Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 5 - LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

He raised his son in the English way
And he taught him respect, he taught him how to pray
He sent him off to boarding school
Where he learned how to live by someone else's rules...

... It must be something much deeper than fear or pain
Another child learns the pattern, he won't break the chain

Fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy
The fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy
The fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise the next boy


(Rick Springfield Album - Living in Oz)




Chapter 5.14
Saturday, June 15th, 2002


Wesley tightened his arms around the small girl as she pressed her face into his neck and then loosened his grip as she pushed back to see his face.

"I'll see you in the morning, sweetheart," he half-whispered at the sadness in her eyes.

"Know," Rosa admitted, but still her lower lip trembled. "But mommy misses you when you're not with us."

"I'm sorry. It's just that there are things I have to do here. Mr Giles might need help getting ready for when Buffy and your Uncle Will get back."

"I miss you, too."

The watcher found himself staring into limpid pools of apparent misery. He felt like his heart was twisting in his chest, just as he was sure the girl intended, but duty kept him where he was. "You know you're going to have men wound 'round your little finger when you get older." There was a wry amusement in his tone, but tiny creases formed between the girl's brows.

"Dawnie said I already had Unker Will and Unker Clem wound round my little fingers, but I don't think they'd really fit..." Her eyes dropped to where Wes held her against his body. "...An' Unker Will's real nice but he's kinda Dawnie's an' Auntie Buffy's... so I think maybe, if there's not enough space... 'cause I only have two little fingers, I'd rather have you, 'cause you're really ours... mine an' mommy's."

Wes's eyes flicked briefly to Marie's face, seeing that she had heard her daughter's words, before he dropped a gentle kiss on the end of the child's nose and replied in a voice that conveyed that perhaps he was admitting it to himself as much as to Rosa. "Yes, I am, aren't I?"

A contented smile finally graced the girl's features and he gave her one last hug before he let her slip down his body, sending her off toward her uncle and grandmother with a gentle pat on her behind. "Go and let your grandmother put on your seatbelt while I say goodbye to your mommy and I'll see you in the morning."

Marie slipped into the arms that her daughter had only recently vacated, her cheek brushing against Wes's.

"You're raising a heartbreaker, you know that?" he whispered against a small tanned ear.

Marie's head tilted back, the silken waves of her hair brushing against his collarbone at the open neck of his shirt. "Yes, querido, but for every piece of your heart that she steals she'll give back part of her own."

"Just like her mother?" Wes queried, drawing back just enough to watch Marie's eyes.

The warmth in her smile and the tenderness in her gaze convinced the watcher that not only would he willingly give his heart, but if either Alvarez woman were to ask, he'd throw in his soul as well. "Just like her mother," Marie confirmed.

Their kiss was almost chaste. Given the crowd that surrounded them, Tara, James, Amanda, the recently returned Giles and Lydia and even Kennedy having assembled on the school's front steps to see off their guests, it almost had to be... but that didn't mean that either of them wanted it to end. The nudge against Wes's back that felt more like a push was, therefore, far from welcome. As soon as he had steadied both himself and Marie to his satisfaction, the watcher looked around to see who had so rudely pushed past them. The sight of his father striding off down the school drive, his suit covered by a lightweight trench coat, brought a sigh to his lips. "It seems my father considers himself immune to Sunnydale's nightlife. I suppose I better go after him."

Marie pressed one last kiss to his lips and pulled away, walking backward toward her car. "See you in the morning," she promised. The watcher waited until she climbed into the driving seat before he pulled out his car keys and switched off the alarm on his own car, using the flashing lights to guide him to its place in the parking lot.

 

---

 

"There is a reason why the girls aren't allowed outside the grounds on their own, you know? And it does apply equally well to the watchers." Wes spoke to his father through the rolled down driver's window of his car, having caught up with him just before he reached the end of the gravel driveway.

"You've already made it abundantly clear that you place no value whatsoever on my decades of experience in the field, Wesley. I, however, am confident of my ability to look after myself in this colonial backwater even if it does happen to house a hellmouth." The elder man kept walking forcing Wes to kerb crawl in order to continue the conversation.

"I never said that your experience didn't have any value. I have no problem with your experience. It's your prejudices that are causing the problem." Wes's father gave a snort and looked as if he was about to launch into a rebuttal but Wes cut him off. "Under normal circumstances, I would be quite happy for you to go wherever you wanted, whenever it happened to suit you, but don't you think that with The First's agents specifically targeting potentials and watchers alike that it might be just a little foolhardy wandering around on your own at night? Please, just get in the car and I'll take you wherever you want to go. Why take unnecessary risks?"

Yet again his father looked set to argue, but really there was no argument that could be made. He stalked around the outside of the car, pulling the passenger door open and getting in without a word.

"Some directions would be useful," Wes pointed out.

"I need a cash point and then perhaps what these Americans would term a convenience store. I only brought travel size toiletries with me. I wasn't expecting my business here to take more than a day or so. Somewhere that sells decent brandy might not be unwelcome." Seeing Wes's look of surprise at the apparent show of weakness, he continued. "It would be ungracious of me not to give Quentin something in way of thanks for putting me up while I'm here."

Wes declined to comment, even though it was obviously a dig at the fact that he had not offered to put his father up, despite the fact that by the time he knew about his father's visit he had been at the point of moving into the school himself. Apart from the muffled thrum of the engine and the hiss of rubber on tarmac, the car was silent until Wes drew up beside the ATM.

His father got out and Wes waited, fingertips tapping impatiently on the steering wheel as he checked up and down the street for any unusual activity. The First had already claimed one potential and her watcher tonight. Wes didn't intend to make it easy for them to take another victim. He waited and he watched... and he waited. He watched as his father rifled through his wallet, switching from one card to another and pushing it into the slot with rather more force than was necessary. Marie's earlier words came back to him. 'If he chooses finances as a weapon to use against us, then I will use it as a way to retaliate.' He watched as his father's lips moved, letting loose a stream of what passed for invective, if you happened to be upper-class and English, as he switched to a third card. Wes didn't know whether to laugh or be worried. 'Oh, my beautiful darling, what have you done?'