__Deja Vu__
By Coast2Coast
"Why did you come here? This isn't your fight!"
The punch she delivered
to his jaw was as much a surprise to him as having found himself being
dragged out of the burning factory, his quarry gone.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed!?" Raw anger and panic.
[No. Yes. What does it matter?] Giles struggled to bring himself to a crouch on the wet pavement;
crying so hard he thought he might retch.
She threw herself at him, sobbing as well, and clutched his body to hers. "You can't leave me. I can't
do this alone."
As they wept brokenly in each others arms, Giles barely
heard the soft entreaty, a child's prayer to an unforgiving and heartless
world over which they had no control. "Please don't leave me alone
again."
* * * *
He was being watched. And followed.
In the two weeks since Jenny's death he had been under observation almost
constantly. He wondered when she found time to sleep. He knew she only went
to class when she was sure he would remain in the library, or at least on
school grounds. Giles didn't think she had enlisted the help of the others,
but she clearly took every possible advantage of opportunities when one or
more of them, usually Willow, would be around him for a while. She would find
some pretext to step out of the library and return in less than an hour,
freshly showered and wearing different clothing. She would make what she
probably thought were off hand comments to solicit information from him
about his plans for the afternoon and when he would be leaving for the
day. He found himself pitying her and dropping hints as casually as
he could manage to allay her obvious fears.
When they were together at school, she focused on him with an intensity he hadn't known she possessed.
She listened carefully to anything he said -- not just to her but anyone,
watched to see what he was reading, followed his every move with her eyes.
Sometimes she would appear in the stacks if he was out of her sight for more
than a few moments. What did she think he was going to do, bolt for the
rear exit? Jump out the window?
Her exercise regimen was beginning to alarm him as well. She pestered him constantly with questions
about techniques with various weapons in which she had previously shown no
interest. She adamantly refused to spar with him; and, after demolishing
every set piece and dummy, was left fighting imaginary opponents with a
ferocity and barely restrained violence that left her breathless and shaking.
Giles began to worry in earnest when he noticed the change in
the manner and frequency in which she patrolled. Whenever she
seemed convinced he would remain at the library for a few hours after
dark, Buffy would announce her intention to patrol -- never
without mentioning that she would return to report to him before
'going home'. He didn't know what she would do if she ever returned to
find him gone; and he didn't want to find out.
Occasionally, Xander would accompany her; more often she went alone. From information he had
extracted from the boy, Giles knew these patrols were serious and deadly
affairs; with his estimate of her nightly take rate above what used to be her
weekly count. Gone was the girl who had to be goaded into spending an evening
picking off a vampire rather than hanging out at The Bronze with her friends.
Giles knew she also hunted at night, after she had followed him home
and watched for his light to go out. The next morning he had often
seen bruises, cuts and scratches on her neck, arms or hands that had
not been there when she had checked in the evening before.
Xander ultimately abandoned his attempts to keep up with her. He returned to the
library one evening to pick up Cordelia, complaining that if he wanted to
join the 'Sprint and Stake' biathlon team he would have had to be born a
Slayer. She had raced all over town and he had seen her kill four vampires
before exhaustion had forced him to let her go off on her own.
"It's scary, Giles," he had exclaimed, "she's... she's dust-thirsty. If Angel
doesn't show himself soon she's going to spontaneously combust. Or forget her
promise and go after him," he warned, grimly.
That was the one and only
point on which Giles had insisted in these days since the incident at the
factory. Although they had been walking on eggshells around each other in the
aftermath of that night, he could not allow her to pursue Angel into a
situation where he would be on his home turf and have Spike and Drusilla, and
likely other vampires, at his back. Giles had argued and pleaded and
finally dragged Buffy bodily into his office, away from the audience in
the library, and *demanded* that she promise not to track down and
hunt Angel in whatever den he now occupied.
"I'll promise you, Giles,"
she had growled "if you promise to do the same. Remember that *I'm* the
Slayer and *you're* the Watcher. We're clear on that, right?"
