Chapter 13 – Linden Lea
AN: Hello readers, here comes a cheesy bit. Enjoy though. Just a few words ahead: I'm currently in the middle of a deep English art songs addiction, and it shows. I'm sorry, I really couldn't leave it. I had planned introducing the Alexandru character long before that, after listening to Vaughan Williams etc. I just adjusted him a bit.
If you are into that sort of thing, you might wanna read the end with your youtube on, just type "Ian Bostridge" and "Linden Lea" or "Silent noon". It's worth it :)
The days were passing fast, and Helen very soon felt at home again – and she knew she not only got accepted by everyone, but that also the Hellmouth itself had pompously welcomed her back, when on one evening, without being able to tell how she got there, she woke up tied up to a wooden cross in the middle of Sunnydale's city hall.
There was smoke around her, and she was just coming to herself. She could distinguish voices coming from both sides, of Willow and Buffy who were shouting loudly at someone about turning them into vermin, and then of Giles reciting something in his rusty poor German: "Versteckt euch nicht hinter falschen Gesichtern...!"
Then someone shot a huge amount of water at her, which, besides turning her completely soppy, actually helped her to regain for focus. It took her a moment to remember what had happened before. She had gone with Giles and Buffy to see Joyce and the MOO members who were meeting at Buffy's house, and try to talk some reason into them, since clearly the things around the two dead children had gotten out of hand, and the last thing she recalled was seeing someone hit Giles on his head in the Summers' anteroom.
Water was still dripping off of her, when she heard Buffy screeching: "Did I get it? Did I get it?" At first she couldn't see what Buffy was referring to, but when her vision finally cleared she saw a huge, slimy and disgusting looking demon impaled on a thick wooden stick that... yes, she saw it right, was tied with ropes behind Buffy's back. Only now she looked down at her own feet and realized that ropes were tied around them and around her own hands behind her back – tying her to a wooden cross just like the one that Buffy just managed to weaponize.
"That's the Hellmouth how I missed it," she muttered.
Seconds later, Giles was already kneeling next to her and helping her untie the ropes. She could have done that by herself now she was awake, with a simple spell, but she decided she'd let him be her knight in shining armour for one evening.
After it was all over, Helen wondered if they should stay and see whether everyone was fine, although there were no other victims but for Amy who had turned herself into a rat and was now frantically running up and down the hall, with Willow and Oz chasing after her to save her from the escaping feet of the dispersing, embarrassed crowd of former MOO-witch-hunters.
Giles, however, urged her that they should get home instead, to "get her out of her wet clothes," as he put it, and turned red almost instantly. Helen looked down at her soaked skirt, muttered a quick spell and all her garments turned dry in an instance.
"Uh-uh," Giles cleared his throat, "well."
"Don't you think maybe we should make sure Joyce is alright? This must have been-", she began and looked around to find the blond woman in the small crowd that was still coming to, sobbing and opening her arms as Buffy rushed towards her.
"No!" Giles exclaimed and grabbed her arm to stop her. She turned around and looked at him taken aback. He nervously scratched his forehead and gently pulled her in the direction of the exit, looking one last time over his shoulder towards where Buffy and her mother were standing in a tight embrace. "N-no need for that, I-I am sure Buffy will take care of her," he said. There's been enough horror for one night, he thought, without him having to explain to Helen why his stammer gets so uncontrollably worse when he's anywhere near Joyce. Someday he might tell her about the Band Candy incident, but this was neither the time nor the place.
"There's a giant bird at the windowsill," Giles said bewildered when they arrived in his apartment. "It looks like an owl."
"Oh, indeed," she said in surprise and walked past Giles towards the window, then to his shock opened it and offered the large animal her arm. The owl took a swift step onto it and Helen closed the window again.
"W-what are you doing?" Giles asked.
She raised her brows as if she didn't understand his question. "There's a letter for me, she must have known that I'd be here," she said matter-of-factly and walked with the huge bird on her forearm towards the sofa, while trying to untie the off-white envelope it was carrying around its right foot.
She said down and the owl stepped off her forearm to sit on the armrest of the sofa. Giles has forgotten to close his mouth or even to move, and he was still eying the bird in perplexed disbelief.
"Oh, but this is wonderful!" Helen said happily after a minute, turning the blue sheet of stationery to read the last few lines on the back side.
"Hm?" Giles only now took a step towards her, though without taking his eyes off the owl that was sitting contently on his sofa, occasionally blinking its huge yellow eyes.
