Tribulations - Chapter 67

"What I can't understand," Sebastian said, after way too much silence--nobody had said a word since they'd dropped Wesley off at his place--had filled the inside of his rental car for way, way too long, "Is why, whatever influences may have overcome her, Willow would possibly want to do something so..."

"Dreadful?" Celeste supplied, but Buffy knew that wasn't what Seb meant at all.

"So tacky," she said. "And...um...mean."

"That's it precisely." Sebastian gave an emphatic nod. "Tacky." He sounded just as strange using American slang as Giles did.

Buffy knew, considering Seb's job and everything, he'd probably seen some not-so-good stuff in his time. And of course he'd recently been semi-possessed by the Ripper demon. Still, she got the impression that the poor guy was a little bit of a babe in the woods where the nastier parts of life were concerned. Sebastian's biggest problem, when it came to dealing with those sort of situations, was his basic niceness. He probably realized, somewhere inside that very-well-educated head of his, that there were bad things in the world, demony and non-demony, but despite all that, he at least half expected other people to be nice too. Case in point: when he'd been jealous of her, and Willow, and Xander, he'd gotten sad, maybe even kind of pouty a couple times, but he'd been no more capable of doing anything spiteful or hurtful than he would have been of flying to the moon by flapping his arms. Seb just wasn't made that way.

"My beloved," Celeste said to him kindly, "You'll never quite grasp this, will you?"

"I'm not naive," Sebastian answered--to which all three of the other people in his car probably thought something along the lines of suuuuuure, Seb. Buffy knew she did, anyway. From the back of Sebastian's neck, he appeared to have a pretty good blush going on, and when the traffic light up ahead of them changed to red, he braked just a little too hard.

"You believe in redemption," Giles said softly. It was dark there in the car, but he looked more shadowy than usual, as if all the weird magic happenings of the day had stolen a lot of his normal light away. The random streetlights they passed caught his eyes strangely, making them look greenly glowy, like flourescent paint.

"And you believe in forgiveness," Giles continued. "You're convinced that all of us, with some part of ourselves, strive toward those states. But, son, you know that isn't true. In your heart, you know."

"But..." Sebastian began, then went on, in a lower voice. "I know, dad. Honestly, I do. But I live in hope. Can't you at least allow me that?"

"I would never deny hope to anyone," Giles answered, "Least of all to you, Sebastian. You're familiar with your Milton, though--what was Satan's great sin?"

"What has Milton to do with..." Seb's voice faded. "Oh, I see."

"Then do you wanna explain," Buffy put in, "For those of us who need the Cliff Notes version?"

"Satan's sin was not that he rebelled against God," Sebastian told her in a teachery kind of voice, "But that he persisted in his rebellion, refusing to be reconciled, to swallow his pride and repent of what he'd done, to submit to any will except his own."

"Oh, yes, I remember," Celeste said. "'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.' That's right, isn't it?"

Will the uneducated bimbo in this car please raise her hand? Buffy thought. The SAT test computers must have been suffering massive glitches the day they totaled up her scores. And because she hated feeling dumb, she started to get mad instead. "And you think that's Will's problem? That she's had enough heaven-serving?" Even to her own ears, her tone sounded snarky, and she knew she was about to be both unreasonable and unfair. "Well, excuse me if I can't think of it that way. This isn't English Lit 201, Giles. It's life."

"I don't mean to say..." Giles began, sounding apologetic.

"Yes, you do. When in doubt, trot out the moldy books, so you can just box everything up and make it safe."

"Do you mean to imply that I've no feelings on the subject?" Giles was starting to sound ultra-British, always a bad sign. Worse than that, he looked away from her, out the window. "Because I have. I've quite strong feelings, actually."

"Yeah, but I'm not allowed to." Buffy hated the sound of her own voice, the way it had gotten all hard, and sharp, and mean. What right did she have to use it as a weapon against Giles, of all people?

And still, she didn't even try to stop herself. "You get big-time mourning opportunities when you lose your friend, but I don't have the right to mourn for mine?"

Nice example, Buff, she thought. Considering you could pretty much say it's a given that your friend murdered his in her bed.

