Summary: When an unforeseen evil once again threatens to destroy the world,
Buffy and the gang, along with some unexpected help, join together to
release a reluctant champion from the clutches of hell. But will he be the
prophesized savior or will he destroy them all?
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter Fourteen
They'd decided to start with their classmates first. The young citizens of Sunnydale who had beaten the odds by merely staying alive. They knew the things that went bump in the night, they'd lost friends and family to those things and had bravely moved on. They were survivors through and through, young people with haunted eyes and grim expressions that bespoke the sights that no one should have to see. And they were up to this final task as well, they had to be.
"What are you nuts?" Harmony cried out when Buffy finished talking. The cafeteria burst into sound as most of its young occupants fervently agreed with her.
"I told you we shouldn't have told them the whole thing," Cordelia murmured to Xander. "The gist of it would have been fine, we could have just skipped the 'we're all going to die' bit. Some people don't take that well, you know."
Xander spared a half-amused look her way, "I think it has to do with integrity," he replied, "never really got it myself, but it sounded important."
She gave him an evil look when she realized she had just been made fun of, then drew her attention back to the rapidly heating argument.
"I'm not going to do something that's going to get me killed," Larry yelled.
"Of course not," somebody shouted from the back row, "not now that you've finally found yourself!"
Larry turned a bright red as the room burst into laughter, "you know what they say about homophobes," he retorted hotly.
Buffy rolled her eyes, this was not what she had in mind when she envisioned this assembly. Disbelief and ridicule she was prepared for, fear and resentment was expected. A discussion on Larry's lifestyle of choice was definitely not on the agenda. She raised her hand, trying to get the noisy room to notice her, "this is important!" She tried, but her voice was lost in the shouting.
"Shut up!" Buffy spun around to find Cordelia standing beside her. The room hushed immediately, caught off guard by the cheerleader's shrill voice. "Bottom line is we're all going to die here anyway. I think we all figured that out at some point. The only question is how we're going to go about doing it." Slack-jawed, Buffy stared at her along with the rest of the senior class, "well I'm not going to die with just you losers," Cordelia murmured to the stunned Slayer, "if I'm going I'm taking this whole God forsaken town with me." The mirth in her voice was apparent, but the tall brunette's eyes were flaming with barely suppressed passion.
"Cordelia Chase!" Harmony rose to her feet disdainfully, "sick of playing your twisted games with your geek of a boyfriend and his friends so you decide to drag us all in?" Buffy groaned inwardly, the vacant-eyed blonde could very well destroy everything. Maybe she wouldn't be so quick to save the stupid airhead of a girl the next time a vampire attacked, the world would only benefit.
Cordelia was undaunted though, "are we going to die like sheep?" She asked pointedly. Harmony's eyes widened slightly and she sat back down with a discouraged thump. Buffy stared at Xander questioningly, but he simply shrugged. "We've been treated like sheep our whole lives." She began to walk between the rows of her riveted peers, her confidence growing as she spoke. "Our friends have died or disappeared, and no one will tell us why. Things happen here, bad things, and no one will tell us why!" Her voice growing to a ringing crescendo, forcing everyone to listen, "we've got the only school paper in the country that has a permanent obituary column and no one will tell us why! So I'm asking you; are we going to die like sheep?" The ringing denial that instinctively rang out of everyone's lips seemed to shake the already damaged structure. Even the passionate Cordelia seemed humbled, though not enough to be stopped. "Or are we going to go like people and take that bitch of a demon with us?"
The room burst into sound as each teenager consciously threw away the shackles of a life clouded by ignorance.
"She should have gone into politics," Xander whispered to Willow, his voice barely carrying over the clamor that filled the room.
"President Cordy," Willow mused then shuddered, "now there's a scary thought."
"Did you notice how no one argued the existence of demons?" Buffy asked Cordelia as they both began to handout the written instructions that Giles had prepared earlier to their classmates.
The brunette merely shrugged, her beautiful face showing no surprise. "I guess even denial has its limits," she replied.
Some days it was great being the Slayer. Unfortunately today wasn't one of those days. The senior class had all memorized the words of the curse and was now spreading the knowledge among their families and friends. There was a corrupt sort of innocence in the way small groups of people huddled together with their torn and dirty clothes, mumbling the words that ultimately promised them nothing but death. As Buffy roamed the school halls aimlessly, the babble of the curse she had already memorized coming at her from all sides, she finally allowed herself to feel some of the guilt she'd been repressing. After all it was her fault all this was happening, hers from the very start.
