Yesterday's Guitars

Part Six

It took every inch of willpower she had for Faith to not leap into the fight, but she needed to see what Justine could do. And she was doing OK.

One suit-wearing zombie was coming up behind her, but Justine disengaged from the one she was fighting, flipped over it, bringing her foot down into its head. Nice. The one she had been fighting was still shambling toward her, but it didn’t take much time for Justine to recover and knock it down.

“You could help here,” said Justine, annoyed.

“Nah,” said Faith. “You’re on it.”

Wesley needed to get back into the Wolfram & Hart offices to hijack some access codes and data from the old computers before the team left for Europe, so Connor was in with him, playing bodyguard, and Faith and Justine were supposed to be holding the fort. But Faith hadn’t had a lot of time to just watch Justine go, see what she was made of, and she figured she might as well do it now.

There was only one zombie left that she could see, and Justine was already eyeing it. Faith wasn’t watching the fight anymore. Mostly, she was watching Justine’s eyes, the way they fixed on her target, like a hawk targeting prey. It pretty much confirmed Faith’s suspicions: Buffy was a hero, and Faith was a warrior, but Justine? Justine was a hunter, and that bugged Faith just a little bit. It was an easy way to get disconnected from the world.

Faith folded her arms and leaned back against the wall, making herself more comfortable. The zombies were in slow motion compared to most people. Next to a slayer, they might as well be standing still. The only thing they had going for them was sheer numbers, and there just didn’t seem to be that many left here. Maybe they were whittled down the last time the team was here. Maybe they’d started wandering out into the city, and wouldn’t that be interesting.

“Or maybe someone’s come back to collect them,” she said out loud, although too quietly for Justine to hear.

The slayer jabbed right, and then right again, and then spun, her foot connecting with the monsters head. There was an implosion of rotted flesh, and the undead thing fell. Faith clapped. Justine just glared at her.

“So, teach,” she said, “how’d I do?”

“Passable,” said Faith, looking at the three dismantled corpses. “Very, very passable.”

Justine just glared at her as she wiped the dust and bits of skin off her hands. For the most part, she and Faith got along OK, but Faith knew Justine wasn’t terribly happy about her decision to stay in Los Angeles to help train her. Justine had turned down every previous offer from the Council, and really, Faith knew that Buffy and Giles hadn’t been terribly keen on bringing her on board in the first place.

“Yeah,” thought Faith, “as if it’s the first time they’d brought in someone who tried to kill one of their friends.”

Wesley, wearing his patented stone face, walked out of the computer room with Connor.

“Get what you need?” said Faith.

“Yes,” said Wesley. “Hard to believe all of this information was left sitting around with only zombies to guard it.”

Wesley’s eyes went straight to the piles of meat littering the ground.

“Speaking of which. Problems?”

“Not really,” said Faith. “Only the three. Justine took care of them, I watched. It’s a lot easier than you and Giles always made it out to be.”

That almost got to Wesley. Faith could tell. His face was still taciturn, but his eyes still flashed when he was pissed.

“You’re not a Watcher, Faith,” he said, his voice cool as metal in a snowbank. “I agreed with your decision to stay and train Justine, but you’ve not had the years of training Rupert Giles and I have had.

Faith smiled.

“I’m just ragging on you, Wes,” she said. “Lighten up.”

“Yeah,” said Connor. “And speaking of light, can we leave?” It’s 9 a.m. and this place is still pitch black. I want to see some sun before I pack.”

They began to walk toward the entrance.

“So, you tell the folks you’re taking off to Europe?” (continued...)

( continues...) said Faith, still smirking.

“Are you kidding?” said Connor. “They could barely accept that I suddenly transferred to UCLA. No way do they find out about my extracurricular activities.”

“That’s cool,” said Faith. “Just thought I’d ask.”

Faith couldn’t help but notice the way Justine walked in silence, saying nothing, but watching Wesley the way she did that zombie. She didn’t know exactly what had gone down between them before, but it was bad. She could tell. And Wesley? She couldn’t tell what was in Wesley’s head at all.

