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Nov. 5th, 2005 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyHarrogate Part Fourteen
Giles had been subconsciously awaiting the arrival of the police for some time. It made sense to him that the moors would have been staked out while these murders were taking place, and the dead policeman seemed to confirm it. Surely there should have been the wail of sirens, the blare of loud hailers, a demand for them all to put down their extremely lethal weapons and come quietly? But the silence just rolled on around them as Wesley went around the site of the proposed ritual methodically consecrating the earth to render it useless for any more demonic sacrifices. Every demon monk had been banished into a gust of blue flame now, all the fires put out – Gunn had methodically kicked the circle out of existence and then stamped on the sparks before they could ignite the moor, before he and Giles between them had levered the stake out of the ground and laid it flat. Even with Wesley’s herb sprinkling and solemn intonation of spells, it seemed only prudent to make the place look less inviting to those who were drawn to making midnight sacrifices.
Only as they turned away from the wreckage of the ritual site, a shivering Willow wrapped in Giles’ jacket and still chafing her bruised wrists, did Giles see the pale flash of skin under the shadow of a looming rock. The blue-white beam of Gunn’s flashlight was directed ahead of them, like an eager gundog quartering the moor, but there was enough starlight for Giles to catch a glimpse of what seemed to be a dark-coated figure watching them. For a moment he wondered if it was Angel and then the man stepped forward and opened his coat so that Giles could see the silver flash of an official badge. Then the man nodded to him and gave him a thumbs up before stepping back into the shadow of the rocks, leaving Giles with the distinct impression that their intervention had somehow been expected and they had not let their presumably friendly observer down.
In days past he would have thought it the work of Quentin Travers – so completely up the man’s street to be a spectator to events to which most normal people would feel the need to intervene – but Travers had died along with the other Watchers who had been in the Council Headquarters at the time of the explosion. There was no one else who worked for the Watchers’ Council who would waste his time in such frivolity, not now when they were so overburdened with Slayers and left with so few Watchers. Giles wondered what the police did in areas of mystical convergence where it was known that things did indeed go bump in the night and where they were not under orders from a corrupt Mayor to pretend that everything was all right. Did they try to battle demonic phenomena themselves? Or did they rely on others to tackle those particular problems while they dealt with their own? The latter approach argued a certain pragmatism that seemed in keeping with the man in the shadows, but the dead constable on the moor suggested that although they might have hoped for some supernatural agency to deal with the problem of demon monks raising creatures of the damned dimensions – supposing they had even been able to realize that was what they were up against – they had also wanted to try to prevent any more women from dying by more practical intervention.
Giles decided that he would watch very carefully any statement put out by the Harrogate police in the next few days and try to gain a clue into what their relationship might be with the supernatural – flat out denial, non-combative acceptance, or warriors in a losing battle for which they were perhaps seeking allies.
He bustled Willow into the car, still scolding her as he did so yet doing up her seatbelt for her in case her arms were stiff. “I’m very sorry,” she said penitently, not for the first time.
“You didn’t know,” Gunn told her. “You had all that magic mojo. You figured you had it covered. We’ve all been there. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve gone into a battle thinking me and my crew were taking on six vamps when it was closer to twenty…”
“Yes, that’s very reassuring, Gunn. That will make me feel so much better next time I go into battle with you.” Giles started the engine. When he looked into the rearview mirror, Wesley’s hair was looking even more unkempt from the wind and his being knocked down by a murderous demon monk, but his eyes looked perfectly sane and when it mattered he had functioned with perfect efficiency.
“I am very grateful to you both for your assistance this evening,” Giles added. “Without your fighting abilities, Gunn, and Wesley’s perseverance in translating that spell book after no encouragement from the rest of us, Willow would undoubtedly be dead by now.”
Gunn shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to mix it up with some demons anyway, and it’s not like we don’t owe Willow big time. Isn’t that right, Wes?”
He nudged Wesley gently in the ribs and the man looked up at Willow and gave her a kind smile. “Yes, indeed. We were glad we could help and we still owe Willow for giving back Angel his soul.”
Gunn bit his lip. “And saving our lives, Wes? She did that too, remember?”
“Oh yes.” Wesley seemed a little less grateful for that. “That was very…kind of her too.”
Willow said tentatively. “Did I mention being sorry – and grateful not to be all crispy crittered? Very, very grateful.”
“Yes, Willow, I believe you did.” Giles switched on the engine of the car, and the headlights beamed into the darkness, giving colour back to grass and tumps of stone, shining on the comforting normality of waste paper basket. “Now, let’s go home.”
