Giles/Jenny, various ratings, ending up with a different pairing to be revealed.
"Thanks, Rupert, but I'll skip the champagne."
"No champagne?" Jenny wasn't looking at him, but her voice had been definitive. Giles glanced up at the waiter and changed the order to a bottle of sparkling mineral water. The waiter vanished in the direction of the bar. "I thought you liked champagne."
Jenny fidgeted with her fork. She'd been nervous when he'd picked her up at her flat, too. "I do, I do. It's, oh, God, I don't know how to say this. And it needs to wait. Until after dinner. Let's have a nice meal. Lovely place, Snobby. Been meaning to come here, but I never had a date."
"Jenny," he began, uncertainly. "I should like to hear it now, if I may."
She was looking everywhere but at him. "You're so polite. Always so polite. A gentleman, that's what you are, Rupert."
Would he have to take bad news like a gentleman, with a stiff upper lip and a polite smile pasted on? Valentine's Day was not a day for receiving gentle letdowns from the woman one had just admitted one was head over heels for. If any day was a good day. Like a gentleman, Giles waited patiently for whatever it was.
She sighed. "I should have told you right away. I know that. I admit freely that you'd be right to be upset with me. Secrets are-- wow, until I met you, I didn't realize they'd be so hard to handle."
Giles closed his hand around his napkin, crumpling it. His mind ran pell-mell from one possibility to the next. "Secrets? Jenny. Please."
She pulled her shoulders back and cleared her throat. "You remember our first night together?"
He flushed. He remembered it, despite the stupendous hangover he'd had afterwards. He had taken steps to renew the memory with fresh experience, as often as possible. And he had not mistaken her enthusiasm for her part of that renewal. He was certain of that, certain she at least enjoyed his presence in her bed, if he was as yet uncertain of her heart.
"You remember that we were a little bit, um, spontaneous?"
Giles nodded. He searched her face, trying to work out what she was about to say. She opened her mouth, but the waiter appeared with glasses and a bottle. He poured with a flourish, and was waved away again.
"So it turns out that the rhythm method is a bunch of hooey."
"The rhythm method?"
"You know. As a means of avoiding getting pregnant. Yeah. That. I'm eight weeks along. I've suspected for a while, and today I found out for sure."
That. Oh, lord. Giles stared at Jenny. Blank. That's what he felt. His mind was blank for two space of two breaths, then his head felt strange and dizzy. Emotion flooded over him, so intensely he had to look away from her, longing and hope surging through him and making his chest hurt. He was forty-two; he'd begun to despair of ever finding someone he might love enough to marry, never mind settling enough to have a child. But would she? She might not want a child. She might be upset. She might enjoy taking him to her bed, but being tied to him permanently was different matter. Tied to a Watcher. Oh Lord, she didn't know what he was.
Giles gulped his mineral water and wished it were something stronger. Though that had been the start of all the trouble: eggnog that had been more rum than egg.
"What-- what do you wish to do?" He was stammering as badly as he ever did.
Jenny leaned her elbows on the table. "I'm a modern woman, Rupert. My own silly choices got me into this mess, so I can see it through on my own. But, ah--"
"Jenny?"
"I was thinking it was a good time to have a kid. I'm a good age. If you'd like to be involved--"
Giles's heart leapt. "Involved?"
"You know. In some sort of parenting role. Non-traditional if you'd prefer."
Jenny stopped and raised an eyebrow. Giles gulped more mineral water; his mouth had gone dry, and he didn't think he could speak if he tried.
"Rupert?"
The waiter appeared and hovered. Giles waved him away. The interruption gave him a chance to gather himself. He knew what he wanted, but he also knew that he could not yet offer it in good conscience.
"There's something I need to tell you."
Jenny sat back. "Oh, God. You're married."
"Goodness, no! Nothing like that. Just--" Now it was his turn to wonder how on earth to say it. "I've seen the books and the herbs in your flat. I know that you know that magic is real."
He cocked an eyebrow at her and she nodded.
"The world is full of creatures who are not human. Every nightmare you've ever had, about things lurking the dark, all true. Vampires, demons, angels. Do you also know that?"
"I know that vampires are real, yes." She was smiling oddly, ironically, and he wondered if she'd had an encounter with one. It wouldn't surprise him, as she'd been on the Hellmouth longer than he. "But what does this have to do with us and our little accident?" A wave of her hand on the last word, downplaying it.
