Fic: Geometry of Chance (7/7) {BtVS}
Title: Geometry of Chance (7/7)
Fandom: Buffy
Author: Rummi (sharelle)
Pairings / Characters: Gen / Giles, Ethan Rayne, Willow, OC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,345
Summary: After escaping from the Initiative, Ethan Rayne goes to the Cleveland Hellmouth for a new start and a chance at real power. What he finds is a lot more than he bargained for. (Set a few weeks post-Chosen.)
Complete work can be found here: LJ Memories / FFN / AO3 / DW
Author’s Notes: The end of this particular story was certainly a long time in coming. Regardless of the huge delay, not to mention the somewhat unconventional subject matter (minor canon characters and OCs are never fandom’s biggest draw when it comes to readership), it was always something of a labor of love for me. I’m very happy to have finally finished it.
I’m very grateful to wickedfox for posting the fantastic original fanart that inspired it, and gave me the opportunity to focus on a little-seen redemption arc in this fandom. Many thanks also go to my original beta sandy_s, who offered a great deal of helpful advice on this project 8 years ago. I hope the ending lives up to the quality she always encouraged while we were working together. And finally, an all too belated thank you goes to deathisyourart and the staff at the watchersdiaries for proposing and initiating the original art/fic challenge.
So while I’ve always found a great deal of enjoyment in this fic, my biggest regret about it is that it took so very long to complete. I sincerely hope that, at the very least, the intervening years only served to improve the quality of my writing and that the story was enjoyed by those who took the time to read it.
Please enjoy the end of Geometry of Chance.
VII. - Epilogue
Rupert Giles had once told Buffy that, when he had been young and foolish, he’d made the mistake of falling in with, what he called, “the worst crowd that would have him.” But that assessment was only really true in retrospect.
At the time, he had simply called them his friends.
They’d been young and foolish, yes. Not to mention completely ignorant of the sort of damage they were capable of causing. But they’d been friends nonetheless.
Some of them - Ethan, in particular - Giles actually felt that he had come to know even better than he knew himself.
And while Ethan had followed a regrettably different path once their relationship had soured - found affinity in the darker elements of the universe, thrived on chaos, prided himself on his volatility - there still remained a certain familiar quality in the man who had once been Rupert Giles’ friend.
Which was why Giles knew exactly where to find him now.
For a self-proclaimed agent of chaos, there were times when Ethan Rayne could be rather reassuringly predictable.
It had been much the same after Randall.
Giles strode across the grass to where Ethan stood alone, with his hands thrust casually into the pockets of his jacket. As Giles approached from behind, Ethan did not immediately acknowledge his presence. For a moment, Giles even thought that, for once, Ethan - who always seemed to be so aware of the world around him (all the better to twist circumstances to his advantage, after all) - had actually failed to notice him.
But Ethan had always been good at multitasking.
“I’d’ve thought you’d be gone by now,” Ethan said without turning around.
Giles smiled grimly. Perhaps Ethan Rayne wasn’t the only one who was still predictable after all these years.
Giles continued his walk across the lawn and eventually came to stand directly beside Ethan’s shoulder. Still, neither man really glanced at the other but, instead, looked down at the smoothed marble marker at their feet.
The memorial headstone had been made and set in only a few short days. In most places, that sort of thing usually took weeks, or longer. But Giles knew from experience that if the masons here didn’t work quickly there could be a terrible backup. It was an unfortunate reality of living on a Hellmouth.
Giles put his hands into his own pockets, closely mirroring Ethan’s posture. It was mid-June, but the air coming off Lake Erie was making the weather feel a bit cooler of late.
“Tonight, actually,” Giles finally responded. “I’ll be leaving on a red-eye. Buffy is currently in Italy, and I’ll be joining her there. I just had a few loose ends to tie up first.”
Ethan snorted mirthlessly. “And one of those ‘loose ends’ wouldn’t happen to be yours truly, would it?” he asked, though it didn’t really seem to be a question.
