Transitions - Ch. 22

Buffy woke in the near-dark and for the longest time couldn't remember where she was. She seemed to do that a lot. For a while she wondered if she was even awake at all, because the dimly-seen room around her looked too perfect to be believed. Maybe she was really still asleep, and dreaming about being inside a picture in a magazine--or one of those houses on TV where the people have eight kids and a dog, and still have perfect furniture, museum-quality knick-knacks, and no stains on their carpets.

Then she noticed Giles watching her, his eyes heavy-lidded and more than usually green, so green the color still showed up in the dimness. Buffy knew he'd had another one of those memory-explosion things, which always seemed to throw him for a major loop. His skin had gotten really hot, the same way it had before, though this time no words followed. Then he'd fallen asleep, and he'd cooled of to his normal temperature, so she wasn't worried anymore. While she'd been waiting for him to wake up again, Buffy fell asleep too.

For a while she just lay still, looking into those intensely-green eyes, waiting for Giles to talk.

When he didn't, and waiting any longer would have made her uncomfortable, Buffy said, "Three years ago, I wouldn't have thought of this. I don't think I could have imagined it, even for the future."

Giles rolled over onto his back and slipped his good arm beneath her, pulling her close. He gave one of his soundless laughs--okay, that meant he was definitely all right; he wouldn't be laughing if he wasn't all right--which, from Buffy's position, with her cheek pressed to his bare shoulder, made the vibration go straight through her. "Nor I," he said.

"Do you really remember us?" she asked, running her fingers through the soft, crisp hair on his chest. "The stuff we went through, you and me?"

"I remember you," Giles answered quietly. "I remember watching you, and the emotions attached. I've told you this, my dearest. The actual events are perhaps not important."

Buffy looked up at him, seeing only the shadow of his face, his profile outlined in silvery light. She traced the shape of it with her fingertip, feeling Giles smile under her touch.

"That last bit I remembered..." His voice trailed off, and Buffy half-wondered if he'd actually dropped off into sleep again, but he said at last, "I remembered what happened after Randall died."

Buffy wasn't quite sure what to say to that--the same way she wasn't sure what she'd meant when she'd asked him if he loved Randall. Like a brother? Like a friend? She tried to imagine what if would feel like if she'd screwed up so bad that something took over Willow, and she had to kill her. Buffy couldn't imagine. Every time her brain even got close to the image of cutting off Will's head with a sword, it would back off quickly again--the same way it backed off from studying too deeply what Giles meant about him and Randall. Whatever happened, it was a long, long time ago.

"I've gotten a bit of my education back," Giles told her.

"Oh," Buffy answered, distracted, then snapped to attention again. "Hey, that's a good!"

"There may be certain memories it's best I never recover."

Buffy held her breath, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't--there may have been things Giles actually remembered that he'd never admit to knowing again. She decided to change the subject. "How did you break your nose?" She felt him smile again as she traced the bump where the bones hadn't healed quite straight. The funny thing about his skin was that it looked a little bit weathered but it felt smooth, and not at all like Angel's, which was smooth too, but had a different texture--cold and almost slick.

Sometimes, when she thought about it, it gave Buffy kind of a wiggins how much she'd liked to touch Angel--she must have been relying only on what her eyes told her, because, really, when she thought about it, her ex-lover felt a little bit gross. The feel of him inside her especially, surrounding that coldness with her warmth, and having it stay just as chilled as it had always been.

That made Buffy shiver, which made Giles pull her closer, instinctively.

"When I'm an old lady," she said, "I'll still want to lie here this way."

"When you are an old lady, Buffy," Giles said, laughing quietly. "I shall be a perfectly ancient gentleman, and you may not wish to lie beside me."

"I can't imagine that," Buffy answered.

"You have a kind and generous heart." He shifted to kiss the bare skin just above that particular organ, then the hollow below her collarbone, then the upper curve of her breast. "I rather strenuously wish we needn't go anywhere tomorrow, but could lie the whole day slothfully in bed."

"I've always wanted to be slothful," Buffy said, "But you didn't answer my nose question."

"Did you mean the first, second, or third time? The first was my elder sister Marianna, with her hockey stick."

