exhaled, a sound that seemed like it was trying very hard to masquerade as frustrated. She looked positively miserable. “I don’t understand why you don’t want more than what I’m giving you,” she said. “I am giving you next to nothing.”

Heart pounding, Giles said, “You are giving me more than I’ve had in years.”

Jenny stared at him, pressing her lips together. She looked caught between anger and a bone-deep sadness. “That’s not possible. That’s not possible.” When Giles opened his mouth to respond, she held up a hand, tugging her other hand out of his and stepping back to stare furiously up at him. “I’ve been treating you like you’re some kind of deadbeat dad who’s already planning to leave my baby in the lurch,” she said. “Like I have reasons to believe that you don’t want to be here, even though you have met me with nothing but patience and understanding. And at no point have you told me that I’m being unreasonable—”

“You’re not,” said Giles.

“You know I am!” Jenny snapped. “Rupert, you deserve so much better than me!”

Her words shocked them both. “Jenny,” said Giles unsteadily, but Jenny was drawing away, pressing herself against the wall by the bathroom door and staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. “Jenny—you’re—”

“You are so good to my baby,” Jenny whispered, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Tears were beginning to spill down her face. “I saw the way you were with him today—you were so gentle with him, so patient even when he w-wasn’t ready to talk to you just yet. You made him dinner.”

“Anyone can manage kindness to a child that lovely,” said Giles quietly.

Jenny laughed—an awful, ragged sound. “You’d be surprised!”

Something hot and angry surged up in Giles’s chest. “Do you mean to tell me that someone—”

Jenny’s eyes flew open; fiercely, she shook her head. “No. No. I’d fucking kill anyone who hurt Art. I just—” She drew in a shaking breath. “Kindness isn’t a guarantee,” she said. “Don’t act like what you’ve been doing for Art isn’t incredibly special. A-and you don’t have to be as kind as you are t-to him—” She raised a hand to her face, clumsily wiping at her eyes. “Or to me.”

In his own estimation, Giles had been quite gentlemanly in his restraint when it came to not offering Jenny physical comfort, but there was only so much that a man could take. Moving forward, he took Jenny’s hands in his again, lacing their fingers together and ignoring her reflexive attempt to pull away. It didn’t escape his notice that her resistance didn’t last. “I as good as drove you out of town,” he said. “I refused to speak to you and used Buffy as an excuse. I have had nearly a decade to think about the way things ended between us, Jenny, and the conclusion I’ve come to—correct me if you like, but I rather think that I wasn’t nearly transparent enough when it came to how much you meant to me.”

Jenny didn’t say anything for a very long time. Her hands were tightly gripping his. “So you’ve been just taking anything from me,” she finally said, “even if I’m being horrible, because you feel…what? Guilty?”

“Am I allowed to say that it’s because I still care about you?”

Jenny sniffled. “I really wish you’d stop letting me call the shots,” she said. “I wanted you to be so much angrier at me.”

“I’m—you, you wanted—?”

Shakily, Jenny shrugged, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. “I kept your baby from you,” she said, as though that should explain everything.

“Well, I still don’t quite know why you did that,” Giles pointed out, giving her a weak and likely ill-timed grin. “It seems thoroughly unfair to be angry at someone when I’m missing so much crucial context.”

“But you’re okay with me being angry at you?”

“Your son spent eight years of his life without a father,” said Giles softly. “I can’t imagine that that was easy for you.”

“It wasn’t,” said Jenny, looking up at him with quiet intensity. “But that was a choice I made. If you’re letting me trample all over you because you pity me—”

“Jenny, it is quite hard to be angry at someone who is so clearly in pain,” Giles countered.

Jenny stared at him for a long moment—long enough for Giles to realize exactly what she was thinking. Unsteadily, she said, “Yeah, I’ve…realized that.”

Near a decade away from her, and she could still see right through him—through the lined Watcher, through the guarded, jaded soldier, right to his ever-broken heart. Stunned and a bit terrified, Giles searched for some sort of response and couldn’t find one.

“I’m sorry,” said Jenny. Her voice was shaking. “I don’t—like—hurting you.”

“You’re not—” Giles began instinctively.

“Don’t, Rupert,” said Jenny tiredly. “We have enough lies between us already.”

That stung more than she had intended, perhaps because the truth of the matter was something he was still keeping from her. Her vindictive anger, her chilly demeanor—nothing hurt half as much as the fact that they couldn’t talk like they used to. He knew she wouldn’t take kindly to him saying something like that. “I don’t mind the pain, then,” he said instead, giving her the unsteady ghost of a smile.

“Maybe I want you to mind,” said Jenny, looking intently up at him.

“I don’t know if I can give you that—”

“So you’ll give me endless kindness and patience when I’m being bitchy and terrible, but you won’t give me anger.”

“I…find it very hard to stay angry at you,” said Giles quietly. When Jenny arched an eyebrow, he hesitated, then continued. “When it’s clear that every moment of this is agony for you, I…I can’t find it in myself to add to that. I may not know why you’re lashing out at me, but, but I know you’re hurting. I only want to help with that.”

Jenny gave him a wry, miserable smile. “Ever the white knight, huh, England?”

“I’ve not been far from the battlefield, these last eight years,” said Giles simply.

Jenny’s smile faded. “I can see that,” she said, raising one of her hands to his face. Giles’s breath froze in his chest as her fingertip traced a scar on his cheek, her eyes never leaving his. “You’re way too old to be sleeping on the floor, you know,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want you throwing out your back.”

Giles smiled tiredly. “I don’t exactly see any other available options.”

Jenny bit her lip, then let one of her hands slide down to his chest, pushing him gently backwards. The backs of his knees hit the bed, and he sat down unexpectedly, her leaning down over him in a way that was so painfully familiar to both of them. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” she said softly. “I’ve got it covered.”

Giles was dreaming of his bed in Sunnydale again, Jenny’s legs tangled up in his and her hand clutching the front of his pajama top. He could smell her floral perfume, feel her settle closer—god, it would hurt to wake. He dreamed of her so rarely, these days—perhaps because a dream of Jenny would linger throughout the whole day, painful and quiet. Never had he been happier than those quiet, stolen moments with someone he had loved so dearly.

Wake up, he thought firmly to himself. Then, as the room began to come into focus, no, the light’s all wrong—

No. No.

Giles acted on a panicked impulse. Attempting to jerk himself bodily away from a still-slumbering Jenny, however, neglected to take into account exactly how tightly she was holding onto him, and ended up sending them both tumbling to the floor. Jenny jerked awake, loosening her hold on Giles, who jumped back so fast that he ended up hitting his head quite hard against the wall. “Ow,” he said, staring with horror at Jenny, who—looked appallingly gorgeous, even with mussed hair and a borrowed pair of pajamas. Hastily, Giles averted his eyes, already beginning to apologize. “Jenny, I am so sorry, I don’t know what—well, that is, I do know, or at least I-I think I know, I just don’t wish to be—presumptuous, or perhaps accusatory, as of course it was my responsibility to, to do the gentlemanly thing, and clearly I didn’t—”

Jenny was watching him with an incredibly guilty expression. Pressing her lips together, she reached out, curling her fingers around the lapel of Giles’s pajama top.

“—d-do the…gentlemanly thing,” Giles whispered weakly, entirely unable to process what was happening.

It was then that they were interrupted by a loud and boisterous hammering on the door, followed by Art calling, “Mom?” in a not-quite-nervous-yet sort of voice.

Jenny looked somewhat grateful for the interruption. “Come in, baby!” she called, removing her hand from Giles’s chest and laughing softly when Art pulled the door roughly open to all but throw himself at her on the floor. Giles, still recovering from Jenny’s unexpectedly tender gesture, struggled a bit more to collect himself. “You heard the crashing, huh?”

“Why’re you on the floor?” asked Art, bumping his nose companionably against Jenny’s.

“We fell out of bed,” said Jenny easily.

“Oh-h,” said Art, giggling. Without moving away from Jenny, he stretched a hand in Giles’s general direction. “Hi Dad!”

Giles really would have to get used to the new name. Rupert had been all but shelved, Giles still a bit less formal than his colleagues felt comfortable with—Dad, however, sounded positively lovely, and made him happy in a way that was both new and terrifying. “Hello, love,” he said warmly, moving forward to gently ruffle Art’s hair. His knees bumped against Jenny’s, and he noticed with a jolt of surprise that she didn’t immediately move away. “I hope we didn’t worry you.”

“You did a little,” said Art. “Mom doesn’t fall out of bed usually. I fell out of bed once or twice or five times maybe, it’s why I’m not allowed to have the top bunk and Ezra gets it. Do I get that from you?” he asked wondrously, turning fully towards Giles with a bright, delighted smile.

Giles blinked, then smiled back. “I-I suppose you must,” he replied. He didn’t exactly make falling out of bed a regular occurrence, but the way Art’s eyes lit up at the thought of sharing something with his father—well. It was well worth the half-truth. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Buffy made me breakfast,” said Art. “She made pancakes and they were shaped like monsters. She says it totally counts as slaying monsters. Can she teach me how to punch things? I want to be like Dad and punch things,” he informed Jenny, settling himself back into her arms.

It was so strange to see Jenny so gentle. She’d always been uncomfortably standoffish on the rare occasions that they’d been around children together—overly formal and polite, as though speaking to an esteemed business associate. Art, however, had her smiling with unhidden tenderness, cuddling him closer without hesitation. “Well, your dad’s more of the bookwormy type,” she said. “That’s pretty much how he got all his crime-fighting done back in the olden days.”

“Really?” Art lit up. “Dad, is that true?”

Giles was entirely gratified to report that it was. “Quite true, yes,” he agreed, giving Art a warm grin of his own. “My job as Buffy’s Watcher largely involved the identification and research of any monsters that might—” Noticing the slight furrow to Art’s brow, he deftly rephrased. “I’d look up monsters in my books,” he said, “and that way, Buffy would know how to fight them.”

“But that doesn’t sound that dangerous,” said Art, his smile wavering. “I bet I could have stayed around if you were—”

Quickly, Giles said, “That wasn’t all I did, Art. I also trained Buffy and made sure she practiced her fighting, and I often went with her if she needed to fight monsters or vampires. We were living on a Hellmouth, too, so someone was attacked by a monster practically every week. It wasn’t safe at all.”

“Do you live on a Hellmouth now?”

“Arty,” said Jenny quietly.

Art exhaled, soft and frustrated, but didn’t press the issue. “Buffy made you two pancakes too,” he informed Giles. “They’re circle-shaped ‘cause she says you’re boring adults. I tried to get her to make you monster pancakes,” he added remorsefully, “only she said that they were for the early birds and not the late worms.”

“I’m somehow certain that’s not how the idiom goes,” said Giles dryly.

“Are you gonna get up and get pancakes?” Art persisted, squirming out of Jenny’s arms.

“We gotta get dressed first,” Jenny replied, squeezing Art’s hand as he jumped to his feet. “Give Mom and Dad some time to get ready and we’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

“Okay!” Art hesitated, then darted forward, throwing his arms loosely around Giles’s neck. The hug was short and nervous, and when he pulled back, he was looking at Giles with a kind of shy, awed appreciation. Giles wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that. “I’m gonna get dressed too,” he added. “Can I just wear my clothes from yesterday?” This question was very clearly directed at Jenny.

“You’re gonna have to change when we go back to the hotel,” Jenny answered. Halfway to the door, Art glanced back at Giles, then towards Jenny, then opened his mouth. Correctly assessing what he was about to ask, Jenny said, “After we eat, Arty,” and smiled softly at Art’s reluctant nod.

When he’d left, Giles said carefully, “…We never did have that conversation, you know.”

Jenny’s response surprised him. Picking herself up from the floor, she shut the bedroom door behind her, leaning heavily back against it. Though she was still studying him with quiet intensity, the guarded rigidity he’d become so accustomed to was now entirely gone. “Okay,” she said. “Well, I guess we have some time to have it now.”

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: RE: Weird confusing conflicting Giles-related feelings

Hi, sweetie! Don’t worry about it. Like you said, I check my work email a lot more often than my personal email, and I can see why you’d want a response back pretty quickly. That sounds like such a hard situation for you to be in.

First of all, you know what I’ve always said about you and Mr. Giles, but if you’re emailing me, you probably want me to say it again, so I will. Mr. Giles loves you. I know you weren’t there to see the way he reacted to your death, but it was like something inside him just…shut off. I was honestly a little scared to be around him, those first few weeks; his aura looked like it was bleeding, which I didn’t even know could happen. And when you came back, it was like he was glowing, he was that happy.

I think that maybe a little boy who doesn’t know him is a little bit easier for him. There’s no history there. When it comes to you, there’s always the chance that you could reject him or tell him that you don’t want him around anymore. I know you’ve been trying to respect his distance, but it’s also always possible that he’s taken that as a signal to respect yours too.

Whatever’s going on, though, it might be helped if you tell him what you’ve told me. You’re not fresh out of the grave anymore, you know, and you have a much more solid support system now than you did when he left you that first time. I know it would hurt you a lot if he pulled away again, but I think a clean break might be better for you than clinging to scraps of semi-conditional love. If your good relationship with your father depends on you not telling him that you see him as a father, I can’t see that going anywhere healthy and positive.

I don’t know if this email is quite the comfort you were looking for, but I will call you. Hopefully that can help a bit more.

I love you,

Tara

Chapter Text

Giles wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. After weeks of trying to get Jenny to talk to him—and hearing, repeatedly, that she would later—it was an arresting experience to see her looking at him without what he now realized had been a determinedly guarded expression. She was still leaning against the door, placing a safe distance between them; he pulled himself up from the floor so that he could sit on the bed instead. “I’m not quite sure where to start,” he confessed.

“Really,” said Jenny, and almost smiled. “One of the smartest guys I know doesn’t have a single question for me?”

Giles let out a quiet, apologetic laugh, dropping his gaze to the floor before looking tentatively up at Jenny. “I don’t want to upset you more than I already have,” he amended.

Now it was Jenny’s turn to look away. “I’m…really sorry,” she said. “About—I mean, like I said last night, I know I’ve been difficult, it was just—this is really hard for me.”

“I know,” said Giles.

“I know you know,” said Jenny wryly. “But I’m not—I mean, I shouldn’t be—” She took a steadying breath, collecting herself, and met Giles’s eyes again. “I want you to be in Art’s life,” she said. “In a way that’s positive for him. And that can’t happen if you and I aren’t communicating, because I’m the one who’s gonna need to show you the ropes when it comes to him.” She hesitated. “So I think I need to…take your questions seriously, instead of just shutting you out point-blank, because I don’t want you sleeping on the floor.” A blush rose to her cheeks. “Um, so to speak.”

“Duly noted,” said Giles with a tentative grin. “Then…” Nervously, he trailed off.

“I’m an open book,” Jenny encouraged him.

That Giles thoroughly doubted, but he found her willingness to compromise encouraging enough to finally ask a question. “You said that you have no intention of telling me why you left,” he said. “Has that changed?” When Jenny’s eyes dropped to the floor again, he hastened to clarify, “I-I-I’m not asking you to tell me more than you feel comfortable with, only—if you left because of something I did, or, or something you found lacking in me, I’d like to know what I can do to—”

“Oh, Rupert,” said Jenny shakily, looking back up at him with the sort of miserable warmth he remembered from years and years ago. She stepped forward in a way that seemed more reflexive than intentional, then caught herself, drawing awkwardly back again. “It wasn’t—” She sniffled, raising a hand to clumsily wipe at her eyes. “God, you always blame yourself before anybody else. I didn’t realize you would think I left because of you.”

Bemused, Giles said, “What did you think I’d assume?”

“I-I don’t know! I didn’t really—” Jenny flushed, almost sheepish, then pressed on. “Think that far ahead.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same, Giles thought, but wisely kept this observation to himself. “Then I suppose I’ll alter my question,” he said, standing up from the bed and taking a tentative step towards Jenny. When she didn’t immediately move to place more distance between them, he decided to take that as a positive sign. “Even if your decision to leave wasn’t influenced by me, i-is there anything I can do now to—to help?”

Jenny stared at him with a strange, wobbly smile. “You are really sweet, you know that?” she said.

Giles went pink. “I-I—ah.”

Taking another step forward, Jenny placed her palms flat against his chest, pushing him gently backwards until he was sitting on the bed again. Though her tentative smile was already fading, she let her hands linger for a moment longer than they needed to. “I…think you do need to know why I left,” she said.

“Oh?” said Giles in a somewhat strangled voice. He hadn’t quite recovered from really sweet.

“Yeah.” Jenny sat down next to him, directing her eyes towards her lap. “You’re probably going to hear some version of it from Art, anyway.”

“As he relayed it,” said Giles uncertainly, “you left because…you thought it was too dangerous to raise a child on a Hellmouth.”

“Yes.”

“And you knew that I needed to stay on as Buffy’s Watcher.”

“Yes.”

Carefully, Giles said, “Is there more to it than that?”

Jenny drew in a slow, unsteady breath, then raised her head to finally look at him. It took her a very long time to respond. “I left because I didn’t want to give you a choice,” she said. “I knew that…that if I told you, you’d want to find some way to compromise. To be there for Buffy and for our baby. But that…I didn’t see how that was possible.”

Wordlessly, Giles stared at her. A myriad of complicated emotions had set up shop in his chest.

“Not because of you,” Jenny added firmly. “Because…” She trailed off, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Gripping her shaking hands, she said with great difficulty, “You are a man of strong and honorable convictions when it comes to your role as a Watcher. A lot of people needed you long before I showed up. I could never ask you to turn away from your calling for any reason, especially when kids like Buffy relied so thoroughly on you to guide them.”

Reaching for her hand was instinctive. Giles tugged it towards him, lacing their fingers fiercely together.

“A-and things between us were in a terrible place, I didn’t—” Jenny’s voice broke. “I-I didn’t want you to think that I was w-weaponizing my pregnancy to get you to, to choose me over Buffy or something. I didn’t want you to choose me out of obligation.”

“Jenny,” Giles whispered.

Jenny opened her eyes. Her grip on his hand tightened as she met his gaze.

Slowly—giving her enough time to move back if she wanted—Giles tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking her cheek. The tension in Jenny’s shoulders gave way at his touch. She let out a shaking sigh, tipping her head quietly towards him. “I’m so sorry I put you in that position,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to leave.”

Jenny laughed a little unsteadily. “No kidding.”

“Is there anything I can do to—”

She really did smile at that, then—a small, tender smile that made Giles feel a bit dizzy. “I’m okay, Rupert. Really.”

Giles scoffed. Before he could stop himself, he said, “After the way you’ve been behaving these last few weeks—” realized midway what he was saying, and jerked his hands away from Jenny to clap them belatedly to his mouth.

Jenny stared at him with wide brown eyes for seven of the most terrifying seconds of Giles’s life—and then, to his utter shock, she collapsed into laughter. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed between giggles, “I’m so sorry, Rupert, god, it’s just your face—” Laughing hysterically, she fell forward, forehead resting on a stunned Giles’s shoulder as she attempted to steady herself. “You said so much worse to me eight years ago and you’re—you’re freaking out over a justified criticism of me behaving worse than my seven-year-old around you?”

Oh, no, thought Giles, thoroughly overwhelmed by a rush of delighted butterflies. The sound of Jenny’s unrestrained laughter was the most magical thing he had heard in years.

“No, please, finish your thought,” Jenny laughed, finally raising her head to grin at Giles. “After the way I’ve been behaving—?”

“You’re in such good spirits,” Giles managed, “I’d hate to start an argument—”

“It is so warranted,” Jenny countered. “I have been terrible.”

“I—”

“Rupert, I am not gonna feel any better until you’re comfortable enough to be an ass around me.”

Giles blinked. “Th-that’s an interesting way of putting it—”

“Come on,” said Jenny, in that playful, wheedling voice that he had never expected to hear again. “You’ve spent, what, the last hundred years locked up in some dusty old office? You must be sick of not having an outlet for all that repressed cynicism.”

“Well,” said Giles, torn between laughter and indignance.

“Do I have to be mean to you again?” Jenny attempted to school her face into the same kind of impassively distant expression she’d been wearing for the last handful of weeks. This attempt failed miserably. “Goddamn it—”

“After the way you’ve been behaving these last few weeks,” said Giles, made bold by a heady combination of attraction and unrestrained joy, “it’s rather hard for me to trust you when you say you’re okay.”

Jenny’s grin flickered. “You do make a pretty compelling point there,” she said. “And a remarkably considerate one at that. I…” She dropped her eyes to her lap again. “This is still a lot for me. But last night, I realized that I don’t—want—to fight with you while I’m figuring it out.”

“No?” said Giles unsteadily.

“No.” Jenny bit her lip, smiling tentatively at him.

“Well, that’s…” Giles smiled nervously back.

They were then interrupted by a loud and pointed hammering on the door. “MOM IT DOES NOT TAKE THAT LONG TO GET DRESSED!” Art called impatiently. “AND WE ATE ALL YOUR PANCAKES ANYWAY SO NOW BUFFY HAS TO MAKE MORE!”

“Ah, the joys of motherhood,” said Jenny, in a way that—despite her best efforts—was not even close to passing as sarcastic. Turning to the door with a small smile, she called back, “ART, MOM AND DAD NEED SOME ALONE TIME, OKAY?”

From the other side of the door, there was a theatrically long-suffering sigh.

“He’s warming up to you,” Jenny informed Giles. “He would not be putting on this much of a show around Idealized Mystery Dad, I can tell you that much. He spent hours agonizing over the wording of that email—” She snorted at Giles’s guilty look. “You know, you really should get a computer. He’s probably going to want to send you a whole bunch of emails when we’re back home.”

“Jenny, I can really only handle adjusting to one life-altering change at a time.”                                                                                                

“And the life-altering change in this scenario is…?” Jenny arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t play coy,” said Giles, which made Jenny collapse into laughter again.

Art pressed his ear to the door and smiled until his cheeks hurt. He’d never heard Mom laugh like that before, not with anybody. Not even Stacey, who was the funniest person ever—which meant that either Dad was really funny or Dad made Mom really happy. They were talking, still—a cheerful murmur of voices that he couldn’t easily make out through the door. Art wished he could hear it well enough to know what had made Mom laugh so much.

“Hey, Arty, anybody ever tell you that eavesdropping is bad manners?” said Buffy lightly, tugging gently on the collar of Art’s shirt until he was too far away from the door to hear even the indecipherable murmur-y sounds. “Your parents haven’t had a lot of time to be alone together.”

“They had all night,” Art countered, “and grown-ups stay up way later than me. They had enough time.”

It was then that Mom opened the door, wearing her pretty dress from yesterday, and smiled slightly at Art with the look in her eyes that meant she knew he’d been trying to listen in. “Hi, baby,” she said. “So what’s this about eating all my pancakes?”

“You snooze, you lose,” Art told her solemnly. “That’s what you always say.”

Dad snorted. Mom shot Dad a look. “No comments from the peanut gallery,” she said to Dad, then turned to Buffy. “Thank you so much for taking care of Art’s breakfast,” she said warmly.

“Oh, it was no problem at all!” said Buffy, giving Mom a big, sunshiny smile. “I’ve got some experience with kids and breakfast. Dawn went through this whole thing at his age where all she’d eat were eggs. Mom spent so much time consulting with our pediatrician.”

Mom snorted. “That sounds like a nightmare. Arty,” she turned expectantly to Art, “you’re not gonna go through an egg phase, are you?”

“Is an egg phase like a moon phase?” Art asked curiously.

“Scientifically speaking,” said Buffy, “he was an egg at one point, before—” And then she went a very strange color and stopped talking, which made Mom start laughing at her, which might have piqued Art’s interest had he not turned his attention towards Dad again. Dad was watching Mom and Buffy with soft, misty eyes, the same way he looked at Mom sometimes when he thought nobody was looking.

Did you miss them? Art thought, but didn’t feel brave enough to ask it just yet. He thought he knew the answer, anyway, so he settled instead on a question he wasn’t as sure about. “Mom said we have to go back to the hotel after this,” he said, which did a surprisingly good job of getting everybody’s attention. “And Mom said yesterday that there’s not enough space for Dad at the hotel. But we’re going to see Dad again, right?”

“Rupert?” said Mom. With a small jolt, Art realized that she looked just as unsure as he did.

Dad looked a little bemused. “Under what circumstances would I want to spend time away from my family?” he said.

Mom went kind of pink and looked at the ceiling. Buffy looked a little misty-eyed herself. Art was abruptly full of a kind of dizzy, fluttery energy that made him want to jump up and down a little bit, so he did—covertly, of course, because he wanted to be polite about it. “Can you come with us when we go to the museum tomorrow?” he asked hopefully. “We met at a museum, remember? And you live here, so I bet you know all about museums, so I don’t have to listen to the guided tour or anything.”

“Guided tours are so overrated,” Buffy agreed, sharing a smile with Art.

Mom said, “I need to check with Nora first, but—?”

“If Nora and the rest are amenable, I’d love to,” said Dad warmly, smiling first at Art and then at Mom. Mom went really pink and looked at the ceiling again, which made Dad stammer nervously, “O-of course, if you don’t—”

“We’d Love To Have You!” said Mom in a voice that she clearly seemed to think sounded normal.

Dad gave Art a little look like can you believe this? Art hid his giggle behind a hand, collected himself, then asked very hopefully, “Can you show me around the museum, if you do come? And can you show me around the gift shop? And can you—”

“Rupert, I am going to give you a budget when it comes to gifts, and you are going to stick to it,” said Mom abruptly.

“Mom, he missed seven birthdays and I have one more coming up!” Art objected.

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna want your dad to pay for some expensive Ivy League college in ten years, and then you’re gonna thank me that I didn’t let him buy you a life-sized model of a T-rex,” said Mom, ruffling Art’s hair. “I promise I’ll still let him spoil you rotten, okay? We’re just keeping it within reason.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’d be able to stop him from spoiling Art rotten,” said Buffy. Her eyes lit up. “Come to think of it—”

“You’re getting a gifting limit too,” said Mom immediately. Buffy pouted theatrically, which made Dad let out a soft, breathy laugh and squeeze her shoulder. “My god. I let the two of you spend less than a day around my son and I’m already having to talk you down from buying him the moon or something.”

“I’m just that special,” said Art, giving Mom a winning grin.

“You’re just as charismatic as your mom is what you are,” said Mom ruefully. “And as tenacious as your dad.”

“Tenacious?” Art echoed, brow furrowing.

“Stubborn,” said Dad helpfully. “Though I would argue that when it comes to stubbornness, your mum—”

Mom gave Dad a Look. Dad turned the rest of his sentence into a cough. “Anyway,” said Mom. “Breakfast?”

“I’ll join the rest of you in just a moment,” said Dad, smiling somewhat apologetically. “I think I need to call Anya, let her know officially that I’m taking another day of leave.”

“Do you even need to tell her?” said Buffy disbelievingly. “At this point, you’ve got to have at least a year’s worth of vacation days stored up. If I were Anya, I’d count every day you’re not in the office as a victory.”

Dad coughed in a way that looked a little like he was trying to hide a laugh. “Um, that’s—rather what Anya’s been expressing as of late, yes.”

“So eat pancakes with us!” said Art excitedly. “And then call Anya! Mom has to call Aunt Nora anyway to tell her that Dad’s coming with us to the museum tomorrow, so you can do it while she’s doing that!”

Mom gave Art a wry look and said, “You are a persistent little gremlin, you know that?”

“Pancakes sound lovely,” said Dad, raising his eyebrows significantly in Buffy’s direction.

“You are a fully grown man, Giles,” said Buffy. “You are making your own damn pancakes.”

Giles made Jenny pancakes.

“You have to,” Art earnestly informed him, “because if Buffy’s not making Mom pancakes, Mom might try to cook, and Aunt Nora says Mom’s not allowed to do that anymore on account of that one time she basically almost burned the house down.”

“You still haven’t learned how to cook?” said Giles disbelievingly.

“Aunt Nora had to call the fire department,” Art continued, ignoring quite a few frantic hand gestures from his mother, “and then Aunt Nora said that if Mom ever cooks again we’re supposed to call 911 in advance just to make sure they’re there, ‘cause of all the times Mom tried to put out grease fires with water.”

“Times?” said Giles. Then, “Fires?”

Jenny had buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, Giles, careful with Ms. Calendar’s pancake!” said Buffy anxiously, nudging at Giles’s elbow. Giles, who had not at all been paying attention to Jenny’s pancake, hastily flipped it. “You gotta time these things precisely or you end up with some really rough stuff. The first time I tried to make pancakes in my LA apartment, I ended up setting off the smoke alarm ‘cause I—” She flushed a little, smiling almost tensely. “Um, I was kinda scatterbrained at the time,” she said very lightly.

Giles’s newfound ability to read between the lines led him to yet another painful conclusion. Quietly, he placed a hand on Buffy’s shoulder.

“Giles, you—” Buffy cut herself off, flushing a little, and tipped her head towards him, leaning into his touch.

Abruptly, Art said, “Mom, how come Buffy called you Ms. Calendar?”

As Buffy opened her mouth to respond, Jenny hastily answered, “Um, Art, I-I was going by Ms. Calendar when Buffy knew me, so—”

It finally clicked. Arthur Cervenak, Nora calling Jenny Janna—

“Janna Cervenak,” said Giles disbelievingly. “That’s—but Buffy, that’s the Council’s international liaison for our access to the largest magical database in the world! Willow’s been in contact with her for the last handful of months, she’s submitted paperwork—”

“Mom does odd jobs sometimes,” said Art, looking entirely unsurprised.

Giles had read Janna Cervenak’s gorgeously crafted proposals for the digitization of ancient Council texts. Jenny’s words at his fingertips, and he had skimmed them for years. “I should have noticed,” he said, utterly floored. “You do have quite a distinctive writing style. I always enjoyed reading your memos back in Sunnydale.”

To his surprise, Jenny blushed, smiling very shyly. “That is really weird, Rupert,” she said. “Most of my memos were thinly veiled death threats back when I was sending them your way.”

“Yes, and I found them delightfully inventive,” said Giles. “I believe my favorite was the one where you—ah, hang on, I might have it somewhere.” He turned away from the stove—winced—turned back to flip a pancake. “Buffy, do you mind watching the pancakes while I find the box of my Sunnydale things?”

Buffy said, “If they’re for Ms. Calendar—” stopped, and frowned a little thoughtfully. “Um. Should I call you Ms. Cervenak instead?”

Jenny, whose attention was entirely on Giles, didn’t seem to hear the question. Art said, “Mom says Janna Cervenak is her family name and Jenny Calendar is her business name.”

“So—”

“So, Janna, then?” said Giles, smiling somewhat tentatively at Jenny.

Jenny beamed. It was the sort of smile that Giles had thought about on lonely London days—the sort of smile he’d never expected to see directed at him again. She didn’t seem quite aware of the smile herself, which was what tugged so profoundly at Giles’s own heart: there wasn’t even the slightest touch of performative artifice to her delight. “That’s—that’s fine,” she said. “I don’t mind you calling me Janna.”

With affectionate amusement, Buffy said, “Yeah, I bet you don’t.”

“Thank you, Buffy,” said Giles loudly, pretending not to notice the way Jenny’s blush deepened. “Now, if you’ll only watch the pancakes—”

“I’ll do more than watch the pancakes,” Buffy informed him, hopping to her feet and not-so-gently pushing Giles out of the way. “I’ll make Ms. Calendar some pancakes good enough to make your pancakes cry. Or, oh—” She blushed herself, then said very shyly, “Ms. Cervenak?”

Jenny’s response to this was to pull Art’s chair over to her and bury her face in his hair. Entirely clueless to the subtext, Art snuggled happily into his mother’s arms.

“…Box,” said Giles, after a good ten seconds of staring at the rather wonderful tableau in his kitchen. He thought he would save that for a lonely London day, if one ever came again—

His breath froze in his chest.

If one ever came again?

“Oh, fu-u-udge,” said Buffy, glancing apologetically at Art before turning her attention to Jenny. “Um, this is not a round pancake.”

“What shape is it?” Art demanded, squirming free from Jenny’s hug to scramble over and peer up at the stove. “Is it a dinosaur?”

“Art, careful around the open flame!” yelped Jenny, all but sprinting after him.

Giles shook his head a little dizzily, an unsteady smile spreading across his face. After another lingering moment, he stepped quietly out of the room to locate the Sunnydale box.

TO: GILES, RUPERT

FROM: YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS FROM YOU *** ** * ***** (choice phrases redacted for the safety of Arthur Cervenak)

I AM GOING TO ****** **** ****** ****** IF YOU PUT YOUR ******* OBNOXIOUS NOVELTY COFFEE MUG IN FRONT OF MY TASTEFUL AND ADORABLE NOVELTY COFFEE MUG IN THE STAFF ROOM CABINET ONE MORE TIME. AND IF YOU EVEN ******* THINK ABOUT RESPONDING TO THIS BY SAYING “THEY’RE COMMUNAL MUGS, MS. CALENDAR,” I WILL **** ***, RUPERT, I SWEAR I WILL, BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW YOU ARE A TOTAL *** ABOUT THE MUG YOU PUT UP FRONT. YOU SENT ME A MEMO LAST WEEK WHEN I USED IT FOR COFFEE BECAUSE IT MADE YOUR TEA TASTE LIKE HOT GARBAGE. I WOULD LIKE TO NOTE HERE THAT I THINK YOUR TEA TASTES LIKE HOT GARBAGE ANYWAY, BECAUSE YOU PUT FIVE TONS OF MILK AND SUGAR IN IT AND DILUTE THE INTENDED FLAVOR.

ALSO IF YOU RESPOND TO THIS MEMO WITH ANOTHER CONDESCENDING ******* HANDWRITTEN LETTER ABOUT MY PROFESSIONALISM, I AM GOING TO TELL PRINCIPAL FLUTIE WHERE YOU REALLY WERE THAT DAY YOU GOT OUT OF CHAPERONING THE SOPHOMORE FIELD TRIP TO THE WATER PARK, AND WE WILL BOTH GO DOWN.

I HOPE YOU *** ** * ****, YOU PRETENTIOUS ************.

SPITEFULLY,

MS. CALENDAR

Buffy was laughing so hard that Giles found himself genuinely concerned about her ability to breathe. “I want to frame this!” she wheezed helplessly. “This is—oh my GOD,” and she buried her face in a mortified Jenny’s shoulder.

“I am starting to really understand how you’ve been so great about me being terrible these last few weeks,” said Jenny, staring incredulously at the memo in question. “Did I seriously write that? To a coworker?”

“I find it startling that you’re surprised,” said Giles, who was trying his best not to laugh himself. “Didn’t you tell me yesterday that—”

“I wanna see the uncensored version,” said Art, attempting to wriggle under Giles’s arm. Jenny held him back. “Mo-om!”

“Nora’s already gonna kill me for like five other parental indiscretions, baby,” Jenny informed him. “I am not having you teach Bella any more swear words than she already knows.”

“That letter has more than Bella knows?” Art demanded, and redoubled his efforts. “Come on, Mom, I want to get one up on her!”  

Taking advantage of Jenny’s state of general distraction, Giles took a forkful of her pancakes. Buffy swatted the fork out of his hand without looking up.

[Transcript: July 8th, 2006, 11:27]

ANYA: Rupert!

GILES: Anya. I-I called to let you know that I’ll be taking…um, how many vacation days do I have available to me?

ANYA: Oh, don’t worry about that, I can fudge the numbers and steal some from Wesley. He’s literally never gonna notice.

GILES: That’s— [laughs] You don’t need to steal any from Wesley. I can always take some sort of leave of absence when I run out of vacation days.

ANYA: What the FUCK?

GILES: …Well, that’s…I must admit, I was expecting you to be more pleased than—

ANYA: Are you—did you suffer some kind of head trauma? Is that what this is? WESLEY, CALL AN AMBULANCE AND SEND IT TO—where are you calling me from? Do you remember how addresses work? Okay, Rupert, an address is how we tell people where—

GILES: For the love of God, Anya, nothing is wrong with me!

ANYA: THAT’S debatable.

GILES: [laughs]

ANYA: I’m sorry, did you just—did you just LAUGH at me telling you that something is wrong with you?

GILES: M-my apologies, I just—I thought it was funny.

ANYA: You never think it’s funny! What— [pause] Oh.

GILES: Yes. Well—

ANYA: Oh. Oh my gosh, I’m so dense.

GILES: I wouldn’t say that—

ANYA: Take as many vacation days as you want, Rupert! Take MY vacation days! I don’t want to see you in this office again until—well, I honestly never want to see you in this office because it very clearly makes you miserable, but if I see you in this office when you COULD be spending time with your son, we are going to have WORDS. Is that clear?

GILES: Crystal. [pause] Anya, I…thank you.

ANYA: Huh?

GILES: For giving me the time and space to sort through this complicated situation. It means a lot to me, e-especially knowing how greatly you appreciate lending your assistance under normal circumstances.

ANYA: [sniffles] Well! It was pretty much the only logical way forward, wasn’t it?

GILES: Yes, which is why it’s a bit out of character for you to take it.

ANYA: Ignoring you. ANYWAY, I was reading ANOTHER parenting book—

GILES: I am fifty-one years old.

ANYA:  —and THIS one said that you’re supposed to give children at least some degree of autonomy so that they can learn from the inevitable multitude of mistakes they’ll likely make. [pause] I’m paraphrasing here.

GILES: …It’s certainly hard not to be cheered by such a vote of confidence.

Chapter Text

As soon as it became clear to Art that it was time to go, he began tossing determinedly terrified questions left and right in what was very obviously an attempt to delay his and Jenny’s impending departure. Jenny’s overall response to this was—in Giles’s opinion—quite stunningly impressive: calm, concise answers that did not at all distract her from the process of getting Art’s jacket on. “What are we gonna have for lunch?” he was currently asking in a plaintive, wheedling tone of voice.

“Let’s figure that out when we’re all in the car with Aunt Nora,” said Jenny, steadying a squirming Art with a gentle tap to his nose.

“Can Dad come with us?”

“If we’re gonna be back at the hotel room, there won’t be space for Dad.” Jenny finished with Art’s jacket, straightening up and giving Buffy and Giles a wry little smile.

“Then can we go somewhere that there will be space for Dad?”

Jenny had a very resigned look on her face. “Arty,” she said, “the original plan was for us to have a picnic with Dad, remember? We were gonna just go and say hi, and then we were gonna figure out another time that you and Dad could spend some time together. But—”

“And you!” Art interjected.

“What?”

“Me and Dad and you,” said Art.

Jenny coughed, visibly blushing. “Yeah, sure. You and Dad and me. My point is that we have already spent way more time with Dad than we were originally going to, and I’m gonna need you to respect the limit I’m setting right now, okay?”

“You changed your mind last time,” Art persisted, his voice trembling.

“I did, which is why I’m not changing it this time.”

“Mom, I don’t want—”

“Are you gonna say goodbye to Dad?” said Jenny very pointedly. “Because once Aunt Nora gets here, we’re out the door.”

Tears were spilling down Art’s cheeks. Without a word, he buried his face in Jenny’s stomach.

Jenny didn’t seem at all startled by this. Murmuring something to Art in that same unfamiliar language, she then looked somewhat apologetically up at Giles and Buffy, saying in a soft whisper, “He’s a little overwhelmed, I think I might have to—”

“Yes, of course,” said Giles unsteadily.

