Transitions - Ch. 34

Buffy woke up wondering: A) what had happened to the rest of her bed, 'cause half of it seemed to be missing; B) why her mouth tasted so entirely yucky; C) what Willow and Xander were doing in the corner of her room (which now had the most heinously ugly wallpaper she'd ever seen in her life--it looked like one of Giles's ties); and D) what had happened to her Slayer strength, because it seemed more than a little bit absent.

The thought of Giles's ties made her think of Giles himself, and a bunch of stuff came crashing back into her memory. "Oh!" she said, and started to try to sit up, amazed and how wobbly she felt, as if all her muscles had been replaced by Jell-o.

"Buffy!" Willow shrieked, and literally threw her body across the room, where it landed on top of Buffy's. Xander followed, until they were like a big Scooby Gang sandwich. "Buffy Buffy Buffy," Will kept saying, and she was crying in a way Buffy had never seen, her tears just going everywhere, like a tropical rainstorm.

"Oof. Unh!" Buffy said in return, all the breath squeezed out of her.

Willow seemed to get a clue, and elbowed Xander until he squirmed off, then got up herself.

"Gotta tell Giles," Xander said. "Man, Buffy, he..."

"Not now, Xander," Willow gave him a certain look from her big green eyes, and he nodded. "And you probably shouldn't wake him up. He needs his rest."

"Will, he'll wanna know. Trust me on this one."

When he'd gone, Buffy put her hand on Willow's arm. "Okay--" She coughed. Her throat felt sore, and her mouth really dry and icky. Willow re-arranged the pillows so that she could sit up a little, then helped her drink some water. Buffy hadn't realized how much she'd missed Will--but now her best friend was here. In England. What was Will doing in England? Not that her being there wasn't great and everything.

First things first. "Giles took really great care of me," she said, fishing for info. "He must be exhausted."

Willow's eyes grew teary, and for just a second her face did that tragedy mask thing.

"Will, Xander's waking him up, right?" For just a second, Buffy got that cold panicked feeling in the pit of her stomach. Why had Will looked that way? He was all right wasn't he? Her Giles was all right--he had to be.

Willow nodded, making an effort to pull herself together. Buffy realized how tired her friend looked--she'd gotten her poor, fried hair cut short, and it was beyond messy, with pieces sticking up all over her head. Her skin was yellowish-pasty, like she hadn't slept in a way too long. She also had dark, dark circles under her eyes.

"Will, you're okay aren't you?"

Willow nodded again, glancing down, swallowing. She'd latched onto Buffy's hand, and her other hand stroked Buffy's arm gently. "We were so worried when Giles called us. He sounded...I don't know... Giles sounds awful when he's losing it. Moira got us on the next plane. She wanted me to help her. Me!" She glanced up, eyes shining, obviously proud of herself. "And you should have seen us, Buff--we were baaaad. We saved you guys! Moira gave me a hug afterwards, and told me how proud she was of me." At this point, Will had moved on to the glowy, beaming stage. "And she wasn't just saying!"

"That's great, Will," Buffy answered, meaning it. "But--"

"So, anyway, Giles had called, and Moira phoned up my mom and dad and told them she was from Oxford, and that they really wanted me there, and that maybe a trip to England would help convince me. It was the coolest--she used all these big words, and the full power of the accent. My parents would've agreed to anything. I'm pretty sure my dad wanted to--unh--get to know her better. Like, you know. Only--" Willow made a face. "That's a serious ewww."

Buffy nodded. She'd forgotten how long it could take Will to hit the point of a story.

"Then, when I told Xander, he said he had to come too. So, we flew, we rented a car, we came here. To Salisbury. Do you think I'll get a chance to go exploring? 'Cause it looks cool. And Moira says she can get me inside the fences at Stonehenge. Wow!" Willow's eyes got teary again. "But, Buffy, we were almost too late. You were dying, and Giles..."

Buffy's voice got a little too loud. "He's okay, RIGHT?"

