England and the Afterlife
by: Saint Buffy
Rated NC-17
Pairing: B/G
Spoilers: Season Six
Feedback: I'll make it easy for you: `Dear Saint B, I really enjoyed this fic.' Now cut, paste and send.
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue
Distribution: The usual suspects. Anyone else just ask
Summary: Takes place immediately after Grave. Willow and Xander are on a cliff, Anya and Giles are staggering out of the Magic Box, Buffy and Dawn are enjoying the view. So what happens next? I mean, in our world?
Dedication: To Giles Fan, with tea and thanks. I hope you like it. Not the tea, the fic. And the tea too, although it's virtual tea. And I'll shut up now. Thank you.
Part 1
Colour and light washed over her, flooding her vision, flooding her mind until she thought of nothing but the sunrise ahead of her and the warmth of her sister's body next to hers, their arms entwined. She barely moved, but her mind flashed with thoughts faster, sometimes, than she could register.
God, she had been so wrong. She could see it all now, see how those first few days of pain and confusion had tainted her view of what was a miraculous next chance at life. Heaven, or wherever she had been, was better than this; that she couldn't deny. But this place had more intricacy in the variation, more symmetry in the pattern, more satisfaction in the contrasts between hard and soft, hard and easy, and that made it a more worthwhile place, somewhere to be savoured. She could see it now, and it overwhelmed her, more, even, than the darkness it replaced.
Buffy had never felt like this. She opened her eyes wide, pulled the fresh cool air deep into her lungs, strained her ears to catch every noise, held Dawn closer against her side and smiled as Dawn tightened her grip in reply. The scene was so full of beauty, filled with release, it was like. she couldn't think of anything if was like. She frowned, closed her eyes, and ran her mind over her memories, searching for a comparison, relishing the new perspective she felt as she pulled through treasured memories and more recent impressions.
A face flashed in front of her inner gaze. Her eyes snapped open. That was it, it was exactly the same as she had felt for the briefest second, looking up from the floor in the Magic Box to see-
- and now he was, or he might be-
Fear, pure, chest-fixing fear rose up to swallow whole the joy she felt only seconds before. Her heart pumped; she sickened.
"Dawn, we have to find Giles," Buffy said, and turned without another word to run back towards the Magic Box.
Giles woke up in a hospital room and for a moment, couldn't think how he got there. Then an anxious, blurred face surrounded by blonde hair swam into focus above him and he remembered. He squinted up at the face and smiled.
"Buffy," he said softly, trying to find a hand beneath the confusing bedclothes and things that surrounded him.
"No, it's Anya," the blonde head replied, sitting down beside him. "How are you? You must be pretty bad if you can't figure out who I am."
"I'm fine," said Giles, recovering some more of his awareness. He stretched, feeling his bruised body protest as he tested it, and then relaxed. "Where's Buffy?"
"I don't know," Anya said. "Last time I saw her, she was kinda trapped in a big hole in the ground."
Giles nodded. "I remember," he murmured. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Not long," Anya supplied. "You passed out as soon as we got to the hospital."
"Oh," Giles said. He shut his eyes.
"Giles?" Anya asked a moment later. "Are you sleeping?"
"No," he said patiently.
"Could you." He opened his eyes, wishing for his glasses, which were currently on his bedside table. in another country. "Could you tell me again how Xander saved the world?"
He was saved this task as a nurse came into the room.
"Mr Giles, you're awake," she said, with the kind, bustling energy of nurses everywhere. "I'm glad. How do you feel?"
"I'm fine," Giles said again, automatically. He hauled himself up further in the bed and tried to still his face from the groan that bubbled up inside him. The nurse gave him a look. "How long will I have to stay here?" he asked.
"Well, you haven't broken anything, but your ribs are severely bruised and we'd like to run tests to check there isn't any internal damage, so we'd like to keep you overnight," the nurse said. Giles sighed with relief.
"Wonderful," he said. Anya and the nurse gave him a strange look. "I meant. I was hoping it wouldn't be for long," he added.
"Don't get your hopes too high," the nurse warned. "If the tests show you have internal injuries, you'll have to stay a lot longer."
"There's nothing wrong with my insides," Giles said. The nurse raised an eyebrow.
