A Different Life: Part 11

Giles was still in his office. There was always plenty of work to do but the main reason he was still there was because he didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to lie on his bed and think of Buffy. It was too painful. His phone rang. Looking at the source of the call he could tell it was the front guard. He pushed the speaker button. “Yes, Fred.”

“Dr. Giles, I’m sorry to disturb you but there are two people down here who say they have to speak to you.”

“Who are they?”

Giles could tell Fred was grinning by the tone of his voice. “One of them is Gwen. The other is a man calls himself Ethan Rayne. They say it’s urgent.”

“Let them in, Fred. Thanks. I’ll come down to escort them up.” After hanging up he looked at the clock on the wall. He couldn’t imagine why they were there so late. Probably checking up on him. As he stood up and turned to leave his office the phone rang again. Assuming it was Fred again he quickly turned and hit the speaker button again. “Yes, Fred, what is it?”

There was a pause and then a woman’s voice said, “Oh!” Giles heard whispering in the background. “What’s the matter?” “Someone answered the phone.” “Is it him?” “I don’t know.” “Ask him.” Then the first voice spoke again. “Is this Dr. Rupert Giles?”

“Yes, who is this?”

Again the whispering. “It’s him.” A high-pitched squeal, “it’s him?” “What do I say now?” “Ask him if he knows Buffy.”

Giles’ response to that was immediate. “Buffy? What do you know about Buffy? Who are you people?”

“You know Buffy? Buffy Summers?”

“Yes, where is she? I have to speak with her.”

Joyce’s voice was confused. “She’s not here at the moment, but she lives here, with me.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m her mother. Joyce Summers.”

Giles sat down. “Her mother?”

“Yes. Something odd is going on and I thought…well I don’t know what I thought but she seems to think she knows you so…”

“What do you mean, seems to think? Why is she there? Why did she leave London? Where are you?”

“In California. And as far as I know she wasn’t ever there in London. She thinks she was. She has all these memories of an entirely different life that included going to school there in London and meeting you. Are you saying that actually happened?”

“Yes, we met a few days ago, on Saturday. We were supposed to meet for dinner on Wednesday night but she disappeared.”

Ethan and Gwen burst into the office, a frustrated guard behind them. Gwen was waving a piece of paper. She spoke, her voice excited. “We found her. She’s the Slayer, she lives in California, in a place called Sunnydale.”

Giles’ eyes opened wide. “She’s the Slayer?”

At Willow and Xander’s prompting Joyce had put the phone on speaker. At Giles’ words all three sets of eyes across the Atlantic opened wide as well, although it was Joyce who spoke. “You know about Slayers?”

Giles looked up at Gwen. “Who’s her Watcher?”

Ethan’s voice was droll. “Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

Giles snorted. “That prig?”

Joyce grinned. She loved this man already. Joyce spoke again. “Uh, Dr. Giles?”

Ethan looked at the phone. “Who’s that?”

Giles shook his head in disbelief. “Buffy’s mom. Joyce Summers.”

Gwen spoke, disappointed. “You found her first?” She smacked Ethan. “We didn’t have to break into the Council after all.”

“No, she called me.” Giles’ brow furrowed. “How did you get this number?”

“Buffy had your business card. She saw you on television today and she started talking about you as if she knew you. Then when the report was done I asked her what was going on and she said…”

Giles prompted her. “What did she say?”

“Well, she said that she lived there as a student and the two of you met and fell in love. She said you gave her that card after you told her you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her.” Joyce scrunched her face up waiting for his response.

“I did and I do.” Giles still needed some more information. “So Buffy remembers coming here but you don’t have any memory of it?” Giles sighed. “No one here remembers her either, except for me. I thought I was going mad.” He turned to Gwen and Ethan. “Did you find anything else? Did the Council do anything?”

Ethan shook his head. “She’s been the Slayer there for six years, although her first year she was in LA. Oh, there’s a second Slayer too, named Kendra.”

“How on earth is there a second Slayer?”

“Apparently Buffy died for a short time. She was revived but it was long enough that a second Slayer was called.”

Giles’ heart clenched at the thought of Buffy dying. He’d dreamed about it too many times. Joyce’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t understand. How do you know about Slayers and Watchers?”

“I used to be a Watcher. I quit the Council, though, about six years ago.”

“She said you used to be her Watcher.”

Giles’ eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”

Joyce looked at Willow and Xander. “Apparently this life she’s living now, it’s her third. The first one was as a Slayer with you as her Watcher. The second one was with you in London and now she’s the Slayer again but with Wes as her Watcher.” There was a pause. “Somehow, she seems unable to live any life without you being in it, one way or another.”

