Shadow Though it Be: An Excursus – Chapter 12
Elisabeth blinked into the sun as the car turned west. In the driver's seat Giles squinted and put down his visor. They had covered some road already in silence; the rest of the road—and home—lay before them.
Giles made his turn onto a road going south; the sun was no longer in their eyes, and Elisabeth appeared to breathe easier.
His lips twitched for a few blocks before he finally managed to ask her:
"Are you angry?"
At first he thought perhaps it was a mistake, and that she wasn't going to answer him. But after a moment she did answer. "No." Her voice was low and still a little scorched. Then she added: "But I will be if you insist on sending yourself on a guilt trip."
It was her first full sentence since the crystals had shattered. His jaw went taut, and he swallowed hard. He nodded, realized she wasn't looking at him, and said, "Right."
The shadows of trees were passing over them. Giles had put the ragtop down, to get the benefit of the crisp, clear evening air. He stole glances at her and saw her reach outside the car to tickle the moving air with slow fingers. She was moving a little now, at least; but still as though it were effort just to meet the air around her. He felt very weary himself; he certainly didn't feel like cooking supper.
"Do you like Indian food?" he asked her suddenly.
She turned to him and offered a small, tired smile. "What self-respecting Anglophile doesn't like curry?" she said.
She was trying to make him feel better with a jest. He tried to smile back, but it felt crooked on his face. He turned back to the road. "I know a little place," he said. "We could get take-out."
She nodded hesitatingly.
"I don't suppose you're really hungry."
She shook her head. "But I should eat. If they have some of that lovely lentil soup—I forget what it's called—"
"Mulligatawny."
"Yeah."
"You could eat that?"
"I think so."
A couple of blocks passed, and she added softly, "I could try."
"I'm sorry," he said, before he could stop himself.
She heard the raw feeling in his voice, and flinched. She masked it by pulling her hand back inside the car and laying it in her lap with the other. "Please," she said. "Rupert: I need you to let it go."
"Okay," he said, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. "Right."
They said nothing else all the way to the Indian cuisine shop.
*
Back at home, Giles ushered her in the door, setting his satchel and her bookbag on the floor next to the hall closet. She drifted to the chair at the table that had become hers, and at his bidding sat down in it. She let him gather forks, knives, spoons, and napkins; watched him set the table, first her place, then his; listened to him filling glasses of ice water for them; and finally reached out for her spoon when he set her soup down before her, served in one of his bowls rather than the styrofoam cup they'd brought it home in.
At last he sat down himself with his plate and began to eat, like a man under orders. She pretended not to see the glances he was giving her as she lifted small bites of soup to her lips, slowly, one at a time. It was not so hard to eat the soup as she had anticipated; and she found she could even chase it with some of the flatbread he had bought to go with it. It was harder to feel him watching her eat than it was to eat. Which was only to be expected: the palpable aura of remorse surrounding Giles on the other side of the table was not going to be dispelled by a few words of hers. It was why she had let him indulge all his solicitous urges; that, and the fact that she was so tired.
"Soup's good," she told him.
He glanced up. "Good," he said.
It occurred to her suddenly that it might be folly to try and make him feel better by letting him pamper her; a much better approach would probably be to brush him briskly off and take care of herself. It was, after all, what she wanted to do.
But she was just too tired.
And it was too soon for her natural optimism to reassert itself. Probably, now that she had been burnt clean like a field for planting, something better would grow within her. Probably, it wouldn't take too long. Probably, time would carry her and Giles to the place where Giles found the spell and they performed it and she went home and got the Obligatory Female Life-Change Haircut, which would then grow back the way it was in six months, and she would be good as new, her shoes hitting new road.
Probably.
At the moment, however, she was lifting one spoonful of mulligatawny at a time and letting Giles carry the rest, from her bookbag to her glass of water to "the burden of thought," as he had called it. She was not going to feel guilty about it, despite the fact that he looked far more awful than she had any right to make him look. This keeping-a-low-profile thing is not succeeding very well, she told herself, then, sharply, Soup. Eating. Not thinking.
Which was easy enough to obey.
After supper, he got up and carried the dishes into the kitchen. Elisabeth sat while he cleared the table, and continued to sit and listen to him washing the dishes. It's not, by any chance, so you can stick me with the cleanup? he'd said shrewdly, at Buffy's suggestion that they have Thanksgiving at his place in honor of his role as the patriarch. Elisabeth wondered if that exchange had actually happened, or if it were narrative filigree drawn to embellish the half-obscured vision of— This was too much thinking. At any rate the point was that she, Elisabeth, was sticking Giles with the cleanup. Oh, hell: she was feeling guilty. And she couldn't even get up enough wherewithal to scold herself rationally. This, she told herself for the umpteenth time, is why there is an embargo on thinking. Avoiding thinking was the M.O. right now. Except the only way she could think of to truly avoid thinking was to take a nap.
