Trust - Chapter 26

Giles hadn't meant to sleep, had struggled against his encroaching weariness every moment since Buffy's departure, and had felt something beyond relief when at last he'd won the battle.

Or so he'd thought.

Fighting his way upward out of the bedclothes with his heart beating wildly, his vision and his brain fogged, Giles was weighed down by the most of pervasive sense of impending doom he'd experienced in a lifetime of such moments.

He realized at once that he'd only been dreaming himself awake. Merrick would've had his hide for such inattentiveness, and Em, quite rightly, would have twitted him mercilessly.

If she hadn't been bound, that was, for a luxury liner and the grey Atlantic, the better to forget him entirely.

Muttering impatiently to himself, annoyed by both his own self-pity and lack of self control, Giles flung back the covers. A flimsy something, dislodged by this action, wafted across his line of sight, settling to the mud-coloured tiling with a dispirited whisper, the sound a desiccated leaf might make when blown down from the shelter of a tree.

On the surface, it was nothing, one simple sheet of good paper, slightly ivory in hue, but Giles stared at the fallen thing with something akin to horror, a million unpleasant fancies bursting through his head.

His heart beat harder, until his chest began to ache with every blow. Awkwardly, he levered himself away from the mattress, bending slowly and stiffly until he'd managed to retrieve the fallen leaf, then seated himself again on the edge of the bed.

On closer inspection, the page proved to be a sheet of music, hand-drawn lines ruled nonetheless straight and true, the individual notes penned in slightly brownish ink.

Giles understood two thing at once. Firstly, that this message had been intended for him, and him alone. He read music, as Buffy did not, and the notes, as they appeared, possessed for him a special significance: they'd swelled once, a sweet, sad chorus of hope and loss, as a background to one of the most intensely painful moments of his life, a moment of such pure agony that no mere physical distress could ever compare.

Secondly, he realized that the ink used to inscribe those notes was not ink at all, but blood.

Hardly knowing what he did, Giles rose to his feet, unconsciously crumpling the paper in his hand. He stood stock still, in an attitude of intense listening, as if forewarned of a danger he could not, as yet, quite manage to perceive--or perhaps, as Buffy might have said, merely stuck like a deer in the headlights.

A phrase came to him, out of a book he'd loved years before, when hardly more than a child: he could be said to have "gone tharn," like those long-ago-discovered rabbits of Watership Down, frozen, pulse thunderous, in otherwise motionless terror.

The thought of giving in to such helplessness repelled Giles, spurring him to action. Bloody hell, he was a man, not a rabbit. He hadn't cowered before Angelus before, and he was damned if he'd do so now.

Slowly, Giles pulled himself to his full height, standing erect despite the more-than-strident protests offered up by every inch of his battered body. At the same instant a sick, cold sensation of absolute menace roiled his stomach, making him swallow hard, driving him back a step despite all his best intentions to stand fast.

When the vampire materialized--or seemed to, at least--out of the shallow darkness at the room's far end, Giles met his eyes squarely. Still, at that moment--and foolish as such an inclination might be--he would readily have given nearly all he possessed to be standing before Angelus armoured in his usual tweeds, rather than his current flimsy attire.

That thought, against all Giles might have considered possible, made him smile, and some of the unholy glee of Angelus's expression faded, replaced by an equally unholy fury, scarcely concealed. Giles's own grin broadened as the banality--no, the ridiculousness--of the vampire's appearance struck him: the dark silk shirt, the black leather coat and trousers, the vast amount of attention Angelus must have paid to the styling of his hair. It was all so foolish, so shallow, in one who could not even so much as catch a glimpse of himself in a looking-glass.

At the same time, Giles felt furious with himself for his own vanity. Beyond a doubt, he ought to have accompanied Buffy. Yet, why had he left himself vulnerable to attack? Merely because he hadn't wished to feel such an enormous prat, escaping through the corridors of this indefensible place in his slippers and dressing gown. His head, he could only imagine, must at last have received one too many cracks, that he'd allowed himself to be so devoid of good sense.

All these thoughts flew by in an instant: precisely the amount of time Angelus took to cross the room, close a hand round Giles's throat and heft him upwards until his feet no longer met the ground.

"Wanna tell me how the better man won this time, Rupert buddy?" the vampire sneered. "'Cause I sure would like to hear that speech again." Angelus gave Giles a deceptively small shake, one than nonetheless contained sufficient force to make his teeth clack together, his eyeballs snap back in their sockets, and for a wave of absolute agony to travel down the length of his much-abused body and back up again. To be burned alive, Giles suspected, might possibly have hurt less.