"I've never denied you that right, Buffy." Giles's voice dropped even lower, and to her horror a tone of hurt came into it, something she'd never, ever heard from him before. "And I've no desire to quarrel with you."

"Are we quarreling, or does any time I disagree with your opinion get classified as a fight?" she snarked back.

Oh, God, would some one shut her up? Even as the words came out of her mouth, Buffy couldn't believe them, and it wasn't like this was the first time she'd been that way. Actually, it frightened her how many times in her life she'd let herself get to that point of out-of-controlness. What was this sick impulse she had to hurt people she loved--and over what? Over anger, or course. But in this case it was really Willow she was mad at, not Giles. The only thing he'd done was be convenient.

"Buffy, that's not fair," Sebastian told her sharply.

I know, Buffy wanted to answer. I know. But she just sat there with her head bowed and her nails biting into her palms. God, she'd seen Will just that morning, laughing as she got hurt, laughing as Giles got hurt. Maybe it was the laughter that made the whole sequence of events so unbelievable, like something in a nightmare. To be mean and hurtful and angry was one thing--a bad enough thing. But to enjoy it?

At least she wasn't enjoying any of this.

"It's all right, son." Giles sounded totally defeated. She, and no one else, had made him sound that way. No wonder she and Will were friends: they had plenty in common.

Buffy stretched out a hand toward him, but she couldn't seem to reach more than half way, and Giles might have been wearing a suit of armor, he was so stiff and shut off from her.

The silence inside the car got so heavy again that Buffy could hardly stand it.

"I may have been off-base, there," she said at last, in a voice that still sounded all grudge-bearing. "I was off-base."

"It doesn't matter," Giles answered tiredly.

Sebastian pulled the rental car into the parking space that the poor, lamented Citroen had lately occupied. "Well, then," he said, his fingers tapping nervously on the steering wheel. Even Celeste seemed at a loss for anything else to say.

Giles slid out--not easily, because he was really way too tall to be sitting in the back seat of any recent-model sedan. "Sebastian, Celeste, did you want to come in?"

The look Seb gave his father said something along the lines of I'd rather have dental surgery without anesthetic, but he answered bravely. "Certainly. If you'd like, dad."

Giles sighed. "You've more than earned a night's rest. Go home. I'll keep you apprized of any developments."

"Do you think Xander...?" Celeste began.

"I'll find him, certainly." Giles touched his son's shoulder briefly. "Good night, Seb. Good night, Celeste." He shut the door behind him and moved to the curb. Buffy got out too, but no one said goodnight to her. Big surprise there.

To Sebastian's credit, he didn't actually squeal the tires getting the hell out of there. But that was probably just an example of his good breeding.

Giles walked past her, shoulders hunched, and headed up the stairs.

"Hey," she called after him. "I didn't mean it. I didn't. You know that."

Giles stopped with his back to her, his fingertips tracing over the handrail. "One would think," he said, apparently to the night sky, because he certainly wasn't talking to her, "That after all this time, after all the hurtful things you've said to me, the pain would lessen. That is doesn't must surely be a personal failing on my part."

"I know I suck," she told him. "I know that. You so didn't deserve any of what I said. It was just like my mouth kept talking and I couldn't control it."

Giles just shrugged, which hurt her more than a slap. "Take the bed tonight. I'm sure you could do with a real night's rest, as well."

"And you will be?" Buffy called after him.

"Trying to locate Xander. If that matters." He went on climbing, not even checking to see if she followed--though at least he didn't lock the door behind him when he hit the top. Actually, he didn't shut it behind him at all. Inside, there was music playing. Opera music. And she knew that neither one of them had left so much as a radio on.

"That's not...?" she asked.

"No," Giles answered. "It's Verdi, not Puccini. La Traviata." He listened for a few seconds. "Death is at the door."

That seemed like a wigsome thing to say under any circumstances, all the more so because Buffy didn't have the slightest idea what he was trying to tell her. If anything. Maybe they still weren't speaking, and Giles was talking to himself.

She watched him drift into the room, pick up a piece of paper from next to the lamp and set it down again, then start to climb the stairs.

"What are you going to do?" she called after him. "To find Xander, I mean?"