Time to go to sleep….
Elisabeth shuddered.
"All right?" Giles said, gathering silverware at her elbow.
She startled, then nodded. "I think I'll take a bath now," she heard herself saying.
"Okay," he said. But he continued to look at her from where he stood.
She got up slowly and went to her pack to dig for her bath supplies. Then (feeling Giles's eyes on her back) she carried them down the hall to the bathroom and closed the door.
Thank God: a small room where she could be alone. Elisabeth filled the tub, moved the little chair close and draped her towel over it, set out her gels and shampoo and paperback book on the seat. Stepped into the steaming fragrant water and sat down, then leaned back. The warm water was an impersonal embrace, soft, encompassing, and nearly silent. She closed her eyes.
Darkness.
She opened her eyes again, trying to breathe calmly. Decided that since she had seen the worst, it shouldn't hurt her to be in darkness: especially a darkness with warm water lapping at her body. So she shut her eyes again and concentrated on her breathing. In…out. Slow and easy.
The last time she had been in this darkness, and opened her eyes, it had been to Tara's mother-cat gaze. It had taken a while to focus her vision; taken still longer to realize that the blur was partly due to the fact that her glasses were lying folded neatly on the table next to her elbow instead of on her face. And that she and Tara were alone in the room.
"Where's Giles?" she had asked, in a nearly unintelligible croak.
"He's making tea," Tara had said. It wasn't till later, of course, that Elisabeth discovered that Giles had been "making tea" for over two hours.
"Could you take some tea?" Tara had asked her.
Comprehension came at length, and with a cost; finally, Elisabeth had nodded.
Tara had fetched her a cup of tea; sat and watched her drink it; and in time had acceded to Elisabeth's motions requesting help to go into the bathroom and wash her face. Elisabeth, the older woman by at least eight years, had felt small and childlike under Tara's hands as they guided her to the bathroom and back to her seat and her cup of tea. She had wiped her hair out of her face, decided to take out the ponytail and redo it; patted her clumsy efforts into place, and breathed.
Now, with the water caressing her skin, she sank lower in the tub and pressed her lips together, swallowing the tears that ran down the back of her nose. She hadn't been able to look at Giles when he came into the training room again, placing his steps as if there were C4 in the soles of his shoes; she hadn't looked directly at him even yet, though she knew it could only make him feel worse.
Take my picture steal my soul….
Their kindness was a lash flaying her alive.
I want to go home.
She shut her eyes; the burning flared under her lids and swelled into tears—different tears from the ones she'd shed in her extremity—tears of ordinary grief…Elisabeth leaned forward and turned on the hot tap, both to freshen the water and to mask any sounds she might make weeping.
Not, of course, that she'd be able to hide it from Giles completely. He now knew her far better than was comfortable, for one thing. For another, she knew him.
Elisabeth splashed her face once, twice, three times, and kept doing it for several more before reaching for her facial cleanser and scrubbing at the tearstains that seemed still to remain on the surface of her face, and remained even after she splashed her face to remove the soap. She turned off the tap, pulled the plug, reached for the towel and stood to dry off.
She dressed in her last change of fresh clothing and pulled a comb through her wet hair. Gathered her things and, drawing a long breath, opened the bathroom door to go and face him again.
In the livingroom Giles was busily unpacking his satchel and digging through the pockets of his leather jacket, lining up odd items on his desk to inspect for—some sort of operation, Elisabeth could not tell what.
"What's up?" she said.
He glanced up, startled. "Ah good, you're there…I—I'd forgotten, I'd made this appointment with—" He stopped and straightened to look at her. "I don't know if you recall my mentioning it, but I had come close to deciding that I should look into, er—"
"Non-bibliographic resources?"
He blinked, apparently surprised that she remembered. "Yes. And I'm afraid that taking you with me to where I'd planned to go would…"
"…mitigate your sources' forthcomingness? Of course. Holmes must have no company in his missions to the docks and the opium dens."
She watched him swallow his irritation at the comparison. He turned back to his task. "Unfortunately, I think I have overbooked my evening, and you're in no condition to—"
"I can be alone," she said.
He stopped again and turned to look at her silently.
"I can be alone," she repeated. "I…I need the quiet. You can go to your appointment; don't worry about me."
