Trust - Chapter 2

"So," Buffy said, when they were waiting for the first stoplight after Giles's place. "Sebastian, huh?"

Not taking his eyes from the light, the younger Giles extended his right hand sideways, toward her. "Sebastian Delacoeur, yes."

"Not Sebastian Giles?" Buffy took the hand, which was nice and strong like her Giles's hand, but not the least bit callused. She felt suddenly fairly wide awake, and very curious.

"No," he answered, putting both hands back on the wheel when the light turned green. "Not Giles."

"But he's your dad, right?" It amazed her, watching his profile, how completely alike the two of them looked: the same identical jaw, the same nose (except that, obviously, Giles Junior's had never been broken) the same high forehead. "Are you a Watcher too?"

Sebastian shook his head. "No, Buffy, I'm not a Watcher."

"But you know about stuff, right? Our kind of stuff?"

This time, she got a nod. "My work...my previous work, that is...was in a similar field."

"Demon hunter?" she asked, totally joking. Sebastian looked way too GQ to have ever crawled through a sewer looking for creepy crawlies.

"Exorcist."

"Oh." What was she supposed to say to that? "Then, you're..."

"A priest, yes." She got from him, suddenly, one of those goofy little Giles-smiles, like the one he'd had when Xander made that Moon Pie joke, ages ago. And how weird was it that she remembered practically every time Giles smiled?

Probably, because it hardly ever happened. The prom aside, she usually got Giles looking, worried, or tired, or stressed--or let's face it, annoyed, and usually with her. Which made Buffy wonder, suddenly, if he ever felt really happy here in Sunnydale, or if he was always borderline homesick, and lonely--especially since Miss Calendar died.

"An Anglican priest," Sebastian added. "In case you had any thoughts about the wedding ring."

Buffy found herself laughing. "I didn't, but I would have in a little bit. 'Cause I'm, like, incurably nosy."

"I prefer the term 'inquisitive' myself," he said, laughing--a soft, rich, warm sound that made her, suddenly, like Sebastian a lot, even though she hardly knew him. In her line of work, Buffy got to hear way too much evil laughter, which made her appreciate the normal kind that much more.

After that, things got quiet for a few blocks, until Buffy decided to jump in with, "I'm glad you're here. With, you know, him." She noticed that they'd stopped right in front of her house, and wondered how Sebastian had known the way--Revello Drive wasn't that easy to find, especially if you were new to Sunnydale. Someone must have given really good directions.

"This is me," Buffy said.

Sebastian smiled again. Probably waiting for her to get out of his car.

Instead, Buffy found that her mouth had started running out of control. "Does he tell you things? I mean, if he likes it here? If he likes me?" She felt, suddenly, very shy and at the same time weirdly desperate. "I mean, sometimes even I hate it, and I'm California girl. Doesn't he wish he was back there, in England? And does he tell you when I'm horrible to him? Because I am. Horrible. Really, really horrible."

A second later, to her complete disbelief, Buffy found herself not merely crying but sobbing, right there in a stranger's Enterprise Rent-a-car. And why had she asked him those things anyway? She wouldn't have asked Giles himself, not in a million, trillion years.

"Buffy. Love." Sebastian rubbed her shoulder gently, pushing a clean, soft, Gilesian handkerchief into her hand. "Ssh, now. Don't cry. Yes, I'm certain my dad misses England at times, but he's chosen to be here with you, hasn't he?"

"That was the Watchers," Buffy gasped.

"This would be those same Watchers who sacked him?" Sebastian responded. "Some months ago, wasn't that? And meanwhile, all flights to London have been canceled?"

She had to admit he had a point. A fairly pointy point, at that.

"Buffy, you mean more to my father than anyone on earth. More than anything on earth. Didn't you know?"

Buffy blinked hard, trying to clear all the blurriness out of her eyes. "Maybe. I guess. But, you know, sometimes, he's just so damn...Giles. You know--not huge with the sharing? And, hey, when it comes to that, how come Xander got to stay. Xander. And I got sent home?"

Sebastian laughed at her again, shaking his head as he slid out on his side of the car and came around to open her door. "Buffy, you're insatiable. Come to breakfast with my wife and me tomorrow, and I promise to answer any and all inquiries. Until then--" he stooped down, and to Buffy's huge surprise, kissed her forehead. "Goodnight. Sweet dreams."

Buffy couldn't say anything, though that phrase about knocking down with feathers definitely came to mind. All she could do was wander up the walkway, her head humming, hoping against hope that her mom wouldn't be up to see her waltz in at whatever ungodly time of night this actually was, wearing Giles's sweater over her pj's. Those kinds of questions she so didn't need to answer.

Behind her, Sebastian, ever the perfect gentleman, lounged against the car with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting until she'd safely reached her door. When Buffy glanced back to wave goodbye, it seemed to her that his face, beneath the streetlights, looked way more than a little sad, despite the easy smile.

