Tribulations - Chapter 7

Buffy had the weirdest feeling, as if she'd suddenly fallen down a rabbit hole, into a place where things weren't the way they were supposed to be. She found herself sitting at a library table--nothing strange about that--but instead of Giles, a little gnome-man was offering her tea.

"Tea?" Buffy echoed, as if that was some strange foreign word she'd never heard before, one that sounded suspicious, and more than a bit threatening.

"You seemed rather faint," the little man said, in a small pleasant voice she had to strain to hear. "In such instances, I generally find a cup of tea restorative."

"Tea. Unh. Nice." Buffy rubbed her eyes. Had she fallen back to sleep right there in the library? "Whoa. I guess...I mean, I just had the weirdest dream."

"Had you?" He set the bone-china cup and saucer in front of her, the kind of tea set she associated with old ladies--the cup and saucer both had gold rims and a pattern of little roses. The tea itself smelled wonderful, though, and when she sipped it, tasted wonderful too.

When the tiny man leaned over her shoulder to refresh her cup, an egg-shaped rock swung forward into her line of sight. He wore it on a moldy-looking cord around his neck, which looked strange with this tidy tweed suit and dark tie. The rock meant something, Buffy knew, but exactly what she couldn't remember.

"Drink," the man told her, standing so close she probably should have felt nervous--but instead she felt a dreamy calm, as if a blanket of warmth wrapped around her.

"Drink," he said again, and Buffy obeyed. It really was the best tea she'd ever tasted.

"Elizabeth, this seals the bargain," the man whispered in her ear.

Tears sprang into Buffy's eyes as everything came crashing back: the man's name, the stone, the bargain she'd made. She leaped to her feet.

The teacup fell in slow motion from her hand to split neatly in half, greenish-brown tea puddling on the pale wood of the library table. Mr. Briggs gazed calmly up at her, smiling a gentle little smile.

"I've granted your wish, Buffy," he told her. "You've no right to resent it."

"What...?" Fear made her feel cold inside, her stomach clenched up around the tea she'd drunk. "What are you going to take from me?"

Mr. Briggs took a seat in the chair beside her, folding his hands neatly in his lap. "You know, dear," he said, "I've not decided. But I shall certainly let you know when I have. I believe that's fair, don't you?"

"No...I mean, please...Giles..."

"I guarantee my work, of course," he told her gently. "If you're not satisfied, Buffy, our agreement becomes null and void."

When Buffy looked close she could see, back behind Mr. Briggs's glasses, the burning redness of his eyes. The teeth in his smile were all tiny, white, pointed, and there seemed to be way too many of them. As he watched her, a slow cold shiver went up her spine.

"I believe, however, that you'll be happy. So happy, in fact, that you may well forget." He got up, ushering her toward the door. "Should that occur, my business, naturally, will be to make you remember. One ought never to forget a promise, ought one?"

"N-no..." Buffy found that her teeth were chattering.

"Well, then." His head cocked, and he looked once more into her face. "All my best to Rupert."

A moment passed, the kind of moment books called "the blink of an eye." Buffy found herself outside in the hall, back by the infirmary, in fact. Inside, she could hear someone coughing and coughing, with a horrible, wet, tearing sound.

Buffy put her hand on the door and pushed. She wasn't sure if it was better to believe what Mr. Briggs told her, or not to believe, but she knew she had to see Giles, whether he was dead or alive. Her shoes felt like that were made of cement and her legs were numb as she made her way toward the curtain and, once more, slipped behind its folds.

Giles lay on his side, looking flushed and miserable and entirely alive.

"Hey," she said, watching his eyes light as he saw her, then go dark again.

"Buffy, hello!" Sebastian said from just behind. "As you can see, there's been a miracle." He sounded so pleased that Buffy wanted to be pleased right along with him--and she was. She told herself she was, anyway, that she didn't really feel sadness and worry like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach.

Not exactly a miracle, she thought.

Buffy didn't like the look Giles was giving her, as if she'd done something really, really wrong. Which she hadn't. She'd saved him. And how would he know, anyway, what had gone on when he was busy almost dying?

"We wondered where you'd got to," Seb added. "Celeste went forth to look for you, since she knows her way round this place so much better than I."

"I was in the...I mean, down the... I, uh, got something to drink."

Giles's eyes changed color, dark green to gray. Buffy stepped closer, needing to touch him, as if maybe a connection between them would make all the badness go away. She ran her thumb over his cheekbone, feeling the slight dampness on his skin--but that wasn't enough. She bent down and pressed her cheek to his, then straightened again.

"Are you all right, Buffy?" he asked her, sounding a little raspy. It seemed as if he couldn't look away from her.

"Me? Oh, yeah. I'm fine." She brushed the hair back from his forehead, then bent again to kiss his temple. "How 'bout you?" she whispered, feeling him shrug. "I was so worried." Something seemed weird, different, and then she realized that all the bruising from his broken nose had gone. Giles's hand drifted down along her arm, and his fingers closed loosely around her wrist, a comforting circle of warmth.

