Title: A Father’s Love Part 1: The Dream 3/3

Rating: FRT, genfic, Willow, Giles centric

Summary: A prophetic dream sends Willow back to London and the Watcher who has driven everyone away. Can she help him let go of his grief and guilt? Before the next apocalypse?

Written for Nanowrimo 06 and LJ summer of giles 08

See full disclaimer on Part 1 - Short version is, I own Nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean no harm and intend no copyright infringement. Still want to sue me? Knock yourself out.

A/N: Thanks this time to both gillo, who beta’ed this ages ago, and sahiya who stepped in at the last minute for what I thought was a simple mythology sanity check (none detected, thanks for asking) and ended up challenging me to make the new, and old, material a lot better. Thanks also to everyone who has read and reviewed.

It was almost noon according to the clock by her bed when Willow opened her eyes. She was disoriented for a moment, wondering when it had gotten so cold and damp in Rio, and what was with the dark wood tones to all the furniture?

Then she caught the slight musty smell in the air and remembered-- she was in a guest bedroom at Giles’ place, in London. And he was being all repressy and disapproving about it, but dealing. Well, kinda dealing. She almost wanted to pull the blankets over her head and not think about how much Giles was or was not dealing, but hunger was becoming an issue. Also, her bladder. So she stretched, then dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom.

It wasn’t until she’d brushed her teeth and splashed some water on her face (cold, of course) that she remembered the stunning array of lack of food she’d seen in Giles’ cupboards last night. If she hoped to eat anytime today, much less get Giles to, she was going to have to go out. So she dressed quickly, then called Andrew while brushing through her hair. He greeted her before she even had a chance to draw a breath.

“Willow, hi. Both survived the night, I see.”

“Very funny. How’d you know it was me?” she asked.

“Caller ID rocks. And Giles never calls my office from home,” he replied. “Sometimes he does call my cell phone, when he needs me to, you know, do important, well, okay, when he wants me to pick up his dry cleaning or something... Which I guess is probably what you want, too, huh?”

“Not dry cleaning,” Willow replied. “But yeah, I could use a lift, and a native guide. Can you pick me up?”

“Sure! I could totally do that.”

“I need to get some things from the store. And maybe some lunch?”

Andrew agreed to pick her up in half an hour and hung up-- no, rang off, Willow remembered. She was going to have to get her mind around all the little quirky British-isms, now that she was back. Besides, she’d always loved those little linguistic differences, and puzzling over how they came about.

Downstairs, she took stock of the cupboards and began to dump some truly disturbing things from Giles’ fridge. Yeah. There was another indicator of how far this man was from the the Giles she remembered. They had sometimes teased him about it, in Sunnydale, his near obsession with household cleanliness, especially in the kitchen. Even that awful first year she and Buffy had been at college, when he had been so depressed and at loose ends, he had still managed to dust the place twice a week, for goddess’ sake, and keep his spice rack in alphabetical order.

Looking around the house now, she estimated it had been months since any surface had been up close and personal with a dust rag. And unlike most bachelors she’d known, before that time and after, he did not tend to live on Ramen noodles, peanut butter and take out. Certainly he had never let his fridge get to the point where it looked like some of the things in there were almost ready to go out and kill some Ramen noodles on their own before spawning more of their kind. She dumped the last container into the bin without opening it, then washed her hands in the hottest water she could stand, thinking maybe she wasn’t that hungry after all. To distract herself from wondering what she’d gotten herself into here, she began looking at the research on the table.

There were dozens of books stacked there, and some official looking file folders. Loose parchment showed a few languages she recognized, and several more she didn’t. She flipped open a file at random and began to read. She put it down and switched to a different one, then to a book with certain pages marked with loose paper, scribbled almost to illegibility with notes in his cramped handwriting. Prophecies. He was researching prophecies. And these-- were these about Slayers? As in plural?

Andrew arrived before she’d made it through the top layer on Giles’ kitchen table. She met him at the door, and though she thought she was covering her concern well, he frowned immediately and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Willow shook her head. “Nothing. Just a late night.” Andrew looked dubious, and she was relieved when he let it pass. They headed off to the local market, where Willow stocked up on staples like milk, bread, and Caffeine-Free Coke. Well, actually, it was Regular for now, but she fully intended to do a little magic to swap this case with one from a more civilized elsewhere in the world as soon as they got home. She didn’t often tamper with the universe that way, but considering what she was going to be up against with Giles, she freely admitted she was going to need the comfort of her old favorite Sunnydale beverage.