Angel should have never been allowed to go on living, once she found out what he was. Yet she went against common sense and her sacred duty and not only had she spared his life she'd also fallen in love with him. From there her list of sins only grew exponentially going from allowing an evil demon wearing the face of her lover to live and take lives, on to betraying her lover and destroying him and finally allowing herself to be fooled into lying to him, to her loved ones and to herself. Could things be any worse?
"I'll never be able to learn this!" Came Harmony's pathetic whine.
"Yes you will," Willow was saying through clenched teeth, "all it takes is a little concentration."
Buffy winced in response to her friend's obvious ongoing torture. Willow was normally a very patient person, but even the little hacker had her limits.
"But it's so hard, it's almost like," the vacuous blonde thought about it, "like school!" She finally blurted.
"Which is exactly where we are," Willow replied, careful not to let her exasperation show.
"Oh yeah," Harmony replied sheepishly. "You know, Willow, I always wished I could be smart like you."
The redhead's eyes widened with surprise, "really?" She asked timidly, "that's so sweet."
Harmony nodded enthusiastically, "yeah, but you know, I had to get dates through high school so I was too busy to work on that." She sighed morosely, "maybe I should have been more like you."
"No," the fledgling witch muttered, spotting Buffy trying to quietly scurry away as she spoke, "you were just fine being yourself." She gave Buffy an 'I'm really going to have a hard time forgiving you for this one' look before returning to her thickheaded pupil.
Buffy sighed, maybe some people did have it worse then she did right now.
"Buffy!" Xander called out from the opposite side of the hallway. He closed the gap between them in a few short strides, deftly avoiding the huddled groups of mumbling people lounging on the blankets that have been spread across the floor. He made a face at the strange words coming at him from all sides, "is it okay for them all to be saying the curse like that?" He asked nervously, "I mean we're not going to be starting it off by accident or anything, right?"
Buffy shrugged, "Giles says that as long as we don't say it all together we're in the clear." She winced as someone behind her stumbled over an especially complex formula, "little chance of that happening anytime soon," she assured him.
"Your mom was looking for you," Xander said, "she wanted to know what to do about the children."
"T-the children?"
"Yeah, small people, like to watch Sesame Street and eat ice-cream. There's more to Sunnydale then just teenagers and oblivious adults, you know."
She stared at him helplessly, "I didn't really think about that," she admitted.
Xander nodded grimly, "look, Buffy, it was bad enough teaching this to my parents. I'm not going to stand in front of a group of kids and teach them how to chant this stuff."
"No, of course not."
"And you won't either," he said firmly. "I'm thinking that when the time comes we leave them here with someone who can take care of them. Someone capable."
She managed a wan smile, "you're not talking about yourself, are you?"
He smiled back mischievously, "I said someone capable. My vote's for your mom. What do you say?"
She gaped at him, her mouth opened and closed but no sound would come out. Her mother's probable death was one of the heaviest burdens she had to carry, and he was relieving her of that, just like that. "Thank you," she managed to choke out, "but you better run it by Giles first."
"Actually," Xander's boyish features broke into a bright grin, "he was the one who suggested it." Suddenly embarrassed by the tears welling up in his friend's eyes he turned to leave, "I think I'll go break the news to your mom," he said as he walked away.
She nodded mutely, overcome with emotion. She sniffed loudly as she felt her tears rising up like an unstoppable tidal wave within her, she needed to find someplace to vent before she'd break down and start to cry in the middle of the hallway. Quickly she headed towards the one place she knew no one would be, the science room. With its disgusting odors and its thick walls she could wail away and no one would be the wiser.
With the tears already spilling down her face, she swiftly yanked open the heavy door and settled herself to crying by candlelight.
"Are you at peace with what you've done?" Came the unexpected question, "your certainty seems to be slightly lacking."
She spun around, thrusting the candle in front of her as a stake leaped into her hand, "you!" She spat contemptuously.
Completely at ease, as if the furious Slayer standing before him waving the business end of a stake his way was nonexistent, Gerrico smoothly stepped out of the shadows. "I thought we had an understanding," he said wryly.
"Oh yeah, we had an understanding all right," her voice rose as her emotions got the better of her. "You understood you were lying to me, and I got to understand that when it was too late."
"Lying to you?" He seemed truly baffled, his deep blue eyes narrowing in his attempt to understand, "when did I lie to you, child?"