Whoa! Buffy thought--because the hand he'd used was his right one, the one that had been hurt so badly it could hardly close at all.

"Oh, God!" she breathed, and hauled him upright, not even bothering to be gentle. She tore at the ties that held his hospital gown closed, and though her nails scratched his back, Giles didn't say a word, or even flinch. She ran her fingertips over his shoulders and down his spine, feeling only smooth, unmarked skin where the scars had been.

A hundred different thoughts and emotions whirled through her head: joy and fear, relief and horror. She couldn't believe what she'd done was wrong, but the very completeness of the healing scared her--it seemed like something that would command a higher price, maybe more than she should ever freely agree to give.

"Buffy, dearest," Giles murmured, and pulled her toward him, into his lap. All she could do was cling to him. She couldn't find any words to explain what she'd done. Giles didn't say anything else either, just held her in return, his hand wandering up and down her own back.

After a little while, he lifted Buffy away, looking down at her with his eyes still sad and shadowy. "Let's leave here, love, shall we?"

"Dad--" Sebastian started, but Giles gave him a look.

"No, Seb," he said gently. "I'm well. There's no reason for me to remain. Buffy and I need to be on our own for a bit."

Sebastian gave a little frown, but Giles reached to squeeze his shoulder. "You and Celeste ought to return home to Bloomsbury. Your mum and I will call when it's time to--er--complete our work in London."

Sebastian cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. "I'd rather..."

"You've a great deal to accomplish, haven't you?" Giles said, in a soft, persuasive voice, then smiled. "At any rate, best be on your way before my colleagues attempt to confirm you as a Watcher. They seem rather anxious for new talent."

"Well, I've the bloodlines for it, haven't I?" Seb glanced up again. "Dad, I don't understand what's happened."

Giles's eyes turned to Buffy's with another of those hard-to-figure-out looks. "We'll talk a bit later, shall we, son?"

"Talk of what?" Celeste asked, joining them behind the curtain, her brown eyes flashing from Giles to her husband. "You're looking quite recovered, Rupert," she said in a--for Celeste--soft voice.

"We'll speak later," Giles said, sounding almost desperate.

"Dad thinks we ought to go home to Bloomsbury," Sebastian said. His eyes could get wintery-looking too, the same way Giles's could. Giles's mouth, usually a nice, curvy shape, had straightened out to a line, and Buffy couldn't help but feel that she was missing something.

"Well I, for one, think that's an excellent idea," Celeste said briskly. "Though you'd best have one of those purification rituals of yours to hand, Bastian, before I so much as set foot through the doors. Poor Plato, he'll be terribly cross with us, even if Mrs. Landry has seen to his feeding."

"And spoiling him dreadfully, no doubt," Sebastian answered, backing away from whatever the bad thing was. "Not that he isn't already the most spoiled cat in existence." He put his arm around his wife's shoulders, and Celeste snuggled up against him for a minute.

"I guess...umn...you guys have a lot of packing to do, huh?" Buffy said, breaking the suddenly awkward silence.

"Yes, one would think so." Sebastian's voice had gotten all clipped, not like his usual voice at all.

"Sebastian--" Giles began, in the same desperate tone he'd used before.

Seb turned and left the curtained-space without another word, though Celeste threw Buffy and Giles a "whatever" look over her shoulder. Giles slumped on the edge of his hospital bed.

"Hey," Buffy said, wrapping her arms around him. Giles's face pressed into her shoulder. His body, under her arms felt so tense it was like holding someone made out of stone--which wasn't her Giles. It wasn't her Giles at all.

For a minute, she got scared--maybe that's what Mr. Briggs was taking. But no, he said he hadn't decided yet. Giles was just stressed. He'd been through a lot, and he was stressed.

"Sweetie," she said. "I was so worried. I was so scared for you."

Giles shifted a little in her hold. His body felt weird--not just the rock hardness of his muscles, but things seemed to be shifting around, getting ridged and lumpy and strange. His skin seemed way colder than it should have.

Buffy pulled away. Giles was smiling now, but it wasn't one of his usual smiles. Instead, it was hard and cold, and his eyes glinted at her, demon-yellow beneath a ridged forehead. She could feel a scream building in the back of her throat.

"Why, Buffy," Giles said. "Isn't this what you wanted, for me to be healed?"

The scream broke free.

Buffy felt cold, and the chair she sat in was so hard it might have been made out of iron. Her head rested on something, and that felt hard too. A strong little hand shook her shoulder, its owner obviously not overly concerned with gentleness.

"I say! Wakey-wakey! Rise and shine!" an impossibly British girl-voice said to her.

Buffy groaned. She'd been dreaming, right? She must have been. And in her dream, Giles...

"I want to take it back," she said. "I have to take it back."

