Chapter Text
Ethan Rayne: We used to be friends, Ripper. When did that all fall apart?
Rupert Giles: The same time you started to worship chaos.
Ethan Rayne: Oh religious intolerance. Sad, there. I mean, just look at the Irish troubles.
“A New Man,” Season 4
When Buffy died, the first time, after the Master, after tripping into water, Giles received a notecard. The card was imprinted with the mark of Eyghon, so Giles knew exactly who it came from. He vaguely wondered what trouble the printing shop had seen after they’d been hired to print the symbol on the ostentatious luxe cream-colored paper for Ethan. A fire, a flood in the back shop, inexplicable errors in their computers leading to constant misprints on their work? Maybe their payroll system had gone wonky, or staff kept quitting with no explanation.
Wherever Eyghon’s mark appeared, chaos reigned.
As Giles went to his small desk, where he kept his ritual salt, to leech the power away from the card before burning it, he took the time to read it. It had come all the way from England, after all. Home.
Pretty chance-y, wasn’t it? Trusting a teenage girl? Signed with a swirling ‘E,’ of course.
Giles snorted and carefully placed the card on a plate he didn’t care about from the kitchen. He dumped all of the salt on it and the card. It would lay in a tucked-away corner until the new moon when the plate would be broken, the salt could be brushed away, and the card destroyed.
Buffy was alive. Ethan was across the ocean.
That night, Giles dreamed of loss.
—--------------------------
It was all rather embarrassing to Giles. When he’d chosen to be a Watcher, to go back to his father’s dreams for him rather than his dreams for himself, he’d accepted that he would be mentoring very, incredibly, young women. Obscenely young, really. He’d known, going into it, that the Chosen One would always be a very terribly teenager-y teen.
The Watchers had all sorts of theories about why, of course. All sorts of piffle about menstrual cycles and the moon, ordained paths and sacrifices, purity of spirit, and bravery of the young. Some of the newer Watchers were quite honest and open about their own theories about why young women made the best vampire bait. Giles thought that group was rather ignoring that vampires could be women too. He hadn’t noticed that vampires were ever all that picky about the gender of the people they fucked, but honestly, wouldn’t you think a female vampire would, just once in a while, want a young man?
No, Giles had known in his twenties why the Chosen Ones were always teen girls. He had stood in his father’s study, watching the spittle flying out of his father’s mouth as he ranted - no welcoming the prodigal son here - and had come to the fundamental understanding that the Watchers were about control. His father had lost control over Rupert. Rupert had lost control over himself. Now his father would have control over Rupert again.
Watchers wanted to control vampires but didn’t actually want to fight the demons themselves. Teenage girls were the ultimate in malleable humans - just watch how they contorted their personalities to match the groups of people around them. Control one girl at a time, one really physically strong one, and send her out to fight the monsters in the dark.
And since Rupert had stared at one of the monsters in the dark in the eye and watched his friend die a terrible death, he was now willing to be controlled by his father and the other Watchers. Accept his fate and let a teen girl go out into battle for him.
At twenty-five, well, he’d known teenage girls were young. In his 40s? After meeting his own Chosen One? The girl killed vampires, and Rupert still worried for her taking the SAT soon. She was indescribably young, prone to annoying slang, who existed in a cloud of overly sweet perfume, pink lip gloss, and innocence. She was a child.
And he had had sex with her mother. On the bonnet of a car, just like a teenager himself.
He fucking hated Ethan Rayne.
—-------------------------------
Buffy died a second time. This time, there was no resurrection. No CPR could bring her back. There was just this. Rupert in a black suit and a tie. It was an old bespoke suit, one his father had paid to have tailored for him back in his thirties. He’d paired it with a black tie, looking in the mirror, wondering when he’d gotten so old. Everything hurt in his body. Everything hurt in his soul.
The day they buried Buffy, it hit him in snatches and fits, nothing ever quite resolving into meaning. He had noticed that morning that his house was filled with the scent of smoke; Spike was chain-smoking in his grief, and Giles hadn’t had the heart to tell him to stop. He’d wondered if the smoke had been what upset Willow’s stomach. The sun had barely risen yet that day, and he’d been crouched by the redhead’s side in the downstairs powder room as she heaved.
It was probably just the loss of Buffy, though.
