Tribulations - Chapter 73

"Wake up, wake up, sleepyheads," said a voice in Buffy's ear. Which she did, sitting bolt upright with a suddenness that she could have sworn made her teeth--and her brain--rattle.

"Huh? What?" Great. There was a snappy line. Not that even the Slayer should be expected to wake up in full banter-mode. Still, she had a reputation to uphold.

"Xander?" Buffy said, knowing full well that only someone with way better luck than she currently had going could expect the person who'd woken her to actually be Xander. Or Seb. Or Celeste bringing her a large, elaborate breakfast. All of which left her wide awake, thoroughly wigged, and--this made her feel even more ridiculous--starving.

Luck aside, it was still dark out, and most of the people she knew were only too aware of what that meant. Okay then, she told herself, Maybe you were dreaming. Sometimes that happened--she'd crash awake, panting, thinking her mom had called to her from the bottom of the stairs, and she was going to be late for school, maybe end up getting some extra quality time with her good friend Principal Snyder. A time or two she'd even jumped up and started to throw her clothes on before she realized that it was only something like three AM. Not to mention that she had graduated and Snyder was long since demon snake chow.

Buffy switched on the bedside lamp and glanced at the clock. Four twenty-five. So, next question--had Giles heard the voice too?

He'd done his usual thing of burrowing deep under the pillows, which, for a normal person, could only mean that nothing short of the end of the world would induce wakefulness. Only Giles was a notoriously light sleeper, so even in the shelter of his little pillow cave, the low-wattage lamp on her side of the bed would probably wake him any minute now.

Obviously, no one was up there in the loft with them. The best thing would be to shut off the light and let Giles have his well-deserved rest. Maybe she'd even manage to get back to sleep herself.

Except for the damn Slayer Spidey-sense tingling away inside her, at a frequency even more annoying than Giles's old-fashioned alarm clock. And she knew from experience it wouldn't shut off until she'd spent at least a few minutes playing Nancy Drew.

Buffy slid out of bed, taking care to be extra quiet, and began her rounds. Nothing in the bedroom. Nothing in the bathroom, on the stairs or in the living room. She found herself a short-handled axe in the weapons chest, padded to the front door and flung it open wide. Nothing out there but Mr. Hernandez, their across-the-courtyard neighbor, on his way to one of the weird shifts he sometimes had to work for Sunnydale Power and Light.

Mr. Hernandez staggered back through his own open door, yelling, "Madre de Dios!" as his lunchpail flew out of his hand and broke open on the brick. An apple and a package of Hi-Hos landed at Buffy's feet.

"Um...hi. Sorry," she mumbled. "Looking for the paper."

Sure, Buff. Now explain the axe. And why you're standing there dressed in your slip.

Some things it was better not to even attempt. Instead, she retrieved his scattered lunch items, passing them to the still-obviously-wigged Mr. Hernandez. "Er...have a nice day at work?"

"Thank you," he said, a little stiffly.

"Um...no paper yet, I guess. Back to bed I go!" Fighting the urge to giggle, Buffy stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. Special Slayer-senses were all well and good, but she wished she'd develop one that warned her when she was about to seriously embarrass herself. A faux pas detector. Now, that would be useful.

Shaking her head, Buffy slung the axe over her shoulder and climbed to the loft. Just as she'd expected, Giles was sitting up in bed.

"We've had a visitor," he said. His voice sounded a little funny, but whose didn't at four-thirty in the morning?

"That's what I thought," Buffy answered. "But when I got up to check it out, I didn't find anything. Except poor Mr. Hernandez on his way to work. Think me up a good explanation for why I might have come charging out of our apartment in my slip, waving an axe. 'Cause, just at that moment, I was tapped. So, why did you...?" All of a sudden, Buffy ran out of breath.

Giles didn't say anything more, just sat there with his right hand cupped, cradling the left, and a strange expression on his face.

"Sweetie?" She moved closer. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. It came to her that the first two fingers on that left hand were bending in directions human fingers weren't supposed to bend. "Giles! Oh, God!"

"No need to panic." He got up very carefully. "Just... I believe... A taxi, perhaps?"

"Yes. Yes." Buffy flew downstairs, grabbed the phone--then dropped it to haul out the phone book instead. Her brain felt frozen, or maybe she'd lost the ability to read, because she'd gone whiffling through the pages for the third time when Giles came up beside her.

