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54. The more things change...

The idea that Hank was not her real father was surprisingly easy to take. It made so many of the things she remembered from her childhood seem much more easily explained. The way she and Hank had never really connected. How they’d never spent any real time together other than at the skating rink.

More difficult to swallow was the notion that the man she had only known as her boss, was really her father. The question uppermost in her mind, was whether Giles knew. She agreed with Willow’s assessment that Giles would have said something if he had ever thought that he might be Dawn’s father, but she wasn’t so sure about herself. For the first time since she had come to work here nearly four years ago, Buffy was nervous.

Gile’s office was as stuffy and messy as she remembered from her prior visits, but Buffy was looking at it with different eyes. Suddenly she wondered if the eclectic art work was something that her mother might have admired, if Giles really had been the kind of man who could have had an affair with Joyce, and then left the young bride and her illegitimate child. Staring into his puzzled eyes, Buffy wondered what traits they had in common, if any. Would she eventually need glasses too? Did she get the hazel of her eyes from her father?

“Ah, Buffy. I thought our meeting was scheduled for this afternoon?”

“It was. But something important came up. Something that couldn’t wait?”

“You found something more on Thorndale then? I have some news on that front as well.”

“No. It’s not about Thorndale. It’s about Dawn.”

“Dawn? Good news I hope. Last time I spoke to Ms. Rosenberg about it, she told me she had reached an impasse. Tell me, what did you find?”

“Willow found her father. He wasn’t in the crime file databanks, like we were thought. But apparently there were records of him.”

She searched Giles face to see if there was any hint of recognition. Any suspicion of what she was about to say. Finding none, she pressed on.

“He’s not a criminal. Quite the opposite. He works for the Agency as a matter of fact. That’s where Willow found the DNA match. In our office, right here in LA.”

Slowly she noticed understanding beginning to break on his face. Predictably, Giles took off his glasses and began cleaning the lenses.

“The paperwork is all here. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but Willow swears by it. Says its proof positive. You are her father, Giles.”

Giles was silent for a long time. The glasses lay abandoned on his desk as he stared with blurring vision out the window behind his desk. “I…I never really imagined it was possible. I mean, why would a woman like that have my child? We never… it was a long time ago. It was only the once. She never, she never said anything to me about it. We…Ethan and I, we finished the undercover case we were working on, and moved on. I never really thought about it again. Except of course to think that it should never have happened. She’d caught me in a moment of weakness. It was a very unprofessional thing to have done. I should have found a way out of it – should have refused. I knew that. But I never for a moment thought…”

He looked up at Buffy then, something else gleaming in his eye. “Perhaps Glory doesn’t know. Certainly I wasn’t the only person she slept with. She was younger then. It could have been anyone, really.”

“But it wasn’t anyone, Giles. It was you. These computer records prove that you are Dawn’s biological father.”

“It’s just, just that it is a lot to take in all at once.”

“I understand. It’s a shock, but there’s more.”

He turned back around and faced Buffy then, searching blindly for a moment to find the abandoned glasses. Where before his face had been red with embarrassment, now it was white. He obviously knew what she was about to say next.

“You know what else Willow found, don’t you?”

Giles merely stared, mute, giving Buffy time to continue.

“Another close relative, also employed by the same Agency. A half sister. She’s my sister, Rupert. You are both our fathers.”

“I didn’t know, Buffy. I swear, I didn’t know.”

“How can you say that? It was written plain as day on your face just now. You knew exactly what I was going to say before I said it. So don’t tell me you didn’t know all along. Don’t lie to me Rupert.” She supposed she could call him Rupert now that they both knew that she was his daughter.

“It’s not a lie. I suspected. I wondered. But I didn’t know.”

“So was my Mom an after thought too, like Glory? Someone that you slept with once and then promptly forgot?”

“Buffy, that’s unkind. I was in love with Joyce, and I thought that she loved me. When she chose to stay with her husband instead of file for a divorce, I was devastated. When I heard later than she had had a child, I just assumed that it was Hank’s and that that was why she hadn’t wanted to leave him. I never dared hope that the child, that you, were my daughter. After she went back to Hank, we never spoke again. Even after the divorce, she never tried to look me up. Never tried to contact me. I thought she wanted it that way, so I stayed away. I didn’t know until later how hard a time the two of you had making it on your own. If I had known, I would have tried to come up with some way to help. Your mother, Buffy, was a great lady. And I was prepared to love you for her sake alone. But to know that you are mine? That is the greatest gift that anyone could have given me.”

This time it was Buffy’s turn to be quiet. She thought back through the years for any clues that her Mother had been in love with another man, and clues that Hank might have suspected that he was not Buffy’s real father. It was certainly possible that Hank had known. Certainly he had seemed to want nothing to do with her after her mother’s death – and had pretty much been out of the picture for most of her adolescence. She had always put that down to the fact that the divorce had been so bitter. She had never even thought of the possibility that she was not Hank’s daughter.

Finally it was Giles who broke the awkward silence. The normally stolid man had taken off his glasses altogether and was standing awkwardly holding out his arms. Crying, Buffy rushed in to his embrace.

“We should celebrate.” He finally managed to choke out. “Call Dawn, and we’ll pick her up early from school and we’ll all go out somewhere together, and I can explain matters to her. You girls pick the place. Wherever you like. It’s not every day that you learn that you have a family when you thought that you had no one. I want to be there for you, Buffy. Whatever you need. You and Dawn both. My girls.”

“Dawn will be thrilled,” Buffy added. “Any excuse to get out of school early. Only well, you know, she is Dawn, so it’s hard to predict how she will react to anything. But she’s had a really rough time of it, especially lately, so I am sure that she will be overjoyed with anything that hints at future stability along with chocolately ice cream goodness.”

“I do hope you are right, Buffy. Dawn is a bit…volatile. I’m not so sure that she will be as pleased as you seem to be Buffy. You are pleased, aren’t you? I know that I am. Immensely pleased, to have both of you in my life. It’s only when I have to tell her what I know about Thorndale, I fear the mood will be quite lost.”

“Then let’s not talk about him. I don’t want to ruin this moment with unpleasantness.”

“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that, Buffy. I am so glad that you seem to have gotten over this girlish infatuation you had for the man. I only wish that I could say the same thing about Dawn. She thinks the sun rises and sets in his eyes, and she’ll be crushed to learn that it isn’t so.”

This was a subject Buffy was still sore about. They had simply agreed to disagree. Anything else would have made living in the same house too painful. So Dawn had her opinion of Spike, and Buffy had hers.

She only hoped that Giles would be able to talk some sense into the girl. Without her actually, you know, having to confide in Giles what had actually happened between her and Spike. Cause you know, father or no father, talking about something as personal as that with Giles was just … ewww.





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