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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

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When Rupert Giles entered the long library hall, Quentin Travers saw the man’s eyes flicker at the sight of the uncharacteristic disorder: texts scattered at seeming random, spread out over available surfaces in no particular pattern, all the signs of an intense but not particularly methodical search for any hint of knowledge. The younger man’s expression didn’t change in the slightest, but Travers knew enough of him to be certain that any surprise was immediately subsumed by an instant calculation as to whether the sight before him revealed any underlying meaning, or was simply designed to keep him unsure as to what precisely was in process here.

Both were, of course, true.

Travers regarded the man he had summoned. Their acquaintance went back decades, of which none had been remotely amicable. Periodic reports crossed Travers’s desk as to the continued behavior and activities of Rupert Giles; he had glanced at them occasionally, but there had been nothing to indicate a need for deeper scrutiny. The need, however, was now at hand. Over a period longer than some of the younger Watchers had been alive, Giles had visibly focused himself on study, routine, duty, propriety, giving every appearance of burying the reckless destructiveness of his youth under remorse and inflexible dedication. How much of that appearance, then, was grounded in fact?

The decision ahead was not whether to proceed, but how. If the seething rebellion of Giles’s past was still at the core of his character, Travers could turn that to his advantage. If Giles had in fact crushed that earlier fire under the weight of discipline and convention, a different use could be made of such material. It was merely a matter of determining which was the case.

All this reflection had taken less than a minute to pass through the senior Watcher’s mind. Meanwhile, Giles had waited with glacial, expressionless patience. (Interesting, but not yet definitive.) Travers allowed his customary smooth geniality to show a trace of interest, and studied the other man with an open assessment that, while not quite rude, certainly was absent the refined courtesy he could so skillfully bring to bear when it would work to his profit.

He gestured briefly toward a chair across the small table where he sat, and Giles took the indicated seat.

“No one wants you,” Travers said to him without preamble. Drily, without emphasis or rancor, but also without the faintest trace of apology.

Giles’s response was equally measured, and likewise absent anything that might have been mistaken for deference. “That was made clear to me years ago. Implicitly and openly, subtly and bluntly.” His shrug was only barely perceptible. “Even now, professional conduct doesn’t prevent our … colleagues, from communicating that I do not truly belong.”

Travers considered the younger man with interest he didn’t attempt to hide. “And you feel no resentment regarding the matter?”

Again the tiny shrug. “I did what I did. Being allowed afterward to return to some role in the Watchers was more generosity than I expected, or merited. I understood I would thenceforth operate within constraints, and accepted that it would be so.”

Travers nodded. “Penance. Over twenty years’ worth, by this point.” He angled an eyebrow. “Do you believe that to be adequate to the offense?”

No flicker marred the flawless composure of Giles’s expression. “Randall’s death remains an irreversible reality. So, no, no penance shall ever be sufficient.” He shook his head. “All this is known, has been since the beginning. The only thing that surprises me is that … that you felt it needed to be addressed at all.”

“Indeed,” Travers said. “Normally, it would not be. Our present circumstances, however, are somewhat other than normal.”

Giles nodded understanding. “I assume this to be in reference to the new Slayer, the American? I’ve heard enough of the situation to see it might be a source of some disruption.” His glance toward Travers was quizzical. “I cannot, try as I might, see how it pertains to me.”

“It shouldn’t,” Travers agreed. “But your name has been submitted for candidacy.”

The other man’s response was … stillness. Nothing moved in his face, no shift of muscle in his body, even his eyes remained motionless. At last he said, “That would not be greeted eagerly by any on the selection committee. You would have had no problem in quashing such an absurd suggestion. Therefore, it must be that said candidacy, for whatever reason, remains in play.” He looked to Travers. “It poses a problem of some kind, then. You need me to respond in such a way as to blunt, divert, or negate this problem.” Once again the dismissive shrug. “Tell me what is needed, and I will do it, then return to my current duties.”

Travers’s smile and tone were urbane. “You would willingly serve as a puppet for the political maneuverings of others? others, as it stands, who hold you in no regard whatsoever?”