It was a letter from one of Helen's oldest childhood friends, Alexandru, back from the time she was growing up in Romania. They haven't seen each other in almost six years. He had become a professional singer and was now on a tour through the States. Apparently, he had learned of Helen living in Sunnydale and was able to arrange a concert in the local theatre, to which he was now inviting her, hoping they could all perhaps have dinner and catch up a little.
Giles sat down next to her. He looked anything but amused, while Helen was chatting about her old friend who used to sing her into sleep and with whom she used to walk the woods in summer. He smiled tensely. "That's-uh... nice," he said.
Helen saw his stiffened posture. "We were sweethearts, when we were young," she said with faked nostalgia in her voice, pretending not to have noticed his irritation. Then she turned at him and placed a hand on his knee, saying with a grin on her face: "We were six."
Giles glanced at her, but couldn't stay mad, and when she leaned closer to make sure and see him in the eyes, he gave her a gentle kiss.
The owl made a sudden happy hoot and interrupted them. Giles got a slight scare, but Helen slowly pulled away from him and turned to the bird to stroke its beautiful feathers.
"Do you have something for her to eat?" She asked Giles after the owl hooted once again and narrowed her eyes pleasurably as she seemed to enjoy Helen's strokes on the head.
"Like what?" Giles asked frowning.
Helen shrugged. "A rat perhaps?"
He raised his brows, sure that she was joking.
"A small mouse then? Oh come on, Rupert, I can hardly send her back to fly to Fort Worth without feeding her at least some little bite," she said.
Giles glared. "Now as much as I understand that – where do you think would I have got a rat in my house for an owl to eat?"
She opened her mouth to say something indignant when it occurred to her that he was actually right. She shrugged again. "Oh well, she doesn't seem too hungry, perhaps we just give her some water and she'll have something on her flight back." She kept stroking the bird that has clearly been missing some human affection. "Although, I rather feel like keeping her," Helen murmured.
"No," Giles said slowly, but firmly, while he was on his way to the kitchen to get a bowl of water. "May I remind you there's already a black cat sleeping on our bed, on my half of it every night?"
He was right, of course. For Catullus, Helen's newly acquired cat that she had found on her doorstep upon her return, had mysteriously found his way across town to Giles' apartment on one morning, and hasn't left since.
Helen sighed resignedly, then got up and looked at the small label tied around the owl's left foot, where usually the price for the delivery or some other instructions for the recipient were indicated.
"Nine sickles and thirteen knuts," she said, and grabbed her purse from the table. "Of course I only have dollars in here..." She raised her eyes and for a moment looked thoughtfully into the fireplace, then shrugged yet again and pulled a few dollar notes out of her wallet before putting it away. Holding the notes in her hands she whispered: "Converto," and they all instantly turned into a huge pile of coins that was too large for her small hands to carry, so that they kept falling on the floor and making clinking noises like a slot machine in Vegas.
Giles, who came back with some water for the owl, looked at the silver and bronze coins. "You can do that?" He asked puzzled when he realized she had just magically "exchanged" currencies.
Helen poured the coins on the table, then said matter-of-factly: "Well, it is, strictly speaking, illegal," and she knelt down to count and collect the amount she was supposed to put into the small linen bag the owl was carrying around the left foot.
When she was done and raised her head, she noticed his incredulous look. He was clearly expecting her to either explain some more or defend her, yet another, lawless action. After all, their daylight apparition at the Buckingham palace balcony from just a few days ago must have been still fresh in mind of the whole Ministry. Clearly Giles was thinking that she was perhaps getting a bit too reckless.
"What? It's not like I conjured up the money out of nothing," she pointed out as if that was justification enough.
"Have you ever?" Giles asked and offered the owl a giant bowl with water.
Helen gave him an outraged look that he didn't quite buy, when she lied: "Of course not!"
She avoided his eyes, but her grin gave her away.
"You come back any time you feel like it," Helen whispered into the owl's ear as she was letting her take off into the dark night.
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir, I-uh, we-uh... will... be expecting you." Giles' curbed voice reached Helen as she entered the library on one afternoon after her classes. She heard the clucking sound of him hanging up the phone, and then a sigh Oh dear.
She found him in his office, sitting at his desk, one hand supported his head, the other was playing absentmindedly with a pencil. He looked the picture of misery and it ached to see him like that.
"What's the matter?" She asked
He looked up, there was a look of desperation, of hopeless uncertainty in his eyes, of someone who just plain didn't know what to do.
He sighed and slowly sat up. "That was Quentin Travers on the phone. The test will take place next Thursday."
"That's in eight days," Helen said, unable to hide the worry from her voice.