“In a manner of speaking,” Giles replied. “I don’t know how out of touch you’ve been over the past few days, so I wanted to tell you in person in case you hadn’t heard.” He finally turned his face toward Ethan’s profile. “Bartholomew Carter is dead.”
Ethan’s lips twisted in response. “Really?” he asked, though judging by his tone he didn’t seem all that surprised. He shrugged. “I suppose a bloke like that must have had a few enemies,” he added offhandedly.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Giles nodded in agreement. “It’s my understanding that a few of them recently came into a bit of anonymous funding as well.”
“Imagine that,” Ethan mused dryly.
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “It also seems that Carter had a recent falling-out with the upper echelon at his rather exclusive law firm in Los Angeles. Apparently, they saw fit to freeze all his assets.”
That did seem to surprise Ethan and, for the first time, he turned to actually look at Giles. His expression was curious, and his skin was still noticeably mottled in places with the remnants of angry purple bruises. “That so?” he asked, this time with genuine interest.
Giles nodded. “So it seems,” he replied. “I'm not entirely certain of the details, but from what I gathered, when his hired muscle learned he could no longer pay them for their protective services . . . Well.” Giles shrugged, allowing the blanks to be filled in silently.
Ethan blinked with curiosity. “Huh,” he muttered. “No loyalty among mercenary demon bodyguards, apparently.”
“I’m led to believe that it was terribly painful.” Giles turned back to the headstone. “And messy.”
Ethan also turned back. “Good.”
They stood together for a few more minutes, shoulder to shoulder, and the silence stretched around them. Given the hostility between them in recent years, their current situation should have felt awkward and uncomfortable, but strangely enough, it wasn’t. If Giles hadn’t known better, he might have thought that standing quietly with Ethan even felt oddly familiar and companionable.
Still, there was at least one unusual thing about it. Ethan Rayne normally embodied the chaos he so openly revered. Looking at him now, Giles couldn’t recall the last time Ethan had been so purposely subdued.
Then again, perhaps he could.
“You remember the last time we stood by a grave together?” Giles asked.
Ethan shifted slightly before he replied. “Randall.”
Giles nodded, though he knew Ethan wasn’t looking at him to notice. “That was the end of a lot of things for us,” he mused, his voice somewhat wistful.
Ethan sniffed a small mirthless laugh through his nose. “Well, you know what they say about all good things coming to an end, mate,” he pointed out.
Giles bobbed his head in acquiescence, then tilted it to look at Ethan again. “Perhaps this time can be a beginning, of sorts.”
Ethan turned to him abruptly, shooting Giles a glare that looked both reproachful and suspicious. “You’re not going to get all sentimental on me now, are you, Rupert?” he muttered accusingly. “I hated it when she did it; I won’t bloody tolerate it from you.”
A small dour smirk tugged at a corner of Giles’ mouth. He raised his eyebrows and turned deliberately away from Ethan to regard the headstone at their feet. He allowed the smile to linger on his lips as he looked purposely at it.
Ethan turned back as well with a huff of indignation. “I didn’t want her to be just another bloody anonymous Hellmouth casualty,” he spat, seemingly in his own defense. “Is that so wrong?”
“No,” Giles agreed calmly, even as the normally cavalier Ethan Rayne fumed beside him in obvious discomfort. It was an interesting role-reversal. “No, I think what you did was actually quite admirable.”
He glanced down at the inscription on the small marble headstone.
Frances Rayne
1990-2003
Ethan shifted uneasily beside Giles’ shoulder. “They asked her name,” he finally said. “And I realized . . . I didn’t know.” He tried to conceal the small catch in his voice as he said it. Giles noticed, though he didn’t acknowledge it.
