Title: Who Watch You Fall 1/4
Author: Pythia
Rating: FRM (for strong language)
Summary: Living after loss can be hard. Even for the dead …
Timeframe: End Season 5
Spoilers: “The Gift”
Pairings: None (Giles/Spike friendship)
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of them – Buffy and the gang belong to Joss.
Thanks to Ann, who provided valuable comment and suitable murmurings of encouragement.
Notes: This was written for Headrush100’s ficathon, with inspiration words picked from a proffered list. My words were: lifted, book, weakness, ordinary, offer, relief. They’re all in there. Somewhere.
The title is taken from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, which is quoted in full at the end of the tale.
The room held three weary bodies, but only one of them housed an entirely human soul. An extremely weary one, at that. Weary enough for the three of them, Giles thought, staring down at Dawn’s tear-streaked face, her complexion almost as pale as that of the Vampire who cradled her sleeping form.
‘How far can one soul stretch?’ he wondered, watching the two unlikely companions curled around each other as if their closeness were the only thing holding them together. Perhaps it was. Perhaps the Key, blood shed to release its mystic energy, had begun to revert to its true form, up there on the tower. Perhaps it was only the vampire’s determined will that had halted that dissolution, keeping her anchored in the world. The monks hadn’t just sent Dawn to Buffy, they’d *created* her from Buffy.
And Buffy was gone, her sacrifice made to save – not the world – but the sister she’d never had, the lie made flesh.
Giles sighed, moving to drag a blanket off the end of his couch and drape it over the two sleeping figures. While he mourned his Slayer’s loss and regretted the necessity of actions taken – both hers *and* his – the Watcher inside him could not deny that her choices had, in the end, been the inevitable outcome of her destiny.
For once, the chosen one had not died in vain. She’d not faltered in combat, or fallen to a stronger foe. She’d given her life, offered it to the world without hesitation or regret.
‘Going out in a blaze of glory …’
His lips quirked, acknowledging the irony of the phrase, and then quivered as a surge of emotion swept across him. Dawn was fast asleep, exhausted by her own emotional storm. Spike was as dead to the world as any corpse might be, his energies as shattered as his body. There was no-one who’d see the tears, but the Watcher fought them anyway, refusing to succumb to the weakness that battered at his soul. If he fell now, he’d fall forever, tumbling into grief and despair as certainly as Buffy had tumbled from the tower. He had to be strong. Not for himself, but for the young woman who’d sought sanctuary in a dead man’s arms – and, strange as it might seem, for the dead man, who had acquitted himself with surprising nobility for a soulless, homicidal demon.
An innocent, and a monster – and the only man in the room who was certain of his soul was equally certain of the stain it now carried; the weight of murder, the sacrifice he had chosen to make.
Too much death, too much loss, too much sorrow. The price of the world had been too high.
Giles sighed a second time, taking a few short steps across the room to sink into the welcome support of the nearest comfortable chair. The events of the day had carried him for a while, serving to numb his senses and hold the protests of his body at bay. Some of that numbness was still there, a fragile fortification holding back the storm that had already devasted his heart and was currently threatening to shatter the rest of him into irreparable pieces. But a vague sense of feeling had begun to creep into the periphery of his awareness – and the most dominant sensations currently warring for his attention were exhaustion and pain.
*Serious* pain. Somewhere in all the hubbub – the whirlwind experience of making sure Buffy’s body was safely secured, of making sure that Tara was safely settled in Willow’s arms, of checking that Anya and Xander were capable of taking care of each other and of bringing Dawn and her inseparable guardian to the suspect haven of his home – he’d managed to pull apart half of the stitches that had been busy holding him together. The bandages beneath his shirt were soaked with blood, and the ache in his side was throbbing with an intensity that was hard to ignore.
A part of him wanted to simply sink into oblivion. To let go, and fall away, into the darkness. The rest of him was gritting his teeth and using the pain to keep him safely anchored in the here-and-now. Sleep was out of the question. The moment he closed his eyes he knew he’d be back there – back at the foot of that damned tower, watching a slender figure take an elegant dive into eternity.
It wasn’t a place he wanted to go – and it was the one place he suspected he’d never escape from, a memory that would haunt him forever.
He reached out and carefully lifted a battered book from the coffee table; the journal he’d pulled from his shelves almost without thinking, acting on the habits of a lifetime.
‘Why didn't the Watchers keep fuller accounts of it?’ she’d asked. ‘The journals just stop.’
He’d thought he’d known. He’d thought he’d explained. But he hadn’t. Not really. It wasn’t pain that he wrestled with as he sat there, the journal open on his lap, the pen poised and the page remaining stubbornly blank. Pain was something you could face, something you could endure – like the deep nagging throb of his abdomen, easily recognised and almost as easily dismissed.
