In Memoriam: Some Fic reposts for Anthony Head ~ #3; Fics for 2019 # 003 ~ Footprints

[kerk_hiraeth]

 

       This third, and final, posted In Memoriam Giles fic we go all the way back to mid-August of 2015 where I wrote a fic inspired by a prompt at the, then Lj giles_shorts . I think I intended to post it to the site, but never actually joined (just checked, and they have a presence here). 

   This is about where Giles went after the destruction of Sunnydale, and looks at the very unusual relationship between him and Olivia. 
   Had to edit some lines towards the end, but I think I'll do a proper re-edit and post it next February when halfamoon comes around again. 

    kerk hiraeth 
 

     

     ~ From the original lj post ~ I have just spent the most incredibly fascinating one hundred and fifty minutes creating a story; with one image I know coming from a half-remembered fic read a couple of years ago. Paring a story down from just short of six hundred words down to an upper limit of five hundred was one of the most therapeutic writing experiences I have ever had, whether it works for anyone else, or not.

    The title is an homage to one of my favourite sixties films, which starred Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger; wish they'd not made a sequel, as wonderful a character as Virgil Tibbs was.

    Anyway, here it is. Hopefully someone reading it at giles_shorts will be able to identify where my image of Giles and Olivia seeing each other post-apocalyptic-Sunnydale originated. I'd love to credit story and writer.

     Fics for 2015 # 031 ~ In the Still of the Night 

    TITLE: In the Still of the Night

    AUTHOR: kerk hiraeth

    FANDOM: BtVS (post-series);

    CHARACTERS/'SHIP: Giles/Olivia

    WORD COUNT: 500;

    SUMMARY: There's more than one of my buffyverses this could fit in; certainly not canon, as all of mine have Sunnydale; right next to the Pacific Ocean, filled with water and not a dry hole in the middle of the desert. 

     Lagavullin info here: https://www.islayinfo.com/do/distilleries-and-tours/islay-distilleries/lagavulin-distillery

       Olivia couldn't actually recall hearing about Sunnydale, though she wished she knew where she'd been when he... it had happened.

    She'd been in the air; asleep, when news had reached her inbox.

    The sinkhole was already being called Lake Sunnydale though, by report, it was still filling up and experts could not be sure that it would not rejoin the Pacific at some future time.

    Somehow, though she'd worked long and hard at getting Rupert Giles out of her mind, he'd stayed exactly where he'd been for more than twenty years; nearly twenty five now.

    She was forty-five in the morning; statistically halfway through her life if the female side of the family tree was any measure.

    She'd planned to spend it walking... hills; somewhere, not to be anywhere, just to be still.

    Her brain had failed to message her that she'd want to be with him.

    And now, of course, just as he always was at times like these; he was nowhere to be found.

    No trace of the existence of Rupert Giles anywhere.

    Nothing. 


    He'd be... 


    She put down her whisky tumbler; turned down the Muddy Waters on the turntable, and went to the window to see if she really had heard a knock at the door, and who bloody knocked these days; she had a buzzer with an inter...

    She was remarkably calm as she walked down the short stairwell; managed not to adjust her appearance as if she was a schoolgirl either, before she opened the door. 


    “Rupert. “

    Somehow she'd managed not to make it into a question.

    Dropping his small carryall onto the floor, he removed his glasses and simply stepped over her threshold.

 

    “I need to get some new boots. “

    Still had that infuriating schoolboy smile on his face, and no bloody explanation of where he'd been; why nobody could find him.

    Just that smile, and an open invitation back into her life.

 

    Which she never seemed to revoke.

 

    “Any room at the Inn? “

    He cleaned his glasses, and put them back on; almost shrugged with his expression.

 

    And this re-incarnation of Peter Pan was back in her soul; Pink Floyd and heart stealing fairytale demons notwithstanding,

    Right where, apparently, he had always been, and never left.

 

    “Fancy a walk? “

 

    “Whisky? “

 

    She smiled; turned her back to him and walked back up the stairwell. She heard him close the door, and the familiar sound of his footsteps following her.

    One of them would be gone again in a few days; neither knowing when they'd see the other again.

    They were like moths.

 

    Ever since that party at Oxford; she the newbie, and he nearly done.

    They'd spent less than a year together since; yet hardly seemed to have been apart.

 

    MAD.

 

    Smirking at how little any of that mattered now that they were here, in a tiny cottage on a Yorkshire moor; she poured them both some Lagavullin,and turned to place into the hand she knew would be waiting.

    She ignored the bandage and gestured at the sofa.

 

    As Muddy Waters started up again, they drank; leaning against each other.

 

    Still still.

     Goddess watch over you, 


                 The dream of my life

           Is to lie down by a slow river

       And stare at the light in the trees –

      To learn something by being nothing

                       A little while... 


        ~ Mary Oliver, from Entering the Kingdom 


     kerk hiraeth