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53. Blood is thicker than water

“Buffy,” Willow called, “Before you go see Giles this afternoon, I need to talk to you. I found out some information about Dawn." Willow looked unusually chipper, and a little shy. Buffy immediately jumped to the conclusion that her friend had finally solved the mystery of Dawn’s parentage. Either that, or she’d finally found a clue as to exactly who was trying to frame William Thorndale. Well, it wouldn’t matter too much at this point anyway. Spike probably deserved whatever he got.

“That’s great, Willow, did you find Dawn’s father? I thought you had run into a dead end. I have to keep reminding myself that at least something good has come of this whole fiasco - Dawn. If I hadn’t met Thorndale, stayed over at his house, I never would have met Dawn, and who knows what would have happened to her. What did you find out? Who is he?”

“Let’s go into the conference room and I’ll show you the paperwork. It may make more sense that way.”

“If you say so, Wills, you’re the expert, but you know this computer stuff makes no sense to me.”

“That’s okay, Buffy. I’ll explain it. You really need to see this for yourself.” Once inside, Willow closed the door behind them, and spread her papers out on the conference table.

“Fine. Whatever. Just go slow, okay. How did you finally find a match? I thought you said that the search came up blank?”

“It did,” Willow replied. “In fact, I ran it several times. First through our database, and then I cross-referenced the search with the international data base, just in case. It still came up blank.”

“Okay, then how did you find a match? Someone new we just got data on?”

“No. Not at all. See, what we were thinking… what we all thought… was that I should search for a DNA match in our criminal data base.”

“Yeah, I know. We just went over that. I may be slow Willow, but I’m not deaf. Foreign and domestic, you said you came up with nothing. Zero, zilch, nada. Only now you put these papers in front of me like they are supposed to mean something. So quit with the suspense already and tell me what you found.”

“Well, the DNA match wasn’t in the criminal database.”

“It wasn’t?” Buffy still wasn’t catching on to what Willow was trying to tell her.

“No. But eventually I realized that by limiting the search to just the criminal database we were automatically excluding a whole other population that we have data on.”

“Spill, Willow. I am getting impatient. I do have my own work to do.”

“It wasn’t in the criminal database. The DNA match, Dawn’s father, was in the Agency’s own database. They keep records on all of us, you know. Used to be just fingerprints, but nowadays it’s everything. Dawn can rest easy. Her father isn’t a crime lord. He’s one of the good guys. He works here. In fact, you even know him.”

“Geesh, Willow. Out with it already.”

“It’s Giles.”

“Giles?” That made no sense. Buffy blinked. “As in, head of the division and also our boss, Giles?”

“Yep. That’d be him, Buffy.”

“Giles? You mean Giles and Glory?” She found it hard to imagine a more unlikely pair.

“Apparently. I don’t have the details, but Giles did come up through the ranks working in vice. Giles and Glory must have crossed paths at some point.”

“To say the least,” she deadpanned. “Do you think he knows?”

“No. I don’t think he’s that good of an actor. Besides, he knew what we were looking for. If he wanted to hide the fact that he was Dawn’s father, it would have been easy enough for him to falsify the data. Or simply pull his own profile. He’s been an Agent so long, it’s completely believable that they might not have updated his records yet to include a complete DNA run.”

“Wow. I can hardly wait to see his face when you tell him the news,” Buffy grinned. It wasn’t every day a girl got to shake her boss’s world. “He’s gonna flip.”

“Umm, Buffy? That’s not all.”

“Not all?” What else could there be?

“No. There’s something else. There was another match.”

“Another match? Willow, I may not be a computer expert, but even I know that Dawn can’t have two fathers.”

“No. She can’t. But she can have a sister.”

“Glory has another child?”

“No. Not Glory. But Dawn does have a half sister. They have the same the same father. Giles.”

“Again? You know Willow, I find it hard enough to imagine Giles with Glory, yet alone that he impregnated some other unfortunate woman. But I suppose that Dawn deserves to know that she has family. Who is it?”

“You.”

“Me? What do you mean, me?”

“I mean that according to your personnel records and DNA file, that Rupert Giles is your biological father. You’re Dawn’s sister.”

Sitting back down in the chair she had just vacated, Buffy shook her head. “That can’t be right. My parents had already been married for two years before I was born.”

“At a guess, I’d say that your mother had an affair.”

“With Rupert Giles?” It seemed even more unlikely than the involvement with Glory.

“He was probably very different then. It would have been nearly 30 years ago, Buffy. Maybe back then he was exciting enough for a young bored wife to have a fling with. Your Mom and Dad did eventually get divorced, you know.”

“Of course I know. I was there. But I was like, almost fifteen at the time. My Mom was definitely not having an affair with Rupert Giles.”

Willow looked apologetic. “Unfortunately, we can’t ask her. But we can ask Giles. It’s possible that he doesn’t know. On the other hand, maybe he is the reason you were offered the opportunity to work here in the first place. Maybe he was the one who put your name forward, and got you accepted into that graduate school – not Riley.”

“I need to speak to Giles right away. I take it these papers are the proof of what you’ve been telling me?” At Willow’s nod Buffy collected them in a huff and began to storm off. “Giles has some explaining to do.”





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