Tribulations - Chapter 69

Buffy knew she hadn't exactly told Giles the truth before. Okay, yes, physically she probably could have done another ten hours of book-hauling. She wouldn't even have complained, because he didn't need to hear it, not now. Emotionally, though...well, that was another matter. It had hurt her, actually hurt her, to see him looking so lost and confused, and she would have done anything to make that look go away. Especially after the way she'd been the night before. In front of Seb and Celeste, no less.

They were gonna hate her forever. Which was no more than she deserved.

Buffy sighed. The thing she'd told Giles about being able to read him, that hadn't been lie. Maybe it didn't work with a hundred per cent accuracy, but she knew he would have kept going for as long as she stacked the books up around him, reading, getting more and more frustrated as his brain went pounding away on nothing.

Willow, with her badass LeFaye mojo, had taken way too much from him. First the showdown at the Rosenberg corral, then last night's dance of the dead, then having to bring Xander back from the edge of eternity--big surprise that Giles was running on empty. Which, Buffy suspected, was kind of the point. She had a feeling, too, that Willow's thoughts on the subject of Giles were a little more complicated than she wanted to contemplate, and that her former best friend was adopting the old "strike fast and strike hard" technique that had always worked so well for Buffy herself, trying to get him out of the game and leave her on her own. Nice try, Will.

The worst thing was, though, that Buffy knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that good ol' Willow and her brand new bestest friend must be whooping it up back at the Fortress of Darkness, cracking open the evil sorceress version of brewskis and slapping each other's backs.

Or whatever it was they did to celebrate a good time. Buffy had a feeling that might be something she really didn't want to know.

She shook her head, as if that could rattle all the bad thoughts away, and snuggled closer to Giles in the recliner. For just a moment, she touched her lips to his temple in a whisper of a kiss. God knew she didn't want to wake him, not before he'd logged in some serious nap-time, but she hoped he knew she was there. She'd be strong for him this time, she really would. She wouldn't make things any harder than they had to be.

Giles did look, too, as if the rest might be doing him good. For a while, there, his face had kind of a confused expression, but now that seemed to have been replaced by something else altogether. The constant lines of tension had smoothed away, leaving him looking...

Notyounger, that wasn't right. For all his worries about that particular subject, and despite all the awful things she'd said to him over the years, if he'd looked different, he wouldn't have looked like Giles. But... Buffy searched for a word.

He looked peaceful, and strong. He looked the way he would have looked if all the terrible things hadn't happened to him, and she would have given a lot more than a summer to see him still wearing that expression when he woke up.

It struck her that the sky must have finally cleared up outside, and that the afternoon sun was now slanting through the blinds, because a rich golden light bathed Giles's body. Only, when Buffy glanced over her shoulder, she saw only the now-familiar slivers of gray between the slats. It struck her, too, that she heard rain drumming against the glass.

Buffy turned back to see that her hand, resting on Giles's chest, had gone translucent, her veins and her bones blurry shapes inside, her fingers outlined in red, just like when she'd been a kid playing with her dad's big flashlight, the one that was so heavy she could hardly lift it, fascinated by what that strong a beam did to her hand. At the time, she'd thought it was magic. Now...?

Now, she pretty much thought the same.

Huh, Buffy said to herself, How 'bout that? She wasn't wigging, though--mostly because something went through her along with the light. Everything will be okay, it told her. Everything will be fine.

Lull me into a false sense of security, will you? Buffy answered back. But at the same time, she did let go, all the fear and doubt and sense of failure bobbing away from her, leaving her feeling weirdly light. How long had it been since she'd felt that way?

Slowly, the glow faded. Giles slept on, looking more or less Gileslike. Buffy climbed carefully out of the recliner--though she had an inkling that, right then, she could have jumped up and down on his chest a dozen times, screaming at the top of her lungs, and still not roused him.

