Transitions - Ch. 28

Giles stretched in the vast bed, luxuriating in a space that modern beds--those he'd owned, at any rate, never seemed to afford him. Adding to that pleasure was the knowledge that he needn't be anywhere, or do anything, for hours yet. He'd no obligations to travel or plan, fight evil or even put up a brave front of restraint and reserve for at least half a turning of the clock.

Lazily, he mouthed a brief spell, one that was nothing more, really, than a politely-phrased request to whatever fire-elementals happened to be hovering nearby--would they, if it weren't too much trouble, please oblige by lighting the candles on the mantelpiece? In his experience, the lesser elementals, like dogs or young children, liked to be acknowledged and spoken to. Perhaps, in this modern, disbelieving world, they got lonely. Such creatures of earth and fire, water and air, seemed, these days, oddly anxious to please those who noticed them. Perhaps they recognized Giles as a kindred spirit, another being, like themselves, not quite of this age.

Less than a fortnight past, in the days of the Wild Magic, he would not have dared such a spell. To invoke the lesser spirits might inevitably have brought the larger ones in their wake, outright demons ripping through the gauzy fabric of what was called reality, inviting conflagration in the place of gentle flame.

God, he felt thankful to be over that--to no longer need to guard his every natural impulse every moment of the day.

His aunts' house shifted around him, as sleepy in its movements as Giles himself. He loved this place, had done from the moment he'd first set foot on the land. Appleyard--for such was the farm's name--possessed no ghosts, no restless spirits, no dark memories ingrained into its walls. Its denizens, from the laying of the foundations early in the reign of the first Elizabeth, had lived lives of prosperity and contentment, as--in these days--did Flora, Rose and Violet. Those who dwelt within its borders lived companionably with one another, and died in their own good times.

Giles felt healed in Appleyard, close to his native soil, as in California, or even London, he had not. He listened to the hum of England's ancient earth-magic, the music of the leylines, and drew strength.

Appleyard had, if one might be allowed to use such a foreign term for such a British place, excellent feng-shui.

The barest light, red and deep gold, had begun to show at the window. Buffy slept soundly, so near that, even without touching, Giles felt her warmth upon his skin. Her hair spread in a golden veil across her face, and Giles brushed the strands back gently with his fingertips, rolling onto his side to watch her.

How lovely she was, his guiding star, the heart of his heart. Nearly as lovely in sleep as she was when, waking, the brightness of her personality, her self, lighted his every moment--her skin rosy, her pink lips lightly parted, the lashes dark fringes above the smooth curves of her cheeks.

She had become more necessary to Giles than food or sleep, nearly as essential as air.

Buffy reached out to him in her dreams, touching his side, her fingers traveling over his flank, down his thigh. The touch, the contact between them, half woke her. She smiled, snuggling closer as she often did, burrowing into his warmth. Giles shifted to kiss her forehead, her temple, her soft, parted lips. How naturally she curled against him, finding her own position of perfect comfort within the angles of his body.

"Time to get up yet?" she murmured.

"No, dearest," Giles answered, "We've quite a long time yet."

"Mmn. Good."

"Go back to sleep, my love."

Buffy turned her back to him, wriggling closer still. Giles pulled the duvet up around them. "Have to shut the curtains," she told him, in the same soft, sleepy voice.

"And why is that, love?"

"The light," she answered. "Light's bad."

The cold worm of self-doubt wriggled itself into Giles mind. Whom does she believe is here with her?it whispered. Why should she wish to protect you from the sun?

And then the thought, screamed in his brain, She thinks you are Angel. She's dreaming of lying here with her one true love, and that, old man, is not you.

"Why is the light bad, Buffy?" Giles asked her, his heart beating too fast, his mouth dry, anticipating the answer that, in the truthfulness of half-sleep, must surely follow.

"Gets in our eyes." She turned back toward him. Her soft lips pressed to his shoulder, his chest. "Wakes us up. Don't wanna wake up, Giles."