“I never really asked for her full name,” Ethan continued, the confessions coming a bit more freely as he spoke. “Too wrapped up in my own bloody plans. Didn’t really know what year she was born either, just that she wasn’t thirteen yet. But I-” He shook his head and his shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of his regret. “I doubt this would be what she’d want,” he muttered ruefully. “She seemed to love her mum, but I never . . . asked . . .” Ethan trailed off again. He was quiet for a moment.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it,” he finally added wearily with a heavy sigh, then repeated, “I just didn’t want her to be a bloody unknown.”
Giles reached out to Ethan’s shoulder and placed his hand there with a firm grip. He felt the other man tense beneath his fingers, and not likely from the injuries Ethan was still nursing. Giles offered a squeeze of support anyway. After a moment, he felt Ethan relax - if only slightly.
Ethan raised his eyes from the headstone and looked out across the quiet landscape of the Erie Street Cemetery. He let out what seemed like a deliberate exhale of resignation, then asked, softly, “How do you bear it, Rupert? Losing a Slayer?”
Giles wasn’t sure he had a good answer for that, even though he’d had more experience than most. Offering another bit of reassuring pressure to Ethan’s shoulder, he let his hand drop as he answered, “One day at a time.”
Ethan shook his head as if to say that was not the answer he had been hoping for. In a world of profound and powerful magic, the fact that there was no supernatural balm for a wounded soul or a missing piece of one’s heart was difficult to accept. That was also something Giles knew better than most - and likely something Ethan had purposely distanced himself from ever having to learn.
Giles felt a rush of pity for the man who had once been his friend.
“She actually said she loved me,” Ethan said. “Can you imagine that?” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle, as though he expected Giles to find the very notion absurd.
Giles, however, did not take the bait. He placed his hands back into his own pockets and looked out across the cemetery as well. “If she cared for you, then you gave her a reason to. And you did risk your life for her. Which means you served her as best you could,” he replied. “The best Watchers always do.”
Giles could feel Ethan’s glare shift onto him. The other man snorted derisively. “Watcher,” Ethan repeated in a sardonic tone. “No need to be insulting, Rupert.”
Giles shrugged slightly. “You’re a decent spell-caster, Ethan,” he pointed out. “You always were. It was being a decent human being where you needed a little work.” He turned again and met Ethan’s eyes. “I think she may have begun to help you with that. You may have more to offer than you think.”
Turning back away from Giles again, Ethan actually laughed. It was subtle, but still - probably his first genuine laugh in several days.
“Oh, you must have come out on the other side of an epic bloody apocalypse this time, mate,” Ethan chuckled amusedly. “Especially if you’re actually suggesting what it sounds like you’re suggesting.”
Giles cocked his head to the side. “That Ethan Rayne might actually be capable of something worthwhile?” he asked.
Ethan turned back to Giles challengingly. “I never played well with the other kids, Rupert,” he replied. “You know that.”
“Nevertheless,” Giles said with another small shrug. “This Hellmouth is going to need Slayers, so I’ll be sending a few. Faith, probably, and some of the more experienced girls to start.” Giles raised a brow and met Ethan’s eyes with a challenge of his own. “If you plan on remaining in Cleveland for a while, it’s possible you could be a help.”
Ethan held Giles’ gaze for a few long seconds, as if waiting for some sort of punchline, then shook his head with a wry quirk to his mouth. “I’m not cut out for that sort of life, Rupert,” he said. “You should know that better than anyone. Watchers and Councils, rules and standards, all that order and rigidity. I’d go sodding mad.”
“Oh, well you should see it now,” Giles mused dryly, turning casually back away from Ethan. “Hundreds of Slayers all over the place. Absolute bloody chaos keeping track of them all. It’s horrible. You’d love it.”
Ethan let out another genuine chuckle at that. He also turned so he and Giles were, again, standing shoulder to shoulder. His eyes drifted downward and fell upon the headstone once more. His laugher tapered off gradually, until only a small, sad smile remained on his face.
“She deserved better, you know,” he said after a beat.
