Fic: Finding Strength (1/1)
Title: Finding Strength
Author: littleotter73
Characters: Buffy/Giles
Rating: FRM
Word Count: Just under 3200 (Check it out! I wrote a short story!)
Summary: This is a missing scene to the episode Intervention (S05e18), where Giles takes Buffy into the desert for a vision quest. When she returns to where he is waiting for her, they must perform a ritual to transfer Giles’ Watcher status back from the spirit guide and reestablish the connection between them.
Beta: il_mio_capitano. Thanks!
Disclaimer: Just playing in the sandbox Joss built. Just for fun. Not profit.
A/N1: The first section of the story contains the complete dialogue between Buffy and the First Slayer (spirit guide) written by the extremely talented Jane Espenson, and my description of the interaction between them.
A/N2: I often write to music. Thought it might be fun to let others know the song that was (mostly) on repeat while I was writing. It’s called One More Time (feat. Malukah and Tina Guo) by R. Armando Morabito. Check it out.
Finding Strength
Buffy woke up to a roaring fire. Peering through the flames, she made out a form, hunched over and watching her from the distance. “I know you. You are the First Slayer.”
“This is a form. I am the guide,” she said in perfect English, this time without an interpreter.
“I-I have a few questions… about being the Slayer,” Buffy explained, wanting to clarify her reason for searching the guide out. “What about… love? N-not just boyfriend love.”
“You think that you are losing your ability to love.” It was a statement not a question, extremely blunt and it set the tone for the conversation.
“I-I didn’t say that,” she replied indignantly, upset at the First Slayer’s interpretation of her words before pausing and relenting the truth. “Yeah.”
“You’re afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.”
“Does it?” she asked, fearful of the answer.
“You are full of love. You love with all your soul. It’s brighter than the fire. Blinding! That’s why you pull away from it.”
“I’m full of love? I’m not losing it?”
“Only if you reject it. Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love. Give. Forgive. Risk the pain! It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.”
“What?” she cried incredulously, but there was no answer. Gazing through the flames of the bonfire at the first Slayer more than slightly bewildered, Buffy changed her tone and asked. “I-I’m sorry, I’m just a little confused. I-I’m full of love… which is nice and… love will lead me to my gift?”
“Yes.”
“I-I’m getting a gift? Or, or do you mean that I-I have a gift to give to someone else?”
“Death is your gift.”
She blinked in disbelief. “Death-“
“Is your gift.”
“Okay. No! Death is not a gift. My mother just died. I know this. If I have to kill demons because it makes the world a better place, then I kill demons, but it is not a gift to anybody.”
“Your question has been answered,” the First Slayer responded and faded away along with the fire.
Buffy looked around in confusion and frustration before realizing that her vision quest was over.
-----
As the evening wore on, it grew colder in the desert, and with no sign of Buffy’s return, Giles had built a fire to keep him warm and ward off any unwanted visitors. Looking up at the sound of heavy footfalls on the sand, he stood up and moved past the fire to see into the dark, fingering the torch he had in his pocket.
“Relax, it’s just me,” Buffy called in an irritated tone.
“Were you successful?” he asked as she came into view. “Did you have a vision?”
“I saw something,” she responded tersely. “Pack up. Let’s go.”
Giles watched her make her way to the car. He looked at the roaring campfire and then turned back towards her, his voice low, yet able to be heard in the still desert air. “Buffy, is everything all right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” she yelled, grabbing the door handle of the car.
“Okay, then we won’t until you are ready, but we can’t go until we perform the ritual to reestablish our bond,” he explained before looking down at his shoes and adding quietly, “That… that is, if you still want me to be your Watcher.”
Buffy turned around to see him hunched forward, his hands in his pockets, unsure of himself, and her anger and frustration melted away. It wasn’t his fault. He’d only tried to help her, bringing her to the desert in hope that she would find the answers she needed.