"I didn't know we had an expert here," she said, shaking her head with a smile. "How would you know if there's any damage?"
Giles felt like saying, from experience, but decided against it. He rested his head back against the pillow and said nothing. The nurse smiled. "That's better. You did get one hell of a beating there, if you don't mind me saying. Are you sure you don't want the police involved?"
"That's a little hard for him to do, you see, considering the person who beat him up is actually-"
"Anya," Giles growled. He turned to the shape of the nurse. "No, thank you," he said to her, and she shrugged.
"Well, if that's how you want it." She left the room. Giles shut his eyes again, shutting out the fuzzy light of the world outside. He felt tired, incredibly so, although, he though, it wasn't that surprising in one who fully expected- fully intended, even- not to see the light of this newly confusing day.
"Anya, would you mind." he said. "I'm feeling quite tired."
"Would I mind what?" the vengeance demon said. Giles opened his eyes and looked at her, and then pointedly at the direction in which he thought the door might be.
"Oh," Anya said. "Yeah, sure, I'll go see what's happened to the others." As soon as she finished speaking, she vanished.
Giles lay back and sighed. In the empty room, his heart seemed forcefully loud, unnecessarily strong. He slid his hand over it and felt the beat, closing his eyes, feeling nothing except the steady thump of blood and the rise and fall of his own chest. Never had these simple acts of natural engineering seemed so powerful. He had come close to death before, too many times to count, but this had been the first time he had stared it down so calmly, planned for it, even. He remembered Dawn talking about Buffy's last few moments, the day after his slayer jumped from the tower; about how calm Buffy had seemed as she turned to take her own life. He had thought he could understand that, when he heard it. Dawn's words pierced even through the thick fog of grief that blanked out so much of the days following Buffy's death. But now he knew the feeling, from the inside; he felt the total calm of knowing how it would end.
And yet it hadn't. Here he still was, in an incongruously normal hospital room in Sunnydale, his home, his heaven and hell for so long. With his heart still thumping ungraciously beneath his worn out hand.
Giles took his hand away and let it fall back beside him. Life was a mysterious thing, even more so now the mystery of death had been commuted in some part, by Buffy's return. If felt like a force, running through him, pushing him ever onwards, like time, towards new things, away from the old. But yet now, his life also felt like a constant, a thing unwavering despite his best attempt to end it.
He wondered rather academically, distantly, if this was what it was like to be suicidal. The word jarred in his mind. Had his plan been suicide? Had Buffy's been the same, when she jumped from that tower? Or was there another word? They both knew their lives would end if they carried out their plans. And the decision had been easy, both times, he thought.
His first plan had failed; he knew, inside, that it would. An ancient spell woven with borrowed power would not fool anyone so powerful as Willow. So he had used that borrowed power as a Trojan horse, and it had worked.
By all reckoning, such a total vasectomy of magic, both his own and the extra, should have killed him almost instantly. And yet, as the continuing beat of his heart proved, he was still alive. Giles frowned. Perhaps it was an inner strength that had saved him, but he believed. he would like to believe that some vestige of the old Willow had caused the grief-fuelled nightmare before him to relent, by just a fraction, as she wrenched the power out of him; relent just enough for him to still be alive when the dark force of her power bled away, returning, as it went, all of his own power to him.
There were more thoughts, serious questions to be asked, but for the moment, Giles's mind was releasing him, relaxing his aching body until he fell deeply into a heavy sleep.
Part 2
"Dawn, stay here," Buffy said, and pushed her way past the ruinous door into the Magic Box. Something creaked threateningly above her as she stepped through the mass of destruction inside.
"Giles?" she called. "Anya?" There was no reply. The wall that had separated the shop from the back room had been torn out, in part, showing the bare skeleton of the building. The room behind was silent, empty.
Buffy searched through the shop, heart stopping every time she came across a man-sized heap of debris that transformed itself in the smoky interior, into Giles's still body. But he wasn't there; the place was empty.
She stopped still. Anya's face, Anya's words were replaying themselves in her mind. She could almost smell the earthy air in the grave she had sucked in when she heard; almost feel the dampness on her cheeks. Inside the Magic Box, fires still burnt among the books, smoke hung in the air, blackened beams stuck out at angles, and sunlight split through, touching parts of the shop that had never seen the light so directly.
