Title: The Real Loneliness 10/12
Author: K.V. Wylie
Pairing: Giles/Cordelia
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sequel to Controlled Descent
Disclaimer: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS, has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. This is purely for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended

Cordelia stopped in the doorway to the living room.  Giles was in an armchair, a book open but face down on his knee.  He was lost in thought, as evidenced by the neglected book on his knee.

"Did I wake you?" he asked suddenly, and she startled.  She'd forgotten that spooky hearing he'd acquired.

 "Yes," she said.  "The silence was unbearably loud."

She sat down on a chair by the doorway, holding her robe around her.  "Did you go?"

"Yes."

"How was it?"

He turned to look at her, and she eyed him warily, but there was nothing in his expression other than normal, repressed Giles.

"It was…..I don't know how to describe it," he said.

"I went to see him."

"I know.  I gather you had quite the talk with him."

"I had quite the listen.  He's awful chatty.  I couldn't get a word in, Rupert.  And he kept calling me your wife.  We're not married."

"In his eyes we are, as you're pregnant."

"That's his old guy morality," Cordelia said.

"Rabbis tend to have that quality."

She sighed.  "I suppose.  I changed the ultrasound to Tuesday.  He said you'd be in a better mood for it by then."

Giles hadn't thought about time, how long it would take.  "So soon?  He told you I'd be, ah, cured so soon?"

"He didn't say cured.  He said better.  By the way, what is it you have?  A demon?"

"No."

"If it is a demon, it's an awfully depressed one."

"No demon," Giles said quietly.  "It's apparently just me."  He looked over at her huddled form by the doorway.  "Let me see the marks I left on you."

She shook her head.  "No."  Then, meeting his eyes, she stated, "If you do one more odd thing, you're out.  In fact, if I even think you *might*, I'm calling Buffy.  She'll yank you out of here so fast, your tweed will be left spinning at the door, and she'll sit on you until you've calmed down or you've suffocated.  While she's doing that, I'll be changing the locks."

Giles blinked.  "*You'd* call Buffy?"

"Which tells you the lengths I'm willing to go.  She'd leap at the chance to come take you away from me, depressed demon and all."

"She wouldn't…..leap," he said uncomfortably.

"Give me a break, Rupert.  She hates like hell that I'm in here with you.  Telling her about the baby's made it a hundred times worse.  She's probably so steamed about it that all the stuffed animals in her room have suffered meltdowns."  Cordelia dropped her gaze.  "If she hadn't been so blinded by Angel, she'd be the one in here with you right now."

"Is that what you think?" he asked in a low voice.

"Don't play surprised innocent, and don't even dream of inflating your ego over this," she retorted.  "You and her have something going on.  Don't tell me it's just Watcher-Slayer."

"Cordelia," he said tiredly, "I sleep with no one but you."

"That's only because I got on your lap first."

"Cor, I fell in love with you, the one who once informed me that too many head injuries would cause me to 'wake up in a coma', the one who goes through my dresser drawers without reservation, and who nags me incessantly every time I buy homogenized milk rather than skim."

"You could try remembering that last point," she said, but softly, as she raised her head back up.

"There have been times when I've come home and you're not here, but I find your shoes or one of those books you like to read, or even a balled-up kleenex on the corner of the coffee table, and it…..it's a nice feeling.  Your possessions all over, like pieces of you, make me feel as though this apartment could never be empty again."

Cordelia was quiet for a few moments.  Then she said, "You might try telling me this more often."

"Maybe we could say it to each other."

"Maybe," she conceded, "but the fact that I'm still here with you should be telling you something already.  So, what happens now?"

"I left a message at the Museum that I wouldn't be in for the rest of the week."

"And that Rabbi?"

"I'm going to see him tomorrow."

"If you're there too often, people will think you're converting."  She paused, then asked, "Unless you already are Jewish.  No, I guess you wouldn't be, unless you missed that circumcision thing.  What religion are you anyway?"

"Does it matter?  I've let it fall away."

She stood.  "Maybe it's something we should figure out before the baby's born.  Anyway, Rupert, it's late and you're not sleeping on the couch.  Upstairs."

"Cor--"

"Now."

