TITLE: The Luxury of Choice(part 6 of Promises and Lies)

AUTHOR: Oni

EMAIL: WasabiOni@netscape.net

DISTRIBUTION: List Archives, JOYFFA, and my site at 
www.angelfire.com/id2/WasabiOni. Anyone else please ask.

FEEDBACK: Want it. Need it. Got to have it. The more detailed the better. 

DISCLAIMER: Same old story: they're not mine, I'm not getting paid. Suing me
will gain you no points with your infernal master.

SPOILERS: Vague, through the end of season 4 Buffy and season 1 Angel, but
nothing major.

SUMMARY: Giles finds out about Joyce and Angel.

RATING: NC-17 for language, sex, blood.

--------------------------------------------------------

The Luxury of Choice

by Oni


i.

Long afternoon shadows were stretching across the quiet lawns by the time
Giles got to the house.  At first, he was pleased to see her car parked in the
driveway, but then he noticed that the mailbox was tightly packed with at
least a week's worth of junk mail.  He rang the doorbell three times; no one
answered.  Finally he used his old key to let himself in.  

He wondered, as he stepped inside, if she remembered that he still had a key. 
Probably better not to examine too closely the reasons why he still had it. 
Best to let useless regrets lie.

"Hello?" he said, and heard his voice disappear into the empty house.  Inside
it was slightly warm, dust motes sifting through the afternoon sunbeams.
Everything was very neat, there was no sign of any violence but there was a
thin layer of dust on the furniture, on every flat surface.

On his way over he'd driven past Joyce’s gallery.  It was closed, permanently.
 He stared in confusion at the For Lease signs posted in the whitewashed
windows.  When the hell had this happened?  He couldn’t remember the last time
he'd gone to one of the openings she faithfully sent him invitations to.  Most
disturbing was the fact that Buffy obviously didn’t know.

Buffy had called Giles at 8:30 a.m. that morning, catching him in the midst of
running late for his 10:00 tutorial.  She was worried.  She'd been trying
unsuccessfully to reach her mother for four days.  She kept getting the
machine at home and the gallery phone had been disconnected.  PacBell was,
surprise, surprise, no help at all.  

Falling back into old habits he'd reassured her that it was probably nothing,
just some stupid mix-up.  He promised to go over and check things out.  And
truthfully, he hadn't really been concerned.  Sunnydale no longer had a
Hellmouth, and Julie Ng the new slayer, was doing an excellent job of dealing
with those demons who hadn't got the word. Her Watcher, Mr. Coulis, had told
him that she complained constantly about being bored; she wanted to go to
Santa Barbara, or LA where there was a little more demonic action.  Not a
problem he’d ever faced as Buffy’s Watcher, but he tried to be sympathetic.

In the kitchen the red eye of the answering machine blinked furiously.  He
pressed the replay button and listened to Buffy's voice, her tone growing
progressively more concerned as the days passed and her mother didn't call
back.  

He opened the refrigerator to find it empty except for a few condiments and a
bottle of water.  Which was, he told himself, somewhat comforting, as it was
hard to imagine kidnappers cleaning out the refrigerator and taking out the
garbage on their way out.  It strongly suggested that Joyce had left under her
own power, and meant to be gone for awhile.

Which begged the question, namely, where was she?  And why hadn't she told
anyone that she was going?  It wasn't like Joyce, not at all.

For the sake of being thorough he checked upstairs.  He merely glanced into
Buffy's former bedroom, long since converted to auxiliary storage for the
gallery.  He couldn't tell if there were more boxes stacked there than the
last time he'd seen it.  

As he opened the door to Joyce's room, he suddenly wondered how many years it
had been since he'd been there.  It looked familiar, and utterly normal.  Bed
made neatly, clothes put away.  Everything seemed to be in place.  Not that he
would know.  Pictures of Buffy, of Joyce's parents, of Hank and a ten-year old
Buffy sat slightly blurred by dust on the dresser top.  There was nothing
useful here, he thought, and went back downstairs.  

Anywhere else he might consider notifying the authorities, but here in
Sunnydale, that would be, at best, a quixotic gesture.  The Sunnydale Police
Department had years of practice at ignoring mysterious disappearances.  The
mayor's death and the closing of the Hellmouth hadn't really changed anything
in that regard.

He needed help, and he could think of only one person in Sunnydale to ask for
it.  He couldn't ask for help from Coulis or the Slayer without some evidence
of supernatural involvement.  Except for Xander the surviving Scoobies had all
moved away from town, and Xander had made it very clear that he had had more
than enough of playing lethal games in the dark.  These days he sold cars at
his uncle's DaeWoo dealership, and stayed as far away from Giles as possible. 
It was funny, he thought as he shut the door behind him and walked back to his
car, absolutely *hilarious* that Angel was the one who he had to go to for
help.  That in a way they had become… not friends, but at least trusted
allies.

