Today's word count = 1,039

[hobgoblinn]

21,216 / 50,000
(42.4%)

Well, I now have a synopsis for the remainder of this story, and gee, I'm not trying to anything very impossible. (That's sarcasm, by the way. In case you were wondering.) As you'll see at the end of this section, I've got people converging back on London. As if I didn't have enough characters to juggle already. But-- this is what happened. People who think writers are in any kind of control at all are delusional. I'm just along for the ride, and trying to describe what I see these people doing. And hoping they keep letting me watch them do it.

Does anybody else feel like this? Does anybody else find the act of writing a story a kind of leap of faith, that you'll continue to get what you need, when you need it, to carry the tale forward? It's a rush, yes, but it's also quite harrowing.

Anyway, here's the next bit, kind of long. At least I've worked out now why Giles' research is about to be important. And I've got a decent backstory, too. As always, comments and criticisms most welcome.



Mother and Child, continued




*****




Giles watched the door click shut behind Willow and the girl. His daughter. He felt it, though the feeling was merely a confirmation of the unmistakable resemblance. He turned back to the child’s mother. “Lillian, why...” he began, then stopped, not sure what to ask first. Or whether or not he wanted the answers. To anything.




Lillian sighed. “Where should I begin? You left. I found I was pregnant a few weeks after. The way we left things, I didn’t know where to start, even had I wanted to find you. I was still so angry with you. And I didn’t want you to come back, just because of the baby. And part of me knew that in any event, you wouldn’t.” A tear trickled down her pale, drawn face. “I didn’t think I could bear it if you chose your career over us, again.”




“It’s not a career,” Giles began in protest. He stopped himself, then began again, more softly, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t make you understand that.”




She nodded, then went on. “Well, it wasn’t quite the way I had planned it, but I did want a family. I wasn’t getting any younger, and I knew my income alone could provide a comfortable life for us. As time went by, I often thought of trying to find you, but I never worked up the courage. Didn’t know what to say.”




Giles came over and sank down into the chair Willow had pulled out, facing hers. “And does she know? Who I am?”




Lillian shook her head slightly. “Not as such, no. She knows her father is very brave, and he has a dangerous job, and that he stays away to keep us safe.” She chuckled, though it seemed more like a sob. “Guess that explanation is about to get blown out of the water.”




Giles took both her hands in his and gave a tight smile. “Not an explanation I envy your having to make,” he agreed. “But,” he gripped her hands more tightly, comfortingly. “This dangerous man will do everything in his power to keep you safe. Both of you. All right?”




She nodded. “I believe you, Rupert. Tell me what you want me to do.”




He released her hands and pulled out a pen and a small notebook from his inside jacket pocket. “Well you could start by telling me what’s been going on. Last night, for instance. Was it the first such incident?”




“I believe so.” But she sounded uncertain. At Giles’ questioning look, she continued, “Look, it might have been nothing. But after last night....”




She gathered her thoughts, then said, “All right. Last weekend, we drove out to the country to visit my Aunt Charlotte. You remember the place?”




Giles nodded. “Of course,” he said quietly. He had proposed to her there, in the garden, on a fine May morning, about six weeks before he had been called as Watcher to the current Slayer, alone and defenseless in America.




“Well, it was late when we started back,” Lillian continued. “And you know, there are so seldom other automobiles on those old byways. But that night, someone was following us. We were almost to the outskirts of the city before they turned off. But I remember, it made me uneasy, and I couldn’t figure out why.”




“Hmm.. Do you remember where it turned off?”




“Twickenham Road, I think,” Lillian said, after a moment’s thought.




“All right.” Giles was hastily scribbling something in his book. Then he leaned forward and took her hands again. “We will get to the bottom of this, I promise.” He then rose, pulled the telephone towards him, and began punching in numbers rapidly. His whole demeanor had changed. He was not the stammering museum curator she remembered. She wondered when he had become so cool and decisive.




“Yes, this is Rupert Giles,” he was saying into the handset. “I need a psychic team dispatched to <>. They need to take the route <> and see if they can pick up anything unusual. Incident happened about a week ago. Also, I need a house checked. Hang on.” He looked up at Lillian, and she quickly supplied her address, which he relayed to the clerk on the other end of the line. “Yes,” he continued. “Place the standard protective wards up when you’re finished. And we’ll need to add that address to the duty roster. I want a round the clock guard on the occupants. They’re here now getting a medical screen, so have the first team meet them in the infirmary within the hour. Andrew should be there now-- he can take care of the details.”




