ITLE: 'Seeking Sanctuary' 3/8
AUTHOR: Pythia
DISCLAIMER: The Slayer and her Watcher are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar Productions, Kuzui Enterprises, 20th Century Fox Television and the UPN Television Network. The story is written for the pleasure of the author and readers, and has no lucrative purpose whatsoever. Please do not reproduce this story anywhere without the author's consent.
Posting Note: * * implies emphasis and { } indicates thought.
It had been the whistle of the kettle which had pulled him from his work. Long, painstaking work, the kind of work he could get lost in: handling the delicate pieces of broken pottery, the hints of worked metals and the echoes of lives long gone and long since forgotten. He'd unearthed a treasure trove of pieces from his first forays into the winter soaked earth, and he needed to catalogue them all - to map them using his meticulous measurements, confirming their source and location from his notes and sketches of the site, and to clean and date and determine every one before carefully packing them away, ready to be sent south for the museum's consideration.
He'd been pouring over them all day, skipping breakfast and barely pausing for lunch; the day had been too bitter to coax him back up to the excavation and besides, he'd needed to do something with the trays of artefacts before they overwhelmed the tiny croft and drove him out into the teeth of the wind. He'd dropped the kettle on the fire at some point between dating shards of thirteenth century pottery and sketching the delicate strands of the twisted wire brooch he'd lifted from a dead woman's breast only the day before. There was an oddly satisfying irony to the fact that he - Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher, expert on matters of the undead and the dealings of demons - should have found refuge here among inanimate bones and the ruins of the past. He acknowledged that irony every day, wrapping himself in history, in the certainty of weathered stone, in the cold hard work of the excavation, in the cling of the earth, and the endless grandeur of his chosen place of exile.
He occupied himself with trivial things, with measured study and undemanding fact, finding sanctuary in the arms of humdrum activity. In a place where monks had meditated and hermits had communed with God for centuries, he'd sought his release in the mechanics of physical labour and the mind numbing detail of cataloguing and cross referencing - and yes, there was irony in that too, although it wasn't one he cared to think about.
In fact, most days, he tried not to think at all.
He wasn't really thinking as he plucked the kettle out of the fire and used it to fill the waiting teapot, nor as he poured himself a cup of tea and went to stand by the open half door to drink it - but his mind was sufficiently alert to catch sight of the lowering cloud that spilled across the horizon. Dark, ominous clouds; they promised storm weather, the rumble of thunder and the lashing impact of the rain. He grimaced and put down the cup, grateful that he'd thought to cover his currently half excavated trench before he'd come down from the ruins the day before. Last time the weather had turned ugly he'd been forced to spend three days trapped inside the stone walls of the croft. Bad days, filled with smoke and damp and misery. This time he should fare better - he'd sealed the worst of the leaks in the roof, had stacked layers of peat and buckets of sea coal ready for his fire, and stocked up on oil and candles. Since the diesel for the generator was both precious and rare, he'd learned to ration it, saving the niceties of power for important things - like the radio, on those few occasions that he needed to use it.
The comfort of the croft wasn't his only concern though; he'd have to go out and drag his boat further up the strand, in case the wind and the tide tried to steal it away from him. It wasn't much of a boat, but it had served him well over the past few weeks, and it would be a wrench to lose it. Fresh fish pulled from the sea, the odd lobster dragged up from under the promontory's point, and the ability to sail as far as Marchess or Invaree added a certain richness to his otherwise spartan life - not to mention giving him something else to do, other than dig, and sort and brood.
Giles sighed, reached back to drop his glasses on the table next to his notes and reluctantly clambered into his sea boots, thrusting his sock-wrapped feet into their cumbersome depths. His hand half reached to lift the heavy windcheater from its hook, but he changed his mind and pushed open the bottom half of the door instead. This wasn't going to take long and it wasn't actually raining - not yet, at least. All he had to do was walk down to the boat, drag it a little further up the strand and make sure that its anchor was embedded deep into the sand up above the usual tide level. With luck - and the help of his sturdy boots - he wouldn't even get his feet wet.