"I need to tell you what I truly do for a living. I'm not, I'm not a librarian. I mean, I am a librarian, but-- Have you ever heard of the Slayer? The Chosen One?"
Jenny shook her head. "No. Yes. Isn't she a legend?"
"No. Well, yes, she's a legend, but she is also real. A girl, one girl in every generation, charged to defend humanity against the vampires. She's a student at Sunnydale, and she is given to my care. She's my reason for being."
Jenny sat back and frowned at him. "Isn't that a bit melodramatic?"
"No. It's who I am. What I do. I am her Watcher. I prepare her to fight." Giles leaned forward, trying to read her face. She'd gone distant for some reason. "You don't seem surprised."
"I knew something was up. Your books. The swords in the rare book cage. The continual presence in your library of a student who acts as though she's never voluntarily read a book in her life."
Giles smiled, just a flash. "Yes, Buffy gives that impression, but she's really quite-- Jenny. The point is, is-- My life is dangerous."
She regarded him solemnly. "What are you trying to say? That you can't allow yourself to get tangled up with a wife and child?"
Giles shook his head. This was always a problem for Watchers. The Council recommended against it while one was in the field, but his father had always sneered at their timidity. If one stopped living out of fear, he'd said, the battle against evil was already lost. His father had married and raised Giles while an active Watcher.
"No, that's not it. It's just you're owed the truth. If we're to be together, you need to know who I am. Why I'm here."
Jenny was looking away, and the expression on her face was unreadable. "Wow. You've really raised the stakes here, Rupert."
He couldn't find any reply to make that didn't seem inane, so he said nothing. He pulled off his glasses and polished them, to give her time. She didn't need it, however.
"So. Now I know."
"And you're, you're willing to--"
"Up to you, Rupert. I, uh--" She looked down, and now Giles could read her face easily. She was embarrassed and pleased at once. "I've, you know, grown accustomed to your face."
"Oh. Yes. And, um, I yours."
There was silence between them. He met her eyes and she smiled. His heart expanded in his chest, and ached so much he thought he might die of it.
"What's the plan, Snobby?"
Plan? Giles's head spun, then it all settled into place. The future stretched out before him, clear and simple and bright.
"The plan. Right. We'll get married straight away. My flat is larger than yours, and I've gone and bought it anyway, so we'll either live there or let it and take a larger house. Can't say which yet. September? End of September? Forty weeks, isn't it?"
"Rupert. Rupert!"
"Yes, sorry?"
"Hold on. Did you just ask me to marry you?"
"Oh. Er. Not precisely. I, uh." He glanced around the restaurant. No, he wasn't going down on a knee here.
"I'll just have to ask you then. Wanna get married so I can make an honest man out of you?"
Giles grinned at her. Fatuously, foolishly, out of his mind with joy, he grinned, stretched out his hand, and met her halfway across the table.
Giles had finally stuttered to a halt. He was perched on the edge of the study table, opposite Buffy slouched in her chair. He rubbed his hands on his trousers, obviously nervous about whatever her reaction was going to be. Buffy cocked her head at him. She stuck a finger under her own jaw and pressed her mouth closed, ostentatiously. She'd known Giles was dating Miss Calendar, but this was far more serious.
He was watching her still, hanging on her reaction as if it mattered in the slightest.
"So, wait, Giles, I don't get what you're asking me. 'Cause I'm not throwing a bachelor party for you. That's way more something Xander should do. Only since we just learned he's a virgin, that's maybe not a good idea. And he isn't old enough to buy you cigars anyway."
"Buffy! No, it's just, just... well, you're my Slayer. You ought to know things like this."
"And now I know. Congratulations!" Buffy grinned at him. "I think it's of the good. You get this sappy look on your face when you see her. It's really kinda sweet."
Giles fidgeted and yanked out his handkerchief, and Buffy knew there was something else.
"Out with it."
"She's, ah, that is to say, she, we're expecting. In September."
Giles's face was bright red. Buffy blushed as well. Weird to think about geeky tweed-man having sex, but he obviously had. With Miss Calendar, who was completely beautiful. She took another look at the textbook with arms, and wondered what Miss Calendar saw in him. She had a moment of dislocation: she had no idea what Miss Calendar saw when she looked at Giles. All she could see was a embarrassed Watcher, sliding his glasses back onto his nose.