Giles nodded in agreement. “They always do,” he concurred. “All the Slayers who fall in the line of their duty.”
Ethan winced slightly. “I meant that she deserved better than getting involved with me,” he clarified. “You were right, Giles: it was selfish.” He turned his head completely away - away from the headstone, and away from any view Giles might have had of his face. “And now she’s gone because of me,” he added bitterly. “You were right about that too.”
For as gratifying as the notion of Ethan Rayne admitting that Giles was right about something might have once been, in that moment, it felt like the furthest thing from a victory.
Giles frowned, then took a deep breath. “Ethan, it’s an unfortunate fact that all Slayers die, just like everybody else,” he said. “Most of them, unfortunately, all too soon. And others . . . more than once.”
“Well then, it should have been doing something bloody important!” Ethan bit back harshly, a noticeable catch in his voice. He snapped his head back toward Giles, but didn’t look directly at him. Instead he focused on the grass; his shoulders were trembling slightly. “Doing her actual duty,” he added more softly. “Saving the world.”
Giles glanced at Ethan sadly. “I imagine she did,” he said, in a way that left little room for argument. “Frances Rayne saved the part of the world that mattered most to her.”
Ethan closed his eyes tightly, and kept them shut for several moments. A slight but noticeable tremor seized his body and his shoulders trembled. Giles reached out to offer another hand of support, but Ethan abruptly straightened and cleared his throat audibly. He opened his eyes and, for the first time, removed his own hands from his pockets.
Between the thumb and index finger of his left hand was a small, metallic object attached to a black length of ribbon. Ethan shifted his focus down to look at it and gave the object a purposeful little rub.
Giles glanced at the small silvery cross as well, then back up at Ethan’s profile.
“That was hers?” Giles asked, though he knew the answer.
Ethan nodded. “Was going to leave it here for her,” he said, clearing his throat again to banish some of the remaining thickness. “But someone might just take it. And she seemed to want me to have it, so . . .” He trailed off.
“So you’ll keep it,” Giles offered.
Ethan shrugged. “She said it was good luck,” he replied, though his expression was a bit dubious.
Giles bobbed his head slightly back and forth. “We’ve both had a lifetime of experience with magic, Ethan,” he said. “You and I both know that even the most innocuous items can sometimes make the most potent talismans - so long as there’s an element of faith behind them.” He mimicked Ethan’s shrug as he added, “And the girl did say it brought her into your life in the first place.”
Ethan grinned softly and curled his fingers fully around the metal cross, then slipped it back into his pocket.
They stood in silence again for a long time after that. Eventually, Giles turned his head to glance back at Ethan. “So do you think you might stay here for a while?” he asked.
Ethan continued to look straight ahead of him - out across the expanse of the quiet cemetery. “Oh, you know me, old friend,” he said with a grin, “I always like to keep you guessing.”
His tone was deliberately evasive, as Giles had expected it would be, and one corner of his lips had curled into his habitual roguish smile, but Giles detected a notable difference this time beneath all the familiar window dressing - his first real glimpse in a very long time of the man who had been his friend all those years ago.
Whatever change Ethan was undergoing was still in its infancy, of course, and the road leading from this point was neither a short nor an easy one. Giles had learned this lesson through difficult personal experience. But Giles also knew how possible it was to emerge on the other side of a second chance for the better. He’d gone through it himself, and seen as much in so many others - especially in the years since he’d met Buffy Summers. It wasn’t easy, but it was certainly possible.
Besides, Giles had meant what he’d said: Perhaps this time could be a new beginning - just the sort of second chance a man like Ethan Rayne needed. He hoped Ethan saw it as a chance worth taking.
And while Giles wasn’t entirely certain what Ethan would do from here - as the man had said, he did prefer his surprises - somehow he thought that an extended stay in Cleveland could be in the cards after all.
Giles smiled faintly.
After all these years, Ethan Rayne just might end up surprising himself.
