Finding Strength

Please see disclaimers in Chapter 1

Chapter 6

Dawn pulled the lone letter out of the mailbox with shaking fingers. Finally, it had come. She sat under the big tree and carefully opened the enve and and pulled out the yellow pieces of notepaper. Her sister’s scrawling handwriting was familiar. Tears fell slowly down her face as she read the letter.

Then she rthe the letter again, and again. Anger began to build inside her. She replaced the pages back into the envelope and stalked off to the Magic Box.

Anya looked up as the bell jangled over the front door, but her greeting came to a screeching halt before it could pass her lips. Dawn had burst through and into the back training room without one glance.

“Nice to see you to.” Anya muttered and returned to her invoicing.

When Dawn burst through the door, she found Giles sitting on the couch. He had a book in his lap, and a cup of tea at his elbow, but was ignoring both. His unfocused gaze found Dawn’s fiery expression. Giles sat up in concern, alert at once. “What’s wrong? What..what’s happened?” he stammered.

Dawn held the letter in her hands, hidden from Giles behind her back as she confronted him. “This was all your fault Giles!”

He was confused, at first. But she could only have been discussing Buffy, and he didn’t feel like arguing with her. He was only surprised it took this long for her to vent all her frustrations at him. He did deserve it after all, he thought.

Dawn had expected him to answer, but he didn’t say anything. He just sat there with bowed head, his eyes closed.

“You were going to England,” she accused him. His head snapped up, and only then did he see the yellow papers in her hands.

A letter! Finally, a letter from Buffy.

“Answer me, Giles!”

“I’m sorry…was there a question?”

Dawn looked back at him coldly.

“Buffy left because you were going to England.”

Giles stood, anxious to learn of Buffy’s whereabouts. “Is she okay? Where is she?” The concern on his face was evident, and Dawn wavered in her anger a bit. Then she thought again of her sister’s words. Dawn now bowed her head, and swallowed. She could be an adult here, and handle this as Buffy would want her too, or she could yell like the kid that she had been, and that was now struggling to get out. She looked up again and saw the grief and yearning in Giles’ face.

Giles shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t wring them out in front of the girl. “Dawn. I…yes..I…ah bugger.” He sat down heavily onto the couch. “Yes, I was going to return to England. I thought it best. Buffy wasn’t herself, and I didn’t know how else to help her. It was wrong. I know that now. You have no idea how sorry I am.” He looked at her, and his face was so sad. Dawn took a step towards him.

“I know Giles. I know you are sorry. I don’t know why you thought you had to go. I’m not sure of anything, or everything, or whatever. I mean, something is going on between you and Buffy, and it’s not been of the good.” She handed him the letter. “Read this. And then fix it.”

Dawn started to walk out, and then turned back to him, meeting his gaze. “She thinks you are in England. She told me not to come, and to not let the others come. But she never told me to stop you. Fix it, Giles.”

She left Giles to read the letter.

He sat there for a moment just looking at the folded papers in his hands. He was scared. Now that the moment had come, he was scared. What if she hated him? Would she ever forgive him? Slowly he unfolded the letter, and read her words.

* * *

Days had passed, and Buffy had still not been able to get Mike completely off her back. Now everyone had heard of her boyfriend, Ripper, back home in California. The girls swooned as she described him. “Why are you here, girl, and not back there with him?”

“Yea, someone else might snatch him up after he smells you when you get back.” They all laughed and giggled at that, oblivious to Buffy’s inner pain. Buffy never discussed her past with anyone, and she never revealed why she had left Sunnydale. They didn’t even know she was from Sunnydale. But she did talk about Ripper when pushed.

B had had built Ripper up in all their minds. It was her escape, in a way. If she could at least pretend that Giles was there in Sunnydale, waiting for her return with open arms, well, it made things easier. And she was trying to use the scenario to keep Mike off her back.

