Shadow Though it Be: An Excursus – Chapter 6
It wasn't very good sleep, but it was enough that Elisabeth woke early, when the light in the room still came from the lamps. This time she didn't startle at her surroundings; instead she absorbed the lamplight and took mental stock of herself.
She was still a little nauseated, but she recognized this nausea as the kind that comes from being terribly hungry. The tautness in her sternum was easing somewhat. Her head was still cloudy, but her vision was fine. This was good. This was more than good, this was excellent.
She reached for the water glass and drained it. Then she hauled herself upright, grunting, and moved the covers so that she could get up and visit the bathroom.
Another bath was in order, as was breakfast, but she thought perhaps she'd better see if Giles was up and needing the bathtub first. She shuffled her way back down the hall, yawning; and was headed to her backpack (Giles must have repacked it: Elisabeth shook her head) when she heard a faint skizzling sound from her left. She looked over: and went into a slow wry smile.
He was asleep at the desk, facedown on a large book. And ever so faintly snoring. His glasses lay abandoned and glinting across his knuckles, and a pencil lay fallen from his fingers.
Elisabeth went over to him and bent her head sideways to examine the situation. He was pretty well conked, she decided; she would have to wake him, if only to banish him to a proper bed upstairs. Knowing him, however, he'd stay awake and do things. So maybe she should leave him there. On the other hand, that looked like a pretty cruel thing to do to one's back, sleeping like that. It would hurt her, and Giles had twenty years on her.
So she was going to wake him. Her heart beat nervously. Blunder number one, blindsiding an ex-Watcher…. She bent close but not too close.
"Giles," she said.
No response.
Louder: "Giles."
She straightened. Boy. He was three notches up from dead.
"Giles."
Still no response.
She was going to have to touch him. She lifted her hand, wiggled the fingers hesitatingly, then (deciding the direct, constant approach was the best), laid it on his shoulder, light and firm. She joggled him gently and spoke his name again. He moved, snorted, but didn't wake. She rocked his shoulder a little harder, said his name for the umpteenth time.
Finally. He started, jerked his head up, felt for one eye and rubbed it. She backed off. "…was just dozing, Willow," he mumbled. Then he got his eyes open and saw his own apartment, and Elisabeth, standing next to him.
"Apparently not," he amended. He felt about the desk for his glasses and put them on with two hands, squinting hard. "What time is it?"
Elisabeth glanced round at the clock. "About 7:30."
"God. That late," he muttered. His hair was sticking up, and he ran a hand through it, making it worse. Even with his glasses on he was squinting his eyes almost shut. He drew the deep breath one takes on waking and stretched his shoulders painfully. "I have to stop doing this."
"No kidding," she said. "It looked painful."
His eyes were marginally more open as he blinked at her.
"You're looking better," he said.
She nodded silently.
For a moment neither of them said anything else; she stood and watched him brace a hand on the nape of his neck and turn his head, stretching.
"You should hit either the sheets or the shower," she told him.
He was stretching his long arms in front of him and wincing. "Shower," he said. "I have work to do."
"Thought you'd say that," she said, and turned away to the kitchen. "I'm making coffee."
It hadn't actually occurred to her to make coffee before that moment, but it seemed like the right idea, so she went into the kitchen and started poking around for the necessary items. Those assembled, she opened the fridge, studied its contents, and pulled out two eggs and half a package of cream cheese.
The coffee was going by the time she heard Giles stumping up the stairs. Maybe he would go to bed after all, she thought, mentally crossing her fingers. But five minutes later she heard him come back down, and saw him pass by the kitchen with an armful of clothing. The bathroom door shut flatly; the taps started running. Digging in the cabinets for a skillet, Elisabeth caught the sound of his disembodied voice humming tunelessly through the shower water, and smiled to herself.
By the time Giles emerged, dressed, clean and damp-haired, Elisabeth was sitting at the table munching a piece of toast loaded with scrambled eggs, and swinging a foot under her chair.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Your appetite back, then?" he inquired through the breakfast bar.
"Sort of," she said.
He went to the front door, opened it (Elisabeth winced at the sunlight), retrieved the paper, and dropped it onto the table across from her. He plopped himself down gently with his coffee cup and settled himself to read.
Elisabeth captured stray bits of egg with her fork. "Is the paper clean?"
He grunted. "So far." He rattled a page over. "I almost wish it wasn't; then I'd have a clue. Not," he added, looking at her over his glasses, "that I want anyone dead, mind you."
"Understood," Elisabeth said. She picked up her empty plate and took it back into the kitchen, then came back with a fresh cup of coffee and sat back down.
Giles read the paper. Elisabeth sipped at her coffee.
It took a moment to gather her courage before she ventured: "Giles?"
"Yes?" He didn't look up.
"I want to go out today," she said. "I can't stay here all day again, it'll drive me crazy."
Now he looked up at her, amazed. "What…did you think I was holding you here?"
"Well, not exactly….I—had scruples."
His mouth quirked humorously as he returned his eyes to the paper. "Well, doff thy scruples and deny thy name, and I'll no longer be a martinet. Go."
She started laughing. He didn't raise his eyes from the paper, but he couldn't quite keep the complacent look off his face.
"As if you ever were," she said. She got up and dug through her pack for a fresh change of clothes (she really needed to do laundry), and carried them and her pack of toiletries to the bathroom.