Giles replaced the handset and stared at it for a moment. Then, without looking up, he said, “I do have one question. I understand why you haven’t contacted me in all these years. I have been a hard man to reach, especially the past few years. I doubt you could have located me, even had you tried. But how is it you knew to come here now?” He turned and focussed intense green eyes on hers.




She pulled a card from her purse. It bore the new Watcher’s Council emblem, the one Andrew had badgered him about until he had given in and allowed him to design it. “Rupert Giles,” it read. “Watcher’s Council International. 78 Gower Street, London.” He took it and examined it carefully.




“Ah. I wasn’t aware Andrew had gotten these printed up yet. I suppose one of the Slayers who assisted you last night gave this to you?”




“No. The girls kind of disappeared into the crowd as the police arrived.” Giles nodded in approval. That was standard procedure. “I found this slid under my front door this morning,” she continued. “I assumed one of your people must have come by and I just hadn’t heard the bell. I came here straight away.”




Giles frowned. “We might want to have someone examine this, too,” he said thoughtfully. “I was having my team research the incident, never, of course, dreaming you would be involved. But you arrived here before they had tracked you down. I’m almost certain none of my people left you this.”




He thought for a moment, then looked up at her again. “Will you trust me?” he asked. She nodded. He continued, “I think it would be best if we found you quarters in this compound, at least for a few days. I don’t know why someone would be after you, but I don’t want to take any chances. With either of you. All right?”




She nodded, suddenly looking very tired. Giles reached out again and pulled her to her feet, steadying her a little. “And now, I think we need to get you to Medical, do a quick check. I’ll show you the way.”




They rode the lift in silence, and mother and daughter were reunited in the Infirmary, the daughter telling her mother that there were these cool demon embryos in jars in Dr. Martin’s office, and Andrew had offered her cookies, which she had taken so as not to appear rude and.... Giles let the lovely prattle wash over him for a moment, then slipped out quietly and headed back to his office without a word.




****




Willow watched Giles’ face as he came in with Lillian, saw it at peace for a moment, for the first time in she could not remember when. Then she saw it shut down, as the weight of these new responsibilities pressed in on him again. She knew, of course. Ellen was more than a close relative. She was his daughter. And more, though he didn’t know that part yet.




She slipped out soon after Giles and took the stairs up to his office, where she knew he’d retreated when he’d left them. She needed a little time to think. She hated having to be the bearer of such tidings to him, on a day when he’d already suffered enough shocks for a lifetime. But he had to know. As her father, and as a Watcher.




Willow tapped lightly on the office door and entered without waiting for an invitation. Giles was staring out his window overlooking the street below, his hand pulling the curtain back. He let his hand drop and glanced up, looking unsurprised to see her. He sighed heavily. “Willow, I think I would prefer to be alone just now.”




“I know.” She made no move to go, however, merely watched him with gentle concern. He turned back to the window.




It was a long while before he broke the silence. “We live in such a terrible world,” he said, so quietly she had to strain in order to hear it. “What kind of place is this, for a child?”




Willow stepped forward, raised her hand as if to touch his shoulder, then let it drop. “I imagine a lot of parents feel that way, at first. Good parents, anyway.” She doubted her own had given it a second thought.




“Perhaps.” He glanced back, apologetically. “But you aren’t here to console an old man who’s just found he’s a father.”




“I am a little,” Willow said. “I wi-- I mean, I’d like to be able to help. To make things better for you. Even to understand what you’re going through. But I know I can’t.”




He nodded, looking suddenly much older. “Thank you,” he replied, woodenly.




Willow drew a deep breath. There was no easy way to say this. “Giles,” she began slowly, “There’s something you need to know. I had the docs check to be sure, that what I was feeling was true. Ellen-- she’s not part of the Watcher line-- she’s part of the Slayer line.”




Giles looked up into her eyes at that, stricken. “That’s not possible,” he whispered hoarsely.




