Buffy was the first.
No one ever knew exactly why Buffy came back. She showed up unannounced at Giles' house, almost three years to the day after the collapse of Sunnydale, declaring that Dawn was old enough to look after herself now. Giles asked them both about it several times over the years, but neither sister was ever willing to say anything specific about what happened between them. All they would say was that it was time for Dawn to be on her own, so Buffy left. And when Buffy left, where else would she go?
Giles gave Buffy the run of the grounds when she came back, and she took full advantage. She sat in on a few training sessions for new Watchers. She observed the Slayer hand-to-hand combat class. She did her best to pay attention to a meeting Giles ran with his leadership group about opening up a new training center in Australia. She wandered through the woods that separated the buildings from the road to town. She answered questions when asked, but mostly, she just listened.
After two weeks of this, Buffy came to a decision.
"Giles?"
Giles was startled by her voice, and looked up from the salad he was working on. Buffy was standing in the doorway between his modest kitchen and his dining room.
Giles had no idea how it ended up being him preparing all the meals, despite the freedom inherent in Buffy's lack of a schedule. After all, he was supposed to be running a large international organization, and he really didn't have the time to prepare home-cooked meals every evening. Still, this was Buffy, after all, and he did enjoy cooking for someone else for a change. Plus, neither of them relished the idea of eating with everyone else in the dining hall for every meal of the day. So, despite the burden, he was perfectly willing to let Buffy continue to avoid the entire first floor of the house during the lead up to dinnertime, if that was what she wanted. And it was, or at least it had been.
"Buffy. Do you need something?" Giles reached for the hand towel and turned toward Buffy, leaving the lettuce he had been rinsing in the colander in the sink.
"Yes," Buffy replied simply. She paused and looked around the kitchen, not continuing until her eyes settled back on Giles again. She sighed. "Giles, you know I love you, right?"
"Well...um...yes, of course, Buffy. I have a great deal of affection for you, as well. All of you," Giles answered with some hesitancy, uncertain where exactly Buffy was going with this conversation.
"Okay, good, because I so don't want you to take this the wrong way." Buffy took a deep breath. "Giles, you are screwing up."
Giles' eyes narrowed, somehow managing to convey confusion and a bit of defiance at the same time. "You have a better method for rinsing lettuce, then?"
"What?" Buffy looked at him, confused, until he held up the colander for her to see. She chuckled. "No, I think you rinse lettuce just fine. I meant with the training center."
Giles' eyes narrowed even further.
"Oh, not in everything," Buffy hurried to add. "I mean, you guys are doing great with the Slayer physical training, and the other classes. Research was never really my thing, but I can totally see why the Slayers need to know how to do that kind of stuff, with the languages and everything. And it looks like you are actually paying attention to what the Slayers say they need, as far as their dorm life and time off and all that. The Watcher side of things looks good, too, but I obviously don't know as much about that stuff."
Giles nodded his head, his gaze softening some. Buffy moved out of the doorway, and began to pace on one side of the small kitchen. Giles turned his back to the sink to keep Buffy in view, and noted to himself that Buffy was keeping the kitchen's small island between them. She obviously wasn't that comfortable with what she felt she needed to say. Giles waited patiently for her to continue.
After a few moments, Buffy stopped and looked up. She took a deep breath, and her eyes hardened as she steeled herself for an obviously difficult conversation. "Giles, how much do you know about the Slayers' relationships?"
Giles put down the hand towel on the island in front of him, and took out his handkerchief with one hand while taking his glasses off with the other. He started cleaning his lenses as he spoke. "I have read most of the journals of previous Watchers. I would like to say that I've read them all, but some of the earlier ones are so notoriously dry that I've only read the summaries."
Buffy smirked a little at the idea that something would be so boring that even Giles wouldn't read it. She decided to follow up on Giles's response, even thought that wasn't really what she'd meant. "What did they say?"
"Well, you do realize that social mores have changed quite a bit over the centuries, correct?" At Buffy's slight eye roll and head nod, Giles continued. "In the very early years, Slayers were sometimes already married at the time they were called. And no, that wasn't because they were being called later. Some of them had even already had children."
Buffy's eyes widened at that. "I thought that Robin was the only Slayer's kid in, like, ever?"
"Robin was the only one in recent times," Giles answered. "As the acceptable age to begin a relationship increased over the years, it became less and less common for a Slayer to have had any real experience of that sort prior to her calling. I believe that Nikki Wood and Faith were the only two Slayers in the latter half of the twentieth century to have had, um, intercourse, prior to being called."
Both Giles and Buffy looked away at the word "intercourse," obviously uncomfortable with the topic. Without looking at Giles, Buffy took yet another calming breath and pressed on. "What about after being called?"
