Transitions - Ch. 26

Their train had filled up with noisy tourists, mostly Americans, mostly with guidebooks, all talking about Stonehenge. They got on Buffy's nerves--quiet as Giles was, she'd never realized how soft-spoken many Brits were, are opposed to people from the U.S. Not all, of course, but many. Maybe even the majority.

Giles still wasn't talking. He'd leaned his forehead against the window, and gazed a little sadly out the window.

"You okay?" Buffy asked.

He tried for a smile, but didn't quite make it. That bothered her--usually he'd manage something, if only for her sake. Not that she needed it, but if he couldn't smile for her, he must be feeling really low.

Buffy raised his hand and kissed the back of it, then held it between her own. "Is it your mom, or Seb, or seeing Eva--or just everything?"

"Just everything, I'd say." Giles sighed. "Would you mind very much going to tea with the aunts whilst I meet with mum's solicitor?"

"I could go with you."

"It will be extremely dull."

"Yeah, like having tea with complete strangers is gonna be some kind of laugh-fest?"

"Buffy, please," he said, and she knew she'd pushed too far. So much for her resolution to help him get through this.

"I think what you really need are a decent meal and a good night's sleep," she told him. "You just sat there while the rest of us were scarfing sandwiches. And they were really good sandwiches. I've been starving ever since we got here, why do you think that is?"

"The superiority of British cuisine?" Giles gave one of his soundless laughs. "You didn't eat well for weeks before the Ascension. Perhaps you're making up for lost time." Giles sounded a little better once he started to focus on her. "You look far stronger. Happier."

"Do I?" Buffy decided to sneak in a low blow. "Well, I'm not happy when I'm worrying about you."

"Why should you worry about me?" Giles sounded surprised. He glanced out the window again. "I realize that perhaps I shouldn't say this, and I hope you will not take it amiss, but I hadn't been aware how much I longed to see them. One does what one can to get through the days, to push memory into the distance...and then to spend only a few moments..."

"I'm sorry," Buffy said, meaning it as sympathy, not as an apology. She knew he didn't begrudge--how was that for a Giles word?--her his time in Sunnydale.

Giles rubbed at his forehead. "Never mind me, dearest. I'm all at sea, so many thoughts flooding my poor, beleaguered mind that I can't seem to process them effectively."

"Do you really have to meet with this solicitor-guy?" Buffy asked. "Couldn't we go for a walk instead, or lounge around sipping lemonade in the sun? I'm scared you're gonna hurt yourself."

It worried her more that Giles didn't argue, just wedged his body a little more firmly between the window and the seat. He took his arm down out of the sling and started rubbing the back of his hand. Buffy resolved to get the aunts on her side--unless they were completely evil, that was--and force him to eat and rest even if they had to tie him down.

Giles had told her the train trip would take an hour and a half, and that's pretty much what it took, because it was right around four o'clock when the train whooshed into the station. The two of them let the tourists pile off while they collected their baggage, then climbed down onto the platform. Glancing up at Giles, she could see him smiling faintly.

Bustling toward them were three of the cutest tiny old ladies she'd ever seen in her life. The tallest of them came up no higher than her nose, the middle was about mouth-height, and the smallest would have fit comfortably just below her chin. All three had snowy white hair and those striking Giles eyes, green as oceans. They wore suits, one pinkish-gray, one heather-purple, and one gray-blue, and as they came on they all talked at once, finishing each other's sentences so that Buffy couldn't tell which was speaking at any given time.

"Hullo, my dears," Giles said quietly.

The one in blue seemed to be the designated spokesaunt. "Hello, Rupert."

Giles took her little gloved hand and bent down--a long way down--to kiss her cheek. "Aunt Flora, how lovely to see you." He kissed the one in pink next. "Aunt Rose." And last of all the one in purple, "Aunt Violet."

Cool, Buffy thought. They're color-coded.

Aunt Flora kept hold of Giles's hand tightly as he introduced them. "My dears, I would like you to meet my fiancee, Buffy Summers. Buffy, these are my aunts, Flora Giles, Rose Fowler and Violet Merriwether."

Buffy had a hard time not laughing when she remembered who the aunts reminded her of: Sleeping Beauty's fairy godmothers, from the Disney movie. She was going to have to work hard not to slip up and call Aunt Rose "Fauna," because the other two were already Flora and Merriwether. Giles gave her a look.

"I remembered something," Buffy said. "From a movie."

