Transitions - Ch. 64

He'd been tired enough to drop off to sleep at last, even though she'd watched him fight it every step of the way, and now, even sleeping, he looked tired. Buffy braced herself for a night of bad dreams. That was the one thing about living with Giles that disturbed her, because in every other way he was nice and thoughtful and quiet, much more so than she'd ever expected, considering how cranky she'd made him sometimes, back in the old library days.

But the nightmares bothered her--not in terms of annoyance, or disturbing her own sleep, but because they made her worry about him. Giles had gone under still without telling her what happened, how he'd managed to get so banged up. When she'd asked him if something had happened to one of the Museum people, he'd shaken his head no, and everyone else was present and accounted for. He'd really just wanted to hold her and not let her go, even when she offered to go make him a cup of tea, or get some ice for the bruises.

If Giles the tea-junkie wanted her more than a cup of Earl Grey, who was she to argue?

Buffy turned onto her side, touching him softly. Giles had gone to sleep in his boxers, too wiped even to do the pajama thing, and now he lay on his back, his arms up over his head, snoring a little--but she guessed that was to be expected after getting your nose smooshed. She stroked her fingers lightly over the line of hair that ran down his stomach, laying her hand, just for a minute, on top of the bruise that had started to come in dark under his ribs. She was getting to be an expert in bruises, and her guess, from the size and shape, would have been that he'd caught either an elbow or a knee. The nose looked like the result of a good, hard backhander, and the jaw was probably the same.

He'd been fighting vampires, she guessed. Or a vampire, anyway. That's why he'd come home so late. But he'd fought vampires before, lots of times, and it wasn't any big--he certainly never came back wigged, the way he had tonight--unless maybe the vamp had come really close to catching him.

Buffy shivered at the thought.

She ran her fingers up through the thicker curls on his chest, then touched his throat. There were bruises there too, that was for sure, and what looked like fingernail gouges. Giles shifted, restless under her exploration, and she pressed her palm over his heart.

It beat too fast, and his eyes were already starting to flicker beneath their closed lids. Yeah, it was going to be quite a night.

"Ssh," Buffy whispered, "Ssh, sweetie, it's all right. You're safe with me. I'll slay all the bad vampires for you."

Giles's eyes opened abruptly, so green it was almost unnerving. For a minute, he didn't seem to know where he was.

"It's all right," Buffy repeated. "You're safe. We're in Appleyard."

Giles hauled himself up against the headboard. He started to run his hand over his face, the way he tended to do when he was tired, or upset about something--then stopped. "Good lord, that's rather painful."

"You ready for that ice now?" Buffy stroked the hair back, gently, from his temples. Giles caught her wrist, his hand covering the back of her hand as he pressed his cheek into her palm.

"Bad vamps?" she asked him.

"Oh, God," Giles breathed.

Buffy moved closer, slipping astride his lap. She took his face between both her hands, and leaned forward, touching her forehead to his, carefully, so as not to cause him any more pain. What happened, Giles?" she asked seriously. "Is it something I need to..."

"No, no, it's been dealt with." He lifted her back away from him a little, his hands sliding down her arms to take her own hands. His right one had started to get stronger, Buffy realized--she could actually feel a little pressure from the fingers curled around hers. He couldn't seem to meet her eyes--couldn't seem to focus on anything, really, except that it sounded like he was trying to keep his breathing steady, measuring the breaths to give himself back some kind of control.

"Buffy, it was my mum," Giles told her at last, in a quiet, raw voice. "They... She..."

"Remember what you said once?" Buffy leaned forward again, pressing her cheek to his. "It wasn't her," she whispered in his ear. "It was the thing that killed her." She sat back again, needing to see his face. "You know that, right?"

Giles covered his eyes with his good hand, then winced and took the hand away.

"It hurts, huh?" Buffy asked, with sympathy--not meaning his nose. "You know, you don't have to answer that you're fine, that everything's fine, to spare me. I'm a big girl--I can take it."

"It isn't fine," Giles whispered. "Even though I know it wasn't she...to have...first dad and now mum..." He started shaking--not crying like a normal person, just shaking. Buffy pulled him tightly against her, and held him close until the shaking stopped.

After a while, Giles drew back away again. He turned to sit on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched, head hanging down.

