Trust - Chapter 4

Giles could not have explained why he'd beaten a retreat to the loft. He had no real desire for sleep, and wouldn't be particularly comfortable lying down--he knew well enough from his previous year's experiences that the recliner downstairs would be the only piece of furniture he owned which would not have become, for the present time, a device of torture.

Actually, Giles was perfectly aware that what he'd done, by coming up here, was run away. Not an admirable act, certainly, but there it was. For those moments he'd held Buffy in his arms he could almost pretend everything remained as it had been, and he would have endured any pain to keep her there, close to his heart--in other words, to continue a charade of what was not, and never would be again.

Only yesterday, she had been his. Only yesterday. He loved her, he ached for her, and he was not entirely certain he could survive this loss.

Even now, despite his new-found abilities, Giles could not sort out precisely what it had been she'd wanted--or needed--from him in the courtyard, and he'd an idea Buffy herself felt equally uncertain. Treacherous ground, this, like stumbling through a swamp infested with alligators and quicksand, dangers wherever one turned.

Giles wandered to the loft rail. From his vantage point, he could see Buffy's fair head bent over the mass of pages he'd retrieved from Wyndham-Price's cottage that morning. No doubt, by this point, she'd scrambled the once-neatly-grouped research into a muddle even he would be hard-pressed to reorganize. Yet, despite this confusion and the several--to Buffy--totally undecipherable languages (not to mention Angela Tremayne's frighteningly indistinct penmanship) in which the notes had been written, she persevered.

A strand of Buffy's hair had fallen forward across her cheek, obscuring Giles's view of her face, yet he could well imagine the small line between her brows, the determined set of her mouth which said she would master this, against all expectations.

As if she'd felt Giles's regard, Buffy looked up suddenly.

"I thought you were napped out," she told him.

Giles shook his head, not precisely sure how to answer. She hadn't yet removed her ring, he saw.

"You gonna come down, then, or just watch?" Buffy's mood was mercurial, he felt--quicksilver flashes of any number of emotions, some of which he scarcely felt qualified to interpret.

"Come down, I thought," Giles answered. "If you didn't mind, that is."

Buffy shrugged. "It's your apartment, Giles."

"True." He descended the stairs awkwardly, Buffy watching him the whole time, though Giles wished she wouldn't. She made him feel, somehow, old and infirm, and he determined that he would show to her no further sign of weakness. The dressings on his back needed changing, and he thought, with a pang, of the previous summer, Willow's gentle touch as she tended to the unpleasant chore.

He missed her as well, that Willow. The Willow who had been--or who, perhaps, had never existed, except as a reflection of the role they, who'd thought themselves her friends, created for her. Giles scarcely knew anymore. All he knew for certain was that he would not ask Buffy's help.

Buffy, however, rose from her seat at the table to eye him critically. "Giles, you bled out through the back of your shirt. That's gonna stain."

Giles shrugged, taking care not to wince as he did so.

"Sure, tough guy." She laughed suddenly. "Sit. I'll be right back."

Perplexed, Giles sat. Buffy disappeared into the downstairs bathroom, returning moments later with both the large first aid kit and a carrier bag of additional supplies he'd stored in the same cabinet. Pushing a few errant pages of research aside, she dropped--Giles felt fairly certain the verb Buffy herself would have chosen to describe the action would have been plunked--her burden atop the table.

"Okay, shirt off," she told him. "And maybe you should sit wrong way around on the chair. That way I can reach, and you can bite down on the back when you feel like screaming."

Startled yet amused, Giles complied, scarcely able to do otherwise. When he got to the difficult bit, where his battered body would simply not move as he needed it to, Buffy helped him, not brusquely or impatiently, but with a certain air of brisk practicality.

"This part is gonna hurt," she informed him. "Be thankful you don't have scary back-hair like my dad."

Oh, Lord, Giles thought. She'll need to be told again about her father.

"Actually, you know, you look pretty good for an old guy."

