~**~
-16-
~**~
Giles was – well, he didn't like pissed. Ripper got pissed, Rupert
Giles got irritated. But he was irritated in a really pissed off kind of way
right now. First Buffy had asked him to drive her and Dawn home. When he turned
around, Xander was there, too, and wanted a ride to the construction trailer to
talk to Fred. Willow had decided to
walk home and change, leaving the only one he really wanted to be with right
now out of the car. Of course, being Mr. Nice Guy, he agreed to wait for Xander
and take him back to the shop with him, rather than going to pick up his truck,
so they wouldn't have two vehicles after dinner. But as soon as he got in the
car, Xander's insta-Buffy connection informed him that the Slayer was ready to
go, and could they stop by and pick her up?
His original plan had been to go by the store, check on Anya, and
hurry over to the apartment to spend a little time alone with Willow before
they had to meet with the others. Maybe even go to the apartment first, had he
been able to convince Willow to take the ride he'd offered, and check by the
shop later. Anya could handle it, after all.
Instead, here he was, pulling away from the Summers home, feeling
as if he should be pulling the meter handle. He'd spent the whole time playing
taxi driver, and he didn't even expect a tip. Buffy and Xander were having a
spirited discussion about where to have dinner, which they must have meant to
include him in, since they were having it aloud. Lately, they'd carried on a
lot of conversation through their link, and the only clue he or Willow would
have would be the rapidly shifting expressions on both of their faces. They
might as well have been covering this subject silently, though, since they were
so involved in the good-natured argument, Giles probably couldn't have gotten a
word in edgewise if he'd been interested. Which he wasn't.
He was interested in seeing Willow, which these sods (okay,
beloved sods, but still) had interfered in. He was driving in an extremely
un-Gilesian way back to the Magic Box just to get another look at her face.
Dear God, he had it bad.
He squealed to a graceless stop, hopping out of the car before the
engine had completely stopped revving. Racing inside as casually as he could
manage, he noticed in his peripheral vision one of the batty old ladies that
now occupied Xander's old apartment, standing in the "Prophecy" section,
staring at him rather than the book she was holding. His distracted thoughts
didn't really register the obvious question of what she was doing there.
"Anya?"
The ex-demon looked up from counting the money, something she'd
mentioned in the past that she did for fun when business was slow. "Huh?"
"Where's Willow?"
She frowned that thinking frown of hers. "Is this a game? 'Cos I'd
like to know the rules before I play. Xander taught me it's easier to win that
way." Just then, the aforementioned ex came in the door, his arm wrapped around
Buffy's shoulders. Anya knew about the two, but had managed to elevate her
denial to a new art form. "Hey, Xander," she said warmly. "Buffy," she nodded,
far less warmly.
"Hey, An. G-man, where's the fire?"
The Watcher visibly deflated. "I thought Willow would be waiting,"
he said in disappointment.
"Someone's got a cru – ush," Buffy chanted, teasingly. But all
lightheartedness disappeared when the Watcher winced in pain, suddenly doubling
over, clutching at his head.
"Giles!" Buffy cried, running to catch him before he fell.
Xander moved, as he often did, in unison with her. "Oh, dear," he
heard someone mutter, and looking beside him, he saw one of the old Benton
biddies from down the hall.
"My head," the shopkeeper moaned. Then, straightening up, he
gasped, "Willow! She's in trouble."
"Shit!" the old woman cursed, managing to get a startled look from
all three of the Unity members, even the pained Giles. With a piercing gaze at
the Watcher, she said, "I think I know what happened."
Xander was worried, and with a quick mental confirmation from
Buffy, went into Slayerette/Unity stealth mode. "It's okay, Ms. Benton. He has
these spells. He'll be okay in a while." He took the woman by the arm,
attempting to escort her to the door. "We'll need to settle him down. If you
want to see the store, why don't you come back a little later, and we'll be
glad to show you around."
She shook him off with amazing strength for such a frail woman of
her age. "Stop treating me like a helpless old woman," she fumed, then
realized. "Oh, forgot, I am." Mumbling a few words in a language Xander
wouldn't even pretend to recognize, although he knew he could tap Unity's
knowledge of it if he needed to, the little old lady turned her back, and her
image wavered. When she turned back, she stood taller and wore different
clothing and a familiar face.
"Dr. Fairhope?" Buffy exclaimed, at the same time as Giles
growled, "Andrea. You want to tell me what's going on? And what's happened to
Willow?"