Giles took out his cell and dialed Angel's number.  He could hear the phone
ringing, but there was no answer.  Giles hung up and thought.  It was still a
good hour before sunset, quite possibly Angel was still asleep.  Giles decided
to go over to the mansion, and see if he was there.

The mansion looked the same as always, Art-Deco gothic set well back from the
street and its neighbors.  It had been built in the 1920's by a fan of
Alistair Crowley.  That particular would-be practitioner of the Dark Arts
hadn't lasted long on the Hellmouth.  As he walked across the courtyard to the
front door Giles wondered, not for the first time, just how the place had come
into Angel's possession.  He noticed that although the sycamore in the
courtyard was turning colors, shedding its leaves for winter, there were only
a few dead leaves scattered across the paving.  The image of Angel pushing a
broom at midnight wandered inanely through his head as he rang the bell,
listened to it echo inside.  

No answer.  The thought occurred that Angel might be out of town, that he
might not even still live here.  They hadn’t really kept in touch.  But as he
stood there listening to the silence, he felt an odd certainty that, unlike
the Summers house, this one was occupied.  He rang the bell again, knocked. 
No answer.  Damn.
 
He should simply go away and come back after dark.  But he knew that if he
spoke to Buffy again with nothing more to tell her than he had now, there
would be nothing he or any power on earth could do to keep her from rushing
across the continent and tearing Sunnydale apart looking for her mother.  

Old skills and bad habits die hard.  Giles was almost disappointed at how easy
it was to pick the lock.  He tucked his tools back into his wallet and pushed
the door open. His second B & E of the day, which was a record, even for
Ripper back in the bad old days.

"Hello?" he called into the cool darkness.  If Angel was home, sleeping away
from the light, the last thing he wanted to do was startle him.  Silence.  He
took a deep breath and stepped inside.

It was obvious that someone was in residence.  The patterned floor had been
vacuumed, and the painfully modern furnishings were free of dust.  A neat pile
of mail sat on the table next to the door.  He resisted the urge to pry and
moved into the house.

"Hello?" a little louder this time.  He moved toward the fireplace, and looked
in surprise at the finely carved African sculpture of a stalking lion keeping
guard over the fireplace tools.  He recognized it, it, or an identical piece
used to sit in front of Joyce's fireplace.  He wondered when Joyce had given
it to Angel.  A Christmas present?  It would be like her, though he hadn't
thought she'd kept in contact with Buffy's ex.  They’d never seemed to have
much to say to each other.  Standing there he could smell woodsmoke: someone
had had a fire in the fireplace quite recently. 

Joyce came back to herself with a start.  She was in bed, nestled in the
rumpled sheets that smelled reassuringly like Angel.  The angle of the shaft
of sunlight that she’d been staring into, enraptured, had changed.  Damn, what
time was it?  She sat up to look at the bedside clock.  4:10 p.m.  Oh hell,
more than an hour gone.  

She wanted Angel to come home.  She hated being alone; with only herself here
it was difficult to stay focused.  Angel told her not to worry about it, that
it was, funny word, *normal*, for a fledgling vampire to get lost that way. 
Easy for him to say, a couple of centuries distant from his own rebirth.  She
hated it, the ease with which she could be caught up and rolled over by
ephemera: the whisper of wind moving around and through the house, the
individual notes of a cricket's song, dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. 

It was all too much for her to cope with on her own.  She'd died, and been
reborn: some changes were to be expected.  But she'd never expected the whole
world to be transformed.  Everything was in sharp focus, every sound and scent
overwhelming.  Sometimes she was afraid of cutting herself on the razor edges
of this new world.  

Her own body had become alien to her.  She felt like the pilot of those giant
Japanese robots; she controlled it, but there was no feeling of connection. 
It was silent, strong, tireless, and utterly unnatural.  There were no odd
pains, no fatigue, no back aches, no odd twinges.  No heartbeat, no breath. 
She could be hurt, but never scarred.

Vampires could be videotaped, so she knew that she still looked like herself,
only better.  She hadn’t grown younger, or suddenly sprouted double-D's but
all the transitory imperfections, the bad hair days, the bags under her eyes
after a bad night…were gone.  She was the ideal Joyce Summers.  Preserved.

There were other good things.  She liked being strong, almost as strong as
Angel.  So long as she was in control, she enjoyed her new senses.  Her eyes
could penetrate any darkness.  She could hear a whisper from the other side of
a stone wall.  

And, oh yes, the sex.  The sex was very good.  Her whole body burned
gloriously at Angel's touch and now she could meet him as an equal, match him,
body to body.  No need for him to hold back for fear of her mortal fragility.

And right now, she was hungry.  A word that definitely didn't carry the
meaning that it used to.  It wasn't the vague anxiousness it had meant once
upon a time, but a consuming ache that could only be satisfied by one thing. 
Her mind focused on the plump bags waiting for her in the refrigerator and she
was down the hallway, at the head of the stairs…  And stopped dead.

"Angel?"

