TITLE: The Fine Art of Blackmail
AUTHOR: JK Philips
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: After the events of The Family Business, Giles and Buffy have their daughter back and are running the Council, but will Wolfram and Hart use Giles’ past sins to destroy the life they’ve built?
SPOILERS: Everything up to “The Gift”
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.
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. Feedback always welcome.MY WEBSITE: www.jkphilips.com
--------------------------------------------------- This is the epilogue to a trilogy, set after the events in “Death Brings Clarity,” “The Ticking Clock,” and “The Family Business.” (Technically a fourth book, I suppose. But what would it be then? A quadogy?) If you haven't read the first three books, you might not be able to follow this one very well, as I've gotten pretty far AU at this point in time. You can find them all archived at any number of sites including mine. If you need a refresher as to the events of the previous books, here’s a brief synopsis. Last time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
After the spear through the side and the RV crash in “Spiral,” as Giles is dying on the table in the gas station, he has an epiphany and realizes he’s in love with Buffy. It’s too late for him as the events of the final episodes lead quickly to Buffy’s death. Buffy herself becomes a ghost, watching over Dawn and Giles as he assumes the role of her guardian. Buffy can’t help but fall in love with Giles as she watches him take care of her sister with such devotion. But, alas, also too late for Buffy who is, of course, dead. Then there is a spell (isn’t there always?) and Buffy comes back to life and back to Giles, and the two are now a couple. After a brief custody battle with her father, Buffy becomes Dawn’s legal guardian on the condition that Giles remain living in their house as a kind of co-guardian. Five months later, Buffy has an inexplicable and powerful urge to mate and hunt. Turns out slayers have a shorter biological clock to match their shorter lifespan, and her body is pushing her to have a baby. After her “heat” passes, she’ll never be able to have children again, so she convinces Giles to father a baby with her. They soon learn that her slayer gifts have even more surprises in store for her, shortening her pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks and giving them twins. Things go from bad to worse as Randall’s father (remember Randall and Eyghon from “The Dark Age?”) seeks vengeance for his son’s death at Giles’ hands. He steals their twins after birth and disappears. They get their son back, but not their daughter. They can’t find her, and the agency lost the paperwork on her adoption. They seek help from Angel, who takes them to meet the Host at his karaoke bar. Giles and Buffy sing, and the Host tells them they will get their daughter back as a little girl and not any sooner. She has two possible futures after coming home: they will either be able to keep her and raise her or else they will lose her again and she will be raised into darkness. Three years later, their son Alex is having prophetic dreams of his missing sister, and Angel eventually finds her for them. Unfortunately, the Council also finds the girl, and Buffy and Giles learn their daughter Robin is a potential slayer. Blackmailed by Travers, Giles leaves her with her adoptive parents rather than condemn her to the Council’s proscribed slayer training. But then an ex-lawyer, now turned vampire, from Wolfram and Hart launches an attack to eliminate all the potential slayers everywhere. Only Alex’s vision of her danger allows Giles to save Robin in time. She is left as the only remaining potential slayer. The vampire lawyer steps up his campaign and destroys the Watcher’s Council, leaving only Giles and Travers, who is later killed as well. Giles attempts a spell to find the perpetrators, but ends up on the wrong side of Willow’s wrath. After Tara’s death, Willow has fallen in with the wrong group of friends, a coven of witches who have slowly turned her against her former friends. While Giles is trapped by Willow’s spell, the twins are kidnapped, and the rest of the Scoobies plan a desperate rescue. Spike finds the key to free Giles, and a final oceanside showdown reveals to Giles the true nature of watchers and slayers as he becomes his slayer’s armor, protecting her from the coven with magic, his shield to her sword. Victorious, the scoobies tie up loose ends: Giles locks away Willow’s magic until she can prove herself trustworthy again, Buffy helps Giles cope with the lingering trauma of Willow's spell, and both parents attempt to build a relationship with their newly returned daughter. As the last watcher, Giles inherits the task of rebuilding the Council, knowing with a sad certainty that his daughter will be the next slayer. Little do any of them know that they have piqued Wolfram and Hart’s interest, and Lilah Morgan has found in the Council rubble the tapes Travers had planned to blackmail Giles with: Lilah knows that Giles murdered Ben and ordered Longsworth and Sulla killed. More than that, she has the proof. Now moving on...
(Aren’t you impressed that I summarized more than 600 pages in less than a page? It’s harder than you might think.)
