Come on, ya'll. Please review. Thanks to the new people! :) Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter. Have a great weekend!
Chapter 8
Since Buffy doubted she'd have a chance to get on the phone for a while once she made it back to the house, she stopped in town to use a pay phone. She supposed she could have called from Giles's place, but then again, considering some of the subject matter...no, this was better.
Nothing she had said to Giles back there was untrue, but that didn't mean some of this—a lot of this—wasn't going to take some serious getting used to.
She called Xander's house, but no one answered the phone, and she called Willow in search of him. It turned out that Xander was the one to answer the phone there.
"Xander?"
"Yeah, it's me. Where the hell are you?"
"At the most out-of-the-way pay phone I could find in town. Why?"
"Well...going to school just didn't feel right. We're all here except for you. We tried to call you too, but your mom said she hasn't seen you since Friday night. She sounded pretty worried, Buff. What's going on?" His voice was equal parts annoyed and concerned, and Buffy let out a breath.
"About that...it's kind of why I called."
Once he'd assured her that the Rosenberg adults were at work, she had Xander put her on speaker phone, and she gave them the Reader's Digest version of what had happened with her mother and with Snyder.
"I would have told you and I would have done it in person, I swear, but right now I need to get home, and I don't know if I'll be able to get away later." There had been exclamation earlier, and now it seemed the four on the other end of the line were in a bit of shock.
"It's okay, Buffy," Willow said finally. "We're just glad you told us."
Not wanting to hide things from her friends anymore—doing it had only made the last two days or so even worse—she skimmed over last night, too, and that she'd slept on Giles's couch again. She also told them what he'd done by calling the Council, and that with any luck everything on the school and police front was going to be straightened out.
Though she didn't go into more detail. A lot had happened last night, and this morning. She and Giles had helped each other a lot, she thought, but that was private.
"Good. That whole wanted-for-murder thing was turning into a real drag," Xander commented, likely just looking for something to say at all. Cordelia and Oz were there, but he and Willow had been doing most of what of the talking had been coming from their end.
"Tell me about it." Buffy sighed.
She gave them her opinion of how Giles was doing, because she couldn't be sure, of course, but she was an encouraging as she could justify being. She left it up to them to decide if any of them would make it in for the second half of the school day, since she certainly couldn't, promised to call one of them again as soon as she could or had any news on the police or school situation for her, and then asked to speak to Xander privately before she hung up.
"You know what this is about, right?" she asked when it was just the two of them.
Xander answered quietly, and she could hear him moving off to the corner of Willow's room. "Yeah...I kinda figured. It's gonna take a while to not feel completely wigged by the hey-Giles-is-a-vampire thing, isn't it?"
"Probably," she admitted. "Anyway, can you handle this? I'd get it myself if I didn't have Mom duty."
"Still getting over the wig part, but yeah. I got it."
"Okay...I think he knows you're coming. I mean, we didn't really talk about it, but I mentioned you. That I'd call you if I couldn't get away from Mom long enough. I'm already getting the feeling that's gonna be true, so I figured I'd better go ahead and ask." She hesitated. "Xander?"
"Yeah?"
"Just..." She didn't know how to put it into words.
"I know," he answered quietly. "I was the one who tried to be on his side before we did this, remember?" The reminder was in no way accusatory. It was just truth.
"That's why I'm asking you to do this."
"Right...and was that the kind of thing that suggests a thank you?"
"Not really. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying Giles is...a little delicate right now—which is completely within his rights—but...you know, I trust you with him. I know that sounds really weird, but I think you know what I mean."
"I guess so. And I guess that one deserves a thanks."
Buffy smiled a little and leaned against the side of the phone booth. "Sure. Anyway, I should go. Giles also gave me the warning on Mom, and I guess I shouldn't keep her waiting any longer."
"Yeah, get going. Don't worry about Giles; he's got the rest of us, too, you know. Spend as much time with your mom as you need."
"Unless, of course, she's in the ground-me-for-life mood. I have no idea what to expect when I get there."
When Xander carried the base of the corded phone back to Willow's desk and hung up, Willow and Oz and Cordelia were looking at him expectantly.
"That wasn't much," he shrugged. "It just looks like I've become the vampire version of a pizza delivery boy, but hey, always figured something in fast food was where I'd end up after high school anyway. Might as well start now."
They stared at him for a moment longer before they got it, and then every single one of them averted their eyes. Xander stood where he was, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Willow was the first to look up. "I'll...I'll come with you."
