Title: "Eternal Summer, Jealous Sky"
Author: Katharine
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Twenty years along the road, Giles and Anya find themselves in a difficult situation.
Disclaimer: Property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy et al.
Notes: Future fic - vignette. It's sad. That I shall warn you. An explanation of the title is given at the bottom of the page.
Special thanks to my beta, Wesleysgirl, for the help and encouragement.
Distribution: My site - http://lose-my-faith.net/rapture
Want, take, have. Let me know where it went. Feedback: Is always much appreciated and gushed over.

A dim light glows in a corner of the room. Heavy curtains shudder, moving in the cold draught. Reveal glimpses of overcast countryside. The silence is punctuated by the tapping of raindrops against the cold glass. The whir of the machines, the flickering of the electric clock.

3:42 PM.

The rattle of a window pane. The creaking of the floorboards. Silence. The shuffling of a mouse gnawing the corner of a wooden dresser. Blankets strewn about the room. The faint haze of rising heat.

Rhythmic breathing.

A sigh.

A sob.

Two figures, lying side by side in the large, soft bed. A heap of blankets obscures their figures. Yet one still shivers.

She lies on her back, he on his side, looking at her; hands entwined in the centre, an anchor for both.

She cries.

He watches.

He holds her hand.

Her body moves nearer to his, aching for the warm comfort of another being. Gingerly, careful not to disturb the delicate web of wires that weave between them.

Sobs rack her body as he cradles her to him. He does not ask - he does not need to ask. He soothes her, whispering into her ear, until the pain that both feel eases.

He kisses her forehead. She rests her head on his chest, their hands never losing contact, fingers gripping tightly, reassuringly.

"I don't understand," she whispers, after more time has slipped away with the wavering of the clock.

"I know," he murmurs.

"After all this time, I still don't understand!" Her voice cracks. His thumb strokes the back of her hand. "Why does this have to happen? It's stupid."

"We can delay the inevitable," he says, "but eventually, we all must leave this existence." In his heart, he does not believe it.

"No! That's wrong," she whimpers, "it's wrong... we're happy, and suddenly, some higher power is going to rip us apart! Like a funny joke to play on mortals! Isn't that what's really happening?"

He pauses. Thinks. "...Yes," he says, "yes, I suppose in essence, that's the truth."

"Then why?" she asks. "Why spoil this? Why can't anyone give me any answers?"

His heart aches. "Things happen for a reason, Anya, and..."

She raises her eyes to his face, and glares. "I've been human for twenty-three years, but I was a demon for longer, and I'm old enough to know there's no logic to it, and logic is important. We're here, and we live, and that's the meaning of it. That makes sense. So why does it have to stop? Who, up there somewhere, has the right to end it? What's the point of a life that ends in pain and death?"

He smiles sadly. "I would be a rich man indeed if I could neatly incapsulate the purpose of our short and insignificant lives into a sentence."

"Then why don't you? Come on, Rupert, you've watched all the things around you wither and die, why not make some form of profit from it? Or maybe you just won't tell me! Maybe you're as afraid as I am, and you're just being all stupidly stoic about it!"

Painful, drawn-out coughing cuts off her angry tirade mid-flow. Wheezing, fighting for air. Silence.

"I'm terrified," he says, quietly.

"I gave up immortality," she whispers, after a pause, "for the second time. For you. For love. Even when I knew that love only ever ends in pain. Why did I do that? I hurt, and I knew that I would. And if you hadn't made me forget, none of this would be happening... I wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be here, and you'd maybe even have children and the kind of normal life I've read about."

"Anya, the last twenty years - I wouldn't give them up for all the world. I wouldn't even spare myself this moment. Try as you may to convince yourself that love is the cause of all misery, I've had a happier life than I ever could have imagined, and it's because of love. Because of you. You are my life."

Her vision blurs, tears beginning to flow.

"Why do you always do that? Say everything I feel, but much better than I could ever say it?"

"Because you don't have to say it. You look at me, and I know."

She attempts a smile. "I didn't mean any of that. I'm glad everything's how it is... well, except the dying part, because it's unpleasant and unfair and I thought we'd have much longer than two decades, and I love you too much to ever let you go. It's too hard."

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you, too," she says again, wanting to say so much more, but having no words.

A ray of sunlight creeps into the room from between the curtains. "Giles?"

"Mmm?"

She gulps. "Whatever... happens, wherever you are - you'll remember me, right? Even when we're not together any more, and we never sit in front of the fireplace, or on a blanket under the stars, and you never get annoyed with me for falling asleep while you read to me, and I never lock you outside in the rain for criticising my cookery skills..." with some effort, they both smile. She swallows, continues. "And, and you never hold my hand when I'm scared," she holds on to him a little tighter, "or kiss me goodnight, or make love to me, or... or be there with me in the morning..."

He feels a tear find its way down his lined cheek, mingling with hers as her cheekbone rests against his chin.

"...you'll remember?" she finishes pathetically, hopefully.

"How could I ever forget?" He strokes her short hair with his free hand, gently tilts her head to rest above his, and kisses her tenderly.

Pulling away again, they lie in silence, each knowing the other's thoughts without a word needing to be said, knowing they must make the most of what little time they have left.

Minutes pass, heavy as lead, quick as light.

"I don't want to lose you," she whispers as she drifts into a disturbed sleep.

"Never," he says. "You never will."

A week passes.

A cold, dark, wet English graveyard. A solitary figure, all in black, kneels before a sparkling white stone. Brushes a fleck of mud from its surface, carefully tends the lilies that are catching water. Cannot accept that this is truly the end, cannot move for fear of reality hitting hard.

Twists the ring that remains on a single finger.

Reads the inscription again, for the thousandth time, disbelieving, denying.

One already dead, one dying inside.

"My love, my wife, my friend.
ANYA ELIZABETH GILES
1980 - 2022
Immortal beloved"

He smiles at the bitter irony of it. Over the years, he worried that he would be the one to leave her behind. He is entirely unprepared for this latest twist of fate. The injustice of human existence.

The cancer had destroyed her body, but her soul is finally free.

With this he consoles himself. Cannot help but continue to blame himself. Wonders if she would still have been taken from him if they'd realised earlier, if she'd admitted to being ill. He lives in a sea of doubt. She does not. At forty-two years old, she rots in the ground beneath him.

Sobs with anguish, leans his forehead against the cool marble, as close to his love as he can be. Feels that his very soul is torn, and half remains with her.

He does not know whether to believe in paradise. And yet, he does. Believes for her. She did not believe, and so he does.

We're here, and we live, and that's the meaning of it.

That he learned from her. He learned so much from her.

And at sixty-eight years old, he must learn to live without her.

FIN

The Title

The title is a bizarre hybrid of two things much like oil and water - a very well-known sonnet by Shakespeare and 'Fields of Gold', a song made famous by Sting and Eva Cassidy.

"Fields of Gold"
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Across the fields of barley
And you'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
When we walk in fields of gold

"Sonnet 18"
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And sumer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair some time declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.