With a sigh, he put his book on a table and got up.

"You may have noticed," she said, as she started towards the stairs, "that I've switched sides of the bed.  You're now on the right."

"And the reason for this is?" he asked in annoyance.

"This damn pregnancy is making me feel like I have to pee every ten minutes.  I'm tired of walking around the bed to get to the bathroom."

"Why didn't you just say it that way to begin with?"

"Like I'm comfortable discussing peeing with you," she shot back.

"I thought you were just doing it to….."  He stopped and she glared back at him.

"To what, Rupert?"

"To torment me," he finished.

"Oh," she said, in a small voice.

They were standing in the door of the bedroom now.  He waited, but when it didn't appear as though she were going to say anything more, he added, "We share a bathroom.  Why can't we discuss…..uh?"

"See?  *You* can't even say it," Cordelia said.

"You can have the left side of the bed," Giles grumbled.  He pulled off his tie and started towards the closet.

---

The next day, Giles was led to that room again, the hollow white one with the pointless window stuck near the ceiling.  'I'm going to detest this place,' he thought, and jumped when Mendi seemingly answered his thoughts.

"Perhaps a fern in the corner would make things more pleasing," Mendi said.  He set a pail on the floor by the couch before taking the chair at the table.  "It might be wise to remove your tie."

After a moment, Giles did so, then sat and eyed the pail curiously.  "What is this for?"

"If all goes well, you will need it.  If you think you can make it to the bathroom, however, it is there."  Mendi pointed at a door just outside the room.

Giles stared at him.  "What are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to ask you some questions and you're going to answer them."

"And?"

"That's all."  Mendi leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.  "Are you ready?"

Giles looked over.  The other man's countenance was placid, as though he were idling away an hour in a park.  There was seemingly no threat, nothing magical popping in the air, no build up of tension.  Ironically, the lack of something, anything, seemed rather foreboding.

Giles rolled his tie into a ball, put it in his jacket pocket, and waited.  By Mendi's steady breathing, Giles almost thought him to be asleep.  He was about to say something when the Rabbi asked, "Do you remember waking up in Angelus' residence?"

"Yes."

"What did you see when you woke up?"

"A, uh, wall and some thick curtains.  I think there was a doorway."

"What else?" Mendi asked.

"Sunlight."

The Rabbi opened his eyes and gazed over.  "And?"

Giles looked back in bewilderment.  "The floor?"

"What about your Slayer?"

"Buffy was sitting beside me."

Mendi studied him quietly.  "Was there anyone else in the room?"

"I saw Angel in the corner.  I think you were there."

"Anyone else?"

"I don't know."

Mendi was silent for a time.  Then he said, "Do you remember entering the hellmouth?"

"Yes."

"You went in by the old Baptist church, did you not?"

"Yes."

"How did you get in?"

Giles frowned.  "I…..I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"No," Giles insisted.  "I don't.  I walked around and then I was in."

"Try answering my question again, but this time by being truthful."

"I've told you--"

"Absolutely nothing.  Mr. Giles, even the worst of us do not simply walk around the hellmouth and suddenly sink in.  Either you are led in or you call someone already inside to open the way," Mendi said.  "Miss Summers called you by your old name in order to get inside.  Whom did you call?"

Giles looked down.  "I called someone I once…..his name was Michael Khieri.  He was Buffy's Watcher for a little while."

"What was he to you?"

"A friend."  Giles could feel the other man's steady gaze on him, the intensity prickling the hairs on his arms.  "A little more than a friend, but we didn't get much of a chance to be….."

"Surely you've met up with other denizens of the hellmouth.  Why did you call him?"

Giles closed his eyes as his heart pounded hard against his chest wall.  "I knew that Buffy would eventually follow me in.  I hoped…..I hoped that, when she came to bring me out, I could grab hold of him."

After a few moments, Mendi said softly, "Tell me."

"I left Michael in there.  I've left him there twice now."  Giles put a hand to his eyes.  "I tried to hold him, but Buffy kept getting in the way.  I couldn't get around her.  Every time I got near him, she hit him away from me.  Eventually time ran out, and it was either him or the door.  I had one last chance but she got in the middle.  I pushed her through the door, but then it was too late.  The old ones came.  And I was going to stay, to stay with him, but….."