Giles looked at Gwen. “Gwen, please make me some plane reservations. I need to get to Sunnydale. Make it as soon as you can”

Gwen nodded and went to the office next door to use the phone. Ethan followed her. Giles reached for a pencil. “Before we do anything else, please give me your number. I almost lost Buffy because of that and I don’t want to do it again.”

Joyce gave him her number and her address. “Dr. Giles?”

“Rupert, please.”

“Rupert, do you really love my daughter?”

“More than I’ve ever loved anyone. We belong together. I know that’s a fairly existential excuse to give to a mother for stealing her daughter but it’s true. I’ve been a lunatic since she’s been gone. Did she tell you what happened? Why she left here?”

“Well, I’m not pretending to understand it all and Buffy can explain it better to you but apparently some demon granted Buffy a wish.” There was a pause. “Her life as a Slayer with you as her Watcher, it wasn’t easy for her. For some reason you had left…”

“I left her?” Giles was astonished. But then he remembered Buffy’s dream. His voice was sad. “Buffy dreamed that while she was here. She dreamed that I left her.”

“Well, this demon sort of fooled her into making a wish that she’d never been called and she ended up in the life with you in London. Then that night you were supposed to meet for dinner, the day you gave her the card, someone showed up and told her she’d have to go back. Actually they told her that you’d both have to go back.”

“So why am I still here?”

“She refused to do that to you. A lot of bad things happened to you to as her Watcher. And apparently if you stayed a Watcher your sister would die, and quite a few of your friends would die and somebody named Ethan would go bad, although that might be the dog’s name. I started getting confused after a while, plus I wasn’t quite sure whether to believe her or not, to be perfectly honest. Anyway, she said you were happy in London and she told this person that they’d have to fix it so only she went back. And they did, which is why she has a third life now.”

Giles felt tears prick his eyelids. Clearing his throat he spoke. “She did that for me?”

“She loves you too. She hasn’t been happy for a long time, but when she talked about you, she was happy. She reminded me of how she used to be. You make her happy.” Joyce paused. “I want my daughter to be happy, Rupert.”

“I want her to be happy too. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I believe you when you say you’ll be here but how will that make her happy? You live in London. You’re the Curator of the British Museum. She’s the Slayer; she can’t leave here. Your lives are on two different continents.”

“Then I’ll move there. I’m sure I can find something to do.”

“You’d leave your life there for Buffy?”

“If that’s what it took to be with her. I can’t live my life without her.” Giles leaned back into his chair. “Is she all right?”

“No, Rupert, she’s not. But I believe she will be when you get here.”

Gwen walked back in and handed him a piece of paper. “I’ll be leaving for Los Angeles early this afternoon and I arrive at 6:20 tomorrow evening. How far is it to Sunnydale?”

“About two hours at that time of day.”

Xander spoke. “I can go pick him up.”

Gwen spoke up. “It needs to be a big car.”

Giles looked up at his sister, suspicion on his face. “Why does it need to be a big car?”

“Well, we’re going too.”

“Gwen…”

“Forget it Ru, we’re going. The tickets are booked.”

Giles looked at her suspiciously. She sounded entirely too innocent. “Gwen.”

“Okay, the dogs are going too.”

“What?” Giles could hear giggles in Sunnydale. “Gwen, the dogs are not…”

“Ethan says they have to. He has a feeling about it, you know, one of those feelings.” She emphasized the word those.

Giles frowned. Those feelings involved magic. And if Ethan felt the dogs had to go then… He spoke back into the phone. “Apparently I’m bringing an entourage with me. It might be easier to simply rent a car.”

Xander shook his head. “Nah, I got plenty of room. Besides this way you’ll get to Buffy faster.”

That decided Giles. “Fine then, I appreciate it. I appreciate that you are taking so much on faith. You don’t even know me.”

Joyce spoke. “She knows you and she loves you. And that’s good enough for me.” There was a pause. “Rupert?”

“Yes, Joyce.”

“What do we do about Wes? He won’t approve. He’ll try and stop it.”

Ethan snorted. “Don’t you worry about Wes. Ru here can beat the crap out of him.”

Giles turned exasperated eyes to Ethan. “Ethan, could you please not help?” Turning back to the phone he sighed. “I’ll deal with Wes. There is nothing he can do. Watchers are trained to do everything they can to keep their Slayers powerless. But the truth of it is that the Slayer holds all the power. Buffy can do whatever she wants. He has no way to stop her. The Council and Watchers can bluster all they want but they would never hurt a Slayer, except through manipulation and control.”

“Is that why you quit? Because you thought that way?”

Giles shook his head. “No, I worked that out later, once I got away from them.”

