AN: A kinda short one for anyone still reading. Enjoy! And please review - criticisms and grammar police are welcome! Song at the end: Gravity - Sara Bareilles
Giles sat for half an hour on the cold floor oblivious to all but the deeply breathing woman lying on the bed beside him. He pulled the blue coverlet over her body when she shivered, careful not to catch the row of stitches on her thigh and careful not to let his eyes wander where they shouldn't. His eyes wandered over her beautiful face and the ache in his chest doubled up at not knowing what she'd been through since he'd gone. She was sleeping the deep slumber of the exhausted.
When he finally became aware of the time, Giles' legs had also fallen asleep and his stomach protested mightily at its lack of food. He'd been on a plane for more than eleven hours and then in a taxi for an additional hour. He only stopped at his hotel long enough to check in and drop his bags on the bed before he was in another taxi heading toward the address written in loopy, feminine handwriting at the top right corner of a well worn envelope.
Giles stood slowly, stifling a groan of pain when that pins and needles sensation filled his legs. He began to walk around the room, glasses in one hand and the other in his hair again. This- this is where she lives? In this obscenely tiny flat? He couldn't reconcile his Buffy, bright and always larger than life, reduced to such living conditions.
To the right of the front door was a small kitchen; a two burner range, tiny fridge topped with an even tinier microwave, a minuscule countertop housing a small sink, and some shelves and cupboards. Directly beside the stove lay the door to the bathroom. He peeked his head inside. The shower was hardly large enough for a child, let alone an adult - at most three feet wide and long. An ancient looking sink and mirror sat next to the toilet and above, a little rectangular window was set into the wall. Below the sink lay an open tackle box full of medical supplies and a wastebasket filled with wrappers of used supplies and shredded, blood caked clothing.
The rest of the apartment was perhaps fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Giles stood again in the kitchen/entryway and he looked about, taking in the entire apartment in a few glances. Right next to the front door, Buffy's weapons chest. On the left wall- the little kitchen, the door to the bathroom, and beyond that, squeezed into the corner, a dresser and a short clothing rack stuffed with hanging shirts and other garments. Along the right hand wall- a desk and chair and a very large window covered in closed, but broken blinds, the midday sun fighting to wake the sleeping woman on the bed extending out from the curling iron headboard against the far wall. And that was all.
White painted brick walls, probably not up to code, a bare bulb on the ceiling, and a cold, concrete floor. No striped wallpaper or fluffy carpet. No girlish flowery bed spread or purple scarf covered lamp. The only two pictures on display stood in plain wooden frame on the desk. Joyce and Dawn in the house on Revello Drive. Willow, Xander, and Buffy joking around in the old library. There was no television, no computer. Only a small electric radio clock beside the picture frames.
Giles took a shuddering breath and leaned heavily against the front door in a state of shock. At least before he'd left the States, Buffy had been taking some steps at normalcy, at becoming her old self, despite the trauma of her resurrection. This place hardly held anything that resembled the vibrant, incredible, strong girl he had known once upon a time. Instead, Buffy's new home reflected a hard life, a hard woman, a person who had no time or energy for any frivolous pleasures. God, had he done this to her? And what the hell had been happening while he was gone? Why had no one told him? He removed his glasses again as his eyes filled with tears of frustration.
Slowly, Giles walked toward the bed again. He pulled up the desk chair and sat quietly upon it, studying Buffy's profile again. He'd wait, he decided. He'd wait here until she woke and then they'd talk. He'd find a way to help her, anything that was in his power to make happen, he would. Because whatever he had imagined he might find when packing his bags in front of a gaping Olivia, this was not it.
Buffy woke for the second time with a clear head. She'd had strange dreams where Giles had shown up at her door and held her closely, calling her darling. Buffy sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and stretched tentatively, stopping whens she felt the stitches pulling. Damn. She'd slept too long because of the sleeping pill and the stitches were probably partially healed over again. Sometimes Slayer healing wasn't all that great. She rolled over and froze.
Giles. On her chair. Sleeping.
Buffy rubbed her eyes again. He was still slouching there on the desk chair, glasses dangling from slack fingers under crossed arms, chin tilted forward onto his chest.
She stared. And then rubbed her eyes for a third time. Nope. Still there. Buffy's eyes tracked the scar on his forehead, the smidge of grey at his temples, the laugh lines on his face, the small earring on his ear, and the black stone on his pinky.