"Don't you dare 'child' me," she hissed, her hand gripping her stake so tightly the knuckles were turning white. "I know all about your plague, all about what Angel did and why you wanted revenge. Even if it's going to cost you your own life!"
The elder's face clouded for a moment, but the emotion was too complex for the agitated Slayer to comprehend, "I never lied to you," his voice was calm, but with edges sharp enough to slice through the hardest of hearts. "When I said there was a plague I meant it. He was like a plague, like a fatal disease," his blue eyes never flinched through the worst of the memories. "In one night he destroyed what had taken over a millennia to build. Not one of my Anne's true descendants lived, and all that knowledge, all that life was gone in a night."
Buffy gripped her stake tighter, reveling in the pain the wood that was biting into the palm of her hand caused. She wouldn't allow herself to be swept away by his stories, not anymore. "And you forgave him just like that," she said maliciously, her sarcasm dripping like poison from her lips.
His harsh bark of a laugh surprised her, caught her off guard, "I did no such thing. I hunted him down for years like the rabid animal that he was, but when I finally found him I discovered I was too late."
Understanding dawned in her eyes, "he'd already been cursed," she whispered, her fingers easing their grip on her weapon.
"Yes," Gerrico replied, his features revealing nothing of his thoughts, "and when I saw him wallowing in the gutter, living off guilt and rats, I realized that nothing I could ever do to him would match the pain he was already in. He was a broken shell of a man, not worthy of my time. So I left him there and tried to forget about him."
Buffy swallowed hard at the images he thrust into her mind, then shook her head violently, he was fooling her again. He was clouding her mind with stories and pulling her away from the truth, making her doubt herself and her actions. "Why should I believe you now? You're nothing but a soulless ghoul! A leech on humanity! You've been walking the earth for so long without passion or purpose that you can't even remember what it's like to be human!" She was lashing out ruthlessly, but her heart would allow for nothing less, "what you made me do, the way you've made me betray him for your own purposes is unforgivable. But you don't even understand that, do you? Love and loss are just too human of emotions for you to comprehend." Her grip was firm on her stake, and her body was poised to strike, "go away," she said coldly, "I've had enough of your stories."
The elder's eyes widened as if she had just struck him, his sensual lips pursed together as real emotion finally ranged free across his regal features. "And yet you will listen to this one!" He hissed through clenched teeth. "She bore me four daughters, my Anne, four daughters and none of my blood. And I loved them although I had no soul with which to love, and I killed for them although my lust for blood had died with my demon. And I watched them grow old and wither away. Don't tell me I don't understand loss! I have lost everything, including myself, and yet I find life worth living!"
She gaped at him, his outburst leaving her speechless as her mind reeled with what he had said. "I," she started, not knowing what to say. She never got a chance to figure it out.
"Who is this, Buffy?" Giles asked coldly. He stood in the doorway with a crossbow poised and aimed directly at the elder's chest.
The world was spinning out of control. From a distance she heard the clatter of wood on wood as her stake dropped to the floor from her suddenly numb fingers. She gripped the edge of a table tightly before her legs could give out entirely. How much had Giles heard? Her mind screamed over the frantic beating of her heart, how much did he know?
"Who is he?" Giles repeated, never taking his eyes off the elder, never easing his grip on his weapon.
Her mind reeled, there were so many answers to that question, so much destruction lying hidden within those answers. "A friend," she panted, forcing the words through her lips. She was willingly condemning herself, she realized, willingly allying herself with this creature who had lied to her. Gerrico's penetrating blue eyes softened slightly in response, but he said nothing.
"I could hear you through the door, Buffy," the Watcher's voice was hard and clipped, but his eyes wouldn't stray from the elder's face, not even to look at his charge. "I could hear you talking about betrayal and revenge," the Watcher's face flushed with his efforts to control his raging emotions, "who is he, Buffy?" He asked with inhuman calm.
Oh God, she thought as her mind frantically analyzed and rejected her options, this isn't happening. In her desperation she turned to Gerrico, her eyes pleading for the elder's help. The regal man nodded once in answer and Buffy closed her eyes, unable to face the situation head on.
"I am a Watcher," Gerrico calmly said. Buffy's eyes snapped open. No, no, no! She tried to communicate to the elder, don't tell him everything! It'll tear him apart, tear me apart. But the elder had already turned his attention towards the armed Watcher, his eyes a mystery.