"Again with the not getting why you're telling me. Other than to say, hey mister, the health teacher has a class you maybe ought to have taken."
Giles's blush faded and his face went serious. "There are tactical considerations. Families are targets. I am making your job more difficult. They say one ought to avoid entanglements like this. Perhaps I ought not--"
Buffy couldn't hold it in.
"Giles. Don't be an idiot. This is what I'm fighting for. Remember? You said it yourself. I have friends, and now I'm going to have more friends. Including a very tiny friend, who can't walk or talk or anything. What should I call him? Her? What's the word for your Watcher's baby? Step-Watcher? Watcher Junior? Cousin?"
"Godchild," said Giles, abruptly.
Buffy grinned at him again. "Cool."
The wedding was in a little church that Willow explained was Anglican, though Buffy couldn't see much difference between it and the Catholic church she'd been to twice a year since the earliest she could remember. One big difference was that the priest was married to a cute little woman who helped with the rehearsal two days before. Willow had dragged Buffy along to that, probably because she was afraid her parents would freak at the thought of Ira Rosenberg's daughter as a bridesmaid in a Christian church wedding. She got over it, though, in the thrill of getting dressed up and carrying flowers for her favorite teacher.
Buffy sat on the groom's side of the church, and kept an eye on her nervous Watcher, fidgeting in front of the altar.
Giles turned out to have parents, and not to have sprung fully-formed from the forehead of a giant tweed Watcher as Buffy had half-suspected. He even had a handful of friends willing to fly all the way to California from England, including a beefy guy named Robson who was his best man. Robson eyed Buffy respectfully when Giles presented her to him. And Giles used that word, which was not something anybody had ever said when introducing Buffy to people before, which meant that this Robson guy was another Watcher type. Buffy resolved to avoid him at the reception.
Miss Calendar, or Ms Calendar as she was about to become, had a larger gathering, from her Wiccan circle friends to her extended family. And of course the nicer faculty of Sunnydale High showed up. Not, Buffy was relieved to see, Snyder. Still, it wasn't a huge wedding. Maybe thirty people, tops, in the pews at the front of the little incense-wreathed church. These Anglicans were into the smoky stuff.
Xander was a groomsman, standing up there now along with Giles and his best man. Xander was there probably more to make Willow happy than to make Giles happy. Though Giles seemed not to mind. Buffy suspected he wouldn't have minded anything short of a two-by-four hitting him in the face. Or noticed. He had a megawatt smile going, all teeth and crinkled eyes, when the organist started playing.
Buffy cranked around with everybody else to watch Jenny glow her way up the aisle. She looked just as happy, and maybe a little bit smug. Buffy wondered again what the appeal was: what did her Watcher have that made Miss Calendar look like a cat with her head in the cream carton? He was so old and stuffy and all wrapped up tight in those absurd jackets and checked shirts. Though he did look spiffy today, dolled up in a nice dark wool suit with a buttonhole. And as the ceremony progressed-- just like in the movies, complete with old-fashioned "with this ring I thee wed"-- Buffy had to admit she was touched. Giles said his vows as if he meant them, in a choked-up voice, which was almost swoon-worthy. Ms Calendar said hers as if the glee were almost but not quite about to bubble over and fill the church with fizz.
The reception was at a good French restaurant, a place Buffy hadn't realized Sunnydale had, with a view of the ocean and the sunset. She was at a table with the other people under the age of fifty, Willow and Xander and a couple of Calendarical connections who were more interested in talking to each other than to them. Not that Buffy minded; they seemed boring and half the time they didn't talk in English.
Willow was well over her freak and deep into thrill mode. She looked utterly fab in her dress, which Miss Calendar had helped her pick out. Xander was impressed, anyway, and kept sneaking peeks. And he looked great in a suit, himself, and Willow was not so much sneaking peeks at him as marching around grabbing them. Buffy did wonder when he was going to get a clue.
Willow ate a bite of her salmon with whacky shrooms something or other Buffy still couldn't pronounce after two years of French, and made a happy face. "Best wedding I've ever been to," she said. "Good food, no Rosenbergs making snide comments about Glassmans, nobody singing Bette Midler songs-- I'm a happy Willow."
