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summer_of_giles2012-06-01 08:10 am
FIC: There Are Things I Want To Tell You (G/Anya) PG/FRT
So YAY! Summer of Giles 2012 here we go. It is my very great privilege to kick off this year's Giles Love Fest. I hope you enjoy it.
Title: There Are Things I Want To Tell You
Author: il_mio_capitano
Setting: End of episode Grave: Season Six. Anya, Giles
Rating: PG if that
Length: 3,350 or thereabouts
Summary: Buffy wasn’t the only one who had things to confess to Giles
Disclaimer: There is some dialogue here from the episode Grave originally written by David Fury. I’m probably infringing copyright but not for financial gain which I hope excuses it.
“You dosed her. You knew she’d take your powers all along.”
“W-well, I…” Giles winced, heaving himself a little further upright to explain. “The gift that was given me by the coven is the true essence of Magic. Willow's magic came from a place of rage and power.”
Anya understood that. “And vengeance. Don't forget vengeance.”
“Oh how... could I?” Giles managed a small smile to acknowledge he knew she’d returned to her demon ways. “In any case, the magic she took from me tapped into the spark of humanity she had left. Helped her to feel again... Gave Xander the opportunity to reach her.”
Anya frowned. “Xander?”
“Yes. It was he who got to her in time. He saved us all.”
Giles watched as pride flickered across Anya’s face only for the impatient frown to return.
“That was a very stupid plan.”
Giles considered the wreckage of his shop and untold damage that had been wrought upon his body.
“Yes, well…It didn’t quite work the way I expected,” he conceded. “But fortunately Xander proved he’s the man I always knew he would be.” With that Giles tentatively started to raise himself from the floor. He got as far as his knees before reaching for Anya’s help and somehow the two of them got him to his feet. He immediately felt dizzy but the girl raced to support him with her shoulder. The room had spun like a top (and indeed had bounced up and down), during his battle with Willow but now even though he knew it was just his head that was revolving, it didn’t make him feel any better.
“You would’ve let her kill you?” Anya persisted. He put his arm a little further around her and braced his feet till the nausea passed.
“Yes. I don’t really understand that part,” he muttered more to himself. “I was dying and I don’t see how that could have been altered. Willow was in no state and the Coven couldn’t have done anything. I don’t understand what has happened.” He tried a deep breath. The sheer intensity of the pain Willow had inflicted, the mortal damage he’d suffered had overridden his senses in an almost pleasant way. He hadn’t been able to move but he’d known it was his body shutting down for death that had deadened the pain and made things bearable. Now everything hurt again like buggery and he was going to have to cope with it.
“Does it matter how you are alive?” He became aware Anya was speaking and that he’d tuned her out from old habit. It was ungrateful of him. She’d shown him a great deal of human concern the past hours. All rather ironic as she was a demon again.
“Yes it matters. There was a lot of very dark magick in the air. My recovery could have repercussions.”
“Life’s a curse. Trust me I know. I hated it when I when I lost my demon powers and became all human.”
Giles made a sluggish movement towards the main door and fresh air. Anya continued to surprise him by helping him duck beneath the fallen rafters. She seemed determined to hang on to him for some reason.
Giles had only one plan. “We have to find Buffy,” he stated.
Anya stiffened a little at that. “Always with the Buffy huh? At Watcher Boy Scout camp, did they hardwire your brain to always think of her first?”
“She is The Slayer.”
“God that might actually be a yes then.”
They got to the door and stopped. “I am responsible for her,” explained Giles.
“From six thousand miles away, oh and occasionally beyond the grave?” Anya possibly had a point there. He hadn’t realised how much he missed her directness.
“Yes,” he answered stubbornly.
Anya rolled her eyes. “Even when she treats you like dirt?”
“Yes.”
She sniffed. “You know that's pathetic right?”
Giles couldn’t help but smile warmly to her.
“Yes.”
He opened the door unsteadily for her and they stepped out into the morning sunshine. A circle of police cars and automatic rifles greeted them.
“Police. Freeze!”
Giles had pretty much frozen to the spot as soon as he’d seen them but Anya swatted an impatient hand.
“Go away, we’re talking here.”
There was the sound of firearms being cocked.
“Anya,” Giles began in slight panic.
“Pft. Their bullets can’t hurt me.”
“Anya!” Giles spoke sharply and put his hand awkwardly in the air as far as his ribs would permit him. His eyes pleaded to his companion who shook her head and reluctantly came to a decision. She raised her arms in mocking submission.
“What? Oh alright. We surrender. You are the macho fascist pig masters. We bow down before thee.”
Six cops in full riot gear cautiously approached from behind their vehicles.