"You're a demon," Giles spat contemptuously. "Do you deny that?"
A grim smile stretched across the sensual lips, "Am, was, truth is subject to the time in which it's being told." Giles's eyes narrowed and he re- aimed his crossbow directly at the elder's chest with deadly intent. He was a Watcher, a British scholar, he would not allow himself to be drowned in senseless philosophical discussions. That's what all those long-distance phone calls home were for. Gerrico raised his arms slowly in supplication, "I was a demon," he admitted, "what I am now is," he paused, gauging the Watcher's reaction, "something entirely different. I am, however, a Watcher."
"How is that possible?" The question was mingled with doubt and demand.
"It's true, Giles," Buffy said quietly. Now that the truth was almost out there was no point in obscuring it save to further her own means. She owed him more than that.
"True?" The librarian she had come to love as a father echoed her hollowly.
She nodded grimly. Her knuckles were a bright white as she gripped the edge of a table for sheer physical support. Her body was trembling, her nerves were spiraling out of control and her heart was dust in her chest, but she owed this man some answers and he would get them even if it killed her. "He was the first Watcher," she said flatly. There was no doubt in her mind that this part of Gerrico's story was indeed true, it was too farfetched not to be. "He founded the Council all those years ago. Him and a few more like him, over a millennia ago," the information spilled from her lips in a gush of knowledge.
"Demon?" Giles's eyes were frantically denying, even as his hands already acknowledged the truth, already shifting his weapon away from the unarmed elder. "Founded the Council?" His eyes turned to stare at his pale charge, "a demon Watcher?" The hysteria hovering on the edges of his voice was painfully obvious.
Buffy forcibly blinked back her tears, the man she had come to love as a father was walking on an emotional tightrope, and he desperately needed her support. "He wasn't a demon at the time, not exactly," she refused to look at Gerrico, search for his approval. He'd never told her what he was, maybe he didn't even know himself. Either way it was irrelevant to the end result, the Watcher's Council had NOT been founded by demons. Giles had to know that. "They did it for a Slayer, they helped her. Giles, listen to me!" She begged.
But he was too far-gone in his own thoughts to listen, too deep into the repercussions on his own life to hear her. "A farce," he whispered. The despair in his voice wracking more pain within her than she ever thought possible. "Everything I was led to believe in, everything my father demanded of me, they were all lies. I've devoted my life to a farce!"
"No, Giles," she cried, begging he would hear her, "you've devoted your life to me!"
He did hear her, his eyes hardened as they turned to rest on her face, "and you knew!" He hissed, the turmoil raging within him allowing for nothing less. "You knew and you lied to me!" He shook his head, a feeble attempt to shake himself free of her, free of the emotional hold she had over him. He turned away from her, unable to look at her shimmering eyes a moment longer, unable to look at her tear-stained face. He turned towards the only escape he knew, and as his hand gripped at the cold metal of the door- handle for dear life, he understood full well that he wasn't escaping her. He was escaping himself. Nearly laughing at himself for so astute an observation he nevertheless yanked the door open.
"Giles!" She cried out, tears welling in her eyes. I can't loose him too! "Please don't leave me!"
Her cry tugged at his heart, at their bond, at all they meant to each other. Helplessly he froze at the door. For a moment she thought he would relent, he would come back to her, to care for her as he always did. But his shoulders tensed and she realized the hurt was just too great this time, the betrayal ran too deep. "You have a Watcher," his voice was cold, brutal in the pain it meant to inflict. But she knew him, knew the underlying agony he was causing himself by lashing out at her, "you don't need me anymore."
"Please, Giles, I can't do this without you!" She wailed, but he walked out of the room as though she hadn't said anything at all. For a moment all she could do was gasp helplessly, broken sobs spilling from her lips beyond her control. She closed her eyes, willingly surrendering herself to a darkness that refused to take her. In the end her chest ached and her shoulders drooped with the sense of overpowering responsibility. The man who was more of a father to her then her real one had ever been despised her, but this wasn't over, not by a long shot. Feeling ten years older the tiny Slayer forced her eyes open and bravely walked to the door, purposefully ignoring the former demon still in the room.
"I'm sorry." Gerrico's voice, as deceptively compassionate as she remembered, stayed her, but only for a moment.
"Don't be," she told him, not even bothering to look back, "you're stuck here just like the rest of us." She remembered something as she turned to leave, something he had told her not so long ago, "nothing is truly immortal," she reminded him chillingly, "just try to keep that in mind."
