Tribulations - Ch. 20

Without really thinking what she was doing, Joyce poured herself a glass of iced tea, stared at the brown liquid for a moment, then poured it back into the pitcher. Tea wasn't what she wanted. All it would do was keep her awake, and she didn't think she could stand another sleepless night.

She found a wineglass in the still-unemptied lower rack of the dishwasher, and served herself a glass of cold Chardonnay instead. The bottle had been a gift from a grateful client, a far better wine than she could usually afford. She sipped, the crisp, slightly tart flavor reminding her of apples and lemons, just the ticket for a summer night.

She didn't like to think about when she'd started to drink alone. It wasn't a recent thing, by any means, and she didn't really believe she had a problem--but that was what everyone said, wasn't it? Joyce sipped again, wishing she could pretend that she wasn't alone, that Buffy was upstairs, maybe doing her nails or gossiping with Willow, anywhere but in a foreign country, with that man, that man who'd stolen Buffy right from under her nose...

Joyce missed her strange, bright, moody, beloved daughter so badly that the need to see her would sometimes strike like a physical pain. Buffy wasn't anything she'd wanted, or expected--but she was everything Joyce loved, and though she might have wished her daughter to be different, she couldn't imagine her any other way than as she was. Sometimes Joyce thought she'd give up an entire lifetime of hopes and dreams, merely to hold her daughter in her arms again.

Joyce looked at her briefcase and slide-case sprawling against one another on the kitchen counter, and tried to decide whether to move them. Why bother? No one was going to come over. No one was going to see. It would be yet another evening drinking white wine and eating microwaved popcorn while she watched some hokey old movie on AMC. The story of her life: watching impossible romances pass her by.

She missed Buffy, and she missed Hank, not merely as she had the past four years, but with a sharper pang. They'd been so close, so near to reconciliation, until the day they'd found a naked man in their eighteen-year-old daughter's bed. Not merely a naked man, but an unsuitable naked man, one old enough to be Buffy's father with years to spare--and yet she'd witnessed the love between the two of them, the uncanny anticipation of each other's thoughts and needs that even to a biased observer looked almost like mental telepathy. She'd seen Buffy's face light up when she gazed at her beloved, and seen Rupert Giles's normally far more serious expression take on the same brightness when he looked at Buffy. Whatever it was between them, Joyce couldn't deny the reality of it, and yet she wanted to. Lord, she wanted to.

Joyce drained her glass dry and poured another. Yes, she was drinking alone--but then, why shouldn't she? Who was there to shake a finger and say, "Tsk, tsk." Her daughter was gone off God-knows-where with a man she didn't approve of, she'd been working twelve hour days, and then there was the kicker: her car trashed because some poor lost soul had decided to take a plunge to glory off the Bonner Street Overpass.

The poor woman. The poor, poor woman. Joyce took another gulp of wine. Distressed and angry and frightened as she got sometimes, she couldn't imagine reaching the place where something like that seemed to be a good option. She'd tried calling the hospital, but they wouldn't tell her anything, really--only that the woman was still alive, but wasn't allowed to have visitors.

Joyce finished her second glass and poured a third. She'd have to visit. When the nurses would let her, she'd have to visit. Maybe the woman just needed to hear a friendly voice. Well, probably she needed a lot of counseling, and some good drugs too, but a friendly voice wouldn't hurt. She thought of Mickie, who helped her run the gallery, and Jeff and Michael, her favorite couple, who could always make her laugh, and Steph and Nancy ane Melissa. Good friends. Good, good friends, the kind she thought she'd never have again. She needed to share more with them, to not pull away from the support they offered her, to not let herself get caught in the trap of working too many hours, coming homing home alone to a silent house, drinking wine and thinking troubled thoughts. Jeff and Michael had asked her over to dinner that night--why hadn't she taken them up on the offer?

"You're brooding, Joycey," she told herself aloud. "You put all your eggs in the Buffy basket, and that's not okay--not for her and not for you." Whoever she was with or wasn't with, one thing would still have been certain: that Buffy would grow up, that she would move away, that she'd make her own decisions and her own choices and her own mistakes, and how her mother fit into that pretty much depended on Joyce's own reactions. She could support her daughter, be there when Buffy needed her, back off when she didn't, or she could voice her disapproval and risk losing out on months or years of her daughter's life.

Even after more than twenty years, Joyce could still feel the tension vibrating through the walls of that Midwestern farmhouse, and hear her own mother's harsh whisper, "If you marry that Summers boy, Joycey, don't ever expect him to be welcome here." The memory still sent a tense, sick feeling straight into the pit of her stomach.

"But I love him, Mama," she whispered, just as she had then. "I love him, and I need to be with him."