"He'd been doing this spell to keep you here until we came, and then that wasn't working anymore, and you were just slipping away. So he tried another once, that Moira's planning to yell at him about, that just kinda drains out your own life and puts it into another person--like the blood thing with you and Angel?"

Buffy made a face. She didn't want to think about that.

"So he was doing that, draining out his life to save you. Which I think is sweet, and romantic...and really, really scary. Like if there'd been stoplights instead of roundabouts, and we'd stopped for any of them. And if Moira didn't completely drive like a crazy person, and if she didn't think speedlimits were made for lazy people, and if there'd been more traffic on the motorway--" Will trotted out the British word proudly. "We would have lost him. Which just makes me want to cry and cry." Willow rubbed at her eyes with her fingers. "See, I don't want Xander to wake him up, 'cause he looked so tired. Just all hollowed out. He's been sleeping for the past twelve hours."

"Don't wake him," Buffy said, nearly sick with remorse. He'd done that for her, the big stupid? How could he? What was he thinking? She hated that he'd even tried, because what he thought she'd feel like, waking up to find him gone? He couldn't be gone. He couldn't.

Big tears began to roll down her face--she had no power to stop them. "Oh, God! Oh, God!" she sobbed, until Willow looked first concerned, and then scared.

And then Giles, her Giles, was in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb. He still had on the pants and shirt he'd worn to the funeral, now beyond rumple-y, and more beard than she'd ever seen on him, and his hair was sticking up all over, worse than Will's. His eyes were redder than she'd seen on any demon she'd ever fought, and his skin looked like paper.

Willow, being tactful, tiptoed away.

He was beautiful, he was beautiful, and Buffy's heart just exploded everywhere. In less than a second he'd crossed the room, and was in the bed beside her, holding her so tight it hurt. He started crying, and she was still crying, and their tears flowed together, making both of them all damp and sticky.

Buffy started hitting his shoulders, his back, flailing wildly. "Don't you EVER!" she yelled at him. "GILES DON'T YOU EVER." But she thought he might be sobbing too hard to hear her. It was like the way he cried the night Jenny died--and not. That had been like getting his heart ripped out. This was more like he'd gotten it ripped out, then given back again, better than ever, and he couldn't believe it.

After a long time, he quieted, lying exhausted on the bed beside her, his eyes locked to hers. Buffy stroked his bristly cheek, wiping away the tears. "I couldn't lose you," he said, in a raw, broken voice. "I couldn't let them take you from me."

"I know," Buffy whispered back to him. "If I knew how, I'd have done the same."

With what was probably his last burst of strength, Giles got up, and lifted her in his arms, still holding her with that almost painful tightness. He shouldered the door open, carrying her into a room across the hall, one with a larger bed, with rumpled covers. He laid her there gently, arranging the pillows behind her head, then just gazing down at her with all that love, and worry, and fear in his eyes.

"If I can possibly help it," he said in the same hoarse voice, "I will never let them injure you again."

Buffy couldn't think what to say; words completely failed her. All she could do was stare back at him, hoping that he could read her meaning. Whatever this was, it left her thing for Angel behind in the dust. "Love" like nearly a big enough word. There weren't any words, probably not even if she had a vocabulary as huge as Giles's.

She took his hand, a little of her strength returning, and pulled him down onto the bed. Giles dropped off into sleep at once--tireder, poor thing, than anyone ever should be. Buffy cuddled up against him, touching random parts, quick caresses that he'd be too wiped out to feel. She couldn't have imagined waking and not finding him there, hearing Willow tell her he was gone--or, she could imagine, and to do so was just horrible. It made her shudder, and her throat tighten up.

She needed not to imagine. He was here. He was safe with her.

Buffy kissed him, and felt Giles smile in his sleep.

Giles lay in that half-state between sleep and consciousness, dimly aware of a faint silver light at the edge of his vision.

"I've been watching you," a well-known voice said, waking him entirely. He jolted upright, heart pounding, the familiar rush of adrenaline flooding his veins. For the past three years he'd awakened in such a way more often than not, but this particular night such a wakening tore a groan from his raw throat--he couldn't help but feel that he was getting too old for this.

