"Hello, Granddad,” Giles said. There was a catch in his voice, a sudden crack of emotion that he had to swallow hard to overcome. The sepia figure – who stood about ten inches tall – threw him a sympathetic look.
“Don’t take it so sudden, lad,” he said. “I’m just a memory. You know that. Things that linger. Thoughts of the past.” He reached to tug the cap from his head, revealing a tumble of hair and a hint of unruly curls. “The gift’s powerful,” he considered, giving Buffy a wink. “But it can’t turn back time. Hold it back, maybe. For a bit or two. Let you visit the past if you need to. But it can’t pull anyone forward into the now, or take you back to live there forever.”
He hitched himself up onto the nearest bundle of letters and considered Buffy with interest. “You gonna introduce me, Ru?”
“Oh – yes, yes, of course. Granddad, this is Buffy. Buffy, this is –"
“Bert,” the sepia soldier interrupted warmly. “Just call me Bert. Everyone does. ‘Cept him, of course.” He nodded towards Giles with the sort of proprietary pride that grandparents demonstrate the world over. “You his girl?”
“She’s my Slayer, Granddad.”
“I know that,” Bert dismissed with a wave of his hand. “But is she your girl? Are you, miss?”
“Buffy,” Buffy corrected, sliding off the edge of the desk so she could turn and converse with Bert a little more comfortably. “And yes,” she affirmed, casting a self-conscious glance in Giles’ direction. “I am.”
Giles somehow managed to look both embarrassed and immeasurably pleased at the confession. Bert slapped at his leg with his cap, expressing his delight with an engaging grin. “Knew it,” he crowed. “’Never settle for second best, that’s the Moneypenny motto. And it don’t matter a jot that you’ve got all that blue blood clogging up your veins, Ru - you’ve got a Moneypenny’s heart, and a Poppins’ soul, keeping it warm. You musta - or you wouldn’t be wearing my Mary’s gift like you were born to it.” He paused, frowning at what he’d just said. “Hang about. You were born to it. But you know what I mean.”
Giles smiled, leaning back in his chair to consider the miniature figure with affection. “Yes, I do. I was … rather surprised she left it to me.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be. You were always her favourite, even if she tried hard not to have them. I was kinda fond of you myself."
The look that chased across Giles’ face echoed his initial reaction to the man. Buffy got the impression that ‘fond’ was a totally inadequate word to describe where this man lay in her Watcher’s heart. “You loved all your grandchildren,” he countered softly, deflecting the surge of emotions with what looked like long practiced skill. “Along with every child that came to your attention.”
“Well, now,” Bert smiled. “Someone’s gotta look out for the nippers. Lot of folk don’t, and that’s a crying shame. Besides. You hang around my Mary long enough, you get to see the world through different eyes. To a child, nothing is impossible – and magic just … happens.”
"Nana’s magic,” Giles pointed out softly. “The other kind … comes with a price attached.”
Buffy resisted what she’d always resisted – and then remembered that she didn’t have to any more and reached to give his arm a gentle squeeze, offering him a look of silent sympathy and support. He looked a little startled at the contact before acknowledging it with a grateful smile; his grandfather snorted.
“Misuse anything and you end up paying for it, one way or the other,” he said. “The more you take, the more you pay. But then - the more you give, the more you get back. You look at me,” he offered with a grin. “I never stinted on the helping hand or the friendly shoulder to lean on. The sweep’s luck stayed with me all me life, and I spread it around to anyone and everyone I could. I had the finest wife a man could ask for, a family that loved me, and I never failed to put food on the table for ‘em, no matter how tight things got. We gave away more than we owned, and we never lacked for something to give. That’s how it works. None of this grasping for things that don’t belong to ya in the first place. Live humble and you live well. Want for more and … you just want – and never have anything"
The Watcher smiled, although there was a hint of sorrow in it – one that echoed the lessons he’d learnt over the years. “I wish it were that simple,” he said. “But some of us …”
“Have to fight for the things we believe in. I know, I know.” Bert heaved a small sigh, suggesting that he’d learnt some of those lessons himself. “There’s greed and hate and evil in the world, and some bad people who do some very bad things. But that doesn’t mean the good people have to spend all their time lamenting and moaning about it.” He jerked his finger in his grandson’s direction and he grinned. “You get off your duff, you knuckle up – “ He did just that, a clench of fingers that turned him into a minature pugilist. “-and you show the world what you’re made of.”
Buffy had to laugh. It was a fine sentiment, but it sounded a little ridiculous coming from a man barely taller than the average stake.
“Paper and silver nitrate, Granddad?” Giles sounded equally amused; Bert shot him a Ripperish glare that told Buffy exactly who Ripper himself had inherited it from – and which suggested that there was a lot more to Rupert Frederick Arthur Moneypenny than first met the eye.
