Chapter Eleven

"Is this going to become a habit?" Cordelia asked.  "I wake up, you're not there, I go searching through a dark house."  She turned on the lights in the kitchen.

"You said you wanted more exercise," Giles murmured, squinting until his eyes adjusted.

Cordelia sat beside him and took a sip of his tea.  "Yuck, it's cold."

"Is it?" he asked distractedly.  In front of him was the little crystal rabbit that Cordelia had noticed on the window sill, back before they went to Long Beach.

"What's the mood tonight, Rupert?  Oh, let me guess.  Depression."

But he did look ghastly, more than usual, so much so that she touched his forehead.  "Are you coming down with something?"

"I had a rather bad afternoon."

"You don't feel hot."

"It's not influenza," Giles said.

"Sympathy morning sickness?"

"Cordelia, can we just speak without all of the jibes?  It makes me feel as though I have to clear hurdles in order to talk to you."

"If we're going to have an actual conversation, you have to actually participate," she said, but he could hear the tension in her voice.  Conversations late at night obviously didn't bode well with her.

"I went back to see Rabbi Mendi today."

"What did he say to you?" she asked worriedly.  She went to touch his arm, but hesitated.

"He asked questions."

"About what?"

"What I remembered after I came out of the hellmouth," Giles replied.

"And what do you remember, besides a whole lot of nothing?"

"Apparently…..everything."

"What did he do?  Hypnotize you?" she asked in alarm.

"No.  He merely asked the same questions over and over until I…..blew my stack and yelled at him."

Her eyebrows shot up.  "You yelled at a Rabbi?  Even I know better."  Then his words sank in.  "What do you mean, you remember?  Just out of the blue?"

"He kept insisting that I was lying to him.  In the middle of yelling at him, it all came clear.  All at once, it was…..right there in front of me.  All of it."  Giles looked at her.  "Afterwards, I threw up quite spectacularly."

"Oh.  Ewww!"  She drew back.  "You don't want to again, do you?  'Cause you're awfully white."

"I hope not," he muttered, as he rested his chin on one hand.  "You read poetry to me, when I was tied down."

"And awful stuff it was, Rupert."

"It was nice."  He managed a small, tired smile.  "When our child is born, you should read to her."

"Or him," Cordelia said, "though I'd rather fill this place with girls.  Then we can all tease you at once."  She sobered.  "What else do you remember?"

"I attacked Willow."

"But you already knew that."

"Vaguely, but now I have…..details."

"She's ok, Rupert.  Don't go getting all weird over it.  She told me herself that she's ok.  Anyway, it evens out because, when her evil twin came through that time warp or whatever, it terrorized the stuffing out of me."

"I hurt Buffy."

"You chewed at her stomach.  "That was major ewww."

Giles met her eyes.  "Rabbi Mendi says he can sever the claim between Buffy and me."

"Then, go for it."

"Cor, it means I lose her.  More than I already have.  All that we have built together would be broken apart.  I would truly lose her."

"And the problem?" Cordelia questioned.

"I…..I need her."

"That's a *great* thing to be saying to me while I'm sitting here carrying your child!"

"Cordelia, she's been my entire reason for existence.  From the time I was ten, when my father informed me I was to be a Watcher, I have been preparing and waiting for her."

"Oh, this is *wonderful*!"  Cordelia glowered at him.

"Cor, I love you."

"But?"

"You're giving me something I never thought I would have."

She looked away.  "So, if I wasn't pregnant--"

"I would still be coming home to you."

"Yeah.  Sure you would."

"Cor, for three years, you've been saying the most undiplomatic things to me.  Since you've been living here, you've taken over my apartment.  I can't find any of my possessions and you fight with me over every single thing I say."

"Great," she managed, stunned and somewhat horrified.  "Thanks a lot."

"It would be quite dull without you.  You're the first girl in twenty years that I've tried to get into the, ah, back seat.  I looked over, saw you, and," he touched her cheek.  "I couldn't wait until we got home.  I do love you.  What we have between us, I will never open to anyone else.  You are the only one in my bed."

She took his hand.  "I love you too.  I'd kiss you, except you still look like you're going to yak."  But she looked down, away from him.  "But this Buffy thing….."

"I will not walk away from her.  Never.  I want her to live, to…..retire and have all the things she's always said she wanted.  I will not withdraw."

"Do Slayers retire?"

"Not usually."

"You mean they die?" Cordelia asked quietly.

"I'm hoping I can find a way to get the next one called."

"And that will be your reason for living?"

He grasped her hand tightly.  "When I was leaving the Synagogue, I saw a bronze plaque on a wall.  It was just inside a room where there were books and artwork and beautiful big windows.  It was a plaque dedicated to a young woman who died at age eighteen.  Her name was Aulin Tafari."