Giles’s tone, however steady, was dismissive. “This is a diversion from my normal pursuits. A distraction. It impinges into the life I have made for myself, and I would certainly be inclined to bring that impingement to an end. I need you only to tell me what actions you require of me.”

“What if I need you to play along?” Travers mused. “Make your candidacy an actual possibility, to which other factions might find it necessary to respond?”

“That would be tedious,” Giles told him. “And probably outside my own abilities to carry off effectively.” Once more, the shrug. “But then, I would expect you to engage in the actual maneuverings, or have it done for you.”

Travers nodded. “As I indicated, there are various factions in the higher reaches of the Council. You will naturally be aware of this, though you have remained aloof from any involvement with them.”

“That required little effort on my part.” Giles made a small, indifferent gesture. “None within the Council see me as a desirable ally, or even a potentially useful tool, which quite accords with my own wishes.”

“Which are?” Travers asked.

There was no hesitation in the response. “To continue as I have. To do the work I do. To add value to the overall endeavor, in increments individually negligible but of cumulative worth … That, at least, is the hope.” A flicker of one eyebrow. “If my contributions had been of no account whatsoever, I don’t doubt in the slightest that I would have been … forcefully informed of the fact.”

“Yes, well.” Travers sighed. “Roger Wyndham-Pryce, though nearing official retirement, still has considerable influence. Some of the opening proposals — by those who follow him, rather than from him directly — hint at the possibility being raised of sending his son to this …” He sighed again. “This ‘Sunnydale’.”

Giles gave those words brief consideration. “Don’t know anything about the son. If he’s anything like Roger, though, you should find him perfectly acceptable … aside from his parentage, of course.”

For the first time Travers betrayed surprise, though it would have been visible only to someone who had some familiarity with him, and the fact that it showed at all meant he had allowed it to do so. “You believe that young Wyndham-Pryce, as a separate individual, would be of a type I would approve?”

“I believe,” Giles corrected mildly, “that, however you and Roger may oppose one another in internecine sparring, the two of you are more similar than not.” A shrug. “I also believe my opinion on this matter to be essentially irrelevant to you.”

“Ah.” Travers sat silent for perhaps half a minute. “Your assessment of Roger and myself, while not inaccurate, is less than complete. We’re both of the Old School, of course, and consequently lean heavily in favor of order and tradition.” He shook his head. “My own adherence to tradition, however, is because I believe the old ways to have proven themselves effective, and variance from that should be undertaken cautiously and with ready awareness of potential pitfalls. Roger … I suspect that, to a large extent, he simply sees tradition as another means of maintaining and exerting control.”

“You’ve no need to talk me over to your side,” Giles pointed out evenly. “I don’t care about the reasons and the causes, and I’ve already said I would act as you wish, simply to have this matter done with.”

Travers’s mouth tightened, and his tone no longer held even the semblance of cordiality. “Yes, we’re an annoyance to you, aren’t we? The issues with which we grapple, the larger responsibilities we must address — any matters outside your own immediate pursuits — are of no import to you at all.” The contempt in his gaze would have scorched fine linen. “You are every bit as arrogant and self-centered as ever you were, and all your talk of ‘penance’ was meaningless flummery. You’ve not changed a bit, have you?”

The effect of his words was gratifying, though Travers concealed his satisfaction with the skill of long-honed dissimulation. Nothing at all had changed in Giles’s posture or expression, yet the overall impression was of a crouching panther, not moving but set to spring at any moment. “You were the one who characterized it as penance,” Giles said, and his voice was level, dry, and unstressed. “I never claimed anything so dramatic or pious. I set myself to my present labours for the reasons I gave, and have adhered to the limits set upon me. If you now wish more of me than that … say so, then, and I will see if it is something I can and am willing to do.”

Travers’s tone, his expression, the curl of his lip, every bit of it was as emphatic as if he had spat. “If you’re willing,” he repeated, biting with scorn. “If you are willing. All about you, then: your ego, your preferences, your decision in the stead of duty, tradition, even basic decency.” He glared at Giles. “You’re a disgrace, a waste of all the chances you’ve been given, a stain on the name of your family. How dare you sit before me and speak of your wishes as if they held any merit?”