"732-8950," he said, in that quiet, precise voice he reserved for those times when anyone else would have been shrieking and writhing in pain. "At least, I believe that was the number we rang last time."

"You know what other number works? 9-1-1. And I can remember it."

"Buffy," he said, actually smiling at her a little bit. "This hardly requires an ambulance." He reached over her shoulder, punching the phone buttons right-handedly.

Buffy did manage to pick up the receiver, and even give the taxi dispatcher their correct address, although she nearly freaked when the guy popped his gum in her ear and told her half an hour. The only thing that stopped her was Giles's calm expression, and the slight shake of his head.

"Okay, thanks," she said, and carefully hung up. She wanted more than anything to be able to touch him, comfort him, but Giles in his ultra-controledness kind of put an end to that impulse. She had to do something, though. She needed to.

"Clothes perhaps?" Giles suggested gently, as if she'd been the one hurt, not him.

"Clothes. Sure. I can do clothes." She raced up the stairs, throwing a random dress on over the slip she hadn't bothered to take off the night before. Gross. Double gross. At least she could put on clean undies--and she did, afterwards sliding her feet into a pair of sandals.

At which point Buffy realized that Giles might not want to visit the ER at the crack of dawn, dressed only in his boxers and t-shirt. She dug down into his dresser drawer for a pair of jeans, found him some socks and--after searching under the bed for his loafers, on the principle that her own shoes could usually be found there, located Giles's exactly where they should be, on the shoe-rack in the closet.

Buffy rushed back downstairs."Here. Clothes," she called out breathlessly, then just stood there with his jeans draped over her arm.

"Buffy," Giles said to her, in that same patient voice. He'd sunk down into the zig-zaggy chair beside the table, his left elbow propped on the tabletop, and she watched in horrified fascination as dark red blood gathered between his obviously-shattered fingers, falling in fat drops onto the clean dishtowel he'd put down to protect the wood.

"Uh... It's possible that you could use some help. From me."

"It's possible," Giles agreed, smiling at her even though he was starting to look a little gray around the edges. "If you wouldn't mind."

Buffy's hands shook, but she got the job done--even though she cursed herself for grabbing the button-fly jeans instead of the zip-up kind. She wasn't sure why, because undressing Giles didn't bother her in the least--probably because she always knew it was inevitably going to lead to even more interesting activities--but the whole process made her feel weirdly embarrassed, even though he himself was obviously trying to be as casual and helpful about it as possible. It hit her, too, what a hard time he must have had, when he was recovering from what Helena had done to his right hand. Buffy couldn't ever remember him ever asking for her help.

Maybe that's what embarrassed her. Except for helping to tie a tie now and then, she didn't think she'd offered, either.

"Okay?" she asked, blushing. "Ready to roll?"

Giles gave her an increasingly shaky version of his comforting smile. Actually, right about then, it bordered on the opposite of comforting and edging into scary.

"How much does that hurt?" Buffy asked.

"It's nothing," Giles answered, which made her want to smack him.

"Should I get you an ice pack?" she asked. "Or something?"

Giles visibly shuddered. "No," he said. "Thank you. Let's go, shall we?"."

Wonder of wonders, their taxi was waiting at the curb, and after a quick, "Geez, buddy, what did you do?" their driver got them to Sunnydale General in record time.

Which was where things pretty much ground to a halt. The Emergency Room seemed to be having an unusually busy night, even for Sunnydale, but at least, to Buffy's relief--not that relief was exactly the right word--the busyness was because of a ten car pileup out on Highway 101 and a major bar-fight downtown. No unusual rash of barbeque-fork-related injuries. No cases of neck-rupture, either. She would have been downright happy about it, if Giles weren't sitting next to her with his head leaned back against the wall and that steady drip-drip-drip of blood coming off his hand. He wouldn't let her touch him, either, so the best she'd been able to do was collect a big wad of paper towels from the women's room in an attempt to keep staining to a minimum.

Some help that was.

She wished she knew, too, if he wasn't talking to her because he felt yucky, or because something stood between them that he didn't feel able to express.

The hands on the big black clock on the wall had crept around to almost eight by the time a nurse they knew, a solidly-built woman named Doris McCray, called Giles's name. "And you can come on back too, Buffy, if you want," she said. "Most of the mayhem's gone on upstairs by now, so no one's going to be tripping over you."