With an awkward wave to Giles and Buffy, Jenny carefully attempted to maneuver Art out the door. Art dug his heels in. “Art,” she said very tiredly, and scooped him up into her arms—a movement that Art responded to by tucking his head into the crook of Jenny’s neck and letting out a shaky, sobbing breath. She looked down at him for a long moment, then said, “Um, Rupert, I-I’ll call you, okay? Soon.”

“Yes, of course,” echoed Giles, who felt as though he’d been knifed in the stomach. Though the noise was muffled by Jenny’s shoulder, Art was still very audibly crying.

“And Buffy, I—” Jenny bit her lip, then said, “I’m really sorry.”

This took both Giles and Buffy by surprise. “Sorry?” Buffy repeated, visibly bemused.

“I, uh,” Jenny laughed a little unsteadily, “really wasn’t on my best behavior at dinner last night. You’ve got a lot to deal with right now even without having to babysit two fully grown adults, and I’ll do my best not to put you in that position again.”

Giles was expecting Buffy to laugh in response—brush the apology off and take it in stride, the way she had taken everything in stride the night before. But Buffy had gone very still at Jenny’s words, a stricken look on her face. “That’s…really appreciated, Ms. Cervenak,” she said. “Last night was really hard for me on a lot of levels. It means a lot that you noticed.”

It was beginning to sink in with Giles that he hadn’t noticed a thing. Buffy had seemed—he racked his brain, trying to remember the last handful of hours outside of Art and Jenny and adorably misshapen pancakes. She’d been happy, hadn’t she? Smiling and levelheaded and politely exasperated with him and Jenny alike, but she hadn’t at all looked troubled. The fact that Jenny had noticed, had apologized—did he owe Buffy an apology himself? What on earth could he need to apologize to her for?

He shook his head absently, bemused, and decided to let the matter lie. Jenny had been behaving like a child; her apology had come from that and that alone. Giles had simply been trying to mitigate the chaos, and there was no fault in that. He would have to apologize to Buffy for not noticing her struggling, but that could wait until Jenny and Art had left.

“Of course,” said Jenny, giving Buffy a crooked smile. “Um, hey—are you going to come to the museum with Rupert tomorrow?”

The question threw Giles for a loop. As he turned to look at Buffy, he saw that she seemed to be trying very hard not to look at him. “I…don’t know,” she finally said.

Outside, a car horn honked twice.

“That’s Nora,” said Jenny. She wavered, then moved forward, shifting Art awkwardly to one hip in order to give Giles a stiff, one-armed hug. For a single shining moment, everything Giles had ever wanted was pressed against him—his son’s dark, downy hair, Jenny’s hand on his shoulder—and then she pulled back, and he was left staring after her with an expression that he felt sure revealed all too much. “Art, can you say goodbye to Dad?” said Jenny softly.

Face still pressed into his mother’s shoulder, Art shook his head.

Jenny gave Giles an apologetic smile, which he shakily returned. “Well, I’ll say bye for both of us, how’s that?” she murmured, cuddling Art closer. Looking back up at Giles, she said in that same half-soothing tone of voice, “Bye, Dad! See you at the museum tomorrow!”

Giles barely remembered how to speak until Buffy elbowed his side. “Ouch,” he said reproachfully, giving her a reproving look and receiving a remorseless eyebrow raise in return. Turning back to Jenny, he said tentatively, “…Bye, then, Mum.”

A slow blush spread across Jenny’s face and she almost smiled. Ducking her head, she stepped outside, her departure a bit slower than necessary so as not to jostle Art. Halfway down the walk, she turned to look furtively back; her blush deepened when she saw that he was still watching her, and she hastily turned back towards Nora’s car.

Buffy shut the door, then fell back against it with a weak laugh. “Whew!” she said, smiling at Giles somewhat tremulously. “Kind of a lot, huh?”

Nervously, Giles said, “Buffy, I am sorry that I didn’t realize how much this whole affair was affecting you. Is there—anything I can do to help, or—?”

“Oh, you’re okay!” said Buffy hastily.

“A-are you sure?”

“Look, Giles, I really don’t feel up to talking about this right now,” said Buffy firmly. “It’s just…” She exhaled a little shakily. “I think I’m gonna call Tara.”

“You know you can talk to me if, if anything’s bothering you,” said Giles unsteadily.

Buffy went very still, then, a quiet little furrow to her brow as she studied his face. It took her a moment to reply. “Sure,” she said. “If anything’s bothering me, I’ll tell you.”   

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I wish I knew how to stay mad at you.

Jenny called Giles an hour after she’d left, which startled him so profoundly that he had to spend a handful of seconds fumbling to get the landline off the hook. When he finally did pick it up, she said with a bemused laugh, “Everything okay?”

“I-I-I rather think I should be asking you that,” said Giles anxiously.

“What?” A sheepish exhalation. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, Rupert, I just…you know, I figured if we wanted to talk, we should figure things out before the museum tomorrow.”

“That’s…quite comfortingly vague,” said Giles uneasily.

After a moment, Jenny said, “What Buffy said really stuck with me. I don’t want to put her in that position again, and—” A heavy pause. It took her a startlingly long time to continue. “I-it was really hard for Art to leave today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that.”

“Oh,” said Giles softly.

“Yeah. And I can’t—” A shaking breath. “I don’t want to put him through that without having an actual plan to explain to him. He wasn’t in any condition to ask questions on the drive back, but I’m sure he’s going to start getting more specific about—” Jenny cut herself off. “I don’t wanna get sidetracked. I think we need to start really talking about what your role in his life is going to be.”

“…ah,” said Giles. There was a sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“You have no idea how much it means to me that you want to be there for him,” Jenny was saying, blissfully unaware of the strange nausea that had abruptly come over Giles, “but obviously we’re going to have to figure out stuff like—I mean, I made it really clear to you, I want you to be a present part of his life.”

“Of course,” said Giles.

“I don’t have any intention of splitting custody—”

The thought of raising Art alone, unsupervised by the protective and nurturing family that his son had clearly grown up in, sent a rush of terror through Giles. “Th-that’s—I would never ask that of you,” he stammered. “He’s clearly incredibly happy as he is. I-I wouldn’t want to rip him away from his home, his family—”

“And I’m glad to hear that.” Though Jenny’s tone remained even, the careful edge to her voice had dissipated somewhat. “He’s an adventurous little kid, but he’s…a little impulsive sometimes, and I think he’d happily agree to move in with you without really thinking about how much he would miss his life back home.”

“He is the sweetest child I have ever met.”

The words stilled them both. After a stunned moment, Jenny said, “Yeah, I…” and laughed, a little wobbly. “I kind of had a feeling it wouldn’t take long for you two to hit it off. You’re really—you know, I see so much of you in him.”

That startled Giles. Though the physical resemblance was certainly present, Art’s spur-of-the-moment inquisitiveness and stubbornly loving heart reminded him more of Jenny than anything. He wasn’t quite sure how to admit to that without admitting to—well—whatever it was that had left his eyes lingering on her asleep in his bed, so he instead said, “I, I hope he takes after you, Jenny. Really. I’m not—”

“Oh, Jesus. Don’t start with this again.” Surprised, Giles laughed. “I’m not joking! I’m trying to have a constructive conversation with you about the kind of role you’re gonna play here, and if you derail us into Self-Pity Station, we’re never gonna get to where we’re supposed to go.”

Giles grinned a bit fatuously and twirled the phone cord around his finger. “As ever, I defer to your navigational skills,” he said.

“As you should. Okay.” Jenny took a deep breath in, then out. “Um, I’ve—I’ve had a lot of time to think about my expectations and non-negotiables, obviously, but you, you obviously haven’t, and I want to take that into account to the best of my abilities. So I’m going to kinda just give you a list, and you can sort through it at your leisure, okay?”

“Okay,” said Giles slowly.

“You’ve got another question, don’t you?”

Startled that Jenny could read him so accurately even over a questionable and slightly staticky connection, Giles flushed. It took him a moment to answer. “I-I do,” he said. “Um, as much as I appreciate the notion of sorting through the list at my leisure—should we not have some sort of preliminary system set up for handling Art’s questions? You mentioned that leaving today was difficult for him; I think it could be helpful for there to be some sort of explanation as to why he has to.”

“Oh! Don’t worry about that.” There was a relieved laugh to Jenny’s voice. “God, I thought you were gonna ask me something actually difficult. I have that handled.”

“It’s simply that I’d like to know—”

“Rupert,” said Jenny, quiet but firm, “I am absolutely going to tell you, but before I do, I think I need to bring up a non-negotiable right here, right now. Until you and Art know each other a hell of a lot better than you do now, I’m the one who has the final say. Okay?”

It took a moment for Giles to curb a surprising flash of anger. Slowly, he said, “You insinuated that you were done treating me as though—”

“This isn’t that.” The lack of any vindictive acidity to Jenny’s voice stilled Giles, a flutter of shy hope rising in his chest. “My baby is my first priority. If you want—” A shaking breath. “If you want to be mad at me for the choices I made—for him—I think I can live with that, but I don’t want someone who doesn’t know him inside and out making any kind of big decisions on his behalf.”

“Be that as it may,” said Giles, choosing his words as carefully as he could, “I don’t like the idea of you outright lying to him. As things stand, he seems to assume that—that you’re as happy to see me as he is.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Jenny?”

“Um, just—” A shaking breath. “Please can you just give me a minute? I need to—” There was then a string of that language Giles didn’t recognize, one word clear and true: Nora. Giles was quite sure he heard Nora’s muffled voice responding in clipped, exasperated tones. “God. I—God. Okay. Rupert—”

“Jenny,” said Giles, heart pounding. He was quite certain that he was missing a vital piece of this puzzle.

“My feelings for you a-are—complicated,” said Jenny. “And not your problem.”

“I think it’s safe to say they’re entirely my problem if we’re to work towards co-parenting,” Giles countered. “Especially since you have made it abundantly clear that you would like me to play a major role in Art’s life. I, I don’t think it’s too much to ask i-if I ask you—” A dizzy wave of nerves threatened to overtake him, but he passed on. “How you feel. About me.”

Another shuddering breath.

“Jenny,” said Giles, torn between anxiety and exasperation.

“I’m trying,” said Jenny. “I really am trying here. I know I’ve been unfair to you, but it’s—you’re—” In one breath, she burst out, “Art’s not wrong. Okay? He’s not—”

“I’m sorry?” said Giles, flooded with a kind of terrified delight.

“He’s not wrong, but it’s just—it’s complicated and I’m working through it and I don’t always know how to deal with—look, the point is that I’m not lying to Art if I let him think I’m happy to see you. I’m—” She let out a strangled laugh. “Jesus Christ, Rupert, you think I’d have just anybody’s baby?”

The answer to that—Giles’s heart might very well burst from his chest—was a resounding no.

“I just don’t want to humiliate myself by—” Jenny cut herself off. “I’m happy. To see you.”

“Hell of a way of showing it,” said Giles dryly.

Jenny laughed again, weak and almost relieved. “I deserved that.”

Happy to see him. Giles thought he might like to live in this moment forever. “You did, a bit,” he said, and was buoyed by her tearful giggle. “All right. So—I’ll concede that it isn’t a lie, then, Art believing you happy, even if that happiness is—complicated, as you say. But we still—”

“I told Art that your job is stressful and you’re still trying to work out how to find the time to be in his life for more than just a day or two,” Jenny said unsteadily. “And that the reason we have to leave sometimes is because you have work, and part of that work is about figuring out how to be a dad, so that you can be a really, really good dad to him instead of just some guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

This was such a ridiculously simple explanation that Giles was a bit ashamed they hadn’t managed to come up with it before putting Buffy through an apparently very difficult family dinner. “How did he take it?”

“He’s your son,” said Jenny very dryly. “How do you think he took it?”

For a terrifying moment, Giles found himself convinced that this was a test he would fail—but then the answer came to him, sharp and entirely amusing. “Did he perhaps refuse to accept the notion that I don’t know what I’m doing and proceed to barrage you with a dozen questions? Because that, Jenny, sounds quite a lot like your son to me.”

“Absolutely not. If he’s antagonizing me, that’s the Rupert Giles in him coming to the forefront.” But there was a laugh in Jenny’s voice, the kind of laugh that had Giles twirling the phone cord and feeling weightless enough to float to the moon. “He’s not crying anymore, though, which is the goal. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get that kid to stop asking questions.”

“I’m glad,” said Giles.

A startled pause. “What do you mean?”

“You…” Giles struggled to find the words. “He is so clearly happy,” he said. “So confident. So willing to trust that his questions will be met with answers rather than exasperation. He has been raised by a mother who loves him and who has worked her hardest to, to give him every happiness that she possibly can. Certainly meeting me is a new experience for him, but he seems to be taking to it like a fish to water. He’s already decided to love me without even knowing me, because he’s—never known the danger of a love like that.” He swallowed, raising a shaking hand to awkwardly brush tears from his eyes. “You have kept him safe a-and happy, and I can’t—it is so hard to ever be angry at your leaving, Jenny, when I see how our child remains entirely untouched by the trauma of knowing one’s parent doesn’t love them exactly as they are.”

There was a stunned silence. He wondered, vaguely, if this skirted too close to a telling admission—he couldn’t bring himself to care. She needed to know.

Silence—and then a soft, choked sob. “Oh, Jenny,” he said, tears springing again to his eyes. “Jenny, love, don’t—”

He was interrupted by rustling on the other end of the phone, Nora’s voice speaking in that soft foreign language as Jenny’s sobs began to increase in volume. To Giles, she said, “I am terribly sorry, Rupert, but I think I may have to cut this call short for the time being. Janna needs a moment to compose herself.”

“Of course,” said Giles, chest tight. Years ago, it would have been him holding Jenny close as she cried.

“She will call you back,” Nora added. “I’ll make her.”

A weak smile danced across Giles’s face. “I appreciate that, Nora.”

The dial tone stung, a bit, but only because—he wanted to be there. He wanted to hold her. The force of that desire left him dizzy—had him tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, heart pounding. He didn’t know what to do with himself—only closed his eyes and imagined Jenny, that soft dark head tucked under his chin, those elegant fingers laced tightly with his. Imagined her tears stilling into those soft, shaky little breaths that meant she didn’t need to be held, anymore, but still wanted to be.

The phone didn’t ring for hours. Giles stayed in its vicinity while pretending that that wasn’t what he was doing—making dinner in the kitchen with the door half-open, lingering by the bookshelf nearest to the landline under the pretense of trying to choose a demonology volume to examine more closely, doing his work in the front room of his apartment instead of retreating to his bedroom for some privacy. This last measure had the unexpected consequence of Buffy, fresh off of her call with Tara, wandering in with red eyes and sitting down on the opposite end of the sofa to keep him company as he—well. Pretended to work, really, when what he was actually doing was stealing hopeful glances at the phone.

“She’ll call,” said Buffy, mouth twitching. “You do have a kid with her, you know, and, uh—” She looked casually away from Giles, then towards him again, biting her lip in that way she meant she was trying not to smile. “She kinda said some stuff last night that made it pretty clear she cares about what you think.”

“Yes,” said Giles, who was having trouble focusing on anything that wasn’t a ringing phone.

Buffy hopped off of the sofa, patting his shoulder. “You stay busy,” she said. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”

“Ah, Buffy—”

Buffy turned, shoulders tense. “Yeah?”

Giles hesitated, then said, “Are you coming to the museum tomorrow? I-I’m sure Art would love to, to—”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna sit this one out,” said Buffy, and smiled a little flatly. “There’s some Council stuff that’ll be easier to take care of now that I’m actually across the pond, so to speak, and I think I need to make a few calls to some people before they—” She cut herself off. “Well, uh, anyway, point is I’ve got some stuff to do tomorrow. So you should probably—you know. Go have fun with your family.”

The words stung more deeply than he supposed she had intended. She is not your daughter, Giles reminded himself, looking at the woman who in a certain light still held that bright, unquenchable spark of the girl. She wouldn’t want to be. The possibility that you still care deeply for her has not even entered her mind. “I-if you don’t want to come—”

Buffy’s smile stayed on her face. “I don’t.”

“Then—” How was it that they were still exactly where they had been? What could he do other than this? He had opened his home to her, put her in the guest bedroom, left his son on the couch so that she wouldn’t be put out— “I, I would hate to be a bother,” Giles began awkwardly, already moving to retreat to his room. “Extending an invitation that—”

“Giles, it’s not…” Buffy sighed. “I want to give you some time to process this really big life thing, okay? I don’t think having me there is gonna help. Most of that picnic was just me making awkward small talk with Mr. Kovacs, because I do not want to distract Art during his time with you, the kids that aren’t Art are totally not interested in some random stranger, and I’m pretty sure Mrs. Kovacs totally hates me for a reason I still don’t understand. The only one who is even remotely kind to me is Ms. Cal—Ms. Cerv—is Jenny, and that’s when she’s not freaking out every time you so much as look at her.” She looked directly at Giles, jaw set. “I know you like the idea of having me physically here, but the reality of it is sometimes really, really hard for me, and sometimes I get the sense that you don’t totally understand why.”

“I don’t,” said Giles helplessly.

“Then maybe that’s on you,” said Buffy. Her voice was shaking. “Because it is really not that hard to figure out.”

[Transcript: July 8th, 2006, 16:21]

JENNY: Hey.

GILES: Hello.

JENNY: Sorry about that, I—

GILES: No apology necessary. What matters to me is that you’re feeling all right now.

JENNY: You’re so…

GILES: [pause] Are you feeling all right now?

JENNY: I think so. Yeah. I just—I hope you know that what you said, it, it really meant a lot to me. That’s why I—that’s why—well, you know. You heard.

GILES: I did.

JENNY: So thank you. For— [pause] I really, really love him.

GILES: I can see that.

JENNY: And I never really—forgave myself, because—and the fact that you have the capacity to not only—but to say it’s good, what I did, I just—

GILES: Jenny.

JENNY: God! Yeah! So not the point of this call, um—what were we talking about, before I—?

GILES: Your list.

JENNY: Right. Can I give it to you tomorrow? I’m still writing it up.

GILES: That’s…I’m fine with that, I’d just like to know if there’s anything—any guidelines you’d like to put down regarding my time with Art tomorrow. Whether I should know a-about any allergies, o-or fears, or—

JENNY: Oh, he’s like his mom. Allergic to nothing, basically bulletproof, extremely proud of his pain tolerance. At some point, he’s probably going to tell you about that one time he got a splinter and didn’t cry at all when I took it out.

GILES: So—

JENNY: Just go with your instincts here, okay? [pause] You’ve got good ones.

Chapter Text

It had been mutually agreed that Giles would meet Jenny, Art, and the Kovacs conglomerate at noon outside the Natural History Museum, which of course found Giles there at eleven-thirty on the dot, anxiously checking his watch and shifting from foot to foot with a sort of nervous relief. He didn’t want Art to think for even a moment that he was anything but eager to make up for lost time, and showing up even a second after noon, he was sure, would seem positively—

“Aha!” came Jenny’s laughing voice, and Giles only had a handful of seconds to process what was happening before Art had hurtled forward and affixed himself to his father’s middle. Very nearly knocked off of his feet, Giles let out a soft oof, realizing only after he didn’t fall that it was Jenny’s hand keeping him neatly upright. “Sorry to spook you,” said Jenny, giving him a rather unrepentant smile and squeezing his shoulder, “but I kinda had a feeling you’d be here way too early, and I decided to see if I could cheat the system and give you and Art an extra thirty minutes together.”

Giles blinked at her, color rising to his cheeks, and smiled very shyly. Jenny’s returning blush made his heart thrill.

“Dad,” said Art impatiently, tugging at Giles’s elbow until Giles looked away from Jenny. “We have to go get breakfast now!”

“We—oh,” said Giles. “Breakfast? It’s near noon—”

“He calls it breakfast until it’s noon,” said Jenny, glancing fondly at Art. “I’ve tried to explain brunch to him—”

“—but Mom says there’s no such thing as linner,” Art finished, “and I say that then there should be no such thing as brunch. It’s breakfast.”

“We actually already had breakfast,” Jenny explained, carefully tugging a reluctant Art off of Giles so that she could take one of his hands, “but I figured Art might need some motivation to leave the house early, and I wanted to give him something to look forward to if it turned out you weren’t going to do your whole show up thirty minutes early like a crazy person thing. So we’re going to see if we can find him some oatmeal—”

“Dad likes oatmeal too, Mom,” Art informed Jenny significantly. “You’re the one who’s weird.”

Giles, expecting Jenny’s sharp-tongued defensiveness, stiffened. He was startled and warmed when Jenny responded by ruffling Art’s hair and saying, “You bet I am. Don’t I always say you take after your dad?”

Art beamed, nodding rapidly, and reached with his free hand to grab Giles’s. “Are you going to get oatmeal?” he asked. “Or did you already have breakfast and now you’re not hungry?”

“I’m a bit peckish,” Giles replied with a small smile. It was entirely true. Nerves about the museum had made it nearly impossible to eat breakfast; he’d barely been able to stomach half a container of yogurt. “I could do with some porridge.”

“What’s—”

“British word for oatmeal, baby,” said Jenny, squeezing Art’s hand.

Art considered, then said, “Well, I’m not going to call it that,” and turned his attention entirely to his mother. “Where are we going? How far is it? Are we going to get back in time for—”

“Nice little café, less than five minutes away, and yes, we are, because I once saw you devour an entire slice of pumpkin pie in thirty seconds. I don’t at all think we’re going to have to worry about you being a slow eater.”

“But what if Dad—”

“Your dad is probably starving,” said Jenny, “because he doesn’t eat when he gets nervous, so he’s probably going to eat a little faster than usual too.”

Startled by the accuracy of Jenny’s statement, Giles stole another searching look at her. She was dividing her attention entirely between Art and the upcoming traffic light, but he thought he caught a hint of that lingering blush on her cheeks.

“I don’t do that,” said Art. “I eat everything.”

“Yeah, that you get from me,” said Jenny, warm and easy.

It was the first time that Giles had paid consistent attention to the way that Jenny treated Art. He hadn’t been wrong in his initial assessment—it was positively transparent that she absolutely adored him—but her patience, her tenderness, her unfettered affection, it was…

“Telephone pole!” Art said with alarm, tugging Giles firmly away from a near-collision.

“Arty, that was very helpful!” said Jenny, giving Art a proud little smile. “Are you okay, Rupert?”

“Ah,” said Giles. Jenny had not quite stopped smiling that sweet, easy smile when she turned towards him.  

The moment, thankfully, was interrupted by Art abruptly tugging on both of their hands and saying impatiently, “Is that it?”

“You are just on a roll today, aren’t you?” Jenny steered Art—and, by proxy, Giles—towards the nearby café. “I really appreciate how much attention you’re paying to your surroundings, honey. Thank you very much for listening.”

“Mmhmm!” said Art, whose eyes were very clearly on the desserts inside.

“Not until after lunch,” said Jenny, “but if you want me to get you something now and save it for later—”

Art shook his head. “Last time I did that, we went somewhere better,” he informed Giles, “and Bella got a donut, and I only had a croissant, and I got in trouble for taking a bite of Bella’s donut even though it was twice as big as my croissant so I thought she wouldn’t even notice, but she did, because she’s—”

“Let’s get you inside before we run out of time to order,” said Jenny patiently, nudging Art through the doors before them. He ran up to the counter without hesitation, all but pressing his nose against the glass, and she turned a little shyly to Giles. “I hope it’s okay that I did this,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, obviously if I’d expected you to actually be here half an hour early, I would have asked you to be, but I just thought—you know, you’re nervous, he wants to spend time with you, he’s pretty much the most perfect calming agent out there, it might be good to—do something positive for you, for once, and—”

“Jenny, I’m really quite touched,” said Giles softly. “There’s no need for you to worry that I’m upset. I-I suppose—if anything—I’m quite surprised that you know me well enough to do something like this, even after we’ve spent such a significant amount of time apart.”

Jenny blinked, then smiled, looking greatly relieved. “I—”

“Hello!” Art said very loudly to the woman behind the counter. “Can I have—two oatmeals, one black coffee for my mom, one tea for my dad, and—”

“Ooh boy,” said Jenny, darting ahead. “Gotta make sure someone’s actually there to pay.”

Giles followed, meeting Jenny and Art at the counter, and said very quietly as Art continued his order, “I can pay, Jenny, if you—”

“I’m an independent lady and I can support myself just fine,” said Jenny, visibly nettled.

“I-I wasn’t saying that you couldn’t, just that—that I’d like to, and—”

“That’s gonna be one Earl Grey for my—for him,” said Jenny, gesturing vaguely in Giles’s direction and looking a bit mortified, “but pretty much everything else is right on the money.”

“Absolutely everything else is right on the money,” Art corrected. “I’m very good at remembering things. I help you with the groceries all the time. Aunt Nora gives me the list and—”

Jenny looked back at Giles, then, over Art’s head. She didn’t smile—not with her mouth—but the look in her eyes was familiar and warm, and it made him feel suddenly as though he wouldn’t need tea to calm his nerves. “You can pay next time,” she said.

Giles blinked, then gave her a shy, unsteady grin. “N-next time,” he said. “Yes.”

There wasn’t much conversation when the food arrived. Art was focused entirely on devouring his porridge with the enthusiasm of a tiny, hungry wolverine, Jenny was drinking her coffee with an expression that seemed like it was trying very valiantly to be pensive and forbidding, and Giles—well. Giles was quite grateful for the opportunity to eat himself, and ever more grateful that neither Jenny nor Art seemed put off by his lack of grace in tucking away porridge and tea. He finished not long before Art, leaving Jenny to say with a delighted laugh, “God, I was smart to order my coffee to go,” and hop down from her seat, extending her hands not to Art, but to Giles.

Both of them realized what she had done at the exact same time. Art, however, inadvertently solved this problem by wriggling his way in between the two of them and taking Jenny’s hands anyway, tucking himself cheerfully against her hip as though it was second nature to him. “It’s time to go, Mom,” he said. “I saw the clock over there and it says it’s almost noon, and we can’t be late for the dinosaur. We have to see it.”

“The dinosaur’s not going anywhere, honey,” said Jenny with weak amusement, turning her face away from Giles. “You ready, Rupert?”

“A-ah—yes,” said Giles a bit shakily, and followed Jenny’s lead out of the café.

Both hands busy affixing a lid to her coffee, Jenny didn’t reach to hold Art’s hand; Art, however, in a clearly practiced maneuver, stood on tiptoe to curl his fingertips around Jenny’s forearm. Jenny laughed and stopped walking, taking the now-covered coffee in one hand and Art’s hand in the other. “Careful about hot liquids, baby, remember?” she reminded him. “Wait till I’ve got the lid on.”

“Mmhm sorry,” said Art, tugging at Jenny’s hand before reaching out to Giles again. “Have you been to the museum before, Dad?”

“I—” Giles considered. “Not—recently, no, but I have been in the past.”

“Do you like dinosaurs?”

“Well enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means yes,” said Jenny helpfully.

“Well enough,” Art repeated thoughtfully. After a moment of contemplation, he added, “I like dinosaurs. I don’t like them as much as Bella, but I like them. I like monsters better though. Mom got me a big book of monsters and I learned all the words in it, even the ones I didn’t know. Every time I found a word I didn’t know, I’d ask Mom, and she’d tell me the answer. Mom knows so many words. She didn’t know all of them, though. She said that you—” Jenny dissolved into a very loud coughing fit. Undeterred, Art continued, “—know every word ever, and that if you were here you’d be able to tell me every word, and now you are here, so you can! Are you okay, Mom?” he tacked on.

Giles was trying very hard not to laugh. Jenny shot him a reproachful look, then said, “I’m fine, baby. I just didn’t realize that you remembered me saying that.”

“I remember everything,” said Art with great satisfaction.

“Mind like a steel trap.” Jenny smiled a little wryly at Giles, color lingering around the apples of her cheeks. Before he could respond, she’d turned away, eyes ahead of them, and was calling, “Nora!” followed by that rush of language that Giles still didn't—ah, bugger all.

“What are you speaking?” Giles asked, no longer able to keep the question back.

Jenny stilled, wide eyes flashing back to him with real panic. Art, however, piped up with, “It’s Romani! I can’t speak it all that good yet, but I know what everybody’s saying. She said—um, she said Nora, we’re over here, and then she stopped, and now she’s looking at you—”

“—uh huh! Thank you so much, honey.” Jenny looked abruptly rigid and miserable in a way that felt much more familiar. “Um, it’s—I mean, you know, I-I’m—”

“—of the Kalderash tribe,” Giles finished, stomach dropping. “Yes.”

The moment was thankfully interrupted by the Kovacs family—more specifically, little Bella sprinting headlong across the street without once heeding the red light. Her mother followed at a furious sprint, but wasn’t quite as close as Jenny, who utilized the shorter distance to sprint forward and scoop Bella out of the street. “Isabella!” Jenny said sharply, setting the girl safely down on the concrete and proceeding to let loose in a rapid-fire mixture of Romani and English.

Helpfully, and with no small amount of smug satisfaction, Art informed Giles, “She’s saying how could you do that, don’t you know to watch for the lights, if you’re not careful we’re going to have to put you on a leash, you’re much too old to be doing things like this—”

“Yes, thank you,” said Giles weakly.

Nora had joined in on Jenny’s lecture, but Donovan bypassed the gaggle of indignant voices to step up to Giles and offer him a small, encouraging smile. “Good to see you, Rupert,” he said.

“Watch this take literally forever and leave us with, like, two seconds to see the Natural History Museum,” said Stacey sourly from her position next to her father. “God forbid Bella not ruin every freaking part of this trip for me—”

“Stacia,” said Donovan, quiet but firm.

Stacey glared, crossing her arms, and leaned resentfully against the side of a nearby building.

“She’s been having some trouble with the fact that this is a family vacation,” said Donovan sotto voce to Giles. “Fifteen is a bit of a difficult age.”

Giles smiled a bit wryly. “I'm well aware,” he said without thinking, and then flushed. “Ah—that is—”

“Buffy,” said Donovan, startling Giles into silence. “She’s grown up quite nicely. You must be very proud.”

It took Giles a moment to realize exactly why Donovan might know enough to say something like that. “Jenny,” he said. “She’s—mentioned me? Before now?”

Donovan gave Giles a searching look, brow furrowed. After a moment of consideration, he said, “I think that’s something you’d do better asking her.”

Face a bit flushed, Jenny stalked back over to the group and all but flung herself at Donovan, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. Giles felt an alarming surge of jealousy and wasn’t quite sure how well he managed to hide it, if the mildly amused look on Donovan’s face was any indication. “God, that girl is a nightmare,” she said.

“I’m not arguing,” said Donovan, hugging Jenny back. “Is she all right?”

Jenny let out a strangled laugh. “She’s arguing back,” she said. “According to her, there weren’t any cars that would have hit her—never mind that she didn’t look once before sprinting across the street. Nora’s having a conniption.”

Donovan made a sympathetic little noise in the back of his throat, immediately letting go of Jenny to get a better look at his wife. “My poor Nora,” he said. “She does worry all too much.”

As if on cue, Nora stalked over, a recalcitrant Bella’s hand gripped tightly in hers. Bella was dragging her feet and looking thoroughly mutinous. “As though your poor aunt doesn’t have enough to worry about,” Nora was saying, “as though I don’t have enough to take care of right now—really, Isabella, you are old enough to know much better, and yet you continue not to.”

“Really, Isabella,” Art chimed in, looking extremely satisfied.

“Arthur,” said Jenny, a warning note in her voice.

Chastised, Art pressed his face into the side of Giles’s jacket for a moment before sneaking a look at a visibly pleased Bella. “She’s the one who misbehaved,” he said sourly, quietly enough that only Giles could hear it. “I’m just saying—”

“—and that’s all very well and good,” Giles said quietly, “but I rather think your aunt has it well in hand. It’s not your job to discipline your cousin. You’d be quite angry if she did the same to you, wouldn’t you?”

Art let out an indignant exhalation and did not reply. He also did not let go of Giles.

“Barring any further escape attempts,” Nora said abruptly, “are we all ready to explore the museum?”

“Can I just go ahead?” said Stacey longingly. “There’s that exhibit on marine biology that I want to take pictures of for Maddy—”

“—yes, fine, as long as we meet up in the garden as planned,” said Nora tiredly.

Stacey was off like a shot.

“Janna,” said Nora, “I’ll assume that you’ll want to spend some time with—”

“Shut up,” said Jenny, who was very determinedly not looking at Giles.

Nora rolled her eyes. “And Ezra—” (Giles, who hadn’t noticed the quiet fellow standing politely at his father’s other side, did a bit of a double-take), “—is there anywhere you’d particularly like to go?”

Ezra considered, then said softly, “Um, the dinosaurs first, I think.”

“Then you’ll be with us,” said Nora, “seeing as Isabella wants to see the dinosaurs as well. Don—?”

“Always with you, sunflower,” said Donovan, "you know that," which made color rise to Nora’s cheeks in a way that Giles thought strikingly familiar. “Art, you’ll show your parents where you want to go, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Art, “but dinosaurs first.”

“Copycat,” said Bella under her breath.

Very politely, Art said, “I’d rather be a copycat than need to be on a leash.”

“Okay,” said Jenny pointedly, giving both children a severe look. “You two want to get some of this arguing out of your system before we head in?”

Clearly sensing that their adventure had the potential of being delayed, Art and Bella stilled simultaneously into picturesque models of obedient innocence.

“…Yeah,” said Jenny, mouth twitching. “Kinda what I thought. Nora, you have the tickets, right?”

Still with a firm grip on her daughter’s hand, Nora attempted with some difficulty to unzip her purse one-handed. Neatly, Donovan stepped forward, assisting her in fishing the tickets out. “All safe and accounted for,” he said.

Abruptly, Art said, “Does Stacey know you have the tickets?”

Jenny and Nora shared a very amused look. “I think Stacey was a little too busy motoring out of here to really think about logistics,” said Jenny. “We’d better see if we can catch up.”

“The dinosaur’s name is Dippy,” Bella informed Giles and Jenny from somewhere near Giles’s elbow, standing on her tiptoes to get a better look at the large diplodocus. “Diplodocuses are the longest dinosaurs—”

“One of the longest dinosaurs,” Art corrected.

Bella gave Art a withering look before continuing. “He only ate plants, because he’s a herbivore—”

“It could be a she,” said Art. “You don’t know.”

“Art, why don’t you let Bella explain about the dinosaurs?” said Jenny, sounding torn between laughter and exasperation. “You know how much she loves this stuff.”

“I’m helping!” Art protested.

“Every museum,” said Jenny to Giles. “Every single museum we’re at. He was telling me about a painting a week ago and Bella comes over to tell me that Art’s pronouncing Van Gogh wrong.”

“Quite definitively my son,” said Giles fondly. “I was pronouncing it Van Goff for years until one of my secondary school friends informed me of my error.”

“He’s from the Late Jurassic,” said Bella, tugging impatiently at Jenny’s arm. “And his tail has about eighty vertebrae—”

“Seventy-three,” Art whispered to Giles.

“Well, most Diplodocuses have about eighty,” Bella said waspishly, “and seventy-three is about eighty, so—”

As Art opened his mouth to respond to this, Jenny said with great relief, “Oh, look, Nora’s back from the bathroom,” and tugged Art and Giles around to the other side of the diplodocus in one smooth movement, leaving Bella to Nora’s supervision. “Art,” she said, “do you seriously want me to do this in front of your dad?”

“I was helping,” said Art, chin jutting out.

“You and I both know that you weren’t.” Jenny hesitated, then said somewhat apologetically, “Rupert, I—could you give us a minute?”

Giles wanted to stay, but wasn’t quite sure how to admit it. Wavering, he said tentatively, “W-well, if—”

“Please,” said Jenny quietly.

Reluctantly, Giles stepped back over towards Bella and Nora, who were staring at the diplodocus in a kind of sullen silence. Tentatively, and largely out of a desire to break some of the tension, he said, “I, I’m giving them a minute,” and gestured weakly in Jenny and Art’s general direction.

Nora pinched the bridge of her nose. It didn’t seem as though she’d heard Giles at all. “Isa,” she said. “You are my baby girl, and I would never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you. I was very, very scared for you. Can you understand that?”

Bella clenched her jaw for a moment and glared at Dippy. Then she tipped her head towards her mother, leaning into her side, and said, “His tail has seventy-three vertebrae. It needs a lot of bones because he’s really long.”

“Mm,” said Nora, tucking her arm around Bella. “How many bones does he have altogether?”

“Three hundred and fifty-six.”

“That’s a lot of bones.”

“It’s ‘cause he’s so big,” said Bella. “I bet I have less bones than you. Or than Dad.”

“That means you need to take good care of the bones that you do have,” said Nora a bit reprovingly, which earned her a frustrated little huff from her daughter.

Quietly, Giles studied the two of them standing there—Bella sulky and frustrated, Nora tight-lipped and tired, both of them nestled together like it was second nature. On the other side of the diplodocus, Jenny and Art were sharing a similar moment, he was sure; Art tucked up tight in his mother’s arms, Jenny resigned and exhausted and cuddling her son close. He knew none of these people—not in the way that they knew each other. What was he doing here, when any moment of familial confusion would still end with them carefully shuffling away from him so as not to argue in front of the guest?

He was Art’s father in blood. No one could change that. He was beginning to understand, however, that he was not Art’s father in any substantial way—not the kind of father allowed to scold a reckless cousin or patiently delineate how his son was expected to behave. He didn’t know how his son was expected to behave. He didn’t know his son.

The realization didn’t hurt quite as much as he had expected it to. He wasn’t sure why. He reached for the familiar pain of inadequacy and found himself thinking, instead, about Jenny’s hands outstretched towards his in that coffee shop. If he had been quick enough, he might have been able to take them.

He was interrupted from his muddled thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. Heart in his throat, he turned to find Jenny. “Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” said Giles, already searching the area for Art.

“I, I sent Art off to go spend some time with Ezra for a minute,” said Jenny. She made no effort to step away from him. They were almost toe-to-toe. “I told him I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?” said Giles, apprehension settling in his stomach.

Jenny hesitated. Tentatively, she said, “You looked really…out of your element, and I wanted to check in. I know my family is—I mean, I love them, but they’re kind of a lot if you’re not used to them, and I hope you don’t feel like you’re—I don’t know. I want you to feel like you’re part of this.”

“Oh,” said Giles weakly. He hadn’t been expecting this at all.

“So just—are you okay? Do you want to split off, let the kids run around in the museum for a little, then do our own thing?”

Giles’s heart was pounding. “W-with you?”

Jenny blinked, then drew her hand back, looking a bit nervous. Just as Giles was beginning to feel genuinely terrified, she said, “…I, I meant you, me, and Art, but if you wanted—” and then she gathered her hands in front of her and didn’t quite finish her sentence.

“I’d like that,” said Giles softly.

“…Yeah?”

“Yes,” said Giles. “Very much.”

TO: [email protected]; [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: RE: GILES

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T COME. PLEASE. EVERYTHING IS FINE AND NORMAL I PROMISE. I don’t know HOW you heard about Giles taking an unexplained leave of absence – I can only assume that Anya told Wesley, and Wesley told Kira, and the news got passed around the Council like some deranged hot potato – but I promise it has a totally normal explanation that isn’t at all life-threatening or indicative of him going crazy or ANYTHING and I have it TOTALLY HANDLED so PLEASE do not come to London right now!!! I tried calling both of you like nine times but NEITHER OF YOU ARE PICKING UP, so I can only HOPE that you will check your email whenever you’re in England and see that I am telling you to NOT COME. He is dealing with so much right now and I really need to make sure he isn’t dealing with MORE than that, so PLEASE just stay at home. PLEASE.