The end.
Fandom: Buffy
Author: Rummi (sharelle)
Pairings / Characters: Gen / Giles, Ethan Rayne, Willow, OC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,345
Summary: After escaping from the Initiative, Ethan Rayne goes to the Cleveland Hellmouth for a new start and a chance at real power. What he finds is a lot more than he bargained for. (Set a few weeks post-Chosen.)
Complete work can be found here: LJ Memories / FFN / AO3 / DW
Author’s Notes: The end of this particular story was certainly a long time in coming. Regardless of the huge delay, not to mention the somewhat unconventional subject matter (minor canon characters and OCs are never fandom’s biggest draw when it comes to readership), it was always something of a labor of love for me. I’m very happy to have finally finished it.
I’m very grateful to wickedfox for posting the fantastic original fanart that inspired it, and gave me the opportunity to focus on a little-seen redemption arc in this fandom. Many thanks also go to my original beta sandy_s, who offered a great deal of helpful advice on this project 8 years ago. I hope the ending lives up to the quality she always encouraged while we were working together. And finally, an all too belated thank you goes to deathisyourart and the staff at the watchersdiaries for proposing and initiating the original art/fic challenge.
So while I’ve always found a great deal of enjoyment in this fic, my biggest regret about it is that it took so very long to complete. I sincerely hope that, at the very least, the intervening years only served to improve the quality of my writing and that the story was enjoyed by those who took the time to read it.
Please enjoy the end of Geometry of Chance.
VII. - Epilogue
Rupert Giles had once told Buffy that, when he had been young and foolish, he’d made the mistake of falling in with, what he called, “the worst crowd that would have him.” But that assessment was only really true in retrospect.
At the time, he had simply called them his friends.
They’d been young and foolish, yes. Not to mention completely ignorant of the sort of damage they were capable of causing. But they’d been friends nonetheless.
Some of them - Ethan, in particular - Giles actually felt that he had come to know even better than he knew himself.
And while Ethan had followed a regrettably different path once their relationship had soured - found affinity in the darker elements of the universe, thrived on chaos, prided himself on his volatility - there still remained a certain familiar quality in the man who had once been Rupert Giles’ friend.
Which was why Giles knew exactly where to find him now.
For a self-proclaimed agent of chaos, there were times when Ethan Rayne could be rather reassuringly predictable.
It had been much the same after Randall.
Giles strode across the grass to where Ethan stood alone, with his hands thrust casually into the pockets of his jacket. As Giles approached from behind, Ethan did not immediately acknowledge his presence. For a moment, Giles even thought that, for once, Ethan - who always seemed to be so aware of the world around him (all the better to twist circumstances to his advantage, after all) - had actually failed to notice him.
But Ethan had always been good at multitasking.
“I’d’ve thought you’d be gone by now,” Ethan said without turning around.
Giles smiled grimly. Perhaps Ethan Rayne wasn’t the only one who was still predictable after all these years.
Giles continued his walk across the lawn and eventually came to stand directly beside Ethan’s shoulder. Still, neither man really glanced at the other but, instead, looked down at the smoothed marble marker at their feet.
The memorial headstone had been made and set in only a few short days. In most places, that sort of thing usually took weeks, or longer. But Giles knew from experience that if the masons here didn’t work quickly there could be a terrible backup. It was an unfortunate reality of living on a Hellmouth.
Giles put his hands into his own pockets, closely mirroring Ethan’s posture. It was mid-June, but the air coming off Lake Erie was making the weather feel a bit cooler of late.
“Tonight, actually,” Giles finally responded. “I’ll be leaving on a red-eye. Buffy is currently in Italy, and I’ll be joining her there. I just had a few loose ends to tie up first.”
Ethan snorted mirthlessly. “And one of those ‘loose ends’ wouldn’t happen to be yours truly, would it?” he asked, though it didn’t really seem to be a question.
