Tribulations - Chapter 1

They'd held hands in the back of the black London cab, Moira's long, powerful fingers closed round his with what perhaps ought to have been a painful intensity--one which Giles, at any rate, could not feel. He wondered if Moira experienced an equal numbness.

Giles swallowed, but his mouth remained resolutely dry. He didn't recognize any of the street names they passed, or the streets themselves, though he knew he'd been down each a hundred times. In contrast to the sunshine they'd left behind in Salisbury, London's skies were overcast. A grey, drizzly rain had begun to bead the windows.

He swallowed again. The dryness continued, and his heart seemed to beat too fast.

Nerves, old man? he asked himself, knowing that the answer to his unvoiced question must be an emphatic "yes." He'd no desire to return to the Compound, to face the men who ought to have been his friends, or at least his allies--the men who had become if not, personally, his bitter enemies, then at least less-than-innocent bystanders in a war that never ought to have been fought. Was apathy and ignorance so prevalent that no one stood opposed the evil now seemingly rife within the Council?

Giles glanced at Moira for nearly the first time since they'd left Waterloo Station. His old friend stared straight ahead, her profile set and pale as a statue's. He looked away again. Where in hell were they? Had he remained in America so long that even his own city had become unfamiliar to him?

Giles began, in his head, a litany of street names, picturing their locations--a vain attempt to calm himself--and yet he remained as lost as before.

"Rupert?" Moira said suddenly.

Giles startled violently, realizing that Moira had, perhaps, been speaking for quite some time. "Ah, sorry. Yes, Em, what is it?"

"We've arrived."

"Ah." Giles blinked, realizing that, yes, they'd reached the front gates of the Watchers' Compound--discrete, solid, iron gates, painted black. Each door had been embossed over its surface with a subtle design, one not instantly recognizable as a pattern of crosses, repeated.

He released Moira's hand, and began to fumble for his wallet--but his old friend beat him to the punch, passing a collection of perfectly crisp bills to their driver. Giles followed her out onto the tidily-swept pavement.

The two of them stood together a moment beneath the spreading branches of the chestnut trees, gazing up at the high granite walls. A plaque with the words: The Hamilton School, est. 1352, Tenax et Fideles, Ut Quocunque Paratus was imbedded in the stone to the left of the gates. "Steadfast and faithful, prepared on every side," indeed, he thought, angrily. His poor Buffy. How could the Council have so betrayed her? Had they no concept of all she'd sacrificed?

"Damn them," Giles muttered. "That's who we are. Or who we ought to be."

"You, at least, have been steadfast and faithful, Rupert." Moira touched his arm. A small, bitter smile flickered over her lips.

"I have misgivings, Em," Giles answered. "We're scarcely prepared on every side." He ran his fingers over the plaque--The Hamilton School. As always, despite his anxiety and anger, the name made him smile slightly.

Hamilton was the name of the Council Head who'd founded the Compound, and one rather liked to think of some amongst those past Watchers possessing at least a vestigal sense of humour. Though, more likely they merely lacked the creativity to invent another name.

Moira gave him a slightly shadowed look.

They waited until their driver was well on his way, then strolled along the pavement and round the corner, trying as well as they might to appear no more than a middle-aged couple enjoying an innocent noontime ramble. Moira linked her arm with his, and now and then Giles felt her shiver. He glanced down with sympathy.

"We must be mad," Moira muttered, her green eyes seeking his.

"We've time to turn back yet," Giles answered, knowing, perhaps, that they ought to, and yet that they would not."

"No," his friend gave a single, emphatic shake of her head. "It must be faced--if not now, then later."

"'There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,'" Giles quoted, thinking, 'If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.'

"If you intend to quote Hamlet to me, Rupert, I shall become extremely nervous," Moira answered drily. "I'd rather hoped for a better outcome--rather less emphasis on swordplay and poisoning."

"I should actually be happier with a sword in my hand," Giles told her, continuing, at her look, "And, yes, I'm well aware it's not allowed. But one does wish."

They'd stopped by what appeared a blank expanse of wall, although both knew better. Moira extracted a plasticized card from her pocket. With a brisk motion, she thrust the card into a tiny slot and drew it out again.

"Hmn," Giles said. "That's new, is it?"

"They installed the lock two years ago, Rupert. This is the nineties."

"I hadn't known." He'd been, supposedly, in good standing with the Council two years previously, and yet hadn't been told. Why that surprised him, Giles couldn't say, but he found himself strangely hurt. It's true, then, he thought, not realizing at first what he meant by those words.