He had readily agreed, telling himself that he had no intention of going after Angel
on his own, at least not again, and that his acquiescence cost him nothing
and gained him her solemn vow.
When the change in her behavior had not
receded but become more pronounced, Giles had spent some sleepless hours
mulling over her final comment on that awful night. What did she mean,
"Please don't leave me again"? He had never left her. At first he suspected
she might be referring to her father, but rejected the idea. It
just didn't seem to add up, especially given the overall pattern of
her actions. The only other option he could come up with caused him
to make a call to the Council and convince them to send all
the documentation they had on Buffy Summers to him by overnight parcel.
He spent every moment in which he knew himself to be unobserved
to study the reams of information they had sent. He read
Merrick's journal, withheld from him before so as not to give him any
'preconceptions or prejudices', as the Council put it, about his new
assignment. Giles found himself smiling as he read, amused at
the similarities between this document and the earliest of his own journal
entries when he had become Buffy's Watcher. Merrick recorded that Buffy had
been resistant to accept her destiny at first -- willful, flippant, sometimes
downright obstinate and disobedient; but he also observed her incredible raw
talent for the job and mentioned more than once that she performed on a
physical level far beyond any new Slayer, and some fully trained ones, he had
seen or read about. What captivated Giles most was what he could read between
the lines, especially toward the end of the journal when Merrick had become
more familiar with his charge. He had been enamored of the
youngster; proud of her ability and achievements and happy that she seemed
to share an, apparently, unspoken but genuine affection with him. It
was clear from the entries that were less about Buffy and more about their
shared mission that Merrick was apprehensive about her having to face Lothos.
Giles had studied Lothos during his Watcher training, and
could easily understand Merrick's concern. Lothos had been a vile creature
- - seductive and cruel; in a way, more dangerous for a young and mostly
untried Slayer than the Master. Much as Giles wanted information on that
confrontation it was not contained in the journal, in which the last entry
was dated the day before the events the Council agreed had resulted in the
death of 'the Vampire King'. As there had been no official record of
Merrick's fate, it was assumed he had fallen in the battle with Lothos.
Was this what troubled Buffy? That Merrick had perished while
aiding in the destruction of Lothos? Did she feel guilty that she
had survived her first real test as a Slayer and her Watcher had
not? Possible, or rather, knowing Buffy as he did, likely. But what
had she expected of herself when little over a month earlier she had
been an innocent civilian?
Giles huffed in frustration as he tucked
the journal away and dug back into the box, hoping for something more
concrete that would either support or disprove his suspicion.
He was familiar with much of the material but there were surprises as well; some
offering a little insight, some only distracting him from his purpose. Inside
one of the many innocuous looking folders he found an 81/2" by 11" photograph
that was heartbreakingly beautiful and left him staring while his tea grew
cold and silent tears dripped from his chin.
It had been taken from a distance, but with a telephoto lens, producing a close up of head and
shoulders. The date in the corner told him it had been taken the day before
Merrick had made contact to inform her of her destiny. Although that date was
less than a year before Giles had, himself, first made her acquaintance, he
had to admit he would not have recognized her immediately. This was
the bright, happy, innocent child she had been before that doom
was pronounced. She was smiling a smile Giles had never seen. There was
a light in her eyes brighter than even the most cheerful expression Giles
had ever known from her. He had thought her to be, for the most part, a
cheery, positive, bubbly personality; at least before the problem with Angel.
He had had no idea. This was the girl, the person, she had been before she
became the Slayer. Although he remained rooted in the firm belief of the
sacred calling of both Slayer and Watcher, the image of that lost child
haunted his dreams and conscience. It had taken a day and a half before he
could bring himself to return to the information he had yet to review. When
he had finished, he had as many questions as before; if not more.
* * * *
Now, as he left the dry cleaner's on a sunny Saturday afternoon
and set a leisurely pace toward his flat, he sensed his shadow
following along as she had for the past fifteen days. Over that time, he
had become preternaturally aware of her; sensing her even at a
distance. It was both eerie and comforting at once and was driving him
to distraction. He suspected, almost feared, that she was even more aware
of him than he of her.
