TITLE: Strange Places 6/6
AUTHOR: Jaydn Michelle
DISCLAIMERS: The characters of Buffy, Giles, Ethan and co. is the property
of Joss Whedon - only borrowing them.
Let them think what they may, but I never meant to drown myself. I meant to swim til I sank…and that's not the same thing.
He awoke violently.
Chair knocked backwards as he pushed to his feet, eyes sweeping the office.
For an instant, Giles had *felt* something - a presence - and the fine hairs on his nape stood on end. Eyes fixed on the doorway he considered his surroundings, and then *pushed* outward slightly. Magic rose like a current in his blood-stream, boiling through his spirit, and he shut it down instantly, senses tingling. Jaw clenched he walked from the room, feeling the weight of eyes upon him.
********************
It wasn't the first time he had fallen asleep at the desk and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but the sense of unease plagued him. It felt like something should have happened and…hadn't…for lack of a better term. Washing his face he stepped back, stretching the kinks out of his neck.
They had done a sweep earlier in the night, his brave little band of warriors, and it was for their sake that he hung on. Three years. Giles knew he was beginning to use magic too frequently, but he didn't have much choice at the moment, and there was no point staying in the library any longer.
Picking up his jacket he did the nightly check - keys, wallet, stake, cross - and headed outside. The Citroen was parked close, its misshapen shadow looming under a street-lamp, and he squeezed into the confines quickly. Turning the ignition the engine groaned, spluttering to life. He drove carefully, eyes alert.
Giles was losing this nightly war and he knew it beyond doubt. A part of him had silently hoped the Slayer would come, driven to this place by instinct if nothing else. Three years…and Giles decided his hope lay unfounded.
She wasn't coming. She was never coming. The fate of the town rested on the shoulders of a werewolf, two teenagers, and a mystic whose ability would tear him asunder. There was a perverse irony in that somewhere…but for the life of him, Giles couldn't see it.
But he would fight, and a part of him whispered, //Until when? Until you're more of a threat than the vampires?// Maybe, he had no answer to that voice. Life was never meant to be easy, and he wasn't that far-gone yet - in truth, Giles used magic as sparingly as possible, but without a Slayer…
It was only a matter of time.
His car slowed when he saw a nondescript van parked by the playground, a ragged mob of humans being forcibly shoved into the rear.
It was as much habit as it was good faith - going through the motions. Cross held up-right he advanced on them, three vampires, no, four…five…eyes flicking between them as Giles steadily forced them back.
The humans didn't need a second invitation; they scattered, fleeing into the night.
The vampires fixed their attention on the intruder, eyes sullen and feral in the night. They shifted, spreading themselves out, and Giles moved to accommodate them. Backing away, keeping the Citroen in the periphery of his vision, Giles stayed close to the van.
A low rumbling from the throat of the nearest vampire and Giles turned.
Flash of white as the door to the van slammed into him, hit with enough force to knock him sprawling - the cross skittering over the ground.
Teeth clicking shut as he fell on the ground and he saw a barbed smile, then the vampire fell on him, breath rancid as he bit deep into the flesh of Giles' throat.
********************
There had been a terrible fear in Buffy that the journey would end in the same place as it begun.
In a flea-ridden motel in a nameless part of town; Cleveland, U.S of A.
Mists parted, and the stark terror of the thought almost rendered her immobile. Scent of night, and Buffy heard the low growls of vampires. She was standing on the asphalt beside a vehicle that looked like a museum piece, and scant metres away, a vampire was feasting on the body of Rupert Giles.
//Too late//, a part of her mind whispered.
Too late - and she was sprinting. Tearing across the space with a killing rage, because she had *seen* how things could be. Murderous hate that they should take from her something she had only just discovered; and she drove into the vampire feeding off Giles like a whirlwind. They rolled, spitting like alley-cats, and there was no grace in the battle; it was short, brutal, and *bloody* as she took them down. Not one of them stood a chance, not one of them could hold a candle against the empirical *loss* that drove her. It was finished in seconds.
