Title: Roots
Rating: T
Challenge: Home

A/N: Inspired by The Case of Death and Honey by Neil Gaimain.
Part of the Sanctuary universe (a prequel, of a sort, if you like), but can be read as a stand alone. All you need to know is that Giles has a magic garden left to him by his mother.


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If the months that followed her death had been strange, then the ones that followed her resurrection were more so. He didn’t stay in California. Couldn’t. Not after all had been said and done. It was all too surreal, watching the corpse that wasn’t walking, talking. Breathing. It was strange and wrong. After all, how could you grieve for the undead?

He couldn’t stay. So, he didn’t.

He simply made his excuses, as transparent as glass, and that was it; Giles returned to his shabby flat in Bath. To the post that had piled up in the box and the out of date milk in the fridge. To the answering machine filled with messages from his employer, his therapist, his aunts (none of which merited a reply).

And life went on. She lived, and so did he, in his own small, unassuming way. He made no new friends, nor reacquainted himself with any of his old ones. Instead, he sat in his arm chair and read until the sun dipped below the horizon, his escape from the realities of the day broken only by the occasional need for tea and to receive the greasy takeaways from the shop two streets over.

Christmas came and went, the new year beginning with more of a whisper than a bang. And in the spring, when the snowdrops were wilting and the daffodils just beginning to bloom, he let out his flat and left the city for good.

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