Why? she wondered. Why should Sebastian be sad, or Xander? What happened with Willow?--she was okay yesterday. What happened to Giles?

Buffy decided she didn't want to think anymore. She slipped inside, meaning to tiptoe, to sneak upstairs and crawl into her own little bed, maybe have a nice cuddle with Mr. Gordo. A second later, though, she saw there wasn't any point. Her mom was up, waiting for her

Wonder of wonders, Joyce's face looked sad too, but not the least bit angry.

She came to Buffy in the hall, put her arms around her and held her in one of those sweet mom-hugs that made her feel about six years old. Right then she didn't mind. Sometimes it felt good to be sheltered, to be surrounded with love, just for a minute.

"Hey," she said, after her mom had let go, and stood there with her pretty hands holding Buffy's face, looking down at her. "Weren't you s'posed to be in L.A.?"

"No, sweetheart," Joyce said quietly. "I came back."

You'd have thought he was the one with the broken ribs, because Xander kept feeling like he could hardly breathe. What had made him volunteer for this? What had made him think, for even one second, that he'd be any freakin' use here?

He perched in the recliner with his knees pulled up to his chest and watched Giles pace around and around the not-all-that-big space of his living room, reminding Xander more than anything else of a wounded but still dangerous animal trapped in a too-small cage. When Giles did that, he didn't look like Giles, and when he didn't look like Giles that meant all the safety was gone.

Which wasn't to say that he didn't sympathize. Xander himself wanted to pound something too, so bad he could almost taste it, and if he hadn't been on duty here, he'd have been out there in the night, looking to kick some demon booty. That's what he told himself anyway.

The truth was, he'd probably he'd get killed dead in the process, but that was beside the point.

What was weirdness personified, and scary as hell, was to see Giles, of all the people in the world, having a caveman moment.

And around and around and around we go.

Stop, he wanted to say. Please, Giles, stop, you're scaring me. Thereby winning himself a place in the All Time Sissy-boy Hall of Fame.

So instead he crouched, saying nothing. Watching his friend melt down. Which probably also secured his place in the same fine institution, only along a slightly different corridor.

And, finally, Giles did stop, facing the front door, his shoulders hunched, his head bent. A sound came from him then so full of rage and sorrow and frustration that it didn't even sound human, and he pulled his fist back and slammed it, full force, into the iron-studded wood.

Not even thinking, Xander launched himself from the recliner, grabbed Giles by the shoulders and spun him around. Giles's eyes flashed, furious, his hands came up, and...

Xander's own arms rose too, automatically, crossing in front of his face as his whole body hunched, the same way it had what seemed like a thousand times before, waiting for the blow that always, always fell.

At that moment, Giles's own face blanked out, all the fury replaced in an instant with a nothingness that quickly grew into horror. "Xander, my dear boy--" His bleeding hand touched gently on the spot where Xander's arms crossed. "My dear boy, please, I would never strike you. Never."

Slowly, Xander's arms went down. "I didn't..." he tried, but his voice came out sounding all funny, like a much younger kid's. He felt dizzy, and a little sick. "I mean, I know. I know you wouldn't. It was just..."

"Instinct," Giles said softly, still holding Xander's arm. Giles was a strong guy, and he'd been very, very angry, but that touch was the opposite of hurtful.

Xander stood there as still as he could, shaking, eyes closed, trying to make his heart slow down enough that he could talk again.

"I wasn't upset with you, Xander," Giles told him quietly. "Not in the least. None of this...display had, or has, anything to do with you, and I'm sorry you were frightened."

"Not." Xander shook his head violently. "No." When he looked up, Giles was doing the one-eyebrow-raised thing.

He finally caught a breath and tried again. "I know it doesn't, okay? I just... I mean, you're..."

The eyebrow didn't go down that Xander could see, at least not before Giles turned his back and wandered into the kitchen. He was all ready with a lecture about how this probably wasn't the best time to be drinking, when Giles opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water, pulling the sports cap with his teeth.

"I'm sorry," he said to Xander, in his everyday Giles voice, only a little hoarser. "Did you want one?"

"I'll take a Coke," Xander answered, feeling completely unreal. "Since you're there."

Giles winged it at him, missing by a mile, but luckily the aluminum can hit carpet with no damage done. Xander put it aside, right side up, so that Coke wouldn't spray all over everything when he opened it later.

"So, tomorrow," Xander told him, "It's a stop by the one-hour glasses place. Before you try that stunt with a crossbow and kill someone."

Pull everything back onto familiar ground, he thought, half disgusted with himself. Make jokes. Back away from anything real and scary. You're guys after all! Deny those feelings!

Giles gave him a long, steady, very Gilesian look, not fooled in the least.