Aunt Flora laughed--not at all what Buffy expected. It was a big laugh, for such a tiny person, and it sounded, for lack of a better word...smutty. "In our company you'll most likely feel like Sleeping Beauty in her little cottage in the forest--but at least you've found your prince already."

That was weird--Buffy almost wondered if Giles's aunt had read her mind.

Flora grinned up at her nephew, and that wasn't a demure little auntly grin either. If anything, it looked like the grin Giles gave when he was being Ripper. "Come along, my loves, your train was slow arriving, and Rupert mustn't be late for his appointment. And as we've dressed to the nines for tea, we ought to be on time for our reservations, as well."

The aunts led Buffy and Giles to a battered white Range Rover in the parking lot, and the three of them swarmed into the front seat, leaving Buffy and Giles the back. In quick succession they asked about Sebastian and Celeste, Moira and the people back in Sunnydale, had a brief argument about what time it was in California and told Buffy she needed to call her mom. Buffy had thought Moira was an adventurous driver, but to say Flora drove like a maniac was probably putting it nicely. She drove like Indiana Jones fleeing a horde of angry Nazis.

"Aunt Flora, it's not a steeplechase," Giles told her mildly. "It's just possible that you're alarming Buffy."

"Buffy's the Slayer," Aunt Flora laughed. "One's driving wouldn't alarm her--would it, dear?"

"Uh-HUH," Buffy wanted to say, but she answered in a shaky little voice. "No, it's okay."

"You're a menace, Flora dear," Aunt Rose told her kindly, which started up another round of cheerful chatting. As they let Giles out at the two-story stone building that held the lawyer's office, Buffy had to fight the urge to cling to his hand. The aunts weren't evil--but they were definitely tiring.

After, that, though, Aunt Flora drove much more gently, and the three of them, after a look at Buffy's scared face, quieted down considerably. At the tea place they were given a round table in a private corner of the terrace. There were roses all around, smelling wonderful, but not too strong, and the plates and cups had roses on them too. There were little sandwiches, and scones and fruit and little tea-cakes. Buffy felt like she was eating a ton, but the aunts seemed to have good appetites too, which allowed her not to feel weird about it.

Aunt Violet was a painter, and she talked about art, in a way that was actually interesting, so Buffy told her about her mom's gallery. Aunt Rose, who was a doctor, had just gotten back from visiting her son in Sydney, Australia, where he was a doctor too. She'd traveled all around the world, and had lived in Canada, and India, and Hong Kong. Aunt Flora bred horses, on a farm outside of town, and that was where all the aunts lived now, along with a couple orphan girls who were identical twin sisters from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

After a while, they settled down to talking about Watchers and demons and Slayers, as if that was no different from the art or the horses or the traveling. They seemed to know way more about Buffy's life than made her comfortable--but not everything. They didn't know about Angelus, or Jenny, or the torture. She began to feel more than a little awkward.

"Rupert got very quiet, suddenly, a bit more than a year ago," Aunt Flora told her, with a shrewd look. "And, frankly, we're surprised to see you here with him. We were given to understand that your heart belonged to another."

"Flora, that's enough." Rose told her, not quite sharply. "Buffy is our guest, and we shan't have the ill manners to browbeat her, especially about matters that are none of our concern."

"Rupert loves her," Violet answered, "And that ought to be enough for us."

Buffy squirmed with the three pairs of Giles eyes upon her. They may have been cute as buttons, she reminded herself, but they were still Gileses. They weren't stupid, and they weren't naive. Every one of them had a cross around her neck, and when Rose had opened her purse to dig for a handkerchief or something, Buffy had clearly seen a stake in the bottom.

"Quite, right," Flora said, pouring herself another cup of tea. "My apologies, Buffy."

The minute they backed off, Buffy felt like she'd been given a big shot of truth serum. She found herself telling them everything: about Angel and Angelus, about Faith and the Ascension, the whole Wild Magic thing, and the deal with Sebastian. The aunts nodded, sipped tea, listening with neutral expressions on their pretty old-lady faces, their cool, intelligent Giles eyes watching, always.

"What on earth is Rupert doing here?" Aunt Rose asked sharply. "Those sort of injuries--no wonder he looks dreadful."

"Rupert always was stubborn," Aunt Flora said.

