Tribulations - Chapter 13

It was, at the end, no more than a badly-decayed cellar, one that smelled of urine and rodents, mouldering wood and some other, perhaps fortunately unidentifiable, sort of decay. Giles sprawled uncaring on the still somewhat-slimy steps and looked down upon his loved ones, bereft of the energy to move. And yet they'd still one stage of the spell to complete.

Moira faced a corner, her spine stiff, deep anger in every line of her posture. Giles thought of the visions that the Hellmouth, fighting their influence, had seen fit to reveal to him, a world--a hell, really--in which his Buffy no longer loved him, had never loved him, in which she'd been transformed into a careless mockery of her true self. His chest still ached with the memory, no matter how false it might be.

They were only lies, he told himself. They must only be lies.

Giles wanted so badly to go to his beloved, to touch her face, see her eyes open, see the love wash into them, as he'd no doubt it would. Utterly drained by the magic, he lacked the strength to rise.

What had Moira seen? Poor Em, his dear friend who was never, perhaps, quite so unbending as she convinced others to believe?

"Em," he called softly. "Whatever you saw, you cannot take it as the truth."

"I--" she answered, her voice thick with desperation. "Rupert, I--"

Moira turned. Within her eyes, Giles saw a familiar dark flame kindle, and his own despair grew. He forced himself to stand, holding out his hands to her, but Moira pushed past, knocking him off balance again. She'd begun to run full tilt by the time she reached the head of the stairs.

"Em, we haven't...!" Giles called after her, knowing that his old friend would never be stopped, any more than she'd been stopped by the madness and the agony of her last years with Helena. Neither would she be caught now, for she'd something in her of the wild creature fleeing fire.

He fell back against the step, hands over his eyes, trying to ignore the start of a headache. Lord, he needed strength, but there was none to be found--from what secret reserve had Moira drawn her own energy?

She had reserves to draw upon, Giles admitted, because she'd pulled back before the end--and if Seb hadn't had within him the power of his dual inheritance, if Buffy hadn't held fast beside them, things would have over, the Hellmouth triumphant. As it was, he needed to go to his son, to make sure Sebastian had come safely through the ordeal. He needed desperately to see Buffy's eyes open with their familiar expression. He needed...

His eyes felt like balls of lead. His chin dropped against his chest.

"Mr. Giles?"

Giles snapped awake, hurting his spine. He became aware that some time had passed, that something near sleep had stolen over him--and that now one of the young LeFayes knelt beside him, her touch on his arm unexpectedly gentle.

"Are you well?" she asked him, in her oddly-accented English, her speech reminding him of Moira's, when they'd first met.

Giles stared at her blearily. "Em...?"

"Has gone." The young woman didn't appear overly concerned. Perhaps, despite their connection, she knew less of her family's leader than he. She rose in a fluid motion, reaching down a hand to help him stand, but her support was not enough. He fell back painfully against the concrete step.

"Ah...give me a moment," he told her, as kindly as he could. "See to...see to Buffy...and my son."

The LeFaye, whose name Giles could not for the life of him remember, gave a brief nod, signaling silently to the other, who must surely be her identical twin. The two of them slipped down the steps, stooped to lift Buffy in their arms, and vanished just as soundlessly, a second pang striking Giles's heart as his love passed out of sight.

After a brief interval, the four young Watchers, with Quartermass at their head, braved the cellar, Simon going at once to Seb's side--they'd been schoolfellows, hadn't they? Giles thought, inconsequentially.

"I say, Delacoeur." Quartermass knelt to lay a hand on Seb's shoulder. In response, Sebastian raised his head, and after what seemed a bit of thought, got his elbows and knees under him. "Celeste," he said hoarsely, lurching all at once to his feet. "Celeste...I must...Oh, dear God, Celeste"

"It won't be true, Sebastian!" Somehow, Giles found the strength to summon his most authoritative voice, but Seb listened no better than his mother had, and his reaction proved to be much the same: a headlong flight up the slippery cellar steps.

"Seb, it won't be true!" At last, helped a little by the bit of rest he'd had, Giles gained his feet--far too late, of course, to stop the young man's departure. Jenkins, the Watcher who'd been so afraid, offered him an arm to lean upon.

