Author's Notes: Soooo…Giles is trying to help Buffy reconnect with the world after her resurrection and takes her out to the desert to do it.
Disclaimer: You know the drill, I'm not making any money from this.
Meditation
"So why are we going back to the crazy first slayer who tried to kill us in dreams and told me death was a gift?" she asked putting her bag in the back of the car. "And why do we have so much stuff?"
"We aren't necessarily going to speak to the first slayer, it is a place of power we are trying to contact any higher powers that may speak to us. Failing that there are several rituals that can be done in a place of power which will help ground you and perhaps reconnect you with the living." he explained. "We don't know how long it will take, hence the supplies."
"But Dawn..."
"Will be fine with Willow and Tara and the others for a couple of days Buffy, I assure you." he told her, gesturing for her to get in the car as he held the door open for her.
"Fine." she sighed.
She remained silent as they drove, it was hard to focus on much. She seemed to spend so much time now staring into nothingness. Maybe this trip was a good idea after all, maybe she could get back to normal so that her friends would stop looking at her with pity. They wanted her to be grateful. Grateful that she was ripped from heaven and slammed back on this cold, harsh earth. Brought back to life only to dig out of her own grave. She knew they meant well and wasn't really angry with them anymore but how could she be grateful?
"Buffy?" Giles asked after a while. "Did you want to stop for lunch?"
"I'm not really hungry." she replied quietly. "But if you want to then I don't mind."
"Well, the supplies I brought aren't exactly quality cuisine so I thought a treat before we get there, perhaps the next diner we pass? Even if you only have something small." he suggested.
"Sure." she agreed, not shifting her gaze from staring out of the window.
They stopped at the next diner true to his word and he had a deli sandwich and a coffee while she picked at a bowl of fries. She turned down dessert so they were back on the road shortly after.
"Alright, he we are." he said as they pulled over. He got out of the car and gathered the bags on the backseat. She took hers and then took one of his from him when she saw him struggling to fit them in his hands. "Buffy you don't-"
"Slayer remember, it's not like theyre heavy for me." she shrugged. They walked into the dessert together, this time she couldn't bring herself tk worry about getting lost and stuck in the dessert like she had the first time.
"Are you going to do the hokey pokey again?" she asked as he slowed down and stopped at a familiar rock formation.
"No, that was specific to slayer power." he replied, putting down the bags and making quick work of arranging a fire pit using dried brush and rocks. "This is a bit different. We'll get settled then start with meditation, if that doesn't work then we will move on to one of the rituals."
"Are we planning on lots of rituals?" she asked.
"No, but until we try meditation first we need not decide which ritual to try." he explained patiently. "Do you need a drink or anything before we get into it?"
"Nope, I'm good." she replied. "Am I supposed to do anything?"
"Here, you can light the fire while I form a circle around us and set up." he told her, handing her a box of matches.
"Yeah, let's make the unbearable heat of the desert more unbearable by lighting a fire." she muttered, doing as he asked.
He returned a while later and dropped back down to the ground where he was before. He set a bowl of mixed herbs to one side and lit some incense on the other and then appeared to be getting comfortable opposite her.
"Get comfortable and work on the basic meditation techniques we've used before." he told her. "After a while we each take a handful of the herbs and toss them into the flames. If we are lucky one or both of us will have some form of vision. I am hoping you will reach contact with the higher powers but don't try to think about it. Just breathe and clear your mind and we'll see what happens."
Buffy did as he instructed, it was harder to switch off than it used to be. It felt like switching off was nearly the same as being dead. It didn't help that often when she closed her eyes she kept getting the urge to open them to check that she wasn't in a coffin underground.
Giles watched his slayer for some time. It took her a long time to start to relax, he could see it. The way she suddenly tensed or twitched when she started to relax. Finally she seemed to still and he knew if she was going to have a chance it would be now.
"Open your eyes, take a handful of the herbs and throw them into the flames and then focus on the flames." he spoke quietly. She opened her eyes. It was far from dark but she could tell that time had passed as it wasn't as bright as before. She leant to take a handful of the herbs and he did the same before they both tossed their herbs into the fire and she stared at the flames.
Some time later she began to wonder if anything was going to happen. She could see in her peripheral vision that it had begun to grow dark and her backside was starting to ache from being sat in one position. That in itself was saying a lot since she'd been numb to nearly everything recently. She almost embraced the pain. Then the flames flashed. She wanted to blink, thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her but the next flash was brighter.