***
Willow woke to the sunlight pouring in from the open door of her bedroom. She could hear the sounds of traffic, engines turning over as cars waited in a line for the lights to change. Alicia must have awoken to exactly these sounds, and now she never would again, but at least no more witches would die so that Narcoriel could be raised.
“No thanks to me, of course.”
Willow sat upright, and realized she was very stiff, that her wrists still ached, and so did her throat – that would be from the screaming – and she had evidently slept on the couch for the second night running. She turned her head with difficulty – her neck was locked up tight – and there was Giles, dozing, with his glasses askew, and his mouth slightly open. His chest rose and fell under the blood-spattered shirt in which he had evidently fallen asleep and she realized she was still wearing his jacket. She would have liked to give him a hug, but that would wake him up and he looked so peaceful. If she’d had a camera she would have taken a picture of him so she could email it to Buffy to show her that he really was alive and well. There were no words for how much she would have liked a photograph of Xander doing just that right now, but there was no one to take photographs of Xander at the moment except Xander himself, and that was a difficult thing to do when one was asleep.
She imagined how it would have been if Anya had gone with him; with what mixture of exasperation and fondness she would have received those odd little postcards from her:
Xander tells me that it’s traditional to send small cards to one’s friends, featuring a picture of somewhere considerably more picturesque than the place where the recipient is currently living. He says this is not to make them envious but I am mistrustful of this information. Today we visited a village that was very dusty and had many poor people in it who did not understand English or possess televisions. They have clearly not grasped the importance of Capitalism. A few miles from here I once wreaked vengeance upon a local chieftain who was unfaithful to his third wife. There are still scorch marks on some of the trees. I am hoping that we can visit the site so that I may take photographs. I hope that you are continuing to have lesbian sex on a regular basis as all medical practitioners now agree that frequent orgasms are good for the blood pressure. I am continuing to have sex on a regular basis, but not the lesbian kind. I am having sex with Xander, sometimes under the stars, which is not as romantic as it sounds, on account of the insects and also the lions, which can roar at inappropriate moments.
She had never expected to miss Anya, but she did. It was horrible to think of her still under all that rubble with no way of retrieving her body so that she could be buried properly. Xander had said it didn’t matter where her body was, she was still with him, in his memories and his heart; but it helped to have a grave to sit beside and mourn sometimes. That reminded her…
She showered and changed into clean clothes as quickly and as quietly as she could, not wanting to disturb Giles who was still drowsing on the couch. Sounds from the teashop downstairs told her that Judith and Jean were already hard at work. The quiet murmur of Gunn and Wesley’s voices told her they would soon be waking up Giles and arguing about who got to shower first, so she slipped downstairs.
“Would you like a breakfast tray?” Judith asked her kindly.
“I’d love one in about fifteen minutes,” Willow admitted. “The men are still getting up.”
“Cathy next door said you came in late last night.” There was a question in the woman’s eyes and Willow beckoned to her to sit down and beckoned to Jean too.
“Yes, we did. We were up on the moor.” Ever since she stepped into the shower, she had been trying to think of the right compromise between the truth and an answer that would satisfy without demanding too many questions. Giles had been able to tell Miranda the whole truth last night but most people couldn’t comprehend the whole truth about demons and sacrifice and dark magic. Saying that the people who killed Alicia were dead would make Giles and Gunn look like murderers and saying that the killers were in police custody would make them look out for a trial that was never going to happen.
Judith’s eyes widened and she reached out to take Willow’s hand. “You got them?”
Picking her words carefully, Willow said: “The…people who killed Alicia, Dora, Karin and Mary were…well, they were practising black magic. They had a spellbook and they were trying to summon a demon.”
“Crazy people,” Jean said.
Willow thought it was interesting that Judith didn’t agree with her. “Not entirely crazy. Some magic does work. I know we’re told it doesn’t, but it does, sometimes. And it’s very dangerous. Wesley found a book that could stop their spells from working and the people who killed Alicia, their spell…went wrong, and the magic they’d been trying to make with the blood of the people they had killed…killed them.”
Jean said: “Good” emphatically just as Judith said: “Serves them right, if you ask me.”
“I think it did too. But there won’t be a trial on account of them all being…well, basically, little piles of ash. They killed a policeman too, so that will be in the paper, but I think the police will have to say that the case is unsolved because of the little piles of ash factor, but it isn’t, I promise you. They really are dead.”