"Nothing," Giles answered. He'd almost reached the top. "It's hardly necessary."

Buffy didn't say anything. She knew subtext when she heard it. This time, anyway. Instead, she followed Giles upstairs, nearly bumping into him in the doorway. Somehow, she knew what they were going to find.

"Is he...?" Her heart skipped several beats. It was dark up in the loft, or half-dark anyway, with the light seeping up from downstairs. Xander's eyes were open, his head turned toward them, as if he was actually looking at them--which Buffy knew he wasn't. "He's dead, isn't he? Xander's dead." Her voice came out tiny and breathless, and she felt as if her heart was, literally, going to explode.

Giles sat on the edge of the bed, taking Xander's wrist in his hand. Xander's arm moved bonelessly, and Buffy felt her stomach flip over. He couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.

"La Belle Dame sans Merci," Giles murmured, then shot her a look, as if he fully expected her to brat something back at him. When she didn't, he ordered, "Buffy, fetch the black nylon carryall from downstairs, please." He apparently hadn't had any luck feeling for the pulse in Xander's wrist, so he tried the throat instead.

"Uh..." Buffy answered, feeling as intelligent as ever. "Shouldn't I dial 911? Or something."

"Once you've returned, you'll need to set the candles just so--" Giles's hand moved, indicating the points of a five-pointed star. "Bring spares, and don't let a single candle go out. If the light fails, the spell will be ruined, and I'm not entirely certain Xander could stand to start over again."

"But he's not dead, right?" Buffy insisted. "'Cause you'd tell me."

"I would tell you." Giles sighed. "Quickly now. Please. We haven't much time."

She ran, scooping up the bag from beside the weapons chest, then cleaning out the candle drawer and grabbing the extra lighter for good measure. The bag thumped against her hip as she hurried back, all the extra goodies bundled up in her skirt.

"Yes," Giles said, rearranging Xander so that he lay flat on his back instead of half turned, stripping off the covers and pulling the pillow out from under Xander's head. Buffy's hands shook as she put the candles where he'd told her, and shook even more as she lighted them, but she got the job done. Giles didn't even look at her.

Once she'd lighted the last candle, he started to chant.

"Should you be doing this?" she asked. "After tonight tonight's little magic fiesta, I mean?"

"Yes," he answered curtly. "Be quiet, please." The chanting resumed, Giles holding Xander's hands as he sat beside him on the bed, the candlelight glowing in the depths of his green eyes. It was spooky, seeing him like that, and Buffy didn't know if he'd ever struck her that way before, at least not since the first day they'd met, or if maybe she just hadn't noticed. He'd been doing an awful lot of magic lately: maybe that was it. Maybe the magic was changing him.

Except it wasn't. She knew that. Not in any way that touched at his essential Gilesness. She was the one who seemed to be changing, and that was nothing to be proud of. Their wonderful evening on the beach--had that really just been last night?--seemed a millions years past. Then, they'd had perfect trust, perfect understanding, which she'd now broken because of why? Because she'd felt tired and wigged and pissed off? Why hadn't she kept her mouth shut? Loyalty to friends was a wonderful thing, in its place--but this was the man she loved. And trusted. And leaned on. Shouldn't he be her best friend? Would she ever have spoken to Willow the way she spoke to Giles?

Not, as Giles himself might have said, bloody likely.

The clock on the night stand ticked on. Loudly. Trust Giles to be the only person in the world who still used a wind-up alarm clock. And never forgot to wind it, either. Buffy considered all the things she'd teased him about, over the years, and all the things about him she'd secretly loved. What did he see in her? What could he possibly see in her?

The clock continued to tick, its hands moving slowly around its face. At first, Buffy had thought she'd have a hard time staying awake, given the snoozeworthy job of keeping five candles lighted. Only, she discovered the candles burned down so fast it was like watching them through time-lapse photography. She got stressed, keeping her eyes on them, making sure the five points stayed lit. Around three-thirty in the morning, she almost drifted off and let one gutter, but the jerking of the flame jarred her awake and she caught it just in time. Giles knelt by the bed now, his hand still firmly clasped around Xander's, his face paler than she'd ever seen it.

