Fic: Stalwart and True, 5&6/6
Aaand, here are the last two chapters.
Previous chapters (in case you can't scroll down)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
disclaimer with chapter 1.
Chapter Five
The minute the Scoobies returned to the Summers’ home, Dawn ran up the stairs to her room.
“Dawn…” Willow called after her.
“Let her go,” Buffy said as she set the book she was carrying down on the front hall table. “We have things to talk about anyways.”
The group headed into the kitchen, away from the mass of Potentials that were sleeping in the living room.
“I think we should send the body back to England to be buried,” Anya said thoughtfully. “I think he’d like that.”
“I didn’t mean talk about that.” Buffy sounded tired and exasperated.
“Too soon, Ahn,” Xander said gently.
Willow smiled kindly at Anya. “I think it’s a good idea, though.”
Anya nodded at Buffy. “You’re right. We need some time to cry and reminisce, and talk about how we’re all going to miss him.”
“No,” Buffy replied coldly. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do next.”
Anya blinked, puzzled. “I don’t understand. What’s to talk about? We cry and we mourn and we all feel horrible together, like when Joyce died, or when you died. Then we have a funeral and memorial, and then pretend that we’ve all moved on, when really we haven’t -”
“No, we’re not,” Buffy interrupted, more forcefully this time. “This is different.”
“Of course it’s different. This time it’s Giles.” Anya said matter-of-factly.
“No! We don’t have the luxury to grieve. We have a war to fight.”
The others gawked at Buffy’s pronouncement.
“You’re not serious.” Anya said, stunned and a little hurt. Buffy looked at her, steadily, challenging. Anya gathered herself up. “Fine,” she spat. “Fight your war.”
The ex-demon stormed out the back door. Buffy turned to address Willow and Xander, but the back door slammed open as Anya returned.
“If you need me, I’ll be out back, crying over my dead friend!”
Anya turned as she wiped tears from her eyes, and stalked off again.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Buffy spoke. When she did, she was all business.
“Right. So first thing we need to do is get all the information Giles was using to find the Potentials, and we need the books he had in his room too. The coroner is holding his stuff. I checked, and they aren’t releasing it to anyone except for family or someone with some kind of documentation. So Will,” Willow started at being addressed directly. “I need you to come up with documentation.”
Willow fidgeted. “Um, Buffy… I’m sure that once they get around to his will… he woulda left all the important stuff to us,” she said carefully.
“We can’t wait that long,” Buffy replied. “Besides, we can’t afford to make assumptions.”
Willow looked at Buffy, stunned, as well as somewhat horrified at the task that had been set for her.
Buffy went on. “Then we need to continue to gather the potentials. Xander,” she turned to her other friend, “can you do that?”
The corner of Xander’s mouth twitched up in a humourless smile. “Sure, Buff. Always knew you’d want me out of the way the first chance you got.”
Buffy sighed. “Don’t be immature. It’s an important job, someone has to do it, and I need Willow here.”
“Oh, I see. You just don’t need me.”
“Xander, I need you to do this.”
“Right, whatever.” Xander knew he was being childish, and had already had enough of the argument anyways. “I’ll find the supergirls for you. But right now, if you don’t need me, I’m going to go have a good mourn.” He turned to head out the back door.
“Wait,” Buffy took his arm to stop him. “We have to work this out.”
“No, you’ve got stuff to work out.” Xander’s angry tone quickly calmed to one of quiet disbelief. “I don’t know what your problem is, Buffy, but you’ve really taken the ‘human’ out of ‘superhuman’. The world won’t end if we take a night off to grieve.” Xander thought about this statement for a second. “Or maybe it will. But not tonight.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Xander cut her off. “Not tonight, Buffy.”
And with that he left.
Buffy turned to Willow, whose eyes were by now glistening with tears.
“I-I can’t do this right now,” Willow managed to stammer out before running up the stairs to her room, leaving Buffy alone.
Xander found Anya sitting on the stoop, looking out at the yard. She looked up briefly when he sat down next to her, and he saw that tears were streaming down her face.
They sat in silence together for only a minute or two before Anya felt compelled to speak.
“I tried to kill him the first time I met him, you know.”
“Yeah?” Xander’s voice was distant, his thoughts elsewhere.
Anya nodded. “He broke my amulet and made me human.”
Xander turned to face her. “I never knew that.”
“Neither did he.” She was pensive for a moment. “I still don’t know whether or not I would thank him for it.”
Xander turned his gaze back to the lawn. “Being human sucks,” he said plainly.
“He believed so much that this world had to be better.” Anya continued along her own train of thought. “I don’t know if it is anymore. Sure, you’re not some evil bad ass vampire, and there’s something to be said for that. But Buffy’s still all dark, and people are still dying, and there’s still this big looming evil. And in the end, he was still sad and alone. Only, I don’t know if he still believed that the world could be better.”
“He had to,” Xander replied without consideration. “That’s why we do this. Why we fight.”
“Then why did he give up?” Anya asked tentatively, her voice full of doubt.
“He didn’t. He couldn’t help it.”
“How do you know?”
“Giles would never give up as long as Buffy needed him,” Xander said with conviction, though he was becoming agitated.