"Miss Summers prevented you from holding on?"

"Or he pushed me away."

"But she kept the two of you separated."

"She was doing her job, what she was trained for.  He was, is…..no longer human."

"You will not let yourself be angry at her?" Mendi asked.

"*I* trained her."

"So it all comes back to you?  In some long roundabout way, it's *your* fault that she wouldn't let you hold on to someone you wanted?"

"You don't understand!"

Giles raised his voice, and in the same volume, Mendi returned, "I *do* understand.  Regardless of her training, she did this to *you*."

Giles shook his head.  "No!  I can't be angry at her for doing what she's supposed to do."

"Is her training set in stone?  Is she not flexible?  After all you have sacrificed for her, can she not bend once for you?  How maddening."

"No.  I wouldn't.  It's-it's not a good idea for the Watcher to be angry at the Slayer."

"Why not?" Mendi asked.

"She did the best she could.  She risked her life by going into the hellmouth to get me.  I cannot be upset at that."

"She is an extraordinary Slayer," Mendi said softly, "but anger, even without apparent justification, is very human.  Instead of allowing yourself to feel grief from her actions, you turned blame upon yourself.  You took all of the guilt, hers and yours.  That was wrong and it doesn't do justice to her.  Why did you never tell Miss Summers how you felt?"

"As though I should make her feel worse," Giles shot.  "She's gone through enough.  It would be another burden on her."

"The worse burden is the one you lay on her by withholding how you feel, because then you are withholding yourself and making her guess.  You do not give her the chance to share your pain or to comfort you.  By Miss Summer's actions, you suffered Mr. Khieri's loss.  And you never told her.  Instead, you allowed your anger to build until, when you succumbed to the darkness in your blood, you took the first opportunity you could get to try to kill her."

"Which is the perfect argument for control."

"Control," Mendi repeated.  "Lately, you have little to none."

"And you're telling me to give in!"

"Yes."

"But I don't like the feeling!" Giles said vehemently.

"Feel it anyway," Mendi ordered.

"And go on another rampage."

"That would not always be the result, though you're certainly welcome to do so in this room.  If, during it, you discover an ability to leap like a grasshopper, you might even want to try breaking the window," Mendi said, with a trace of amusement.  "I believe making fires and breaking glass are two things you enjoy."

Giles glared at him, his back muscles tensing.

"You did achieve one good thing by going after Angelus," Mendi said gently, unimpressed by the glare.

"Yes, I burned that ugly couch of his."

Mendi's eyebrow flicked up, but he merely said, "You gave him something to think about.  He understands that there is a point where you will not take anymore."

"It was wrong.  If I'd killed him, do you know what that would have done to Buffy?  She loves him."

"Love, or obsession?"  Mendi shook his head.  "But we are getting away from what we should be doing.  I wish to go back to my original question.  When you woke up on the floor, what did you see?"

Giles rubbed his forehead in exasperation.  "I told you.  Wall, curtains, sunlight, floor."

"What colour were the curtains?"

"What?"

"I don't believe you saw any curtains," the Rabbi shrugged.  "I don't remember them."

"There were, across the room."

"No, there weren't."

Giles took a steadying breath.  "They were black and long, from ceiling to floor."

"There were none."

"There were two sets, one right in front of me and another just over.  The second ones were fastened up and Cordelia was--"

"Oh, *she's* there now, is she?" Mendi asked serenely.

"Wasn't she?" Giles demanded.

"I don't know.  You tell me."

"Why do you keep trying to piss me off?"

"Because you're doing the same to me," Mendi replied, "by evading my questions and by not giving me truthful answers."

Giles forced his hands flat on his legs, to keep them steady.  The heat from his palms seared him.  "I am not lying to you."

"Yes, you are," Mendi said.  "For example, those imaginary curtains--"

"Two curtains," Giles said raggedly.  "One in front of me, one to the right.  Cordelia stood beside them.  Then there was a wall and a doorway and, and Wesley standing in the sunlight, just behind you.  And the fireplace and what was left of the couch and Angel on the floor, but I couldn't see much of him because Buffy was kneeling over me."