Judith enveloped her in a warm hug while Jean said that she was going to make some waffles for ‘Mr Gunn’ as a reward. “Bought the waffle iron yesterday,” she said triumphantly. “And I’ve found a wonderful recipe for the batter.”
Willow thought that her chances of getting Gunn to embrace an alien culture and learn to enjoy toast and marmalade had just dwindled alarmingly if Jean was going to pander to his every need. She’d be making him hamburgers and hot dogs any minute instead of teaching him to enjoy oxtail soup. From the kitchen Jean triumphantly held aloft a brightly-coloured hardcover book with the title: ‘It’s All American Food’.
“I’m sure Gunn would learn to like egg and cress sandwiches and bread and butter pudding if we just persevered a little longer,” she said hopefully.
“Break him in gently, maybe.” Judith took one of the sugar cubes from the bowl and crunched on it thoughtfully. “Don’t want to frighten him off with spotted dick too soon, do we?” She lowered her voice to add: “Are he and Mr Giles’s brother…?”
It took Willow a moment to work out who she was referring to. “You mean Wesley? Oh he’s not Giles’ brother. They just…used to work together and then Wesley’s family were…” Mystically comatose before ascending to a higher plane; hollowed out by an Old One; either dust in an alley or rescued by higher powers who need them to be their champions… “Um…in an accident. And his father’s very…scary. So, Giles thought he ought to look after him and Gunn until they were better.”
Judith nodded. “Was it a car crash? With them both being injured, Jean and I thought it was probably a car crash.”
Willow thought about Connor and Wolfram & Hart and the Senior Partners and Cyrus Vail and the Circle of the Black Thorn and all the decisions they’d made to take them to the point where she had been needed to snatch them back from death. “More like a trainwreck really.”
“Did a lot of people die?”
She thought about what those fifty thousand demons of the apocalypse could have done to Los Angeles. “Less than you’d think.”
“So, are they…?”
It took her a moment to remember the first question. “Oh. I don’t think so. Although that doesn’t mean they won’t be…later.” She thought of how much she’d loved Oz; how if he hadn’t left she might have stayed with him forever and never known about this other side of herself. Or would she have loved Tara anyway? Would they have started to exchange looks in that wannabe wicca group and felt the connection and…? She supposed she’d never know now. “I don’t think they think of each other like that, but that doesn’t mean…”
Judith nodded sagely. “My sister’s youngest boy ran off with the milkman. I never knew men did that too. Not milkmen. A nice florist or a hairdresser, but you don’t expect it from a milkman. Had a wife and a baby too. It was quite the scandal around here. They’re living in Leeds now.”
“Oh.” Willow thought about it for a moment, trying to banish the unwanted image of Anya in a milkmaid costume that had come into her mind. “We don’t have milkmen.”
“Just as well maybe if that’s what can happen.” Judith rose to her feet. “I’m only asking about it because my middle daughter’s single at the moment. She was wondering…about Mr Gunn and Mr Giles’ brother… So, they’re really not brothers?”
“No. They could be distant cousins though. Giles thought there could be a connection on his mother’s side.”
Judith grimaced. “Perhaps I should just tell her he is gay. I mean a maybe’s no use to a girl, is it?”
Willow tried to envisage a time when Gunn wouldn’t be obsessively protective of Wesley and Wesley wouldn’t need to keep him in sight to be certain he wasn’t a hallucination. “Probably best.”
By the time she carried the laden tray upstairs in triumph, the men were all awake and much cleaner than the last time she had seen them. Gunn had apparently got Wesley into the shower and cleaned up and out of it again and was now towelling his hair dry while Wesley looked as if he would really like him to stop.
“Not six, remember?” she reminded him.
Gunn put the towel into Wesley’s hands a little guiltily. “Sorry, man.”
“I like your clothes, Wesley,” she told him brightly. She didn’t add that she particularly liked the way his grey t-shirt was a good inch longer than his green sweater as it looked so cute.
Wesley looked down at his ensemble in guarded approval. “They’re from before.”
“He wore this to get rid of the Thesulac,” Gunn explained. “It was in his suitcase.” As Wesley looked at him in confusion, he added hastily: “Not the Thesulac, the clothes.”
Gunn was wearing sweatpants and a baseball jersey while Giles was wearing jeans and a soft blue sweater. Willow noticed that she was also wearing jeans and a soft blue sweater, which was going to make them look even more like relatives than usual. They really were going to have to stop unconsciously coordinating. “Look what Jean made for you.” She wafted the tray under Gunn’s nose and he lit up.
“Waffles?”
“And maple syrup. She’s got a book of American cookery just for you. Oh, and Judith’s daughter was interested in you.”
