Title: Watchmen
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Rating: PG (violence), Giles/Xander
Word Count: 4200
Disclaimer: Not mine! Joss's! Mutant Enemy's!
Summary: Xander finds out what it means to be a watcher and seriously considers going back to being the guy who fixes the windows.
Author's Notes: Written for cmk418's prompt for the Giles H/C Ficathon: Post Chosen - After Xander's favorite slayer-in-training is killed on a routine patrol, Xander is devastated. Giles helps him pick up the pieces. Thanks to fuzzyboo03 for the beta.

Stepping out onto the back porch, Xander was hit with a blast of cold, damp, not-quite-London air. He hunched into his jacket. The leather offered some protection, but not much. He was glad for the discomfort, though - took his mind off the sobbing he could still hear, even once the door had swung shut behind him.

He wondered if Leslie would ever stop crying. She and Janine had been best friends since their first day at HQ. Xander had thought a few nights ago that he should put them into separate patrol groups from now on, because they distracted each other and he worried they were getting careless. But he hadn't gotten around it to it yet, and so tonight Leslie had been standing three feet away when that vampire - a fledgling, barely out of the ground, with dirt still under his fingernails - had ripped the stake from Janine's hands and plunged it straight into her chest before anyone could so much as move.

The vamp had been dust within seconds. Xander thought it must have been either Buffy or Faith who'd done it. No one else could have - they were too busy watching Janine's life bleed out all over Leslie's hands. Only Buffy or Faith could've pulled it together enough right then to stake the vamp that needed staking. Even Xander had frozen.

Some watcher he was. Yeah, he'd watched all right. Watched his favorite slayer - and no, he wasn't supposed to play favorites, but why lie to himself now? - get stabbed with her own stake and die, right in front of his eyes. Eye.

He was shivering, Xander noticed suddenly. Kind of a lot. It wasn't that cold, not yet anyway, though it was mid-October and was supposed to get colder later that week. He sat down on the porch steps, rubbed his arms, and leaned against a convenient post. They hadn't had time yet to do anything with the back garden, which was big even by suburban standards; right now it was wild and overgrown, though Giles kept making noises about turning part of it into a proper English garden. He said he'd kept up his grandmother's as a hobby once. They could grow their own herbs, their own vegetables. He wanted the slayers to have a project, something to work on that wasn't about death. But they'd been too busy to get it started.

Janine had kept herbs in little pots on her windowsill, Xander remembered. Not the witchy stuff Willow grew that made her room and hands smell funny. Normal herbs, like the song - sage, rosemary and thyme, no parsley, but basil and mint. Someone else would have to water them now.

The sobbing had stopped at last. Will had said she'd give Leslie something to help her sleep. Xander hoped she had. He wondered if she had anything that would stop him shivering, because he couldn't seem to. Maybe he was sick. He felt sick.

The back door opened slowly. "Xander?" Giles said quietly.

Xander hunched even more. Did they really have this conversation now? Couldn't it wait until morning? He wasn't sure he could stand to hear right now about how badly he'd fucked up. He knew it already. Janine was dead, how could he have possibly missed that memo? He should've trained her better, been harder on her in hand-to-hand, insisted she do the drills she hated. She shouldn't have been on his blind side tonight - he hadn't even known she'd been attacked until he heard her cry out, and by the time he turned it was too late.

He knew all of this. He didn't need to hear Giles say it.

When Xander didn't answer, Giles came out and sat down on the step beside him. He carried two mugs of tea, milky, with the tea bags still in them. He handed one to Xander and kept the other one for himself. Xander wrapped his hands around his mug and stared down into it dumbly. It was warm in his hands, but it couldn't cut through the shivering.

"Drink that," Giles said, when Xander didn't move. "You need something warm in your system."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. Please, Xander, drink the tea." As though in demonstration, Giles removed the tea bag, laid it carefully beside him on the porch, and sipped his own.