"Kneeling over you?  Earlier, she was only sitting beside you," Mendi mused.  "What happened to the couch again?"

"I burned it."

"When?  It was by the fireplace.  It could have caught a spark."

"It was…..it was….." Giles stopped.

Mendi waited for a moment, then changed the subject.  "Would you have stayed in the hellmouth with Mr. Khieri?"

"I told you that."

"Why?"

"Because I couldn't bear to leave him there a second time," Giles said, so quietly Mendi almost couldn't hear him.

"Is this some sort of penance?  But, Mr. Giles, I know this story from Mr. Wyndham-Price.  You *didn't* leave Mr. Kheiri in the hellmouth twice.  When he was lost the first time, you were in another city."

"I left him here, and he was taken.  I didn't tell him enough.  I didn't warn him."

"You neglected information when you left Sunnydale?"

Giles didn't answer.  Mendi finally leaned forward and said, "You did the best you could.  However, I know that telling you this is not enough to make you believe it."

Giles closed his eyes.  "Michael and I spent time together before I left.  We talked.  I answered the questions he asked me."

"Therefore, when he died, it was not your fault."

"But we…..I…..didn't use all the time we had wisely.  When I could have been telling him more that I knew, instead, I was…..we were…..doing other things."

"By that, I judge you were intimate, however, Mr. Giles, unless you possess a crystal ball that actually works, there is no way to be sure that an hour or two more of talking would have saved him.  Tell me about him.  What was he like?"

"He was a Minister.  He loved God, thought of Him as some benevolent, all-powerful force.  He was awed by Buffy.  He told me that he didn't think there was anything she couldn't do.  Michael was also happy, I guess you'd call it.  Being around him made me feel warm."

"Was he the same in the hellmouth?" Mendi asked.

Giles' face went gray.  "I didn't even know it was him at first."

"Yet, you would have stayed with him?"

"Yes, but Buffy kept me away.  Then he pushed me away.  The door closed and I fell."

"Then what happened?"

"I heard voices and it was wet underneath me.  I was picked up and carried somewhere, and someone kept calling my name.  I wanted them to stop, to shut up and leave me alone.  Was that you?"

"I was one of several who spoke your name," Mendi said.  "Then what?"

"Just voices and haze, like the fogs I used to see in England.  Then the mansion with Buffy and the sunlight *and*," Giles insisted, as he opened his eyes, "curtains!"

"Nothing else?  Nothing in between?"

"Your voice hurt like, uh, like hell, literally.  You wouldn't stop praying; I think it was prayer."

Mendi nodded, and Giles continued, "I said terrible things, trying to get you to stop."

"Yes," Mendi agreed, with a smile.  "However, you have apologized for that.  Now leave it.  It is over and done with."

"But I said--"

"Yes, I well heard you, Mr. Giles.  It is forgiven.  Now, what else do you remember?  Don't lie to me this time."

Giles swallowed down irritation before replying, "I remember voices."

"Whose?"

"I d-don't--"

"You do," Mendi interrupted.

"I don't!"

"Then how do you know you set fire to the sofa?  There was no one to witness how the fire started except for Angelus who was barely conscious."

Giles clapped both hands to his forehead.  "I know a spell for bringing fire from electrical energy in the air.  I must have somehow remembered it when I was….."

"When you were what?"

"When I was something else!  Damnit, I couldn't remember my name.  I didn't know who I was, who these people were around me that wouldn't shut up!  It was constant noise."

"But you could distinguish whose voices belonged to whom."

"I didn't know who anyone was!"

"But you did," Mendi said firmly.  "It was very telling, how you reacted to different people.  You did not physically attack me, nor did you attempt harm towards Mr. Wyndham-Price or Miss Chase.  You went after Angelus, who had hurt you, and Miss Summers, who hid Angelus from you."

"And Willow," Giles said in a sick voice.

"Who restored Angelus' soul."  Mendi's tone lowered, became riled.  "We are still back at square one, Mr. Giles.  You need to try again.  When you awoke on the floor in Angelus' residence, what did you see besides curtains that were not there?"