--------------------------------------------------- Six months later… Part 1: The Deal He Can’t Refuse Giles stopped and did a doubletake as he passed the dining room table. Buffy was sorting through an entire shoe box worth of brochures. One of them had caught his eye: a colorful snapshot of a full retinue of circus performers: trapeze, clowns, contortionists, sword-swallowers, and a woman in little more than a sequined bathing suit, sitting astride an elephant. Buffy was holding the brochure in her hands, studying it thoughtfully. “Dear Lord, Buffy!” he exclaimed. “You’re not hiring on an entire circus.” She didn’t even glance at him. “Why not?” “Well, for one thing, they’re not likely to fit in our backyard. For another…” He leaned over her shoulder, one hand resting on the back of her chair, the other pointing at the sword-swallower in the picture. “Don’t you think we’d be taking Alex to the ER the very next day, after he tries to stick a steak knife down his throat?” “Okay, ixnay on the sword-swallower. No fire-eaters, either. But the rest would be fun.” Giles sighed and pulled up a chair beside her. He removed his glasses and spoke very softly, so any eavesdropping children wouldn’t hear him. “This isn’t the last birthday you’ll spend with them, Buffy.” “You don’t know that,” she replied, equally quiet. He didn’t have an answer for that, so he remained silent. Buffy’s twenty-fifth birthday would come shortly after the twins’ fourth. One more year, and she would be living on borrowed time, would be setting the new record for oldest slayer. The close calls seemed to be getting even closer lately, and Giles wondered if slayers lost their edge after a certain number of years, if their bodies were driven to die and Call the next, younger slayer. Buffy shook her head, clearing away her own morbid thoughts, probably similar in nature to his, except missing that magic number twenty-six. “Really, it’s not about that, Giles,” she assured him. “This will be Robin’s first birthday with us, and I want it to be special.” “She’ll be four. Give her some cake and a party hat, and she’ll be thrilled. Ten years from now, she won’t even remember her birthday.” Buffy paled several shades, her face draining of emotion and clouding over with the bleak, haunted expression she wore after each close call. Giles realized he had royally screwed up that pep talk, and it was too late to pull his foot out of his mouth. “I’m sorry. That’s… that’s not what I meant.” He tossed his glasses on the table and rubbed his hand over his face. “I only meant that she won’t remember this specific day, what we did, if there were clowns or magicians or what have you. She’ll remember the things that mattered: spending time with us and what we did together, not just on her birthday, but on all the other days too.” He met her eyes. He could see that she very much wanted to believe him. “Buffy, think back to when you were a little girl. What is your most vivid memory from when you were her age?” She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. The memory washed over her face in the next moment, filling it with a mixture of happiness and innocence and longing. “I remember Dad took me to work one day. He’d never done that before. I guess, looking back on it, it wasn’t a big deal; he probably just decided to go in on a Saturday and Mom couldn’t watch me or something. But I was so excited to go to work with Dad, and he let me sit in his big leather chair and spun me around in circles.” She smiled bashfully. “Stupid, huh?” “Not at all,” he answered very seriously. “That’s a lovely memory of your father.” “Okay, I get it. It’s the little things that matter.” She set the brochure aside. “No big top this year. But maybe pony rides?” she asked hopefully. Giles rolled his eyes, grabbed his glasses, and stood up. He started out of the dining room, slipping the frames back on as he went. “And maybe two parties?” she added brightly. He stopped and pivoted to face her. “Two parties?” “Well, Alex hasn’t been very happy about having to share his birthday with his sister, so I thought we should maybe give them separate birthday parties.” Giles shook his head in disbelief. “I leave it up to you. Whatever kind of party or parties you think they should have. Just… no live animals. And nothing that will require permission slips from the other parents.” “Darn. Guess parachuting’s out.” Giles balked, and she laughed. “Kidding, Giles. Jeeze, lighten up.” “You laugh,” he shook his finger at her as he continued out of the dining room and into the foyer, “but our son would do it.” He opened the front door, stepping out onto the porch to check for the mail, the direction he had been heading before Buffy’s birthday party plans had distracted him. The mailman must have been running late, and Giles had already checked the box three times in the last hour. He was expecting an important delivery. He wasn’t expecting the woman walking up their sidewalk. She was dressed in a tailored black pinstripe pantsuit and talking on a cell phone. She hung up as soon as she saw him and continued up the walk, boldly striding up the porch steps and stopping directly in front of him. A black limo was parked at the curb, waiting for her. “Mr. Giles,” she said warmly. “Just the person I came to see.” He frowned as he studied her. Her dark auburn hair fell straight and long, and she tossed it over one shoulder with a confident arrogance he was sure spelled trouble. “Do I know you?” She obviously seemed to know him. She offered