Trust - Chapter 21

Be a grownup, Buffy told herself. No fair weaseling around things, just because you don't like them, or think Giles won't like them, and you don't want to have to deal.

"Did Xander come back with you?" she echoed. "Yes. And...uh...no."

Giles gave her his patented, I'm expecting more look.

"As in, he came back. But not exactly with you. I think you hit splashdown at different places. So, like, he came back, and you came back, but he doesn't know you came back." Okay, that had sucked as an explanation, but she gave Giles her own, I don't have any more to give, expression, then added, "There was a note. And may I add how much I'm not loving the recent series of notes I've received from people I care about, telling me they've high-tailed it off to not-so-good places without bothering to let me know?" Buffy followed that one up with a look pointed enough to draw blood.

Giles's face got all frowny-thoughtful and very, very far away, his eyes going silvery, then half-closing. When Buffy put her hand on his shoulder, he didn't even react, just kept getting paler and paler, his breathing more ragged, until suddenly he shook his head and was back with her.

"What," Buffy said, pushing the button that would recline the head of his bed a little--Giles really did look wiped. "Was that?"

He sank back into his pillow, one hand on his chest and a pained expression on his face. Obviously, he wasn't capable of answering at the moment, and just about the time he seemed to be snapping out of it, he sank back down into sleep again.

Frustrated almost as much as she was worried, Buffy flopped down into the visitors' chair. "You," she told Giles, talking softly so that she wouldn't actually wake him, "Are gonna make me old before my time. And I hope you realize that however much you want to go charging off and do something heroic, I'm not going to let you. Not yet. You know I love Xander, but one more debt of honor and you're gonna end up killing yourself."

"What's that?" Sebastian asked, as he came into the room with totally Giles-worthy stealthiness.

Buffy frowned at him. "Xander. Being gone."

"Oh." Seb went past the bed to take a seat on the broad windowsill. "Oh!" Seb really needed to get some expressions of his own, because at the moment he was wearing a look of I really wish I'd known this earlier so exactly like his dad's it was unsettling. "You hadn't told him."

"Kinda. I mean, I'd told him something. Just not exactly..."

"The truth?" Now Sebastian was giving her the one-raised-brow-I-read-you-like-a-book look, also very Gilesean in nature, and Buffy wished he would stop, even though he was right.

"I'd told Giles Xander had some recovering of his own to do, and couldn't be making any hospital visits right now. Which wasn't a lie. Exactly. And yes, I know I'm a horrible friend, but I couldn't..."

"I'm not judging you, Buffy," Sebastian told her. "You've had to make a difficult choice, and, not to mention your duties as the Slayer, dad's obviously needed you here. Which is why, when Celeste told me of the letter, I took the liberty of engaging a...what do they call them? A private...er... dick?"

Buffy barely managed to suppress a snicker--mostly by telling herself that she wasn't twelve years old or a character on South Park. "Uh, try private eye, maybe, if you don't want people to laugh. Or detective. Either one."

Sebastian looked confused for a second, then he blushed with true, red-headed intensity. "Oh. Yes. I beg your pardon. I'd rather a fondness, in my boyhood, for hard-boiled detective stories, and I'm afraid the vocabulary..."

"Dated back to a time before the invention of the zipper? It's okay, Seb. Don't worry about it."

"But still..."

"Please. Don't worry. So, you hired a private detective, and...?"

"I wasn't able to supply him with much information." Sebastian shifted a little. The windowsill had to be, Buffy thought, even less comfortable than her chair. "He intended, first, to ascertain if Xander's actually left Sunnydale, but after that--well, Xander has, I assume, no credit card, no automobile registered in his name, no close friends or relatives in other cities..?."

"Ugh. No, no and no. I get your point. Without that kind of stuff to track him by, he just--zip--disappears. Goodbye Xander the invisible boy. Or maybe not even Xander. What if he's using another name? What if..." Buffy stopped herself. Something was sticking in her mind, rubbing like a stone inside a shoe, insignificant but irritating.

Something about last night. She'd finally gotten home after patrol and gone to look for something upstairs. She'd opened the nightstand drawer, and...

Oh. Oh.

"You might..." Buffy began, but she didn't know how to say it, how to voice her suspicion without hurting her friend in some way, or making him sound like a bad person. Because he wasn't. He really, really wasn't. "You might, um, have your detective guy check on stuff in Giles's name. Like if his credit card's been used, or his ATM card. Or even...even his name."

