Dust and Ashes, Part 7
by L. Inman
"I know you're here," Elisabeth said quietly to the empty bedroom. "Even if I can't see you."
She didn't know what had become of Anne or Brian; they were shadows who took turns sitting at her bedside, murmuring, bringing cups of tea to herself and one another, giving Elisabeth her medicine. Their presence ought to have been a comfort, but in a way they only seemed to make the miasma of pain and confusion brighter and sharper by being there. She kept seeing figures in her peripheral vision, figures which may well by this time be actual hallucinations; she often tried the experiment of speaking to the shades, as if getting a response from them might prove something. But her hypotheses went unproved: none of the shades spoke to her or gave any sign that she could affect them.
But this stage passed, and late in the afternoon Elisabeth found herself alone in the bedroom, except for the faintly malignant aftertaste of evil in the air.
"Guess you don't have any shame, do you, hanging out in a vicarage?" Elisabeth said in a slurred rasp. "Well, it's only to be expected. Have to get your kicks somehow don't you?" She picked lightly at the covers over her. "What have you got to show for it all? Just one woman you drove crazy. Big whoop."
There was no response, and Elisabeth was growing less sure that the First could hear her; but she kept on with the listless trash talk until it stopped making sense even to herself.
Out in the corridor, Brian glanced into Elisabeth's bedroom again before turning shakily to Anne. "I don't think she's getting any better," he said, a fresh shiver running over his arms and up the nape of his neck.
Anne's eyes were incisive, fixed on Elisabeth muttering in the bed. "It'll take time."
"What if—" Brian stopped. Anne turned to look up at him. "I know what—I know what she said. But what if—what if all this really is—something she's made up? I mean—"
"I don't think she gave herself those bruises," Anne said calmly. It was the first time she had mentioned them, and Brian took advantage of the moment to press the point, feeling that if he said it all at once it might not feel like such a betrayal.
"That's what I know," he said. "What if she's just being abused, and has built up all this—all this stuff about evils and dimensions and knowing the future—?"
"As a coping mechanism, you mean," Anne said thoughtfully.
"Yeah."
Anne lifted her eyes to Brian's face again, and his gaze skittered downward. There was a silence.
"It was difficult for you to say that, I know," she said quietly. "And you have very little evidence for believing otherwise."
Brian took a few breaths before answering. "But you think what she's saying is true."
A faint frown-dent appeared between Anne's brows, and her gaze, though fixed on Elisabeth's face, seemed to see—visions, or nothing, Brian could not tell. "I know what I know," she said. "I know it isn't just Elisabeth." Without looking at Brian, she responded to his answering frown. "You may have noticed something too. In my circles there are...weaknesses. Upheavals. There's been a heavy spiritual weight falling—I've felt it. Sometimes it's all I can do to say the simplest prayer." Anne closed her lips and gave her head a little shake. "This may mean nothing to you."
A little pang of mortification hit Brian silently: it did mean very little to him, but Anne's air of authority meant something, and he clung to it. "I know there's something wrong." He remembered Rupert and his frown deepened bitterly. "And I know there are some who are making it worse."
Anne made no answer to this. She merely kept silence a few minutes and then said, "I think she's falling asleep."
"Oh, thank God," Brian said, not realizing he had just uttered a prayer himself.
Faith moved up next to Rupert at the kitchen island and mirrored the way he had braced his hands on its tiled surface. "Don't wanta be late for the meeting, do you?" she said, her ironic voice mild. Even friendly, Rupert thought, after her fashion.
He grunted: a reply in kind.
She leaned conspiratorially closer to his shoulder and murmured, "Hey. Been thinking of issuing you an invite to the I'm-in-B's-Bad-Books Club." Rupert snorted, to avoid a sob of laughter, and Faith went on: "I used to be president, y'know, but I kinda let my membership slide a bit. Word on the street is, you could be a good new president."
Rupert's lips thinned strangely, and he realized he was smiling.
"'Course," Faith said, "if you don't want such a high-profile position I'd understand."
Rupert turned to look at her. She was eyeing him with a look that on anyone but Faith would be rank challenge. She said: "I hear there's something to be said for taking your lumps like a gentleman. But I was never big enough for that."
On the old Faith, that would have been a boast. Rupert looked down at her: and it came to him that he had needlessly killed off all connection, all living affection, and what good would that do him? Making the touch might make no difference at all in the big picture, but what had he to lose except his foolhardiness?
The realization occupied hardly a moment, and involved so little a stir of emotion that it was with almost the same distance that he reached out and laid a soft hand on Faith's shoulder for a moment. Then he took it away, said, "Better get to the meeting," and moved quietly away, with his hands in his pockets.
Faith frowned after him thoughtfully. Instead of following Rupert to the meeting, she slouched her way outside and lit up a smoke on the back porch.
Before she could get a decent drag, Willow followed her onto the porch. "There's a meeting, you know," she said.
"Yeah," Faith said. She looked around languidly. "I'll be in in a minute."
But Willow wasn't going away; instead, she was frowning and cutting her eyes between Faith and the interior of the house. Faith could almost see the wheels turning in that red head.
"What did you say to him?" she asked, her voice low.