That meaning came to Giles in a moment of bitter clarity: he sometimes suspected, in his bleaker moments, that the Council's motives with regard to him had not been entirely pure. Now he knew with certainty. He'd been sent to California to fail Buffy, and to die.

Giles touched the surface of the wall with his fingertips. One always expected, by its appearance, to feel stone where none existed, instead of the cold metal that comprised the back entrance. No trace remained of the lock that once fit a key he still carried on his ring. Moira's card, however, had done the trick: the barricade swung open at his touch.

"Rupert." Moira paused in the open doorway, then turned back, seeming to gaze past him into a carpark filled with unremarkable, drab-coloured vehicles. Giles smiled slightly. Buffy would very likely call them Tweedmobiles, or some such amusing name.

"Rupert," Moira repeated, a touch impatiently.

"Oh." He shook himself. Lord, he seemed to be constantly woolgathering these days. "Sorry, Em."

Again, she touched his arm. "No need to apologize, my dear," she told him softly.

The lights came up as they entered--bright white, with a purplish underglow from the ultra-violet that had been added to the mix. The corridor was narrower than one might expect, forcing the two of them to go single file.

"You've the password?" Giles whispered, as Moira placed her hand in a device intended to read not only her handprint, but to detect her pulse and body temperature as well--or the lack of same, were she not as she appeared.

"Pyrrhic," she said clearly. Above, a series of lenses swivelled in their direction.

Bloody hell, Giles thought, adrenaline flooding his system. The door at the far end of the corridor ought to have opened, surely ought to have opened by this time.

Then it was opening, and some instinctive part of Giles's brain warned him to catch hold of Moira's hand, to turn, to run--

Moira cried out. Giles jerked suddenly backward, her fingers torn from his.

"Em, come with me! Now!"

"Rupert, I'm caught!"

Giles turned to see Moira struggling frantically, the mouth of what he'd always thought no more than a scanner biting into her wrist.

"Go, Rupert!" she shouted. "No arguments! Go!"

Giles hesitated a scant second, torn between helping her in a way that would be, truly, no help whatsoever, and escaping, to return soon as he possibly could with reinforcements.

"Damn you, Rupert! Do as I say!" Moira shouted again, then began to chant incomprehensibly.

A hissing came from both overhead and at floor-level, and the air began to take on an ever-thickening greyness, as if some Victorian pea-soup fog had begun to form around them.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, Giles's inner voice shouted. What had they expected, to be welcomed home with open arms? To find the Compound full of reasonable men who would speak with them in a rational manner, agreeing, at the worst, to disagree?

"Em!" Giles yelled, a final time. His eyes caught hers for a bare second, and then he turned and ran, trying not to breathe. He'd nearly reached the far door when a sharper hiss sounded behind him, and a searing pain burned between his shoulderblades. Giles hit the panel hard, taking in, quite against his will, a sharp gasp of air. His head immediately began to swim.

Somehow, his nerveless hand found the handle. The door swung outward. Giles stumbled into the carpark, crying out as the light of day seared his eyes, and the fresh, rain-laden air burned his lungs.

Raised voices sounded behind him. Giles half-fell across the bonnet of one of the drab-coloured cars. Across a Tweedmobile.

He laughed thickly, his vision narrowing to pinpoints.

Buffy, he thought. Again, he found a handle by touch, tore open a car door and sprawled into the front seat. Instinct made him draw his legs inside. His hand sought the button that would lock all the doors at once.

Giles lay gasping, partially wedged beneath the wheel. The pain in his back spread across his shoulders, down his arms, climbing his neck to lodge at the base of his skull as an ever-tightening knot. He'd blood on his face and his mouth felt raw.

Rather less poisoning, is it, Em? his mind asked, ironically, of no one. He knew with every fibre of consciousness remaining to him that he must act and act now--to save Moira, to save himself. His numbed fingers reached under the instrument panel, tearing down wires. Their bare ends sparked in his hands.

The engine coughed and roared to life--it truly was like riding a bloody bicycle; one never, apparently, forgot.

Giles hauled himself upright, blinking rapidly in a vain attempt to clear his non-existent vision. Heedless of whomever might be standing by, he threw the car into reverse, metal shrieking on metal as he scraped a neighboring vehicle beyond repair. Gravel spat out from beneath the tyres as he shifted into drive and floored the petrol-pedal.

The car leaped. Tweed-clad men, he was vaguely aware, flung themselves out of his path. His borrowed--no, be honest, stolen--vehicle tore through the carpark. At the first clear space Giles twisted the wheel, jolting over the pavement and down into the street.