Willow knew that it shouldn’t be true. She had done a great deal of research into the Watcher and Slayer lines after the Battle of Sunnydale. From what she’d gathered, the Magicks used to create the Slayer had been crafted so that the Watcher line would never be sullied with the demon blood. Stupid patriarchs. Watchers and Slayers might occasionally marry, even have children if they lived long enough, but those children would not pass down the Slayer blood at all, and they seldom received the Watcher’s call, either. One of the many reasons such relationships were so discouraged.




Willow felt an uncontainable anguish filling the room, hard as she tried to block it out, to give Giles some measure of privacy. “I’m sorry, Giles,” she said. “But it’s true. She even saw the Scythe, as we passed through Memorial Hall, and she knew what it was. She said she’d been having dreams about it.” She inhaled a little shakily. “She’s too young to have reached the Age of Decision yet. But she is definitely a Potential.”




****




The world flickered a bit before Giles’ eyes, darkened for an instant. He heard Willow say something, ask a question, he thought, but he wasn’t sure. Then he felt her small hand on his back, and he felt the jolt of the connection, magnified, no doubt, by the highly charged emotions of the day. He tried to pull away, but she laid her face against his chest, holding him tightly, so he could not push her away easily, or without hurting her.




So instead, he breathed in the scent of her shampoo, her innocence. She stirred a little, and he knew she could hear his thoughts. Heard her protest, that she was no more an innocent than he. But she wasn’t like him. He tried to clamp down on it, but it all came flowing forth. The memory of the night he’d killed Randall. Nights with Ethan, when he honestly couldn’t remember all the people they’d hurt with their reckless magicks, and hadn’t cared. The night he’d suffocated the life from Ben, with no remorse whatsoever. Coldly, calculatingly. The moment when he’d conspired to betray Buffy by having Spike killed.




Then there were all the decisions he’d made over the last two years, since they’d thrust him back into the leadership of the Council-- decisions which had sent dozens of young girls to their deaths. Decisions made just as coldly. In that moment, Willow finally understood, why he’d driven them away. Because he couldn’t bear for them to know, exactly what he was. He’d tried to refashion himself, to be a good and decent man, to be a Watcher. But he really was as cold and evil as the nickname he’d chosen. Ripper.




Willow held him tighter. She was sickened by some of the images she’d seen. But she was not so much anymore, with the judgmental. It was more than just that she knew she had no room to condemn, given some of the things she had done. She’d killed a man, too, and she’d enjoyed doing it. She’d tried to kill her best friends, and destroy the world. And she had betrayed the love and trust of this man, not once when she’d tried to kill him, too, but repeatedly as she’d delved into magicks too powerful for her to handle, all through her adolescence.




But she knew now that people were mostly neither good nor evil. They made choices. And the choice to try again to do the right thing, after having done so much wrong, was the hardest one of all, and the hardest to live up to over time. She pushed that thought back through him, and felt her chest burn, felt the heat against her cheek as his wound burned, too.




She felt him relax finally, and then begin to sob. She held him as he released years of self loathing, fear, rage. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but she felt the shift in his energies, as he let go of his guilt, deserved and not. When he finally quieted again, she repeated her question.




“Do you want to tell Buffy first?”




He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief, wiped off his face, pulled himself together. She gave him some space to move, but kept a comforting hand on his upper arm. He sniffed hard, then rasped shakily, “Must we tell her?”




Willow said sadly, “Giles, I know you two haven’t been close lately. But your personal relationship with your Slayer aside, she has to know. Faith, too. I think this is why I had to come back. Something about this is more than just unusual. It’s important. The only question is, which one of us should be the one to tell her?”




She left the tone open-- she really would spare him this, if he wished it. But he made another one of those hard choices she so loved him for, to do the right thing. “I’ll do it,” he said, in a stronger tone. “In fact,” he went on, striving desperately for something like normal, “i--if you can get a teleconference set up, it might be best if we get everyone on the line at once. I... I really would rather have to go through this only the one time,” he finished apologetically.




Willow nodded. “Sure. It might take me a bit to locate Xander, though.” She pulled out the scrying crystal she used when she needed to reach one of their closest companions in a hurry. Then she looked at him more closely.