Giles’s own expression had been hardening with every word, a flush rising to his cheeks, and it clearly required conscious, focused control to prevent him clenching his fists. His mouth twisted, he opened it to answer … and then he stopped, his brow furrowing, and stood silent for a long, tense moment. With visible deliberation he relaxed, and regarded Travers with a new glint in his eyes. “Well, now,” he murmured. “That was, was quite skillfully done. Verbal triggers, of course, but … mandrake, defiled salt, and carlondine extract as the base?”

Travers smiled ironically, and acknowledged, “Accents of rue and amethyst as well.”

Giles nodded, his eyes steady. “And why did you wish to ignite my anger?”

“Why, to see if you could control it, of course,” Travers replied. Then, with a chuckle, “Or, if not, in what way you would express it.”

Another nod from the younger man; and then, his tone perfectly even, he said, “You accused me of not having changed at all. In that vein, then, you’re still the same smug, manipulative prat you were twenty-five years ago.”

Quite satisfying, quite satisfying. One of Travers’s worries had been that Giles might have been shamming dutiful obedience all this time, that chaotic rebellion still smoldered within him, waiting to burst forth at some inopportune moment. Just as concerning, however, was the possibility that the man had smothered all the fire inside, that the vague, stammering mannerisms might have become the reality, and left the one-time rebel incapable of decisive thought and action. Instead, Rupert Giles still held the fire within himself … but leashed, bound, every moment weighed and considered before allowing it free rein. This was a man of fierce passions, but he would never again allow himself the self-indulgence of recklessness.

Travers had spent much of the last several weeks weighing several sets of possibilities; now, his choices had narrowed and firmed. No decision yet, but gratifyingly less uncertainty. Very well, then.

“Shall we retire to less disordered surroundings?” he suggested, rising. “And, really, civilised conversation isn’t truly civilised without tea, is it?”

*               *               *

They wound up in a small office — not Travers’s own, but his position meant he could commandeer quarters as needed — and busied themselves with the familiar ceremony of preparing and serving tea, knowing they were using the conventions as a framework for settling themselves, and feeling the success of it even while recognizing the artificiality. “The current situation,” Travers said, after taking a seat and a measured, approving sip, “seems to become more difficult by the moment, as if it has begun to sprout a forest of complications.” He shook his head in genial amusement. “Hence the clutter you saw when you first arrived: consultation of even the most obscure prophecies, in hope of giving me some hint as to the proper course to chart.”

“The issue is … that difficult?” Giles inquired over the top of his own cup.

Rather than answering directly, Travers asked, “What do you know of Merrick Jamison-Smythe?”

Giles considered the question for several seconds before observing, “No more, I would suspect, than is commonly known within our community; I’m hardly part of any inner circles.” He frowned slightly. “There might have been cautious speculations that he was becoming … eccentric, in some of his views and approaches.”

Travers nodded. “With a man of his provenance and esteemed history, any speculations very well would be cautious. But, yes, the tenor of his later reports could very well have lent itself to such interpretation.” He shook his head. “His initial assessment of his new Slayer was distinctly unfavorable. Poorly educated, no advance training or preparation; she was one of those who sometimes are called without having been identified in advance, and you know as well as I do how those commonly work out. In addition, he characterized her personally as undisciplined, superficial, unserious in her training, disdainful of authority: altogether, a neat collection of indicators toward ignominious failure and early death.” Travers sighed. “Near the end, however, his views of this quite unpromising Slayer were coming across as so unrealistic as to raise questions about his fitness.”

Giles quirked an eyebrow. “It is a repeated theme of our calling that none of us are infallible. Still, to express such doubts about a man of his stature …”

“Quite,” Travers agreed. “If he was indeed … ‘losing it’ … then his errant opinions should certainly be disregarded. The stature you spoke of, however, makes one aware that those opinions might need our careful attention.”

Clearly, Giles was already seeing the implications. “If the girl has the potential to be a genuinely significant Slayer, you wouldn’t wish to place an … inferior Watcher as her guide.”