Buffy

Chapter Text

Lunch was a bustling affair the likes of which Giles hadn’t experienced in quite a while. Rather than clustering the children at one end of the table and the adults at the other, the family was mixed together—Nora at the head, Stacey at her right side, Donovan sandwiched neatly between Bella and Ezra. Somehow, Giles had ended up between Bella and Art, a terrifying moment quickly rectified by Jenny squeezing in on his right and saying something reprovingly to Bella in Romani.

“She says don’t misbehave in front of your uncle,” said Art with great satisfaction.

“That goes for you too, mister,” Jenny informed him.

“Uncle Donovan’s next to me,” said Art politely, “so technically speaking—”

“And Uncle Rupert is next to me!” Bella chimed in, already reaching for Art’s glass of lemonade.

Art responded to this by attempting to knock the glass over onto Bella—an attempt rapidly stopped by Jenny, who leaned neatly across Giles to catch Art’s hand. “Okay, problem children,” she said, very clearly attempting to keep her voice level instead of laughing. “I get that the two of you are feeling a little high-energy today, but you do understand that if you start playing with your food, you’re gonna have to forfeit your dessert, right?”

Eyes wide, Art fell back against his chair. Indignantly, Bella said, “I wasn’t playing, Aunt Jenny, I wanted to drink—”

“You have lemonade too, Bella, don’t you?” Jenny looked very significantly towards Bella’s full glass. “And if you really wanted some of Art’s, you would need to ask first. I think you know that.”

“Maybe I don’t,” said Bella.

“Well, you do now.”

Bella’s brow furrowed. After a moment of contemplation, she said, “Art’s lemonade is probably sour anyway,” and turned her attention somewhat resentfully to her own food.

Triumphantly, Art opened his mouth. Jenny said, “You think very carefully about what you’re about to say, baby,” which prompted him to reluctantly shut it.

“Are they—always like this?” said Giles, a bit nervous to even ask the question.

Jenny gave him a small, extremely amused smile. “Pretty much perpetually,” she said. “I think it’s a little easier when you’ve been wrangling them since they were babies.”

“It’s a bit like you and Diana, you know,” said Nora casually.

Jenny’s smile dropped from her face. “No,” she said archly, “it’s not, because Art and Bella are both incredibly sweet kids when push comes to shove—” (Giles, glancing covertly at Bella to see that she was attempting to catapult a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes at a nearby pigeon, was not quite sure if this was the case), “—and Diana is a Grade-A word I can’t say in front of our children.”

Stacey raised her hand. “Can I say it?”

“No, Anastasia,” said Nora. “Just because you are old enough to utilize profanity does not mean you are allowed to do it in front of your siblings, two of whom have not even left grade school.”

“Yeah, we got enough flak from the PTA that one time Bella tried to hex someone,” said Jenny, sending Bella a very fond smile. Bella, still very focused on her mashed-potato war against the pigeon, entirely missed this. “Bella honey, you sure you wanna do that with your food?”

“Yes,” said Bella. “I forfeit dessert. I wanna see if I can hit the pigeon.”

Jenny looked to Nora. Nora said, “You get one try, and then you have to stop.”

Startled, Giles turned to Jenny, who said with some amusement, “She’s not gonna hit that pigeon.”

“I am so!” said Bella hotly, and flung a spoonful at the pigeon. It missed by a mile. “Mama, I want another try—I want another try, that one shouldn’t count—”

“And now she’s gonna get too distracted trying to convince Nora to give her another shot to actually cause trouble,” Jenny explained, smiling fondly in Bella’s direction. “Art, you done quarantining your vegetables or are you planning to spend the rest of lunch making sure they don’t touch the potatoes?”

“They can’t touch the gravy,” said Art plaintively, pushing his plate towards Jenny. “You do it.”

“You know something?” said Jenny. “I think I’ve gone deaf.”

“Mo-om—”

“No, I have! I can only hear polite little boys who ask their mom things politely.”

“You’re not funny,” Art informed her. “I can see you laughing, and it’s not—” When Jenny motioned, wide-eyed, to her ears, he said very theatrically, “Mom, can you please fix my food?”

“Look at that!” said Jenny, taking Art’s plate. “I can hear! It’s a miracle!”

“She’s not funny,” Art informed Giles, who was watching Jenny with an overwhelmed tightness in his throat.

“Now that’s not very nice,” said Jenny, attention on Art’s plate. It wasn’t quite clear what she was doing—only some of the vegetables had been methodically quarantined—until she helpfully informed Giles, “We’ve agreed that green beans aren’t vegetables.”

“They’re legumes,” Art piped up.

“Well,” said Giles automatically, “technically speaking, legumes are—”

“They taste good with gravy,” Art added, gratefully taking his plate back from Jenny. “Thank you, Mom!”

“He never forgets that part,” said Jenny very affectionately, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Art’s head. “We’re working on please.”

“Please takes too long.”

“It’s one extra word, honey, and if you compare that to the two minutes we just spent trying to get you to say it—”

“Dad,” said Art, looking directly up at Giles, “do I have to say please?”

“Listen to your mother,” said Giles automatically, tamping down a spark of panic.

The conversation was turning away from him. Jenny’s attention was largely on Art, though it hadn’t escaped Giles’s notice that this didn’t mean she’d lost track of the other children; she said something reproving in Romani right as Stacey made an attempt to steal one of Bella’s fries. Donovan was obligingly listening to Bella’s indignant argument regarding why exactly she should be allowed to throw her entire lunch in the pigeon’s general direction, quietly tilting his head towards her plate every so often to make sure she was actually eating. Nora and Ezra were having a surprisingly peaceful conversation about the dinosaurs that Ezra had seen, one which Art leaned across the table to excitedly contribute to once in a while (though subsequently tugged back by Jenny to make sure he didn’t knock anything over).

Outside of Ezra, the children certainly weren’t well-behaved in the sort of way that Giles would have been at their age. Bella was self-centered, impulsive, and prone to causing trouble, Stacey was surly and resentful, and even Giles’s rose-colored glasses regarding Art weren’t enough to overlook how openly and cheerfully he would attempt to provoke Bella—yet they were treated with patience and compassion. It was a sort of strategy that Giles’s own father would have likely called undisciplined, but Giles himself couldn’t deny its efficacy; outside of Bella’s running across the street, absolutely none of the children had done anything overtly harmful or intentionally malicious. They weren’t respectful in a way that a long line of Gileses would have approved of, but they were very clearly comfortable. He had never seen children so relaxed around their parents.

“Ask your aunt,” Nora was saying in a low whisper, gently nudging Ezra’s shoulder.

Jenny caught sight of this and turned carefully away from Art, already schooling her expression into one of encouraging compassion even as she pretended to focus on her food.

“Um, Aunt Jenny,” said Ezra, soft but still very clear, “Mom said at first that we should call Art’s dad Mr. Giles, but Bella called him Uncle Rupert, so should we—”

Jenny’s easy composure slipped and her eyes darted down to her food. She had gone very still.

That wouldn’t do. “If you don’t mind my saying so,” said Giles very gently, “I think it’s up to each individual member to decide what they feel most comfortable calling me. I really am quite all right with just about anything. Giles, Mr. Giles, Rupert—”

“Mr. Butt?” said Bella.

Giles did not know how to respond to that.

“Anything that would not earn you a red card in school,” said Nora, her voice stiff with suppressed laughter.

After a moment of consideration, Bella said, “I like Uncle Rupert.”

“I like Uncle Rupert,” Ezra agreed.

“Stacia?” said Nora.

Slowly, Stacey looked up from her salad. She was chewing on her lip as she looked directly into Giles’s eyes, the expression on her face just as disarmingly piercing as Jenny’s always had been. Then she said, “I mean, technically speaking, he is Art’s dad, right? It’s not like we have any other options.”

Giles felt her words with painful precision. He did his best to smile in response.

“Uncle Rupert, then,” said Nora briskly, sending Stacey a subtly reproving look that Stacey entirely ignored. “Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention, Isabella.”

Bella glowed. Art said, “I could have told everybody to call him Uncle Rupert—” and was subsequently hushed by both Donovan and Nora.

It took Giles a moment to realize what was unusual about this interaction, and another moment to look towards Jenny. Rather than moving to rein Art in, she was focused dutifully on her meal, that same strained look on her face that he was beginning to get used to seeing. He had initially assumed that it came from antipathy—that she greatly disliked his presence, and was therefore pained by any reminder of its potential permanence—but the day’s events had made it clear that she did care about him, which made her current reaction all the more baffling. Puzzled, he studied her face, trying to find something, anything that might give him a clue to—

“Uncle Rupert,” said Bella from Jenny’s other side, “you’ve only eaten half your potatoes. Can I—”

“Absolutely not,” said Nora. “Do not throw any more potatoes at that pigeon.”

“Mama, if he isn’t using them—”

Giles took an absentminded forkful of mashed potatoes, eyes still on Jenny. She was quietly cutting her steak, that strange expression still lingering around her mouth.

Giles had intended to take the Tube back to his apartment, but upon hearing that this was his plan, Art jumped at the opportunity to say with excitement, “Dad can come with us in the car! We can give Dad a ride home!” And then Giles had made a few cursory attempts to gently demur, and Jenny—for a reason that he again could not understand—stubbornly doubled down, which led to eight people squeezed into a seven-person minivan: Nora and Donovan up front, Giles and Jenny in the middle seats, Art, Stacey, and Ezra in the back, and a squirming, complaining Bella buckled firmly on Jenny’s lap. “I wanna be in the back,” she objected, “I wanna be in the middle seat—”

“You and Stacey have gotten into three fights in the last week with you in the middle seat,” Nora informed Bella. “You stay with Aunt Jenny.”

“Aunt Jenny smells like soap,” whined Bella.

“Bathing does do that,” said Jenny, her mouth twitching. “Rupert, your apartment’s only—”

“Ten minutes away,” said Giles, smiling a bit tensely. He still had absolutely no idea what he was doing in this car, nor did he have any idea how the day had managed to go off with only a few minor hitches. Stealing another look at Jenny, he saw that the bulk of lunch’s anxiety seemed to have cleared; whatever she was feeling now seemed easily hidden by her laughing attempts to keep Bella still and safe. “Are you all right back there, Art?”

Art responded to this by stretching a small hand between the seats to squeeze Giles’s shoulder. “Hi, Dad!” he said. “Do you like the car? It’s way nicer than our car back in Colorado. We only had the pickup for a while and Bella always wanted to ride in the back but Aunt Nora said over my dead body, so then we had to get another car, but sometimes we still don’t all fit in it. So this one is really nice. It has seven seats, and I’m seven, so that’s really special. But it needs eight seats, and I’m going to be eight—”

“You really do take very strikingly after your mother,” said Giles.

Jenny stilled, eyes wide. Art blinked, and then a large smile bloomed on his face. “Really?” he says. “She says I take after you!”

“In some ways, yes,” Giles agreed. “I’ll have to find you some pictures of me at your age; we could have been twins—but I was never nearly as talkative or as excitable as you. That’s all your mum.”

Art’s smile slipped. There was a curious expression on his face. “But Mom’s not excitable,” he said. “Mom’s sensible. Aunt Nora says.”

Now it was Giles’s turn to stare. “Your mum—she’s perhaps the most adventurous, daring person I’ve known,” he said bemusedly. “She used to take me—we went to monster truck rallies, football games, late-night parties, all sorts of places.”

“Janna?” said Nora, positively disbelieving. “Janna’s idea of a vacation is organizing her online database.”

Giles turned disbelieving eyes towards Jenny. She didn’t seem quite willing to look at him.

“Mom’s sensible,” Art repeated. “She takes care of people. That’s Mom.” He looked somewhat discomfited. “Did she go on adventures? Mom—”

“I was a lot younger, baby,” said Jenny, and tried to laugh. It fell flat. “And besides which, you know I’m plenty adventurous. I take you on nature walks all the time.”

“Nature walks,” said Art very blissfully, entirely distracted. (Giles privately suspected that Jenny had intended this all along.) “Dad, have you been on a nature walk? Mom and I go every weekend and we walk all around and one time I saw a ladybug. Aunt Nora doesn’t like ladybugs because one time before I was born the house got—it got—I don’t remember the word.”

“Infested,” said Nora. For just a moment, her eyes flitted to Jenny in the rearview mirror. “Janna—”

“Art, have you told Dad about your favorite bug yet?” said Jenny a little too loudly.

Immediately, Art perked up. “I like spiders,” he announced. “They’re arachnids. That means they have eight legs instead of six. Did you ever see a spider monster? I read about spider monsters in my big monster book.”

“Um—” Brow furrowing, Giles’s thoughts turned to the many, many gruesome Watcher accounts involving spider monsters in an attempt to find one that wasn’t guaranteed to scar his son for life.

Abruptly, Jenny said, “Yeah, Rupert, we did. Remember?”

Startled, Giles turned to her. “I—yes,” he said, color rising to his cheeks. “The—that would have been late December, just before we spent New Year’s in Los Angeles. You were quite upset about the damage that its web did to your blouse—”

“—and you weren’t very much help,” said Jenny, giving him a playfully reproachful look, “because you said that if I wasn’t hell-bent on dressing fashionably during patrol, this wouldn’t happen, and I said—”

“—that you always wanted to look your best,” said Giles, his voice softening, “on the days that you knew you would see me.”

The car had gone very quiet. Jenny was looking at Giles with the ghost of a smile, her eyes drinking him in as though no time had passed at all. He had forgotten what it felt like, being looked at like that—not a cursory glance, not a quietly affectionate stare, but an almost hungry delight, as if it was physically impossible for Jenny to take her eyes off of him. As if she wouldn’t want to, even if she could.

She wants me, he realized. It wasn’t the sort of logically based assumption he’d been trying to loyally adhere to—rather, he knew it in his bones, an unshakable truth. Jenny felt something for him.

“We’re here!” said Nora, jolting Giles into wakefulness. He quickly averted his gaze from Jenny’s; he didn’t know if he could bear seeing that unconscious affection dissipate. “I’ll look for parking, Janna, if you’d like us to stay longer—”

“—no, I can walk Rupert in,” said Jenny immediately.

“I’ll come!” Art piped up.

“I want to see Uncle Rupert’s house!” Bella objected. “How come we don’t get to see it? Art says he doesn’t have a computer—”

“You want to see the absence of a computer?” said Stacey, gesturing around the car. “Look anywhere, Bella.”

“Okay, Art, you get out of the car,” Jenny instructed him, carefully shifting Bella off of her lap. “Bella—stop clinging, hon, you’ll get to see Rupert’s house at some point, just not now. Rupert…” She looked furtively up at him. “Can I speak to you for a minute?”

The anxiety, this time, was twined in with a dizzy anticipation. “Yes, of course,” said Giles a bit breathlessly.  

It took Jenny a bit to carefully free herself from Bella, and when she finally exited the car, Giles was waiting patiently outside, Art busying himself by hopping up and down Giles’s front walk. She watched him for an affectionate moment—drawing in a soft little hiss of breath as he nearly collided with a mailbox, shoulders relaxing when it became clear he was fine—then turned her attention to Giles, nervously wringing her hands. “Rupert, I—I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“Oh?” said Giles in a slightly strangled tone of voice.

“But it…” Jenny trailed off. “It feels really shitty to just dump this on you when our day’s wrapping up,” she said. “Is it possible that you and I can meet up tomorrow? Um, just us? You can pick the location this time, I know we’ve been—I mean, the ball has really been in my court lately, and I wanna—” She waved a nervous hand in lieu of finishing her sentence.

“Oh,” said Giles, already running through restaurants in his head. That lovely place in the West End, or perhaps something a bit more informal—she always did like Mexican, perhaps he should get that—

“Rupert?”

Belatedly, Giles realized that he’d never actually answered Jenny’s question. “What? Oh. I am sorry—yes, yes, of course,” he stammered, giving Jenny a sheepish smile. “Obviously, I’d—shall we say one in the afternoon? Lunch? I’ll—I can drive you, if that’s—”

“Dad, can we go inside?” said Art unexpectedly. Giles, who hadn’t been paying any attention to anything other than Jenny, jumped. “I have to pee.”

“Honey, this is why I said go at the restaurant,” Jenny chided. Art proceeded to turn the largest, widest, most injured pair of green eyes towards her, to which she responded by turning to Giles and saying, “You see what I have to deal with? You gave him those. This is on you.”

“You, you can come in if you need—” Giles began, looking nervously towards Jenny. When she gave him a tentative nod, he continued with significantly more confidence, “—that is, let me just unlock the door for you, Art, so that—”

“The door’s unlocked!” said Art.

Giles blinked. “What?”

“The door’s unlocked,” Art repeated. “It’s a little bit open. Did Buffy forget to shut it?”

“I can only assume she just got in,” Giles replied, turning towards the house to squint bemusedly at the door, which was indeed slightly open. “Shall we?”

“Oh, um—” Jenny turned back towards the car. “NELL, ART NEEDS TO—”

“I heard,” said Nora reprovingly, sticking her head out of the window to lightly whack Jenny’s shoulder. “No need to alert the whole street. We can stay double-parked for a while longer; there doesn’t seem to be all that much traffic in this area.”

“It’s why I picked it,” said Giles, giving Nora a small smile. Nora rolled her eyes a little and removed herself from view, which he was starting to realize might very well indicate that she was beginning to like him. “Jenny—?”

Jenny gave Giles a small thumbs-up, falling into step with him as they began to walk.

Giles noticed the voices first. Faint but insistent, a cadence he remembered—carrying him back years until it felt almost as though it was another apartment of his that he was walking into. He recognized the situation before he realized its implications, and felt a familiar irritation: they could have at least had the decency to call ahead, instead of simply waltzing into his place of residence as though they’d always lived there. What they thought they were doing, treating his house like a bloody hostel—and then he did realize, and stopped directly in front of the door, heart in his throat. It couldn’t be.

Jenny bumped into him. “Rupert—” she began, and then she heard them too—Buffy’s anxious tones overlapping with two others. She stopped, tightly gripping Giles’s elbow, and were the situation not so intimidatingly unexpected, Giles might have taken significant notice of this. (Somehow, there was a part of his brain that still did.)

Art, however, had no such qualms. He pushed the door open.

“—seriously, he’s gonna be back any minute—” Buffy was saying, and then stopped, turning with wide, panicked eyes towards Giles, Jenny, and Art. “I am so sorry,” she burst out, “I’ve been trying to get them to—I know how seriously you take this whole thing, Jenny, and I would never want you to think—but I promise I didn’t tell them a thing, it’s obviously—”

“Willow!” gasped Art.

This stunned the entire room into silence.

“It’s so good to see you!” Art ran forward, throwing himself into an ashen Willow’s arms and beginning to chatter away. “I met Dad! You were right about him, I love him, and he says I’m a lot like him too! How was Bulgaria? You were in Bulgaria, right? Last time I asked about you, Mom said you were in Bulgaria, but I know you travel around so much—”

“Willow, you knew?” said Buffy disbelievingly.

“Hold on,” said Xander, who was clutching the nearby sofa for support. “Is that—does Giles—Buffy, is that—”

“Oh, God,” moaned Jenny, burying her face in her hands. “Willow, are you serious?”

Slowly—ever so slowly—Giles looked up at Willow. She met his eyes, face still white, Art tucked into her side. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, Giles,” she said, clear and steady. “I’m sorry about that. But I can’t be sorry about the rest of it.”

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: RE: Translation Matrix

I’ll have it on your desk by Monday, Chief. ;)

Also, this is TOTALLY off topic, but can you PLEASE get the okay from Nora and send me at least a NON-secret family recipe? I can come to terms with the fact that Nora’s not willing to share the secret ingredient in her cranberry sauce with just ANYBODY, but I’m gonna be in Siberia pretty soon and I need something fun to cook while I’m in the bunker. Pretty pretty please?

Since you asked – I’m doing pretty okay! Tara and I are kinda talking again, which is insanely nerve-wracking but also REALLY affirming. Thanks so much for asking about the conference, too – I think it went pretty well! Your section of the database might be getting some more foot traffic, so to speak, because the part of the speech where I talked about what you were doing apparently sparked some real interest. There are a whole bunch of baby technopagans who apparently cannot believe that I learned computer science from THE Jenny Calendar, which I of course have to pass onto you – I feel like it’ll probably give you the ego boost you so rightly deserve.

Send my love to the kiddos! Give Art a kiss from me. Actually, give Stacey a kiss too, and let her know that if she EVER wants to intern for the Council, or even for one of the less magical places that I’ve got an in with…well, I’d be happy to help! <3

And so so much love to you too, of course,

Willow

Chapter Text

Art was, as ever, easily distracted. “Stacey’s really going to want to see you,” he was saying excitedly to Willow, “and we saw so many dinosaurs today, Bella can tell you—does Aunt Nora know you’re here? I’m sure she would have told everybody—or was it a surprise? Or are you here to see Dad? Everybody’s out in the car—Mom, can we go take Willow out to the car?”

The question got Jenny’s attention. Shaking her head a little dizzily, she said in a thin, tight voice, “Um, Willow, you—you and Rupert probably want to talk, I’ll—Buffy, can you t-take Art out to the car, please?”

“Actually, I’d like to talk to Willow,” said Buffy sharply, arms crossed. Willow blanched.

“Buffy, please,” said Jenny, her voice breaking. She raised a trembling hand to her face.

The rigidly drawn misery in Jenny’s expression caught Giles’s attention. For a moment he was standing in the halls of Sunnydale High, looking at the helpless expression of the woman he loved as he turned his eyes away. He turned to her, not quite sure what he would say, but he was interrupted by Willow saying in a small voice, “Giles, we should—” and subsequently felt himself tugged quietly into the kitchen before he could decide what he wanted to do.

Willow was standing in front of him, shoulders tight, jaw set. The miserable anxiety in her eyes didn’t quite match the strength of her posture, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. “How long have you known?” he finally said.

“About six months, I think,” said Willow, perfectly measured.

“And—” He couldn’t quite think past anything but a tearful, terrified Jenny. “You didn’t tell me.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Willow, and swallowed. “But Giles, you—” She waved a shaking hand. “If you’re on good enough terms with Jenny to bring her and Art around to the house, you, you have to know by now how hard this is for her. I wanted to help.”

“And you didn’t tell me,” said Giles again. He felt strange and hollow inside.

Crossing her arms, Willow hugged her elbows, looking positively forlorn. “You’re not a good dad,” she said. The words, bluntly spoken, felt like a knife to the chest. “We both know that. If you’d—if things had been different with you and Buffy, if you hadn’t left, maybe I would have told you. But I didn’t, because—god, Giles, you’ve met Art. It would break him if you left him the way that you left Buffy.” She was still meeting his eyes, never once looking away—all of these horrible, horrible truths, and she was never once looking away. He couldn’t fathom it. “I wasn’t about to give you the—you would have jumped at the chance to have a sweet little baby and you wouldn’t have thought about what it could put Jenny and Art through. I’m not even sure if you’ve thought about it now.”

“I—”

“Giles, he’s not—” Willow was shaking. “He is so little. This isn’t something you just get to dip your toe into and change your mind about. The minute Jenny told Art, this became a lifetime thing, and you’ve never been good at that. I wasn’t willing to let you screw up another set of kids after what you did to us.”

Us, Giles noticed distantly. Not Buffy. But Willow hadn’t—she’d never—

“Don’t take it out on her,” Willow whispered. “Please. She loves you so much. It would kill her if you took it out on her, Giles, just—just be mad at me, okay, for not telling you, because she can’t take it. She gave up everything to keep Art safe, and everything she does—” She scrubbed clumsily at her eyes, looking helplessly up at Giles. “She asked me not to tell you because she was afraid,” she said. “Because she thought it would be better for you if you never had to know. She wanted you to have the opportunity to be a dad to us.”

Giles’s eyes stung and watered and he turned away, chest burning. He didn’t know what to say, and couldn’t bear to look at those limpid eyes any longer. It helped to focus on getting mugs out of the cupboard, fumbling for the kettle. He could hardly think.

He heard Willow’s footsteps, shuffling and tentative, leaving the kitchen. He picked out a tea at random. The labels were blurred. His eyes were wet.

It would break him if you left him the way that you left Buffy. And he hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t thought past his own selfish desire to hold his son close for just a moment—had lived in the joy of that moment in the park, that tight embrace with dark curls pressed against his cheek. But now he was thinking about it—thinking about Art’s sweet, sweet smile, his overabundance of energy and excitement, thinking about the very real possibility of breaking the most delicate heart he had ever encountered. Insulated by unconditional love, Art had never experienced the bitterness of a cruel and broken parent. One misstep from Giles—a curt word, an indifference to Art’s excitement—might very well cut Art much more deeply than a child accustomed to such treatment.

But Giles had been—he had been better than his father, he was sure. Better than his father, who had shoved him at the aunts and sequestered himself in his study after the death of Giles’s mother.  Better than his father, who had pushed him into a destiny he hadn’t wanted without a shred of patience or understanding. Better than his father, who would never have allowed the sort of freedom that Giles had tried to allow—Buffy, Willow, perhaps Xander when he remembered.

Yet the notion rang hollow in the face of a single memory: Jenny, Art gathered in her arms, hands soft and voice gentle. Jenny and her sharp tongue, smiling sweetly and easily at her son, holding him close as though it was second nature.

He wished he could insulate himself in the sort of self-hatred he usually defaulted to in moments like this. It had always felt something like confirmation, like absolution: he could claim that this sort of failure and misery was woven into his very soul. Yet he had gathered Art close in that park. He had chosen this. He was pushed into choosing it by Jenny, certainly, but he had still chosen this, and it felt strange and dishonorable to assume that failure was the only possible destination. Impossibly cruel to give up on a journey he had embarked on when his son’s gentle heart might very well break at his leaving for good.

Giles looked down at the two mugs of tea in front of him. He was halfway to finding the tea tray when Buffy entered the kitchen, face blotchy. “Willow’s gone,” she said thickly.

“Oh?” said Giles. One of the mugs of tea was full of sugar and cream; the other was black. This felt important. He had made the second mug for someone else.

“Yeah, she—” Buffy scrubbed somewhat violently at her eyes. “I’m not talking to her,” she said. “God. I don’t care if—she should have told me.”

“She only knew for a handful of months,” said Giles. The tea tray, he recalled, was in a cupboard on the other side of the kitchen, and so he moved to get it. “You weren’t angry at Jenny for not telling us about Art; I don’t see how Willow is any different.”

“It’s different for you,” said Buffy, her voice breaking. “You haven’t fucking talked to us since—god, since Sunnydale. Maybe you’ve never talked to us.” This would have hurt a version of Giles who hadn’t heard Willow’s firm, brutal words, but his mind was still on Art’s luminous smile, and nothing could hurt more than the possibility of causing its absence. “Willow and I talk every week. And that she would keep this from me—”

“Jenny asked her to.”

“But that she would—god, you don’t get it,” Buffy burst out. “Why the fuck did I think you would—” She didn’t finish her sentence, just swept out of the kitchen with a poorly muffled sob.

Giles looked steadily down at the tea tray and placed the mugs atop it, carefully lifting it. He walked through the living room with his ears ringing and his vision blurred, focused only on the magnetic pull that tugged him out onto the patio and into the secluded little area surrounded by greenery.

Jenny was sitting alone in the love seat, and looked up like a frightened animal when she saw Giles. “I, I can go,” she began, voice shaking.

“Stay,” said Giles simply. She did. He set the tea tray down upon the coffee table in front of them, then sat down next to her, pressing a mug into her trembling hands. “You still like it black?”

Jenny nodded. The mug was shaking dangerously enough that it looked as though it might spill.

“Here,” said Giles softly, placing his hands over hers to steady the mug. “I’ll drink mine later. Take a sip, all right?”

“Rupert—”

“Take a sip, love. It’ll help.”

Jenny obeyed, taking an unsteady gulp. Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s warm,” she said in a small voice. “Did you—?”

“Made it just now,” said Giles.

“And you—” Jenny stared tearfully up at him. “You’re not angry.”

Giles blinked. “Everyone seems to expect me to be,” he said softly. “Willow, certainly, perhaps Buffy if she had the time to think of it, and now you.” She was opening her mouth to say something again; he cut her off. “Why didn’t you tell me that Willow knew?”

Jenny ducked her head and didn’t say anything.

“Jenny—”

“God, would you believe me if I told you I’d forgotten?” There was a derisive laugh to Jenny’s voice. “It’s the stupidest thing in the world, but I—I didn’t goddamn remember. I ran into you and it knocked me out. There hasn’t been room for me to think about anything outside of that. Willow knowing about Art, that’s been the furthest thing from my mind these last few weeks.”

“That makes sense,” said Giles, smiling wryly.

The self-deprecating smile on Jenny’s face gave way entirely. Removing her hands from Giles’s, she drew herself back, setting the mug safely down on the tea tray as she studied him with something that looked almost like sadness. Almost like anger. “That’s all it takes?” she said.

“I—” Giles fumbled. “I’m sorry?”

Jenny swallowed, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I—I begged you,” she said unsteadily. “To listen. Over and over, I—I would look at you, just look at you, and you’d look away like you couldn’t even stand the sight of me. I told you I didn’t know, I-I told you I would have stopped it i-if I could, and you didn’t say a fucking word, and now you—”

Giles felt, if possible, worse. “I’m sorry,” he said weakly.

But Jenny wasn’t quite listening. “And this is—this is worse,” she continued doggedly, “because I knew—I knew you wouldn’t like it if you knew, I knew that this had the potential to hurt a lot of people, and I still made Willow hold her tongue, and I forgot about it. I was too busy looking at you, and, and wanting to think that—” She shuddered, almost a sob, and her eyes finally met his. “You’re still looking at me the exact same way,” she whispered. “You’re not looking away. Why the hell aren’t you looking away?”

The awful guilt was giving way to a familiar spark of warmth. Giles knew the answer to this question—knew the way Jenny’s tears would still as soon as she heard it. “Because I have wasted so much precious time being angry with you,” he said very softly. “Because my refusal to listen to you drove you away, and I won’t make that mistake again.”

Jenny had gone still as marble, eyes wide and wet.

“I am listening,” said Giles, his voice shaking, “and I won’t waste another second with you.”

He wasn’t sure what came over him then. It was only that Jenny was so still, the look in her eyes so familiar—he had seen her look at him like that before, in the early hours of the morning, terrified and longing when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. And he couldn’t stay still, not anymore, not when he needed to make it clear to her—but words, he knew, she wouldn’t believe, and so he leaned forward, catching her face in his hands, and kissed her. And—oh, this was just the same, the way her lips parted, the way she moved instinctively to press herself against him, the electric charge as he found himself finally, finally touching her the way that he’d wanted to, dead for years and he was alive again, Jenny’s fingers tangled in his hair Jenny’s warm weight in his lap Jenny’s wet face against his—

Wet, Giles thought, and pulled back. Jenny was staring at him with horrified dark eyes, tears falling hard and fast. “Jenny,” he said, but she was already pulling back, clambering dizzily off of his lap to all but fall off of the love seat. “Jenny, I’m—”

Still sprawled on the floor below him, Jenny buried her face in her hands and began to really cry.

“Jenny—Jenny,” said Giles, his own voice breaking as he reached for her, but she flinched away from his touch and shrank back against the coffee table. He pulled his hand back, struggling to collect his thoughts—he had kissed her, she had kissed him back, she had settled against him and twined herself around him and everything had been warm for just a moment, and now it was—what? What had happened? He had held her gaze in the car, seen the embers of desire in her eyes—she had reached for his hands, he had thought—

“Janna,” came a familiarly exasperated voice, “I can only assume—”

Horrified, Giles’s eyes snapped to Nora’s. She had stopped talking, eyes taking in the scene before her with a crackling outrage that reminded him of a fast-burning forest fire. For a terrifying moment, he was convinced she might kill him. “Nora—”

“Rupert, get out,” said Nora, flat and cold.

“This is my—”

But another look from Nora silenced him, and Giles stumbled to his feet, letting her push past him to kneel on the floor and enfold a sobbing Jenny in her arms. “Oh, Jenny,” Nora was whispering, her own voice shaking as she held Jenny tightly to her. “Oh, love, I know—”

Giles stared at the mugs of tea on the tray. Jenny had set hers down a bit carelessly, spilling ever so slightly, but it was nestled up against the now-cold cup of tea that would have been for him. He’d meant to drink it with her, talk softly, tell her something reassuring, something to make it clear that he had grown. Hadn’t he grown?

“Giles,” said a quiet voice, hand at his elbow to tug him inside.

Giles regained clarity when he was flat on his back on his own bed, Buffy removing his shoes. He wanted to sit up and tell her to stop, that it wasn’t her responsibility to do such things, but there was a hard lump in his throat and he could still taste Jenny’s lip gloss on his mouth. Could still feel the soft curves of her under his hands, the shuddered moan against him—

“I used to think about what it would have been like if you really had taken me to the Ice Capades,” said Buffy quietly. The words only halfway permeated Giles’s vague detachment, but halfway was still enough for them to sting. “When I asked you, I remember—I remember being so sure that you’d go with me. I tried to be cute about it, ‘cause that way you wouldn’t know how much I wanted you to go with me, but—you didn’t.”

She lay down on the bed next to him, then, rolling onto her side and studying him with quiet eyes. He had never quite stopped seeing that sixteen-year-old girl. “Did you ever think about what it would have been like if you’d decided to go with me?” she said, in a tone of voice that suggested she didn’t quite expect him to answer. “I would’ve told you about how I wanted to be an ice skater, and I would’ve gotten to explain all the little jumps and stuff and what they were called and how I could probably do them if I started practicing again. And you would’ve been bored to tears, probably, but my dad was bored to tears every year, and he still went with me till that one. And I remember thinking—hey, it’ll be nice if Giles goes this year, ‘cause he’s been here these last few years and my dad totally hasn’t. I wanted to thank you for that.”

Giles was lying very still. Just listening.

“But then…” Buffy trailed off. “You know,” she said. “And I just—I think sometimes about—I wish it had been different.” She settled into his side, resting her cheek on his chest. “I wish I had better words than that,” she said tiredly. “And I wish you wouldn’t go away when I find them.”

“You shouldn’t wish for things, Buffy,” said Giles distantly, reaching very vaguely for the words of a Watcher. “You know as well as I that there’s a chance they might come true.”

Buffy sniffled and pressed her face into his chest like a small child. She didn’t say anything else.

[scribbled hastily on a napkin; affixed to Rupert Giles’s front door]

Rupert—

Janna and I are going back to the hotel. Will contact you as soon as possible. Do not reach out to Janna; she is overwrought and you will, I am certain, make it worse.

Nora

Giles watched the light change as the sun set, shades of orange and yellow playing across Buffy’s soft hair as she dozed. It was the sort of situation that he felt should have him in an anxious frenzy, and yet the weight of what he’d done—the idiocy of what he had done—had him feeling as though he was sinking into quicksand. Flying into a panic might only make things worse.

More than anything, he was left with Jenny’s words: her halting, shaking retelling of what had led to their parting. I begged you, she had said. You’d look away like you couldn’t even stand the sight of me. He had assumed she’d known he loved her—had assumed that it was impossible for her not to know, if only because of the forceful intensity of his ardor. He had assumed that she had understood the way her betrayal had cut him to the quick, and that she had known—as he had always known—that his love for her was not something so fickle as to dissipate upon seeing a new side of her.

He wondered if any of that was true.

“Hey, I—” A knock on the door. “Giles? Buffy? I’m gonna make some dinner.”

Xander, Giles realized, startled by the notion of Xander even still being here. What on earth would he gain by being here? Willow gone, Jenny bundled away by Nora, Buffy too exhausted to maintain the careful distance she’d put into place between herself and Giles, and Giles himself waiting with a sort of dispassionate exhaustion for sleep to finally take him.

Another knock. The door opened. “Oh, man,” said Xander softly, gaze on Buffy. “She must be pretty frazzled.”

“Willow knew,” said Giles distantly. It was all he could muster.

“That she did.” Xander sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Xander—” Giles hesitated. He was thinking, now, about Willow saying us. “Was I ever—did I ever—I’m—” He wanted to do something right today. He didn’t know what Xander needed to hear. “If I, I was ever—distant with you, or—”

Xander started to laugh.

“Xander, really,” said Giles thinly. Now was hardly the time for one of Xander’s juvenile responses.

But Xander kept laughing, wiping at his remaining eye, face almost distorted as he let his head fall back. “Man,” he finally gasped, smiling almost indulgently at Giles. “If you were ever distant with me—Giles, back when I was fifteen, you couldn’t give a shit whether I lived or died.”

The bluntness of the statement turned Giles’s stomach. “I—”

“Look, I’ve made my peace with it,” said Xander, his smile softening into a kind of gentle affection. “I know you, Giles. I know the kinda guy you are. I was never your favorite. There’s not a lot you can say now that’s gonna change that, and I hope you can find a way to be okay with that knowledge.”

And Giles did look at Xander, then—past the sparkling, laughing eye, and into a sea of sturdy understanding. “You’ve grown up,” he said softly, sitting up in bed. Something ached. “And I—I missed it. When did it happen?”

“A long time ago,” said Xander, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“And Buffy—and Willow—” They were different. He remembered Buffy as clingy and volatile, Willow as attention-seeking and anxious—always, always, always vital to keep his distance, to teach them that they never needed to rely on his approval. Had they ever relied on his approval? Or had they just wanted—

“You’ve got a great kid,” said Xander. The smile he was giving Giles was tired. “Don’t fuck it up this time.”

[Transcript: July 9th, 2006, 20:04]

WILLOW: Nora! Thank God. I’ve been trying to—is Jenny okay? She hasn’t picked up her cell, and, and I wanted to—

NORA: Willow, you—you don’t need to worry about that. Janna isn’t angry.

WILLOW: That’s not what I’m worried about!

NORA: Well, she— [sighs] She isn’t doing very well right now, Willow, and I need to make sure that—

WILLOW: Oh, God, I’m so sorry, I—

NORA: It’s not about you. [pause] I don’t know exactly what happened, but something— [pause] I don’t feel quite right about discussing this with you, Willow, I’m sorry. I have never seen Janna like this.

WILLOW: Is Art okay? I know he has trouble when his mom’s upset—

NORA: I had Don take the children back to our room and I brought Janna to a different hotel.

WILLOW: Nora! Your budget’s stretched paper-thin as it is!

NORA: Willow, I don’t care if I’m in debt up to my ears when Janna is like this. She is shattered. It will only hurt her more for our children to see her like this, and it will hurt them as well—

WILLOW: Please let me pay for your room.

NORA: I—

WILLOW: You know how much I love Jenny. I’ve known her since I was fifteen.

NORA: Hardly! You knew her for a year then and a handful of months now! I’ve had her with me for near a decade—

WILLOW: Nora, please. If you don’t like thinking of it as charity, then—then just think of it as you doing a good deed for me! Okay? Because I will not sleep a wink if I know that you two are going over budget. I will be incredibly deprived of vital slumber.

NORA: [sighs] Fine.

WILLOW: Thank you, I—I’m just—

NORA: Oh, for the love of—is everyone crying today?

