Chapter 2:
When she woke up, Buffy found herself in a white hospital room, there were flowers next to her bed and sun was streaming in through the open curtains on the windows. Rolling onto her side, Buffy saw Rupert Giles lying in the bed next to hers. Without meaning to Buffy let out an involuntary scream that brought Xander and Willow running from the hallway, "What is it? What happened?" Willow asked as she went to the bed and held Buffy's hand as she shook.
"I just, I just" Buffy said as she stared at Giles' bed, "Oh" Xander said, "Willow, she still doesn't know what actually happened." "What? Tell me" Buffy said frantically. "Calm down" Willow soothed her, and then between herself and Xander they proceeded to tell Buffy about their communication spell with Giles, and how their interrogation of the young man Giles had turned into provided many answers.
They told her about the potion, about his kidnapping Giles, about Giles being unconscious the whole time, and that his name was Evan, and with the threat of Willow casting a spell on him, they had forced him to go and confess to the police. Buffy sat patiently as she could the whole time, trying to absorb what they were saying, what it meant as far as Giles was concerned, what it might or might not change in her feelings.
Finally when they had finished their story, Buffy whispered, "Who knows?" "You mean who knows what happened?" Willow asked kindly, and at the slight nervous nod from Buffy, Xander said, "No one yet, well other than myself and Oz and Willow. We wanted you to choose who you tell, and how much you tell them." "Thank you" Buffy said with tears in her eyes. "So that means that Giles doesn't know." "Right" Willow said kindly.
Somehow that made Buffy feel better, she felt that perhaps if she could protect Giles from the truth it never would have happened. "I would prefer that we don't tell him, or anyone else" "But Buffy," Willow interjected kindly, "He knows that something happened, he was kidnapped and drugged, after all." "All right" Buffy sighed, "But let's just tell him that Evan knocked me out, tied me up, and then slapped me. I mean it's the truth, sort of." Seeing the skeptical looks that Xander and Willow were giving her she added, "Please, I'm just not ready to deal with this yet."
"Alright" Xander said, but Willow still looked worried, "Buffy, what if you were to die someday and he never knew what happened? He deserves better." "Alright Willow," Buffy said trying to be strong, "What if I let you use a spell in my mind to extract an exact copy of the memory, and if I die you have my permission to show Giles? Would that work?" Buffy wasn't entirely sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but when Willow responded with and enthusiastic yes, Buffy had no choice but to let her perform the spell.
After they had left, Buffy fell back asleep and when she awoke, she heard Giles talking to the nurse and asking about her, so she had to pretend to still be sleeping, or he would want to see her.
Buffy couldn't avoid going back to her life forever, and was eventually forced to leave the hospital when she was recovered. It had been three days since her encounter with Evan, although she still felt as though Giles had been the one that had done those things to her. Buffy had been able to put off her mother, telling her that she was fine, and that she had simply been slapped rather hard on the face, after all she did have the bruises and even a scab on her neck where the knife had been, since the damage looked bad, she could simply use it as an alibi to cover the truth. Buffy had begun to wonder why her slayer healing had not truly kicked in, her bruises were just as bad as any normal person's would have been, both on her face and the rest of her body.
Eventually she had gotten so worried about it that she had asked Willow what it could mean, and since Willow was not sure, Buffy had gotten talked into meeting with Giles to talk about her slayer strength. That was why she now found herself, a week and a half after her encounter, sitting back in the school library, about to meet the man she had most wanted to avoid for the rest of her life. Willow had come along with her for support, but it didn't make Buffy feel any better.
"Buffy, how are you?" Giles asked with a smile as he came into the library, "I haven't had a chance to see you since Evan kidnapped me," as he walked closer to her Giles noticed her face and said, "those bruises look pretty bad, do you feel ok?" "I'm fine," Buffy said, brushing off his attempt to place his hand on her shoulder by standing up, then seeing the look on Willow's face she added "The bruises though are actually why we came to talk to you."