“Here,” she said, pulling the phone around and dialing, “Let’s get you some tea, okay?” He sank down into the chair behind his desk, not really seeing it, trying to compose his thoughts. Willow issued the request to Andrew’s assistant, to see that tea was brought to the fourth floor conference room, and to make sure any scheduled meetings in there were moved or rescheduled. As she replaced the receiver, Giles looked up at her.




“Willow?” She glanced at him, noting with some relief that he seemed to have regained some color, and that his eyes were not so cold and distant. “Thank you,” he said quietly.




*****




A short time later, Giles and Willow were sitting at the highly polished table in the otherwise empty conference room. Faith was in Cleveland in her bedroom with a cordless phone. Dawn and Buffy were on a speaker phone in their living room in Rome. Xander was patched in by magic, the crystal Willow had given him before he’d left functioning much as a cell phone, only with better reception. Giles cleared his throat.




“I never told you about my life, before I left here for America,” he began. “Though I was technically employed by the Council, I did mostly freelance work for them-- researching, going on occasional archaeological retrieval missions, in places where my studies gave me some expertise about how to deal with the artifacts we might encounter. Mostly, though, I worked as an assistant curator for the British Museum, keeping an eye open for items the Council might wish to be aware of. And it was there, attending one of the interminable fundraising functions which plagued my existence, that I met Lillian <>.”




“She was a bank executive. Beautiful, funny, interested in history and books in ways few people are in this modern world. In short, we fell in love. She wanted a family, and I-- I had no reason to suspect, given my checkered past, that I would ever be anything but a minor researcher for the Council. So, I proposed to her, in May of 1996.”




Buffy’s voice sounded over the speaker. “That was right before Merrick died,” she said quietly.




Giles nodded, though of course she couldn’t see it. “Yes. We were planning a small wedding, intimate friends and family only, when I was summoned to the Council Headquarters and informed that I was to be the next Watcher to the active Slayer. It was unprecedented, really. Usually the Slayer’s Watcher would have been paired with her while she was still a Potential. But this was a special case.”




“At any rate, I couldn’t not go. It’s not just chance that pairs Watcher and Slayer-- there are magicks involved, magicks we may never fully understand now, thanks to the destruction of the Old Council. But I-- I was already part of....” He swallowed hard. “I was already a part of you, Buffy.”




There was silence for a time as everyone absorbed the story. Then Giles said, “And, Faith, I owe you an apology, long overdue. The splintering of the Slayer line left you without a committed Watcher. I never explained, that I couldn’t be that for you both, and my soul was already-- taken. Wesley was never able to take my place, as the Council meant him to, nor was he able to get past his conditioning to be your Watcher. Because he was sent as a political expedient, not because the Watcher Magicks had truly called him. I am sorry I didn’t understand this then. I would have done several things very differently.”




Faith said, “Nothin’ to apologize for, Giles. Forget it.” But she sounded genuinely moved.




Dawn spoke up, hesitantly. “So, what does this have to do with the girl you found today? The new Potential?”




“I’m getting to that,” Giles replied. “You are obviously aware that I did not arrive in America with a wife, or even a fiancee. That was not my choice, but hers.”




He drew a deep breath. “I went to her at once and told her the truth, against all the traditions and regulations of the Council. Who I really was, what the Council did....”




“And she didn’t exactly believe you,” Xander finished for him, his voice sounding in the room as clearly as if he were sitting in the empty chair across the table.




Giles gave a thin smile. “You must admit, it sounds insane. The rules about secrecy are apparently there for a reason. Here I was, telling her that I proposed to leave my comfortable, predictable, middle class life in London to help a girl I’d never met, living in a place halfway across the world, to fight vampires and monsters. I wouldn’t have believed me, either.” There was a long pause. Then Giles said, in a voice almost too quiet for them to hear, “So I decided to show her.”




“I... ah, I took her out to the local cemetery, armed with a few stakes, a couple of crosses, and one small bottle of holy water. I planned to stake a fledgeling just after it rose. And in fact, I did that. But when I turned around, its sire and three rather large minions had come up behind me, no doubt waiting for their new childe to rise.” He gave a shaky chuckle. “We were lucky in the extreme, to escape with our lives.” The smile faded. “And Lillian never forgave me for it. Not just for endangering her, but for showing her that the Monsters were real. She told me she never wanted to see me again, ever. I respected her wishes, of course. I had no way of knowing, until today, that we had conceived a child.”