"Then you needn't," he answered, his relief so great he could hardly speak. She knew. Naturally, she knew. Why had he doubted? "I'll shut them now. We ought to have done so before we went to sleep."

Reluctantly, he slipped away from her, hurrying to shut the curtains and return. Summer it might have been, but a summer morning in the part of England known as Wessex could still be chilly.

Buffy had turned again, onto her back. She'd slept gloriously nude, all smooth, pale-gold curves, unscarred perfection. Had she been any less so, Giles would have loved her just as well. He believed, in his heart, the words of the poet: that love was not love which altered when it alteration found. He would love her as well at eighty as he did this moment, provided he were given the gift of living so long. He would love her every moment he, and she, drew breath.

Giles crouched above her, bending down to kiss her body's slight curve just below her navel, running his hopefully-not-uncomfortably-prickly cheek along the smoothness of her belly.

"Love me?" she murmured.

"I do, my treasure. I love you so very, very dearly."

"Sweetie." Her hand brushed over his hair. "Love me." A command, that time.

He tasted her body, with his lips, with his tongue, feeling the tiny shivers of her arousal move across her skin. Every time, it seemed, the flavour differed, if only a little, remaining always sweet, and soft, and clean. Always, she carried the illusion of fragility, when she was, in fact, strong enough to break him--as the bruises he still bore would attest. Yet his Buffy was so tiny, her sleepy, heavy-lidded gaze so innocent he could not help but be entirely gentle with her, exploring her form with slow touches, stroking the smooth-skinned thighs, kissing the shadowed veins inside wrist and elbow, his lips returning to hers, kissing her deeply as she made little humming murmurs of pleasure.

When he pulled back from the kiss, her eyes at last opened fully, gazing up at him. She smiled, rubbing his jaw with her fingertips. "You're bristly, Rupert. It tickles."

"I could shave..."

"Nah. I like it." The sleepy smile spread like dawn across her face. "I've decided that I'm maybe always going to call you 'Rupert' now. Will that seem strange?"

"Yes." Giles kissed those smiling lips, utterly unable to help returning the smile.

Buffy reached up. Her fingertips traced, again, the line of his jaw. "You look better. Do you feel better?"

He couldn't answer her fully, could not reveal to her how this countryside strengthened him, lest she sink into guilt and self-accusation. The time in which he'd been angry--no, furious--with her had passed. He blamed her for nothing. And if some--Moira, for example--thought him too lenient, too guilty of blinking at Buffy's worse behavior, he could only answer that she did not know her as he did. When one loved, one forgave.

"Yes," Giles said, "I do. A great deal better."

"You got a good night's sleep. That probably helped."

"I was terribly comfortable."

"But you missed supper, and it was yummy." Buffy wriggled up against the pillows. "You know, they said stew and I thought, 'Yuck, stew,' but, Giles, your aunts can really cook."

"What happened to Rupert?" he asked.

"Oh!" Buffy laughed, as merry a sound as he'd ever heard from her. "Okay, then Rupert."

"Much better!" Giles answered, with mock sternness.

"Sweetie," she continued. "I like them so much! And I love Seb and Celeste, and I liked your friends at the museum. But you know what I love best of all?"

"What is that?" He slipped his hand between her legs, lightly stroking the golden curls, feeling her warm and moist against his fingers. "I can, perhaps, think of one thing..."

"Ah! Ah! Don't change..." Buffy brought up her knees, thighs parting. "The subject...I'm ready...won't you..."

Giles shifted, moving his body into that inviting space. He lay just above her, weight propped on his elbows and, by a further act of magic, let her feel the currents all around them, the electrical force that surrounded their own bodies. He exerted a gentle control, letting it dance upon her skin until every nerve in her body sang with that pleasurable fire, and then entered her, carrying the force with him into her passage.

