Fic: Ms. Fix-It (Willow, G, Which Willow Ficathon)
Ms. Fix-it
by Barb C
Rating: G
Setting: Post-The Gift
Characters: Willow, Giles
Synopsis: If Willow doesn't take care of things, who will?
Author's notes: Written for the 2019 Which Willow Ficathon. This is a stand-alone, canon-compliant fic. (I.e. not part of the Barbverse.)
Buffy Summers had been dead for exactly one week, three days, eighteen hours, and forty-two minutes. Not that Willow was counting. She didn't have to; the slow and steady energy drain of the spell she was using to keep the body from decaying while they all decided what to do was counter enough. The click-click-click of her heels on the pavement followed her around the corner as she turned off Wilkins and onto Maple, heading for the Magic Box. The sun's last rays painted the western sky a brilliant orange behind the roofline of the storefronts. The strap of the satchel she carried dug into her shoulder, and she concentrated on the small discomfort, willing it to drown out the whirring of her thoughts.
Inside her head, Goody-Two-Shoes Rule-Following Willow kept pointing out that concealing Buffy's death was seriously dodgy, and could only cause more problems the longer they kept it up. Once the authorities did get involved, surely they wouldn't be happy if they found that Buffy Summers' friends had just... buried her in the back yard, well, in Miller's Woods, in a home-made coffin, without a permit or an autopsy or a death certificate, as if she were a pet goldfish or something. Buffy had died without a will, so would the house go to Dawn, or to Mr. Summers? Or to both? Would they have to go through probate? (What even was probate, anyway?) She was pretty sure that they couldn't afford a lawyer, if Mr. Summers wanted to fight for custody, and even if they could, what judge would let a minor stay with a couple of unrelated barely-out-of-minorhood themselves women instead of her own father? And could they pay the mortgage? Would the bank foreclose?
But Dawn didn't want to go live with her father, and no one could contact Hank Summers anyway. And there was also the hiding-the-Slayer's-demise-from-demonkind-because-the-replacement-Slayer-was-doing-ten-to-twentyness of the whole situation.
What Willow really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and cry. But if she did that, nothing would get done at all. Dawn was a mess, Xander was obsessing over the planning of the aforementioned back-yard funeral, Anya was great at pointing out problems but not nearly as forthcoming with solutions, Spike was an alcoholic puddle on the crypt floor. Tara could offer emotional support, but not much else. And Giles, the actual certified grownup, was wandering blankly through the motions of, well, just about everything.
So (argued Subversive Counterculture Hacker-cum-Superwitch Willow) obviously the only thing to do was fix up the Buffybot yet again, and pretend that Buffy Summers was alive and well. Not that that would really help much on the paying-the-mortgage front, unless they sent the Buffybot out to get a job, which at this point was looking like a better and better idea, but totally aside from all of that, the truth was, part of her simply wasn't able to bear the idea of sealing, stamping, or certifying that Buffy Summers was really most sincerely dead.
The sign on the Magic Box door said "OPEN," but only a single light shone in the back of the store, illuminating the rare books section. Willow cupped her hands against the glass and peered through the blinds. She could see a dark figure hunched at the reading table. Was Giles just... sitting there, in the dark? Biting her lip, she pulled the door open. The jangle of the bell was loud in the nearly-deserted street.
The hunched figure straightened. "Ah. Willow. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you." Giles stood, a slow, jerky unwinding, and came to meet her, a particularly musty volume tucked in the crook of one elbow. His deeply line face was unutterably weary. Not just tired, but lost. Not that Willow imagined she looked particularly chipper herself; it had been a rough couple of weeks. He crossed to the checkout counter, set the book down, and flicked on the switch for the front lights, flooding the store with brilliance. Well, relative brilliance. Willow caught a glimpse of The Rituals of Osiris on the cover, embossed in eye-twisting curlicues. Giles adjusted his glasses. "I beg your pardon. I was just doing some, er, inventorying. I've been composing my final report to the Council, and frankly, I needed a bit of a breather."