Anya’s brow creased. “What if he thought she didn’t though? It would be easy to believe, the way she’s been acting.”
Xander turned towards her angrily. “Anya! Just -” He was cut short when Anya started weeping. His expression softened and he placed an arm around his erstwhile girlfriend’s shoulders and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Anya shook her head. “He’s never going to yell at me like that again,” she said between sobs. “Or glare at me when he thinks I’ve done something inappropriate because he’s all stuffy and English. And I won’t ever be able to interrupt him when he’s in the middle of one of his old books again, or hear him singing to himself when he thinks no one’s listening, or see him smile.” Xander rubbed her arm in a comforting manner, though his expression had become vacant and distant once again. “A-and that one time he kissed me -”
“What?” Xander’s head snapped up. “When was this?”
Anya sniffed as her tears subsided. “When we all forgot who we were, we thought we were engaged. And at the time it was really weird, because he was Giles, but in retrospect it was quite nice, and I wish I had told him that.”
“And normally I would be much more wigged by this information.” Xander sighed. “God damn…”
Anya continued as if uninterrupted. “And last year, when he was dying, I thought of all these things I wanted to tell him, but never did because I got all distracted when he said you saved the world -”
“He could tell?” Xander turned towards her again, surprised.
Anya shrugged. “It was part of his plan, to dose Willow with magic so you could get through to her.”
“Really?”
“He knew you would do it.”
Xander looked out at the lawn, thoughtful. “Huh.”
“Kind of a stupid plan, if you ask me. I told him that.”
Willow sat on her bed in the dimly lit master bedroom, hugging her knees and crying quietly. There was a soft knock on the door, and Willow turned to see Dawn slip in. Her cheeks were wet, but there were no fresh tears.
“Can I come in?”
Willow nodded, and Dawn climbed onto the bed next to her. The two girls hugged.
“Buffy’s not talking,” Dawn told her.
“This’ll be hardest on her,” Willow replied, unable to disguise the doubt in her voice.
“I guess.” Dawn stared at the pattern on the bedspread. “It’s not fair. We cared about him too.”
“But he was her Watcher.”
“I know,” Dawn said, grudgingly. She thought for a moment before saying, “I used to hate him for that. I used to think it was like, Buffy had this extra family that didn’t include me.”
“Oh, Dawnie…” Willow placed a comforting hand on the younger girl’s shoulder.
Dawn continued as though Willow wasn’t there. “And I guess it really didn’t, ‘cause I didn’t actually exist at the time.”
“You know he cared about you too.”
“I know,” Dawn answered lightly. “About all of us. But Buffy was his Slayer.” Dawn smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Willow studied her with concern. Dawn’s face soon became more pensive. “Do you think he’s where Buffy went, when she died?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“He’d come back for us, wouldn’t he? Or even just for Buffy?”
“Dawn…” Willow began, with a mixture of surprise, fear, and worry over what the girl might be planning.
“Or, is there a spell you could do so that he wouldn’t have to leave, but we could still talk to him?”
“What is it?” Willow demanded softly.
Dawn cast her eyes down. “I just wish I could talk to him one more time. E-especially about something the First said.”
“Dawn, you know all it does is lie,” Willow said soothingly.
Dawn looked up, questioningly. “Does it?”
Willow didn’t answer, wondering herself.
“I’d just like to talk to him again,” Dawn continued.
“I know. But he wouldn’t want me to even try.”
Dawn nodded and the two girls sat in silence for a while, huddled together on the bed, each immersed in her own thoughts.
“Willow?”
“Hm?”
“How far do you think he would have gone?” Dawn asked, in a distant tone that suggested her thoughts were still elsewhere. “To protect Buffy? Like, if it was one of us who threatened her?”
“I think we know.”
Dawn glanced up, puzzled, before she realized that she had been so wrapped up in her thoughts on the battle with Glory that she had forgotten all about what happened with Willow the year before. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“He would have sacrificed himself,” Willow continued. “And… maybe he did…”
Dawn regarded her friend with sympathy. “Don’t feel guilty. He wouldn’t want you to.”
“Maybe he would,” Willow speculated, tears welling up in her eyes. “Keep me from doing anything stupid and evil again.”
“He didn’t have to come back, you know,” Dawn said in a comforting tone. “One of the witches could have come for you instead. He did it because he cared about you.”
Willow glanced up at the girl with a teary half-smile. “That just makes it worse.”
Buffy had gone up to her room and was sitting on the floor by her bed. She stared into space, trying to think of practical things, trying to think of how angry Giles had made her, trying to think of nothing at all.
She wasn’t surprised when she heard his voice.
“I know what you’re thinking,” his voice came from the doorway, gentle, comforting. Buffy revealed no sign of having heard him. “If we hadn’t fought, if you hadn’t shut me out last night, you would have been able to help me in time. I would still be alive.” He approached her slowly. “And of course it’s completely possible that the fight itself caused the heart attack”
He was next to her now, but still Buffy didn’t turn in his direction.
“You’re thinking that you killed me last night.” She shut her eyes; herface remained blank and expressionless.