“In a manner of speaking,” Giles replied. “I don’t know how out of touch you’ve been over the past few days, so I wanted to tell you in person in case you hadn’t heard.” He finally turned his face toward Ethan’s profile. “Bartholomew Carter is dead.”
Ethan’s lips twisted in response. “Really?” he asked, though judging by his tone he didn’t seem all that surprised. He shrugged. “I suppose a bloke like that must have had a few enemies,” he added offhandedly.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Giles nodded in agreement. “It’s my understanding that a few of them recently came into a bit of anonymous funding as well.”
“Imagine that,” Ethan mused dryly.
“Indeed,” Giles agreed. “It also seems that Carter had a recent falling-out with the upper echelon at his rather exclusive law firm in Los Angeles. Apparently, they saw fit to freeze all his assets.”
That did seem to surprise Ethan and, for the first time, he turned to actually look at Giles. His expression was curious, and his skin was still noticeably mottled in places with the remnants of angry purple bruises. “That so?” he asked, this time with genuine interest.
Giles nodded. “So it seems,” he replied. “I'm not entirely certain of the details, but from what I gathered, when his hired muscle learned he could no longer pay them for their protective services . . . Well.” Giles shrugged, allowing the blanks to be filled in silently.
Ethan blinked with curiosity. “Huh,” he muttered. “No loyalty among mercenary demon bodyguards, apparently.”
“I’m led to believe that it was terribly painful.” Giles turned back to the headstone. “And messy.”
Ethan also turned back. “Good.”
They stood together for a few more minutes, shoulder to shoulder, and the silence stretched around them. Given the hostility between them in recent years, their current situation should have felt awkward and uncomfortable, but strangely enough, it wasn’t. If Giles hadn’t known better, he might have thought that standing quietly with Ethan even felt oddly familiar and companionable.
Still, there was at least one unusual thing about it. Ethan Rayne normally embodied the chaos he so openly revered. Looking at him now, Giles couldn’t recall the last time Ethan had been so purposely subdued.
Then again, perhaps he could.
“You remember the last time we stood by a grave together?” Giles asked.
Ethan shifted slightly before he replied. “Randall.”
Giles nodded, though he knew Ethan wasn’t looking at him to notice. “That was the end of a lot of things for us,” he mused, his voice somewhat wistful.
Ethan sniffed a small mirthless laugh through his nose. “Well, you know what they say about all good things coming to an end, mate,” he pointed out.
Giles bobbed his head in acquiescence, then tilted it to look at Ethan again. “Perhaps this time can be a beginning, of sorts.”
Ethan turned to him abruptly, shooting Giles a glare that looked both reproachful and suspicious. “You’re not going to get all sentimental on me now, are you, Rupert?” he muttered accusingly. “I hated it when she did it; I won’t bloody tolerate it from you.”
A small dour smirk tugged at a corner of Giles’ mouth. He raised his eyebrows and turned deliberately away from Ethan to regard the headstone at their feet. He allowed the smile to linger on his lips as he looked purposely at it.
Ethan turned back as well with a huff of indignation. “I didn’t want her to be just another bloody anonymous Hellmouth casualty,” he spat, seemingly in his own defense. “Is that so wrong?”
“No,” Giles agreed calmly, even as the normally cavalier Ethan Rayne fumed beside him in obvious discomfort. It was an interesting role-reversal. “No, I think what you did was actually quite admirable.”
He glanced down at the inscription on the small marble headstone.
Frances Rayne
1990-2003
Ethan shifted uneasily beside Giles’ shoulder. “They asked her name,” he finally said. “And I realized . . . I didn’t know.” He tried to conceal the small catch in his voice as he said it. Giles noticed, though he didn’t acknowledge it.
