Two hours and three paper cuts later, Willow and her brain were mush. She and Giles had actually managed to learn a fair amount about the necromancer demon – apparently called a Gaarvoth demon, if Buffy's source was to be believed – and were one step closer to stopping the demon's reign of terror in Sunnydale. According to one ancient illustration, the Gaarvoth looked like a cross between a man and an ox, which was much creeper than it sounded.
Giles sat behind a pile of yellowed, crumbling texts, holding the temple of his glasses pinched between his fingers as he pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyes. He knew that he and Willow weren't going to be useful in discovering any further information that night, but he always felt a little guilty halting his research, especially if he knew Buffy was still out patrolling. It wasn't even ten o'clock, but he was already exhausted, and he could tell that Willow was, too.
A thumping at the front door of the shop shook them both out of their sluggish inattention. The tension in their shoulders suggested that they were not fans of things that went bump in the night. Giles called, hopeful, "We're closed."
The pair waited, eyes trained on the door. There was no sound, no movement.
Willow exhaled, smiling. "Boy, that was creepy. For a second, I was sure –"
The sound of shattering glass cut her off mid-sentence as the front display window was smashed to a thousand pieces. Suddenly, they were researching al fresco.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The silence stretched out across the shop. Then the sound of shuffling feet on broken glass signaled the arrival of a guest. A recently-deceased resident of Sunnydale climbed through the ex-window and shambled into the room.
"Oh, good," Giles declared. "Zombie." Even in times of crisis, Giles never wavered in his sarcasm. "Willow," he called, "protection spell? Barrier? Anything more powerful than a house of cards would do."
Willow stood, planted her feet, and squared her shoulders. As much to herself as to Giles, she replied, "Okay."
Lifting her palms in front of her and reciting the Latin by heart, Willow erected a barrier between them and the zombie. Although it did not come as easily to her as the simple levitations she achieved earlier, she was pleasantly surprised by her success. As she held the barrier, Giles retrieved a mace from the training room, returning to wield it against anything that made it past Willow's spell.
The lone zombie was joined by another, and another, and finally a fourth. The strain on Willow was evident; sweat stood out on her forehead and her whole body was tensed as though she were trying to lift a thousand pounds over her head. Realizing they were outnumbered, Giles shouted, "To the back room! Willow, quickly!"
The pair retreated to the relative safety of the training room, which at least had a door that locked. Willow's barrier spell held for another moment, but soon the zombies were past it, clawing on the door. Giles ran to the rear exit of the building, but upon opening the door, he was faced with another three undead adherents of the Gaarvoth demon. "Damn!" he cursed, slamming and bolting the door.
"Giles, what are we going to do? Those are the only two ways out, and I don't like our chances with either one." Willow's eyes darted from one entrance to the other, now both completely barricaded by zombies on the other side. The doors would not hold forever.
"Give me a moment to think, Willow," Giles spat, more than a little unhappy with the amount of frustration he let show.
They were surrounded by weapons, but although Giles was a moderately skilled hand-to-hand fighter, Willow had zero physical combat skills, and there were too many zombies for Giles to take alone. They were trapped.
"Giles." Willow turned to the Watcher and looked him in the eyes. "You have to do something to me. Like last night. You saw how much easier levitation was for me after you hit me. I don't have the control right now to get us out of this, but if you help me, I might be able to tap into that power. I need your help."
Shaking his head, Giles replied, "No, Willow, I don't want to do that to you again. I can't. I never should have pushed you to do that last night, and I won't do it again."
Willow, knowing that time was a factor, grabbed Giles by his heavily-starched lapels. "Dammit, Giles, we don't have time for you to be sensitive remorse guy. We can talk about the questionable implications later, but right now I need you to help me control my power. Can you do that or not?"
The fire in Willow's eyes awoke something in Giles, something that was very willing to oblige the witch. Speaking softly, Giles replied, "Alright."
"Go stand next to the punching bag," he ordered. Willow complied, grateful that Giles was going along with her possibly-insane plan. She had no idea if this would actually work, but until another solution presented itself, this was all she could think to do.
Giles approached Willow's position and continued directing her, his voice barely above a whisper, the hushed tones belying the forcefulness and intensity of his commands.
"Raise your hands above your head. Clasp your right wrist with your left hand."