He was being optimistic, of course. It only took a few steps to move from the snug, smoky warmth of the croft into the shivering, bite of the wind and - once engulfed in its embrace - to realise that the weather had already deteriorated from a crisp, clear January day into the bitter, ice filled swirl of threatening storm. The cold and the chill cut through the air like knives, lifting instant colour to his cheeks, and misting his hair and beard with the first threats of rain. It wasn't worth retracing his steps to fetch his coat since, by the time he'd done so, it would almost certainly be raining for real. He set his shoulders and gritted his teeth instead, striding down the steps and onto the slope of the beach, intent on completing his task and getting back into the warm as soon as he could.
The boat was lying at a slight angle against the sand, with its prow turned towards the shore and the surf tugging at its stern. The anchor rope was at full stretch, and the heavy metal hook was buried deep. So deep he had to work hard to tug it free. He'd not taken the vessel out for a couple of days, and the shifting tide had been slowly dragging it back towards the sea. Normally he would be happy to leave it where it was. It took less effort to launch the thing when half of it was already afloat - but he didn't want to lose it, and the increasing agitation of the ocean was only a hint of what he suspected was still to come. The bay was generally well sheltered by the promontory on one side and the old stone quay on the other, but if the wind rose any further - or swung round to drive in straight from the east - then it would be subjected to the full force of the North Sea in a winter fury.
{It's far too remote, Rupert. Miserable place. Harsh weather and spartan conditions. And this time of year?}
A memory of Quentin Travers' words - a mixture of stern, if well meaning advice, unwanted sympathy and a slightly confused reaction to his choices - lifted an ironic smile to his lips. He hadn't cared what time of year it was. The prospect of harsh weather and deprivation had suited his mood - and he knew a lot about misery. He'd been living with it every day. Every day since …
He grimaced angrily, refusing to follow the thought all the way down. That kind of thinking only led to pain and regret, brought back memory and took him to dark and unwelcoming places inside his head. He'd come to the Sully seeking refuge from those places, only to find he'd brought them with him; the peace he sought - peace of mind, if not peace in his heart - still seemed impossibly distant, even after all this time. Time, they'd said, would heal the wounds. The nagging ache in his gut had long since vanished - but the savage lacerations that events had ripped through his soul were still painful. Still bleeding. There was a cold empty space inside him that felt as if nothing would ever fill it - and while the soaring grandeur and the harsh demands of his chosen sanctuary helped numb the agony of his loss, it could do nothing to salve the bitterness of the experience.
Or the inescapable of guilt that wrapped every moment of it.
The anchor finally pulled free of the sand and he tossed it into the prow of the boat for a moment, reaching gritty hands to grab hold of the hull and begin dragging the vessel further up the beach. The wood was slick and it was hard to get a firm grip. Cold surf washed around his feet - and the sudden surging wave, which gave him unexpected aide by lifting the boat and driving it forward, also managed to immerse him up to his knees.
He was soaked through in seconds.
"Damn and blast!" Giles cursed, as much from the shock of the cold as from real annoyance. The boat had jammed itself firmly against a jutting rock and his hands had slipped, leaving painful layers of raw skin scraped along the gunwales. It was too much. Suddenly *everything* was too much. The weight of the world crashed down on him with a vengeance, driving a dark wedge of despair deep into his wounded heart.
His hands clenched convulsively on the wood and he leant forward with a groan, bowing his head and closing his eyes as a feeling of utter despondency surged through him. It didn't matter how hard he fought, how much he tried to distance himself from his guilt and his grief, the shadows still came back to haunt him. For one long, unbearable moment, he was standing - not knee deep in the bitter cold swirl of the winter surf - but somewhere at the foot of a swaying, makeshift tower, the last warmth of a dead man staining his hands while the tumbled form of his Slayer came to rest on the cold, hard ground in front of him.
Every time.