It was beginning to wear on him. It was getting
them nowhere; in fact might actually be harming what was left of their
relationship. Giles felt himself becoming 'prey' to her 'hunter' and she was
becoming more silent, withdrawn and exhausted with each passing day.
He continued on to his flat, let himself in and waited for her to
settle into one of her observation posts; then he returned to the
door, stepped outside and called to her.
He couldn't see her, but knew
where she was. He addressed himself to the shrub at the corner of the
building, up a shallow flight of stairs from his patio. "Buffy, this has
passed all reason. Come inside, please." He turned and went in, leaving the
door ajar for her. He sensed her entry and heard her close the door as he put
the kettle on. "Sit down. We need to talk."
One good look at her changed his mind about how urgent that talk was, however. She had perched on
the edge of his desk chair, not flung herself carelessly on his couch as was
her habit. The circles under her eyes could be mistaken for bruises and her
eyes darted from window to door and back again, ceaselessly; as though danger
might explode at them from any direction, at any moment. Giles could
almost feel her rapid heartbeat, sense the adrenaline running through
her veins. When had it gotten this bad? She was sitting in his flat,
the late afternoon sun shone through the window, he was the only
other person there and she was in full blown fight-or-flight' mode.
He returned to the kitchen and poured some milk into a saucepan. When it had
warmed to his satisfaction he poured it into his largest mug and returned to
the living room. Buffy had relaxed, marginally, but tensed once more when he
halted near the stairs and tilted his head in their direction. "Come on,
follow me," he instructed, then turned and ascended, trusting her to follow.
By the time she reached his bedroom, Giles had set the mug down
on the bedside table and retrieved a pair of pajamas from his dresser. He
tossed them to her. "Put those on, drink that," he indicated the mug of warm
milk "and get some sleep," he pointed to the bed for emphasis. The look of
wary confusion she gave him, while standing there clutching his pajamas to
her chest, took all the fight out of him.
"Please, Buffy. I can't
abide seeing you like this. I swear to you I won't set foot out of the
apartment, even to get the paper or take out the trash." He saw she was
weakening slightly, she glanced at the bed with what could only be longing.
"If someone comes to the door I'll ignore it." She glanced back at him, still
hesitant. "You can tie me up in that chair," he pointed to the corner of the
loft "if you let me use the facilities first and promise not to sleep for
more than four hours," he hastily amended when he saw she was
actually considering the offer.
There. The tiniest ghost of a smile.
"We'd better skip the bondage scenario. If I can fall asleep I might not wake up for a week."
Giles nodded, relieved. "Ah, good. No bondage. Should I
call your mother? Or would you like to? I believe you hellions have a
standard procedure for hoodwinking your elders, yes?"
Was that embarrassment? Giles suspected she was about to grind a divot out of his rug
with her toe.
"Um, she left for L.A. this morning and won't be back 'til
next Tuesday." Now she looked up and met his eyes. "That 'nice Mr.
Giles' agreed to check up on me from time to time and make sure I'm doing
my homework and staying out of trouble."
"Did he?" Giles inquired, in
a deceptively mild voice. "How nice of him. Although I doubt he would recall
such an arrangement."
Buffy had the grace to look sheepish and Giles relented.
"Well, all for the best, I suppose," he observed.
* * * *
Fifteen minutes later, just as he had settled onto the sofa with
a pot of tea at his elbow and a book in his hand, Buffy
reappeared carrying the empty mug. Giles repressed a snort of amusement at
how large his pajamas were on her tiny frame, although she had folded
and tucked and tied with abandon. She padded across the living room
into the kitchen and he heard her rinse the mug and set it in the drainer.
"You didn't need to do that. You should have left it and gone to sleep."
Buffy shuffled into the living room and hesitated near him.
"I, um, was thinking... Uh, you're way too tall to try and sleep on
that couch and I feel sorta guilty about crashing in your bed, you know..."
