TITLE: WARLOCK 12/14
AUTHOR: vatwoman
DISCLAIMER: JOSS WHEDON, MUTANT ENEMY AND FOX/UPN OWN EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ‘BUFFY.’ NO INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. THE CHARACTER OF KOVACS IS MINE.
FEEDBACK: YES PLEASE, TO VATWOMAN@Y...

Giles wrenched open the door and Jenny was standing there, bruised by the moonlight. He found he could do little more than stare at her. He willed words to come but they had left him; left her, also, as she silently looked at him with pain sunken eyes.

Five thirty in the morning: she had endured over four hours of brutal, loveless sex. He could feel the pain radiating off her in waves. He gestured her inside. She walked like a drunkard or an old woman, staggering under the weight of her age. She smelled of the magicks used on her – a dank, polluting, odour – and something else; Kovacs. His body. His sex. As rank as his magicks.

She went past him, past the kitchen, feeling the way with a hand on the wall as if she was blind, and turned into the bathroom. He entered behind her and, knowing what she needed, stepped around her, switched on the shower, waited for the water to heat and turned to face her.

The deadness in her eyes made the anger in his heart rise again. Anger at her. Anger at himself. And above all, a deep black rage at Kovacs. Seeing her look so broken, he reserved for the man who had done this to her an extravagantly painful death.

When he touched her she flinched, half stepping away from him but he went with her, keeping the tenuous physical contact. He watched her close her eyes as he gently unbuttoned her blouse.

The clothes fell from her as if she’d become insubstantial and pooled on the floor at her feet. Kovacs had done little to hide the assault on her body: bruises mirroring the grip of fingers; scrapes that could only have come from teeth and nails; reddened areas that hummed with the residue of spells; and crusted liquids on her thighs and abdomen. As she stepped into the shower he saw the brand on her back, the sight so shocking that he gasped out loud. Base of her spine, palm-sized, the inverted pentagram, pointing downwards at her buttocks, was, he was sure, intended to add a final period to the obscenity of the double rape.

A scream built in him, a sudden wave of blinding hatred. The purity of the emotion rushed through him, sweeping all other emotions before it, making him its instrument. His whole being drew itself in and tightened like a bow-string waiting to launch an arrow to the target. He would allow no distractions and no wasted energy – there would be nothing now but retribution for Jenny and Kovacs’s defeat.

She was motionless under the spray the water running down her bent head, hiding her face from him as if it was a veil. Her arms hung at her side, palms up in supplication. She was trembling, cold even in the heat, and suddenly there was urine running down her legs. And she was falling to her knees, curling in upon herself, to lie in the water pooling in the bath. Heedless of his clothes he stepped in and drew her against him. She felt cold, almost lifeless in his arms: was unresponsive as he washed her body and then, after lifting her out of the shower, dried it with a soft towel. Clothes shed, he dried himself and carried her to their bed.

She lay on her side beside him, facing him, her head next to his on the pillow, eyes closed. The duvet was soft on their skin. Fresh sheets cool under them. Her breathing was so shallow that when she spoke the effort seemed to use up all the air, leaving her struggling for more.

“He had no smell. I couldn’t smell him. It was as if he wasn’t there … and then … and then he was all there was …” She opened her eyes and for the first time he looked into the inky darkness of them and saw nothing of the depths. “Why haven’t you said anything to me?”

His reply was a whispered, “I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s a cop-out,” and she slapped at his chest, “Say something.” Another slap, harder this time, followed by another … and another … and another. “Say something! Anything! Anything!” The blows rained down on his chest and neck and face. He did nothing to deflect them, taking them from her. The storm stopped as quickly as it had started but through the hand she left on his chest he felt her trembling again. “Am I alive?”

“I don’t understand …”

“… I can’t feel anything. How can I be alive and feel so dead inside?” She took the hand from his chest and pressed it to his face for a moment. Lifting it away she ran the pad of her thumb over her fingertips, feeling them, frowning in concentration as she did so. “Rupert?” She held out the hand to him. “Am I alive?”

“Yes. Yes, you’re alive.” He took her hand and the trembling he’d felt earlier was magnified through this, more deliberate, contact. “Let me hold you.”