"You think Xander may have stolen...?"

"No. Uh-uhn. It wouldn't be stealing if he thought Giles was dead, right? It would just be--I don't know--borrowing. So he could get out of here and go somewhere else."

"Yes, but, technically..." Sebastian started to say, but Buffy cut him off with a gesture.

"I know and you know it's a shady area, but I'm kind of doubting Xander took time out to have a big moral debate on the issue. I think--from the letter and everything--he felt all broken up, and he just wanted to get gone."

Sebastian's look changed, until it was sad, and serious, and also slightly questioning, as if he wanted to ask her whose money she'd used last summer for her own getting gone.

That one she wouldn't answer. She wasn't proud of anything that had happened then--except that, maybe, as hard as it had been, that she had done what she'd had to do: she'd sent Angel to hell and saved the world.

She hated those shady, gray areas where nothing felt right, only wrong and less wrong.

Buffy sighed and felt just kind of...wilted. Xander would be out there in his own personal hell, thinking that he hadn't saved anything except himself, and that, knowing what she did about her friend's self-esteem, made her worry. Because she knew, really, that he'd never be able to figure out the truth on his own. Xander's issues wouldn't let him.

At least Seb seemed to get that, finally, because he just nodded. "I'll put Mr. Holmes onto that. Perhaps have him check on cars belonging to Xander's family members as well. In case he's...er...done a bit of further borrowing."

"Good idea," Buffy told him. "'Cause he used to drive his Uncle Rory's car a lot. Only probably not this time. It's kinda...turquoise. And big." Then the other shoe dropped and she couldn't help but laugh.. "Seb, you hired a private detective named Mr. Holmes?"

"Well, I..." Sebastian blushed again. "I'd had to consult the telephone directory, and I just...but his Christian name is Aaron, and he seems an intelligent fellow. Honest, as well. He spelled out the inherent difficulties of the case quite clearly before accepting my money."

Buffy just shook her head, still laughing a little even through her worry. And it was sweet of Seb, to think of Xander, and care what happened to him--it wasn't as if any of them were his responsibility. "Hey, you don't have to apologize. Knowing me, I'd probably have picked the same guy. It's kinda like the way my mom always chooses the wine that has the prettiest label. You have to go by something. Only, does Mr. Holmes wear a funny plaid hat?"

Sebastian, almost over his embarrassment now, gave a small, dry chuckle. "Nary a sign that I could see of a deerstalker. Neither does he appear to smoke a meerschaum pipe nor to keep consulting rooms in Baker Street."

"Aww, now I'm kinda disappointed," Buffy told him. "Maybe if we asked really nicely?"

"I keep feeling you're mocking me," Sebastian said, though he was grinning.

"Nah. Okay, maybe a little. But, really, Seb, you did good. And maybe it will even convince Mr. Stubborn here not to go off Dreaming the Impossible Dream or something when he's supposed to be getting healthy."

Sebastian started getting his concerned look again. "Buffy, I must confess..."

"You're worried about him? Me too. Usually..." Buffy felt her voice trail off. Sure, it had seemed to her that usually Giles bounced back from stuff better than he was doing this time, but was that true? In the past, had she just not noticed? Or was this worse than everything that had come before?

She found her hand seeking Giles's splinted one, but all the tape and metal pretty much got in the way of any comfort she might normal have gotten from touching him. He always downplayed how he was feeling, trying to put her mind at ease, and she'd let him get away with that.

"It's been an extremely trying summer," Sebastian said sympathetically. Somehow, Buffy was surprised that Seb could read her so well. Or, maybe she was just really obvious.

"I think we're both here to keep him in line," she said finally, surprised, too, to hear her own voice sounding so weak and scared. The kindness in Sebastian's eyes made her feel a little teary, so much so that she teetered on the brink of doing a Sally Field and blurting out, You like me. You really like me.

Well, of course he did. They were family now, after all. Not that that always meant a whole lot (look at the fabulous Harris family, for example), but in this case, with Seb, it did.

He gave her a smile that was sweet, reassuring, totally Gileslike and yet very Sebastianlike, because as much as he resembled his dad, Seb was his own person, too. Buffy was beginning to be able to make out the differences as well as the sameness, and to like that person for who he was.

"Celeste, as well," he told her, "And if that makes dad...er...cranky, that's just unfortunate. He needs the time."