Faith shrugged. "Nothing. The wrong thing. You know, the usual."
Willow wasn't having any of that. "Kinda weird when the wrong thing makes Giles smile. Listen…you know, Giles has really been through—"
Faith turned around. "Is there an Obviousness virus going around or something?" She took aim and sent her burning cigarette sailing into the sand border, shedding sparks as it went. "There's a meeting," she said, blowing out her last lungful of smoke and giving Willow a wolfish smirk.
Willow returned the smirk and, with an ironical shrug, followed Faith back into the house.
"Where did Anne go?" Elisabeth asked.
Brian shifted in his chair by her bedside. "She has work in the church. I'll be here till later this afternoon."
"You've been taking turns."
"Yeah, mostly."
Elisabeth lay on her back; the covers had been straightened over her while she slept. Soft grey spring light poured into the room from the window: a candle was lit on the dresser, highlighting the Magdalene icon on the wall. "You like her?"
"—What, the vicar?" Brian asked, though Elisabeth could hardly have meant anyone else. "Yeah. Not at all what I expected. Hey, remember when we had that Vicar of Dibley marathon last Hilary term?"
He was rewarded to see a little smile cross his friend's face. "Yeah. I was thinking of that. I don't think we were so silly since the day you taught me how to drive British-style."
"God, I thought you were going to kill us both for sure." Brian grinned. "And I worked hard for that car, damn it."
Her smile grew wider. "And for your DVD collection."
"Yes, that too. Did we snog during that marathon, or during the Sports Night marathon?"
"Sports Night," Elisabeth said, confirming what Brian already knew. "We had to go back and rewatch 'Thespis,' remember?"
"Yeah," Brian said fondly. "Made me feel like I was twelve again."
Elisabeth's smile turned quizzical. "You started snogging at twelve?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
Elisabeth didn't answer that, but a thoughtful look came over her face. As he watched, grief replaced pleasure in her mouth and eyes. "Tell you what," he said, before it could get any worse, "we could have that West Wing marathon we never got around to, when you're feeling better."
"Okay," Elisabeth said softly. She closed her eyes.
She woke again on Anne's watch. With her priest's help, she got up, had her shower, ate something. After her light lunch, she sat with Anne in the parlor and soaked in the light and the quiet. Anne got out her sketchbook and began to play with sketches of an icon she meant to write. "What's it going to be?" Elisabeth asked her.
"The Visitation," Anne answered, with a small smile.
Elisabeth gave her an appreciative blink. She glanced over to the side: and there stood her mirror image, not quite smiling. Elisabeth went quite still.
"It's all coming down now, like a curtain," the First-Elisabeth said, and gave a mocking sigh. "So much you could have prevented. So much you helped to happen. I'm quite obliged to you, you know."
Elisabeth made no answer. She sat, transfixed, until Anne glanced up and saw the look on her face. "Elisabeth? Elisabeth, what is it?"
Elisabeth's eyes half-swerved to the priest, but fixed themselves on the First once more. She waited in suspended horror, to see what would happen next.
Anne relaxed in her chair and let the sketchbook fall in her lap as her gaze followed Elisabeth's to the empty air. "Let me guess," she said. "We are receiving a visit from the vaunted First Evil?"
"You see," the First-Elisabeth said, "even your priest thinks you're insane."
But Anne was addressing the First. "Do, do make yourself at home. Oh, that's right, I forgot. You have no home." Her voice took steel at the last words, and Elisabeth gave a small squeak of pain.
"Bitch!" the First snarled. "I have, and shall have, everything I want. Including your little acolyte. She's the one with no home. Look to her." And with a sound that almost created its own dust-burnt scent, the First disappeared.
In its wake there was a silence. Elisabeth felt the priest's eyes on her; she willed herself to breathe, to be all right, but it was a great effort, and her mind spun helplessly. At last she managed some words: "Did you—did you see?"
"At the last, I did," Anne said calmly. "And heard. Is that what you've been experiencing?"
Elisabeth nodded, her eyes on the place where the First had been.
There was another silence. Then Anne said: "Perhaps it has occurred to you—" she picked up her sketchbook again but made no effort to resume drawing— "that this evil can only torture you successfully by borrowing your own humanity?"
Elisabeth's eyes grew wet. "Are you saying humans are best at torturing each other?"
Anne's voice grew ironic. "Well, they are rather good at it, but no: I meant that if you thought the First Evil has been using your darkness against you, you may not have noticed that it has to borrow your light to do it."
"My sanity," Elisabeth faltered, "is not what it was."
Instead of contradicting her, Anne let that settle, then said: "You are not quite destroyed yet."
Elisabeth swallowed. The well of grief had subsided. "Someone should tell Rupert," she murmured. "Someone should tell him this."
"Was it he who gave you the bruises on your arm?"
Elisabeth froze for a moment. Then she looked down and pushed back the sleeve of her shirt. The bruises had quite healed; not even a shadow was left. It seemed a part of her had thought they would always be there, or that the world would end before they disappeared, whichever came first.
"Can you tell me?" Anne asked her quietly.
With her eyes on her idle hands, Elisabeth nodded.