Buffy couldn't help but think again about the things the vampire Maria had told her, the secrets about Giles's family. She herself had been a difficult baby, and her mom and dad had decided to stop with one. All her friends were more-or-less only children--Will's parents seemed to have decided that even one was too much to bother with, though from what Willow said, about every five years her dad decided to do something dad-like with her--he probably had some quality time penciled in again for the year 2001--and he'd laid down rules about watching the Charlie Brown Christmas show and having boys in her room. Willow's opinion was that that particular rule had more to do with Ira Rosenberg not wanting to hear Xander clomping around the house when he was trying to work. Willow only obeyed the rule on the rare occasions that her dad was actually home.

Xander, she knew, had a little brother who died when he was just a baby--though even Xander didn't know how it had happened--and a way, way older brother who wasn't anywhere around anymore. She'd only met Xander's mom and dad once, and his mom had seemed nice, but only about an ounce short of being falling-down drunk. And his dad...Mr. Harris had made her Spidey-sense go nuts, until she couldn't wait to get out of the house. After that, if they went to Xander's place to hang out, they always stayed in the basement, and locked the door at the top of the stairs. Mostly, they just didn't go to Xander's--not at all in the past year. Obviously Xander liked it that way. She wondered how long he'd been sleeping over at Giles's.

Hard as it was to imagine Giles as a kid, it was even harder to imagine him as a kid who was part of a family. She couldn't picture him with his sisters, or with his mom and dad, sitting around the dinner table, doing their homework, going to the beach. She couldn't see him as a boy.

"Marianna was quite incredibly fierce, and fiercely intelligent," Giles said. "What an extraordinary Watcher she would have made. And Clarice was so gentle--though not useless, like my mum." He got quiet again, maybe remembering--or maybe just searching through the places where he knew the memories should have been. "And quite the loveliest creature I ever saw--until, of course, my dearest Buffy, I met you."

Buffy raised up to kiss him. Giles kissed her back, one of those deep, penetrating kisses that would have led to a lot more, if Celeste hadn't knocked on the door to ask them if they were awake, and did they want something for dinner.

"Did you--?" Giles asked.

Buffy was torn. Half of her wanted to continue what they'd been about to start--the other half was starving. "Uh, okay," she yelled back. "We'll be down in a minute."

Giles was giving her a look.

"What?" Buffy said. "I'm a teenager. I'm hungry. And besides, she probably cooked up a storm, and I don't wanna be rude to your daughter-in-law. 'Sides, you need to eat more anyway. Did you get any sleep?"

"You're fussing," Giles told her.

"You know, you can just say 'no' like a normal person." Buffy gave him another quick kiss. "Giles, what am I going to do with you?"

Giles pulled her back down to him again, and whispered exactly what into her ear, until Buffy couldn't help herself--she started laughing.

Celeste's dining room was like being inside an oil painting--one of those blurry ones with the flowers and the beautiful colors. If anything, it was even more beautiful than their bedroom. Off one side, French doors let out onto a tiled terrace, which led down to the garden. The table was set with plates in blues, teals and purples, and the napkins had been folded like origami. The perfect hostess struck again.

She wondered if Sebastian ever got the urge to just eat off paper plates or drink beer out of the can. Maybe not. He'd been brought up nicely. It was like the way Wesley refused to eat donuts with the Scooby Gang because they'd laughed when he asked for a knife and fork.

Giles pulled her chair out for her, and Buffy sat down at the table, glad, for some weird reason, that she'd decided to put on a dress. Celeste served soup out of a tureen, and Buffy poked at it with her spoon: the soup was cold, and mostly green and red in color. "Didn't I fight and kill this last year?" she whispered to Giles.

"It's gazpacho," Giles answered in an undertone. "It's meant to be cold. One eats it in summer--even, I believe, in California."

"Is that abuse of sarcasm I hear again?" Buffy gave him a half-grin and kicked his foot under the table.

"It's quite nice," Giles told Celeste, and the same time nudging Buffy back.

She knew what that mean: eat up or else--and the cold demon soup wasn't bad, especially if you were into tomatoes and cucumbers. "It's kinda like a salad," she said encouragingly to Celeste. "Only ground up, which makes it easier to eat. Like, you could eat this on a date, and you wouldn't have to worry about that one big lettuce leaf flopping out of your mouth--you know, just when you're staring romantically into his eyes."

Celeste laughed, but she looked a little tense. Buffy glanced to the head of the table, and saw Sebastian staring at his soup with what looked like horror. His Adam's apple jumped, and he left the table quickly, going out through the French doors to the terrace, where he leaned on the rail, his back to them, shoulders shaking.

"Excuse me, my dears," Giles touched Celeste's arm in passing, then went out himself, closing the open door behind them. Buffy could see him perch on the rail, one of his serious looks on his face.