He trailed off, and Willow gulped. Final report? She wasn't oblivious; Giles had been chafing at the bit to go back to England for years. Or was it champing at the bit? Whatever, Giles had been doing it. But always before there'd been something - someone - to tie him to Sunnydale a little longer. "No, no, I was wondering if Anya was around? For financial-type questioning and answering. I can come back tomorrow if it's a bad time." Were there any good times? "You - you're not already finished with the report, are you? Are you sure you included all the relevant details? The monks, the Knights, the minions? Whatever was up with Ben? There was an awful lot going on."
Giles replaced his glasses. "It's quite comprehensive, I assure you." He busied himself behind the counter, doing something mysterious with receipts. "I'll submit it as soon as we determine how to best... handle the details of Buffy's passing. Once that's done, I'd expect to hear back from Travers very shortly with my new assignment."
Apprehension blossomed into panic. Giles couldn't leave. Not now. Everything was changing, falling apart, and she couldn't move fast enough, hold on hard enough, to keep the shards together. I have to fix this, I have to fix this, I have to fix this. "You can't leave," Willow blurted. "I mean, no matter what we do, the Hellmouth is still going to be here, being all hellish and mouthy, and if we're trying to convince the demony types that Buffy's still around - " she unslung her satchel and plunked it down on the counter top, rubbing her aching shoulder. "Shouldn't her Watcher be around too? For verisimilitude?"
Giles straightened, sighed, ran a hand over his face. "Willow... we've had this conversation before."
"No. No, no, we haven't." She waved her hands in agitation. "Not this one. We had a similar-yet-different, almost but not quite totally unrelated conversation! Last time you wanted to leave because you thought Buffy didn't need you around, and now - "
"Buffy is no longer around to need me," Giles finished.
"But that's exactly why you have to stay!" Willow pulled a sheaf of printouts from the satchel and fanned them out across the counter - schematics, wiring diagrams, reams of C++. "Buffy's gone. I've got to the get the Bot repaired if we're going to have a hope in heck of fooling Social Services, but that's a walk of the cake variety compared to getting it to fight demons on the regular, and it's - "
His expression wasn't softening. Giles had serious leaving-on-a-jet-plane face. Think, think, think - what had snapped him out of it the last time he'd wanted to leave? Buffy, of course. Buffy telling him that she still needed him. But Buffy was gone. (Did it make it better or worse, saying 'gone' instead of 'dead?') Buffy couldn't need him anymore. Except, except... inspiration struck. "Giles, it's not going well. The demon-fighting of the Bot, I mean. I was hoping you could help."
"Er." Giles regarded the stack of printouts with an expression of faint alarm. "I'm afraid that my expertise doesn't extend to chipsets. And what do you mean, it's not going well? The robot was quite successful against Glory."
"Not that kind of help. And that's because we were basically just using her as a distraction." She leaned across the counter, voice dropping to a confidential whisper, as if the Buffybot were listening in and might get its feelings hurt. "The problem is, the Bot's strong, but she's not very tough. She's actually pretty fragile - all those delicate gears and servos and circuits. She wasn't engineered for heavy-duty demon fighting. She's got all this fighty-kicky programming based on Buffy's combat style, but when she's actually fighting a demon, if it gets its hands... claws... appendages on her, a lot of the time it can just rip her apart. That's fine if we just bring her out once a year to fight some major baddie, but if she's going to be patrolling every night? She can't heal by herself, and we have limited supplies for repairs, and..." she threw up her hands.
The glasses were getting a thorough polishing again. "That's unfortunate, but I'm not seeing how I can be of assistance. I'm neither an engineer nor a programmer, Willow."
You're not getting away that easily, mister. "You don't have to be! What she needs is a teacher. That's the beauty of it. She's got learning routines. I don't want to think about whatever it was Spike wanted her to learn, but she can incorporate new options into her decision trees. Someone needs to show her a different kind of fighting style, one that minimizes her chances of getting grappled. And there's nobody who can do that better than you can."