“It’s going to be a long flight,” said Wesley as the California sun streamed in through the now-opened doors. “And we’re going to need to be ready for action when we get there.”

“Relax, Wes,” said Faith. “We’ll go, we’ll find our killer, and we’ll shake him like a British nanny for info.”

She got an actual wince out of him that time. Good. Meant he was still human in there. Sometimes she wasn’t certain.

“Hell of a team,” she thought. “Does anybody else know just how close these people are to blowing?”

And not for the first time since joining the team, Faith wondered what Buffy would do.

Justine took care of the, I watched.

Minor typo here. Them instead of the?

Also, looking good!

Fixed. Thanks!

A couple of other typos:

Faith knew that Buffy and Giles hadn’t been terribly keen on bringing her on board in the first place.

“I agree (agreed?) with your decision to stay and train Justine, but you’ve not had the years of training Rupert Giles and I have had

No way do they know find out

Fixed, fixed and fixed. Thanks.

Cool. Good story, Victor. Can't wait for more.

Cool. Good story, Victor. Can't wait for more.

Thanks. It's a comin'.

OK, this is Very Very AU Jossverse. The only thing I can say is my Land of Not Coping is sweaty and irrational. This is probably the only thing I've ever written without political messages in it.

Rupert Giles was nothing if not patient. The hard bit could be reminding himself of this, as night after night, his schedule(Which he was determined to pronounce in the British fashion he’d learned it, despite Xander’s mockery) got disrupted by Buffy, demanding more information about primal slayer power. He was proud of course. He always knew she could do amazing things if she applied all of that bouncy, infectious energy. At the same time, however, a petty part of him was irritated. He had rearranged his life with the understanding that he would have more personal time, and then, on a sort of impulse mixed with nostalgia she has him going through all of his collections all over again. He remembers all of those hours he must have spent waiting for her in the high school library and sighs. He is not the only one, either. Willow, on whom he’d been counting to share the load has been abstracted, dreamy, downright moony over the last weeks.
She has barely eaten enough to keep a bird alive. Giles suspected some sort of academic disappointment, but it seemed that her work continued exemplary as always. Then she brought a friend with her to research, from the magic group, and as she introduced Tara, Willow Rosenburg was glowing. It occurred to Giles that he had never seen Willow look more beautiful, although the first flush(and flush was the operative word...love or embarrassment or both brought a lovely shade to the girl’s cheeks, Giles noticed guiltily) of her relationship with Oz had been close. Giles wondered if he noticed before she did;maybe he was projecting from his own damnably slow emotional responses. In his later life, he was finding one way in which he wasn’t so unlike his father. Both Jenny and Olivia had practically had to rip their clothes off in front of him to assure him of their interest.Life was a lot different now then in that dogpile with Ethan and Deidre, being able to turn to whichever one felt like it and say “Fancy a shag?” feeling like the greatest hipster in the world, bold and experimental enough to have not only invented a new life, but all of the feelings that came with it.
He can hurt people now, he knows. He hopes that girl won’t be the one to teach Willow this. She has not taught Willow to lie, which he knows she did, making up that stupid story about wanting to loan Tara the Summers’ dictionary. He knows what it’s like to be young and in love. He would’ve followed any one of the cult of Eyghon off a cliff just to make them smile. That part of him could have courted Olivia so strenuously, she would have begged to lose her voice again, probably during their shared passion. Strong feelings frighten him now, so he does not extend himself. There is a reason why he took to being a Watcher in the end.
“What are you doing noticing what she looks like? That way lies madness, Rupert old man!” He still sees Willow as the awkward child who followed him through the stacks, although that vampire with her pert little shape was something of a forbidden education and something that has floated through his restless brain on nights when it took something stronger than Forster to help him sleep. When he thinks of her that way, he feels as guilty as if he took her in the storeroom and snogged her senseless right next to Sunnydale High’s entire collection of Tale of Two Cities. He feels horrible, but still takes a moment to imagine how her eyes would widen with the surprise of it all. She gets that look when she does magic sometimes, like she can’t believe that this big beautiful world is all for her. As a teacher, part of him knows he should object more strenuously when she goes digging into more advanced texts, but the man who was Ripper loves putting that look on another woman’s face. Willow’s desire to learn is almost as physical as many women’s desire for sex, and he can have (continued...)