out her hand. “Lilah Morgan.” He shook it hesitantly, still unsure what she wanted from him. Since becoming the head of the Watchers’ Council, it seemed every Sunnydale entrepreneur had some kind of profitable investment in mind for Giles’ newfound wealth. “Let me guess,” he grumbled. “You have a business proposition for me.” Lilah smiled approvingly. “Straight to the point. I like that.” He pulled out a business card from his front shirt pocket, with the practiced air of a man who did that quite often. “Feel free to give my secretary a call and arrange an appointment. But this is my home, and I’m not currently available to discuss business.” He turned his back on her, intending to go back inside without checking on the mail. He didn’t want to be harassed at home; he didn’t want Buffy to be harassed at work. If he gave this woman anymore of his time, then everyone would try surprising him when he stepped out to pick up the morning paper or went out for groceries. This woman didn’t give up easily. She continued, speaking quickly as he reached for the doorknob. “Maybe your wife has time to talk with me. I’m sure you’ve already told her how you put a hit out on Longsworth and Sulla.” Giles froze with his hand on the knob. His stomach plummeted into his toes. After the Council’s destruction, he had thought himself safe from their blackmail. The special operatives who had done the job were dead, and he had presumed the tapes were ruined, buried somewhere beneath the London rubble. He had never thought to hear those names again. He lowered his hand slowly and turned to face her once more. He remained composed, but he was fairly certain she could see that she had rattled him. He waited for her to make the first move. No point in giving anything away until he knew how much she knew. She offered out a business card of her own, her smile turning smug. “We have something you want; you have something we want.” He took a single glance at her card, slipping it in his pocket quickly, before the trembling cardstock could reveal his shaking hands. “Ah, the infamous Wolfram and Hart,” he commented. “Have you finally grown bored with harassing Angel Investigations?” “I assure you,” she replied, “Wolfram and Hart are the victims in this particular situation. Angel has stolen an object of great importance from my employer. Since you are technically Angel’s employer, I thought we could prevail upon you to recover our property.” “And if I do? What then?” She twisted sideways and opened the fashionable purse that bumped against her hip. From inside she pulled out an unlabeled audiotape and handed it to him. “Wolfram and Hart recently came into possession of some tapes that were recovered from the ruins of the C.O.W. headquarters in London. Of course, if you were to help us with this small Angel problem, we would be more than willing to take you on as a client.” Giles’ eyebrows rose. “Client?” “Normally, Wolfram and Hart would be legally, morally, and ethically obligated to report this evidence.” Her straight-face as she laid claim to having morals or ethics made him laugh. She seemed not to notice his amusement. “If you were our client, however, you would be protected by attorney/client privilege and only a subpoena could force us to turn over these tapes.” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “Although in that case, no one would be filing any subpoenas. You’re the only ones that have any idea what I did.” “You want to keep it that way? Five days, Mr. Giles. You have five days to recover the Ring of Gorlois from Angel Investigations.” Her eyes narrowed, becoming hard as glass. “Let me paint you a picture of your life if you choose to refuse our generous offer: you can expect one of Wolfram and Hart’s own lawyers to be heading up the prosecution. You will be convicted on three counts of murder: Longsworth, Sulla, and Ben. You will watch your children grow up, separated from them by a pane of glass. That is if their mother decides to forgive you, both for your crimes and the lies you must have told her to conceal them. Otherwise, she may never bring them in to see you. But I’m sure the satisfaction of knowing you didn’t cave in to a bunch of evil lawyers will be enough to keep you company through those long, lonely years.” He clenched his jaw and fisted his hands at his side. “Are you quite through?” “Five days, Mr. Giles. You have my number.” She turned away from him, starting back down the sidewalk towards her limo and calling out on her cell phone again before she’d even reached the curb. *** Buffy glanced up as the front door closed. Giles looked to be in a sour mood. “Mail still didn’t come, huh?” Her voice seemed to startle him out of a daze, and he glanced over at her with a puzzled frown. “Pardon?” “Mail? No show?” “Oh,” he answered, finally catching on. “Yes. I-I mean, no… Er, no , it hasn’t come yet.” He had something in his right hand, something he was absently rubbing at with his thumb. She pointed at it and asked, “So, what’s that then?” “Hmm?” He looked down to where she was pointing and seemed to notice the object in his hands for the first time. “Nothing,” he insisted almost too forcefully, as he shoved what appeared to be a music tape or something into his pants pocket. “Are you okay?” He nodded and gave her a wan smile. He tossed his head in the direction of the backyard. “I’ll just go… go check on the twins.” He was gone before she’d had a chance to answer. “Okay, Giles,” she murmured softly as she looked at the brochure in her