The warmth was too tempting. The first sip was scalding. He winced and blew across the top, but he liked how the hot liquid hit his stomach. He was still shivering, but maybe it would help after all. Not really, of course - nothing could really help. But he'd like to stop shivering. He didn't know how long he'd been out here, shivering and staring into the inky dark of the back garden, but it was long enough for him to get tired of it.

"Did Leslie go to bed?" Xander asked, when he'd drunk nearly half the tea. Giles hadn't spoken since he'd told him to drink it, and Xander, once he'd gotten a bit warmer, decided it would be better to just get it over with. Giles probably wouldn't yell at him. No, he'd just tell him in excruciating detail what he'd done wrong and how his slayer would be alive if he'd been different, been better, smarter, faster, had both eyes. And then he'd probably say how he'd made Xander a watcher too fast, because they'd needed watchers back then and he happened to be standing there at the time, but it'd probably be better if Xander just went back to fixing windows that got broken in fights. He was good at that. No one ever got killed on account of a window he'd fixed, even if he did it wrong. Which he didn't. He was good with windows.

Windows were actually sounding pretty good at the moment. Xander knew he was about to get fired, and part of him couldn't feel anything but relief.

"Yes, finally." Giles paused, and to Xander's shock laid a hand on Xander's back, between his shoulder blades. He rubbed lightly, up and down. Xander wasn't sure he could ever remember Giles touching him like this, just casually. Not that it was casual, not really. Xander had the feeling Giles had thought about it very carefully first, while they were sitting there, drinking their tea and not talking. "How are you?"

Not like there was much point in lying. "Not good."

Giles nodded. "I'm so very sorry, Xander."

"Me too," Xander said, and decided that if Giles wasn't going to say it, he would. "I'm sorry she didn't have someone better for her watcher."

"Nonsense," Giles replied softly, still rubbing.

Xander shook his head. "I didn't see him. He was in my blind spot, and I was watching Vi tangle with this other vamp. I wasn't even thinking about Janine."

"You can't look everywhere at once, Xander. It's impossible."

"Maybe." Xander looked down at his shoes. "But it doesn't matter, does it? Because she's dead and you can't tell me - you can't say you didn't feel responsible when Buffy died. Both times."

Giles nodded. "I did. I told myself all the things you're telling yourself - she deserved better, I should have found a way out, I should have . . ." He paused strangely. "I should have taken care of it. But that isn't how it works. We might be changing the way things are done, but we can't change the fact that they're on the front line, every night. We're there with them as much as we can be, of course, but right now, with our numbers so diminished, we have a responsibility to step back. The way that Buffy and Faith do."

"Ha," Xander said dryly and without humor. As though Buffy and Faith stepped back from anything.

"Well. Yes. Quite." His hand had stopped rubbing, Xander noticed, but it didn't move. It was warm. Reassuring. It helped the shivering more than the tea had. Without thinking about it, he leaned into Giles, who slid his arm around Xander's shoulders, pulling him close. Xander wasn't really used to this Giles, who dispensed tea and advice and even hugs and never once pinched the bridge of his nose or rolled his eyes, but he liked him.

"It was just so stupid," Xander said at last, so quietly he wasn't even sure he meant Giles to hear.

Giles leaned forward. "I'm sorry?"

"I said it was stupid," Xander repeated with a lot more force. "I mean, this vamp was nothing, Giles. He was fresh out of the ground and all he got was fucking lucky. She was better than that. She deserved better than that. Buffy got her great heroic death - two of them. Where's Janine's?"

Giles sighed deeply. "I hate to tell you, Xander, but if you read the Watcher diaries, it usually isn't nearly as dramatic as you might think. Sometimes, yes, in the prevention of some catastrophe, but very often it's simply a routine patrol gone awry." He pulled his arm away, but they stayed leaning together, holding each other up. Giles turned his mug in his hands, twice counterclockwise, and then back again. Xander watched his hands, large and capable and calloused from work with sword and crossbow. Xander was just getting callouses like that, or he would once he got past the blister stage. If he got past it. "I used to drive myself mad thinking about it whenever Buffy patrolled without me. All through high school I insisted she call me when she got in, to let me know she was all right, and I never slept until she did. But you're wrong when you say Janine's death wasn't heroic - she was doing what she was destined for, doing her part to fight the good fight."

