__Late Night Caller__
By DubDub
"Bloody hell!"
Giles bumped his toe into the railing as he made his way down the
darkened staircase. He had just fallen asleep when he had heard the
knock on his door. Tempted as he was to ignore it, he knew it could
be important, so here he was almost breaking his neck, probably
breaking his big toe, rushing half conscious down the stairs. It
damned well *better* be important, he thought.
"Uh, Giles?"
Blinking his eyes rapidly to clear away what simply had to be a
figment of his imagination, Giles stared at the figure standing just
outside his door. Nervously shifting from one foot to the other,
hands jammed in the pockets of his coat, and seemingly unable to
maintain eye contact, his visitor appeared to be ready to turn and
run any minute.
"Spike?" Giles asked in disbelief. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. Guess I woke you. Not a night person, huh?"
Giles' only answer was a glare as he waited for Spike to continue.
After a moment, it seemed the vampire needed a little more prompting.
"What is it you want?" asked the irritated watcher.
"Well, you see, I thought maybe you should know. I mean, seein' as
you're... watcher, and all and I... your job." The response was half-
mumbled and spoken so quietly Giles wasn't sure he'd caught all of
it. The former librarian took a deep breath as he pinched the bridge
of his nose with his fingers and squeezed his eyes closed. "Spike,"
he spoke intensely between clenched teeth, "do get to it!"
"Right, then. It's about Buffy."
Giles was suddenly alert. His brain finally engaged, and he recalled
that Buffy had intended to seek out Spike earlier that evening to try
and learn all she could from him concerning how the two slayers Spike
had killed has met their end. The subject had been very upsetting for
Giles when he and Buffy had discussed it. Any reminder that a
slayer's life span was customarily short always filled him with a
sense of foreboding. He knew Buffy was just reacting out of her own
fear from the close call she'd experienced the previous evening, but
he found the whole subject very painful--though he knew it to be only
a foreshadowing of the pain he would feel if the time came when
Buffy.... He shook the dark thoughts from his mind and returned his
attention to the agitated blond vampire still standing before
him. "What about Buffy?" he asked.
"I went by her house a little while ago, and she was sitting on her
back porch. She was upset. She, uh..." Spike shuffled his feet again,
uncomfortably. "She was crying."
"Crying?" Giles asked quietly.
Spike's gaze dropped once more to his feet. "I asked, but she said
she didn't want to talk about it. 'Course, she wouldn't want to tell
me in any case. Guess I can understand that."
"Yes," Giles gaze narrowed as Spike continued.
"I sat there with her a while, but we didn't talk." He looked up at
Giles. "I was thinking. You could go 'round, check on 'er in the
morning. You know, see that everything's all right?"
"Of course," Giles replied. "Perhaps I should go tonight," he
considered out loud.
"Uh, no, I think she's gone to bed." Off Giles' look, Spike
explained, "I watched until her light went out... in her bedroom.
*She*... was in her bedroom. I was in the yard."
"You watched?"
"Just to be sure everything was okay, you know. From the yard."
"Oh, o-of course." This entire conversation was getting stranger and
stranger to Giles.
"But you could talk to her tomorrow. She'll talk to you, 'cause you
two, you're close... Like family. Right?"
"Yes. Family."
"Good to have family," Spike pronounced. "Well, you'll take care of
it then. I should shove off." He started to back away.
"Spike?"
"Yeah?"
"What made you drop by Buffy's house in the first place?"
"Well, I was gonna kill 'er, ya see," he replied.
Giles felt his jaw drop. "WHAT?!"
"We were together earlier, you know? She was asking me about the
other slayers? Ones I offed. Well, she pissed me off! So I decided I
didn't care about this bleedin' chip in my head and how much it would
hurt. I was gonna have done with it." He looked away again. "But when
I got there, she was cryin'. Couldn't stand to see 'er cry."
"Yes... I... I-I-I can understand that," Giles stuttered, his brow
furrowed as he tried to absorb what Spike was telling him.
"Well, then. It's all yours now."
"I-I'll drop by tomorrow and... check on... things."
"Good man. Right. Night, then."
"Good night, Spike," Giles stared after him as he disappeared into
the night. For several minutes, the watcher remained in the open
doorway of his apartment, unable to move from the spot. Finally,
shaking his head slowly, he turned back inside. He was dreaming! That
had to be it. Just a nightmare. He closed the door and headed back
upstairs to bed, confident that the next morning, his currently
aching toe would exhibit no sign whatsoever of being smashed into the
railing, thus proving that this entire bizarre encounter had all been
just some strange construction of his slumbering subconscious.
The next morning, Giles limped to Buffy's house.
* * *