FIC Alternity (3/3) (BUFFY)

[blairprovence]

 

Giles awoke all alone in the lumpy double bed, and the sensation of loss he'd felt even in his dreams made him bolt upright, his eyes rapidly scanning the room mere seconds after awakening. "Buffy! Buffy, where are you?"

 

There was no response. His heart beat triple-time inside his chest as he blinked frantically, trying to accustom his vision to the midnight gloom. A passing big rig honked its horn and shined its headlights through the dirty white motel curtains, briefly illuminating the interior of their room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Buffy curled against the wall underneath the air-conditioner, as naked as she'd been when they'd finally dropped off to sleep hours earlier.

 

"Buffy?" he repeated in a softer tone, shucking the bedcovers and planting a foot on the floor. "Buffy, are you all right?" He approached her cautiously, but she gave no sign that she had even heard him calling out to her.

 

He reached out to touch her bare shoulder, shocked by the damp, clammy feeling of her skin. She pulled away, curling into a tighter ball and letting out a low, pained moan. "Buffy, are you sick? Do you feel ill?" She gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. "Please look at me." No response. "Buffy, you're scaring me."

 

Slowly she raised her head and turned to look at him, her eyes dark pools of pain rimmed with puffy red. Her pale cheeks were blotched from what must have been long hours of crying, and tears continued to stream down her cheeks, a sight all the more heartbreaking for the utter silence of her weeping.

 

"Buffy, what is it?" She just shook her head, her eyes never leaving his. He touched her shoulder again. "Sweetheart, you're freezing." Her lips were faintly blue, and her teeth were chattering as the cold gusts from the air-conditioner continuously buffeted her slim body. He reached up to switch it off.

 

"Don't...wanna feel..." she mumbled, blinking disorientedly. "Hurts..."

 

"I know it does," he told her, sliding an arm around her back and gathering her close against his chest. She was cold all over, and her clammy skin leached the heat from his own. "You're going to make yourself ill, Buffy."

 

"'S'better..." she murmured, closing her eyes. "...if I die....you'll be safe..." His breath caught at her words. He knew exactly to what she was referring - she'd spoken of it before in passing, idle speculation on whether or not the contract against him would be canceled if she died and another Slayer was called. He thought he'd dissuaded her from that assessment, but apparently not, and her words chilled him more than any amount of cold air could.

 

Desperation made his voice hoarse. "No, Buffy, you can't believe that. If you died, I'd lose my reason to-"

 

She clutched at him abruptly, her fingers digging into his arms. "Don't say that," she hissed through dry lips, cutting him off. "Never say that..."

 

"Then stop trying to die on me!" he retorted before he could stop himself. This isn't helping...  He made a concerted effort to calm down. "Buffy...please tell me...what is it?"

 

Her answer, when it came, was terrifying in its childlike simplicity. "I feel like I'm killing you," she whispered. "And I'm supposed to die first."

 

"No..." He hugged her more tightly, goaded by pure fear into making promises he knew he'd have great trouble keeping. "Neither one of us is going to die, Buffy. They won't find us. We won't let them find us."

 

Buffy shook her head again, then turned her face until her lips touched his bare chest. She gently kissed his warm skin. "We can't run any more, Giles," she murmured. "I..." Her eyes closed and she swallowed "I'm so cold."

 

He nodded and hefted her into his arms, gaining his feet with little difficulty. "Let's get you into a warm tub, then." In a few swift strides he was inside the tiny bathroom, regarding the olive green bathtub with fastidious dismay. Buffy had attacked the grout with admirable industriousness when they had first arrived, but it still lacked visual appeal. However, all they required at the moment was for the bathroom to be functional, and the tub held water well enough. He set her down inside the basin and reached for the tap.