"Huh," she muttered, completely bemused. Buffy silently scooted closer to the edge of the bed and toward Giles. His neck would be sore whenever he woke up, but he was sleeping deeply. He was wearing a fitted blue sweater, belted jeans, and black shoes, his brown leather jacket rolled behind his back like a very ineffective pillow. He looked the same, but different in the way that people change subtly over time, so Buffy finally deduced that this Giles was probably not a hallucination. His hair was slightly longer, his skin a shade paler. He seemed thinner, possibly the same weight he had been the first time they'd met in the library. Though it was hard to tell since he used to wear so may layers back then.
Buffy blinked and looked down at herself. "Oh, great." Rolling out of bed she reached for a pair of yoga pants folded on the dresser and tiptoed into the bathroom, very carefully closing the door behind her.
Despite Buffy's attempt to shut it quietly, the squeak of the hinges startled him into dropping his glasses and waking him up. Immediately, he bent to retrieve them, groaning as his back protested. "Buffy?" He stood quickly, studying the room for a sign of her when he notice the bed was empty. "Buffy?" he asked louder.
After a moment, a muffled, "In here, Giles," sounded from the closed bathroom door. Then, he heard her hiss and curse and something metallic drop to the tile.
He was at the door in an instant. "Are you alright in there?" When she didn't answer and he couldn't hear anything he called again, "Buffy?" When there was still no answer, he tried the doorknob and the door swung open with a loud creak. Buffy sat on the closed toilet still clad only in her underwear and tanktop, wide eyes staring up at him in surprise, then with unnerving calm, a white towel wrapped around a hand. There on the floor lay a small knife and pair of dropped tweezers.
Wordlessly he knelt before her, picking up the dropped tools. He reached into the first aid box for an antibacterial wipe and cleaned them, her eyes on him all the while. Giles debated for a moment, but after making eye contact with Buffy and getting her unspoken permission, his fingers tentatively touched her thigh and began to gently remove the remaining stitches there as she cradled her sliced hand in its towel. He worked in silence on his knees in front of him as she watched him closely. After a time he leaned back on his heels, examining the already fading, pink scar on her leg. "Done," he announced briskly.
"There's a few more," she murmured.
Giles looked puzzled and searched the leg again. Until she lifted the hem of her white shirt. It was his turn for his eyes to widen in surprise. "Buffy - I-I don't thi-" but before he could stutter the end of his sentence, he saw them. There, on her pale, flat stomach, lay five black stitches that he'd observed earlier. Sighing and standing, he held out a free hand and she looked at him questioningly. "I can't remove those while you're sitting. You'll need to lie down."
She nodded and stood without his help. "I'll be out in a minute," she mumbled.
When she emerged from the bathroom, her palm sported a large bandage and she wore a pair of calf length, blue cotton pants. The room was steeped in heavy silence as she lay down on the bed beside Giles sitting in he desk chair.
He removed the rest of the stitches and put away the trash and the tools as she sat up. Giles perched on the edge of the chair again.
Their knees touched and they were facing each other, eyes locked on the other's eyes, searching, questioning. Their hands and fingers were suddenly entwined, neither knowing who reached for who and they were both smiling broadly in relief. After everything - despite everything, there was still this. Trust and affection, always there.
"When did you get in?" she asked.
"Oh, um." He checked his watch. "About 3 hours ago, I suppose."
"I'd offer you a place to stay, but," she shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head round the tiny space.
"Yes. It's very…"
"Postage stamp sized?" she tried to inject a bit of perkiness into her voice and was rewarded with a quirk of a smile from Giles.
"I was going to say cozy."
"So, where are you staying then?"
"The Holiday Inn off Main Street."
"Hm. Do they still have free waffles?"
Giles smiled again. "I didn't check, but I'll let you know."
Buffy hesitated, then asked cheerily, "And what brings you back to lovely Sunnydale, Mr. Giles?"
At this, he looked surprised and searched her face to see if she really didn't know. He held her hand a little tighter. "You, of course, Buffy."
"Me? What for?" She looked baffled. "Did Willow or Xander-" Her heart skipped a beat - did they tell him what happened with Warren?
"No, no!" he denied, thinking that she meant to ask if Willow or Xander had asked him to come back for her. "Actually, I haven't talked to them in months. I don't know how it got to be this way. No, I got your… your letter."
