ENVY (a drabble)
By Steph - Sweill@aol.com
Disclaimer:  Yeah, I should be so lucky as to own any of the stuff belonging to
Joss, ME, et al.  Just borrowing.
Summary:  Giles thinks at the end of  "The Gift"
Spoilers:   Big time for "The Gift"
Archive: Again, I should be so lucky.
Dedication:  To Darth Spacey and Marie-Claude Danis.  Just because.
Feedback:  Oh PLEASE, even if its to say 'give up writing, maybe you should
just beta'.  So here goes.

*******************

Giles envied Spike.

Ordinarily, that thought alone could be taken as a sign of the Apocalypse.
That is, the apocalypse with the capital A, as opposed to the many 'small a'
apocalypses they had faced previously.  This time through, however, they had
lost Buffy.   That alone made this most recent unpleasantness a much more
likely candidate for true, capital A  Apocalypse  status.  They had won the
battle, won the war, but still they had lost.  And so Giles stood beside Buffy,
her body sprawled elegantly on a pile of construction debris, envying Spike.

The tall, blonde vampire had collapsed at the sight of Buffy's body, crumpling
into a heap of pale skin and black leather, his dirt and bloodstained face
contorted.  Disbelief quickly gave way to shock, then to this visibly
gut-wrenching grief.  It was at that moment, as Spike curled in on himself,
looking up to the tower from which Buffy had fallen, then down to his own
hands, roaring to the lightening sky, that Giles knew.  He knew without a doubt
that the Council of Watchers was wrong.  He could see it now; could recognize
what he had been taught to ignore, to disbelieve.  The truth was a bitter one;
for all that Spike was a vampire; a demon; an undead fiend, he was also capable
of deep, true feelings.  How could he have really believed otherwise? He
wondered.  From the murderous glee of his pre-chipped unlife, to this display
of naked anguish, Spike lived at a level of emotional intensity few could
match.  And now, Spike would rage and howl, weep and roar, grieve and mourn.
And he, Rupert Giles, could not.  The Council had seen to that.

Certainly, during his "Ripper" days, he could have given Spike an emotional run
for his money.  Arrogance, passion, darkness, drama; they had been part and
parcel of his rebellion against the life the Council had arranged for him.  He
had diverted from their tidy little itinerary with a vengeance, taking detours
into all the darkest magicks, but when the time had come, he had returned.
Bent to the yoke and become what they deemed a Watcher worthy of a Slayer
needed to be.  Schooled.  Skilled.  Stoic. "What you feel will not help your
Slayer.  Only what you know can protect her."  And he had bought it. The whole
bloody package.  His cost for wholesale purchase of the COW's bill of goods?  A
broken heart and dry eyes.

And so, as the survivors gathered around the fallen Slayer, Giles envied Spike.
 And, yes, it must certainly mean the Apocalypse. Yet,  he couldn't really
bring himself to care.   Because the world without Buffy- well, that was
hardly a world worth saving.

-end-