“But you must remember that I’ve been having health problems for a while. Ever since Angel tortured me, as a matter of fact. Then, being speared through the side by a Byzantine knight didn’t do me any favours. Nor did my confrontation with Willow last year, for that matter.
“I hope you don’t blame her, by the way,” he added lightly. “After all, the entire episode wouldn’t have taken place had Warren been dealt with in a more timely manner.” He let that statement hang in the air for a moment before continuing.
“At any rate, I suspect all the battering would not have had such an adverse effect if it hadn’t been for the constant stress. I don’t believe I ever told you; I developed something like insomnia that summer you ran away. I never did get over it entirely. Oh, it was cured by a good scotch or brandy - or, several, rather - although I can’t imagine that much alcohol was very good for the heart either. Perhaps if I had taken some time to relax with some friends, the effects would have been milder, but of course I left them all in England when I came here for you. Or maybe if I had a girlfriend, but… well, you know what happened with that,” he said ruefully.
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle and sincere. “Anyways, my point is simply that it is ridiculous for you to blame my death on that fight. You didn’t kill me last night, Buffy.
“You’ve been killing me for much longer than that.”
Buffy opened her eyes and turned to where the voice had been coming from.
No one was there.
Chapter Six
Buffy was crying, her first really good cry in a long time. She hated it and wanted it to stop, but she couldn’t help it. The tears just kept coming.
When it at last subsided, she decided to go to the washroom to wash her face. She placed her hands on the floor besides her to push herself up, and her right hand didn’t come to rest on the carpet, but on the book she had brought from Giles’ hotel room - his diary. She thought she had left it in the hall, but she must have brought it upstairs with her without realizing it. She opened it and started reading, then stopped, feeling suddenly intrusive. Yet she didn’t want to put the book down. She flipped through the pages, wanting to read, but feeling it would be somehow wrong. When she neared the end, her eye was caught by her name at the top of a page. The entry, the last in the diary, was addressed to her, like a letter…
Buffy,
There is much that I need to tell you that I will never have the opportunity to. Hence, I am writing it down.
If you are reading this and I am not dead, then you are being incredibly nosy, and should stop immediately. Otherwise - well, I fear my time is limited, so I’ll get right to what I want to say, and I ask that if ever you have listened to me, you do so now.
We have both changed a great deal over the years. Perhaps that is an understatement. At any rate, despite our recent disagreement, I am proud of how much you have changed, how much you have grown and achieved. Yet it also worries me. The developments have not been all for the good, in either of us. In my case it is much too late for me to change course again, although I dearly wish I could. Your case is different…
When Buffy finished, she sat, she didn’t know for how long, thinking about what she had read. She continued to hold the book in her lap, not wanting to let go of it.
Suddenly, she heard a scream.
The first thing Xander thought when the demon blundered into the back yard was that it was a dinosaur - a strange mash-up of an eight-foot tall veloceraptor, with spikes and horns covering its face and running down its back to the end of its lethal stegosaurus tail. And it had an extra set of equally deadly clawed arms. Xander would have thought that it was kind of cool, but then it charged at him and Anya.
Xander and Anya ran to opposite sides of the yard as the demon plowed into the porch. Recovering faster than it took to change its momentum, the demon turned its attention to each of its prey before seeming to decide that the girl was the easier target. Anya dodged as it swung its claws at her.
The monster was taken off-guard when Xander struck it across the back of its spiny head with a large fallen branch. It spun around to face its attacker, and the non-spiky side of its tail knocked Anya off her feet and slammed into Xander, sending him flying across the yard and into the trunk of the tree that stood next to the porch, just as Willow and Dawn ran out of the house to see what was going on.
Acting impulsively, Willow set off a small explosion of energy near the demon. She succeeded in alarming it, but the demon responded by charging at the two girls. It slashed Willow across the arm, sending her sprawling on her side, and towered over Dawn, mouth opened wide, double rows of teeth gleaming in the porchlight.
Dawn screamed.
…When you first arrived in Sunnydale, you were far from what an ideal Slayer is supposed to be, as I’m sure I told you often enough. You were filled with so much more life and care for others than one would expect. At first I thought those qualities, particularly your attachment to your friends and family, were a mere peculiarity, which, though admirable, was mainly inconvenient. Of course, like so many other things, I was wrong about that…
The demon lowered its head towards Dawn.
Suddenly, it reared back, howling in pain. It staggered backwards, revealing Buffy standing behind it, battle-axe in one hand, bloodied sword in the other. The demon stumbled, crashing through the railing and onto the ground. Buffy leapt after it, swinging at it with both weapons. She didn’t pay attention to its thrashing tail until it had knocked her feet out from under her, and she was flat on her back, the demon snarling over her.
…You have a great capacity, Buffy, for caring, and for friendship, and for love. That has given you relationships that are of more benefit to you than any amount of training or study could be to any Slayer. That has always been your strength…
As Buffy shook the stars from before her eyes, she saw that the demon had turned its attention away from her, and was snapping at another figure.
Anya was swinging a branch at the beast with all her strength, while trying to keep out of the way of its teeth, claws and tail. The demon threatened her more than she threatened it, but Anya didn’t drop the branch or run away.
