Transitions - Chapter 57

Moira wakened abruptly from a dream of Gerald Cavanaugh, the last of the Watchers to die unrepentant in Mermorgan Wood. She lay on her back, quite still, in the unfamiliar bed, feeling the saltless tears run down from the corners of her eyes, into her hair. Carefully, she raised a trembling hand to wipe them away. She knew she'd made no sound, had not moaned or cried out in her sleep, despite the horridness of the dream. She'd been taught to be utterly silent.

Her training held--or rather, both her trainings: that of a Watcher, and that of a LeFaye. Twice only in her life had she let her control slip: once in those long years with Helena, when she'd all but lost her wits, and one final time, only weeks before, when she'd nearly let herself die at the hands of the vampire her one-time Slayer had become.

Lena, she thought, Oh, Lena. Then, How have I come to this place? By which, she didn't mean Appleyard--a lovely location, really, with traditions all its own. Even its name made her think of Avalon, the Island of the Apples, whence one came to be healed.

Moira suspected that, by now, she lay beyond healing. How had she come to this time in her life, this situation, this willingness to...?

The vision of Cavanaugh's ravaged body returned to her with a painful vividness, and Moira sat up in bed, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply until the image receded. It never would go away, and she must not expect it to--but then she'd known that when she set out upon her recent course of action. Every act had its own price, and one paid that price. Often one paid dearly.

Moira wished, suddenly, strongly, to be back in California, a part of the world she had never thought she'd liked particularly. It wasn't the State, of course, that drew her--and certainly not Sunnydale itself, home to so much strangeness, so much evil. Rather, she was drawn to the tidy little house with its half-repaired garden, the thought of Wesley in their bed, turning to her with that sleepy astonishment that both amused and touched her. She wished, with a sudden, aching vehemence, to lie there beside him, to have him hold her, as he often did, with a strength greater than he knew he possessed. She could, in those moments or hours, let down this facade of poise, of power, of knowing the answer to every possible question. There, in the dark, she could be a woman--not a sorceress or a Watcher--only a woman full of hopes, fears and uncertainties.

Moira knew a secret about herself. Though others might find it hard to believe, she'd a tendency to love too deeply--despite the fact that, on general principle, she distrusted all emotion. Love had nearly destroyed her, even as, in those years of her Active Watcherhood, it had kept her alive. The knowledge that she must not surrender, must be there to look after Helena, had prevented her more than once from laying down her burdens, and her life. In the events that followed the vampire Helena's defeat in Sunnydale, only Wesley's presence kept her from sinking entirely into despair.

Moira smiled slightly, substituting the thought of his face for the darker images that haunted her dreams. Dear Wesley. Dear odd, fussy, innocent Wesley, who cherished her as she had never before been cherished. She'd a powerful need, in that moment, to hear his voice.

Moira reached for the bedside lamp with one sure motion, not fumbling in the least, and by its light read the old-fashioned clock on the mantelpiece. Just past two--morning here in England, but only early evening for her Wesley, back in the States. She ought to call. He'd be worried about her. She certainly ought to have rung him previously.

Moira slipped from the bed and donned her dressing gown, recalling that Rupert's aunts kept a telephone in their kitchen. They, amongst the most generous women she knew, would certainly not grudge her a brief conversation.

Soundlessly, she slipped down the stairs, wishing, even as she did so, for the digital she'd left behind at Sebastian and Celeste's.

The kitchen's stone floor touched coldly against her bare feet, but Moira was quite accustomed to such discomforts, and scarcely noticed. Far more disconcerting, for one grown used to tapping in a rapid sequence of numbers, was the ancient rotary dial on the telephone itself. She curbed her impatience and found herself smiling: let this serve as a reminder to slow down, to enjoy the fruits of anticipation. Once the number had been dialed, she could hear the distant ring at the other end, and a sound like a gale-force wind over the ocean. She expected the answering machine--she'd lived Stateside long enough to call it such--to pick up, but the machine did not.

Just when she'd grown ready to abandon her attempt and try another time, Wesley's voice came on the line, sounding crisp and cold.

"Wyndham-Price."

For a moment, Moira could think of nothing to say, and a cold shiver, a frisson, one might say, vibrated up her spine. "Wesley, love?" she said to him at last.

"Ah." He sounded as if, for a moment, he'd not recognized her voice, and Moira thought of twitting him gently about that--but found herself quite unable to do so.

"It's Em," she told him, hating the note of weakness that entered her own tone. She was never so. Never. It frightened her to hear herself react in this manner on the basis of such very insubstantial clues.

"Yes, Moira. Of course," he answered, a small warmth entering his words, "My dearest."

"Is there someone there with you?" Moira asked, fearing, suddenly, that her acts would indeed not go unpunished.