Angelus's grip tightened, fingers biting into Giles's larynx until he was convinced that fragile shell must surely crack--and his jaw along with it. At that moment, however, Buffy sprang into the room, beauty and power in motion, but also heedless, thoughtless, her attack in complete contravention of every skill Giles had imagined he'd drilled into her.

Had he been able, Giles would have shaken his head. Yet, while everything of the Watcher in him wanted to scold her, everything of the lover...

Suffice to say, his reaction on that front was quite different, and even as he fell choking and gasping to the lino, knocked from Angelus's hold by Buffy's wild punches, the fullness of his adoration for her flooded through him.

Painfully, Giles raised himself to hands and knees. Constrained by the space, Buffy and Angel traded their blows at close quarters--hers desperate, forceful yet lacking, somehow, in her usual focus, his vicious, calculated to wound her in both body and spirit. They crashed against cupboards and trays, scattering the accouterments of the hospital room until the floor became a virtual wasteland of bandages, examination gloves and medicinally-scented potions.

"Slowing down, huh, Buffy?" Angelus inquired with mock-solicitude. "Guess you are getting a little long in the tooth for a Slayer. Or maybe it's just all that time you're spending with the old guy?" The vampire landed a particularly brutal strike to Buffy's midsection, causing her to double over as the breath left her body.

"Shut...up," she gasped, once she found herself able to speak again.

"The banter seems to be slipping, too," Angelus told her, deflecting, easily enough, the roundhouse kick she'd directed toward his head. "It's a shame--you really used to be something, you know."

With that, he landed a powerful backhand, catching Buffy entirely off her guard. She flew against the far wall and slid, senseless, to the floor, her body crumpled and pathetic, skeins of blonde hair obscuring her face.

Angelus laughed aloud, such worlds of cruel hilarity in his tone that Giles was driven instantly to his feet--a fact which only seemed to bolster Angelus's mirth.

"What are you gonna do now, Rupie?" the vampire chuckled. "Conjugate a few Latin verbs at me before you fall flat on your ass? And before, incidentally, I kill you. Just a warning: it's not gonna be pretty, this time. Or quick. I have a nice little hideaway, no need to worry about the decor, and I've been stocking up on power tools. All the latest models. I think you'll like 'em."

The vampire stepped closer, mocking, insouciant. "Uh...actually, no, I guess you won't like them all that much." He'd come very near to Giles now, so close that Giles could smell the cold, blood-tainted breath with which the vampire drove out his words. "But--and you'd better believe me here--I will. In fact, I'll like it so much I'll want to make sure it goes on and on and..."

Cold with fury, Giles raised his hand. In an instant, a sense of utter rightness, utter certainty and control flashed through him. "Curso," he pronounced, hoarsely but quite calmly.

With that simple word something like a cloud of vapourous green light burst from him, mouth and fingertips, and with it a sense of being melted apart and reconstructed along very different lines.

Giles was hardly surprised when Angelus--fury mingling with astonishment on his face--flew backwards, crashing through the window. Glass exploded round the vampire like a galaxy of stars as he fell, and fell, out into the starless night beyond.

In the answering silence, a cool night breeze wafted into the room, scented faintly by bougainvillea, and by the salt of the sea.

No more than a second passed before Giles knelt by Buffy's side, brushing back the silken strands that obscured her lovely face. Her skin was pale; a narrow thread of blood trailed down from one corner of her mouth. Even as Giles told himself that he ought not to move her, at least until he'd ascertained the extent of her injuries, he found himself scooping her up in his arms. His heart nearly stopped when Buffy lay still in his embrace, unresponsive, her head lolling against his bicep.

No! Giles wanted to cry out. Not now! Not in this way!

But then Buffy stirred ever so slightly. Giles felt the warmth of her breath against his skin and knew his world had not ended after all. Not that night.

As he carried her out of the room and down the corridor, Giles was vaguely aware of voices calling after him. He paid them no heed. All that mattered was Buffy, bearing Buffy to safety, a place where she would be touched by neither vampires nor sorcery, so long as he had breath in his body.

Someone tugged on his arm, trying to force him to give Buffy up, but not only had Giles no desire to comply, he felt himself powerless to release her. They'd both made mistakes this night, foolish, blind, amateurish mistakes that might well have cost them their lives. That disaster averted, or a least delayed, he'd no illusions as to the fact that Angelus had most likely survived both the assault and the fall, and would come back from his temporary defeat filled with ever greater malice.