"She had a lot more fight left in her, though," Xander said, and felt the painful lump in his throat dissolve at last. He swiped impatiently at his eyes. "She could've - you know, Giles, how some of the girls are - are special? How some of them, you have to think, if not for Willow, they'd never have been called, would've never even known, but others you just know that even if they hadn't been called, they'd have done something, found some way - damn, I don't know if I'm saying this right." The only way he could think of to describe it was way too inane even for him, especially now. Under the best of circumstances Giles would have rolled his eyes if Xander had started talking about slayer powers as the Force and midichlorians and how some people had more and other people had less, even if they had some. You had slayers and not-slayers, after all. There weren't degrees of slayerdom. Except maybe there were, now.

"I know what you mean," Giles said, nodding. "They're all slayers, but it's as though . . ." He paused, and Xander watched his throat move as he swallowed the last of his tea. "As though some of them are more destined than others," he finished.

"Yeah. And Janine - Janine was good. She was really good."

Giles nodded. "That she was."

"And now she's dead and it's just so -" Xander gulped and didn't finish. Giles's arm came back around his shoulders. "I don't know if I can do this, Giles. Not if this is what it's like."

"This is indeed what it's like," Giles said heavily. "And I do know what you mean. Historically, very few watchers ever worked with more than one slayer, and for good reason. It simply hurt too much to think about burying one and moving on to the next. I told myself years ago that Buffy was it for me - and yet, here I am."

"Buffy isn't dead," Xander pointed out.

"No, thank God."

"But Janine is. And I don't know, Giles. I just don't know if I'm cut out for this."

"That makes two of us," Giles said, almost inaudibly. "And Janine . . . isn't the last we'll lose."

"Well, damn. Thanks for the pep talk."

Giles squeezed his shoulder and withdrew his arm again. "I must admit this wasn't solely about your own comfort, Xander. I - I have a very unpleasant task ahead of me."

Xander could hardly imagine what might possibly be more unpleasant than everything Giles had dealt with this evening already - from the authorities, which, okay, hadn't been that bad because the Council still had pull with the cops in the greater London area, but hadn't been a walk in the park - to comforting hysterical girls to helping Xander with his own crisis. "What?"

He more felt than heard Giles sigh. "I must call her parents and tell them."

Oh. Damn. "But shouldn't - I mean, I was her watcher, Giles."

"I'm the head of the Council," he said, "and I convinced them to let her come. It's my responsibility." He glanced at his watch. "And I need to do it soon, before it's too late in New York."

Xander wasn't going to be sleeping tonight. He was tired - exhausted, really - but lying down and closing his eyes was the very opposite of appealing. And no matter what Giles said, Xander had been Janine's watcher from day one - he'd talked to her parents, too, given them all a tour of HQ. He appreciated that Giles was taking this on for him, but he should at least be there. "I'll come with you," he said, stuffed his teabag in his empty mug, and stood.

Giles gave him a small, quick smile, and accepted his hand up. "Thank you."

The kitchen light was on, but the rest of the house was dark and quiet. Xander flicked it off as he went by, set his mug down on the counter and heard a faint clink as Giles did the same, and then together they felt their way down to Giles's study in the dark. Giles bypassed the overhead light and turned on the desk lamp - the dragonfly lamp he'd had in Sunnydale. It didn't give off much light, but Xander was just as glad. He pulled a chair around the desk so it was closer to Giles's own and watched him take out his address book. All the contact information for the slayers' families was stored in a computerized database as well, thanks to Willow, but Giles insisted on keeping his own, handwritten system separate. Xander suspected it helped him learn the names of the girls' parents.

"Tim and Patricia," he said, while Giles was still flipping through it.

He looked up and nodded. Then, finally finding the number, he pulled the phone towards him and rested his hand on the receiver.

"What are you going to say?" Xander asked.