She also selected a number of the raw ingredients for meals that Giles had often shared with them, all those years ago. He’d taught her to cook most of these dishes, though there were a couple she’d picked up over the last year that she was sure he would like. She remembered, as she selected some bright peppers, how her mother had disapproved of her cooking lessons, until she found out they were with Giles. “A man who doesn’t fall into all those stereotypes of traditional roles would be a good influence on you, honey. Just don’t stay out too late.”

Good influence, ha, she thought. If only she knew. But somehow the long ago memory of the man that had taught her how to make the best chicken soup on the planet left her that much more determined to try to reach him now.

“Do you want me to see about getting you a rental car?” Andrew asked as they drove back. “Um-- not that I mind driving you-- I kind of like it, really, but I know how you like being independent.”

“Thanks, Andrew. But I have a hard time with the backwards way they drive over here, and almost anywhere I need to go, I can get via the Tube. I just needed more help this time because his cupboards were so bare.”

Andrew made a face. “I was afraid of that,” he said. Then he brightened a little. “But with you around, that’ll be at least two meals a day he’ll be getting now-- three if you get up early with him and make him eat breakfast.”

“And if he doesn’t try to sleep at the office again,” Willow said, remembering how many mornings she’d come in early to find him slumped at his desk, or stretched out on the sofa in his office.

“Oh, he hasn’t done that for a while now. He’s usually out before rush hour starts.” Willow raised an eyebrow, wondering if the research she’d found might explain that atypical behavior. Even when he had been sleeping at home, Giles and leaving early were not concepts she would associate with one another. “He might even beat us home now,” Andrew added obliviously.

Indeed, Giles was unlocking his door when they pulled up. He glanced back, then set his umbrella and satchel just inside the door before coming to help them with the grocery bags.

“H--hello, Mr. Giles,” Andrew said with his nervous grin.

“Hello, Andrew, Willow. Here, let me carry something.”

Between them, they got the groceries inside in only one trip. Andrew didn’t linger long, though, stammering some lame excuse about some work he had to finish up. Willow teased him about having a girlfriend, and the young man blushed to the roots of his hair. Giles didn’t seem to notice, flipping through his mail and pointedly ignoring them both.

After Willow came back from seeing Andrew out, she found him staring at the bags looking a little lost. When she started putting things away in the cupboards he roused himself to help her. But it was awkward, and they kept getting in each other’s way as they never had in a kitchen before. It was very strange, and a little sad.

To distract herself, Willow asked, “How was your day?”

“Fine.” His voice was clipped and flat. He shot her a disapproving look as he deposited more powdered creamer in the cupboard.

“What? You were almost out. Anyway, I got real milk, too, you purist.”

He sniffed, but did not otherwise deign to reply. Willow let the silence lengthen, knowing that sometimes in the past he would break down under its weight. But not this time. Stubborn man. She sighed and launched herself into the breach.

“So, what shall we have for dinner? “ she asked him brightly.

“I’m not very hungry. Whatever you like.” That sounded a little less hostile. He was starting to lose interest in their domestic chore and she caught his eyes wandering back to the table a few times.

Well, the good news there was, as distracted as he seemed to be, he might be easy to trick into eating. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d played that particular game. She started assembling the ingredients for a kind of Mediterranean chicken stew she knew he particularly liked. As Giles put the milk into the refrigerator and gathered the bags for the rubbish bin, she asked him, “So, got any big plans tonight?”

“Not really. A little research, perhaps.” He went over to the table, switched on the lamp and began sorting through his papers. He was still a little out of sorts about her presence, but now she was getting more a resigned weariness from him.

“Sounds good,” she said, as she began chopping brightly colored bell peppers-- orange, red, green. “What are you researching? I saw something about Slayers on top there. Wouldn’t that have been cool to know before we used the scythe?”

“Well, yes,” Giles agreed mildly. He surprised her by going on, “Except that, until you performed that spell, it was always assumed that the plural was a mistake in the text. From what I can gather, many of them are just that-- we know the events to which the prophecies refer, and they invariably involve just the single Slayer. Or, sadly, a quick succession of them. But there are some oddities, and I decided it might behoove us to review them.”

“And?” Willow prompted, as he fell silent, looking more closely at a scrap of parchment on top of one stack.

“Hmm? Oh. I haven’t got very far yet. You’re welcome to help me after you finish there-- your Sanscrit is a good deal better than mine.”

Willow made a face. “Gee, thanks,” she said. “Don’t you have other people who could be working on it, though?”