"I want," Buffy answered. "To come with him, I mean." One of the things she liked best about Doris was that she didn't seem entirely clueless as to the kind of town they lived in, and never pressed them for bogus stories about what happened this time.

"You picked a bad night," the nurse said, shaking her head as she led them back to a cubicle. "Or morning, I guess I should say. Sorry about the long wait."

"Quite all right," Giles answered, ever the gentleman--though he seemed fairly happy to reach the cubicle's recliner-type chair.

Doris took his vitals briskly and efficiently, shaking her head at the blood-pressure reading, then making the head of the recliner go back almost flat. She shook her head again when she got a good look at his hand. "Just like last year, hmn? Mr. Giles, you have to think of a better way to spend your summers."

"I shall endeavor to do so," he answered faintly. Buffy was still trying to process the "last year" comment. When Doris had gone, she leaned in close, stroking his hair. His skin felt cold and fairly clammy, but it was something in his attitude that really bothered her. Something she couldn't put her finger on. Beneath all the stiff-upper-lip repression lay something huge and terrifying, and even catching just the teeniest bit of that vibe made her start to shake.

An intern came and went, then a couple of guys from radiology with the portable x-ray machine, who moved Giles's hand around in ways that made sweat pop out on his forehead and upper lip. Someone else bought the finished x-rays in later on, clipping them a lighted screen against one wall. Buffy looked, and wished she hadn't. Giles had wonderful hands, strong, capable, gentle hands, but she didn't need a medical degree to tell that the left one was never, ever going to be quite the same again. Those fingers weren't just broken, they were splintered.

"Um..." Buffy said, "The pictures are up. Did you want to see?"

"There's no need," Giles answered tiredly. "I've seen them."

"Your eyes have been closed," Buffy answered, scared by the flatness in his voice. "I've been watching."

"I saw them last year," Giles told her. Which struck her as unusually cryptic, even for him.

Fifteen minutes later, another doctor came in--not the intern from before, but the hand guy Giles had gone to post-Helena. Dr. Reynolds. The first thing he did was pick up Giles's right hand, studying the palm and back with one eyebrow raised.

"You know, Mr. Giles," he said at last, "I'd have to call you one of my more unusual patients. A mere six weeks ago, that hand was so badly injured we were talking months of therapy to recover even partial use. Now it's perfect, not even a scar. Today, you've come in with an injury not merely similar but identical to one you sustained a year ago, but with no sign of previous scar tissue, degenerative bone loss or damage to the joints. I'd love to hear your explanation. Or am I a better doctor than I think I am?"

Giles smiled slightly. "That's a difficult question to answer. Shall we say 'yes' and leave it at that?"

"It's not the truth, though," Dr. Reynolds insisted.

"Truth is relative," answered Giles. "And frequently confusing as well. This time, I shan't expect a miraculous recovery."

The doctor looked Buffy up and down, like he was measuring her to see how easily she'd cave if he started asking questions. She shook her head at him.

Actually, Buffy felt too miserable to talk, because now she got what was going on. This was what Angelus had done to Giles last year, while she was running around visiting Willow and trading barbs with Whistler. Part of it, anyway. Part of what she'd told herself, once, was no big deal. Now, it made her ache inside. She'd wished the evidence away, but it was back again full force, bringing with it not just the physical harm, but all the memories Giles had tried so hard to heal.

One guess, too, who'd bought back the pain. And if she had anything to say about it, Time Dude was going to pay for this.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, once the doctor had stepped out of the cubicle again. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't blame yourself, my love," he told her, but Buffy did. She blamed herself big time. On an impulse, she tugged down the collar of his shirt in back, and saw pretty much what she'd expected--the ragged ends of thin, bloody lines, like cuts made with a razor blade.

"You were going to mention this to me when?" Buffy felt sick.

"Honestly, that's nothing," Giles answered. "A warning only. Not in the least like the real thing."

"Now that makes me feel better," she muttered.

Giles sighed. "It's past, love. Entirely past." Groping a little, he reached out for her hand, gripping tightly once he'd found it. "When will you begin to believe that?"

"When you get to stop paying for my mistakes, I guess," Buffy answered, but she let Giles draw her down until her head lay on his chest, his strong right arm holding her close. She tried to force herself to relax, and almost made it.

