One thing. One thing out of his entire life that he most bitterly regretted. His hand crept to his left arm, to the tattoo that had bound him to Eyghon. Dear god, what they'd done. He'd told the children hints, enough for them to give him the sort of looks all youngsters get when they realize their parents have had sex, evidence of parthogenesis being quite thin on the ground. Eyghon was the most egregious example of excess, but only one part of the whole. There were still the weeks on end of drinking and hellraising--not always literally--and brawling and--well, simply and.
Ethan. He could ask that he never met Ethan. Never fallen into that maelstrom of sensory overload that were the months with Ethan. Better yet, never gone to London at all, channeled the rebellion into something positive, pulled himself from that self-destructive brink. His knowledge of the old books had led them to Eyghon, without him Randall, Thomas, Phillip and Deirdre would still be alive--or, if not, it would not be on his head.
To not know the depths to which he could sink. To not have the knowledge of how happily he could wallow in depravity. That would be sweet.
"I know what I want. I want--"
Benedict smile. "I see it. It's a good choice. Without Ripper, the world is a much more peaceful place, and you'll sleep far better." He raised his hands and closed his eyes. "I do enjoy my job. Contentment and success and peace and wisdom." He began to chant.
"Wait."
Benedict looked over, puzzled. "Excuse me?"
Giles began pacing again. "Forgive me for being human and paranoid, but I'm leery of offers to make everything better. Let me think a moment longer, I have to be sure this is right."
"Mr. Giles, what did I say? Humans overanalyze things. The first instinct is generally the correct one."
"I understand, it's just--project my life, please. If I hadn't gone to London."
"You stay in Oxford, you continue your studies. You take a First in History, and you soundly trounce Cambridge's star fencer in a tournament your final year. And you have a reputation for singing in pubs till they're forced to throw you out. But you stay the course, and the Council is very proud of you."
He thought of those men of the Council, those grey men, those quiet, calculating men. Proud of him for being what they most want him to be.
"Bugger that."
Benedict smiled in understanding. "Yes, there were good moments in London, I'm not denying that you would lose that. But you have a chance to make a fundamental change in your life, to be what you were meant to be."
"I was meant to be a Watcher. And I am. I'm a damned good one, too."
He saw his own self, projected forward. That first year in Sunnydale, he'd struggled so hard to maintain the proper Watcher's detachment, the proper sternness. But he'd seen this young girl, this vibrant creature with a whole bright future ahead of her, except for the gnawing fact that she was a Chosen One, doomed to die. And he remembered trying to tuck his own soul up quietly in tweed and book dust, obedient to his own destiny, and how much it hurt.
What if he had not gone to London? What if he had not seized the universe in both hands and shaken it until all the stars fell out? He'd have told himself that he had survived the loss of all his dreams and that Buffy would survive too--at least, she would survive long enough. Willow and Xander would have been inconvenient distractions, the Cruciamentum would have been a sad but necessary test. He would have been the Council's man, not the Slayer's, and Buffy would not have survived.
He saw the costs of dreams deferred, and the cost was too high. Every excess, every depravity had taught him that ways had to be found to feed the dreams, else all hope was lost.
"Don't do it," he whispered. "Please. Leave it all be."
Benedict slowly lowered his hands. "Mr. Giles, there's no need to be a martyr. She will still be one of the most successful Slayers ever. She will still have a good long run."
"That's not enough. She has been happy--not often enough, but she has had authentic joy. And such emotions are considered extraneous for a proper Slayer. If I were a proper Watcher, instead of a good Watcher, I would have denied her that happiness. I can't do that. I would know, somehow, that I had chosen willingly to deny her joy. And I simply can't do it."
The representative of the Powers That Be gazed at him for several moments, then nodded solemnly. "As you will."
He saw the other lives in his mind, disappearing into the mists of alternity. "You're not mentioning the others, how I'm denying them their choices."
"Do I need to?"
"No."
Buffy learning maturity and wisdom as she accepts that one cannot always have what one wants and that other hearts can be broken too. Xander finding success and approval in a world far, far from the limitations he'd grown up with. Willow touching the truth of her power, that joy is mirrored in pain, that life only exists with death, that the cycle turns and nothing is ever truly lost.
Gone.