Gunn brightened even more. “Really?”
“But I told Judith to tell her you were gay.”
“You…what?”
“It seemed less complicated than trying to explain that you need to take care of Wesley because you’re the only thing he thinks may possibly not be a hallucination,” she explained, putting the tray down on the table.
“Yeah, but…” Gunn pouted rather prettily. “You couldn’t come up with…I don’t know…something cool…?”
She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t think being gay is cool?”
He seemed to realize belatedly what he’d said. “I mean…sure it’s cool, I mean, I’m cool with the gay thing and it’s cool, it’s just…there are things that are cooler.”
“Such as?”
“Being a secret agent who can’t get involved with anyone in case they get murdered by Russian spies.”
Giles sighed heavily. “Wouldn’t telling everyone that you’re a secret agent somewhat invalidate the ‘secret’ part of your pretend profession?”
Willow nodded. “Exactly. You’d be much more likely to have a cover story that you’re gay so as to avoid the whole girlfriend being murdered by Russian spies thing. Are we still spying on the Russians anyway? Because I didn’t think they were doing much except queuing for bread and building a semi-capitalist post-communist infrastructure?”
Wesley looked at Gunn curiously. “When did you become a secret agent?”
“He’s not a secret agent,” Willow assured him. “He’s just unavoidably gay.”
“Well, when did you become gay?” Wesley’s eyes widened. “It was Jasmine, wasn’t it?”
“No, Wes. Willow’s just…making shit up, okay? So we don’t have to beat the girls off with a stick when they come after us, which they would otherwise do. On account of us being so hot and studly.”
Wesley looked down at his protruding inch of t-shirt in some confusion. “We are?”
“Yeah, not to mention irresistibly gorgeous.”
“But not secret agents?”
“No.”
“Or gay?”
“I think the jury’s still out on that one, Wesley.” Giles reached across to help himself to a buttered crumpet. “You know why anyone would prefer a tasteless grid-section of batter to a nice buttered crumpet is completely beyond me.”
Gunn bit into his waffle and said through ecstatic chewing: “You stick to your food, Henry Higgins, and I’ll stick to mine.”
Willow let them eat until she judged their blood sugar was now back at a level where they could concentrate – she had years of practice at gauging that with Xander and believed herself adept enough to estimate it to within three decimal points of a Twinkie. Then she moved the teapot over, cleared a space on the centre of the table and put the box down. It was odd to look up and find those three pairs of eyes fixed on her so curiously: brown eyes, green eyes, and blue eyes all focused absolutely on her cardboard box. If only the boys had focused on her emerging bosom with that much attention in High School she would have avoided all those insecurity issues.
She reached in and picked up the piece of amber. “This is mine.” She handed Giles the amethyst. “This is yours.” She carefully placed the strand of gold trapped in white quartz down beside the butter dish. “This is for Xander, when he comes back.” The black tourmaline looked no less beautiful in the morning sunlight streaming in through the window of Gunn and Wesley’s bedroom than it had in the store. “Hold out your hands, Wesley.” He did so, his obedience still taking her by surprise; occasionally catching disconcerting glimpses behind this unshaven haggard ghost of that shiny brylcreemed young man with the briefcase. He gazed at the tourmaline with the same lack of comprehension that his earlier self would have shown if she had placed it in his hands. “Hold it up to the light,” she told him gently.
He did so, letting the light pour through it, revealing the purple inside the black, the soul inside the shadow. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
It was a relief that he thought so too. One could never tell if men were capable of comprehending the world in the same way as women sometimes. She handed Gunn the brilliant red cluster of vanadinite crystals. “You two get more,” she explained, handing him the green malachite and Wesley the blue lapis.
“Thank you.” Wesley looked at them with a little boy’s fascination. “I had a bit of a rock collection when I was a child. I inherited some from my grandfather and my father let me pick them up when we went on field trips because they’re useful for spells. I just liked the way they looked. My second cousin, Lionel, collected birds’ eggs. He always was a beastly little toad. He used to give me Chinese burns just because he was bigger than me. He fell out of a tree trying to steal the eggs from a tawny owl’s nest and broke both his legs. I probably should have felt sorry for him but I remember feeling terribly pleased. My father couldn’t bear him either. I think it was the only thing we ever agreed on. Well, that, and that I would never amount to anything.” He held the tourmaline up to the light again, seeming to enjoy just watching the sunlight stream through it. “This is better than anything I ever had though. I only had a tiny piece of tourmaline and it wasn’t this colour.” He didn’t understand yet, but he liked them anyway, which was nicer somehow.
