Tribulations - Chapter 58

A silvery light woke him, and for a moment Giles thought the television must have been left on downstairs. Except, of course, that Buffy hadn't been watching and neither, naturally, had he. Buffy had not awakened, either, but lay slumbering beside him, a faintly troubled expression visible on her face despite the darkness that filled the loft.

Gently, Giles extricated his right arm from beneath her head, sliding soundlessly toward the edge of the bed and then to his feet. He glanced back over his shoulder once before padding downstairs to investigate the strange illumination. Despite his absence from her side, Buffy had not so much as stirred.

Emotionally and physically, he felt oddly numb, and that surprised him. In truth, at the moment, his strongest feeling was one of curiosity, as if, in the back of his mind, he knew very well what had caused the lambent glow emanating from downstairs, and it only remained to discover exactly how the scene ahead would play out.

She sat very properly on his sofa, one leg crossed over the other, a simple act she'd not been able to accomplish for many years now. Certainly, not since the fall that had shattered her leg. She wore a stylish suit with a slightly old-fashioned look to it, and had put her long hair up in some sort of elaborate twist.

Quietly, Giles rounded the far end of the sofa, and stood gazing down upon her. "Hullo, Em," he said at last, softly, pleased to note that his voice sounded nearly normal.

Moira appeared to be reading one of Buffy's fashion magazines. The manner in which she turned the pages fascinated him: being without substance, her fingers of course never touched the paper, and yet page by page followed her fingertips, as if by some form of magnetism. "Hullo, Rupert," she responded, glancing up at last. "How are you?"

Giles shrugged, and took a seat beside her on the sofa, the cold of her radiating toward him so that, almost at once, he was chilled. She used his body heat, and the warmth of the inanimate objects around her, as a power source, he knew--although he'd never met a ghost who used such energy so consciously. Moira even had a bit of colour to her, like an old photograph hand-tinted.

"You're surprised to see me?" she asked, amusement clear in both her tone and expression.

"I supposed I oughtn't be," Giles answered. He'd begun to shiver, and fought to keep his voice steady.

Moira glanced at him. "Sorry about that, Rupert. An unfortunate side effect, I'm afraid. I'll try to keep this brief. How are they saying I died? A stroke, I imagine?"

Giles nodded. "So they say. Ultimately, it was, I suppose, the cause of your death."

They shared a long look. "But you know better," Moira said at last.

"I felt the residue clearly enough," Giles replied. "Magic. Powerful magic, at that. But then, it would have to be, wouldn't it?"

Moira nodded--calmly enough, but then her expression began to take on an aspect of fierceness. "I was murdered, Rupert, and I must say I can't take kindly to that. Furthermore, the perpetrator was obviously LeFaye, which pleases me even less. Besides which, something has now been summoned here, into our world, that was best left to other realms."

"And the one who murdered you now has your power?" Giles ventured.

"Just so. Hoovered it right out of me whilst I lay helpless. And that I resent most of all. You'll have to stop her, Rupert, stop her soon, before she learns to use what she's stolen. You haven't much time now, and even less choice in the matter."

"To whom..." Giles began, but in his heart he knew to answer to his question. "Willow admired you greatly," he murmured. "She..."

"Oh, yes," Moira answered, a touch of sadness in her voice. "She is little, and good-natured, and brilliant. You love her like the daughter you never had. But--and, believe me, I do not say this to wound you, Rupert--you have always been naive about the depths of the human heart. Willow is all those things, but like most of us she has, as well, her own ambitions. Don't you think it has chafed at her, to always stand in the shadow of Buffy's light? Don't you imagine her kind little heart is capable of harbouring resentment that she was not the one loved, the one chosen and cherished and special? You know how sweet the magic can taste, how tempting it can be, especially to one who has so often gone hungry."

"But I do love her," Giles protested. "That is... I mean... We all do."

Moira gave him a look, one Buffy would no doubt have interpreted as "get real, Rupert."

"Not enough," she told him gently. "For one who's been starved as Willow has been starved, there is never enough. The one she's called up, though, will be able to tell her everything she's always wanted to hear, give her everything she's always wanted to feel. She is persuasive, my ancestress, and charming and powerful. She is vengeful and, most of all, she is evil.

"Forget all the scholarly discussions, all the historical interpretations and folklorists' quibblings. This is the truth, Rupert, no matter how you, or anyone wished to deny it: Camelot existed, just like in the storybooks, in glory and peace and beneficent power. Camelot fell, and she, directly, caused its fall."

"No," Giles breathed. "No, Em, it's..."

Moira's expression turned almost pitying. "Deny all you like, Rupert--in your heart you know it's true. Morgana LeFaye existed. She exists. And now Willow's brought her here to Sunnydale."

Giles felt his mouth harden to a straight line. It was true--he wanted to argue, wanted to swear that he would stake his own life on Willow's goodness. He loved her, didn't he, and loving her, ought to defend her?