It took a moment, after Anya told them, for Buffy to connect the words with what was happening. Giles was dying. Suddenly the words fell into place, making up that terrible idea, and Buffy had. she had just stopped. Stopped thinking about that, stopped believing it, almost. As if a giant shutter had slid into place in her mind, cutting that idea off.
She turned and picked her way quickly over the debris, mouth fixed in determination. She wasn't giving up yet. Dawn leapt up from the curb as she came out of the shop.
"Come on," Buffy said.
"Is he- is he-" Dawn started, but Buffy shook her head roughly.
"I don't know. We're going to the hospital."
They started off down the road, Buffy walking so fast Dawn had trouble keeping up. Buffy's mind was blank again, fixed on nothing but getting to the hospital as soon as they could. If he wasn't at the shop, that's where he would be.
"That's where he'll be," she muttered to herself.
Suddenly a screech of brakes on the road and a blare of horns made them both turn around. They looked up to see Anya, suddenly, standing in the middle of the road. The demon spotted them and came over.
"Where's Giles?" Buffy asked as soon as Anya was within speaking distance.
"The hospital," Anya said. She shook herself. "God, I'm really out of practice with the teleporting. No way was I planning to show up in the middle of the-"
"Is he okay?" Buffy interrupted.
"Yeah, he's fine. A little groggy, perhaps, and they're waiting to see about internal damage, but he seems to think he's okay."
The relief of her words hit Buffy physically. She shook on her feet and had to reach out to Dawn for support, feeling the breath in her body again, her heart in steady rhythm. "Oh," she said. She turned away from them, running a hand through her hair. "Oh."
"Have you seen Xander?" Dawn asked. Anya folded her arms.
"Maybe," she said. Buffy gave her a look. "All right, yes. I went to his apartment. He's there now, with Willow."
"With Willow?" Buffy asked.
"She's alive?" said Dawn.
"Yeah, and Xander's the one who stopped her," Anya said, despite herself. She frowned. "Well, Giles gave Willow all that magic, which meant that she wasn't quite so evil- I mean, she was pretty evil, and when he gave her the magic, *that's* when she decided to end the world, but the magic also meant that Xander could talk to her." Anya frowned. "So Giles also stopped her, after he, you know, started her."
Not all of that made sense, but Buffy was happy to let the rest by explained once she had seen Giles.
"Does Xander need help?" she asked, reluctantly. Anya shook her head.
"Not right now. Willow's asleep. I wanted him to go to the ER, but he said no. Several times."
"Thanks, Anya," Buffy said, and the three of them exchanged awkward, `there's lots of things we need to discuss but right now we're all still alive and that's a good' smiles. Buffy turned to Dawn. "Let's go see Giles."
Giles woke up, again in a hospital room and for a moment, again he still couldn't think how he got there. Then an anxious, blurred face surrounded by blonde hair swam into focus above him and he remembered. He squinted up at the face and smiled.
"Anya?"
"No, it's Buffy," the blonde head replied softly.
"Damn," Giles said. "Wrong again."
A soft hand brushed back the hair above his forehead. Giles kept his eyes open, steady, resisting the temptation to lean towards the shape of the woman above him. "Where's Dawn?" he asked.
"Here," she said, her dark head appearing behind Buffy's. Giles smiled at it.
"Sorry," he said. He waved at his eyes. "Can't see very well. My glasses are a little, um, overseas."
"You saw okay earlier," Buffy said, her hand still smoothing back his hair. Giles nodded, slightly, not wanting his movement to stop hers.
"One of the benefits of that kind of power," he said. Buffy nodded. He wished he could see more of her face, her expression. He reached up his hand impulsively and took hers.
He smiled up at her, then tried to smooth his face; the fuzziness of his vision was making him forget that hers was still sharp, that she would be able to see the simple gladness that he felt. It was lifting the censoring mask he usually kept over his face.
"Willow's all right, you know," he said. "She's not dead, or. gone."
She nodded. "I know. We bumped into Anya on the way over here. Apparently Xander saved her?"