"Horace Stanley could hardly have plotted a crueler revenge," he said, his voice so quiet she could hardly even hear him. "I can't help wonder, was it done deliberately? Even estranged...she was his wife. Was she so little to him? Why should he want, so badly, to injure us? To injure me?"

At first Buffy couldn't think what to answer. She scooted over close to him, and leaned her cheek against his scarred back. "Maybe he was one of those guys no one really matters to. They're just like little pieces on a Monopoly board--like a shoe or a dog or a little hat, just things to be moved around the way he wanted. I mean, I know you're sorry for what you did back at Wicked Witch Central..."

"I'm not," Giles said suddenly, his voice vibrating through her. "It's as I told Laurence. I ought to be, but in fact I am not."

Laurence? Buffy wondered, then remembered. Giles's dead brother. Half-brother. That was right.

"And then I worry," he continued. "Do I think I occupy some moral high ground, where I'm allowed to decide who lives and who dies? What gives me that right?" He was quiet for a long time. "Me, of all people." His eyes sought hers, and it scared Buffy to see the desperation there.

"Hey," she told him. "Hey, Giles. Don't beat yourself up." Buffy touched the deep bruise, wide as her hand, that ran the horizontally across his back. "'Cause the vampire already did a pretty good job of that for you."

Giles made a non-committal sound.

"C'mon, sweetie. Lie down again. Let this go."

Giles obeyed, but he didn't look relaxed--far from it. He glared up at the half-tester thing as if expecting to burn a hole through the wood. "My mum--" he began.

"She wasn't your mum. She was a vampire. You know this." Buffy shifted until she lay on her side next to him, propped on one elbow so that she could look down into his face. "I want you to believe it, Giles."

Giles continued to stare upward with that familiar wintery look on his face, until Buffy bent down and, gently as she could, kissed his mouth.

"Whatever you did in the past," she told him, "You are the best person I know. I love you, and I don't want you to be hurting about this."

"Ah, Buffy," he sighed, then, after a little while told her, "They've gone now."

"Who's gone, sweetie?"

"The ghosts. Mum, Marianna, Clarice, Laurence. They all went away together."

"Were they..." She couldn't believe she was having this conversation--but then again, she sometimes found it hard to believe she was a Vampire Slayer. "Did they seem happy?"

Giles gave a soft laugh. It had been the right question to ask after all, Buffy guessed.

"Yes, my love. They did seem happy, actually."

"Are you gonna be okay, then?"

As an answer, Giles took her in his arms. Buffy's head rested on his bare chest; his heart beat slowly and steadily again.

"I'll be okay," he answered, then gave a soft, not-very-humorous chuckle. "Ah, Buffy--"

"What?" She raised up a little to kiss him just below the collarbone--at least he wasn't bruised there.

"Only you, my love, would ask if the ghosts of my dead family were happy."

"What can I say?" She kissed him again, on the non-purple part of his jaw. "I'm weird that way."

Giles gave another laugh, and this time sounded almost amused.

"You ought to have awakened me," Moira told him, passing Giles a fresh poultice. A bowl stood between them on the kitchen table, and from what Giles could smell of its contents, he felt rather thankful that the swelling had wreaked havoc with his olfactory sense.

"This treatment is far more effective when the injury's fresh," she continued.

"Yes, well," Giles answered, his voice muffled by the cool damp cloth pressed to his face.

Sebastian bent in to sniff the bowl. "Good Lord, Mum. That is the most vile smelling substance I ever encountered. What on earth is it?"

"Old family recipe," Moira answered, smiling. She raised a corner of the cloth to study her handiwork. "Yes, that's going down nicely. Another quarter-hour, and I'll set it for you."

"That cellar in Whitechapel may actually have smelled worse," Giles said. "By a little."

Sebastian ducked his head, drawing with his finger in a droplet of water spilled upon the table. "Dad, I've wanted to speak to you, about the...ah...er...Ripper. My actions..."

"What happened there wasn't your fault, Seb," Giles told him gently.

"I'm meant to be more intelligent than..." Sebastian folded his hands, gazing off into the middle distance. Giles turned to follow his son's gaze, but so nothing but the dawn light, just beginning to spill through the thick-paned windows. "I'm meant to cleverer than I proved to be. It was meant to be my work, and I almost got you killed, almost got poor Celeste killed, and the kids..."