The sad truth was, he didn't know. Or rather, he did know, and the knowledge made a painful wound in his heart. Why hadn't he realized? Why hadn't he seen her loneliness and her hurt? Had he always been so completely wrapped up in Buffy and the crisis of the week?

The answer had to be, unequivocally, yes. He'd taken Willow, with her willingness to help and her good nature, almost entirely for granted. He'd thought her balanced within her own world and hadn't spared her any concern. God, why must he always be so blind?

Moira turned another page of her magazine then, rising, shot him a look. "Indulging in a spot of self-flagellation, are we, Rupert?"

Giles gazed at her, stricken. "I ought to have seen, Em. I ought to..."

"Oh, very likely. But you might just as well blame me while you at it. Before I arrived, Willow was fairly content to dabble in such magicks as could be found in the books around her. It was I who awakened the LeFaye heart within, and in doing so made her vulnerable to this...this invasion. And, sadly, this isn't to be your only worry."

Giles blinked. In an instant Moira had vanished, only to reappear by the end of the table. The stack of notes, both those in Wesley's precise penmanship and Angela Tremayne's distinctive scrawl, fanned out across the table. The blue-covered book he'd exhumed from the depths of his closet but not yet studied fell open, its pages riffling speedily until, at a place three quarters of the way through, they stopped. Giles could glimpse enough of the engraving shown there to guess that the creature pictured would not be something he'd wish to meet in real life.

"He's coming," Moira told him, her voice gone low and somehow indistinct, even as her ghostly body drew the last warmth from the room. "He'll soon be here--and, Rupert, he cannot be stopped. He will have what he has already been granted."

She vanished then, leaving Giles cold and confused. He sank down into the chair that faced the unpleasant engraving, gazing upon the thing that had killed Briggs, and would, somehow, take his Buffy from him. Despite what Moira said, there must be a way to stop it, just as there must be a way to bring Willow back from the dark place to which she'd gone.

There must, he told himself. You only need to think...

The next Giles knew, he was awakening within the warm, comforting circle of Buffy's arms, hoping against hope that all the transpired in the night had been no more than a dream. He often had unpleasant dreams, hopeless dreams, dreams full of dire warnings. Perhaps this dream was nothing more.

Giles only wished that he didn't know better.

Willow couldn't remember her room ever being so shadowy--so shadowy, in fact, that it didn't look like her room at all. She couldn't remember, either, how she'd gotten there. In fact, the last thing she could think of was the beach, the sunrise, the way she...

A wonderful warm feeling started in between her legs and she shivered, not with cold, but with the rising of that feeling through her body, making her hum, making her breasts feel tight and tingly and everything inside her floaty and grounded at the same time. She wanted, so badly, for her guest to return, to feel that magic again, and those soft, arousing touches, the kind she never thought she'd like, but that she liked better than anything she'd felt in her life. The whole rest of the world, everything she'd felt or done or thought, felt dull and gray by comparison.

The world felt like nothing. Her life felt like nothing. But she had to pretend--isn't that what her friend said, that she had to make believe nothing had changed? And more than that, to make the others believe.

Wouldn't they be surprised when they found out, though? Wouldn't they just be surprised?

Smiling secretly to herself, Willow slid out of bed. Still smiling, she showered, brushed her hair, dressed herself in her old dumb little-girl clothes, knowing that the sneaks and shorts and Hello Kitty t-shirt made up the perfect disguise. The others would see what they always saw: good ol' Willow. Reliable Willow. Sweet dumb little Willow. Pulling the brush through her suddenly-almost-fixed hair, she found herself laughing. Boy, were there some surprises in store for them.

Willow gave herself a different smile in the mirror, liking the face she saw there: the wise dark eyes, the catlike grin. Slowly, she replaced that face, her true face, with the one that the others would expect, all innocent goofiness. She even pulled one of Old Willow's stupid girly hats on over her hair, murmuring, "Give the people what they want, Will."

Thus prepared, she strolled out into the world.

No doubt about it, Giles had woken up grumpy, and Buffy no longer knew how to handle that. In the old days she would have gone into full-Giles-overload-mode, piling on the annoyances until he just kind of imploded and turned back into his normal self again. The problem was, the person she'd become no longer felt comfortable with giving him that kind of stress. Which left her torn between two options: either letting Giles have his space until he got okay all on his own, or doing something to help him out of the mood. The former felt insensitive, the latter...

She just didn't know how to go about it. Which was why she found herself, five minutes after getting out of bed, sitting downstairs on the couch while he stomped around upstairs. Or, rather, did the Giles version of stomping, the one that involved no actual noise, and the slamming of absolutely nothing.

One of her magazines lay open on the coffee table. Buffy reached out to shut the cover, straightening the pile while she was at it. For a second, her fingers went all tingly, but she shrugged off the feeling. She was on overload too. By this point, they probably all were.

