Transitions - Ch. 63

The train had long since pulled out from Salisbury Station, and night had come on, but Giles sat unmoving behind the wheel of the Land Rover, making no effort to start the ungainly vehicle and drive from the carpark.

If asked, he would have said he was thinking, but that wasn't the truth. His mind seemed nearly a tabula rasa, a blank page empty of plans or decisions. Somehow the act of putting Reg Firkins, Cecil Seaton-Bowes and Kiki Belizar into their compartment seemed to have slammed a large, impenetrable door on his past, one that would most likely never be opened again.

Elspeth had been the hardest. She'd lingered on the platform after the others had gone, gazing up at him with clear blue eyes. It had come to Giles, suddenly, that she hadn't always existed as the little dove-like creature of his acquaintance--that once she'd been a girl like Buffy, full of fire, passion and emotion. That once, perhaps, she had loved. Returning her gaze, he realized that hadn't really changed for her, that the girl she'd been still lived inside her, just as vestiges of the human Ripper, and of the boy he'd been, lingered inside him.

"Rupert," Elspeth had said, surprising him again by her use of his given name, "You aren't coming back to us, are you?"

Giles knew he owed her honesty. "No, my dear," he answered. "I think that's unlikely in the extreme."

She'd taken his bandaged hand between her own small hands with the greatest gentleness. "It's very dangerous, isn't it? The work you do?"

"I've been a high school librarian," Giles answered, with an attempt at humour, "Elspeth, that's hardly..."

"Rupert, no one leaves a curatorship at the British Museum to become a librarian at some obscure America school. Not unless one is taking the position as a--what do they call it?--as a front for something else. One guesses that your true work is linked to the grey men who always made you so angry, and to those sweet children who've come over with you. To your Buffy, I would imagine, in particular."

"Elspeth..." Giles began.

She touched the small cross he'd given her as a going-away gift, more than three years before. "What's meant by the term 'Hellmouth,' Rupert?"

"I--ah--" Giles honestly couldn't think how to answer her, and so settled on the truth. "It's a weakness in the fabric of our dimension, a place where demons come through into our world, and to which the dark creatures already walking the earth are drawn."

"And Buffy?"

"She--er--she Slays them."

"And you?"

"I am--was, that is--her Watcher. I was meant to train her, and to study the ancient books, so that she would know what it was she fought, and how to defeat it."

Surprisingly, Elspeth merely nodded, and then took his good hand, placing his fingertips against the soft, wrinkled skin of her throat. He felt the scars there, marks he'd never noticed, harder ridges under the softness of her flesh.

Still holding his hand, Elspeth sought his eyes again. "You have a similar scar, my dear, as does Buffy, and your poor, haunted friend, Lady LeFaye. I've known for years that evil creatures moved through the shadows of our world, and that there were young girls chosen to fight them--I met one once, in years long past. She saved me, my dear. I can see her face so clearly still--an Irish Gypsy girl she was, the loveliest thing."

Giles swallowed, feeling a sudden prickle in the backs of his eyes as the image of Augustina filled his mind. Brave Augustina, with her bright blue eyes and raven hair. He struggled to maintain his composure. "Slayers," he said, huskily. "They're called Slayers. That girl...I suppose you might say she was my father's. He was responsible for her life, as I am for Buffy's."

Elspeth gave a little nod, reaching out briefly to touch his hand. Overhead, the train whistle blew.

"It's time, then," she told him.

"I'll try to see you again, before I leave London," Giles said, handing her up the carriage stairs.

"Do be careful, won't you?" Elspeth bent down to kiss his cheek, a slight, dry touch, like the brush of a butterfly's wing. "Rupert, dear."

"Have a safe journey," he answered.

The train began to move away almost at once. Giles raised a hand in farewell to his other three friends, who waved out the window in the manic fashion of young children who'd been fed far too many sweets.

He thought of his family, left behind in Appleyard. Buffy, Xander and Willow had been arguing over a game of Snakes and Ladders--quite an old set, with terrifyingly realistic serpents, two of which Xander had immediately dubbed "Machida" and "Dick Wilkins." Violet sat with her sketchbook in her lap, perhaps attempting to capture their boundless energy on paper. Oblivious to it all, Sebastian and Rose were involved in a silent game of chess, whilst Moira, Celeste and Flora sat round the kitchen table, making up little bundles of the dried herbs--each, most likely, for her own purpose.