"He did," Giles confirmed, eyes turning inwards as he remembered witnessing the confrontation; witnessing everything, the conversation between Buffy and Willow, the fight in the ground, those two boys running hard away from Sunnydale. "It was quite a night."
Dawn snorted. "That's not an understatement," she said as Buffy and Giles looked at her. "That's something. more than that."
Buffy's head turned back towards him. "You should get more rest," she said. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay. We all thought you were."
He met her eyes as steadily as he could. "Yes," he said. Buffy stood up.
"I'll come back later," she said. Dawn rose as well. "Get some sleep." She hesitated, then turned and strode out.
"How is she?" Buffy asked as Xander let them in.
"You look really bad," Dawn said, following Buffy in.
"She's sleeping, and thank you," Xander said, giving Dawn a short sarcastic bow. One that was cut short with a sudden intake of breath.
Buffy went over to Xander's bedroom and peeked in. Willow lay on his bed, on top of the covers, curled up into a tight ball. Buffy shut the door.
"Her hair's red."
Xander smiled briefly, sitting stiffly at the table. "Magic hair dye? Scary, but fades after just one apocalypse," he said. Buffy smiled, then went to sit opposite him, taking in the bruises and the tiredness beneath Xander's usual humour.
"You saved the world," she said softly.
"Just call me Crayon Man," Xander replied. Buffy frowned.
"Huh? Did she knock you on the head a little too much?"
"Nothing," he replied, waving a hand. "I've got a little work to do on the name."
"You saved the world," Dawn repeated, looking at Xander in the way she used to before she started hanging around with Spike.
"How's Giles?" Xander asked.
"All right," Buffy said. He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
"You know, on the way back from the cliff, Willow was babbling about killing him, and I didn't know what to believe, cos I didn't even know if he was really here and she was saying all kindsa weird stuff. But then Anya showed up and."
"She's really pleased you saved everything," Dawn said, as Xander trailed away. "Really."
"Thanks," Xander said shortly, and there was a long silence.
Part 3
Yet more blonde hair filled his vision when he opened his eyes again. Giles didn't even like to take a guess. He squinted up at the shape beside his bed.
"It's me," Buffy's voice said quietly.
"How long have you been there?" he asked.
"Not long. Dawn and I went to Xander's. She's still there, with him and. and Willow."
"How are they all?"
"Dawn's okay. Xander should probably be in the bed next door, but he keeps refusing," Buffy said, shifting in her chair. "Willow passed out as soon as Xander got back to the apartment. She hasn't woken since."
"It's a natural defence," Giles said. He shifted slightly, trying to sit up. "When the mind can't cope with reality."
Buffy was quiet. More than ever, Giles wished for his glasses, so that he could see what was going on in her mind. Usually he could see much better than this without them, but tiredness and the numbed pain in his body was making every part of him weaker than usual. He narrowed his eyes and peered up at her.
Her face grew bigger as she leant towards him, and as if she had read his mind, she leant down until her features resolved into focus, her eyes watching his face.
"Better?" she said. Her hand rested on the bed by his side. Giles looked at her. Countless times over the previous night he had been knocked breathless, but never in his life like this. He reached up and touched her face with a slightly trembling hand, brushing a hair away as a pretext. His eyes drank in every detail of the face he loved, the eyes he had missed for so long. He tasted a hundred endearments suddenly on his tongue.
"Buffy," he said, softly, instead. She looked at him for a second longer, then her head dropped down, suddenly, against his chest, her hand scrunching up in his shirt. "Buffy?" he said again, more uncertainly.
"I thought you were dead," she sobbed, hand tightening on his chest, tugging hair beneath as well as shirt. He ran his hand over her hair, feeling softness. His heart felt unnecessarily loud again.
"I'm not," he said, wishing he could think of something less obvious.
"But you might have been," she said, voice muffled against his dampening chest. "And I really missed you."
"I missed you," he replied, voice rougher than he would have liked. He cleared his throat, and Buffy looked up with red eyes.
Their gaze held for a long, aching moment.
The door opened, and the nurse came back in.
"Good news, Mr Giles," she said, seeming oblivious to the storm cloud of tension she had just entered. "Your tests have come back, and everything seems okay."