Buffy sprang to her feet and attacked the monster again, giving Anya a chance to retreat. The demon’s four arms made it difficult for Buffy to get in a clear hit to its body, and its swinging tail forced her to keep jumping away from it. She simply couldn’t deal with all of the demon at the same time.
At the edge of her vision, Buffy saw Xander getting to his feet, dismay clear on his face as he watched the ongoing battle.
“Xander!” she called, and tossed the axe to him, which he caught deftly. “This thing would be easier to kill if I only had to worry about one end!”
Xander nodded.
He approached the demon from behind, carefully staying out of its line of sight, while Buffy kept it occupied. Xander raised the axe above his head and brought it down in a swift, smooth arc, separating the demon from its tail with a sickening thunk.
The demon screeched in agony. It reeled around to strike at Xander, but without its tail it became unbalanced, and toppled over onto its back. Buffy sprang at it, sword raised. Just as she was about to plunge her weapon into the demon’s gut, she was caught on the knee by one of its flailing claws. She staggered away from the beast, clutching her bleeding knee and grimacing in pain.
Willow’s voice sounded from the porch. “Subsisto totus tractus!”
As if it was an image from a video and someone had pressed the “pause” button, the demon froze.
Buffy limped toward the demon, raised her sword, and drove it through the demon’s throat. It shuddered as the spell was broken, then went limp.
Buffy stood still for a long moment, catching her breath, before turning towards the house to face her friends. No one spoke, or even moved.
…You may be thinking that I’m telling you nothing you don’t already know, and if that is the case I have nothing to worry about. You will certainly be stronger than any evil you have to face. However, I fear that the burden of your duty has finally led you to cut yourself off from those around you. Perhaps it is because I currently view things through my own isolation that I feel this way. In any case, please don’t do as I did and force yourself to go through this ordeal alone. I couldn’t bear to see that…
Finally, Dawn stepped forward, walking slowly until she stood in front of Buffy. Their eyes met, and the two sisters threw their arms around each other.
Xander and Anya helped Willow to her feet. The three of them turned to the sisters, who were now approaching the porch.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly.
Her friends nodded in acknowledgement, understanding the apologetic look in her eyes.
“Your arm -” Buffy gestured towards Willow’s wound. “Are you going to be okay?”
Willow gave a half-hearted smile and nodded. “It’s nothing I can’t heal myself. I’ll live.”
Her statement hung in the air. An uncomfortable silence stretched out before Xander spoke.
“So, uh, what do we do with that thing?”
The five of them turned towards the demon’s corpse.
“Bury it, I guess,” Buffy said non-committally. “What is it, anyways?”
Xander shrugged. “Never found out.”
“Well, what’s it after? I mean, why’d it come here?” Buffy looked around at her friends, but none of them had the answer. They just shrugged and shook their heads. Again, the silence weighed heavily among them.
…And I will see what happens, no matter what. As you know full well, death does not mean one disappears forever…
“Well, we’ll deal with it in the morning,” Buffy sighed. “We’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”
“No,” Dawn said, in a near-whisper. Buffy turned to face her. “We’re not. We’re never safe anymore.”
Her sister gazed at her sympathetically, and spoke in a comforting tone. “It’s okay Dawn. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but we’ll be okay.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do.”
“Your lying.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a statement, filled with hurt and disappointment.
Buffy blinked and gave Dawn a weak smile. “Maybe I am.” The look in her eyes pleaded with her sister to believe her anyways.
“Don’t. Please.”
What there was of a smile quickly faded from Buffy’s face. Her eyes dropped to the ground. “It’s only going to get harder, Dawn,” she said apologetically, then paused, as if remembering something. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and distant. “Heroes are never as strong as they’re supposed to be. We can’t always tell who it is we’re supposed to be fighting. And we lose far too many battles. Our friends die.” She paused briefly, taking a shuddering breath. “And at the end of the day, there is no happy ending waiting for us.” Her brow furrowed. “But… that’s not the important thing…” She looked up at Dawn, her eyes glistening and sincere. “What matters is that you have people who love you and believe in you so much that you forget all that, so much that you start to think that you can do anything, no matter how bad things are. And then you really can.” Buffy looked around at her friends. “You guys…” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You guys mean everything to me.” She sniffed and tried to blink back her tears, but couldn’t. “I don’t want to lose anyone else...”
Xander and Willow went to Buffy and held her as she cried, Anya and Dawn standing nearby.
When they broke apart, Buffy was still sniffling. She took a deep breath. “I swear, we are going to beat this thing. We’re going to win. And we’re going to be together when we do.”
None of them could help but smile at Buffy’s pronouncement, heartened despite their sadness.
Dawn appeared pensive. “For now,” she said carefully, and kindly, “why don’t we focus on making it through tomorrow?” The friends turned towards the younger girl. “I think that’s probably what Giles would say.”
…This is only goodbye for now. I will always be watching over you.
Buffy smiled sadly at her sister. “That sounds about right.”
The five of them went back into the house together.
Yours,
Giles
x x x
Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Liar
THE END
xxx
So, that's the story.
I wrote commentary for this story as well, which can be read on my website, here. Y'know, just in case anyone is interested in how I come up with this stuff.