"Yes?" Giles said as his expression moved into scholar mode, "What about the bruises?" "Well," Buffy began, but as she looked into Giles' eyes and was forced to look away, she felt that she couldn't talk anymore. Luckily, Willow intervened and continued, "What Buffy was saying is that her slayer healing hasn't been working recently. Those bruises are just as bad as they were a couple of days ago, and we're worried about what could be causing it. Any ideas? Do you think that she might loose her slayer strength as well?"
After a moment of though Giles said, "Well, I'm not sure. I've heard of cases where slayer's have lost their healing after a traumatic experience, it's something like their subconscious doesn't want to heal, it's been said that they actually want to die. And in many cases they do die, they are unable to heal fast enough to continue their slaying duties and one demon or another kills them." Seeing the mortified look on Willow's face Giles quickly added, "But that's not Buffy's case she gets beat up all the time, so this recent experience couldn't have been as traumatic as to make her want to die, right?"
Seeing Willow avoid his gaze and not finding Buffy's reply to be nearly as authentic as he would hope, Giles said nervously, "Unless there's something you're not telling me?"
Well," Willow said as she shot a nervous look in Buffy's direction, "Actually," "Actually there's nothing to tell." Buffy cut her off sharply, "Buffy" Willow said in a pleading tone, they both knew that Giles needed to be told, but as Buffy tried to tell Giles she couldn't do it. Finally she opted for a partial truth, "He held a knife to my throat and said some awful things, that's all." "And was that very traumatizing for you?" Giles asked in a confused voice, "It's just that I thought it was you doing all of those things," Buffy said as tears began to spill down her face, she was no longer thinking about the knife, but about all of the other things Evan had done, "And I just couldn't understand how someone I had trusted for so long would do that."
As Buffy turned her head into Willow's shoulder to get herself under control, Giles shot a very confused glance at Willow. He simply couldn't understand how Buffy, his Buffy who had faced death endless times and been beaten beyond imagination daily, could be reacting so strongly to a few insults and a bruised face. It simply didn't make any sense. Giles was pulled from his thoughts when Willow said, "Why don't you go home and lie down Buffy, Giles and I will do some research here." When Buffy agreed, Giles' confusion rose to an entirely new level, Buffy never did anything that anyone told her too, even Willow.
When Buffy had gathered up all of her things and left, Giles turned on Willow, "Alright, what is going on?" Willow looked at the door and shuffled her feet as she whispered, "I can't tell you Giles," "What?" Giles asked not having heard her, "I can't tell you" she said looking up at him, "It's…" "Why not!" Giles interrupted thinking that Willow didn't trust him, "Have I ever done anything not to deserve your trust?"
"No, No!" Willow said quickly, "It's not that, it's just that Buffy made me promise I wouldn't tell, and I have to honor that promise." "Fine," Giles said feeling hurt that Buffy didn't trust him, "But I can't guarantee that I can help if I don't know all of what is going on." "Alright, I'll try to convince her to tell you," Willow said worried for both Buffy's well being and Giles' peace of mind, "Bt you know Buffy as well as I do, she can be very stubborn.
"Buffy?" Willow said quietly as she knocked on the door to Buffy's room, "Can I come in?" "Sure Wil" Buffy said from her bed where she was sitting cross-legged and holding her pillow, "What did you find out?" Looking at her sitting on her bed seeming so small and insignificant, Willow realized for the first time just how helpless and alone Buffy seemed, and it scared her.
Trying to keep her fear for Buffy out of her voice Willow said, "We haven't really found anything yet. Giles thinks it may be some sort of disease and he wants to take a blood sample," "Okay, that's progress" Buffy said sitting up a little straighter, "But Buffy," Willow said gently, "What if Giles' first idea was correct, what if it has to do with your…"
"Trauma?" Buffy suggested sarcastically, "Face it Wil, if neither one of us can even say what happened to me, there's no way that I'm ready to tell him yet." "Then what should we do?" Willow asked despairingly as she sat down next to Buffy, "If we don't tell him, you could…you could…" "Die?" Buffy said with a laugh, the first in many days, "Willow," Buffy said touched by her friend's concern, "I face death every day, this is no different."