A tiny tug on her hand urged her forward and into his arms. She was icy cold again. He reached behind her, tucked the duvet into her back and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

She pushed her face into his chest. He felt blisteringly hot against the unnatural coldness of her body … and then there was pain. The tears began as a clench in her gut, then her heart, a tightness in her chest and her in her throat. They fell down her face in thick, heavy, lines. She felt his arms bring her almost impossibly close.

“Let me take this pain away.” He stroked her hair. “Jenny?”

“It hurts so much!” She cried out, helpless.

“I know … shh … shh …” He gently pushed her face up so he could look at her. “… let me help you. I can take this pain away. Let me do that for you.”

“Hurts …” The little-girl-lost voice tore at his heart.

“It’ll be gone soon, I promise.”

Pushing aside the bed covers he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him until she lay down his body, held in place by his arms. He cleared his mind and the spell fell fully formed into that blankness. As he closed his eyes the spell did his bidding.

A soft, white, blanket of light enveloped them. It rippled across and between them, guided by his memory of her hurts. Jenny cried out as each of those hurts was drawn away from her ravaged body: and Giles, his own tears falling down his face onto the pillow beneath his head, willed to the light just enough of his power to give it mastery over itself, and gave himself up to its precious healing force.

********************

Buffy watched from one end of the library’s long table as Willow, seated at the other, tapped urgently into her computer.

The night had been hard for all of them. She’d left Giles when he’d told that Ms Calendar had been released. She’d wanted to stay but knew she couldn’t – last night had been about Giles and Jenny. So she’d left and had gone to Willow’s. She’d found her best friend up and researching; as disturbed by the powerful magicks as Buffy had been. They’d stayed up, talking, researching; all the while watching the phone, wishing he would call them or that they could call him.

She’d told Willow what had happened last night and Xander, too, when he joined them at school this morning.

Buffy looked up at the clock. 7.45 a.m. No sign of Giles and classes would be starting soon and this inactivity was just … starting … to … get … to … her. Her hand slapping down onto the table-top sounded like a rifle shot. Both Willow and Xander jumped in their chairs.

“Sorry, guys.” Buffy apologised. She got up and started pacing. “Willow?”

“Nothing I can add to the stuff I found yesterday. Except … ooh …” Willow frowned at her screen and tapped in another command. “… he’s called in sick. Kovacs.”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Then it did weaken him. Ms Calendar was right. She’s bought us some time. Now all we need is Giles.” She glanced at the clock again. “We need him here.”

“Maybe Ms Calendar needs him more, Buff.”

Buffy sighed, knowing what Xander had said was true. “Yeah, got that.”

********************

“I thought you’d gone.”

Jenny looked up at is words. “I almost did.”

“What stopped you?”

“The memory of your tears.” She put down the spoon she’d been using to stir her coffee. “You cried for me, didn’t you?” He nodded. “Why?”

For just a moment he looked as furiously angry with her as he had been when she’d told him that she was leaving him, then his face settled again into the sad acceptance of fate – the look that seemed to dominate not just his face, or her face, but all their faces, the children as well.

“Because no matter what you say or think, you suffered last night because of me, and I can’t bear the thought of that.” She came across the kitchen in two long strides and stepped into his open arms. They clung to each other like shipwrecked sailors clinging to a life-preserving piece of deck. “Thank you for coming back to me.” His voice was thick, laced with tears.

“There was nowhere else I could’ve gone.“ Her voice was shaky again. “You’re my life.” She pushed away from his chest, leaned back and looked into his face. “I love you.” There was a sudden, deep, silence, as if they’d both forgotten to breathe, then she blew out a halting half-laugh. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

She reached up and cupped her hand around his cheek, closing her eyes as he turned his head to kiss her palm. “I didn’t mean to, I was trying to save it up …”

“… for what?”

“Happier times.” His eyes welled up and as he softly kissed her lips the tears fell onto his cheeks and she felt them on her fingers. “Oh no … no … why are you crying?” She asked gently, knowing the answer as well as he.

He pulled back to answer her, swallowing heavily to get the words around the tightness in his throat. “Because I’m desperately afraid that this is going to be as happy as it gets …” Then he smiled, the full, deep, smile she loved so much and had seen so rarely. “… and because I love you.” They held on tight again, rocking each other, comforting each other with whispered words of love and with the stroke of hands. “How are you this morning?” The question rumbled in her ear as she tried to snuggle deeper into his chest.

“Better than I have a right to be.” She stood straight again and released him, smiling gently as she turned away to make him some tea. “What did you do?”