"Why did she die?"

"She was a Slayer, Cor.  She was Rabbi Mendi's Slayer."

He watched her face as she pieced it together.  It only took her a moment.  "You didn't know he was a Watcher."

He shook his head.  "I think Wesley does, though."

"He could have shared that," Cordelia scowled.  "He calls here for information, but doesn't share.  I'm going to have to get on his case about it."

"Please don't hold back," Giles said, with a bit of indulgence at the image of what would be left of Wesley after Cordelia finished with him.

"Rabbi Mendi has kids.  He was telling me about them," she said.  "Which means he had a wife and a Slayer at the same time.  But he didn't do very well at it, did he?  I mean, his Slayer died."

"His Slayer came to him when she was thirteen, Cor.  She died because of that reprehensible test of the Council's."

"Oh yeah.  The one that got you fired."

"Yes, let's *do* keep going over that ground."

Cordelia looked up and shrugged.  "So, you're saying, he did do both at the same time, family and Slayer."

"Yes, but, Cor, it requires a little giving in."

"Me give in to Buffy?  Rupert, you've got to be kidding."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Not much from that little washed-out blonde."

Giles sighed.  "Fine.  Then I'll start.  Cordelia, I'm afraid you're going to be a young widow."

"Just leave me your money and I'll be fine."

"Then, there's no problem, is there?  Nothing worries you."

She caught the aggravation in his voice.  It took a lot of effort to swallow down her own.  "Rupert, if I have to give in, so does she."

"Cordelia, give in how?  When I told her about the pregnancy, she started to cry!  For Godssakes, stop and think about it!"

"Rupert--"

"I'm the one in the middle of it!  Not you!  If I was half the bastard you seem to think I am, I'd be ditching one of you.  In fact, that's what I have been doing.  I've left Buffy out on her own."  He let go of her to rub his forehead painfully.  "If you love me at all, Cordelia, then stop tearing at me!  There's nothing more I can say.  If you want me to be able to stay with you, you're going to have to give in and trust me."

He felt her hands come to his.  She pulled them away from his face, then let go to stroke his forehead.  "Do you want an aspirin?"

"I'd need the whole bottle."

She kissed him, very softly, a brush over his lips.  "Ok," she whispered.

Giles eyed her suspiciously.  "Are we still talking about the aspirin?"

"Catch up, Rupert."  She drew back enough to look into his eyes.  "If you ever hurt me again, Buffy can have you.  All of you.  I'll pack your bag and nail your ass with a paternity suit."

"You mentioned something to that effect yesterday."

"You'd better believe I mean it."

"Despite the subtlety of your approach, I think I have the idea," he said.

She hugged him, surprising him.  After a few moments, he thought to put his arms around her in return.  As he rested his chin on the top of her head, he realized he could possibly fall asleep in this position.

"What's the deal with the rabbit?" she asked.

"It was Michael's.  I found it in among some books."

"He liked rabbits?"

"I don't know," Giles replied.  "It was an odd thing in with the rest of his belongings.  I found clothing and texts, maps and papers, and that little rabbit."

"Maybe someone gave it to him."

"I wonder who."

"Someone who thought he liked rabbits," she surmised.  Somehow, he smiled.

They were quiet for a while, and he was nearly asleep, when she said, "Everyone I've ever trusted has let me down."

"I know, Cor."

"Just thought I'd mention it."

"Ssh, honey."  He closed his eyes.

---

Willow had a secret.  She hummed.  She swung her legs.  She darted back and forth.  A million watts of energy were flaring under each sneaker.  She was supposed to be helping Buffy study.  It wasn't working out.

Buffy, unable to concentrate on her book due to the incessant flux of motion in her peripheral vision, was feeling somewhat breathless.

"Will," she said, when Willow's leg caught the edge of her textbook during yet another flyby.

"Sorry."  Willow dropped into a chair.  A moment later, her leg began to rock.

"What's the sitch?" Buffy asked.  It had to do with Wesley, she figured.  Some extra-nice smoochies that had either just happened or were anticipated.   Not that Buffy particularly wanted to know.  He was all that Willow talked about lately.

"Wesley and I….." Willow started, and Buffy burrowed glumly between some throw cushions and the back of the couch.  "…..are going out tonight, to a movie."

Thinking of the culturally-challenged Wesley watching Star Wars made Buffy snicker.  "I think he'd like something with lots of spaceships," she said, and Willow blinked.

"I won't talk about him anymore today.  I promise," she offered valiantly.

"No.  I don't mind."  It occurred to Buffy that she didn't, at the core.  It was just the continuous movement around her.  Otherwise, she was glad.  Willow had been so down since the whole Oz thing.