He shook his head. "You should stay in bed."
"But I've already been out, and I've been fine," she protested.
"I think he means he thinks this is something he should do on his own," Oz said then. Thank god for insightful quiet guys.
Willow looked back and forth between Xander and her boyfriend for a moment, and then she sat back against her pillows. "Oh."
Xander nodded in confirmation, and then shifted his gaze to Cordelia. "Cordy? I'm still gonna need a lift though..."
She sat up, still a little wide-eyed about the whole thing. "Right...sure." She was still in serious-Cordy mode half the time, which wasn't so bad, really, though a little jarring when she switched back and forth. But it made things easier, what with everything else they were dealing with at the moment, and he thought now that she probably knew that—that she cared, and that was why she was doing her best to keep the Cordelia-isms at a minimum for now.
He wasn't sure if he loved her yet, but the past three days had definitely endeared her to him more than ever. It was something kind of nice, at least, in the middle of the crazy and the bewildering and the horrible.
Xander found himself holding out a hand that she took as she stood and gathered her purse.
"We'll be back, I guess," he said.
"Tell Giles I love him," Willow said as Oz slipped an arm around her shoulders.
"Sure thing," Xander nodded.
He'd tell him they all did. Because they did.
Maybe Buffy hadn't known quite what to expect when she got home, but she didn't think she'd ever suspected what did happen. That being, her mother was out the door before she was halfway up the walk, and Buffy found herself nearly bowled over.
"Buffy, thank god!"
Suddenly she nearly couldn't breathe thanks to Joyce Summers's tight embrace. "Wow! Ow. Mom, what—?"
Her mother pulled back, but kept her hands firmly on her daughter's shoulders as she searched her face. "I didn't know what had happened to you! After what happened Friday, after...after what you told me, I didn't even know...if..."
Buffy winced. "If I was alive?"
Joyce's eyes lowered for a moment, in some type of confirmation, but after a moment she looked up again, and she was clearly upset. Her hands dropped to her sides. "You could have at least picked up a phone, Buffy!"
She blinked. "Mom...you told me not to come back," she answered painfully.
"I cared whether you lived or died! You're my daughter, Buffy! My only child! Maybe I didn't handle myself in the best way that night, but do you have any idea what kind of news that was? It was a little much to take in at once! I'm not perfect. I panicked. I don't want anything to happen to you."
Buffy glanced anxiously around them. "Can we take this inside?"
Joyce huffed once, but she led the way into the house. Buffy closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, swallowing as she let her bag drop from her shoulder and to the floor.
"Mom...I know you were worried," she said slowly. "But you have to understand that being the Slayer isn't just something I can stop. It doesn't work like that. I'm the only Slayer." Or she was now, with Kendra gone. Maybe another would be called to take her place, maybe there would always be two now, or for a while longer, anyway, but they couldn't count on that. "I'll be what I am as long as I'm alive. It's a responsibility. There isn't any choice here."
"But—"
"No 'buts.' That's it. I'm really sorry, but that's the way it is. I...I love you, Mom. So much. But..." She thought, wondering what else to put out there, but there was really only one more thing to say, and then it would all be up to her mother. "I love you, and I always will, but you have to work with me here. You have to find a way to accept this, or live with it, or...something."
She swallowed, and she looked her mother in the eyes. "You have to be able to do that, or I can't stay here. I want to, but my duty has to come first. I have to do what I'm meant to do." Her mother would never know how much it hurt to say that right now. She would never tell her everything about Angel...about what she'd done at the mansion Friday night. What she'd had to do. What she'd already had to give up for her duty.
Giles had suffered for it too, but she wasn't sure she would tell her mother that, either. She would have to know that part eventually, but Buffy was pretty sure it would be a little much right now.
Joyce looked at her for a long time. Finally she crossed her arms uncomfortably. "You're serious about this."
"I'm telling you the truth, yeah. If you want to know more, talk to Giles. I mean, not right now; he's kind of...he's not feeling well. Not that he was going to tell you that on the phone or anything, but he's uh...not doing so great at the moment. He'll be fine but he just, you know, needs some time. A lot happened Friday night."
"I suppose you...saved the world? Seeing as it's still here..."
"Yeah...I guess I did. Or we did. Xander and Willow have known about me from the beginning, and Oz and Cordelia found out later. None of that was planned. It just sort of...happened. They all kind of help, in their own ways."
"With the slaying?" her mother asked in confusion.
"Well, with the legwork before the slaying, mostly. It's hard to explain. We're kind of a team."
