ITLE: 'Seeking Sanctuary' 4/8
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.
They didn't stand like that for long - although the moment felt like forever, an instant of eternity captured within her soul. Buffy marvelled at the feel of familiar arms around her, at the sensation of embracing the solid, certain warmth that lurked beneath layers of salt spray and rain soaked wool. It was a feeling she never wanted to lose; she felt anchored and protected, encircled by his strength and immersed in his presence. She pressed her face against his chest, not bothering to hold back the tears that had somehow welled up from inside her. She had cut herself off from the world for so long, buried her emotions so deep, that this sudden release was giddying. She'd wrestled with pain, and effort, and misery for weeks, each numbing moment pushing her soul closer and closer to utter despair - and now all of that came bubbling out of her, the anguish and the wretchedness wrenched from her heart with savage intensity. She hadn't known that she needed to cry.
Perhaps she'd forgotten how.
"Ssh," he soothed inconsequentially, pressing his check against her hair and stroking the curve of her shoulder with reassuring gentleness. He was shaking almost as badly as she was, holding her against him as though he feared she'd vanish the moment he let go. Perhaps he did; as far as *he* knew, she was a ghost, just an apparition sent to haunt him by the storm. "It's all right. Everything's going to be all right."
They were words, nothing more, offered as meaningless comfort for a distress he had no real way to measure - but they tore at her heart with desperate pain. Nothing was right. Nothing could *be* right, when she was so wrong, and so out of place. She clung to him like a limpet, feeling herself battered and torn by the storm of emotion that had been unleashed inside her. Anger and pain swirled into the empty spaces in her heart, dragging fear and hopelessness with them. It threatened to overwhelm her, to drown her in its turbulence.
But the rock to which she clung stood firm, holding her, sheltering her; his warmth, his certainty, gave her the strength she needed to pull herself up from the flood. Slowly and fearfully, she lifted her head and looked into his eyes. It was a moment she'd been dreading. She had every expectation of seeing what she'd seen in every other pair of familiar eyes these past weeks. Confusion. Anxious, misplaced sympathy. The pleasure at her return tainted by all the pain of her leaving in the first place - and the hints of anger, the guilt and the blame placed on her shoulders, the long, anguished cry of the bereaved as they fought to understand the injustice of death. Her friends had been unable to understand the reason for her choices - and her sister had still carried the guilt of being the one left behind.
The man in her arms had every right to feel that way too. More right, perhaps, than any of them.
Buffy expected to see it in his eyes. Not just the pain and the reproach, but the regret and the grief tangled together like barbed wire wrapped around his soul. She thought she'd look, and that she'd see, and when she did the moment of their connection would dissolve like mist, vanishing like a long forgotten dream.
She held her breath as their eyes met; she was trembling on the edge of the flood, waiting for it to rise up and sweep her away. She was expecting accusation. What she found was absolution.
His smile was gentle, and his sympathy profound. There was pain - and grief - in the way he looked at her - but they were nothing compared to the deep and abiding love that lurked in the depth of his eyes. It gathered her up, welcomed her, measured her and forgave her, all in an instant.
"I thought I'd lost you." His words were shaky. He still didn't quite believe she was there. Nor did she.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, pressing herself back into his embrace, echoing his earlier words with the same heartfelt need and passion. None of this was right - not *yet* - but suddenly she knew it could be and it would be; with his help she would find a way - a way in which she could weather the storm and reach safe harbour.
"Don't be sorry," he said, sounding as if he were choking back a mix of laughter and tears. "Be Buffy. Be *real*."
"I am. And … I am," she assured him, a little surprised by her own confidence in the assertion. "Will - Willow brought me back. Back from the dead … back from - " She hesitated, shivering with memory. She didn't want to tell him - but not telling had been part of the problem. Part of the pain. "From heaven, Giles. I was in Heaven, and they tore me out of it."
"Oh dear Lord." His arms tightened around her. His words were soft and fervent - a true prayer, rather than simple exclamation. "I had no idea … Are you all right? A-are you …?" He couldn't formulate the question, couldn't find the words to express what he needed to know. Buffy's tears welled up a second time.
"No," she sobbed, clinging to him with a sense of desperation. "*No*… Giles, I-I think I came back wrong. Everything - everything's too harsh, too hard, too much. I've tried and I've tried, and I just can't … I don't know *how* … They took Dawn away from me. They said I wasn't fit to care for her - and I was glad, because … I'm not. I'm *not*. Everything's just fallen apart. Xander walked out on Anya. Will and Tara broke up and - and I … I slept with Spike. He hurt me and I wanted him to. I wanted him to because … because at least he made me *feel*." She paused, trying to catch her breath, trying to fight the flood of words and self-loathing that had come pouring out of her. It felt like poison welling up from a wound; her ugly, bleeding heart laid bare for him to see. "Do you … do you hate me?" she asked in a small voice, quivering with shame.