As Giles had walked back to the Land Rover, all these thoughts and images drained away, leaving him as he now was, blank, yet with a feeling in his preconscious brain that something was soon to happen. Without realizing what he'd done, he turned the key in the ignition and put the vehicle in gear, driving by instinct through the darkened streets of Salisbury, until the spire of St. Elizabeth's rose in his view.

Giles toyed, for a moment, with the idea of seeing if he could hunt out Father Brounslow--not to make a confession, as he hadn't done in more years than he could remember, but to talk of his life with the old man who had once been his mentor, and whom he still considered his friend. Instead, he parked round the front of Church House, and used his key to let himself in the door.

The place looked smaller, stripped of its accouterments, and a bit shabby--though, thanks to Celeste's cleaners, sparklingly tidy. Half a dozen medium-sized cartons, each marked with his name, stood in the sitting room where his mother had once spent most of her days--they'd contain personal things, he assumed: photographs, bits of china and silver that had come down from the maternal side of the family. The rest would have gone to his mum's old friend, Mrs. Parker, or to Oxfam.

None of what remained meant much to him, but he supposed it might, someday, to his future children or to his grandchildren. Perhaps there might be pieces, too, that Celeste would like.

Giles sat on an ottoman, opening one of the carton flaps in a desultory manner. He could see nothing inside but a collection of white-paper-wrapped lumps. He let the flap fall to again, rising to wander once more through the house.

He didn't bother with the lights. Even after so much time, he could still have found his way through the small rooms blindfolded--besides which, that night the moon shone full, sending silver streamers of light through the small, thick-paned windows.

Giles climbed the stairs, glancing into the room that had once been his parents', then into the long room where Clarice and Marianna had slept. Last of all he sought the drab bedchamber that had been first his, then Laurence's. All were stripped bare, empty, except the last--and there it didn't surprise him in the least to see his half-brother's spirit, sitting cross-legged on the unclothed bed.

"Hello," Giles said to him, and the ghost looked up, shaking his eternally damp hair out of his mirrored eyes.

"Oh," Laurence replied. "It's you. 'Bout bloody time."

Giles took a seat on the mattress beside him, and told the ghost, without preamble, "Your dad's dead."

For a moment, Laurence's eyes almost resembled a real boy's. "Is he then? How?"

Giles shrugged. He wasn't proud of his acts, but neither was he, truth be told, particularly sorry. Not nearly so sorry as he ought, perhaps, to have been. "Magic," he answered. "Fire. He burned."

Laurence's face opened in a smile that strongly resembled Giles's own, at his most joyous. "I say, Rup--that's brill."

"I thought..." Be honest, Giles told himself. You know you agree with him. Don't be a bloody hypocrite. "I thought you'd be pleased, Laurie."

"You're a good brother," the ghost said, sounding, for once, quite happy. "I mean that, Rup. Honestly."

"I wish I'd been a better one," Giles answered.

Laurence shrugged. "What could you have done, really? You were every bit as fucked up as I was. Maybe more. You've forgotten that, Rup, as you got old. You blame yourself for everything that got that bolloxed up, but I can't see how you'd have be able to help any of it."

"I should..." Giles began, then stopped. "Did..."

"Did I mean to off myself?" Laurence gave a sudden grin. "You're thinking you could've helped me with that? Been my big brother, talked me round?"

"I might have tried," Giles told him.

"My mate Colin stole a bottle of Scotch from his dad, and we went down to the river to drink it--up on the footbridge, you know. I wanted to be a big man, show him how much I could get down my neck without spewin' me ring."

Giles smiled a bit at the slang--it was a phrase he hadn't heard for years. His young friends would have used the far less descriptive term, "barfing."

"And it was a hot day, so we got the idea of jumping of the bridge, into the water--more for a dare than anything else. So I did, and the water closed over me, and..." Laurence stopped. When Giles glanced at him, he saw silvery tears streaking the spirit's insubstantial face.

"And?" he asked gently.

"I couldn't think of a reason to come up again," Laurence answered in a small voice. "I thought...I suppose..."

"That it would just end?" Giles asked.

"That it would just end," his brother echoed. They sat regarding one another, understanding those emotions quite well.

Across the room, someone cleared her throat, breaking their gaze. Marianna stood there, dressed as if for games, in short trousers and middy blouse. Clarice, this time, wore a blue dress, a ribbon tying back her bobbed hair, its large bow slightly off-centre.

