Little Wesley, Part Fifteen

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New All Over, Part Fifteen

Wesley always had the same reaction when he saw his father; he would immediately become clumsy and idiotic, tripping over his own feet, dropping anything he held, and talking absolute drivel, even supposing he could even get out anything approximating to human speech. Today had been no exception and he could feel himself still flushed with embarrassment. When his father was elsewhere - at home while Wesley was at school, or - even better - on the other side of the ocean, he could imagine himself making quiet, calm rebuttals to his accusations, pointing out where the man was being unreasonable with measured and unanswerable logic; but the reality was always this humiliating pantomime which left him squirming with self-loathing and wanting to slit his own wrists.

He knew that Giles and the children must have overheard at least some of it - and probably all of it. Just as he was thinking that perhaps they didn’t despise and dislike him, after all, his father had turned up to confirm them in their original assumption that he was cowardly and useless. No doubt they would revert to treating him like the gutless worm he was. He had given in to Balthazar and given in to his father, and no doubt he would continue to give in to any kind of intimidation for the rest of his life. Attempting to ward off bullies by pretending to be more confident than he actually was - one strategy that had occasionally worked in the past - had not served him well since prep school. It seemed that everyone over the age of thirteen had some instinct that told them at once that Wesley was, in fact, a complete wash out who could be intimidated by anyone over the height of four feet six.

He occasionally started to think about his good deeds - he had committed a few in his time - and to make the mistake of thinking he might not be that bad a person, after all. He had never cheated in a test, always studied harder than anyone else, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t occasionally helped out others as well. But there was something about him that just put people off. They seemed to possess some instinct that told them there was something a bit wrong with him; like wolves cutting out the injured deer from the herd. On the first day of a new term there was always that subtle testing of one another, and by some instinct that Wesley did not possess and yet other boys did, it became quickly apparent that Wesley was not someone anyone wanted as a friend.

Often in the past he had told himself that it had been his bad luck to have too many of the same boys who had made his life so miserable in prep school move up with him to boarding school, and influence the people who may otherwise have liked him into picking on him as well. The same thing had happened at the Academy, but they had been a small and somewhat incestuous circle in which everyone knew everyone else, and it seemed that there was no academic institution that he was ever going to attend where there wouldn’t be someone whose brother or sister or aunt or cousin had seen him fall off in the collecting ring of the Linton Gymkhana at the age of six and blub like a girl; or who knew one of the unsavoury nicknames which various bullies had forced him to thank them for bestowing upon him during some of the darkest periods of his life. It had felt as if he could never shake off a hundred little mistakes and moments of public humiliation as long as he was living on such a small and crowded island.

That was why coming to California had seemed in every way such a new beginning. The Council had given him its seal of approval. Certainly there had been some mutterings about his appointment, and his father had been less than complimentary about Quentin Travers’ mental capacity, but the fact remained that he had been appointed Watcher to two active Slayers, and had become the first Watcher on record to achieve such an honour. Such a shining achievement had felt like a clean slate handed to him with a bouquet. He was travelling to a place where no one knew him or anyone who knew him, armed with unanswerable credentials, and where people would have no reason to think him anything except confident and competent.

Despite a case of the needle so severe that he had been unable to eat any of the airline food and had twice thrown up in the toilets, Wesley had still been able to indulge himself in happy daydreams of Sunnydale in which his wealth of knowledge of demon dialects and characteristics was admired by all and everyone marvelled at his wisdom and courage.

The reality had been like the coldest of cold showers on a freezing February day. Despite doing his best to appear friendly and yet quietly authoritative, Buffy had taken against him within minutes and Faith dismissed him after one cursory glance. Giles, far from being an ally, or - better - already packed up and gone - had hung around the place like Banquo’s ghost, sneering at him dismissively. All of which might still have been survivable if Wesley had not ballsed things up so completely when a prisoner of Balthazar.

The memory of it could make him go hot with shame and then cold with self-loathing even on a good day; on a day like today he couldn’t prevent himself from physically flinching with embarrassment just at the thought of it. He stumbled into the gym, wondering how he could have been more of a jellyfish with Balthazar, and coming to the conclusion that without having his spine actually removed from his body it would be a physical impossibility. He was as worthless and useless as his father had always told him. He had let himself down when it mattered and for all his attempts since to impress Buffy with his authority all he had done was earn her undying enmity and scorn….

“Are you all right, Wesley…?”