“Of course I still want you to be my Watcher,” she reassured him, her tone sincere as she made her way over to the warmth of the fire. Sitting down on the blanket he’d placed in the circle, she patted the space next to her in invitation. When he joined her, she looked up at him and said, “You’re my rock, Giles. I know I don’t say it often enough and I’m sorry for that. And recently…. well, without your help since Mom… I’d be lost.”
“I’m happy to help, you know that.” His voice was gentle and sincere and she took comfort in it.
“Yeah, I do,” she answered, her lips twitching into a small smile of appreciation. “Thank you. I know I’ve been searching for answers to the great Slayer mystery, and I know I’ve been off kilter for a while, but having you there to be my Watcher, my partner, and my friend, well… you keep me focused and help make me stronger.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and he moved to put his arm around her drawing her into his body. Despite the heat from the fire, the chill of the desert night surrounded them and he felt her shiver against his side.
“I’m here for you, Buffy,” he whispered as he squeezed her tighter.
She let out a sigh of resignation and, feeling safe within his arms, she asked, “I’m tired, Giles. Can we just stay here a while?”
“Of course.”
He knew she meant more than just a physical tired. She was emotionally wrung out. She’d been hit with so many emotional curveballs in so little time - the sudden appearance of Dawn, the ball of mystic energy disguised as her sister, the arrival of Glory, the seemingly invincible Hell goddess, Riley’s breakup and departure, the Council’s asinine tests, and finally her mother’s frightening illness and sudden death. And through it all, she still seemed to grow stronger everyday, but deep down, she was really struggling. He’d been a fool to suggest restarting their training regimen earlier. What she really needed was a break.
“Whatever you’re doing, just stop,” Buffy commanded, suddenly fidgeting in his embrace.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re tensing up. It makes you less comfy,” she grumbled. She knew that he was blaming himself for something. Giles always took on far too much guilt than he was responsible for.
“Sorry,” he replied, letting out a soft chuckle. He straightened his long legs, feeling the pins and needles from the lack of circulation after sitting so long in a tucked position, further breaking the intimacy between them.
Resigning to the fact that the moment had passed, Buffy sat up and asked, “So, how does this ritual go? More hokey pokey fun?”
Glaring at her over his glasses, he answered, “Actually, not until we are ready to step outside the circle. That was just a protection spell. I needed to ward myself and ensure that the transfer passed without interference,” he explained, reaching for the book that he had read from earlier after she started down the path on her journey. “There is an incantation you must recite, asking reinstate our connection as Slayer and Watcher. Then I respond with the answer. When we are ready to leave the circle, we both hold the gourd, shake it three times and jump out, lowering the wards. Afterwards, we need to clear the area and douse the fire.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“How’s your Swahili?” he asked dryly.
She responded with an amused huff, “It’s always something.”
“Always,” he agreed with an answering smile.
Giles opened the book to the page and shined the torch on the page that would transfer his Watcher status from the spirit guide back to him, helping Buffy with the pronunciation of the words as she read through them. She indicated when she felt ready, asking if they needed to do something special before they began.
Shifting to his knees, he faced her and, finding her eyes with his own, warned, “Don’t do this to spare my feelings if what you’ve learnt out there is that you have surpassed your need for a Watcher. It could go very, very wrong for both of us otherwise.”
She moved to her knees and took his hands in hers, maintaining eye contact and said, “Giles, we’re stronger together. I need you. I meant it when asked you to be my Watcher again several months ago and I ask you again now. Do you want this?”
He could see the sincerity in those dark green eyes and swallowed. He never again wanted to feel so lost, so abandoned, the way he had during her freshman year at college. Or worse yet, how he felt after he transferred his Watcher status to the guide.
“God, yes.”
There was a sudden flush of warmth that seemed to resonate through him and his eyes lit up in curiosity at the sensation.
“Oh my god!” Buffy declared, her eyes wide with wonder. “You felt that too, right?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, a note of bewilderment in his answer. “But we haven’t started the spell.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter what the language is, just the question,” she offered as an explanation.