Giles nodded. "He'll be arriving in a week, to set everything up."
"He?"
Giles got up to his feet and walked over to where his hotplate with a tea pot was. "Yes. It-uh... would appear that Quentin himself will be conducting the cruciamentum."
"What an honour," Helen said sarcastically.
"Oh, it most assuredly is," Giles agreed with a touch of bitterness in his voice and just a shade of the Ripper in his features.
"Is it... unusual? For the council to send their chief to be at the head of those exams?" She asked.
"It is," Giles said. "Most of the time, or at least as far as I was able to find out, they send some... senior member of the council, most often a retired teacher from the Watchers academy, whose fighting skills are very dusty at best, who hasn't encountered a demon in an uncontrolled environment in years, and certainly hasn't fought one, yet somehow he still makes you feel inferior and little."
Helen was no longer sure whether he was speaking in general terms or expressing his contempt over Quentin Travers in particular. She has never met the head of the council, but she loathed the man, not only for what he represented and what he felt was alright to put Buffy through, but also for making Giles do things he was going to hate himself for afterwards.
"I-uh," he continued when he got himself together again, "am to start administering the muscle relaxant to her day after tomorrow."
He felt so... ashamed, yes, that was exactly the feeling. He could not imagine going through with it, not just for the fear of leaving Buffy entirely helpless for more than a week, but also for having to lie to her. He had voiced his concerns to Helen, and, desperate as she was about not being able to help, it did help him to have someone to talk to, someone to say to out loud the possibilities of what would happen in any imaginable scenario. She said she was behind him a hundred percent, no matter what he would decide to do. In her innermost self she felt like she should advise him against it, against injecting the muscle relaxant, against putting Buffy through that horrid exam, but mostly against not telling her about it and letting her entirely unaware and unprepared and... unable. It was a horrible thing to do to anyone, especially to someone who had not chosen her way, who had never asked for the job. But when they pondered over what might happen if he refused to go through with it, they realized there might be much more at stake. Giles remembered the words of Gwendolyn Post from months ago, and though she had been a fake watcher, he now wondered whether she had made that up when she had said that the council had sent her to not only take care of Faith, but also to evaluate his own performance with Buffy. It was absurd, of course, she had probably just said it to intimidate him and to make sure he wouldn't dare to call the council and find out about her true identity. But still, he has had the vague feeling for some time now that his position was hanging by a thread, and that the council would not hesitate to replace him at the slightest sign of hesitation on his part.
Finally, they both came to the conclusion that it might be better to take the chance of hurting Buffy on this one-time occasion, of betraying her and explaining everything afterwards and hoping she would forgive eventually, rather than risking losing her for good. Giles didn't know what the consequences would be if he refused to participate in the cruciamentum. Oddly enough, he had not read anything about a watcher refusing to undergo the exam, although some of the records were very fragmentary. He didn't know whether Buffy would simply get a new watcher, he had no idea what would happen to him. And though he thought that might be vastly exaggerated – he knew the council had means to make people or undesirable members... disappear.
Finally, Helen raised the perhaps most important question. "Do you think Buffy can pass and deal with whatever the council has prepared for her – in her... powerless state?"
Giles didn't answer, his eyes were just looking into hers, telling her that he really didn't know. It was not him doubting Buffy's skills, not even him doubting his own skills of being her watcher and preparing her for her duties. He just didn't know how to answer that, knowing that she would have to fight some monster, a demon, entirely ripped of all her powers, being nothing more than a normal, average girl, one that perhaps had the advantage of knowing what to expect, but one that could no longer be a match for them. This was him knowing that everything about that test was unfair, dangerous and unnecessary. Unfair because it was testing her skills that she had not chosen to have. And unnecessary, because Buffy had already proven herself to the whole world, admittedly without the world knowing it, by saving it, more than once.
"I-uh... don't know," he said at last. "But I have a back-up plan, sort of-uh... last-resort-option," he said slowly and looked into his tea cup.
"You do?"
"Angel."
Helen frowned. She was still getting used to the idea of the vampire being alive, and around, but if she guessed correctly where Giles was going with this, she had to admit it would make things somewhat acceptable.
"Will you let him in on this?" She asked.
Giles shook his head. "I-uh... haven't quite made up my mind yet. It would only be a last resort, he-uh... can get very protective of Buffy, I'd rather fear what he might do to Quentin if he knew, or vice versa for that matter, what the council would do if they found out that Angelus has been living within-uh... slaying distance for almost three years," he said.