“Yet, if she is as undistinguished as her background would lead us to expect,” Travers agreed, “it would be a shame to squander limited political capital in assigning a better Watcher to a losing cause.”

Giles shrugged. “And a ‘compromise’ candidate would all too probably embrace the worst of both worlds. I recognise the difficulty there.” He tilted his head. “And how did it come that my name was ever mentioned as a possibility?”

“In passing, at first,” Travers said. “In circumstances that would lead one to believe it was a feint, to conceal or facilitate some other proposal. It raised arguments, however, and those arguments caught my attention.” He made a small, distracted gesture. “You’re not an … altogether implausible candidate. Your youthful indiscretions are well known, but are most familiar to the older generation, thus carrying somewhat less weight to those who came to their positions after you had … returned to the fold, as it were. And your father, and even more so your grandmother, left a legacy that could be cited in putting you forward.”

“All the same, you’d lose very little political capital in sending me to … California, is it?” Giles shook his head. “Many would see that as further punishment, even an insult.”

Travers regarded him benignly. “Would you?” he wondered.

Giles’s lips tightened, but he answered steadily. “I would be more concerned as to whether it would be a wasted opportunity.” He looked to Travers. “I have the education; you know my academic record. I have the background knowledge. I did decently in the standard preparatory field exercises, and my competence with weapons is … adequate.” He shook his head. “I don’t rate well as a teacher or mentor, however. I’m told I have little patience with those who don’t take their duties seriously, which sounds very much like the Slayer in question.” He grimaced. “And Americans are, are intensely annoying. Particularly teen-aged Americans. Particularly female teen-aged Americans.”

Travers made a casual, expansive gesture. “From your past history, one would expect that you would exhibit overweening pride, rather than any absence of confidence in yourself.”

“It’s not a matter of confidence,” Giles corrected primly. “I simply know my capabilities. Even if I believed better Watcher candidates were available, I would not shrink from assuming duties over a Slayer who had been properly prepared. This American girl, however, is extravagantly not such a person, and I feel annoyance and impatience even at the thought of dealing with the, the frivolous adolescent indicated in Jamison-Smythe’s first reports.”

“That’s rather the essence of it,” Travers pointed out. “We don’t actually know what type of person she is. Merrick’s own judgment of her seems to have changed signally, and we’ve little independent evidence to evaluate her otherwise. He may have seen the emergence of hidden depths; he may have succumbed to wishful thinking; he may, for all we know, have begun to suffer from some condition that diminished his intellect. We don’t know. And it is within this vacuum of certainty that we must make our current choices.”

Giles’s expression was severe. “You are genuinely proposing that I be exiled to, to California, then?”

Travers’s smile was gently sardonic. “Regarding that question, there are two things to keep in mind. First, I honestly have not committed myself to any specific course, even tentatively; much shall depend on the immediate climate in which I find myself, when I return and gauge the temper of the selection committee and the circumstances as they stand.”

He sat back, made a negligent gesture. “I might push you as a candidate, either to force your acceptance or to maneuver the others into selecting someone else in opposition. I might float the possibility, and then manipulate the discussion to bring out other issues which change the entire tenor of the matter being addressed. I might yield some goal I’m pursuing, accepting a lesser choice in return for a greater gain elsewhere. I might even listen, consider, find some aspect or perspective I hadn’t thought of, and genuinely be persuaded into another course.” He sighed. “Some situations are quite straightforward, with the options being limited and unambiguous; most of the time, however, it’s less clear-cut than that, and the currents must be navigated as deftly and on a moment-to-moment basis as a sixteenth-century pilot steering a ship of the line through a gale around the Cape of Storms.”

Giles was regarding him narrowly, with what might have been either wonderment or distaste. “Well, then. Clausewitz, as we know, opined that war was the continuation of politics by other means; and Foucault raised the possibility that war was the default state, and politics simply part of the transition between stages of war.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you, yourself, actually see much difference between the one and the other?”

Travers shrugged. “If we’re citing political theory, an American science fiction writer, speaking through one of his characters, claimed that politics was what people did rather than beat at each other with large clubs. I don’t believe I’d do too well with a club, so I pursue my goals by less obstreperous means.” His mouth crimped in a smile that was sour and smug in equal measure. “And lest we forget, my ‘political’ battles concern matters that could determine the fate of the world.”