However, she still didn't see how *Wesley* could be the reason.  I-Never-Travel-Anywhere-Without-A-Lint-Brush-Wesley Wyndham-Price?  What did Willow see in him?  What did they do together?  The kisses she knew about, and the horseback riding.  A dinner in a restaurant that had been a disaster.  There was obviously more because Willow hadn't started humming over Oz, even, until near the end.

"Oh!  I know something I can tell you!" Willow sat forward.  "Wesley—"

Buffy sighed loudly.

"I mean, you know who, called Rabbi Mendi," Willow said.

Buffy came out from behind the pillows.  "Did that Rabbi go and see Giles?"

"Giles has been going to see *him*.  W—you know who, said that Rabbi Mendi said it was going well."

"What was going well?"

Willow shook her head.  "He wouldn't say, only that it was hopeful.  I wanted to visit Giles at the Museum, but he's taking time off until next week.  I suppose," her voice lowered, "I could go to his apartment, like we used to."

"Cordelia lives there," Buffy said.  That was a relationship she couldn't understand either, and now it would be forever.

Her expression must have changed, because Willow frowned and said, "Cordelia wouldn't keep me from seeing Giles.  She's not that bad."  She thought for a second, then said, "I don't think."

"It's not that."  Buffy closed her book and plopped it on a coffee table, stretching out the action while she gathered her thoughts.  She'd heard Giles say *the words*, but she hadn't really wanted to say them herself.  She was also afraid that to say…..it…..might make her cry.

"Is it hellmouthy?" Willow asked.

"No," Buffy said, feeling worse now because she hadn't wanted to make Willow anxious.  And she had, she realized, for the swinging leg and humming had both stopped.

"Will, it's big and kind of, well, private stuff.  Giles said I could tell you."

"Tell me what?"  But she asked while staring at Buffy, which only made it worse.  Buffy felt her eyes filling already.

"Cordelia's going to have a baby."

Willow kept staring.  In fact, she looked rather blank.  Behind that, though, she was repeating the words back to herself.  Cordelia.  Baby.  Cordelia.  A side sweep of relief appeared, a silent bit of thankfulness that Wesley had used a condom, but it was abruptly blotted out by the conclusion…..*Giles' baby*.

Buffy looked down, trying not to let her voice break.  "What's going to happen if I need Giles but his child is sick?  *His* child, Willow.  He's going to need to be with it."

"Oh, Buffy," Willow murmured.  Cordelia was taking far more than dating and sex and a few months out of Giles' life.  This was something Buffy would never get around.

Willow got up, moving towards the couch, and Buffy closed her eyes, thinking, 'Don't hug me and I won't cry."  But it was too late for Willow's arms were suddenly around her.  A sharp sob broke Buffy's throat.

"Giles would never leave you," Willow tried, raising her voice as though volume would make her words mean more.  "I mean, a baby is really really big, but other Watchers have had children.  Giles *comes* from Watchers, so, obviously they, they do.  But Giles would….."

"Would *what*?" Buffy asked, in between those wracking sobs that usually come at the end of the outburst.  By them, Willow figured that Buffy had already been crying over this one.  While she'd been out blindly dating Wesley, Buffy had been crying alone.

"He would take Angelus all over again.  He would go into the hellmouth again," Willow insisted.  "He would give his life.  Maybe it can be worked out."  But Willow knew there were no maybes.  Cordelia with Giles' baby would not brook maybes.

"You need to talk to Giles," Willow said.  Band-aid words, she knew, but, by them, she meant *she* was going there herself.  To see Cordelia.  She almost added, 'Resolve-Face,' because, when she went, there would be no gloating allowed.

"You won't lose Giles," Willow added.  More band-aids.  That was all she had at the moment, but she was definitely going over.  Today.

"It feels like I've already lost him, Will."

"You won't, Buffy.  You won't."  Thoughts of Wesley fell to the back.  All Willow could think of was getting to Giles' apartment.  With a firmness that surprised her, she insisted, "Buffy, you won't."

---

"Should I stay near a bathroom?" Giles asked, and Mendi smiled.

"Would you like to take a walk?"

A park adjoined the Synagogue.  Giles let Mendi choose the direction.  The Rabbi seemed to have an accustomed path, one which he could take while his mind was on other things.  Giles followed, a step behind.  It occurred to him that, inside and out, they were always on Mendi's ground.  He wasn't sure, however, what constituted his own ground anymore.

Mendi stopped by some small purple flowers inhabiting tousles of thick-bladed grass, pausing momentarily before resuming his pace.  Giles lagged behind, wondering what kind of flowers they were.  They resembled something he'd seen in his childhood, similar to those English flora that streamed across moors during the summer.  But then he had to pick up his step, for Mendi would have left him behind.  The Rabbi had paused out of habit, not for significance, for he was now several yards ahead, and so lost in thought that he apparently hadn't noticed the other man was no longer with him.