"I'm not an old man, I'm quite able to go on my own," Giles snapped, realizing that he sounded entirely churlish, that he would owe the well-meaning young man an apology. And he felt ancient, actually, at least twice his own age, and badly in need of a long soak in a hot bath, a decent meal, and perhaps a stiffish drink. Most of all, though, he needed Buffy to wake and see who he was--not her Watcher only, not some old fool, but her lover, who cared for her with every bit of passion of which he was capable.

Concealing his unsteadiness, Giles moved back to the place where the Hellmouth had been. He felt nothing there: no sense of evil, not the slightest remnant of the scar between worlds. Nothing. Wearily, he recited the words that must be said, then turned, climbing the stairs as Jenkins hovered anxiously at his elbow. A greyish light filled the lobby, where the unfortunate Harker's remains had already been dealt with. Giles squinted against the brightness, raising a hand to shield his eyes.

"It's nearly noon," Jenkins told him. "You remained down there nearly an entire day. We'd almost despaired."

Giles found that easy to believe. Perhaps a large portion of his malaise may have been simple hunger, and he'd certainly become aware of a burning thirst. More than either of those, though, he simply wanted to leave that cursed building, whether it was evil or not--and so he did, making his careful way across the stoop, down the front steps to the pavement below.

His eyes had accustomed enough to daylight that he was able to make out, hazily, the shapes of Seb and Celeste, intertwined, arms round one another, holding so tightly that there was not the least separation between them. He looked around, trying to locate Buffy, but couldn't find her, the sense of loss and desperation growing in him until they were almost unbearable.

"Where...?" he attempted. "I must..."

"Mr. Giles, sir," Jenkins told him. "It's quite all right. Your Slayer's just here, in the back of McAllister's car.

That time, Giles made no protest as the young Watcher steered him to a large black vehicle of uncertain vintage. He sank into a rear seat that smelt strongly of hot leather, painfully aware of Buffy's small, tense body beside him, and of the sunlight glinting from her golden hair.

"Buffy?" he said hoarsely.

She held a bottle of Evian water in her hand, turning it round and round in her fingers, and without looking up at him, she pressed it into Giles's hold. "Drink," she said. "You should. You've gotta be dehydrated, big time."

"Buffy, please." He knew he wanted and needed to drink, but he could not. His throat seemed shut so tightly not even the slightest trickle of liquid could pass through the knot. Cursing the trembling of his hand, Giles reached out to touch her hair. "Oh, my love...I must...we must...none of it must be true. We can't let any of it be true."

In an instant, she'd flung herself into his arms, sobbing out a confession where none was needed, where none would ever be needed, unless it was, at last, a confession of her fears.

"Please," she said, in the smallest voice he'd ever heard her use. "I know I promised Mr. Briggs--or Mr. not-Briggs. The demon guy. I know I did. But I can't do that to you, Giles. I can't. I can't do it to us."

"We've dealt with demons before," Giles answered, holding her with all the tenderness in his power. "And we shall do so this time as well."

Buffy climbed entirely into his lap, holding him with nearly the whole of her Slayer strength, until Giles knew he would be bruised. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except that she was with him, and that she was his Buffy still. His Buffy.

"I was frightened that you would be gone from me," he confessed. "That I should find you, and..."

"I'm here," she assured him. "I'm here. We'll find a way, right?" Before Giles could answer, her warm lips pressed to his, fervently, the same desperation he'd felt in his own heart clearly alive in her own.

Giles set the water beside him on the seat, raising his hands to cup her face, his fingers weaving into her silken hair. When the kiss at last broke, he still did not move his hands, only touched his forehead to hers, feeling her tears trickle over his own skin. "We shall find a way," he assured her. "We shall."

"Yeah." After several minutes, Buffy pulled back. "That's what we do."

"Just so," Giles agreed.

With a small grin, her eyes still brilliant with tears, Buffy touched his cheek. "English guy," she said, with love, and groped for the bottle beside him. "Now, drink! And make those Watcher guys take us somewhere with a shower--'cause I hate to say it, but we're both pretty funky."