Previous chapters (in case you can't scroll down)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
disclaimer with chapter 1.
Chapter Five
The minute the Scoobies returned to the Summers’ home, Dawn ran up the stairs to her room.
“Dawn…” Willow called after her.
“Let her go,” Buffy said as she set the book she was carrying down on the front hall table. “We have things to talk about anyways.”
The group headed into the kitchen, away from the mass of Potentials that were sleeping in the living room.
“I think we should send the body back to England to be buried,” Anya said thoughtfully. “I think he’d like that.”
“I didn’t mean talk about that.” Buffy sounded tired and exasperated.
“Too soon, Ahn,” Xander said gently.
Willow smiled kindly at Anya. “I think it’s a good idea, though.”
Anya nodded at Buffy. “You’re right. We need some time to cry and reminisce, and talk about how we’re all going to miss him.”
“No,” Buffy replied coldly. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do next.”
Anya blinked, puzzled. “I don’t understand. What’s to talk about? We cry and we mourn and we all feel horrible together, like when Joyce died, or when you died. Then we have a funeral and memorial, and then pretend that we’ve all moved on, when really we haven’t -”
“No, we’re not,” Buffy interrupted, more forcefully this time. “This is different.”
“Of course it’s different. This time it’s Giles.” Anya said matter-of-factly.
“No! We don’t have the luxury to grieve. We have a war to fight.”
The others gawked at Buffy’s pronouncement.
“You’re not serious.” Anya said, stunned and a little hurt. Buffy looked at her, steadily, challenging. Anya gathered herself up. “Fine,” she spat. “Fight your war.”
The ex-demon stormed out the back door. Buffy turned to address Willow and Xander, but the back door slammed open as Anya returned.
“If you need me, I’ll be out back, crying over my dead friend!”
Anya turned as she wiped tears from her eyes, and stalked off again.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Buffy spoke. When she did, she was all business.
“Right. So first thing we need to do is get all the information Giles was using to find the Potentials, and we need the books he had in his room too. The coroner is holding his stuff. I checked, and they aren’t releasing it to anyone except for family or someone with some kind of documentation. So Will,” Willow started at being addressed directly. “I need you to come up with documentation.”
Willow fidgeted. “Um, Buffy… I’m sure that once they get around to his will… he woulda left all the important stuff to us,” she said carefully.
“We can’t wait that long,” Buffy replied. “Besides, we can’t afford to make assumptions.”
Willow looked at Buffy, stunned, as well as somewhat horrified at the task that had been set for her.
Buffy went on. “Then we need to continue to gather the potentials. Xander,” she turned to her other friend, “can you do that?”
The corner of Xander’s mouth twitched up in a humourless smile. “Sure, Buff. Always knew you’d want me out of the way the first chance you got.”
Buffy sighed. “Don’t be immature. It’s an important job, someone has to do it, and I need Willow here.”
“Oh, I see. You just don’t need me.”
“Xander, I need you to do this.”
“Right, whatever.” Xander knew he was being childish, and had already had enough of the argument anyways. “I’ll find the supergirls for you. But right now, if you don’t need me, I’m going to go have a good mourn.” He turned to head out the back door.
“Wait,” Buffy took his arm to stop him. “We have to work this out.”
“No, you’ve got stuff to work out.” Xander’s angry tone quickly calmed to one of quiet disbelief. “I don’t know what your problem is, Buffy, but you’ve really taken the ‘human’ out of ‘superhuman’. The world won’t end if we take a night off to grieve.” Xander thought about this statement for a second. “Or maybe it will. But not tonight.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but Xander cut her off. “Not tonight, Buffy.”
And with that he left.
Buffy turned to Willow, whose eyes were by now glistening with tears.
“I-I can’t do this right now,” Willow managed to stammer out before running up the stairs to her room, leaving Buffy alone.
Xander found Anya sitting on the stoop, looking out at the yard. She looked up briefly when he sat down next to her, and he saw that tears were streaming down her face.
They sat in silence together for only a minute or two before Anya felt compelled to speak.
“I tried to kill him the first time I met him, you know.”
“Yeah?” Xander’s voice was distant, his thoughts elsewhere.
Anya nodded. “He broke my amulet and made me human.”
Xander turned to face her. “I never knew that.”
“Neither did he.” She was pensive for a moment. “I still don’t know whether or not I would thank him for it.”
Xander turned his gaze back to the lawn. “Being human sucks,” he said plainly.
“He believed so much that this world had to be better.” Anya continued along her own train of thought. “I don’t know if it is anymore. Sure, you’re not some evil bad ass vampire, and there’s something to be said for that. But Buffy’s still all dark, and people are still dying, and there’s still this big looming evil. And in the end, he was still sad and alone. Only, I don’t know if he still believed that the world could be better.”
“He had to,” Xander replied without consideration. “That’s why we do this. Why we fight.”
“Then why did he give up?” Anya asked tentatively, her voice full of doubt.
“He didn’t. He couldn’t help it.”
“How do you know?”
“Giles would never give up as long as Buffy needed him,” Xander said with conviction, though he was becoming agitated.