Giles sighed. “Not my venue, I’m afraid. Well, you said two things to consider. What was the second?”

Travers’s expression now showed altogether too much self-satisfaction. “Simply that, if you are in fact dispatched to what some Americans refer to as their Left Coast, your ‘exile’ shall most probably be quite short; if the current Slayer is as unprepossessing as Merrick originally described her, she’s unlikely to survive much longer. At which time, of course, you shall prepare your closing reports and return to your prior activities.”

Giles was frowning slightly. “It’s all a matter of, of relative advantages to you, then. Trading off one possibility against another.” He looked to the older man. “If you do choose me, and I do go to this Sunnydale … it genuinely doesn’t matter to you whether or not I fail, does it?”

Travers pursed his lips. “I would say it’s less a matter of indifference as of combined pragmatism and flexibility.” His eyes held what might have been cynicism, or might have simply been a long-growing weariness. “If this Slayer dies, another shall be called, perhaps a better one. If she doesn’t die, that might mean she herself is suitable for the challenges on the near horizon … and the coming challenges are severe indeed, if the portents are to be trusted. I can work with her death or with her survival; more to the point, I have a specific responsibility to do exactly that.”

Giles’s face showed no sign of being impressed. “It helps, I suppose, to be … cold-blooded.”

The smile Travers held didn’t flicker, but it became somewhat fixed. “We have been burying teen-aged girls — and a few, a very few, who lived to be slightly older — for several centuries now. None could continue to engage in such duty if they didn’t develop a certain … detachment.” He shook his head. “We do not send them out to die, Rupert; once they become Slayers, they are driven to hunt, and over time the hunt inevitably kills each of them. We merely point them to where that hunt is best to be directed, and support them in whatever way we can.”

Giles sat for several minutes without speaking. Then, “You referred to manipulating the discussion among the members of the committee; meaning, manipulating them.” His gaze was steady. “You’re manipulating me right now, aren’t you?”

Travers snorted softly. “Of course,” he said.

“If you do propose me,” Giles went on, “and do in fact send me to America … you’re treating it as a, a tactic, a counter-move by which you can seize advantage in a situation that otherwise might escape your control.” His eyes met Travers’s. “For me, however, it would be a distinctly different matter.”

“I realize that,” Travers said, and sighed. “You know as well as I do that when a Slayer dies, her Watcher — assuming he or she survives — almost always either retires entirely, or transfers from field work to research or administration. It’s simply … too much for them, and I should be distinctly uneasy about anyone who did not feel such a loss so keenly.” He shook his head slowly. “So, yes, I fully recognise what this would mean for you.”

“My grandmother sponsored three Slayers before, I am told, it became more than she could bear.” Giles’s eyes were still steady on the other man’s. “My father did not take on that responsibility, but he trained a number of Potentials, two of whom did in fact become Slayers. And those two …” Giles shook his head. “He never spoke of them — avoided doing so, in fact — but it was very clear that he never ceased to sorrow for how brief their lives had been.”

“Indeed,” Travers said. “We are dedicated; we are not heartless.”

“And this,” Giles said, ghost-soft. “Accepting stewardship of a young girl — knowing full well that she will die without ever reaching adulthood, and staying with her until she does die — this is what you would ask of me.”

“If the selection falls to you, then yes.” Travers’s face was set, stony. “This is what we have been doing for generations. This is the reason the Watchers exist.” His fists clenched on the arms of his chair. “Harsh duty. Brutal duty. But, still, duty.” He looked down at his hands, forced them to relax. More quietly than before, he told Giles, “The choice has not yet been made. You have a time — perhaps a very brief time, perhaps days or even weeks of further argument — before you know whether this duty is to be yours, a duty that could well prove even more arduous than I suspect. You should use that time, then, to look inside yourself and … decide, whether you are the man who can accept it.”

And there was nothing more to say after that, and the two Watchers sat where they were, regarding one another and a future that was yet to be written.

 
end