"AH!" Buffy cried out, ecstatic, as he filled her. Motes of brilliant colour sparkled over her skin. Giles thrust deeper inside her, deeper than he'd gone before, or dared to go, for fear of hurting her--but Buffy would not be hurt. They fit one other perfectly, complemented one another perfectly, in magic and passion and friendship, and the joining of their bodies resulted not only in arousal, but in utter joy.

Suddenly, Giles saw them clearly, the spirits and elementals, careening madly about the room, enraptured by mortal passion. Far from daunting his ardour, this display only enflamed him further. They were blessed, they were blessed, their love witnessed and approved of by all the unseen powers of the air.

Buffy arched toward him, her smooth skin cleaving to his, warmth to warmth, flesh to flesh, power to power. She contained him, and her body moved around him, in fierce, unbelievably pleasurable ripples, holding him, holding him close. Their mouths met; her lips tasted of honey. The soft firmness of her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her hands moved restlessly over his shoulders, his back, their velvety softness adding yet another layer of intensity to his passion.

The sheer force of the pleasure left him breathless and blind, and he cried out as his seed emptied into her. Buffy's arms wrapped around him with an even greater tightness, binding his body to hers, as he bound hers to his. The moment lasted forever, during which he heard the beat of her heart, and the whisper of blood in her veins--and the fireworks display of her thoughts, a fierce, affirming shout that said only, "I love him, I love him, I love HIM," the picture contained behind these words that of his own face, no other's. Giles's own mind responded with a fervent, half-articulate passion, such as, in ordinary, life, he'd never have been able to produce.

Slowly, lights and colour faded. Giles's head dropped to her shoulder; he could scarcely catch his breath.

"What was that?" Buffy asked him softly, her voice trembling slightly--with the aftereffects of such an all-encompassing connection, Giles thought, rather than with pain or with fear. "Oh, Rupert. Oh, Rupert."

Giles pressed a chaste kiss against those soft, burning lips. "You are truly," he said, "The heart of my heart."

Whatever else happened in the day would not matter, no matter how trying, or how tiresome. He was now complete. They lay together, still joined, a long while before parting, and even then they touched, holding hands with fingers interwoven, their legs twined.

Giles had been, for that blessed moment, drawn into her mind and found himself there not, as he'd ever feared, as a compromise, a second-best, as someone she cared for, or was fond of, or loved with a gentle affection. Somehow--in ways he did not understand--he had come at last to mean as much to her as she meant to him, and he could only thank all the powers of goodness in the universe that this was so.

"Rupert, before...the last time..." Buffy looked up, all trust, into his eyes. "You know, after the no-mouth demons, when I was going nutso...I couldn't hear you at all, hardly. Was that a Watcher thing? I mean...a competent Watcher thing? 'Cause I could hear Wesley lusting after Cor loud and clear." She giggled suddenly. "I guess I shouldn't say this, but it was the prissiest lust you ever heard, and he kept thinking, 'I'm bad. I'm a bad, bad man.'"

"Poor Wesley." Giles shook his head. "One rather imagines--or hopes--that Moira's helped him over that. And no," he told her. "It wasn't, as you say, a Watcher thing."

"A Giles thing, then?"

Giles smiled at her perceptiveness. "I'm not like Flora. I can't, ordinarily, hear...not matter how I concentrate. Nor, seeing what you went through, my love, should I want to. But I've enough in me to stop, if I pay enough attention, what others might pick up from me."

"You blocked me?" Buffy wrapped her arms round his neck, pulling Giles closer. "How come?"

"I was afraid," he answered, "Of what you might find in my thoughts."

Buffy appeared to consider that statement for several minutes. "I wouldn't have been ready to hear that," she said softly, at last, "Not then. Which is funny, 'cause it really wasn't any time ago at all."

"Time," Giles answered, "Doesn't always move at the same rate." He watched a little sadness, a little pensiveness, slip over her face. "Buffy," he told her, "Never doubt that you were loved. Angel did, in fact, love you with all the goodness and purity of which his soul was capable."

