In the City
Part Sixteen: The kindness of monsters

Rupert Giles sat behind his oaken desk piled with papers and nursed a glass of Scotch. It killed him to turn a deaf ear to Riley Finn’s troubles—he had issues with the lad, certainly, but he still quite cared about him, as he cared about all of the young people who’d come under his watch over the years. So many gone now: Cordelia Chase, Tara Maclay, Anya Jenkins.

He smiled a bit as that last name crossed his thoughts … he’d gotten rather adjusted to thinking of her as a young woman. But then, none of the monsters he dealt with regularly seemed so … monstrous … when you spoke to them nearly every day. Not even Angel. Not even Spike.

Buffy knew he was hiding something, but then, he made little effort to hide that fact. He knew that she knew that he was no longer of the habit of concealing things without reason. Still, she was anxious about what was happening in Los Angeles, and Faith and Willow were missing. He had every resource at his disposal searching for them, but he knew that he’d not find them without turning his eye toward Los Angeles. And what then? Did he dare to break his word?

“It’s hard, ain’t it?” said a woman’s voice. Startled, Giles looked up to see Samantha Finn standing in his office. Her face worn with care, but still looking every inch the secret agent she had in their earlier meetings. “I didn’t hear you enter,” said Giles, pouring Samantha a glass. She smiled a worn smile and accepted, sipping lightly.

“No one ever does,” she said. “This must be Hell for her,” Giles thought. She was a lot like Buffy, actually. That didn’t surprise him.

“Yes, well, I’m glad you’re here. Have you had any contact with your husband’s team?”

“None. Have you found your missing people?”

“No.”

The two sipped in silence. If he let himself, it was easy for him to write off most of those in the most direct way of harm—Ethan Rayne, particularly, had caused him no end of trouble over the years. But Samantha Finn’s presence here in London, her forced exile away from her husband, served as a grim reminder of the stakes in front of them, and that their futures rested on the shoulders of Riley Finn, Daniel Osbourne, and a hastily assembled group of people who, mostly, had spent time trying to kill either himself or people he cared about.

“To monsters,” he toasted, Samantha clinking his glass cautiously. “They say God has a reason for everything under the sun. Perhaps then monsters, too, have their place.”

Let’s hope,” said Samantha. “Let’s hope.”

You know, this thing is shaping up to be longer than I'd planned.

Good. Because much as I want to know what's going to happen next -- I know I'm going to miss it when it ends.

It always does, victor, it always does.

Good. Because much as I want to know what's going to happen next -- I know I'm going to miss it when it ends.

Well, I think you've got some time, because it just gets weirder from here.

It always does, victor, it always does.

Ain't that the truth? Probably why I write so little fic--I can't just keep it simple. I always end up going for strange, Byzantine plots and cosmic significance and what not.

I always end up going for strange, Byzantine plots and cosmic significance and what not.

t Looks at own immense, multi-chapter WIPs fondly Isn't that the point?

Isn't that the point?

Sure. Of course, sometimes it would be nice to just tell a simple little story, y'know?

You could take up drabbles...

You could take up drabbles...

I tried that, and it's fun for awhile, but ... well, let's take this current monstrosity.

It started with a single little picture I wanted to paint--Justine as a slayer. In AtS, she was tough and fast--not superhumanly so, but enough that you had to kind of wonder if she had been a potential, too. Why not! So I wrote what became part one of this.

Then I decided I wanted to put her in a story, to explore a bit what had become of her. AtS hadn't ended yet, so I started a story that would involve her and Gunn crossing swords over protecting his old neighborhood. I figured the CoW would come in some where down the road, and I'd not decided what to do with that, but events on the show left me rewriting and changing gears so much that I eventually scrapped the story, except for what's still part one here.

I have one rule that I try very hard to keep to when I write these things, and it's that I don't violate canon. Evidence to the contrary, I don't like to suddenly change characters' personalities, or retcon them for no reason--yeah, I know what's going on with Faith and Willow above, but bear with me. I allow myself to look at things in a different light, certainly, to fill in gaps left over from the shows and such, but I like playing in the framework ME left behind. So eventually I scrapped the story all together, until I knew how AtS was going to shake out. Then I got busy, but the thing still rattled around in my brain.

So the short answer is ... Yeah. Drabbles. Great in concept, but I always want to know what the next thing is.

Yeah...well, I'm a fine one to talk. My last finished fic was forty pages long, and my drabbles always get overlong. But my heart's in the right place.