"Is it time?" Laurence asked them.

Clarice nodded, the bow bouncing.

"Nearly time," Marianna said. "Are you ready, Rupert?"

"Ready?" Giles responded, surprised. "For what, exactly?"

"She's waiting for you, in the dark beside your motor," Clarice told him. "Rupert, she's got like dad."

Giles sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He felt very tired, suddenly. Entirely incapable of the task he must perform--and yet, he knew it was a duty that he could not shirk.

"I'm sorry," Clarice told him, her voice honestly contrite.

"It will all be over soon," Marianna said, and even she sounded sympathetic.

Wearily, Giles rose to his feet. He overturned the flimsy chair that stood beside his boyhood desk, breaking off two of its legs. One stake he held in his hand, whilst concealing the other up his sleeve.

The three small ghosts proceeded him down the stairs, but they waited for Giles to open the back door and let them out into the night.

The temperature had dropped, until the air felt nearly autumnal, and the full moon made it a night of contrasts, silver light and sharp-edged black shadows. Giles stood on the stoop, shivering, as he had as a boy, wishing that he'd thought to bring one of the reliable if unglamourous tweed jackets Buffy and the others twitted him about so mercilessly--his henley shirt did little to cut the chill.

"Rup--" Marianna scarcely had time to cry out before the weight struck him, knocking him sideways.

Giles rolled, trying to dislodge his attacker, trying to gain his feet and the advantages of his height and longer reach--but the vampire clung to him, reeking of wet earth and old blood, her once-pretty face, pressed close to his, now contorted into a demon's visage.

Her nails bit into his throat, and with her other hand she struck him, viciously once, then twice, across his face. Stars of pain flashed before his eyes, and a sudden gout of blood flooded the back of his throat. He got his arm up in time to block a third blow, using his greater weight to roll with her, pinning her momentarily beneath him.

The vampire's legs scissored, trying to fling him off. When that failed, she slammed one of her knees upward, missing her intended target, but catching him quite hard in the pit of the stomach.

Giles flew backward and fetched up hard against the steps, the edge of a stair catching him painfully across the spine. He could not catch his breath, but knew he must live without it, or not live at all.

She sprang at him again. Time went slow, the concealed stake seeming to ooze into his hand, his arm to rise with agonizing slowness and, as the weight of her body fell upon him, the point of his makeshift weapon to enter her unliving flesh at such a snail's pace that it would certainly be of the greatest ease for her to pick herself off it and step back, laughing.

But she did not.

The stake found her heart. For only an instant, before the dust claimed her body, she wore, again, his mother's face, and Giles felt as if his own heart had been stabbed through.

Then she was gone. Ashes to ashes.

The breath returned to Giles's body in an agonizing sob. He aspirated blood, and coughed violently, painfully, lying face-down on the stairs with his cheek against the cold concrete. He wasn't sure exactly when his struggle to breathe turned into true tears, but when it did, it left him helpless. Had another vampire approached, he'd not have been able to defend himself.

No other vampire came. Perhaps there was not another in the whole of Salisbury.

After some moments, Giles lay still, feeling ghost hands stroke his hair, the soft murmur of childish voices in his ears--and then another hand, another voice.

"I'm so very sorry, my dear," she said, in her sweet, small, familiar voice. Hardly an adult's voice at all, really, but now there was no weakness in it, only tenderness. Clara's voice. Clara's face, bent over him.

Giles raised a hand, smearing tears and blood over his own cheeks.

"Did I not teach you always to carry a clean handkerchief?" his mum asked, smiling a little.

"That you did." Giles, at last, managed to pull himself upright. "And, generally, I do."

"You've broken your nose again," Marianna informed him.

Giles gave a shaky laugh. "Yes, dearest, I believe I have."

"Poor Rupert," Clarice said, laying her weightless head against his shoulder.

"I can't believe you got her, Rup," Laurence told him. "I thought you were history, mate."

"Laurence," Clara admonished, "That's quite enough."

For an instant, Laurence gave her a rebellious look, but then subsided with a muttered, "Yes, Mum."

"That's better," Clara told him. Her hand flowed like water across Giles's cheek. "Will you be all right, Rupert? Did you need us to stay?"

Giles looked up into her shining, uncanny eyes, reading her meaning in their strange depthlessness. "No," he told her, "I'll be all right. You...if you...if it's time, I shan't detain you."

