Past Lives: Past Lives
by Tosh
only Tech and the story belong to me. everything else belongs to the all mighty joss whedon. and now that I've flaterd him so, he probebly won't sue .



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Buffy sat on the edge of the large table in the library, panting slightly. Giles had seemed more determined than ever to win at their quarter staff matches, and although he lost just as persistently as ever, he had managed to hurt her. She took a sip from her water bottle. The library doors opened, and a young girl, about seventeen, walked in. there was something about her that Buffy didn’t like, and she tended to be right about not liking people at a first site.

The girl looked at her intently. “Are you Biffy?” “Buffy” she corrected.” She wanted to say something else, something to help her explain the feeling inside her, but the girl was to fast

“Sorry. I’m looking for Rupert.”

Buffy looked at her in surprise. In all the time she knew Giles, only jenny and Ethan had called him that. The feeling grow, making her very uneasy “And you would be…” The girl started to answer, but was stopped by the soft voice of Giles. “Hello Tech.”

She turned to him and smiled. He smiled back faintly, leaning on the door way to his office. “Rupert. You’re not easy to find, you know that?” That remark seemed to remind Giles of the fact that she did not belong. His voice harsh, he decided to remind her of that. “what are you doing here, Tech? I don’t want to see you.”

Tech looked genuinely hurt. “Rupert, dear, is that how you treat all your old lovers?” Buffy gasped. Suddenly she knew why she had a strange feeling about the girl. “You’re a vampire” she said, raising her quarter staff.

“Buffy, stop!” Giles walked over to the table and sat next to her. Looking from her to Tech. “She, she is a vampire, but i-it’s complicated. We meet when I was younger.” He looked from one to the other “ Go home, I’ll, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Buffy looked at him, than at Tech, standing there with an innocent expression on her face. “But…”

“Buffy!” the tune in his voice was the kind that made even the ever rebellious Buffy obey him. She got up, grabbed her bag and headed for the door. She toped next to Tech, seizing her up. She was even shorter then she was. I could take her, she thought, as she looked at Giles, now polishing his glasses, and left.

Tech turned to him. A little smile on her face. “I take it you haven’t told her about us”

Giles looked at her, put his glasses back on and want to his office. Tech followed him. He sat in his chair, looking down.

“You don’t seem overly excited to see me”

“I’m not.”

“I thought you loved me”

He looked up at her. The hurt look on her face surprised him. He had spent a lot of time thinking about her, especially after finding out about Angel. His relationship with jenny, his first ever after meeting Tech, helped him ignore his feelings, get over the pain that had bothered him for so long. He never thought she might be feeling the same way.

“I did.” He sighed “I do”. He looked down again, unable to look at the pain in her eyes, the same one that he saw the night he had left her, when he found out… “w-what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see how you were doing.” She took a sit on the couch. “I missed you” He looked at her again.

“I’m not sure you should have done that. Coming here… I’m a watcher now, I have a slayer…”

“I know. That’s part of way I wanted to see you. ” She grinned “I can’t believe you became a watcher.”

“I, I had too. I knew what magic does, wha-what demons do, and I could help stop it. How could I not?”

“But you weren’t massing with anything when I knew you. That’s not why you left”

“You know way I left”

“’Cause you’re a coward”

He looked at her. She had her game face on now. “Just couldn’t handle it, could you? Falling in love with a vampire.”

“Maybe if, if you had told me… I-I found you feeding, for God sake. On my neighbors cat! That’s not the best way to find out the your lover is a killer”

“If I were the killer you decided was I would have eaten one of your silly little school mates, and not a cat. But I didn’t. from the day I meet you, knowing what you would think… I haven’t fade on a human when you and I…” she got up, suddenly angry “And you, you just left. You didn’t even let me explain”

“What was there to explain? You’re a vampire!”

“I loved you!!! We are capable of love, you know. I didn’t chose to be your destined enemy!”

“I know! But I, I wasn’t thinking. You… you were the one thing in my life I was happy about. Than you were the thing I’m trained to kill, trained t-to help others kill.” He slowed down “I was eighteen.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry”

She took her game face of. Suddenly she felt uncomfortable, and tried to change the subject “You like being a watcher?”

“Some parts. The books, the, the mystery. But, every night, I send her to what might be her last battle. I can’t stand to think of her dead.”

“You always were sentimental.” She sat back on the couch. “She doesn’t like me.”

“She’s not supposed to like you”

“Isn’t she dating a vampire?”

“Angle, er, he, he has his soul back.” The emotional turmoil now eased, he was falling back to his old habits. He started polishing his glasses as he stammered on. “He, um, was coursed once, by gypsies.” He put his glasses on and looked at her. Now it was his turn to feel uncomfortable, knowing that his remark just made her think about his words that last night. He hurt her, like he feel she hurt him. Now he couldn’t stand to think of her face that night. He tried to change the subject, being only slightly more clumsy at it then her.

“How have you been?”

“Fine. You?”

“Ho, um, fine. You know, finished high – school, massed with a demon, became a watcher.” He grinned “Came to the hell mouth.”

“Fall in love?” she was a little afraid to ask that.

He looked at her “Um, yes, yes I did.”

She nodded sadly. She wanted him to be waiting for her. That was the real reason she came. She heard about the slayer and Angel, and wandered if there was any hope for her. If he had out grown his fear of what she was… but he had fallen in love, and she now felt very much like being far away from those eyes, piercing her the way they had when he saw her, with the cat in her arms…

“I better go” she got up quickly and headed for the door.

“Tech,” she looked at him. He approached her as he spoke “I’m sorry. I loved you, please believe that. You were the only woman I loved until now. I never meant to hurt you.” She looked up at him. He looked different. He had gotten older, while she remant the same. She suddenly knew she had to leave. She turned away again, but stopped when she felt his hand on her shoulder. She turned around, and they kissed, a long and passionate kiss that flooded them both with memories of their life together. This is wrong, she thought suddenly. She broke of in alarm. “I’m sorry” he said weakly.

She looked at him, than, with a growl, put her game face on and bite into his neck. She felt him gasp in surprise, than felt his warm blood in her mouth. She broke off, looked at his shocked face for a second, than turned around and left.

Giles stared after her for a long moment. She had been his love, part of the reason he tried to deny his destiny, part of the reason he let Buffy and Angel… He turned around and slowly walked back to his chair. Her visit surprised him more than anything else, not even the master had frightened him that way her face, her slander figure, did, standing out there, talking to Buffy.

He thought about Buffy’s face when she realized what Tech was. He would have to tell her. He didn’t want to , but there was no other way. She had seen enough to get the basics, and he didn’t like lying to her. And then, he thought, he would have to tell Jenny.

The thought of jenny cheered him up. It took him a long time to get over Tech, and he wasn’t about to fall for her again. He had Jenny, and he had Buffy. He got up, and took his coat. Jenny was waiting for him. She was trying, once again, to drag him out of his books. He wandered what awful plan she had for tonight. He smiled as he thought of the monster truck show she had taken him too. He felt certain now that nothing could stand in his way for finely achieving happiness. He turned of the lights and left the library.


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