WILLOW: I’m just so worried! I never meant to hurt Giles, and I got really mad at him and said a whole bunch of stuff that I—I don’t know if he can handle hearing, but I keep thinking about—about Art, and about how Giles really doesn’t understand the stakes, and I don’t want Art or Jenny to get hurt!

NORA: Hm.

WILLOW: “Hm?”

NORA: Yes. Hm.

WILLOW: Should I be worried?

NORA: No, you should not be. [pause] I simply believe it’s time for me to take this situation in hand.

Chapter Text

Giles woke up Monday morning in hopelessly rumpled clothing to find that Buffy hadn’t moved since the night before. She’d curled away from him, settling herself at the very edge of the bed, but she was very obviously still there. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. She was sleeping, still, and so he was careful as he got up, tapping into decades of Watcher training to soundlessly collect clean clothes from the bureau and step into the adjoining bathroom. His mind was dull and devoid of weighty thought in a way that felt entirely different from the misery that he had marinated in for years; he found himself thinking only about the water on his face, the importance of precision as he shaved, the minty sting of mouthwash. It helped.

He showered and dressed, looking at himself in the mirror. He saw a man with green eyes like Art’s and years that hung heavy on his brow. He saw the frown lines, and how they cut deeper than the laugh lines. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

An insistent knocking on the door jerked him from his reverie, and he hastily opened the bathroom door to check—but no, Buffy was still fast asleep, Slayer instincts clearly not alerted by whatever it was that was knocking on—good lord, the front door? How on earth could Giles hear them from here? Confused, he stepped into his slippers, then hurried through the house to open the door.

“Oh, good, you’re presentable,” said Nora, breezing in past an utterly flabbergasted Giles and shutting the door behind her. “Buffy’s asleep, I’ll assume; that’s good. I need to talk to you about Janna. Do you have a place that will allow us some privacy?”

“I-I—what?”

“Don’t waste my time,” said Nora, fixing Giles with the severe look he’d seen directed at nearly all of the Kovacs children. It was really quite terrifying when directed at them; directed at him, he had to resist the urge to run for the hills. “I’d choose the patio, but I walked in on the two of you, and I’d prefer privacy when it comes to—”

“The, the guest room has a lock,” Giles stammered, “a-and Buffy’s in my—” When Nora’s eyebrows shot up, he fumbled, “Not that—it isn’t untoward, Nora, she wouldn’t—I-I wouldn’t—”

“You are an absolute jellyfish of a man,” said Nora, who was already moving towards the hallway. Giles stumbled, then followed. “This is the guest room?”

“Yes—”

Nora stepped inside, then tugged him through, shutting and locking the door firmly behind him. She snapped her fingers, and a strange quiet fell over the room—the sounds of chirping birds outside first muffled, then disappearing entirely. Rolling her eyes at Giles’s bewildered expression, she said, “You are certainly well-versed enough in magic to recognize it. Don’t waste my time with questions about anything other than this. Janna has been inconsolable all night and I’ve only been able to leave and see you because I’m certain that Willow will alert me if she needs me again.”

Giles’s heart dropped. “I-I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “I truly didn’t intend—”

“Save your apologies,” said Nora very sharply. She really was crackling with rage. “I have had enough of watching you and Janna dance around each other and comforting her in the aftermath. And don’t look at me like that. I am not about to tell you that this is your fault.”

That startled Giles so profoundly that he forgot all about feeling terrible. “I’m sorry?” he said in an entirely different tone of voice.

Nora gave him an exasperated look. “Janna has told you nothing of importance,” she said. “Nothing of her family, nothing of her father—it’s no wonder you’re behaving as you are. You don’t understand. You can’t.” She waved a hand, her unsympathetic expression giving way to a softer, more miserable exhaustion. “She is incredibly delicate,” she said, “and she does not want to tell you anything that might help you take care of her the way that she needs. She has asked me to hold my tongue—hold yours, Rupert, I am not betraying her confidence,” she added shortly as an alarmed Giles opened his mouth. “I am telling you what I know. Only what I know. Nothing that she has told me.”

“I don’t see how—” Giles began, but was fixed with such a terrifying look that he decided to shut his mouth and listen.

“I was sixteen when Janna’s mother died,” said Nora.

Giles felt as though the breath had been stolen from his lungs. He wanted to look away, but Nora was holding his gaze, and he had to know more. “Her mother,” he echoed, his voice shaking. “How old was she?” 

“Ten,” said Nora.

“A-and—her father?”

Nora didn’t answer. “Janna was sent to live with us first,” she said. “I grew up in a large family, but we still had room for her. She stayed for a handful of months in my room; she was a strange little child. So quiet. She had always been the one causing trouble, running around like a little wild thing—none of the aunts liked her very much, you know, the way she’d been raised. But she was so quiet after her mother died—did all the chores, took care of the little ones, spoke only when spoken to. My mother thought her uncanny.” There was a twist of bitterness to her voice. “I was—angry, at the time. So angry. I wasn’t kind to her in the way that she needed, and I certainly wasn’t happy to share a room with her. And she was—oh, Rupert, you can’t possibly imagine how small that girl was.”

Giles thought he could.

“My mother tired of her,” said Nora. “And I—well, I didn’t have enough power in that house to say anything about it. I wouldn’t have even if I could.”

“So Jenny—”

Nora tilted her head back, eyes glistening. It took her a moment to respond. “I was seventeen, you know, when I ran away from the family to marry my husband,” she said.

“I’m—you what?” The thought of levelheaded Nora running off in a fit of impetuous teenage pique was about as bizarre as—well—a teenage Watcher raising demons, Giles supposed, and suddenly felt an unexpected sense of kinship. “So you and Donovan—”

A soft smile stole across Nora’s face. “I wasn’t happy,” she said. “He made me happy. My mother didn’t take very kindly to me wanting to marry a boy she hadn’t chosen, there was a fight, I decided that he was worth losing a family that only ever wanted me under their thumb.” She lowered her chin again, looking steadily at Giles. “I have always wanted a family,” she said. “Always. My children are my life, and Arthur and Janna are two of the most profound blessings I have received. I don’t regret running, but I regret—” She swallowed hard. “When I ran,” she said, “it had been a year since my Aunt Danica’s death, and in that time Janna had been moved to five different houses. None of them wanted her.”

Giles was suddenly struck with the image of a dark-haired girl the same size as Art, shuttled from house to house like a burden instead of a blessing. “Why didn’t they want her?” he asked hoarsely.

Nora pressed her lips together, brow furrowed. “I don’t know how much I want to tell you,” she said. “I don’t know how much is right to tell you. I have told you only what I pieced together before Janna entered my life, with—with a few choice omissions for her privacy, because she does deserve that much. But I—I tell you all of this because you must understand that—” She swallowed, eyes wet. “She spoke of you, these last eight years,” she said, “and this I tell you because you need to know, confidentiality be damned.”

“Nora,” Giles began, uncomfortable.

“Every time she spoke of you,” Nora pressed, “she would say—he doesn’t love me, he stopped loving me, he’s better off without me. Every time. And the moment I saw the way you looked at her, looked at her even after years apart—” She brushed tears impatiently away from her eyes with particular violence, determinedly continuing. “You can’t be so thoughtless,” she said. “Not with her. Kiss her again and you’ll break her heart.”

“I don’t understand—” What Nora was saying, certainly, he couldn’t fathom, but the notion of Jenny—and for years—

“Then figure it out,” said Nora fiercely. “I have given you explicit instructions, and that is more than enough. What you did was careless. Don’t do it again.”

“I don’t plan to,” said Giles unsteadily. “Her reaction made her feelings—more than clear.”

Nora gave him a flat look. “Considering your track record with understanding Janna’s feelings, I highly doubt that you’ve come to any sort of intelligent conclusion.”

Giles flushed. “That’s—”

“And that is not the only thing we need to discuss, Rupert,” Nora finished pointedly, “so I’ll thank you not to distract me from the other concern I must bring up to you. Janna informed me that she was planning to meet with you today and tell you—well, what she’s been avoiding telling you, but clearly she is very busy crying herself sick—oh, love,” she said very tiredly, and reached up to gently brush her thumb against Giles’s cheek. Through the sharp ache in his chest, he wondered what his expression must have been like to evoke such a reaction. “You are an idiot, you know, but so is she, and she’s got me taking care of her.”

“I’d like to take care of her,” said Giles, the words bubbling helplessly up and out.

“I don’t quite know if you’re capable of that,” said Nora, not unkindly.

“I’d like to be,” said Giles. “I want to—” He wasn’t only thinking of Jenny then—he was thinking of Buffy, and Willow, and Xander, and Art, all of them watching him at one point or another with the bright, trusting eyes of a child. Only one of them with that sparkle of unwavering faith still present.

“It takes work, Rupert,” said Nora quietly. “Not just wanting. Work, and strength, and I don’t know if you’ve quite done either.”

“My life is work,” said Giles bitterly.

“Your life is isolation.” Nora’s touch was much softer than her tone. “The sort of work you’d need to learn how to do is very different from what you’ve done before.”

Giles took in the words. Different than what he’d done before—what had he done? Turned away, over and over, convinced that his presence wouldn’t be welcome. It had felt so noble. He wasn’t sure what it felt like now. “I want to do better,” he said, but the words sounded hollow, and the sympathetic look on Nora’s face was the sort generally directed towards a particularly hapless baby animal. “I want—”

“You want to be better,” said Nora. “And it takes time.” She let her hand drop, hugging her elbows to her chest. “I do need to tell you, Rupert, we—” She exhaled through her teeth. “We leave in five days,” she said.

At this point, the abject exhaustion of the previous day made it positively impossible to react to this news with anything other than a kind of wry resignation. “Of course,” said Giles very tiredly. “Well—that’s really just—well,” and gave up entirely.

“It’s been planned for—for quite a while,” Nora continued, “and we can’t afford—that is to say, we spent our savings on this trip. Short of us finding a place to stay at no cost to anyone,” the particular emphasis was placed as Giles began to open his mouth, “we, we really will have to—”

“But Jenny, she’s—I can’t possibly—” The thought of leaving things with Jenny where they were, the thought of Art being in a town in Colorado that Giles didn’t even know the name of— “Please,” he said, his voice shaking. “You can’t—”

“I’ll leave you my number,” said Nora. She no longer looked quite so untouchably sturdy. “And my address. I know it’s—” She drew in a breath. “I know it’s not what you want,” she said. “It isn’t what I want, either, but—Rupert, Don and I run a grocery store and Janna still teaches. This was a luxury that we’ve saved for years to manage. If we could stay longer, please—please believe that we would. None of us want to take Art away from you, least of all Janna.”

“Even now?” said Giles before he could stop himself.

Nora stilled, then studied Giles’s face. Simply, she said, “I don’t think you know Janna as well as you’d like to believe, Rupert, if you think that she would ever want to take your child away from you.”

“And yet she did,” said Giles a bit curtly.

He realized as soon as he had said it that this was a mistake. Nora’s eyes flashed; she drew closer, jabbing a finger against his chest. “She was a wreck when she came to me,” she snapped. “A shadow of a girl. It took her years to speak of you, and not once has she spoken of you without longing. Don’t you ever assume that you understand her in some more complete way than I when she has lived with me for eight years, and when I can tell you with certainty that it killed her to leave you.”

“She said that she didn’t want me here,” said Giles weakly. “She told me—”

“And you trust Janna’s sharp tongue?” said Nora with a derisive laugh. “What has she done, Rupert? Look at that.”

Shown up at his office with a strange mixture of penitence and terrified anger. Shown up again even when she’d thought he hadn’t called. Carved out hour after hour of painful time for him to spend with his son, suffering in silence as she watched them embrace. Settled in his arms, pulled him up off the floor, kissed him back without hesitation—

“I am an idiot,” said Giles, his voice shaking.

“I certainly am not arguing with that,” said Nora testily.

“She—all this time—” He could hardly think. “But she’s been—”

“You don’t know her as well as you think you do,” Nora informed him, “and your—your insistent belief that you still understand who she is will hurt her. I,” she hesitated, “I know you mean well. I do. It’s why I’m telling you as much as I am. But you seem to think that Janna is angry with you, and—” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “And you certainly don’t know her well enough to know any better. Kissing her—Rupert, that was for you, that wasn’t for her, and if you were paying any attention to her you would understand why it would hurt her so greatly for you to do such a thing.”

The woman that Giles remembered had been soothed so easily by a soft touch, melting against his hands as though she’d never known tenderness a day in her life. Jenny’s tears had no place in that memory, and that fact alone weighed uncomfortably upon his shoulders. Nora’s words held water. He didn’t entirely know what to do with that.

“Call me tonight and we’ll discuss further plans,” said Nora crisply. “I will leave you our address, but at some point you’ll have to say goodbye to Art for the time being, and—well, Janna clearly does not have the capabilities to negotiate your role in Art’s life. Any and all conversations will be conducted between us. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” said Giles. His chest hurt. Jenny had been smiling, laughing, trusting him. They’d been so close to building something, and in a second of impulsive stupidity—

“Oh, dinlo,” said Nora, and reached up to place a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find a way forward.”

Buffy was up by the time Nora left, quietly making herself some pancakes. Giles sat down at the table and watched her cook—eggs, flour, butter, all methodically measured and mixed. He was startled when, after setting down her own plate, she placed a second plate in front of him. “You said you wouldn’t cook for me,” he tentatively observed.

“Giles, I—” Buffy sniffled, then sat down, drawing a hand across her face. “I can’t do this.”

“I’m sorry?”

Taking in a shuddering breath, Buffy met his eyes, tearful and miserable. “You have no idea how hard this is for me,” she said. “None. You have been throwing yourself into playing happy family with Ms. Calendar after calling me across the ocean. I thought this was going to be different somehow, and part of it is, ‘cause you haven’t just shoved me out the door after I told you I care about you, but you have no idea how much I still love you, and it is killing me.”

“Buffy,” Giles began uneasily, “I, I’m certain I—”

“I don't just stop seeing you as my dad when you suck, Giles,” said Buffy. The fork tumbled from Giles’s hand. “You are always my dad. Always. You were there for me in such a big way in high school, you made everything feel okay when you would just try every once in a while, and then you stopped trying every time I told you that I really needed you there. And I—” She raised a shaking hand to wipe tears from her eyes. “I have been so afraid to tell you this all this time, because I’ve just—I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out yourself and freak out and leave, but you’re not, you just keep not figuring it out, and Giles, it is—do you have any idea how hard it is for me to watch you with Art? How is it that it’s okay for you to want to love him but I get left out in the cold?” She was beginning to really cry. “What—what do I have to do to be the kind of daughter you want? I know I’m—I’m too old to be your kid now, I know that’s over, but I never got to be your kid, Giles, ever, and that’s not fair. That’s not okay.”

Giles felt physically sick.

“I can’t just—stay here in some kind of fucked up holding pattern watching you play with your son like I’m not—like you’re not even thinking about what that might be doing to me,” Buffy tearfully persisted. “Like it doesn’t even register that you’re the closest thing to a dad I ever got to have. And Tara says—that I need to talk to you, so I’m talking to you, and I’m telling you that I’m leaving, because I can’t—I can’t have this conversation with you and hear you tell me that I’m too old to want you as a dad. Again.”

“Buffy—”

“No,” said Buffy wetly. “You don’t get to talk. I don’t want to hear it. I want to leave, Giles, I want you to let me leave, because I can’t—take this. The fact that you don’t even register how hard this is for me—I thought I could be patient about it, I know you’re going through a lot, but I’m not—I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

Struck dumb, Giles watched her leave the table, eyes stinging and chest aching. He looked down at the pancakes and saw that they were burned—just a bit. Just at the center.

Buffy had adjourned to the guest room, crying audibly enough to be heard even through the locked door. Nora had left, would be leaving with Giles’s son in five days, and reaching out to her would only hurt Jenny more than his idiocy already clearly had. Reaching out—what good had it done? Buffy was sobbing, Jenny was wrecked, Art would leave, and Giles would be left bereft all over again. Yet staying still was what had caused the bone-deep hurt; pulling back had hurt Buffy, hurt Jenny, would certainly hurt a sweet little boy with no experience outside of unconditional love.

Everything he did—everything he tried to do—turned to ashes in his hands. He had tried, patience and reticence and understanding, and yet he was wanted where he thought he’d be unwelcome and unwelcome where he’d been sure he was wanted. Yet he couldn’t possibly cloak himself in the sort of hopeless disgust that he’d hidden himself away within for so long—not when he’d seen the impact that that sort of self-loathing had had on those who wanted him there. There was a way forward, he was sure—he just couldn’t see it.

The phone rang. Giles jumped, then moved to answer it, heart hammering in his chest. “Jenny?”

“What? Of course I’m not Jenny. Do you even have caller ID?” A disapproving huff. “Don’t answer that question.”

Giles felt an unexpected rush of relief. “Anya,” he said, almost a sob. “Thank Christ. I haven’t bollocksed it up with you, have I?”

“Excuse me?” A pause. “Rupert, I—are you okay?”

“I don’t—” Giles didn’t know how to explain the situation without Buffy hearing. “Can we—might we speak at, at work? I can come in and—”

“You know I have a house, right?”

“Y-you have a what?”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t know,” said Anya very snippily, “seeing as you never visit, nor did you ever respond to my e-RSVP inviting you to my housewarming party years ago—”

“E-RSVP?” Giles echoed.

“On the computer, you dinosaur. Look, if you’re wrecked enough to—”

“I—have an email, then, don’t I?” said Giles suddenly.

The question threw Anya so thoroughly for a loop that Giles was almost convinced the connection had dropped. He was just about to hang up and call again when she said, disbelievingly, “…Yes. You have an email. Do you want to talk about whatever it is that has you all kinds of messed up?”

“I, I do want to meet at work,” said Giles. “I want—I want to see that e-RSVP, Anya, you’re always saying—and Art was saying, I need to—I’ve not checked my email in years, I can only imagine what’s been sent during that time, or—or perhaps not sent, but it’s still worth—even if it’s just the one from you, I think I should—should try, shouldn’t I?” His voice broke. There was a clatter from the guest room, a sob cut off into a gasp. “I don’t—I have to try, Anya, somewhere, and that’s—shouldn’t I try for, for something? I don’t know a damned thing about the right path forward and you’re, you’re always telling me what to do, and you’re always saying that I need to be more aware, more with the times—”

There was another agonizing silence. Then, quietly, Anya said, “I’ll pick you up.”

“I can get there myself—”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to do that. I’ll pick you up.”

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I love you so much. That part doesn’t change. Ever. I want it to change so badly but it never ever seems to. I think it would hurt so much less if I was able to just cut out the part of me that loves you, because we haven’t talked in YEARS and you have no idea how much that cuts me to the bone. I spent all yesterday crying in my room until Tara came in and sat on the bed with me, and then I kinda just kept crying because you never reach out! Never! And god, what happens if I reach out and you decide to go somewhere more far away than England, somehow? I want you to be happy. I want you to be okay. I’m so afraid that me reaching out would just make your life way more complicated.

What happens if I’m just waiting forever for you to pick up the slack? What happens if I’m not strong enough to tell you how much you’ve hurt me? I know you always told me I was brave and strong, but I don’t FEEL brave and strong, Giles, I just feel like that dumb little cheerleader who screamed when she saw her first vampire. You used to make me feel like I could be the total freak I am and still have a parent who loved me for who I was, but every time I told you I needed you, you dropped the ball.

I wish you would see these. Read them through and still love me at the end. I'd give anything for that.

Chapter Text

Anya didn’t say a word to Giles when he got into the car, which felt particularly unusual considering how adamant and persistent she’d been about trying to get him to ask her for help. He’d halfway been expecting her to greet him with a rapid-fire litany of suggestions regarding how, exactly, he would need to change his life—yet she was silent, focused only on the drive, not even once looking over at him outside of a quick, curt nod as he got in the car. It was discomfiting, and left Giles wondering what she was feeling, but he didn’t quite feel brave enough to ask.

“I kissed Jenny,” he said, because she would find out at some point. When this didn’t earn him a reaction, he added, “And I did it—without thinking about her, or what it might do to her. I did it because I wanted to.”

“You do a lot of things because you want to,” said Anya. Her tone was surprisingly neutral.

“I don’t want to be miserable,” said Giles, letting his head fall back against the seat.

“I think that’s kind of a new development, Rupert.”

After a moment, Giles said, “I think so too.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes more before Anya said, “I think that kid of yours is doing you some good.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Anya smiled a little flatly, then said, “And it can’t hurt to have Art around either.”

It was the sort of joke she made often—blunt in execution, charmless in its transparency—but she didn’t seem as amused by it as she usually was. Giles wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected upon getting into the car, but it hadn’t been this. “Are you—is this all right?” he tried. “Me asking you for help like this?”

Anya exhaled. It took her a while to answer. “I…didn’t actually think that we’d get here,” she finally said. “Ever. I didn’t make any plans for it to happen. And now that it has, I’m just…I find myself really, ridiculously angry that it took us this long for you to get your head out of your ass. And maybe angry at myself a little for not actually believing that you could do it.”

This cut deeper than Giles had anticipated. “You have spent years telling me I need to make a change,” he said unsteadily. “And you’re telling me that—you didn’t truly believe me capable?”

Anya’s eyes stayed on the road. “The things you said to me,” she said, “you didn’t pay a lot of attention to, but I have had to take some bullshit from you while you’ve been throwing your self-destructive little temper tantrum. You have no idea how much it can hurt to love somebody who hates themselves as much as you do.” She sucked in a breath through her teeth, then let it out. “That’s not true. I think I need to amend that statement. It doesn’t hurt that you hate yourself, Rupert, that’s your prerogative and there’s nothing we can do about it. It hurts that you hate yourself and you use that as an excuse to never let anyone take care of you.”

“I never asked for you to take care of me,” said Giles stiffly.

“And who were you going to ask?” Anya’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “The daughter you abandoned? The girlfriend who abandoned you? You wreck people, Rupert. I can’t even imagine why Jenny wants to put up with you right now.”

“I’m asking you for help,” said Giles. His voice shook. “I came to you hoping—”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t want my help when I was offering it, and you don’t get to control what I give to you now,” said Anya coolly.

“Anya—”

“I’m not going to give you a fucking manual,” said Anya. “That’s the last thing you need right now. All that’s happened here is that you’ve realized your fucked-up rigidity has hurt people, and you’re looking for me to hand you some new flavor of fucked-up rigidity that you can hold yourself to so that you won’t hurt people. You want me to tell you what to do so you can follow the rules, just like you have always been following the rules, and I can’t—that’s not going to help you, Rupert, okay?” Her voice was beginning to shake. “You called me asking me to tell you what to do, and I’m not—I’m not taking that on. I told you what to do when I knew you wouldn’t listen. You start letting me dictate your life and I’m no better than those assholes at the Council who told you that magic would kill you if you let yourself enjoy it.”

“Anya, I don’t know where to start,” Giles begged. “How can I—if you won’t—”

“I am taking you,” said Anya, “to someone who can help you in a way that I can’t, in part because me bossing you around would just make this worse, but also in part because—” She sniffled, drawing her arm roughly across her face and making a dangerous right turn in the process. (Giles’s stomach jolted for a reason that—thankfully—was more connected to a brief moment of mortal peril than anything.) “It’s been so hard for me,” she said helplessly. “Watching you—and I can’t help you when you’re asking for it anymore, because I just keep thinking about all those times I tried and it didn’t work, a-and if it doesn’t work now, now that you’re asking for it—if you just go back to being some cynical shut-in who hates his job and hates himself and hates me—”

“You know I don’t hate you,” Giles whispered.

“That’s worse,” said Anya, all but a sob. “That means that this is what you do to people you love.”

Giles felt very sick. He turned his face away from her, eyes on the buildings rushing by. You drive too fast, he almost said, but bit it back before it could escape.

“And I love you,” Anya continued fiercely. “You don’t have anybody, and neither do I, not after—I stopped having all of them after Xander left me, because they were more his than mine, and then they all started having their own lives and I never knew how to—but you needed me. You would at least let me stay, and you treated me like you always did, and that was—”

“You deserve better than that.”

The statement surprised both of them. Anya stopped the car, entirely forgetting that they were midway through an intersection, and hastily had to start it again when there was a sharp honk from behind her. Giles heard the words as he said them and felt a rush of nausea at the truth of it, years of memories reconfigured—Anya’s unflagging determination, Anya’s bright-eyed smile, Anya luminous and bright with only him for company. “You deserve,” he said again, “better than that.”

Anya pulled the car over entirely. She sat there for a moment, staring ahead with unfocused eyes, and then her hands dropped—slowly—from the steering wheel, her head dropping with it as she began to cry. Clumsily, she buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

Giles wanted to reach for her. But—he thought of Jenny, and the electric kiss broken only by her tears. He’d kissed her because he’d cared about comforting someone far more than about whether that comfort would be well-received—yet sitting impassively by as Anya cried was inexcusable. “Anya, can I—can I do anything to help?” he offered tentatively. “Do you need—I’ll drive us the rest of the way, if you like, o-or—”

“You drive like a grandma,” Anya wailed, descending into another round of sobs.

“Or—would you like—me—to touch—you?”

That got Anya’s attention. Raising tearful eyes to Giles’s, she gave him a wryly amused smile. “You are such a basket case,” she said. “You sound like you’re being asked to eat glass.”

“I want—to help,” said Giles, heart hammering in his chest. “Somehow.”

Anya sniffled, carefully mopping at her eyes before looking directly at him. “I don’t think I’m ready for you to do that,” she said. “You—you caused the hurt, Rupert. You don’t get to try and put people back together yourself when sometimes all they want is time away from you.”

“Anya—”

“We’re here, anyway,” said Anya, and motioned towards—oh, Giles hadn’t even noticed. They were parked right outside the Council headquarters. “We should get up to your office.”

“My…office?” said Giles tentatively. “But I thought you said—”

“I did say that there’s someone who can help you,” said Anya. “He’s here.”

“Welcome to Mr. Giles’s secretary’s office!” sang Kira delightedly, and proceeded to forcibly wrestle Giles out of his coat in order to throw it in the coat rack’s general direction. Giles, too nonplussed to remember how to be indignant, stared first at Kira and then at Anya as Kira happily continued to chatter. “I did some redecorating while you were away, just a few things, and I found the cookies that you should so be sharing with other people, because they are delish—”

“I’m sorry,” said Giles to Anya, “this is who you’ve brought in to help me?”

“I did say that it’s a he, didn’t I?” said Anya, rolling her eyes as though Giles was the one who had brought chaos incarnate into the office. “And it’s not as though he could just leave Kira unsupervised.”

Wesley, who had up until that point been meticulously replacing books on Giles’s shelf that Giles could only assume had been knocked out of place by Kira, turned patiently towards them, stooping to pick up Giles’s coat and very carefully hang it on the coat rack. “Kira, don’t antagonize the man,” he said mildly. “I’m here to talk to him, not put his office out of order.”

“You’re only saying that ‘cause he’s here now,” Kira countered. “I didn’t see you complaining when I found you the only oatmeal raisin cookie—”

“I’ll make you a horrific amount of cookies if you behave yourself while I speak with Mr. Giles,” Wesley volleyed back. “Batches upon batches.”

After a moment of consideration, Kira said, “Pinky swear?”

Giles watched in complete and total bemusement as Wesley turned towards Kira and very solemnly obliged, linking their pinkies to shake their joined hands. “Any kind you’d like,” he said, and when Kira opened her mouth, he pointedly tacked on, “so long as you quietly think about it while I talk to Mr. Giles.”

Kira raised her hand.

“Yes, Kira?”

“Can I use Anya’s computer?”

Wesley looked to Anya. Anya tapped her index finger against her chin, then said, “I don’t think I keep anything incriminating on that computer, so it should be fine.”

“I don’t find that even remotely reassuring,” said Wesley dryly, gently pushing a giggling Kira in the computer’s direction. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Both eyes,” said Anya cheerfully.

Turning back towards Giles, Wesley quietly jerked his head towards Giles’s office. Entirely out of his depths, Giles followed, casting one last glance over towards Kira. The girl was cheerfully busy with the computer, not a care in the world. He wasn’t quite sure why he had felt the need to check again.

Wesley shut the door behind them, then sat down—not, as Giles had halfway expected, at the desk, but at the sofa just adjacent to it, waiting expectantly for Giles to follow suit. Uncomfortable with the notion of sitting on a sofa with Wesley of all people, for any reason—and still not quite sure what, exactly, Anya meant by bringing Wesley in to begin with—Giles moved instead to sit behind his desk, and found himself further discomfited when Wesley did not raise any objection.

“That does seem about right, yes,” said Wesley, and gave Giles a sideways little smile.

“Wesley, why am I here?” said Giles abruptly. At Wesley’s raised eyebrows, he found himself belatedly aware of the statement’s bluntness, and colored, averting his eyes. “That is—”

“Anya didn’t tell you?” said Wesley. “I was hoping you knew.”

“That’s—” Giles groaned. Under normal circumstances, he would default to calling Anya in and demanding some sort of explanation, but their conversation in the car had made it clear that she wouldn’t take kindly to being ordered about, especially now. “I truly haven’t the faintest idea. Anya said she was taking me to someone who could help—”

“And Anya told me that I could be of help to you,” Wesley finished. He looked somewhat amused. “Without telling either of us any of the situation’s particularities. Well, if you don’t know why I’m here, and I don’t know why I’m here—” He was already moving to get up.

It was perhaps a mark of how desperate Giles was that a spike of panic shot through him at the thought of Wesley leaving. “No, don’t, I—please, Wesley, just give me a moment,” he said helplessly, his voice shaking in a way that would have been humiliating were he more self-possessed. “It’s only that—”

Buffy crying in his guest room. Jenny crying on the floor of his patio. Art with that smile of his, cosseted by fierce women determined to protect him from the exact kind of heartbreak that Giles had inflicted upon his mother and his—sister, perhaps. His sister, in a sense. Giles’s halfway-daughter if Jenny was right about everything, and Jenny often was, and—

“I don’t know where to start,” said Giles, voice breaking.

Looking up at Wesley again was excruciating. Half of him expected the kind of puppyish bemusement that he’d so often seen on the man’s face in Sunnydale when faced with an honest-to-God problem, and the other half expected the cool professionalism that Wesley seemed to have perfected over the course of the last half-decade as a newly reinstated Watcher. And yet—

“It’s always hard, isn’t it?” said Wesley softly. “When you realize what you’ve given to the Council.”

Giles went very still.

“I was—much younger when I was fired,” said Wesley, settling back into the sofa. He was studying Giles carefully—almost warily—but not at all without kindness. “I was in my early twenties, and while it wasn’t easy, exactly, my life already felt…so vastly intimidating, and so out of my control. It was almost a relief, to be honest. It felt as though I’d been given the opportunity to live life on my own terms.” He hesitated. “But you’re not…that is, you weren’t…”

“You can just say old, Wesley,” said Giles, somewhat nettled.

Wesley fixed Giles with a slightly exasperated look, but didn’t comment. “What I’m trying to say is that I was at a place in my life where upending it was actually helpful,” he said. “Nothing about my situation was truly set in stone. I’d studied at the Council for quite a long time, certainly, but you and I both know I was positively useless in the field. I hadn’t been a real Watcher long enough to feel poorly about the notion of that role being forcibly removed from me, and…” He trailed off. “And when I returned to it,” he said, “I was coming to the job with my own understanding regarding what a teenage girl would need from a mentor. Not an age-old handbook designed to systemically disempower young women.”

“I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this,” said Giles. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up. “Are you attempting to suggest—”

Wesley held up a hand. “Rupert, I know you well enough to know that your intentions are unilaterally positive,” he said gently. “I’d never suggest otherwise. I am suggesting that you are at a place in your life where change is…difficult, and will not come as easily as it did for me.”

“Yes, everyone does seem to be saying that,” said Giles a bit tersely. “Not that I can’t change, but that it will be difficult for me to do so. I have heard that from Anya and from Nora, Wesley, so if that’s all that you have to tell me—”

“Are you listening?”

The question took Giles off guard, as did Wesley’s tone: despite the glint of frustration in the other man’s eyes, there was an earnest patience to his words. “I-I don’t follow,” he said uncomfortably.

“You seem to have already decided that my words are empty platitudes,” said Wesley, “and that I have nothing of worth to tell you. Certainly that would have been the case were I some Council lackwit with dispassionately detached ideas about the way that the world works, but I’m not. I have a Slayer who I unilaterally adore, I have a life I take pride in, and I love the job that I do.”

Giles was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable.

“When I say that you haven’t changed,” said Wesley, “I don’t mean that you’ve turned yourself into the sort of automaton that you and I both suffered at the hands of. I mean that you’ve somehow decided that everyone around you is as indifferently detached from reality as the long-dead gentlemen who told us that we were to kill our Slayers at eighteen, and that you are the only one who can possibly understand the depths of your impossible suffering. You’ve stopped listening.” His tone was still light and impassive, but his eyes had gone very hard. “I certainly don’t know nearly enough about what happened in Sunnydale to criticize your methods there, and I can say with certainty that when I was there, you were a much more effective and compassionate Watcher than I could have ever been at the time. But the man I saw at that time was a man determined to be there for his Slayer, come hell or high water.” His smile had faded entirely. “As of late, Rupert, I’ve not once seen even the slightest spark of that man.”

“I thought—it was better—this way,” said Giles jerkily.

“Better my arse,” said Wesley shortly. “You gave up.”

“And if I had?” Giles could no longer bear to stay silent. “What difference did it make? The world’s moved on without me. Happily. There’s no place for me, Wesley—”

“Are you really so unilaterally convinced that your only worth to the world is dependent on what you can give to the mission?” said Wesley fiercely. “The world always moves on. The world moves on whether we’re living in it or not. The fact that there’s no place for you has a hell of a lot less to do with your lack of usefulness and a hell of a lot more to do with your refusal to carve one for yourself.”

“I don’t—” Giles exhaled through his teeth.

“You matter,” said Wesley. “To Anya, to Buffy, and certainly to me.”

Giles’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry?”

Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Christ, you’re a nightmare,” he said, opening his eyes again. “Rupert, you—certainly you didn’t intend to have this kind of an impact, particularly considering the way I was behaving at the time, but the way that you were with Buffy in Sunnydale, I—” He fluttered a hand somewhat helplessly in a way that felt quite reminiscent of their Sunnydale days. “It was nothing to you,” he said. “I know that. I do. But I would watch you and Buffy, watch how happy you made her, how safe she clearly felt around you, and I—when I started training Kira, I-I took great pains to treat her with the same respect, patience, and camaraderie with which you treated your own Slayer.”

Giles’s heart caught in his chest.

“You can’t know how you affect those around you,” said Wesley, “and you certainly can’t control it. But you were—you were authentically yourself in Sunnydale, with Buffy, at least to the best of your abilities, and I-I think it would be—a great loss—if you confined that man to archaic obsequiousness.” He swallowed nervously, eyes meeting Giles’s. “You changed my life,” he said softly. “You showed me that there was a better way forward, even if I wasn’t quite brave enough to walk that path myself at the time. No one worth their salt in this Council takes any joy in the way you have closed your office door.”

“Wesley, I—” Giles drew in a ragged breath, dropping his gaze. The truth was burning a hole in his chest. “The compassion with which I have been treated,” he said unsteadily, “the love I have known from so many brave and incredible people, I—I would rather step back for the rest of my life than hurt them in any way through a deliberate choice I make.”

“And I can understand that,” said Wesley gently. “But Rupert, stepping back is a deliberate choice, and it has hurt people that you love very dearly. It’s—it’s common knowledge among most high-ranking Council members that Buffy sends you an invitation to her inner-circle brunch every year, and you don’t—”

Giles’s eyes shot up to Wesley’s. “What?”

Wesley blinked. “I’m—I’m sorry. You didn’t know?”

“There’s—I’m—what?” said Giles, who felt a bit like a particularly vicious demon had begun to feast upon his innards.

“I assumed—” Wesley colored, looking genuinely worried. “I’m very sorry, Rupert, I didn’t think—”

Getting up from his desk, Giles staggered past Wesley, moving out of the office and into Anya’s work area. “Anya,” he said. “Anya, is there—there’s not—”

“Wesley, what did you do?” said Anya, crossing her arms with a reproving frown.

Looking just as stunned as Giles, Wesley said, “I simply mentioned the family-only brunch that he never attends, I thought—”

“—see, this is why you need to check your damn email, Giles!” said Anya indignantly. “Poor Wesley didn’t even consider that you’re too much of a dinosaur to not be checking your email, and now he’s going to feel bad when he really shouldn’t, because absolutely everyone in the Council checks their email. It’s practically mandatory. It’s where Willow sends information about the missions that need attention, it’s where all of the party invitations get sent, it’s where—”

“I’m sorry, missions?” said Giles, his head spinning. “Are you suggesting—”

Looking him directly in the eye, Anya said, “Rupert, what have I been telling you for the last two years?”

Slowly, and somewhat shakily, Giles said, “They—they all stopped calling. Two years ago. I was turning them down, of course, well before they stopped calling, but they all stopped calling, stopped telling me about the larger Council goings-on, and that was—that was when—”

“That,” said Anya, “was when Buffy made the shift to email.”

Chapter Text

BCC: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Weekly Bulletin

Hey there, Slayers, Slayerettes, Watchers, Watchers-in-training, and pretty much anyone else who falls under our cozy little Council umbrella! As per usual, we’ve got a juicy list of tasks requiring particular attention – and as per usual, one spot on the research team will remain permanently on reserve for Rupert Giles, so please don’t send me a whole bunch of emails requesting to be added to the research team because you see that one spot’s still open. (That means you, Dawn. Go do your homework.)

This week, we’re looking at:

• Two new Slayers discovered in Poland, both in the same geographic location! It looks like they’re siblings particularly close in age, so this might be a twin situation. Marta and Pieter are already working on establishing preliminary contact, but we’ll be needing a diplomatic representative from the main branch of the Council to fly down and delineate options for these girls, as well as a trained therapist who’s fluent in Polish.
• A string of murders in Paris that’s looking like it might be a wannabe master vampire trying to get the attention of the larger vampiric community – this one’s probably going to be on Spike to sort out, but he’s asked for backup to help sell his cover, so we’ll need a senior Slayer who’ll be able to hold their own in a no-holds-barred fight against Spike.
• An underground demon fighting ring that’s been getting a little out of control—that’s going to need at LEAST two Slayer/Watcher teams. Preferably two Slayer/Watcher teams who know each other and work well together, but we have some room for flexibility.
• Rumors have been going around about vampires working with a group of warlocks to shorten the daylight hours during the summer. I’ll need a few members of the research team to look into whether this is even possible, and a Slayer/Watcher team prepped to investigate these rumors.
• Weekly prophecy reports! I know almost all of you on the research team are doing your due diligence when it comes to checking and cross-checking our resources to make sure that we’re not missing any coming apocalypses, but after that little slip-up last month, it can’t hurt to be a little more careful. From now on, instead of monthly prophecy reports, I’d really appreciate it if the research team submitted a summary of their findings every week instead of every month—even if all of you haven’t found anything noteworthy! I want to see how weekly reports work with the main branch before beginning to try and roll this out as protocol with other branches.
• Mental health outreach! Now that the main branch has a team of trained therapists to work with Slayers in England, we’re going to need to start making connections with therapists in other countries so that the girls have more local options. Obviously this is going to fall to Buffy’s division, so please email her if you’re interested in or potentially have any information about contributing to the process of networking with therapists in other countries.
• Four new Slayers have committed to training with us! We’ll be interviewing the Slayers tomorrow to get a better sense of what they’re looking for in a Watcher, and if any fully trained Watcher would like to be considered as a possible match when it comes to guiding one of them, please submit your application to Faith or Wesley for consideration. Selected candidates will be notified by Friday, at which point they’ll be given the opportunity to meet with their potential Slayer (no pun intended!). The Slayer’s comfort and security will always take precedent, and we will do our best to match them with a Watcher that we feel will help them grow in a positive direction.
• Seven new potential Watchers have submitted applications to our training program! That’s another set of interviews that we could definitely use a few pairs of hands with. Please let me know if you’re willing to interview candidates; that’ll be happening Wednesday and Thursday, between 9am and 4pm.
• And finally, another reminder about the end-of-summer Council gala! To be very clear, just to make sure everybody remembers, outside alcohol is NOT ALLOWED after last year’s fiasco with the enchanted whiskey. (This absolutely means you, Spike.) I’ve had a few questions about plus ones, and I’d like to clarify that as well: you’re allowed to bring as many people as you want, as long as they’re registered to attend at least two weeks before the event! The rules can be bent a little here, obviously, I just don’t want to get swamped with families to vet twenty-four hours before I’m supposed to be partying my butt off. Magical background checks don’t take too much time, but they do take some energy on my part, as well as the parts of all the other witches we’ve got on call for this one. There will be a lot of important people in attendance at this gala, so as ever, be safe, be careful, and be ready to defend yourself if something goes haywire.