She'd left Quentin Travers semi-conscious, but not dead, back in Whitechapel. Perhaps her mercy had, in fact, been an error? Travers was, no doubt, a pompous bastard--but would he stoop so low as to injure his own nephew?

"Wesley, are you all right?" she asked, forcing her voice into calmness. "Has someone hurt you, love?"

"Hurt me? No, never better," he answered vaguely. "Been having a bit of a lie-down, actually. Up late last night. Patroling, and all that."

Moira found that she'd released a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "And I woke you. Oh, my love, I'm sorry."

"Quite all right. It's good to hear your voice." A pause. "Emmy."

She twined the receiver cord round her index finger, pondering that brief silence, and its possible meaning. Despite Wesley's perfectly reasonable explanation: that he felt a bit vague, having just been awakened, misgivings niggled at the edge of Moira's consciousness.

"I know..." she began, swallowed and tried again. "I do know that I ought to have rung before. It's been madness here, my love, and I've felt like I'd hardly a moment. Still, for you, I should have made one."

"No need to concern yourself," Wesley told her. "I understand."

"Dearest, we..." Her fingertips touched lightly on the mouthpiece, as if by doing so, she might somehow touch him in the flesh. "Wesley, dearest, I love you."

"You, Moira," he said, "Are all I think about."

"Be careful, love, won't you?"

"You also, Em," he answered, and rang off.

Moira replaced the receiver gently on its cradle, running her fingertip back and forth along its black casing. Her instant impulse was to rush off for America, to find her love and assure herself of his well-being--and yet she knew her work here in England was not yet complete. She needed to rebind the half-awakened Hellmouth in Whitechapel, and to meet with what remained of the Council. For the former, at least, she wanted Rupert as her second--and most likely for the latter, as well--and Rupert needed time to recover from his recent ordeals before she could think of asking his help.

She was weary, so very weary of responsibility. More than anything, she wanted to retire, to live in happy seclusion in someplace that wasn't Mermorgan Hall. She wished, yet again, to lie beneath the spreading branches of their tree and feel the sun on her face, Wesley's hands on her body, his sweet mouth against her mouth.

Why, oh why, had he sounded so cold?

Have you so little trouble in your life, old girl, she chided herself, That you must needs borrow more?

The answer, Moira decided, was emphatically no. She took herself off to bed, smiling a little, as she passed, at the voices of Buffy and Rupert behind their closed bedroom door.

Buffy liked to watch sometimes when Giles didn't know she was there. Right at that moment he seemed oblivious, standing in front of the mirror with his pajama shirt off, shaving carefully with his straight razor, his chin pointed halfway to the ceiling. She stood in the doorway, at an angle, so that the mirror didn't catch her reflection, and stared at him so hard that she wondered why he didn't feel it. It was like she needed to capture everything about him, the quiet scrape of the razor through his foam-covered beard, the slight shift of the muscles beneath the scarred skin of his back, his familiar, beloved face reflected in the glass.

Giles rinsed off his razor and, without looking, grabbed a towel to wipe the last of the foam from his jaw. Only then did he seem to sense her presence. He smiled into the mirror. "And how long have you been standing there, Buffy?"

"Sometimes I like to watch you," she answered.

"Do you, now?" Giles turned to her, leaning back against the sink, his arms crossed over his chest. Some tiredness and wariness still lingered in his eyes, but he looked better, really, than he had in a long time. His hair was still a little damp from the shower, tousled and curlier than usual, and he gave her that smile where the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes sparked green. It told her he was feeling playful--and that, too, was something she hadn't seen in a long time.

Buffy came closer, grinning up at him. "You're giving me your Grinch-smile. What does that mean?"

Giles laughed softly, making Buffy feel bolder. She padded close to him, laying her cheek against his chest. That hair was damp too, and his skin smelled wonderful, a combined scent of Gilesness and herbs from Aunt Flora's homemade soap. Buffy let her tongue flicker out, and touched it to the skin just over his breastbone. He gave a little shiver, then a bigger one as her arms went around his waist and her hands slid down beneath the drawstring waist of his pajama pants, rubbing over the muscled firmness of his behind.

"Mmn, nice," she hummed against him.

"Might I remind you that we're sharing this bathroom?"

Buffy laughed. "Might I remind you that our bedroom's right next door?"

"You know, that fact hadn't actually slipped my mind." Giles held her at arm's length, studying her face. "My dearest, dearest girl."

Buffy took his hands, being gentle with the right one, and towed him out of the bathroom. "Now that you're all clean 'n' tidy, we can have our carpet picnic."

"I bet your pardon?"

She pulled Giles into the bedroom. "We have our nice fireplace, with a fire in it, and our nice, clean sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. We have bread and cheese and fruit, and some kind of funky apple juice." Buffy released him long enough to grab the pillows off the bed. "We have you, and we have me."