Giles waited, wondering if she was thinking he would break
his promise and leave if she slept. Then he considered what she had
said upstairs about 'if I can fall asleep' and realized this was not
just about him being, admittedly, too tall to get a proper night's rest
on the couch; or the possibility of him slipping out of the
apartment without her knowledge.
He snatched up a throw pillow, angled
it against his leg and patted the sofa cushion beyond it. "Come on, then.
Have a lie down. Who am I to argue with such a considerate house guest? I
promise not to drop my book on your head or spill tea on you."
Both of them studiously ignored the fact that he could have shifted his seat to one of the chairs.
Buffy let out a quiet but relieved sigh and joined him on
the couch, fitting into the remaining space by tucking her knees up
only slightly. Giles lifted the afghan from the back of the couch
and settled it over her and she drifted off with the scent of him and
his surroundings lending her a sense of peace and security.
* * * *
Giles had the most relaxing afternoon and evening in recent
memory. The sight of Buffy sleeping so deeply and peacefully and the
weight of her head resting on the pillow against his side was
entirely conducive to the leisurely perusal of his book and
silent contemplation which composed his activities until it was time for
him to go to bed. He rose carefully, easing her into a more stretched
out position and tucked the afghan securely around her. She barely stirred
and did not wake, for which Giles was thankful. He left one small table lamp
burning on the lowest setting, against the possibility that she might awake
in the night and be disoriented, and climbed the stairs to bed.
* * * *
The sound of the shower woke him in the morning. Since his
bathroom was directly below the loft, he could hear her activity
clearly through the floor but firmly repressed the mental images that
kept trying to assert themselves in his head. Just when he thought
the almost constant sound of running water might force him to
interrupt her routine in order to answer his morning call of nature,
she appeared at the top of the stairs carrying the borrowed
pajamas, neatly folded. She was dressed in yesterday's clothing, her
hair still damp but beginning to curl as it dried, her skin pink from
the shower, her eyes wide and alert from sixteen hours of sleep.
She smiled at him and Giles could imagine the picture he
presented, sprawled there in his bed, pajamas and bed clothes wrinkled
and askew, hair wild and no glasses; so different from his usual
buttoned-down, reserved image as to hardly be believed.
She had to have been biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood not to let loose one of
her impudent remarks, but "Morning, Giles. Sleep well?" was all she said. Aloud, anyway.
"Yes, thanks. You?"
"Wonderfully," she said, giving the word enough emphasis to include dreamless, uninterrupted and all
the hours she had needed; all of which he understood without clarification.
Giles swung his feet out of bed, stood and stretched. He
pulled on his robe and followed her downstairs. As he crossed the living
room he noticed the steam emerging from the doorway into the bathroom.
"Any hot water left?" he asked plaintively, looking down at her from more
than his usual height advantage since she wasn't wearing shoes with three inch heels today.
She pulled a face at him and said teasingly "I'm the
considerate house guest, remember?" then hurriedly added "but I am, well, a
girl, after all and um, you might want to give it another few minutes."
Giles nodded, knowingly, and headed into the mist.
* * * * *
After a light breakfast eaten primarily while puttering around
the kitchen (neither of them being in the habit of eating much in
the morning) Giles had just finished brewing a pot of tea and
was calculating how best to keep Buffy from bolting for the door she
kept eyeing, when the phone rang.
He set the tea tray down, hooked the
receiver up to his ear, sent a glare at Buffy, who was inching toward the
door, and thrust an index finger eloquently in the direction of the couch
before answering, "Hello?" He kept his eyes on Buffy as she settled onto
the edge of the couch, watching him watching her.
"Hello, Giles? Did I wake you? Sorry if I did but, um... have you, I mean has Buffy, um... she was
supposed to come over last night, or this morning at the latest and she's not
answering at home and I was wondering if maybe you've..."
Giles took pity on them both. "She's here, Willow."