She handed Gunn the bright sulphur and saw his eyes widen as he looked between the red, the green and the yellow that he now held. “I get you,” he said.
“Do you?”
He held up the vanadinite. “Cordy.” The malachite. “Lorne.” The sulphur. “Spike.”
“And this is Jenny.” Giles was still holding the amethyst gently in his hand. “And the amber is Tara.”
“Yes.” She gave Wesley the tektite. “It’s because they don’t have graves. Not even Jenny and Tara any more, since Sunnydale was destroyed. Because we don’t have any one place to go to remember them. So, I thought we could have a little rock garden for them.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “Is this…? Is this really…?” He held it out to Giles. “Look…”
“Good Lord.” Giles lifted up his glasses to look under them. “Is that tektite?”
“Yes.” She beamed proudly. “From Texas.”
Wesley had been marvelling at the red showing through the glassy black surface, inviting Giles to admire its weight, but now he looked up at her in shock. “It’s Fred?”
“Yes. It’s something you can remember her by and hold when you want to think about her.”
He had gone very still but now looked at her without any confusion or sign of disorientation; for the first time she felt as if he was really seeing her, as a fellow human being, not some strange blip on his radar who had no business being there, but as another person. She could almost see his logic circuits assessing and discarding the possibility of making this part of a hell punishment, unable to think of any reason why she should do this for him if she were not, in fact, real, when it was clearly something that had never occurred to him and so could not be a projection. He closed his hand on the tektite. “Thank you.”
Holding the tektite against his chest he looked back at the tourmaline and lapis. “This is Angel. This is Illyria.” He leaned across to look at Gunn’s crystals. “Cordelia, Lorne. Spike.”
“Everyone who isn’t here with you that you miss.” She felt a little silly now that the crystals were sitting there being pieces of coloured rock. “I just thought it might help.”
Gunn held up the vanadinite. “Man, Cordy would have loved this.”
Willow grimaced. “I don’t know. I think she’d probably rather be remembered by a pair of Manola Blahniks, but it was the best I could find.”
Giles opened his hand to reveal the amethyst. “Thank you, Willow. It does – help, I mean.”
“Yes.” Wesley was still looking at her as if she had only just come into focus. “It really does.”
They spent half an hour arguing about where to site the tank until finally agreeing that it should go on the breakfast bar between the kitchen and the living space, where it would get the evening light flowing through it. Gunn liked the idea of filling the tank with water but Giles had to point out that their crystals would very quickly get covered in green algae if they did, and Anya’s white quartz in particular would quickly lose its purity. Then there were more discussions about which crystal should go in which position. Giles didn’t want Jenny’s amethyst on the same side of the tank as Angel’s tourmaline and Gunn was adamant that Spike and Angel had to be kept separate. “Cause otherwise we’re going to find those rocks have been kicking gravel at each other while we’re asleep.”
They all looked at him but it was Wesley who said gently: “They’re not really them, Gunn. They’re just symbolic.”
Gunn took the vanadinite from him. “Cordy would want to be with Angel. Illyria can be with Spike.”
“She used to tread on his head,” Wesley pointed out.
“Then she can definitely be with Spike.” Giles put the sulphur firmly next to the lapis.
“Lorne needs to be with Fred, and Fred needs to be near to Cordelia.” Wesley moved the crystals a pernickety fraction of an inch from how Gunn had them arranged.
“Jenny should be with Tara and Anya.” Willow reached into the tank and placed the amber next to the amethyst, her sleeve catching on the top of the tank as she did so.
She looked up to find Giles wincing at the bruises on her wrists. Rubbing them self-consciously, she added: “Still grateful for not being dead, by the way.”
Wesley gazed at the bruises intently and then reached out a forefinger to touch the skin very gently. “It feels hot.”
“I think there’s more to come out,” she explained. “They weren’t respecting my personal space when they were tying those ropes.”
Wesley rolled up his own sleeves to reveal excessively bony but unbruised forearms. “That’s how I knew Angelus wasn’t real.”
Willow was gazing in fascination at the jut of his painfully thin wrist and didn’t at once understand the reason for Gunn’s sharp intake of breath.
“What?” Gunn demanded.
Wesley glanced up at him. “When he grabbed me, it hurt, but there weren’t any bruises, so I knew he couldn’t be real.”
“You mean if I’d just…? When I’d wanted to if I’d only…” Gunn took Wesley by the shoulders and moved him into the centre of the room, Wesley obediently shuffling after him in some confusion. “Giles…?” Gunn added.