"If you're quite sure, then, son." She straightened, smiling down upon him.

Giles nodded, painfully, swallowing blood and tears. He wanted desperately, for a moment, to beg them to stay--but would not allow himself to do so.

"Very well then, my dear," his mother told him gently. "We'll see you, shall we? Later?"

"Yes," he answered. "Later."

Clara took Clarice's hand in her own, and slung a maternal arm round Laurence's shoulders. Marianna, ever the trail-breaker, forged ahead. The four of them paused at the verge, glancing back at him once, and for the second time that evening, Giles raised a hand in farewell.

He watched them cross the street, checking carefully, both ways, before they stepped from the kerb--a caution that struck him as nearly amusing. The quartet moved on, then, into the churchyard, slipping silently amongst the gravestones until their already insubstantial bodies began to fade: from silver, to grey, to the merest flickers of motion.

And then they were gone altogether.

"Goodbye, my dears," Giles murmured, his chest aching. "Godspeed."

The ghosts did not return. Giles wondered, idly, if he'd ever see ghosts again.

In time, Giles collected himself enough to go inside. In the bare lavatory, he washed the blood and dust from his face and hands. His shirt was beyond rescue, and a layer of new bruises lay atop the old. His back ached from striking so hard against the stairs, but no real harm had been done. He need only resign himself to the usual black eyes and swelling that would accompany his broken nose--but perhaps Aunt Rose could set it properly for him this time.

The house felt entirely empty. More empty than it had ever done.

Giles locked the doors carefully, and pocketed the keys. He would not return, not this time. Strangers would dwell within these walls, and never know the history of the people who'd lived there--and perhaps, he thought, that was for the best.

Driving back to Appleyard, he switched on the radio for company. Martin Carthy was doing a program about English folk music on the BBC, and Giles sang along softly with a few of the old, familiar songs, until the swelling around his nose began to make his voice ridiculously nasal.

The kitchen light had been left burning at Appleyard, welcoming him home. Giles parked the Land Rover in the old mews and limped up the slight hill toward the door. By the kitchen clock, it had gone nearly midnight--time had gotten away from him rather thoroughly back in Salisbury. All his family would be long since abed.

Giles let himself in quietly, and slipped off his shoes, groaning a little as he stooped to take them from the floor. Stocking-footed, he padded upstairs, rapping softly at the bedroom door to let Buffy know he'd be entering shortly--she chided him, now and then, about his unintended stealthiness.

His beloved wasn't inside, but Giles heard the loo flush across the hall. He quickly skinned off his shirt so as not to alarm her with the quantity of blood that stained its front, wadding the ruined garment into a small ball.

"Hey, you're back!" she exclaimed, catching sight of him through the open door. "Hey, Giles." Buffy's tone changed to one of concern. "Your back." She approached him.

Giles shivered as her fingers explored the bone-deep bruise; it hurt, despite her gentleness.

"C'mon," Buffy said to him, troubled. "What else?"

Giles turned to her, and she took the shirt from his hand, opening its folds to examine the stain. "Well, that one's a goner." With unfailing aim, she flung the ruined garment into the corner bin. She touched the sore spot over his stomach, then another at his jaw, then, very tenderly, the bridge of his nose. "So, tell me," she said. "What happened this time? Who picked on my Watcher?"

He found himself starting to laugh, most inappropriately, and then the laughter turned into something else, and he was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed's footboard, Buffy holding him tight, rocking him gently in her arms. "It's all right, it's all right," she told him. "Sweetie, it's all over now, isn't it?"

At last Giles lay with his head in her lap, watching the fire with eyes that felt painfully dry. Buffy's hand stroked his hair with a loving, rhythmic touch.

"Yes, Buffy," he told her, when he'd recovered his ability to speak. "Yes, it is all over now."

"Come to bed," she told him. "Let me hold you, and get you warm, and you can tell me everything."

Painfully, Giles raised himself, looking down into her eyes, as she gazed up into his. He could, at last, tell her everything, all his thoughts, all his joys and fears. They'd become partners and lovers and friends. They'd no more need for silence, or secrets, between them.

"Later," he said to her softly, "If I might. I'd just like to hold you now."

Buffy kissed his temple, with that same exquisite tenderness she'd displayed before. "Whatever you need, Giles," she told him. "I'm here for you."