All of which only made Giles cling the more tightly to the one he loved. He could easily forgive Buffy her mistakes: he only prayed she would overlook his own.

He became, at last, aware that the hands attempting to steer him were Sebastian's on the one side, Flora and Celeste's on the other. All three seemed to be breathing hard, either with emotion or with their attempt to match Buffy's pace as she'd hurtled upstairs. Between the three of them, they forced Giles onto a lift, and Seb, against his increasingly feeble protests, prised Buffy out of his arms.

"It's all right, Dad, I've got her," Sebastian was saying. "Only, is she...?"

"Unconscious," Flora announced crisply, "But coming round. Nothing to fear there, I shouldn't think."

Celeste's arm crossed Giles's back, making him wince even as it offered much-needed support. "We're in the car park, Rupert, quite close by," she murmured. "Will you be able to make it, do you think?"

Giles nodded mutely, already feeling the effects of his unthinking action--not so much that he'd lifted or carried Buffy, whose weight, even in his present state, was negligible--but the sudden burst of magic with which he'd struck Angelus. If it hadn't been the Wild Magic--and Giles was fairly certain it had not--from where had the power come? There'd been no ritual, no preparation: that one word, and the puissance behind it, was entirely unlike anything in his experience.

"Here we are, now," Celeste was saying gently. "Just a step up--can you manage it? There we are, safe and sound."

Around Giles, doors shut firmly, and he found himself seated, more or less upright, on an expanse of surely quite expensive leather upholstery.

"You're riding in Bastian's new beloved," Celeste told him--obviously referring to the new motor, though it took Giles an instant to catch her meaning--with a smile that belied the worry in her eyes. "We'll have you home in two ticks." Deftly, in an off-handed manner obviously calculated not to offend his pride, she fastened Giles's safety belt, Sebastian's cue to set the vehicle in motion.. "There you go."

"Home...?" Giles rasped. His throat hurt badly now, and when he touched his neck, experimentally, he could not help but wince a bit at the deep bruising his fingertips encountered. None of that mattered. He twisted, trying to see his love, hoping against hope that her injuries, whatever they were, would not be grievous.

"To Joyce's house," Aunt Flora put in. "Buffy called her mum beforehand. It's all arranged."

"Buffy...?"

As if hearing her name, Buffy, slumped in the seat on Celeste's other side, murmured something rather complicated, of which Giles could not make out a word, then sat bolt upright. Already, he could tell, she'd begun to mend.

"Ouch. Head." She rubbed an undoubtedly tender spot on her nape. "Okay, how did I get back here?" Her eyes moved wildly in sudden panic. "Giles? Where...? Angel--uh, Angelus?"

"I'm here, love," Giles told her hoarsely, his hand seeking hers. "I'm here. You needn't fear."

Buffy gave a small laugh, as if to tell him, "That's easy for you to say," as she reached past Celeste to link her fingers with his--unfortunately, hard enough to cause pain. At the moment, Giles scarcely noticed.

"Buffy," he told her, "I was so very...that is, I thought..."

She reacted at once to the worry in his voice. "It's okay, Giles. I'm okay. Only I think I need a new brain or something. Are you sure I'm still the Slayer? What kind of half-assed moves were those?"

Giles chuckled, weak with relief, and at the resulting pain touched his throat again. "I rather wondered, myself. Perhaps with a slight variation on the vocabulary."

"So many words." Buffy touched Celeste's shoulder, and at the older woman's nod, wriggled past her, taking her place by Giles's side. "I freaked. I saw him like that. Holding you like that. And it made me think of..."

A glance passed between them. They knew what she'd thought of: another night; a different pain. No further explanation was necessary.

Buffy glanced down, changing her grip so that she held Giles's hand gently in her own. "I'm sorry. I was dumb, and I could have gotten us both killed. With Angelus, I need to fight smart."

"I must say, I didn't exactly overflow with cleverness myself," Giles answered, wishing that his battered voice-box would allow him to sound a bit more soothing. "I ought to have come out with you in the first place, hospital gown be damned."

Buffy sighed, and rested her cheek against his arm. "So, I'll order two new brains. Though I usually kinda like yours the way it is. I think you get the benefit of the doubt, for extenuating circumstances and all that. And I'm almost scared to ask you why we're both still among the living and breathing."