Giles looked up. “What?”
“Catch him.”
And then Gunn had punched Wesley so hard that Giles only just grabbed him before he went slamming into the wall. Holding onto a dazed Wesley who was feeling the left side of his face in shock, Giles said angrily: “What the hell are you playing at?”
Gunn shook his hand, knuckles evidently stinging. “I’m doing what I should have done a week ago. Thanks for catching him.” He grabbed Wesley by the front of the sweater and yanked him towards the bathroom.
Willow saw Giles’s expression echoing her own feelings of shocked disbelief, and they both hurried to cram into the bathroom after Gunn before he did something else inexplicably cruel to Wesley.
Gunn had hold of Wesley by the shoulders and had shoved him in front of the mirror. “Can you see it?”
Wesley looked over his shoulder at him in confusion. “You hit me.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“Good. That means you know it was real. Now look at your face.” When Wesley continued to give him a look of reproach, Gunn turned his head and made him face the bathroom mirror. “Do you see the mark?”
Wesley tentatively touched his bruised cheekbone. “Yes. Ow…” He snatched his fingers away and Willow saw that it was already mottling, the skin a little scraped and showing the crimson foreshadowing of what was clearly going to be a spectacular bruise. “Why did you hit me?”
“This is why.” Gunn leaned forward and tapped the reflection where the bruise was. “Angelus didn’t leave a bruise because he wasn’t real. I just did. What does that make me?”
Wesley’s eyes widened and Willow thought she could see the light of some conviction in them. He touched his cheekbone again, pressing his fingers against it to feel the pain, wincing but smiling at the same time, face lit up. He gave a half-choke, half-laugh of absolute relief. “Real. It makes you real.” He pressed it and winced again. “And a bit of a bastard.”
Gunn grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around, Wesley flinching in anticipation of another blow, before he was pulled into Gunn’s arms and hugged within an inch of his life. Gunn beamed at them over his shoulder. “He said I was real.”
Giles smiled despite himself, taking off his glasses to say: “You two really are incredibly wearing company, you know.”
“Hey, it’s part of our charm.” Gunn assured him. He straightened Wesley back up. “So, tell me again, what am I?”
“You’re real.” Wesley half-smiled. “And still a bit of a bastard.”
“And are you dead or alive?”
“Alive.”
“And are you in a hell dimension or are you in the English market town of Harrogate?” Gunn said ‘English market town of Harrogate’ in his best Giles voice.
“Harrogate.” Wesley was definitely smiling now. He already looked more solid, as if reality had been waiting until this moment to flow through him.
“Now, do Giles and Willow have to belt you as well or are you going to believe they’re real too?”
As he looked at them warily, Willow waved to him. “I could just stick a pin in you if you like. I could use a small one.”
Giles put his glasses back on. “I’m perfectly happy to hit you, Wesley. It would be no trouble at all.”
“No, that’s fine.” Wesley felt his bruised cheekbone again. “If Gunn says you’re real I’m sure you are.”
Giles smiled again, looking five years younger than he had the night before. “I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you? And perhaps some kind of discussion about what we do next?”
“What do you mean?” Gunn was already getting arnica out of the bathroom cabinet, smacking Wesley’s hands out of the way when he tried to take it from him and tilting his head up. “You can’t see, let me do it.” As he put the ointment onto the bruise with surprisingly gentle fingers, he held Giles’s gaze. “I guess you mean us going our separate ways?”
“No, actually.” Giles was still smiling quietly to himself. “I wasn’t thinking of that at all. Why don’t we all go and sit down and have another cup of tea and then perhaps you could listen to my business proposition?”
“Does it involve hitting me?” Wesley winced as Gunn finished applying ointment to his bruise.
“Only if you’re more than usually annoying,” Giles assured him. “It involves us obtaining a commission from the Watchers’ Council to set up a covert operation to investigate an area of mystical convergence.”
At the words ‘mystical convergence’ Wesley looked even more as if he had finally come home. “Like outside the Hyperion?”
“Yes, but smaller and less commercialised.”
Giles waved them onto the couch and Willow glanced along at Gunn and Wesley’s faces, relieved to see they were looking like she was feeling – as if their eccentric guardian might be about to tell them all that he had arranged for them to have a wonderful field trip to Siberia to look for frozen mammoth remains, and as an extra special treat had decided they could all sleep in the open and live off canned sardines.
“What kind of covert operation?” Gunn demanded. “What are we looking for?”