It was a shock to find the girl looking at him, not with that nose-wrinkled expression of disdain on his face that he had been imagining, but with concerned and sympathetic eyes. Wesley realized that he had somehow made his way to the gym and was now meant to be involved in training Buffy; and furthermore, that far from scorning him or trying to humiliate him, Buffy had done her best to give his father the impression that she was treating him like her Watcher. The truth was, of course, that she had in the past treated him like a nuisance she didn’t want underfoot, and, more recently, like a somewhat sickly six year old, and never once like her Watcher. Nevertheless, he appreciated the gesture. In the midst of his cold sweat of shame and self-loathing it was a solitary spark of warmth.

“I’m quite well,” he said awkwardly; wanting to thank her for her intervention but knowing that if he did he would then feel ashamed all over again that he had needed rescuing by a teenage girl.

“I know I’ve been big with the fussage but you did have a temperature of a hundred and three and although the doctor said it was a cold, there are thirteen different kinds of demonic plague dust that cause similar symptoms.”

Wesley considered what he knew about demonic plagues - which was a great deal. “Actually, there aren’t anything like that amount.”

She snorted. “See, I could totally have got away with that with Xander.”

“Well, Xander, sensibly, did not spend his formative years studying demonology. I, however, was unfortunate enough to be given the kind of training that means I can state categorically that there are in fact only six demonic plague toxins that cause common-cold like symptoms, all of which are generally fatal within forty-eight hours. There would also have been a rash of some kind, and, in the case of the plague toxin carried by the - now thankfully extinct - Lesser Spotted Hornwort Demon of the East Indies - a rather noxious outbreak of pus.”

Buffy regarded him levelly. “Wes, if you do end up taking Cordelia out to dinner and you’re on the fence about whether or not to go with the pus talk - I’m voting with the ‘no’s.”

He waited for the full sting of that statement to hit him; the way if often had at school when someone had said something that on the surface didn’t seem more than mildly unkind but which, on further examination, turned out to be devastatingly cruel; and then realized in surprise that there had been no underlying nastiness at all. In fact it was the kind of thing she might have said to Giles. He caught up with what else she had said. “There was a doctor?”

She grimaced. “I overreacted a little. Well…a lot. But Giles overreacted too, and he’s older, so if anyone should have known it was just a cold and not meningitis, it was him.”

“I caught a cold while in a coma?”

“I think it was my fault, because I let you go out with wet hair.” She gazed over him as if checking for other signs of ill health. “We took you to the beach before it was dry, and, if it’s any consolation, the guilt was off all measurable scales.”

Wesley felt his head begin to hurt again. It had been doing that more and more over the past few days, a consequence of the mystical coma be presumed, a strange shifting sensation in his forehead followed by dagger points of light. It felt a little like something trying to tear itself loose. He could picture the beach for an instant, and hear the sound of the waves lapping as the sun sank behind the horizon line. “I don’t understand how you could take me to the beach if I was in a coma. Or why on earth you’d want to. Was there a wheelchair?”

Buffy was already edging away. “Gosh, is that the time? Shouldn’t we be working on that training?”

A glance at his watch confirmed that they were in indeed behind his mental schedule by an hour already. It was a schedule he had actually worked out on the plane flying over - in between bouts of stress vomiting - and there had never yet been a day when he had managed to persuade Buffy or Faith to in any way adhere to it, nevertheless it was a background tick in his mind and it bothered him to be late. “Of course. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

The training session actually went quite well. Buffy listened to his suggestions without rolling her eyes. She counter suggested a few things that, for once, weren’t actually about where he could stick a stake, and which gave him a lot more insight into the problems she usually faced. It had not really occurred to him until now, when she was standing in front of him and looked so much smaller than he was, what the reality was of a girl, albeit one with super human strength, having to fight on with painful injuries.

“Perhaps if I accompanied you on tonight’s patrol?” he suggested. Absurd, really, to be a Watcher and to never yet have seen a Slayer in action against a vampire under…well, uncontrolled circumstances.

But Buffy was looking at him in horror. “No, Wes, absolutely not.”

He felt aggrieved. “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous. You could get hurt.”

He felt hurt, not physically, certainly, but emotionally wounded. He had thought they were getting somewhere at last, and now this. “Buffy, you’ve been the first to tell me - well, the second, after Giles - that I don’t have enough experience in the field to know what I’m talking about, and then when I suggest getting some field experience….”

“I know.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, it’s just…. Well, my nerves aren’t really recovered yet. You need to give me a week to get out of Mom-mode and then I’ll be good with the accompanying. I’ll be cheerleading the accompanying, just…not yet.”