She forced herself to meet his eye; and so she could see the subtle changes fleeting across his expression: his recognition that she wanted him away, his easily-bidden pang of guilt, his gnawing worry, his eagerness to be off and doing something material. "Very well," he said at last. "I'll try not to be too long. You can expect me before ten, if all goes well." He shoved two odd gizmos into the inside pocket of his jacket and shrugged into it. Jacket on, he straightened the collar, reached for his keys, and paused. "You're sure you'll be all right?"
"Yes," she said, becoming suddenly aware that she was hugging herself. She put her arms down to her sides.
She nodded several times as he continued to look at her. Finally he caught up his keys and went to the door. "I'll be back soon," he said, glancing back at her as he opened the door; she nodded a final time, and he disappeared, shutting the door firmly behind him.
*
The last time Giles had left her alone in his apartment, Elisabeth had nearly asphyxiated on the solitude. Now, however, despite the renewed grief that the afternoon's self-confrontation had brought her, she stood in the silence of his home and let the solitude pour blessedly over her.
After a few minutes of this she roused herself and went to her pack with a thought to organize its chaos; but when she looked inside and saw the load of crumpled laundry bursting out of its plastic bags, she quailed and ended by leaving her pack alone.
Music. Something ductile and honest, and weighty enough for the ache inside her. She went to kneel before Giles's collection of LPs, and flipped carefully through them until she found what she was looking for: the Mozart Requiem.
She set open the doors of his sound system and turned on the power; lifted the lid of the turntable and blew the dust off the needle. With infinite care she removed the record from its cover and placed it on the turntable; she set the turntable spinning and used the velvet brush to clean the surface of the vinyl. The scent of static and the spinning words on the center of the disk brought unbidden childhood memories. She lifted the needle and (silently hoping that Giles would not be too scandalized at this liberty) laid it gently on the turning record; it landed perfectly, like a leaf falling to the surface of a river.
As the Requiem began she looked around her for a place to imbibe the music; after a moment surveying the room with a thoughtful twist to her lips, she decided on the table. She moved the centerpiece aside, crawled onto the top of the sturdy table, and arranged herself in more or less a lotus position. She took off her glasses, laid them next to her on the table, and shut her eyes.
For a long time she moved only to breathe.
It was a good recording, well-directed, balanced in its voices. Listening, Elisabeth felt her body beginning to make the old responses, the urge to half-dance the ponderous notes as they came. This was good; and although it was bringing her back through the muffed numbness into pain, it was also bringing her back to the world she knew. Her fingertips met the texture of the wood of the table under her; the air in her lungs was no longer scorching.
She listened to the Requiem all the way through to the Lux Aeterna. Then she got up and removed the LP from the turntable as carefully as she had placed it there, put it away in its cover, and closed the doors of the sound system. Stretching, she wandered into the kitchen with a vague idea of looking for something to snack on with her copy of Lord Peter.
A knock sounded on the door, startling her. She crept out of the kitchen and went to stand uncertainly before it, wondering if she should even open the thing, or let anyone know she was there.
The knock came again, and with it, a singsong voice she recognized: "Knock, kno-oock…."
"Who's there?" she said.
"Spike."
"Spike who?"
Without warning the door was shoved open enough to admit the vampire's quizzical face to her vision. "Spike," he said. "Who the bloody hell are you?"
"Elisabeth," she replied, folding her arms in an attempt to disguise her nerves as a show of clement displeasure. She had an uneasy feeling that it wasn't working. "And I know who you are."
"Then you know that dear Rupert is expecting me." He pushed the door all the way open and strode jauntily inside. He paused in front of her and looked her appraisingly up and down. "Rupert's picking them younger and younger these days."
She had not quite realized how pungent was Spike's talent for getting one's back up. "How very flattering for me," she said stiffly, "but unfortunately for you, you've got it wrong."
"Oh I have, have I?" Spike glanced around, sucking his front teeth. "Then tell me, where is he? Upstairs enjoying a post-coital smoke?"
She reddened. "Giles," she said, "went on an errand. He isn't here."
"Well, I like that. He tells me to come here with my information and he can't even be bothered to be at home." Spike wandered around, with an air that was actually as impressive as it looked, and then paused to go into a well-honed Giles imitation. "'And for God's sake, Spike, please knock this time.' Heh. Now I see why. Don't want to startle his new girlfriend now, would we?"
Elisabeth felt the urge to open her mouth and set Spike straight about her relationship to Giles once and for all, but decided on balance that the less Spike knew about her, the better. Spike, watching her face, saw her master her emotion.
He grinned, tilting his head.
"Am I making you mad, little girl? What grade are you in, anyway?"
Elisabeth snorted. "Flattery will get you nowhere."