"But it is," Willow said pleadingly, "You don't have your slayer healing anymore, and if you don't tell Giles the truth, something awful could happen." "Look Wil" Buffy said kindly as she set the pillow down and began to feel herself going back into her old habits of protecting Willow, "Why don't I go do this blood test thing, just to see if maybe I am sick, and then I promise that I will tell him soon. Okay?" "Alright" Willow said uncertainly as she leaned in to give Buffy a hug, "Just be careful, okay?" "Okay Willow, I promise."
The next day, Buffy once again found herself waiting for Giles in the library. This time she was by herself, Willow had had to go to an appointment, and although Xander had offered to come with her, Buffy knew that he too was still harboring angry feelings towards the innocent Giles. So, in order to keep Xander from accidentally running his mouth or hurting Giles, Buffy had come to meet him alone. As she waited and looked around the library, Buffy tried to remember all of the good times that she, the gang, and even Giles, especially Giles, had spent here.
She remembered all of the laughs and sorrows that they had faced together, Giles had been her rock, he had helped her through all of the hard battles and tough family issues that she had been through. Yet even these memories seemed sour when she thought of all of the things she had felt while chained up in that awful place. She knew that as long as Giles remained blind to the truth, she would never be able to work out her emotions, and there would always be an unbridgeable gap in their relationship, but even knowing this, Buffy could not even imagine bringing herself to tell him the truth. If he knew the truth, it could destroy him, and to see him destroyed would her.
As she was deep in her thoughts, Giles came into the main part of the library from his office, and saw Buffy staring into space. He observed her for a moment, seeing the pain in her eyes as well as something else, something that looked a lot like fear. When he approached her, Giles said, "Buffy?" as he laid his hand on her shoulder.
She jumped rather shakily, and quickly stood up from the table, causing his hand to slide from her shoulder. "Are you ready to draw the blood?" Buffy asked in a very businesslike manner without any of the caring he normally heard in her voice when they talked. "I'm almost ready, I just need to take a closer look at your face to see what type of tests I ought to perform." "Okay" Buffy said maintaining her businesslike tone as he observed her bruises from a couple feet away.
After a moment she saw his scholarly manner fade and she saw it replaced by the fatherly caring that she had so often seen him use. "Those bruises really do look painful," he said with a sigh, "What happened to your lip?" he asked as he ran his thumb over her recently bloodied and raw lower lip. She had spent the last week biting hard on her lip to try and control her painful emotions, but now when her emotions were whirling in her head, Buffy was unable to bite her lip because Giles had his thumb there. She felt herself beginning to shiver uncontrollably at his gentle touch, remembering the last time that Giles/Evan had run his finger over her lip.
Finally her emotions and shivering became so strong that she was forced to turn around and face away from Giles. No matter how good his intentions were, her first reactions were still those created and lodged in her memory on that fateful afternoon. "Buffy," Giles began feeling truly worried about her, but she cut him off saying in a quiet and pained voice, "Why don't you just draw the necessary blood, okay?" Torn between his confusion and want to help Buffy, and her obvious need to forget what had just happened, Giles decided to simply drop the subject for the moment and find out later.
When he had finished all of the tests, and Buffy was getting ready to leave, Giles said, "Buffy," "Yes?" she asked in her still professional manner, "I just want you to know that you can trust me, and I'm here for you, whatever it is that you're not telling me, okay?" Turning to face him and dropping her professional pretense for the first time since she had come back from the run down house, Buffy said sincerely, "I know Giles, and I will tell you eventually, I'm just not ready to talk yet. But I want you to know that I do trust you, the real you, it's just complicated in my mind as to where to draw the that line." With that she attempted to smile at him, and walked out the door. As he followed her with his gaze, Giles felt himself both comforted and confused by her message, he didn't understand why she had reacted so strongly to his worried touch, nor did he understand what line she was referring to.
The next day, Buffy was angry, she was angry with Giles for not knowing the truth, she was angry with Willow for pitying her, but mainly she was angry with herself and her inability to tell Giles the truth. The more she thought about it the more she knew that he had to know, he was her watcher, and more importantly, he was her friend. It would be hard to tell him, she knew that, but she had to do it eventually. It would never work between them as watcher and slayer if she couldn't stand to have him touch her, or even look into his eyes.