Joyce needed to say one more thing. “Rupert, she may not be as you remember her. In this life she’s been a Slayer for six years. She’s burdened by her life, it hasn’t been easy for her.”

“I’ll make it up to her, I swear.”

There was another long pause and then Xander spoke. “Give me your flight details. You said you get in at 6:20? What airline? Should I meet you at your gate?”

Willow spoke up. “I don’t think they let you up to the gates anymore.”

“Right, okay, I’ll meet you at Baggage Claim. Or do we need to find customs? And what do you look like?”

Giles let out a soft chuckle. “Baggage claim is fine. We’ll be going through customs in New York. United Airlines. And I’ll be the one with the parade behind me.”

Joyce chuckled too. “I’ll put the news on. I’m sure there will be more reports about the dig and you should be on the news again.” She paused. “That’s very exciting news by the way. How can you just walk away from that?”

“I can still be involved as a consultant of some sort. I can fly to London when they need me, for that matter I can fly to Egypt. I’ll probably get even more involved this way, I’ll probably actually get to the dig site.”

“And they’d just let you do that? Just switch like that?”

Giles knew how valued he was. “Yes, if it meant they could keep me around they’d work something out. I don’t mean to sound immodest but…”

“No, I understand. You’re clearly well thought of. I’m glad. I’m glad that being here doesn’t mean that you’d have to walk away from all of it.”

“It wouldn’t matter. I would if that’s what it took.” Giles pursed his lips. “Will you tell her I’m coming?”

Joyce thought for a second. “No. I know you mean to come, and I do believe you plan to arrive here when you say. But on the off chance that something happens, if all memory of this phone call fades away, or I don’t know, something happens that postpones your arrival, I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t break her heart more than it’s already been broken.”

Fear clutched at Giles at the thought of forgetting this conversation. He started writing words on a piece of paper in hopes that it would still exist and might prompt him. “So, who is picking us up? I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Xander. I’m one of Buffy’s best friends.”

“And I’m Willow. I’ll be there too. I’m her other best friend. I’m about Buffy’s height, with red hair and Xander’s tall with dark hair.”

There was a pause all around. Then Giles spoke. “Right then, well, we’ll see you later tomorrow.”

No one really wanted to hang up in case it all went away. Finally Joyce spoke. “I’m looking forward to meeting you and seeing a smile on my daughter’s face.” With that she disconnected.

Giles sat there staring at the phone, waiting for a few moments. Then he turned to Ethan and Gwen. “You still remember this? That we were just talking to Buffy’s mother?” When Ethan and Gwen both nodded Giles closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Thank God.” Then he lifted his head up and looked at Ethan, his brow furrowed. “The dogs? The dogs have to come?”

“Don’t worry, I paid for them.”

“That wasn’t what I meant and I would be perfectly willing to pay.”

“I know. But you know I can afford it. Besides you’d have flown us all economy. I booked us all first class.” He sat down across from Giles. “I just know they have to be there. You need to trust me on this one.”

Gwen grinned. “And I certainly wasn’t not going to go. This girl’s probably going to become my sister-in-law. Besides, if you move to Sunnydale, I will too, so I want to see it.”

“Gwen, I don’t mean for you to…”

“Ru, you’re all I have. I’m not going to live 8,000 miles away from you. Besides, my job’s sort of transportable. I can edit books wherever I live.”

Ethan sighed. “That means I’ll have to move too.” At their expressions he made a defensive noise. “What, you two are my family. What will I do without you here to properly annoy?” He grinned. “Besides, I can afford to put us all up while you two look for jobs.” His eyes gleamed and he rubbed his hands together. “And two Watchers I can harass, that’s almost reason enough to go.”

Gwen tried to hide her grin. “But look, your flight leaves at 1:00, which means we need to be at the airport at 11:00. You need to go home and get some sleep and pack. Not to mention calling Nathan and coming up with some excuse as to why you’re leaving the country and leaving him to deal with the press. He’ll never forgive you for that.”

Giles looked dismayed. “No, he won’t. I’ll suggest he put Susan Chin on press duty. She’s the natural person to take over for me if I leave here, anyway. It will be a good opportunity for her to see just how hot this seat can get.” He stood and Gwen was so glad to see the light back in his eyes.

Gwen touched his arm. “I’m so glad you found her.”

Giles pulled her in for a hug. “Me too, Gwen.” He pulled back and looked at them both. “Thank you, thank you for believing in me. I know I must have seemed like a madman.”

Gwen smiled at him. “Well, that’s what sisters and best friends are for.”

Smiling back at her Giles stood and shut off his office light. The three of them left the museum together.

End Part 11