Anya’s brow creased. “What if he thought she didn’t though? It would be easy to believe, the way she’s been acting.”
Xander turned towards her angrily. “Anya! Just -” He was cut short when Anya started weeping. His expression softened and he placed an arm around his erstwhile girlfriend’s shoulders and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Anya shook her head. “He’s never going to yell at me like that again,” she said between sobs. “Or glare at me when he thinks I’ve done something inappropriate because he’s all stuffy and English. And I won’t ever be able to interrupt him when he’s in the middle of one of his old books again, or hear him singing to himself when he thinks no one’s listening, or see him smile.” Xander rubbed her arm in a comforting manner, though his expression had become vacant and distant once again. “A-and that one time he kissed me -”
“What?” Xander’s head snapped up. “When was this?”
Anya sniffed as her tears subsided. “When we all forgot who we were, we thought we were engaged. And at the time it was really weird, because he was Giles, but in retrospect it was quite nice, and I wish I had told him that.”
“And normally I would be much more wigged by this information.” Xander sighed. “God damn…”
Anya continued as if uninterrupted. “And last year, when he was dying, I thought of all these things I wanted to tell him, but never did because I got all distracted when he said you saved the world -”
“He could tell?” Xander turned towards her again, surprised.
Anya shrugged. “It was part of his plan, to dose Willow with magic so you could get through to her.”
“Really?”
“He knew you would do it.”
Xander looked out at the lawn, thoughtful. “Huh.”
“Kind of a stupid plan, if you ask me. I told him that.”
Willow sat on her bed in the dimly lit master bedroom, hugging her knees and crying quietly. There was a soft knock on the door, and Willow turned to see Dawn slip in. Her cheeks were wet, but there were no fresh tears.
“Can I come in?”
Willow nodded, and Dawn climbed onto the bed next to her. The two girls hugged.
“Buffy’s not talking,” Dawn told her.
“This’ll be hardest on her,” Willow replied, unable to disguise the doubt in her voice.
“I guess.” Dawn stared at the pattern on the bedspread. “It’s not fair. We cared about him too.”
“But he was her Watcher.”
“I know,” Dawn said, grudgingly. She thought for a moment before saying, “I used to hate him for that. I used to think it was like, Buffy had this extra family that didn’t include me.”
“Oh, Dawnie…” Willow placed a comforting hand on the younger girl’s shoulder.
Dawn continued as though Willow wasn’t there. “And I guess it really didn’t, ‘cause I didn’t actually exist at the time.”
“You know he cared about you too.”
“I know,” Dawn answered lightly. “About all of us. But Buffy was his Slayer.” Dawn smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Willow studied her with concern. Dawn’s face soon became more pensive. “Do you think he’s where Buffy went, when she died?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“He’d come back for us, wouldn’t he? Or even just for Buffy?”
“Dawn…” Willow began, with a mixture of surprise, fear, and worry over what the girl might be planning.
“Or, is there a spell you could do so that he wouldn’t have to leave, but we could still talk to him?”
“What is it?” Willow demanded softly.
Dawn cast her eyes down. “I just wish I could talk to him one more time. E-especially about something the First said.”
“Dawn, you know all it does is lie,” Willow said soothingly.
Dawn looked up, questioningly. “Does it?”
Willow didn’t answer, wondering herself.
“I’d just like to talk to him again,” Dawn continued.
“I know. But he wouldn’t want me to even try.”
Dawn nodded and the two girls sat in silence for a while, huddled together on the bed, each immersed in her own thoughts.
“Willow?”
“Hm?”
“How far do you think he would have gone?” Dawn asked, in a distant tone that suggested her thoughts were still elsewhere. “To protect Buffy? Like, if it was one of us who threatened her?”
“I think we know.”
Dawn glanced up, puzzled, before she realized that she had been so wrapped up in her thoughts on the battle with Glory that she had forgotten all about what happened with Willow the year before. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“He would have sacrificed himself,” Willow continued. “And… maybe he did…”
Dawn regarded her friend with sympathy. “Don’t feel guilty. He wouldn’t want you to.”
“Maybe he would,” Willow speculated, tears welling up in her eyes. “Keep me from doing anything stupid and evil again.”
“He didn’t have to come back, you know,” Dawn said in a comforting tone. “One of the witches could have come for you instead. He did it because he cared about you.”
Willow glanced up at the girl with a teary half-smile. “That just makes it worse.”
Buffy had gone up to her room and was sitting on the floor by her bed. She stared into space, trying to think of practical things, trying to think of how angry Giles had made her, trying to think of nothing at all.
She wasn’t surprised when she heard his voice.
“I know what you’re thinking,” his voice came from the doorway, gentle, comforting. Buffy revealed no sign of having heard him. “If we hadn’t fought, if you hadn’t shut me out last night, you would have been able to help me in time. I would still be alive.” He approached her slowly. “And of course it’s completely possible that the fight itself caused the heart attack”
He was next to her now, but still Buffy didn’t turn in his direction.
“You’re thinking that you killed me last night.” She shut her eyes; herface remained blank and expressionless.