She wandered into the kitchen in search of food, managing to locate some bread, cheese and butter--the former had been in Giles's minuscule freezer, the latter stored in the fridge, so at least they didn't look too skeezy. And it was cheese she'd picked out, not the scary British kind Giles favored. As far as Buffy was concerned, food with mold on it anywhere belonged in the trash.

Munching a raw carrot that she'd washed but hadn't bothered to peel, Buffy waited for the frying pan to heat. When it had, she slid in her soon-to-be-grilled sandwiches, ala Granny Ames--which meant dripping with melty cheese and butter, and approximately 2000 calories a pop. Yum. Her mouth actually started watering as she flipped them one by one, letting the other sides toast.

She poured two tall glasses of lemonade, slid the sandwiches onto plates and balanced everything upstairs. That summer waitressing hadn't been such a complete waste after all.

By the time she'd switched on the lamp and transferred the two plates and two glasses onto the night stand, Xander's eyes were open. Buffy used her foot to hook a chair closer to the edge of the mattress, then settled in, one leg tucked beneath her.

Xander didn't say anything, just stared at the ceiling.

"You know you're hungry," Buffy said. "Eat! I made two for you. Very yummy."

Tears were running down from the corners of Xander's eyes, into his ears. Buffy knew from experience how icky that felt--and how low you had to be to just lie there and let it happen.

"You gonna let her win?" she asked him, making her voice as gentle as possible.

"I-I loved her," Xander said, all scratchy-throated. "And she... That's how..."

Buffy nodded, watching him.

"She..." Xander made a weird, vague gesture. "It wasn't our Will. That's it. Not our Will. I-it was. The magic. All the magic."

Buffy took a bite of her sandwich. She knew different. They both did, really. Barring certified cases of possession or mental illness, when you did something, bad or good, you owned it. No matter if you were drunk or stoned or half-crazy with grief, it was yours. Just as her anger and fear for Angel hadn't been a good enough excuse for going after Faith, magic overload wasn't any excuse for what Willow had gotten up to.

It struck Buffy that when all this was over, she needed to check on Faith, see how she was doing. All this time, and she'd scarcely thought of her for five seconds.

"I'm just two for two, aren't I?" Xander said bitterly, scooting up in the bed.

Buffy stared at him a minute, not getting it--then, when she did, she took a quick bite of sandwich. She couldn't be expected to talk with her mouth full, could she?

Poor Xander. So that's how you drained someone's life force. Nice.

"Hey, maybe if I'm really lucky," Xander went on, "Anya will come back to town, and I can up my score to three for three."

Buffy really wanted to say how much she loved him, and that things wouldn't always be this way. But, at the moment, all she could do was sit and chew and feel bad. The words felt too big to be spoken.

Not looking at her, Xander slid his plate onto his lap. "Comfort food. Huh."

"It was either that or mashed potatoes," Buffy answered, "And mine always turn out lumpy. Plus, I hate the peeling part."

Xander took series of big bites, chewing steadily. Buffy had to say he didn't look particularly comforted--but even grilled cheese could only do so much.

He washed down the remains of the first sandwich with half his glass of lemonade, then glanced up at her. "I was dying, right? I remember dying. Like I was bleeding to death."

"It was a life-force thing." Buffy shrugged nervously. "Giles did a spell."

"That reversed it? The spell?" Xander gave the unfunniest laugh she'd ever heard. "That, I'm so glad to hear. Good thing it didn't have to go back in the same way it went out. 'Cause I kinda couldn't be on board with the process."

He ate his second sandwich in silence, then polished off his lemonade, and hers, while Buffy sat there feeling dumb. She was a total failure in the bringing comfort department, but what could she say? What could anyone say?

"I'm afraid I'm clean out of jokes," Xander said, and it scared Buffy to hear how brittle his voice sounded. "That has to be a first, huh?"

Buffy laid her hand over his, squeezing tight. "It's okay, Xand. No jokes necessary."

"You think not?" Xander's eyes, locked on hers, were scary-dark. "Buff, you don't get how really, really necessary they are."