Helen thought briefly that she couldn't really blame the council on that point, it was hard for her to not let the events from last summer overshadow all the good that Angel had done before. She knew it was unfair and just plain wrong, but a part of her was blaming Angel, or rather Angelus that had been crawling into her nightmares so often back then, for making her leave Sunnydale.
"But should things get out of hand, I might get him involved," Giles said.
Helen nodded understandingly. They were both silent for a while, thinking, then she looked at her watch. "Do you want me to cancel the dinner tonight?"
Giles had completely forgotten about their dinner date. Yesterday, they had been to the concert of Helen's old friend Alexandru at the theatre. Giles had to admit that the young man's voice had a certain "out of this world" quality, as Helen put it, and somewhere in the middle of Schubert's Winterreise he had found himself so immersed in the music that he had pushed away all thoughts of his worldly worries.
Since Alexandru couldn't meet them after the concert as he was having an official dinner with some of the town's officials, they invited him for a dinner tonight at Giles' place.
Giles sighed as he remembered. "No, that's alright. I know how much seeing him means to you, and I could do with a little company and distraction, and-uh... someone talking about something other than this... unpleasant business."
He put his cup away, grabbed his coat, walked to her, kissed her on her forehead, then took her elbow and together they left.
"Bun venit!" Helen opened the door a few hours later, to welcome Alexandru and his wife Elisabeth. "Welcome!" She hugged her old friend tightly, and kissed his wife on the cheek before letting them in.
"Mulţumesc, mulţumesc," Alex nodded with a broad, happy smile on his face. "You speak some Romanian still!"
"Oh, not much I'm afraid, most of it is gone," she said and led them towards the dining table.
"This is Rupert," she introduced Giles who shook his hand with the couple, and they all sat down.
All in all it was a wonderful evening. It was oddly relaxing, listening to the three of them talking about what was new in the wizarding world, or reminiscing about their youth, or talking about the acquaintances they had in common. As it turned out Elisabeth, who was about three years younger than Helen and whom she had vaguely known back from her schooldays, was now working at the Ministry in London, in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office, alongside Arthur Weasley. In fact it was Arthur who had told Elisabeth about Helen living in California, so that Alex was able to contact her before starting his concert tour.
They all had a simple, but very pleasant dinner that Giles - being quite an accomplished cook compared to his companion - had prepared for them, and after a few glasses of vine Helen asked Alex to sing some of her old favourite songs for her at the piano, while Giles was quizzing Elisabeth about her work and about the Muggle Artefacts that got "misused" by witches and wizards.
It was way past midnight, and Alex just finished singing Linden Lea, leaving Giles strangely aching for seeing again his parents' summerhouse in Dorset where he had spent every summer before his "destiny" had caught up with him and he was sent to the Watchers Academy.
Helen had put a sound-cancelling spell on the flat so the neighbours wouldn't be disturbed. But it was time for the last song anyway. She now left the piano and returned to sit next to Giles on the sofa.
"Sing Silent noon, and then you can go," she said to Alex while suppressing a yawn.
Giles looked at her slightly taken aback, thinking that might have been a bit rude on Helen's part, but apparently Alex either didn't mind or didn't really notice, or was simply used to such treatment on Helen's part back from their childhood.
"Alright, so be it, but I'll sit down if you allow, I feel like I've been on my feet for hours," Alex said and sat down on the armrest of the armchair in which Elisabeth was seated, and placed his hand fondly on her back.
Helen made a lazy gesture with her arms that probably meant she didn't care whether he would sing standing, sitting or while making a headstand, just as long as he would sing this one last piece for them.
He smiled down at his wife, took a deep breath, and his clear tenor began to fill the quiet room.
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace...
Helen had laid her head back and slightly turned towards Giles, but the look in her eyes clearly told him that she wasn't seeing him, and her mind was somewhere else. She looked so... peaceful, and content, and – even at the end of this long and wearisome day – simply beautiful. The top of her blouse was open, just enough for him to see the little notch between her collarbones. The right corner of his mouth went up a little and his cheeks felt warmer all of a sudden: he remembered the quiet moan that had escaped her when he had kissed her there the other night. She had put her feet up on the coffee table, the transparent stockings were reflecting the light from the fireplace on a tiny spot right below her left knee, her small hand lay on the sofa just few inches from his. He didn't touch it, but he thought that he knew exactly how it would feel, knew exactly just how warm it would be if he did.
... when twofold silence was the song of love.
AN: Thank you for reading, next chapter with the cruciamentum, and some more unfolding action/drama already in progress. As always – review, comment, criticize, suggest, ask.