It left Buffy on her knees, shoulders slumped. //There had been a factory out here, hadn't there? A factory with a vampire Master…that the boy had once shown her?//
A cough and Buffy turned.
Giles had raised himself onto his elbows, three degrees beyond pale, eyes unfocused. There was a thin trail of blood down his neck, voice uncertain: "Buffy? Buffy Summers?"
He had spoken her name in a thousand worlds, with a thousand shades of meaning.
Something loosened its stranglehold, something warm feathered over her heart, and she didn't care if tears clouded her eyes, because she had made it in time. Buffy knew how the future could be, and it was worth fighting for. She wasn't a newborn Slayer, she could *sense* the power in him. Buffy *knew* Giles wouldn't use magic to defend himself; but she had seen a world where he used it to defend *her*; and it was up to Buffy to give it no cause to rise.
She couldn't lose him like that…ever.
Buffy walked the distance slowly and squatted beside him, checking his throat. He flinched, but held still for her touch, eyes searching her own.
"Your name's Rupert Giles," not quite a question, not quite a statement.
He nodded and Buffy pulled him to his feet, her slight weight supporting him until he found his balance.
"Nice to meet you, Giles," she cast a look sideways, the beginnings of a smile crossing her face.
He didn't know her, not yet, but he would.
*****************
It was the aroma of caffeine that awoke her, and Buffy slitted one eye open cautiously.
Unfamiliar ceiling - nice apartment - she was sacked down on a couch, buried under a blanket. She didn't remember the blanket, but she remembered dragging Giles to his bed. Too petrified to leave, she had applied the basic principles of first aid and had watched him; part of her *yearning* to crawl into the bed beside him. It was only the certainty that Giles might not take to it too well that held her back.
She had watched him for what felt like forever, in worlds that were both promising and terrible - yet he knew next to nothing about her.
Buffy had eventually drifted downstairs and had fallen asleep on the couch. He must have awoken at some stage and came down to cover her from the chill.
She rolled, sitting up part way and met his stare. He was nursing a cup of tea in one hand, the coffee, obviously, was for her.
"Hey."
His mouth quirked, a small smile that made her toes curl, "Hey," he agreed. An awkward silence ensured and then he gestured to the butterfly bandage, tone solemn. "Thank you…for last night."
"You're welcome," she let the blankets fall, stretching, and then beckoned imperiously, eyes fixed on the coffee just out of reach. Buffy didn't imagine the flash of humour in his eyes when he dutifully brought it over.
She sipped, closing her eyes in bliss: "Mother's milk," Buffy couldn't remember the last time she had eaten.
His voice was dry, "For the jumpy Slayer - is that a nervous tic in your eye?"
"Says you," Buffy smiled faintly, and opened both eyes to consider him. "I understand you have an opening for a Slayer?"
He went still, head tilted: "Is your Watcher here?"
"Yes," she answered in complete honesty. "Yes, I believe he is."
Recognition crossed his face, "You ran away."
Ran, faded, transported - it was all the same, her reply was simple: "I was needed elsewhere."
Giles had no answer to that.
Buffy had touched him last night, like a bashful first love - stealing glimpses from the side - not sexual in nature, just…confirming. She hadn't been able to touch him in *any* world, and a part of her needed to know that she could. That it was for real, for keeps. Hand resting under his shirt, against the hard arch of his ribs, letting his heat soak into her.
She didn't feel the cold any more - but she still yearned for the touch, to have it reciprocated; to lose herself in the strange combination of gentleness and fire. She *wanted* - for the first time in years. Intensity of passion and a silent demand that he yield.
Buffy knew her expression was too open, too hungry, too readable - but Giles merely straightened under the look, his eyes darkening to olive green. And the world faded as she approached him, not into mist, or some false reality, but into them, the two of them.
A black and white photograph gone unnoticed, of two boys no more than twelve, arms tossed over each other's shoulders as they stood on a riverbank; they were soaked through. Buffy would have recognised both of them, a young Giles, and a boy with dark eyes and a pointed face, his smile full of mischief.
FINI