Giles woke to find his flat oddly silent, except for a low murmur from the television. Buffy sat almost primly on one end of the sofa, Xander miles away on the other. Neither appeared to notice him--and not because they were so very fixated on the screen before them.

"This program has been brought to you by the letter R, and the numbers 2, 6 and 11," burbled the announcer."

"Nothing really bad ever happens on Sesame Street," Buffy sighed, "And if there's something a little bad, they sing about it. Can you imagine what would happen if we sang about our problems?"

"I can't sing," Xander said. "Even Big Bird sings better than me."

"Giles can sing," Buffy answered. "He'd have to do all the really hard parts."

"No way," Xander objected.

"Uh...way," Buffy told him. "Sometimes he forgets and sings while he's cleaning the apartment. Very manly seventies stuff. One of these days I'm gonna come home and find him playing air guitar."

"Not bloody likely," Giles said, bending down to kiss the top of her head. "Besides which, I am perfectly capable of playing an actual guitar, so I've no need for foolish posturing."

"Only the regular kind?" Buffy said, craning her neck to smile up at him--a little sadly, Giles thought. He suspected her time alone with Xander had been not entirely free from stress. "Good nap?"

"I'm much refreshed, thank you," Giles answered, making his way into the kitchen. Not a bloody lot there, at present, but by the recently-washed dishes draining beside the sink, Buffy seemed to have found something to cook. "You've eaten?"

"I could..." Buffy prepared to jump to her feet, but Giles waved her back.

"I'm also perfectly capable of looking after myself, love."

"I made grilled cheese. For us. I really could..."

Giles tried not to shudder as he caught sight of the diminished block of unnaturally orange "American" cheese residing on the middle shelf of his refrigerator. Heaven forfend.

"You're mentally dissing my national cheese, aren't you, Moldy Cheese Man?" Buffy said, her voice teasing, but her eyes desperate.

"Not at all, love. I merely thought we might go out. Xander?"

The boy responded to his name with a blank stare. He hadn't come back from this unscathed, that was certain, and now they had so little time...

"Or, hey, I could bring in," Buffy suggested--her subtext being, certainly, Deal with this, please. I'm at the end of my tether.

"There's that new noodle place on Sequoia street," she continued. "The one with the Pho?"

Giles's brain briefly registered the word as "foe," and suffered a moment's confusion before correcting itself. "Yes, of course, love. If you'd rather."

Buffy leaped off the sofa, scrabbling for handbag and keys. "Okay. I'm gone."

"We'll see you shortly," Giles answered. "Take care. Please?"

"You got it," Buffy replied, stretched up on her toes for a quick kiss, and was gone.

"Guess I scared her away, huh?" Xander said from the sofa. His tone sounded dark; his eyes appeared darker. Giles knew that soon he'd have to tell the boy about the business with his mother. And--though his mind shied away from the subject--with his father, as well. Not tonight, however. Definitely not tonight.

"I'd imagine, rather, that Buffy was suffering some form of what's called cabin fever, having been cooped up inside the whole day."

"Cabin fever," Xander echoed. "You know what scares me, Giles? How alone we are. Totally alone. My mom used to listen to this one song, over and over, Moldy Oldies stuff. You'd probably know it."

"Very likely," Giles replied, in a dry voice, to which Xander paid no heed.

"You'd better let somebody love you, that song said. You'd better let somebody love you, before it's too late. But then you do, and WHAMMO! Even my mom and dad started out crazy in love, and look how that turned out."

Indeed, Giles thought, slightly disconcerted that Xander's thoughts had dovetailed so neatly with his own.

"People do, upon occasion, wound one another." He thought of the night before, the angry words and cold silence. "They may also help one another to heal. We can't go entirely alone in this world, Xander, and experience life as it's meant to be experienced. You can't build..."

"...A fortress around your heart?" Xander sang back at him, badly off key. The boy truly hadn't exaggerated his lack of vocal prowess. "C'mon, Giles. All those words in your head, and you're gonna quote old Sting songs to me?"