Willow did as she was told.
"As I told you yesterday, the same rule applies. Tell me to stop and I'll stop. Do you understand?"
With an edge of impatience in her voice, Willow answered, "yes."
"I am going to remove your pants." Giles paused, giving Willow an opportunity to refuse. She did not.
Although Willow was deeply unsure about what would happen next, she knew that she had forced Giles' hand. Giles reached forward and undid the button on Willow's jeans. He slid them off of her legs with extreme care. He also removed her shoes, leaving her feet bare.
"Turn around and face the punching bag. With your free hand, hold the top of the stand."
Willow turned but found the top to be out of her grasp. "I can't reach it."
"Get on tip-toe."
Flexing and reaching, Willow gripped the top of the stand, although just barely.
"Do not let go. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Willow replied, the strain of the position reflected in her voice.
Within seconds, her calves began to burn with the effort of staying on her toes. She did not have enough of a grip with her hands to transfer any of her weight to the stand. The position was incredibly difficult to maintain.
Willow could no longer see Giles, but she heard something rustling behind her. She wanted to turn to look, but she knew that twisting at all would make her lose her grip on the punching bag stand.
Giles, refusing to allow himself to hesitate in such a dangerous situation, let out one deep breath before unbuckling his belt and sliding it from the loops on his slacks. With a mixture of warning and pity in his voice, he told Willow, "This is going to hurt."
For a split second, Willow forgot herself and turned around to see what Giles was going to do. In so doing, she lost her grip on the stand and let her feet go flat to the floor. Giles' look of cold disappointment cut her like a knife. She hurriedly turned away again, went back on tip-toe, and grasped the stand with her fingertips. "I'm sorry," she muttered, a blush rising to her cheeks.
"No," Giles replied calmly. "You're not. But you will be."
Willow experienced a moment of panic not unlike the one she felt the day before, the panic that made her flee the shop. She swallowed and closed her eyes. You will stay put this time, she told herself.
Giles gripped his belt in his hands, holding the two ends in his hand to form a large loop. He let the first stroke fall across the backs of Willow's thighs.
Willow gasped in undisguised pain. She wasn't sure whether the belt hurt much more than Giles' hand or if he was just hitting her harder, but this was genuinely painful. Giles had not been kidding when he warned her that it would hurt.
Giles struck her again across her ass, then once more. Involuntary gasps burst from her as tears sprung to her eyes. If it had been the night before, she would have demanded that Giles stop after the first blow, but last night there hadn't been zombies at the door.
The issue of the zombies brought Willow's thoughts into focus. As Giles continued to strike her, Willow did her best to channel her pain into energy that she could utilize. Perhaps she could use her rediscovered levitation skills to take care of their zombie problem. She kept her eyes closed and tried to calm her mind, to let her power build.
Giles continued to let the blows fall, casting bright red welts across Willow's rear and thighs. If he struck her any harder, he risked drawing blood. He was doing his best to be careful, methodical. He tried to ignore how much this aroused him. This was about saving them, not about his own pleasure.
"Giles," Willow said suddenly, the calm in her voice disconcerting.
Giles let his arms fall to his side. "Yes, Willow?" The Watcher's breath was ragged with both effort and excitement.
"Open the door."
"Are you—?"
"Open the door."
Giles stepped away from Willow, not remotely sure of what was about to happen, and not a little frightened of the power that bubbled beneath her words. Grabbing an axe, he approached the door that served as a rear exit to the shop. Last he knew, three zombies were outside, although that number could be greater now. If Willow failed to dispatch the zombies, at least they might be able to get out onto the street somehow.
"Okay, I'm opening the door." Giles yanked on the doorknob and took three large steps back.
Across the room, a quiver full of arrows floated over next to Willow. Three arrows unsheathed themselves and flew towards the zombies. A moment later, a series of thumps indicated that the zombies were toast. Giles barely had time to register what was happening before they were dead. Or, well…dead-er.
"Open the other door." Willow was no longer taking commands. Her eyes were still closed.
Giles did as instructed, again taking several giant steps back from the incoming undead horde. More arrows flew, each one finding its home in the eye socket of a zombie. The bodies fell to the floor, creating a pile that would make it difficult to get back into the main room of the shop. After the last corpse fell, Willow and Giles were silent until it was clear that the threat had been neutralized.