Her whole vision went white. Then she saw an archway ahead. She wasn't in the desert now, she wasn't even sat down. Odd.
She walked slowly over to and then through the archway. The next place she entered was grey and she saw three figures ahead.
"Hello?" she asked. "Are you-"
"It matters not who we are." a woman's voice spoke. "It only matters who you are."
"I'm the slayer." she replied.
"The slayer is what you are not who you are." a male voice spoke. "Who you are is up to you."
"Right..." Buffy murmured.
"You are here because you feel lost, you do not belong anymore." he spoke.
"I don't." she replied honestly.
"That is up to you." he said cryptically.
"Apparently not." she muttered.
"You were taken away from your final reward." the female voice spoke again. "You were brought back by unnatural forces."
"My friends." Buffy nodded.
"The time line has been altered. It is up to you if you wish to change it." the female said.
"Altered by me being here? Are you saying I should've stayed dead?" she asked.
"Altered before that. The key. Destiny was changed when the key was transformed." the man said.
"Dawn." Buffy breathed.
"The key was supposed to remain in energy form. The God Glorificus was destinied to find it and open the portal. You were destined to stop it by destroying the key." the man continued. "But instead the key was transformed, altering time, changing the past. You stopped Glorificus as fate intended but instead of destroying the key you gave your life in exchange. You were not meant to die that day."
"I couldn't let my sister die." she replied through gritted teeth.
"You feel detached from the world now, you have felt the paradise that awaits you and now the earth is like ashes." the female spoke again. "For your sacrifice we will allow you to undo what was done."
"Undo it? Wait, which part?" she asked.
"Your friends brought you back. We are willing to undo what they did and allow you to return to paradise." the female said.
"Be dead again?" she asked. For a long moment she recalled the blissful warm feeling of the place she was being offered. So safe. Compared to the Sunnydale that she came back to when she first returned. "What happens to my world?"
"It will be as it was before you returned." the man told her.
"But...demons had over run Sunnydale...my friends..." she said quietly, more talking to herself than the strange figures opposite her. "Dawn."
"It will not he your duty to save them any longer." the man replied simply.
"But...no new slayer will be called until Faith dies. There won't be anyone to protect them or anyone else." she spoke up.
"No." they replied. "But it won't be your concern."
"They are my concern. I can't leave the hellmouth without a slayer indefinitely." she said shaking her head. "Giles brought me here to reconnect with the world of the living not die again."
"If you take our offer then the watcher will never have returned to this land. He will remain where he was. He will mourn you as if you never returned." the female said. "You can go on to your reward and be reunited with your mother and other loves ones."
"But...he..." she frowned unable to articulate her thoughts. She couldn't leave the world unprotected. Her friends were still in it. She died to allow Dawn the chance to live and she had the feeling that if she left now that something very bad would happen.
"Have you decided?" the man asked.
"I can't go." she replied. "Someone has to protect the world and...until Faith dies and a new slayer is called I'm still on duty..."
"You would give up your chance for paradise for a world you feel dead in?" the female asked.
"Yes." she nodded. "I gave up my life for Dawn to live, I'd better protect the world she lives in."
"Very well." the man and woman said together leaving the third figure still silent. "If that is your wish."
"Is-Is that wrong?" she asked.
"You have shown that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for others and now you have shown that you put the world and the people in it above your own happiness. For this you will be rewarded." the female spoke.
"Rewarded how?" she asked slowly.
"Wait. All will become clear before the moon reaches it's highest peak tomorrow." she said.
"Wait here?" she asked. The figures simply nodded. Her vision was white again before she knew what had happened and she felt herself falling.
"Buffy?" a voice called. She focused on the voice, it was familiar. She opened her eyes to see the familiar face of her watcher staring down at her. The sky above them was black now and she realised that she was now led on the ground.
"Well that answered all my questions. Not." she mumbled sitting up.
"I take it you saw something." he said as he helped her up. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Yeah, thanks." she replied still feeling a little dazed. She took the water bottle from him and drank a few mouthfuls. "Weird people. Three of them, they spoke to me. Actually only two of them spoke. They...they said I could die again if I wanted."