He approached her slowly. "Maybe not, but a few threats might. You know who I am…do you know what I am?"
Elisabeth stood her ground, though having Spike's face thrust close to hers was hardly on her birthday list.
"Yes," she said, "I do. You're a bad Victorian poet who's been made into a vampire. Whose threats are, incidentally, quite empty."
Spike let out a growl and showed his fangs.
A longsuffering sigh made them both look round.
Giles was standing in his own doorway, hands thrust impatiently in the pockets of his leather jacket, watching them.
"Spike," he said. "Elisabeth, are you all right?"
Elisabeth uncrossed her arms. "Perfect. I and Mr. Bloody-William-Intimations-of-Immortality were just having a piquant conversation."
Spike bristled again. "Hey now. I don't mind fun and games, but no one—no one—compares me—to Wordsworth." He pointed a sharp finger in her face.
Elisabeth raised one eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of Giles. She was starting to enjoy this. "No…not Wordsworth," she taunted him. "I'd say Patmore is more your line."
For a flashing moment Spike showed his true face. "Giles, who's this? She's about to get killed."
Giles rolled his eyes. "As much as I'd love to continue with this vaudeville comedy, I have work to do. Spike, have you any information for me, or not?"
With an effort Spike severed his attention from his new acquaintance to look at him. "It's gonna cost you."
"I'm prepared for that. On the other hand," Giles drawled, "I haven't quite paid you out for wrecking my car."
"I did you a favor! That car was about as valuable as a broken toaster, and half the size. And just look at the one you've got now." Spike gestured wildly out the open door, though Giles's car was not in view. "I bloody well did do you a favor."
"Yes, and then cancelled this so-called favor, as I recall, by trying to get us all killed."
Elisabeth piped up. "Yes, Spike: you really were a prat to make that deal with Adam. Don't you know your Kipling? 'To win by his aid and the aid disown; He travels the fastest who travels alone'?"
Spike stared at her, then back at Giles. "Who is this?"
Giles leaned indolently against his door. "She has a point. Although, Elisabeth, we shouldn't bait the impotent vampire any more than is strictly necessary."
Spike went so apoplectic, he forgot to assume his game face. "Who you calling a bloody Welshman? Forget this, I'm outta here. See if I ever offer you information again."
And he would have stormed out; except that Giles braced his arm across the doorway and caught Spike hard on the chest. For a moment the two men, living and undead, stood meeting eyes. Elisabeth was not quite sure what it was that passed between them, but unexpectedly Spike looked away and drew an impatient breath.
"I don't know much, all right?" he said. "Just that there's this whacking great nebula of energy gathering around town, and our kind thinks it's pretty." He tried to push past Giles again, but Giles firmed his grip on the doorpost and held him there.
"You're going to have to do better than that," he said pleasantly.
Spike heaved a sigh through his nose. "I don't know any more than that," he said. "It happens sometimes—the energy gathers, and burns itself out, and we come and watch the fireworks and drink beer. And blood, if we're lucky, which apparently I'm not."
"Gathers. Is it gathering right now?"
Spike grunted; Giles took this as an affirmative.
"How long till it burns out?"
Spike shrugged. "Few days. Hard to tell."
"And the focal point: where is it?"
Spike growled. "In case you haven't noticed, this is the Hellmouth. The whole bloody town is the focal point."
Giles gave him a slow blink which conveyed perfectly the clement displeasure Elisabeth had been trying for earlier.
Spike ignored it. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going off to buy some smokes with the money you're about to give me."
Giles kept his arm across the door for an extra moment to make his point; then he reached for his wallet, thumbed with maddening slowness through the bills inside, and finally held one of them out between two indolent fingers, his eyes cast up from his downturned face (to Elisabeth's amusement) like some odd combination of Martin Sheen and Lauren Bacall.
Spike snatched it delicately and looked it over, then scowled. "You said twenty. This is a ten!"
"And you'll get the other ten if your information proves any good," Giles answered with equanimity. He pocketed his wallet with such an air of finality that even Spike had to admit frustration. The vampire folded the bill into his inner pocket as if it were a draft from the Bank of England for fifty thousand pounds; drew up his cloak of shadowy dignity, and stepped out across the threshold as Giles moved into the house; only then did he turn around to rake Elisabeth with his smirking eyes. "Nice to meet you, Elisabeth. You'll have to tell me later if he's any good as a lover."
And before Elisabeth could spring forward to slam the door in his face, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it to after him with a rattling bam, leaving Elisabeth and Giles to look anywhere but at each other.
"For a legendary vampire, he's not very subtle, is he?" Giles said dryly.
*
Chapter 13