Willow's shoulders sagged slightly and she grunted softly. Giles turned to her and saw that she was still on tip-toe, grasping the metal of the frame. Her legs were shaking under the strain. He went over to her and placed his hand on her back.
"Let go, Willow," he urged her. She did, and in that moment, her legs gave way. Giles caught her, deftly picking her up as a groom carries a bride. Slowly, he carried her over to the table and sat her on its edge. She winced at the sensation of her bottom against the surface, but standing wasn't much of an option either.
Giles brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and moved his apprehensive face directly in front of hers, examining her. "Are you alright?"
Willow said nothing. She breathed in for a five count, then out. Giles, concerned and looking for a way to help, turned to go get her some water. She reached out and grabbed Giles' sleeve, clutching the material in her twisted fingers. Looking up to meet his eyes, she remained silent but managed to communicate loud and clear: Don't leave.
Giles' frenzied expression softened, and he sat next to her on the table. He placed an arm around her and held her fondly. His affection for her, his attraction to her, his need for her were all threatening to overwhelm him. He understood now the futility of trying to pretend that they could go back to how things were before. After a moment, he began to speak.
"Willow, I'm going to be completely honest with you. It frightens me to do so, but it's nothing more than you deserve. I don't want to continue to keep things from you. I imagine you might not be happy to hear what I'm about to tell you, but you have the right to know." He looked down into her face, but her eyes betrayed nothing.
He continued, "I've always had immense respect and affection for you, ever since I've known you. You were a bright and curious student, outrageously optimistic and always thinking on your feet. I grew to care for you and felt a strong desire to protect you, which hasn't always been an easy thing to do. After you moved on to college and began honing your skills in witchcraft, I worried about you and continued to look after you." Willow was resting against his side, just as she had on the plane, just as she had in her bed two nights earlier. He knew what he was about to say would cause her to pull away from him, physically and emotionally. Closing his eyes, he took a second to cherish the odd peace of the moment.
With great effort, he forged on. "But I also felt my feelings towards you begin to shift. I pretended for ages that I was simply being over-protective, that the envy I felt around Oz or around Tara was a paternalistic urge. I told myself that I cared for you like a…" Giles wavered, then continued, "…like an ex-librarian, nothing more. Now, with the advantage of hindsight, I realize that I loved you even then, but I couldn't see it."
The words came spilling out now, either from a lack of control or a fear of what Willow would say once he stopped talking. "When I came here to confront you last spring, here in this very shop…that was the worst day of my life. I've told you before that I would have gladly given my life to make everything right for you again, so you could have Tara again. That was true. What I never told you was that I would have taken others' lives, too, if it had meant you could be happy."
Giles' voice rose in pitch, anxiety creeping in more and more with each sentence. "It was irrational and completely immoral, but I would have killed Warren and Jonathan and that other boy; I would have killed just about anyone. That day, I wasn't interested in saving the world. I wanted to save you. Only you." Finally, he paused. He wondered if this sounded as awful and overwrought and ridiculous aloud as it did inside his head.
"I know," he continued, "I know that it makes me a terrible person, but I've known that about myself for a long time. You know some of the things I've done. Summoning Eyghon, letting my friends get killed. But the worst I've ever felt, the most ashamed and horrified I've ever been at myself, was last night, seeing the look on your face as you ran from me."
Straightening his spine, Giles tried to affect a business-like air, but it wasn't working. "Although it was true," he went on, "that I wanted to support you in your recovery and I thought what I did might be able to help, the reality is that my actions were selfish. I said and did things because I wanted to. I took advantage of you. I'm sorry." His voice cracked with emotion, and he paused for a moment.
Giles cleared his throat and continued. "I know that last night I irrevocably damaged our friendship, and perhaps did even more harm tonight. My words now are probably only serving to put the nail in the coffin, so to speak. I preyed on the remnants of your girlhood crush on me. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for that, so I certainly don't expect you to. I just want you to understand, to know. I love you, Willow Rosenberg, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
His words hung in the air for a moment, before Willow exhaled.