"She's in trouble, big trouble. But something tells me she'll be
okay in the end. I hope so, anyway," the doctor replied uncertainly. Turning to
Giles, she said, "I think I can take you to her, but I need to use your phone
first. Okay?"
Still angry, the Watcher answered, "Take us to Willow, and
everything will be okay. But hurry." The woman nodded briskly, and moved to the
counter, punching in the number hard enough to break the keypad. When whatever
was on the other end answered, she mumbled off a string of letters and numbers,
and hung up.
"C'mon," she told them, "Let's go."
~**~
Willow awakened to find herself tied to a chair. She sighed. It
had been a while since anyone had tied her up for any reason, and she wasn't
eager to repeat the experience again. She saw a solid male figure in the
corner, speaking into what appeared to be a radio handset. "Andrea? Andrea,"
the vaguely familiar voice kept repeating. "Damn," he fumed, "she must not be
paying attention." When he turned to face her, she squeaked.
"Ah, you're awake," Travers said, an odd gleam in his eye. "I was
hoping Andrea would get back and we could do this before you came to. Pity."
*Do what?* Willow wondered, realizing her mouth was taped shut and
she couldn't ask aloud.
He was mumbling to himself. "Magical shield up. I'll have to give
her something – don't want to cause pain here." The Watcher scurried away,
furtively preparing what Willow finally saw as a large syringe. Turning back to
her with a comforting smile, he held it up. "This will keep you from getting
hurt – I mean, you won't feel it. Otherwise, it *would* hurt."
The witch was having trouble processing his words, due perhaps to
the maniacal expression he wore, and the fact that Quentin Travers, Mr.
Tweed-From-The-Watcher's-Council himself, was babbling. The man usually made
the old Giles look hyperactive (although she was glad to say her Rupe was much
more lively). In spite of herself, the thought of her – what were they,
exactly? Anyway, the thought of Rupe made her smile slightly. Taking it as consent,
Travers smiled in return, jabbing her quickly with the needle.
"Owww!" Willow complained, although the sound was highly muffled
by the gag. The older gentleman wandered back to the counter, discarding the
syringe after neatly snipping off the needle into a small jar. Then he
retrieved something laid out of Willow's sight, and turned back around again.
The redhead was starting to see the world through a slightly fuzzy lens, but
could clearly recognize the jewel-encrusted knife. Her eyebrows rose in
question.
"I decided to use an enchanted weapon, since I'm not sure that the
changes Unity makes to your physiology will be surmountable otherwise. I
promise, I'll wait until you're out to kill you – you won't feel a thing."
Willow's eyes kept growing wider as he spoke, and panic crossed her face. "It's
really the only way, you know," he went on conversationally. "The others will
die, too, eventually, once you're gone. Andrea didn't tell me that, but I'm
pretty sure they will. Doesn't matter, anyhow. Without you, there'll be no more
Unity, and that's the whole point." He seemed entranced by the sound of his own
voice, his madness only otherwise evident by the light in his eyes. "See, with
Glory gone now, the Council wants me to set up a way to control Unity. But
since the Heart and Body bonded, she's going to be too hard to control. She's
already becoming an individual, from what I've seen on the tapes. They might be
a little upset, at first, but they'll see, soon enough, that killing her was
the best plan of action. She's got the darkness inside her. There's a reason
it's never been done with humans before. And after all, she did what she was
made for – she's not needed anymore." He was kneeling down beside the chair by
this point, his left hand resting affectionately on her cheek. "I'm quite sorry
that this is the only way. I'm certain Rupert will be perturbed."
Abruptly, the door to the apartment burst open, and four bodies
tumbled in. "Quentin!" Andrea called, while Buffy and Xander both cried,
"Willow!" together. Rupert just charged toward the captive woman, only to be
repelled by an invisible shield.
"You don't have to do this, Quentin," Andrea continued soothingly.
"Bloody magical barrier," Giles growled. "Try calling Unity," he
suggested to Buffy.
Closing her eyes and holding Xander's hand, she concentrated.
After a few moments, her eyes flew open. "Can't," she answered him helplessly.
Waving her hand, she said, "The shield?"
"Probably," the Watcher agreed, then spat out a word that rather
surprised her, coming from him.
"They shouldn't have done that," Travers explained sadly to
Willow, whose expression was dazed, at the very least. "I didn't want this to
hurt. And I so hate breaking a promise." With those words, he raised the blade,
bringing it down into the witch's chest. Her eyes flew wide open, but there was
no sound that emerged from behind the gag.