It was moments like this that reminded Rupert how young Dawn was: she was following him closely down the hospital corridor, making almost no sound, her eyes wide. He paused at a crossing to read the room numbers, and she almost cannoned into him. He put back a reassuring hand, but it didn't quite touch her before he moved on.
By the time they had reached Xander's room, however, Dawn had regained her stoic calm. It was Rupert who was having difficulty submerging his visceral grief.
Xander managed a flicker of a smile before closing his unbandaged eye—his only eye, now. Dawn pursed her lips and moved around the other side of the bed to take his hand, leaving Rupert the chair on the near side. Rupert took the chair without quibbling; there was a faint thrum of weakness in his knees to match the one in his throat.
"Hey," Dawn said faintly. "Are you...are you feeling better? Is the pain going down?"
"A bit," Xander said. "Percocet is a nice invention."
It was the only gambit for a joke Xander had in him, and Dawn and Rupert both knew it. "Well," Rupert said lightly, lacing his hands together till the knuckles hurt, "they say it's all fun and games till someone loses an eye."
Xander grunted, Dawn looked at him reproachfully, and Rupert fell silent altogether.
They didn't say much more, any of them, for a while; Dawn eventually let go of Xander's hand and began to wander the hospital room, occupying her attention with its paraphernalia.
Xander looked over at Rupert, who was relacing his fingers and concentrating on slow, steady breaths. "So...what's going on out there?" he asked quietly. "What's happening?"
Rupert did not lift his eyes from his hands. Everything in him went still; the stillness of despair. "I don't know."
"Everybody's regrouping, right?" Xander persisted. "There's gonna be a plan. Did Buffy...?"
"Buffy," Rupert said, "has not divulged any plans to me." He did not think it would be quite safe to congratulate himself privately for keeping the bitterness out of his voice.
Xander was silent for a moment. Rupert could feel his one dark eye trained on him in a concentrated gaze. When Xander spoke again, it was with a passion all the stronger for being very quiet.
"Why are you letting her get away with this?" he said.
"Xander," Dawn said, as if about to launch a defense of Buffy in her absence; but Xander glanced at her, and she retreated back into her stoic upright silence. Xander returned his eye to Rupert and waited.
"...Well," Rupert said at last, "I was wrong, was I not?"
"Don't know that for sure," Xander said. "Don't know anything for sure. You tried to do something, at least, just like all of us—"
"The wrong thing," Rupert said softly. "Which, as it turns out, is worse than nothing at all."
"So you're just going to let her punish you."
"What else can I do?" Rupert said. He unlaced his fingers and studied the pink palms: a killer's hands, a torturer's. "I haven't got the moral high ground, after what I did to her."
Xander broke the little silence that followed. "We...are still talking about Buffy, right?"
Rupert gave him no answer. He sat, his shoulders bowed, in the chair and waited for the wetness in his eyes to subside.
"Giles?" Dawn said, tentative in his peripheral vision.
Rupert lifted his head and cleared his throat. "No," he said. "It doesn't matter."
From the corner of his eye he saw Dawn lift her eyebrows. "Like hell," Xander said.
Rupert stood wearily. He had to get out, walk or something. "You're right. It does," he said softly, "matter. And if we live, I'll see if I can pick up the pieces. Dawn, you'll be all right here for a bit?"
Dawn nodded silently. Behind the frown and the primmed lips, Rupert could see in her face a growing force of—decision, or understanding, he wasn't sure what. He looked down at Xander in the bed: Xander's mouth was rather too firm, and the bandages and the bedclothes made him look smaller, as if he were a boy again. Rupert laid a hand on his shoulder, then moved it after a moment to the top of his head, to rest on the other man's soft mussed hair.
Without any more words he left the room and strode fast down the hall. He needed oxygen.
Elisabeth moved swiftly from room to room in her flat, packing a gym bag. Anne stood out of the way, holding the scribbled packing list Elisabeth had made, occasionally helping to mark off the contents of the bag as it filled.
At last Elisabeth zipped the bag shut and heaved it over one shoulder. "Thanks," she said, "for...well, just thanks."
Anne nodded silently.
"You'll explain to Brian what I'm doing?"
"Yes," Anne said.
"But don't," Elisabeth said, "tell him where I'm going. I don't think he'd understand. And I don't want him coming after me."
The fine frown lines moved in the vicar's face, and she reached to touch Elisabeth's shoulder. "Are you sure you'll be all right? Alone, I mean?"
Elisabeth drew a long breath. "I don't know," she said finally. "I have to find out."
Anne let go of her shoulder and nodded.
They left her flat, and Elisabeth locked up, her hands fumbling over the keys from loss of muscle memory. Anne walked her to the bus stop and waited with her until the bus trundled into view and stopped to admit her.
On the step Elisabeth turned and gave her priest a small smile. "I'll see you," she said, "if the world doesn't end."
"I'll be here," Anne said.
Elisabeth paid her fare; the doors slid closed, and the bus pulled out and away, leaving the vicar of St. John's church standing alone, tight-lipped, thoughtful fists on hips.
"Godspeed," Anne said quietly, under the roar of exhaust.
Part 8
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