"My letter? You mean the tape? But I sent that forever ago."
Giles grimaced embarrassedly. "Olivia pointed out the date, otherwise I might not have known. I think your envelope must have fallen behind my desk and gotten lodged against the wall. I didn't find it until-" He checked his watch, still on GMT. "Approximately two days ago."
"And so you just, what? Hopped on the first flight you could get back to California?"
"I suppose that I did, yes." Buffy looked slightly taken aback.
"It wasn't anything I said on the tape, was it? Because, I thought I made it clear that I would take care of myself and-"
"No, Buffy. Well, in part, I guess that some of the things you had said worried me, but hearing your voice after so long… I- I needed to be on the next plane. To see you in person."
Buffy's emotions spun dizzyingly and it showed on her expressive face. "Wow," she murmured and Giles wondered if he should have prevaricated a bit. They sat, lost in their own thoughts for a short while, still hand in hand.
"And you, Buffy?" he asked tentatively. "I understand needing to sell your house, but what brings you to… to this place?"
The way he paused got her hackles up, hearing only criticism and not the concern he'd intended. "Well, it's like I explained in the tape." She shrugged, pulling her hands away and crossing her arms. "I needed money for bills and Dad wouldn't help, not really, so I took the neatest option. Sent Dawn to Dad, sold the house, used the money to pay bills and put a deposit down here. I don't need much space. It's just me, usually." Buffy could hear the defensiveness in her own voice, but she couldn't help it.
Giles heard it as well and said drily, "But surely, this flat can't be the most comfortable for you, let alone safety or cleanliness. This entire building is in disrepair. Couldn't you have stayed with Xander or Willow, or even Anya? At least until you were able to save enough to afford a better apartment."
Buffy laughed and the bitterness of it rattled him. "Are you kidding? You leave because you say you want me to stand on my own and now you're saying I should have leaned on my friends? The one's who have barely managed to hold their own lives together, might I add? Make up your mind," she spat.
"But surely could do better than this?" he argued, wanting to hear her reasons, not believing that she'd willingly choose to live here. "If you were looking for the worst part of town to live in, you've succeeded. The docks, honestly! No one respectable lives here. The building doesn't meet code. It's unsafe for you." She stared at him sardonically. "A-and there's mold. I-in the hallways."
"Unsafe? Really?" She shook her head angrily and stood up, striding across the room to stand near the front door. "You want me to find a 'safe,' in other words, unaffordable, tidy, little apartment while I throw myself at evil every night? What's the point? Whether from mold, demons, or asbestos-"
"Asbestos?" She glared him silent.
"I'm going to die soon, if not during some apocalypse, then probably on patrol when a random vamp gets lucky. Why waste my energy on pretending it's not gonna happen? And I'll have you know that there are plenty of perfectly nice, normal people living here! I may not be one of the nice, normal people, but I'm at least one of the good guys! How dare you come back after all this time and judge me? You have no right! You left me, remember?" Frustrated tears stung her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. "I would've asked y-" Buffy, catching herself, snapped her mouth shut.
He gazed up at her from his perch on the chair, mouth gaping, contrite and speechless at her tirade.
"You know what?" She laughed humorlessly. "It doesn't matter, because you're leaving now."
"Buffy, I-"
She attacked the locks and swung the door open violently. "Goodbye, Giles," she said pointedly, staring at him with hard eyes.
Lord, how had this gotten so out of hand? Giles made to move across the room to lay a comforting hand upon her, desperate to get back the fleeting moment of trust and tenderness that had evaporated all to quickly. "I'm sorr-
"Don't," she bit out harshly, averting her gaze from the door and from him.
So he stopped, hand in midair falling awkwardly to his side. "Alright." His voice was choked and he walked, head hung, past Buffy and into the hall. "But I'll be back later," he promised softly as the door clicked behind him and the locks slid into place.
AN: Hope you've enjoyed it so far - let me know what you think! REVIEW! ... Pretty please? ^_^
Gravity by Sara Bareilles
Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.
No matter what I say or do I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.
You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.
Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me.
You loved me 'cause I'm fragile.
When I thought that I was strong.
But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.
Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me.
I live here on my knees as I try to make you see
That you're everything I think I need here on the ground.
But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go.
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down.
You're on to me, on to me, and all over...
Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.