Giles slammed the armrest of the couch as he yelled, "There were curtains!  Two fucking curtains!  Buffy kneeling over me.  Cordelia, Wesley, and you at the side.  Angel on the floor.  Sunlight in a doorway.  My groin on fire because Cordelia kicked me when I tried to get past her.  Angel had marks on his throat because I kicked him, but *not hard enough*!  I had him in front of me because he was the only way I had to protect myself from Buffy.  He was a brutal loathsome demon who could do any goddamn thing he wanted, and she'd let him every single time!  And I had to clean up his messes, every fucking single time!"

The lights dimmed momentarily.  Mendi glanced up at them, then asked, "Why didn't you kill him, then?  Were you afraid of him?"

"Afraid?  *I* chased him up his stairs!  He ran from me.!  He had a fire and a book and a bloody couch, and was sitting there in perfect comfort while I was dying.  He went up the stairs and tried to hide, but I found him.  I hit him until he went down and ripped out a chunk of him, and then I remembered the fire.  I was going to let him burn alive.  But she came!  All of you came."

"You're wrong," Mendi said.  "He wasn't in perfect comfort.  Angelus stayed by your side and gave you water.  He said he would die if it would make you well."

"*When* was this?"

"As I prayed, he knelt on the floor beside your bed and pressed cold cloths to your face."

Giles half-rose.  "He did nothing of the sort.  He was never in the room when you were.  He wouldn't die for me.  He wouldn't even die for Buffy!"

"He said he loved you."

"He doesn't love anyone, not even her!"  Giles yelled, shaking so hard that the couch was moving with him.  "Someone carried me into my apartment, but I didn't know who it was until they spoke, and I found it was *him*!  Touching me!  I tried to push him away, to hit him, to *hurt* him.  How *dare* he touch me!  But Wesley was there.  He and Angel held me and they tied me down!  My arms and legs!  Everything!  Angel stood at the side of the bed, laughing down at me.  I couldn't move, but he could go any goddamn place *he* pleased!  Then Willow came.  I saw her beside him and she *smiled* at him!  At Angel!  WHILE I WAS LYING THERE, TIED DOWN!  Why do you keep telling me it didn't happen this way?"

"Because Angelus wouldn't laugh at you.  He would give his life for you," Mendi snapped.

"NO!" Giles screamed, fury blinding him.  "He is a deceitful, abominable psychopath!  I want him dead!  I WANT HIM DEAD!"

A screeching thunder crashed through the room.  The lights exploded and shards like icicles plummeted from the ceiling.

Glass rained over Giles, spearing his skin.  He threw his arms over his head, but the spikes continued to pierce him.  Was this from the window?  But, no, there was so much.  Too much.  Debris poured over him in a torrent.

He felt sick under it.  Horrible swells of nausea rolled through him.  He couldn't take this feeling, the sharp queasy way it went through him.  He tried to swallow it down, but it kept rising in his throat, too strong to be overcome.

He suddenly gagged.  He jumped to his feet but the floor dipped under him.  He lurched over it, found the doorway, and then the bathroom.  Leaning against the cold toilet, he violently and painfully threw up.

Afterwards, he sank to the floor, the side of his face pressed against the wall.  He was still shaking, his arms, his legs, spasms going through his abdomen.  But, slowly, it penetrated that he was hearing movement from the next room, quiet swishing sounds.

Giles pulled himself up to the sink, washed his face, and the blood from his arms, then returned to the other room to find Mendi sweeping glass from the rug.

"I think I have it all cleared from the couch," he said.  "I turned the cushions over to be on the safe side.  Please sit down, Mr. Giles, before you fall."

Giles did; his legs had been about to buckle anyway.  The lights were back on.  He glanced up, but the window was intact.  "Where did it come from?" he asked.

Mendi shrugged as he put the broom and dustbin in a corner.  "You caused it.  I've seen such things before, but this was one of the more impressive."

"Are you hurt?" Giles asked in horror, but the Rabbi shook his head.

"No.  Nothing came on me.  It's too bad you didn't drop stones all over.  I could have claimed a poltergeist, perhaps written a paper."  He returned to his chair and gave Giles a soft smile.