“Perhaps. But we are still spread dangerously thin, and many of our most gifted scholars died in the... the explosion.” Willow felt the sudden upswelling of grief, quickly forced back down, as if he could not spare the time or energy to go there. He continued, “And I have no idea how sensitive some of this information might be. It seemed prudent for me to review it first, before passing it on.”

That, and, Willow could tell, he missed it. Research. Doing something useful. She’d seen it before-- the bureaucracy was killing him. If he had chosen to take on something he found pleasurable, maybe that was a good sign.

She set the stew simmering on the stove and washed her hands, then came over to join him at the table.

They spent several hours together that night, going through the whole of the papers and volumes he’d collected. It was a little like the old days in Sunnydale, the first few times she had done research with him. He was uncomfortable in just the same way as then, when he had struggled to keep the conversation strictly professional and didactic, stammering in response to her friendly overtures or questions outside the scope of their business.

Now of course, he simply sidestepped those as if she hadn’t spoken. It was just as effective at keeping their conversation entirely on the research, and Willow was beginning to feel 16 years old again. But other than that, he was talking to her. Last time, by the time she’d left, he hadn’t been. So, focus on the positive, that was her motto.

And then she ran across something odd.

It was a snippet really, marked in a much larger and heavier volume. It had been included because it referred to the “time of the Slayers,” but it was really about one girl who was to come after that. She would apparently be instrumental in saving the world and bringing about a new age of peace, though it looked like she herself would not live to see it. But the word that really caught Willow’s eye was the Sumerian for “mixed blood.”

“Giles? Have you seen this?”

He looked up. “Is that Gregson? No, not yet. Why?”

“C’mere and take a look at this.” They’d moved to the sitting room, and Willow was on the sofa, while Giles was using the small writing table by the window. He came and sat down and she handed him the book, along with the notebook in which she had jotted part of the translation.

“Slayers are all mixed blood, aren’t they? Human and demon, to get the powers? Why would this one be special?”

Giles’ face had turned quite grave. “I’ve seen this word before. There are a number of old texts handed down from the first Watchers. The current Watcher’s Handbooks are based on those older documents. This word generally comes up in the context of stressing the importance of keeping proper distance between Slayer and Watcher, to prevent the mixing of their blood.”

Willow had never heard this, but suddenly a lot of things began to make an awful sort of sense to her. Giles wouldn’t look at her, and Willow was even more sure of it— that old restriction had been part of what had come between him and Buffy. On his side, anyway. She’d be willing to bet Buffy didn’t even know about it.

Those two had always had such complex feelings for each other, whether they would admit it or not. Willow had often wondered how either one of them could find someone who could understand them as well as they could each other. Theirs had been a true partnership, before all the badness that had come out of the fall of Sunnydale, and for a time after. But looking back, if Giles’ reaction to Spike hadn’t had a bit of jealous lover written all over it, she would hand in her Wicca card.

Now, though, she just asked, “What happens, if the bloodlines get mixed?”

“Well, first, the mystical gifts passed down through the Watcher families would cease to be passed down. Children of such a union, if there were any at all, would be born into a world where magic is real and demons would be drawn to them because of their connection to the Slayer, but they would be without protection. As it is, the Watcher gifts are not inherited by all their children. So it would constitute an almost criminal negligence, squandering the chance to have children who might inherit the gifts their generation might need.”

“What about on the Slayer side? Do those children inherit anything special, normally?”

Giles looked down at the book in his hand and admitted quietly, “They seldom live to have children. Robin Wood is the only exception I know of in modern times. And while he is a Watcher, he does not possess any mystical gifts. Even his ability as a fighter was all learned through normal means, though he did have a very capable Watcher to train him.”

“But how do Watchers know who’s in the Slayer bloodlines? They’re scattered all over the world and seem to spring up out of nowhere. We’re still finding some. What if one had met Joyce years ago, before she met Buffy’s dad?”

“Joyce would not have been considered part of the Slayer line. How Potentials receive their powers is a subject not clearly understood, but all the old texts on the subject, and the modern research we have done on families of Potentials and Slayers would indicate that it is itself of mystical origin.”

“And Potentials never spring up in Watcher families.”

Giles looked a little startled at that. “No, they don’t,” he replied thoughtfully. He looked at her then, really looked, as they both came to the same conclusion.

“Stupid patriarchs,” Willow fumed. “Making damned sure their precious daughters would never have to fight.”

Giles looked a little ill as he slumped back against the cushions. “Indeed.”

Willow turned back to the text. “Could it be referring to one of our non-mystical Watchers and a Slayer now? Could this girl come from a union like that?”