"That makes no sense whatsoever," the girl answered. "Sit up now, dry your eyes. We can't have screaming or carrying on in the Archives. Not at all the done thing."

Buffy sat, then dried her eyes on the teeny lacy handkerchief that the British girl had handed her--only she wasn't a girl, really. She was a grownup, probably about Seb and Celeste's age, dressed in the tiniest little Watcher-suit. She had a huge bruise down one side of her face, and a split lip, but they didn't seem to be slowing her down. Instead, she gave off waves of "I must be obeyed"-ness.

"Tremayne. Angela," she introduced herself, and for a minute Buffy couldn't figure out which was the last name and which the first. "You're Buffy Summers, the Slayer." She sounded interested. "I've never met an actual Slayer before."

The way Angela looked at her made Buffy feel like a rare animal in the zoo--and not even a cute one, like a panda. More like some endangered species of snake or lizard. A Komodo dragon, maybe, like the one she'd seen on the Discovery Channel.

"Where...uh...Mr. Briggs?"

The Watcher laughed, as if to say, "My, aren't you articulate." She was probably a demon, too--the kind that laughed at you if you spilled stuff on yourself, or pronounced a word wrong. Buffy looked at her eyes, but they were just an ordinary gray behind her glasses. Not even a pretty gray, just stormcloud-colored.

"Oh, my guv'nor's shut up in his little hole, tucking in to his kippers and eggs. He doesn't like one to watch him eat."

Wonder why? Buffy thought--all she could picture were those tiny sharp teeth, tearing into something that definitely wasn't a kipper. Whatever a kipper was.

"A smoked fish," Angela said, as if reading her mind. "In case you were wondering. Americans never know."

"Oh." Buffy began to ask herself if she'd woken up after all. Nothing seemed real anymore--not the wish-demon, not perky über-Brit Angela. "I need..." She pushed back her chair and climbed to her feet, feeling dizzy for a minute. "I need to see Giles."

Angela Tremayne lost her I-know-everything-you-know-nothing look. "I'd heard...I mean...we're all so terribly worried. You and Mr. Giles were so immensely brave. And young Mr. Giles, of course, too. And her Ladyship." Her hand touched on Buffy's shoulder for just a second. "You saved us."

Buffy didn't know what to answer. Young Mr. Giles? she thought, then, Oh, she means Seb.

"When you see Mr. Giles, give him our best, yes? All our best?"

"I--okay," Buffy answered. "I need to go now."

Without waiting to hear what the Watcher would say, Buffy turned. She meant to keep a little dignity and walk, at least as far as the library doors, but instead she hit them running, shooting down the hall at warp speed. One or two voices called after her, but she didn't really hear. She needed to know now. She needed to know for sure.

She screeched to a stop in front of the infirmary door. Again, someone had a terrible cough. Fear wrapped big icy hands around her heart and lungs, and she literally couldn't move. She'd never have made it inside if a tall man with a thin little mustache hadn't opened the door for her.

"Ah, you must be Buffy," he said. "Mr. Giles has been asking for you."

"I was in the library," she said, in a weak, little-girl voice.

The man blinked at her.

"Long story," Buffy told him. She felt sick. Shakily, she took one step, then another, until she'd gotten past the doorway. The patients--those up to eating, anyway, were having their breakfast, and thin sunlight spilled into the room from the high, narrow, wire-covered windows.

"It's morning," Buffy said, in wonder.

"Quite," the man answered. "Had you fallen asleep in the Archives? One often does. It's the natural result of any conversation with our Mr. Briggs." He gave a dry little laugh.

I'll bet, Buffy thought, but if the doctor said anything else, she didn't hear. Giles was coming out of a little room, probably a bathroom, leaning hard on Seb's arm. He looked white and shaky and miserable, but he was alive. All the bruises were gone from his face, and the hand holding on to Sebastian's arm was the right one, the hand that should have been hurt so badly it couldn't even close.

Buffy choked on the sudden flood of tears that flooded her throat. Her eyes burned. "I can't do this again," she cried. "I can't do this."

"Buffy. Dearest." Giles may have been shaky, but he reached her right away, his arms going around her, holding Buffy close. "Ssh, ssh, it's all right. I'm all right. Bit of a bad night, that's all."

She only cried harder, soaking the front of his gown. Giles continued to murmur comforting little things, stroking her back and her hair. He was warm, completely warm, she realized, and a little of that sunlight she'd noticed earlier fell over them both. He didn't feel stony, he just felt like Giles.

"I thought I..." she tried to tell him. "I thought you..."

Sebastian came up behind them. "It's truly been quite a night for both of you, I'm sure. Celeste tells me they've prepared one of the better rooms for your use--why don't you go there and have a bit of real rest? You've more than earned it."

Giles moved Buffy back a step and stood looking down into her face, his hands on her shoulders. He eyes looked tired and a little bit sad--well, maybe more than just a little bit. "Thank you, Seb," he said quietly. "Yes, that would be lovely."