The Rabbi strongly reminded Giles of Merrick, composure and intensity merged under one skin.  Merrick, Buffy's original Watcher.  But, long before that, he'd taken over Giles' training when the Council had been prepared to let the latter go.  Merrick had stepped in neatly as though he'd been waiting on the job.

Which he hadn't.  Merrick had been in Italy when the Eyghon fallout hit the fan, and no one called him, or would have considered doing so.  He'd come in under his own sense of curiosity.  Or, perhaps, compulsion.  At any rate, Giles was shown into a classroom one morning and Merrick had been there, as if he'd been there a thousand times before.  No introduction, no small talk - just a quiet, "Here's what you're going to do."  And it had begun.

Merrick never did explain why he'd interceded with Giles.  He'd seemed, as did Mendi, fate or punishment, or some kind of reckoning.  His attention had been undivided - his presence simply a matter of course.  No matter what complaints or outright curses Giles had thrown at him, Merrick had remained an even balance of outward severity and inward amusement.  He'd often dragged Giles for walks, similar to this current trek.  During them, he'd been one step ahead, and either lecturing at a hell's fury speed, or completely and utterly silent.  Both states had been unnerving.

Here Giles was, on another walk, and he felt as though he were twenty-two again, trying to catch up to someone that he wasn't sure he wanted to be around.  Mendi had offered Giles the choice, stay or go, but it was the same sort of choice you faced at a surgeon's after being told that your gall bladder was a mass of stones.  The only decision truly your own was how long to delay.

Giles caught up to the Rabbi on the other side of some headily-scented trees.  Despite the lateness of the season, blossoms remained on the branches, stubbornly refusing to follow the route of going to seed and dropping away.

Beside the trunk was a bench.  Giles dropped onto it gratefully, and Mendi smiled at the sight.  "You will get your strength back, Mr. Giles.  Not all of it, perhaps, but most."

"I feel a hundred years old," Giles said.

"You have a way to go yet, for that."  Mendi stood, his hands clasped behind his back as he regarded Giles.  "How do you feel today, other than old?"

"I feel…..all right.  Tired, though.  Cordelia woke me up a dozen times or more last night.  She claimed I was snoring.  Oddly, she seemed happy about it."

Mendi chuckled.  "A man who snores is clearly alive and breathing."

A breeze wafted by, bringing the scent of the tree back down on them.  "I have a scholar," Mendi said.  "A serious young man who wishes to dedicate his life to our Lord's work, yet he would not be able to stand here with us today.  He has such severe allergies that he would be in misery within a short space.  He cannot enjoy this seemingly simple aspect of God's handiwork."

Giles glanced around.  He caught Mendi's look upon him, and said, "I-I just see flowers."

"You have lost your faith," Mendi said.

Giles twitched in surprise.  "Did you ever meet Michael Khieri?"

"No.  Why do you ask?"

"He once said the same thing to me," Giles replied.  "It struck me as peculiar because it implies, at some point, that I once had some."

Mendi didn't comment.  Instead, he sat down beside Giles and said, "Have you decided?  Do you wish to be unclaimed from Miss Summers?"

"I have decided, and I wish to keep her claim on me."

"You need her?  Good, because she needs you.  She is an unusual Slayer in that she has been assigned four Watchers.  But there is, at the heart of it, only ever one Watcher for the Slayer.  You are hers."

"She is an unusual Slayer for more reasons that that," Giles said.

"Yes," Mendi agreed.  "She possesses one of the brightest lights I've ever encountered.  The hellmouth could not break the depth of love she has for you."

"Yet, I've made her feel as though she's lost me," Giles murmured.

Mendi put a hand on Giles' arm.

The breeze picked up again, moving the tree branches so that sunlight dappled on the grass around Giles.  "This is a pretty spot," he said, and Mendi nodded.

"I often see children playing here, and mothers with strollers.  When Aulin was alive, I would bring her here every so often, a reminder for us both that there was life on this hellmouth apart from dwellers of the night."  He leaned back, resting his hands in his lap.

Giles watched the fluttering sunbeams for a while, and the motion of wind on the long grass.  He again thought of Merrick, who would have seen this interval of lounging on a bench as a gift to be appreciated.

"It's not enough, but, thank you," Giles said.  He was speaking, he hoped, to both men.

"It's enough," Mendi told him, "when said like that."

Giles rose, but Mendi touched his sleeve.  "Let us take a few more minutes, for I haven't felt such courage beside me since Aulin.  I take comfort in your presence."

Giles sat back down, bewildered into speechlessness by Mendi's words.  The Rabbi gave Giles another soft smile before returning his attention back to the flowers surrounding them.  After a moment, Giles did the same.

---