“Took away the damage. Released you from the pain – at least the immediate physicality of it.” He frowned, a flash of self-aimed anger knotting his brow. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t wipe away the memory of it too … would’ve taken more control than I had last night.”

“It’s fine … I’ve … I’ve got some meditation techniques I can use … to … to block …” She looked back at him “… and that’s a lie.”

He stepped closer and drew a finger across the deep blue-black shadows under her eyes. “Ask me, Jenny. Ask for whatever you want from me, when you want it.”

She shook her head, trying to turn away from the intensity of his gaze, but he wouldn’t let her. “I can’t, damnit! I don’t want to be this needy!”

“Do you think that being needy is about weakness? Asking for help isn’t about weakness. Asking for help is the strongest thing a person can do; something I’d forgotten, until you reminded me of it.” At her frown he carried on. “I told Buffy everything last night. Asked her to tell the others. I …” He stopped, momentarily, then corrected himself. “… you and I need all the help we can get.”

“The cavalry coming over the hill?”

He laughed a little at her comment and nodded. “Mind you, I still hate westerns!”

“Let you into a secret?” He raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to go on. “So do I!” She laughed but found it turning into a sobbing gasp. “I’m not sure if I can do this … don’t know if I’m strong enough … I’m … I’m this close …” The thumb and first finger of her right hand were held up for inspection; the gap between them was all but invisible. “… to falling apart! Giles …”

And he was there for her, his arms closing around her again, to hold her against him so tightly it was if he was trying to physically swallow her up. She wrapped her arms around his back, squeezing him in a bear-hug, and then pushed at him, struggling to get room enough for her arms to reach up and pull his head down to hers … to capture his lips in a blinding kiss … that went on and on … Giles lifting her off the ground and leaning back onto the kitchen counter to get better access to her mouth.

“I love you!” Said simultaneously, the moment they drew apart to catch a desperately needed breath, as if they’d read each other’s minds.

She tunnelled her hands into his hair and pulled his head back so she could look into his eyes. “You’re mine.”

“Yes!” He affirmed with unwavering pride.

“And I’m yours.”

“Yes.” He acknowledged with softness and joy.

Another hard kiss and their declarations were solemnised.

“Alright then, England, put me down.” He loosened his grip immediately and she slid to the floor. Her face hardened as she summoned up from somewhere the courage to continue this fight. “End game? Right?”

“Oh yes.” When she would have turned away to lead him from the kitchen he stopped her with a firm hand on her arm. “You know this is my fight?”

“Yes.” She didn’t even hesitate and smiled grimly as he nodded his thanks. “Ok, let’s get to school, find the kids and finish this.”

**********************

The muted chattering that was audible as they pushed open the library doors ceased the moment they stepped through. Buffy, Willow and Xander were seated together at the table crowded around Willow’s laptop. A patch of sun held them, bathing them in light, making them golden. Giles took it as an omen – the forces of light brought home to rest for a while. Their eyes were on him, he and Jenny both, tentative smiles starting across their faces as if unsure that smiling was something they should be doing.

They straightened as one and he was struck again at how much a team they’d become: The Scooby Gang, a whimsical name deliberately chosen to try, somehow, to make light of a desperate purpose. They’d seemed so young, Buffy included, when he’d first met them only a year or so ago and now … now they seemed harder, less inclined to trust, less like children: older.

The Hellmouth was stripping them down to their elemental natures, laying them bare, just as it did with everyone and everything that it drew into its ‘charmed circle:’ because the Hellmouth was here, Buffy was here; because Buffy was here, he was here; because he was here, Kovacs had found him; and Kovacs had almost certainly arrived because of the Hellmouth. QED. Strengths and weaknesses exposed and tested; guilt, greed, love, duty, honour, dishonour, grief, fear, happiness …

… not much of that, but it was something he constantly looked for, moments that he could record in his personal diary - the one the Watchers’ Council would never see - and say with utter truthfulness, ‘Then, I was happy.’ Lately there’d been so few of those moments and all of them had come because of the woman standing at his side.

