Note: This chapter is set two days after the conclusion of ‘Chosen’. Everything happened as it did on the show, apart from that in this AU, Anya survived.
‘What? Why are you all staring at me?’
Squeezed around a small table by the stained, empty motel pool, Willow, Xander, Buffy and Dawn were all looking at Anya with expressions that were variations on the theme ‘are you shitting me?’ Leaning against the steps that once led up to a diving board but now went nowhere, Giles merely raised an eyebrow in her direction then continued to stare at the ring which seemed to be a permanent fixture on his left hand, appearing to be wholly absorbed by the light dimly reflecting off the onyx.
‘You said you wanted to leave…’ began Buffy.
‘With Giles,’ broke in Xander incredulously.
‘Go to England…’ she continued.
‘With Giles,’ Xander’s tone not changing at all with the repetition.
Anya nodded happily. ‘We’re partners.’
‘Business partners,’ clarified Giles, with heavy emphasis on the first word.
‘And the new council will be a business. Someone has to do the accounts, you always messed up the ones for the Magic Box.’
‘Once. I miscalculated the shipping fees, once’
‘And over-ordered on zodiac charms, and got a warning letter from the IRS and…’
‘…and I was trying to prevent an apocalypse at the time. You may recall yourself that running a shop was not my sole occupation,’ said Giles defensively. ‘I-in haste a few errors were bound to be made.’
‘There were lots, but I corrected them and did not make an issue of it, because I didn’t want to you to feel that I was threatening your authority as a boss or as a man,’ said Anya.
Dawn lost the battle to contain her amusement and started to giggle, while the others restricted themselves to smirking.
Willow decided to be kind and move things on.
‘Y‘know, you could come to Cleveland,’ she said to Anya, nudging Xander for his support. ‘Cause it wouldn’t be weird or anything.’
‘Yeah it’ll just be us, the potentials, Faith and Wood on a Hellmouth with no back-up until the council exists again. I see no opportunity for weirdness, relentless shenanigans or hi-jinks of any kind.’
The enormity of the tasks that lay ahead subdued them all, briefly, into silence.
‘No, I want to go to England and see all the places Giles wrote about in his letters.’
Anya’s words provoked a barrage of comments. With a sigh, Giles removed his glasses, not bothering to pretend to clean them. Whilst loving these people dearly, he found it trying in the extreme when they took it upon themselves to find his every action amusing or unusual.
‘When I, erm…we,’ he gestured towards Willow. ‘When we went to Devon, Anya was kind enough to write to me and we fell into being somewhat regular correspondents.’
‘Somewhat regular correspondents,’ murmured Xander with fascination.
‘Giles writes good letters,’ Anya enthused.
‘Thank you, Anya.’
‘They were very long. You must’ve had a lot of time to kill.’
‘Anya.’
‘You were lonely and hurt. So I don’t suppose there was much else going on.’
‘Anya!’ Admonished Giles through gritted teeth. ‘We are discussing what will happen next, n-not not the past.’
Buffy leaned over, whispering in Willow’s ear. ‘England? I’m guessing he’ll kill her before they get to check-in.’
They’d been talking through their options for a while now; Dawn had hit her limit.
‘So we’re done. We go to Cleveland. Anya and Giles go to England, yes?’
Three confirmations were quickly given. Giles replaced his glasses and looked impassively at Anya who gave him a hopeful, wide-eyed grin in return.
‘Yes.’
********************
In a reversal of their traditional roles, Buffy was stood on the stairs staring at her oblivious Watcher. She’d headed for the lobby to grab a soda from one of the machines, only to discover Dawn, perched on the arm of a ratty looking couch, chatting happily with Giles. It was easy for her sister: for Dawn, Giles fully occupied the space in her brain labelled ‘Dad’ and he had let her do it.
Buffy knew beyond all doubt that she meant more to Giles than anyone, yet they could never just relax with each other; duty and destiny always got in the way. She watched Giles and Dawn laugh and tease, envying the simplicity of their relationship.
‘Okay ,’ said Dawn, turning over a page of the magazine she was brandishing. ‘Next question: What’s your talent? Singing, dancing, looking hot or scoring babes?’
Giles appeared to give this serious consideration.
‘Hmmm, can I not choose them all?’
‘Ego, much? When did you ever…’ she scanned through the question again. ‘When did you ever do any of this?’
‘Singing,’ said Giles firmly, not rising to the bait.
‘This one’s obvious. Which decade do you wish you were in? Seventies, eighties, nineties or this one? Seventies.’
‘I thought it was my job to answer, and you are wrong.’
Dawn fixed Giles with a glare.
‘You are. Tiresome though you may be,’ he said, with an exaggerated look of disdain so that Dawn would know he was joking. ‘I choose this decade.’
Buffy stepped forward.
‘You wouldn’t want to start over? No regrets?’ She asked, deadly serious.
‘Many,’ said Giles, now equally solemn. ‘However, becoming your Watcher is not one of them.’
The tension was obvious. Dawn hopped off the couch.
‘I’m going to go and…I’m just gonna go.’
At a nod from Giles, Buffy moved closer, opting to lean against a pillar rather than sit with him.
‘Before you ask, I do regret some of the decisions I’ve made since then. But trying to kill Spike i-is not on that list and I will not apologise.’
‘Already figured that one out,’ said Buffy; she slid down until her chin was resting on her knees before continuing quietly. ‘I hate it, think you’re wrong, but I understand.’
His expression told Buffy how much he’d needed to hear her say that. She was relieved to see the look of pride, gentleness and that other thing she’d never managed to pin down, that was all Giles and all for her, return for the first time since she‘d slammed her bedroom door in his face. Now that they were talking properly again, there was something that she needed to know.
‘Lonely and hurt,’ said Buffy
‘Er…what?’
‘That’s what Anya said about you; is it true?’
Giles made to speak then stopped himself, obviously deciding to choose his words carefully. Buffy suddenly felt on-edge, she’d figured the answer would be ‘no’ and wasn’t quite sure what she’d do, or how responsible she’d feel, if he said something else.
‘Anya wrote to me at a time when I was very much seeking a distraction, I will always be grateful to her for that. And in responding, a-as can often happen with the written word, I was possibly more candid than may have been the case had we simply conversed.’
‘You know you go totally repressed and British when you don’t want to talk about stuff, right?’
‘Works like a charm,’ said Giles with a smile.
Buffy wasn’t going to let him end the conversation that easily, she frowned and waited for more.
‘I won’t claim that those first few days in The Coven were anything other than unpleasant, but they ended some months ago, as did any discomfort.’
He was still talking like some old book instead of an actual person, but Buffy badly wanted to believe what Giles was telling her, because the alternative was too intense. She gave him a searching look and he calmly held her gaze until she convinced herself that he wasn’t deceiving her.
‘Good, I’m glad you’re okay. I need you.’
‘Do you?’ He sounded surprised, if not a little elated.
‘Sure, we need all the support we can get. Looking forward to the all-new, all-not-run-by-an-asshat council.’
‘The council - of course,’ said Giles. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Then it’ll be awesome,’ said Buffy warmly.
Giles got to his feet.
‘Are we, as you would say ‘cool’?’
Buffy held out her hands and he pulled her up.
‘We’re cool,’ she replied, as she hugged Giles fiercely.
It occurred to her that she didn’t know when she’d see Giles again. At least he’d be safe in London or Bath or wherever it was he was heading, if anyone deserved to be fray adjacent it was him. Although after a few days of being stuck with Anya she reckoned he’d be desperate for some demonic distraction.
Buffy felt Giles tense up, realized she was hurting and hurriedly dropped the embrace.
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