Chapter 3: Unforgivable

“Buffy!” Dawn shouted from her bedroom. “Did you borrow my denim jacket?”

Buffy materialized in her sister’s doorway. “It’s my denim jacket, you clothes thief. I liberated it from your closet two days ago.”

“Buffy…”

“And keep your voice down, will you?” She headed back to her own room, knowing she was about to cause a stir, but keeping her voice as nonchalant as possible. “Spike’s asleep.”

Dawn’s eyes widened and she scampered after her sister. “Spike,” she repeated. “Asleep. Here.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “He’s in Mom’s room. Don’t make a thing out of it.”

Dawn followed Buffy into her bedroom. “He slept here last night?”

“He was wet, it was raining, and didn’t I tell you not to make a big deal out of it?” Buffy groused, grabbing her makeup and cell phone and other necessities and shoving them into her purse.

Dawn suppressed the enormous grin that wanted to take over her face. Spike sleeping over – that was a good step. “Denim jacket?” she pleaded, dropping the subject of Spike as a peace offering.

Buffy sighed and reached into her closet. She pulled out the jacket and tossed it at Dawn. “If you hurry, I’ll make you eggs before Xander gets here.”

Dawn was sitting on a stool at the counter eating her breakfast when Spike came downstairs. She nearly choked on her eggs at the sight of him in Buffy’s pink kitten T-shirt. “Spike?”

“Can I have my clothes back now, Slayer?” he asked with a hint of exasperation as Buffy looked up from washing the frying pan. “Morning, Niblet,” he added, as the younger Summers turned bright red trying to hold in her giggles.

Buffy did her best to maintain an innocent expression. “I’m sorry, Spike, did we wake you?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You two always that loud in the morning?”

“Usually louder,” said Dawn. “Depends on how much Buffy hogs the bathroom.”

Buffy glared at her, then turned to Spike. “You can go back to sleep if you want. Soon as I go to work and Dawn’s off to school, it’ll be quiet again.”

“’S all right.” He shook his head. “I’ll just head back to my crypt.”

Buffy glanced skeptically out the window. “Daylight.”

“Blanket. Sewers.”

“Suit yourself. Clothes are on top of the washer. Coat, too.”

Just as Spike headed down to the basement, they heard honking coming from out front. “That’s Xander. Dawnie, out the door.” She took Dawn’s plate away and shooed her out of the kitchen. Before she left, Dawn glanced toward the basement, then shot her sister a pointed, raised-eyebrows look.

“Don’t start,” said Buffy. “Go to school.”

*****

“Xander,” Anya said as she counted out the money from the Magic Box’s cash register. “Don’t you think it would be good, when we come out of the church, instead of people throwing rice – because really, who wants to be pelted with starches on their wedding day? – wouldn’t it be nice if there were children, standing on the steps, releasing doves?”

“Ahn, honey.” Xander used the same tone of voice one would use with a troublesome child. “Where are we going to get doves?” He paused. “Or children, for that matter.”

Anya shook her head dismissively. “You can rent them.”

“Children?” asked Willow.

“No, doves,” Anya corrected her. “White ones. All fluttery and beautiful.” She sighed, a dreamy smile on her face.

Xander exchanged nervous glances with Willow. “Uh, I’ll think about it, honey.”

The shop door opened, giving its warning jingle, and Xander breathed a sigh of relief. Saved by the bell.

Or not. “Giles!” Anya said, startled.

“H-hello,” he said, nodding to Anya before taking in Willow and Xander seated at the research table. None of them had very welcoming faces, though Willow, as was her nature, bore a softer expression than Xander, but Giles knew better than to take that as a sign of thawing. “Ah, is Buffy around?”

“No,” Xander replied curtly. “She’s still at work.”

“Yes, of course.” The ostracized Watcher pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began to clean his glasses intently. “She, ah, asked me to meet her here. For training.”

It was exquisite torture for him to keep coming to the Magic Box and seeing them, his surrogate children, regarding him with such utter contempt. He’d failed them all, betrayed their trust when he sent Buffy after that dragon alone, an enemy she’d so clearly needed her friends’ help to fight. It was unforgivable, a fact of which he was reminded every time he crossed paths with the young people he’d once thought of as friends.

But if the Slayer herself was angry with him, she seemed unwilling to show it. Though he couldn’t fathom what he could teach her – how could he possibly give instruction when he’d ordered her off to her death? – she was relentless in their training schedule, and so he continued to show up here, to face these righteously angry children. He supposed it was his due, a painfully ironic punishment, to be forced to continue his Watcher’s duties while faced with the constant reminder of how cavalier he’d been with his Slayer’s life.

“Well, she’s not here,” Xander said, in the same cold tone as before. Giles stood for a moment, awkwardly glancing first at them, then down at the glasses in his hands. It seemed as though he might say something – as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t, so he remained silent. Finally, he put his glasses back on and nodded to the Scoobies. “I’ll wait for her in the back.” With that, he took his leave of them to wait in the training room.

Willow felt as though the entire room sighed as Giles left. The tension was nearly unbearable. She turned to Xander. “Do you think, maybe… we’re being too hard on him?”

