Ficlet: All You Needed to Know About Life
Nov. 17th, 2013 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
craterdwellerThis was done for a challenge at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
the_deepbluesea.
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Buffy, Giles, Willow
Prompt: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 333
I've taught you all I can about being a slayer, and your mother taught you what you needed to know about life. -- Rupert Giles
As she stood at the graveside, the words from their last conversation, well argument really, played through her mind. She had been so angry. In her broken emotional state, she viewed his departure as yet another abandonment by a man. A personal betrayal. She was so hurt she refused to say goodbye or to see him off at the airport. In her righteous anger, she refused all his calls, victorious in the knowledge that by doing so she was able to inflict some of her intense pain on someone else. The last call she refused just two days ago.
She had been surprised by the arrival of a courier yesterday morning. Her mother had occasionally received packages via courier, but this was her first. She noted the return address and almost threw it away unopened, but Willow intervened. “Buffy, it must be important. When has the Council ever sent you anything by courier?”
“Well, they probably would have sent it to my Watcher, before he abandoned his post,” she snarked.
Standing in the ancient cemetery outside of Bath, she longed to take the last month back. In his last act as her Watcher, Giles had fought for and won her release from service. She was free to retire. Free to take Dawn and her friends and move away from the Hellmouth. Giles had spent the last month digging through the Council library and had found a long forgotten ritual. One that would allow the next Slayer to be called without anyone dying. That was the reason for his call two days ago. Two days ago when he went on patrol and died saving a woman and her young son from a group of vampires.
“You were wrong, Giles. Mom didn’t teach me everything I needed to know about life. She never taught me how to live without you.”
the_deepbluesea. Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Buffy, Giles, Willow
Prompt: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 333
I've taught you all I can about being a slayer, and your mother taught you what you needed to know about life. -- Rupert Giles
As she stood at the graveside, the words from their last conversation, well argument really, played through her mind. She had been so angry. In her broken emotional state, she viewed his departure as yet another abandonment by a man. A personal betrayal. She was so hurt she refused to say goodbye or to see him off at the airport. In her righteous anger, she refused all his calls, victorious in the knowledge that by doing so she was able to inflict some of her intense pain on someone else. The last call she refused just two days ago.
She had been surprised by the arrival of a courier yesterday morning. Her mother had occasionally received packages via courier, but this was her first. She noted the return address and almost threw it away unopened, but Willow intervened. “Buffy, it must be important. When has the Council ever sent you anything by courier?”
“Well, they probably would have sent it to my Watcher, before he abandoned his post,” she snarked.
Standing in the ancient cemetery outside of Bath, she longed to take the last month back. In his last act as her Watcher, Giles had fought for and won her release from service. She was free to retire. Free to take Dawn and her friends and move away from the Hellmouth. Giles had spent the last month digging through the Council library and had found a long forgotten ritual. One that would allow the next Slayer to be called without anyone dying. That was the reason for his call two days ago. Two days ago when he went on patrol and died saving a woman and her young son from a group of vampires.
“You were wrong, Giles. Mom didn’t teach me everything I needed to know about life. She never taught me how to live without you.”