"We'll need to go by Joyce's--that is, by B-buffy's house--early tomorrow," he commented. "I ought to have set the wards tonight." Very slowly, very stiffly, Giles came back into the living room and sank down on the couch, his face dead white in some places, gray in others. Already, Xander could see red seeping out through the back of his sweatshirt, and he knew those hours of pacing couldn't have done his friend any good.

"Check," Xander said softly, wishing, really hard, that he could be Sebastian Delacoeur instead of Xander Harris for a day. Seb might have his moments of doofushood, but for the most part he seemed to know what was the what. Maybe being thirty, and rich, and having a babesome wife did that for you, but Xander had a feeling that he could be in the same situation and still be a dork. He didn't know how to say things. He didn't know how to do things. He didn't even feel at home inside his own skin. And he'd be the first one to admit that what the counselors at Sunnydale High had called his "family situation" had screwed him up royally.

"I'll h-have to, ah, let Wesley know, as well, that we were unsuccessful." Giles sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"It wasn't your fault, Giles," Xander told him. "It just happened."

Patiently, Giles's eyes turned to his. "Xander, if you're about to tell me I'm only human, spare yourself the effort. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps there was nothing to be done. Perhaps, even had we succeeded, the outcome would have been nothing we expected. And yet--" he sighed again. "I miss Em, I pity Wesley, and I can't bear that Buffy--my Buffy--should think of me... fondly."

"There are worse things," Xander said. "What if she hated you?" Yeah, Harris, he told himself. That's helpful.

"Hate is," Giles answered, in the same kind, patient voice, "At least, a powerful emotion. What I can't stand is to know that she finds me quaint, and antiquated. Her dear, funny old Giles, as if I am a soon-to-be-outgrown Teddy Bear. Shall I allow myself to be put aside in some corrugated carton in the attic of her affections, thought of, now and then, but otherwise neglected? I have my pride, Xander." He gave getting up a good try, but ended up falling back again, gasping, his arms wrapped around his injured ribs.

"So, tell me," Xander asked, trying to sound casual. "How badly did those ribs break? Are am I gonna climb the stairs tomorrow morning to find your lungs all deflated?"

"They're only cracked," Giles protested.

"Superman drop by with his x-ray vision to let you know that?"

"Xander, you know," Giles started out sounding cranky, but then gave up on it. "You know what this is. You've seen it before. Last year."

Xander felt his face get still. Yeah, he knew. Or at least he'd guessed. "It just makes it worse, doesn't it?" he said, after a long time. "Remembering."

Giles took a long pull from the bottle of water as an alternative to looking at him, or answering.

"Okay, point taken," Xander told him. "The thing is, though, whatcha gonna do about it?"

That got Giles's full attention.

"Do?" Bruised as they were, a cold light came into Giles's eyes. The cold light of Ripper. "The very moment I'm able, I intend to hunt down that creature, that Time Thief, and make it pray, to whatever infernal gods it might worship, that it had never been spawned."

Looking at his friend, Xander didn't see an awful lot of mild-mannered librarian. What he did see made him very, very, very glad that he wasn't a demon. Especially one particular demon. Now all he wanted to know was how Giles intended to do what he said.

As to whether Giles would do it, he had no doubts whatsoever.

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," Willow laughed, waving her hand lazily over the pool. "Lovely, lovely trouble. Poor Buffy, no more memory."

Morgana, stretched out langorously upon the mossy bank, smiled up at her. In the place where they lay, it was always autumn, glorious, golden Indian summer, the leaves on the trees like fire, the days warm. They bathed magic, breathed magic, and maybe it should have been enough, Willow should have been happy.

But it wasn't. It was never enough.

"And poor Giles, all banged up again," she continued. "Do you think I should pay him a visit, Morgana?"

The sorceress's smile froze, and her eyes narrowed slightly. It was the first time Willow had gotten that kind of look from her new friend, and it made her shiver.

"You're a fool if you do," Morgana told her, shortly.

Willow laughed. "Honestly, it's just Giles. Last year he couldn't even ask for a date without talking to a chair first, and he stutters and drops things, and..." Her voice trailed off.

The phrase, that was then, this is now sprang to mind. Things had happened, hadn't they? He wasn't just shy Rupert Giles anymore, any more than she was mousy little Willow Rosenberg. Sometimes, even back in the day, when that certain cold light came into his eyes, he'd frightened her.

"Giles won't come after me," Willow said, sounding pouty even to herself. "He's big with the guilt, and he'll see me, still, as his poor young Willow. He'll want to save me, bring me back into the fold."

"And if he does," Morgana answered shortly, "Will you be able to resist?"

That made Willow laugh, and she loved the low, wicked sound of it, coming from her own throat. "Resist?" she repeated, and laughed some more. "Morgana, watch and see!"