Giles glanced at her sharply, only to see Buffy's eyes bright with a mischievous twinkle.

"Ha. Gotcha," she told him, tugging hard upon a strip of tape. It did, indeed, smart quite sharply, coming up. "That is, you'd look pretty good if it wasn't for this gross, icky mess you have going on here. Geez, Giles."

Buffy lifted a few more strips, then went to the kitchen for the bin.

"You needn't," Giles told her. "Finish this, that is."

"So, who's going to if I don't? Xander?"

"He has, in the past," Giles answered.

"Well, he did a messy job, so I'm going to fix it. No fidgeting." Buffy's clever fingers moved with precision, and though the whole process hurt rather badly, it was over quickly, and the end results far more comfortable than Xander's efforts had been. Last year, completing the same task, Willow had wept bitterly. Buffy wept not at all, though when she returned with a clean shirt for him to wear, her eyes appeared shadowed.

"I get the part with the demon," she told him, helping Giles to dress. "I read the research." Buffy's mouth quirked briefly in a rueful grin. "Part of the research. Is there, like a paper shortage at Watcher Central that makes you guys all write so teeny? And what was up with the Tremayne person's penmanship? Is he insane?"

"She," Giles answered. "Her Christian name's Angela. As to the state of her sanity, you'd likely find many to second your assessment."

He recalled, however, the tiny archivist going after Council thugs three times her size with a field hockey stick, and couldn't help but smile. Yet, as always when he thought of Tremayne, memories of Marianna followed, and where Marianna was, there, inevitably, Clarice came after. In a part of himself, he could still feel their soft, cool touches on his skin.

"That's a funny expression," Buffy told him. "Move somewhere comfortable, why don't you?"

Again, Giles obeyed, sinking into the recliner's slightly battered but infinitely welcoming interior. To his surprise, Buffy came to perch on the arm.

"What were you thinking about, right then?" she asked. "When you had that look?"

She'd known it all once, why not again?

"My sisters," he answered. "Marianna and Clarice."

"Hmn. Sisters. Older or younger?"

"One of each. Marianna was the eldest, Clarice the youngest." Giles gestured toward the black box atop his glass-fronted bookshelves, the same box which had once contained her engagement ring. "There are photographs, if you'd like to see."

"Middle child," Buffy shot back at him, as she went to explore. "That explains it." She returned with the box hugged to her chest. "Which one?"

Awkwardly, missing the unimpeded use of his dominant left hand, Giles sorted through the lot of them, all these frozen piece of his life, so seldom referred to. "Here."

Buffy studied the old black-and-white snapshot. "Look at you with your curly hair! And the bandage, of course. Cutie." She grinned down at him, rubbing at the slightly uneven spot at the bridge of his nose. "Is that when you broke this?"

"The first time," Giles answered, wondering at her familiarity. Perhaps, even with conscious remembrance gone, something of the body's memory remained, weakening the barriers that had existed between them for so much of their acquaintance.

"I'll bet your big sister did it, huh? With that lethal hockey stick." Buffy returned to the box, coming out with a handful of photos. "Whoa! The ghost of Gileses past. I'm betting this is your dad?" She studied the picture further. "And this girl." She darted a quick glance in his direction, her eyes narrowing. "His Slayer?"

Giles nodded. "Augustina."

"How...?" Buffy frowned at the photo. "How did she...?"

"Augustina died at her Cruciamentum," Giles answered, a lump in his throat, as there always was when he thought of Buffy's own testing. "I was ten at this time. This came shortly after my father's tiresome speech, that I told you of."

"So then your dad retired? Or did he go on to make more little Slayers. Train them, I mean. Not like...oh, never mind."

"My father tried and failed to interfere with the test. Augustina--that is, the vampire Augustina had become--killed and turned him." Giles felt his eyes stinging. Ridiculous, really, for such old memories. "It was at Christmas. My fath...the vampire, in turn, took my sisters from their school. Their bodies were found at the side of the road, somewhere in Devon. I've never known precisely where."