"No," Aunt Violet said, "He is driven." Of the three of them, she had the gentlest, the most open, face. "We failed him, sisters. We got caught up in our own lives, distant from him in foreign countries. We blinded ourselves, and didn't see. We knew what Clara was like, and what a proud boy Rupert was--any one of us might have asked. Any one of us might have had him to stay. Our own flesh and blood--" Tears trembled on the rims of her green eyes. "And we let him live in the streets, in degradation. We believed the lies that right bastard Stanley told us."

"Stanley will be at the funeral," Rose said.

"Do you think it too late to curse him?" Flora said, and gave, once more, her Ripperish smile. "I've learnt quite a good one."

Giles sat on a hard, slippery, leather-upholstered settee as Mr. Munson, the solicitor's, dry-as-grave-dust voice droned on and on and on. Soon, he didn't think he could stand to hear so much as another syllable.

Giles nodded occasionally, and made vague, noncommital sounds, as if in agreement with the things the man told him.

With his thick, round spectacles and brushed-back hair, Mr. Munson rather resembled the drawing of Mr. Mole in the copy of "The Wind and the Willows" he'd owned as a boy. The resemblance let him into a sweetly sad memory of reading that particular story to Clarice when he was eight and she was five. They'd sat out back, in the crook of the old apple tree, so as not to disturb mum with their voices. Clarice had shivered and cuddled closer as he'd read to her of the Great God Pan, and of the Wild Wood. Old as he was, he had shivered too--the both of them knowing, perhaps, in their subconscious--perhaps in their very cells--that Pan was not the benign being depicted by Kenneth Grahame, and that the Wild Wood was a hundred times more dangerous than even the author's fearful description.

Remembering, Giles shivered again.

"Mr. Giles?" Munson interrupted his litany to gaze at him blearily through the eye-distorting spectacles. "Are you quite all right? Can my secretary fetch you anything?"

"No, no, there's no need." Giles straightened, and vowed to pay closer attention. His head ached, and his hand throbbed--and why did the beastly mole-man have to keep his offices so abominably cold?

"Tea, perhaps?"

Giles shrugged. "Only if you're having some," he answered for the sake of politeness. Buffy nagged him about eating, but the truth was, his throat felt tight, as if he wouldn't be able to swallow, and whatever he did manage to force down tasted like sand. His doctor back in the States had assured him this was only a side effect of the head injury, and that it would pass, in time. He'd been told things might smell a big odd, as well--and food did, generally, smell rather revolting. He slept little, but he wanted to sleep constantly, and he hated the effort of always moving from place to place.

He wanted, more than anything, to burrow into a comfortable little hole, and stay there. His flat in Sunnydale, his office at the Museum, Seb's house. It didn't matter, so long as Buffy was with him, and he could remain stationary.

Just now, such burrowing being currently out of the question, Giles desired nothing more than for Munson to give him the papers, whatever they said, let him sign, and be on his way. None of this meant anything. His mother was dead. She'd been a terrible mother, though he'd loved her anyway, and he cared nothing for her worldly possessions.

She'd some lovely jewelry, he remembered, passed down generation to generation, that ought to have gone to Clarice and Marianna--they ought to have worn the pearls or the diamonds at their weddings, the weddings that now they should never know. He'd no desire for the stuff--he'd not be able to bear seeing Buffy wear it.

Perhaps the baubles should be given to a museum--or sold, and the money donated to aid neglected children.

Suddenly, clearly, he saw his sisters there with him, Marianna to his right side, Clarice to his left.

"I hated her," Marianna said, with venom. "Stupid, useless cow."

"Marianna," Clarice murmured, in her soft, small voice. Giles noticed that, round the neckline of her nightgown, someone had embroidered little flowers and butterflies. So delicate the work, white-on-white. She looked up at Giles, her eyes, that should have been soft green, all full of moonlight, even though it was day, and still two full hours, at least, from sunset.

"Marianna," Clarice repeated, "She was our mummy."

"Well, he was our dad," Marianna said, in her firm, no-nonsense tone, "And he killed us."

"He wasn't our dad then, you know that, Mari," Giles told her softly.

"Mr. Giles?" Munson said sharply.

Giles focused upon him, with effort. "You are a reputable man," he said wearily. "Our fathers knew one another. Let me sign now, and we'll sort it all out later."

"As a solicitor, I would be remiss--"

"Please," Giles said quietly. "For God's sake, man. I'm tired, and I bury my mother tomorrow."