Buffy gave a sad little laugh. "That's kinda the kicker, isn't it? There's the soul, and there's the demon, and it's pretty much like Celebrity Deathmatch in there."

"Like what?" Giles felt himself alarmed. What perversion of American culture could this be?

"Okay," Buffy giggled. "It's a program on MTV, and they have these little clay people who, you know, look like famous guys, and they just kinda...I don't know...squash each other. Like there was one with Mick Jagger and the Aerosmith guy, and all that was left at the end were these two big pairs of lips. Xander loves it."

"Oh. Well." Yet, oddly, Giles could picture such a thing, and it struck him, quite against his will, as rather amusing. God, what had three years in America done to his sense of humour?

Buffy laughed again, her sadness diminished. "You know Xander."

"Indeed." Even in the midst of his present contentment, Giles found that he missed the boy--and Willow, as well. Sweet Willow. He wondered if she'd managed to find some remedy for the terrible state of her formerly lovely hair.

"You know, it's funny--I was so scared before we got on the plane. I thought I'd have to try to be brave for your sake, but that I'd really hate it here. I know it's only been a couple days, but I don't hate it. It's different, but kinda nice. If Mom and Willow and Xand weren't, like, thousands of miles away, it wouldn't be a bad place to live at all."

Giles smiled, considering her odd, backward praise for his native country. "On behalf of the British people," he chuckled, "I thank you."

"I got to feed the horses," she confessed, "While you were sleeping."

"Ah, the truth is revealed. You like horses, then, do you, Buffy?"

"When I was a little kid, I wanted one so bad. A pony. I was going to keep it in the garage, but mom kinda vetoed that idea. I've never really ridden--only, you know, pony rides."

"That," Giles said, "We must remedy."

Riding made him think of Moira, once an Olympian, who now could do no more than ride demurely side-saddle, like a Victorian lady. He hoped that she was well, in Sunnydale, and happy--though the thought of her with Wesley, the old thorn in his side, continued to perplex him. Sometime after the funeral, they ought to call home and check on the state of affairs. Buffy, at the very least--whatever had passed between them, and Giles knew it had been some sadness, for she would not tell--ought to call her mum.

This thought led Giles, naturally, to that of the funeral to come, and a feeling of vague apprehension. Had it only been his family that would attend, and a few aging neighbors, he might have borne it quite bravely, buried his mother with gravity and respect, recognizing her for a person who was foolish, and weak, but not ill-intentioned. He might have grieved for her, in such circumstances, and moved on.

But, he suspected, those persons attending would not be merely family and friends. Clara and her husband, Mr. Stanley, had been estranged for years, living apart in separate houses, the single child they'd managed to produce together--a boy Giles could not even consider his brother--dead, for nearly a decade now, under questionable circumstances. Yet, he'd no doubt Stanley would attend, and with him at least a handful of his Council cronies.

Suddenly, he wished that Moira could be there, to guard his back as he mourned his mother. Buffy's brand of defense, valiant and straightforward, would be useless in such circumstances. The blinders removed, Giles knew only too well what cause he had to hate and fear the Council. Within its roster might have been decent men, such as the late Mr. Merrick, or fiery champions, such as his dearest friend, but the ranks of the Watchers were swelled with the foolish, the inept and--most chilling thought of all--men of cold and malicious intent. Men who did not let obedience slide, or take defiance lightly.

Such men, Mr. Stanley at their head, would be there--and, fearful thought, they would be watching. What had he been thinking when he brought Buffy into this?

"Hey," Buffy said to him, touching his cheek, "You were a thousand miles away there, and you have your worry-face on again."

"Sorry." Giles sighed. "Must have been because I was worrying."

"We'll handle ourselves okay." She stretched to kiss him, her lips on his warm and comforting. "Don't you dare regret bringing me. Remember, Rupert, we're a team."