No one liked Mike. He was like Buffy, a “floater,” not a “regular”. He was seasonal help for Bill, and if he wasn’t so short handed at the moment, Bill probably would have laid Mike off awhile ago. But Bill could hardly fill all the orders he had now, and with the annual Ocean Festival coming up, he couldn’t afford to let Mike go. Bill had noticed Mike’s unhealthy affections for Buffy, and had warned him to stay away from the girl.

The clock finally struck five, and Buffy’s shift had ended. She said goodbye to the other girls still on shift, and went back into the locker room to change into less stinky clothes. No one noticed Mike slip in behind her, nor could they hear the commotion that ensued. It was hard to hear anything over the loud music blasting through the cannery speakers. Bill didn’t mind the music, and if it made his employees happy, and made them work faster and produce more, he was all for the “noise.” The music was only confined to the cannery, and Bill was usually out and about any way, and Annie wouldn’t be bothered by it in the gift shop, and neither would the customers.

Annie looked up from behind the counter as the bell above the gift shop’s door jingled. She smiled politely at the man. “Hello.” The tall man politely smiled back as he approached her. “You definitely aren’t a local, and you don’t look like a tourist.” She still smiled kindly at the man, wondering what he wanted.

“Hullo. Yes, I’m looking for an employee of yours. Buffy Summers?” Giles hoped she was using her real name. The cannery was easy enough to find, but that didn’t mean Buffy would be.

“English are you?” Annie questioned the man, and recalled the stories she had heard the other girls gossiping about. Ripper, her English boyfriend? This mild mannered stodgy man couldn’t possibly be him. She giggled, and politely excused herself. “I’m sorry. It’s just that, you must be the Englishmen that Buffy speaks so kindly of.”

Giles heart almost stopped in his chest. “Pardon? I mean, yes, I’m Rupert. Rupert Giles. She’s mentioned me?”

Annie’s face changed. Her amused expression turned to a blank. “You aren’t Ripper?”

Giles face turned white, and he started to cough. Annie grabbed a glass of water from behind the counter and handed it to him. He nodded gratefully and sipped the water. When he was more composed, he smiled at the lady. “Thank you. Yes, I am Ripper. That’s ah, an old school nickname of mine.”

Annie wasn’t so sure of the man. “You don’t sound much like him.”

“What do you mean? I mean, what has Buffy told you?”

Just then realization dawned in Annie’s face, and she chuckled again. “Your Buffy is a smart girl, Mister. See, we have an employee, a real pill. Lecherous if you ask me, but Bill won’t terminate him just yet. Anyway, he has a thing for Buffy. I believe Buffy is using this Ripper persona to try and get him off her back. He’s a real tough guy , and violent, this Ripper of hers. Obviously it’s a story she’s concocted to keep Mike at arm’s length.”

Giles frowned. If this guy put one finger on his Buffy, they’d all see Ripper. “Is Buffy here? I know she’s working, but..” Annie interrupted him with a wave of her hand. “She just got off shift, but she hasn’t left yet. She’s probably in the locker room. I’m sure she’d be glad to see you. Go just through those red doors. You’ll find her back there.”

He nodded in thanks and made his way through the back of the gift shop and into the cannery. Music, or what Buffy might call music, assaulted his ears. He winced. “Great, just what I need,” he thought. “More of my brains dribbled out my ears.”

Several of the employees looked up from their work as he approached. Crab shells were scattered on the work counter, and the fish smells assaulted his nostrils. He cringed, and brought a hand up to his mouth, but the odor permeated the very air. One of the girls at the counter giggled. “You get used to it,” she smiled at him. He smiled back and approached the counter. “I’m looking for Buffy?” The girl held up a heavily gloved hand and pointed towards a black swinging door in the back. He again nodded in thanks and opened the door to the employee locker room.

A big, swarthy looking man had Buffy pinned on the floor, a filet knife at her throat. Neither heard Giles enter, and both were shocked when Mike was grabbed viciously from behind and thrown across the room, crashing into the lockers.

Ripper was here.

TBC