"I am still loving the dress, Will," Buffy said.
Willow wriggled her shoulders. "Mmm, thanks! Me too. It's making me feel all grownup. Hey. Angel didn't come?"
Buffy shook her head. "He made this really strange face when I asked him if he would come with me. Giles kinda encouraged me to ask him. Sent him an invitation and everything." She rolled her eyes. The idea of her Watcher trying to fix her up! Though if he was going to try to fix her up with somebody, this Angel guy wasn't a bad pick. Buffy was starting to kinda like him, like him. Plus he had the whole man of mystery, fights on the right side thing going for him. She was wearing the cross he'd given her right now.
Dinner ended, and the plates were cleared away. The best man stood up, and did the funny speech thing, which was funnier than Buffy had expected. Giles had apparently pulled some stunts in his youth at this Oxford place. He endured the speech with his face hidden in his hands. Xander wore an expression of total glee; Giles would not live this down ever. Robson wound up with a sappy toast that had everybody sniffling.
Buffy lifted her glass, drank, and then made a face. "This isn't champagne!"
"I checked," said Xander. "They gave us that sparkling apple juice stuff. What's a guy gotta do to have his first glass of champagne?
"No sympathy from me," said a voice behind Buffy. She spun-- Miss Calendar, no, wait, Ms Calendar, with a glass in her hand. "I'm drinking apple juice too." She had a hand laid across her belly, where she was showing.
"I, on the other hand, have the real thing. Here." Giles stretched out a hand with his glass to Xander. His face was flushed and his tie loose. Buffy suspected he'd had a couple of glasses already.
Xander took a healthy swig and swished it around in his mouth. He swallowed, and his face screwed up. "That's-- people volunteer to drink that? And before you say anything, yes, I'll figure it out when I get older. I've been told this. My current theory is that all your taste buds fall off at the age of twenty-one, and you suddenly think it tastes good. It used to be eighteen, but they-- oh just shut me up. Congratulations, Giles! I give you the manly groomsman shoulder hug."
He suited actions to words, and Giles returned it, which was proof positive he'd had more champagne than he ought to have had. Congratulations were shared all around, and there was more soppy hugging.
The bride and groom wandered off after that, to shake more hands and accept more well-wishes. Dessert arrived, which Buffy refused to eat because she had five pounds to lose to fit into this dress she'd found at the thrift shop that she was sure Angel would love. Or at least notice. Assuming his refusal to come to the wedding with her was not a bigger sort of rejection. Buffy brought this possibility up to Willow, and the two dove into a technical discussion of exactly what he'd said when he'd declined.
Xander kicked her ankle, twice. Buffy looked up, annoyed. "Don't turn around, Buff. The Giles paterfamilias is on his way over here. Yeah. Incoming. With Mrs G the elder."
Xander stood when they got there, demonstrating a politeness Buffy hadn't realized he'd had in him. He shook Giles's dad's hand and then introduced Buffy to them.
Giles's mom was a lot younger than Giles's dad was. She had a poise, and a certain alertness, that made Buffy wonder if she'd been a Slayer, or something like that, decades ago, before she got married. Did Slayers get to retire? Buffy had a moment of hope. No, wait, there was some deal Giles had mentioned once, where most Slayers got spotted when they were kids, before they had the powers land on their heads, and were raised and trained by Watchers. She was probably one of those. She had sweet things to say to Xander and Willow, thanking them for helping her son get himself married, and she even kissed Xander on the cheek. He flamed out red and went speechless.
Giles senior wasn't so genial. He zoomed right in on Buffy, one hundred percent terrifying old guy whom she couldn't be flip to without being unforgivably rude. "Come walk with me," he said, without any preamble. Buffy met Willow's eyes and made a helpless face, then put her napkin on the table.
Giles's dad was tall, nearly as tall as Giles himself, though the slight stoop meant he had once been taller. He had broad shoulders, and Buffy could see where Giles got the strong jaw. He was walking with a stick, but he didn't lean on it much. Or at all. Buffy wondered if it was a sword-stick, or something else lethal. She had the idea that this guy, when he went, would go over like an oak in a storm, toppling all in one stubborn piece. She walked alongside him and waited.
"My son thinks you've got potential."
Buffy shrugged.
"Potential isn't enough."
