What I Did On My Summer Vacation: Part Five: Giles's Story
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
Giles spent the hours before dawn pulling as many of the brothers of the monastery into the chapel as he could find. Many were limp bodies left to sprawl where they fell, pale and bloodless from a vampire's hunger. Giles knelt beside Father Ambros and closed his eyes. "I hope your faith was as true in the end as it was in your life," he murmured, the one prayer he could give.

Near dawn, the faint sounds of fighting faded and died away. It was in the scriptorium that Giles found Deirdre. She was curled on the floor near one of the wide windows, where the pearly light in the east was strengthening. Her arms were wrapped around Liam, and she rocked him slowly in her arms. Tears streaked her cheeks, catching the early light and giving her the radiance of grief, a Pieta for a beloved.

Giles knelt beside her. Words were useless. Helpless, he put his hand on her shoulder, tried to convey with hesitant touch all his heart could not say.

With a wordless cry, she turned into the shelter of his arm, pressing her face to his chest. Keening for the dead.

Day was full and bright before her wails ceased. Deirdre raised her face to his. "Did... did anyone survive?"

Giles nodded. "Yes. Some. They are in the chapel. It was... it was the only place I could think of that would shelter them."

"Meager shelter it is. And yet you did not avail yourself of it?"

"It was my duty --" Giles began, but Deirdre pushed violently away.

"Duty be damned!" she cried, her heart bleeding pain into her voice. "There lies my duty." She turned her gaze back to Liam. "My love, and I could not save him. He walked to his brother with perfect trust -- and the demon killed him. And I could not save him!"

She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking again with sobs. After a moment, she dropped them. "I killed five," she said in a dull voice. "The five that accompanied Darla. I never saw her at all. And Aine...." Her voice broke. "I saw him fling his brother's body from him as though it were so much refuse, and yet even then I could not kill him. I wanted to," she said savagely. "Despite my promise to you, I wanted him dead. But... oh, but he was my friend!" Deirdre turned pleading eyes on Giles, washed as clear as rainwater by her tears. "How could I kill him?"

Giles had no answer for her.

"Holy Mother save us." Brother Rugh stumbled into the room. He was dazed with shock and pain. "The village. Dear God, the village! So many...."


* * *
Three days later, it was time. Word of Henry Wadsworth's death had finally reached those who took care of such things, and another Watcher journeyed to Ireland to protect the Slayer. Giles explained as much as he felt he could to Harriet Wadsworth, Henry's sister. She promised to keep any mention of him out of her journals, and was blessedly incurious about who and what he was.

She took the sealed letter he wrote, promising that it would be held until the date indicated on it: June, 1997, before being sent to the abbot of the monastary who would call the British Museum and start the chain of events that would lead to Giles being called again to Ireland.

She also promised to take Deirdre away from the ruins of her life. The village had been savagely attacked by Angel and Darla. Those who remained alive cursed the place. The monks would be absorbed into another monastery, the villagers would settle elsewhere.

And this little spot of Ireland would become a place of ghosts, avoided by all.

On a bright, sunny morning, Deirdre walked with him out to the stones. "Are you sure this will work?" she asked anxiously. "What if they take you back another two hundred years?"

Giles shouldered his pack. It felt disturbingly light without the Codex. "Buffy needs me. I need to try."

Deirdre nodded. Grief had ravaged her young face, and its touch would never leave her. But it seemed, somehow, to emphasize her strength and determination. Giles had told her all he knew about Angel, all that Buffy had told him. That Angel's soul would be restored to him because of the death of a young foolish girl. That he would, so reluctantly, help a Slayer in her task. And that he fight with and for that Slayer.

And that Darla would die by his hand. Liam and Father Ambros and all who had slaughtered would be avenged.

Deirdre took a small silver crucifix from a pouch at her waist and gave it to Giles. "This belonged to my father. I want you to have it. After all," she said, with the faintest ghost of a smile, "you seem to need all the protection you can get."

"I... uh, thank you," Giles said, overwhelmed by the gift from a girl who should have no cause other than to hate him. He appeared in her life, and chaos followed.

Impulsively, Deirdre flung her arms around his neck and clung tight. "Godspeed," she whispered.

Eyes stinging, Giles returned the embrace. "And you," he managed.

And then he stepped through the stones and the world disappeared.

********

Giles' return to the twentieth century was heralded in the most prosaic of ways: a chip wrapper fluttering in the tall grass near his nose. Even before his head stopped spinning and his stomach stopped threatening to relocate to remoter parts of his body, he knew that the stones had returned him to where -- to *when* -- he had come from.

After a few moments, Giles found the strength to shove himself upright. And topple over in the other direction. He really had to remember to bring along some motion sickness pills the next time he traveled through time.

This time, the sense of another person's presence infiltrated his mind slowly, so that when he raised his gaze to the monk sitting on a fallen lintel, it didn't startle him. "Greetings," the monk said. Rising from the stone, he plucked the wrapper from the grass. "I'm afraid that's mine. It got away from me." He shrugged, humorously deprecating. "I got hungry while waiting."

"Waiting?" Giles said, pleased to hear his voice had, in fact, made the return trip with him. "Waiting?"

"Yes. You see, a letter was left at the abbey, years ago. Old and yellowed, and dated this month. I opened it on the first of June, and followed the instructions in it."

"Abbey?" Giles asked, putting his hand to his head as one would touch a glass that was vibrating to stop the sound.

The monk nodded. "Aye. They reopened it, oh, about a hundred years ago. A donation from a mysterious party gave us the funds, and periodic donations since then have made us able to help many. The letter was found in the old library of the abbey, and kept since."

"I, uh, well." Giles found himself at a loss for words. "This, uh, I believe is yours." On automatic pilot, he pulled the copy of ~The Life of Saint Patrick~ from his much-traveled satchel and offered it to the monk.

Accepting it, the brother chuckled. "This wasn't really necessary, you know. I just needed an excuse to have you here at this certain time on this certain day. It is still Midsummer's, you know."

"I... no, I didn't. How much *did* you see?" Giles asked, baffled.

The monk smiled. "Enough. And did you think that the power of the stones had never been discovered by anyone else?" Leather-bound book in hand, the monk turned to the same faint path that Deirdre had led Giles on a few days -- and two hundred years -- before.

"Thank you... ah, I don't know your name."

The monk turned back. "God bless you, Rupert Giles, for what you did. And as for who I am... call me Brother Luca."

THE END


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