“No. The word is very specific to mystical blood, which most of our current Watchers do not possess. I do not know what to make of it really.” He looked very old, suddenly, and she heard him add, very softly, “I hope I don’t live to see it.”

Willow hoped none of them did.

That night, Willow dreamed again-- this time, the dream she had seen through Kennedy’s mind, the morning she had set out to return to London. She saw the streetlamp. Snow beginning to fall. The world in shadow just outside the lamplight. And the little girl, her eyes wide, looking up at the glittering flakes.

She was maybe 7 or 8, Willow guessed. Long, light brown hair falling in unruly waves down her shoulders. Hood of her pink parka thrown back, snow catching in her hair, on her long lashes. A look of wonder in her wide, intelligent eyes. The rest of her face was indistinct and hazy. There was something very likable, and at the same time, very familiar about her. Willow stepped forward, but before she could speak, she felt a burning in her chest.

She woke to find herself sitting up in bed, breathing hard, as if she had been running for miles with something awful chasing her. Which, given her life, was not such an impossibility-- so she looked around to reassure herself that she was safe in bed, or as safe as she could be in this uncertain world. She switched on the lamp on her bedside table, checked the clock. 5:30 a.m. Goddess.

But she was too keyed up now to sleep, so after a few minutes, she thrust aside the covers and got up and dressed. Just as she put her hand on her door knob, she heard a creak on the stairs. What was Giles doing up at this ungodly hour?

She heard the front door open, then close quietly and the key scrape in the lock. She went quickly to a window overlooking the front walk, and sure enough, there was the Watcher, dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt. As she followed him with her eyes, he began to jog easily down the dimly lit street. Two smaller figures emerged from the alley after he had passed and began to trail him. She reached out with her mind to confirm it-- yes. Slayers.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed, from the feelings she picked up from the two Slayers, that Giles’ pre-dawn jogs were not as secret as he believed them to be, and that they had been keeping him safe while allowing him the illusion of solitude for quite some time now. She went downstairs and put the kettle on, then began pulling out a frying pan, butter and eggs for breakfast.

They settled into an uneasy routine over the weeks that followed. Giles still gritted his teeth sometimes at the loss of privacy, but he had long ago developed ways to protect his personal space, dealing with three unruly teenagers who had dogged his every step through high school and beyond. Willow gave him as much space as she could, and she helped him with the research. And she quietly took over some of the mindless bureaucratic duties he so hated, either delegating them to more appropriate people or finding ways to eliminate them altogether.

She had thought this would lessen Giles’ stress, but while he physically seemed to be improving, gaining back some needed weight, looking less tired and ill, his moods did not improve. He seemed to be on edge all the time. And he certainly would not talk to Willow, or admit that anything at all was troubling him. He seemed to be playing an expected role, the kindly avuncular Watcher. But the gentle smiles never reached his eyes, and there were times when she felt his emotions so tightly clamped down, that she wondered how he bore the strain.

She sought out some old friends from the coven, like Maia, and she also began spending time with Andrew, who filled a little of the void left by Xander’s absence. He was really growing into a surprisingly decent young man, and she was pleased to see it. These close friends gave her the emotional grounding, the love and support, that made it possible for her to get through early mornings and late nights with a Giles who both was and was not the man she remembered.

And the dreams made everything worse. She woke earlier than usual one morning, gasping for breath against the sorrow that welled through her soul. As she began to calm, she realized that the emotions weren’t hers. But Giles ignored her timid knock at his door, and the next morning, he blandly denied having dreamed at all.

“No, I can’t say that I was disturbed last night,” he said mildly, sipping at his tea and scanning the Guardian much as he had once skimmed the local papers in Sunnydale. Willow just stared at him, open mouthed, at how easily the lie came to his lips.

“Oh. Huh. That’s interesting,” she said finally. She gave him a final hard look, which he ignored a little too obliviously, and she tipped the last of the scrambled eggs onto his plate. “Oh well, just finish those up for me, okay? There’s too little to save.”

He glanced over the top of his paper at that. “Willow,” he said disapprovingly, “if you are trying to give my cholesterol a fatal boost, I can assure you there are faster and much easier ways to accomplish it.” But he ate them nevertheless, then checked his watch and cursed under his breath.

“Have to dash,” he said, collecting his bag and shrugging into his heavy coat. “You’re sure you’ll be all right, taking the Tube by yourself this morning?”

Willow rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine, Giles.”