"Wills!" Xander screamed, tears running down his face. Buffy
clutched his hand, but only emitted a strangled yelp. Giles howled in pain, and
fell to his knees before collapsing completely. The doctor was babbling in a
magical language, and as soon as she stopped, she raced forward and grabbed the
older Watcher's arm.
"Let me take that," she said soothingly, carefully removing the
knife from the dazed man's hand. She handed it to Buffy, who stared at it with
horrified fascination, watching her best friend's blood as it dripped from the
razor sharp blade. "I need to get him out before it happens," she murmured to
the Slayer, who had no idea what was supposed to happen, when, where and to
whom. She nodded anyway, trying not to notice the slim body, slumped over in
the chair and being held only by the ropes that bound it. Red hair hung over
Willow's face, and her startled expression, formed in death, was mercifully
hidden from the most important people in her life. Blood was pooling on the
floor. In spite of her total numbness, Buffy could feel anger building within
her, although she was pretty sure she would never feel anything, ever again.
Then she recognized the spark that burned with white-hot fever as belonging to
her other half, to Xander. His temper, often close to the surface, had emerged
and gone momentarily berserk. She watched him storm into the next room, where
the doctor had led the killer, stepping over Giles, who was still crumpled on
the floor, without a second glance.
His voice was dangerously low, and only her Slayer- and
Unity-enhanced abilities allowed her to hear the words he growled. "Just get
away from him, or I'll kill you, too." She
could see inside her lover's mind, and knew he was planning to tear apart the
man who had brutally stabbed his oldest and dearest friend with his own bare
hands. And Buffy didn't doubt he could do it, either. She was too numb to be
startled by this killer that suddenly occupied her beloved's body.
"Xander, you don't want to kill him. He's gone mad. He didn't know
what he was doing." The doctor was using the same soothing voice she'd been
crooning in since they'd come in the door. Buffy followed her bondmate
mechanically, and saw that Andrea was seated on the bed beside the now docile
older man, pouring tea down his throat. "The Council will be sending someone
soon, to take him away. He'll get help."
When the younger man spoke again, his voice was an agonizing
mixture of fury and pain. "Who'll help Willow? It's too late. He's gotta pay,"
he moaned. "How will we survive without her?" His tone turned to pleading. "You
have to let me kill him." The Slayer got a mental picture of a dangerous animal
trying to appear tame to fool his prey.
"No, Xander," came Giles' voice from behind him. "You'd be no
better than he, then."
"And you *are* so much better," added a voice the young man
thought he'd never hear again on this earth. The animal retreated.
"WILLOW!" he and Buffy screamed in unison, running to their
friend. She was leaning on Rupert, and they thought together of tearing her
away for their own hug before they realized the other couple was more or less
holding one another up. "Wha…" Buffy managed to burble out, speaking for both
of them.
"I thought this would happen," Andrea said with satisfaction. "It
proves what I thought about the bond. You can't kill one alone, you have to
take both at the same time."
Xander started, and fear crashed through Buffy as she felt his
thought that Travers would hear this, come and try to finish what he'd started.
They turned as one, and saw the Watcher sleeping peacefully on the sofa. Seeing
their gazes, the doctor said, "I laced the tea with some of the sedatives I give
him when he flies. Knocks him out every time."
Buffy was the first to put two and two together, which meant
Xander had the same insight instantaneously. "Bonded?" she asked.
Her lover's face was incredulous. "When? You," he pointed to the
reddening Willow, "told Buffy this morning you hadn't," he made a crude motion
with his hands, causing Willow to blush even more deeply in spite of her weary,
happy smile, "yet. You said it was 'too soon.'"
"It was, this morning." The redhead looked up at Rupert, who had a
funny half smile on his own face, silently begging for him to rescue her.
"So, when?" Xander was like a bulldog with his teeth in – he
wasn't letting this go.
"Lunchtime," Andrea answered for them, drawing startled looks from
the four. She motioned to the monitors. "I couldn't see all the way into the
office when you two went in there, but you were there quite a while. When
Rupert felt Willow's pain and knew when she was in trouble, I managed to
extrapolate from that."
"Your office? At the shop? The only place would be…" Buffy
stopped, in awed silence.
Giles was trying not to grin. "On the desk. Yes."
"My God, G-man, that's like, the ultimate male fantasy. That and
the airplane bathroom." Xander was obviously impressed.
"Trust me, those bathrooms are overrated, they're far too small
for…" The mild Englishman in the male animal reared his meek head, and Rupert
trailed off in embarrassment.