Giles put his glasses back on and looked at Buffy. He suddenly realized where she was going with this, or at least was pretty sure that he did. He was willing to let her lead the way there, regardless. "Robin was conceived after his mother was called, so it obviously has happened. It varied from Slayer to Slayer, and the willingness to write about it varied from Watcher to Watcher. Several had suspicions without evidence, but few Watchers felt it was relevant to get into much detail about that sort of thing in their journal unless confronted with it directly."
"What do you mean by 'confronted directly'?" Buffy asked.
"Occasionally, a Watcher inadvertently interrupted a Slayer when she was in the middle of, um, relations." Both Giles and Buffy looked even more uncomfortable as their minds immediately came up with various times when that could have happened to them.
Giles quickly moved on. "More frequently, the Slayer would confront the Watcher about the relationship, usually because of the Slayer's desire to spend time with her paramour in direct contravention of the rules in place at the time about keeping the Slayer separate from the rest of the world. Either way, by having the issue essentially thrust in front of him or her, the Watcher would be forced to record the situation in his or her journal at that point."
Buffy stopped glancing around and locked her gaze on Giles, waiting for him to look directly at her before she asked her next question. When she did so, Giles was surprised by the anger now obvious in her tone. "And how often did this priggish Watcher attitude get their Slayer killed?"
Giles was thrown off. This was not where he had expected the conversation to go. "Um, I'm sure...I mean, I don't believe that there was ever any direct connection between..."
"Giles," Buffy interrupted, "cut the crap. This is me. Remember my first relationship? It didn't get me killed, but it sure could've, and it did get others killed."
"Buffy," Giles said, his tone suddenly much darker. "I am painfully aware of what happened with Angel. But that was a unique situation."
"You can say that again," Buffy responded, not backing down one bit. "But what about Slayers who got killed because they were sneaking around to go see their honey without telling their Watcher, and got kidnapped or something? Their Watcher might have been able to save them, if they'd known where to look. Or what about Slayers who stopped talking to their Watcher after a fight about spending too much time with their boyfriend, and got killed because no one was there to tell them how to defeat the demon they were facing?"
"Obviously, based on the situations you describe, there would be no way for the Watcher to know that the Slayer's relationship was a contributing factor to her death," Giles replied, his tone formal.
Buffy was getting exasperated. She decided to stop using history to get her point across, and go back to how she originally planned to approach this. "Giles, do you have any idea how many of the older Slayers are sneaking around with some of the Watcher candidates at night? Or how many of the younger ones are sneaking into town to hang with boys their age?"
Giles looked at Buffy intently, as if trying to pull the names of the Slayers in question out of her head without having to ask. "Phrased differently, I would have said none to both questions. Obviously, you know something that I don't."
"Look, Giles, I'm not here to tattle on anyone. I'm here to talk about why you can't be all British about this and ignore the fact that these Slayers are all going to be interested in boys at some point." Buffy paused briefly, as something new came to mind. "Or girls, which could lead to other problems."
Giles looked startled at the idea that a Slayer might be interested in another girl, perhaps even another Slayer. It obviously had never occurred to him, despite his experience with Kennedy. He immediately got a pensive look on his face as he began to puzzle through how he would handle that situation, and more to the point, why he hadn't been confronted with the situation yet. After all, they had been up and running for well over two years now. It was hard to believe, now that he thought about it, that there hadn't been a Slayer-Slayer relationship of some kind since the opening of the training center. Was there really that much going on without his knowledge?
Buffy, growing impatient with his wool-gathering, cleared her throat to get his attention. "The point is, Giles, that you don't want to talk to these girls about this stuff. And honestly, they probably don't want to talk about it with you, either. Or any of the other Watchers. But they have to talk about this with somebody, because all the sneaking around that's going on is going to get somebody killed, eventually."
Giles visibly relaxed, despite the dire warning, as Buffy had finally gotten them to where he'd thought the conversation was going earlier. "If they won't talk to a Watcher, who else is there?"
"Me!" Buffy said, a big smile on her face.
Giles couldn't help but smile back. "Thinking of putting your counseling experience from Sunnydale to good use, are you?"
"Oh, God no!" Buffy exclaimed.
After noticing Giles' confused look, Buffy continued. "I was terrible at that job. I couldn't help normal kids with their normal problems. Everything they said seemed so, I don't know, petty. 'My boyfriend is mean to me. What do I do?'" Buffy shook her head. "I don't even remember my answer, but I wanted to say, 'Hey, lighten up! It could be worse. Has he terrorized your friends? Killed one of your teachers? Tortured your Watcher and tried to end the world? No? Alrighty then. Be thankful he's just mean.'"
Giles' total lack of response seemed odd to Buffy, until she realized that she had reopened that particular wound twice in this conversation without really meaning to. She winced a little at her lack of sensitivity, but, figuring the best cure was a good chain-of-thought disruption, Buffy charged ahead.
