summer_of_giles | Fic: Second Chances part 2/2

On with the show...

She tucked the final picture away, and handed them back, before speaking again, taking what wasn’t exactly a wild guess, not anymore anyway.

“That guy… that’s Ethan? It is, isn’t it.”

“Once. Back when he was still the man that I knew. The friend that I grew up with.”

Feeing, almost sensing, that there was more to come she bit her lip. But he seemed to almost want her to lead the conversation.

“So… what exactly happened between all you guys? I mean, I know that Eyghon was a part of it, but that can’t have been the be-all-end-all.”

“Death happened. And life happened after it. Things… things had to carry on, even though hey could never be the same, or what anything like they once were. People have different ways of dealing with disaster. Some are healthy, whilst others can be… destructive, to oneself and those around them. Ethan… well, I found him to be one of those people that traded one type of pain out for another. He blamed himself, I think, even though he never allowed us to discuss it. Shut people out, turned on them –us- drove away anyone that wanted to help him.

“By the time that a few months had passed after that night, he was impossible to even talk to, let alone live with. He was going out until all hours, drinking or smoking, or doing whatever else he could get his hands on, and God knows what else. Honestly, I don’t think that God would have wanted to know. If there is one, that is, “he chuckled darkly at that.

“Anyway, I suppose I gave up, in the end. I… I couldn’t watch him destroying himself, or …or I suppose I didn’t want to. He… he wasn’t the person that I’d fallen in love with any longer, either, you see. Maybe it would have been better for him if I’d stayed, but I felt that one of us should at least get out whilst the opportunity still existed. I told him that if he ever felt as though he could come home then he was welcome, and I said goodbye.”

She looked at him, blinking. She wasn’t sure, exactly, what she’d been expecting to hear, but she was sure that this wasn’t it. And it made her realise, again, just how much there was to this man that she’d never known. She felt as though she should say something that could make things a little better, but even though some of the pain that was there still seemed raw, the wounds were old.

And she wondered just how many other people had been given the insight that she had just been granted.

He dug into a new drawer, and came up with a bottle of scotch, and a couple of shot-glasses, which he wiped out with a corner of his shirt, looking slightly apologetic as he did so.

“May I offer you a drink? I’m afraid I rather feel I need one.”

She nodded, maintaining her silence – it somehow seemed safer, like she wasn’t intruding on something that was deeply personal that way – and he filled both of the glasses with the amber liquid, throwing his own back like someone who’d had a lot of practise. Which, she reminded herself, he’d had.

Slightly more cautious, she took a tiny sip and almost jumped as he started speaking again.

“When he turned up in California, during my second year as your Watcher… well, the first time I did what I had to. The second time, though, I think that if Jenny hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t needed to take care of her... well then, I… honestly, I don’t think that I would have allowed him to walk away, not again. Even then I think there was still an irrational part of me that thought it might be possible to work something out if he’d stayed around. Dealing with Eyghon again brought back so much of the past that I almost hoped that might be enough on it’s own.

“The forth time that he came back, when we actually got together after drinking at that bloody bar…”

“Whoa, hang on,” she broke her own vow of silence, as she took in what Giles was saying.

“Yes?” he raised a single eyebrow at her, not seeming in the least part frustrated, and she got herself back under control.

“Sorry. Go on.”

“Well, you know what happened come the end of that one, anyway. It wasn’t even winding up as a Fyarl that I minded, so much as the thought, or non-thought behind it. I just wish that he’d… talked to me, rather than simply reacted the way that he always did. Although, it wasn’t actually in my intentions to hand him over. I think, if it’d just been us then I would have still tried to talk things over. And, failing that, I’d have probably set him free with a beating, tried to knock some bloody sense into him. Again.”

This time there was a sense of finality about the silence, the feeling of a tale drawing to a close.

“Anyway,” he poured himself out another shot, and drained this one just as quickly, “here you are, presumably actually for a specific reason, and here I am reminiscing to you about my past failures. My sincere apologies.”

“Wha...” She blinked at him, as reality was poured over her head like cold water, and she caught up with things, “Oh. Yes, I actually did. Although nothing there to apologise about.”

She frowned, still distracted, wondering how best to proceed, “If... if you had the chance, would you take it?”

“The chance?” he raised a single enquiring eyebrow.

“Yeah, you know. To... sort things out, if there was any possibility of things being... sorted... these days. With him.”

“It depends, I suppose, on whether I thought that there was a chance that it would actually mean something. I… I think I’ve been stung too many times to want to risk myself for anything less these days,” he pulled a face, “not that it makes a single shred of difference, what I would or wouldn’t do,” he shrugged, “I haven’t heard anything from him since last time.”

The flash of pain which darted across his face was something that she couldn’t help but notice.

“I’m starting to think that I may have overestimated him. In all honesty I thought that he’d be free inside of a week. I’m not sure whether it was on purpose that I discounted the fact that he… can’t have been the first Sorcerer that they got their hands on, considering how eager they seemed to be in taking him.”

Again, silence fell, although this time it felt less uncomfortable, “Was this line of questioning actually leading somewhere, Buffy? Or was it merely yet another expression of your curiosity?”

Buffy looked at him, and swallowed, as though she were unsure about what she was just about to say.

“Yes, Buffy?” he promoted, again. He was tired, from the workload that he’d had to take on in order to keep everything running, and he didn’t have time for games like this.

“Well, um, Riley called me yesterday.”

“And?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He… well, he though that I should tell you. The project in Nevada – it’s, ah, being terminated. Funding has fallen through or something. Both it and the subjects are scheduled for termination, was his exact wording.”

Finally, what she was saying registered.

The subjects, and the project… in Nevada… where Ethan had been taken to. Aparently, if he were to believe anything that the former members of the Initiative.

And for once in his life he couldn’t think of an appropriate reply. The thought of Ethan, gone from the world, forever – the only reason that the sorcerer hadn’t crossed his mind was because he’d assumed that he’d escaped, and was wrecking relatively quiet chaos somewhere else – was a thought that he found suddenly made his mind want to stop working.

And now it registered that she was still talking, “…that he could arrange what apparently amounted to ‘a transfer of custody, to the Council in general, and you in particular’, if you wanted him to. I was wondering why, but…”

She glanced towards the framed picture that he’d just stood up, and trailed off.

His life was constantly in danger, constantly unsettled with Ethan in it. He had everything to lose, and he knew it. He was entirely within his right to say that that was the worst idea he’d ever heard, and that it was totally out of the question. He should be saying forget it, he didn’t need that kind of concern in his life.

“That’s crazy,” he sighed, and shook his head slightly, gearing himself up for it, trying to talk himself into it.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that would…”

“Tell him to do it,” he cut across her words.

“It?” she asked for clarification.

Terminate him…The words were right there. And terminate sounded so much cleaner that murder. So much tidier than kill.

The world would surely be a better place without Ethan Rayne in it.

Safer. Saner. Rational.

“Save him.”

He couldn’t take the words back. Well, he could, but he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to anyway.

As far as he was concerned, the world would be a far duller place without Ethan Rayne in it, too.