"Oh. Um, good. Oh. Okay, she's there but, um, do you mean, like, inside your place and, you
know, visible and all, or..."
Giles smiled but managed not to laugh at her expense. She
was often more shrewdly aware and observant than any of them.
"Yes and
yes, Willow. Here she is," Giles handed the phone to Buffy and seated himself
to begin pouring out.
"Hi, Will. Sorry if you were worried but..." then a
long silence while Buffy rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and listened
patiently until she exchanged the receiver for the cup of tea Giles was
handing her. Giles took a breath to say goodbye before he realized Willow
was still talking to Buffy.
"...and you stay right there until you
guys have worked out this I'm-not-Buffy and I'm-not-Giles thing you've got
going on. It's just...it's just oookie and wrong and makes me want to cry.
You guys just talk and yell and... oh I don't know... Don't, like, hit each
other or anything... at least not, you know, hard. But don't you dare
run off until you two have, you know, fixed everything. Between you,
I mean." Giles handed the phone back to Buffy when Willow stopped to catch her breath.
"Okay, Will. 'Bye now." Buffy hung up the phone and leaned
back with a sigh. "I'm surrounded."
"Yes," Giles observed. "Yes, you are. Let's talk about the night Jenny died."
* * * * *
"When I found your apartment trashed and you and your best weapons missing I just...
I went ballistic." Buffy made eye contact with him and Giles was somewhat
alarmed to see a gleam of, what was that? Anger? Challenge? "You didn't think
I was ready to kill Angel, and you couldn't wait for me to get ready while he
killed more people." She paused, perhaps to allow him a chance to refute
her conclusions.
Her stare became even more intense and Giles felt an
involuntary chill run up his spine. As he remained silent, she went on. "I
knew that if you couldn't manage to kill him you would kill yourself so
he couldn't use you as bait to lure me. Or... or turn you into a vampire,
too, and have you come after me." She looked down at her overalls, picking at
a loose thread at the hem of one leg.
She knew? She had known *then* that
was what he had planned? "Buffy," he began in a placating tone, "as Watchers, we all vow to..."
"I *so* don't want to hear it, Giles," Buffy cut him
off abruptly. "That's the same crap Merrick handed me, to keep me
away from Lothos until I was 'ready'. He told me to run away, and I did."
Giles felt a stab of sympathetic pain at the grief in her voice
and the unshed tears of shame welling in her eyes.
So it did have something to do with Merrick. "What happened, Buffy? Tell me," Giles asked
softly, but urgently.
She gave him a confused, piercing look, but
answered nonetheless. "I... I went looking for him an hour or so later when
he didn't come back to his flat. I... found him there, shot in the
head. He killed himself before Lothos could touch him; turn him against
me. And... he, Lothos, had done... things... to him."
Giles eyes slid shut in compassion for the child's voice to which she had reverted. Of course
Lothos would desecrate the body, livid in his anger at failing to turn the
Watcher into a weapon against the Slayer's resolve and confidence.
She paused for a shuddering breath, then regained some of her earlier anger.
"That was my first lesson in unquestioning obedience to my Watcher's orders.
Your little Watcher's Guidebook of Dos and Don'ts needs a *serious* rewrite
if it still says it's better to off yourself and let a fifteen year old kid
face a thousand year old vampire king and close to a hundred of his undead
buddies all alone than to let her 'endanger' herself trying to rescue her Watcher."
Her tears had spilled over and she brushed them away
angrily, settling back to scan his face; waiting to see if he would try
to justify Merrick's actions and their effect on her.
Giles sat speechless, trying to fully absorb what she had told him. His mind flashed
back to the picture that had wrenched his heart so painfully. That child, so
blissfully ignorant of true evil. She had had a few weeks of training, a hard
won kinship of trust and affection growing between them and then -- Merrick
had snatched himself out of her world and left her to face abject terror on
her own. Unlike now, Merrick had been the only one in her life who
had known her true identity as the Slayer. Giles both marveled at and
was horrified by the courage and perseverance Buffy must have had to
face that creature only hours after losing her sole confidante and support.