Someone was inside the house.  Looking for Angel.  She moved from the landing,
and hid in the shadows.  She listened until she was certain there was only one
man.  He was making no effort to conceal his presence, so probably not a
would-be vampire killer.  Alone, so likewise probably not from the Council:
they always traveled in packs.  She dropped to her knees and eased herself
forward so that she could see through the railing.  

She froze in shock when she saw who it was.  Rupert.  Oh hell.  If not the
last, definitely the next to last person she wanted to see right now.  The
demon mewled its desire to get closer, to *touch* as faint traces of his scent
rose to meet her: the leather of his shoes, the wool of his coat, and the
blood, his blood…

He was poking around in the fireplace.  He was thinner, grayer, than she
remembered him.  She hoped he was eating right, and not drinking again. 
Looking down at him she had a good view of his bald spot.  She used to tease
him about it, back when it was only a slight clearing; remembered the way it
felt under her hand, the vulnerability of the bare skin, the baby-soft hair… 

She hadn't touched a single living being since her death.  Not so much as a
cat.  Angel took her out at least once a week, on training jaunts to the
bookstore, museum, and even the movies once.  She spoke to people, walked
among them, passed for human.  But he always made very sure that she was well
fed before she went out.  It had been, it still was a shock to find herself
thinking of people as food, to have to struggle to resist the enticement of
blood whispering to her, just under the skin.  It never got easy, Angel
promised her, but it would get better. 

Now was probably not a good time to test her control.  She eased herself
backwards, carefully.  Got to her feet…and a board creaked under her foot.

A sound.  Giles's head went up, his eyes iron hard behind his glasses as he
searched the concealing shadows for the source of the sound, and saw a flash
of white, a face, gone before it fully registered.  "Who's there?" he called. 
He barely hesitated before going up the stairs, taking the poker with him.

Joyce hurried down the hallway.  Sunlight rimmed every window she passed -- no
escape there.  She needed to hide until he went away, but where?  Inside, the
demon was awake, and afraid, it recognized Rupert Giles as the Watcher, a
sorcerer, a demon-killer in his own right.  Its fear began to infect her, even
as she tried to think.  

He'd never been upstairs before, never had the need; it felt a little like a
violation, being in Angel's private quarters.  It was as neat up here as down.
 Expensively, if spartanly furnished.  Landscapes and still lives on the
walls, no portraits, no abstracts.  No mirrors.

The first two rooms he checked were empty, afternoon sunlight making the drawn
blinds glow a deep yellow.  He was slightly surprised to see a computer center
set up in one.  He opened the third door and stepped into what was obviously
the master bedroom.  Heavy dark drapes hiding the windows.  Unmirrored bureau.
 He glanced at the enormous and unmade bed with the black satin sheets,
definitely Angel.  

Except for the woman's nightgown, peeking out from underneath a pillow.

There were two doors on either side of the bed.  Poker at the ready, Giles
opened the one on the right: a bathroom, with the one window carefully blacked
out, marble floor, mosaic tile walls, enormous sunken tub, big enough for
Angel to stretch out in.  There were two sets of towels, he noticed, and a
scent of something distinctly not-Angel in the air.  A hairbrush and comb and
hairspray on the shelf above the sink.  Deodorant.  

Confirming his suspicions that Angel had a lover, a mortal lover.  Bugger.  He
shuddered at the thought.  On the other hand, was it really any of his
business?  Perhaps he ought to just leave.  He left the bathroom, and
hesitated, looking at the other door.  Not hard to imagine a woman being
seduced by Angel, but would he have informed her of all the consequences?  As
a Watcher, even a former Watcher, could he just walk away without being sure? 
He stepped forwards and yanked it open, and stared in shock at the woman
trying to hide herself in the clothes at the back of the closet.

	"Joyce?"  he said tentatively but as she moved forward into the light, he
realized that he was wrong.  This wasn't Joyce, for all it had her body, her
eyes, her voice.  But he knew better.  This wasn't Joyce, this pale and
perfect simulacrum, not her, never again.  

Joyce flinched inside when she saw that expression of disgust and horror on
the face she'd kissed, watched relaxed in sleep, contorted with rage, sagging
with exhaustion. 
It hurt to smell the fear as he stepped back, his knuckles white, gripping the
poker.

"Oh, no.  God help us all," he said softly.

He sounded so desolate that she couldn't help moving towards him, to comfort
him.  He flinched, and brought up the poker.

	"Stay away," he warned.

"Rupert," she said, making herself stand very still.  

"Angel."  He said, the name a condemnation in his mouth.  "He did this."  She
felt fear as well as pain now.  She knew that look of iron determination, and
she suddenly realized that the demon was right: that her existence and Angel's
were in very real danger.  She knew him well enough not to underestimate him.

"Rupert," she said.  "It's me.  Joyce.  Really."  Giles shook his head in
quick denial.  Her mouth quirked, more grimace than smile.  "This is Angel
we're talking about Rupert.  I have my soul, he saw to it."  She stood very
still, giving him time to think about it.  To decide her fate.


Continued in part b