When they’d professed their love for each other he’d felt something settle in him. He’d been struggling to put a name to it ever since, but now, looking at her sunken eyes, the pain lurking behind them, and yet the determined set of her face, he knew what it was – wholeness, completeness. The true knowing of a person. The knowledge that that person is yours and you are theirs. He reached for her hand and smiled at her. Her eyes crinkled in response but the smile failed to reach her lips. <That’s alright> He thought <It’ll come back. I’ll make sure it comes back, even if it takes me a lifetime of trying>

He turned his smile on the others and it drew them in just as it had at the hospital days ago and just as at the hospital he found himself enveloped in hugs from Xander and Willow. They were gentler with Jenny, but those gentle touches did not diminish the genuineness of their greeting.

Giles looked at Buffy and caught her nod. She’d told them as he’d asked her to do. They shared everything. After Eyghon he’d sat down with the three of them and had told them everything about the life he’d led before he met them. Everything. Every nasty, sordid, little detail. Every moment of joy and happiness. Every time pride had caused him to stumble. Every sadness. Every love. Every loss. Everything gained.

Willow had, of course, turned that long, hot, night into a night of confessions and revelations. She’d spoken about her life - how happy it made her and how sad. Her love for her friends, including him. How distant she felt from her parents. Then she’d turned to Xander and helped him talk, helped him tell of things he’d probably never told anyone else. There’d been tears from the young man, but Willow had sat there holding his hand throughout and Giles, watching the two close friends, had felt again that they were all extraordinarily blessed to have Willow in their lives.

His Slayer, too, had spoken and in those hours he’d learned more about her than he had in all the months that had gone before. Her descriptions were more clinical, less inclined towards the revelation of deep emotion, but she’d spoken truly nonetheless.

Buffy stood back from him, holding in her emotions, as she’d held them in that night. As he looked at her he became aware that the others had fallen silent around them. Watcher to Slayer. Slayer to Watcher. A moment of pure understanding transcending all the differences between them. A moment that echoed across a billion other such moments back to the dawn of humankind.

“What do we have?”

Buffy’s face hardened in response to Giles’s question. “A missing chem teacher. He’s called in sick.”

“Good.” The word was spoken like the perfect thrust of the stiletto blade as it slipped between the ribs into an enemy’s heart. He turned and looked directly into Jenny’s eyes and when he spoke again it was with gratitude, admiration and love. “We have our window of opportunity. What else?” His gaze shifted to Willow and he was not to be disappointed.

She stepped away from him and settled herself at her computer. “He’s either not who he says he is or his magicks are doing a whole lot more than the ‘dirty’ on Giles.” She looked back at him.

“Tell me.”

“Ok …” Her attention was back on the screen again. “… Andreas Kovacs, born 1st August 1968 in Leipzig, Germany. At least that’s what his application to Sunnydale High says.”

“But?” Giles asked.

Willow nodded. “ ‘But’ there’s no record of an Andreas Kovacs being born in Leipzig on 1st August 1968. There is a record of an Andreas Kovacs being born in Leipzig in 1928.”

“He’s almost seventy years old.” Giles’s voice was barely more than a murmur as he considered this new piece of information. “You’re sure it’s the same person?”

Ordinarily his question would have drawn a pitying look from the Gang’s resident hacker, but this was too important for that. Everything today would have to be right - no margin for error. “Got his family history. It’s him.” She tapped the screen. “His references are bogus, too. Clever, but bogus. Didn’t take much checking to see it.”

“Arrogance - he didn’t think anyone would check.” Giles stepped away from the group and started pacing the floor.

“Hey, England?” At Jenny’s entreaty he stopped and frowned at her, the lines in his forehead asking his question for him. “Share?” She asked, reading him perfectly.

“He has a sponsor.” Off the puzzled looks, he added. “A demon … god … whatever, that he’s pledged himself to. He’s drawing power from that entity in order to maintain the illusion. “

“And in return?” Buffy asked.

“He does it’s bidding.”

“So you’re it’s bidding, not Kovacs’s? Oh, great …” Buffy snarled. “… this just gets better and better!”

“Do we need to know who he’s hooked up with to fight him?”

Giles looked of into the distance as he thought about Xander’s question. “I don’t know.”

“ ‘I don’t know’?” Buffy’s voice was edgy; he could practically feel the need for action flowing off her. “ ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ would’ve been better answers. We can’t go with ‘I don’t know.’ “

“You’re right, *we* can’t.”

“Don’t even think about going solo on me, Giles – not gonna let it happen.”

