Helplessness - Ch. 6

Giles had seen Buffy briefly at the library, in company with her friends. She'd run up to him with hope, as if he might yet somehow stop this, and he could offer her nothing, only watch her lovely eyes cloud with tears.

At the end, once more, he hadn't been able to settle, and had gone out in haste again, without even the presence of mind to bid the others goodnight. The gears of his Citroen screamed as he pushed the little vehicle past its preferred maximum speed of thirty-five miles per hour, but he did not care, did not even mind if the transmission dropped out into the street, provided it brought him to The Sunnydale Arms.

Out front, he scarcely remembered to shut off engine and lights before he climbed to the crumbling porch. Only faint illumination showed inside the place, and all seemed still--yet again the hair at his nape stood erect. His heart beat too quickly in his chest, and so loudly it seemed that every vampire for miles around must surely hear him.

Giles forced himself to grasp the knob firmly, and to open the door. All quite still.

"Quentin?" he called, unable for the life of him to remember, in that moment of panic, the man's family name. He moved into the quiet of the lounge and out again, down the corridor, glancing up the stairs. The stillness oppressed him, like iron bands wrapped around his chest and his head. The stairs appeared a bit doubtful, as if they'd never stand his weight, but he climbed one or two, pausing on the landing, trying to make himself listen for what could not be heard.

"Quentin?" he called again, touching the rail. "Hob..."

Wetness met his hand, sticky wetness, like the wetness on his pillow the previous morning. He raised his hand, knowing even before he looked what he would see. Of course, blood. Naturally, blood.

From the elevation of the landing he could see into the next room, and the crate standing there. For a moment he could not even remember what it meant, and then his vision went Ripper-white, and suddenly he didn't care, what they would think, what they would do--he thought only of Buffy, his Slayer, his friend.

He could no longer tolerate hearing her plead to him, for the help he could or would not give. Let them send another Watcher--that was the real secret, wasn't it, no matter what the Council tried to say? That Watchers couldn't merely be sent--like Slayers, they could only be called, and were only released by their own or their Slayers' deaths. Half the Watchers sent weren't right, weren't real, and so they died, or their Slayers died. But, by God he was the Watcher, and Buffy was his Slayer, and as he'd vowed once in a cold and lonely place, he would fight for her as long as he had breath and blood.

Not noticing the bruise to his hand as he broke one of the balusters away from its rail, Giles headed straight for the wooden box where the evil thing lay, no thought on his mind but to turn the monster immediately to dust--but the crate was empty, and when he looked, more blood trailed along the floor, down the corridor, into the kitchen.

He followed the path toward the dark room, tension shivering through him again as he couldn't find the switch that would stifle his primitive fear and take him out of the dark. He nearly laughed with relief when his hand encountered the protrusion and light flooded into the room, but the relief lasted only for a beat of his unsteady heart.

There, on the table, lay Hobson, in life a tidy, dark-haired man a little over thirty years in age. In death--Giles froze for what seemed years, but was perhaps no more than seconds, the picture burned into his eyes. The blood was the least of it. Hobson had been torn open, literally torn, by teeth and claws, his guts in shiny loops on the kitchen lino.

Giles felt the stake slip from his hands, and his body back out the door, quite without any direction from his conscious mind. His stomach twisted and he pressed his hand to his mouth, only the fact that he hadn't eaten or even drunk anything since that morning's coffee preventing him from being immediately sick.

Buffy, he thought, like a prayer--to her, or to some protective deity, he could not be sure. Another flare of his sixth sense made him run to his car. If the other young man, Blair was absent, most likely he'd been turned, he and Kralik would be out in the streets--and so, the extra sense imparted, was his beloved girl. He gunned the engine and got into gear, careening around one corner, then another.

There she was--in the street, helpless, terrified, other drivers ignoring her cries for help. He ground to a stop, engine still running, shoving open the passenger door. He could see Blair coming up fast, and shouted at her to hurry, even as he hauled her inside, and the vampire that had once been a Watcher caught hold of her jeans.

He made the Citroen go faster than it ever had, as Buffy beat at the vampire with her diminished strength, and Giles clung to her with his right arm. At last gravity worked in their favour: Blair spun out onto the tarmac.

Giles reached past the hysterical girl to slam shut the door, never slackening his speed, then pulled her close, and closer, until she'd come nearly into his lap and lay trembling against him, locked in his fierce hold.

Half by instinct he drove to the library, stopping not in the carpark but directly outside the doors. Buffy was incoherent, unable to walk, and so he lifted her tenderly, the adrenaline in his veins making her slight weight less than nothing. He wasn't even aware of how he unlocked the doors or switched on the lights, but somehow he did, and carried her inside to the safety of their haven, sitting by the table with her still in his arms, her little body trembling against his, her tear-streaked face pressed to his cheek. He stroked her hair, murmuring softly, until her shudders slowed a little, and she began to come to herself, then to stir, realizing where she was.

Not taking his gaze from hers, Giles rose, setting her in the chair. He fetched a blue blanket from his office, draping its folds around her shoulders. "Better, then, love?" he asked quietly, as he wiped her tears with his hands.

