IX
Buffy came awake gradually and stretched. She didn't open her eyes, enjoying instead that peaceful feeling of being not quite awake and knowing there's nothing you have to get up for. Despite the nightmare of last night, once she'd fallen back to sleep, she'd slept remarkably soundly, no more dreams to mar her rest. She smiled when she thought about why.
Giles.
She didn't remember going back to bed last night. The last thing she remembered was sitting on the couch in the parlor, his arms around her protectively. She must have fallen asleep there and he'd put her back to bed. Poor Giles. Having to take care of her like she was a baby.
Not that he seemed to mind. No matter what else was going on in his life, no matter how many other things he had to worry about, or how much he was hurting, she always came first with him. Her needs, her wants. He was upset last night, not because she'd read the slayer's diaries, but because she hadn't told him. Because, in his words, 'you shouldn't have to go through that alone'. Here she was, thinking she'd come to England to be with him during a difficult time. And turned out he wound up looking after her. Again.
Oh well, she guessed they looked after each other. It was what they did best. She stretched again and finally opened her eyes, looking at the clock on the bedside table. Its face was obscured by a folded sheet of paper with her name on it. She picked it up.
Buffy: I've gone into town for appointments with the funeral home and such. I should be back by noon. Feel free to sleep in. I didn't want you to find me gone and start worrying again. Back soon. G.
Buffy smiled. Always thinking of her, even when he had to be thinking about his father's funeral. He was the sweetest man....
She rolled over, stretched again and sighed. Well, she could simply go back to sleep. Or she could see what she could do about getting this dumb little house in order so when he came back she would have already made a start on it, made it easier for him.
Besides, she was hungry!
She swung out of bed, decided. Time to start the day.
When the front door opened, a few minutes before noon, Buffy had most of the windows in the cottage open, and was blasting the only decent radio station she could find from the small portable radio in the kitchen. Times like this she could really go for her boom box and a stack of CDs, but this would do for now.
"Hello," a voice called.
"Hi!" She came into the parlor from the bedroom, to see Giles tugging off his raincoat. It had been drizzling most of the morning and didn't show any sign of stopping. "How'd it go?"
"All right. We've got the wake set up for tomorrow afternoon, and I have to go back to the bank tomorrow morning to finish up some business." He slipped out of his wet shoes and into a pair of slippers he'd left by the door. "Oh, and I spoke to Thomas Martin. He's a watcher, one of my father's oldest friends here in town. I told him about our encounter last night in Oxford. He said there had been a suspicious death there about six months ago, but they could never get confirmation. In a large university town, people were too willing to chalk it up to some youthful prank gone bad. He said now that they know, they may pursue the matter further."
"And do what?" she asked. "I mean, what do they do if they do find more of them?" She was in Sunnydale and Kendra was in...wherever it was Kendra lived. She realized she didn't know.
Giles shrugged. "Depends on what they find and how serious they deem the problem. One death in six months is relatively minor in the ultimate scheme of things."
"So they'd just let it go?" Buffy frowned. She didn't like the sound of that.
"We're a little short on resources," he explained. "The watchers can do what they can to prevent attacks, but they're ill-equipped to actually slay vampires. They lack the skills, the...innate abilities which the slayer has." He looked at her seriously. "We can't stop every vampire in every community, Buffy. No matter how much we wish we could. We can only pursue those areas where the danger is the greatest."
"And everybody else gets to fend for themselves."
"They've been doing it that way for millennia now." He handed her a damp paper sack. "Here. I got some fruit, and the paper."
"Yeah, that's exactly what this house needs, more papers." She made a face, still thinking about the situation in Oxford. She knew that there were vampires all over the globe, and she knew she was by herself. But it still bothered her to let them go unchecked. Anywhere.
Giles was taking his coat to the back "mud" room off the kitchen, hanging it up to dry. "Don't suppose you picked up any moving boxes, did you?" she asked. They'd realized yesterday that they would need boxes to put the "keepers" in.
He grinned. "I most certainly did. They're in the car, I'll bring them in after lunch."
"Yay Giles!"
He glanced around the parlour. "Looks like you've been busy. Dare I ask where all the stacks of papers went?"
"Well, the magazines and newspapers are in garbage bags. Do you guys recycle?"
"Afraid not-such innovations haven't reached Chalworth yet."
"Then they can be thrown out. Anything I wasn't sure about is on the dining room table for you to go through."
"Good. I'll start with that after lunch."
"And then there are some things in the bedroom I need your help with."
"Such as?"
"Her jewelry box. I don't know what's good and what's not."
"I don't recall her having much of any great value. Except her wedding ring. But I'll take a look. He should have had some jewelry, too."
"Yeah. You can go through that, too."
Suddenly, he smiled at her. "Thank you."
She grinned back. "No prob. Woke up feeling pretty good. Figured I might as well get to work."
"No more nightmares?"
"Nope. Slept like a baby."
"Good." His smile broadened. "All right, let's see about lunch."
Lunch was sandwiches and fruit, and while they ate, Giles told Buffy what would be forthcoming: the wake tomorrow afternoon, the funeral the following morning. Mr. Giles, like his wife, would be cremated, so they didn't have to mess with cemeteries. Cremation, she learned, was the customary way to deal with the watchers who died.
And with the slayers.
She shivered. Not that she really cared what would happen to her body once she was no longer in it. But thinking about being.... Well, thinking about dying in general always gave her the wiggins. Still, she supposed it was good, knowing that there wasn't any chance some demon could move into her body after she died, because there wouldn't be a body to move into.
It wasn't much comfort. But it was better than nothing.