Buffy had settled back into the chair beside the bed, wiping her eyes. Giles pulled himself up more.
"I knew they'd say that," he muttered. "I don't suppose you'll reconsider the necessity of my pernoctation?"
He saw a look passing between Buffy and the nurse.
"He's from England," Buffy said. Giles was in the process of glaring at her when a sudden movement behind the nurse distracted him.
Anya's form had suddenly appeared on the far side of the room, thankfully out of the nurse's sight.
"Ah, so, he's, he'll be okay then?" Buffy said, loudly, obviously trying to keep the nurse's attention in her direction. Giles watched in horror as Anya saw the nurse, took a step back, and mercifully vanished.
"There are a few precautions he should take, but." A second later, as Giles's mind was trying to catch up, Anya reappeared, and put something he couldn't see properly on the windowsill. She made frantic pointing gestures at the thing and then disappeared again. ". yeah, he'll be just fine."
"Oh," Buffy said, the relief in her voice not solely caused by the good news. "Okay."
"I'll just go and fetch the doctor, she'll explain everything," the nurse said, and left.
As soon and the door was safely closed, Buffy jumped up and went to pick up whatever Anya had left.
"That was close," Giles said, reaching to feel his heart thumping once again. "What did she leave?"
Buffy turned back to him.
"See for yourself," she said, handing the object over. "Literally." It was his spare pair of glasses, obviously salvaged from the Magic Box. They were a prescription behind, but a welcome sight. He slipped them on gladly and beamed at Buffy's clarified face. She smiled back.
"Better?"
Buffy sat in the waiting room, trying not to notice that it was the same one she sat in once, waiting for news about her mom. She was alone.
She took a breath and let it out slowly. She was alone, for the first time, properly, since the whole nightmare had begun. Even last night, Dawn had crawled into her bed a few minutes after they had said good night. She had been welcome. Now all Buffy had to do was sit and wait for Giles to be released, with no immediate occupation, no people to distract her, no place to get to.
It was a moment to take stock, except she only had the kind of stock that didn't bear taking. Well, apart from Giles, she amended. He was the only good thing she could think of at the moment. Willow was crazy, Xander was totally absorbed in looking after her, Anya was a demon and this last year, when she hadn't been dead, she had been neglecting Dawn. But Giles was back, and he was sorry he left, and he wasn't dead, so things weren't that bad.
She glared. She really didn't want to be thinking this. She didn't want to think at all, to curl up like Willow and sleep and cry it all away.
Willow was still in Xander's room. She had barely moved since he got her back, apparently. She wasn't eating and she could only stay together for a few minutes before something started her crying again, crying until she fell asleep. How could you talk to her? This was a whole new Willow, one Buffy couldn't even fight, one where everything she said felt useless. All she could do was thank God, or whoever, that Xander was there, and that he seemed to know what he was doing. She was grateful to him, but at the same time it felt a little weird; she was the slayer, the leader, and yet over at Xander's there was a whole important story going on where she was only a character, and not even a main one, not at the moment. Buffy sighed again. All she could do was stick to her own script.
As if conjured by her conclusions, Giles appeared at the end of the corridor, walking stiffly towards her, examining his discharge papers. He looked up and smiled at her, then frowned slightly, looking round.
"Xander's not here?" he said. Buffy stood up and glared.
"What, aren't I good enough?"
"No, it's, it's wonderful to see you, but it's quite a way back to your house, and after the medication they gave me, I'm not supposed to-"
"I'm driving Xander's car. It's an emergency," she added, seeing his look.
"Surely one near-death experience in a week is enough," Giles said, looking tired. Buffy pouted.
"Look, I'm the slayer. Rising to the occasion is my job. And if the occasion happens to be driving, then. plus I didn't crash on the way over."
She took his arm before he could say anything else and marched him gently towards the exit, trying not to notice how he leant on her slightly more than he would ever usually allow himself.
"Did Anya pop back again?" she asked as they walked towards the car. Giles nodded.
"Briefly, after you'd gone. She walked in through the door this time, thankfully," he said. "She updated me on Willow's condition."
"What do you think is gonna happen with her?" Buffy asked quietly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. Giles sighed.
"I don't know. I have a few ideas, but." He paused. "I want to make some enquiries before I confirm anything."