“I don’t understand where this exaggerated care for my wellbeing is coming from. It’s not as if….” But that sounded whiny. Nevertheless, it wasn’t as if anyone had cared overmuch about his welfare in the past. Angel and Giles had rescued him from Balthazar because that seemed to be what they did, and it was no more and no less than they would have done for any passing civilian. But Faith had hit him quite hard and with Slayer strength and Buffy’s concern had been all for the other girl, certainly not for him.

Buffy was looking positively stricken. “Do your ribs still hurt, Wesley?”

Something flickered in his mind, white light through the corner of a curtain, and then it was gone. But that voice, those words. No, just the one word. Buffy saying his name like…that, with all that warmth and concern. It was a shock to realize that no one ever said his name like that, as if they were saying the name of someone who…mattered.

“Wes?”

He had evidently been standing there like an idiot with his mouth open because Buffy was touching his arm anxiously. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” He tried to collect his scattered thoughts, still chasing that fleeting, impossible memory, and then made the effort to get her into focus. When he looked at her face she looked different somehow, less like that scornful teenager who thought he was an idiot and persistently ignored all of his suggestions, more like someone who he liked…. More than liked, someone who made him feel safe. He blinked in confusion. “When I was ill…?”

“Yes…?” she prompted.

“Did you…take care of me?”

She looked - bizarrely - close to tears. “We all did. We all took care of you.”

It was too strange and too new to see someone looking like that as they gazed at him, and he hastily averted his eyes. He was almost certain that he and Buffy were not in any way flirting here, or doing something unseemly, but there was an intensity of connection between them for a moment with which he felt entirely unequipped to deal. He took off his glasses and began to clean them assiduously. “That must have been a bore for all of you. I’m sorry for being such a nuisance. Perhaps next time I should let Giles deal with his own packages?” He forced a bright smile that he hoped would diffuse whatever it was that was happening between them - just in case it was unseemly after all - and pushed his glasses back on.

But Buffy just kept gazing at him as if she were very close to tears. “You weren’t a nuisance. We liked taking care of you. We were sorry when….” She swallowed. “We’re glad you’re well again, of course, but we wouldn’t have minded if you’d…stayed the way you were either.”

“Well, I suppose I was quiet.” He wondered how he was supposed to respond to being told that people wouldn’t have minded him staying in a coma. Perhaps they had just been so glad not to have him underfoot that all the brow mopping had seemed a small price to pay. Seeing her expression, he felt an unexpected rush of sympathy for her. The poor girl really did look as if she were a hair’s breadth away from bursting into tears. “Buffy, is everything okay? Is your mother quite well?”

“Yes, she’s…. Oh, you’re meant to come to dinner sometime. She told me to ask you. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“Telling her that Giles was still my Watcher and that Snyder was a waste of a human life.”

“I don’t think I phrased it in quite those terms, but, you’re welcome.”

“So, will you come…? To dinner, I mean…?”

“Of course, and please do thank your mother very much for the invitation.” No doubt Mrs Summers was just being polite, but he felt warmed by her consideration. Someone had spared him a thought when he was not actually standing in front of them. That was a rare enough occurrence for him to want to savour the prospect. It was so lonely here in the evenings that even hanging around in the library cross-referencing was better than going home. Unfortunately, Giles tended to have the same idea, and then would become irritable about not having the place to himself, leaving Wesley to mooch miserably back to his rented flat. Even one evening marked on his calendar with something other than a blank was a huge relief. If Buffy would let him patrol with her a couple of times a week as well he might almost begin to feel slightly less out of place.

“Could we schedule an evening where I accompany you on patrol next week, do you think?” he suggested with what he was hoped was some authority.

Buffy looked unhappy but resigned. “Well, okay, but Angel needs to come, too, and Giles as well. Just to make sure nothing happens. I won’t let them talk during the slaying if you have to take notes, but I need them to be there so I know you’re safe.”

“Buffy, I really don’t think it’s necessary for a Watcher to be…watched over.”

“And how long had you been in Sunnydale before you got kidnapped by someone who wanted to use you to get to me?”

“I think actually he was using Giles to get to you and I was surplus to requirements….” In more ways than one, he thought, still wincing over his appalling performance. If his father ever found out about that his disgrace would be complete.

