Endings Chapter 8
A.N. Sorry this chapter took a little longer than predicted. Was distracted by the death of one of the pair of new birds that I recently acquired. And after that, I gave my writing bone a rest whilst clocking ‘God Of War II’ for the first time. I really needed the time to refresh my mindset. As a result, I started this chapter this morning. J
Wordcount: 2,072. My first chapter of this that’s over 2k. Yippee!!
8
“Well, that went better than I expected,” Rupert crossed over to the other side of the kitchen where Ethan was clearing off the bench via his usual method of putting the dirty dishes into the sink and hoping that they would grow hands and feet and wash themselves, and slipped his arms around Ethan from behind.
The other man straightened up and tilted his head back so that it was resting against Giles’s shoulder, and closed his eyes relishing the human contact, “Yes, did have a bit of a feeling of anticlimax, didn’t it?”
He felt Ethan’s chuckle, just as much as he heard it, and caught the other man’s grin, “You do know that I can read your mind, Rayne?” he kept his tone of voice completely conversational, as he returned the smile. There were far too few reasons in this world for mirth, these days. And he was relatively sure that without Ethan, he’d have been able to count himself amongst the mad or the dead several times over.
“I think I’d be more worried about you if you couldn’t, love.”
Habit guided both of them, as Ethan turned in his grasp, and Rupert lowered his head to press a kiss onto waiting lips. A few minutes drew out, neither one of the men moving aside from hidden tongue and racing thought, before Rupert reluctantly let go and stepped back. He didn’t miss the tiny frown that Ethan shot at him either, before the other man turned back to the dishes and swept them all into the sink with a single movement of his arm, losing any tiny interest in domesticity that may have been there.
“Ethan, don’t…”
“Ethan don’t what?” Just like that, the moment was gone. And the peevish tone that was suddenly in his voice was one that Rupert had never liked.
He rested a hand over the one that was on the draining board, and wasn’t particularly surprised when it was shrugged off, “Just… stop taking everything so personally. I know that you’re fairly well stressed out - I am too. But that’s no reason for you to take every single little thing to heart.”
“Sorry,” It sounded genuine. And a little of the tension that Ethan had been holding in his muscles disappeared into a slump. This time, when he looked back over his shoulder, however and caught Rupert’s gaze, it was obvious that his smile was forced, “So, any idea where to now?”
“Give her a chance to read over the prophecy, and see if she can make head or tail of it before events begin to make things clear, I’d say.”
“Yes, well, can’t poke a hole in that strategy.”
ARR! ARR! ARR! ARR
She drowned out the voices from the kitchen, by concentrating on the paper in front of her, first of all reading over the English version and then putting the original beside it so that she could see if it was a proper translation as far as she could see. Back home, her Giles had made her take a few courses in basic Latin, so that she could at least take an educated guess at some of the things which she might run into out in the field. She had managed to grasp the basics, and whilst this was far removed from the simple pieces that she’d practised on, she could get just enough of it that she thought it pretty well confirmed it.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the word of the two men who had brought her here, but well… one of them was still another version of Ethan, abet a more stable-seeming version than the one that she’d first met when she was eighteen.
“Anything jump out at you?” The voice made her jump, so she supposed that she’d been concentrating harder than she had realized. Either that, or she’d been drifting into a little of her own world again.
She looked up to see that Giles had come in alone.
“Only that you’ve gotta tell whoever the hell keeps writing these things to stop vagueing things up so much. It’d be nice to get clear, concise instruction saying ‘be on the corner of Forty-first and Maine at twelve minutes past midnight on the twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth, or something like that.”
“I’ll be sure to pass the message on if I ever get the chance,” Giles tone was dry, as he gave her a hint of an encouraging smile, and noticed that she had the two papers side by side, “Latin?”
“A little. Got the basics down because… well, because. Never got much past that.”
He caught the hint of sadness in her tone no matter how hard she’d been trying to cover it, and made a mental note to ask her more about things in her world later on. For now, however, “Well, if we’ve a little time on our hands I could probably show you a little more if you’d like? It’s been a while since I taught anyone anything, but I’m sure that with a little effort on both of our parts we could have you knowing a few of the more intricate points of it.”
Her gaze flicked back from the paper to his face again, and a smile that finally reached her eyes touched her face, “I’d appreciate that. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to learn anything directly from a Watcherly man.”
“You miss it,” he kept his tone conversational, as he walked around to her other side and sunk onto the couch beside her, reaching over to smooth out the corner of the original prophecy as he did so. And not for the first time, he was grateful for Ethan’s presence in his life. Dealing with him, and his ever-changing moods had been good practise for handling this young woman that he now found himself presented with.