She decided to put off her bath until the afternoon. In the meantime a thorough scrub of her face and a brush through her hair were enough to make her presentable for a day on the town. Brushing her teeth, she dared a look into the mirror, and was relieved to see that her face was fully human again.
In this world, that actually meant something.
*
Some time later Elisabeth was striding comfortably down a street in Giles's neighborhood, running his directions through her head. How do you get to Bensonhoist? Foeh blocks oveh, t'ree blocks up. You gettin wise wit me? Only the dead know Sunnydale, she thought wryly, and made her turn at the corner Giles had suggested.
It took her a while without wheels, but at last she found the main drag of town. It was nothing like Brooklyn, of course; and nothing like Hollywood either. It was here that Elisabeth blinked and realized fully a thought that had been slowly coming into her mind.
The longer she was in Sunnydale—the more she saw of its familiar and unfamiliar landmarks—the less Technicolor it seemed: the sun beat down on the pavement, turning it the same dull color as pavement in any other part of the world; people went about their business, not like extras, but like the same people she had always jostled in her journeys. The landmarks seemed to grow less recognizable with every moment; and yet there was always the odd breathtaking moment to remind her that this was a time and a world dearly familiar, but not her own.
"Gives new meaning to the phrase déjà vu," Elisabeth said to herself.
It briefly crossed her mind to check out the library on the UC Sunnydale campus and see if she could get in without a university ID, but she decided she'd had enough of books for the time being; she wanted to window-shop.
She found a bead store near to campus and spent some time in it tracing her fingers through pots and plates of all shapes and sizes, examining glass beads and ceramic beads and plastic beads and wooden beads and bone beads and cloisonné beads. Laying her hands on many textures was therapeutic, but the scent of the incense burning in the shop was sickeningly sweet, and she had to leave before she was finished looking.
The vintage clothing shop also had an unpleasant smell, this time of sweetly ancient fibers, but it was faint, and the associations it raised for Elisabeth were relatively painless, so she stayed long enough to try on a number of hats. There was one small velour hat in particular that with her glasses looked very pixieish and somehow provocative; like a ripening little ingénue—which Elisabeth thought, rolling her eyes, she probably still was. She put the hat back and stuck her tongue out at it, then made her escape.
A smoothie bar. Elisabeth licked her lips; remembered she had no money; passed on.
An antique store. She peeped in, but this store had the worst scent of all, so she didn't even cross the threshold.
The magic shop. Giles was inside, hands under his crossed arms, discussing an amulet with a very serious-looking young man with spiked black hair. She waved as she passed the door; Giles saw her and lifted his chin in a brief greeting. Elisabeth moved on.
An open-air coffee bar, decked out in campus colors for some game. She remembered again that she had no money, so she didn't go in; but then she saw someone waving and realized they were waving at her.
Tentatively, she went toward them.
"Hi," Willow said. "How ya doin'?"
She shrugged, smiled vaguely.
"Tara," Willow said, "this is Elisabeth."
"Hi, Elisabeth," Tara said.
Elisabeth cleared her throat. "Hi." She couldn't quite meet Tara's eyes, but she knew that Tara would notice it, so she dared to touch gazes with her once before glancing down again.
This was going to be even harder than she thought.
"Elisabeth is the one I told you about," Willow said, "who got shanghaied out of her own dimension and is spending some time in Sunnydale."
"Oh," Tara said, smiling. "How are you doing?"
"Okay," Elisabeth said. "Not so great. I've had some nervestorms. Poor Giles has been at a loss, I think. I'm out and about today, taking a sanity break."
"Oh, good," Willow said, "then you can hang out with us for a while. If that's okay," she added to Tara.
"Sure," Tara said.
"How's the research coming?" Elisabeth asked.
"Not so good. There's lots of stuff about crossing dimensions, but most of it's how to do it on purpose; it's much harder to find out how to undo an accident."
"Unless it's not an accident," Tara said.
Elisabeth looked sharply at her.
"You mean, like a conjunction of fate?" Willow said excitedly. "Those don't usually happen unless something big is on the horizon." She frowned. "Of course, big doesn't always mean good."
"Especially in Sunnydale," Elisabeth said.
Willow looked thoughtfully at her. "Do you think it might have anything to do with Buffy's thing with—you know, with the new Big Bad in town and—and—do you know anything about that?"
Elisabeth nodded, her throat constricting. It was very much time to divert this conversation.
"I don't think it has to do with that," she said. "But my being here at all could have anything to do with anything."
Tara stared across Elisabeth's shoulder, thinking. Willow shifted in her place at the table. Elisabeth was afraid to break the reverie, afraid that she couldn't even speak. She had gotten somewhat used to speaking with and looking at Giles, and moving about in his flat; but to stand here at a loss, conversing with Willow and Tara, was— She felt she was having to start all over again.
"Perhaps you'd like to come have lunch at our place," Tara said.
Elisabeth blinked. She had not realized that Tara had ceased to stare into space and was now looking searchingly at her. She felt a moment of real panic.
"Great," Willow said. "Let's make that pasta salad with those little googly things in it again."
Elisabeth's stomach contracted. Pasta salad with googly things. With Willow and Tara. She opened her mouth to make an excuse.
"Let's go," Willow said, reaching for her bag. She and Tara led Elisabeth out of the coffee bar. Elisabeth's mouth was still uselessly open; she shut it.
She just hoped she could keep it shut.
*
Chapter 7