"I intended to say, 'a barrier against all human contact,'" Giles concluded gently. "Though if it helps your present frame of mind, by all means rail against me to your heart's content."

Xander gave him another of those dark looks, one as full of sadness and desperation as any Buffy could muster.

"I agree with you, absolutely," Giles continued. "What Willow did to you was unconscionable, very likely unforgivable. You feel angry, hurt..." Giles looked deeply into Xander's eyes, catching and holding them. "Violated?" he added, softening his voice, as if that might also soften the word he spoke.

For a long while, they sat in silence, holding that look.

"You know what the worst part was?" Xander said at last, with equal softness. "It was that she'd...I don't know...? Gotten inside my fantasies, I guess? She played me like a violin, Giles--uh-unh, like some dumb instrument, like a kazoo--and in one way it was everything I ever wanted--that smile, and those eyes, and she was all pretty, and soft and nice-smelling. Doing all--" he choked slightly. "All the right things. Perfect, huh? Only, at the end, I saw her eyes. For her, this was payback time. This was revenge. Right then, I would have done anything--anything--to go back to being the two little kids who splashed in the wading pool, or ate Slurpees together. I don't wanna be this person. And Will..." Xander slumped back against the sofa cushion, fury in every line of his body. "I guess she didn't want me to be this person, either."

Lord, what did one say in these situations? Nothing, perhaps. What could be said?

Tentatively, Giles reached out, enfolding the boy in his arms, holding him close, and tightly, as Xander sobbed and sobbed against him, subsiding into dry, painful shakes once he'd no more tears to shed. It came to Giles that Xander--like himself--had missed all his life someone who would hold him so, strongly, with a father's embrace, staving away, if only for a little while, the horrors of the world.

And that, perhaps, if he could heal Xander, he might heal himself as well.

In time the boy pulled away--mindful, perhaps, that Buffy might soon return. Rising, Giles fetched a dampened towel from the bathroom, laying his hand comfortingly on the back of Xander's neck as the boy applied the wet cloth, roughly, to his reddened, tear-streaked face.

After a moment, Xander climbed wearily to his feet, taking himself off to the bathroom itself, where he remained until several minutes after Buffy returned.

Giles had greeted her with a welcoming kiss, but other than that, the two of them said little. He busied himself cleaning off an end of the table, whilst she, with a perhaps unnecessary precision, laid out the numerous little pots of garnishes that had come with their supper.

"Okay, this one's bean sprouts, and this--" she sniffed at a small round container half filled with finely-chopped green matter. "Oh! Duh. Cilantro. And here are the lime wedges. And the green onion."

Xander, having emerged from the bathroom, stood watching her. "Is there gonna be a test later? 'Cause I want time to study. This looks complicated."

"Nah. It's tasty. You'll like." Last of all, she removed three large tubs from her carrier bag, uncovering the one at her own place with a flourish. "Voila! Dig in." She began to apply the garnishes with a liberal hand. "Guys. We don't have a lot of time."

"Oh. Right." Giles took his place at the head of the table, smiling a bit at the way they'd grouped themselves--Buffy to his right hand, Xander to his left. Grief did not appear to affect the boy's appetite, for he fell to eating with a gusto that was nearly frightening. Buffy, though daintier in her habits, seemed scarcely less enthusiastic.

For himself, Giles sipped the savory broth, and taught himself the knack of dealing with the thick noodles, smiling secretly at Buffy and Xander's antics. Less patient than he, they appeared to be engaged in fierce combat with bowlfuls of supremely active eels. Each successful delivery to the combatants' mouths being accompanied by cries of triumph.

The peacefulness he'd felt in the midst of his dream returned, and he half felt that, had he turned, he would have seen the being who'd come to him in Celeste's guise, smiling her patient smile, her eyes alight with joy.

Thank you, Giles thought, addressing the words to no one in particular. Now, help me to remember?

These young people, his family, would not be harmed, he vowed. And Willow would be brought back to them.

Giles didn't know how, but she would be brought back to them.