( continues...) afterglow without so much as touching her sweater. He can’t bring himself to be “The bad guy” as Buffy would say.

It’s too late to go home by the time he’s sorted through the latest set of runes for Buffy, and he’s exhausted and has a headache. He let his Sumerian slide so he could get a life, as the children say, and most nights he’s more acquainted with “Free Bird” than ancient text translation.

He can hear soft giggles and a woman’s voice pleading on the stereo...Joyce’s stereo. He lets himself remember that night fully, and simultaneously curses his mawkish slide into nostalgia.”Bit late to die before I get old,” he mumbles and then thinks “Bugger! Talking to myself.” He has to smile at the thought of them, waiting with breath bated for it to be late enough for the old fussy Watcher to pass out, but the music is a bit loud so he goes to the door. He gets to it but before he can knock he hears Willow’s voice saying “Go ahead. Ask him.”

Tara comes out and looks shocked to see him. “M-mr. Giles. I didn’t ...summon you, did I?”

“Only through young Ms. McClachlan. Her pining’s awfully loud.”

The young witch steps back, wearing a well-washed cotton T-shirt and some part of Giles he’d forgotten wonders if being summoned by this woman would be a bad thing.”Well, that’s good, about the summons...I’ve been thinking about you tonight, actually, and sometimes when I really concentrate...poof.”

Rupert Giles, he told himself, you are not allowed to be chuffed by that. But the thought proved it was too late. “That’s really remarkable, in someone of your...”

“ Oh, it’s nothing. And I’m so sorry about the music thing....I’ll tell Sarah she’s stuck with quiet desperation like the rest of us.” It was an old comment for such a young woman and it made something in Giles hurt.

“It sounds fine...I’ve just got this vile headache.”

”Then I guess you can’t look over this spell for me and Will, then.”

“Of course, I can try.”

“Well, not if you’re sick...Willow cares a lot about you and I wouldn’t want to face her if I hurt you.”

Suddenly he thought his glasses felt smudged. But he resisted that habit to say “Not at all. Stiff upper lip firmly in place.”

“Oh, my Gaia, I am such. an idiot. Standing here talking and I didn’t turn the music down. One second.”

Giles came inside and sat in Buffy’s old desk chair. “Hey, Giles,” Willow said. “Kinda like old times, with Buffy light, though.”

Not remotely, Willow. “ Let’s look at the problem, shall we?”

“It’s like a protective spell,” Tara explained. “From deepest yearnings, peace springs free. Willow says it’s Sumerian...like yours. My mother must have just used it translated....Willow’s such a brainiac.” Tara smiled fondly.

“I translated it back, but nothing happened.” Willow said. “Nothing bad, though, either. I really checked this time.” She flipped through the spiral notebook on the table next to her.

Giles took the book and read, frowning for a moment. “Dear Lord.”

Tara’s eyes got big.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Willow said. “He always says that.”

“Forgive my surprise, but for such a simple error, it carries a lot of freight. You have the wrong accent on the second word here.”

”Ok, so I’ll put it in,”Willow said. “all fixed.”

“Possibly for next time, yes. But it changes the meaning of the spell you read earlier today...that isn’t “yearnings” at all, but something else...”

“What?” Tara asked. “You’re turning colors, Mr. Giles.” Giles cleared his throat and cleaned his glasses but there still wasn’t enough air in the room. “Deepest desires,”

“From deepest desires, peace springs free.” Willow repeated.

“Shh...don’t repeat that. “ Tara warned. “The more times you say a thing like that, you make it take effec...Willow, darling, put aside that book and fuck me. I know I said I’d be patient, but after every session of magic group, I spend so much time in the shower I’m a prune. I know you want to, I can feel it. It makes me wet how much.”

This assertive creature was inside quiet Tara? Giles was captivated. The (continued...)