Buffy ate nervously for a while, unable to think of anything to say. "I liked the swans," she said finally.

Celeste had been staring at the two men, but she turned her head as Buffy spoke. "Hmn? What's that?"

"The swans. The way you folded the napkins into swans. It was pretty. Everything in your house is pretty. And the soup really is good. You're probably good at everything you do."

"I don't know how to reach him," Celeste said quietly. "We walked very rapidly over half of London, and scarcely spoke a word." Tears brightened her eyes. "He's in pain, Buffy, no matter how he tries to hides it. I hate to see my Bastian suffer. I'd so much rather take it on myself."

Buffy watched Giles put his hand on Sebastian's shoulder. She could imagine his comforting voice, saying comforting words. She ate the rest of her soup.

Silently, Celeste got up, took Buffy's bowl and the plate beneath it and went into the kitchen. When she returned the plate had a bed of pasta, and chicken cut into thin little strips, and the cutest little baby vegetables.

Buffy took a bite to be nice, but then couldn't stop--she couldn't believe how good it all tasted. She'd cleaned her plate by the time Celeste spoke again.

"We're very different, Bastian and I. He hides all his burdens, and I hide nothing. At times I wonder what he must think of me, this diva that he's married."

Buffy stared at her, surprised. "He loves you."

"But--" Celeste glanced out the window again. "What if it's too much? What if he stops?" Without her paying attention, her hands were moving, folding her napkin into a swan again, then unfolding it and making a fish, then a flower. "He means more to me than my life, Buffy. I can't ever lose him."

Buffy really didn't know how to answer that.

The three of them were hanging out in a hotel bar, not one of their usual haunts at all--but tonight, following the Council's request, they hunted a particular prey. Funny, all things considered, to still be obeying the Watchers' orders.

Such an ordinary-looking man, Maria Del Ciello thought, and winked at Spike over the rim of her glass. Spike gave his evil, lazy, predatory grin in return, and Lisa giggled.

"Yer wicked, ducks," Spike told her. "Ya know that?"

"And glad to be so," Maria answered. Alcohol didn't affect her much--it never had, even when she'd been human--but it loosened her tongue to the point that she asked Spike the question she'd been dying to ask. "What did it feel like, Spikey?"

"Eh?" He turned to her a little bit blearily, far worse for wear than she was--but then he'd sucked down ten times more booze than she had. Spike drank more than anyone she'd ever met, dead or alive, and at his worst got a little maudlin, over someone he called his "princess."

It made Maria want to snicker, but she'd always pat his hand sympathetically and say, "There, there."

"How did it feel?" she asked again. "That business that got you your name? With the railroad spikes?"

He gave a little shrug, as if the question made him uncomfortable. "'S a mug's game, that. Rather just enjoy meself, 'ave a bit o' fun."

"You took down two Slayers," Maria reminded him. "And you spiked a Watcher about four years back. Do you remember? A tall woman, a redhead. In Prague."

Spike morphed instantly into game-face, but spoiled the effect by lurching backward drunkenly in his chair with his hands pressed to his head. "Dammit, stop th' bloody room whirlin' round!"

Maria and Lisa laughed at him mercilessly. Couldn't help themselves. They were demons, after all.

"Doncha ever say that word ta me," Spike growled.

"What, Prague?" Lisa asked innocently.

"Gah!" he moaned. "Yer bloody cows, th' both of ya. I came near ta losin' my princess there. First th' mob, and then th' goddamn Watcher dropped a burnin' ware'ouse on 'er. My poor Dru." He laid his head on the table and moaned again.

"I swear, I'm cutting him off." Maria drained her own glass. "Wanna flip me for this next bit, Li?"

"It's tempting." Lisa smoothed the fabric of her pale pink dress over her lap. Her lipstick was a slightly darker shade of pink. Lisa looked as wholesome and Midwestern as the day she'd been turned. Her long, silky hair gleamed in the bar's low light. "I'm about his daughter's age, right?" She smiled again, showing the tiniest bit of fang. "But they'd card me, and that might spoil things."

"I'm so very proud of you," Maria said, as Moira used to say to her when she'd done something particularly well. That was true. She and Spike--and now Lisa too--had turned others since, but none quite had that spark. They were idiots. Cannon-fodder. Drones. If they'd been Star Wars characters, they'd have been the guys in the white fiberglass suits who couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their ray-guns if their pathetic lives depended on it.