Now Joyce looked hurt. "And all this time you didn't see fit to tell your own mother about any of this?"
Buffy winced. "Mom, it's not that I didn't want to. Believe me, a lot of things in my Slaying life would have been easier to accomplish if you'd known, but I just—I didn't want you to worry about me like I know you're going to now. I didn't want you to have to have that on you."
"What? You were trying to protect me?"
She shrugged. "Yeah. If you want to put it that way, yeah."
Her mother swallowed. "That's supposed to be my job. I'm supposed to protect you. How can I do that when you're...out there...slaying things?"
"You can't," Buffy answered quietly.
"How am I supposed to accept that?"
Buffy felt tears in her eyes. She hadn't meant to do that, but now that she was here, in her house, with her mother, she knew she didn't want to have to leave again. Not now, with everything else upside down. Angel gone. Giles changed forever.
She didn't want to leave. Not ever.
"I don't know, Mom," she whispered. "But...you have to. Please. I don't want to go." The tears fell, and she swiped at them almost angrily, for being there. Her shoulders shook. "I need you, Mom."
From the corner of her bleary eyes she saw Joyce freeze. "Oh, Buffy..."
Then she was in her mother's arms, and suddenly she felt sure that as long as she had that, she would be all right.
Cordelia pulled up to the curb by Giles's building, and Xander glanced back at her before he climbed out. "Thanks. I'm uh...not sure how long I'll be."
She shrugged. "If I'm not going to school today, I don't have anything better to do. Well, okay, I could be shopping, but I'm not really in the mood."
"Normal person English, please?"
"Get going; I'll be right here."
"How come no one I know can just say what they mean?"
"You don't either."
Xander rolled his eyes. "Good point." He hesitated, but then leaned over to kiss her before he got out of the car and shut the passenger side door again. He approached Giles's door slowly, a brown paper bag in his hands. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, and knocked.
It took a few seconds, but the door opened. Though there was no one standing on the other side. He frowned. "Hello...?"
"Come in, Xander," said a patient voice from just out of sight.
Giles. Standing not in the doorway, since there was sunlight flooding through the open door from behind him. Duh.
Idiot, he scolded himself, stepping inside. "Right. Sorry. Yeah..." He turned as Giles closed the door, shutting out the sun. He was still wearing the same clothes Xander remembered bringing to him the night before. "Hi. Uh, Buffy said she uh...mentioned something..."
"She did."
"Yeah, so...guess I don't have to explain this." He shrugged, motioning a bit with the bag in his hands. Giles just winced, only glancing at it briefly.
"No."
They stood in awkward silence until Xander looked toward the kitchen and muttered, "I'll just...put this away for now..." He retreated to push the bag into the refrigerator, shutting away the plastic container of pig's blood that had come from the butcher's. Cordelia had remained in the car for that little stop, too.
Xander went back out to the living room, and Giles hadn't moved. He was staring uncomfortably through the open space over the counter between the living room and kitchen, at where Xander had just been—at the refrigerator.
Xander came up beside him and paused for a moment, before deciding to try funny first. "Yeah, tracking that down was definitely new, but hey, anything for you, G-man," he said, smiling a little. Funny yet sincere.
When Giles didn't respond, he sighed and tried again. "Giles, look..."
"The sentiment was appreciated," Giles said quietly.
He blinked. "Oh...sure. Or, you're welcome. Or whatever." He took a deep breath, but he held it for a long time before he had the courage to speak up again. "But, really—listen, I...I'm sorry. I tried to be on your side there for a while, or...what I thought you'd probably want your side to be if you'd had a say, anyway." He shrugged helplessly. "You know what I mean. I tried...but I couldn't let you go either, Giles. Not you. I wanted to be able to, but...I guess I'm just not that cool." He grimaced. "God, am I horrible at this crap."
He'd ended up staring at his shoes, and when he ventured to look up again Giles gave him a gentle smile. It seemed that what he'd said hadn't been complete nonsense and had actually reached him enough to break him from his staring contest with the refrigerator. "Xander, you are anything but horrible."
"Really? Cool. I think. Hey, if I'm not horrible, can I keep trying? I think I wanna say something else before I wig out and stop talking altogether like any normal self-respecting teenage guy would have done by now."
Giles actually chuckled. It wasn't the light, amusingly self-conscious sound Xander had heard in the past, but it didn't sound too completely out-to-lunch, either. Maybe Buffy really had done a decent job cheering him up some before she left, and it had only been what he'd shown up with a few minutes before that had thrown Giles off momentarily.