Buffy cast a glance at him sidelong, trying to figure out if he was insulting her. He'd been a Watcher too, Giles had told her. What had happened to his Slayer? How long ago? Did he remember her?
"I suppose you don't pay attention to a single word he says."
"Well, I pay attention to some of them. He says one in ten."
Giles senior made a kind of harrumphing noise. "You ought to listen to him. When you were born, he'd already spent sixteen years training to be your Watcher."
"That's... kind of pathetic, really." Which wasn't what Buffy meant, but it was too much to think about. The idea of somebody spending twice her lifetime getting ready to teach her to throw knives at a target dummy and to translate huge books in rotting leather bindings for her and lecture her about missing patrol to go out on dates.
"My son volunteered for this. Do him the courtesy of accepting his sacrifice. For your own sake." Mr Giles said.
Buffy got the impression that there were a million things unsaid, lurking behind that flat statement. But it was an annoying thing to say. She was the one making all the sacrifices. Though-- Merrick. Buffy felt guilty about Merrick and probably always would. Weird guy in a weird trenchcoat, looked perverty but had turned out to be the kind of guy who would shoot himself so Buffy could escape and live. Was Giles that kind of guy?
And speak of the devil, here was the groom, sans his bride, sans his glass of champagne, but still with the flower in his buttonhole. Giles looked wary and completely sober. "Hullo, Dad. I see you've met Buffy."
He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her. Buffy gave him a tiny nod to let him know she was okay.
"Mr Giles was just telling me I should up my listening ratio from one word in ten to one word in five. Six at the least."
Giles grinned at her, and Buffy tilted her head and grinned back. "I'm hoping for a scheme where I get you to listen to one sentence in ten. I can recite the most absurd piffle in the first nine--"
"And then tell me not to drop my left shoulder in the tenth!"
"Exactly."
They smiled at each other. Buffy shot a look at G-man senior, expecting to see him glaring, but he looked pleased for some reason she couldn't work out.
"Dad, I'd like to introduce you to some of Jenny's family. May we take our leave of you, Buffy?"
"Go right ahead. It was, uh, interesting to meet you, Mr Giles. And nice. Also, nice. Can't forget nice."
Buffy waved them off. Giles wound his arm through his father's, with a look on his face that Buffy envied. She was due to see her dad in a couple of weeks, and she hadn't realized until that minute that she missed him. She gratefully retreated to her table, to be consoled after her ordeal with the forkful of crème brûlée that Willow had rescued from Xander, eater of all unattended desserts.
And then they were off, the happy couple, carried away in a cab for a few days somewhere hush-hush up the coast. Buffy had the phone number and address on a slip of paper in her purse, just in case; Giles was such a fuss-budget. The party broke up soon after that. Xander drove Willow and Buffy downtown for a latte at the Pump, as they were all unwilling to go home to boring lives just yet. They sat around a street table, feeling good in their wedding finery, and watched their jeans-clad townsfellows slouch around. Xander unpinned his carnation and gave it a contemplative sniff. Buffy watched Willow watching Xander, again, and hid her smile. Xander didn't make her heart beat fast, but she could see he was cute.
"So, hey. We got my Watcher married."
Xander saluted the air with his paper cup. "All thanks to the fine supportive presence of me and Willow."
"You two make a cute couple, walking down the aisle in all your awesome clothes. Xan, you clean up nice."
Willow sighed. "They make a cute couple. Meant to be together."
"And now they are. Joined for all eternity. Do you suppose they're, you know, right now?" Xander's eyes were wide, as if he'd just had a moment like the one Buffy'd had a few weeks ago: the moment of realizing that Giles and Ms Calendar slept together.
"Xan. Ew. I just ate."
To Buffy's surprise, Xander made a disapproving face at her. He shook his head.
So did Willow. "I think it's romantic," she said.
Buffy once again had that feeling of dislocation, of everybody else seeing something she didn't. But she let Willow have the last word, because why not? It was good to be sappy at weddings.
Giles hovered next to the bed, hesitating. "You all right? Both of you?"
Jenny stretched against the pillows and laughed. "Yes, he's kicking like a maniac."
"She is as relieved as I am."