This was – this was something *else*, something so fundamental, so primal, that there was nothing in his vocabulary with which he could describe it. Nothing, no matter which language he tried to call to mind.
‘If I could only find the words, then I could write it all down …’
The thought and the tune rose out of nowhere, swirling round his disjointed thoughts with bitter irony. The plaintive cry of the songsmith – the almost clichéd relic of a time he’d left so far behind it seemed another lifetime altogether – battered at his emotional defenses with mocking cruelty.
‘If I could only find a voice I would speak… ‘
There *were* no words. Nothing to write and nothing to say. Just an empty, hollow feeling where his heart should have been.
“Bloody hell, Watcher. You’re a cold-hearted bastard, and no mistake. Writing it down? Writing it *all* down? Don’t know how you’ve got the guts.”
Giles looked up. Spike was standing right in front of him, looking rumpled and battered in his tee-shirt and jeans. There were livid bruises on his face and smears of blood painted across his skin. Some of it was probably Dawn’s. .The Watcher felt decidedly sick at the sight.
“I haven’t,” he said bleakly, glancing across to the couch for the reassurance of the teenager’s still-sleeping form, curled under the warmth of the blanket. “I promised her I would.” His explanation was shaky, his voice cracking on the words. “I *promised* her. But I can’t.” He looked up to find the vampire looking back with sudden, wide-eyed sympathy. “I just can’t …”
Spike stared at him for a moment, wary consideration slowly folding down into a tight-lipped frown. “*Fuck,*” he muttered. “Listen up, you great steaming nit.” The vampire reached out and plucked the pen from nerveless fingers, tossing it away. The journal followed with a rustle of paper and a muffled thump as it hit the floor. “You’re in no fit state to do *anything* right now, let alone trying to be the bleeding noble Watcher, doing his sodding duty, no matter what. So you made a promise? *I* made a frigging promise and now I’m bloody well stuck with it. Stuck protecting an innocent kid that don’t know what a fucking *monster* I am. And if I’m gonna protect her, I’m bloody well gonna have to take care of you – because you’re the closest thing to a parent she’s got, and I *am* a monster, so you’re gonna have to be around to keep us both in line. Right?”
Giles blinked at him, wondering when the world had got so fuzzy round the edges – both morally *and* literally. “I-I suppose that’s … one way to look at it,” he managed after a moment. “Although …” The weight of events was catching up with him. The numbness had given way to a persistent, throbbing ache that permeated every inch of him. His left hand – empty now of the tool of his trade – itched and burned with memory, as if the warmth it had smothered still lingered on his skin. “Going by the events of this evening …there’s only one monster in this room – and it isn’t you.”
It was Spike’s turn to blink, his face creasing in brief bemusement as he tried to make sense of what he’d heard. “You what?” he questioned with a snort of semi-laughter. “*You,* a frigging monster? Don’t make me laugh. You’re about as scary as a stuffed bunny rabbit right now. Though I guess that might give Anya a fright …”
“I killed him,” Giles admitted softly, staring down at his hands and wondering why he felt the need to confess. “Ben,” he explained, since Spike was frowning in confusion. “He saved my life and I killed him. Because I had to. Because *she* couldn’t …” The thought of Buffy, of the way she’d walked away from her battle with Glory, shivered through him like a stab of pain.
“Oh,” the vampire said, giving him an odd look. Was it pity – or respect? It was hard to tell. “Right. So we really don’t have to worry about Glory showing up all pissed off and mad as hell.”
“No.” The Watcher heaved a tired sigh. “At least – I don’t think so.”
“Well, all right then. Good for you. That’s what Watchers are for, isn’t it? Tying up the loose ends? Dealing with stuff that … needs to be done.”
“Yes,” Giles acknowledged in that same weary tone. “I suppose it is.” He paused, throwing another glance at the slender figure curled up on his couch. “I told her – told *Buffy* - ” He nearly choked on her name, on the sense of betrayal that still lurked behind their final hours together. “I told her we might have to … kill Dawn.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed and he too glanced in the young woman’s direction. “Yeah,” he drawled. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. You really can be a cold blooded bastard if you need to be. *Christ,* ” he continued, swinging round to stare across the room at nothing in particular. “Do the bleeding powers that be get their jollies outta this? Making her choose? Getting *you* to do all their dirty work? Me. I like the kill, but … *Hell,* I dunno. Is this what saving the world’s all about? Murder and bloody sacrifice?”
“Yes.” Giles leaned back in his chair and tipped his head back, closing his eyes and feeling the world sway around him, seeing her fall, again and again. “At least … it was today …”