“And the answer,” he supplied.
“How did you feel when you passed your Watcher status on to the guide?”
He looked away, as if the admission was painful. “Cold. Alone. Anxious for you.” At least last year when she was preoccupied with college and Riley and the Initiative, he still felt her presence in his life, faint though it was.
“How do you feel now?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that question. Because he hadn’t felt that whole in… perhaps never.
Clearing his throat, Giles suggested, “I-I think perhaps we should do the spell… from the book… j-just in case this is… something else.”
Buffy looked down at their hands. They were still joined. “Yeah.”
They tightened their grip on the other’s hands and looked each other in the eye. She then surprised him by reciting the words in Swahili confidently and flawlessly, without consulting the book or breaking eye contact. He answered her in turn, his voice sure and commanding, accepting her request.
The air bristled around them and the fire blazed several feet higher before returning to its previous level.
“It’s done,” he proclaimed quietly, still holding her gaze.
“Yeah. Kinda intense.”
“Indeed,” he answered, but dared not move, the atmosphere around them still humming with the air of magicks. The first spell, if that was what it was, seemed like a warmup compared to the one they had just performed. He could feel her strength, her essence surrounding him, inviting and intoxicating. It was heady, being in her presence like this, locked in the protection of the circle.
Buffy searched his eyes and tentatively brought her hand up before daring to stroke his cheek with the backs of her fingers. He covered her hand with his own, never yielding her gaze, and brought it to his lips, placing a gentle kiss to her palm.
He shouldn’t let this continue. She was vulnerable. So was he. So very, very vulnerable as every atom in his body cried out for her. She raised up on her knees, moving closer, her lips now a few centimeters from his own.
“It’s the spell,” he managed, trying to save any last sanity he could from the situation, for it was mad.
“So what if it is?” she breathed mere moments before her lips met his, soft, yielding, and oh so sweet.
And so what if it was. It was what they needed, these two battered souls who constantly crashed against a sea of unrelenting trauma. So what if they found solace in one another?
It should have been rushed - a tangle of limbs, a coupling hard and fast - magick’s affect on sex, satisfying the primal urge in the most expedited manner, but their experience had unlocked something that neither had ever entertained a possibility - exploring a deep rooted love for the other, forged by destiny, mutual respect, and fused by a willingness to sacrifice one’s self for the other. Lips and hands learned the definitions of each other’s bodies, of the other’s soul as clothing was stripped away layer by layer.
Nuzzling and kissing her neck, he whispered, “I’m not…”
“I’m protected,” she reassured him, her fingers dancing lightly down his spine before she cupped his rear and drew his body closer in invitation.
Giles shuddered in her embrace, hardly able to believe the situation they were in before surrendering himself to the exquisite sensation of the openmouthed kisses she trailed from his ear to his collarbone. Gently lifting her chin, he found her lips, kissing her slowly and deliberately before deepening the kiss and reintroducing his tongue to hers. Taking care, he lowered her onto the blanket and settled himself between her thighs.
His teasing kisses peppered her neck and breasts before he finally took a pebbled nipple into his mouth, laving and suckling at it as he coaxed little moans and sighs from her. She arched and undulated her hips against his, begging for more friction, and he could feel how turned on she was, his rampant cock gliding over her glistening sex, slicking it with the evidence of her desire for him.
Pulling his face down to hers, Buffy needed to kiss him, to be closer to him. The lack of emotion she’d thought she’d felt had just been her trying to protect her heart after everything that had happened. She knew that now. The spirit guide had told her so.
Allowing herself to take a risk, she nipped and teased at his lips with her teeth and tongue before wrapping her hand around the back of his neck and ravaging his mouth, wanting more of him, wanting to convey the depth of her feelings for him.
When he broke the kiss, she opened her eyes to find his staring back her. “Love me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible as she brushed her fingertips against his cheek.
