Robson: Move Mountains

[doyle]

Title: Move Mountains
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Buffy
Characters: Robson (the Watcher from Sleeper), OMC, OFC
Rating: G
Notes: for the picfor1000 challenge – my pic accidentally got deleted, but it was two men and a woman in an airport lounge. After Chosen.

Twenty years later, Robson could still remember The Talk with perfect clarity. It was part and parcel of Upper Sixth at the Academy, like the duck race or the senior boys putting the younger ones into dresses for the end of term show; the week after their final exams the sixth-formers were called in groups to Mr. Barker’s office, and they were told about the world they were going out into.

Robson, like most of the other boys, had been legging it over the back gates and sloping off to the nearest pub since he was fifteen, and had lost his virginity in a drunken cloakroom fumble with a fifth-form girl at the next year’s Christmas party, so he paid no attention to the stern warnings about the twin demons of alcohol and sex. What grabbed his attention, then and for years afterward, was how the headmaster suddenly leaned forward, thick fingers pressed together and voice dropping to a rumble like a roll of thunder, as he reminded them of their great responsibility.

Most of them would never be Watchers to active Slayers, he’d said. Some would never even have a Potential in their charge. But every one of them – Robson had surreptitiously looked around, at Whitlow’s bored stare, at Thompson’s rapt attention, at Fitzroy and McKenna, fidgeting at the back – every single one would serve the Council in some way. This was their life. This was their destiny.

He had believed in the Watchers, really believed, and he’d passed a sliver of that fervour to Robson. He’d always known he’d never be called to watch an active Slayer – he’d been solidly average at the Academy, scraped a Desmond at university – but he’d worked his way up. Did his time in the archives, apprenticed with a few of the training groups, ended up training a few of the Potentials. He’d never wanted to be at the top of the tree. The view from his branch was quite nice.

And then everything had gone to hell.

Mr. Barker wouldn’t have survived this, Robson thought. Even if the First hadn’t killed him, the change would have. And it would’ve been a lot more painful than just being gutted or blown to bits.

Hundreds of Slayers. Maybe thousands. And the only Watchers left were those who’d survived the cull, as he had, or those who had resigned or retired and had now been pressed back into service, or the half-trained kids barely out of school.

A prime example of this last was sprawled beside him, lying across the arrivals lounge sofa with his feet dangling off the end and his head bumping Robson’s knee.

“Why’s it have to be so early?” Craig complained.

From her seat opposite, Jennifer smiled her jungle-cat smile. “I’m sorry, are we keeping you from important waking-up-in-your-own-sick?”

“Hate airports,” he muttered.

According to Craig’s file, he had been expelled from the Academy when he was caught selling dope to the first-years. Jennifer had never attended. She’d been a secondary school teacher, until her father and both older brothers were killed by the First. He’d had to give them both speeches about destiny and responsibility and sacrifice, and Jennifer had fixed him with a hard, terrible look and said, “I’ll do it. For my family,” and Craig had lit up a joint and said, “yeah, sounds like a laugh.”

If he listened carefully, over the sounds of the tannoy and the planes he could hear Mr. Barker spinning all the way to Australia. It didn’t matter. They needed the people. They’d had no choice.

The board said the flight would be another hour. He left Craig to his hangover and went to buy himself some overpriced dishwater.

“I’m trying to think of people who would be better Watchers than Craig,” Jennifer said, joining him in the café. “I’m up to Gary Glitter and David… you all right?”

He winced again, clutching his knee. “Fine – be all right in a minute. It just gives out sometimes.” Memento from the Harbinger’s attack. Gammy knee, joints that made him feel ninety in bad weather. He tried not to mind. He’d been lucky, luckier than Lisa.

She’d been fourteen. Some days that was all he could think about, that she should have been fancying Gareth Gates and trying to talk her mum into getting her bellybutton pierced, not learning how to hold a stake on the off-chance that she’d be the next called. Not held down and sliced open so quickly that she never had a chance to scream.

“Penny for them,” Jennifer said.

“Just the usual.”

“Ah.”

He turned the plastic stirrer over in his fingers. “What do we say to them?” he said. “Giles wouldn’t need all three of us to pick them up unless we were each getting a Slayer from the new bunch, and these girls haven’t even been to the school yet and… what do we say?”

‘You tell me’ would have been fair. He’d been doing this far longer than she had. She’d never asked for it. But she nodded and said, “That they’re the future. And they’re all we’ve got. And that it cuts both ways. We tell them we’ll try to do the very best we can by them.”

She believed it, he realized. True conviction.

“Sneaking off without me?” Craig had taken off his sunglasses and, Robson was surprised to see, seemed to have made an effort to straighten up his hair and clothes. “Delay wasn’t as long as they thought. The plane’s coming in now.”

“Right.” He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair as Jennifer said, “Robson thinks we’re being assigned Slayers.”

“Hope mine’s fit,” Craig said, but he sounded a bit subdued. He caught Robson’s arm as they left the café, letting Jennifer stride ahead, and he said, “Look, do you really believe all that stuff?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.” Feeling better than he had since everything had fallen apart, Robson clapped him on the back and just smiled.