“I never really asked for her full name,” Ethan continued, the confessions coming a bit more freely as he spoke. “Too wrapped up in my own bloody plans. Didn’t really know what year she was born either, just that she wasn’t thirteen yet. But I-” He shook his head and his shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of his regret. “I doubt this would be what she’d want,” he muttered ruefully. “She seemed to love her mum, but I never . . . asked . . .” Ethan trailed off again. He was quiet for a moment.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it,” he finally added wearily with a heavy sigh, then repeated, “I just didn’t want her to be a bloody unknown.”
Giles reached out to Ethan’s shoulder and placed his hand there with a firm grip. He felt the other man tense beneath his fingers, and not likely from the injuries Ethan was still nursing. Giles offered a squeeze of support anyway. After a moment, he felt Ethan relax - if only slightly.
Ethan raised his eyes from the headstone and looked out across the quiet landscape of the Erie Street Cemetery. He let out what seemed like a deliberate exhale of resignation, then asked, softly, “How do you bear it, Rupert? Losing a Slayer?”
Giles wasn’t sure he had a good answer for that, even though he’d had more experience than most. Offering another bit of reassuring pressure to Ethan’s shoulder, he let his hand drop as he answered, “One day at a time.”
Ethan shook his head as if to say that was not the answer he had been hoping for. In a world of profound and powerful magic, the fact that there was no supernatural balm for a wounded soul or a missing piece of one’s heart was difficult to accept. That was also something Giles knew better than most - and likely something Ethan had purposely distanced himself from ever having to learn.
Giles felt a rush of pity for the man who had once been his friend.
“She actually said she loved me,” Ethan said. “Can you imagine that?” he added with a self-deprecating chuckle, as though he expected Giles to find the very notion absurd.
Giles, however, did not take the bait. He placed his hands back into his own pockets and looked out across the cemetery as well. “If she cared for you, then you gave her a reason to. And you did risk your life for her. Which means you served her as best you could,” he replied. “The best Watchers always do.”
Giles could feel Ethan’s glare shift onto him. The other man snorted derisively. “Watcher,” Ethan repeated in a sardonic tone. “No need to be insulting, Rupert.”
Giles shrugged slightly. “You’re a decent spell-caster, Ethan,” he pointed out. “You always were. It was being a decent human being where you needed a little work.” He turned again and met Ethan’s eyes. “I think she may have begun to help you with that. You may have more to offer than you think.”
Turning back away from Giles again, Ethan actually laughed. It was subtle, but still - probably his first genuine laugh in several days.
“Oh, you must have come out on the other side of an epic bloody apocalypse this time, mate,” Ethan chuckled amusedly. “Especially if you’re actually suggesting what it sounds like you’re suggesting.”
Giles cocked his head to the side. “That Ethan Rayne might actually be capable of something worthwhile?” he asked.
Ethan turned back to Giles challengingly. “I never played well with the other kids, Rupert,” he replied. “You know that.”
“Nevertheless,” Giles said with another small shrug. “This Hellmouth is going to need Slayers, so I’ll be sending a few. Faith, probably, and some of the more experienced girls to start.” Giles raised a brow and met Ethan’s eyes with a challenge of his own. “If you plan on remaining in Cleveland for a while, it’s possible you could be a help.”
Ethan held Giles’ gaze for a few long seconds, as if waiting for some sort of punchline, then shook his head with a wry quirk to his mouth. “I’m not cut out for that sort of life, Rupert,” he said. “You should know that better than anyone. Watchers and Councils, rules and standards, all that order and rigidity. I’d go sodding mad.”
“Oh, well you should see it now,” Giles mused dryly, turning casually back away from Ethan. “Hundreds of Slayers all over the place. Absolute bloody chaos keeping track of them all. It’s horrible. You’d love it.”
Ethan let out another genuine chuckle at that. He also turned so he and Giles were, again, standing shoulder to shoulder. His eyes drifted downward and fell upon the headstone once more. His laugher tapered off gradually, until only a small, sad smile remained on his face.
“She deserved better, you know,” he said after a beat.