Notes: Contains spoilers from BtVS seasons one through three.
Feedback: Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter Fourteen
They'd decided to start with their classmates first. The young citizens of Sunnydale who had beaten the odds by merely staying alive. They knew the things that went bump in the night, they'd lost friends and family to those things and had bravely moved on. They were survivors through and through, young people with haunted eyes and grim expressions that bespoke the sights that no one should have to see. And they were up to this final task as well, they had to be.
"What are you nuts?" Harmony cried out when Buffy finished talking. The cafeteria burst into sound as most of its young occupants fervently agreed with her.
"I told you we shouldn't have told them the whole thing," Cordelia murmured to Xander. "The gist of it would have been fine, we could have just skipped the 'we're all going to die' bit. Some people don't take that well, you know."
Xander spared a half-amused look her way, "I think it has to do with integrity," he replied, "never really got it myself, but it sounded important."
She gave him an evil look when she realized she had just been made fun of, then drew her attention back to the rapidly heating argument.
"I'm not going to do something that's going to get me killed," Larry yelled.
"Of course not," somebody shouted from the back row, "not now that you've finally found yourself!"
Larry turned a bright red as the room burst into laughter, "you know what they say about homophobes," he retorted hotly.
Buffy rolled her eyes, this was not what she had in mind when she envisioned this assembly. Disbelief and ridicule she was prepared for, fear and resentment was expected. A discussion on Larry's lifestyle of choice was definitely not on the agenda. She raised her hand, trying to get the noisy room to notice her, "this is important!" She tried, but her voice was lost in the shouting.
"Shut up!" Buffy spun around to find Cordelia standing beside her. The room hushed immediately, caught off guard by the cheerleader's shrill voice. "Bottom line is we're all going to die here anyway. I think we all figured that out at some point. The only question is how we're going to go about doing it." Slack-jawed, Buffy stared at her along with the rest of the senior class, "well I'm not going to die with just you losers," Cordelia murmured to the stunned Slayer, "if I'm going I'm taking this whole God forsaken town with me." The mirth in her voice was apparent, but the tall brunette's eyes were flaming with barely suppressed passion.
"Cordelia Chase!" Harmony rose to her feet disdainfully, "sick of playing your twisted games with your geek of a boyfriend and his friends so you decide to drag us all in?" Buffy groaned inwardly, the vacant-eyed blonde could very well destroy everything. Maybe she wouldn't be so quick to save the stupid airhead of a girl the next time a vampire attacked, the world would only benefit.
Cordelia was undaunted though, "are we going to die like sheep?" She asked pointedly. Harmony's eyes widened slightly and she sat back down with a discouraged thump. Buffy stared at Xander questioningly, but he simply shrugged. "We've been treated like sheep our whole lives." She began to walk between the rows of her riveted peers, her confidence growing as she spoke. "Our friends have died or disappeared, and no one will tell us why. Things happen here, bad things, and no one will tell us why!" Her voice growing to a ringing crescendo, forcing everyone to listen, "we've got the only school paper in the country that has a permanent obituary column and no one will tell us why! So I'm asking you; are we going to die like sheep?" The ringing denial that instinctively rang out of everyone's lips seemed to shake the already damaged structure. Even the passionate Cordelia seemed humbled, though not enough to be stopped. "Or are we going to go like people and take that bitch of a demon with us?"
The room burst into sound as each teenager consciously threw away the shackles of a life clouded by ignorance.
"She should have gone into politics," Xander whispered to Willow, his voice barely carrying over the clamor that filled the room.
"President Cordy," Willow mused then shuddered, "now there's a scary thought."
"Did you notice how no one argued the existence of demons?" Buffy asked Cordelia as they both began to handout the written instructions that Giles had prepared earlier to their classmates.
The brunette merely shrugged, her beautiful face showing no surprise. "I guess even denial has its limits," she replied.
Some days it was great being the Slayer. Unfortunately today wasn't one of those days. The senior class had all memorized the words of the curse and was now spreading the knowledge among their families and friends. There was a corrupt sort of innocence in the way small groups of people huddled together with their torn and dirty clothes, mumbling the words that ultimately promised them nothing but death. As Buffy roamed the school halls aimlessly, the babble of the curse she had already memorized coming at her from all sides, she finally allowed herself to feel some of the guilt she'd been repressing. After all it was her fault all this was happening, hers from the very start.