"I don't understand."

"You are an angry man, Mr. Giles, and the most of it seems directed at yourself."

After a few moments, Giles said, "I can remember it.  I don't want to, but I do.  Angel wasn't there after he tied me down."

"No, he wasn't," Mendi said.  "He did not stay by your side or give you water.  He did not press cloths to your face or offer to die for you.  I did not allow him in the room with me at all."

"You kept insisting he was."  Giles had to stop to swallow.

"Yes," Mendi said softly.  "I needed to made you angry.  The path to your memories lay through your emotions.  By shutting away what you felt, you shut away everything.  I apologize for my method, Mr. Giles, but I was afraid for you.  By not allowing yourself to feel, you were indeed fragmenting yourself, and you were in danger of dying.  There is more to do, but the most difficult part is over."  He leaned back in his chair, looking calm and serene again.  "In a bit, I will get some tea for you.  At the moment, I do not believe your stomach would take to it well."

Giles leaned against the armrest of the couch.  He wouldn't have cared if it had been full of the glass.  He was tired.  He was so tired.

"Now what?" he asked, almost croaking the word.

"You have some decisions to make and some new paths to start.  Tell me, how do you feel about Angel?"

"Angel, or Angelus?"

"They are both the same to me.  One and the same.  What are they to you?" Mendi asked.

"Angel and Angelus are one demon," Giles said quietly.  "The same face."

"How do you feel about Angel, Mr. Giles.  Truthfully now."

"I hate him," Giles said quietly.  "Oh God, I hate him.  I can't tell Buffy this."

Mendi frowned.  "Perhaps, you should.  Not as though it is something you wish to debate with her, and not as something to be resolved.  A simple declaration.  Angel hurt you.  Terribly.  He took more from you than from anyone else.  Tell Miss Summers that you can no longer aid him on her behalf."

"The problem with that is, she chooses him over me every single time."

"That may never change.  Her actions, in this area, are out of your hands.  She may not have, before now, understood the cost of her actions on you."

"How could she not see?"

"Because she could only see him," Mendi said.  "Therefore, you need to tell her."

Giles pressed his fingers to his forehead.  "But he's gone."

"Forever?" Mendi asked.  "That is a false solace.  He could return."

"Yes.  I suppose he could."

"Be honest to your Slayer, Mr. Giles.  Tell her when it hurts."

"Easily said," Giles told him, with as much cynicism as he could muster.  He was quiet for a bit.  Mendi waited.

At last, Giles said, "He came to my house once, claiming he was haunted, begging for help.  And I helped him.  I can't stand that I did.  I was so…..weak, so afraid that Buffy would…..that she would choose him and leave me."

"She was able to shield him so much because she knew, at the bottom of it, she would never lose you.  But there is no more you can do now.  You have reached your limit.  The cost and the pain are too much."  Mendi regarded Giles sadly.  "You worry me.  I can say this to you, but is it enough?  Are you able to believe it?"

Giles didn't have an answer.  Finally, Mendi said, "Let me be sure as to what you remember, Mr. Giles.  In Angelus' house, when you first awoke, you saw….."

"Buffy," Giles replied, gazing at an empty spot across the room.

"Kneeling over you."

"Yes, with her hair on my face, and her eyes…..she'd been crying."

"What did you feel?"

"I was confused.  I didn't know, at first, where I was.  I was afraid because I didn't know why she was crying."

"And?"

Giles closed his eyes.  "I was happy because she was holding me."

Silence stretched until Giles could hear the pulse of his heart, but the noise was low and hushed.  Finally, he opened his eyes and looked over.  "Aren't you going to remind me of my…..wife?"

Mendi shook his head slowly.  "No.  I know that feeling.  I'll get you some tea now."  He stood, but paused before the doorway.  "I have two more things I wish to say.  One is a suggestion and the other is an offer."

Giles tensed.  "Yes?"

"I do not believe you have yet grieved for Mr. Khieri.  As for the other," he stopped for a moment, then said, "You and Miss Summers are claimed to each other, but I have the means to unclaim you.  It is entirely up to you."

He left and Giles sat for several minutes, startled and still, before whispering, "Oh Buffy."

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