The telephone rang, making Joyce startle violently, wine sloshing over the rim of her glass and over her fingers. She thought of letting the machine pick up, then the idea struck her as it always did, "What if it's Buffy?" Wiping her fingers on a dishcloth, she caught hold of the receiver just before the message kicked in.

"Yes? Summers' residence."

There was an exhalation, as if the caller had been caught off guard, and then HIS distinctive voice spoke. "Ah--er--yes, Ms.--er--Joyce. I've been trying--how are you?"

He's nervous, Joyce thought. I make him nervous. She sometimes forgot that while Rupert Giles could be very decisive in his actions, he was in many ways an extremely shy man. To call her must have seemed horribly awkward to him.

Good, she thought, with what could have been taken for a slightly fiendish smile. Good!

Her next thought wiped away the grin in a heartbeat. Rupert was calling, not Buffy. Which must mean--?

"What's happened?" she demanded, her nails biting into the receiver. "What have you done to my baby?"

"What have I--?" He fell silent, either fighting his astonishment or reining in a burst of temper. Whichever it was, when he spoke again, she heard only those quiet, measured tones she'd come to expect from him. "Joyce, I assure you, nothing's happened. Buffy's merely a little under the weather--some sort of virus, most likely. I'm keeping her quiet and well supplied with water and such, but I know she'd like very much to see her mum. And perhaps you might give me some pointers on how best to care for her, as I'm not very experienced in--er--in such matters."

Joyce found herself smiling again. Rupert sounded so concerned, and she knew first-hand what a difficult patient Buffy could be. "Running you ragged, is she?"

"N-no. No, honestly, she's been a lamb." She could hear a chair moving, a little bit of a squeak as Rupert lowered himself into it--fairly heavily from the sound. He sounded exhausted, come to think of it, and maybe not very well himself, but she knew he wouldn't admit to that, probably not even under pain of death.

"Of course I'll come, Rupert. When did you get home?"

"Just this morning. Early this morning."

"I'll bet you're beat, then." It was an effort, but she tried to make herself sound positive, supportive. "I'll be right there, and maybe you can try to catch a nap or something. Only--" The problem with her good intentions hit Joyce suddenly. "Only--damn! My car's in the shop. Accident."

"I say! Nothing serious, I hope?" He had the good manners to actually sound concerned.

"No, not for me. For the poor lady who fell on it--that's another story." Joyce shivered, the picture of that dark shape plummeting toward her out of the night sky replaying itself only too vividly--the long arms and legs stretched out, the hair flying, the sickening moment of impact when flesh struck glass and metal and the windshield buckled in toward her.

"Good lord!" The chair scraped again. "Fell on it, did you say?"

"Off the Bonner Street Overpass. I don't ever think I'll be able to drive that way again.""

"Yes, yes, I can certainly understand." Joyce imagined him fiddling with his glasses, running his hand back through his hair. "I could come collect you, if you liked. I know Buffy would wish it."

She could hear a scuffling sound, then a jingle--Rupert searching for and locating his keys, no doubt.

"Yes," she answered, as a knock sounded on her door. "Thank you, Rupert. That would be lovely. Um, gotta run. Someone's knocking."

"I'll see you shortly, then, shall I?"

"Thanks," Joyce said again, and hung up.

She had a weird feeling, walking down the hall, almost as if she was a woman in a dream, floating rather than taking steps. The hall itself felt too long, and her body seemed weightless.

That's what you get for drinking two big glasses of wine on an empty stomach, she told herself--not that it was necessarily a bad sensation.

Joyce opened the door, the cool, fresh night air swirling in around her, and suddenly lost her ability to speak: Hank stood on the doorstep, looking as handsome as she'd ever seen him, dressed in a tuxedo, a huge bouquet of red roses cradled in one arm.

"Joycey," he said in a soft voice.

"U-uh. Hank." Self-consciously, Joyce ran her hands over her hair, wondering what she looked like. Probably like hell, after the kind of day she'd had. Plus, she probably reeked of wine. And there he was...there he was after so long. "You didn't... I mean, you haven't..."

Hank's eyes looked into hers, and Joyce was reminded--the memory so strong it brought tears to her own eyes--of the first time they'd danced. She remembered the prickly wool of that other tuxedo, the way she'd felt so warm inside the circle of his arms, resting her head on his shoulder, smelling his aftershave, smelling HIM--an odor that was clean, pleasant, entirely masculine.

"Joycey," Hank said, "I'm the stupidest man on the planet. I haven't been to see you, I haven't called. You're the most wonderful woman in the world, the only woman I've ever loved, and I've neglected you so badly that if I were you, I'd never forgive me." He grinned, that familiar, boyish, beloved grin that always made Joyce grin in return, even when she was angriest with him. "But I know you're a hundred thousand times better person than I am, and I'm hoping you'll give me a chance to try. Please, Joyce, let me spend the rest of my life making it up to you?"

Joyce stepped back from the door. "Hank, did you memorize that corny speech?"