Angel should have never been allowed to go on living, once she found out what he was. Yet she went against common sense and her sacred duty and not only had she spared his life she'd also fallen in love with him. From there her list of sins only grew exponentially going from allowing an evil demon wearing the face of her lover to live and take lives, on to betraying her lover and destroying him and finally allowing herself to be fooled into lying to him, to her loved ones and to herself. Could things be any worse?
"I'll never be able to learn this!" Came Harmony's pathetic whine.
"Yes you will," Willow was saying through clenched teeth, "all it takes is a little concentration."
Buffy winced in response to her friend's obvious ongoing torture. Willow was normally a very patient person, but even the little hacker had her limits.
"But it's so hard, it's almost like," the vacuous blonde thought about it, "like school!" She finally blurted.
"Which is exactly where we are," Willow replied, careful not to let her exasperation show.
"Oh yeah," Harmony replied sheepishly. "You know, Willow, I always wished I could be smart like you."
The redhead's eyes widened with surprise, "really?" She asked timidly, "that's so sweet."
Harmony nodded enthusiastically, "yeah, but you know, I had to get dates through high school so I was too busy to work on that." She sighed morosely, "maybe I should have been more like you."
"No," the fledgling witch muttered, spotting Buffy trying to quietly scurry away as she spoke, "you were just fine being yourself." She gave Buffy an 'I'm really going to have a hard time forgiving you for this one' look before returning to her thickheaded pupil.
Buffy sighed, maybe some people did have it worse then she did right now.
"Buffy!" Xander called out from the opposite side of the hallway. He closed the gap between them in a few short strides, deftly avoiding the huddled groups of mumbling people lounging on the blankets that have been spread across the floor. He made a face at the strange words coming at him from all sides, "is it okay for them all to be saying the curse like that?" He asked nervously, "I mean we're not going to be starting it off by accident or anything, right?"
Buffy shrugged, "Giles says that as long as we don't say it all together we're in the clear." She winced as someone behind her stumbled over an especially complex formula, "little chance of that happening anytime soon," she assured him.
"Your mom was looking for you," Xander said, "she wanted to know what to do about the children."
"T-the children?"
"Yeah, small people, like to watch Sesame Street and eat ice-cream. There's more to Sunnydale then just teenagers and oblivious adults, you know."
She stared at him helplessly, "I didn't really think about that," she admitted.
Xander nodded grimly, "look, Buffy, it was bad enough teaching this to my parents. I'm not going to stand in front of a group of kids and teach them how to chant this stuff."
"No, of course not."
"And you won't either," he said firmly. "I'm thinking that when the time comes we leave them here with someone who can take care of them. Someone capable."
She managed a wan smile, "you're not talking about yourself, are you?"
He smiled back mischievously, "I said someone capable. My vote's for your mom. What do you say?"
She gaped at him, her mouth opened and closed but no sound would come out. Her mother's probable death was one of the heaviest burdens she had to carry, and he was relieving her of that, just like that. "Thank you," she managed to choke out, "but you better run it by Giles first."
"Actually," Xander's boyish features broke into a bright grin, "he was the one who suggested it." Suddenly embarrassed by the tears welling up in his friend's eyes he turned to leave, "I think I'll go break the news to your mom," he said as he walked away.
She nodded mutely, overcome with emotion. She sniffed loudly as she felt her tears rising up like an unstoppable tidal wave within her, she needed to find someplace to vent before she'd break down and start to cry in the middle of the hallway. Quickly she headed towards the one place she knew no one would be, the science room. With its disgusting odors and its thick walls she could wail away and no one would be the wiser.
With the tears already spilling down her face, she swiftly yanked open the heavy door and settled herself to crying by candlelight.
"Are you at peace with what you've done?" Came the unexpected question, "your certainty seems to be slightly lacking."
She spun around, thrusting the candle in front of her as a stake leaped into her hand, "you!" She spat contemptuously.
Completely at ease, as if the furious Slayer standing before him waving the business end of a stake his way was nonexistent, Gerrico smoothly stepped out of the shadows. "I thought we had an understanding," he said wryly.
"Oh yeah, we had an understanding all right," her voice rose as her emotions got the better of her. "You understood you were lying to me, and I got to understand that when it was too late."
"Lying to you?" He seemed truly baffled, his deep blue eyes narrowing in his attempt to understand, "when did I lie to you, child?"