Mr. Munson produced the papers, and a pen. Giles moved to one of the chairs beside the solicitor's desk. It took all his effort merely to find the lines that swam before his eyes. As he wrote his name: Rupert H. S. Giles again and again, his hand trembled uncontrollably, and when he finished he was out of breath, his chest aching.

Memories did not explode, or flood in, as they had before, but they entered his brain in a steady trickle, bringing with them that familiar, distraught, feverish feeling.

Giles fell back in the chair, panting. Marianna gripped his shoulder firmly, whilst Clarice stroked his cheek, her touch again, always, like cool water. He would have given five years of his life merely to feel her real hand--her small, sweet, callused, sticky, little-girl hand--though just then he felt flushed, and found the coolness comforting. He had an odd metallic taste in back of his throat.

As suddenly as they'd arrived, his sisters vanished. A much harder touch than Marianna's fell upon his shoulder, causing Giles to start violently. Someone forced a cup of water into his hand.

"You ought to have said you were ill." Traces of what might have been sympathy lightened the solicitor's dusty voice. "Though perhaps I should have guessed, from your appearance. No worries, Mr. Giles. It's all in order, and I'll see to the dispersal. We've copies of the documents for you to read at your leisure."

"Thank you," Giles answered faintly. Thirsty, he sipped at the water, but could scarcely swallow even that slight amount of liquid. He knew he needed to pull himself together, both for Buffy's sake, and to put on a proper appearance at tomorrow's funeral, but at the moment he could not.

The memories came in no real order, a jumbled whirl that sickened him--one moment there were grey men standing in the back garden, the next Jenny's sweet face became Drusilla's, whilst Angelus and Spike looked on, sneering at his confusion, the next the vampire Helena ground her horrid body against him.

Dimly, Giles was aware of the sweat that soaked his clothes, and that his vision had narrowed to nothing.

The next he knew, he heard Buffy's voice, and felt her hand stroking his hair.

"Giles," she said sharply. "Giles, can you hear me?"

"Mmn?" He opened his eyes. Beyond Buffy's knees--and she'd laddered beyond repair the right leg of her tights--lay the underside of Mr. Munson's desk. The solicitor hadn't a good cleaner, obviously. On the floor lay those balls of dirty fluff for which Buffy had an amusing name. What was it? Ah, yes. "Dust bunnies," she called them. He felt himself smile slightly. Dust bunnies.

Good Lord, had he actually entirely humiliated himself by losing consciousness in a solicitor's office? It appeared so.

Buffy stroked his face with a moistened handkerchief. "Hey, big guy," she said, "You back with us?"

He remembered everything. Every detail of his life--and rather too clearly. Memories were meant to fade, to dim and soften, but just now his stood in sharp relief: rage and pain, fear and betrayal--loyalty and love.

With Buffy's help, he sat, her strong arm supporting him. Lord, he felt wretched. A wave of nausea passed over him, and he was thankful that his stomach was entirely empty. He swallowed convulsively.

"Uh, can we use your restroom?" Buffy asked.

Beyond her, Giles could see Mr. Munson nod nervously--no wonder, he'd a decent carpet on his floor. Carefully, Buffy helped him to his feet; Giles clung to her with alarming unsteadiness, his balance returning only slowly. She steered him into the tiny room, where he collapsed upon the closed toilet seat, resting his brow against the cool porcelain of the basin. Buffy wet a towel at the tap and pressed it to the back of his neck.

"I kinda suspected you weren't feeling your best," she said.

"It was only more memories. The last of them, I believe." Too intense, still. Far too intense. His skull pounded.

Buffy raised his head and made him lean back against the tiled wall. At least that, too, felt cool Just now, he needed the coolness. Buffy wet the towel again and touched it to his face, his throat. "Usually," she said, "Your temperature drops pretty soon after one of those memory dumps, but you're still warm. This worries me."

"I'm all right," he told her.

"Uh-unh." Buffy unbuttoned his shirt and pressed the towel to his chest; a few random trickles of chilly water wended their way over his skin. "Here's what we're gonna do. Aunt Rose is gonna have a good long look at you, and then the aunts are taking us home to their place. You'll be eating a decent dinner and having a majorly long night's sleep, even if I have to hit you over the head with a frying pan. Buffy has spoken; no arguments." She stroked the damp hair back from his face. "Sweetie, I don't know what's going on with you. You're sad and you're stressed, but this has gotta end now--do you understand me? No more. Period."

"Buffy has spoken," he muttered in return, without the strength to argue.

"Damn straight," his one true love told him.