Giles was wavering, she could see it. Maybe Fake Buffy was better than no Buffy. She stared up at him, beseeching, willing him to say Yes, yes, Willow, I'll stay, I'll help you. Finally, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Very well. I'll make the attempt, at any rate. But as soon as the robot is capable of protecting herself adequately, I really must - "
"Oh, Giles, thank you!" Willow flung herself across the counter to give him an impulsive hug, scattering the printouts and knocking the book to the floor. She let him go with a squeak of alarm and dove after them. Giles knelt to help her pick the papers up, and she stuffed everything back into the satchel willy-nilly. "This will work, I'm sure of it! She's almost ready for a trial run - I'll call you as soon as she's ready! Oh! And I'll come back tomorrow morning to talk to Anya."
She couldn't exactly say her heart was lighter as she left the store, but at least one piece of her shattered world was glued back into place, however temporarily. Surely Giles would realize after awhile, that staying was the right thing. Willow hurried along the darkening streets towards Buffy's house, where Dawn and Tara would be waiting. Tomorrow... well, maybe tomorrow Anya would have some ideas for what to do about the money, and the legal questions, and... Willow groaned. There was so much still to do, so many things she had to make right - because who else would do it? It was all too much. Even with the Bot... everything would be so much easier if only...
If only Buffy wasn't...
She shivered, though the late spring evening wasn't cold, not at all. Buffy was gone. Buffy was dead. And there was nothing she could do to make that right.
Her eyes stung. She wiped them defiantly, then ran a thumb under the satchel strap. Her heart might be ligher(ish), but the satchel definitely seemed to be heavier. She opened the flap, peered inside. What on earth...oh. Drat. She'd stuffed Giles' spellbook in there by accident. She should return it. But she was almost back to Revello Drive, and she was going back to the Magic Box tomorrow to see Anya anyway... she'd keep it just for tonight. Maybe read a few chapters. She'd been wanting to brush up on her Egyptian rituals anyway. Maybe it would distract her from her problems, if only for a little while.
What could it hurt?
End
Rants Talk to me
by Barb C
Rating: G
Setting: Post-The Gift
Characters: Willow, Giles
Synopsis: If Willow doesn't take care of things, who will?
Author's notes: Written for the 2019 Which Willow Ficathon. This is a stand-alone, canon-compliant fic. (I.e. not part of the Barbverse.)
Buffy Summers had been dead for exactly one week, three days, eighteen hours, and forty-two minutes. Not that Willow was counting. She didn't have to; the slow and steady energy drain of the spell she was using to keep the body from decaying while they all decided what to do was counter enough. The click-click-click of her heels on the pavement followed her around the corner as she turned off Wilkins and onto Maple, heading for the Magic Box. The sun's last rays painted the western sky a brilliant orange behind the roofline of the storefronts. The strap of the satchel she carried dug into her shoulder, and she concentrated on the small discomfort, willing it to drown out the whirring of her thoughts.
Inside her head, Goody-Two-Shoes Rule-Following Willow kept pointing out that concealing Buffy's death was seriously dodgy, and could only cause more problems the longer they kept it up. Once the authorities did get involved, surely they wouldn't be happy if they found that Buffy Summers' friends had just... buried her in the back yard, well, in Miller's Woods, in a home-made coffin, without a permit or an autopsy or a death certificate, as if she were a pet goldfish or something. Buffy had died without a will, so would the house go to Dawn, or to Mr. Summers? Or to both? Would they have to go through probate? (What even was probate, anyway?) She was pretty sure that they couldn't afford a lawyer, if Mr. Summers wanted to fight for custody, and even if they could, what judge would let a minor stay with a couple of unrelated barely-out-of-minorhood themselves women instead of her own father? And could they pay the mortgage? Would the bank foreclose?
But Dawn didn't want to go live with her father, and no one could contact Hank Summers anyway. And there was also the hiding-the-Slayer's-demise-from-demonkind-because-the-replacement-Slayer-was-doing-ten-to-twentyness of the whole situation.