“Just look at Giles’ hospital records if you want to know what happens to Watchers if people don’t…watch over them. I can’t concentrate on my slaying if I’m worrying about you being kidnapped or tortured or sold to those demons with the fins who think that human intestines are all finger-lickin’ good and do that icky thing with the tuning fork.”

“It’s not a ‘tuning fork’ even if it does bear some small resemblance to one. It’s a paring knife, used to separate the sinews from…never mind. They’re called Deoflics, Buffy, and if Giles had actually got you to take some of the test papers which are conveniently located at the back of the Slayer’s Handbook you would know that, as you would the names of those ‘big scalies with the extra thumbs’ which are more usually referred to as ‘Egesan Gnarl Demons’ and not, as I believe you are currently calling the one inhabiting the Throxton Memorial Graveyard, ‘Shirley’.”

“Is it my fault that it looks like a ‘Shirley’?”

“In no way and I will even concede that I have in my time been known to refer to Montmyrian Sewerbeasts as ‘Nigels’, but it is still a good idea to know the correct names, habitats, characteristics and - above all - weak spots of the five dozen more common demons which are drawn to the Hellmouth, not only because Giles and I do indeed have no life - and thank you for the times you’ve pointed that out to us - but because knowing how to kill a huge slavering demon before it kills you has proven efficacious in the past as a method of extending Slayer longevity.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re just being pompous on purpose now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He nodded without shame. “I even practised in front of the bathroom mirror.”

That was a smile; and it wasn’t even a smile at him, but with him, from someone who was looking at him as if she liked him. Wesley might have worried that Buffy was following in the steps of the lovely Miss Chase, who did seem to have developed something of a…flirtatious interest in him, had it not been for his suspicion that even as she was smiling at him like that Buffy was having to work quite hard not to feel his forehead for fever or offer him a cookie.

“Don’t let your father push you around, will you?” Her eyes pleaded with him to stand up for himself but he knew it was hopeless. She hesitated in the doorway. “Remember, you’re the Watcher now, not him. And I bet he didn’t get an ‘A’ for mystical studies.”

“Actually he did.” Thoughts of his father plunged him back into gloom and he realized he was slumping despondently, hastily straightening back up before anyone saw.

“Is he going to stay a long time?”

He was grateful for her concern but he did wish that she had not realized quite so easily how things stood between his father and him. If only their meeting hadn’t been witnessed, he might have been able to bluff to Giles and the children that he and his father were on perfectly good terms.

“No. He’ll be eager to get away, I’m sure, probably within the hour. He doesn’t much care for California.” Or, indeed, for me.

But that didn’t need to be said aloud; not least because, judging by her expression, Buffy got that perfectly. And, of course, that way there was no chance of his father staying here for a few days, allowing Wesley to show him the sights, and the trip therefore being anything other than a complete nuisance undertaken only because of his son’s inadequacies. It might have turned into something that Roger found useful or - heaven forbid - enjoyed; worst of all, they might have had an actual conversation in which some affection was shown. That would never do. So, no, he knew what would happen. He would ask his father to stay, and would even suggest that his advice might be beneficial, and his father would tell him that a Watcher needed to stand on his own two feet, and make a point of catching the first flight back, just so that it would always be the case that Roger Wyndam-Pryce had been forced to take a long and tedious plane journey twice in one day just because of his son’s shattering incompetence.

Buffy was at the door before she paused and gazed at him for a moment, evidently an expert at reading glum faces. “You know what’s the best cure for parent-stress?”

“A time machine and a good abortion doctor?”

“Kite-flying. At night. On the beach. Works every time.”

Wesley blinked. “Is flying a kite you can’t see supposed to be some zen path to enlightenment?”

“No, it’s just fun.”

He had his mouth open to point out how absurd that was and how he couldn’t possibly do anything quite that foolish, when he realized that he really wanted to fly a kite on the beach at night. Even the thought of it made him feel calm and excited at once; the way he felt sometimes when he was given a task to do and forgot that people were watching him, and everything came right.

“I’ll tell Giles to pick you up at eight.”

Apparently Buffy was brooking no opposition where he was concerned and still inclined to treat him as if he were six. He opened his mouth to voice some token protest about not having agreed yet and not needing to be picked up like lost luggage, but while he was still marshalling his snappy comeback, he saw that she was gone and he was - once again - left doing a passable impression of a guppy.

***

Bidding farewell to his father had been just as unpleasant as Wesley feared. The man had once again reminded him of all his shortcomings, told him exactly why he should never have been selected to watch for even one Slayer, let alone two; observed that he had no doubt at all whose fault it was that Faith had gone so emphatically off the rails, and ended by hoping that he would not have to make any more tedious plane journeys on his son’s behalf.