"What did you do?" As soon as the question left his lips,
Giles silently berated himself for asking. [That question was almost
two years late in coming, you prat!]
From the expression on Buffy's
face, she had not anticipated this question either. "He... Merrick told me if
anything happened to him I wasn't to tell the police or... anyone. Just to
send his book to an address he said he'd leave for me to find. I buried him
under a tree in a field where there are flowers in the spring."
"Excuse me... you... you buried him?" Good God. His voice
hadn't cracked that badly since he was a teenager himself.
"I couldn't *leave* him there, Giles! In that awful place. Hung up there," here she
seemed to choke on her own voice. "Where...things... would get at him," her
voice trailed off and she lowered her head. "I had to... I..."
"You loved him," Giles finished for her, softly.
"Yes, I loved him," Buffy
nearly growled, lifting her head again. "And I killed every vampire that got
between me and that...*monster*. I don't know how many. I started with
twenty stakes and didn't have any left when I finally got to where he and
that nasty little sidekick of his were lurking. And then I hit them and
kicked them and whacked them and stabbed at them with whatever I could
lay my hands on until they were dead, too. Then I trapped the rest of them
in the gym and I burned it down to the ground."
She was gasping for breath now, reliving the memory of all that anger, violence and destruction.
None of it was her fault, but *was* at her hands. She stilled and met his
eyes; in her face he could now clearly see that young, abandoned child.
Frightened as much by the damage she had wrought as by the loss of her Watcher.
"Please, Giles. Promise you won't leave me alone like that."
* * * *
Buffy had gone for a run. Telling the story of
Merrick and Lothos had been a catharsis, yes; but it had also brought up a
gushing well of repressed anger and grief that would be better spent on the
pavement of Sunnydale than the bric-a-brac in Giles' flat. He had
agreed almost too quickly when she had first asked, then mentally
chastised himself for not having made her reasonably swift return a
condition of her release. Buffy sensed his concern and hurried to reassure
him that she would be back in two hours at most. Giles gave her a grateful
smile as he closed the door behind her and took her offered concession as a
sign of their healing relationship.
Giles himself, although he thought
briefly about going out for some fresh air, did not want to take a chance
that she would return early and find him gone; so he paced his living room
floor in anger and frustration.
"Those filthy, dirty, self-satisfied
*pillocks*!" he shouted slamming his open hand down on the counter between
living room and kitchen. "How could they have left her alone there like
that!?" Giles clutched his throbbing hand to his chest, using it as a
touchstone to connect, even slightly, with her pain. He thought back to the
second and third hand reports that made up the bulk of the information
the Council had sent to him that covered the period between the death
of Lothos and Buffy's arrival in Sunnydale.
The next day, no one had
remembered anything about *vampires*. As usual, people needed to rationalize
what they could not or would not allow in their world view, so demonic
activity had been told off as something more mundane. The story upon which
everyone seemed to agree was that Buffy had sparked a rivalry between two
gangs by using her 'feminine wiles' to set the leaders off against each
other. It had been pretty much universally accepted that she was
a troublemaker, a delinquent; maybe even a borderline sociopath. She was
expelled from school and convicted of arson, with a suspended sentence on
condition that she see a therapist four times a week and check in with and
show progress to her parole officer.
Giles had a suddenly vivid picture
of what this would mean for her. Any friends she had not already lost due to
her abrupt change in routine that was the natural result of her Slayer
training would now disappear as well. Her parents marriage, not in the best
shape before, crumbled and ended in divorce. Buffy would certainly
blame herself; however much her parents might try to dissuade her. If
they had even tried.
They should have pinned a medal on her and
carried her on their shoulders through the streets. Instead she had been
ostracized, vilified and handed a juvenile police record that had followed
her here to blacken what should have been a fresh start.