“Anya, dearest,” Giles hissed. “It’s probably better you let me do the talking.”
***
The two owners of the rubble formally known as the Magic Box sat together in the back of the locked police car. Giles had spent nearly half an hour spinning the usual (dear lord always the usual) tale of marauding PCP biker gangs and stressing his need to see a doctor. That they were not handcuffed was a sign he felt, that the police were sympathetic. And being locked in an otherwise empty car was not a very great inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.
“What’s taking so long?” Anya asked.
“We have to wait while they check with their superiors. Then I need to go the hospital.”
Anya bit her lip. “Why? Are you OK?”
“I’m feeling a bit nauseous,” he admitted.
“Oh that, yeah,” she dismissed. “What do people do in the back of police cars anyway?”
“No, it’s not that. Well yes, maybe it is a bit that, but I think I have some cracked ribs and there must be other problems. I just want to get everything checked out to help me understand why I’m not dead. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes you should. Or did you want to be just another magick store owner found dead on the premises?”
Giles smiled at the impatience of her tone. “We’ve both bucked that trend rather well.”
He looked across to the cops who were still on their radios. He hoped his Council credentials were still valid. It would be night in London now, maybe they were having trouble finding someone to answer the telephone? Anya fidgeted in her seat. The last thing he needed was for her to teleport out and leave him.
“Won’t be long now,” he said by way of reassurance.
She nodded but continued to twitch uncomfortably. “Where the hell were you?” she finally blurted out.
“Pardon?”
“Where were you Giles? Why didn't you come to the wedding? Not that you weren't the only big no-show as it turned out.”
Ah. “I'm sorry. I was unavoidably detained.”
“You should have come anyway, Giles. You could've made Xander marry me. His crappy family were more worried about the costs of the bar bill than my feelings. If you'd have been here then you would have made everything alright.”
Giles took a deep breath. Relationship counselling had never been his forte.
“I don’t know what his reasons were but I doubt I could've made a difference,” he said softly.
“Of course you would. You always sell yourself short. Why do you do that? You could at least have challenged him to a duel or something.”
“A duel?” Giles repeated incredulously.
“Yes. Over my honor. I had terrific fantasies about that actually. It used to be the done thing.”
“It's not in the 21st century.”
“Talked to him then,” Anya grumbled. “Made him stick to his promises. Be a guy for him, because even though she’s a lesbian now, Willow couldn’t be a guy for him. Besides, she’s always going to take his side. And Buffy was just too flakey to be anything. I'm amazed she could comb her own hair.”
Giles felt bad enough about deserting Buffy. He wondered how much Anya was exaggerating. Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed quite so heartily at Buffy’s summary of the past six months in Sunnydale.
Anya spoke very quietly. “I had no-one on my side.”
Giles recovered his thoughts and turned to the demon next to him. “So you went back to vengeance to hurt Xander?” He said it a little more harshly than he intended.
“Well D’Hoffryn was there for me. He actually came to the wedding,” she stung back, causing Giles to drop his eyes. “So yes, I went back to him. And do you want to know the big joke? There’s not a thing I can do to hurt Xander. I can only act on other scorned women’s wishes. There’s only one person I can...” She stopped and sniffed to collect herself. “D’Hoffryn only granted me one curse to use for myself, and even then it’s only to be aimed at the person who made me mortal three years ago. As that wasn’t Xander, I can’t do a thing against him.”
Giles was alarmed at the implication. He reached out to take her arm.
“Please don’t do anything to hurt Buffy...”
She pulled away from him.
“There you go with the Buffy thing again. No it wasn’t her. I can’t curse your beloved Buffy. You can breathe again, Mr One-track-mind.”
The police car door opened abruptly. “Sir?” Giles smiled at the young officer. He knew that by using the word Sir his story had been accepted and everything had been squared with the relevant authorities. He patted Anya’s hand encouragingly.
***
The doctor had used phrases like ‘incredibly lucky’ and ‘brave but foolish at our time of life’. As the doctor had looked about twelve years old, Giles didn’t wonder if he should be flattered or offended by that last crack, but there was nothing seriously, medically wrong with him and that was some relief. As he bent over gingerly to step into his jeans, the curtain to his examination cubicle swept open. Giles pulled up sharply and clutched the denim to protect his modesty.
Anya flipped away the nurses. “Of course I can see him,” she said waspishly. “I’m his partner.”
To his dismay the nurses actually accepted that and disappeared.
“Business partner,” Giles stressed, still holding his jeans in front of him. Anya stared which did nothing to dissipate his embarrassment. He glared back even though she’d never taken his glares seriously before.