"Ah, a carpet picnic. We're to recline in the manner of ancient Romans, and take our pleasures where they come?"

"Yup, that's the general idea! Except--" Buffy grinned. "I don't think your ancient Romans wore fuzzy pink jammies."

"Not that it's recorded." Following her lead, Giles sank beside her onto the thick sheepskin, and for a minute, they just sat cross-legged, looking at each other. Then his hand reached out and slowly, one by one, undid the little pearl buttons of her pajama top, opening one side, then the other, sliding the entire top over her shoulders, down her arms, off her body entirely. His eyes were jade green, watching her.

"Lie down, love," Giles said, in a soft, husky voice. Buffy obeyed.

The fire bathed her side with a flickering warmth, and she sank deeply into the softness of the carpet, each little motion brushing that softness into her skin, until every last one of her nerve endings came alive. Giles's hand traveled over her cheek, down her throat, cupped the curve of her breast, followed her fire-warmed side--just hovering, never actually touching her skin, in a way that was almost more pleasurable than an actual touch. His eyes never left hers.

Buffy's breath caught, and she bit her lower lip, the warmth starting to build between her legs.

Giles lay down next to her, elbow propped on his pillow. He bent to kiss her, his tongue parting her lips, slipping inside in gentle exploration. His hand moved in slow circles over her nipple, sending shivers running the length of her body, then lower, rubbing lightly over her stomach, her navel, down below the elasticized waist of her own pajama bottoms, wonderful slow touches that set her skin alight. Still kissing her, he withdrew his hand and laid it between her thighs, rubbing against the soft flannel with the same feather-touch until she moaned aloud, into his mouth, pushing against his hand.

"Not yet," Giles told her quietly. "Roll over."

Buffy rolled, shutting her eyes, the fire warming her other side. Deftly, Giles removed her pajama bottoms. He brushed her hair away from her neck, bent, and kissed her there, first just beneath her hairline, then at the very base of her neck. She shivered as his fingertips traced her spine, caressed her lower back, stroked her buttocks, the evidence of his own excitement firm against her hip. The questing fingers drifted up along the inside of her thigh to touch, at last, against her now-pulsing core. "Can I turn back?" she asked. "Let me turn back."

In answer, Giles kissed her shoulder, then turned her gently, gazing down at her once more. Buffy smiled up at him.

"Your turn," she said. Giles smiled too as she, with her superior strength, thrust him back against the pillow.

Buffy straddled him, her heated nakedness against his flannel-covered hardness. She rocked slowly above him until he moaned. Bending downward, she rubbed her cheek against his, then drew her teeth lightly across his throat, her tongue dipping into the hollow at its base. Rising up a little, she stroked his chest, running her fingers through the soft hair, her palms rubbing over his nipples until his moans deepened.

"Two can play at that game," she breathed, and slipped away from him to find the little silver packet in the nightstand drawer. As Giles gazed up at her, she lay down again beside him, and rested her head on his stomach. His hand rose to stroke her hair, while hers moved down between his legs, under his now-straining shaft, to caress his balls through the soft fabric, loving the weight of them, the soft, liquid heat against her palm.

"Oh, Lord," Giles breathed. "I-- I can't--"

Buffy stopped the motion of her hand, looking up into green eyes that were dark and glazed with passion. "Now?" she said.

He swallowed, nodding mutely, lifting his hips as she eased off his pajama bottoms. His erection seemed to leap free of the restraining fabric, and she gave him a few seconds, knowing that if she touched him at that moment it would be too much.

"Cherry red this time," she said, opening the foil packet, and Giles gave her a slightly strained smile.

Buffy couldn't believe that, so recently, she'd been shy about putting on a condom. Now it seemed easy, like nothing. Before, she'd felt like a little girl, like a naive little girl--but she didn't feel like a little girl anymore, and that wasn't a bad thing, by any means. She felt like a woman, a woman who was loved by a good man--complete in herself, but balanced by him.

Once more, she moved astride her lover, reaching down to guide him inside her. God, the feeling of him filling her! All that heat, all that passion. Those eyes that would lock on hers, that hand that knew every sensitive spot on her body, just as she'd learned his.

She began to move, her hands on the pillow, on either side of his head, his on her buttocks, drawing her closer, holding him to her harder than ever before. When she came it was like a tidal wave, carrying her away, and when he followed, within seconds, he sat up and held her, held her powerfully, in those strong arms, so that she knew she was anchored, and could never be torn away from her safe harbor.

She would have followed him into hell a thousand times, and brought him back on every try. There was no alternative.

Buffy snuggled closer, burying her face against his chest, loving the tenderness of his touch as he slowly stroked her hair, loving the way that he held her, his soft, beloved voice in her ears.

Appleyard lay quiet around them, their friends and family sleeping. Buffy listened to the steady beat of Giles's heart and felt nothing in herself but peace.