Buffy nodded, feeling lighter suddenly. Without ever putting the emotions into words, or even conscious thoughts, she'd been grieving for her--for their--old circle. She'd known things would change after graduation. That was inevitable. She just hadn't ever dreamed how much. And now...

Now, she still grieved. She still felt lonely. What with the whole One girl in all the world thing, she probably always would, a little.

But at least she knew she wasn't alone.

Sebastian gave her another smile. Even if he wasn't getting all that--and really, how could he?--it was good to have him here.

"That's it," he told her quietly. "You're a brave girl."

"Well..." Buffy shook her head. "Sometimes."

"What's that old saying? It's not courage if you aren't afraid?

Buffy laughed, unexpectedly. "Who makes up those things?"

Seb gave her a little bit of a wink. "Oh, one can generally blame Shakespeare, John Donne or--I rather suspect--someone's grandmum."

"I always thought there was, like, Saying Central, where they cranked them out. Kinda like commercials, or something." She glanced down at Giles's face. He was still out cold, and lying so still she was almost tempted to check if he was sleeping, or...Don't go there. Just don't, Buffy ordered herself.

Sebastian seemed to catch that one, too. "Things will come out in the end, I'm sure," he told her. "And there's still nearly two weeks until the beginning of Michaelmas...er...Autumn Term.

Ugh. School. As if she needed to be reminded.

But Buffy was going to practice the whole brave-though-inwardly-afraid concept. "Yeah, 'cause even though I'm definitely rethinking the whole dorm concept," she said, "I'll be in classes all day, so... not home for him."

Sebastian gave her what was clearly a "Huh?" look. "Actually, I meant with the University classes dad will be teaching. As much as I understand the American University system--which I admit is very little--his schedule seems fairly onerous, especially considering his additional duties as your Watcher. Once rather imagines that UC Sunnydale--" Seb sounded kind of proud of himself for getting the name right--"Is rather lightly staffed for an institution of its size."

At which point it was Buffy's turn for the "Huh?"

"In point of fact, they were lucky to get a man of dad's credentials," Seb went on, gazing down at Giles fondly. "Though he'd never admit it, he's quite well thought of back home--and here, too, amongst those in the know."

"So the whole library thing..." Buffy gave Giles a little bit of a frown. A forgot to mention something, didn't we? frown.

"Will most likely have been referred to as a sabbatical, if it appears on his curriculum vitae at all. His...um...resume, that is."

For the stupid people who happen to be listening, Buffy thought, though she didn't say anything. And though it somehow seemed wrong to pretend the library years never happened. Like they were something to be ashamed off and hidden away. Would she have to be hidden away and never referred to, if Giles wanted to keep his job? Buffy got that some people might see a little bit of conflict of interest there.

Was that why he hadn't said anything to her?

But, in Sunnydale, though? Buffy thought of the tree-shadowed paths and thick clumps of shrubbery all over campus. It was like a vampire's happy hunting grounds out there, with plenty of cover for all sorts of nighttime visitors. She'd be willing to bet UC Sunnydale had more than its share of suddenly-disappearing-without-a-trace teachers, and were so glad to get someone decent, like Giles, they'd be more than willing to turn a blind eye to anything consensual.

Only, how much would she hate for the two of them to be some sort of dirty little secret that everyone knew about but never discussed? That wasn't them. They didn't fall into any of the gray spaces, or the shady ones. There was no wrong between them, only mutual love and support, the kind most people never found in a lifetime.

But he hadn't told her. Buffy didn't know whether to be mad, or hurt, or...

Seb was giving her a more-than-slightly-worried, did-I-say-something-I-shouldn't-have? look.

Then suddenly it hit her, and she started to laugh. At herself. At everything.

She was lucky. She was so lucky. To have him. To have him here. To have him back here, after everything that had happened.

Still grinning like a fool, Buffy bent down to kiss Giles's temple and saw a tiny smile play over his mouth, even as he slept. Anyone who saw wrong there, something to point fingers at, was just plain ignorant. And, so, he hadn't talked about work? Maybe--just maybe--he'd had other things on his mind.

"I just want him to be okay," she told Sebastian, her voice shaking a little even through her smile, and even though she tried to keep it steady. "Xander aside, classes aside, I just want him to be okay."

Back in kindergarten, Xander gotten sick the first time he ever rode the big yellow bus to school. And the second. And the third, so that pretty soon not even Willow had wanted to sit beside him. But she had. It was one of the things he'd always loved about her: that she'd stuck by him despite the really big possibility of a major ick factor, or something drastic happening to her shoes.