"Don't you dare 'child' me," she hissed, her hand gripping her stake so tightly the knuckles were turning white. "I know all about your plague, all about what Angel did and why you wanted revenge. Even if it's going to cost you your own life!"
The elder's face clouded for a moment, but the emotion was too complex for the agitated Slayer to comprehend, "I never lied to you," his voice was calm, but with edges sharp enough to slice through the hardest of hearts. "When I said there was a plague I meant it. He was like a plague, like a fatal disease," his blue eyes never flinched through the worst of the memories. "In one night he destroyed what had taken over a millennia to build. Not one of my Anne's true descendants lived, and all that knowledge, all that life was gone in a night."
Buffy gripped her stake tighter, reveling in the pain the wood that was biting into the palm of her hand caused. She wouldn't allow herself to be swept away by his stories, not anymore. "And you forgave him just like that," she said maliciously, her sarcasm dripping like poison from her lips.
His harsh bark of a laugh surprised her, caught her off guard, "I did no such thing. I hunted him down for years like the rabid animal that he was, but when I finally found him I discovered I was too late."
Understanding dawned in her eyes, "he'd already been cursed," she whispered, her fingers easing their grip on her weapon.
"Yes," Gerrico replied, his features revealing nothing of his thoughts, "and when I saw him wallowing in the gutter, living off guilt and rats, I realized that nothing I could ever do to him would match the pain he was already in. He was a broken shell of a man, not worthy of my time. So I left him there and tried to forget about him."
Buffy swallowed hard at the images he thrust into her mind, then shook her head violently, he was fooling her again. He was clouding her mind with stories and pulling her away from the truth, making her doubt herself and her actions. "Why should I believe you now? You're nothing but a soulless ghoul! A leech on humanity! You've been walking the earth for so long without passion or purpose that you can't even remember what it's like to be human!" She was lashing out ruthlessly, but her heart would allow for nothing less, "what you made me do, the way you've made me betray him for your own purposes is unforgivable. But you don't even understand that, do you? Love and loss are just too human of emotions for you to comprehend." Her grip was firm on her stake, and her body was poised to strike, "go away," she said coldly, "I've had enough of your stories."
The elder's eyes widened as if she had just struck him, his sensual lips pursed together as real emotion finally ranged free across his regal features. "And yet you will listen to this one!" He hissed through clenched teeth. "She bore me four daughters, my Anne, four daughters and none of my blood. And I loved them although I had no soul with which to love, and I killed for them although my lust for blood had died with my demon. And I watched them grow old and wither away. Don't tell me I don't understand loss! I have lost everything, including myself, and yet I find life worth living!"
She gaped at him, his outburst leaving her speechless as her mind reeled with what he had said. "I," she started, not knowing what to say. She never got a chance to figure it out.
"Who is this, Buffy?" Giles asked coldly. He stood in the doorway with a crossbow poised and aimed directly at the elder's chest.
The world was spinning out of control. From a distance she heard the clatter of wood on wood as her stake dropped to the floor from her suddenly numb fingers. She gripped the edge of a table tightly before her legs could give out entirely. How much had Giles heard? Her mind screamed over the frantic beating of her heart, how much did he know?
"Who is he?" Giles repeated, never taking his eyes off the elder, never easing his grip on his weapon.
Her mind reeled, there were so many answers to that question, so much destruction lying hidden within those answers. "A friend," she panted, forcing the words through her lips. She was willingly condemning herself, she realized, willingly allying herself with this creature who had lied to her. Gerrico's penetrating blue eyes softened slightly in response, but he said nothing.
"I could hear you through the door, Buffy," the Watcher's voice was hard and clipped, but his eyes wouldn't stray from the elder's face, not even to look at his charge. "I could hear you talking about betrayal and revenge," the Watcher's face flushed with his efforts to control his raging emotions, "who is he, Buffy?" He asked with inhuman calm.
Oh God, she thought as her mind frantically analyzed and rejected her options, this isn't happening. In her desperation she turned to Gerrico, her eyes pleading for the elder's help. The regal man nodded once in answer and Buffy closed her eyes, unable to face the situation head on.
"I am a Watcher," Gerrico calmly said. Buffy's eyes snapped open. No, no, no! She tried to communicate to the elder, don't tell him everything! It'll tear him apart, tear me apart. But the elder had already turned his attention towards the armed Watcher, his eyes a mystery.
"You're a demon," Giles spat contemptuously. "Do you deny that?"