Relief didn't encompass the half of it. God! It had been madness to allow her anywhere near the library tonight, madness to have allowed her to stay in Sunnydale at all. She might so easily have been injured. Or worse. Now that they were home, and safe, and the adrenaline had faded, it sank into him. How could he protect her? She would consider it an insult if he implied she was not capable of protecting herself. She'd been on the Hellmouth longer than he.
Giles hovered, and scrubbed the back of his head with a hand, and wished he did not feel so helpless.
"Can I get you anything? Warm milk?"
She stretched out a hand and tugged at his jacket. "Just you, Rupert. Get into bed. Need you now."
Giles obediently undressed and slipped in next to her. Her kisses soon had the effect they always had on him. From the very first moment, when she'd handed him a cup of eggnog at the faculty Christmas party, and her fingers brushed his, he'd been drunk with need for her. She had satisfied his need, over and over. Even now, five months along, she was eager for him. As her nausea had faded, her libido had soared. She'd had to coax him over his nerves and fear of harming the baby, but he'd yielded at last. He'd made love to her more often in the last two months than he had with anyone before in his life. Jenny claimed the sex was the best she'd ever had, thank you goddess for the hormones. Giles was simply thankful. Thankful now that all of them had lived, that the Hellmouth was closed, that the Master was dead, that he was embracing his wife, lips on the back of her neck, hand splayed over her belly, bodies joined.
Sex after a battle had always been the best sex for Giles, though it was not something he'd ever said aloud. Fighting and surviving and winning, breathless triumph, followed by a tumble with whoever was nearby and willing. The danger sharpened every sensation. The dizzy terror of his decision to face the Master instead of Buffy. The fear during the battle. The relief afterward, the secret tears when he'd seen that they all lived, even Buffy for whom he'd feared most. And what did it mean that he'd been so ready to die in her place, he a man with a wife and a baby on the way?
But she'd prevented him. They'd all lived. His wife was here, in his arms, safe. For now. He kissed her shoulder and was grateful she could not see his face.
Giles and Jenny had a little boy, right at the end of September. Giles called the day something funny, which Buffy didn't catch, but that Giles said was significant. Buffy was off doing some serious Slaying when it all happened, but the phone call from Giles the next morning said it had been routine, as smooth as it ever gets. Mother and son doing well, visitors welcome in another day or so once they'd all recovered. Buffy brought them presents and met the newest Giles, who looked like a tiny sack of potatoes in his blue onesie. Cute as the proverbial button, though. Ms Calendar looked fabulous and was in a triumphant show-off mood, bubbling over with way more energy than Buffy expected.
A few days later Giles was back on the job, back on both jobs, catching up with Buffy on the Slaying front and dealing with the backlog of shelving his totally annoying substitute had left behind. Buffy sat with him at the study table and gave him the update while he scribbled notes in his Watcher journal. He looked thrashed, all tired-eyed and rumpled. No sleep in days, she figured, but he had that quiet glow that meant all was better than good in the Giles world.
Buffy finished up her report, which had been all-in-all boring and routine, then asked the big question: "What's Junior's name, anyway? Have you guys decided?"
"Yes, we've decided."
Buffy stopped, afflicted by a sudden bad thought. "Not Rupert Junior?"
Giles's eyes crinkled up, but he shook his head. "Nothing so dreadful. He'll be given three names. Peter, after my father. Michael, after the day he was born."
"Peter Michael Giles. Not bad. What's the third one?"
"Jenny whispered it in his ear right after the birth. It's so secret even I don't know it. She tells me it's his true name." Giles shrugged.
"Peter Michael Secret-name Giles. Gypsy thing?"
"A Roma thing, yes."
Giles cleared his throat, and told Buffy a few more secrets. There was negotiation going on between him and Jenny, about religion and magic and other things, like how Peter was going to be raised. Jenny was mostly Catholic, like Buffy, the "mostly" coming from a bunch of Roma traditions that her family had going on top of the usual. Giles was a species of Anglican with a Watchery twist. Or so he explained it. The two of them had worked out a christening ceremony that satisfied both of them, and the vicar-guy who'd married them had consented to perform it.
It turned out that Giles had been serious about the godparent thing, because the next thing out of his mouth was a stuttery formal request that she participate in the christening ceremony on the coming Sunday. Giles sat gazing at her almost anxiously. Buffy picked up on his mood and answered him totally seriously and told him she'd be thrilled to.
