by She's a Star
Disclaimer:
BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon, and 'How Do I Love Thee?' is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.Author's Note:
My muses have been behaving absolutely abominably as of late, and really, it's just like them that they'd go all inspired at two thirty in the morning when I was exhausted and barely able to string together a coherent sentence. As the result of that, this isn't exactly well-written, but . . . ah well. Read it nonetheless?Am about to fall asleep at the keyboard.
Anyhow, this is set sometime shortly after Giles's being tricked by Drusilla in Becoming II: perhaps a few days afterward.
He threw himself into poetry after she died.
He had a habit of doing that; when life placed too much pressure upon him, he retreated to his beloved library and began pouring over its contents. There had always been something in words, in pages that soothed him, and he thought rather dimly that this should be no different.
But it was.
The constant ache in his chest pained him so badly he felt sure he would soon be dead alongside her: sometimes he reveled in this idea, and others he loathed it, loathed his own weakness and the fact that just because he'd lost someone he was willing to let go of everything else he'd ever cared about.
Everything else seemed to have lost its sparkle without her.
He realized one morning, fixing himself a cup of tea in his office, that he still half-expected her to be standing in the doorway smiling at him when he looked up, ready for their somewhat traditional exchange of:
"Good morning, Jenny. Tea?"
"Come on, Rupert. You know I'm a coffee girl."
"I'll just be with you in a minute, then."
"I'll wait."
Now he was the one waiting. Waiting to live, waiting to die, waiting for an immunity to this perpetual grief. Sooner or later, he reasoned, it had to stop hurting. It was only logical that it should.
And then he remembered that not everything was about logic; that she hadn't been. She had been about freedom and laughter and adventure and an uninhibited sort of beauty that couldn't be captured in photographs or rose petals or even words.
She had bewildered him at first, but he'd grown used to her teasing smiles and sarcasm and ability to reduce him to nothing but a stammering fool. He'd grown used to Jenny Calendar, and then he'd been told that she didn't exist, and he'd believed it.
It was so stupid, he knew now. How many times had she attempted to fix things, only to have him push her away with mild-mannered excuses and toneless 'Ms. Calendar's? How many times had she attempted to reason with him, begged him to listen to her, to no avail?
He wished that he could have the moments back that he'd carelessly taken for granted, but he couldn't.
He would never be able to tell her he loved her; he would never be able to entertain the notion that he could very well spend the rest of his life with her.
She was gone, she was nothing; a headstone and a corpse in the ground, and maybe a spirit somewhere that he couldn't even begin to sense.
And so he threw himself into his books, pointedly discarding Forester's Where Angels Fear To Tread and opting for collections of sonnets, if only because it seemed the right thing to do - he had lost the woman he'd loved. Wouldn't it be adequate, maudlin, poetic if he were to assume the part of the mourning lover left behind to fend in the world without her?
He saw the words without reading them - they blurred in front of his eyes until he gave up and succumbed to the memories of her that kept swelling back to him, sometimes bringing faint smiles that were crushed as the montage reached its crescendo and he met her blind and lifeless eyes.
He hated that ultimately, he remembered her like that. Still. Broken. Dead.
He wished desperately that he could recall the happier occurrences with such a sharpness, but those - being finally persuaded to dance with her at the Bronze, arguing lightly with her over their never-ending (but it had ended, it was over, he reminded himself) books versus computers debate, being dragged out to monster truck rallies, kissing her in the hallway - were faint, tarnished, faded.
And still, he wouldn't sleep willingly. Still, in his dreams he never failed to fall into the cleverly crafted trap of roses and candlelight, an exquisite travesty of romance, only to find . . .
Finally he would give into fitful slumber only to be awoken every time he stepped beyond the top stair; every time the music reached its crescendo.
He was uncomfortable, but that wasn't what woke him. Her voice, soft and sincere and almost ashamed, had echoed through his mind - I didn't know I was gonna fall in love with you.
He couldn't bear to think that now a sound so beautiful had been reduced to nothing more than the echoing whispers of the dead.
He blinked and shifted in his chair; yes, right, he had fallen asleep in the library again. A glimpse outside into the darkness informed him that it was still nighttime, or at least very early in the morning, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.
Sighing, he sat up straighter and retrieved his glasses from the desk, but after a split-second he dropped them again with a soft 'clatter'.
He felt something - something he had missed desperately, something he had tried in vain to remember but hadn't been able to summon amongst the grief.
Her presence.
He'd been able to do this for quite sometime: able to tell when she'd entered a room without catching a glimpse of her. Something very subtle changed in the air around her, something surfaced - a hint, a minute sparkle of what was perhaps bliss.
He knew somehow with a powerful certainty that he couldn't simply be wishing for her, dreaming of her, yearning so desperately that he'd fooled himself into feeling her.
"Jenny?" he whispered, timidly.
Silence responded.
He distractedly reached for the rose quartz that Willow had given him, closing his fingers around the stone. Yes . . . he could sense her here.
"Jenny?" he repeated.
All was still.
He waited for a moment, but there was no remarkable change, no voice, no angel donning a white silken gown.
You're being ridiculous, he told himself angrily. You're driving yourself mad.
And then--
"Hey, England."
The voice was quiet, and almost delicate, but unmistakably hers.
A joy he'd never experienced before surged through him: his heartbeat quickened as he gazed around the library desperately, searching for her.