“Oh, you can laugh,” he drawled, in a tone that implied nothing of the sort. “Here I am, imparting hard-earned pearls of wisdom, and there you two are are, making light of it all. You think I don’t know what you face? What Slayers are and why Watchers watch them? I know. I might have danced a little though it, but not all my life was climbing chimneys, making kites or standing behind a shop counter. I did my bit.” He paused to sit back on his letter padded seat, regarding them both with quiet challenge. “Take these,” he said, tapping the ribbons that decorated his chest. “I didn’t get these medals sitting around while everyone else marched off to fight the Hun. I was there, marching alongside the rest of them. Just as boldly and just as brave as any Tommy could be.”
“I know,” Giles said. “I’m sorry, Granddad. I didn’t mean to –“
"‘Course you didn’t.” Bert reacted, his nose wrinkling and a twinkle springing to life in his eye. “Anymore than I forgot to tell Mary I was taking the shilling. Took her a while to forgive me for that, but she did.” The twinkle blossomed back into a cheeky grin. “I forgive you, lad. Forgive you anything. You know that.”
“I do now.” The wry note in Giles’ voice spoke volumes; tales of boyish pranks and of days when they’d got him into trouble he had cause to regret. Buffy glanced at him with a sudden sense of delight. She’d never really stopped to consider what he might have been like as a child, but now that she did, she could picture it perfectly; the young boy, wearing glasses that had been a little too large for him, determinedly serious in his studies and equally determined in his enthusiasm when unleashed to play. Probably something of a solitary child, given the nature of his calling and the secrets he’d had to keep – but still bold in his explorations and his mischief, driven as much by eager curiosity as by boyish bravado or a need to prove himself to those that loved him.
“Well now,” Bert was saying, “they were prize-winning roses, Ru. What did you expect me to say?”
"Exactly what you did,” Giles admitted ruefully. “At least it taught me to look before I leap."
“Should think so, too,” his grandfather laughed. “Mary and I were plucking thorns from your hide for the rest of the week. God knows what your father thought we’d done to ya when he came to take you home … well,” he grinned, “God and my Mary, I should think. But I wasn’t angry with ya. Not really. Little scared, I think. Seeing you take that great big leap out into the world …" .He jumped back to his feet to demonstrate. “There I was,” he declaimed, “fighting my way past my best rose bush …” He pantomimed the deed, thrashing his arms about in a mock desperation that made Buffy fight down a giggle and Giles roll his eyes with amused forbearance. “… and there you were, lying in the middle of the blasted flower bed covered with blood and rose petals. I thought you’d killed yourself.” He gave his grandson an indignant look, managing to convey the anguish this had cost him. "S’no wonder I tore you off a strip or two when I realized you hadn’t. Bloody stupid thing for you to do – and my Mary didn’t help,” Bert went on, his voice stirring with more than a hint of passion, “filling your head with tales o’heroes and noble deeds … He doesn’t need to grow up to be a hero, I used to say. He just needs to grow up. Good and proper like. But ya father was taking care of those things, and all we had to give ya was a dose full o’ common sense and a little willingness to believe in happy endings.”
“Both very welcome gifts,” Giles murmured, reaching his arm to slide it round Buffy’s waist so he could pull her closer against him. She moved in without protest, resting her weight against his side and marvelling at how comfortable, at how right it felt to be next to him like that. Bert smiled.
“So I see. Well, you got my Mary’s gift now, and it’ll sit pretty comfortably with ya if the first two made themselves at home. You were a good lad, Ru. I know you had some bad moments later but – well, I guess you turned out all right in the end."
He certainly did, Buffy thought, savouring the sensation of sharing her Watcher’s warmth while breathing in the whisper of his cologne.
"Most folk do, if you treat ‘em right." Bert was exploring the desk top, lifting up the edges of letters and peering at the patina on his photo frame. "Wish I could say the same for the Colonel’s nipper, mind you,” he said, breathing on the metal and using the edge of his sleeve to rub away a non-existent spot. "Real disappointment he turned out to be. Damn shame, too. The colonel was a good man. Deserved better." He gave one final wipe and nodded his satisfaction with the shine. “Don’t suppose you know if …?” he asked, turning back with a questioning look on his face. "Nah,” he decided before Giles could formulate an answer. "Roger dodger, Mr High and Mighty kept his whelps away from the likes of you and me. Common as muck he thought us. Not that you ever were, Ru, I knew that and so should’ve he, but ..."
Buffy was losing track of this conversation and she frowned at the suggestion that someone might think her Watcher common. He was the most uncommon man she’d ever met and, going by the impressions she was getting from a faded photograph, his grandfather had been pretty special too.
“They weren’t all a lost cause,” Giles said, looking amused for some reason. “Although it did look a little touch and go for a while. The Colonel’s youngest grandson cut the worst of his ties with the Council and is now working as a demon hunter in LA. Working for a vampire as it happens. One with a soul, and a great deal of good intentions, I have to say. Nevertheless …”
The diminutive figure on the table threw back his head and laughed with a moment of sheer delight. “He is? Oh Lord, that’s capital. The colonel must be grinning from ear to ear.”