Giles took off his glasses and polished them. "Marvelous. Thank you. I-- uh, thank you."
"What does it mean, exactly? I've never been a godparent. Doesn't he get two?"
"Three," Giles said, and he stuck his glasses back onto his nose. "Two men, and one woman. Robson will be flying out here again. My best man; you remember him."
Buffy wrinkled her nose. She'd avoided him on principle, because he was a Watcher, though if Giles liked him that counted for something.
Giles was talking some more. "The ceremony is simple, easy enough to perform, but it needs to be approached seriously, because it will be a magic ritual. You'll be standing for him and telling the Powers you're his guardian. His guardian in a spiritual and mystical sense. "
He looked anxious as he talked, as if it were important that Buffy understood. He was taking it way more seriously than she'd expected. And she was surprised that he'd let magic get mixed up with church stuff. But Giles said, groping for words, that religion was magic to start with, especially for people like Watchers and Slayers. And his son was going to be a Watcher some day. He'd done a reading right after the birth, and the signs were clear. He sighed when he explained this to Buffy, and looked almost sad. But it meant he needed a Watcher on the godparent list, and Giles said he trusted Robson. Buffy wasn't sure what that meant, exactly. They'd never really talked about the Watchers. Buffy knew Giles wasn't the only one, but if there was a whole gang of them back in the motherland, they didn't seem to do much.
But his son's destiny as a Watcher was also was why Giles was particularly honored, he said, that the Slayer would be one of his godparents. The Slayer as guardian of the young Watcher, just as someday he would be a Slayer's guardian. Buffy blinked, and maintained her suave, even though she was perilously close to choking up.
"Who's the other godparent?" she said quickly, to cover up.
"I was thinking of asking Xander."
"Xander?" Buffy felt it would not be possible to overstate her surprise.
"I feel strongly about him," Giles said, looking at his hands instead of at Buffy. "He brought you back to life. I think-- well, I believe that was significant. You may call me superstitious if you like. But I-- Anyway. I'll be forever grateful to him."
"Me too," Buffy said, quietly.
"I'll ask him when he comes by after class. Do you think he'll--"
"Duh. He'll fall all over himself."
"Right, right. Then I'll teach you both what you need to know about the ceremony. It's quite simple. In the meantime, must get these bloody books shelved."
Giles stood and ran a hand through his already-messy hair, and like that, snap, he was a librarian again. Buffy sat and thought about things after he vanished into the stacks with his book cart. She'd never thought of herself as religious. Christmas and Easter, that was when her family went to church and heard Mass and did the whacky stuff. Twice a year, some nice comforting bland rituals before you went home and had fun with your family. The rest of the time she didn't think about it. Not even when she watched the priest do a special blessing on the holy water he gave her every week. Even though there had to be mojo working, the mojo that made the holy water and the crucifixes hurt the vamps. Or not mojo, but the Powers. God. Whatever it was. It had to be real, because souls and demons and heaven and hell and all that stuff was real. Sort of a big surprise, but now that Giles was making Buffy think about it, it all fit.
The world was not what she had thought it was. It was far more like the creepy place she'd been scared it was when she was small, when she took things literally. Bit of a trip to come out the other side and learn that no, all this science and rationality came to a screeching halt the moment you looked under the bed and found there really was a monster there.
On the plus side, Buffy was no longer scared of monsters. They were scared of her. Nothing quite like sauntering through a cemetery and seeing the baddies turn tail when she gave them her cheeriest hello.
And at times like this, Buffy felt the world was infinitely cooler than she'd thought it was. She headed off to class in a good mood.
Xander said yes, of course, and so it came to be a few days later that Buffy was dressed up nicely in a church for the second time ever that was not Christmas or Easter. She stood in the clump of people around the font, between a calm and solid Robson and a jittering Xander. He wasn't quite as cleaned up as he'd been for the wedding, but he was wearing a new knitted tie, a present from Willow, and he'd even learned to tie it himself. He told Buffy this then jabbed her in the arm with an over-active elbow. Fortunately he settled down when it came time to work their mojo thing on Peter.
Peter didn't settle down, though. He was fussy to start with and built to an all-out wail when the vicar shook water on his head. The salt silenced him for about three seconds, then the wailing recommenced. Good thing this was a short ceremony. He wailed at Robson, and he wailed at Xander. Then it was Buffy's turn to get sobbed at.