"Is that a 'go ahead' or something along those lines?"
"I suppose it is."
"Okay...here goes. I uh...I mean, you..." He had no idea how to start. He wasn't sure how much to say...how he could say, before he clammed up, which was not territory he wanted to get into now. Giles didn't need that right now. He took a deep breath once more. "Giles, we all wanted you back, and we all had our reasons. Me, I mean...come on, you've heard the horror stories from home. And god knows Snyder and the teachers at Sunnydale aren't much help. You're kinda the only role-model I've got here."
Giles's eyebrows went up, and he looked at Xander curiously.
"I'm serious. Come on, you know me: I've got plenty of growing up left to do, and who's example am I supposed to follow if you're not around? It's always been Willow before, and she's still great and mature and everything, but she's kind of female and all."
Now Giles was blinking, not quite looking at him. "Xander..."
"Sorry. Just had to get that out before I chickened. Though I guess if Buffy was here since last night, you've probably already had some of that going down—the getting stuff out. Sorry if I just added to a bunch of other crap, but..."
"No, it's all right." He paused for a moment. "I do appreciate knowing—all of it."
Xander smiled uncertainly. "I guess all I'm saying with all that is that...yeah, I don't like how it had to happen any more than you do, but I'm glad you're still around, okay?"
Giles nodded thankfully, and Xander thought he saw him swallow. "I...thank you."
"Like I said...anything for you, G-man." Giles twitched a bit, maybe, though he didn't comment on the name this time, either. Xander hesitated, but then he hugged him briefly. In a manly way, of course, and Giles let him. It was pretty much a mutual thing, actually. Then he glanced back toward the kitchen again.
"As for that? Don't worry about it too much. Will it take getting used to? Hell yeah. But...you know, it's okay..."
But now Giles was back to contemplative, as he cast a long look at the refrigerator. "Is it?"
Xander didn't know what to say to that. Finally he swallowed himself, and winged it. If Buffy trusted him...well maybe that meant he wasn't going to screw it up completely.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I guess that's what you've got us for—the whole figuring this out thing. We...we love you, Giles. You're not alone."
Xander mentioned that Cordelia was outside in her car, but said that he could ask her to come back later—said that he could stay for a while. Rupert thanked the boy for his thoughtfulness, but declined the offer. He was grateful for everything Xander had said to him, and he was glad he'd had the time to spend with Buffy earlier, too, but right now he wanted to be alone. He didn't want company again just yet, even if it was Xander with his comfortingly familiar babble.
What he really wanted was to be alive and human again, but that wasn't on the table, was it?
When Xander was gone Giles was rooted to his spot for several long minutes, not sure what to do next. He couldn't go anywhere; that was the whole reason Xander had been sent here in the first place. He told himself it was only morbid curiosity that made him go around into the kitchen, but he hated himself because he knew that wasn't true.
Or...he hated the demon. The one inside him now. He hated something. He hated that he wanted to open the refrigerator and that he wanted what was in there. He could feel the hunger—had felt it from the moment he'd woken and despised it from the moment he realized what had happened...and what it was.
He hated it.
He didn't want it.
It had only been sixteen hours since he'd woken, but it seemed like a lifetime. The hunger was staring to burn inside him, but even though Xander had brought what he knew he needed now, Giles couldn't even bring himself to take the refrigerator door's handle.
He just couldn't do it.
Buffy sat with her mother, both of them curled on the couch. She remembered her 17th birthday, and what a disaster that had been...but that being here on this couch with her mom the next night had seemed to make it all better, just for a moment. It felt like that now, and she never wanted it to go away.
Joyce sighed as Buffy said "I'm sorry" yet again.
"I think we should put a moratorium on apologies for a while, or neither of us is going to get another word in edgewise."
Buffy smirked. "You're probably right."
Her mother took one of her hands and squeezed. "You know this is still going to take a lot of getting used to for me, right?"
They'd spent the last couple of hours talking...not only about her Slaying, and how she'd been called, and what had really happened at Hemery High back in L.A., but about whatever came up. It had been a long time since they'd done that.
"I know," she sighed.
Joyce looked at her for a long moment, and she didn't let go of her daughter's hand. Instead, she held it with both of hers now. "But I don't want to lose you, Buffy. I love you. So I'm going to do my best...if you'll help me."
Buffy swallowed hard and smiled. She added her free hand to the other three between them and squeezed, too. "Of course."