“But you must remember that I’ve been having health problems for a while. Ever since Angel tortured me, as a matter of fact. Then, being speared through the side by a Byzantine knight didn’t do me any favours. Nor did my confrontation with Willow last year, for that matter.
“I hope you don’t blame her, by the way,” he added lightly. “After all, the entire episode wouldn’t have taken place had Warren been dealt with in a more timely manner.” He let that statement hang in the air for a moment before continuing.
“At any rate, I suspect all the battering would not have had such an adverse effect if it hadn’t been for the constant stress. I don’t believe I ever told you; I developed something like insomnia that summer you ran away. I never did get over it entirely. Oh, it was cured by a good scotch or brandy - or, several, rather - although I can’t imagine that much alcohol was very good for the heart either. Perhaps if I had taken some time to relax with some friends, the effects would have been milder, but of course I left them all in England when I came here for you. Or maybe if I had a girlfriend, but… well, you know what happened with that,” he said ruefully.
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle and sincere. “Anyways, my point is simply that it is ridiculous for you to blame my death on that fight. You didn’t kill me last night, Buffy.
“You’ve been killing me for much longer than that.”
Buffy opened her eyes and turned to where the voice had been coming from.
No one was there.
Chapter Six
Buffy was crying, her first really good cry in a long time. She hated it and wanted it to stop, but she couldn’t help it. The tears just kept coming.
When it at last subsided, she decided to go to the washroom to wash her face. She placed her hands on the floor besides her to push herself up, and her right hand didn’t come to rest on the carpet, but on the book she had brought from Giles’ hotel room - his diary. She thought she had left it in the hall, but she must have brought it upstairs with her without realizing it. She opened it and started reading, then stopped, feeling suddenly intrusive. Yet she didn’t want to put the book down. She flipped through the pages, wanting to read, but feeling it would be somehow wrong. When she neared the end, her eye was caught by her name at the top of a page. The entry, the last in the diary, was addressed to her, like a letter…
Buffy,
There is much that I need to tell you that I will never have the opportunity to. Hence, I am writing it down.
If you are reading this and I am not dead, then you are being incredibly nosy, and should stop immediately. Otherwise - well, I fear my time is limited, so I’ll get right to what I want to say, and I ask that if ever you have listened to me, you do so now.
We have both changed a great deal over the years. Perhaps that is an understatement. At any rate, despite our recent disagreement, I am proud of how much you have changed, how much you have grown and achieved. Yet it also worries me. The developments have not been all for the good, in either of us. In my case it is much too late for me to change course again, although I dearly wish I could. Your case is different…
When Buffy finished, she sat, she didn’t know for how long, thinking about what she had read. She continued to hold the book in her lap, not wanting to let go of it.
Suddenly, she heard a scream.
The first thing Xander thought when the demon blundered into the back yard was that it was a dinosaur - a strange mash-up of an eight-foot tall veloceraptor, with spikes and horns covering its face and running down its back to the end of its lethal stegosaurus tail. And it had an extra set of equally deadly clawed arms. Xander would have thought that it was kind of cool, but then it charged at him and Anya.
Xander and Anya ran to opposite sides of the yard as the demon plowed into the porch. Recovering faster than it took to change its momentum, the demon turned its attention to each of its prey before seeming to decide that the girl was the easier target. Anya dodged as it swung its claws at her.
The monster was taken off-guard when Xander struck it across the back of its spiny head with a large fallen branch. It spun around to face its attacker, and the non-spiky side of its tail knocked Anya off her feet and slammed into Xander, sending him flying across the yard and into the trunk of the tree that stood next to the porch, just as Willow and Dawn ran out of the house to see what was going on.
Acting impulsively, Willow set off a small explosion of energy near the demon. She succeeded in alarming it, but the demon responded by charging at the two girls. It slashed Willow across the arm, sending her sprawling on her side, and towered over Dawn, mouth opened wide, double rows of teeth gleaming in the porchlight.
Dawn screamed.
…When you first arrived in Sunnydale, you were far from what an ideal Slayer is supposed to be, as I’m sure I told you often enough. You were filled with so much more life and care for others than one would expect. At first I thought those qualities, particularly your attachment to your friends and family, were a mere peculiarity, which, though admirable, was mainly inconvenient. Of course, like so many other things, I was wrong about that…
The demon lowered its head towards Dawn.
Suddenly, it reared back, howling in pain. It staggered backwards, revealing Buffy standing behind it, battle-axe in one hand, bloodied sword in the other. The demon stumbled, crashing through the railing and onto the ground. Buffy leapt after it, swinging at it with both weapons. She didn’t pay attention to its thrashing tail until it had knocked her feet out from under her, and she was flat on her back, the demon snarling over her.
…You have a great capacity, Buffy, for caring, and for friendship, and for love. That has given you relationships that are of more benefit to you than any amount of training or study could be to any Slayer. That has always been your strength…
As Buffy shook the stars from before her eyes, she saw that the demon had turned its attention away from her, and was snapping at another figure.
Anya was swinging a branch at the beast with all her strength, while trying to keep out of the way of its teeth, claws and tail. The demon threatened her more than she threatened it, but Anya didn’t drop the branch or run away.
