Giles is a Guide, but after that disaster with Ethan decades ago, he'd never intended to take another Sentinel. He'd helped Buffy in a temporary, emergency fashion in his role as her Watcher-- the Slayer was always a Sentinel and Watchers were correspondingly always Guides, but his role was to teach her and her chosen Guide how to function with each other, since Slayers operated somewhat differently than normal Sentinels. He was a guide in the traditional sense, as Watchers were meant to be. They watched, they didn't participate.
Not that Giles had ever followed that rule all that strictly after his abandonment of the Council, but in this one case, he had. He'd seen the wisdom in it. A man in his fifties had no business being permanently tied to a young woman, and sure enough, Buffy had found Willow very quickly. They'd fumbled at times, sometimes to the point of outright disaster, but they were stable now and barely ever needed his advice. His status as Guide rarely comes up anymore; there aren't enough Sentinels left in the world for him to go running across them all that often in the first place.
And good thing Willow had finally sorted herself out, seeing as the world had gone to shit.
Of everyone, Giles and the rest of Buffy's friends were best-prepared to deal with it, but that was a relative term. It hit them as hard as anyone else, they were just better organized, knew what they were dealing with right away, and had a huge cache of bladed weapons stored up. Over time they had come to their current set up: a large, converted government building with a long red banner tied to one side of the roof, flapping in the wind. It was unmarked but not overly tattered, its out-of-place existence sign enough to any survivors that cared to try their luck with them. The area around the base was assiduously patrolled -- not only by Buffy, though she was patrol leader -- and kept clear of walkers, and any assorted other demons that tried to take advantage of the situation, though that was rare these days. With so many fewer humans, there was less reason for them to come to this dimension. Less prey.
They're an appropriately paranoid lot and anyone approaching encounters posted guards in short order, and a lot of suspicion. Passing through and joining up are two entirely different propositions. Giles has made sure they're remote enough that there wasn't a large enough local population to sustain a consequently large zombie population, which also means they don't often get people trying to join them. It brings their informal members up to about two dozen, and no more, more like an extended family compound than a town or a militia. Part of what keeps their numbers small is that Giles insists on screening everyone himself, puts them on a probationary period, and has no hesitation in kicking people out.
After the first couple times it'd gone sour, no one contests his judgement anymore. He dourly wonders how he ended up head of this little cadre, seeing as he'd never meant to be, but fact of the matter is that Buffy won't trust anyone else to handle administrative matters and as the Slayer and primary defense-- what's kept them all alive this long-- no one argues with her. With Dawn dead, she's become a different, harder person.
Giles himself is mostly just tired. At least there's enough daily tasks to keep him occupied: he interviews everyone who stops through, just to take information. Visitors are led to his de facto office, filled with mismatched bookshelves and his most precious possession, a hot water heater. He nurses a mug of tea very slowly these days, since sometimes they run out and he can't be sure when they'll recover more.
He's a tall, worn-looking but composed figure, in an old leather jacket, sweater and jeans, in practical dark colors, leaning over a huge area map spread across a dining table, corners weighted down with leather-bound books. "Come in," he says curtly, when there's a knock on his door.
a Guide walks into a zombie apocalypse...
Not that Giles had ever followed that rule all that strictly after his abandonment of the Council, but in this one case, he had. He'd seen the wisdom in it. A man in his fifties had no business being permanently tied to a young woman, and sure enough, Buffy had found Willow very quickly. They'd fumbled at times, sometimes to the point of outright disaster, but they were stable now and barely ever needed his advice. His status as Guide rarely comes up anymore; there aren't enough Sentinels left in the world for him to go running across them all that often in the first place.
And good thing Willow had finally sorted herself out, seeing as the world had gone to shit.
Of everyone, Giles and the rest of Buffy's friends were best-prepared to deal with it, but that was a relative term. It hit them as hard as anyone else, they were just better organized, knew what they were dealing with right away, and had a huge cache of bladed weapons stored up. Over time they had come to their current set up: a large, converted government building with a long red banner tied to one side of the roof, flapping in the wind. It was unmarked but not overly tattered, its out-of-place existence sign enough to any survivors that cared to try their luck with them. The area around the base was assiduously patrolled -- not only by Buffy, though she was patrol leader -- and kept clear of walkers, and any assorted other demons that tried to take advantage of the situation, though that was rare these days. With so many fewer humans, there was less reason for them to come to this dimension. Less prey.
They're an appropriately paranoid lot and anyone approaching encounters posted guards in short order, and a lot of suspicion. Passing through and joining up are two entirely different propositions. Giles has made sure they're remote enough that there wasn't a large enough local population to sustain a consequently large zombie population, which also means they don't often get people trying to join them. It brings their informal members up to about two dozen, and no more, more like an extended family compound than a town or a militia. Part of what keeps their numbers small is that Giles insists on screening everyone himself, puts them on a probationary period, and has no hesitation in kicking people out.
After the first couple times it'd gone sour, no one contests his judgement anymore. He dourly wonders how he ended up head of this little cadre, seeing as he'd never meant to be, but fact of the matter is that Buffy won't trust anyone else to handle administrative matters and as the Slayer and primary defense-- what's kept them all alive this long-- no one argues with her. With Dawn dead, she's become a different, harder person.
Giles himself is mostly just tired. At least there's enough daily tasks to keep him occupied: he interviews everyone who stops through, just to take information. Visitors are led to his de facto office, filled with mismatched bookshelves and his most precious possession, a hot water heater. He nurses a mug of tea very slowly these days, since sometimes they run out and he can't be sure when they'll recover more.
He's a tall, worn-looking but composed figure, in an old leather jacket, sweater and jeans, in practical dark colors, leaning over a huge area map spread across a dining table, corners weighted down with leather-bound books. "Come in," he says curtly, when there's a knock on his door.