He could play and replay the moment over and over in his head and it never changed, never altered in clarity or impact. There'd been nothing he could do, nothing he could have done that would have saved her - and he hated himself for hating her choices, for wanting to deny the poetry of her gift, and her right to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the world.
He hadn't just cared about her. He'd loved her. Loved every selfish, self-indulgent, self-absorbed moment of her; the way she'd wanted to defy her fate and the responsibilities it demanded of her. She'd been an infuriating, frustrating charge - and a total joy to his heart, a spirit that had fired his soul. It was on days like this that he wanted to curse her, wanted to reach out and shake her lifeless body, demanding to know why on *that* day, of all days, she'd finally understood the selflessness of her destiny - and chosen to follow it to its ultimate end.
"Giles?"
The sound of her voice was soft, an anxious, sorrowful whisper that turned his heart and cut him to the soul. It had sounded so real. So real, in fact, that - for one terrifying second - he could have sworn she was right beside him.
"I'm sorry, Buffy," he murmured, not daring to lift his head or open his eyes. If he did that, her ghost would leave him; leave him with nothing but memory and regret - and the deep aching emptiness that swirled in the hollow of his heart. "I am so sorry." His voice choked on the words. *Sorry* wasn't enough. He'd failed her. Left her to struggle for her own solutions, because the ones he'd had to offer just hadn't been acceptable.
There should have been another way. Another answer. He should have found her one.
One they both could have lived with …
The wind shifted a little, the change heralding the onset of rain. Cold spears, the ice of descending precipitation, began to strike at his hunched shoulders with almost bruising force. He sighed and tilted his head up and back, letting the water hammer into his face, letting it wash away the treacherous tears that had spilled onto his cheeks. They mingled like ice and fire; the weeping of the world and the white hot protests of his soul.
"Don't be sorry. Be *Giles*."
Her voice was so close - so *real* - that for a moment he thought … His breath suddenly caught in his throat. A phantom hand clenched around his heart. Slowly, fearfully, he turned his head and opened his eyes.
"Buffy?"
She was standing on the beach. Standing there, staring at him with wide, haunted eyes. Buffy Summers. His Slayer.
His *dead* Slayer.
The wind was tugging at her sundress and making her hair dance. The rain was patterning her skin, and the surf was swirling around her sandled feet; she was thin and wan and as pale as a ghost. "Hey," she ventured, her lips quirking in the brief echo of a smile - one that slipped away and was lost almost before it had time to form. "Miss me?"
He opened his mouth - but no words came out. He was afraid to move, afraid to even *breathe*. He felt suspended, held in a moment between pain and joy, his heart pierced by her presence; it fluttered and struggled inside his chest like a moth caught in a candle flame. It just wasn't possible - but she was *there*.
Really there, a figure as solid and as soaked as he was, lashed by the rain and caressed by the ice filled wind. She was shivering - and not all of it was from the cold.
Giles let go of the boat. Strode out of the surf and went to her. She didn't move - or vanish - as he approached; her eyes watched him with anxious intensity, and her body quivered, almost as if poised for flight. He hesitated as he reached her, doubt and disbelief warring with the evidence of his senses. He wondered if he were losing his mind. He knew she was dead. He'd carried her home after her fall, had stood over her grave. She could be nothing more than a phantom; a ghost conjured up by his grief.
And yet, and *yet* … She stared up at him as he stared down, the moment poised in eternity, the requisite six inches of proprietary space between them - and that little distance yawned like a gulf, defining the abyss that lay between life and death. His sense of the world hung in precarious balance; one wrong move, one wrong word, and he knew she would be gone. Gone forever, taken from him a second time.
He lifted his hand. Tentatively, delicately, he reached to brush the rebellious strands of rain slicked hair from her face - and felt them cling to his fingers, felt the whisper of them, their reality, against his skin. "*Buffy*," he breathed, acknowledging the miracle, turning her name into a prayer.
And then she was in his arms, hugging him with fierce and desperate need, the hard curve of her body pressing against him as she shook with heart wrenching sobs.