“I guess. I never really though about it before. Didn’t really want to. But when you go from being one of only two Slayers in all the world, to the eldest amongst several thousand… then all of a sudden you just don’t matter as much. It’s like, you’ve had your chance, now grow up and get out of my face and on with you own thing, which I suppose is fair enough, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like being pushed out to the side, or having to make appointments to see my own Watcher, or being avoided, or…” all of a sudden she caught herself, “Sorry. That got a little out of hand.”
Giles caught her chin, and made her meet his gaze, and even that was different, although that didn’t necessarily mean that she didn’t like the moment or action.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’ve had a rough ride over the last little while, and I’d much prefer you to vent your frustration out loud. You’re bound to feel better for it, and it’s a far healthier method than others which you may consider making use of.”
He dropped his hand away and gave Buffy her head back, watching out of the corner of his eye as she touched a finger to the spot on her chin which had been covered moments before, with an expression that he didn’t know where to even begin figuring out. Was it just his imagination, or was the silence that fell between them now a little less tense than it should have been? Than it would have been even yesterday?
Finally she gave him another one of these genuine smiles that touched all of her face, and leaned towards the English translation of the prophecy, placing a hand on the side of the paper.
“Back to business?” she asked, unsure of what else would have been appropriate at the moment.
He nodded at her, encouraging again.
“Well, as far as I can see, a little of it already explains itself. Although you guys have probably already worked out anything that I can get out of it, so I don’t really know how much use anything I have to say is going to be.”
“Don’t worry about any of that. A new set of eyes on that damned thing could well be the key.”
“Yes, well.”
She glanced up again as Ethan came in, carrying three cups, two of which he sat on the table in front of them and settled down into a seat over the opposite side of the room.
“Didn’t know what you liked, so I did you a common old coffee with milk and sugar, and a capful of whiskey, ” he tried for a placating smile, and this time he actually achieved it.
“Thanks,” she said, picking up the mug and wrapping her hands around it, before turning her attention back to the paper once again.
“Well, from what I can tell, the two of you think that I’m this true power amongst the false thousand otherwise I wouldn’t be here. That’s figuring that the primeval power refers to the Slayer power, since that’s something which has been around since like forever,” She glanced up to catch a nod from Giles before continuing with her train of thought, “I don’t get why it’s only thousand, though, unless it’s speaking very loosely, because there were a lot more Potentials than that activated.
She took a sip of her coffee, as Ethan spoke from across the room, “The going theory on that is that it wasn’t only your potentials that were activated, that few sensitives who were in the right place at the right time, or the wrong one for that matter, diverted some of the scattering power when it was torn away from it’s rightful owners.”
“Writing fate up anew,” Buffy started again, having drained half her cup already. She would give Ethan one thing, he could make good coffee, “I would guess that would mean changing the world in some way, although really no idea how at this stage. Opposed powers… well, you’ve got that here already I think, too.”
“Yes, we thought that, too. That my magic is based in Chaos, and Rue’s is representative of Order.”
Giles wrinkled his nose up at that, and Buffy began to laugh at that. It wasn’t really funny, she supposed, although it certainly seemed it at this moment in time.
“Balance returned… I’d guess that’s healing the world more or less, and making things the way they should be. No monster overload, or victorious First. That ‘catalyst revealed’ stuff, though… I really, wish it would be a little clearer on that. It doesn’t say if they’re already in the equation, or if it’s going to come into things later, human, or demon, or what-have-you. I mean, for all I know, the catalyst could be a… a centipede that’d been endowed with Slayer strength.”
At that thought, Ethan grinned. If it had been a few years ago, he and chaos could have certainly had some fun with that one.
“Well, lets hope not,” Giles cut in quickly, flashing Ethan a look as he did so, and raising a finger, in that familiar don’t you even think about it manner.
“Too late,” Ethan confirmed, his grin widening even further.
“Anyway ‘fate shall play the hand long-set’ would be what’s meant to happen, too. Fate, destiny, or what-ever you want to call it. And then there’s no indication, either, of the sort of decision that your catalyst has to make, although it’s obviously going to be something big, or it wouldn’t have a prophecy referring to it. Are you guys sure that’s all there is to this thing?”
“There’s no way of actually knowing if that’s all there was, or if it’s a fragment of something larger, since it was on it’s own when I came across it, whilst searching for something else entirely,” Ethan frowned as he thought, “although instinct is telling me that that’s all there is to it. There’s no indication as to who the writer was either, since it was a relatively generic book that it was tucked into, and one that had been through at least nine owners, and then sat in a Council-sized library, then following that, a private Watcher’s family library. Come to it, I’m surprised that Rupert never came across it himself. Could mean something,” he shrugged a single shoulder, “or it could mean nothing at all.”