Giles shrugged. “The usual things that go bump in the night. We know from that revealing spell that there is certainly no shortage of them around here. And we also know that those in need used to have people they could turn to in times of supernatural difficulty who are no longer available.”
Willow and Gunn exchanged a glance. “Dora and Karin,” Willow said.
It was Wesley who said: “The bookshop.”
“Yes.” Giles beamed at him almost paternally. “A gold star for Wesley.”
“We work better for food,” Gunn told him.
Giles didn’t miss a beat, opening the biscuit tin and proffering it. “A chocolate digestive for Wesley then.”
“When did you think of this?” Willow demanded.
“When I was in the bookshop. It was clear from what Beth told us that people had got into the habit of relying on Dora and Karin to help them in times of difficulty, and it was very obvious from the feel of that place that it had been carefully situated over an area of no inconsiderable mystical power. I suspect it’s been a gathering place for witches for centuries. And it’s obvious that the moors attract all manner of supernatural entities, both positive and negative. I think we could do good here, and although I may be wrong, I imagine that’s what we all want to do most of all – for the sake of those that are gone, and those that remain – do good.”
Still holding his chocolate digestive, Wesley looked up at Giles as if he had also just come into focus. “Yes.”
“Yes, you think it’s a good idea?”
“Yes, but...” Wesley turned to Gunn, abruptly full of doubt that the man might not agree with him. It was clear that however much he liked the idea of having their own bookstore to play in, not to mention the added bonus of an area of mystical convergence to investigate, that to do so was unthinkable without the company of Gunn.
Gunn looked at him in surprise. “Yeah, sure. Why not? If there’s one demon-raising cult around here there are probably others. You sure the Watchers’ Council are going to pay up though, cause I don’t think Wes and I can buy a bookstore out of what we’ve got in loose change?”
“As one of their most senior surviving members I can pretty much guarantee it,” Giles assured him. “Besides, mystical convergence and meeting point for witches aside, the Council has never been able to resist a chance to get its fingers on more sacred grimoires and that shop had several.”
Gunn got up and poured them all another cup of tea from the pot. It was now very diluted with water and not particularly hot, but he solemnly handed them all a cup of brownish liquid and then held up his own. “To the Tea Shop Detectives.”
“Soon to be the Bookstore Detectives,” Willow clunked her cup against his.
“Bookshop Detectives,” Giles corrected pedantically. “You’re in England now.”
Gunn rolled his eyes but touched his cup to Willow’s again. “To the Bookshop Detectives.”
“And to not being dead and the three of you being real,” Wesley added quietly.
Gunn reached out and ruffled his hair gently. “Yeah, man, I’ll definitely drink to that.”
***
The moor felt clearer today, bright as a new day after thunder, the smell of sulphur and burnt hair no longer carried on the breeze. Giles was grateful for the sunlight and the birdsong, and for the stillness; no tourists up here today after the newspaper headlines of yet another slaying; each front page carrying a picture of the dead policeman. Someone else he had been too late to save. There would always be those. Part of the burden of joining the battle was that one didn’t get to avert one’s eyes from the fallen; each death feeling like a failure, while each life saved could sometimes be forgotten. It was always the fixed gaze of the dead, not the grateful smiles of the living, whose memory lingered longest.
Thinking of all the patience he hadn’t used on Wesley when he probably should have done, he had been a little nicer to Andrew than usual when putting in his call for the Council to arrange to buy the Black Cat Bookshop. Perhaps as a consequence Andrew had been a little more efficient, getting back to him in a surprisingly short time to say that the Council lawyers were finding oddly few impediments to the sale, and that the executors of the dead women had even seemed to expect their call. On another day that would have surprised Giles more, but he was still thinking about that flash of an official badge out of the darkness, to let him know that their actions had been observed and apparently had met with no criticism.
It had felt as if they had been expected on that moor as well. Not them specifically, but what they represented; replacements for the women who had been lost. Perhaps that was why Cordelia had been allowed to interfere. While she had been rebelliously lending Willow the power to bring back Wesley from the dead, perhaps the Higher Powers who had been pulling Angel’s strings for so long, had been deliberately turning a blind eye. They had let Doyle die as part of his own destiny, knowing that another would carry the visions for Angel, another would help bind him to humanity. Not unlike the Senior Partners, the Powers had an unappealing tolerance for human death as part of the machinery of their grand design. It had evidently mattered that someone took Dora and Karin’s place, yet had not mattered if they themselves were lost. No doubt Gunn and Wesley would have been considered equally unimportant and replaceable had Cordelia not insisted that even if they were pawns they should still be allowed to stay in the game.