A little later and he’d fixed Xander’s tie for him. His fingers fumbled as he did it, and he’d been ashamed of his fleeting thought that the boy’s father should have been doing this for him instead. He’d met Mr. Harris on several occasions, and no, the man wasn’t capable of handling this for Xander.
But dammit, neither was Giles. The loss of Buffy… It was the loss of everything in Giles’ life. Everything he had worked for, for the past twenty years, was gone because an Elder God had gotten too full of herself. The hole where Buffy should have been was an aching void, a howling wind. He didn’t feel capable of taking care of anyone either.
And yet, somehow, he’d found himself making grilled cheeses for Anya and Dawn later, after the tie-tying, shooing Dawn away to get her dress on after she ate, and once again, trying to explain death to a former demon in the hopes that she could get through the funeral without hurting Buffy’s friends somehow.
Spike had swung through the kitchen during the “No, I don’t know where Buffy’s soul went. I don’t have a good grasp on where my soul will go” part of the conversation and had fortunately acted, very unlike his usual self, as the other adult in the house. He had eyed Giles warily and then started the tea kettle wordlessly. Giles had pressed his hands to his eyes and let out a sob as Spike said, “Love, Anya, read the room. None of them are holding together well. Vampires and priests go together as well as cheese and chalk, but I swear to you, I’ll find you a priest you can bother with all your questions about heaven if you let all of them alone today. Including Giles, okay?”
Spike had patted Giles’ arm as he spoke. Giles hadn’t ever really touched vampires before. Spike’s hands were cold. Like ice. He could feel the cold through his shirtsleeves. Buffy was probably that cold too. He sobbed again. Spike hugged him then, and there was no breath from the vampire.
It was all so awful, and Spike was trying to be kind.
Even later, there was the funeral home. And the graveside service. The less said about those, the better. Just sobbing children, wrecked, and Giles was wrecked too.
A note from Ethan had come in the mail. The same mark on the card, so he’d sent Anya to the magic shop for salt as he opened it.
It’s time to come home, don’t you think? I’ve made arrangements to have your rooms cleaned at Headquarters. Your dad is quite chuffed. I put a spell on him. He’ll be quiet. Come home. Again signed with a swirly ‘E.’ Giles allowed himself to think about England. Think about home.
He looked at Xander and Willow and Dawn and Tara and even Spike, the vampire who had made him tea this afternoon, and he couldn’t go home.
He layered the card with the salt that Anya had brought back on a plate where someone had put funeral cookies. Eventually, that plate would have to be smashed in anger anyway. It could wait until the new moon.
—-------------------------------------------------
The towers fell. Giles had been young and wild once, long ago, and he’d run into a fortune teller at a carnival, and he’d fucked her, all sugar-sweet from candy floss and fizzy drinks, and she had read tarot after.
“You’ll go home after the buildings fall in New York.”
“I’m home now, love.”
She’d snickered at him, cutting sly eyes. “My trailer is NOT your home. This circus? Not your home. You may try to hide it, but your accent is all upper-class, all Oxford.”
He’d swung his arms around her, squeezed her. “Cambridge, actually. Before that, Eton. But fuck all of that.” He’d looked around at her trailer strung with cheap scarves and pictures of her friends. Most of them looked unsavory. He loved it. “I want to be with you!”
She’d kissed him on the cheek. “For a couple of weeks, perhaps. We can slum it with each other until we get tired of it.” She tapped the cards. “Look. This is years and years in the future. The buildings will fall, and you’ll come home.”
“Mmmm, and I’ll be away from home? Years and years in the future. Where will I be?”
“With the girl, the one that you choose.”
Something had walked on his grave then. “The Chosen One?”
She eyed him, hearing the capitals in his phrasing. “If you like. She’s chosen; I know that.”
“There is no Chosen One in my future.”
“Oh, there is, darling. She’s all over the cards. All over. And she’ll die, the buildings fall, and you’ll come home.”
The sweetness of the sugar turned to ashes in his mouth, and that had been the end of his conversation with the fortune-teller. He’d slammed the door to her home as he’d left.
And there he was, in his future, the one that Selena had seen (actual name Sara, he’d had a friend of his father check). Buffy was dead, and he was running a failing business with a bitchy former demon (whom he loved like a daughter, but she was still bitchy), puttering around the store, turning on the radio, only to hear that the towers had fallen. Had fallen something like three hours ago. He just hadn’t watched the news.