hands, “Just let me know if you have any objections to hiring actors dressed as children’s characters for an afternoon of nursery rhymes.” She paused. Silence. “No? Okay. Barney and Sesame Street it is. And I don’t want to hear any complaints.” She set the brochure on top of the stack with finality. Another one caught her eye, and she picked it up. “Or… or maybe a magician. That’s a classic.” She groaned and threw her head back. “I’ll never decide.” *** After the children were in bed, and he and Buffy had returned from patrol, he left his slayer to chat with their on-call babysitter, Marianne. (With Dawn off in college, backup babysitting was a must for possible slaying emergencies. They had purchased the house next door and paid their babysitter a handsome salary in addition to providing the roof over her head. A swell deal, since Giles preferred that either he or Buffy care for the children whenever possible, and so she was only called on when absolutely necessary, or when they patrolled together in the evenings.) Marianne and Buffy sometimes liked to stay up late together after patrol, talking about things that would usually make them both giggle a lot. Sometimes, on nights where he just wanted to sleep or to get some serious research done, it irritated him slightly. Other nights, when Buffy returned from patrol feeling as though death was only one lucky vamp away, Giles thanked God that Marianne was waiting at home to lighten his slayer’s mood. Tonight he was especially thankful for her presence. He left the two of them talking on the couch, discussing some movie that was supposed to be released soon, to which Buffy would no doubt drag him. He took the cordless phone to a private corner of the house and dialed Angel Investigations. Wesley answered. The other watcher was just the person Giles had been hoping to reach. “Wesley?” “Giles!” he answered warmly. “Those new heat sensors you sent work marvelously. Fred tinkered with some of the code, and we can accurately identify more than 62 different kinds of demon by the variation in their body temperatures, down to less than a two percent temperature difference between species. Of course, for demons that are too close to the range of human body temperature, we daren’t risk it, but-” “Very good,” Giles interrupted. “But I called about something specific.” “A case?” “Not exactly.” “Another potential slayer? I know you’d hoped one would be born within the first year.” “No, no, Robin’s still the only one, to the best of my knowledge.” “What is it?” Giles took a deep breath. “An object stolen from Wolfram and Hart. The Ring of Gorlois.” A long pause answered him, and Giles wondered briefly if Lilah Morgan had drawn the wrong conclusions. Perhaps Angel Investigations didn’t have her ring. “Yes, Angel acquired it off a lawyer he accosted in a parking lot.” So much for that hope. “Accosted? Are you telling me Angel mugged this lawyer?” Wesley laughed nervously. “No, of course not. Wolfram and Hart have been on us with an Equal Opportunity suit ever since we refused to hire the spy they sent in to apply as our new file clerk. Angel thought he could try a little intimidation on the man heading the case.” “So he pilfered the man’s pockets?” “He was going for the man’s cell phone. Angel ditched him in the middle of nowhere and wanted to insure he had a long walk back to the home office. The ring just happened to be a lucky break. Angel didn’t know what he’d found until he’d shown it to me.” “What can you tell me about it?” “The Ring of Gorlois?” Wesley seemed to consider it. “Legend has it that it’s the very ring Merlin enchanted to gain Uther entrance into Cornwall and into Igraine’s bed. Supposedly, it gave him the appearance of Gorlois and fooled the guards into letting him pass.” “Nonsense.” “Be that as it may…” Wesley seemed to agree with Giles’ dismissal of the ring’s fanciful origins. “The ring does possess the power to give its wearer the complete illusion of another person.” “Shapeshifting?” “Not exactly. Shapeshifting takes a great deal of power and skill to do, especially anything so difficult as the nuances of specific human faces and voices. And should the spellcaster need rest or the spell be disturbed, the illusion would be broken. No, with this ring, all that is required is for the person to wear it, and the illusion would hold for as long as the ring remains on their finger.” Giles pondered that. “What were Wolfram and Hart planning to do with this artifact?” “I shudder to think.” And there was the answer to the question that had been simmering in the back of his mind. Would this one little trade be such a high price to pay? Yes. With this ring, Wolfram and Hart could impersonate whoever they liked. Frame innocent people. Gain access to places and information they shouldn’t. Giles wondered if the Ring of Gorlois would get them past retinal scans and fingerprinting. Perhaps the illusion would be strong enough to fool even magical detection. “You have the ring somewhere safe, I assume.” “Of course,” Wesley answered. “Wolfram and Hart would need supernatural assistance to find it.” Giles nodded to himself, although the other watcher, of course, couldn’t see it. It was settled. He couldn’t give Lilah what she wanted, not even in exchange for his own freedom. “Good. Keep it safe. I’ll check in with you later.” Giles hung up the phone and stared at the receiver for a long while. Five days. He had five days to get his affairs in order. ***
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