“Particularly to continents where salespeople have the effrontery to wish that one should ‘Have a nice day’.”

Wesley thought about suggesting that, trite and insincere or not, it was still surely a more pleasant coda to a transaction than them, say, telling one to fuck off and die, but bit it down. He had been afraid of his father for too long to do more than mentally dabble with the possibility of not being afraid of him now; and even then that only worked when there was an ocean between them. Instead he said: “Yes, father” and not even with weary resignation, but as if he meant it; cringing a second later as he realized Giles was in the office and would have heard all of this exchange.

It was a relief when his father left, even though he took with him the possibility of them communicating as equals or Wesley receiving any praise or respect. At the moment he felt he would rather live without that hope than continue to have to manage with his father’s presence. But he felt like a wrung out dishrag and his knees felt so weak as his father slammed the door on their relationship for another year or five that he was afraid he was going to fall down.

Giles’s hand on his elbow was a shock and he almost pulled away until he realized how much he needed that steadying presence. “Why don’t you sit down, Wesley?” If the man had made it an order he would have snapped at him; but his tone was gentle and concerned. It was a surprise, once he had been helped to a chair, to look up and see the depth of compassion for him in Giles’s green eyes.

The shock of someone caring that much because his father had been unkind, on top of Buffy’s earlier kindness, was almost too much for him, and he felt the hot tears sting his eyes; hastily turning his head as he writhed inside at the thought of Giles seeing.

“Why don’t I get you a cup of tea?” Giles said tactfully, disappearing back into the office to give Wesley a chance to sort himself out.

He could see the notes he had made while talking to Harry. For a moment there, he had been getting somewhere; he had been thinking that he just needed this headache to go off and he might even feel efficient. At least Buffy and the others seemed to recognize that he was useful for research these days; that was a change from before. Before…. Before…what…? Had seeing him helpless made them like him more? But how did that explain his feeling of…affection for these people?

Earlier, Xander had gone to the vending machine and brought back a pile of snacks. Oz had opened a can of something fizzy for Wesley without thinking, while Xander had unwrapped a Snickers bar for him before he handed it over, as if he had done that before, which would have been strange in itself - as Xander had never done any such thing - if it had not felt familiar to Wesley as well. He most certainly did not sip fizzy drinks out of cans, nor need to have them opened for him by teenage werewolves, nor did he eat sugary snacks, and if he had he was perfectly capable of opening them for himself. And yet taking the things from them as they held them out felt as natural to him as it evidently felt to them to hand them over. As he had accepted the chocolate bar from the boy, there had been a moment where he seemed to slip out of time, where he felt as if he and Xander were wrapped in sunlight, sounds on the air of strange animals, the cry of unfamiliar birds, and that odd feeling of…lightness that it had taken him a moment to recognize was how it felt to feel…happy. He had stared at the boy in confusion until Xander had said gently: “Wes? You okay?”

He had snapped out of it, taken the chocolate bar, said, “Yes, of course”, darting an anxious look at Buffy as he did so - the girl had looked poised to feel his forehead again - but since when did Xander hand him chocolate bars? And since when did he call him ‘Wes’, and speak to him as gently as he spoke to Willow? None of it made any sense. Had they read to him while he was sleeping? Had there been television programmes on in the background? Had they become fond of him somehow just because he was…quiet? Because that was the oddest part of all, the way they looked at him as if they…liked him.

Wesley tried to think of a time when he had been surrounded by people who looked at him as if he mattered to them, as if it would upset them if he were unhappy, as if they cared. Absolutely nothing came to mind. Nothing before now.

“Here you are, Wesley.”

He jumped as Giles put a cup of tea down in front of him; feeling like an idiot as he realized he had entirely forgotten where he was. And there was that look again - from Giles this time - all that concern and warmth for him in those previously steely green eyes.

“Thank you.”