As always—thank you so much for the tireless work that you do to keep the world safe. There’s no way we could do what we do without the help of so many other talented and courageous individuals.

Signing off,

Willow Rosenberg

Council Head: Magical Research and Resources Division

“But you could have told me,” said Giles, staring incredulously at the screen. “You could have said—”

“Rupert, I absolutely did!” said Anya disbelievingly. “You were the one who decided to turn down every phone call ever and take the smallest role possible in the new Council! You have never been out of the loop. You stepped back. You know this. I have been telling you for the last two years to check your damn email, and you haven’t once listened.”

BCC: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Weekly Bulletin

Buongiorno, Slayers, Slayerettes, Watchers, Watchers-in-training, and pretty much anyone else who falls under our cozy little Council umbrella! Noticing my cute little Italian “hello?” Well, that’s because we’re excited to announce that the Council’s finally managed to rebuild the Rome branch under the tireless supervision of our very own Andrew Wells! Most of my bulletin this week will be discussing the kind of help we’ll be needing there.

As always, one spot on the research team will remain permanently on reserve for Rupert Giles.

Moving on to this week’s tasks!

• Andrew’s made a lot of connections in Italy as aided by the families and communities of the seven Italian Slayers we’ve located, but right now, we’re still looking for two Watchers—preferably fluent in Italian—who can spend five months in Italy assisting the two girls who have decided to join the Council and train with us. Currently this will be a temporary arrangement, but if there’s a Watcher/Slayer connection, the pair can submit a request for a permanent partnership and we’ll examine the possibility of either bringing the Slayer to the main branch or assigning the Watcher to the Rome branch.
• Five girls have chosen not to join the Council. As such, we’ll be needing to make sure that they’re properly warded and protected to prevent them and their families from any kind of demonic attacks. Those in my division who have demonstrated themselves capable of casting these wards are required to travel to Rome for two days in order to cast; the more people involved in these castings, the stronger they are. Those in my division who are still studying these wards are encouraged to come along—firsthand experience with the casting process will be invaluable when it comes to learning how to cast yourself!
• Since these girls will need to be able to defend themselves in the event of their identity as a Slayer being discovered by anything unsavory, we’re also looking for one fully trained Slayer to work with the girls on self-defense. She’ll need to remain in Rome for at least six months, possibly longer.
• As we know, after the First’s coordinated attacks, much of the Rome branch was destroyed. Though most of the building is usable—hence our opening it up again—the east wing is still in a state of significant disrepair. I’ll be selecting two assistants to help me cleanse the east wing of any remaining vestiges of dark magic, and they’ll be notified within the next few days.
• A new Slayer’s been discovered in Chile! She slid under the radar in part because no one’s noticed her super strength and in part because her mom’s a witch who has put up a lot of wards to protect the community from any kind of demonic attacks – which in turn means that the Slayer’s usual status as a demon magnet ended up null and void. Her mom is open to a diplomatic discussion with a Council representative, but she’s heard a lot of horror stories about the Council, so we’ll need someone who has history with both the new Council and the old Council and can clearly explain its differences. Obviously we know who would be best for this mission, but he’s been working desk jobs for a while, so I’m going to ask very gently that we let this email serve as a subtle invitation and see if he takes it. If he doesn’t, I’m thinking that this will be handed to Wesley or Faith.
• The research team has alerted me to the fact that the world is going to end on Saturday. I’m going to need one Watcher/Slayer team to avert that particular prophecy real quick so that we can reach Sunday and start working on that prophecy that says the world will end two weeks from now. ;)
• Sonia’s gotten into a bit of a snafu in Portugal. Sensitive information, so I’m not sending it in this email, but suffice it to say that we’ll need a Watcher/Slayer team to join forces with Xander for a stealthy retrieval mission. Stop by my office at midnight tomorrow if you’re interested.

Thank you, again, for all that you do! We’re nothing without our community.

Signing off,

Willow Rosenberg

Council Head: Magical Research and Resources Division

Giles’s throat was tight. “These are—”

“Comprehensive briefings,” said Anya, her hands tight on his shoulders. “Every damn week. They stopped calling and sending memos and stuff, and they did that because you always ignored that stuff, but it is the easiest thing in the world to CC you and Willow has never stopped doing it.” She jerked her head pointedly towards the ridiculous array of emails—thoughtful little notes from Tara. E-vites from Xander. Updates from Dawn. “No one stopped doing it.”

But Giles’s attention was now on something else. Though a significant number of emails were from others, the bulk of the messages were from one sender—and the chosen handle was unmistakable. “Anya,” he said unsteadily. “Do you—can I have some privacy?”

Opening her mouth to object, Anya’s eyes landed on the email that Giles was tentatively hovering the cursor over. Without a word, she steered a worried Wesley and an indignantly protesting Kira into Giles’s office, leaving him alone in front of the computer.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Hi Giles. I miss you. That’s pretty much it today, I think.

Buffy

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Today I burned breakfast and cried about it for like three hours after Dawn left for school, because I feel like I’m supposed to have it way more together than I do when I’m literally the only one raising her. And yeah, she’s in college now, whatever, but she still needs me, and she’s comfortable enough to ADMIT that she needs me. When I was her age, I was asking for help and not getting it from anybody. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to her.

Tara says I should probably start seeing a therapist. I kind of just want to lie facedown in bed and send you stupid little emails that you’re literally never going to read, but I don’t think that’s actually going to help, so I’ve started looking at Faith’s list of Council therapists and seeing if there are any in the LA area that I can talk to.

I don’t know why I write this stuff to you. Last time I tried to tell you I was suicidal, you left. I guess I’m trying to tell you the same thing now without you leaving on me this time. I like being able to pretend for even half a second that you’ll see this and freak out and come back to LA and spend time with me like you did right when I came back from the dead. I felt so safe when that happened. You were taking care of me, you were patient with me, you kept on telling me that I was brave and good and strong even when I didn’t feel like it—but then, you know, you left. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that understood by anybody. It hurt so much to realize that I made you leave me.

I feel like such a failure. You wanted to help me be strong, but today I don’t feel like I am. Most days I don’t feel like I’m strong in the way you always seemed to want me to be, and I always find myself wondering if I’m even capable of that kind of strength.

I’m so sorry I disappointed you. I wish I’d been strong enough for you to feel like you could stick around without me going all limp-noodle on you and making you take care of me. Sometimes I wonder if you’ve stopped talking to me because some part of you knows how much I want you here, and you’re trying to get me to grow out of it.

I’m just so sorry. I’m really really sorry.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Apparently my therapist says I’m exhibiting a lot of signs of untreated PTSD? It made me really uncomfortable when she said that, because that’s not something that happens to normal girls. Normal girls go to high school and cheerlead and win Homecoming Queen and go off to college without, like, losing their virginity to a vampire, or almost getting killed at sixteen, or ACTUALLY getting killed at twenty. But she also said that it was really irresponsible for my primary guardian to just up and ditch me when I was dealing with PTSD and depression and suicidal inclinations.

I’m not actually super sure how I feel about that, which is why I’m writing this. I guess I’ve always kind of felt like you were always trying to get me to stand on my own, and I’ve always wanted to be ABLE to stand on my own. Besides which, you’re NOT my dad, you know? I don’t want to put my own daddy issues onto you when you’ve only ever tried to be a good Watcher. And you have your own issues too, so it’s not…I don’t know. I feel kind of mad at her for saying that you were irresponsible. You had your own stuff too.

But I do have PTSD now, so. That’s something. I’m not planning to tell anyone but Tara about it, but I think I’m going to be handing a lot of management stuff off to Faith if she’s okay with it. I’m planning to step back into running the LA branch once I get my head on straight, just…not right now.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]  

I love you.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

TARA GOT THE SHOP!!! It’s a primo piece of real estate like two blocks away from Dawn’s dorm, and she’s been making SO many jokes about being a total helicopter mom. I’m going to be helping her set stuff up and take inventory and maybe decorate a little, and I’m really excited! She said I get to make ALL of the interior decoration choices, which is the sweetest, nicest, best-friendliest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I’m so lucky to have her in my life.

Tara’s also really excited because running a magic shop means that we’ll have another way to gather intel for the Council about the LA magic scene! She doesn’t want to fight evil full-time, but she does like being able to help out in her own way, and this means that she gets to do her own thing while also assisting in a fight she cares a lot about. I can relate.

We were having dinner today—her, me, and Dawn—and I started thinking about how nice it would be to invite you over some time. I think a lot of stuff would have to happen before that kind of thing could, but…I don’t know. It’s a nice thought.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I miss you.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Dawn got BLACKOUT DRUNK at a college party last night?!?!?! I am SO angry with her, my GOD!!! How did you EVER manage to not just scream at me when I was being a dumb teenager?????? I have literally no patience with her sometimes when she is being this selfish and reckless. She’s not even twenty-one, AND she threw up all over a new shipment of herbs that Tara had just gotten in, so now they are totally unusable.

Tara was kind of the good cop to my bad cop, I think, except my bad cop was mostly just me making a screechy cat noise and stalking upstairs to write this email. I can hear her giving Dawn a sit-down talking-to from downstairs and it sounds super nice and levelheaded. I am so, SO tempted to call you and ask you how to deal with this, but—god, reading that back took the wind out of my sails. Of course you wouldn’t want a call like that.

Okay. Going back downstairs. Totally going to handle this by myself. You’d be so proud of me if you ever read this.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I love you.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Faith says she thinks I could be a good therapist?!? I have no idea how to feel about that. Or her. Things between us have been a little weird lately ever since she—god, you know what, that’s not actually something I can ever even imagine telling Hypothetical Giles who reads these emails, so I’m just going to hold off on that. I’ve never been one for talking love life drama with you and I don’t think I’m going to start now.

ANYWAY, I was thinking about mental health outreach and stuff—obviously, considering how much work Faith and I have put into making sure Slayers have support—and then I started kind of wondering what I actually want to do with my life. This Council stuff is definitely something that I feel good about doing, but I don’t know if it’s what I actually want to be doing, and I do actually have the room to step down at this point. It would be difficult, but it’s not off the table at all.

I don’t know. It’s just a thought.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Happy Father’s Day, I guess. God, this sucks.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

Don’t die before I cross the ocean. Please. I want to fix things. I don’t know how to make things right between us but I promise I’ll try.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I love Art so much and I wish I didn’t. It would be so much easier if I could be jealous of him, but instead I just keep on thinking about how all of those years you spent with me could have been spent with him, and how maybe I wouldn’t be hurting as much as I am now if you’d just gone and played happy family with Ms. Calendar instead of pretending to care about being my Watcher.

God, that’s mean. I know that’s mean, and unfair to boot. I’m just…it was really hard watching you and Ms. Calendar fight, and it was even harder spending time with Art and realizing that he has literally no idea how messed up the stuff between you and Ms. Calendar is. He is such a sweet little kid. I’m so scared he’s gonna get hurt in the same way I did.

I think my one small comfort is Ms. Calendar. I know she would never let that happen to him. I’ve started to wonder if maybe she wouldn’t have let that happen to me.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I;m going home img oing back to LA this was such a fuckigng stupid idea why the fuck am i like this evert time iwth you

Then it hadn’t mattered, had it? Any of it. All those years of distance for her sake—all those years, trying to get her to realize how much better that she would be without him—and she had poured her heart out to him in the one way that she still felt she could. Over and over, she’d written I’m sorry, I love you, I miss you, I wish I was better—as though she was at fault for his leaving. As though she was lacking in some way, and he in all of his all-knowing power had seen that and punished her for it.

He had thought she had known. He had thought she would move on without him, and that they would both be better for it. Certainly he had known the depths of her love for him, but he had always assumed it some sort of failure on her part without ever really thinking about what a refusal to acknowledge it might do to her. He had thought—

He had thought it would make her stronger.

I’m so sorry I disappointed you.

“Never,” Giles whispered, staring with glassy eyes at the computer screen. Buffy—his Buffy—a bright, brilliant woman, the pinnacle of everything good and right about this new Council, smart and caring and dedicated and strong. Never had he once been disappointed in her—always, he had wanted her to be the best that she could possibly be. He had been so sure that she understood that. He had been so sure that his love for her was something she knew, just as he had always known she loved him.

He hadn’t known how much she loved him. No, that wasn’t right—he hadn’t wanted to know how much she loved him. He had looked away, and it had broken her heart. Years of unanswered emails and missed calls, and all of it had culminated in Buffy sobbing at his kitchen table, furious at him. Rightly so. This should never have surprised him.

It hadn’t surprised him. That was perhaps the worst part. He had been startled, but now—now it was sinking in, pieces falling into place, and absolutely everything in his life made a horrible amount of sense.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice shaking.

The door to his office creaked open, and he jumped to his feet, already halfway defensive until he met Anya’s eyes. “But do you get it now?” she said simply.

“…Yes,” said Giles.

“And you get why I’m not gonna help you?”

Giles moved forward and pulled Anya tightly against him, burying his face in her honey-blonde hair. Despite her sharp-tongued protestations in the car, she hugged him back just as fiercely, tightly gripping the front of his shirt. “I’m so sorry, Anya,” he whispered. “I’ve been a terrible friend, a horrible father, and a bloody awful boss.”

He heard a wet laugh from Anya. “I missed you, you stupid human man!” she said tearfully, pressing her forehead against his chest. “You’re going to have to do a lot of work to get back into my good graces, you know, and it’s going to take a lot more than one good hug to do it—”

“I’d expect nothing less,” said Giles. “And I-I…” He trailed off, at a loss for words. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

“You know something?” Anya raised her eyes to his. “I think this is the first time in a while that you sound like you mean it.”

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

You make things so fucking complicated for no goddamn reason. When are you ever going to start thinking about the way that your actions impact other people?

Chapter Text

Giles’s initial instinct was to have Anya drive him straight to Heathrow—attempt to head Buffy off before she had left—but Anya very firmly set him to rights. “She’s a high-ranking Council member with a web of connections allowing her to book a flight ten minutes from now without paying a cent,” she said, “and you spent long enough reading those emails that she’ll be long gone by now. You need to go home, get some rest, and think about what you’re going to do next.”

Of course Giles put up some resistance to this notion—in large part because he was, quite frankly, terrified at the notion of being left alone in the myriad of problems that he now had to face. His idiocy with Jenny, Art’s leaving in a week, the shattered situation with Buffy…he had no idea where to start, and it was the first time he had admitted such a thing to himself. On some level, it had been quite a lot easier to assume that his removing himself from the lives of others was the best possible call.

Part of him was beginning to entertain the notion of just doing it again. Cutting Buffy off more assertively, writing a heartfelt letter to Art apologizing for his inability to be a father, telling Jenny that he was sorry and he’d never darken her doorstep again…but the thought of going back to the meaningless drudgery of a Council job that no one had asked him to take felt fundamentally ridiculous at this point. He had gone too far down this path. It felt cheap and cowardly to turn back now.

When Anya pulled up in front of his apartment, he stayed in his seat, staring at the building with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The thought of walking into that empty apartment after days of being surrounded by the people he loved the most was indescribably awful.

Quietly, Anya said, “I’m sorry I don’t have more sympathy for you right now, Rupert.”

“Don’t say that,” said Giles absently. “You—” He swallowed, turning to look at her. “I would never ask for sympathy from you after what I’ve put you through,” he said. “Never.”

Anya pressed her lips together and moved forward, taking his face in her hands. Very, very gently, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, pulling back with a small exhalation and letting her hands drop. She didn’t say anything at all.

Giles got the message. With some difficulty, he finally removed himself from the car.

The walk up his front path seemed longer than it had ever been, and his hands shook as he unlocked the front door. Were this an apocalypse, he would already be delineating a plan: sources to consult, forces to gather, that sort of thing. Apocalypses were simple like that. He had never experienced anything like this before, and he had no books to guide him. It had been so easy, when Buffy was young, to reassure her in her own uncertainty when it came to the chaos of the world around them—to remind her that since there was truly no right way forward when it came to living one’s life, the only right thing to do was always to make decisions that one fully believed in.

Had he ever believed in a single one of the choices he’d made?  

The key finally clicked in the lock. With a jittery twist, Giles opened the door, peering through—and his heart jumped into his throat.

“You’re back,” said Buffy.

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: [blank]

I don’t know what to say when I know you’ll see it. I hope you see this one first and ignore all the other ones. What I want to say is—

“I’m sorry,” said Buffy, eyes bright and wet, before an utterly stunned Giles could say anything at else. “I’m so sorry. Not for—look, I meant absolutely everything I said this morning, but if you’ve read—if you read anything I wrote—I heard you talking to Anya on the phone, and I—you already have so much on your plate right now, Giles, and the only reason I told you what I told you is because I need to leave and you deserved to know why. I don’t want to add anything to what you’re going through right now, especially when I know it isn’t easy for you, and I know that getting pretty much the entire Buffy email backlog in one day is going to be so hard on you, because I know you didn’t know anything about what I was dealing with, because I-I didn’t tell you—” She was beginning to cry. “And I just—I couldn’t leave without telling you how sorry I am for dumping all of that on you. I would never have sent any of those emails if—”

“I’m so glad you did,” said Giles.

The words startled both of them. Buffy stopped talking as abruptly as if she had been frozen, tears still tumbling down her cheeks.

“You were honest with me,” said Giles, his voice shaking. “Every single one of those emails was honest with me. I am so sorry, Buffy, that—that I have created such a rift in our relationship, to the point where you feel that your honesty about what you need will directly result in my pulling away. No one—” He closed his eyes. Opened them again. This was the hardest thing in the world to say. “No one should have to face that,” he said unsteadily, “from a parent.”

Buffy stared at him, mouth trembling. She still wasn’t saying anything.

“And I think—you should leave,” said Giles. “Not because I want you to. Never because I want you to. But because this, this whole affair with Jenny, it’s—it’s not going to be resolved quickly, and you deserve better than hanging about London waiting for me to remember that our relationship needs just as much work as everything else in my life.” He wanted to move forward, place a hand on her shoulder, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. It wouldn’t have been with Buffy’s comfort in mind.

You don’t get to try and put people back together yourself when sometimes all they want is time away from you.

“I want to give you the time you deserve,” Giles said. Every word felt as though it was being ripped from his chest. “I don’t know when that will be possible.”

“I know all of that,” said Buffy wetly. “I know all of that. I’m not asking you to—” She drew in a soggy breath, raising a shaking hand to clumsily wipe at her eyes. “Jenny said when we were talking that she left because she wanted to give me a chance at a dad,” she said. “And—the thought of me taking that chance away from her kid, again, I—I could never do that to her. Ever.”

“I don’t think she’d see it like that,” said Giles quietly.

“I know she wouldn’t. That’s why I’m okay with it.” Buffy screwed up her nose. The gesture was so familiarly juvenile that for a moment, Giles had to drop his gaze. “Or, okay, maybe okay with it isn’t the right way to—I understand it, Giles. I get it. I just…” She trailed off. “I don’t like it,” she said unsteadily. “It doesn’t feel fair. You’re getting your act together for some seven-year-old you don’t know and I wasn’t—”

“Buffy, now that I know how you feel about me, I’ll do everything in my power to fix things when I can—”

“How do you not get that that’s not enough?” said Buffy sharply. Giles felt as though he’d been cut to the quick. “I have been waiting pretty much a decade for you to get your act together. I met you when I was sixteen, and I am twenty-five, and I have spent all of that time daydreaming about the possibility that you would step up and be a part of my life. At no point in time did I get to feel like you were trying to learn how to be a parent for me, and now Art’s going to get all of that and I’m going to—and I have to be mature about it, because I missed my fucking window to be a petulant teenager about it, and it wasn’t even my fault.” She was beginning to cry again. “And now you are telling me the same thing you always tell me, which is that at some point later you’re gonna be better than you are, but right now you suck and so I just have to wait—do you have any idea how long I have been waiting, Giles? Why the fuck would you think that I believe you when you say that this is going to be different?”

Her words petered out with a sobbing breath as her eyes landed on Giles’s. She had very clearly been expecting him to cut in with some sort of argument in his defense, and seemed somewhat discomfited by his lack of an attempt to do so. “Giles,” she said, plaintively, as though she thought he might not have heard her. “Giles.”

“No, Buffy, you—” Giles swallowed. His own eyes stung. “You’re entirely right.”

The wind went out of Buffy’s sails. Wordlessly, she slumped back against the couch.

“You have no reason to believe anything I say right now,” said Giles, “and—and I wouldn’t ask you to. I won’t defend myself.” A sense of relieved clarity was coming to him: honesty, more than diplomatic half-truth, was what this situation needed. The only right thing to do was always to make decisions that one fully believed in. “It’s why I want you to leave,” he said. “It’s why I think that you should. Speaking as a parent—” His throat very nearly closed up. “Speaking as a parent,” he tried again, and it didn’t escape his notice that Buffy had drawn in another sobbing breath at his words, “the thought of you spending any amount of time catering to the needs of one who has—caused you harm—”

“Giles,” said Buffy, her voice shaking.

“It’s abhorrent, Buffy. I don’t want that for you.” Giles raised a hand to his face. His fingertips came back wet. “I want better than that for you. I want to contribute to whatever will keep you safe on all levels, and right now, I—I don’t know if you can find that with me.”

Though tears were spilling down Buffy’s cheeks, she was watching him with that same stunned stillness.

“I think—that you should go,” said Giles, “and—and let me know when you’re safely at home, and I’ll call you.”

That got Buffy’s attention. “You’ll call me?” she echoed, sounding nearly a decade younger.

“I’ll call you,” said Giles, his own voice shaking. “If—if you want me to.”

“God, Giles, of course I—” Buffy pressed her fingers to her mouth, as if forcing the rest of the sentence back down. Then she said, “I just—you read all my emails.”

“All of them.”

“And you—and you want to call me.”

“I do.”

“And—” Buffy’s shoulders were shaking. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I—I wanted you to think I was strong.”

Giles could hold himself back no longer. Taking two running steps across the room, he pulled Buffy tightly into his arms, feeling a rush of warm relief when she hugged him back just as desperately. “You are the strongest woman I have ever known,” he whispered. “You are the very pinnacle of strength, Buffy. Never doubt that I see you as anything other than that.”

Buffy was really crying now. “I missed you so much,” she sobbed. “Every day. I just wanted you to tell me—I wanted you to tell me what to do, and you never—”

“I wanted you to grow past needing me because I don’t know what I’m doing,” Giles murmured, realizing the awful truth of the sentiment only seconds after he had said it. Closing his eyes tightly, he tamped down a wave of self-loathing and pressed on. “Never because you needed to learn not to ask for help, Buffy—I only wished that you would ask it from someone more capable of helping you in the way that you needed.”

Buffy was very clearly well past the point of coherent conversation, however, and had buried her face in his shoulder, crying so hard that her entire body was shaking. She was clinging to him in the same way that she had when she’d returned from the grave, tight enough to bruise—forgetting her own strength in her desire to hold him tightly. Giles had no interest in reminding her this time.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, voice strained, cheek against her hair. “It’s all right. I’m here.”

Mom came back at lunch, looking a little worn out but completely okay. Art, who had been worried ever since Aunt Nora had shown up at the car to tell them that she and Mom would come back later, ran forward without hesitation, all but flinging himself into her arms. The tension in his chest unspooled when she hugged him back just like she always did—a soft little breath, one hand in his hair, warm and cozy. “Hi, baby,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I scared you.”

“What happened?” Art demanded breathlessly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—” Mom glanced over towards Aunt Nora, who was watching them both with a raised eyebrow, and then exhaled. (Uncle Donovan was carefully shepherding Stacey, Ezra, and Bella out of the room.) “Your dad kind of crossed a boundary,” she said.

“What?” Art’s stomach dropped. “But—”

“Arty, I’m telling you this because I think it’s important to keep you as in the loop as you can be,” said Mom unsteadily. “Your dad and I…I don’t really know where we stand right now, but you are definitely always still going to have the option to see him. We kind of just have to figure out what that will look like if he and I aren’t hanging out together.”

“But you love Dad!” said Art, a lump in his throat.

Mom ducked her head, eyes wet. “Yeah, I do,” she said.

“And Dad loves you! So why—”

“It isn’t always that simple,” said Mom.

“It should be!”

“I—” Mom ran a hand through Art’s hair. “Baby, I honestly wish it were. Right now, I don’t know how things are going to look between your dad and me—there’s always the possibility that we do figure something out—but I want you to be prepared for the possibility that he might not be able to be a part of our family, even if he will always be a part of yours.”

“But you want him to be a part of our family,” said Art. He was beginning to cry. “And he wants to be a part of our family. I know he does. So why can’t he?”

“I don’t know,” said Mom, in this tiny, tiny voice.

“Well, that’s about as far as that’s going to get right now,” said Aunt Nora, moving forward to untangle Art from Mom and give him a quick, firm hug of her own. “Arthur, right now, absolutely nothing is set in stone. Your parents are figuring out what your father’s role in your life is going to look like, and by extension that means looking at what his role in our lives will be. Nothing about the situation has changed—” Mom opened her mouth. “Significantly,” said Aunt Nora, which made Mom close her mouth again. “Your mother is simply struggling with the notion that your father cares about her, and not just you.”

“Nora!” said Mom, color rising to her cheeks.

“You said you wanted to be more transparent with Art!” said Aunt Nora. “This is transparency!”

“Yeah, well, it’s—you—he doesn’t—stop that!” said Mom.

Entirely ignoring Mom, Aunt Nora turned back to Art. “That’s what’s changed,” she said. “All right? Your mother didn’t know that your father cares about her as much as he does, and she’s having some trouble with it.”

Art had no idea what that meant. This whole thing was just becoming more and more confusing. “Mom and Dad love each other,” he asserted. “Why wouldn’t they—”

“First of all,” said Aunt Nora, “while I am certain that your parents care very much about each other, it would be patently absurd to assume that two people who have spent their son’s entire life apart know each other well enough to love each other.” This seemed more directed at Mom, who went a little pink and looked out the hotel window. “And second, Arthur—as wonderful as you may think your father is, you don’t know him very well, do you?”

Art didn’t particularly like this line of questioning, and decided to abstain from an answer.

“Your mother knows him about as well as you do right now,” said Aunt Nora. “She needs some time to get to know him, just like you do.”

“And then we can be a family?”

Aunt Nora’s eyes dropped. Mom exhaled and said, “Art, we don’t want to promise you something like that if it’s not going to happen.”

“But it could?”

“It—” Mom’s breath hitched and she hugged her elbows.

“It certainly could,” said Aunt Nora. “It very well might not.”

Could, Art decided, was good enough for now, and probably the best that he was going to get right now anyway when Mom looked that sad. “…Okay,” he said. “Can I hug Mom again?”

“Oh, always,” said Mom a little tearfully, and so Art darted forward and hugged her again until she fell back and sat down on the bed. She was holding on so tight.

“And you have all of your things?”

“Yep,” said Buffy, and tried to smile. “Checked, double-checked, triple-checked, you know the drill.”

“And you’ll—you’ll let me know when you land?”

“Actually, Giles, I think I’ll probably be pretty tired,” said Buffy. “Do you think you can just call me tomorrow?”

There was an implicit statement there: it’s going to be your job to reach out. Giles thought that he could manage that. “I, I think I could,” he said softly. “Buffy—”

Buffy stilled, looking up at him with wide green eyes.

“I love you,” said Giles.

Buffy didn’t respond. For a terrifying moment, Giles thought that he had made some kind of a mistake—that this was too much too soon, that he should never have said anything at all, just let it lie for a while longer—but then, in a tiny, tiny voice, she said, “You’ve never said that to me before. Never.”

Everything in Giles hurt, thinking about what he had inflicted. “Well, I’m saying it now,” he said, calm and level. He would be the adult here this time.

Buffy sniffled. Sounding all but terrified, she said, “Can you—can you please say it again?”

“I can,” said Giles. He placed a hand on her shoulder, just like he had a thousand times before—moved it up to gently frame her face. “I love you, Buffy.”

“And you mean it?”

Tears sprung to Giles’s eyes. “Of course,” he said, unable to restrain himself at that. “I am so sorry—” Catching himself, he moderated his tone, but committed to finishing the sentence regardless. It wouldn’t do to leave an honest thought unfinished. “I am so sorry,” he said again. “That I gave you so many reasons to—to doubt.”

“I wish I’d just known that you kind of suck at this,” said Buffy, giving him a wobbly smile. “I feel like I wasted a lot of time thinking that all of this was my fault.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Giles, grinning weakly in return. “You were sixteen, Buffy. It was my responsibility to—”

“To be a good Watcher?”

“To be there for you.”

“And you were,” said Buffy, unexpectedly fierce. “In every way you could be. Look, Giles, just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean—” She sniffled. “You told me, remember?” she said. “How hard it is to—to love somebody and know that that somebody has an expiration date. You were trying to protect yourself. You didn’t know that I would…” She waved a trembling hand. “You know. Still be here.”

Giles was struck with an overwhelming rush of emotion. Softly, he said, “When you were sixteen years old, the world told you—immutably—that you were destined to die, and you were pulled back from the grave by those who loved you. I was there when it happened. From that moment onward, I think I should have had much more faith in your ability to find a way forward.”

Buffy’s eyes were yet again full of tears.

“You are,” said Giles, “and always have been, an incredible, courageous, destiny-defying woman. I have stepped back time and time again because the thought of losing you was—unthinkable. I never felt strong enough to bear that burden. Never did I consider how thoroughly it would break your heart to see someone you loved so dearly refuse to ever bear even half of the burden you have always borne for all of us.” He let his hand drop to her shoulder, squeezing it tightly. “I was unforgivably selfish,” he said softly. “More so than a parent can afford to be. I justified that by saying that I was not your parent, but that only…that only worked if I pretended that you seeing me as such was some, some manifestation of teenage insecurity. Not—”

“Not just me loving you,” said Buffy.

“Yes.”

“And how do you see it now?”

“I…” Giles swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I know that I love you, and—and I want to do better by you. Whatever that might mean.”

Standing on tiptoe, Buffy pulled him into another hug, this one looser and more careful than before. Resolving to only pull back when she gave him the signal, Giles responded in kind, hugging her as tightly as paltry human strength would allow.

And she didn’t let go.

Jenny stayed up late. Their hotel room had a small balcony, so she sat outside with a cup of coffee and watched the stars, thinking about Rupert’s strong hands on her waist. She’d had too many feelings to catalogue after that kiss—most of them a bone-chilling terror that she’d end up making her mom’s mistakes—but hearing Art’s opinion on the situation had made it a little harder to hold onto anger and fear. Mom and Dad love each other, he’d said with conviction, as though it was that simple. As though it could be.

There was a soft tap on the glass, and Jenny turned. Donovan gave her a little wave; she waved back, then gave him a thumbs-up. “Just wanted to make sure,” he said in a low whisper, carefully opening the sliding door and stepping through before quietly sliding it shut again. “I know you sometimes need your space—”

“I’m fine,” said Jenny, giving him a small smile. “It’s nice to see you.”

“You too,” said Donovan, sitting down in the chair next to hers. “The kids have been worried, and…” He trailed off, his own smile fading. “Honestly, Jenny, I have too.”

Jenny looked down into her mug of coffee, heart tight. “That really means a lot to me,” she said softly.

She felt Donovan’s hand on her shoulder. “Nora and I both know how hard this is for you,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve ever—I mean, outside of that date with Mark, did you—?”

“No one,” said Jenny. “Not since him.”

“And do you still—?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny, an unsteady whisper.

“So then this is pretty big.”

“Yeah.” Her coffee was getting cold. She took a sip anyway. “I don’t know why he would do that,” she said distantly. “I—I don’t want him to do something like that without understanding—what it means to me.”

“Maybe it meant something to him.”

“God, I hope not.” Jenny laughed, a small, wrecked sound. “I left thinking I was leaving some guy who would be better off without me. If he still…” She trailed off.

“Jenny, you left for Art,” Donovan reminded her. “Even if it hurt Rupert more than you realize, that’s…” He hesitated. “Do you regret the childhood you gave Art, now that you know that it could have been different?”

“I don’t know that it could have been different,” said Jenny a little defensively. “And even if it was different, it wouldn’t have been—he wouldn’t have grown up with the kids. He wouldn’t have had you and Nora.” The very thought made her heart constrict. “I wouldn’t have had you and Nora,” she realized aloud, throat tight.

Donovan smiled softly. “So it’s…hard,” he said. “To know that there was a different way forward. But it’s not like you’re unhappy with the way that things are right at this current moment, are you?”

Jenny sniffled. “Art has both his parents in his life,” she said, her voice shaking, “a-and we’re figuring out how to make sure that it stays that way. And even if it doesn’t pan out with Rupert, he has a stable, loving family who can support him through that, and that’s—that’s what I’ve always wanted for him.”

Donovan’s smile was beginning to fade. “Jenny,” he said. “What do you want for yourself?”

December 17, 1997

J,

Thought it would be quicker to drop you a note. It’s short-notice, but I’ll have some free time after school tonight if you’re interested in coming over.

I must apologize for my ever-overstuffed social calendar. I do despise the fact that I seem to have a date with destiny every day of the week, particularly when the dates I’d prefer to be going on are unilaterally with my effervescently lovely companion. The summer is usually a bit calmer, if that’s any small consolation—perhaps we can spend the daylight hours together?

Love,

Yours,

Best,

R

Chapter Text

Buffy had been firm about Giles not accompanying her to the airport, though not at all unkind. “I think you need to call Nora,” she’d said. “Figure stuff out with Art. Once that’s all settled…” And then she had trailed off, giving him a small, shaking smile, with the truth of the matter hanging between them: it would likely be a very, very long time before things with Art were settled enough for him to reach out to her in any real capacity. Neither of them had wanted to speak that truth into being, and so they had hugged, tightly, at Giles’s front door, him watching her walk slowly down the front path and open the passenger-side door of the Council-ordered car.

He thought he understood, now, why he had left so many times over. Watching her leave him was pain on a level he had never imagined. The fact that she had stood, had smiled, had taken responsibility, all when it had truly never been her burden to shoulder…it made Giles feel very small, and very thoughtlessly cruel. A not insignificant part of him wished to sequester himself in his apartment and never speak to anyone again after this, and succumbing to that temptation would have been a hell of a lot easier without the memory of his son’s unflinching smile.

Never would Art feel what Buffy had felt. It was the very least that Giles could possibly do.

“Then what can you do?” he said quietly, surveying the empty apartment. Calling Nora was a necessity, certainly, but the thought of stumbling haplessly through another conversation, letting Nora tug him impatiently in the correct direction—it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t fair to her.

What did he wish to discuss with Nora, at any rate? The most pressing issue, of course, was the fact that Jenny and the rest didn’t have a place to stay, despite it being abundantly clear that they’d like to. Nora was very clearly the one who would have the final say in this particular situation, and her refusal to financially impose on anyone outside of her family meant that she would deny any offers on his part to finance their continued stay in England. His apartment wasn’t nearly large enough to house the entire family, and the only other property he owned in the country was the derelict old Giles mansion, which was in such an odd state that anyone living there would require…

Significant work.

Wheels were beginning to turn in Giles’s head. As a half-formed idea took root, he fumbled for the phone, quickly dialing Nora’s number.

Prompt as ever, Nora picked up on the first ring. “Rupert,” she said briskly. “I expected as much. When and where would you like to meet?”

“Actually, Nora, I-I think that this is a conversation that can be conducted over the phone,” said Giles as steadily as he could. “I may have a potential solution to our problem, if you’re still at all interested in staying in England a bit longer.”

“I’m very interested in hearing how you plan to solve this particular problem,” said Nora archly.

A small smile stole across Giles’s face. “I assume that you know I come from a long line of Watchers?”

“I do,” said Nora. “It goes a long way towards explaining many of your characteristic dysfunctionalities.”

“Your forthrightness is always appreciated,” said Giles with dry amusement. “At any rate, the point I’m trying to make is that my rather storied lineage has led to the accrual of a rather sizable fortune. Absolutely all of the old Watcher families have a derelict old mansion somewhere—used to have,” he corrected himself with a small, strange pang, “considering that after the First, most of those families were—well. Wiped from the map. But mine remains, a-and hasn’t been visited since…” He trailed off.

Since Mum died.

“I-I-I spent the first six years of my life there, though I don’t remember it very well,” Giles said hastily, stumbling a bit in his attempt to draw attention away from his unfinished sentence. “We moved to a smaller, significantly more practical house after that, and that was sold after my father’s death some years ago, but I’ve still not gotten around to sorting through the old mansion. It hasn’t fallen into any sort of disrepair, it’s perfectly livable, but that’s entirely because the place is so suffused in protective magic that it’s impossible for anyone not a Giles to live in.”

“You do know that there’s only one Giles among our family,” Nora pointed out.

“Yes, well—” Giles flushed. “The—the enchantments set upon the place are very old,” he said tentatively, “a-and very well thought out by my forefathers. It was taken into account that—that anyone marrying into the family obviously wouldn’t have Giles blood, and anyone in their family wouldn’t either, of course, so—” His blush was deepening. “Traditionally,” he said, “there’s, there’s a bit of a magical ritual that’s incorporated into a Watcher wedding, to make sure that the spouse is given some very rudimentary magical privileges and protections. That sort of thing extends to the rest of the spouse’s family, which in turn allows them some degree of entry into the Watcher’s abode—so long as they remain human, of course.”

“Of course,” said Nora. There was a touch of amusement to her voice.

“But—well—” Giles inhaled, cheeks hot. “There’s something of a, a loophole, that’s—well, my family, they’re—they’re very proper, you know, and the magics really didn’t take into account the, the notion of any—that is—”

Casually, Nora said, “Do the magics perhaps count a woman who bore you a child as your wife?”

Mortified, Giles let out the breath he was holding. “I simply don’t want to place any undue pressure on Jenny,” he said anxiously. “I would hate for her to—to find out about this, a-and feel as though it’s—”

“Rupert, you ridiculous man,” said Nora, in a way that sounded almost affectionate. “Any scholar of magic understands a loophole like that.”