Giles nodded in agreement. “They always do,” he concurred. “All the Slayers who fall in the line of their duty.”
Ethan winced slightly. “I meant that she deserved better than getting involved with me,” he clarified. “You were right, Giles: it was selfish.” He turned his head completely away - away from the headstone, and away from any view Giles might have had of his face. “And now she’s gone because of me,” he added bitterly. “You were right about that too.”
For as gratifying as the notion of Ethan Rayne admitting that Giles was right about something might have once been, in that moment, it felt like the furthest thing from a victory.
Giles frowned, then took a deep breath. “Ethan, it’s an unfortunate fact that all Slayers die, just like everybody else,” he said. “Most of them, unfortunately, all too soon. And others . . . more than once.”
“Well then, it should have been doing something bloody important!” Ethan bit back harshly, a noticeable catch in his voice. He snapped his head back toward Giles, but didn’t look directly at him. Instead he focused on the grass; his shoulders were trembling slightly. “Doing her actual duty,” he added more softly. “Saving the world.”
Giles glanced at Ethan sadly. “I imagine she did,” he said, in a way that left little room for argument. “Frances Rayne saved the part of the world that mattered most to her.”
Ethan closed his eyes tightly, and kept them shut for several moments. A slight but noticeable tremor seized his body and his shoulders trembled. Giles reached out to offer another hand of support, but Ethan abruptly straightened and cleared his throat audibly. He opened his eyes and, for the first time, removed his own hands from his pockets.
Between the thumb and index finger of his left hand was a small, metallic object attached to a black length of ribbon. Ethan shifted his focus down to look at it and gave the object a purposeful little rub.
Giles glanced at the small silvery cross as well, then back up at Ethan’s profile.
“That was hers?” Giles asked, though he knew the answer.
Ethan nodded. “Was going to leave it here for her,” he said, clearing his throat again to banish some of the remaining thickness. “But someone might just take it. And she seemed to want me to have it, so . . .” He trailed off.
“So you’ll keep it,” Giles offered.
Ethan shrugged. “She said it was good luck,” he replied, though his expression was a bit dubious.
Giles bobbed his head slightly back and forth. “We’ve both had a lifetime of experience with magic, Ethan,” he said. “You and I both know that even the most innocuous items can sometimes make the most potent talismans - so long as there’s an element of faith behind them.” He mimicked Ethan’s shrug as he added, “And the girl did say it brought her into your life in the first place.”
Ethan grinned softly and curled his fingers fully around the metal cross, then slipped it back into his pocket.
They stood in silence again for a long time after that. Eventually, Giles turned his head to glance back at Ethan. “So do you think you might stay here for a while?” he asked.
Ethan continued to look straight ahead of him - out across the expanse of the quiet cemetery. “Oh, you know me, old friend,” he said with a grin, “I always like to keep you guessing.”
His tone was deliberately evasive, as Giles had expected it would be, and one corner of his lips had curled into his habitual roguish smile, but Giles detected a notable difference this time beneath all the familiar window dressing - his first real glimpse in a very long time of the man who had been his friend all those years ago.
Whatever change Ethan was undergoing was still in its infancy, of course, and the road leading from this point was neither a short nor an easy one. Giles had learned this lesson through difficult personal experience. But Giles also knew how possible it was to emerge on the other side of a second chance for the better. He’d gone through it himself, and seen as much in so many others - especially in the years since he’d met Buffy Summers. It wasn’t easy, but it was certainly possible.
Besides, Giles had meant what he’d said: Perhaps this time could be a new beginning - just the sort of second chance a man like Ethan Rayne needed. He hoped Ethan saw it as a chance worth taking.
And while Giles wasn’t entirely certain what Ethan would do from here - as the man had said, he did prefer his surprises - somehow he thought that an extended stay in Cleveland could be in the cards after all.
Giles smiled faintly.
After all these years, Ethan Rayne just might end up surprising himself.
The end.