A grim smile stretched across the sensual lips, "Am, was, truth is subject to the time in which it's being told." Giles's eyes narrowed and he re- aimed his crossbow directly at the elder's chest with deadly intent. He was a Watcher, a British scholar, he would not allow himself to be drowned in senseless philosophical discussions. That's what all those long-distance phone calls home were for. Gerrico raised his arms slowly in supplication, "I was a demon," he admitted, "what I am now is," he paused, gauging the Watcher's reaction, "something entirely different. I am, however, a Watcher."
"How is that possible?" The question was mingled with doubt and demand.
"It's true, Giles," Buffy said quietly. Now that the truth was almost out there was no point in obscuring it save to further her own means. She owed him more than that.
"True?" The librarian she had come to love as a father echoed her hollowly.
She nodded grimly. Her knuckles were a bright white as she gripped the edge of a table for sheer physical support. Her body was trembling, her nerves were spiraling out of control and her heart was dust in her chest, but she owed this man some answers and he would get them even if it killed her. "He was the first Watcher," she said flatly. There was no doubt in her mind that this part of Gerrico's story was indeed true, it was too farfetched not to be. "He founded the Council all those years ago. Him and a few more like him, over a millennia ago," the information spilled from her lips in a gush of knowledge.
"Demon?" Giles's eyes were frantically denying, even as his hands already acknowledged the truth, already shifting his weapon away from the unarmed elder. "Founded the Council?" His eyes turned to stare at his pale charge, "a demon Watcher?" The hysteria hovering on the edges of his voice was painfully obvious.
Buffy forcibly blinked back her tears, the man she had come to love as a father was walking on an emotional tightrope, and he desperately needed her support. "He wasn't a demon at the time, not exactly," she refused to look at Gerrico, search for his approval. He'd never told her what he was, maybe he didn't even know himself. Either way it was irrelevant to the end result, the Watcher's Council had NOT been founded by demons. Giles had to know that. "They did it for a Slayer, they helped her. Giles, listen to me!" She begged.
But he was too far-gone in his own thoughts to listen, too deep into the repercussions on his own life to hear her. "A farce," he whispered. The despair in his voice wracking more pain within her than she ever thought possible. "Everything I was led to believe in, everything my father demanded of me, they were all lies. I've devoted my life to a farce!"
"No, Giles," she cried, begging he would hear her, "you've devoted your life to me!"
He did hear her, his eyes hardened as they turned to rest on her face, "and you knew!" He hissed, the turmoil raging within him allowing for nothing less. "You knew and you lied to me!" He shook his head, a feeble attempt to shake himself free of her, free of the emotional hold she had over him. He turned away from her, unable to look at her shimmering eyes a moment longer, unable to look at her tear-stained face. He turned towards the only escape he knew, and as his hand gripped at the cold metal of the door- handle for dear life, he understood full well that he wasn't escaping her. He was escaping himself. Nearly laughing at himself for so astute an observation he nevertheless yanked the door open.
"Giles!" She cried out, tears welling in her eyes. I can't loose him too! "Please don't leave me!"
Her cry tugged at his heart, at their bond, at all they meant to each other. Helplessly he froze at the door. For a moment she thought he would relent, he would come back to her, to care for her as he always did. But his shoulders tensed and she realized the hurt was just too great this time, the betrayal ran too deep. "You have a Watcher," his voice was cold, brutal in the pain it meant to inflict. But she knew him, knew the underlying agony he was causing himself by lashing out at her, "you don't need me anymore."
"Please, Giles, I can't do this without you!" She wailed, but he walked out of the room as though she hadn't said anything at all. For a moment all she could do was gasp helplessly, broken sobs spilling from her lips beyond her control. She closed her eyes, willingly surrendering herself to a darkness that refused to take her. In the end her chest ached and her shoulders drooped with the sense of overpowering responsibility. The man who was more of a father to her then her real one had ever been despised her, but this wasn't over, not by a long shot. Feeling ten years older the tiny Slayer forced her eyes open and bravely walked to the door, purposefully ignoring the former demon still in the room.
"I'm sorry." Gerrico's voice, as deceptively compassionate as she remembered, stayed her, but only for a moment.
"Don't be," she told him, not even bothering to look back, "you're stuck here just like the rest of us." She remembered something as she turned to leave, something he had told her not so long ago, "nothing is truly immortal," she reminded him chillingly, "just try to keep that in mind."