 |
Title: A Mile In His Moccasins 16/26 Buffy bit her lip nervously as she waited for Giles to answer. He lowered his head and stuffed both hands in his pockets. After an endless moment, he spoke. "This is very sudden." "Love's like that sometimes." "Yes. Yes, I suppose it is." "Well...?" Giles returned to the coffee table and sat on it, indicating to Buffy that she should sit on the sofa again. She moved warily to the seat and waited with tense shoulders as he gathered his thoughts. "Sometimes...there are other factors which need to be considered, Buffy." "Factors? What factors? There aren't any factors here, Giles. There's just you and me. So do you want to be with me?" "I do...very much...but..." "But what? What's the hitch? If I want you with me and you want you with me, why are you still sitting there looking like somebody squished your puppy? Isn't this where we kiss or something?" "You...you want to kiss me? Like this?" "Well, yeah. Y'know, 'cause it's still you in there. 'Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds'." Giles goggled frankly. "You're quoting Shakespeare?" "Before you get too excited, let me tell you it was in the chick flick Will and I watched earlier. Sense and Sensibility. Which also got me thinking how Alan Rickman-like you are. Only cuter. Anyway, I remembered because it's what's going on with us. Lots of alterations, but we're still the same people and I'll still feel the same way about you when we get back to being our normal selves. I know how I feel. It's not gonna change. What about you?" Giles stood and walked to the window. He looked out on the night, running one finger over the glass. "My feelings don't matter much in this case. I will leave as soon as we find a solution to our current situation. And I very likely won't be back again." "You don't...want to be with me?" "It isn't a matter of what I want, Buffy." She stood and strode to his side. "The hell it isn't! Either you love me or you don't. What's going on, Giles? What aren't you telling me?" "I'm no use to you, Buffy. You said yourself that you don't need me." "I said I have other people who can do stuff for me. But it's a whole lot more convenient to have you here. You can do all the stuff it takes three or four other people to do, but that's not the important thing. The important part is where when you're not here, I'm miserable. Isn't that useful enough for you? I like training with you, and nobody can make out those musty books like you can." "That's just the problem; I won't be able to do that much longer." "But you're okay. You told me. You said you're not sick. Were you lying when you said that? You're not...please tell me you're not..." "No, Buffy, I told you. I expect to live for quite some time yet." "Then why are you making it sound like you're planning to have tea with the Grim Reaper in about an hour? Stop scaring me and just tell me what's going on." He looked up at her with sad eyes and took her hand. "It's not something life-threatening, Buffy. It's just...I've had so many head injuries, it was bound to have some sort of effect eventually. I started having trouble with my vision." "You've always had trouble with your vision, Giles. You've been wearing glasses as long as I've known you." "Yes, but this is...I'm going blind. In a few months' time, I won't be able to see at all anymore." Buffy stood stock still for a moment. At last she blinked and turned away, wiping her palms on her jeans. "And I guess not too many ancient Sumerian scrolls get made into books on tape," she said with an attempt at a laugh that failed miserably. Giles looked at the floor. He'd always understood Buffy's need to joke in the face of danger or tragedy, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. "Not many, no." Buffy found the nearest chair and sat heavily. "What can we do?" "Nothing, it seems. I've seen several doctors and they all agree the case is hopeless." "How long have you known about this?" "Does it really matter?" "How long, Giles?" "Since August." Buffy was silent as the tears welled up in her eyes. Giles began to speak again. "That's why I left in the first place. Even then, it took me a couple months to work up the nerve to walk away. Then you were back. I had to see you. It might well have been my last chance. I wanted to stay then, but I couldn't. I couldn't become one more burden in your life. So I left." "You bastard. You told me it was because I wasn't being grown up enough and all the time it was because you didn't want me to know this?" "What was I to do? Stay and be just one more thing you didn't want to deal with?" "So that makes it okay for you to just say it's all my fault you were leaving? Didn't I have a say in it?" "It wasn't your problem." "Like hell it wasn't! You're my Watcher. And what about Dawn? I thought you cared about her, but you just left her alone with a bunch of screwed up teenagers and a vampire. Didn't you care what happened to her?" "Of course I cared. And she knew I was a phone call away." "And an ocean. And a continent or two. That's a pretty long way in an emergency." "Well it's a pretty long way across town with a white cane and a guide dog." "So you ran away. We'd have taken care of you, Giles. Didn't you know that?" "Like you all did before? I've been injured many times without assistance from any of you. Not that I blame you. You were young and thoughtless, as all young people are." "We're not as young as we used to be. And you never gave us a chance. You never asked for help, and the few times one of us thought to ask, you turned us down. It's not fair." "Life isn't fair, in case you hadn't noticed. And there was nothing you could do." "So you're going to just crawl into a hole and disappear? Real mature, Giles. There's stuff we can do." "Like what? Did one of you become a qualified surgeon in my absence? Perhaps Xander perfected a new treatment for my particular condition behind my back and I missed the article in The Lancet. What on Earth do you think you can do?" "We can research. See if there's something the doctors you talked to don't know about. Maybe find a different way of dealing with this, or at least slowing it down. Oz didn't get control over his wolfy side by going to your average GP. And if we can't find a way to fix it, we can still be here for you. I can still be here for you. I've got enough of me back so I can do that now." Giles stared stubbornly at the floor. "No. I've taken a lot from you over the years, Buffy. Your anger, your resentment, even your occasional heartlessness. But I won't have your pity." Buffy moved to his side. "Then it's a damn good thing I don't do pity, isn't it?" She lifted his chin to make him look at her. "This sucks, Giles. And once it sinks in, I'll probably hate this just as much as you do. But we're gonna fight this thing, just like we've fought all the other things that we couldn't fight." "And if we can't win this time?" "Then we go down fighting. Like always." "This isn't life and death, Buffy." "Which is a good thing, since I'm a little tired of life and death and life again. If we can't stop this thing, we'll learn to deal. Doesn't change a thing." "It changes a great deal. If...when this happens, I shall be very vulnerable. I'll become a liability to you. And if I'm your lover as well as your Watcher I shall be a popular target for demons." "Then we better find a way to fix your eyes, 'cause I'm not giving you up. Not unless you tell me you don't want me." She faltered slightly. "You...do want me, right?" "Yes, of course I do," Giles assured her. "Good. So I want and you want." The two stood looking a bit nervously at one another for a long moment. "So what do we do now?" Buffy asked. "I'm...well, I'm not quite sure." "Well, we're done fighting, right?" "I believe so." "And we're...together, right?" "I...I...I think so. Are we?" "Yeah. I mean, I think so, too. So we must be." "Yes. We must be." He ducked his head with a shy smile as Buffy bit her lip. Neither one seemed to know quite how to react now that they'd worked things out. At last Buffy came up with an answer. "Tea," she suddenly blurted out. "The tea's getting cold. I'll go make more." *****
|
