"When Darkness Fell"

SUMMARY: The Giles Family reacts to young Rupert dropping out of Oxford and shirking his Destiny. Features original characters of Lucinda and Henry Giles.

SPOILERS: "The Dark Age"
RATING: FR-T
DISTRIBUTION: KoalasPlace.com, GG's site. Anyone else, please ask first.
DISCLAIMER: Without Prejudice. Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and concepts are copyright ©1997-2000 20th Century Fox, WB Television, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy. No Infringments of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. I just borrowed them to put them through a little hell. The story and all other characters are mine.
POST DATE: Feburary 1999

"You talk to him, he won't listen to me," he said, marching back and forth in the cozy sitting room like a soldier lost on maneuvers.

Momentarily neutral to their quarrel, she found herself peering past his heated words and the outrage they inspired. What distracted her was his demeanor--still terribly, stiffly British despite his show of temper. It was an admirable trait; his back straight as a ramrod, his thumbs tucked into the small pockets of his tweed waistcoat, although one more easily than the other due to the pocket watch that was kept there. Every now and then he would withdraw the wayward hand, either to stroke his full moustache or to wave it, somewhat accusingly, in her direction.

"He never listens to me anymore," he added quietly.

This time disappointment overshadowed anger and frustration; the disgruntle acknowledgment of youth failing adult expectations. Lucinda closed weary eyes, for a moment feeling every one of her eighty-two years. This was an old, old crusade, one that had been marched ever since the birth of the first Watcher and Slayer.

Youth versus Destiny.

Drawing fortitude from the last idle rays of sunlight warming the parlor through cheery bay windows, Lucinda regarded the middle-aged man before her. She was old and tired, but not too old or tired for defense of a loved one. "That's because you aren't saying the things he wants to hear, dear."

Henry Giles glared at her with the same tenacity that had landed him in trouble as a youngster. He had cut a dashing figure for the majority of his fifty-six years, a polished portrait of an elegantly groomed English gentleman in a tailored three-piece suit. But it was a portrait conceived for the world in general, constantly at odds with who he was and what he did.

"Mother," he said, approaching her chair and leaning a hand on each of its threadbare floral arms, "your grandson dropped out of Oxford two months ago!"

"Yes, yes, you mentioned that."

"So can you tell me why I am just now privy to this information? And why I should learn of it from a former classmate of my son, who--as luck would have it--was holidaying in the French Mediterranean?"

"Perhaps because he knew that telling you himself would garner precisely this reaction," she said patiently, shifting her attention to the unfinished crocheting in her lap. Henry's unexpected visit had put paid to its continuance until morning. Perhaps that was for the best, since the flex of gnarled hands now drew a grimace. Some days, arthritis made the pastime more a challenge than relaxation.

Straightening, annoyed by what he conceived as indifference, Henry tugged on his moustache and started to pace again. "And after all the trouble I had getting him enrolled, following that blasted rock and roll band fiasco."

His pacing took him to the bay windows, where he paused to gaze out at the scarlet realm, his back to her. Something in the sunset vista beyond the glass quelled his wrath, for he sighed, his shoulders moving heavily with the gesture, and when he continued his voice had lost its anger. It was replace instead with the genuine concern of a worried parent.

"I . . . I have no idea where he is." Ruefully, Henry shook his head. "What he's doing, who he's with."

"He's in London," Lucinda said helpfully, busy winding yarn to stow safely in an ancient wicker basket. If her cats found the wool balls unattended, overnight, then the morning hours set aside for their application would instead be lost in the tedious task of unraveling them.

Henry whirled, and gaped at her as if she had just developed fangs and an ungodly appetite for human blood. "How the deuce do you know that?"

"He told me, when he telephoned last week." Noting her son's thunderstruck expression, she returned the wound yarn to the crochet basket and prepared herself for Round Two.

"Good Lord, Mother, why didn't you tell me? I'm his father--I've been worried sick about the boy for days!"