“Oh come on Giles. I’m a thousand years old. I have seen quite a bit of the world you know.”
“You haven’t seen my bits of it,” he grumbled. She smirked briefly but continued to stand her ground. Giles became aware of a long corridor of people who could currently see into their standoff. A parley was in order.
“Very well,” he conceded. “Come in but close that bloody curtain behind you.”
As she turned to shut out the rest of the world, Giles hopped as best his bruised ribs would allow into his black jeans. To his surprise Anya didn’t make a big deal of it, she just sat on the gurney with her back slightly to him till he was done.
He did up the fly buttons and then walked round to face her. His tee-shirt looked like it had been in a warzone but he’d insisted it didn’t need to be cut off and was grateful he’d not had to explain all the clothes he owned in the country were on his back. He was pleased she hadn’t seen him struggle back into it after his exam. His overcoat was slung over a medical cart; god knows what the family dry cleaners were going to think of the state of it.
Anya looked him. “I told the doctors there was a gang that attacked the shop and you were defending my honor, and the cash register. Probably more the cash register as you couldn’t be bothered to come to my wedding and fight Xander in a duel.”
“Anya, not that I'm not flattered to be cast in the father’s role of defending your honour but...”
“You’re not my father; I’ve got 950 years on you. Of course you were going to fight him in a duel. Hey, we were engaged once.”
Giles wished he’d brought his glasses to clean. “For about forty minutes. And it was Xander's ring.”
“You kissed me like we were engaged.”
Giles stifled a squeak.
“As I recall we were both deeply embarrassed by that.”
“Meh, I’ve had comparisons since then. You are just as good a kisser as Spike.”
“Spike?”
“A big old messy reboundy thing. After Xander dumped me. On the same table in the Magick Box actually.”
Giles didn’t think he could be any more appalled.
“You kissed Spike?”
“Briefly, and then it swept into wild monkey sex. Xander found out. It was messy, well not so much the sex part as he’s a vampire but the Xander finding out part was messy.”
Evidently Giles did have more levels of appalled he could reach. He shook his head at the weirdness of the World and Sunnydale in particular.
“Good god. Has everyone had sex with Spike whilst I was gone?”
He wasn’t sure if Anya took that as a rhetorical question.
“Xander was probably too upset. And Spike is very taut. Plus he has fine cheekbones and toned upper body musculature.”
“I’m starting to feel nauseous again,” Giles muttered.
“Oh. You need me to get a doctor?”
Anya looked so earnestly at him that he regretted his sarcasm immediately. He was used to her being direct and blunt and not seeming to care about anyone other than herself. But she’d been different this past day. She had shared the vulnerability in herself. He dimly realised she was in the hospital checking up on him when she could literally be anywhere else in the world. In fact, ever since he’d got back she’d stuck close to him. She’d hit him with her usual over dramatic hug when he’d first arrived, but he’d also felt her take his hand and stroke his hair gently as he’d laid dying.
He sat on the gurney next to her and she settled a little closer to brush against his side. They both swung their legs rather childishly. Giles folded his arms a little self-consciously.
“So tell me about his fantasy duel between me and Xander,” he began playfully.” Which one of us would you have wanted to win?”
“Oh,” she brightened. “I saw some slight wounding and then Xander coming to his senses.”
“Because he’d been slightly wounded?”
“Oh no, the way I imagined it was the two of you in frilly shirts on a misty hilltop. Probably armed with flintlock pistols.”
“We don’t get a lot of misty hilltops in Sunnydale.”
“Don’t interrupt. You stood back to back and paced out 15 feet. You both turned and aimed. Xander shot first. He hit you in the arm – I saw you in a very fetching black arm sling later –“
“He did what?”
“He shot you. You staggered a bit but you'd have been all noble and glared over the top of your glasses and then fired your pistol in the air.” Anya sighed. “Xander would have seen the error of his ways and run to my arms to beg forgiveness.”
Giles stiffened and rose a little in height. “Whilst I bled to death on this misty hilltop?”
“No, no. You missed the part about the sling, silly.”
“Ha. I’m sorry but if he'd have shot me I'd have plugged the ungrateful little bleeder right between the eyes.”
Anya shrugged. “At the time that could've worked too.”
Giles giggled first and Anya joined him for a little while. They swung their legs again.
“I’m sorry he hurt you. No-one deserves to be treated that way. And you are very special. You know that?”
Anya shrank back from their light camaraderie. “I’m a vengeance demon. You’d be surprised at how many of us there are.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said softly.
Anya’s eyes watered up. “You should have been here Giles. You could at least have explained it to me in a way that made sense. You’re good at explaining things. I, I still don’t really understand it.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and braced himself for the impact of a hug but she leaned away slightly and rubbed at her eyes. Giles offered her the box of Kleenex from the medical cart.
