locker_monster | Buffy fic: One Hour (5/8) (Reply)

Title: One Hour (5/8)
Rating: G
Characters: Vi, Giles, and some Andrew
Timeline: Two years after Chosen but no spoilers for season eight
Summary: You can learn a lot about someone in one hour.
Disclaimer: Joss' characters, not mine.
A/N: The plot thickens. Or so I hope.

Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.

6:37 pm

Vi heard a rattle as she picked up the last box. Glancing over her shoulder, she made sure that Giles wasn’t watching before shaking the box near her ear. The rattling sounded again, sounding very much like broken glass. She quickly sought out the name written on the outside of the box and found the name “Jane” scrawled across the side.

“I didn’t realize all this stuff was up here.” Carefully, Vi placed the box on top of the stack of boxes she had reassembled.

“I forget myself sometimes.”

The faraway tone to Giles’s voice made Vi glance over her shoulder once more. Giles had also finished re-stacking the boxes she had knocked over upon her entrance into the Council’s building attic, but now he was just standing there, staring at them.

Wiping the dust off her hands, Vi slowly approached him. “How come…” She paused when Giles lifted his gaze from the boxes. “How come you didn’t send these belongings back along with the, uh, body?”

“They’re unsubstantial things. Work-out clothes, notebooks from classes, a used toothbrush left behind.”

Vi looked out over the group of boxes stacked to one side of the attic. There were probably more than two dozen boxes, all the total accumulation of a Slayer’s life at the Council. Everything a Slayer had left behind after her death, gathering dust.

Vi couldn’t recognize some of the names.

“Is this going to happen for everyone?”

Giles slipped off his glasses and pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket. He cleaned the lens as he talked. “Well, I’m fairly certain most of you will reach the age where you can move on from slaying and start families of your own, but yes. If a Slayer dies suddenly, her things will be boxed.”

“Why?” The question fell from Vi’s lips.

Giles continued to clean his glasses, though Vi was very sure that they were clean by now. After a moment, he finally said, “The family gets to remember their daughter. We get to remember the Slayer.” Giles slipped his glasses back on.

“I don’t know why I thought Andrew would be up here,” said Vi.

“I did think it odd,” replied Giles. “He’s never up here. Though it would be a suitable hiding place if he were avoiding me.”

“I’m sure Andrew’s around this place somewhere.” The words came out more abruptly than Vi expected. She had wanted to sound reassuring, but to her own ears it had sounded more panicked.

“And to think I scoffed at Willow’s idea to purchase tracking devices,” muttered Giles as he led the way out of the attic.