"Giles, shut up." Willow's words had the desired effect, stunning the Watcher into silence. She remained tight against Giles' side as she spoke. "You're painting me as some kind of victim, as if things happen to me but I don't have any role in what's going on. You talk like I didn't walk over to that table, like I didn't ask for what you did in no uncertain terms. As if I didn't beg you to do it again tonight. I may be young, but I'm not a kid anymore, Giles. I make my own choices. Some of them – a lot of them – are bad, but they're my mistakes to make. If this was a mistake, too, it was our mistake together. You keep talking about yourself like you're some kind of predator, but you didn't force me to do anything. Stop trying to fall on your sword." Willow wiped a tear from her cheek, feeling her vulnerability shift into agitation and frustration. She was angrier with herself than with Giles, but he was going to bear the brunt of her vexation.
"You're right," she continued, "I had a crush on you when I was at Sunnydale High. I mean, it was practically cheating that you were the librarian, but I didn't just like you because you were surrounded by books. I loved that you were serious, unlike guys my age. Everything was always a joke to everyone else in school. I got laughed at a lot. But you always took me seriously, and I loved you for it. Sometimes, that library was the only place where I felt like I could be myself, and you did that for me." For a moment, adoration crept into her voice and Giles could almost feel the warmth and tenderness radiating out from her.
"Willow," Giles began, but she raised her voice slightly and kept going. She had been saving these words for too long to be interrupted now. "You talk about your feelings changing for me after I went to college," she said, "but my feelings for you never did. I kept waiting to grow out of my crush, to forget about it, but that never happened. My feelings for you would get pushed to the side or covered up when I was with Oz or Tara, but they were still there.
"In England, while I tried to work through my guilt and anger about what I had done, it took me weeks before I could even talk about how close I had come to killing you. Doctor Lane almost had to sedate me the first time I described what had happened," she confessed. Then, much quieter, she added, "I still have nightmares. I see myself hurting you. I see it all the time." She grimaced, images from her terrifying dreams floating up into her conscious mind.
"On top of all of that," she resumed, her voice gaining volume and intensity, "I've had to work through the shame I feel that I'm just as upset about hurting you as I am about Tara getting killed right in front of me. Isn't that messed up?" She gently pulled away from Giles, sitting up and staring down at her legs. She still didn't have any pants on, but right now that was the least of her concerns. She brought her hands up to her face, wiping her cheeks and sweeping her hands up to smooth back her hair. She exhaled loudly.
"You think you're terrible because you smacked me on the ass a few times. Giles, what you did…you did it with affection and love, no matter how wrong you think it was. I have been far crueler to myself over the last two months than you could ever be. I have been slashing myself to pieces every single day." She paused, her eyes swimming with furious tears. "I hate myself." The last three words came out as a venomous whisper, the truth of the sentiment carved into the surface of her voice.
With a glib resignation, Willow concluded, "Loving you is the easy part. Believing that you might love me…that's impossible."
Gingerly, Willow got down off the table and walked over to retrieve her pants. Her exhaustion threatened to knock her right over. She had felt overwhelmed the night before, frantic with overstimulation. Tonight, she had gone through so much in just the past hour, she was practically numb. She just wanted to go home.
Giles sat in stunned silence for a moment. He could hardly believe what Willow had told him. Part of him was devastated by the matter-of-fact way that she described her self-loathing, while another part of him was positively ecstatic at the revelation that Willow had romantic feelings for him beyond a simple crush. Both reactions impelled him to be near her, to touch her.
Crossing the distance between them in just a few strides, Giles moved in front of Willow and took her face in his gentle hands. He whispered her name, a deep reservoir of longing beneath the single utterance. Then they were kissing, Willow's hands moving to Giles' face as he gathered her up in his arms. Pulling her to him, Giles could feel himself losing control. He wanted to strip her down, he wanted to make love to her right there.
With evident sorrow, Giles made himself pull back from the kiss. He didn't want it to be like this. He had imagined being with Willow, he had envisioned what it would be like when they revealed their love for one another, and there definitely weren't decomposing zombies blocking the exits. It should be special. This wasn't good enough for her.
Willow, panting slightly, rested her face against Giles' chest. "Now what do we do?" she asked.
"Well, I suppose we'll have to clear the bodies so we can get out of the building," he replied.
"That's not what I meant," she whispered.
"I know," he sighed.
They stood together in the middle of the room, holding each other desperately, neither willing to be the first one to let go.