Giles was still telling her about the arrangements. The wake tomorrow and the funeral on Wednesday. Then the auction house appraisers would be coming Thursday morning early, and then with luck, they'd be able to catch their scheduled Thursday afternoon flight out, arriving back in LA quite late Thursday evening.
And in the mean time, they had to go through everything in the house to see if any of it was worth saving.
"Did you say if anything's still in the stable?" he asked, clearing away their lunch things.
"I didn't say, and no, nothing's there. A couple of leather leash-things on a hook, lots of dirt. That's about it."
"The leather leash-things are called reins," he explained patiently. "If they have a series of buckles attaching several pieces together, that's a bridle. If there's a big thing in the middle with straps, that's probably a saddle."
"Ha ha," she made a face at him.
He chuckled. "I take it you've never ridden a horse?"
"I was into ice-skating instead. Horses...kinda scare me."
He smiled kindly. "If I'd known, we could have gone riding yesterday. Show you there's nothing to be afraid of. It's been years since I've been on a horse and I miss it terribly."
She gazed at him. "Did you ride a lot?"
"We always had at least a couple of horses until my mother died," he explained. "Once she was gone, my father kept the stable up for a few years, but when the last one died, let it go. They were always her great love. I learned to ride quite young and for a time was riding nearly every day. And I certainly cared for the horses every day. That's a discipline in and of itself. When I was twelve, my mother gave me one of the horses, a wonderful chestnut mare I named Nimue." He stopped, flushing a little. "A bit melodramatic, I suppose, but I was only twelve. Anyway, Nimue was fully my responsibility. I had to groom her, feed her, exercise her, take care of her totally. It taught me a lot about responsibility."
"How'd she do?" Buffy asked, trying to imagine Giles at twelve, probably tall and gawky, tending a beautiful horse.
"She lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully one night while I was away at Oxford. Simply keeled over in her stall, my father said. She was the last of our stable." His tone was wistful, remembering.
"Well," he said, snapping himself out of his reverie, "show me what you wanted me to see in the bedroom."
"There's a lot of stuff here," she said, leading him into the bedroom. "I don't know how much of it you want to go through. I mean, a lot of it-band-aids, boxes of powder-we can just toss. But...."
"Actually, the Auction house said to keep any old toiletries, anything which could be forty or more years old. They might be worth something."
Buffy just stared at him. You're kidding, right?"
"I wish I were," he sighed. "People collect odd things."
She grinned. "Here. See if any of this is worth anything." She gave him his mother's jewelry chest.
"She didn't have much in the way of good jewelry, that I recall. But she had some costume pieces and...ah!"
"What is it?"
"A charm bracelet." He handed it to her. "Take a look at it."
She examined the charms: a book, a cross, a clock, a candle, a pen, another book with a cross on it, like a bible, and a flower. "Pretty" She handed it back.
"Look more closely at the charms. Think of them in relation to each other."
She looked again, thinking instead of their being part of a whole. "Cross, book, clock, no, watch... Giles, they're watcher's charms!"
He smiled. "That's right. It was my grandmother's. And she, in turn, gave it to my mother."
Buffy examined the charms again. "That's so cool."
"Would you like it?"
"What? Oh, I... Shouldn't it go to another watcher? I mean, if I wore it, it would get snagged on things and broken and I might lose it...." It was very pretty, but she couldn't imagine wearing it. Not her style.
"All right. I'll hold onto it, for the time being." He smiled, that quiet smile he had which always made her feel like she was seeing only about a tenth of him-the rest was deeply hidden. "But there ought to be another piece here that.... Ah, here it is." He pulled it out.
It was a cross. Covered completely in gemstones of dark red. Rather than being gaudy, the effect was one of rich elegance. Buffy gasped when she saw it.
"I would like you to have this," Giles said softly. "My father gave it to her and she wore it almost all the time." He fingered the piece reverently. "I know you aren't wearing your silver cross anymore," he said sympathetically, his eyes kind. He knew where the silver cross had come from. "And I know she would be pleased that I was giving it to you."
Buffy touched the cross carefully. "It's beautiful, Giles. I..." She looked up at him. "What if I lose it?"
He shrugged. "You never lost the silver one. It's a piece of jewelry, Buffy, valuable only in its sentiment. But I'd like you to have it."
"What are the stones?"
"Garnets. Or perhaps simply dark red glass. I don't know and it doesn't really matter. It's yours
if you want it." He set it in her hand.
She held it by its thin gold chain, raising it to the light. The stones sparkled. Then she held it up to her neck and gazed at him.
"It looks lovely," he said.
She lowered the necklace and closed her hand around it. He'd never given her anything like this before, something that was so much a part of him,
a part of his past. It had belonged to his mother.... She was awed. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
He looked quickly through the rest of the case. "This lot can go to auction, there's nothing else I want here. You're welcome to anything else which strikes your fancy."
She shook her head. "No offense, but it's all grandma jewelry."
He chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it is." He closed the box, setting it aside, and did a quick survey of his father's jewel case.
"Are your grandparents still alive, Buffy?" he asked as he worked.
"Both my mom's folks are, but my dad only has his mom left, and a step-father he doesn't like, so we never see them."
Giles nodded. "I was quite close to my grandmother, my father's mother, when I was growing up," he said, setting aside a pocket watch, and a set of cufflinks and tie-tack.
"She's the one who was the watcher?"
"Yes. But she passed away when I was twenty. It was after that when things started going badly. I doubt I've have gotten so...off track if she'd been there." He sighed and closed the box. "Well, that's that. Anything else here you find, any of her things, you're welcome to."
"Nah," Buffy shook her head. "Not really my
style. But thanks." She opened her hand around the cross. "Thanks especially for this."
"You're welcome." He put a hand on her shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him, giving him a hug.
Then he left her to her sorting and went back to his papers.