Summary Giles is living in England. Someone has an issue with that.
Rating PG
Disclaimer Santa owns everything. Joss owns reindeer poo. I think it’s a fair trade
Any injured copyrights were unintentional
Notes Set late S6. You’ll figure out when.
Written for fetalcoffin in the btvs_santa exchange on LiveJournal.
Giles woke up slowly to realize that the room was bright as day. Even though his alarm clock read four twenty-seven a.m.
He was in his own room, in his own bed, in the house he had grown up in in Westbury. But the familiar space had an otherworldly sense to it. And he was no longer alone.
The brilliance coalesced at the foot of the bed, slowly resolving into the familiar figure of a woman he hadn’t seen in over a year.
Alive, at least.
Joyce Summers looked much as she had in life. Tall and slender, hair long and softly waved, eyes brilliant with a gentle twist to her smile. The light faded, leaving a soft aura around her that made the simple white gown she wore glow softly.
She looked angelic.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her harsh words jolted him back to reality. “I beg your pardon?”
“You should.” She sounded positively indignant. “I trusted you to take care of my girls.”
“I am!” He started to rise, remembering belatedly that he was dressed only in his thin sleep pants. Subsiding, he drew the sheet back over his waist in awkward modesty.
“Oh, really?” She crossed her arms over he chest, glaring at him doubtfully. “Is that why you’ve put a continent and an ocean between you and them?”
“Joyce,” he defended himself, “Buffy needs to take responsibility for her own life. She’s not going to do that with me there to shoulder her burdens.”
“And just how responsible were you at twenty-one?”
A valid point. At twenty-one, he had run off to embark on a life of debauchery that had ended with at least one person dead. He couldn’t argue with her.
She moved around the bed to sit next to him with a sigh. “You’ve been more of a father to her than her own ever was,” she said, her tone more gentle now, “but you’re making the same mistakes he did. Buffy doesn’t need a distant authoritarian, she needs someone to be in her face. She was always at her best when you challenged her. She needs you there.”
He looked at her sadly. “It was so much easier when you were there.”
Her hand came up to caress his face, surprising him with the gentle friction of her hand. “You were always a good friend to me,” she said softly.
He laid his hand over hers. “I should have been more.”
“Maybe. It might have been nice. But I needed your friendship more. You gave us all strength. The kids need that now. Things are such a mess, Rupert. They need you. Buffy and Dawn. Xander, Anya. Willow . . . oh god, Willow.” Her face twisted in sorrow.
“What is it?” He tried to hold her, but she slipped away, returning to the foot of the bed.
“They need you, Rupert.”
Brilliance flared again near where she stood, making him wince. As it dimmed, it revealed the shape of a young woman, curvy and tall, long ash brown hair falling loose about her shoulders, a look of startlement and confusion on her face.
“Tara?” He spoke gently, covering his own bewilderment.
Joyce put her arms around the girl, kissing the top of her head. “They need you. You have to answer the phone now.”
The phone beside his bed rang. He looked at it in surprise, then back to her.
“They need you,” she repeated yet again. “Take care of them, Rupert. They need you.”
With that, the two women faded from view.
Giles woke up with a start.
The phone was ringing shrilly, the first light of dawn seeping through the window. He reached over to pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“Rupert?” For a brief, unreasoning instant, he thought it was Joyce somehow, but further speech revealed the gentrified West Country accent. “This is Agatha. There’s trouble back in California. We need your assistance.”
“They need you,” the words from the dream (or was it a visitation?) demanded.
“I’ll be right there.”