What Willow really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and cry. But if she did that, nothing would get done at all. Dawn was a mess, Xander was obsessing over the planning of the aforementioned back-yard funeral, Anya was great at pointing out problems but not nearly as forthcoming with solutions, Spike was an alcoholic puddle on the crypt floor. Tara could offer emotional support, but not much else. And Giles, the actual certified grownup, was wandering blankly through the motions of, well, just about everything.
So (argued Subversive Counterculture Hacker-cum-Superwitch Willow) obviously the only thing to do was fix up the Buffybot yet again, and pretend that Buffy Summers was alive and well. Not that that would really help much on the paying-the-mortgage front, unless they sent the Buffybot out to get a job, which at this point was looking like a better and better idea, but totally aside from all of that, the truth was, part of her simply wasn't able to bear the idea of sealing, stamping, or certifying that Buffy Summers was really most sincerely dead.
The sign on the Magic Box door said "OPEN," but only a single light shone in the back of the store, illuminating the rare books section. Willow cupped her hands against the glass and peered through the blinds. She could see a dark figure hunched at the reading table. Was Giles just... sitting there, in the dark? Biting her lip, she pulled the door open. The jangle of the bell was loud in the nearly-deserted street.
The hunched figure straightened. "Ah. Willow. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you." Giles stood, a slow, jerky unwinding, and came to meet her, a particularly musty volume tucked in the crook of one elbow. His deeply line face was unutterably weary. Not just tired, but lost. Not that Willow imagined she looked particularly chipper herself; it had been a rough couple of weeks. He crossed to the checkout counter, set the book down, and flicked on the switch for the front lights, flooding the store with brilliance. Well, relative brilliance. Willow caught a glimpse of The Rituals of Osiris on the cover, embossed in eye-twisting curlicues. Giles adjusted his glasses. "I beg your pardon. I was just doing some, er, inventorying. I've been composing my final report to the Council, and frankly, I needed a bit of a breather."
He trailed off, and Willow gulped. Final report? She wasn't oblivious; Giles had been chafing at the bit to go back to England for years. Or was it champing at the bit? Whatever, Giles had been doing it. But always before there'd been something - someone - to tie him to Sunnydale a little longer. "No, no, I was wondering if Anya was around? For financial-type questioning and answering. I can come back tomorrow if it's a bad time." Were there any good times? "You - you're not already finished with the report, are you? Are you sure you included all the relevant details? The monks, the Knights, the minions? Whatever was up with Ben? There was an awful lot going on."
Giles replaced his glasses. "It's quite comprehensive, I assure you." He busied himself behind the counter, doing something mysterious with receipts. "I'll submit it as soon as we determine how to best... handle the details of Buffy's passing. Once that's done, I'd expect to hear back from Travers very shortly with my new assignment."
Apprehension blossomed into panic. Giles couldn't leave. Not now. Everything was changing, falling apart, and she couldn't move fast enough, hold on hard enough, to keep the shards together. I have to fix this, I have to fix this, I have to fix this. "You can't leave," Willow blurted. "I mean, no matter what we do, the Hellmouth is still going to be here, being all hellish and mouthy, and if we're trying to convince the demony types that Buffy's still around - " she unslung her satchel and plunked it down on the counter top, rubbing her aching shoulder. "Shouldn't her Watcher be around too? For verisimilitude?"
Giles straightened, sighed, ran a hand over his face. "Willow... we've had this conversation before."
"No. No, no, we haven't." She waved her hands in agitation. "Not this one. We had a similar-yet-different, almost but not quite totally unrelated conversation! Last time you wanted to leave because you thought Buffy didn't need you around, and now - "
"Buffy is no longer around to need me," Giles finished.