“Almost undoubtedly,” Giles concurred a little sadly. “Although not in this world, I’m afraid. He passed away – not … long after you did. I believe Nana went to the funeral.”
“Damn right, she did. If know my Mary – and I do. Turn up at the graveside spick, span and all business. Paying her respects. The colonel deserved ‘em too. Bet the boy was livid. He was scared o’ Mary, you know? The boy. Not the Colonel. He adored her.”
Buffy had been working it out. Working for a vampire …
“Giles?” she questioned. “Are we talking about Wesley’s grandfather now? When he first came here – I didn’t think you’d met him before.”
“Yes, we are.” Giles threw her a smile. “And I had – but just the once. I doubt he’d recall it. I think he was about three at the time."
She couldn’t quite imagine Wesley at three. A shy child, perhaps, lurking in his mother’s skirts; earning himself frowns of disapproval from a stern father and an indulgent look from his grandparents …
“Yes, I remember,” Bert smiled, his eyes taking on a slightly distant look. “Nice kid. Had his mother’s eyes. And the colonel’s stubborn streak,” he added with a knowing grin.
“That stubborn streak saved your life, as I recall.” Giles leant back in chair – which also allowed Buffy to settle herself a little more comfortably against him. She took advantage of the moment and slid her arm around his shoulders as if it belonged there. It was rather reassuring to find that it did.
“It did indeed,” Bert agreed happily. He’d seen exactly what Buffy had done, and he winked at her, conveying warm approval of the way the two of them fit so comfortably together. “Course it was hardly my fault there were a couple of vampires sneaking about in the trenches, taking advantage of the Hun’s barrage. But then I’ve always suspected it was the sweep’s luck that gave me the Colonel as my commanding officer. There I was,” he declared for the second time, crouching down so that he could present another dramatic pantomime, “arse down in the mud with nothing but a bayoneted rifle between me and a hungry death – and there he was – “ He sprang back to his feet, and into a heroic pose. “Driving the two of them back with a makeshift cross and a look of anger in his eyes that’d make the devil quail." Bert's voice dropped into a gruff imitation of a man with a very aristocratic accent "Damn and blast, he was swearing. Give up everything to become a soldier and here I am, having to be a bloody Watcher after all!"
Buffy chuckled - both at the display, and the quote, which sounded like a very – well, Watchery thing to say and do. Giles grinned. “Colonel Wyndam-Pryce never tired of that story,” he said. “It was almost his party piece – although only on the kind of occasions he could freely talk about such things, of course.” His smile softened into one of quiet pride. “He always told the rest of it too – how he was wounded in the next assault and … um … how the soldier he’d saved from the vampires picked him up and carried him to safety. Three miles across no-man’s land, with shells falling on every side and German snipers in every fox hole.”
“Not every foxhole,” the man in question corrected self-consciously. “Just one or two. And the Colonel was firing back over my shoulder as I ran. I took a bullet in the leg, just as we reached the line – and woke up in a field hospital with my Mary glaring down at me with absolute thunder in her eyes. Took her forever to forgive me, but … I won her round in the end." He sat back on the edge of the letters and considered some far distant time and place, his expression softening at the memory. "We were married in this little French chapel – half in ruins it was, and the company’s chaplain had to use a hospital sheet for an altar cloth." Memory became a warm smile and Bert heaved an exaggeratedly happy sigh. "The Colonel gave Mary away, and then scurried round to be my best man … he was leaning on his crutches and I was sitting in a wheelchair, and that was the best day o’my life … least until Ru’s mother was born,” he added softly, an oddly haunted look in his eyes. “We had three boys, and we loved every one, but ... Alice... ” He sighed. "Alice was special.” The pensive look lingered for a moment, and then he grinned at his grandson. “Your father certainly thought so.”
“My father – “ Giles began to say, and Bert held up his hand to silence him.
“Ah, ah, ah” he interrupted. “It’s Christmas, Ru. There’s no need to go there today. Your father loved Alice with every fibre of his being and when we lost her, it was more than he could bear. He blamed himself, and could find no forgiveness for that. But we forgave him a long time ago. Maybe it’s time you forgave him too."
Buffy had felt Giles stiffen at the mention of his father, the echo of conflicted feelings expressing themselves in a sudden tension in his frame. “He blamed me,” he said softly. There was no resentment in the words, just a weary acceptance of the way things were. Bert snorted.
“Is that what you think? He never blamed ya, lad. He loves you. Loves you so damn much it hurts – and every moment he sees you he sees her … and remembers how he failed to keep her safe, how he lost her to the dark. He raised you to be strong, Ru. To be ready. To be the best. Not because the best survive – but because the best keep others safe, too.” The sepia soldier stood up, staring at the two of them with a warmth and pride that almost took Buffy’s breath away. “He didn’t want you to fail the way he failed. Nor have ya. Look at her, Ru. Look at her. Your Slayer. Most of them don’t survive their first year – and here’s one all grown up and woman enough to claim your heart and give hers back in return.”
“That’s the best way to do it, you know,” he confided, aiming the remark at Buffy, who grinned.