"He assured me he was perfectly fine," she said. Truth be told, Lucinda thought her grandson had sounded a little high strung, but far be it for her to betray such a confidence to the person who least understood. "He's staying with that lovely Deirdre girl. Surely you remember her? We met once, at Christmas I believe."

Henry snorted in contempt. "I remember. And if you ask me, Miss Page is very much part of the overall problem." He shook his head disapprovingly. "I came all the way here from . . . Damn it, the boy needs to be horse-whipped for such insubordination! I don't have time for these games."

"Perhaps that is also part of the problem," Lucinda said wisely.

"What is?"

"Rupert is not a 'boy' anymore, dear. He's twenty-one; a man. You must allow him room to be a man."

"Shacking up with that . . . that groupie, is not what I classify as 'being a man'. What is, is returning to his studies and accepting his destiny."

"Like his father?"

Guiltily reminded of a past better forgotten, Henry looked away. He diverted his gaze to the scrutiny of the setting sun, now painting the lush green gardens in patches of shadow and light. Twilight approached, a timid precursor to when darkness fell, and the daytime world rendered itself beneath a mask of silvery-gray. Night was a time relished by some, and feared by others. The single deciding factor was--had always been--insight. Education.

"I was a fool," Henry said.

"You were young," she insisted. "And so is Rupert."

He turned a harsh look on her, and for a brief moment she was thankful she was not the young Slayer presently in his charge. Henry Giles could be a tad overbearing, at times; most times to be honest. "Mother, I admit I may have neglected certain studies, but I never dropped out of school. I never completely renounced my responsibility and took off to pursue God-knows-what-other impetuous pranks! The rock band was quite the last straw."

"Being impetuous is not a crime, dear."

"What we do is not for frivolities. You, of all people, know that. The boy--Rupert must be made to understand its importance, that it is not a game."

"He knows." Lucinda shifted in her sitting chair, settling deeper into the plump cushions at her back. "I refuse accept that he believes only his future is at stake. Rupert is simply not that selfish."

"Then why did he leave school? And why didn't he inform me of it?"

"Because dreams are hard things to let go." She allowed a wane, nostalgic smile. "Do you remember, a dozen or so years ago in this very room . . . young Rupert informed me that when he grew up, his dream was to be a fighter pilot."

Despite himself, Henry softened into a chuckle of great paternal amusement. "Either that or a grocer. Quite the second choice, wouldn't you say?"

"And forty-odd years ago, another rather precocious lad told me of his dream to be an engineer. Trains always fascinated you, Henry. So I sat you sat you down--" She nodded at the sofa at right angles to her chair. "--right there, and proceeded to bore you with a rather long and monotonous speech about responsibility, and the multitude of personal sacrifices that were expected of you in order to fulfill that responsibility. It must have been quite effective, because I seem to recall you giving a similar speech to young Rupert."

"You're saying, 'like father, like son'. Is that it? That he's not pulling these capricious pranks simply to spite me? That he will 'come around'?"

"I'm saying that Rupert, like his father, knows right from wrong. Becoming a Watcher is a tremendous burden on a young mind. Whether he is aware of it or not, Rupert is merely trying to work out who and what he is, and the best way to approach his obligation. This is not the Middle Ages, dear; this is the Seventies. If such soul-searching occasionally has him straying from the accepted path, then I'm saying we must be tolerant. I have no doubt he will come to us, eventually, when he again feels the need for our guidance."

Henry was quiet for a moment, stroking his moustache in silent contemplation. Finally, he said, "I wish I could be so sure, Mother."

Lucinda smiled knowingly. "Hindsight is a very powerful ally, dear." She reached over the arm of her sitting chair, moved aside the walking stick with the wolf's head handle, and patted the faded floral cushions. "Come now. Sit with me a while, and tell me of your new Slayer."

Shedding most of his fifty-six years in the blink of an eye, Henry returned to sit by his mother's side. The moment stretched until dusk had crept perceptively into the cozy parlor.