"What happened--with your dad, I mean?" Buffy's voice was hushed.

"On Christmas Eve, he came home," Giles answered simply. "I waited for him."

"And?"

"It ended as these things usually do. In dust."

"Ugh," Buffy breathed. "Oh, Giles."

This was the time. She wouldn't forgive him for waiting. "Buffy, I've something to tell you," he began somberly.

"Is it gonna cheer me up?" Her eyes continued to look troubled. She'd a good imagination, his Buffy, and the story he'd told would no doubt haunt her.

"No," Giles answered gently. "It will, most definitely, not. It's about your own father, Buffy."

"My dad? Hey, he must have just loved us living here together. My mom too. I'm surprised you're still alive."

"Buffy, please," Giles said painfully.

"Who turned him? My dad," Buffy said suddenly. "Anyone we know?"

"Anyone we...?" he began, then understood, in a flash of insight, what she'd meant. He could feel the strength of her being beating at his own defenses, the iron shield of will she erected to keep the horrors of the world at bay. "No, Buffy," he told her gently, "No one you know. Or I. It was a young vampire who'd once been a Watcher Candidate. Maria del Ciello, her name was. Wesley trained with her. She's gone now."

"How?" Buffy asked, her voice cold not with anger, but with that same rigid control. "Did I get her? I hope?"

"No, Wesley did the job."

"Our Wes? He has grown a pair over the summer. And my dad...is he gonna be coming for summer visits?" Buffy's face, and her emotions, contained a mixture of bravado and trepidation. "Should I get out there and do my sacred duty, Giles?"

Her voice had begun to edge into anger, but Giles, refusing to react, only shook his head. "He--the vampire--came after your mum. I happened to be present."

Buffy considered for some moments, her expression, and what he sensed from her, both strangely neutral. He'd expected her to weep, but no tears seemed forthcoming, and this strange calm distressed him more than any obvious display. She returned to the box, flipping over photograph after photograph, though she asked for neither names nor histories.

"At least I didn't have to, huh?" she said at last. "But I guess we're both in the black-armband club this month. With your mom and all."

"I suppose we are." Since I was required to stake her as well, Giles thought, but he wouldn't have dreamed of voicing the words.

"And Sebastian. Your son. That's what my mom said, anyway."

"That Sebastian is my son? I told you that, Buffy," Giles told her patiently. "Last night."

Buffy shook her head violently. "No, that Sebastian's mom died too. This week, she said." Her eyes took on a strange light. "Do you have a picture of her, too, in this little photographic mausoleum you have going on here?"

That's not fair, he wanted to say. This is my life, and I've a right to remember. Why are you baiting me?

Instead, he merely removed the appropriate photograph, the one he'd been meaning to have re-framed, of Em, Merrick, and himself.

"Who knew?" Buffy said sharply. "Mr. Merrick was Sebastian's mom!"

"Buffy," Giles said softly.

"She was kinda beautiful, wasn't she? That's where Seb gets his red hair?"

Giles nodded.

"What was her name?"

"Moira, Lady LeFaye. Or Moira Bannister-St. Ives, depending on which day you asked her. I generally called her Em. Or Emmy. She was a Watcher. The active Watcher b-before I..."

"And her Slayer lasted how long?"

"Twelve years," Giles answered, in such a low tone he could scarcely hear his own voice, though Buffy's superior hearing easily caught the words.

"That's a pretty good long run for one of us, huh? Twelve years. Some kind of record, probably. Are you as good a Watcher as Moira, Giles? Are you gonna get another nine years out of me?"

Giles suddenly found himself halfway across the room, his back to her, shaking with the force of his own fury. You're not the only one who has suffered, you selfish girl! he wanted to shout at her. What do you hear in these stories I've told you? We all have pain, and loss, and when we're able, we hoist our shields and march on. Do you think it's anything other than a death-march for those of us who live this life?