Upstairs, the shower started, and for a minute she thought of barging in, catching Giles at his most vulnerable, or at least introducing a little bathtub fun into the morning. Only the phone rang just then so, instead, Buffy dutifully went to answer. "Hello? Summers-Giles residence. Buffy speaking." Like, who else would it be?

"Oh, hullo Buffy!" Celeste's voice, sounding pretty thrilled, Buffy couldn't help but think, to get her instead of Giles. "How are you?"

"Hoping your guy didn't wake up as crabby as mine."

Celeste made a noise that pretty much told her, "hope on." Celeste's voice got a little bit muffled, as if she was cupping her hand around the receiver to stop her words from carrying. "He's impossible this morning. Utterly impossible. Says he had a dream about his mum last night and she told him any number of dire things, none of which he can now remember. It's all left him terribly cross and unreasonable."

"He had a dream about Moira?" Buffy sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor next to the telephone table. "Can't he remember anything about what she tried to tell him?"

"Not a blessed thing. I, on the other hand, have been trying to communicate with American funeral directors all morning, and I must say every one I've spoken with has been beyond thick. It's put me quite out of sorts. Which isn't to say that I haven't made the arrangements. Oh, and I've rung a number of people back home to let them know. Their tickets and hotel rooms have been booked, and I've found a caterer, too, for...well, for after."

"After the funeral," Buffy said. Celeste amazed her--but maybe that's how she lived with the badness, by staying so busy she couldn't think of anything else. "That's some power calling you've done there, Celeste."

Her friend didn't answer, and it struck Buffy suddenly that Celeste was crying. Very quietly, very discreetly, but crying nonetheless. She felt more useless than ever.

"I quite liked her, you know," Celeste said, after an uncomfortable silence. "I know one's not meant to like one's mum-in-law, but I've quite liked both of mine, different as they were. For poor Em... That is, for her to... In this way..." Celeste was full-on sobbing by that point, and Buffy felt herself teetering on the edge of her own tears. She didn't know what to say or do, though she knew she had to do something.

"Do you want me--umn, us--to come over?" she asked, hating the wimpy little quality of her voice. "Giles and me, I mean?"

A couple more good sobs, and Celeste was back under control. "No, Buffy," she answered, sounding a little congested, but otherwise giving no sign of how upset she'd been. "No...that is, not just yet. We'll see you later in the day, of course. I've an appointment this morning at the funeral parlor--what an odious term!--and I must pull myself together before it's time. Only give Rupert my love, and tell him the wake's on for tomorrow at seven, with the funeral itself scheduled for two the following afternoon."

Buffy sighed, the weight of the world settling firmly unto her shoulders. "Celeste, two o'clock won't work for the funeral."

"Pardon? I though it would give..."

"Wesley," Buffy said. "He can't come if it's in the afternoon, and nice as it was for you to do all the arrangements and stuff, this is really kinda his show."

"But why...?" Celeste began. A silence followed, during which Buffy thought she could actually hear gears grinding in the other woman's mind. "Moira was engaged to a vampire?"

"With a soul." It sounded lame. Even to her, used as she was to this kind of thing, it sounded lame. "Long story, Celeste. He didn't start out that way."

"I should think not." Celeste sounded the teeniest bit shocked--but she wasn't a person to let herself be put off balance. "You think we should go later for the funeral, then? Or just delay the internment until after sunset?"

"Isn't everyone there pretty much gonna know what's the what? I'd say go later. Let Wes get through it in one big package. If we get any party-crashers, we'll...umn...just deal."

Celeste sighed, and said, "I'll see what I can accomplish, then. We'll speak again soon, Buffy," before hanging up.

"Bye, Celeste." Buffy sighed and hung up too, glaring at the phone like it was her worst enemy. Sometimes, life just sucked. She ought to call Xander and Wes. Ought to call Willow, for that matter, and let her know what was up. Should probably even check on Giles in his never-ending shower and see if he'd drowned himself--the water had been running a hell of a long time.

Instead, she slumped over to the table, threw herself into the chair and laid her head on the big pile of research occupying one end--a different big pile than the one that had been there during the Hellmouth crisis.

Buffy gave a grunt of discomfort and despair. The truth was, big musty books didn't make great pillows. They smelled bad, and she'd gotten the same little tingle that hit her when she touched her magazine. More weirdness, but she didn't want to hear about it, didn't want to know about it. Not now. Not ever, really.

Buffy longed for the days when Spike and Drusilla were the worst things she had to worry about. Even the Master would have been a walk in the park compared to the crap that came down the line these days.

Straightening, she threw back the stiff blue cover. How did Giles stand this stuff? Musty paper and printing that resembled ugly, twisty vines. Old drawings of things that looked even uglier.

Buffy leafed through a page or two, sighing again. Somehow, she knew, this day was never going to get any better.