He'd snagged a seat in the last row of the nearly-empty Greyhound with just that ick factor in mind, even though the departure had been delayed long enough for him to run next door to a KwikMart and pick up a few supplies, one of them being the biggest box of Dramamine on the shelf.

The package had promised that the tablets were chewable, with a pleasant, orange-flavor. Xander thought both the "pleasant" and the "orange" were stretching things in a big way, but he guessed the words "unpleasant pseudo-fruity metallic flavor" wouldn't move a lot of product. It took about a liter of water and three Butter Rum Life Savers to finally get the taste out of his mouth. Already feeling sleepy, Xander took his antibiotic pills, ate a few crackers, and that was it.

He woke up, insanely thirsty, just past the California/Oregon border, and while he chugged a room-temperature Coke, he tried to figure out if the skies were really overcast, or if it was just the tinting on the windows. The bus still looked pretty empty, and it was quiet. A couple people talking in hushed voices, like they were in church, and the distant rumble of the engine were about all he could make out. Xander himself felt weirdly silent, like he was a step or two off from everything he'd ever known, even from his own body, but that was okay. He didn't feel bad, not physically, and even the guilt and sadness that had been crushing down on him since he'd wished himself home were there--no doubt about that--but not there, if that made any sense. They weren't filling him up, making everything impossible. It was more as if he'd heard a really bad news story on TV, something that was horrible, but didn't touch anyone he knew.

A line from an old Pink Floyd song ran through his head. "I...have become...comfortably numb." That was it. Kind of. With more emphasis on the numb than the comfortable part.

Only thinking of Pink Floyd made him think of Giles, of one Saturday morning when there hadn't been any big brewing evil for five minutes of their life. He'd camped out on the couch overnight, and when it had gotten on to about 10:30 the next morning, Giles had apparently had enough of tiptoeing around him, and put one of his old vinyl albums on the turntable while he started his household chores.

It was funny, too, because while Giles was the quietest person Xander knew, or had ever known, he liked to listen to his music loud. The first few power chords and weird, clanging cash-register sounds of the song Money had nearly blasted him off the couch.

And Giles, dressed in jeans and a sloppy sweater, one hand on the vacuum cleaner, was laughing his ass off.

Xander had meant to yell something at him, but instead he'd just sat there, tangled up in sheets and blankets, with his mouth dropped open. Because the sense had hit him, maybe for the first time, of Giles as a person. Not out-of-it grownup guy. Not Tweedy Book Guy. But a person whose parents had given him the unfortunate name of Rupert--which as someone with the wonderful middle name of Lavelle, he could certainly relate to--who had likes and dislikes and got pissed off about things and sometimes--however rarely--wasn't above a little practical joke now and then.

"I'm sorry," Giles had told him, not making the least bit of effort to stop laughing, until Xander had to laugh too.

Weirdly, it had also been the first time he'd really understood that Giles liked him, not just tolerated him as one of Buffy's friends, or thought of him as some kind of duty. But liked him. Alexander Lavelle Harris. Nothing else changed--the arguing, the snarking, the acts of kindness--but they both knew.

Another piece of a Floyd song ran through his head:

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Going over the same old ground
And have we found the same old fears
Wish you were here....

Xander turned his face to he window, staring out hard at the grayish skies and the jagged lines of the evergreens. It wasn't overcast after all. Or maybe it was, or had been, during the day, but now it was nearly night, and the setting sun had made bloody red streaks behind the darkening trees. None of it looked real--it was more like a landscape cut out of paper, sharp lines and thick clumps of color. Xander hardly felt real himself. He was so tired...tired of sadness...tired of everything.

The bus lurched, and somewhere up toward the front a little kid began to cry.

It lurched again, and all of a sudden there was a tearing sound--not like cloth ripping, or paper, but the horrible, unearthly scream of metal parting from metal. Just as suddenly, the trees were all around them, dark branches thwacking on the windows, the wheels bouncing over roots a few times before everything reversed, the window Xander had been leaning against turning into the floor, and then into a side wall again as the bus rolled all the way upside down.

He felt very calm as he told himself, "This is it. All these people are gonna die. I'm gonna die."

There was another tremendous lurch, and he was falling, just as if he was tumbling down a bottomless pit. He couldn't remember hitting the ground, only the huge red starburst of pain just before everything went black again.