She listened to him bang out the front door. Only then did she allow the memory of the previous night to wash over her, and to feel the terror, the despair, which he kept at bay, goddess knew how, during the day. And she wept for his pain, and for how helpless she felt in the face of it. But she didn’t bring the matter up again.

They continued in this stasis for several weeks, as October wore on into dreary November. Until the night that one of the local Slayers, only weeks out of training, was killed on a routine patrol. Her Watcher barely escaped with his life, and a couple of her companions were injured. Willow was sitting on the couch in Giles’ study collating some of their notes when his cell phone, sitting at arm’s length on his desk, suddenly began to beep. No silly ring tones, all business. Willow smiled, but the grin faded as she saw the tension in his shoulders as he looked up at it. Frozen. Afraid to answer it. Unable not to.

“H-hello. Rupert Giles.”

The temperature in the room began to drop as he listened in silence. Then, a slight clearing of his throat. “And there’s no chance she will...No. Well, then. Um... what about Hoskins? Is he awake, alert? Does he know yet? No, all right. Yes, leave that to me, please. And... um, look up the information about Felicia’s next of kin for me-- I’ll need that straight away.” Another longer pause, then, very quietly, “Thank you, Andrew. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He rang off, then stared off into space for a long moment.

Willow stirred first. “I’ll get our coats,” she said, laying her books aside.

Giles looked up at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “What? Oh, no, Willow. It’s very late. You needn’t get out tonight...”

Willow just looked at him, and he sighed at last, rising. “All right,” he said. “But Willow,” he said, as she stepped out into the hallway ahead of him, “You must let me deal with this my own way. All right?”

“Sure,” she said softly. He had been dealing, or not dealing, with things his own way for a while now, and she was sure the frequent deaths in their ranks was a big part of what he was repressing. How much worse could it be?

The night passed in a horrible, cold blur. Willow sat with Felicia’s classmates, some of whom had witnessed her death. She watched as Giles broke the news to Felicia’s Watcher, one of the Council researchers who had been delayed in traffic the morning his compatriots had died in the bomb blast. He had been pressed into service rather against his will when the spell that had activated all the Potentials meant that there were not nearly enough qualified Watchers to go around. And now, he was hearing that his Slayer was gone.

The survivor’s guilt was thick enough to cut with a knife. Giles went to each of the affected Slayers and Watchers, offering comfort, a shoulder to cry on, encouragement. Then he left the infirmary, after some quiet words with one of their doctors, to keep an eye on Hoskins, and two of the Slayers who had been with them when it happened. Willow trailed behind him in a daze, the emotions of the others overwhelming her own feelings, for she had known all of these people personally, too. She watched as Andrew met Giles at his office door and handed him a folder. They spoke quietly together for a few moments. Then he paused, gripped the boy’s shoulder bracingly, and disappeared into his office without another word. The door clicked shut behind him. Andrew turned and she saw the tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

She came forward and hugged him close, let him lose a little of that control he had been clinging to since the news had first come in. He had been much closer to this group than she. But then he pulled himself together and wiped his face on his handkerchief.

“I, uh, I have to go find my tie,” he said.

Willow wiped at her own eyes with the kleenex she had stowed in her coat pocket before they’d left the house, and looked at him, puzzled.

“We-- we have to go tell Felicia’s folks. Giles and I. We always do.” He led the way back to his own desk and pulled out the dark blue tie folded neatly in the top drawer, began knotting it carefully, as if his attention to this small detail were the most important thing in the universe at that moment.

Willow glanced back towards Giles’ door as he opened it, switched off his light, and straightened his own collar, adjusting his immaculate tie. Their eyes met, and she saw him, really saw him, for just a second. Then, the ice slid between them, and he looked to Andrew. “Ready to go?” Andrew nodded, sniffing hard and pulling himself together a little more.

The cold eyes turned back to Willow. “I hate to ask it of you, Willow, but could you stay here for me? I trust you to handle anything else that might come up in my absence. Felicia’s family lives fairly close by. I shouldn’t be long.” Andrew’s thoughts told her he would probably be sitting up with them for the rest of the night, telling them how their daughter had met her end, how proud they should be of her, that her sacrifice had made the world a safer place. But she just nodded.

“I’ll be fine, Giles. You two go on.” She watched them stride down the hall, disappear into the stairwell, shoulders squared, resolute.

A/N: Here endeth part 1. To be continued after Summer of Giles in Part 2: Mother and Child and Part 3, whose title I will withold for now in case I come up with anything less lame. Feel free to leave feedback; the muse likes her little snacks.