Buffy wanted to go back to their old ways, their old habits, their old relationship, but she knew that she could never truly go back to that place. Their relationship would have to adapt, maybe they would go to therapy together, she had no idea, but somehow she had to fix what had happened to her, to them. She knew that the first step to fixing things was to tell him the truth, but that idea still hurt, she still felt the tear inside of her heart that has been caused by what she had thought was Giles' betrayal. How she could ever get passed something like that, something so personal, so painful, Buffy didn't know, but she knew that she would have to.
As Buffy sat in her bedroom with these thoughts whirring through her head, she decided that she needed to get out; she couldn't deal with everything right then. Without telling her mother where she was going, Buffy put on her workout pants and a T-shirt and headed out to patrol. As she walked the streets of Sunnydale, Buffy began to question her decision. She began to think that maybe she shouldn't tell Giles, if she did there was no telling how he would react, he might not even want to see her again. Even if he did want to see her, it would kill him to know what she thought he had done.
It was with these thoughts in her head that Buffy didn't see the vampire come up from behind her. He hit her over the head with a wooden board sending her flying across the alleyway. After a moment she stood up to try and fight him, without her slayer healing though, she was unable to see clearly and her head was spinning like crazy. Even in such a state, Buffy landed couple of good punches and kicks, she had the vampire on the ropes and was about to stake him when another vampire came up from behind her and picked her up. He threw her across the alley like a rag doll and she landed against a piece of rebar that stuck out of the adjacent wall. After a surprised and ragged gasp, Buffy slipped off of the rebar and collapsed into a heap in the alley. The vampires were getting ready to feed on her when a florescent sign of a nearby club turned on, shining light directly on her and causing the vampires to retreat and find another victim.
It was Xander who found her later that evening after hearing from Joyce who said that Buffy had gone out and she was worried about her. Xander had immediately headed out to help her patrol while she was in such a delicate state. By the time that he found her in the alley, Buffy was surrounded by a pool of blood, and her breathing was irregular. By the time that an ambulance got there, Xander truly didn't know if she had ay chance to live.
Once Buffy was rushed into the ER and then sent immediately to the O.R. for operation, Xander took it upon himself to call everyone that needed to know. He hesitated for a moment before calling Giles, not sure whether or not Buffy would be happy to see him, but eventually he decided that Giles deserved to know what had happened. Within half an hour Oz, Willow, Mrs. Sanders, and Giles were all in the waiting room with him and now all that they could do was wait to see what would happen.
Mrs. Summers was crying into Giles shoulder, who was looking very pale himself, Willow was wringing her hand as Oz hugged her shoulders, and Xander was pacing the waiting room, all of them praying that Buffy would be okay. When the doctor finally came out of the OR to see them five hours later, the room fell deathly silent. "Is she…will she be okay?" Joyce asked in a small voice as Giles began to polish his glasses with fervor unknown to man, "She's going to be fine," the doctor said as everyone let out an audible breath that they had been holding, "It was close, she lost a lot of blood, but she's going to be fine. She'll need a good deal of recovery time and rest. Luckily whatever went into her back missed any internal organs, since that is the case, she will probably need to stay here for about a week."
From there, the doctor proceeded to talk individually with Mrs. Sanders and Giles, while the others had a discussion of their own. "This is all my fault!" Willow said with as sob, "If I had just told Giles the truth, this might not have happened" "You were just doing what Buffy asked you to," Xander said in a comforting voice as he laid his hand on her shoulder, "After all, now we have a chance to tell him and to make sure that this doesn't happen again."
"I guess you're right" Willow said with a sigh, "Of course we are," Oz said kindly, "All we need to do is talk to Buffy once she wakes up, and then we'll tell him." "I'm glad for your enthusiasm Wil," Xander said with a smile, "But do you think you'll be able to tell him even if Buffy still doesn't want you to?" "I'll have to" Willow said with determination, "That's my girl" Oz said as he gave her shoulders a squeeze.