"Magic," Giles answered. Now that he stopped to think, he could smell it on himself, sour and spicy, the essence of the natural order of things disturbed. From Seb's occasional anxious glances into the rearview mirror, he rather thought his son smelled it too, and was disturbed by what he sensed.

"Magic?" Buffy echoed, then sighed again, curling her body all the more tightly against his. "Okay, I guess. But don't think I'm not gonna ask for details in the morning."

"Naturally," Giles responded, grateful for the temporary reprieve. For now, he only wanted to shut his eyes and hold her close, taking comfort in her warmth and her living, breathing nearness. Everything else, once Joyce's house had been secured, could wait.

Slumped in one of the less-than-comfortable chairs in the cottage kitchen, Wesley could hear Em bustling about in the next room, stripping the old sheets from the bed and tucking in new ones, setting things to rights so that their bedchamber, at least, would serve as a cozy haven, even if the rest of the cottage remained dusty and out of order.

Wesley himself felt dusty and out of order himself--or perhaps, more appropriately, weak and off-colour. His arm ached, or, rather, the place where his hand ought to have been, and worse than that, his soul positively throbbed with guilt at what had been, with memories of what he'd done here...and here...and here.

Just beyond that window he'd waited, unable to enter that place that had been his home, however briefly, but knowing, against all doubts, that she would come to him, search for him, driven by love and longing.

Unable to stop himself, Wesley opened the kitchen door, stepping out onto the minuscule porch. There, still scattered on the weathered boards, were the ends of the myriad cigarettes he'd smoked, awaiting her. There the cracked railing she'd cleared, terrified and off-balance, fleeing him. There the shrubbery, trodden down, branches broken and leaves scattered.

Pain filled Wesley's chest until he could hardly breathe, and cold, salty tears stung his eyes. Of all the things he'd done, all the horrible things, that would stay with him until the end of his days, this was the worst: that he'd hurt Moira, whom he loved more than his own life. That he'd frightened her, who was usually so unfailingly fearless.

Wesley startled at a harsh grinding sound from the kitchen behind him. A moment later, Moira emerged, a glass in her hand. "I'm not meant to..." he began, "The pills..."

Her fair skin caught the moonlight. Her eyes shone, and Wesley realized she'd seen it all, knew and understood even the least of his thoughts. "This," she answered softly, "Is only orange juice. And the...being...who committed those acts was not, my love. After all I taught you, Wesley" she added with counterfeit sternness, unable, at the end, to prevent a touch of humour from creeping into her voice, "Haven't you learned that simple lesson, love?"

"The thing is..." Wesley's own voice cracked. He feared to take the glass from her, knowing that his trembling hand would not support its weight. "The thing is, love, that it feels like me. I remember... I know..."

Moira nodded, her eyes bright with tears that mirrored his own. With seeming embarrassment, she knuckled them away. "I seem to cry all the time, now my magic's gone." She held out her hand. "My tears...they even seem to have become salty."

Wesley took the hand, pressing his lips softly to her skin. He did indeed taste salt there, but with it was the warmth of her, her own unique flavour, all unchanged.

"I wish I could make a little spell to send it all away," Em sighed. "Burn a bit of Lethe's Blossom, say Tabula Rasa and let it be gone. Except that, I'm not sure that would be exactly fair to either of us, Wesley. We are, for better or worse, what our lives have made us, and however painful they might be, we ought not to forget." She sighed. "You were right, you know, about Rupert..."

Wesley turned her hand, pressing it to his cheek. Moira smiled slightly as the stubble tickled her sensitive skin.

"You were right about everything, really. I can't hide. I can't make a little world for the two of us alone."

Watching her, Wesley shook his head.

"In the morning, I'll go and set things right."

"You are splendid," he told her, "And I..." There, words, and his strength, failed him. Moira noticed at once, curling her hand warmly round his arm, supporting him back inside, to their bedroom, where he fell upon the crisp sheets of the newly-made bed.

His love left him for a moment. He heard locks snap to in the rooms they'd left behind, and then she returned, and was undressing, leaving her daytime clothes in a little heap on the floor, the softness of silk whispering over her head, until she lay beside him in the blue silk negligee he'd loved so well, her front and all that softness pressing against his back as she drew the coverlet over the both of them.

Wesley rested his head on her shoulder, shut his eyes, and was instantly asleep.

For the first time since he'd been able to sleep again, there were no dreams, and for that he was entirely thankful.