She blew her nose loudly and asked, “Are you going to be OK?”
Giles accepted the change of topic readily enough. “I don’t know. The doctors here are relatively happy, but I need to talk to the coven about what’s happened. Something isn’t right about my miraculous recovery. I have to know what caused it.”
“Does it matter? You’re alive. You can come back to Sunnydale and make everything all right again.”
“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m safe to be with. I need to know what cured me. If it was related to the dark magick then I need to understand that I’m not going to be a threat to Buffy or anyone else later.”
Anya’s eyes went red again. She crumpled slightly. “You can’t leave again. It all goes to hell when you leave. We need you here.”
Giles was at a loss to explain it again.
“It was me,” Anya said suddenly. “I fixed you.”
Giles turned and leaned one knuckle on the gurney between them. Anya flinched away from him.
“How? I thought you didn’t have power except in respect to wishes?”
She didn’t look at him. There were tears in her voice as she rambled. “I didn’t know if it would work. I mean technically it was cheating but you were bleeding on the inside and all broken and I had to try. You couldn’t leave again.”
Giles was alarmed and pulled her around. “What? What did you do?”
“I cursed you not to die.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a lifetime. Anya was nervous for his reaction and fighting her instinct to teleport away. Giles searched her face for the truth and found it. She’d never told anyone the details of how she’d become human and he’d never thought he’d have played a part in it.
A rather important thought struck Giles. “Ever?”
Anya’s face lit up at the suggestion and the welcome diversion. “Just a one-time deal. Don’t go stepping out in traffic.”
He nodded and accepted that.
“Just with everything that’s happened,” she started to explain. “Xander and Tara, I, I’m losing too many people in my life and I don’t like it. It shouldn’t hurt like this. I’m a demon. I’m not supposed to have feelings.”
She may have been a demon but all Giles could see was a hurt and confused girl. He wrapped her in a hug. She didn’t fight him or squeeze the breath out of him as she was wont to; instead she melted into his body and cried without shame or embarrassment. Giles felt all her the unhappiness of the past few months wash into his chest. When he’d left Sunnydale for Buffy’s sake, he’d never thought that anyone else would be so affected. “I couldn’t lose you as well,” he heard her say. He wrapped his arms even more protectively around her shaking body.
A voice outside the curtained area interrupted them. “We’re here to see Rupert Giles.”
Anya pulled back sharply. “Buffy and Dawn are here, naturally. I should go.”
Giles maintained his focus for once. He took her chin in his hand and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Thank you Anya. It’s the nicest curse I’ve ever had,” he whispered. She beamed in return.
“I don’t care about visitor rules, we are his family,” Buffy declared in the distance.
As Giles turned to the sound of her voice he felt Anya teleport away from his grasp. Too late to stop her he continued to look thoughtfully at the empty space at his side for some time.
The End
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Very sweet. Lovely explanation for his sudden recovery.
You have their voices spot on!
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I loved this, and I loved how Anya saved him. Well done, you!
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Excellent start to summer_of_giles! :)
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I also think Giles being at the wedding would have made a huge difference,if not necessarily bringing about the outcome Anya wanted. But it would have given Xander another thing to consider. Instead of all his focus being on his father and how screwed up he was raise to be, he would have had Giles standing there too, the one who actually showed him how to be a man.
What an awesome kick-off to this summer! Thank you.
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Thank you!
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With that said, I absolutely loved this. Giles and Anya's interactions were always one of my favorite things about the show and you captured them perfectly.
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Really like your Giles and Anya voices. I always wished we'd seen more of them together. Their interactions were always amusing and/or very sweet.
Nice work!
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I think it's quite beautifully in character for Anya to feel a bit resentful of Giles' constant concern for Buffy regardless of the treatment he receives in return, as she seems to have trouble understanding people when they behave irrationally. With Anya, that brand of indignation more or less translates as affection for the subject in question... looks like Giles was pretty lucky to be the target in this case!
This was very clever and fun to read. Let the Summer of Giles begin! ^_^
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Thank you for your kind words. So pleased you enjoyed it.
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Lovely!
“Good god. Has everyone had sex with Spike whilst I was gone?”
He wasn’t sure if Anya took that as a rhetorical question.
“Xander was probably too upset."
That made me laugh.
“Thank you Anya. It’s the nicest curse I’ve ever had,”
Awwww!
I really enjoyed this. Thanks for such a nice kick-off for the summer with Giles.
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Thank you for reading and commenting. I'm glad you liked it. As an aside, you should write more. Just sayin'.