“Oh?” The others stood still as statues as Giles and Buffy butted heads. Giles raised an eyebrow. “How did you put it? Oh, yes: ‘You’re going to stop me, how?’ “

Buffy, eyes glittering with anger, took half a step forward and then abruptly stopped. Her brow lowered and her eyes narrowed. “Alright, stop it.”

“Stop what?” Xander asked, his head bobbing from side to side as he looked from Buffy to Giles and back to Buffy again.

“You’ve proved your point.” Buffy again, ignoring Xander. “Let me go.” Giles’s control over her fell away with the same suddenness as it had enveloped her … and still he didn’t speak. “This isn’t my fight – that what you’re saying to me?” Buffy turned from Giles to Jenny. “He strong enough for this?”

“Shouldn’t you ask him that question?”

“Yeah, but he’s not gonna give me an honest answer.” She turned her head back to glare at her Watcher before giving Jenny her full attention once more. “And I’m thinking you will.”

“Then you’d be wrong.”

Jenny’s calm reply brought Buffy up short: the world of adults closing rank on her. She offered Jenny a hard look before facing Giles again.

“I don’t do back-up quarterback.”

“This isn’t about you, Buffy.”

“Oh yeah? Forget who’s got ‘Slayer’ on their c.v?”

“No.”

“Forget that I’m the ‘girl with the stake and probable cause.’ “

“No.”

“Argue with me, damn it!”

“No.” Buffy bent her head and her hair fell across her face, hiding her eyes from his. Her blood pounded in her veins as the fight called to her. This was a Slayer’s work … she knew it … she felt it.“You’re wrong, Giles.” She raised her head and pinned him with a steely gaze.

He didn’t flinch. “About what?”

“Not needing me.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t need you. I do need you.” He looked at each of them in turn. “All of you.”

“Then what’s with the ‘this is my fight keep out of it’ crap?” She pulled a face. “If this is some testosterone fuelled macho …”

“… you know it’s not.” Realising that he and Buffy had been virtually ignoring everyone else in the room, Giles gestured to the chairs and once everyone was settled, he continued. “This battle is going to be fought with magicks – powerful ones.”

“And?”

He sighed at Buffy’s angry tones. “You’re not equipped to deal with them.” He held up his hand when she would have launched a denial at him. “No Slayer is. Slayers and magicks are things best kept apart.”

”Why, Giles?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, Willow, but it’s always been the case that whenever Slayers do deep magicks the results are invariably disastrous.” His face took on a reflective cast. “No matter how chaotic the world seems there is actually a balance to these things … Slayers have superhuman physical qualities, perhaps their trying to use magick tips the scales too far in their favour?”

Buffy snorted in disgust. “I’m supposed to be the good guy, seems to me the scales can’t get far enough in my favour!”

“You’ll get no argument on that from me.” And he fashioned a smile for her that he then allowed to slowly die away. “It’s going to take all our concentration when we confront him, so we’ll be vulnerable to vampire attacks … I’ll need you to keep us alive, Buffy.”

“Yeah, I figured …”

“And Xander, too.” Giles looked to the young man sitting directly across from him and watched as he squared his shoulders, preparing himself. A small nod passed from one to the other. Satisfied, Giles turned to Willow and Jenny. “I’ll need you both, and Angel, to distract him.”

“With what?” The question again came from Willow; he suspected that Jenny already knew what he was going to say.

“Magick.”

Willow’s eyes rounded out. “Magick?”

“Can you do that?” The question wasn’t asked of Willow, but of Jenny and the decisive nod she gave in reply spoke of the depth of her resolve. “Can you do that?” Aimed this time at the other three … with the same result. He felt humbled by their response and spoke his acknowledgement of their gifts in a quiet, intense voice. “Thank you.”

“What are going to do to him, Giles?” It was Buffy’s question - one that even Jenny hadn’t asked him - and maybe that was right, maybe this was another of those Slayer/Watcher moments.

He sat quietly for a moment then stood up and moved a few steps away from the table into the patch of sunlight in the middle of the room. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, taking the warmth onto his upturned face. A thought occurred and he smiled …

“Giles?”

“Yes, Buffy?”

“What are going to do to him?”

Giles opened his eyes again and his smile widened: the dust motes he’d called to him floated around him in a beautifully patterned hazy cloud of light. He turned his head to look at his slayer, the smile still playing across his lips. “Oh, I don’t know … but I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

The silk smooth tone of his voice and the deadness in his eyes made Buffy shudder.

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