Shadow Though it Be: An Excursus – Chapter 4
"Talk," Elisabeth repeated. "You mean...oh—talk. As in, tell you what I know. About the stories. About the future."
"Are you familiar with the phrase, No shit, Sherlock?"
Elisabeth rolled her eyes. "All right, I deserved that." She reached for her whiskey, trying to be nonchalant and not betray how much she was still shaking. She got it to her lips without the liquid wobbling too badly, and took a longish sip. The burning vapor of the drink billowed through her sinuses and warmed her throat as the whiskey went down. By the time she set the glass down and licked her lips, she felt steady enough to look him in the eye again.
His eyebrows were raised above his glasses. "I thought you said you couldn't take strong drink."
"I didn't say that," Elisabeth said. "I only said I couldn't take much of it. I can drink it just fine. Learned how once when I had a bad cold."
Giles made a little facial shrug and waited for her to begin.
She took another small sip of dutch courage, then laid three fingertips down on the table before her. "Okay, three ground rules. Three reasons why I might withhold something from you."
He raised an eyebrow but didn't otherwise protest. She went on, tapping the table for emphasis at each point.
"One. I haven't seen all the episodes, so I don't know all the stories. Two. I might get on one thread of story and forget something else. And three: If I foresee an Oedipus Rex type situation, I won't tell you about it."
He pursed his lips and thought about it. "Sounds fair."
"Okay," she said. She drew a breath: opened her mouth: and nothing happened.
Giles was giving her the smartass look, the one where he laughed at his opponent sardonically from behind his glasses. "Stop it," Elisabeth said, reaching for her glass again.
"I'm going to take that away from you if you don't start talking."
"This is difficult," she insisted. "I'm trying to think where to start."
He resettled his glasses on his nose and waited, arms crossed on the table.
"It's hard," she said, "because you're all so...yourselves through the whole thing. You expect dark things to happen, and they do. And even if you expect them, they hurt anyway. And you all still grow and change through it all. And—the one who's always hurt the most is—"
"Buffy."
"Yeah." She dared a glance up at his face, then fixed her eyes again on her glass. "I'm trying," she said again.
He waited. The silence seemed to bend; and then it snapped. Elisabeth looked up.
"I'm sorry. Giles, I just can't. I'm going to have to go unforgiven—it's just all Oedipus Rex. If I tell you—who knows what you'll all try to do to deal with it? It might just make it all worse. And there's nothing in the stories about you being prescient about what happens."
His eyes were hard. "You can't tell me any of it."
It was difficult, but if she couldn't meet his gaze now— "No."
There was an unpleasant silence as they stared at one another across the table.
She said finally: "I can't tell you any of it, except in generalities—things any gypsy with a decent acting talent could say. I can't even pull a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I...I can't meet my half of the deal." It seemed futile to repeat that she was sorry, so she ended it there.
Giles scraped his chair back abruptly, tipped half his liquor down his throat, and stood. Without another glance at her he went upstairs; she heard the door shut firmly in the loft. Not knowing what would happen next, Elisabeth took refuge in another long sip of whiskey. Her body heat was redistributing itself, unevenly, between her core and her extremities. Another bad sign.
The loft door opened again, and Giles came down the stairs. Her hands went cold; perhaps he had armed himself with a crossbow. Or something worse.
Giles was carrying a pillow. And as he reached the base of the stairs, she saw that he was also carrying a blanket, neatly folded. He crossed to the couch, where he dropped his burdens gently and began to arrange them with an unhurried calm that fooled Elisabeth not at all.
At last he looked up at her, sitting stranded in her chair at the table.
"I'm turning in," he said. "I've brought you some bedding; this couch may be a luxury on the continuum of sleeping quarters, but it goes better with more than an airline pillow." He paused, took off his glasses, polished them on the tail of his sweater.
"But—" She couldn't get any more out.
"If anything happens, don't hesitate to rouse me."
She sat there, helpless to say anything.
"Good night," Giles said, and moved back toward the stairs.
"Giles?" Elisabeth stood up, trembling.
He turned. "Yes?"
"What about the precautions—?"
"What about them?"
"You said...." Her voice trailed off again.
"Good night," he said again.
"But, you should. You should take some precautions." Elisabeth suddenly found herself babbling. "You could chain me up in the bathtub, like you did with Spike."
This raised a smile from him. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said.
"Darn," she said, in a vain attempt to sound jocular. "And just when I thought I might get to have some fun."
He smiled again. "Good night," he said, for the third time, and mounted the stairs. She stood, waiting, and heard the door to the loft click softly shut.
"Well," she murmured to herself, "I guess I'll go to bed too." She went to where her pack lay dumped on the floor by the couch, dug slowly through it for her t-shirt and pajama pants. She carried them and her pack of toiletries to the bathroom, where she dressed for bed—washed her face—brushed her teeth. Carried her pile of clothing back to her pack and folded it into her dirty-clothes bag, which was already beginning to bulge. Drew out her little pillow and light down blanket, and arranged them along with Giles's bedding to make a nest for herself.
She turned off all the lights except for three of the Tiffany lamps, and curled up in the nest she'd made, hugging her little pillow. Giles's pillow smelled not of books but of clean human warmth.
So she'd gotten what she wanted. She'd won a little moral battle with Rupert Giles of all people.
It felt awful.
She kept as still as possible, curled half-hedgehog, moving only to wipe silently at the tears that spilled one by one down her nose and cheek and rolled under her temple. When she was reasonably sure Giles couldn't hear her, she allowed herself to release a few of the sounds that were caught swollen in her throat.
A long time later, she fell into a fitful sleep.
*
Chapter 5