None of the books at the Watchers' Compound had ever been able to explain to her why some vampires had complete personalities, while others were just big, blood-sucking lumps.

Maria rose, smoothing her own little black dress, that left her silk-stocking clad legs and her shoulders bare.

"You're sure you want to do this, Maria?" Lisa asked. "When the Slayer finds out--"

"Bit o' fun," Spike muttered, his head still on the table.

"You let me worry about Miss Buffy, Li--and get him out of here, will you?"

"Sure thing, Maria!" Lisa answered perkily.

"You know my rules," Maria said thoughtfully. "He can always say 'no'--and if he does, I won't press it. Fair's fair."

"But he won't, will he?"

"Nope." Maria shot another glance at the average-looking guy at the bar. "Wouldn't think so."

She strolled across the room, giving him every opportunity to observe her: the sway of her hips, the flash of her long legs under the short skirt.

"Is this seat taken?" Maria slid onto the barstool beside his, noticing him notice her, eyes flashing from legs to breasts to face--but then, they always did. That was so predictable it was boring.

She'd decided to use Moira's voice on him, instead of her own. Men always liked Moira's voice--it made them feel as if they were trading up, not doing something tacky like cheating on their girlfriends or their wives. Moira's round vowels and crisp consonants had gotten easier to copy since Maria had been vamped.

She ordered an aged single malt, straight up, and once the drink arrived, raised her glass in salute. "To drinking alone," Maria said, in that cool, British voice.

The man's eyes focused on her. She treated him to the edge of her smile.

"You shouldn't be drinking alone," he said.

Maria turned on her stool, crossing her legs so that her skirt edged up her thighs. This was the part she loved best: dangling the bait, seeing would they take it, or would they live?

"And why should you be? Drinking alone, that is?" Maria ran the tip of a manicured nail lightly down his lapel. Over his shoulder she could see Lisa stifling her giggles. "A nice-looking man like you?"

He grinned: clean-cut, all-American, stupid. Or, if not stupid, then gullible. Vain and gullible. Thinking with the wrong part of his anatomy, the way so many people did.

"Would you like to play a game?" Maria asked him, watching his grin get wider. "It's called 'First Impressions.' We decide things about one another based purely on appearances."

"How do we know if we're right or wrong?" he asked.

"We find out later." Maria smiled. "Please do begin."

"Umn, you're about thirty years old, no children, never married. You're umn...a flight attendant?"

"Very good," Maria purred. "Shall I? You are a forty-three year old businessman, one teenaged daughter who's a disappointment to you. What else? Ah yes--you're divorced but seeing your ex-wife again, which no strikes you as a mistake. She nags, and she no longer excites you."

Maria ran her fingertips lightly over his knee, letting her voice drop low. "You'd like a bit of excitement. You'd like to be young forever." She laid her entire hand over his thigh. For a moment, she almost thought he'd remove it, and then she wold have let him go. By the rules of her own game, it would have been Round Over.

But he didn't remove her hand. Instead, he raised his eyes to hers. He smiled. Though he must have felt the coldness of her touch on his leg, he didn't react.

"Have you had enough to drink, Hank?" Maria asked, or would you like to come along with me and have just a little more?"

"How did you know my name," he asked, confused.

"You told me," Maria answered, smiling. The oldest line in the book.

Hank didn't hesitate, only threw a wad of bills on the bar without bothering to count. Maria took his hand in her cool one, leading him outside into the night.

"You must have a very warm heart," Hank told her.

"Must I?" Maria answered.

"Uh--because you have the coldest hands I've ever felt."

In the cool blue light beside the hotel's deserted swimming pool, she took him. No one ever noticed. Hank made sounds of protest, but Maria could feel a hardness against her--he was powerfully aroused, and when she cut her own wrist open with one sharp nail, and offered him her blood, he drank from her eagerly, like a man dying of thirst.

When he couldn't take any more, Maria drank from him again, draining him almost to the point of death. He lost consciousness, and would have fallen if she hadn't held him up.

Lisa appeared out of the dark. "You were right, Maria."

"Not even a struggle." Maria shrugged. It was always a let-down, this part. Afterwards, it always felt too easy. What she wouldn't have given, just once, for a worthy adversary. "You want to get his feet? We'll put him in the back of the DeSoto."

"With Spike." Lisa giggled again, but did as she was told. "What's this guy's name again?"

"Hank," Maria answered absently. "Hank Summers."