"But that's exactly why you have to stay!" Willow pulled a sheaf of printouts from the satchel and fanned them out across the counter - schematics, wiring diagrams, reams of C++. "Buffy's gone. I've got to the get the Bot repaired if we're going to have a hope in heck of fooling Social Services, but that's a walk of the cake variety compared to getting it to fight demons on the regular, and it's - "
His expression wasn't softening. Giles had serious leaving-on-a-jet-plane face. Think, think, think - what had snapped him out of it the last time he'd wanted to leave? Buffy, of course. Buffy telling him that she still needed him. But Buffy was gone. (Did it make it better or worse, saying 'gone' instead of 'dead?') Buffy couldn't need him anymore. Except, except... inspiration struck. "Giles, it's not going well. The demon-fighting of the Bot, I mean. I was hoping you could help."
"Er." Giles regarded the stack of printouts with an expression of faint alarm. "I'm afraid that my expertise doesn't extend to chipsets. And what do you mean, it's not going well? The robot was quite successful against Glory."
"Not that kind of help. And that's because we were basically just using her as a distraction." She leaned across the counter, voice dropping to a confidential whisper, as if the Buffybot were listening in and might get its feelings hurt. "The problem is, the Bot's strong, but she's not very tough. She's actually pretty fragile - all those delicate gears and servos and circuits. She wasn't engineered for heavy-duty demon fighting. She's got all this fighty-kicky programming based on Buffy's combat style, but when she's actually fighting a demon, if it gets its hands... claws... appendages on her, a lot of the time it can just rip her apart. That's fine if we just bring her out once a year to fight some major baddie, but if she's going to be patrolling every night? She can't heal by herself, and we have limited supplies for repairs, and..." she threw up her hands.
The glasses were getting a thorough polishing again. "That's unfortunate, but I'm not seeing how I can be of assistance. I'm neither an engineer nor a programmer, Willow."
You're not getting away that easily, mister. "You don't have to be! What she needs is a teacher. That's the beauty of it. She's got learning routines. I don't want to think about whatever it was Spike wanted her to learn, but she can incorporate new options into her decision trees. Someone needs to show her a different kind of fighting style, one that minimizes her chances of getting grappled. And there's nobody who can do that better than you can."
Giles was wavering, she could see it. Maybe Fake Buffy was better than no Buffy. She stared up at him, beseeching, willing him to say Yes, yes, Willow, I'll stay, I'll help you. Finally, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Very well. I'll make the attempt, at any rate. But as soon as the robot is capable of protecting herself adequately, I really must - "
"Oh, Giles, thank you!" Willow flung herself across the counter to give him an impulsive hug, scattering the printouts and knocking the book to the floor. She let him go with a squeak of alarm and dove after them. Giles knelt to help her pick the papers up, and she stuffed everything back into the satchel willy-nilly. "This will work, I'm sure of it! She's almost ready for a trial run - I'll call you as soon as she's ready! Oh! And I'll come back tomorrow morning to talk to Anya."
She couldn't exactly say her heart was lighter as she left the store, but at least one piece of her shattered world was glued back into place, however temporarily. Surely Giles would realize after awhile, that staying was the right thing. Willow hurried along the darkening streets towards Buffy's house, where Dawn and Tara would be waiting. Tomorrow... well, maybe tomorrow Anya would have some ideas for what to do about the money, and the legal questions, and... Willow groaned. There was so much still to do, so many things she had to make right - because who else would do it? It was all too much. Even with the Bot... everything would be so much easier if only...
If only Buffy wasn't...
She shivered, though the late spring evening wasn't cold, not at all. Buffy was gone. Buffy was dead. And there was nothing she could do to make that right.
Her eyes stung. She wiped them defiantly, then ran a thumb under the satchel strap. Her heart might be ligher(ish), but the satchel definitely seemed to be heavier. She opened the flap, peered inside. What on earth...oh. Drat. She'd stuffed Giles' spellbook in there by accident. She should return it. But she was almost back to Revello Drive, and she was going back to the Magic Box tomorrow to see Anya anyway... she'd keep it just for tonight. Maybe read a few chapters. She'd been wanting to brush up on her Egyptian rituals anyway. Maybe it would distract her from her problems, if only for a little while.
What could it hurt?
End
Rants Talk to me