Buffy stepped up and dipped her fingers into that special oil that Giles said was called chrism, which sounded gross but smelled sweet. She said her Latin words and signed the cross on the poor kid's head, and had another one of those world-shifting moments. This was what magic felt like: it tingled and fizzled and felt strangely good, like static electricity fuzzing around a balloon you'd rubbed on your sweater. And wonder of wonders, Peter shut up. He waved a tiny pink hand around and collided with her oily finger, as if by accident, and latched on tight.
Buffy smiled down at him and bent close to his little head, to his little face and bitty nose under the white lacy cap. World's smallest guardian of Slayers, Peter Michael Secret-Name Giles. She whispered to him: "I'll take care of you, kiddo."
“So this is where we bought the costumes,” the girl said. “I really don’t get why you’re so freaked, Giles. Are you sure you’re okay with Jenny out of town?”
“The name Ethan, plus the magic threads in the costumes, plus the two-faced statue you saw, add up to…”
Time to step out from behind the curtain, Ethan thought. He swept it aside dramatically, and stepped out into the shop.
“Hullo, Rip— Good lord, what’s that?”
The blonde girl made a face at him. “Haven’t you ever seen a baby before?”
“Ethan! It is you!” The man who’d been Ripper Giles cradled the tiny infant strapped to his chest with one hand, and stretched out the other in greeting. Ethan found himself shaking it before he quite knew what had hit him. “Have you been in town long?”
“Just a couple of weeks. I, uh…”
“Listen, Ethan, why don’t you come home with me for dinner? I have to feed Peter soon, and the children will be ringing the doorbell wanting candy. We can catch up there and keep you safely away from whatever it was you were planning on doing tonight. What do you say, Buffy?”
“Sounds good to me, Giles.”
And that was how Ethan found himself answering Ripper’s door and holding out a candy bowl to the rampaging hordes. Not truly rampaging, alas. Those little demon costumes were his, and that cluster of tiny demons would have wreaked lovely, delightful, delicious havoc on this dreadful town. But that blonde thing had turned out to be Ripper’s Slayer, more than capable of removing his arms if he tried anything.
Several high school students with strings of children rang the bell, looked surprised to see him, and demanded to know where Giles was. Ripper greeted them all with what seemed to be genuine delight, and extracted from them promises to stop by in an hour for dinner. His fridge was full of little containers of breast milk. His desk was littered with ritual daggers and pacifiers, tarot cards and wetwipes, demonologies and books on child development. Ripper was a soppy mess.
“Tell me again how you ended up like this?” Ethan took another snort of the Talisker. Since Ripper had refused to pour for himself, on the grounds that he had to mind Peter, Ethan figured he’d drink for two.
“Faculty Christmas party. I’d been here not more than a week. Had one too many. Woke up in Jenny’s bed. Spent New Year’s Eve there too. She broke the news on Valentine’s Day. We were married at Easter. Peter was born on Michaelmas.”
“A tragedy in five holidays.” And a ruined Halloween made six. At least the affair had begun in a manner Ethan could approve.
“Goodness no. I’m quite happy about it.” Ripper had his little finger stuck in the infant’s mouth. The expression on his face was appalling.
“And where is this charming wife of yours?” Ethan figured he’d have to meet her some time, the woman who’d tamed the Ripper.
“Overnighting with her wiccan circle. All hallow’s eve, you know. Ah. That’ll be Buffy and the others.”
Four teenagers descended upon the house like locusts. They were all delighted to meet an old friend of the man they called Giles. A sloppy dark-haired young man sprawled on the couch, Ripper-spawn cradled tenderly in one arm, and demanded to know what blackmail material Ethan had on the G-man.
Ethan grinned. At last, a bright spark of hope for a messy evening. He opened his mouth to tell the story of the night they got those three American birds to go to bed with them, by means of a breadknife charmed to look like Excalibur and a wild tale of their ancestry. Then Ripper loomed over him, eyebrow raised. How a man could loom wearing an apron and stirring something in a white ceramic bowl, Ethan didn’t know. But Ripper managed it. Ethan smoothly changed stories in mid-stream to the one about busking at the Oxford train station in a rainstorm, trying not to get Ripper’s new guitar wet.
Ruined. Utterly ruined.