He lowered his head so Giles wouldn’t see how moved he was by even that, just a kind word, a kind look. What was the matter with him? Had he always been this feeble, or had his coma or cold left him in this condition? Or had he just never been faced with the difficulty of people offering him affection and concern before? He had certainly been this ludicrously over-sensitive and thin-skinned in the past, but he thought he’d grown out of it. That was what his father had said would happen, once he went away to boarding school; he would get the corners knocked off him and toughen up enough not to be quite such an embarrassment to his long-suffering parents. Wesley flinched from how much it still hurt - shouldn’t it have ceased to matter by now? His father didn’t like him or respect him; never had and apparently never would, as even now that he done everything the man asked of him, nothing had changed; what of it…? Perhaps it mattered so much because his father wasn’t the only one. Perhaps if that attitude hadn’t been replicated by almost everyone who had ever met him, then it might have been possible for Wesley to believe that his father was wrong, instead of sharing his opinion. Perhaps if only someone else had ever shown him how it was done, like a steadier horse showing a novice the right way over a new jump, then he could have followed their lead and found a way to like and respect himself.

Giles rested his hand on his shoulder, a very gentle squeeze coming, almost if he had followed his thought process. “You know, Buffy is right about the kite flying. It really is very therapeutic.”

“I just wanted to do a little more research.” Wesley wished his voice sounded stronger and less as if he was asking for permission. He looked up at Giles, and was afraid that, instead of looking efficient and in charge, he just looked like someone who had a sudden terrible need for his approval.

“Of course.” Giles’s smile was gentle. “I expect you’d like a little peace and quiet to finish your notes. All right if I pick you up at eight?”

It was kind of Giles to phrase it like a question when they surely both knew now that all it took to make Wesley fall into mindless submission was an order delivered with enough authority by any English male authority figure. “That would be super, thank you.” Wesley cringed at how schoolboyish he sounded, but, although there was now a twinkle in Giles’s eyes that acknowledged the boarding school nature of his vocabulary, it felt like a joke shared rather than at his expense.

“I’ll see you then.” Giles patted his shoulder again, and then left, a little reluctantly, and with a glance back at him from the doorway which Wesley was clearly not meant to notice, and wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been gazing after Giles, feeling his own entirely inappropriate sense of anxiety for the man. As Giles left the library, there was an actual little panic spike at the thought of Giles leaving him and going out to the car park. Good lord, was he now having inappropriateness with Giles as well as Buffy and Xander? What was the matter with him today? Why were these people suddenly mattering so much? Why did he even have this niggling fear in the back of his mind because it was so many hours since he had seen Angel? The vampire was perfectly capable of looking after himself. What harm did he think had come to him? And, if he were honest, what was it to him if harm came to the vampire or not? These people were barely nodding acquaintainces to him. They were on the same side in the fight against evil but apart from that they had not a single thing in common. They didn’t even like each other.

Except…now, they apparently did. He certainly felt as if he liked them, far more than made any sense, given the way they had treated him for most of his stay here. And they were acting as if they liked him, although he had no idea why.

As he bent back over his research notes, a sound that had been niggling at him all day, in the back of his mind, sounded again, and this time he realized what it was: a child’s laughter. Such a fleeting echo it had taken him this long to recognize it. A little boy laughing as he was tickled, Xander’s voice sounding a deeper note - for some reason Wesley was certain that he had been the one doing the tickling -, Buffy and Willow in the background, cooing as if over a fluffy kitten, Giles injecting a note of common sense; no words that he could recall, but the sounds were all there; the sense of a child being secure in a circle of attention, protection, and love. It must have been Giles’ nephew he had heard; somewhere in the deep sea of his coma, the sounds of that other life must have reached him. He found he was smiling a little painfully. No doubt the ‘Scoobies’, for all their faults, were kind to small children, and Giles’ nephew had enjoyed his stay with them. He only wished he had been awake to see it. As a child who had never got to play with dragons and pirate ships, it might have been fun to play them as an adult, and Giles’ nephew would have provided a convenient excuse, as well as it being a means to ensure that one little English boy enjoyed an experience that he had never known himself.

“Of course, you can’t ‘go to the zoo’! Who has been filling your head with such nonsense? Perhaps the ‘other children’ you are always referring to are capable of translating a very simple passage from Aramaic into English without so many shocking errors. Stand up straight, boy! Don’t slouch when I’m talking to you, and don’t sulk unless you want to go straight to bed without any supper....”

It felt too close. It always felt too close, perhaps, but this was different. Somehow his father coming to visit had reminded him too vividly of the way things had been when he was a child, as if all those miseries and humiliations had only happened weeks before, instead of years. All he had ever tried to do was what he was told, and care too much when he failed, and all it had accomplished was to make his father despise him for being a spineless cry-baby.

Despondently, he bent back over the research, a crack of light still scoring his brain, wishing vainly for some aspirin as his headache throbbed harder and harder, while that child’s far off laughter echoed in his mind.

***