"J . . . Jenny, where are you?"
"I'm here," she responded soothingly, and an odd sense of relief washed over him. He had lost himself in memories and hopes so intensely that he'd almost believed them himself; he'd been deceived by an enchantress with her face, but this was different. This was real, and he couldn't even begin to explain how he knew. He simply did, and that was enough.
He reached for his glasses and slid them onto his face quickly, hoping against hope that perhaps he would be able to see her. Another desperate scanning ('Scan it, Rupert. That's "scan it".' - all of the memories seemed to be flooding back to him with an intense clarity) of the library proved useless.
"Why . . . why can't I see you?" he asked uneasily.
"You have to look to see, Rupert," she replied, and there was a hint of spice in her tone that he recognized all too well.
God, he thought dazedly, God, this is real.
And suddenly, he saw her - it wasn't that she appeared so much as he must have glanced over her before, even though he couldn't imagine how that would be possible. She was standing on the other side of the table, smiling gently, and he felt almost overwhelmed at how beautiful she was. Had he truly forgotten the way her eyes sparkled, the shade of her skin? She seemed so completely radiant now.
He recognized the clothes she wore as the ones he'd found her in the last time he'd seen her, and his stomach lurched for a split-second before the familiar grief was overcome with dazzling happiness.
"What . . . why . . . how are you here? Is there some sort of spell -- something your clan performed? A . . . a ritual, a resurrection--"
"You're dreaming, Rupert," she cut in gently.
"This isn't a dream," he replied immediately. "This is real."
She gave him a wry smile. "Who's to say dreams aren't?"
"Well . . . nobody, I suppose," he answered, and laughed nervously.
She was here. She was here with him, giving him that smile that she'd only ever donned in his presence; beautiful and amused and alive.
"Will you stay with me?" he found himself asking, then immediately hated how childish the question sounded.
"Yes," she replied. "I'll be right here until you wake up -- after you wake up, even. I'm always there, Rupert, even if you can't see me."
She smiled at him, and he found himself grinning back uncontrollably; God, he'd thought he'd never share a smile with her again. He'd thought so many things, so many dreadful, final thoughts, and now they could all be fixed.
At once, a million different wishes seemed to take over his mind: he wanted to kiss her, to apologize for how foolish he'd been, to tell her how much he'd missed her, to make love to her, even to start up yet another one of their ridiculous disputes over computers and books.
And then, abruptly, he realized what had to be said: something that hadn't even occurred to him, that he'd been feeling it so long he'd assumed all the world knew.
"I love you," he told her, the words urgent as they spilled from his lips.
"I know you do," she replied softly, and he found himself loving the darkness of her eyes.
"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry that I never told you."
"It's okay," she said, and he could tell somehow that she meant it. "I could feel it."
"Thank God," he murmured, more to himself than to her. Then, louder, he continued, "I . . . couldn't bear the thought that you'd . . . you'd gone without knowing."
"I could tell," she said, and smiled. "And Rupert, just because I'm dead doesn't mean I'm gone."
As she spoke, he was struck by a rather odd realization.
"I know."
She'd always been here; he'd always felt her, faintly, in the part of his soul that hadn't been overcome by pain at the thought of physically losing her. He'd blocked her out, trying to convince himself that all he had left were regrets and memories, but she had always been there regardless, waiting.
"Please don't throw your life away," she requested softly, her eyes meeting his. They stared for a moment, exchanging an understanding that words somehow couldn't capture, before he nodded.
"Good," she said, and there was a spark of playfulness in her voice now. "Because you're getting pretty damn boring to watch. I mean, summer's started and you're still in the library. Go out into the world! Live a little! Race a monster truck or two!"
"I'll pass, thank you," he returned, a wonderful sense of warmth filling him as they lapsed back into a conversation that felt so utterly normal. "Monster trucks, I thought you'd have realized by now, aren't by any means my forte."
She shrugged, a hint of a smile still remaining around the corners of her mouth. "Suit yourself, Snobby."
"If you insist, Calendar," he shot back, grinning at her.
She sat down on the corner of the table and met his eyes. "Don't miss me too much, okay? Because I'm always here. If you ever need to talk . . ."
"You don't mind?"
"Nah," she said. "I want to spend forever listening to you."
He wondered what would happen if he took her hand in his. "Likewise."
"Just . . . avoid doing it in public places," she advised him, her eyes sparkling. "Or else you might find yourself taking up permanent residence in a padded room."
"I'll . . . ah . . . keep that in mind," he assured her.
"Great," she said brightly.
A silence fell, and he knew somehow that he was dangerously close to awakening in a world without her.
She wasn't smiling anymore; there was a sort of sadness in her eyes. "I love you, Rupert."
"I love you," he returned, and the thought of losing her, while unpleasant, didn't bring back the ache in his heart he'd grown accustomed to.
He wouldn't lose her. Not truly.
She winked at him before leaning down and pressing her lips to his: in an instant, every moment he'd ever spent with her seemed to come back to him; kissing her was real, and constant, and perfect in a manner to which nothing else could compare.
For an instant, he kissed her, and a split-second after he woke the bliss remained.
Sunlight was streaming through the windows as he sat up - a book of love poems still lay open and pushed aside.
Her presence still hadn't faded.
He smiled to himself, and his eyes ran over one last page before he shut the book gently closed.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.