Hank winked at her, then laughed aloud. "Yeah. How'd I do?"

"It was just about the cheesiest thing I ever heard." Joyce reached up to touch his cheek. He must have shaved with particular attention that afternoon--she didn't feel the least bit of stubble. "Brrr, your face is cold."

"I drove all the way from L.A. with the top down. What a chump, huh? I was so scared, I thought I was gonna pass out. The fresh air helped with that, but like you say--brrrrr."

"Hank--" Joyce's hand trailed down his arm, catching Hank's hand, turning to lead him inside. "Let's get you warmed up then, shall we?"

"That, Joycey, is exactly what I like to hear."

Her back turned, focused on the moment, Joyce missed Hank's expression as he stepped across the threshold and into her home.

Buffy was moaning faintly, and the sound tore at Giles's heart. He couldn't think what else to do for her, how to ease her discomfort. She was freshly dressed, tucked up snug in bed on clean sheets. He'd fed her water and juice and more Tylenols, and had an new icepack laid across her brow. The thermometer registered that her fever had gone down, and yet she still seemed so miserable it made him nearly frantic--he'd have done anything to bring her ease.

Perhaps, he hoped fervently, Joyce would have something in her maternal bag of tricks to make Buffy's rest more peaceful.

Wincing at the pain brought by the simple act of bending over, Giles kissed Buffy's too-warm cheek, then her mouth. Her heavy eyes opened briefly before shutting again, with what seemed a terrible weariness, and she murmured, in the most pitiful voice she'd ever heard from her, "Don't go, sweetie, please don't go. I'll be good."

"Hush, hush, my love." He stroked her hair tenderly. "You have been good. You've been extremely good, but you want your mum, don't you? Her car's in the shop, and I've said I'll fetch her."

"Bad," Buffy said. "Outside. Badness."

"I know," he told her gently, "But I shall be extremely careful. You lie still. Try to sleep a little, Buffy, and I shall return before you even know I've gone."

She didn't answer, but tears began to slip beneath her closed lids. His heart pained him again. God, he didn't want to leave her, sleeping, defenseless--and yet he knew she'd rest easier once Joyce arrived. Giles adjusted the covers a final time, then touched her cheek once more in parting. He paused at the top of the stairs to look back into the darkened room.

"I love you," he murmured, though he didn't think she'd hear. "I love you, Buffy, more than my own life."

True to his word, once downstairs he collected a stake, a cross, and a bottle of holy water, stowing them about his person. The last thing he wanted, truly, was to leave her--both for her own sake and for his own. His headache only seemed to increase, and the periods of weakness, and of disturbed vision also seemed to trouble him more frequently. Perhaps, once he reached Joyce's house, he'd be able to turn the keys over to her--except that her voice, as they spoke, had sounded mildly slurred, making him wonder if she might have been drinking. He found that the thought bothered him.

Giles made slightly better time to Joyce's home on Revello Drive than he had to the supermarket, and though his sight remained blurred, it wasn't dangerously so. He was surprised to find a rather expensive model of convertible already parked in the drive when he got there, a vehicle that struck him with a twinge of familiarity, though he couldn't think why.

He climbed the steps to the front door, rang, then when he received no answer, circled round to the back. The kitchen light was switched on, and inside Giles could make out Joyce Summers, entwined in close embrace with a tuxedo-garbed man. Joyce's head was thrown back as if in ecstasy, and the lights glinted from her hair. Giles felt his mouth contract in impatience and distaste: he'd told her he would arrive in a matter of moments, and yet here she was, with this clumsy oaf--

This clumsy--? A spike of pain stabbed through his skull, but with it came perfect clarity. He wasn't interrupting a kiss, but a feeding. Almost before he was aware, his shoulder struck the door, bursting it inward in an explosion of glass. The man--the monster--turned, blood on his mouth, eyes bile-yellow, Joyce's pale body still half-supported in his hold.

Giles attempted to roll to his feet, but his balance was off, badly. Attempting to gain a standing position, he put his hand down in the broken glass, cutting his palm.

The vampire snarled, releasing Joyce as he did so. She fell back against the worktop, barely conscious, remaining awake only by obvious effort.

Giles lurched to his feet, managing at last to free the cross from his pocket, his mouth suddenly bone-dry, his throat tight with nausea. In his vision there seemed to be two crosses, two vampires laughing at him.

"What's wrong with YOU?" the monster asked him. "You think you're gonna stop me, old man? You think you're gonna get between me and my family?"

Giles forced himself to straighten. "Joyce, run," he commanded, with every bit of force he'd ever been taught as a Watcher. "Run. Take my car. Leave here at once."