Giles looked at him without speaking. Out on the porch, he'd seemed sad but certain. He'd seemed to know what to say, exactly the mix of sympathy, honesty, and assurance that would make Xander feel just the little bit better that was all that was possible tonight. That man was gone now. "I haven't the faintest idea."

"Yeah. Me neither." Xander stared at the phone. "I still think I should be the one to do it."

Giles shook his head. "Let me."

Xander definitely wasn't going to argue anymore. It just seemed unfair to put all of this onto Giles. But then, this was exactly the sort of thing Giles had always done for them, and even when Xander had officially become a watcher - well, sort of officially, since there hadn't been a ceremony of any kind and he guessed there probably had been, back before the Council got blown to smithereens - that hadn't changed. Xander hadn't wanted it to, either - he'd already felt like he had way more responsibility than he was willing to deal with. And now he was seriously considering giving even that much back and going back to being Window Guy.

Giles picked up the receiver and dialed. Then he leaned back, closing his eyes, and let his free hand rest on the desk. Xander hesitated briefly, then covered it with his own. Giles's eyes flickered to him once, startled, but that was all there was time for, because then he straigtened and said, "Hello, Patricia? This is Rupert Giles."

The conversation was short and brutal. He delivered the news and his condolences calmly, and then fell silent. Xander didn't know quite what was going on, but he guessed from tone of the small, tinny voice he could hear that Tim had taken over the conversation and was venting his shock, grief, and rage at Giles, who simply sat there and took it, growing whiter and whiter. "I'm so very sorry," he managed, once or twice, but that was all. Xander could feel the tension in Giles's fingers where they lay beneath his own, and he tightened his grip. Giles didn't react - Xander didn't even know if he'd noticed.

Eventually the line went dead - they'd hung up. Giles hung up as well, moving even more slowly. Xander got the impression that this was what Giles would look like in ten years, what he would move like in twenty. He kept his grip on Giles's hand, and Giles finally seemed to notice. Xander saw him look at their hands, pressed together on the table, and consider taking his away. He didn't.

"I'll ring them tomorrow," Giles said at last, after a long, long silence. "After they've had a chance to, to - we need to make arrangements for her, er - that is, I'm sure they'll want the funeral at home."

Xander didn't answer right away. He had the feeling he was having what Willow called a SLM, a Scary Life Moment - like the day he'd stood in the stacks in the library and listened to Giles talk to Buffy about vampires and decided he couldn't ignore what he'd heard. He'd never really made the decision to be a watcher, he thought - he'd just fallen into it, because Giles needed someone to help and at the time they hadn't had any windows to get broken, much less for him to fix. And now, here he was, having just gotten a hard, fast, awful education in what it meant - in what it would mean from now on. Now was his time to decide. He could let Giles make that phone call tomorrow and slowly back off - go back to building pommel horses and scarecrows for the girls to beat up while he waited for a demon fight to take out the bay window in the living room.

Or he could . . . not.

Giles's shoulders were hunched up around his ears. He was still white and there were deep creases all over his face - around his mouth, his eyes, his forehead. Xander's memories of Giles from way back when were sorta off, he suspected, because he'd been sixteen and anyone over the age of twenty-five had just been old, but he was pretty sure those lines hadn't been there. Hell, he didn't think they'd been there even six months ago. This was what being a watcher did to you. Xander was pretty sure that if he let it, it'd do it to him, too.

And why should he let it, anyway? Because he overheard Buffy and Giles that day in the stacks? Because it seemed like he was always the moron standing by with his mouth hanging open when bad shit happened and so he got sucked along? Why should he be the one to train girls to go out and die in bloody, terrible ways and have to call their parents afterwards to tell them he'd failed their daughters?

And then, as though someone had whispered it in his ear, Xander knew why.

Because even if he didn't, Giles still would. Alone. He'd do it till it killed him, one way or another. Because someone had to.

And for some reason, some weird reason Xander wasn't really ready to think about, that made the decision no decision at all.

"Hey, Giles? I'll take care of calling them tomorrow."

