BLUE SUN ROOM FAN FICTION - GENERAL

ZACHSMIND

Remnants - BC03
Monday, January 12, 2004

Travelling back in time for the Buffy Chapters, this portion of the tapestry tries to help explain how our Firefly crew is linked to the Scoobies.


CATEGORY: FICTION    TIMES READ: 2991    RATING: 10    SERIES: FIREFLY

Xander had always heard terrible things about the cold and damp weather of England, or the stiff and unflappable attitude of its inhabitants, or the tendency for facilities and luxuries of the country to be behind the rest of the civilized world by a generation. He found none of this to be true. Granted, Westbury England was a bit smaller of a town than Sunnydale, but it wasn't too far from London. In fact nothing seemed too far away from everything else in England. Well, except for the winding roads and the riding on the wrong side of the road and that perpetual fear in the more rural parts of the country, of being stopped by a goat and sheep crossing in the middle of the afternoon, but that didn't happen too often.

And at pubs he'd often find himself to be the life of the party. An American with an eyepatch and an admittedly eccentric disposition, although mature for his young age and a seemingly instinctive ability to hold his own in any argument or scrap, and he'd actually shared in a couple few of those in his recent time across the pond. He'd never started one of course, but he did finish a few, often with a firm but measured hand and a few choice words to both parties. Xander Harris had actually made a bit of a reputation for himself in Westbury among the commoners, and he was only partly aware of the full scope of that reputation.

The ladies? Oh, the ladies of Westbury England were smitten by the lad. Again, this was mostly something oblivious to Xander, who had turned his blind eye towards entertaining such notions. He was polite and never rude, although occasionally crude, and cryptic. He tried to keep the ladies at arm's length, which only made a handful of the local available Westbury girls want him all the more. His aloofness was not intended as honey, but it attracted more than it repelled. So on more than one occasion he'd found himself the life of a night's carousing, learning the local songs and both aged and modern parlance.

How Giles envied him. Or was it admiration? Scorn? A combination of emotions like a bubbling cauldron. Giles opted to just smile at his neighbors when they'd go on happily about what Xander had done the night before. As soon as possible, Giles would actively change the subject or excuse himself, and make a mental note to have a talk with Xander about it. Still, to be honest, Harris was no longer a student, and Giles couldn't find an opportunity to pose as his elder any longer. So Giles kept mute about it, but it was a concern.

It became a concern to Xander as well when he woke up the first morning with a real eye where there hadn't been one in about a year.

Giles had been sitting with Xander for several minutes. He had ordered tea and it had come in the manner to which he'd grown accustomed. Xander was on his first bitters of the afternoon. A bit early for alcohol thought Giles. However, he had learned from Xander that it was served him with compliments from a lady across the room. She had smiled and winked at Xander. Xander had lifted the glass and and blinked back with his good eye. The lady across the room giggled among the others she was with and that was that. Xander was trying to pretend to be enjoying himself but Giles could tell he was brimming with pessimism, as was Xander's fashion, so Giles had observed over the years.

"So it's a bar."

"No. 'tis not a bar."

"So this place is a pub, then," chided Xander to Giles, in a continuation of an ongoing argument the Scoobies had had with Giles since they first set foot in Westbury some months ago.

"No. 'tis not."

"Well it's not a grill even though they got a grill," noted Xander to this ongoing puzzler.

"We don't call them grills--"

"Yeah yeah the royal we again, Giles I keep warnin' ya about that. So it's not a grill though there is one, and it's not a bar or a pub though they serve alkeehawl.." the last word accented purposefully because Xander knew how much Giles disliked it, "and it's not a restaurant or a cafe or a hangout or a joint."

"No."

"So? What is this place which has come to be where we Scoobies gather two or three times a week despite the fact our lives seem even more apart than ever?"

"It is Flaherty's. Nothing more. Nothing less." Truthfully, one could use any of the terms Xander suggested and more to describe one of Giles' favorite places on Earth, but he enjoyed the ongoing repartee as much as his friends, so he stayed true to his side of the argument, and fancied himself that he was perpetually winning said argument. "One says Flaherty's and everyone in most of England, certainly everyone in Westbury, knows precisely what you mean."