Buffy opened the car door and hovered as Giles lowered himself in, not wanting to hurt his pride by helping but wanting to stay close just in case. Her slayer hearing picked up a grunt as he sat. She crossed round to the driver's side.
They drove back to the house in silence. Buffy shot Giles a glance every now and then, wondering if he really was okay. He sat with his eyes on the road, seeming too tired to comment on her driving. Occasionally he let his head rest on the back on his chair and shut his eyes. Buffy watched his face as they waited at a set of lights, taking advantage of his closed eyes to study the healing cuts on his forehead and the tired marks around his mouth.
He was a changed man, coming back from England. Looking back, Buffy could see the change coming, could track it through his different behaviour over the years, but now she saw it with new eyes. Even among the spectacle of the apocalypse, Giles had seemed more together, calmer, more relaxed than she had ever known him. More comfortable with himself. It made her realise that there was so much more to the man with whom she had spent the last six years. Buffy pulled the car carefully into her road, surprised to realise that she wanted to learn more.
"I'll need to phone England," Giles said as he got out of the car. "The coven will want to know the details."
"Okay," Buffy said. She let them into the house and followed him in, still watching his back. Her discoveries would have to wait, though, until the storm of Willow's apocalypse had finally passed.
Part 4
Whatever her life becomes, whatever heights she reaches, whatever prizes are won, she knows who she is now. She can't even say it, although a voice somewhere inside her has been whispering terrible words ever since she fell to her knees on the cliff top, overwhelmed with who she had become.
Sometimes she can look at all this quite rationally. She can see the progression from good to arrogance; from good to evil. She can see the way in which it was all inevitable, that hubris demands justice, that justice demands penance.
She can see Tara in her mind without the world dissolving around her at the image. Sometimes she can look people in the eye.
But between these times, when she feels like it's night even during the heat of the day, she can hardly move without something overwhelming. Love, grief, guilt; somehow they become tangled in her mind, tangled into an overwhelming confusion of something she can't speak, can't get out of herself. At these times, she longs to be able to go back to her mother, to have her mom hold her and her father give her answers. But she's long since learnt that her mom loves a Willow so far from her own; that her father has answers for a world she left six years ago.
At bad moments, moments when she wishes she had swallowed the world with her grief, she wonders if Tara could have loved her. Because the person she was then was blind to the truth of the person she is now. At these bad moment, she wonders if they all still love her like they say. It seems as if it is all a huge hypocrisy of guilt and anger masked as abiding love. Because how can they. How can they still love her, not only after all she has done, but when she doesn't have even the smallest love for herself.
Buffy pushed the door open quietly and peeked in. Willow sat by the window, as usual, hands folded neatly in her lap, staring blankly out of the apartment. Buffy shut the door and turned back to the living room.
"How is she?" Giles asked in a low voice as she sat back down at Xander's glass dining table.
Buffy shrugged and gave him a look, feeling that no words could possibly come near. He nodded, eyes full of understanding.
She still had difficulty meeting Giles's gaze sometimes. And it seemed to follow her, worriedly, whenever she was in the room. She expected him to be angry whenever their eyes did meet; she almost wished he was. It was easier to face someone else's anger than your own.
Spike- now there was someone she really didn't want to think about, but he had told her, after she came back, that every night when she was dead he dreamed of saving her. At the moment, in the nights following the apocalypse, Buffy felt something of the same. Every night since it happened, she found herself going over the day when Giles came back. In her mind, she didn't leave him when Willow sent that fireball after Jonathan and the others; in her mind, when Anya told them that Giles was dying, she begged the demon to give him a message, one she couldn't quite frame. She clawed her way out of the ground and ran back to him. She left Dawn. She killed Willow. She stayed with Giles and Dawn, Xander, Jonathan and the other one all died.
Anything but the reality of what had happened. When Anya told them- when she said that- her mind had refused to accept that he might soon be dead. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism, designed to keep her going. It didn't feel like that. It felt like cowardice, it felt like she had abandoned him, again, when he needed her. Giles- his life had been so important, not just to her, but to the world. He had such wisdom, courage and strength, and yet just days ago he lay in a ruin, dying, with only a demon for company.