 

She wrapped her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth slightly, her unseeing gaze riveted on the tiled wall. Giles tested the water with his finger, waiting until it ran hot before plugging the drain. He reached for a bottle of Buffy's bubble bath and poured in a few capfuls. A glimpse of the grinning cartoon character on the bottle's label brought a brief smile to his face - the day she'd purchased it, Buffy had spent half an hour in the discount store explaining the relative merits of one kind of cartoon bubble bath over another, and then had proceeded to make elaborate Kama Sutra bubble sculptures of the two of them later that night as they'd bathed.

 

A happy memory.

 

"Better?" he asked over the sound of rushing water filling the tub. She didn't reply. He reached for a washcloth, dipped it into the water, and rubbed it across her back. "Do you feel any warmer, Buffy?"

 

Slowly she turned her head to look at him, then reached out with trembling fingers to touch his cheek. Her thumb brushed his lower lip, only to be quickly replaced by her lips as she leaned forward to kiss him softly. He pulled her into a hug over the cold porcelain rim of the bathtub, and she buried her face in his neck, stifling a sob against his skin. They remained that way for several minutes while the tub filled and her trembling subsided. Eventually Giles reached out with one hand to turn off the tap, then returned his attention to their embrace, cradling Buffy against his body as though his presence alone could keep all the monsters at bay. In the resulting silence they could hear the slight fizz of bubbles popping interspersed with the harsh sounds of their own breathing.

 

Her words, when they came, were almost too low for him to hear.

 

"They've got Willow," she said.

 

I couldn't have heard her right, Giles told himself, even as he felt his heart sink down to somewhere near his toes. "What did you say?"

 

She took a deep breath, hugging him tightly. "The Council...they've got Willow, Giles."

 

He pushed her away from him and waited impatiently for her to muster the courage to meet his searching gaze. "H-how do you know that?"

 

She bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears again. "The last Tarakan I killed told me."

 

"The one from a month ago?" It had been a bug-demon, he recalled, and she'd made a Xander joke when she'd reported it to him - not the sort of reaction he would have expected if she'd just received truly horrible news.

 

Buffy shook her head. "Another one, a week ago. When you were having dinner with Stetson-man."

 

"They traced us to Houston?" His voice rose with alarm. "And you didn't tell me?"

 

"I couldn't," she replied as a few tears escaped to spill over her cheeks. "Don't you understand? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't, I COULDN’T!" She began to tremble again, small and alone in the rapidly cooling water.

 

He realized that it was imperative that he calm and reassure her. "Buffy," he admonished, reaching out to grip her upper arms, "listen to me for a moment. We knew this might happen, remember? We knew they'd try to use our friends to manipulate us. But the Council can't hold Willow indefinitely - eventually they'll have to let her go."

 

"You don't believe that," she shot back angrily, swiping at her tears. "That's just what we tell ourselves to get through the day, but we know it's not true." She held up a hand to forestall his protest. "And it doesn't matter anyway, Giles. The Tarakan told me they didn't take her as bait to bring us back - or at least not just as bait."

 

Cold dread roiled in his stomach. "What do you mean?"

 

"They know she's the one that broke into their files, Giles," she told him softly. "They know she's the reason we got away from them, the reason they don't already have our heads on a pike and a shiny new Slayer to brainwash. H-he said there's gonna be some kind of tribunal, and they're gonna punish her for interfering." She closed her eyes. "It will happen in Sunnydale. In five days. And we're not talking about laying on a stiff fine here."

 

He shook his head in firm denial, banishing his creeping doubts as he tried to marshal a convincing argument. "It must be a ruse, Buffy - a story they've made up to get us to return to Sunnydale. The Council has no jurisdiction over Willow!"

 

"What, they're gonna start playing by the rules now?" she snapped, opening her eyes to glare at him. "Those crazy sons of bitches don't give a damn about 'jurisdiction', Giles, and you know it! Besides, I know the Tarakan wasn't lying."

 

"Really." He studied her. "And how exactly is it that you can be so certain?"

 

Her gaze slid away from his face to land on the rapidly diminishing mound of bubbles at the far end of the tub. "Please don't ask me. I just know, all right?"