“You requested clarification,” Giles countered, still blushing furiously.

“Yes,” said Nora smugly. “It was very funny.”

“That—you—” Giles let out a noise between a sigh and a laugh. “You really are Jenny’s cousin, aren’t you?”

There was a startled silence. “What prompts this observation?” Nora finally inquired.

“Jenny was quite skilled at provoking me into a state of insensible anxiety, back when we were seeing each other,” said Giles, unable to keep the warm affection from his voice. “I don’t think she’s at all let go of that, even if most of it has been channeled into a sort of unchecked aggression.”

“You sound quite endeared by that,” Nora observed.

“It’s rather hard not to be.”

Nora was silent again. It was hard to tell over the phone, but Giles thought that this silence felt a bit warmer than before. “The more I see of you, the more I understand,” she said softly.

“I-I’m sorry?”

Without elaborating, Nora said, “So you’re offering us your mansion to live in for—how long, exactly?”

“As long as you like,” said Giles easily. “It’s no skin off my nose, Nora, truly—no one’s using it. I’m sure the children will eventually have to return to the States for school in about a month’s time, but I feel that a month still gives us quite a lot of room to have more comprehensive conversations about what my role in Art’s life needs to be. And—it may be a bit easier, too, now that—” He winced, feeling somewhat disloyal for even the thought.

Perceptive as ever, Nora finished his sentence. “Now that it’s a dialogue between you and me, and not you and Janna?” There was a touch of wry amusement to her tone. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I’m more of an intermediary than anything, you know.”

“You know Jenny well enough to know what she wants for her son,” Giles countered. “And you’re not—” he hesitated, then soldiered on, “—not quite as inclined to give me as hard a time as she is.”

“I very well might, now, just to be contrary,” said Nora primly, which made Giles crack a smile. “But Rupert, there are still the tickets to think of. We bought them well ahead of time—”

“I’ve got substantial Council connections,” Giles replied easily. “I can pull a few strings to get the dates changed without it costing you all an extra cent.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want you to go out of your way—”

“Nora,” said Giles earnestly, “barring your…idiosyncrasies…about being any kind of an imposition, is this a plan that would work for you and your family?”

After a long moment of contemplation, Nora said, “I would have to talk to Don and Janna first, of course.”

“Of course,” Giles agreed.

“And it’s—” Nora wavered. “I assume you won’t be staying with us?”

The question took Giles by surprise. The thought of staying in his childhood home with his son, with a woman who the Giles family magic would see as his wife—it was the sort of thing he’d let go of decades ago, long before he’d ever even taken up the mantle as Buffy’s Watcher. Even a facsimile of the notion was more than he had ever expected, and the sudden surge of want left him at a loss for words. He had thought that he’d let that dream die.

“I only ask for clarity’s sake,” said Nora with surprising gentleness. “I want to make sure that I explain every detail of this plan to Janna, and Arthur will certainly have a thousand questions.”

Giles cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “I-I wasn’t planning to,” he finally said. “I—I do think I’ll have to visit the mansion the day before, just to make sure—I’ve not been there in decades, you see, perhaps not since I was living there, and I wouldn’t want there to be any issues with your moving in—of course I would help you, if, if not for—” He swallowed, trying valiantly to collect his scattered thoughts. “I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for Jenny,” he confessed in one breath. “I know I’ve already—violated—her boundaries so thoroughly, and—”

“Oh, you are an insufferable white knight, aren’t you?” said Nora exasperatedly. “You seem to have completely forgotten how enthusiastically she kissed you back.”

“How did you know that?” said Giles without thinking.

He was met with a badly stifled laugh. In a strangled tone of voice, Nora said, “I believe I just found out.”

“…ah,” said Giles, which only served to make Nora actually laugh at him. “You…that…” Casting around, he finally settled on, “I think I’d like to speak to Jenny now.”

“Unfortunately,” said Nora, voice still shaking with mirth, “you are absolutely stuck with me. Turning the subject away from your charming idiocy—”

“—yes, thanks, Nora—”

“—your consideration for Janna, it’s…” Nora trailed off, and Giles found himself entirely distracted from his own mortification. “Princely,” she finally said. “I’ll certainly make sure to ask her about the notion when I explain the plan, but if she doesn’t have any objections—yes, I know that’s a big if,” she added, cutting Giles off in the middle of his sharp inhalation, “but if she doesn’t, Rupert, would you wish to stay with us?”

If you want it, Jenny had said, you need to take it.

Giles closed his eyes, heart hammering in his chest. Barely a whisper, he said, “I—I would like to stay. With all of you. If it’s an option. But I…I don’t wish to impose if it isn’t. I want to make this process as painless for Jenny as I can, and if that means that my presence—”

“Do stop with the endless self-flagellation,” said Nora. “It’s insufferable. I’ll let you know what Janna says, and if it pans out, we can set a date. The hotel’s paid for through the fifteenth of July, so we’ll stay there till then—”

“Then we’ll say the fifteenth, yes?” said Giles immediately. “I can take the fourteenth to make sure that the place is ready for all of you to move in.” He flushed. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course.” There was a smile in Nora’s voice. “Thank you, Rupert.”

“Of course,” Giles echoed, a smile stealing across his own face. “And—” He hesitated.

“Yes?”

Plucking up his courage, Giles said shyly, “You know Jenny…worlds better than I do.”

“I do,” Nora agreed, sounding quite solidly pleased with his observation.

“And as such, I…I feel there’s a chance you might be able to answer my question.”

“I might,” said Nora coyly. “Though it certainly depends on what it is.”

“Well—”

Before Giles could ask his question, however, Nora said, “The answer is yes.”

“What?”

“Yes,” said Nora. “That’s your answer.”

“You haven’t heard my question,” said Giles, miffed. “For all you know, I could be asking whether Jenny wants me guillotined in the streets of revolutionary France.”

“You would be the first to go,” said Nora, a thoughtful laugh to her tone. “You do have the air of aristocracy, what with that mansion of yours on retainer—”

“Nora,” said Giles, torn between exasperation and amusement.

Nora giggled softly—a sweet, musical laugh that Giles rather liked—and said, simply, “Are you going to ask me your question, then?”

Leaning back against the wall, fingers curled tightly around the phone, Giles removed his glasses with one hand. The comforting blur of his kitchen settled his nerves enough for him to ask, tentatively, “Is there a chance, Nora, that Jenny might…that me staying in the mansion with all of you, she wouldn’t…mind that?”

“Tch!” said Nora. “You went through all the trouble of asking me a question that I already answered correctly. Take my first answer next time, Rupert—I think this instance proves that my instincts are honed enough to guess what you’re looking for.”

Giles rolled his eyes, startled to find himself smiling. “So you think—”

“Yes. If it involves Janna, Rupert, the answer is unilaterally yes. Are you done wasting my time?”

“I suppose so,” said Giles, his smile broadening. “Thank you, Nora.”

“Wow,” said Buffy. “That…is actually a really good plan.”

“Isn’t it just?” said Giles very happily. “Occurred to me in the spur of the moment. I’m quite chuffed about it.”

“Chuffed,” Buffy repeated, giggling. “That’s so totally British of you.”

“I am British, you know—”

“Yeah, yeah. Aren’tcha gonna ask me how my flight was?”

“Does asking how you’re doing not suffice?”

“No, see, you have to get more specific than that,” Buffy informed him. “It lets your kid know that you care. You know you’re going to be up a creek without a paddle when it comes to Art if you don’t have this stuff in the bag within the next couple of days—”

“I am planning on trying to call you a bit more, Buffy, so I will have some practice.”

“That’s me,” said Buffy cheerfully. “Test run before the real thing.”

Giles felt the words like a quick dagger—silent and precise. “Buffy,” he said softly. “You should know—”

“I know, Giles,” said Buffy, her voice softening just a bit. “But look, I…is it okay if you give me a day or two to be a major bitch about it? Like, super petty? I promise I can stop, um—hold on, it’s like midnight here, so that means it’s eight in the morning for you, right?”

“…Precise,” said Giles.

“I memorized the time zones when I was twenty-one,” said Buffy. “Anyway, we’ll say—um, midnight on Friday, right? No more green-eyed Buffy.”

“Haven’t your eyes always been green?”

“You know what I mean.”

Giles exhaled. “I…suppose I understand the need for a few barbed comments,” he finally said. “I would never correct them. I only wished to assert that—that you are important to me. I love you. That won’t change.”

A soft little breath in. He remembered that breath in a way that made his heart catch in his chest—remembered it from long nights in the library, long days full of homework, long drives to and from the cemetery. Sometimes it was very hard for him to remember that she wasn’t that tiny sixteen-year-old anymore. Especially in moments like this. “Can you say it again?” said Buffy. “Am I allowed to ask for that—whenever, now?”

“I love you,” said Giles. His chest ached. “And I’m—” He bit back a sorry. It wasn’t what she needed. “I’m so grateful to know you,” he said instead. “So proud of you.”

A shuddering breath out. “I really, really missed you, Giles.”

“I missed you too,” said Giles, so, so soft. “How was your flight?”

Buffy laughed, startled and wobbly. “You remembered!” It seemed to take her a stumbling moment to collect her thoughts. “Okay, so, um—the in-flight movie was literally the most boring thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I think it was supposed to be one of those historical melodrama things? I spent like half an hour watching it before I just gave up and tried to nap.” She laughed softly. “Oh my god, did I tell you about that mission that Xander and I went on to Tahiti last year?”

“…No,” said Giles, warm and light, and sat down on the sofa. “I don’t think you did. I-I’d love to hear about it now, though.”

“Oh my god. Okay. The mission was whatever, forget about the mission, the reason I thought about this was like—have you ever been on a plane with Xander?” Buffy laughed wryly. “Dumb question. But if you haven’t, which I feel is probably the case, I gotta tell you—this guy can sleep anywhere. It’s like a superpower. He had an aisle seat and he fell asleep sitting up straight. He was out like a light for the entire plane ride, and I spent pretty much the whole time just seething with jealousy, ‘cause I always end up feeling way too squished to get comfortable.”

“That really is remarkable,” said Giles, grinning.

“Isn’t it?” A moment of contemplation, then, “Giles, can you sleep on a plane?”

“On occasion,” said Giles. “I don’t enjoy it, but I’ve done enough flying in the last handful of years that I’m able to find some degree of comfort in uncomfortable situations.”

“I feel so totally certain that you’re messing with me.”

“Am not,” said Giles primly.

“Are too. No way that I have trouble sleeping on planes and you don’t. You’re the lightest sleeper in existence. Remember that one time you were getting all on Anya’s case about her snoring?”

“If I recall, I was also sleeping in a bloody beach ball at the time.”

“Case in point!” He could hear the triumphant laugh in Buffy’s voice. “That beach ball was probably exactly as comfy as an airplane seat, and you were complaining about it for days after the fact.”

“Well, that’s…” Giles trailed off amidst Buffy’s delighted giggling. “You know, I do find myself missing when my life was devoid of any joy whatsoever,” he said, his own smile widening. “I’ve been horribly mocked today by you and by Nora.”

“Oooh, you have to tell me about that. What did she say?”

“She—” Running through his conversation with Nora, Giles finally settled on, “She managed to tease out some key details regarding my kissing Jenny by—well—making me think that she knew them already.”

There was a strange silence.

“Buffy?”

Buffy exhaled. “Um, no, it’s—it’s fine,” she said, and tried to laugh. “It’s just—you know, she sounds really fun, a lot like Jenny, but she was totally frosty to me when I was there, so—I don’t know. It’s really no big, Giles.”

“I can ask her about it,” said Giles immediately.

“What?” Buffy sounded mortified. “God, no. It’s—I’m twenty-five, I can handle a bit of passive-aggressive weirdness from some lady I’ll probably never see again—”

“Buffy, I—” Giles hesitated, nerves tying his tongue. “I think that it’s important to me that I find out why she might have been chilly with you, because—well, i-if things work out for the better with J—with Art,” he hastily corrected himself, “Nora really would be family, o-of a sort. For me. And you already—well, that is, I—I consider you my—”

“Your kid?”

“Yes,” said Giles, relieved. “That.”

Buffy giggled softly, most of the tension gone. “You do know that at some point you’re gonna have to actually say the word, right?”

“Didn’t I?” said Giles. “I really rather feel as though that happened already.”

Another giggle. “You’re not really being reassuring here, Giles. I might need a little more convincing when it comes to you being, like, actually capable of growth and stuff.”

“You really aren’t going to make this easy on me, are you?” said Giles, smiling softly.

“Um, when have I ever?” He could hear the returning smile in Buffy’s voice. “All things considered—oh, hey, Tara! I’m—yeah, I’m on the phone with Giles! Can you—”

“Oh, do you need to be off?” said Giles, concerned. “I wouldn’t wish to impose—”

“Giles, I feel like imposing is the last thing that you need to be concerned about right now,” said Buffy dryly.

“…Fair point,” said Giles a bit sheepishly.

“Uh huh—love you too—oh,” Buffy laughed, the giggle turning into a pleased exhalation halfway through. “Tara hugs. The best kind.”

“Do say hello to Tara for me,” said Giles warmly.

“I’ll do you one better!” chirped Buffy. There was then a rustle on the other end of the line, followed shortly by Tara saying warmly, “Hi, Mr. Giles!”

“Tara!” said Giles, a broad grin blooming. “Hello! It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”

“It has!” Tara sounded just as delighted as him. “I’m really glad to hear that you’re turning things around. Buffy is over the moon—”

“—okay okay stop telling him PERSONAL PRIVATE THINGS,” Buffy objected, and another round of rustling made it clear that the phone had again been resituated. “You’re still on thin ice,” she informed Giles. “And everything is probationary and I don’t all the way trust you and stuff—”

“I love you, Buffy,” said Giles.

Buffy’s chatter cut off more abruptly than he’d ever heard before. She drew in that familiar little-girl breath, then said, so softly, “I love you too, Giles. So much.”

September 29th, 1998

So I’m a mom.

I thought that this would hurt more than it did—not having R here. It still does, but it’s also…I didn’t know that I could ever love someone as completely as I love my baby. He’s so small, and every time he looks at me, all I see is this calm, absolute trust. He’s too little to know anything other than trust. His full name is Arthur John Cervenak, which is so insufferably English when I write it out (discounting the surname, of course), but I think it fits him.

He’s a very sensible little boy. He has R’s eyes and my hair. He’s a little small, as babies go, but he’s healthy, and he’s so good-natured. I think I’ve kind of turned into one of those doting helicopter moms overnight. He doesn’t cry as loudly as Bella does—just these little whimpers to get my attention—but I kinda think that some of that is because he’s pretty much never far away from me. I haven’t been able to leave him alone for a second. Nora and Don take him for moments here and there, and he’ll start making unhappy little sounds until I’m back.

I don’t know how he can tell. Nora says that babies who are particularly magically sensitive are sometimes attuned to the general auras of others, but I’ve got pretty much nothing going on for me magic-wise, and I told her as much. She responded to this by smiling a little and saying, “It seems a bit like he associates your aura’s lack of magic with safety,” which does make sense; Nora and Donovan are both relatively magically proficient, and I’m not. It’s the first time that anyone has actually liked the fact that I can’t do magic.

It’s the strangest thing in the world—I’ve only had him for a handful of days, and I’ve known him for his entire life. I’m going to get to see him grow into a tiny little person with thoughts and opinions. I’m going to get to see what he looks like when he smiles.

I was so scared during my pregnancy that I’d fucked this up irreparably. That I’d have Art in my arms and be weighed down with all of this guilt about R not being here. I’m sure that that’s going to catch up to me at some point—it hasn’t exactly stopped hurting—but right now, all that I can feel is this incandescent joy when I look at my baby. There’s a lot of stuff in my life that I regret. He is never going to be one of them.

Chapter Text

All things considered, it was really a rather anticlimactic resolution. Nora called in the evening to exchange niceties, inform Giles that Janna and Donovan were “entirely amenable to the notion,” and confirm times, dates, and addresses when it came to their moving in on the fifteenth of July. It was settled, and Giles should have been settled—or, at least, more settled than he was, awake at five in the morning on the fourteenth of July with no thoughts but that damned house. He’d not been there since he was six years old. He could barely even remember the place, save for a handful of blurred, misshapen memories and a half-faded impression of his mother’s fingers in his hair. It wasn’t a house that held power over him. It never had been.

Yet he was awake. He would, it seemed, be awake, despite his best efforts, and so Giles scrubbed a hand over his eyes and fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table, pulling himself reluctantly out of bed. It wasn’t something to be upset about, he told himself very firmly. He didn’t need to care about the house at all. The notion of his living there was still up in the air, something that Nora had suggested that she would gently introduce to Jenny over the span of the next week, and a single visit to check the wards and ensure that the house was still livable would be more than enough. He wouldn’t even have to see any of the bedrooms. Wouldn’t have to see his old room. Could sleep in the old servants’ quarters in the basement, if it came to that. It was fine.

The phone rang. Giles very nearly jumped out of his skin. Fumbling to answer it, he decided belatedly that he was much too discombobulated to carry on a conversation—sleep deprivation, he was certain, and nothing else—and busied himself instead with turning on the bedside lamp, then turning towards his bureau. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to wear. He didn’t know why he felt like it mattered.

Perhaps it was that the last time he left that house, he’d been six years old, dressed in a sensible little suit because play clothes didn’t feel right when Mum wasn’t there to play with. He didn’t remember the house, but he remembered leaving it, remembered Father saying sit still in the front of the car as he turned and turned to stare back out the window. He remembered being halfway convinced that they’d left Mum there, somehow, and if he could only return and—

Giles intentionally knocked a stack of books off of the top of his bureau. The series of loud thuds jerked him out of his morbid reverie. It wasn’t the sort of thing that he’d thought about in a very long time, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that mattered when he was in his early fifties and he couldn’t even remember Alice Giles’s face. He didn’t know why it was bothering him so profoundly now, when the whole affair would be resolved by a simple car ride over to check the wards. He couldn’t imagine—

The doorbell rang.

Giles did jump, then, heart pounding so fiercely that he felt certain that he could hear it. Who on earth could be calling upon him at this hour? Buffy was across the ocean, Anya was well aware of the necessity for him to sort out his life—it could, he supposed, be Nora, but she didn’t seem the sort of woman to venture out before the daylight hours, considering her family’s history with vampires and her own magical aptitude. It couldn’t be anyone else, though, so with a mixture of bemusement and trepidation, he first ran a hand through his hair and then threw a dressing gown over his pajamas, stepping into his slippers and shuffling somewhat exhaustedly out of the bedroom and down the hall.

The doorbell rang again, then again, insistent and impatient in a way that certainly did seem like Nora, but Nora didn’t really seem like the sort to ring a doorbell more than once. Bleary with sleep, Giles opened the door—and the shock of terrified adrenaline woke him up entirely. Jenny was standing on his front steps.

“Hi,” said Jenny.

Giles was at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, uttered a few helplessly inarticulate syllables, and gave up.

“You’re going to the house today, right?” Jenny was holding herself with the exact same kind of terrified rigidity that she had upon their first meeting. Giles had no idea what to make of that. “I tried to call ahead, I just—god. Okay. Just—before I explain why I’m here, I just, I wanted to say, I, I don’t want to talk—about—what happened between us. I’m not here for that. I just—you’re going to the house today, and Nora said that you haven’t been there since you were six, and—and if I was going to my childhood home, I wouldn’t want to do it alone. And—you don’t really seem to have anyone who’s gonna go with you, because Buffy called me from LA and told me what happened between the two of you, and knowing you, you were probably planning to just go by yourself, and I couldn’t—” She drew in an unsteady breath through her teeth, wringing her hands. “I couldn’t just let you go alone. So I thought—I mean, if you don’t want me here, I can leave, but—”

“Don’t,” said Giles.

Color rose to Jenny’s cheeks. “Don’t?” she echoed, sounding on the very precipice of terror.

This early in the morning, and this incapacitated by utter fear, Giles hadn’t the slightest ability to hide the truth of the matter. “I’m really only thinking of how terrifically awkward a car ride with you will be after what happened between us,” he informed her, “and that’s—that’s utterly preferable to thinking about my childhood. I’ve been up for nearly an hour already, just—” Damn it all to hell, now he was blushing. “Just thinking about—all of this, and—”

“Yeah,” said Jenny. Her shoulders had relaxed. “That’s kind of why I came. I…I thought that you freaking yourself out about me being here would…you know. Help distract you from the other stuff.”

“And what of you?”

Jenny swallowed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just…I wasn’t able to sleep either, thinking about you doing this by yourself, and we’re going to have to figure out how to act normal around each other at some point, so I thought I’d just—” She waved an unsteady hand. “Bite the bullet.”

“Does Nora know?”

Jenny gave Giles a wry look. “Do you think she knows?”

“Well—” Giles exhaled, almost a laugh. “No, I-I suppose if she did know, she would have tried to stop this, wouldn’t she?”

“She’s…a lot, sometimes,” said Jenny, shrugging a little awkwardly. “I mean, I love her, but she kind of took over this whole thing after—”

“You said that you didn’t want to talk about the kiss,” said Giles automatically.

“I don’t want to talk about the kiss,” said Jenny immediately, her blush deepening. “I was just saying that after—”

“And incidentally, you did devolve into hysterical tears, Jenny, that’s not exactly—”

“We’re not talking about it,” said Jenny.

“I’m not talking about it,” said Giles.

“Good!”

“Excellent!”

They stared at each other for a charged and terrifying second. Giles very clearly saw Jenny’s eyes dart down to his mouth. Hastily, he said, “I was only—bringing your reaction up—inasmuch as I believe it explains quite a lot of Nora’s resolve when it comes to this. I’m sure she doesn’t want to see you hurt again.”

“I’m stronger than she thinks,” said Jenny dismissively.

After a moment of hesitation, Giles said carefully, “It’s not…a bad thing, Jenny. Needing support and protection.”

“Yeah, I…” Jenny sighed raggedly and trailed off, hugging her elbows. “We should get going,” she finally said. “I’m probably going to get a bunch of calls from Nora once she wakes up. The kids always sleep in a few hours later than her, but she’s almost always up just before sunrise.”

“Will she be angry?”

“I don’t think so.” Jenny looked a bit remorseful. “I think she’ll just be freaked out about me. I’m not usually the kind of person to run out on people.”

Giles’s eyebrows shot up. Retroactively, he wished he’d been a bit better at schooling his expression, because Jenny clearly saw his face, and she was already opening her mouth somewhat apologetically when he hastily said, “We don’t have to talk about Sunnydale, Jenny. You’re just here to—sorry, what are you here for, exactly?”

“…Company,” said Jenny, sounding somewhat mortified by the very notion. “God, I really didn’t think this one through, did I?”

“Do you ever?”

“Usually!” Jenny took a step back, widening the distance between them. “I’m a levelheaded single mom now, I’m—I need to be better at planning, at looking out for my kid, I can’t just—run off in the middle of the night to see my ex-boyfriend who I have ruined things with upwards of three times now! Why the hell would I—”

“I’m sorry, three times?” said Giles, distracted by the unusual inaccuracy. Jenny was generally very precise about things like that. “There’s—there was Angelus, certainly, and then you leaving, but I can’t think of anything past that in terms of—”

“I kissed you,” said Jenny, “and started crying so hard that Nora made you leave.”

“You said we weren’t talking about it.”

“We’re not talking about it!” said Jenny very loudly.

Giles considered his options for a handful of seconds. Tempted as he was to point out how consistently Jenny did seem to be bringing the kiss up for someone who ostensibly didn’t want to talk about it, her very first point resonated with him on a slightly more selfish level. Not talking about the matter meant that he would find himself thinking about it, and thinking about it would mean that he wouldn’t have to think about his parents, and a distraction from the utter terror of visiting his childhood home was what she had initially offered. “We’re not talking about it,” he agreed. “You’re simply here to drive with me to the mansion.”

“And pick up your stuff.”

“And pick up my—what?”

“Well, you’re staying with us, right?” Jenny looked at him with guileless surprise. “Nora didn’t mention it, but I thought—”

“Nora wanted to ease you into the notion,” said Giles, heart fluttering. “I was under the impression that you wouldn’t want me around, particularly after—” As Jenny opened her mouth, he hastily said, “I’m not talking about it, Jenny, but at the very least I think the two of us need to be able to mention it.”

Jenny, however, seemed preoccupied by his earlier statement. “Rupert, it’s your house,” she said, “and your son. If it’s a mansion, there is more than enough space for you to be there too, and the thought of you being holed up in that apartment when you could be spending this next month with us, that’s…there is no situation where I would ever do that to you.”

“You take precedent,” said Giles without thinking. “Never mind the situation, Jenny, if you aren’t comfortable with me there—”

“I wasn’t comfortable with you not there,” said Jenny, her voice shaking, “and now I’m not comfortable with you being here, so I don’t—I don’t want you to try and work around my discomfort here. I feel like I’m gonna be miserable no matter how this pans out.”

Softly, Giles said, “That is awfully fatalistic, Jenny, particularly for you.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

The truth of the matter rose in Giles’s chest: all the things that would have made her smile, had he said them seven years ago when he was supposed to. Choosing his words with precision—he didn’t want to scare her off with overabundant affection—he said, very gently, “You have never struck me as someone to bow to what’s writ in stone. I rather think that that’s my area, not yours.”

“Yeah, well, you live a little longer, you learn that there’s some stuff you can’t change,” said Jenny, meeting his eyes with a flat, cool stare.

Giles did his best to keep his tentative smile intact. The notion of Jenny’s unshakable will giving way to the world was a dagger to the heart. “Does that make me the optimist of the two of us, then?” he said, still in that light, careful tone.

“Guess so,” said Jenny. Without waiting for his response, she moved past him, stepping over the threshold and into the house. Her shoulder brushed against his. “Are you going to stay with us?” she asked, looking up at him with an expression that made it entirely unclear what sort of answer she was looking for.

Giles considered the question. Then he said, “I-I suppose I can pack—a bag. For tonight.”

The drive over was strained and silent. Giles had expected to be awash in waves of self-loathing for destroying the tentative peace between himself and Jenny, but instead, he was turning over their interaction on his doorstep. Something had lodged itself in his brain and refused to let go, and he wasn’t sure what. Jenny describing the kiss as her ruining things between them, Jenny saying that she’d been miserable with him gone and miserable with him here—Nora had said, hadn’t she, that things with Jenny were really very simple when push came to shove? That Giles, if he was paying the right amount of attention, could put the pieces together?

It was only when Giles’s car began to start up the drive that Jenny, who had been looking out the window, started, then turned to him with wide eyes. All frosty guardedness forgotten, she said with open incredulity, “Rupert, you grew up here?”

Gaze flickering to Jenny’s outstretched hand, Giles’s eyes finally landed on the long-abandoned mansion.

He couldn’t imagine how it would have felt to see it for the first time without her in the car. It was large, certainly, but it had felt a thousand times larger to a little boy with no siblings—positively palatial, all things considered. And now it was coming back to him: he had scraped his knee, once, running down those steps, and his gran had bundled him up and carried him flights and flights of stairs into a bedroom with soft sheets and stars on the ceiling. The shrubbery, magically preserved, remained perfectly and ostentatiously sculpted, as pristine as though they’d only been trimmed yesterday. It was as though he’d never left at all.

“Rupert?”

“I didn’t think that you would want me to stay here for the rest of the summer,” said Giles hoarsely, pulling the car to a stop by the front steps. “I dearly hoped that you wouldn’t.”

It took him quite a long time to register the touch. He only did register it when Jenny dropped her hand from his shoulder, fingers grazing his as she quietly pulled back. “See, you always do this,” she said, no sting to the words. “Did you seriously think that it wouldn’t impact you, coming back to your childhood home?”

“I didn’t want to think about it,” said Giles distantly. “So I didn’t.”

“And that’s working out for you how?”

Giles turned his attention away from the mansion to give Jenny a very flat and unamused stare. The wry smile he received in response sent a curl of unexpected warmth through him, distracting him entirely from his tangled emotions. He smiled back. “Jenny,” he said, softly, almost unconsciously.

He was jolted from his enamored daze by Jenny’s disbelieving laugh. “Oh my god,” she said. “Rupert, look, I am so glad that my efforts to distract are working, but we really do have to make sure that this house is livable. We’re kind of on a time crunch.”

“I-I can assure you,” said Giles, attention split precisely between the mansion looming ahead of them and the delighted grin on Jenny’s face, “the house is livable, or at least it should be. The magics surrounding it have preserved its furnishings for generations.”

“Wow,” said Jenny, eyes alight. “So are we talking a medieval setup, or is it stuck in the 1950s?”

“I’ve a few photographs from the time,” said Giles, eyes darting away from Jenny’s. He wasn’t quite sure how to look at her and talk about his family at the same time. “It looked somewhat Edwardian, if I remember correctly, but it’s a bit hard to tell from a handful of candid shots.”

Jenny, however, was utterly distracted, already unbuckling her seatbelt. “And I can just go in, right?” she said, eyes already on the large double doors up ahead. “The magics will recognize me?”

“Quite frankly, Jenny, you wouldn’t even be able to see this mansion were you not a Giles,” said Giles, not thinking very much about it, and subsequently went bright red. “Th-that is—”

Jenny gave him a deeply amused look. “Rupert, I spent the nineties doing tantric sex rituals and performing skyclad castings,” she said. “I’m not exactly gonna blush about basic magical theory.”

“Yes,” said Giles, cheeks still hot. “Well—”

“I had your baby,” said Jenny. “You knocked me up. Your seed quickened within my womb—”

“At this point, I do think you are deliberately trying to fluster me,” said Giles irritably, “and I’ll have you know that I am perfectly unruffled by basic biology. I’m a grown man, Jenny, not a swooning Regency maid.”

“That is deeply unfortunate,” said Jenny, giving him a playful once-over.

Giles stared incredulously at her. “What has gotten into you?” he said disbelievingly. “You’ve not been so high-spirited since—” He realized the end of his sentence, and his heart dropped. Not once had he seen Jenny smiling like this during her time in England. The last time he’d seen her smile like this was eight years ago.

Jenny, however, was entirely unbothered. “The level of magic that your house is working with is extreme,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve never seen anything like it! Old Council magic is something I’ve researched in depth over the last handful of years, but I never thought I’d get the chance to see it in action, let alone live in it. There are so many tests that I can run! I’m going to have to write an email to Sofia, start drafting proposals for further research based in England, you have no idea how much this could potentially revolutionize our community—”

“I’m sorry,” said Giles, startled, “you were researching old Council magic?”

Jenny’s bright grin flickered before fading entirely. Giles wanted to kick himself. “Um, I, I was really worried, those first few years of raising Art,” she said. “I had a lot of concerns that it might be possible for him to be found, or, or found out, and I figured that the son of a Watcher might be a really useful weakness for any enemies of that Watcher to exploit. I researched old Council magic primarily to see if his bloodline would tie him to anything.”

The thought of his sweet, gentle son being used as a pawn by any of the monsters that he had faced in the last handful of years made Giles’s blood run cold. Shakily, he said, “And?”

Taking in Giles’s terror, Jenny gave him a soft, sympathetic smile. “Rupert, Nora and I have had years to work on this one,” she said. “Art’s been effectively cloaked from anything that might do him serious damage.”

“You’re certain?”

It wasn’t exactly the most tactful of questions, but his concern very clearly went over well with Jenny. “He’s safe,” she said gently. “I cross-checked pretty much every database to make sure.”

“A-and—” Giles was doing his best to steady himself. “Is there any chance that these cloaking spells might interact badly with the magic that guards the house?”

Jenny bit her lip. “That’s…kind of the other reason I came with you,” she said. “There are a few rudimentary magical tests that I need to run. The worst thing that could happen if the magics conflict would just be Art not being able to see or enter the house, but it should be fine. All of my stuff is meant to disguise his magical signature from malevolent forces, and this is…” She hesitated, a small, shy smile stealing across her face. “This is family magic.”

Giles blinked, then smiled himself, ducking his head. “Family magic,” he echoed. “And that sort of thing, that’s…that’s always recognized as good, isn’t it? On the most innate and basic level.”

“He’s a part of you,” said Jenny. Her smile was lingering. “And you’re a part of him.”

Giles didn’t quite know what to say to that. He chose instead to give himself a handful of seconds to observe: the glow of sunrise in Jenny’s hair, the soft flutter of her eyelashes as her gaze dipped down to her lap, her clasped hands with their perfectly manicured, French-tipped fingernails. When she looked back up at him, clearly registering his scrutiny, he hastened to look away, stumbling to say, “W-well, should—should we—go in?”

“Um,” Jenny nervously collected herself, “a-are you ready?”

“I don’t know,” said Giles, and tried to laugh. He wasn’t sure if it worked. “But that doesn’t seem a factor that’s subject to change, so—now’s as good a time as any, I suppose.”

“…That’s the spirit,” said Jenny dryly, opening the passenger-side door and getting out of the car. She waited patiently for Giles to remove himself as well, shifting tentatively from foot to foot while he took his bag out of the car, and then her eyes widened and she cursed in Romani.

“Is everything all right?” Giles asked tentatively.

“I didn’t bring a bag!” said Jenny. “If we’re staying the night, how—what am I supposed to—I don’t have my toothbrush!” she finished with a groan.

“Jenny, no one’s asking you to—”

“Do not,” said Jenny, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t even finish that sentence. You’re not staying by yourself in this terrifying palace that’s probably some kind of Victorian time capsule.”

“Do be reasonable—”

“I am being reasonable. This is reasonable.”

“Your consideration is far kinder than I deserve,” said Giles with feeling, which made Jenny’s eyes widen and then drop from his. “The point that I am trying to make, however, is that no one is asking you to stay the night, because after our magical tests are run, I can simply drive you back to the hotel and drive myself back to my apartment.”

Jenny blinked, color rising to her cheeks. “O-oh,” she said. “Yeah, I…yeah, obviously. God.”

Slowly, Giles took in her reaction. “Though, if you like,” he said cautiously, “you…you’re welcome to stay, of course.”

After a moment of hesitation, Jenny said somewhat clumsily, “I mean, it just—it seems a hell of a lot more convenient than driving here and back, right? And if you’re going to stay here with us, you probably have to get used to the place, so it just seems practical for you to have some company while you practice getting settled in tonight.”

“Of course,” said Giles, neatly hiding his smile.

“I can see you smiling, Rupert,” said Jenny waspishly.

“Well, you’re not exactly hard to read either, you know,” Giles replied casually, strolling up and ahead of her and thoroughly enjoying her indignant huff in response.

Their interchange buoyed him until about halfway up the stairs. As his eyes landed on the great double doors, long closed, he fell back on his heels and stopped walking, throat tight. He felt as though he’d just been here, only a handful of hours ago—young and gentle and too small to understand the weight of Mum not being there anymore. It had been a very, very long time since he had been young like that, and a very, very short time that he’d been allowed to be a child. Walking back into the one place where he had been a child—stepping inside, the man he was now—

And then he felt Jenny’s hand, tightly squeezing his elbow. Focusing on her grip—the pressure, the curl of her fingers—Giles stepped forward, and forward, and forward again.

April 12th, 2000

Stacey’s ninth birthday is coming up. Nora says every day that she takes after me, which is such a sweet and flattering thing to say when I’m pretty much the weird cousin who lives with them out of the goodness of Nora’s heart, but lately I can kind of see where Nora’s coming from. She’s been trying to learn about technopaganism, even if it bores her to tears, and I’ve been trying to gently steer her back towards the kind of science that she actually likes. She’s been really obsessed with biology lately, which is great, because that means that she’s been coming with Art and me on our nature walks. Not that Art isn’t lovely company, but it is very fun to watch Stacey run ahead and bring me back bugs and leaves and stuff.

Sometimes I look at Stacey and I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a family like the one she has. Which is mostly harmless, I guess, but last night I kind of had a whole anxiety attack over the concept of some horrible disaster happening and the kids not having any of us, and Nora had to send Art up to sleep in Stacey’s room and lie with me like I was one of her kids having a nightmare. She started out by reminding me that all three of us getting killed probably also means that the kids are dead, to which I responded by informing her that that was not even remotely helpful. Then she changed her tack and said that if anything happened to one of us, or even two of us, anyone left would step up and take care of the kids, because that’s what parents do, which made me cry so hard that I almost threw up.

I think I’ll feel better once Stacey’s in her teens and still surrounded by a loving family. I know that what we’ve built is a thousand times more real and lasting than what I thought I had when I was her age. It’s just…terrifying, imagining my kids going through what I went through. I’d give anything and everything up to make sure that they never have to.

I feel like I kind of already have.

Chapter Text

1944: alice and thomas (or: a purloined éclair)

Alice Edmunds, seventeen, despised Council functions with the sort of violence that her mother had always gently suggested would be best if directed towards the things the Council dedicated itself to fighting, rather than the Council itself. Alice, however, had always responded immediately with the pointed observation that if she was directing her violent dislike of Council functions towards the supernatural, that would be a first for someone attending a Council function, as everyone attending a Council function seemed more interested in petty bureaucracy than actually strategizing.

“You need to get your mind out of the grave, Al,” said Mum reprovingly, raising the brush to Alice’s hair before defeatedly lowering it. Brushing Alice’s hair only seemed to make it worse. “There is a time and a place for supernatural discussion, and a gala for the highest-ranking members of the Council most decisively is not it.”

“If the gala is a place for the highest-ranking members of the Council to congregate,” said Alice, “wouldn’t one suppose that this would make it the ideal location for such conversations? It’s dreadfully difficult to get a word in edgewise anywhere else—”

“And do you know why it is difficult?”

“Heavens, Mum, I haven’t the faintest,” said Alice sweetly.

Mum gave Alice an annoyed look in the mirror. “You know full well that you’re not to become a Watcher,” she said. “You just aren’t. It would certainly be different if your brother—” She swallowed, and didn’t say anything else. “But he didn’t, and we’re not losing another child. Honestly, Alice, it’s as though you seem hell-bent on being as selfishly single-minded about this whole affair as possible.”

It seemed as though every single conversation that Mum and Alice had ended up looping back around to Duncan’s death at some point or another. Alice wouldn’t be so bothered by Mum bringing up Duncan if Mum ever brought up Duncan to talk about Duncan, instead of using Duncan as a reminder that Alice was a positively terrible daughter to be left with. Any actual attempts to talk about Duncan himself led to Mum going tight-lipped and teary-eyed and leaving the room very fast.

Duncan had been sixteen when he died. Alice’s seventeenth birthday, two days prior to now, was perhaps contributing to the generally stormy mood that seemed to hang over the Edmunds estate: baby Alice was now a full year older than the perfect Edmunds heir. Baby Alice, who no one had pinned any hopes and dreams on, was now the only Edmunds heir, and no one was particularly happy about it.

It was quite a lot to shoulder. It was also part of the reason why Alice really did want to be doing something other than going to idiotic parties and getting paraded around on her father’s arm and talking to soppy Council trainees looking for a wife to scoop up. Her parents seemed hell-bent on shoving her off towards holy matrimony as soon as possible—all of it a very transparent attempt to make sure she never so much as saw the battlefield.

The rest of the reason that Alice wanted to be doing something, ironically enough, was cold-blooded vengeance on behalf of her brother. She found it positively baffling that Mum and Dad didn’t seem to particularly support this notion—or even understand it—but any attempt to express her genuine bemusement was soundly and coldly shut down. “You don’t understand the mission if all you want to do is fight for fighting’s sake, Al,” Mum had told her, and that had been the end of it.