"I sooo don't want to know," Willow moaned, followed by a quick
intake of breath. "Oh, no. I DO know!" Her eyes were saucer-like.
"I was young, and foolish," the Watcher defended himself weakly.
Willow's childhood friend snickered, and looked at her and her
equally perturbed lover. "Welcome to the world of no privacy. Every thought you
have is now fair game. Every stupid reflex. Every humiliating memory. Every…"
Buffy put her hand on her lover's arm. "I think they get the
picture Xan. We just got both of them back from near death. Could we let them
live a bit before we kill them with embarrassment?" The other couple shot her
grateful looks.
The crew that burst through the door interrupted any further
examination of the couple's new status. "Where is he?" the leader exclaimed,
taken aback when directed to the quietly sleeping older man. "That code was to
be used only in life-threatening situations!" he fumed, unsure of who had
misled him.
"It was quite that," Andrea insisted, stepping forward. She
motioned to the now stronger redhead and her bondmate. "Willow here would be
dead, but this man saved her life." The team leader tried to ignore the
slightly younger man, giggling behind his hand. Soon, he noticed the blonde
girl trying to hold in her own laughter. The Watcher woman glared at them both,
and went on. "I've sedated him, but he's quite mad. You should arrange to have
him taken back to the Council – they'll know what to do about him. Make sure
he's kept either sedated or restrained, however. He's rather tricky."
~**~
In England, a silent elderly man studied the video monitor in his
office. He had trusted Travers to do what was needed. But he couldn't keep his
head long enough. Unity couldn't be allowed to continue, but more study was
needed, and he seemed to have lost his expert, Andrea Fairhope, to sentiment.
He would personally take over Quentin Travers' case, however. He knew enough to
spearhead the next effort. He just had to be – fixed.
Then Unity could be finished off, before the dark animal that
lived in her Heart and her Intellect was able to infect the rest of the body.
As an evil creature, she would be unstoppable. The danger would always be
there.
~**~
"So," Willow said as she fished the last piece of Mongolian Beef
from the bottom of the carryout container with her chopsticks, "What was so
funny about Rupe having saved my life?"
They were seated in the living room of their apartment; all four
armed with Oriental utensils and nearly empty cardboard containers. Andrea had
debriefed them on the past weeks, and how she had contacted the Watcher's
Council as soon as she realized how far her former lover teetered over the edge
where Unity was concerned. They were relieved to hear that neither the doctor
nor the Council seemed to share the older Watcher's need to control their
power. She let them know how significant she felt the bond each couple shared
really was, and they agreed to submit themselves to further testing before she
returned to England. After a quick call to the Magic Box to assure anyone who
might care that all was well, the members of Unity retreated to their own home,
and much Chinese food was ordered and consumed.
Buffy began to giggle again at the witch's question, so Xander
deigned to answer. "I just was wishing I'd tried your way to save Buffy's life
back in high school – maybe after the CPR was over." His girlfriend's giggle
developed into full-blown laughter. "And I told him, he'd be the one dead now
if he had," she howled. The other two joined them in laughter.
"Well, dying, or almost dying, can be tiring," Rupert said
pointedly a few minutes later.
After a quick flash of alarm, Willow's smile widened, and then she
yawned with dramatic exaggeration. "I do feel a bit – sleepy. Perhaps we should
go to bed."
Xander and Buffy had had enough silent conversations to know one
when they saw it. Giles quickly wiped the wicked expression off his face, and
stood, pulling Willow up from her seat. "You two will clean up, won't you?" he
asked, not even waiting long enough for them to answer before disappearing into
their room behind the redhead.
"I guess it's only fair – they have been through hell today," the
Slayer waxed philosophically as she began gathering trash.
*I do believe they have heaven planned for tonight,* Xander
responded slyly in her mind. *A plan I personally couldn't argue with,* he
continued suggestively.
His love grinned back at him. *After I watch the Leno monologue,
we'll see.*
The trash was rapidly gathered, and there was little else that
needed cleaning. The couple settled on the couch in front of the TV, but the
sounds from the bedroom were distracting, forcing them to turn up the set. They
weren't sure if they were raising the volume to hear the monologue, or to not
hear the moans and cries.
Finally, Xander punched the power button in frustration, turning
off the TV. "We were never that loud, were we? Maybe I could soundproof these
bedrooms."
Buffy stood, taking his hand and pulling him towards their own
room. "Or we could just try to drown them out," she grinned.
Xander grinned right back. "I like the way you think," he purred.
"You thought it, I just said it," she smirked, and he chased her
into their room and closed the door behind them.
~**~