"And how many times have you paid for mine?" he asked. "Shall we call the accounts even? All debts discharged?"

It was Buffy's turn to sigh. "There you go being noble again."

"Let's see if I can't shortly make up for it by acting thoroughly peevish and unbearable. Which, I believe..."

"Sorry to interrupt," Doris said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. Buffy bounced upright, feeling silly at having been caught in snuggle position. "They've squeezed you in upstairs, Mr. Giles. Anything to eat or drink since midnight?"

Giles shook his head no.

"Then--" Doris gestured to the burly orderly standing behind her with a wheelchair. "Time for a little ride."

Muttering something that included the words 'feel like a prat,' Giles climbed in.

"Whoa. Wait. What?" Buffy said, in a moment of unreasonable panic.

"It's quite a simple procedure, love," Giles explained. "Dr. Reynolds will use a mixture of...well, I suppose, something like ground bone and SuperGlue in order to..."

Buffy stared at him sickly.

"Fix the injury," Doris finished, in her brisk way. "And maybe you should go get some fresh air young lady. Come to the fourth floor in a couple hours, and they'll let you take him home."

She threw Giles a questioning look, but all he gave back was a smile and a little nod. "Go, love. The whole thing's quite routine. Save yourself a tiresome wait."

Uh-unh. No, Buffy. You will not be a wimp about this, she ordered herself, forcing a smile onto her own face. "You know me. Not big on the tiresome. Ness. Tiresomeness." Her legs felt like wood, and she was still having SuperGlue shudders, but Buffy followed the wheelchair to the elevators, and at least her goodbye kiss felt warm and real.

"Love you," she said, before the doors slid shut and the green numbers on top started counting up. Why did she get like this? She'd been Slaying for three years now. More than three years. You'd think all the squeamishness would have gone out of her about the time she had to saw through that ex-jock's neck with an Exacto knife. At least she knew she hadn't gotten all jaded, like Faith. Things could still touch her.

Lots of things could still touch her. Buffy sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that week. Poor Giles. And there she was deserting him yet again.

Somehow she found herself back out in the sunlight--and, wonder of wonders, it looked like Sunnydale might be in for an actual summer day. The air smelled clear and wonderful after all the rain, and Buffy could feel her mood lifting despite herself. Doris had been right, a little walk in the fresh air, something to eat, and she'd be back on top of her game again. Maybe Willow...

It hit her like a ton of bricks. No Willow. Probably no Willow ever again. Before she knew it, Buffy's comfortable walk had turned into an all-out run and she was pelting down the street at speeds that would have won her Olympic medals under the right circumstances. By the time she could make herself slow down again, she'd reached a not-particularly-familiar part of town on the other side of the overpass. She'd gone by about a half mile of older homes with slightly-overgrown gardens before it hit her that this was Wesley's neighborhood. And there, a third of the way down the block, was Wesley's house.

On an impulse, Buffy went up to the door and knocked, although the minute her knuckles struck wood, it hit her that poor Wes might not really be up to company. Or up at all, this being the traditional sleep time of the undead.

The thing was, she just kept forgetting that about Wesley. Despite her limited experience with vampires-with-souls (and who had unlimited experience, when it came to that?), Wes always just seemed to her like such a person. Without a soul he'd been truly scary. With...he seemed vulnerable, and she kept wanting to protect him.

At which point she realized that the door had already been opened, and Wesley himself stood in the doorway--though far enough back to avoid the UV. "Buffy?" he said, patiently, as if it wasn't the first time.

"Yeah. Me. Hi," she said nervously. This really was her day for poise.

"Would you care to come in?" Wesley asked.

"Umn... Maybe I shouldn't have..."

"It's all right," he answered. "I'm quite alone, and you aren't disturbing me. Actually, truth be told, I could do with the company."

Wesley stepped back further as Buffy came inside and shut the door behind her. It was like a cave in there with all the curtains drawn, and since the rooms were little but high-ceilinged, the electric lights seemed dim and far away. "Depressing, isn't it?" Wesley commented. "Perhaps I should get myself a nice crypt instead? Something a bit more traditional?

"Wes," Buffy said sharply.

He sighed. It must have been catching. "Yes, you're right. My sense of humor seems to have taken a downward turn since..." He paused, a smile slowly breaking over his face. "Actually, I don't believe I had one to speak of, previously." Wesley threw himself down in the couch, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

Buffy took a seat on the other end, kicking off her sandals and tucking her feet up beneath her. "Well...you were maybe a little starchy."