"Ooh, the big hero!" The vampire laughed. "Joycey, save yourself," he mocked, in a parody of Giles's own tones. "I'm the MAN. I'm so much the man I can fuck the brains out of your eighteen-year-old daughter. Or did you wait until she was eighteen, Rupert? Maybe you were down there in that pissant library of yours after hours, with those ever-so-proper manners and that shit-eating Limey accent, puttin' it to her when she was seventeen. Sixteen even. And what did I get? I got to listen to her again and again and again, blabbing on and on about, 'Giles said,' or 'Giles told me,' or 'Giles does it this way,' until I swear by god I wanted to rip off your balls and shove them down your throat."

Still swaying, Giles looked at him in silence, sorrow coursing through him--at the sight of Joyce's still, shocked face behind the vampire's shoulder, at the thought of what he'd have to tell, or not tell, Buffy. He wanted to react, longed to shove the ugly words back into Hank's inhuman face, but that would only be weakness, a weakness he couldn't afford. Instead, he groped for the bottle of holy water in his pocket, pushing off the stopper with his thumb.

"You know that none of that is true," he told the vampire, in as steady a tone as he could manage. For an instant Hank glared at him, then began to move, so quickly Giles barely got the water free in time, splashing it upward into the demon's face.

Hank gave a bellow of rage. His arm lashed out, striking Giles full force so that he slammed back against a wall of cabinets. Wood splintered at the impact. Glass and dishes rained down. Stars and shimmers of light swooped around him.

Giles's consciousness ebbed and returned, until by superhuman effort he caught it fast, only to find that the vampire had lifted him, that the vampire's tongue was licking out, collecting the blood from his upper lip.

"You leave him alone!" Joyce cried out fiercely, bringing a barstool down across Hank's shoulders with, it appeared, every bit of strength remaining to her. "Get away from him!"

Hank was knocked off balance, but recovered himself in an instant. He dragged Giles upward, slamming him back against the edge of the worktop, the impact drawing a line of fire across Giles's spine. The vampire's fingers bit into his throat, bruising and tearing the skin.

Just like my mum, Giles thought, incongruously. Just as it was when I fought her, in Salisbury. This time, however, he fully expected to die. Hank wasn't a small man, he possessed little or no advantage over him in terms of height or leverage. Hank's fist beat again and again into his midsection, little or no oxygen was reaching his brain, and no matter how he pushed, he could not seem to move the vampire by so much as an inch.

Buffy, Giles thought, longingly, seeing her bright face smiling up at him--and then her face as she was now, lying ill and alone, waiting for him to come home to her. He must come home; she expected him. He could not betray her trust.

Without, conscious thought, Giles flung himself sideways, his full weight coming down across the legs of the fallen stool--damn, there went a rib or two, yet again. The motion, at least, tore him out of Hank's hold, and he was able to roll, to slide backward across the slick linoleum, to bring a knee up under the vampire's chin as Hank scrambled to control him yet again.

The vampire's teeth clacked shut, undead blood spurting from his bitten tongue, and Giles followed up on the advantage, driving both feet against his opponent's chest so that Hank flew back across the kitchen.

Panting, Giles reached for the stake, his numb fingers scarcely able to feel the rough wood. He couldn't rise, he couldn't rise--and then he was on his feet, hunched over, bleeding, the stake clutched in one hand as Hank charged toward him in a footballer's tackle. The impact sent him flying yet again, but at the same time the point of his stake found its purchase, entering the dead flesh, traveling and traveling until the heart was pierced, and the dust exploded, filling his eyes, his mouth, his lungs.

Giles fell to the floor, coughing, retching violently, his mouth flooding with blood, ash, bile until he thought he would choke on them. Beneath all the misery, or perhaps on top of it, he felt a gentle hand touch his hair, and a voice call to him.

Finally, when his body had brought itself back under some sort of control, Giles felt a pair of gentle arms raising him from the floor, a soft, warm cloth wiping his face. Shuddering, struggling to steady his breathing, he reached out, pulling Joyce Summers close to him, not in a lover's embrace, the way he might have held her daughter, but in the way two friends might hold each other, who have managed, through terrible, painful effort, to somehow survive the unsurvivable.

To his amazement, Joyce was laughing--not hysterical laughter, either, but the mirth of wonder and amazement. "We lived. My God, Rupert, we lived!"

Giles managed to lift her away a little, looking into her deathly-pale face, the dark pits that surrounded her normally clear blue eyes. He couldn't find the power to answer her.

"Oh, poor you!" Joyce said, dabbing at the continuing flow of blood from his nose. "Poor Rupert, let's get you home."

"I can see--" Giles began hoarsely, cleared his sore throat and tried again. "I can see where Buffy gets her courage."

Tears spilled over Joyce's lower lids. "Oh, Rupert--"

He sought her hand, squeezing it gently. "Joyce, I am so very sorry."

She glanced away briefly, blinking as she fought back the tears. "Yes," she said softly, after a little. "Yes, Rupert, so am I."