Willow took up the narrative. “And coincidentally, this daughter of the Head of our Council is not only being targeted by goddess knows what, she's also a Potential.”




“Whoa,” Faith broke in. “I thought we activated all the Potentials, back in Sunnydale. Did I miss something?”




“No,” Giles said. “But Ellen had just turned six when Willow cast the spell. Apparently, there is some lower age limit, before which the Slayer power does not kick in. Judging by the potentials we have located, all had already reached menarche when they felt the call. There have been so many of them, that we hadn’t really gotten to looking for Potentials as such-- we didn’t even know if there would ever *be* any more, after the spell. But apparently, there will.” He sounded very old.




After a short, reflective silence, Buffy asked, “Menar-- what?”




“Menarche,” Willow repeated. “It’s when a girl has her first menstrual period. Usually around 12, though it can happen as young as nine, or as late as 17. Every girl is different. But it marks her first step out of childhood, and into womanhood. It makes sense, that the first Watchers would set it up that way, so nobody younger than that would get the Slayer powers.”




“Yeah,” Xander. “Can you imagine the chaos if....” But he trailed off, as suddenly the thought of a little child fighting, and going to her way too early death, did not seem all that funny. Giles closed his eyes tightly, and Willow laid her hand gently over his.




“So,” Buffy said finally. “Do we know what’s after her yet?”




“Um, no, not yet,” Giles replied, rallying. “I’ve got my people here looking into it, of course, and I’ve arranged rooms for them here.”




“Good,” Buffy said. “Let’s see. I can be on my way back tomorrow. Dawn has classes for another couple of weeks, but....”




“Hey,” Dawn protested. “I’m not going to stay here and do nothing while you....”




“Yes, you are,” Buffy said firmly. “As soon as your classes are over, you can be on the next flight out. And you can take a leave next semester if we haven’t gotten this sorted out by then. But you are NOT going to drop out of school. Not even for an apocalypse. Been there, done that, and you remember how much fun we had when all it left me qualified for was the Doublemeat Palace. Okay?”




Dawn giggled a little. “All right,” she agreed. Willow grinned. Buffy was really doing great at this surrogate mothering now, and Willow was glad for them both.




Giles ran his fingers through his hair tiredly. “I appreciate the offer, Buffy, but I’m not sure this really warrants mobilization for an apocalypse....”




Xander said, “Yeah, but Christmas is coming up, and I think-- didn’t we make sure we put something about time off for holidays in the Employee Handbook?” Willow could see his grin in her mind’s eye as he said it. Then more soberly, he added, “It’ll take me about a week to get to somewhere I can fly out of, maybe longer. But I’ll be there as soon as I can, too.”




Faith cleared her throat. “Uh, look. Things are pretty quiet here at the moment, and I’ve got a couple of girls who could use a little leadership experience. It’s so hard for me to step aside and let them screw up, you know? But sometimes that’s what it takes for some people to grow.”




Giles turned to Willow, tears in his eyes. “I--I don’t know what to say,” he finally choked out, his throat constricted by more of that emotion he’d been repressing all these many months, years, even. She took both his hands in her own and rubbed them gently.




“You don’t need to say anything, Giles,” Buffy said simply. “We love you. And we’re coming home. You two just hang on until we get there.”

Comments

[antennapedia.livejournal.com]

Moving. As in, I'm sniffling. No comments, really, other than that you have achieved the #1 goal of the storyteller: hooking a reader. Wanna find out what happens next.

[thule222.livejournal.com]

Yay, the gang's assembling! Very nice chapter and affecting. Giles is smelling Willow's hair. Hair smellage is something I associate with romance but maybe it's just me.

I do the trust and go forward thing, but I keep charging down blind alleys. Then I have to back track, gets frustrating. But everyone's process is different. This is going very well.

[hobgoblinn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought about that, but I decided his finally being completely present needed a tactile kind of demonstration, and one that was able to circumvent his logic and repression. Sense of smell does that, or it can.

Say, next section's up now, too-- I must have finished posting it just as you wrote this. Enjoy. And thanks for the encouragement.

Hob