"Lord, we do like to blame ourselves in this family." Moira whisked away the current poultice, and replaced it with a fresh one. "What matters is that we get the thing sealed up properly again." She carried her bowl to the sink, and poured its malodorous contents down the sink.

"Before or after we pay our visit to the Council?" Giles asked.

"I don't know what to expect." Moira stripped off her rubber gloves, and ran her fingers back through her hair. "Those we took, at least, for our allies are strangers to us now. I can't say how they'll act. I'll venture not predictions whatsoever. But we need Mr. Briggs, and the Archives." She rinsed her hands at the tap, then turned again, her eyes dark, brow slightly furrowed. "I remember reading briefly of the London Hellmouth, and how it was sealed--I believe our Willow even found a reference on-line..." She began to dry her hands on a tea-towel.

"But we'll need the actual records," Giles finished for her. "Hence, the Compound. Unless you think the British Library might..."

They gazed at each other, sharing that sense of loss, of betrayal, of having been duped by those they trusted, by a cause they had both, at least in part, believed in at one time.

"No," Giles concluded. "I see that it's the Watchers, or nothing. The search would take too long, at the library, and the questions might be awkward. I'd trust Briggs, at least, with my life."

"Mum... Dad..." Sebastian began.

"Seb," Giles said to him, not meeting his son's eyes. "If there's trouble, with the Council, you'll look after my girl, won't you? Make certain she returns to America, that she's well and happy?"

Sebastian scowled. "You said previously that there'd be no trouble, Dad."

"And there shan't," Giles answered. "Honestly, I'm quite convinced there shan't. I think this visit will be mere formality."

Moira gave him one of those looks which others found impenetrable, but Giles could read only too well. She said nothing however, beyond, "And this is going to hurt rather badly." With that, set about the business of realigning his broken nose, as Sebastian looked on, horrified.

She was quite right about the pain--one wouldn't expect such a small thing to hurt so much. His old friend's touch was sure, though, and the discomfort ended quite suddenly, just at the point Giles believed he might have to protest. Gently, Moira smoothed a strip of neutral-colored medical tape across the bridge.

"All right, then?" she asked lightly.

Giles nodded, swallowing, feeling a bit unsteady in the aftermath. "I suppose we'd better change clothes? Dress the part?"

He and Moira shared another look, this time of apprehension. Giles felt, suddenly, that he'd rather suffer the ordeal he'd just undergone ten or twelve times, rather than so much as approach the one that awaited. He hadn't set foot in the Watchers' Compound for better than three years, hadn't liked the place even as a Watcher in good standing, and now found himself close to terror at the prospect of returning.

With a firm admonishment toward his own foolishness, Giles fought down the unreasoning fear. This was for Buffy, he told himself. For Buffy's safety, and the general good. In order for her to continue her work, some sort of understanding must be reached with the Council. The Hellmouth must, once more, be tightly sealed.

"I'll see you shortly, then, shall I, Em? Seb, you'll drive us to the station?"

"We might take the Bentley--" Moira began, then stopped at Giles's look.

"Come now," she said, "Is my driving truly so fearful?"

"Yes," Giles and Sebastian answered, in chorus.

Giles climbed the stairs thoughtfully, washed, shaved, and dressed thoughtfully. It felt odd to put on his grey suit, to knot his subdued tie, after what seemed such a long time in more casual attire. To do so felt, strangely, like both a return to his old, awkward self and like the donning of a facade that actually shared no part of his true nature. When he returned to Sunnydale, he vowed to give the tweed a rest--after all, it was summer, in California. What kind of fool wore wool suits in summer?

Your kind, he told himself, smiling faintly. Buffy, at least, would be thankful for the change.

Giles slipped a few small necessaries into trouser pockets and walked softly back to the bed. Buffy lay sleeping, her gold hair fanned across the pillow, her soft pink lips parted. A feeling rose in him that he scarcely had the power to express: he loved her so dearly, so very, very dearly it was as if his heart and soul had been given another form, placed inside her body.

There will be no trouble, he thought. For Buffy's sake, there will be no trouble.

Giles bent to touch his lips to her forehead. Buffy murmured slightly, but did not wake.

"Goodbye, my love," he whispered, "I shall see you soon."

Leaving, he paused to shut the curtains a little more tightly, so that the morning light would not disturb her rest.