She sat, a slight, diffident figure in the corner armchair, surrounded by a nimbus of that appeared to be moonlight, but was not. Shyly, she gazed up at him through her long lashes, as she often had in life, her delicate ankles crossed, small hands folded neatly in her lap. She looked younger than he'd thought she would--not young, but younger. Throughout her life, she'd been amazingly pretty, and even now her soft, flowered frock became her, though on another it might have appeared prim, or fussy. Giles remember that about her, that she always looked lovely in anything she'd worn. Even at this moment, he could detect her faint, floral scent.

Giles rubbed his throat. It still hurt him to speak, had the words remained to him to do so. His visitor struck him speechless, and the true burden of grief returned to him, weighing, perhaps, with an even greater heaviness than it had whilst the choirboys of St. Elizabeth's sang her Requiem.

"Clara," Giles whispered. "Mum."

The ghost--for such she was--gave a little smile, that was his smile--he'd her mouth, if little else of hers. When Sebastian smiled and the light came into his eyes, Giles always thought of her.

In life, Clara's eyes had been a clear, light blue. She'd looked so terribly innocent--had looked and, perhaps, actually been so entirely innocent. He'd never considered that before, had never understood why his father, so stern, in his kind way, with everyone else, constantly sheltered her so. Could it be that she'd been, truly, one of those people born unsuited to bear the weight of the world?

"I'd never believed that you could see us," Clara told him, in her sweet, soft, familiar voice. "Yet now--here I am. I suppose, though, that I ought to have known. I remember, when you were quite small, you told me. You often spoke to people I could not see."

"Yes," Giles said. "I remember. It's not like that anymore."

Clara gave him a look, as if she could not, quite, believe him. "Rupert, my dearest, you were always a Giles through-and-through. I never thought you'd any part of me in you. You and Marianna, my warriors. It seemed that nothing could harm you."

"Things hurt me, Mum," Giles told her, through the tightness in his throat. Buffy stirred beside him, and he touched her, for the comfort. "Things hurt me constantly."

"I know, love." His mother's ghost regarded him with calm silver eyes. "It's all clearer now, you see.

"You look so tired, love. It's a dreadful life you lead." Clara paused, studying Giles's face. "A dreadful life your father led as well. I understood that, and never begrudged him his consolation."

"Consolation?" Giles asked faintly.

"Augustina," she murmured.

"It isn't like that, Mum," he said.

Clara glanced at Buffy, now asleep so peacefully beside Giles in the bed his mother and father had once shared. He realized suddenly that Clara's words were true--for Augustina, for Helena, for Buffy. Perhaps, if all was well between Watcher and Slayer, there could be no other way.

Giles thought of Jenny--had she lived, would he have come to hurt her, as his father had undoubtedly hurt his mum? He hoped not--hoped, truly, that he would have been a finer man than that--but even as he hoped he knew he'd always loved Buffy more. Had she died at Angelus's evil hands, he'd not have stopped with tears and grieving. He'd not have stopped until he himself died, and it would not have been sense of duty that brought him to such a pass.

Clara drifted to the edge of the bed. She knelt, her insubstantial hand flickering over Buffy's brow, smoothing her tousled hair. "I wish that I could have been more like her," she said, "So that you might have loved and respected me."

"I always loved you," Giles told her. "Even when I was most angry."

Clara stooped to bestow a kiss, the touch causing Buffy to stir and murmur softly.

"Asleep, she feels me," his mother said.

"You are, after all, a supernatural creature," Giles said. How entirely odd to share such a conversation--they'd never spoken so straightforwardly in his life. "Er--why have you come back, Mum?"

She gave another slight smile--again, his smile. "To see you again, I suppose. To say goodbye. To say to you that I am sorry."

"Sorry?" Giles asked. It wasn't a word he'd ever expected from her.

"Sorry about Horace, mainly."