Maybe it was her imagination, or a trick of the golden light, but she thought Xander might look a little bit better. A little bit more there in his body. She hoped it wasn't just wishful thinking that made her see that--that Giles's cure, whatever it might be, was real.

The last thing Buffy remembered, the clock read five-fifteen. When she looked again, the hands said twenty-five past ten and she was sprawled out across the foot of the bed with thin little slivers of sunlight in her eyes and a smell of scorched wax in the air.

That, and a big, bony foot in her face. Xander's foot. Buffy bounced up, tangling herself in bedclothes until she ended up sprawling on the floor, her rear end aching from the fall.

Quick, someone take a picture of this moment of Slayer skill and grace, she thought, shaking her head. Her brain felt all full of dust and cobwebs, like an attic that hadn't been cleaned for a long time, and she would have committed acts of murder for a single glass of water.

On the plus side, though, when she picked herself up, she could actually see Xander's chest moving as he breathed. He still looked like someone who'd been sick a long, long, time, but he also looked very much alive. She wanted to throw herself on him and hug him tight, but she was afraid to--afraid he'd gotten too fragile, that she'd break him somehow.

Then it hit her. She'd let the candles go out. She'd wrecked the spell. She'd so totally let Giles down that he'd probably never speak to her again. Not that he'd actually be that way, but she wouldn't blame him if he was.

Speaking of which...

Buffy went to the rail, looking down into the main living area. No sign of Giles, but that didn't mean anything. He could have been taking a shower, or out getting the mail. Or something. Or anything. She only had to find him, then everything would be okay.

A low groan came from the other side of the bed. When Buffy came back around, she found Giles lifting himself slowly, painfully, from the hardwood floor. His head hung down, and his hair was all wet with sweat, sticking up every which way. She rushed over to him, helping him pick himself up. Giles clung to her, breathing hard, trying to say something to her but so exhausted the words came out all broken and jumbled up.

"What did you do? What did you do?" she yelled, almost shaking him--but then she knew. He'd done the same spell he'd used to keep her alive, back in Salisbury, after the Watchers' Council curse almost killed her--spending his own life force to keep Xander there with them.

Touched, furious, she hugged Giles ferociously, crushing his body against hers as if she could somehow squash some of her energy into him. Giles gave a moan of protest, but Buffy couldn't stop herself. "Didn't I tell you I'd murder you if you ever used that spell again? Holy cow, Giles, you must really think you have unlimited credit at the life-force bank."

To her complete surprise, Giles started to laugh--in painful little hitches, but real laughter nonetheless. "'Holy cow?'" he repeated. "Good Lord, Buffy."

"I was stressed," she said, trying to hold on to her dignity. "I wasn't responsible for my actions. Or my words."

Giles straightened creakily, looking down at her, and the events of the night before popped back into Buffy's head, in all their horrific, humiliating splendor. She stretched up, resting her hands on his shoulders.

"If I promise to try really, really hard not to be so completely dumb, do you promise to keep forgiving me?"

"Shall we make those our wedding vows?" Giles answered hoarsely.

"Nah. I say we go for something a little more poetic. Maybe some Milton?"

Giles gave a shaky laugh. "As punishment for your sins, my love, I shall make you actually read Paradise Lost, and afterward ask you penetrating interpretive questions. At which point you may throw the book at my head, for forcing you to wade through such a morass of misogyny."

"I'm really am sorry for being so stupid, last night."

"And I am sorry, after all we've been through, for taking offense."

"All the time, you know, when I was saying things... In the past. You know."

Giles looked down on her, tired and shaky and pale. "In the past?"

"I always meant something else," Buffy told him.

"Such as?" Now he had one of his deceptively mild Watcher-looks on, and Buffy knew what that meant: the truth was going to come spilling out of her, whether she liked it or not.

"Such as, I'm jealous of other women in your life. And, I trust you more than I can say, so much that I can even be angry or snarky or afraid, and know you'll still care about me. And, I love you, even when I can't say it."

"All that," Giles said softly.

"All that," Buffy echoed. "Do you wanna try those stairs now?"

"Oh, Lord," Giles answered, but, with a lot of effort, they made it down together.