He muttered a prayer for some sort of divine intervention--at least enough to prevent him from striking a hapless pedestrian, or colliding with another driver. The car rocketed down what was, fortunately, one of London's straighter streets.

He could no longer feel his fingers or toes, and the pulsing ache in his head now spread from the base of his skull to the space behind his eyes, filling what remained of his vision with a bloody redness. Mumbling another fervent prayer, Giles took a corner sharply--knowing at once that had been an error, that his prayers had not been answered.

An intense pressure exploded against his chest, an insistent blaring noise filled his ears--and then, nothing.

"Seb..." Buffy's hand reached out blindly toward Sebastian's own. She looked beastly pale again, her face nearly luminous in the dark of the mausoleum.

"What is it, love?" Sebastian came to her side instantly, supporting her with a brotherly arm round her waist. She seemed all at sea, unable to keep to her feet, her slight body trembling against his.

Buffy weighed so little that despite all he knew of her strength, her toughness, Sebastian half feared to hold her. She was nothing like tall, willowy Celeste, with her eternal air of sophisticated resiliency--but as she could not stand, he slipped an arm behind her legs, raising her in his arms.

Buffy's temple, and her perfumed hair, brushed his jaw. She was, truly, an exquisite creature, like sunlight given flesh. Sebastian understood why his father adored her--for that reason, and by reason of her tenderness, her plucky nature, her humour, her courage.

"Buffy?" he said softly, but the poor girl only moaned. Sebastian bore her carefully from the somber place that she'd so recently brightened with her sweet, gaudy gift of flowers--inappropriate flowers for the dead, a stickler might say, but Sebastian, being no stickler, found them charming.

As he carried her limp body, a warm wetness touched his shoulder. Buffy wept, he realized, tears slipping from under her closed lids. Sebastian murmured to her softly and--he hoped--soothingly, as he brought her to the Bentley, tucking her into the back of the large car.

The moment her head touched the seat, Buffy's eyes flew open, a pair of lines immediately creasing the skin between her smooth brows.

Sebastian laid his palm against her forehead. The skin felt pleasantly warm, neither hot nor cold, with none of the chill clamminess one might expect from one who'd recently fainted. "Buffy," he said to her gently, "How are you feeling?"

"Giles," she murmured.

"No, dearest, it's Sebastian. Are you unwell?"

"I'm peachy," she answered, with impatience, hauling herself upright. "Seb, it's Giles. Giles is in trouble. We've gotta go."

Sebastian placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. "I think it's perhaps best you to remain quiet for a bit, Buffy. Do you remember what happened? I had to carry you to the car."

Buffy's small, powerful hands clutched his lapels. Her blue-grey eyes, mere inches from his, appeared nearly incendiary in the intensity of their gaze. "No," she told him bluntly. "No resting. No quiet time. We have to go NOW!"

"Buffy--"

"Seb, you're not hearing me. This was like one of my prophecy dreams to the nth degree. Giles was in trouble. Bad trouble." The corners of her mouth turned downward. "It was freaksome--like I could feel-- That never happened before. Feeling him. Except that once."

"It's something that can be accomplished through magic," Sebastian said, sinking down onto the seat beside her. "If my mum was involved, she might have tried to warn us by using the emotional closeness between you and my dad to forge a connection. Do your prophecy dreams always come true, Buffy?"

"You have that Giles thing down pretty well, you know, Seb," Buffy told him. Her eyes darkened, her earlier insistence giving way to an air of vulnerability.

She's so very young, Sebastian reminded himself. Despite all she is, and all she's faced, Buffy is still scarcely more than a girl.

"We'll find him," he assured her. "Perhaps the situation's not as bad as all that. Look at the dreadful things he's survived quite handily."

"My dreams come true if I don't stop them," Buffy answered flatly. "And that's 'I' not 'us' for the stopping, by the way."

"I'm not always entirely useless," Sebastian said--why should she believe him in that, though? What proof had he given her?

Buffy gave a small, quick shrug. He read the doubt in her eyes.

"Truly," he told her. "Please, Buffy. He's... My dad..."

"He's your dad," Buffy answered simply, reaching out to touch his hand.

Sebastian regarded her for a moment. The vulnerability faded once more, transforming to something else--a look, a demeanor he searched his brain to interpret, so at odds was it with Buffy's seeming fragility.

She has the look... his brain supplied at last, the look of a warrior.

"What did you want us to do?" he asked.

"Get in the front. Drive. Do you have any weapons at your place in London?"

Sebastian nodded. "I've weapons--and I can get more."

"Then hurry," Buffy commanded.