He was always, always just a step too late. He’d killed Glory, in Ben, but not soon enough to save Buffy. He could feel Xander and Willow hiding something around him, but he couldn’t see around them to see the shape of it. He felt tired and old.
And now the buildings had fallen. But he wasn’t going home.
Later, he’d shooed Anya home from the store to let her sit with Xander, who had picked her up, somehow even more haunted and grief-stricken than he’d been the day before. Those poor children. Buffy…
Buffy had brought friends in, which wasn’t traditional in any sense with Slayers. And now they were all broken and broken-hearted having watched her die, even though that’s what Slayers did. They died. All the time, all those girls. And now, the buildings had fallen.
Rupert turned on the TV in the breakroom, doubting that anyone would visit the shop today but not wanting to leave it. He saw the flit of an angel in the corner of his eyes at the scene in the City. Watchers could see both the dark and the light, even if their Slayers couldn’t, the vampires and the angels. If angels were there, it was meant. The falling of the buildings with all of their people was meant. He wanted to vomit.
He rubbed his eyes and opened his email, checking a few messages from vendors with notices about shipment. There was a message from Ethan.
My dear chap. Are you okay? I know you’re on the opposite side of the country, but what a terrible thing. What a devastating thing. I cannot imagine. Phones, actually - I’ve tried to call you since I saw it on the news, but everyone must be calling everyone in the States. I just get busy signals.
Are all of yours safe? Will - he’s worried about his husband. He was in NYC for something, some agricultural thing. What a Welsh farmer would need to be in NYC for, I don’t know. I know you and Will passed briefly in the areas you both work, so spare a thought for him, but I know you must be heartsick.
Please, I know you and I haven’t got the best thing going and haven’t for decades, but we loved each other once. Please email back. Let me know if you’re safe.
Your rooms are still ready, waiting for you. I’ll have them cleaned again if you decide to come back.
He hadn’t willingly talked to Ethan in decades, this was true. Every card Ethan had sent had been salted and burned. Every phone call - well, there was a period in the eighties, before Caller ID, where Giles would pick up the phone and Ethan would be crying on the other end, and Giles would listen, heart-in-his-mouth, silent. Fortunately, technology had advanced, and that no longer happened.
Rupert wasn’t entirely sure where Ethan had gotten his email address, but he was right. Rupert had maintained contact with various people still, in normal London and not-normal London. One of these people probably passed on information they shouldn’t have. After all, one of their joint friends told Giles that Ethan had been released from the Initiative. Enough for Rupert to know that he was safe and still himself.
There was enough of a tether there, just barely, to write back.
I’m fine. After all, as you said, I’m in California. A continent away. Yes, it’s a terrible thing. My friends, as far as I know, are fine. There may be a few people teaching somewhere in the City. I don’t know; I haven’t had time to think about it. But the people I love the most are fine: Willow, Xander, and Dawn. And Anya and Tara. All fine. Here in California.
I’m sorry to hear of Will’s worries. When the phones are back up, have him call me. I’ll listen. Of course, I’m sure Bran is fine, so there is no need to call if all is well later.
Thank you for the offer to have the rooms cleaned. I don’t know why they haven’t been reassigned yet. They should be. My home isn’t in England. It’s here. I’m fine.
An email came a moment later. Ethan must have been sitting in his email box, waiting.
Home is where they always have to take you in. Even when you’re tired and heart-sick. If you need it, you know where home is. Best - Ethan.
—-----------------------------------------
As it turned out, Spike had not, in fact, gone to find Anya a priest, after making Giles the tea. If he had, perhaps all this would have been different. Buffy might not be so broken now, so hollow. She’d actually been in heaven, not hell. Forced to break through her own casket, just like a vampire rising, after her friends had done the unthinkable. Brought her back.
And Giles had had to learn that in a fucking song. A fucking song.
He broke down. For the first time in 22 years, he spoke willingly to Ethan. From a phone at the airport so he couldn’t be tracked by his own number. Telling him he was coming home and to pick him up at Heathrow.
No, he didn’t wish to see his father. Yes, he’d be willing to get drunk with Ethan the moment he got off the plane. Please make sure he ended up in a clean, boring hotel after, not in the memory-haunted halls of Headquarters. Not just yet.
He went to the bar, swallowed two whiskies, neat, and wished to die. Then he boarded the plane.