He gave himself over to her touch before rolling his hips and slowly entering her, savoring the feeling of being surrounded by her heat, totally unprepared for the tide of emotion that enveloped him when she rose to meet him.
“Jesus, Buffy,” he murmured, placing his forehead against hers and looking at her in wonder before setting a slow, yet deliberate pace that built over time as they caressed and kissed each other, teasing and touching. As their passions built, so did the fire next to them, keeping them sheltered and warm, until finally, they cried their release into the still desert night, sated and settling in each other’s arms.
Buffy reached for their discarded coats and arranged them over their cooling bodies as Giles reached for a log and threw it on the waning fire, bringing it back to life. “You okay?” she asked as she nestled against his chest once more.
“I will be,” he answered, his breath still slightly labored as reached up to stroke her silken hair and moved to kiss her temple. “And you? How are you?”
“MMmmm,” she responded, stroking his chest with her right hand.
He let out a little laugh. “I’ve rendered you speechless. I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, waiting for her to playfully hit him in rebuttal, but it never came.
Instead she snuggled into him and replied in a sated voice, “You should.”
They lay quietly for a few moments, basking in the afterglow, soft caresses and kisses placed on cooling skin when Buffy lifted her head and suddenly asked, “It wasn’t just the spell, was it?”
Giles moved to his side to face her and pushed back a lock of hair from her face. “No,” he answered tenderly. “Sex magick is nothing… like that.”
She closed her eyes as a look of relief washed over her face. She knew that how she felt - and what they’d shared - was real.
Love. Give. Forgive. Risk the pain!
Opening her eyes, she found his. She wanted him to see it, to see how much she meant it. “I love you, Giles.”
He looked at her, pleasantly surprised. She’d said it the evening before in her home, but it had lacked emotion. He knew she’d meant it, and it had an affect on him, but here in her arms, it contained the warmth and emotion he knew she possessed, and he gave her a soft smile as he leaned in and placed a delicate kiss on her pink, swollen lips.
“I love you too, Buffy,” he answered softly.
She lightly trailed her fingers down his face as she tried to express what she meant. “No… I mean, I love you.”
And that clever little smile, the one she’d loved since the moment they’d clicked into sync so many years ago, spread wider across his face. It made her heart swell.
He reached for her and they made love again, declaring their love for one another in words and actions until the world seemed to stop and they lost themselves in their desire for one another. Once their passion was spent, they held each other as they drifted off into a much needed deep sleep.
In the predawn’s light Buffy woke, feeling the change in his breathing.
“Good morning,” he greeted with a feather light kiss to her lips as he tightened his arms around her.
“It is,” she returned, shifting into a more comfortable position within his embrace. She wanted to stay there forever, despite the hardness of the desert floor beneath the thin woolen blanket, but reality beckoned. She had a hell god after her sister and an apocalypse looming on the horizon. As she looked up into his face, she sighed. “We can’t have this can we?” she resigned with incredible sadness.
“No,” he returned, his voice filled with regret. “Not now.” Oh, how his heart hurt with the truth of the situation.
Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain.
Buffy wanted to cry, to rail at the world at the unfairness of it. Instead she laced her fingers with his and took a deep breath to ground herself.
“When we defeat Glory and save the world?” she asked, knowing that while she did garner strength from pain, it was hope and the optimism of love that rallied her. She fought for those she loved. Always.
“When we defeat Glory and save the world,” Giles agreed, bringing her fingers up to his lips, sealing the promise.
They lay within each others arms for several long moments before the first fingers of light spread forth from the rock formation that guarded over their campsite several long yards away.
“I met the First Slayer,” Buffy began as they watched the sun rise, ready to tell him about her vision quest and the revelations the guide had imparted before she’d vanished. Her other question answered, she hoped Giles could shed some light on the meaning of her “gift”.
Once dressed, they shook the gourd together and jumped out of the protective circle. After clearing the area of any evidence of their stay, they approached the car hand in hand and she turned to him and kissed him one last time.