Buffy sprang to her feet and attacked the monster again, giving Anya a chance to retreat. The demon’s four arms made it difficult for Buffy to get in a clear hit to its body, and its swinging tail forced her to keep jumping away from it. She simply couldn’t deal with all of the demon at the same time.
At the edge of her vision, Buffy saw Xander getting to his feet, dismay clear on his face as he watched the ongoing battle.
“Xander!” she called, and tossed the axe to him, which he caught deftly. “This thing would be easier to kill if I only had to worry about one end!”
Xander nodded.
He approached the demon from behind, carefully staying out of its line of sight, while Buffy kept it occupied. Xander raised the axe above his head and brought it down in a swift, smooth arc, separating the demon from its tail with a sickening thunk.
The demon screeched in agony. It reeled around to strike at Xander, but without its tail it became unbalanced, and toppled over onto its back. Buffy sprang at it, sword raised. Just as she was about to plunge her weapon into the demon’s gut, she was caught on the knee by one of its flailing claws. She staggered away from the beast, clutching her bleeding knee and grimacing in pain.
Willow’s voice sounded from the porch. “Subsisto totus tractus!”
As if it was an image from a video and someone had pressed the “pause” button, the demon froze.
Buffy limped toward the demon, raised her sword, and drove it through the demon’s throat. It shuddered as the spell was broken, then went limp.
Buffy stood still for a long moment, catching her breath, before turning towards the house to face her friends. No one spoke, or even moved.
…You may be thinking that I’m telling you nothing you don’t already know, and if that is the case I have nothing to worry about. You will certainly be stronger than any evil you have to face. However, I fear that the burden of your duty has finally led you to cut yourself off from those around you. Perhaps it is because I currently view things through my own isolation that I feel this way. In any case, please don’t do as I did and force yourself to go through this ordeal alone. I couldn’t bear to see that…
Finally, Dawn stepped forward, walking slowly until she stood in front of Buffy. Their eyes met, and the two sisters threw their arms around each other.
Xander and Anya helped Willow to her feet. The three of them turned to the sisters, who were now approaching the porch.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly.
Her friends nodded in acknowledgement, understanding the apologetic look in her eyes.
“Your arm -” Buffy gestured towards Willow’s wound. “Are you going to be okay?”
Willow gave a half-hearted smile and nodded. “It’s nothing I can’t heal myself. I’ll live.”
Her statement hung in the air. An uncomfortable silence stretched out before Xander spoke.
“So, uh, what do we do with that thing?”
The five of them turned towards the demon’s corpse.
“Bury it, I guess,” Buffy said non-committally. “What is it, anyways?”
Xander shrugged. “Never found out.”
“Well, what’s it after? I mean, why’d it come here?” Buffy looked around at her friends, but none of them had the answer. They just shrugged and shook their heads. Again, the silence weighed heavily among them.
…And I will see what happens, no matter what. As you know full well, death does not mean one disappears forever…
“Well, we’ll deal with it in the morning,” Buffy sighed. “We’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”
“No,” Dawn said, in a near-whisper. Buffy turned to face her. “We’re not. We’re never safe anymore.”
Her sister gazed at her sympathetically, and spoke in a comforting tone. “It’s okay Dawn. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but we’ll be okay.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do.”
“Your lying.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a statement, filled with hurt and disappointment.
Buffy blinked and gave Dawn a weak smile. “Maybe I am.” The look in her eyes pleaded with her sister to believe her anyways.
“Don’t. Please.”
What there was of a smile quickly faded from Buffy’s face. Her eyes dropped to the ground. “It’s only going to get harder, Dawn,” she said apologetically, then paused, as if remembering something. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and distant. “Heroes are never as strong as they’re supposed to be. We can’t always tell who it is we’re supposed to be fighting. And we lose far too many battles. Our friends die.” She paused briefly, taking a shuddering breath. “And at the end of the day, there is no happy ending waiting for us.” Her brow furrowed. “But… that’s not the important thing…” She looked up at Dawn, her eyes glistening and sincere. “What matters is that you have people who love you and believe in you so much that you forget all that, so much that you start to think that you can do anything, no matter how bad things are. And then you really can.” Buffy looked around at her friends. “You guys…” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You guys mean everything to me.” She sniffed and tried to blink back her tears, but couldn’t. “I don’t want to lose anyone else...”
Xander and Willow went to Buffy and held her as she cried, Anya and Dawn standing nearby.
When they broke apart, Buffy was still sniffling. She took a deep breath. “I swear, we are going to beat this thing. We’re going to win. And we’re going to be together when we do.”
None of them could help but smile at Buffy’s pronouncement, heartened despite their sadness.
Dawn appeared pensive. “For now,” she said carefully, and kindly, “why don’t we focus on making it through tomorrow?” The friends turned towards the younger girl. “I think that’s probably what Giles would say.”
…This is only goodbye for now. I will always be watching over you.
Buffy smiled sadly at her sister. “That sounds about right.”
The five of them went back into the house together.
Yours,
Giles
x x x
Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Liar
THE END
xxx
So, that's the story.
I wrote commentary for this story as well, which can be read on my website, here. Y'know, just in case anyone is interested in how I come up with this stuff.