Buffy couldn't hide a shiver and her hand reached out convulsively to grasp at Giles's wrist as he loosely held a mug of tea. He looked up in surprise.
"Buffy?" he asked. She could feel his blood pulsing comfortingly, warmly, through his wrist.
"I'm glad you're here," she said, unable to say anything else. He smiled at her, releasing the mug to grip her hand back. His fingers were warm.
"Thank you," he said softly, eyes searching hers. She looked back, looking for any trace of the blame she herself felt. There was none.
"I don't deserve you, you know," she said, trying to keep her hand steady in his.
"Nonsense," he said shortly, calmly, but his grip on her was just as fierce.
Willow watched from the bedroom door, her throat burning. She grabbed hold of the doorframe and hung on, feeling weak, feeling sick. In front of her, neither of them noticed, staring at each other as if they were the only people on earth. She remembered that feeling. She watched them for a long moment then moved back, closing the door again behind her.
The front door opened. Xander came in, followed by Dawn, who was talking in a low voice.
".The red one. But, I dunno, maybe the blue one would have suited her better, but she really liked the red, so I figured-"
"How was Janice?" Buffy asked in a low voice, standing up. Giles felt the warmth of her hand leaving his with an almost physical ache and hid it by curling his hand into a loose fist. Xander crossed the room quickly to check on Willow.
"Great," said Dawn. "She said I could stay over, but Xander said there was a meeting, so." She came and sat down at the table. "What's going on?"
Giles was silent. Buffy waited until Xander sat at the table before she started to speak.
"We need to talk about what happens next," she said.
"How was she?" Xander asked in a low voice, nodding towards the bedroom.
"Okay," Buffy replied. "We talked a bit. the weather, what she wanted to eat. Then Giles spoke to her for a while before she went back to sleep." Giles gave a grim smile, sitting forward at the table.
"Actually, I." he began. He cleared his throat. "I made a few suggestions, and Willow agreed to one," he said carefully. Xander sat up.
"Well, what?" he said.
"I could take her back to England with me," Giles said.
Buffy watched him, in shock. He had said he was going back to England, so calmly she couldn't believe it.
"The coven have said they will take her in for a while, to, er, assist her recovery. They have experience in these things." Giles sighed. "Frankly I think they are the only people who can truly help Willow at the moment, or at least, ensure she doesn't become a danger again."
Xander said something, but for the life of her, Buffy couldn't hear him. She was still staring at Giles. Would he be coming back? When would he be leaving? Suddenly his eyes met hers, his expression unreadable. Their gaze held until Dawn spoke.
"Rehab?"
"She can stay here until you go to England," Xander said. "That way she won't see much that'll upset her. After that."
"We'll think about after that after that," Buffy said briskly, standing up. "At least we know what's happening now."
She didn't think she had got her hopes up, but still, they must have been up. She could tell by the spectacular way they had plummeted as soon as Giles told them of his plan to go back to England. And yet he was still acting as if there was nothing wrong, talking normally as he drove the hire car back to Buffy's house, joking with Dawn.
Buffy thought she must have the thing totally wrong. But he had said he was sorry he had left, he said he missed her, and he certainly acted like he was pleased to be around her again, even despite all the worry that surrounded them. It had been nice, even just things like washing up, talking about stuff. Even talking to Willow, dealing with that had been easier with Giles around to talk to.
As soon as they got back to the house, Giles made another phone call to England. Buffy scowled as Dawn talked about some assignment she was supposed to do.
".So if I write it up, will you check it for me?" she asked. Buffy looked at her, realising she hadn't heard a word of what her sister had been saying, too busy trying to listen in on Giles's conversation in the hall to concentrate on her sister. Neglecting her again. She felt a guilty rush.
"Of course," she said. Dawn smiled and headed upstairs, obviously satisfied anyway. Buffy heard Giles hang up the phone and went through, following him into the living room.
"What is it?" she said as he sat on the sofa with a sigh. She sat beside him.
"Nothing. There's just a few things I need to sort out," he said, sounding distracted. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "We'll have to go back earlier than I thought."
"To England?" said Buffy, sitting up slightly. He nodded.
"Yes," he said. Buffy scowled and got up to pace the room. "Buffy?"