"Oh, Buffy," he sighed, an unexpected note of amusement in his voice. "You silly girl. Of course I-I don't hate you. I am having a little trouble b-breathing here, but quite frankly, that doesn't seem to matter at the moment …"
"Oh," she reacted bemusedly, oddly disappointed by the absence of stern words. Then what he'd said registered. "*Oh*." She sprang away from him with wide-eyed guilt, and he reached to catch her shoulders before she bolted completely.
"Buffy …" He was looking at her with sympathetic affection, smiling a little sadly in the depths of an unexpected beard. He was, she realised warily, no longer the stuffy, tweed-clad librarian who'd struggled so hard to cope with the stubborn, wilful teenager who'd been placed in his care. But he was still *Giles* - still, in that indefinable, destiny shaped way, her Watcher.
Still the guardian of her soul, the keeper of her heart.
The beard was a nice touch actually; it gave him a weathered, rumpled look, a suitably roughened edge to match the stark wilderness in which he'd sought refuge. She took a moment to look at him - *really* look at him - and found her lips curling into a wary smile. His sweater was torn and frayed at the neck, and had little leather patches sewn into the elbows, he was wearing thick and heavy jeans, tucked firmly into a pair of solid boots - and he was *soaked*. From head to toe. The rain was falling heavily by now; it had plastered his hair tight against his skull and was running in little rivulets into the curls of his beard and then dripping out again.
"I think," he was saying, "that you and have a-a lot to talk about. But not here and not *now* - because right n-now, the important thing is to get you somewhere warm and dry before you catch your death …" He trailed off, colliding with his own thoughtless phrasing . The sudden, stricken look in his eyes turned her heart over.
"Been there. Done that," she said softly. "But … warm and dry sounds good." Lightning flared across the distant horizon. It was followed by a heavy rumble of thunder, the sound of ancient gods quarrelling somewhere in the heavens. It summoned up memories of a boiling vortex, of violent forces trying to tear the universe apart. Buffy shivered, all the way to her soul. "Better than good," she corrected shakily. "Does it do that - a lot, around here?"
Giles' smile was wry. "Now and again. It's that time of year." He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her inland, gesturing up the beach. "We'll be safe enough in the croft. I've a good fire going, and I-I've fixed - most of the leaks in the roof."
She'd taken two steps before she remembered what he'd been doing when she'd found him - a task he seemed to have forgotten about completely. "Oh," she exclaimed, glancing back at the beach. "Giles … y-your boat. You were - "
"Oh bugger," he cursed, half turning back. "Ah, what the hell. Leave the bloody thing. If it washes away, it washes away."
That didn't seem right somehow. Hadn't he braved the onset of the rain to drag it to safety, and wasn't she the reason he hadn't managed to do so? It would be her fault if the storm dragged it away - and she carried enough guilt as it was. She really didn't want the burden of any more. Especially where he was concerned.
Besides, it really wouldn't take much to complete the task.
"No," she decided, slipping out from under his arm. "It's okay. I'll get it."
"Buffy …"
She was at the edge of the surf before he could stop her, reaching to seize the rail of the boat and lift it out of the water.
"… that really isn't …"
All it took was one good heave to break the grip of sand and surf; once it was free she dragged it forward, pulling it up until it lodged on a sand bank further up the beach.
"… n-necessary. Ah. Yes. Well, that - that will do." Giles stared at the rescued vessel a little bemusedly for a minute. "I - um - see you … haven't lost your strength."
The boat had a name. Buffy could see it now, the curl of words painted lovingly just below the prow. 'Summers Gift'. Had that been its name before? Or had he chosen to call it that, a poignant reminder of events he could neither prevent or forget? She lifted her head as he reached to lift the anchor out of the prow. Lightning flashed a second time and - for a moment - she saw not just the rumpled, familiar figure that was his current shell, but all of him, from outer flesh to inner spirit; the wounded warrior and the weather worn, weary Watcher within him. There was a deep and bleeding hole in his soul. A Buffy shaped hole, she realised guiltily, an emptiness as desperate and as intense as her own. She'd torn the heart out of him, the day she'd died. Torn it out and taken it with her into the light.
"Still the Slayer," she quipped, wincing at the quiver in her voice. That sudden glimpse, the vision of the hurt *she'd* caused, had shaken her to the core. "Still *your* Slayer," she corrected, hoping - against all hope -that it was true.
He'd turned to heft the anchor so that he could throw it further up the beach; the correction turned him back, turned him towards her in a startled beat, as if he hadn't quite believed what he'd heard. Then he smiled. Deeply. Warmly. And with more than hint of shy pleasure lurking in the depths of his beard. "Always," he affirmed, tossing the angled steel away without another thought. He held out his hand instead, and she took it, anchoring herself within his grasp.
Seeking sanctuary beside his wounded soul.