Two days later, Buffy woke up shaking and crying. It was the first time that she had opened her eyes since she was injured, and her mother was at her side immediately babying her and comforting her. "Willow, I have to see Willow" Buffy said as she tried to sit up and then gasped at the pain in her side, normally she would be much better by now, but not since she lost her slayer healing. After cuddling her for a few more minutes, Joyce finally left to go get Willow.
Twenty minutes later Willow came into Buffy's hospital room with a worried look on her face, "What is it, what's wrong, your mom said that the first thing you said was that you needed to see me" "Yes Willow" Buffy said with a sigh, "I did ask to see you, nothing's wrong though, at least nothing new." "I, I don't understand" Willow said trying to figure out why Buffy had needed to see her so urgently, "I can't live like this Wil," Buffy said as Willow finally figured out what Buffy was talking about, "He has to know,"
"Oh Buffy," Willow said in admiration, "I'm so glad you're finally ready…" "I'm not," Buffy said cutting her off, "I still can't tell him, I spent the last two days dreaming about that day, I can't bring myself to relive it yet again," "Then what do you want me to do?" Willow asked in a confused voice, "I want" Buffy whispered in a pained voice "I want you to show him the memory."
"Are you sure Buffy?" Willow asked concerned for her friend's well being, "If I show him the memory, I can't cut anything out, nothing." "I know," Buffy said with a sigh, "But he has to know, and I really am not ready to tell him, I might not ever be ready to tell him" "I understand" Willow said as she placed her hand on Buffy's shoulder, "This was way to close a call and I don't want to lose you just because we might decided not to tell Giles the truth, and he wouldn't be able to fix your slayer strength. I'll go tell him now before anything else has a chance to hurt you."
"Thanks Willow," Buffy said as she squeezed her friend's hand before she left, "Oh and Wil" "Yes, Buffy?" Willow asked from the door, "Please go with him into the memory, I don't think that he could handle it on his own." "I'll go with him Buffy, you just rest up to try and regain your strength the old fashion way" "Alright" Buffy said as she watched her friend go, full of anticipation about how her loyal watcher would react to the news he was about to receive.
"Giles?" Willow said as she walked into the library, looking for him, "Are you in here?" "What? Oh yes," Giles said as he woke up, picking up his face from the book that he had fallen asleep on top of and immediately going into worry mode, "What is it Willow, has something happened to Buffy? Did her condition change? Is she alright?"
"One question at a time," Willow said with a laugh, "Yes, her condition did change, but she's fine" Willow hurriedly added when she saw the panicked look on Giles' face, "She woke up from her coma and the doctors say that she's going to be just fine. She will probably be able to come home in a couple of days." "That's great" Giles said as she stood up, "I should go see her immediately," "Not so fast" Willow said as she held up her hand, motioning for him to stop, "There's something that I need to show you first. Something that she needs me to show you"
"Yes?" Giles said with a confused look as he sat back into his seat, "What is it?" "Well," Willow said as she worked on building up her nerve to tell him, "It's got to do with the reason that Buffy has been acting so weird lately," "Yes" Giles said as he leaned forward in his chair, suddenly very interested in what she had to say, "She allowed me to take a copy of her memory when she was first in the hospital after the incident…"
"Willow," Giles said as he jumped out of his chair, "That is entirely too dangerous a form of magic for you to be practicing! And what do you mean by incident?" "Okay," Willow said with a sigh, "First of all, the only reason that I did that magic was in case something like this happened and she wouldn't be able to tell you the truth. And it's a good thing that I did it, because she certainly isn't ready to tell you the truth and you really do need to know so that we can fix her slayer healing. As far as the incident goes, why don't I just show you okay?"
"Alright Willow," Giles said as he lowered himself back into his seat, but be careful, this is dangerous magic you're dealing with." "Alright," Willow said with a nod as she began to work the magic, creating a floating mist that was Buffy's memory, "Now all you need to do is stay relaxed and the magic will pull you into the memory. Now I know what we are about to see from Buffy's telling of it, but I haven't seen it myself, so unfortunately I cannot prepare you for whatever we may see." Feeling very nervous from her last comment, Giles felt himself being pulled away from the library and into the memory.