And the Watcher's Council. In Giles' eyes, their crimes were especially loathsome;
perhaps because he had believed they, at least more often than not, did what
was right and best for the Slayer. They had been thrilled with the severe
drop off in vampire activity that accompanied word of Lothos' death. No need
to send another Watcher to the Slayer right away. Let them consider and plan
her future while they enjoyed the most dramatic lull in demonic activity in a
century. Never mind that said Slayer had no one with whom to confide the
truth or support her as she bore the shame and humiliation that was
now heaped upon her, even as she silently mourned the death of the
one person she should have been able to lean on.
When he had read the dry, factual reports days earlier, he himself had not considered this; only
glad that she hadn't had to face more vampires until she moved here -- and
had a Watcher to look out for her again.
Giles felt an urgent need to vomit.
Small wonder she had panicked when confronted with the
sure knowwledge of his anquish over Jenny's murder, his empty
apartment and missing weapons.
[I went looking for him an hour or so later when he didn't come back to his flat.]
And he had challenged -- no, almost accused her.
[Why did you come here? This isn't your fight!]
No wonder at all that she had decked him.
[Are you trying to get yourself killed!?]
Perfectly understandable, since the danger was
still out there, that she was unwilling to let him out of her sight; all the
while training and patrolling, doing everything she could to be ready -- to
convince *him* she was ready -- to face the challenge. So that he would
not put himself in danger in an attempt to shield her.
[He told me to run away, and I did.]
Shield her! From the torment of an agonizing
choice, perhaps; but not her greatest fear.
[I found him there, shot in the head.]
Alone, she had buried him. Under a tree. In a field, where there are flowers in the spring.
[Please don't leave me alone again.]
* * * *
Buffy stepped through the doorway and dropped the
bag she had packed at home after purging herself in a flat out sprint across
town. She turned to find Giles standing motionless at the window on the
other side of the room, his back to her and his hands tucked into his armpits.
"Why didn't you kill me the moment you met me?" Giles
asked in a subdued tone.
Buffy laughed. *Laughed*. Giles couldn't
believe it. He turned sharply and stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
Buffy came over to him, took him by the arm and led him back into the center
of the room.
"You look like you should sit down, or something." She
gave him a gentle nudge toward the couch. He dropped onto it and covered
his face.
"What did you do to your hand?"
Giles snatched his hands away from his face and gazed at them as though they were new and
unfamiliar appendages, one of which was swollen and a bit red. [Probably
broke a bone, you idiot] he mentally chastised himself. "Er, um I ahhhh..."
he waved vaguely toward the counter he had assaulted earlier.
"Maybe you should have gone for a run, too," Buffy observed.
"Why didn't you kill me?" he queried again, showing her a confused and guileless face.
"You mean when you bounced up to me all bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed and 'aren't we lucky to be living on the Hellmouth' and 'aren't
you thrilled to be the Slayer' and 'let's get busy putting a severe
dent in the local vampire population'?"
Giles nodded. "Precisely."
"Incredible self-control," she answered, almost as
sparklingly impudent as she had been months ago.
"No, really," Giles countered.
Buffy sobered a little and became thoughtful. "It wasn't your
fault. You meant well. It was kind of... endearing."
Giles snorted. "Ludicrous, you mean."
"No," Buffy insisted. She gripped his forearm and
forced him to meet her eyes. "You gave me the chance to believe in myself
again. It was so hard. I almost started to believe, maybe..." She dropped her
gaze, unable to finish.
"That you were crazy? That you deserved what
they did to you?" A nod. Giles enveloped her in a hug. "I'm sorry, Buffy. So
incredibly sorry. For everything you had to endure and everyone who let you
down or hurt you. You didn't deserve it and I would take it all away if
only I could."
"You really didn't know about any of it, did you?" she
asked, face pressed against his shoulder.
"No. No, I didn't. But I don't know how I'm going to forgive myself, or what I can do to make it
up to you, for not asking until now."
"Just keep holding me for a while, okay?"
He smiled and gave her an extra squeeze. "Okay."
"And don't think you're doing me any favors by not holding me responsible for my duty."
"Okay."
"Okay."
* * *