"Are you coming back?" she asked. "Why won't you talk about that?"
Giles looked down, pushing his hands into his pockets. "You didn't ask. I didn't think it was important."
"Imp-" Buffy sat down on top of her weapons chest. "Giles, you're my watcher. You're meant to be with me."
He was silent for a long moment. "I hardly deserve that title any more."
She stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You died, and-"
"Just because I died doesn't mean you stopped being my watcher," Buffy interrupted, not caring if that made sense. Giles glared.
"That's not what I was going to say. When you- last year, I couldn't save you, and I'm meant to lay down my life for yours. I'm meant to protect you, keep you alive. But I failed."
Buffy looked down at him for a moment, surprised that he was opening up like this, even though she had asked for it. "Giles, it's not your fault I died," she said softly. "It goes with the territory. Everyone was expecting it to happen sooner rather than later."
"That's not what I mean," Giles said, quietly but forcefully. "Being your watcher still means I should- I must protect you. But I wasn't given the chance. All I could do was stand there. You are the world's only hope, and yet you just let yourself-"
"What?" Buffy said, trying to stop herself from yelling. She stared at him, incredulous. "You're pissed that I died." He looked away. "You are, you're pissed at me for dying, I heard it in your voice. Well I'm sorry my death was so-"
"Yes, I am," Giles said, standing up suddenly. Buffy shut her mouth. "I hate it, but I am. I am in awe of the sacrifice you made, I understand why you did it, and, and I admire you for it, but I." He took a breath. Buffy noticed he was trembling. Shaking his head, Giles met her eyes. "You left me." His voice was bleak. "You died, and I."
"So you wanted me to know how it felt?" Buffy said, voice icy. "You left me back?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Giles snapped.
"Then why? Especially if you knew how it felt!"
"I wasn't dead this year, Buffy. Despite what you may think, England is not the afterlife!"
"Shut up!" Buffy yelled at him. "How could you? I've told you over and over, I don't know how to- I don't know who I am without you."
"`How could I?'" Giles repeated. He took a step towards her. "How could *you* do it, Buffy? You jumped! I had to bury you, mourn you, live without you. I had to pick up your dead body and carry it away from that fucking tower and I had to stay in this place while it haunted me with every memory I had of you."
She stared up at his face. She had never seen him life this; his expression, usually so calm, now torn up with grief and rage. He took a deep breath, obviously trying to steady himself.
"And it was no better in England," he continued. "Here, I couldn't move without something reminding me of you. Back there, it was as if you had never existed. The people, the places." He gave a short humourless laugh. "I kept finding myself searching through my things for proof you had been alive. I tried to move on, I tried to. but there was no point. My life ended with yours." He was calmer now, but it was a frightening calm, far from his usual reassuring state. He sat down heavily on the coffee table, clasping his hands, looking defeated, and worse- looking tired. "I can't do that again, Buffy. I'm sorry. I don't have the strength."
Buffy looked away, sitting back down. She had never let herself think about Giles's reaction to her death, but now she knew. She let herself picture him, his grief; it was easier now he had opened up to her. Then she shook her head and looked back at him.
"So you ran back to England," she said coldly. "You can't handle me dying? You should have picked another job. It's not like I wanted it to happen, any more that I wanted to come back and- do it again some time. I need you here," she said simply. "You." She paused, trying to sum it up, to tell him why she needed him there, but she failed. She just couldn't put it into words.
She changed the subject. "In the Magic Box, you said you were sorry you left."
He looked up. "I was. Before I left, I could see the path Willow had begun to take. I knew you were in pain, I knew Dawn was alone, but I knew you were leaning on me too much and I used that as an out, despite everything else that was going on. I should have waited until things were more settled, but I thought." He looked away again. "I regret that."
"You said you were sorry. You made it sound like you were staying," Buffy continued. He nodded.
"But I thought that- well. Things were different then," he replied, vaguely.
"But you're not staying," Buffy finished. He met her gaze.
"I don't think I can," he said.
The battle continued in their gaze, his pleading, hers fierce. Suddenly Dawn's voice cut through, calling down to Buffy.
She pushed herself up.
"Try harder," she said, and left the room.