"I miss Poland." Ducking his head, Henry murmured, "I miss Katarzyna more."

Lucinda nodded lamentably. Up until her body had grown too infirm to adequately perform the duty, she too had been a Watcher. She understood his pain, his guilt, all too well. "She was a formidable Slayer. You trained her well."

"Not well enough, it seems." It had been six months, and Henry still wrongly blamed himself for Katarzyna's death. Talking about it opened too many old wounds, brought back unwanted memories of the other Slayers who had died while in his charge.

But that was the way of it, the role of Watcher and Slayer. That was responsibility. Sacrifice. Destiny.

"I, er, can't stay," Henry announced, clearing the emotion from his throat. He checked the pocket watch that had been given to him by his late father. "I have a seven o'clock flight to Marseilles."

Lucinda watched him with a loving gaze. Despite a defiant childhood, despite the flighty dreams of adolescence, her son had grown to be a fine man, and a superlative Watcher.

'It runs in the family,' she thought proudly. She had no doubt that when the time came for Henry to retire, Rupert would be there to take his place. And he would be ready. In the age-old battle of Youth versus Destiny, Destiny ultimately triumphed. That was also the way of it. "Not even time for a nice cup of tea?"

Henry smiled fondly. "I'm afraid not. Claudette needs to work on her unarmed combat, and without me there to constantly emphasize the importance of such training, she tends to revert to a fifteen year old schoolgirl."

"We should all be so lucky." Lucinda touched his arm as he clipped the watch lid closed and returned it to his waistcoat pocket.

Getting to his feet, Henry leaned down to kiss her forehead in farewell. They shared a thin smile. "Au revoir, Mother," he said, and departed without looking back.

It was a battle won. Henry's uncontested retreat signaled the surrender of Rupert's guidance into her more than capable hands; a labor of love she willingly accepted. She had always been there for her grandson, now perhaps more 'officially' than before. She would take charge of his training, his education; she would be the hand on his back, propelling him gently yet firmly toward his future.

Twilight passed into night before Lucinda called for tea. Service for one was promptly brought on a polished silver tray. She poured a cup of steaming Earl Grey into the delicate, hand-painted china that had been in her family for almost two generations, and was just adding a splash of milk when the telephone beside her sitting chair rang.

Loud in the still evening silence, she answered it quickly. "Hello?"

"Nana?"

"Rupert, how lovely! You just missed your father, he's headed back to France."

This snippet of truth wedged an immediate pause between them. "I imagine you told him. About school, I mean."

"I didn't have to, he already knew."

"Oh?"

"Ran into one of your old chums in Marseilles."

"Oh. How did he . . . take the news?"

She smiled, warmly amused. "He was 'mad as blazes'--I believe that's the expression. But we had a nice little talk, during which I managed to put out that particular fire."

"Sounds like Father." Rupert chuckled uneasily, offering nothing more on his father's expected reaction. But Lucinda saw past the words, as she had done earlier with her own son, finding contention born from an as-yet-unknown cause.

"You know, young Rupert, your old gran is on your side," she said encouragingly. A good Watcher could always ease trepidation in others. "You can tell me anything, and I won't lose my head like another Giles we know."

"I know. And that's why I called. I've been . . . that is to say . . . Nana, I-I'm in a bit of a botch-up."

"Then come, dear, enlighten an old woman with your adventures in Londontown. And none of the triviality you fed me last time. What have you really been up to? The truth now."

"Well, I . . . it's a long story."

"I have time," she said easily. Adding a lump of sugar to her china cup and stirring once, Lucinda settled down to listen to whatever her grandson had to say. Destiny lay just ahead, snuggled around her and Rupert just as surely as the blackness of night was snuggled against the other side of the parlor's bay windows. "Plenty of time."

"Well, I suppose i-it all began about six weeks ago," Rupert began hesitantly. "That's when Deirdre first introduced me to her friend, chappie name of Rayne. Ethan Rayne . . . "

T H E     E N D