 

"Buffy-" he said, a clear warning in his tone.

 

"I tortured him, okay?" she whispered, hunching her shoulders miserably. "He wasn't lying. Trust me."

 

Oh, God... "I-" He paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled tiredly. This news did indeed change things. "I don't know what to say. Why didn't you tell me, Buffy?"

 

She gave him a 'duh, why do you think?' look, then averted her eyes again. "Because this means I have to go back, Giles, don't you see? I can't let Willow suffer because she was foolish enough to make friends with me. I have to try to save her."

 

He reached out to grip her chin between his fingers, forcing her to turn her head and meet his gaze. "You mean we have to try." He'd intended for his words to be reassuring, but her reaction wasn't at all what he'd expected.

 

Her face crumpled with misery. "Oh, God, I knew you'd say that. I knew it, and I couldn't figure out a way to stop it!"

 

"You can't think I would ever leave you to face this alone, Buffy. I would never abandon you."

 

The tears began again, and she reached out to touch his chest with a bubble-covered hand. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think that if there's anything in the world I'm sure of, it's that you won't ever leave me alone? But it's a death sentence, Giles! Going back to Sunnydale is like putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger!"

 

He knew that what she said was true, but felt obliged to argue the point anyway. "Buffy-"

 

She cut him off, never pausing as the words burst forth in a torrent. "I almost left tonight, Giles."

 

His jaw dropped. "What?"

 

She rushed onward, heedless of his response. "The two hundred vamp dollars? Airfare. That's why I was late meeting you, Giles. I spent an hour at the airport watching the planes take off, trying to convince myself that I could do it without you." She crossed her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders defensively as her tears dripped into the water. "Telling myself that if I never showed up at that bar you'd spend days here looking for me before you'd figure out where I'd gone -and by that time everything would be resolved, and Willow would be safe, and you would be safe..."

 

"And you would be dead," he finished bitterly, suddenly overcome by an overwhelming, irrational anger. Did the girl not understand what she meant to him? "How dare you!"

 

"Don't y-yell at me," she shouted back, hiccuping in distress. "I'm doing the best I can, don't you understand that? Can't you see how impossible this is? How would you make that kind of choice, huh? Me or Willow, pick who dies! Now!"

 

Her visible distress tore at Giles, but he couldn't seem to get past the anger. "That's not the point - it's my decision!" he retorted. "I decide where I go, and why. It's not up to you."

 

She stared at him, all huge eyes and trembling lips. "But I love you," she whispered brokenly. "And I don't know how not to give the world to keep you safe."

 

And with just those few words his anger melted away into nothing. "Oh, Buffy."

 

She launched herself toward him, tumbling gracelessly from the tub into his lap. Water and bubbles pooled on the tile floor, but neither of them noticed. "I love you," she said, kissing him. "I love you! And if I'm going to die, then I have to know that you will live. I can't do it, otherwise."

 

"There are never any guarantees, Buffy." He kissed the top of her head, crushing her against his chest. "But to ask me to stay behind? Knowing how you'd feel if I asked it of you? Do you honestly think that I love you any less than you love me?"

 

He felt her breathing stop. "What?"

 

He closed his eyes, wondering how words that were meant to bring such joy could cause so much pain. But she deserved to hear them. "I love you, Buffy. I can't imagine my life without you - and more to the point, I don't want to."

 

She said nothing in response, but embraced him so tightly that he was afraid she might crack some ribs. They held each other as the minutes passed, limbs entwined on a cold tile floor, listening to the beating of each other's hearts.

 

Finally she spoke again, her voice small and tired in the stillness of the dingy little room. "What are we going to do, Giles?"

 

He smoothed her hair with his hand, savoring the silk of it as he bade a silent farewell to all the hopes and dreams that had come to be in their months together, the moments of happiness easing in around the pain.

 

He sighed - resolved, once again, to duty.

 

"We're going to go back. Together."

 

End (3/3)