Giles blinked, then scowled. His mind must have required a great amount more sleep, for he thought, at first, she'd said "Horus," the Egyptian god of light, when, of course, she'd meant Mr. Stanley.

"After Laurence passed on..." Clara's voice trailed away. "I never see him, Rupert."

"I do," Giles told her.

"Is he...?" A further sheen, as of tears, brightened the silver of his mother's eyes. "Is he very unhappy?"

Giles could not tell her the truth; even now he felt he must be kind. "He's with Clarice and Marianna," he told her. True enough--or not precisely a lie.

"My Rupert." Clara laid her hand over his heart, her touch, as ghosts' always were, like moonlight and water. She looked directly into his eyes, in a way that was lovely and sad and terrible. The living, Giles thought, were never meant to look into such eyes. "I understand," she said quietly.

"What was that, Mum?"

"Why you were so angry." Her forefinger brushed his lips, as if cautioning him to keep a secret. "I watched you," she said, as when they first met. "You are so brave, and I was always so afraid. I couldn't bear to be left on my own. And now I cannot bear to make these excuses for what I have been."

Giles's lips parted. Again, he could not speak. He could only watch his mother's body turn to mist, then to a faint glimmering in the air.

Clara's voice lasted only a moment longer. "Be careful, Rupert," she cautioned, "When you see me again."

Giles raised his hand to where the glimmer had been, but nothing remained there.

"Talking," Buffy muttered beside him. "Lots of talking. Middle of the night."

"It's nearly dawn, he told her, stroking the silken hair back from her brow. "How do you feel, my love? Can I fetch you anything?"

"New head, please. Why do I feel like I have a hangover?"

"How do you know what a hangover feels like?" he countered.

"Not telling. Water?"

Giles took a cup from the nightstand and helped her to drink. Finished, Buffy rolled over to her side, studying his face in the dark. Her hand rose to touch his throat.

"Poor sweetie--your voice--what did you do?"

"Had to talk rather a lot, I'm afraid."

"Stop talking then. You sound like Danny DeVito. Only with laryngitis. And British."

Giles laughed. "Ow."

Buffy moved up against him, her back against his chest, warm and wriggly and entirely herself once more. She tucked her head into that favourite spot, just beneath his chin, and Giles slipped his arms round her, drawing Buffy closer still, delighting in the gentle warmth of her body, the firm, steady beat of her heart.

"I wanna go back to the farm," she told him sleepily. "Can we?"

"Whatever your heart desires," Giles told her--if nothing else, Moira could use all that positive energy to ward Appleyard until it was secure as a bank vault. Buffy needed to recover her strength: where better than at that blessed place?

He hated this house, he realized, with its ghosts, its sadness, its harsh memories. Giles quite intended to take Celeste's advice and have some sort of service in to clear it out; he fully intended to sell the place as soon as he possibly might.

Considering this, Giles fell silent, and as Buffy did not speak, he thought she must have fallen asleep, until she moved against him, impatiently.

"What is it, love?" he asked her.

"Nothing," she answered. Then, "Were you talking to ghosts again?"

"I was," he admitted.

"It wigs me when you do that."

"I know dearest," he answered. "I'm sorry."

"Not that I'm telling you to stop--just, major wiggins."

Giles smiled. That was one of her favourite phrases, and every time she used it, he'd imagine a comic officer, Major Wiggins, such as might be found in a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera--s blustering fool weighted down with gold braid, perhaps in some way resembling his late employer, Principal Snyder.

"Was it the girls?" Buffy asked.

"Not this time. My mum, actually."

"Okay, bigger wiggins. Doesn't it--?" Buffy twisted in his arms to look up at him. "Doesn't it ever freak you out?"

How could he explain. "Actually-- Actually, it was rather lovely. She seems stronger now."

"Closure," Buffy said. "You got closure."

"I suppose you might say that I did."

"You realize, though, that you're still a deeply strange man?" She kissed him to take away the sting of the words, then moved her mouth to his ear, and whispered. "I wouldn't have it any other way."