Giles looked up. "Xander, you really don't -"

"I do." Xander shrugged, glancing away. "If I'm gonna do this, I have to do all of it, and not - not stick you with the clean-up, like we always have."

"Xander." Giles turned his hand over and closed his fingers over Xander's. "You were children. That was my job."

"Yeah, well, we're not anymore. I'm not anymore. I'm a watcher, I guess, whatever that means, so - all right. One-eyed watcher reporting for duty."

Giles didn't answer for a minute. They sat there, holding hands, and Xander felt like there was something in the air - he wasn't sure what, but he felt it. Tension, maybe? He wasn't nearly as calm as he was pretending to be. He felt like there was something sitting on his chest, making his heart hurt every time he looked at Giles.

When Giles finally spoke, it wasn't any of the dozen things Xander imagined him saying. He let out a long breath and said, "Thank God."

"Huh?" Xander replied brilliantly.

"I didn't want to make you feel you had to - to do anything you didn't want to. You've suffered such a terrible loss tonight, and it would be perfectly understandable if you didn't wish to continue in your current path. But my God, Xander." Giles leaned back in his chair, but still didn't let go of Xander's hand. "I can't do it without you. I thought tonight that you might really want out after this, and who could blame you? And that was when I realized I couldn't even conceive of doing this without you." He removed his glasses with his free hand, stared at them for a moment seeming faintly bemused, as though trying to figure out how to polish them one-handed, and finally settled for rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Xander stared. "Oh."

Giles looked up at that and sighed, extricating his hand from Xander's at last to rest on Xander's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, or impose on you. But you should know that it's true."

"No, I was just . . . surprised, that's all. But - thanks."

Giles just shook his head. He looked so tired, Xander thought, that getting out of that chair might be a problem. He felt the same way, come to that. Sleep even seemed like a remote possibility now. Hopefully he would be too tired, too strung-out on exhaustion to dream. As it was, he was in danger of becoming one with the chair until morning, which would be hell on his back and neck and even worse for Giles's.

Xander sighed and pushed himself to his feet. "Come on, big guy, it's three-thirty. Time even for watchers to be in bed."

Giles shook himself. "Yes, I rather suspect you're right. Except - damn. Leslie," he explained, when Xander raised his eyebrows at him. "She didn't want to sleep in the room she and Janine shared so I told Willow to put her in mine. I think it's the sofa for me tonight."

"No way," Xander said, shaking his head. "I might've said yes to the watcher thing for real this time, but we still need our fearless leader, and the girls are gonna need you more than ever tomorrow. Come on, you'll bunk with me."

"Xander -"

"Don't 'Xander' me. Come on, up." He pulled at Giles until at last he stood, and then tugged him out of the study, down the darkened hall, and up the stairs to Xander's room. "Sorry about the mess," Xander said, flicking the light on. "I know I'm not supposed to leave the cross-bows laying around, but -"

"It's fine, thank you." Giles sat down on the edge of the bed in an exhausted slump and began pulling off his shoes.

Xander blinked at him, vaguely surprised by the lack of protest. Then he shrugged and toed his sneakers off, pulled his shirt over his head, and let his pants fall in a puddle over the shoes. He was too tired to bother with anything else, and so he and Giles were both in boxers and undershirts when they pulled back the covers and crawled into bed.

He'd forgotten how much warmer a bed was when there was another person in it, how much faster it heated up and how blankets were really a matter of negotiation. He'd forgotten what it was like to suddenly encounter another person's feet with your own at the foot of the bed. They were both wearing socks, so at least there weren't any cold feet issues. He hoped Giles didn't snore.

"All right?" Giles asked in the dark.

Xander sighed, reached out, and rested his hand on Giles's back, which rose and fell slowly beneath it. "You ever wonder what it is we're really doing?"

Giles gave a dry chuckle and rolled over to face him. Xander pulled his hand back to lay between them on the bed. "All my life." He covered Xander's hand with his own. "It's all right for tonight. Go to sleep."

Fin.