With all of this in mind, honest conversation with Mum had become an utter impossibility, and Alice coped with this by being as deliberately difficult as she could. “That’s me, innit?” she said, leaning back on the legs of her chair and semi-accidentally hitting Mum’s shins. “Selfishly single-minded. Utterly dreadful. I can do my own hair, by the way, Mum, so if you—”

“I am supervising this process,” said Mum, giving Alice’s hair a reproving tug, “because the last time I left you to prepare for the Council gala by yourself, you tried to escape by way of the roof.”

Ah, yes. Alice had forgotten about that one.

“Really, those curls of yours do not cooperate,” said Mum.

“I get them from you, you know,” said Alice. “Dad’s hair is depressingly limp.”

Mum’s mouth twitched. She didn’t respond to this. “If you’d just left the pin curls in—”

“It would be worse,” said Alice. “You do understand that it would be worse, yeah?”

Dropping her hands from Alice’s hair, Mum crossed the room to open her wardrobe, surveying the dazzling array of dresses with a critical eye. “Have you settled on something suitable for tonight?” she said. “I was thinking the black velvet, but—”

“Oh, Mum, can’t I wear the green?” Alice jumped up and halfway-tumbled across the room, pulling the dress in question out of the wardrobe. “It’s such a lovely peacock green, look—”

“So you don’t care about this party,” said Mum loftily, “but you care about what you wear to it, is that right?”

“You know, you don’t have to make everything I do some sort of attack on you,” said Alice indignantly. “Maybe I just don’t want to wear something you picked for me, Mum, how’s that?”

Mum threw up her hands. “God help us all,” she said. “Wear what you want, Alice. It’s not as though I can stop you.”

So Alice wore the black. She was thoroughly resentful about it, particularly when she showed up and saw that she was the only Council girl wearing black. It made her look positively funereal, at least in her estimation—a sober, sensible girl with a modestly cut gown, not at all interested in attempting to make herself look like a fluttering bird of paradise. Horrifically, the air of sober sensibility that the dress seemed to be cultivating had clearly left a positive impression on Travers, who cut his way through the crowd with all the grace of a blundering rhinoceros to offer his hand to her. “Al,” he said, winced, then corrected himself. “Ah, Miss Edmunds. Best keep it formal, yeah?” He winked.

Alice stared at him for exactly eleven seconds. Then she said, “Travers, just because we used to play together when we were in nappies does not mean that I find you in any way appealing to spend time with at this ridiculous excuse for a Council gathering. Excuse me,” and she would have managed to make a graceful escape had her father not caught her arm.

“Alice,” said Dad. “Be nice to Stephen. He’s a good lad.”

“No, s’ all right, Mr. Edmunds,” said Travers, grinning broadly. “Part of her charm. You’ve raised up a real spitfire of a girl.”

“I am a year older than you,” said Alice, squirming away from Dad’s firm grip. “Excuse me.”

Generally speaking, escape attempts were relatively futile in the early hours of the party, but Alice’s tenacity occasionally yielded results. Dad didn’t like having to play glorified babysitter to a seventeen-year-old girl, particularly when she was determined to make it as difficult for him as possible—and the exhausted look on his face made it clear that her efforts might be paying off earlier than usual. “Alice, really,” he said. “You know you’ll never make any meaningful connections with that attitude. I am sorry, Stephen,” he added in Travers’s general direction.

Stephen said something Alice didn’t catch. Dad wasn’t holding onto her, and she had taken the opportunity to weave through the crowds towards the snack table. She was fairly certain she’d spotted one remaining éclair, and she was hell-bent on getting to it before anyone else did—but just as she reached the gorgeous array of desserts, a dashing figure cut in front of her to snatch the éclair practically out of her hands. “What—?” Alice demanded, whirling, but the figure was already gone.

For one positively ridiculous moment, Alice was halfway convinced that she had had some sort of supernatural encounter. It took her another moment to realize that most supernatural encounters were not focused on stealing eclairs from particularly difficult seventeen-year-olds. With a resigned sigh, she decided to comfort herself with a graceless handful of petit fours.

“Alice,” said Mrs. Crowley, sounding positively scandalized. “Those are hardly the sort of things one takes a handful of! Why, when your mother hears of this—”

“Je ne suis pas Alice,” said Alice immediately. “Je suis Camille, un agent secret de France.” After a moment of consideration, she added, “And don’t tell ma mère.” Without waiting for Mrs. Crowley's response, she hightailed it out of the ballroom, making her way out into the lavish gardens that always remained unoccupied at these sorts of things. No Council member worth their salt went outside after dark, even if the outside in question was warded to hell and back. It was the principle of the thing.

With a frustrated exhalation, Alice took off her shoes, plopping down on the ground in a puff of gorgeous black velvet. She knew she was being unfair and impossible and all of those things Mum had pointed out, but honestly. When was she going to get to live her life on her own terms?

“And someone took my damned éclair,” she burst out, falling back against a nearby pillar.

“I-I’m sorry,” came a voice. “Was this yours?”

Alice blinked. It was Giles. What on earth was Giles doing out here? And— “Is that the last éclair?” she demanded, sitting straight up and staring incredulously at the treasure wrapped delicately in a napkin. “How the blazes did you get it before me? I’m fast about those things!”

“I’m generally underestimated,” said Giles, sitting down next to her on the floor. He moved as if to extend the éclair, then considered, drawing his hand back. “But I did get it fair and square, Miss Edmunds, so—”

“Oh, I deserve at least half,” said Alice. “I hate these things. Stealing dessert is the only good part of the evening.”

Giles was watching her with a funny expression on his face. After a moment of consideration, he broke the éclair in half. “A token of goodwill,” he said. “It’s only fair, really. Even if it is the only good part of your evening, I think I’m entitled to at least a bit of it, locating it for you and all.”

“You would have eaten the whole thing if I’d not asked for it,” Alice muttered sourly, “and half is hardly a bit, anyway, Thomas,” but she took the offered half anyway and shoved the entire thing in her mouth. She had no interest in making herself look dainty or demure around any potential suitors. “What?” she demanded, mouth full, when she saw that Giles was still staring.

With a small, bashful smile, Giles said, “I-I’ve never really had the chance to—that is to say, ah, Alice—” A violent blush was rising to his cheeks. “Travers and the rest, they’re—they’re a bit insistent when it comes to monopolizing your time at these things.”

“I’m the belle of the bloody ball,” said Alice somewhat resentfully through a mouthful of éclair. Swallowing, she added, “It’s really only because they love a challenge, you know. If Moira Pryce went around turning all the gentlemen down, she’d be the one with an insufferable number of fickle suitors.”

“That’s…astute,” said Giles.

“I’m astute,” said Alice. “And phenomenal. But does anyone care about that even slightly? Obviously not! I’m expected to just get married to the first useless Watcher-in-training who crosses my path, and all because my parents can’t handle the notion of sending their only baby out into the field, never mind that—” She gestured indignantly in Giles’s direction. “Your mum practically heads the Council! You would think that their being friends with your mum would do something to convince them to stop treating me like some sort of petulant child with delusions of dedicating herself to a profession beyond her capabilities, particularly considering the fact that I have successfully climbed out of my bedroom and across the roof multiple times in order to make a successful midnight escape—”

“That was true?” said Giles, jaw dropping.

“I’m very impressive,” said Alice haughtily.

Giles smiled again. It was a very sweet little smile—hesitant in a way she wasn’t used to seeing on Watchers. Not a trace of smarmy confidence. “You are, at that,” he said shyly.

1959: felix and danica (or: the morning star)

They were going to get in so much shit if Maja found out. It wasn’t that Maja was malicious with her big mouth—that was more Mirela’s territory, and she excelled at it—but Maja had a little trouble remembering what was supposed to be a legitimate secret and what was allowed to be actually talked about. The little secrets were kept religiously to an annoying extent; the big secrets were somehow always told to the one person who absolutely should not be hearing about them. That was Maja.

As such, when Maja rounded the corner and saw Felix and Nick in their best threads only two minutes away from midnight, Felix immediately said, “We’re playing dress-up, Maja. Go back to bed.”

Maja leveled a haughty look in his direction. “I am the older sister, you know,” she said. “You’re not going to pull the wool over my eyes with a dumb lie like that. How old do you think I am, twelve?”

“Do you really think Nick would wear something this ugly if we were going somewhere?” said Felix, throwing an arm over Nick’s shoulder and trying for a winning grin. “I mean, wow, Nick. Don’t you ever even try?”

“I hate you,” said Nick through his teeth.

“And what about you?” said Maja, looking pointedly at Felix’s carefully selected ensemble.

“These?” Felix looked down at his saddle shoes—the ones that had once belonged to Dad. The ones that he had only barely managed to steal from Xavier’s room for the party. “This is me sticking it to Xavier. Go back to bed, Maja.”

“Maja,” Nick chimed in, “if you don’t ask questions about us, we won’t ask questions about you. How’s that?”

“I want in,” said Maja.

“You do not,” said Felix. Hastily, he added, “And anyway, there isn’t even anything to be in on, because we aren’t going anywhere!”

“You are a really bad liar, Felix,” said Maja.

“You’re worse!” Felix countered indignantly. “Why do you think we don’t tell you when we’re going somewhere?” He winced, tacking on, “Which we aren’t! But if we were, we wouldn’t tell you, because—”

“I’m gonna get dressed,” said Maja, “and if you don’t wait for me, I’m gonna wake up Mirela and tell her that you’re going somewhere that probably has alcohol.”

“Everywhere has alcohol,” said Felix. “It isn’t Prohibition, Maja.” But Maja had already retreated back into her bedroom. “Jesus, Nick, could you have been any more obvious?” he said irritably. “Blew the damn thing wide open. Now we really are gonna get it, because you know she’ll mention it at breakfast tomorrow when Mama asks us why we were late to the table.”

“You are the worst older brother in the whole world,” said Nick.

They then proceeded to wait for what felt like two hundred years, during which Felix constructed an elaborate fantasy in his head where Maja was as heavy a sleeper as Mirela and never woke up when they were doing things like trying to sneak out the window and go to Coralie’s party down the street. Also where he didn’t have to steal the saddle shoes, because Xavier was dead. Not dead, Felix amended. That was kind of mean, and Xavier only sort of deserved it. Maybe aliens took him and Felix got to be the older brother for once.

Finally, Maja reappeared, wearing a shimmery dress that showed off way too much skin for Felix to really feel comfortable. “Can you put a sweater on or something?” he said, wrinkling up his nose. “No one wants to see that much of you, Maja.”

“No one wants to see you in that outfit, but you seem to be doing fine,” said Maja, giving him a withering look and heading towards the window.

“You don’t even know where we’re going!”

“Um, very obviously Coralie’s? There is nothing else going on. I would have to live under a rock to not know about Coralie’s party.”

“Mirela doesn’t know!”

“Case in point,” said Maja, and shimmied out the window.

“Did she already know?” said Felix through his teeth. “How did she know? Why would she pretend not to know?”

“Psychological torment,” said Nick wisely.

“No one asked, Nick,” said Felix. “God.”

The one and only saving grace of Maja coming along was the fact that Maja could drive, which was something that Nick wasn’t old enough to do and Felix wasn’t allowed to learn. Mama seemed to be of the mind that if given the opportunity to drive, Felix would be getting himself into more scrapes than he already did, and as such, him getting behind the wheel would mean punishments severe enough to give even Felix pause. Maja, however, had been deemed responsible, which Felix thought was mostly because Maja was good at looking responsible. Felix was a man without pretense. Felix was a man who was honest when it came to what he was about, and what he was about was getting into scrapes. That, in his opinion, was much more honorable than pretending to be responsible.

“You and honor,” said Maja. “You talk big talk for a little boy.”

Felix made a rude hand gesture before turning up the radio. “Why is nothing good on?” he grumbled.

“Because it’s one in the morning,” said Nick. “Also, would you not lean the seat back so far?”

Felix made another rude hand gesture, this time in Nick’s direction. “You drive like an old lady,” he told Maja.

“You would run us off the road if I gave you the wheel,” said Maja. “Consider yourself lucky that I’m even letting you in the car. Mama says she thinks you should just walk everywhere. Might teach you some patience.” She made a neat left turn, parking the car just outside Coralie’s. The front yard was already clustered with people. “I am going to go in and say hello to Sasha,” she said. “You two do…whatever it is you do at parties where no one wants to talk to you.”

“Everyone wants to talk to Felix,” said Nick. “No one wants to talk to me.”

Maja considered this. “Fair point.”

Jumping out of the car before it had fully stopped (“Don’t do that, Felix!”), Felix strolled up the front walk, dewy grass giving pleasantly under his nice saddle shoes. It was nice to go to things like this. Coralie, he saw, lit up and waved so enthusiastically that she nearly fell over, and she was not the only one to do so; pretty much half the crowd had perked up upon seeing Felix. Felix, however, was primarily interested in Declan, who had already grabbed a beer for him and was waiting by the bonfire. “Anyone new here?” he asked, taking the beer with a small nod.

“Oh, God, you insufferable bastard,” said Declan, but he was already grinning. “You about to make your usual King Felix introduction?”

“I am pretty much royalty,” said Felix, tossing his head back in a particularly attractive kind of way and taking a long, gorgeous sip of his beer. “Can I help it if the chicks want to get to know me?”

“Yeah, but the problem is, you have the personality of hot garbage,” said Declan.

Felix choked a little on his beer. “Fuck off, Declan,” he said, already starting to laugh himself. “Jesus.”

And right then and there, he saw her. She was dancing just by the bonfire, close enough to the fire that he almost thought it might catch her—or maybe that she was part of it, with her blazing yellow dress and her quick, precise steps. Her long, dark hair flew out around her, inches away from the flame, and her upturned nose was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. She noticed him looking, and a coy smile darted across her face, but her dance didn’t once pause.

“Oh, don’t even think about it,” said Declan, an incredulous laugh in his voice.

“Who is that?” said Felix. He had never heard his own voice sound like that before. He hadn’t known that it could.

“Danica Sykorova,” said Declan.

“Sykorova?” said Felix, startled enough to take his eyes off of the fire-goddess. “Not like Enyos Sykora, right?”

“Apparently, that freak of nature has an older sister,” said Declan with great relish. “And she hasn’t said a word to anyone all night.”

“If I looked like that, I wouldn’t lower myself to talk to anyone here either,” said Felix softly, eyes back on Danica as she continued to dance. “She’s otherworldly, Declan.”

“She’s pretty enough,” said Declan, almost bemused, “but you know Coralie’s been waiting for you to show up all night, right? I’ve never known you to turn down a sure thing, especially not Coralie. She’s one of the finest things this side of the Atlantic.”

“Danica makes Coralie look like hot garbage,” said Felix.

After a long moment, Declan said tiredly, “…Yeah, I’m not gonna just stand here watching you watch her all night, Felix,” clapped him on the shoulder, and headed back towards the larger gathering. Most people were starting to move towards the house—Nick and Maja among them—but Danica continued to dance, entirely uninterested in following the party.

Felix took one step forward, then another, until he was practically next to Danica. Softly, he said, “You know, there isn’t any music.”

Danica didn’t pause for a second. “A good dancer finds the music,” she said, placing a hand on Felix’s shoulder and twirling herself around him. She smelled like lavender and sage. “And a great dancer always takes advantage of an audience.”

“Am I that audience, then?”

“You don’t seem able to look away,” said Danica, and gave him an open-mouthed grin as she stumbled back and away from the flame. It made her look a bit less like a goddess come to earth and a bit more like a relatively earthbound teenage girl. Somehow, that was even prettier. “I’m Danica. Sykorova.”

“Felix,” said Felix. “Cervenak.”

Chapter Text

There weren’t words. The feeling that rose in Giles’s chest as he entered the impossibly large front room, the soft gasp from Jenny as she took in the two flights of stairs and the lavish, intricate architecture, the way her fingers involuntarily tightened around his elbow, as though on some level she knew how terrifyingly large that this moment was—larger, even, than this impossibly large mansion, perfectly preserved thanks to generations of Giles family magic. Waiting for him to return.

Why hadn’t he come back before now? Dad had never come back—Giles knew that, because the aunts had told him—but Gran had, here and there, and the aunts had lived here on and off before moving to the much nicer place they’d bought with some of the money Dad had left them, so why hadn’t Giles returned? Wasn’t it his responsibility? The house was going to stay here, in this strange, awful stasis, hidden away from the rest of the world, and Giles had made no effort to change that. Wasn’t even sure why he was here now.

“Rupert,” said Jenny.

Ah. Giles felt a rush of relief so profound that it left him weak in the knees. He was doing something, wasn’t he?

“Rupert,” said Jenny again, firm and insistent. It was a tone of voice that he recognized. “What’s next?”

Raising his hand to awkwardly push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Giles felt as though his body was trying to move forward through a sea of molasses. Without looking at Jenny, he said, “The last time I was here was for my mother’s funeral.”

He was suddenly very grateful for Jenny’s tendency to not push when it came to particularly emotional topics. She squeezed his elbow, then said, “I need to call Nora and let her know we made it here okay. Does this place have a phone?”

“I…” Giles looked blankly around. “Possibly?”

Jenny was biting her lip as she studied his face. She looked like she had quite a lot she wanted to say. “…Will you help me look for a phone?” she finally said.

The thought of stepping any further into this house did not at all appeal to Giles. The magics were a familiar tingle at the back of his neck—he had forgotten that the house would know him, remember him, and he could positively feel generations of Gileses in the house, all of them asking why why why did you leave? who who who did you bring back?

Dad never met Jenny, he realized. He didn’t know why that hurt to think about.

“Did I ever tell you about Art’s first day of kindergarten?”

The question cut through the miserable haze that had settled upon Giles ever since stepping inside. Something warm and tender fluttered to life inside his heart as he turned his eyes towards Jenny, who was watching him with a ruefully knowing little smile “…I don’t see when you would have,” he said softly.

Carefully, Jenny began to guide him forward and up the steps, talking all the way. “So Art and Bella are a little less than a year apart,” she said. “He was born two months before her first birthday, and he takes that excuse every year to be pretty much insufferable about being the same age as her, which she of course will always counter later by being pretty much insufferable about being older than him. It’s like their little tradition. Anyway, Bella did set off to kindergarten a year before Art, which Nora and Donovan and I talked about at length for a good two years before it even happened, because we knew she was gonna be lording it over him but we also thought that having them a grade apart meant that they would actually get the opportunity to socialize with other kids instead of antagonizing each other.”

“D-did that work?” Giles asked, and distantly noticed that they were halfway up the stairs.

Jenny pulled a face. “Not by much. They’re pretty much joined at the hip at school anyway these days, and Art ended up skipping a grade—but I’m totally getting ahead of myself. Is there anything down this hallway?”

“Bathroom, I think,” said Giles absently. “I’m not sure.”

“Other way, then,” Jenny decided aloud, steering Giles through a cozy, sunlit reading room. “Good god, this furniture’s antique. You could make a lot of money selling this stuff off.”

“I’m not sure the house w-would let you remove it,” Giles said ruefully.

“See, that’s the kind of colonialist bullshit I’d expect from a Watcher house,” said Jenny. Giles felt the magics’ indignance at this, and was surprised and delighted to see that Jenny clearly did too; she pulled a face at a nearby painting and pressed forward. “Yeah, screw you too,” she informed the wall. “Your prodigal son chose me to impregnate and we all just have to live with that. Anyway,” she tugged Giles around a corner to peer into what he recognized with a jolt as Gran’s old study, “Bella headed off to kindergarten, and Art was inconsolable. I remember as soon as she was out of the house, he demanded to know why Bella was going to school before him when he was clearly the smarter one.”

Jerked out of the looming Gran-related guilt, Giles let out a surprised bark of laughter. Jenny’s wry grin in response felt startlingly close to the way she’d smiled at him a very long time ago. “So he takes after his mother?” he asked, a little too innocently to be believed.

“Fuck you,” said Jenny, which made Giles laugh again. She shut the door to Gran’s study. “Anything else down this way?”

“I-I don’t—”

Jenny’s easy smile flickered. Wordlessly, she squeezed his hand.

Were they holding hands? When had that happened? Giles looked down at their joined hands in bemusement, then back up at her, but was distracted again when she said, “That whole year, Art was constantly trying to get me to teach him whatever Bella was learning in kindergarten, which is probably some of what contributed to him eventually skipping a grade a year later. And I say some, Rupert, because my baby is ridiculously smart—”

“He does take after his mother, then.”

“You are not as cute as you think you are,” said Jenny, turning them around as they reached the end of the hallway. “So his first day of kindergarten rolls around, and by this time, I feel like I’ve run the Iditarod a few times when it comes to kindergarten, because we had to go through that whole thing where Ezra tried to escape kindergarten on his first day and ended up hitching a ride with a total stranger to get himself back home.”

“Ezra?” said Giles disbelievingly.

Jenny grinned. “That kid contains multitudes.”

“All of those children terrify me,” said Giles without thinking, winced at his tactlessness, and realized with some relief that Jenny seemed delighted by this. “Th-that is to say—”

“Oh, that is the absolute correct response to any of those kids,” said Jenny. “Bella’s the one who jumps out at you—um, metaphorically and literally, actually, she went through this whole phase where she was jumping out from the closet and scaring our guests at dinner parties, we had to get her to stop—but Ezra’s got a stubborn streak when it comes to what he wants. Takes after Nora, I think. The only reason he doesn’t cause as much trouble is thanks to him inheriting Donovan’s tendency towards contentment.” She opened a door to the left, found a bathroom, and let out a resigned sigh, shutting the door again. “God, this is a big house.”

“It’s still getting used to you,” said Giles. “The—the magics, they take into account the needs of those who live there, and—well—generation after generation of my family, all of us—that is to say, all of them growing up here, no one particularly wanted anything to change. So it didn’t.”

“So what you’re saying is that this place is 19th century Gothic because everyone who lived here liked it never changing?” Jenny ran her thumb along a carving on the wall. “God, that’s depressing.”

“It’s a bit more Queen Anne than Gothic, I think—”

“Rupert, do not get pedantic with me.” Jenny opened another door—and stopped in her tracks. “Oh!”

Sun streamed in through the large bay windows, illuminating a large and gorgeous library. Bookshelves stretching to touch the high ceilings, a rickety staircase leading up to a second level, a handful of cozy chairs clustered by the window that overlooked the duck pond and the lavish gardens—Giles was quite certain that he had never been allowed in this room as a child, and could entirely understand why. Father would never have let a child into a place stuffed to bursting with books that were probably centuries old. “Oh,” he echoed, a small smile stealing across his face, and stepped forward to one of the shelves, running a finger along the spines. “These are…”

“Is this where you—” Jenny drew in a hitching breath and stopped herself.

The books felt a comforting refuge from the rest of the house. Giles turned to her with a small, encouraging nod. “Where I?”

Awkwardly, Jenny removed her hand from Giles’s, eyes darting down and away before returning to his face. “Where you…got A Room with a View?” she said. “When you, um, lent it? To me?”

Giles blinked, registering the question with another warm flutter. Don’t, he thought, but it was different—it wasn’t about being humiliated, or wanting to avoid revealing feelings that Jenny might not take kindly to. It was about how she had cried violently enough to shake after he had kissed her. How determined he was not to let that happen again. “No, it…I can’t have ever been in here,” he said softly. “I’m really not quite sure how the book ended up in my collection. Father sent a box or two my way every so often after I returned to the Council, and a few rare volumes made it in that I just never got the chance to return to him. I expect that’s how it reached me.”

“One’s missing,” said Jenny, reaching up to the gap in the shelves. “Do you think that’s where it goes?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” said Giles quietly.

Jenny didn’t seem to know what to say to that. After a handful of silent seconds, she instead said somewhat tentatively, “…So anyway. Art’s first day of kindergarten.”

Somewhat relieved at the change of subject, Giles turned gratefully back towards Jenny. “Art’s first day of kindergarten,” he echoed.

“He was obsessed,” said Jenny, an affectionate smile stealing across her face. “He got sick a month before kindergarten even started and spent two days in tears, because he was just that worried that he might end up being sick and missing the first day of school. It got to the point where even Bella stopped teasing him about being the baby who wasn’t in school yet, because she knew it would really upset him. He’s just…” She trailed off, her smile lingering. “He is always so excited when it comes to learning new things, and this was pretty much the Holy Grail of learning in his eyes.”

“I-I was actually quite a lot like that,” Giles said shyly. “At his age. Was a bit of a nightmare about it, if my dad and my gran are to be believed. They were considering starting me in school a year early after I tried to break into Father’s study and read something that wasn’t one of the soppy little chapter books he thrust in my general direction.”

Jenny’s smile grew. “Yeah, I kinda figured,” she said. “He wasn’t getting that from anywhere else. At his age, I—” Color rose to her cheeks and she shook her head a bit, as if to clear it. Abruptly, she said, “There isn’t a phone in here, is there?”

“…No,” said Giles, reluctant to leave the library.

Casual and careful, Jenny took Giles’s hand again, pointedly tugging him out into the never-ending hallway. “This is an impossible house,” she said. “How did you even manage to find anything when you were living here?”

“I was quite young,” said Giles quietly. “I hardly remember much.”

“Huh,” said Jenny. Then, in a very different tone of voice, “Huh!” Dropping Giles’s hand, she hurried ahead, directly towards an old-fashioned rotary phone tucked into a nook a few feet ahead of them. “God, I hate these things,” she said. “Enyos had one of these in the nineties. I got him a new phone with a solid chunk of my salary back in ’93 and he just kept it in the box—”

“Enyos?” Giles echoed.

Jenny’s face went very still. Slowly, she turned to face him. “My uncle,” she said. “Angelus killed him.”

The name was entirely alien to Giles, the situation patently impossible. When would Angelus—loose only once with Jenny in the vicinity—have had the time to kill a relative of hers? He was opening his mouth to say this when a long-forgotten memory unearthed itself: Jenny, tearful and shaken, collapsing to her knees in a bloodied hotel room. The man had been a stranger. A supernatural expert of some sort. Giles had thought that the gruesome nature of the murder had overcome Jenny, but now he was beginning to think—

“Your uncle,” he said. He felt sick. “You never told me.”

Looking him directly in the eye, Jenny said, “We weren’t exactly talking at the time.”

Giles felt the statement like a physical blow. He dropped his gaze.

“Nora?” Jenny had turned her attention to the phone. “Sar si sogodi? Mm?” Her determinedly stony expression gave way to sheepish apology as she listened to whatever it was that Nora was saying. “Uh huh. Uh huh. That—uh huh.” She waved a vague hand in Giles’s direction—it was entirely unclear what that meant, at least to Giles—and then turned away from him, speaking in low, conciliatory Romani.

For the first time, Giles found himself suspecting that she was speaking a different language in a deliberate attempt to keep the conversation private. Intruding on that privacy felt inconsiderate. He took an experimental step away from Jenny. She didn’t notice. He took another step away, and another, until he was halfway down the hall with absolutely no idea where he was going.

Start simple, he thought. Run the tests you came here to run. All he really needed was a room quiet enough for him to concentrate, and given that no one had been in this house since the late fifties, absolutely any room would do. He picked a door at random—one of the ones that Jenny had checked and left ajar—and stepped through, shutting it behind him.

The room was very distantly familiar. He wasn’t sure why. It was a study, but it could never have been Father’s; there was only one bookshelf, and the desk seemed more decorative than functional. There was a soft plush rug near the window, an overstuffed pink chair sitting right in the middle, and a single book lay open on the nearby end table. Giles crossed the room, picking it up, and found Flower Arranging for Beginners dog-eared in multiple different places.

Father didn’t dog-ear pages. Neither did Gran. The aunts did, but they would have called Flower Arranging for Beginners a tasteless pursuit for bored housewives. A suspicion lit in Giles’s brain, and he opened the book to the first page.

Property of Alice Edmunds. ❤

Giles sat down very heavily in the pink chair.

Flower Arranging for Beginners was covered in neatly handwritten footnotes. Passages were underlined, with little notes like mason jar? Ask Dad and For the Nursery!! littering the margins. Giles was beginning to understand why there was only one bookshelf in his mother’s study: Father would have had a conniption had he seen the way that this book had been treated. Gran had always said that Mum wasn’t much of a reader. Father hadn’t said anything about Mum at all.

The door opened. Giles very nearly jumped out of his skin. “I called Nora,” Jenny began tersely, and then stopped, taking in his expression. “Rupert, are you okay?”

Clumsily, Giles attempted to shove the book out of view, hampered by his simultaneous desire to treat it as gently as possible. He settled for awkwardly tucking it inside his dressing gown. “Sh-should we run the tests?” he said. “To—to make sure the house is safe to live in?”

“…Yes,” said Jenny, who was taking in the room at large. “Rupert—”

“You’ll have to instruct me when it comes to the tests you need to run,” said Giles, going for a brisk, businesslike tone of voice. He wasn’t sure if it worked all that well, if Jenny’s furrowed brow was any indication. “For me, it’s just—two incantations, I think. One to make sure my connection to the house is still strong, and one to make sure it recognizes you as a member of the family rather than a guest. Donovan might be a bit tricky, but Nora and her children will be able to enter if the house knows you, and there’s a charm I can wrap round him to make sure he’ll be allowed in just fine.” He was already getting to his feet, somewhat stiff in his attempt to keep himself from collapsing entirely. “Here, Jenny, just—just step back, I’ll need to be at the center of the room for this first one. It’s simple, really—”

“Walk me through it,” said Jenny, stepping back with her eyes on Giles. “What do you need me to do?”

“N-nothing just yet,” said Giles, stepping into the center of the room and kneeling carefully down on the floor. One of his knees was resting on the plush rug; one was resting on chilly hardwood. It was off-putting. All around him, he could feel the old magics, recognize them on a level that felt alchemic and strange. Hushed and reproving voices surrounded him: do you know us do you know us are you sure that you know us? you’ve been gone gone gone without explanation, prodigal son, lost lamb, our only boy—

Not anymore, Giles thought, and unbidden, Art’s face came to mind. The line won’t die with me.

But the magics didn’t know him well enough to understand, and all they seemed to feel was his own quiet calm. Rustling with indignance, the voices said calm calm calm after everything you’ve done? after leaving us here? bow your head and learn shame shame shame—

“Degeneranti genus opprobrium,” said Giles.

Next to him, Jenny laughed a little uncomfortably and said, “That’s kind of on the nose, Rupert!”

INSOLENCE, said the voices, but Giles thought he heard a single musical laugh among them. slights against us after YEARS away? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Closing his eyes, Giles remembered what Father and Gran had always taught him: the way to the heart of Watcher magic was always a demonstration of loyalty. One had to be the right sort of person to be a Watcher, after all. “Degeneranti genus opprobrium,” he said again, firm and assertive. “To a shameful man, his family is a disgrace. Father sent that to me in a letter when I’d fallen in with the wrong crowd at nineteen. I could give you the family motto, but that would be a lie, wouldn’t it? I won’t antagonize you. I won’t demean you by swearing filial piety when I’ve not given that to this family before. I give you what my father gave me. I come by it honestly.”

The house buzzed, indignant. and what does SHE give?

As Giles was sure Xander would say, they were “in the home stretch.” “Jenny,” he said. “The house needs a creed.”

“A creed?” said Jenny bemusedly.

“It wants to know you,” said Giles. “I don’t know if it will like you, but it doesn’t particularly like me right now, so I don’t see how this can get worse.”

“A creed,” said Jenny. “Like—what kind of creed?”

“What’s your family motto?” said Giles without thinking. Jenny gave him a look. “Ah—”

“My family didn’t have a motto,” said Jenny. The buzzing in Giles’s ears was picking up. “Most Rom families don’t.”

“Jenny, I didn’t mean—”

“God, this—this is the problem!” Jenny abruptly exploded. “We are wandering around your secret goddamn mansion and we can’t talk about anything! You’re throwing classical Latin down in your ancestral home to win over a bunch of dead aristocrats who would probably have chased my grandparents off of your land, and the one time my family came up when we were dating, you—” She pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling through her teeth. “You want a fucking creed?” she said. “Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa.”

The house’s angry buzzing did not die down. “It, ah, doesn’t seem to think that that’s a motto,” said Giles. “So perhaps—”

“It’s not a motto,” said Jenny. Her voice was shaking. “We’re from different worlds, Rupert. How could you possibly think that this would work? You don’t even know me.”

Suddenly, the house was the least of Giles’s concerns. “You said you didn’t want to talk about it,” he said, rather unsteady himself.

Tears in her eyes, Jenny said, “Because I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Jenny—”

Drawing in a trembling breath, Jenny said, “Si khohaimo may pachivalo sar o chachimo.”

The house stilled. Giles hardly cared. “Jenny,” he said again, insistently, and stood. “You can’t possibly think—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Jenny. “We have spent our son’s entire life apart. I can’t believe that you would put me in this position.”

“You kissed me back,” said Giles, too indignant to keep things diplomatic. “It’s hardly fair for you to act as though I am the only one who—”

“There are lies more believable than truth,” said Jenny.

Giles blinked. “I’m sorry?”

Hugging her elbows, Jenny said, “Si khohaimo may pachivalo sar o chachimo. There are lies more believable than truth.” She swallowed. “My dad used to say that.”

Her miserable rigidity made Giles’s frustration drain away. As impossible as this situation felt for him, it was becoming extremely clear that she wasn’t exactly having the time of her life. “This is…difficult, Jenny,” he said. “And you’re not making it easier.”

“I’m not interested in making it easier for you,” said Jenny, giving him a hard look.

“I’m not asking you to,” said Giles. “I’m asking you to stop making it more difficult for me. I understand I’m not entitled to an emotional conversation, but I want to know—”

“I was in love with you, you asshole,” said Jenny, her voice breaking. “I wanted to raise Art with you.”

And there it was. The reason that Jenny had kissed him back, the reason that Nora had been kinder to him than he’d ever expected, the reason that Jenny had come to him over and over even as she tried in vain to assert that she needed Art to have a safe and stable father—it didn’t feel as Giles had expected, learning this. He had expected shame, grief, rage—but all he found himself doing was studying the lines on Jenny’s face, her white-knuckled fists by her sides. The tears in her eyes. She had carried this with her for almost a decade.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” said Giles, his voice shaking. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“I should have known—what it would mean.” Giles took a step back, still staring at her. “I’m sorry.”

“Look, Rupert, I…” Jenny sniffled. “I don’t know how to deal with this,” she said. “Nora was right. I’m not handling this in a way that’s good for Art, and I want to. But it’s…you have no idea how hard it is, you showing up and pretty much throwing yourself at me all over again. I don’t want to make a choice that could hurt Art. Part of me feels like introducing you to him might have already been a mistake.”

Giles drew in a sharp breath. That he hadn’t expected to hear.

“Just—” Jenny swallowed. “Don’t kiss me without thinking about it,” she said. “Really thinking about it. Because this is—it’s not just Art’s heart on the line if you do something like that.”

He had never wanted to reach out to her so badly. He had never known himself capable of the kind of self-control that let him step back, back until he was pressed against the carefully carved wood of Alice Giles’s writing desk, staring at her without once touching her. “The tests are run,” he said. “You can tell Nora that she can bring the family in. I’ll set something up for Donovan and that should be the end of it.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Jenny. Though her voice was level and steady, tears were beginning to quietly fall down her cheeks.

“It is a big house,” said Giles. “If you need to keep your distance for the rest of the summer, you can.”

“I might,” said Jenny.

Might, Giles thought, is more than I deserve.

January 27, 1960

My morning star, my princess of flame, my Sun Goddess,

I’m completely in love with you. My sisters say I’m being ridiculous and I don’t know what love is, but I think I’ve known from the moment I saw you dancing by the fire at that party that my heart has only ever belonged to you. Do you believe in love at first sight? Is that what happened between us?

My parents say that when I’m eighteen I can marry anyone I want, and I want to marry you. I’ll be good to your family and treat them like my own. If you want them to live with us, they can. I heard from Coralie and Sasha though that Enyos is sweet on Clara so maybe he’ll want to have your mother live with him or something. But if he doesn’t, she can live with us. I don’t know. I’ll do whatever you want if you marry me.

I know you want babies, and I’m from a big family. Mirela’s getting married soon, so if you marry me, you’ll probably have lots of nieces and nephews well before we start having children. I’m smart and I’m a hard worker and I’d get a job, a real one, if you married me. I’m already looking at jobs now. I have five different jobs lined up.

Meet me under the tree in the field behind my house and we can talk about it.

I love you

Felix  

Chapter Text

Nora’s first objective upon arriving in the house was to give Giles an appraising look, exhale through her teeth, and sweep past him without comment to enfold Jenny in a brisk, bone-crushing hug. The children, trailing uncertainly behind, seemed much too captivated by the mansion’s vastness to spend much time dwelling on the adults—save for Art, who wavered near his mother before taking a tentative step back to look up at Giles. “Mom’s been upset a lot lately,” he said.

Giles wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “I…”

“Are you okay?”

This was the very last thing that Giles had expected Art to ask about. Touched—and somewhat overwhelmed—he managed a shaking grin. It was a good handful of seconds before he could actually respond. “…Truly, Art, I don’t know,” he finally said.

After a moment of consideration, Art moved forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Giles’s waist. Giles felt the tension fall away from him as neatly as a discarded overcoat and hugged his son back, kneeling awkwardly down on the floor so as to pull Art entirely into his arms—downy hair against his cheek, rough denim against the soft material of Giles’s dressing gown. He was still in his pajamas, he realized. Wholly undignified. Yet Art didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Isabella,” said Nora sharply.

This caught the attention of an abruptly delighted Art. Squirming in Giles’s arms, he twisted to get a better look at exactly what his cousin was being reprimanded for. “Isabella,” he mimicked, which earned him a reproving look from a slightly more composed Jenny. “…Sorry Mom,” he mumbled.

“We are guests in Mr. Giles’s home,” Nora was saying. “We need to be careful with his belongings—”

“Oh, Nora, it’s fine,” said Giles immediately. Now he was paying attention. The item that had sparked this particular lecture of Nora’s was, as it happened, Dad’s favorite vase. He was fairly certain that he had been told to put that vase down when he was a good three years younger than Bella. He was not at all interested in preserving it. “There’s truly no need to be careful with anything in this house. I wouldn’t at all mind seeing that vase broken, actually.”

Making direct eye contact with him, Bella let go of the vase.

The resounding smash echoed through the entire house. Stacey, who had been applying lip gloss in a nearby mirror, shrieked, jumping backwards into her father and clinging to him like a lemur. Ezra winced, then gave Bella a flat look that very clearly conveyed I am not surprised, and I am very tired of this nonsense. Jenny buried her face in her hands. Art’s eyes flashed from Bella to her visibly infuriated mother with unhidden glee. And Nora—

“Rupert Edmund Giles!” said Nora, every syllable of his name positively dripping with disbelieving rage. “What in God’s name possessed you to say such a thing?”

Giles, who had been entirely expecting Nora’s ire to land on Bella, actually flinched back a bit. Noticing this, Art squirmed entirely free, all but sprinting over to affix himself to the parent who wasn’t under his Aunt Nora’s scrutiny. “Ah,” Giles stammered, completely at a loss, and clambered somewhat unsteadily to his feet in the hopes that it might make him feel a bit more secure. It didn’t. “Th-that’s—”

“Do you have any sense?” Nora demanded sharply. “Any ability to think critically about the things that you say to these children? Bella, are you hurt?” she added testily.