“He nearly got Buffy killed,” Xander snapped. “I don’t think you can be hard enough for something like that.”

“But it’s Giles…” That one word carried the weight of five years behind it.

“You think I don’t know that, Will? God, every day it kills me to think he could do that to Buffy. But it happened. We were all there.” He closed his eyes briefly, mourning the loss of the only true father figure he’d ever really known. He didn’t want to believe it, could almost pretend the whole night had been a dream… except it wasn’t the first time. He still remembered Buffy’s eighteenth birthday, when she’d been rendered powerless by the Watcher she trusted and sent off to almost certain death, all for the sake of a stupid Council test. The memory was still fresh in his mind, too, how callously Giles had suggested killing Dawn to save them from Glory, that Buffy felt the only way to protect her sister was to die for her.

Xander hated this, hated feeling like their family was breaking apart, but if Giles wouldn’t protect his own Slayer and her blood kin, how much less did he care about the rest of them? How could they ever really trust him again?

“Yeah, but it was…” Willow sighed, unsure how to explain, and not entirely sure she wanted to justify Giles’s actions. “He thought it was for the best.”

“So Giles is capable of making a colossal error in judgment.” Anya managed to combine her trademark candor with a reasonable tone of voice. She’d been around a lot longer than the other two, and she’d learned a thing or two about humans. She might not know the proper etiquette or remember all their silly customs, but she certainly understood their fallibility. When it came right down to it, humans were stupid, and they made a lot of mistakes. “So what? Who among us hasn’t done that one or two dozen times? I mean, resurrection spell, anyone?” She looked pointedly at Willow.

“Hey!” Willow jumped up, suddenly resentful. She deserved a guilt trip from Buffy – Anya had no business doing it. “We all agreed to –” She cut herself off, determined to be the more mature one. “But we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about Giles. And Anya is right… sort of. In a no-need-to-put-it-so-bluntly kind of way.” She threw a glare in Anya’s general direction before turning back to Xander. “Giles isn’t perfect, right? I mean, we all think so, because he’s the grown up, but we’re not kids anymore and can’t we disagree without it being all stony silence and accusing glances and eight rounds of ‘Your Fault’?”

“I don’t like it anymore than you do, Will,” Xander replied. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be siding with Spike” – he said the name with disdain – “against Giles. But something like this is –” He cut himself off as the bell heralded the entrance of the Summers sisters.

As soon as Buffy walked into the Magic Box, she could sense the tension. Her friends tried to greet her pleasantly, but their fidgeting told her she’d interrupted an argument of some kind. Giles must be here already, Buffy thought.

Sure enough, her Watcher emerged from the training room. “Buffy, how was patrol last night?”

“Uneventful. Called it early on account of rain.” From the table where she was settling down to do her homework, Dawn shot Buffy a knowing look, which she ignored.

“Are you –” Giles glanced around the room. “Are you ready for training?”

“Sure.” Buffy knew he was eager to get out of the Scoobies’ presence. “Just need to get changed.”

In the training room, Buffy stepped behind the screen to change into workout clothes. “So, any word on who summoned that dragon?”

“No.” Giles fiddled nervously with the weapons hanging on the wall. “I imagine we may never know, now that it has been slain. Unless whatever summoned it acts again.”

“Well, at least it didn’t get a chance to do whatever it was supposed to.”

“Yes. Er, Buffy,” he said, catching her attention as she emerged from behind the screen in sweatpants and a tank top. “I should like to speak with you about… about my behavior with regard to the dragon.”

Buffy shook her head. “Giles…”

Giles continued undeterred. Having roused his courage, he was determined to say his piece. “I’m afraid I made a gross misjudgment, both in the seriousness of the situation and in your emotional state. I needlessly risked your life, and if the Council were to hear about it, it would be grounds for –”

“Giles, it’s really –”

“Please, Buffy, let me finish.” At the tone of his voice – that of an anguished parent delivering tragic news to their child – Buffy obediently fell silent. “I’ve given some consideration to returning to England.”

She was momentarily struck dumb, her chest tightening with fear. He was leaving her, just like everyone else. She reached out for something to grasp onto, but clutched only air. When she managed to gather her voice again, she asked, childlike, “Why?”

Giles glanced down timorously before bringing his eyes up to meet hers. “I’m no longer certain I am fit to be your Watcher.”

“Giles, that’s ridiculous.” Buffy smothered her insecurity, banishing thoughts of her father, and Angel, and Riley, and allowed her take-charge Slayer attitude to rise to the surface. “I need you.” She glanced toward the door that led to the magic shop. “Look, if this is about them… they’ll get over it. I’m the Slayer, it’s my life on the line. And I say who stays and who goes.”

“Buffy…”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “The thing is, you weren’t… entirely wrong.” She looked at him again and they held each other’s gaze for a moment, until they came to a silent understanding. She thought she saw tears in the Watcher’s eyes as he faced the realization of how close he’d come to losing her.

“Look,” said Buffy, “I know I was going through something. And I know I wasn’t handling it well. Maybe you didn’t handle it well, either. But I’m working through it now, and I need you here.” She made a fist and smacked it into her opposite palm. “Now, let me hit something.”