Helping Hands|| Giles and Xander
The Slayer Headquarters had taken quite the beating.
Of everything, Giles figured it'd taken the most damage. Though the people themselves were damaged, at least they weren't crumbling at the walls. They didn't have scuff marks and blood stained on their floors, or burns from explosives on their walls. It was just a building, but it looked so sad and worn now. At least, the lower levels did. The basement, the first floor, the lobby. Most of it was roped off with caution tape and construction signs, the parts that were the worst, at least. But some of it was left to be fixed up later, once pieces of brick weren't falling down across the hall, and lights weren't flickering and sparking above their heads. Giles was in one of the parts that didn't have cautionary tape, and he was looking around, assessing the damage.
The Council was trying to raise money to repair the poor building, and Giles had come over to do some basic assessments, bring back approximated numbers from the local workers and his own judgement. The thing was, he had no idea about any of it. He wasn't a construction man, not at all. Scratching his head, he stepped over a pile of rubble and looked back down the hallway, towards where one of the shrapnel bombs had gone off. Pieces of metal had wedged themselves into the walls and floor, and Giles wondered if they'd be better left there, embedded into the cement just as much as the night was now embedded in all their minds. He ran his hand over one, feeling the hard edge of it against the flat of his palm. Pulling his hand away, he pressed his palm to his mouth, tasting the newly drawn blood, a tiny trickle on his skin.
He was getting nothing done real fast. No point in staying, then, he figured. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head and began to make his way out when he heard a familiar voice down the hallway. Xander. Oh, right! Xander was a construction worker! He'd almost forgotten, having spent so much time away from, well, everyone. Giles had talked to Xander a bit, even seen him a few times, but since coming back, the two had never really talked. Then again, he couldn't really a remember a time where the two of them had just talked. Not back in Sunnydale, not after, and certainly not anytime recently.
Giles had seen Xander grow up until the bright young man he was today. He knew that, often times, Xander thought himself useless-- to him, to them, to the group, and to the fight for the greater good. But it wasn't true. Sure, he was a normal guy, a normal human, but no. He was more than that. Just as Giles was, Xander was more than just a normal person helping out superheroes. He was a seer. Not a psychic, but as opposed to a doer. He saw and he passed on this information-- it was why Caleb had gone after him. Giles understood that, maybe more than the poor boy himself. Admittedly, he'd never felt a very strong connection between himself and Xander, and maybe it was the strikingly different personalities, or maybe it was that Giles had always been too focused on Buffy and Willow that he hadn't noticed him; but there was always time to remedy that.
He cut around the corner and followed the voice out into the lobby, stopping in the doorway. Xander was talking to some other workers, telling them what to do and where to start. He really had grown up. Giles could remember the scraggly kid he'd first met, chasing after girls like there was no other thing important in the world. He couldn't blame him, though. Giles had been relatively the same way at his age, but with a bit more rebel and magic in him. Putting on his best attempt at a friendly smile, Giles made his way over. "Afternoon, Xander," he said, approaching the young man as the other worker headed off in the other direction. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" he said nonchalantly, hands in pockets.
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