"A little." Wesley shook his head. "So tell me, Buffy, how go things in the Land of the Living?"

"Wes, don't. Please." Buffy scooted closer, laying her hand over his, and Wesley gave a little jump of surprise. A second later, his expression turned into something she couldn't quite read, though if forced to give an interpretation, she might have called it the look of someone who's always surprised any act of kindness--which gave her little inklings about Wes's life, past and present. She slipped her other hand beneath the one she'd touched, curling her fingers until she held it gently. "Honestly, Wes? Things are tiresome. I'm quoting Giles there."

"I thought you might be," Wesley answered. "Giles didn't come with you? Deep in the research, is he?"

"Deep under sedation's more like it. Time Demon Guy's been playing tricks."

Wesley gave her a Watchery look. That time he almost got the one raised brow to go with it.

"He--it's--on to us--onto Giles and me anyway. I don't wanna pay, so His Demonness is taking back pieces of my wish. The Angelus stuff. You know about the Angelus stuff?"

Wesley grimaced.

"We've gotta stop this. Like, soon."

Wes slipped his hand out from between hers and bent forward, fussing with some papers on the coffee table. "I quite agree. But, Buffy, the thing is...how? Honestly, I've done my best. Tremayne insists it can't be done. So unless Giles..." He stopped himself. "Forgive me, Buffy. You came here seeking reassurance, and what have I given you but more cause for despair. How is Giles?"

"Having his finger bones SuperGlued together. Which for some reason I find beyond cringeworthy. You've read the Watcher Journals. Were all the Slayers as big of wimps as me? And, if they're trying to help me from the great beyond, why can't they be more obvious about it? 'Cause I'm clueless."

"It's thought that the vagueness of revelations from beyond the veil..." Wes answered thoughtfully, "Results not from any intention toward obscurity on the part of the spirits, but because communication there can be achieved on so many levels, it's become nearly impossible to state a message in human terms."

And she'd thought the Slayers were cryptic. At least her dear departed sisters didn't have that syntax thing going on.

"From what Giles said, Moira didn't seem to have any trouble." The minute the words left her mouth, Buffy could have kicked herself.

Wesley moved a few more papers, setting down a glass paperweight that looked suspiciously like an Orb of Thesselah on top of them. "How did she sound?" he asked, his voice so desperate and broken-hearted it made her want to cry--all the more because Wes was obviously trying to be so completely Watchery at the same time.

"Oh, Wes. I'm sorry." Buffy reached forward to touch his shoulder. "I didn't mean... That is, he...Giles...said she sounded...umn...Moiraesque. Practical. Kind of pissed off, especially at Willow, though she wasn't too keen on Maleficent having rolled into town."

"Morgana," Wesley corrected, then gave her a different kind of look--a little harder, more focused. "Actually, I'd a visit from Willow last night. At the cemetery. She'd an artifact with her. A spirit vessel. She offered to bring Moira back, said it would be dead simple, in fact."

"No pun intended," Buffy said. "You...uh...didn't take her up on the offer, though?"

Wesley ran his fingers lightly over the top of the ball. "Buffy, there are things in this universe that one might call morally gray--and, in my opinion, most magic falls into that category--and others..." He glanced back at her, his eyes sharply, intensely blue. "Let's just say that to see Willow there, by Em's grave, playing the role of unbruised flower whilst she battered me with her bloody Glamour...it nearly sickened me. And that she meant to perform blood sacrifice and call upon Osiris--blood magic is horribly dangerous, at best, and the invocation of the gods scarcely less risky. To use such magicks as she claimed she would use them--Buffy, that goes against every law of magic and nature. Such an act would, literally, stain the world, and my Moira, though she wasn't one to balk at the use of her abilities, would never forgive me if I brought her back in that way."

Even having missed their little encounter, Buffy found herself shuddering. Now she had to ask herself, why hadn't she ever guessed the things Will carried like poison inside her? She should have known. She absolutely should have known. She should have seen this coming, and that she hadn't--well, make another black mark in Buffy's Big Book of Cluelessness.

"But, Wes," she said, when she'd finally gotten both her wiggedness and her guilt halfway under control. "What about what we're planning? How would Moira feel about that?"