"No one would help me, Giles. No one." She gave in to another spasm of tears. "I can't do this."

"You needn't," he answered, ashamed that he'd ever started down this path, whatever his intent. "Let them do what they like. We needn't pretend anymore."

A brief flush of colour showed on her luminous skin. "Pretend? This was real. I--I a--almost died, and it was real."

"Yes, of course it's real, the effects are just as I told you--it's only." His ran his hands down her trembling arms. "It's only, without the other spell, it's too much to bear, isn't it? I should never have asked it of you."

"Told me?" Her brows drew together. "What spell?"

"The spell that would make you strong again. I knew how to reach you, to explain what was happening, but I didn't know how to make you safe, and to ask you to pretend not to know--far better for me not to have started in the first place."

"In the first place...?" He saw nothing but confusion in her face, and it hit him, suddenly, that she didn't know. Her anguish when she pleaded for help, to know what had become of her, had all been real. He hadn't reached her, or she hadn't listened. She didn't know.

"Oh, dear God," Giles breathed.

"When I hit him," Buffy said, "It felt like my arm was broken, it hurt so much. I can't be just a person. I can't be helpless like that."

Oh, God, he thought, in utter horror. Oh, God. Buffy had the Slayer's gift of prophetic dreaming, but her dreams were rarely clear. He hadn't taught her magic for the three years before this, as Em had with her Helena, hadn't taught her visualization, or anything but physical focus. He'd given her a message in dreams, but she hadn't been able to carry it back to the waking world--and he was now, without question, in Hell.

"Giles," Buffy told him desperately, "Please, we have to figure out what's happening to me."

He would have to confess, start from ground zero, and she would hate it for him. He'd miscalculated, and killed all the affection that had grown between them. Why drag his feet? Have done with it, and go to meet his doom.

He turned to his briefcase, removing the leather box. In anguish, he opened the case to let her see what lay within, laying it on the table before her. He could not keep any control over his voice, but he spoke to her anyway. "It's an organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressors. The effect is temporary." His heart broke; he could feel it go. "You'll be yourself in a few days."

In disbelief, she touched one of the vials, and said one word that contained a world of anger and accusation. "You?"

Giles found himself speaking rapidly, not even knowing what he said. "It's a test, Buffy. It's given to the Slayer once she...uh, well, if she reaches her eighteen birthday. The Slayer is disabled and then entrapped with a vampire foe whom she must defeat in order to pass the test." As I told you before! he wanted to shout. I told you, Buffy. I warned you. I haven't really slept for three nights running, trying to pass this on to you--if you'd only for once bloody listen!

But that wasn't fair, he couldn't put the fault on her, and he couldn't face her. He found himself in the door to his office, speaking more hard, cold words that would finish the job. "The vampire you were to face has escaped. His name is Zachary Kralik. As a mortal--"

That's right, old man, why not say the rest of it? Hurt her even more.

"He murdered and tortured more than a dozen women before he was committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. When a vamp..." He stopped as the case hit the wall near his head, and fell, the glass vials shattering on the floor.

"You bastard!" He could hear her sobbing, and knew he must turn. "All this time, you saw what it was doing to me. All this time, and you didn't say a word!"

"I wanted to." There was nothing left in him: no love--what right had he to love? no joy, no desire to fight anymore. He couldn't even tell her how he'd tried, she'd never believe him, and in retrospect his little plan seemed entirely ludicrous. After all, Helena had loved Em, had listened to every word Em ever spoke. As a man, and as a Watcher, he was useless, always had been, always would be--in that, as in most things, Ethan had been correct.

"Liar," Buffy spat.

Like a dead man, he told her, "In matters of tradition and protocol, I must answer to the Council."

Buffy was trembling, clawing her hands through her hair in her anger and disbelief. For a moment she looked nearly as mad as Helena, her predecessor, had looked at the end.

"My role in this was very specific," he said to her in the same dead voice. "I was to administer the injections and to direct you to the old boardinghouse on Prescott Lane."

The girl who had been his Slayer continued to cry, to shake her head in utter disbelief. "I can't...I can't hear this," she muttered, and when he tried to plead, only asked him, "Who are you? How could you do this to me."

He tried to tell her how sorry he was--but what did those words mean?--and to inform her of the cameras that had been set to film them, to capture their every movement and thought, that were, without doubt recording these moments as well. He tried to reach out for her, but she backed away, shaking with the completeness of her hatred, saying to him, "If you touch me, I'll kill you."

That did it. He was frozen, turned to ice. His hand fell, too heavy for him to hold up any longer, and though he was reduced to begging, he knew that nothing he said would reach her. "You have to listen to me. Because I've told you this, the test is invalidated. You will be safe now, I promise you. Now, whatever I have to do to deal with Kralik, and to win back your trust..."

"You stuck a needle in me," Buffy sobbed, not hearing him. "You poisoned me!"

Then, because Hell always has a deeper circle than that which one currently occupies, Cordelia walked into the library, saying something about Bosnia, and the end of the world. He may even have spoken to her, or to Buffy--he could not remember.

In the end, Cordelia took Buffy away, and Giles was left alone.