"So it's the U.K.'s equivalent of The Bronze."

Giles gave Xander a cold hardened steel look, which Giles was meaning amusedly but Xander took as Giles intended him to take it; meaning as if Xander had just insulted Giles' very bloodline.

"Hardly," Giles said cooly. Xander could hear his heartbeat in his inner ear. Changing the subject, Giles decided to state the obvious, "so. You're not wearing your eyepatch."

"Nope."

"Don't you think this might bring about suspicion? We're not any more able to let the world in on the truth about our little ragtag family than we were back in California."

"That's what the bandage is for."

"Ah.. Wear that in public for a few days and then tell everyone you just got an eye transplant or something."

"Surgery. Yeah. Corrective surgery and I'm right as rain as they say."

"And the fact that one has to be on a list to get such an eye transplant, a list that's documented with all the hospitals in Great Britain, a waiting list of six months to a year, a list that you were never on, this doesn't deter you from your present course of action, eh?" Giles sipped his tea.

Xander looked dumbly at Giles, then down at his beer which wasn't gonna drink itself, and then back up to Giles. He forced a whisper, "well what do you expect me to do, Giles? I gotta good eye now I'm not supposed to be able to use it?"

"Of course you can use it. When no one is looking."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"It's a magic eye, Xander. There are some people in these parts who would take none too kindly to discovering that the American visitor with the eye patch suddenly is found to have what they would refer to as an evil eye--"

"But it's not!"

"They wouldn't know that. Rural and even some suburban places here in England do tend to be a bit superstitious about such things. Some of them even still believe in werewolves," Giles stirred his tea with an air of disdain as he noticed a stranger walk within earshot, "goodness knows why.."

Taking Giles' nonverbal cue of eye contact, Xander did not immediately respond. Instead both looked at one another and then sidewise at the unintentional interloper until he stepped away.

"Still it's not evil. And it's not even magic far as they're concerned."

"Hi guys!" Willow stepped up to the booth, scaring both gentleman pale.

Xander gasped, "Willow, how did you sneak up on us like that?"

"From around the corner. You know anybody can hear you over there..." she chided.

"Not funny," Giles said.

"Oh relax. There's nobody over there, but you two should be more careful." Pleased with herself, she slid into the booth on Xander's side. Xander moved his beer over to make way for Willow's coffee.

"Starting a bit early today, eh?" Willow appeared to be in good spirits.

"I didn't buy it. I uhm-"

"One of your many admirers I assume." Willow nodded to herself, "Kennedy calls it Jersey Syndrome."

"Jersey--?"

"A friend she knew back when she lived with her folks. Couldn't get more than maybe one or two romantic interests at a time, but then she'd vacation in New Jersey and come back with stories about how she'd have dozens after her. Of course there was no one to support her claims.."

"Well this is nothing like that then. I got the beer in front of me to prove it."

"So Willow how's Oxford?"

"Excellent, Giles! Gets better every day, and thanks again for your help there."

"You got in there on your own merits, I just pointed you in the right direction is all."

They shared a knowing smile.

"So what's this about your not using my eye?"

"YOUR eye?"

Giles took his glasses off his head and began cleaning them.

Willow elbowed him, "I told you, any time you don't want the eye you just think it and it'll go away."

Xander scoffed, "But I want to keep it!"

Giles added, "But Xander you can't keep it in public. There'll be times you have to keep up appearances. In a small way it's like the burden Buffy had.. has. Although admittedly many more know about the slayer lineage now because of what we did at Sunnydale, but comparatively--"

Willow's cellphone went off. It was a plaintive melody that she adored but the men found reprehensible. She answered it, "Yeah? ..Dawnie now calm down.. Alright. Just.. okay we'll be right there."

"Problem?" Giles was already up on his feet, and Xander was politely shoving Willow out of the booth.

"Dawnie said Buffy's hurt and she's in trouble. She wouldn't go into details. We gotta get to their flat."

"Let's go!"

TO BE CONTINUED

COMMENTS

Monday, January 12, 2004 7:21 AM

ASTRIANA


Ahhh, you're killing me! Hurry!



~A~


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