“No, Mama,” said Bella, looking up at Nora with angelic brown eyes.

“Do not pull that nonsense with me. You’re next.”

Indignantly, Bella said, “But he said I could—”

“And I am angry at him as well, Isabella, but you are old enough to understand why it is important not to drop anything that can break into pieces that will hurt you. Don—” Nora pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a frustrated sigh. “Can you and Jenny get the children?”

“Oh, I wanna stay here for this,” said Jenny, who was starting to actually grin. “This looks fun.”

Nora narrowed her eyes in Jenny’s direction. Entirely unbothered, Jenny narrowed her eyes right back. “Oh, fine,” said Nora waspishly, throwing her hands up. “But everyone else needs to leave.”

“Is Dad in trouble?” said Art, the triumphant grin slipping off of his face.

“Go with Uncle Donovan, baby,” said Jenny, gently nudging his shoulder with her hand until he finally obliged.

“Am I going?” Bella asked somewhat insolently.

Donovan responded to this by gently removing himself from Stacey’s tight grip, picking Bella up, and carrying her out of the room, giving the remaining children a pointed look over his shoulder. Art and Ezra followed immediately, but Stacey hesitated at the door, eyes landing on Giles with an oddly piercing expression on her face. Uncomfortable, Giles averted his gaze. She was gone when he looked up again.

“Rupert,” said Nora, turning to Giles and giving him another absolutely terrifying look. “If you are thinking only about the vase, only about whether or not it breaks, you are not going to be the sort of guardian that I will feel comfortable leaving any of my children around unsupervised, and I am certain that Janna will say the same.”

Looking helplessly towards Jenny, Giles found with a small jolt that her face was set in serious agreement. “W-well—” He was completely at a loss. “I, I am sorry if there’s been—that is, I really did mean it when I said—”

“I’m sure you did. That’s not the problem.” Crossing her arms, Nora stared intently and pointedly at him. “Do you really not see what the problem here is?”

The amused sparkle had left Jenny’s eyes. Quietly, she said, “Um, Nell, I’m—I’m gonna go check on Art, I think,” and stepped back entirely.

Nora watched Jenny go with a furrowed brow, exhaling through her teeth as soon as she and Giles were alone. She didn’t look back towards him.

“Nora?”

Slowly, Nora turned her head towards Giles again. The lingering anger on her face was rapidly being eclipsed by a sort of tired sadness. “You have to know by now that this is hard on her,” she said. “Thinking only of yourself and your possessions won’t help this situation.”

“I—”

“Rupert, if you tell a child that it’s all right for them to break things that you don’t care about, that’s one thing,” said Nora. “There is nothing materially wrong with you extending that permission to my children. But you’ve been around Isabella long enough to know that she will take any excuse to cause trouble, and if she breaks something that can shatter, she runs the risk of seriously hurting herself. You need to be able to think beyond you when it comes to children.”

Giles suddenly felt very uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think.”

“You don’t seem to, do you?” said Nora coolly, crossing her arms and fixing him with yet another frankly terrifying look.

INSOLENCE, hissed the house. how dare you bring her here?

The embers of a vindictive indignance that Giles hadn’t felt since his early twenties sparked to life at the house’s opinion on Nora. Locking eyes with her, he said quietly, “Nora, I am sorry, and I’ll do better next time. I’ll clean the vase up and apologize to Bella as well. It won’t do if I don’t make it clear to her that I made a mistake; she’ll think that I’m still all right with her breaking things in the house.” After a moment of consideration, he inquired, “Although—if the breakable items don’t run the risk of hurting her, is it possible that I might give her permission to break them?”

Nora’s stony implacability gave way as she contemplated his question. Finally, she said, “It’s one thing not to mind a vase breaking, Rupert, but it’s quite another to press the issue until I’ll let my eight-year-old destroy the home we’re guests in.” She hesitated, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. Then, tentatively, “Is this something that I should ask Janna to ask you about?”

The question startled a laugh out of Giles. Horrified, he pressed a hand to his mouth, trying in vain to hide his smile. “Sorry,” he said, halfway to a hysterical giggle. “Excuse me. I—”

Nora’s mouth twitched. “I suppose that that answers my question.”

“I—” Giles was desperately attempting to keep his composure. “Ah, Nora, Jenny and I, we’re—we’re not exactly—that is—”

“I understand,” said Nora. “Stay right there.” She raised her hand as if to pat Giles’s shoulder, stopped, then gave her own hand a severe look. Dropping it to her side, she hurried out of the large front room, opening the door that Jenny and the rest had exited through before closing it behind her.

The house was still buzzing with indignance. It hadn’t liked that interchange, and it didn’t like that Giles was following the instructions of a Romani girl—nor did it like that Giles had let a Romani family into the front room. What if they got into the rest of the house, twisted the magics until Giles was a stranger in his own home? The Romani girl, the one who wasn’t family, had enough magic in her to twist anything to her will. How could Giles trust any of these people?

“Oh, shut up,” said Giles, and brought his foot down particularly hard on the shattered remnants of the vase.

“Is that the house?”

Giles jumped. Donovan was shutting the door to the side room, looking up at him with warm, friendly eyes and a surprisingly sympathetic smile. “Well—” Embarrassed, he fumbled for something to say that wasn’t my ancestral home is being predictably horrible about my bringing guests in. “I, I never quite—fit in here,” he finally said, and found himself incredibly uncomfortable: he had told the unadorned truth.

“Huh,” said Donovan, sliding his hands into his pockets and looking around the room. “You know, Nora and Jenny, they’re a lot like that about where they grew up. I married in, so I don’t know too much about Jenny, but Nora used to tell me stories about her mother that would make your blood run cold.”

Giles had absolutely no idea what was happening. As ever, he defaulted to a politely noncommittal “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Donovan stepped forward, placing them almost shoulder to shoulder. His eyes were fixed on the intricate scrollwork surrounding the Giles front door. “Her mom had a lot of kids, and Nora was always the disappointment, so—”

“I-I’m sorry, should you be telling me any of this?” said Giles nervously.

Donovan didn’t answer until Giles, apprehensive at the growing silence, turned to look at him. When their eyes met, Donovan said quietly, “I’m not going to ask you to talk about anything you’re not ready to talk about. But I want you to know that I’m here to help, if I can.”

“But Nora—”

“Nora’s specific instructions to me were you should tell him the story about my mother, Don, you’re good with things like that.” Amusement and affection sparkled in Donovan’s eyes. “She’s not the kind of person who enjoys particularly emotional conversations. She recognized the necessity for one and decided to go fetch me.”

Giles felt somewhat handled. “I think I’d have liked to talk to Nora,” he said, trying his very best to sound respectful about it.

Donovan’s smile hardened. It was very nearly imperceptible, but Giles, after years and years of learning to read between the lines, picked up on it immediately. “You’re not there yet, cowboy,” he said. “Nora’s not as tough as she looks. And neither is Jenny.”

Giles drew back. “I—”

“Do you want to hear that story about Nora’s mom?”

As this sounded vastly preferable than talking to Donovan about his relationship with Jenny, Giles hastily nodded.

The slight edge dropped away from Donovan immediately, transforming him again into that warm, easygoing fellow that Giles really hadn’t been thinking about very much. “Nora’s mom—Mirela—she played favorites,” he said. “Her favorite was Nora’s younger sister, Mari. Nora was the oldest, she was the most magically gifted, but she was always incredibly confident, and that upset her mother. Mirela wanted a daughter to baby, and Nora…” He smiled softly. “I don’t know if Nora was ever really a baby. But some of that had to do with how badly she wanted to prove herself worthy of the same kind of attention that her other sisters got.”

A single memory swam back to Giles, old and long-buried: a term paper in one hand, crumpled and tear-stained, 98 on the front. 100 was what he’d been aiming for.

“She hasn’t gone back to that house,” said Donovan. “She had six brothers and sisters, and she hasn’t spoken to any of them since she ran away. She doesn’t miss it there.” His eyes stayed trained forward on the front door. “She always says that there was no place for her there, and she knew it.”

Degeneranti genus opprobrium.

“If Nora was back at that house, I don’t think she’d stop at telling her children it was all right to break things,” said Donovan quietly. “I think she’d bring a sledgehammer and put it right through her mother’s china cabinet.”

Giles flinched. Jaw tight, he stared ahead.

“You don’t have to ask the kids to break the house, you know,” said Donovan. “You don’t even have to ask us to be here. We don’t have to be here. Nora doesn’t want you to put yourself out, but she’s not going to be able to stop you if you decide that you want to fly out to Colorado and rent a house there for a few months. Or we can talk over the phone. None of this needs us to be in a place that caused you pain.”

Startled, touched, and somewhat overwhelmed, Giles finally did turn to look at Donovan, who was studying him with unguarded compassion. “I…” He was struggling to find the words. He wanted to find the words.

My Rupert Bear.

The whisper was so faint that Giles wasn’t sure whether he’d heard it or imagined it. Unconsciously, he ran his thumb over the cover of the book still tucked inside his dressing gown. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said quietly. “I…I was happy here. A very long time ago. But that was before…” He looked away. “I was the Giles heir,” he said. “I was too young to be objectionable. The house treasured me. I went away and grew up and now it’s—”

“Different,” Donovan finished. Giles felt a hand on his shoulder. “Nora said that she thinks the house doesn’t like you.”

“Most of it doesn’t.”

“Most of it?”

“I…” Giles shook his head, trying to clear it.

Donovan squeezed Giles’s shoulder. “If you’re okay with us staying, we will,” he said. “But you need to work through the part of you that wants this house broken, because right now people are living in it.”

Slowly, Giles nodded.

“And…” Donovan exhaled. “Think about the kids,” he said. “I know it’s not easy to get thrown into a family, but we want you to be part of ours. Don’t doubt that.”

Giles drew back, utterly bewildered. “Why on earth would you want that?” he all but demanded, too startled to remember how to obfuscate his truest curiosities. “Donovan, I-I’m a stranger. To all of your family, but perhaps to you most of all. You and I hardly know each other; you’re the husband of a cousin that Jenny mentioned to me only once in passing. I’ve been absent all of Art’s life.” Christ, but that hurt to say. “You have no reason to want—”

“Jenny wants you here,” said Donovan.

Tears pricked Giles’s eyes and threatened to make themselves visible. He steeled his face into stony implacability and said, “Jenny doesn’t know me either.”

“And?” Donovan didn’t seem at all thrown off balance by Giles’s assertion. “That’s why we’re here. You’re Art’s father. Jenny has never stopped blaming herself for the fact that her son has spent his life fatherless, and she will never stop blaming herself for it until her son has a father. I can’t speak for the rest of my family—” His own eyes were wet. He was making no attempt to hide this.

“I can’t speak for the rest of my family,” he echoed unsteadily, “but I want you as a part of our family because I know what it will mean to Jenny if you are. I want you to be a good father and a good man, because I have seen how heartbroken Jenny has been these last years. We will take care of her if you can’t be there for her and for Art, but I…” He exhaled, smiling tearfully. “I’m always the eternal optimist,” he said. “I want things to be good for her. You have no idea how much she deserves that. She has placed her son above everything else in her life.”

Giles swallowed. “I made a mistake,” he said. “I wasn’t…thinking, when I kissed her, about…all of this.”

Donovan’s smile slipped. “I know,” he said. “And I know that this won’t be easy for you. But you asked why I want you to be a part of our family, and I’m giving you the answer. Jenny wants her son to have a father, and Jenny is one of the most remarkable women I know. Second only to my wife,” he added, his smile unsteadily returning. “So—just—try, all right? Art’s already over the moon about having the whole family under one roof, and that’s because of you. That’s a good start.”

“You’re…a very kind man,” said Giles softly. “Thank you.”

Donovan blinked, then blushed, ducking his head. “Nora always says I’ve got a soft touch,” he admitted, finally letting his hand drop from Giles’s shoulder. “I’m usually the one that handles the big feelings when it comes to the kids. She’s the breadwinner.”

“I truly cannot imagine a situation where Nora is anything but terrifyingly productive,” said Giles dryly.

Their conversation was then interrupted as the door to the side room creaked open. “Dad?” Stacey inquired, peering tentatively through the half-open door at Giles and Donovan. “Mom’s asking when you guys are gonna be done. Bella’s sneezing.”

Donovan made a sympathetic noise low in his throat. “Poor baby,” he said, which earned him a dubious look from Stacey. Catching this, he informed her, “Stace, I’m allowed to worry over your sister’s allergies and understand that she’s not supposed to be throwing around expensive pottery. Dads are great at multitasking.”

“I just think that calling Bella poor or a baby is willfully misinterpreting the data,” said Stacey, arching a brow.

“Sunflower, you can bring everyone out now,” Donovan called.

Nora hustled a visibly sniffly Bella out first, hurrying over to open the front door. “Fresh air,” she explained to Giles, rubbing Bella’s shoulders. “That better?”

“Dad, can we see your room?” Art asked immediately, darting past Nora and Bella to tug at Giles’s sleeve.

“Um, do you need help cleaning that up?” Ezra shyly inquired, glancing towards the smashed vase.

“When do I get to break more things in the house?” Bella asked, eyes locked on Giles with the exact same terrifying intensity as her mother.

“Okay, uh, let’s give Uncle Rupert a minute, how’s that?” said Jenny hastily, avoiding eye contact with Giles. “Arty, give it a minute, we’re still dealing with the vase. Ezra, that is very nice of you, definitely go ahead and help with that if you can. Bella—”

“Bella, I was wrong to give you the go-ahead to break the vase,” said Giles.

Jenny froze. Donovan looked a little startled. Nora, however, looked incredibly satisfied, which sent a rush of warm relief through Giles from top to toe. “Then why’d you do it?” demanded a visibly affronted Bella. “You said you didn’t mind!”

“I—” Giles exhaled, trying his best to sort through his thoughts. “Your mum was correct,” he finally said. “Even if I don’t mind things in the house being broken, it still presents a-a safety concern. You might hurt yourself or someone else in the process of breaking something that can shatter. No one wants that to happen, certainly not during vacation.”

“But you said—”

“I didn’t think of it beforehand,” Giles explained. “I should have. That was my responsibility, and I apologize. I’ll be more considerate in the future.”

Bella looked genuinely crestfallen. Wordlessly, she hid her face in her mother’s side. Nora let out a soft breath that sounded very close to a laugh and murmured something affectionate in Romani, running a hand through Bella’s hair.

In a low, loud whisper, Art informed Giles, “She says it’s okay, baby, you’ll get to break things some other time.”

A strange tickle on the back of Giles’s neck caught his attention. Following his instincts, he turned to see that Ezra was levitating the shattered pieces of the vase, meticulously reassembling them in midair with something that felt like old family magic. When he realized that Giles was watching, he went pink, the half-assembled vase plummeting immediately to the floor again.

Giles braced himself for the crash, and was therefore quite surprised when it didn’t happen. Nora had stretched out a hand, stilling the vase inches from the floor. “It’s fine, sweet thing,” she said softly. “He’s a caster too. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

“I thought so,” said Bella with satisfaction. “Your aura feels ooky.”

“Ooky isn’t a word,” said Art haughtily. “It’s more like—blergh. Like glumph.”

“Those aren’t words either!” Bella objected indignantly. “Mama—”

“Do you want me to discipline your cousin for daring to invent the concept of onomatopoeia?” said Nora, visibly amused. “I’m fairly certain that he’s not the first one to do such a thing.”

“Somehow, I feel certain that there’s a Language Jail in this creepy old mansion,” said Jenny under her breath.

“Language Jail?” Giles echoed, a smile twitching across his face as he attempted to battle it back.

Without looking at him, Jenny said, “Yeah, you know, where they put the repeat offenders? The guys who don’t use similes and metaphors correctly? That seems like something that Rupert’s family would definitely have in its ancestral home.”

“Ah, yes,” said Giles. “Third floor, second door to your left. Off you go, Art.”

Art was laughing, Nora was smiling, and Bella was clearly fighting back some giggles of her own. Ezra, however, had focused back in on the vase, carefully puzzling it back together. The mending job was clumsy, clearly a spell cast by a child; rather than seamlessly putting the pieces back together into one complete vase, it was adhering the pieces in a way that seemed to make the cracks ever more visible.

“That looks great, honey,” said Jenny softly. “Excellent job. Rupert,” she was still not looking at him, “should we start getting everyone unpacked?”

“What? Oh. Um,” Giles glanced nervously towards the house, “I, I think it should be all right. The house will lead you all to guest rooms, but if it doesn’t—well, just, just keep me apprised, all right? I’ll go ahead and see if it’s set out a path to some bedrooms. Nora, would you—”

“Actually, I’d like to go with Uncle Rupert,” said Stacey suddenly.

Abruptly, Jenny, Nora, and Donovan all went very still. Giles, who hadn’t been expecting this, was halfway to acquiescing when a visibly tense Nora said, “No. Stacia, go help your father with the bags.”

“Mama—”

“Your hearing is perfect. Do not make me repeat myself.” Nora gestured towards the open door.

Indignantly, Stacey followed Donovan outside, Ezra trailing nervously behind. After a moment of consideration, Jenny made to follow suit.

“Mom,” said Art anxiously, “should I go with you? Or—”

“Your call, baby,” said Jenny, turning on her heel to stoop and press a kiss to Art’s forehead. (Giles’s heart swelled; he had to look away.) “I know you wanna spend time with your dad, though, so—”

As naturally as if he’d done it a thousand times, Art tucked his hand into a visibly overcome Jenny’s, bumping the side of his head companionably against her forearm. “I can help with my bags,” he informed her. “But nobody else’s, though. My bags are big. I have two bags and one of them has Sir Lionel in it. I forget which one I put him in, Mom, do you remember—” His chattering continued all the way down the steps, fading slightly as he and Jenny descended out of view.

“Bedrooms,” said Nora, not unkindly.

Giles shook his head, throat tight. “Bedrooms,” he echoed. “Right.”

January 29, 1960

From the Personal Diary of Danica Sykorova

Felix wrote me THE most romantic letter EVER!!!!! I showed it to Mama, ESPECIALLY the part where he says he wants to marry me!!!! Mama said back in November that I’d be lucky if I found a man who wanted me, but here I am being proposed to before I’m even TWENTY. Mama wasn’t proposed to until she was TWENTY-FOUR because NO ONE wanted to marry HER. Papa only married her because he couldn’t marry Coralie’s mother and SHE KNOWS IT. But Felix wants to marry ME, and we’re going to have SO MANY BABIES!!!! Mama only had two babies because she couldn’t have any more, but I’m going to have so many babies that she’s sick with jealousy. I’m going to be an amazing mother and all of my children are going to love me SO MUCH.

I’m not going to have babies YET though. First I’m going to have a whirlwind romance like in the dime novels Mama says I’m not allowed to read, and then I’m going to get married, and it’s going to be somewhere glamorous because Felix says that I can have whatever I want if I marry him. And I will.

I really do love Felix. He’s so sweet. I’ve never met a boy like him before, ever. All the boys who usually try to woo me pretend that they don’t care about me at all and try to get me to chase after them. Felix is like a knight in shining armor. He never tries to hide his feelings for me. He doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t try to pretend to be anything he isn’t just to get me to like him more. All he cares about is making sure I know that he loves me. Nobody ever did that before him.

We’re going to be so happy together.

Chapter Text

Nora’s tension lingered. Giles wasn’t entirely sure what it hinged around. She didn’t say anything to him as he led the way through the house—just followed, jaw set, brow furrowed, as though something else was weighing on her mind. He wanted to ask, but was half afraid that any personal inquiry would lead to her handing him off to Donovan again, and Donovan, while easier to talk to, was much harder for Giles to understand. Yet the summer had taught him turning his eyes away had never been an appropriate solution—

“Rupert,” said Nora somewhat testily, “what is bothering you now?”

Miffed, Giles said without thinking, “I’m simply attempting to figure out what exactly has you so quiet.”

Nora’s eyebrows shot up. Giles instantly regretted saying anything at all. “And you see yourself as entitled to that information?” she said archly.

“Well, that’s—it—” A small and terrifyingly familiar smile danced across Nora’s face. She didn’t need to say or do anything more than that for Giles to get the message. “You’re antagonizing me,” he realized aloud.

“Just a bit,” said Nora.

“To distract me,” Giles persisted.

Nora’s smile slipped. For a moment, she looked startlingly vulnerable.

Giles exhaled. “I don’t think myself entitled,” he said softly. “I just…” He stopped in front of what he certainly hoped was a bedroom door, turning to face Nora. “I do care about you,” he said. “You’ve been incredibly kind to me. Supported me, to the best of your abilities, through…all of this. I know we haven’t known each other very long, but…well, if I can help with anything that has you ill at ease, I’d like to.”

Though her face was still set in that implacably terrifying mask, Giles saw something warm and soft spark to life behind Nora’s eyes. “You are an impossibly compassionate man,” she said, hugging her elbows and looking intently up at him. “Has anyone told you that?”

“Not lately,” said Giles.

Nora smiled wryly. “It’s family business,” she said. “I’ll have to handle it more closely after all of this. Truly, Rupert, don’t worry yourself about it.”

Giles got the message. Casting around for something to change the subject to, he suddenly remembered that there actually was something he’d intended to ask Nora about. “Ah, Nora,” he said tentatively. “I was speaking to Buffy—”

The change in Nora was immediate. The half-conscious relaxation was replaced by a kind of chilly indignance, and she drew back ever so slightly, searching Giles’s face as if looking for some sort of design flaw. She didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him, already rigid with—Giles realized this—the same kind of dislike that he had seen on her in Green Park.

“You don’t like Buffy,” said Giles, unwilling to beat around the bush.

Nora’s face didn’t change. “I don’t,” she said.

“She’s noticed.”

“Good,” said Nora very sharply. Without elaboration, she moved past Giles, opening the door in front of them. “This is a bathroom. Do you know where the bedrooms are?”

“Nora—”

Turning on her heel, Nora said, “She ran my Jenny out of town.”

Giles hadn’t expected this at all. Tamping down his immediate instinct to jump to Buffy’s defense, he said in a carefully level tone of voice, “The same could be said for me.”

“You—” Nora exhaled sharply. “You didn’t know,” she said. “You would have acted differently had you known about Arthur, but she saw you as a father. Janna has been abundantly clear about that.”

“You can’t absolve me and resent Buffy in the same breath,” said Giles, moderating his tone with the hard-earned skill of the Council’s least favorite disciple. The warmth he had felt towards Nora was giving way to a cold fury that he found a struggle to keep controlled. “I’m just as at fault as she is.”

Sharply, Nora said, “Do you want me to believe that, Rupert?”

Something in her tone took Giles off guard. “I-I—what?”

Nora took a step away from the bathroom, beginning to walk down the hall. She didn’t look back behind her. “You have no idea how much it hurt to see her like that,” she said, each syllable slow and precise. “The time it took for her to heal. She left because of Buffy. She would have stayed if not for your ties to that girl, and she made it clear that I was never to blame you for your loyalty to that cult.” She spat the word like it was a curse. “She said you didn’t want to be there. She said that Buffy needed you more than her. She said she wanted to save you the pain that would come from having to choose between your children. Your children. As though the girl you trained needed you more than she did.”

Giles felt sick.

“Who do I blame?” Nora turned on her heel, eyes fixed on Giles. “Janna is the closest thing to a sister that I will ever have. If she tells me that you are a good man, I will believe her, because that is how much I love her. If you tell me that you are just as much at fault as Buffy is…” She trailed off, all but shaking with rage. “She loved you,” she whispered. “I cannot imagine a world where anyone who met her did not immediately understand that. Anyone willing to hold my soft-hearted cousin responsible for a tragedy she could never have prevented is lower than dirt to me.”

Barely a whisper, Giles said, “Didn’t I hold her responsible, Nora?”

Stiffly, Nora shook her head. “Your loyalty was with your Slayer,” she said, “but you loved her. I know you did.”

“Nora, you can’t—”

“I have to.” Nora’s voice broke. “I could never forgive you, never even look at you, if you played any real part in hurting Janna. And you’re Arthur’s father. They both need you to be a good man.”

“That’s not fair,” said Giles. Keeping the peace no longer seemed important in the face of this. “You’ve no right to place the blame on Buffy’s shoulders.”

He had been right to hesitate when it came to defending Buffy. The temperature in the hallway dropped multiple degrees in a way that could only be magical. “Don’t you dare defend that girl,” said Nora furiously. “What she did to Jenny—”

“What I did,” Giles retorted. “What I did to Jenny. You don’t get to pick and choose, Nora, and you aren’t half as objective as you claim to be if you refuse to entertain the possibility that I’m not a fit parent for Art to be around. Quite frankly, it’s beginning to seem to me as though Jenny might be the best judge of character when it comes to me. At least she has enough sense to not want to be around me.”

“Oh, the self-flagellation!” Nora was all but shouting now. “Janna did mention this little idiosyncrasy of yours! Do you want to be around your son, Rupert, or do you want to burn the only bridge you have left standing? I’ve been on your side since the very beginning—”

“I won’t have it if it’s at Buffy’s expense!” Giles shouted back.

“It’s always her, isn’t it?” Nora spat. “Her over your own family! She should never have been there when you met Arthur for the first time, she should never have so much as known about him—”

“Didn’t you say that this was about what Jenny wanted?”

“If what Janna wants runs the risk of hurting our family—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Giles and Nora froze. Slowly, both of them turned to look at an infuriated Jenny. “Janna,” said Nora, her voice shaking.

Jenny held up a hand, silencing Nora entirely. Pressing her lips together, she pinched the bridge of her nose, all but trembling with rage. “Both of you are so fucking out of line,” she said. “The kids can hear you. Donovan cast a muffling spell before they caught any of the bad stuff, but they got the shouting. Art’s terrified.”

Tears sprang to Nora’s eyes. Giles turned an incredulous stare towards her. Absolutely all of the furious implacability that characterized Nora was entirely gone. “Oh,” she said, her voice shaking. “Janna, I am so sorry. I—”

“And what do you think this is gonna do when it comes to Stacey, huh?” Jenny demanded. “We’ve already had enough trouble keeping her in line as it is! If she knows that you’re losing your shit—”

“Jenny, this was my fault,” Giles began.

“No!” said Jenny sharply. “It absolutely was not! I have been telling Nora for weeks that her shit with Buffy is absolutely inappropriate, and the fact that she’s decided to take this out on you is ridiculous! Quite honestly, the fact that you didn’t just start fucking screaming at her—”

“You are too kind,” said Nora. Though she still didn’t seem even half as self-possessed as she usually did, there was still a glimmer of lingering fury. “That girl had no right—”

“Nora, Buffy is as much family as Rupert is,” said Jenny. “You are going to have to learn to fucking deal with that.”

“Jenny,” said Giles quietly.

Jenny tensed. She didn’t seem entirely willing to look at him. “What?”

“Nora seems to be under the misapprehension that I had no part to play in your decision to leave Sunnydale,” said Giles. “She describes the situation as though I wasn’t at fault at all.”

“Rupert, I am not having this conversation right now,” said Jenny.

“You never—”

“Do not make this about me. We are going to dissect this at length at some point that is not now.” Jenny moved forward, fingers closing tightly around Giles’s wrist. “Rupert, you have no idea how this house works. Stop trying to play tour guide for no reason. Nora, find the fucking bedrooms, get Don and the kids inside. I need to smooth things over with my baby.”

The look that Donovan gave Giles upon his arrival made shame curl in his stomach. It was, somehow, worse than disapproval—it was disappointment, made even more awful by how immediately he averted his eyes from Giles. It was as though he could hardly even look at him. Giles wasn’t sure what else he could have done in the face of Nora’s anger, but when he saw the way that the children were standing in a miserable little cluster, his shame was magnified tenfold.

Jenny swept forward instantaneously, wrapping Art in a tight hug and cooing to him in Romani. It didn’t escape Giles’s notice that whatever Jenny was saying seemed to be calming the rest of the children as well, and when a tentative Bella moved forward, Jenny bundled her into the hug along with her son.

Giles couldn’t bear to be in the room any longer. Moving quickly past Donovan, he hurried out of the house, all but stumbling down the first few steps before finally falling heavily against a nearby pillar. How had it gone so terribly so fast? He’d thought just one question wouldn’t hurt. Nora had always been reasonable, levelheaded—he had never imagined that this would be lurking beneath it all, and he had never wanted to impact the children in the way that their argument so clearly had.

“Running away?”

Slowly, Giles turned his attention to Stacey. She had shut the front door behind her, and while she had followed him some of the way out of the house, she was still keeping a significant distance between them. “I don’t think that your mother would be happy to know you’re speaking to me right now,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, I actually don’t give a shit,” said Stacey, her gaze cold and hard in the same way that Nora’s had been only a handful of minutes ago. “Mom’s pissed, you guys were fighting, whatever. No one’s gonna notice if I give you my two cents on this whole,” she waved a hand, “thing you have going on.”

“This isn’t a good time—”

“You miss the part where I said I don’t give a shit?” Stacey took a step forward. She was all but shaking. “Sit the fuck down, Uncle Rupert.”

Giles stayed standing. He couldn’t find it in himself to leave.

“You left my aunt,” said Stacey.

Whatever Giles had been expecting from Stacey, it wasn’t that. Bewildered by the accusation, he said, “I-I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“I-I-I’m sorry, I don’t—” Stacey mimicked, putting on an affected British accent. “God. I have literally no idea how you managed to trick her into thinking that you were ever actually worth anything. You know Aunt Jenny used to say that everything good about Art was from you? He’d get a good grade on a test, he’d do something ultra cute, and she’d be like he gets that from his dad. And that always made me think—wow, you’ve gotta be some special guy, right?”

If at all possible, Giles felt even worse.

“The babies don’t remember,” said Stacey. “They were too little to remember when Aunt Jenny showed up. Ezra was just a toddler, and Bella couldn’t even talk yet. But I—” She hugged her elbows, staring intently at Giles. “I was little,” she said, the faintest tremor to her voice, “but I wasn’t too little to miss how special Aunt Jenny was.”

She flipped out her wrist, then, showing Giles her bracelet: protective charms. Ancient runes.

“She gave me this when I was twelve,” she said. “She said she’d always meant to give it to her oldest daughter, if she ever had one. I remember I tried to get her to take it back, but she said Stacey, even if I have a little girl somewhere down the line, you’re still always going to be this family’s oldest daughter. And I hated that I was the oldest daughter, before she came. I can’t do magic. My whole family can do magic, but I can’t.” She was very clearly trying not to cry. “Aunt Jenny showed up and she couldn’t either. She made it cool. I used to want to be magical so badly, but when I was six, that part of me stopped hurting, because I saw that—that it could be okay. That I could still be—incredible.”

The thought of Jenny taking a little girl under her wing—taking all of these children under her wing, effortlessly—

“And you left my aunt,” said Stacey. “You left her. I know she left you first, I know that, but it’s been eight fucking years. You have had eight years to find her, and you never even tried. And, what, now you decide that you want her back just ‘cause you found out about Art? That is bullshit. You don’t get to just show up and act like you actually want to be a part of this family when all you want is a shot at being a dad. Nobody asked for you here. We were fine without you.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “My Aunt Jenny is crazy in love with you. You are going to break her heart again. And she and my parents keep acting like it’s fine and like I’m not supposed to be mad at you, but I am. I am so mad at you. You are a total asshole, and I hate you, and I want you to know that you are never going to win me over. Never. You didn’t once come looking for my aunt.”

Giles met her eyes, unflinching. Something knocked off-kilter by Nora felt as though it had been righted again.

“Aunt Jenny is the most incredible person in the entire world,” said Stacey fiercely. “If she left us, we would never stop looking for her.”

It was a strange thing, to be struck speechless without it exactly hurting. Giles took in her words, turning them over with some kind of strange relief. “You don’t blame Buffy,” he said.

“I don’t give a shit about your Slayer!” Stacey spat. “You’re an asshole!”

“Yes,” said Giles, meeting her eyes. “I think I am.”

Stacey drew back. Tears were beginning to spill down her cheeks. “You’re not even gonna fight me on this?” she demanded. “You—you’re not gonna tell me—” She was obviously trying her very best to hide it, but she was starting to really cry. Without waiting for Giles’s response, she took a stumbling step back, then turned on her heel and all but sprinted inside.

Giles watched her go. He felt strange and hollow inside. He hadn’t imagined that they would be angry—at Buffy, at him, at anyone, really. They had seemed so idyllic, so happy, so untouched by the dysfunction of the Hellmouth—but he had wounded Jenny, deeply, in a way that none of them could forgive. Stacey’s anger, at least, seemed properly directed.

He closed his eyes. Let a single tear tumble down his own face. Then, pulling out his cell phone, he dialed the only number he’d ever bothered to memorize.

Two rings. Then, irritably, “Giles, you do remember that there’s a time difference, right? It’s like three in the morning here—”

“How was your day?” Giles asked. His voice caught.

A startled silence. Much softer, Buffy said, “Is everything okay?”

“No,” said Giles. Then, “Yes.” Then, “I—I found out why Nora doesn’t like you.”

“Oh yeah?”

Giles swallowed. “She blames you. For what happened to Jenny.”

Another silence. After a little while, Buffy said, “…Huh.”

The lack of any sort of sadness in Buffy’s voice took Giles by surprise. “You’re not…hurt?”

“…No,” said Buffy. If Giles wasn’t mistaken, she almost sounded like she was smiling. “I, um…” She was quiet for a long time. Giles waited. “I don’t know if I ever really forgave myself for that,” she said. “And—I know on some level that it wasn’t anybody’s fault, or maybe it was everybody’s fault, but I still always felt like I could have made things better.”

“Buffy—”

“Just listen, Giles.”

Giles shut his mouth.

“I used to…I would cry about it sometimes,” Buffy continued, shockingly steady. “I had, like, three therapy sessions in a row last year where I was just talking about how maybe I accept shitty treatment from you because I feel like I ruined your only functional relationship. This was hard for me. It took me a really long time to come to a place where I could—I don’t know, forgive myself? Or maybe let myself believe that it wasn’t my fault? I’m still not sure which one it is. Kind of depends on the day.”

Giles was suddenly very grateful that Buffy and Nora were no longer in the same country. Buffy’s quiet acquiescence placed next to Nora’s blazing fury…well. Despite Buffy’s measured description of the situation, he was absolutely certain that hearing Nora’s own words would have hurt her very deeply.

“But I think the hardest part for me was Ms. Cal—um, Ms. Cervenak,” said Buffy.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. The not knowing.” Buffy exhaled. “I had no idea what happened to her, and I…I didn’t want to track her down, make things harder for her. So I…” She sniffled, then laughed. “I’m really glad she’s got someone going to bat for her like that,” she said. “I always felt so bad. Her family seemed kinda vengeance-y, and not all that great, at least from what we heard of them, so I didn’t—I was always really worried that she didn’t have anywhere to go, or anyone who would take care of her.”

“…Oh,” said Giles. Tears had sprung to his eyes. “Oh, Buffy.”

“I’m…she can be mad at me,” said Buffy. Another tearful laugh. “I’m okay with that. I mean, you said it too, right? We can work it out. We’re family.”

Giles squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to force the tears back down. Never had he loved Buffy more. “I am so proud of you,” he whispered. “And so—so sorry. She has no right to be this angry with you. I have every intention of—”

“Giles, just…give it some time, okay?” said Buffy softly. “This isn’t something that can just snap back into place.”

“I’m beginning to understand that,” said Giles thickly.

“And look, you don’t have to go to bat for me if Nora’s coming for my throat,” Buffy continued. “Let her be mad. I think this is going to be really hard for everybody, at least at first, and—I don’t want to make it even harder. Especially not for Nora. She’s done so much to take care of Ms. Cervenak, a-and if this is part of that—”

“Buffy, you aren’t acceptable collateral damage,” said Giles.

A moment of startled silence. Then, a little shakily, Buffy said, “That—um, I really—that means a lot to me, Giles, but—”

“But nothing,” said Giles. “I’ll concede that I might have to ease off Nora on the issue, but I certainly won’t be letting the matter drop entirely. Jenny has made it incredibly clear that she wants you to have some sort of relationship with Art if it is at all possible, and you’ll need to be on reasonable terms with Nora for that to happen.”

“You don’t have to—”

“You’ll not talk me out of looking out for you.” Giles swallowed, then forced the words out. “I love you.”

Buffy drew in a trembling breath. He could almost see her, in that moment—hands tight around the phone, holding it like a lifeline, her own eyes tightly shut at just the words. He knew how much she’d wanted to hear this. Years, and he’d only started telling her now. “I love you too, Giles,” she whispered, only barely audible.

“Good.” Giles blinked a few times. “Yes. Then—I, I should—sort this out. Somehow. I just—” Truth. “I, I missed you.”

A sniffling laugh. “I didn’t know you could miss me.”

“I’ve always missed you, Buffy.”

“You have a really weird way of showing it.”

“I am fairly certain that this summer has been demonstrating that in spades.”

Buffy laughed again. “Okay. I gotta go to sleep. Are you…” She trailed off. “Is, um, everything okay over there?”

“I…don’t know,” said Giles. “But I know that I will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage.”

“Damage? No, you know what, I don’t wanna know. I’m staying uninvolved. I’m prioritizing my mental health.”

“Definitely do that,” said Giles. “This is positively nightmarish.”

A third laugh. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed making Buffy laugh like that. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “Ms. Cervenak's totally rooting for you.”

August 17, 1945

Dearest darlingest Tom,

Thank you so much for the books! Mum and Dad have been positively FURIOUS, but seeing as we’re engaged, they can’t say a word about my reading material if my husband-to-be has entirely approved it. I’ve been having incredible amounts of fun reading demonology volumes at breakfast and talking VERY LOUDLY about how you’re planning to let me come along on your Watcher-related missions. My goal is to push Mum into a daily conniption. It’s going quite well so far.

More seriously, thank you for doing this for me. It’s made my life so much easier. I honestly can’t imagine what you’re getting from an arrangement like this. Most of the fellows at the Council would never have even THOUGHT of a feigned engagement, let alone SUGGESTED one, but you—well, you’ve opened the doors to me in the cleverest possible way. Mum and Dad won’t say a word about what I'm up to if they think it’ll jeopardize my potential marriage, and they CAN’T say a word anyway when it’s Edna Fairweather’s son taking me all around London on covert research investigations.

Speaking of research investigations—I’m including with this letter two of the books you’ve sent me! I left my research notes in the margins. Don’t you dare make faces at me, Tommy, books NEED a bit of character or else they’re dreadfully stiff. I even drew some pictures for you! If you flip to page 23, you’ll find an excellent little tableau meant to represent that one disembowelment we were looking into last week. I’m not the best artist, but I’m sure you’ll be able to tell that the stick figure that’s got a little flower in the hat is very obviously me.

Oh my goodness, and thank you for the hat! I entirely forgot about that until I wrote that bit about the stick figure just now. It’s awfully nice of you to give me gifts like we’re really engaged. You’re awfully nice. You’re sort of the nicest person I’ve ever met, actually.

I’m really looking forward to seeing you Monday! I’ll be wearing the hat you gave me! I made Mum buy me a coat to match it. I know it’s not exactly Watcher-approved to dress all gaudy and silly, but whenever I wear bright colors, you smile, and I do like your smile. Oh, gosh, I think I’ll cross that part out, it sounds as though—never mind.

Best,

Alice

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.