"It's not that I didn't want to help, I just really couldn't. My life was too different from theirs. And at the time, volunteering to be a Slayer counselor would've meant talking to Faith, who needs way more than just informal counseling, or talking to myself, which leads nowhere good." Giles and Buffy shared a smirk at that, and she was pleased that he seemed to be back into the conversation now. "But now that I've been here for a few weeks, and I've seen what you needs are, it just seems to make sense. Pretty much any tortured relationship scenario, I've been through it. And I'll be talking to Slayers, so I can make suggestions like 'go kill something, you'll feel better,' without sounding like a psycho."
Buffy took a deep breath, and looked Giles in the eyes. "So, what do you think?"
Buffy was relieved to see a genuine smile break out on Giles's face. "I think it's a splendid idea. I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't given any thought to sexual education and relationship advice for the Slayers."
Giles continued speaking as he came around the island. "This is part of why I've been so insistent on including all of you in those weekly conference calls. You look at things differently than I do, and come up with ideas that seem so obvious in retrospect." Giles chuckled. "It looks like I'm going to need to get everybody in for regular site visits as well."
Giles was now facing Buffy, and he rested his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. His voice sobered a bit as he continued. "We can work out the details later, but I do have one important condition. You must tell me of any situation that you feel could result in harm coming to one of the Slayers."
Buffy took a step back, causing Giles' arms to fall to his sides. "Giles, you know I can't do that. If the Slayers think that I'll rat them out to the Watchers, no one will talk to me. It would defeat the whole purpose of the thing."
"Buffy, I'm not asking you to tell me everything," Giles explained. "I understand that Slayers are in danger whenever they leave the grounds. I'm talking about situations where the Slayers could be harmed emotionally, or where their emotions might cause them to freeze in the midst of a fight and end up hurt physically. As it stands, I have no way of knowing about those problems. I just want your input on Slayer-Watcher pairings, and on assignments for Slayers that I'm unfamiliar with. If you tell me that a particular assignment is not right for a particular Slayer, I will assign it to another one. You don't even need to tell me why. What you will be doing is serving the best interests of the Slayers in question, not ratting them out, as you so elegantly put it."
Buffy's brow furrowed as she thought through the implications of what Giles was suggesting. If certain Slayers weren't getting the assignments they wanted, they might blame her and stop coming to counseling. On the other hand, if the Slayers knew that being honest with Buffy might keep them from having to explain to Giles or their Watcher the personal reasons behind their refusal of an assignment, that might make them more willing to come.
Buffy made her decision. "As long as we explain the rules to everyone, I'm fine with that."
Giles almost beamed. "Splendid! Well," he said, rubbing his hands together, "this calls for more than just my planned soup and salad. Shall we go in town and have a proper celebratory dinner?"
*****************************
As they headed out of Giles' house to the car park, Buffy suddenly froze in the doorway. Realizing she was no longer following him after a few steps, Giles turned in time to see a series of emotions play across Buffy's face, with fear and terror being the primary ones. He hurried back, grabbed her arms, and gave her a very light shake. "Buffy, what is it? What's wrong?"
After moving her mouth soundlessly for a few moments, Buffy was finally able to form words. "Sexual education!" she whispered hoarsely.
Giles was confused. "I'm sorry, Buffy, what was that?"
Buffy slowly turned her head to look at Giles, fear still prevalent in her eyes.
"Sexual education, Giles! You said relationship counseling AND sexual education! You want me to give 'the talk' to hundreds of girls! Hundreds!!!" Her eyes narrowed, and the fear was replaced by suspicion.
"You did that on purpose, didn't you! It's payback for all those years of talking about our crushes and stuff in front of you, isn't it!" Buffy stomped her foot. "Darn it, Giles, answer me!"
Giles tried to answer, he really did, but at soon as he opened his mouth, the laughter he had been holding in escaped instead. It rang out across the car park, and those who heard it immediately decided that Buffy's presence at the training center was going to be a good thing. It had been far too long since their leader had laughed like that.
*****************************
They passed by the welcome sign on their way back from dinner. It had been added after Buffy left for Rome, and she'd been too excited to notice it when she came back a fortnight ago. It was located about halfway along the gravel path between the unmarked gate to the street and the main group of buildings. In a fairly classical-looking font, the sign read, "Welcome to the Watchers Association Training Compound and Headquarters, Exe River, Somerset." Looking at the sign in the fading daylight, Buffy noticed something for the first time.
"Giles, did you know that your acronym is W.A.T.C.H.?"
Giles' only reply was a low humph. Buffy guessed that meant he already knew, but probably hadn't been told about it in time to stop it.
Buffy thought back to the sign as they pulled back in to the car park, and got out of the car. "And that if you add the address stuff, the acronym is W.A.T.C.H.E.R.S.?"
This time Giles did respond with words, though they came out as little more than a growl as he turned and stomped toward his house. "Bloody Andrew. I knew there was a reason he wanted the river instead of the town on the sign. 'Creates a better sense of place,' my foot."
This time, it was Buffy's laughter that rang out across the car park.
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