But he did not say those words. Because she was his Buffy, and he would have regretted every one, bitterly, the moment it left his mouth.

Instead, he told her, "I knew Helena, and loved her, and I mourn her even now. Because Helena held on, Celeste was not called."

"Perfect Hostess Celeste? Your daughter-in-law?"

"Just so." Giles felt weary of this conversation, tired of accusations, and of defending himself. His body ached from head to toe, and he wished, suddenly, nothing more than to be left alone. Instead, to his consternation, a sharp rap sounded on the door.

"I'll answer," he said, and strode across the room, despite his injuries, before Buffy could so much as rise, intending absolutely to order whoever waited on his stoop to bloody well go away.

Except that the person standing there was his Aunt Flora, and he'd have faced an entire nest of vampires before daring to tell her any such thing. In a way, too, despite his weariness, it came to Giles that Flora was the one person he actually wished to see.

"Rupert, my dear boy," Aunt Flora said, stepping briskly inside. "Oughtn't you to be recovering? Or are you having another attack of that beastly stubbornness? You get that from your father, you know. It's a Giles trait."

"I'm not being stubborn," he protested, feeling strangely young and foolish, as she always made him feel, at least a little. "Buffy's visiting."

"Then Buffy ought to force you to rest. That's why I'm here, Rupert. To look after you. And before you say anything about your ridiculous lack of a guest room, my hotel is scarcely a quarter hour's drive away, and I'll take care to leave well before dark. Now, have you any arguments?"

"None," Giles answered. What was the point? "Aunt Flora, may I introduce you to my Slayer?" he asked her, instead. "Buffy Summers, I'd like you to meet my aunt, Miss Flora Giles."

Buffy had, in fact, seemed slightly alarmed by Flora's arrival, to the point that she had not stirred from her perch. Now, with his aunt's bright, sharp eyes upon her, she flushed, glancing downward at the carpet as she mumbled something to the effect of, "pleased to meet you."

"And I, you," Aunt Flora replied. "Though of course we've met before. You visited for some time at my house, Appleyard, and you quite liked my horses, I recall."

"Aunt Flora breeds hunters," Giles found himself saying, half surprised by his own banality. "Lovely ones." In the background, he'd begun to detect a peculiar, humming energy, like the sound made by the drone string of that strange old-fashioned instrument, the hurdy-gurdy, a constant buzz that went all the while as the ordinary music played.

Flora marched across the room, her bearing erect, almost military, despite her smallness. She stretched out a hand toward Buffy, saying, "Come, dear. It's good manners."

Buffy seemed reluctant, though after a second or two the etiquette Joyce had no doubt drilled into her from the cradle appeared to overcome that doubt. Her hand closed round Flora's even tinier one, and at that instant Buffy's eyes widened, all colour draining from her face.

"Aunt Flora, stop!" Giles protested, but the look his aunt returned to him was one of Ripper's own, and he knew that, once she'd begun, all his protests were in vain. He ought to have guessed, really, that Flora would be able to draw upon the Hellmouth's energies to fuel her abilities, just as she drew upon the leylines back home.

Buffy's eyes glazed then, and she fell sideways into the recliner, her chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow respirations.

"They are Buffy's memories," Aunt Flora said, her own voice slightly breathless, yet no less forthright than usual. "You all, God bless you, seem determined to tip-toe round this, but if they're hers to remember, why shouldn't the dear girl have them back?"

"Because she doesn't want them," Giles answered.

Flora returned to him a long and searching look.

"That isn't what I've seen in her mind," she said at last. "And, my darling boy, I know very well it's not what you've felt, with those interesting new skills you've acquired--cavorting with goddesses, is it? In underground grottoes?."

"Hardly," Giles replied drily.

Flora's voice lowered. "Allow this, Rupert. She'll be lost, otherwise. In a year or two, she'll be lost to everyone."