"D-die?" he stammered in disbelief. "Lord Buffy please tell me you didn't feel so bad that you accepted."
"No, I didn't." she replied quietly. "Not for me though. I want to go back there...where its safe and the fighting is over. But no new slayer was called when I died. Unless Faith dies there won't be another called. I couldn't leave you all in danger."
She found herself immediately grabbed and held tightly by Giles. He held her as if he thought she would vanish if he let go. She slid her arms around his waist and let him hold her.
"You knew didn't you?" she asked after a while. "That's why you were so angry with Will."
"Oh there were several reasons to be angry with her but yes, I knew." he replied. "You're the slayer Buffy, only those who use their gift for evil do not receive their final rest." He pulled away from her and moved them back towards the fire to sit.
"Reward. They called it my final reward...when I said I'd go back because there was no one else to...slay, they said I'd be rewarded but they didn't say what. They said to wait and all would become clear before the moon peaks tomorrow." she told him. "Mean anything to you?"
"Well, no. Other than the waiting until tomorrow part but you're right that didn't answer many questions." he replied. "In any case I believe we should settle down for the night, there's a tent if you want or just sleeping bags on the ground if you'd rather. That stars are very clear out here, I think I should like to look at them tonight. I'll get some supplies out and cook us something for supper shall I?"
"Oh um...I guess so, thanks." she said blinking back to reality. She couldn't stop thinking about the choice she had made. She had been so close to peace. She had been so tempted.
She remained silent as she got out a sleeping bag and rolled it out on the ground near the fire and sat on it. Giles passed her a plastic plate with some bread and warm beans on it.
"Am I a bad person for nearly wishing to be dead?" she asked him after some time of silence.
"It doesn't make you a bad person Buffy." he assured her.
"I...I wanted to die. I wanted to go back. My friends brought me back to life and I wanted to die all over again." she whispered. "That's ungrateful isn't it?"
"Buffy...you experienced something so special and then were brought back here in a rather abrupt way. They brought you back to life and left you to find your own way out of your own grave and back home. I- I wasn't even here. I should've been here." he said shaking his head. "My duty was to protect the hellmouth with my slayer and I should have continued to do so with or without you but instead I left. I abandoned my post; you are here again through choice to fulfill your duty. That most certainly does not make you a bad person."
"Why did you leave?" she asked.
"Because it hurt too much to stay." he replied.
"You didn't leave after..." she trailed off realising it probably wasn't a good idea to bring up such painful memories. She remembered how hard it had been for a while after Miss Calendar was killed.
"No, I didn't." he replied simply. "And after Angel, you came back, after being offered heaven on a platter you still came back."
"I had friends that needed me." she said softly.
"And I had you." he said. "You needed me. I like to think you still need me sometimes."
"I still need you." she whispered, shuffling close enough to lean against him. "Do you need me?"
"Always." he told her fondly.
"Then I guess we'll have to keep each other here and be needy together." she shrugged. Giles couldn't help but smile, that sounded more like his Buffy already.
After eating they cleared up and ready to settle for the night.
"I'm going to take some of this back to the car. I trust you'll be alright for a moment?" he spoke.
"Yes, I'm sure I'll be fine." she waved him off. "In fact I'll get a bit more wood for the night shall I? Looks like a broken bit of tree over that way."
"Oh yes jolly good idea that, don't get lost though." he replied heading off in the direct of the car.
Buffy gathered a few larger pieces of wood and returned to their camp. She realised that she still had to change before bed and got her sleepwear out of her bag. She looked around nervously, she didn't want to just strip and change because she didn't know how long Giles would be. Her eyes landed on her sleeping bag.
When Giles returned to the camp having left the dirty plates in the trunk of the car and making use of his distance from Buffy to change into some lounge pants and a t-shirt to sleep in, he couldn't help but furrow his brow in confusion.
"Buffy what on earth are you doing?" he asked the wriggling sleeping bag.
"Changing." she replied as she continued to wriggle about. She triumphantly pulled her jeans out of the sleeping bag having finally pulled up her sweat pants.
"How about I just turn around and you tell me when you're done?" he suggested.
"Well not all of us thought of handy excuses to disappear to the car to change." she pouted as he turned away, allowing her to wriggle her top half free of the sleeping back and finish changing quickly. "Ah ha, done."
With that they settled down to sleep for the night.