Giles took the bottle and drank, the cool water flowing soothingly down his parched throat, as Buffy watched with her hand on his shoulder. When he'd swallowed as much as he could she, too, drank again, then sealed the Evian and dropped it to the floor.

Buffy lay against him, her head on his shoulder, one small, strong arm round his chest.

"Everything's gonna be okay, isn't it, Giles?" she asked him, sleepily.

"Everything will be fine," he assured her, neither of them caring, just then, whether or not his words were a lie.

Moira could not remember traveling to the airport, but supposed she must have done. Here were the myriad noises, the crowds, the corridors that seemed to make no sense and the announcements that made even less so. Her heart beat unsteadily, and she knew she must appear, to some extent at least, quite deranged.

"You must pretend," she told herself, hoping that she'd not said the words aloud. "You must wear the mask, only for a little. You can do it, Em, only for a little."

The airport concourse abounded with overpriced little boutiques. She entered one, located clothing in her own size by merest chance, and paid for it by credit card. At least she'd possessed the presence of mind to take her handbag from the boot of young McAllister's car.

Moira muttered an explanation of, "Bloody horrid flight," to the doubtful-appearing saleswoman, and carry-sack in hand, rushed out once more into the crowds, scarcely noticing how they parted to give her passage. A quick wash and change in the women's room, and she was on her way to the British Air counter, where a ginger-haired young man who persisted in calling her, "Your Ladyship" sold her a ticket on the next flight to Los Angeles. He seemed to have some difficulty grasping the concept that she'd no luggage whatsoever to check through.

"I've a house in California," she assured him. "My things are there."

Finally, boarding pass and passport in hand, she was on her way, time moving again in a white blur, through which she could see only her goal, until at last she occupied the shadowy red depths of a first class seat, and the plane had begun to taxi.

Lord, she was thirsty, Moira realized. Her throat burned with it, just as her cheeks began to burn with shame. She'd utterly abandoned Rupert, abandoned her son, based on what? A vision of the future that was bound to be lies? What was hell, if not a depositary of lies? What did demons ever do but create falsehood after falsehood? She shivered, causing the attentive air hostess--she knew one ought to call them flight attendants now, but she tended to forget--to offer her a blanket.

"Please," she answered, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. The woman brought her bottled water, too, as well as the blanket, and Moira drank thirstily, ignoring the offered glass., shaking her head when the woman asked her if she was unwell. "Bit of a night," she answered, not caring that the flight attendant thought her hungover. What did it matter? What did anything matter, except finding her way home?

She drank again, draining the bottle dry, and wrapped the blanket more tightly about herself. Underneath its folds, she stroked Wesley's silly, old-fashioned, charming engagement ring with her thumb, knowing she would never have traded it for another, any more than she would have traded the man who'd bestowed it upon her.

Yes, it would all be lies, those things the Hellmouth told her. Wicked, foolish lies. She could not regret her departure, however rash. She did not regret in the least being on her way to Sunnydale, a place that felt, oddly, more like home than England ever had. Moira smiled a little, imagining Wesley's astonishment as she walked in the door, imagining his joyful stammering, his arms sliding round to hold her with a strength beyond that which he knew he possessed. She could nearly feel the warmth of his face burrowing into the crook between her neck and her shoulder, kissing that sensitive skin, her own hand stroking his soft, thick hair, stroking the back of his neck which, somehow, always felt to her like a boy's, as if it were the seat of all his innocence.

Such greeting concluded, she would take a long hot shower, toward the end of which Wesley would join her, soapy hands running over her body until he'd made it sing, astonishing himself at the pleasure he could awaken in her. They would ring that dreadful Chinese restaurant they both liked, and sprawl on the sofa in their pajamas, perhaps pretending to watch one of Wesley's silly films on the telly--and then he would, actually, be watching, his attention held, whilst she watched him in return. Watched him, and loved him, his hand in hers, her head resting upon his shoulder until she drifted, perfectly at peace for once, into a restful sleep.

Moira leaned her cheek against the side of the jet, watching through the tiny, thick-paned window as England dropped away below.

Yes, it would be so. It would. She would find that peace, all she asked for. All she truly wanted anymore.

"Wesley, love," she murmured, shut her eyes, and fell into the leaden sleep of pure exhaustion.