The dark cleft between the rocks in which Alicia had died still chilled him, but he had brought a thermos to ward off the inevitable cold.
Before Giles had left them all to their celebration of Wesley’s acceptance of them as real people and not hallucinations, Gunn had already been complaining about the weather. “This is summer, right? This is the warm part of your year? And this is as hot as it gets?” What did the man expect in Yorkshire? Giles had tried to tell him that it could be worse, they could have found themselves in the Hebrides, but Gunn had been unconvinced, muttering darkly about what kind of a country it was when you had to wear a sweater in June.
Giles realized he had no idea about the living accommodation over the bookshop, or if it would be remotely suitable for four unrelated people, who may intend to have future romantic relationships with people they had not yet met. When he thought of the inconvenience of Gunn and Wesley making sheep’s eyes at various women, not to mention more total strangers having to be introduced into their new family unit, he almost hoped those two did turn out to be gay, which would at least stop them bringing any potentially irritating or dangerous women home. Willow was the only person of his acquaintance whose chosen partners had not been demonic or irritating. Oz had admittedly been a werewolf, and occasioned some inconvenience on three days of the month, but compared with Angel and Spike he had been an absolute breeze. Riley had been very little trouble as well, despite working for that hellish Walsh woman. Tara had been so perfect a surrogate in-law that he should have known from the start that she was doomed, while Kennedy had been robust, confident and sensible. Nor had she been in any way a vampire. Perhaps it was just as well that he and Buffy were on different continents while she was dating the Immortal. He would have found it almost impossible to hide his disapproval.
He would hope for four bedrooms but settle for three. No doubt it was selfish, but he was at the age when a certain amount of selfishness seemed entirely acceptable to him, and the truth was that he didn’t care if Wesley and Gunn had to share or didn’t share a bedroom, as long as he had one to himself.
He gazed between the rocks again, having to steel himself to do it. Light had found its way only a little distance between the shadows, but some of the brimstone feel was gone; the spell attempted here entirely banished, and only the faintest scent of scorched earth remaining.
Giles said quietly: “Alicia, I came to say that I was sorry for my part in teaching you witchcraft. I’m sorry for all the times that I wasn’t there when you may have needed me. And I’m most sorry of all for not being here, in this place, when you needed to be saved and no one came. But I’m so very grateful for having known you and for every hour I got to spend with you, and I know your mother is, too. I miss you and I hope you’ve moved on to something better, but just in case there’s some part of you still lingering here, I thought I’d say goodbye, and do this…”
He unscrewed the lid of his thermos and poured out a cup of tea, taking a refreshing sip before opening the book he had brought at the page he had marked with a tissue and beginning to read:
“‘The Third Day of May. The chestnut candle flowers are blooming now as George Middleton travels in an open carriage towards his wedding…’”
He read on, through the last little moments she had missed by so few pages, the strange sound of George’s cry as he took his new wife’s hand and pressed it to his lips; and the flower petals falling on the new couple like scented snow. The letter from King Christian IV of Denmark to his nephew King Charles I, and finally flawed, selfish Kirsten, who had, inevitably, managed to have the last word.
As he read he felt a sense of peace flow through him. The grief was still there, but it was no longer just a gaping crater of loss. It was filling up with memories that made him smile as well as weep; that sense of gratitude for a life lived that he had been allowed to share from time to time, even a life cut short. It helped him to think that Alicia had waited to say goodbye, not because she needed it, but because she knew that he did, and he imagined her visiting her mother in the apple orchard to dispense this same feeling of healing peace.
He felt forgiven; not by himself; how could one ever forgive oneself after striving to save so many strangers yet being on the wrong side of the Atlantic when a family member had needed one so very much? But if felt as if Alicia forgave him. No, it felt as if she had never blamed him. As if she wanted him to remember her now not as a silenced voice trying to scream for help he had not given her, but as someone who had loved to watch her birthday cake float across the room, and to whom he had slipped those little bags of sherbet lemons that had always congealed into a sticky mess of melted sugar and dissolving paper in the warmth of her pocket. As if she wanted him to remember her as someone who had moved on to somewhere else, was perhaps a million atoms scattering into space, ready to be reborn into some new and wonderful sentient thing, or else had gone where witches chose to spend their afterdays in cottages with crooked chimneys, stirring the inevitable cauldrons, while black cats wound themselves around their booted feet, their long black tails set in a permanent question mark.
The last lines and he offered them to her in case she had need of them, wherever she might be:
“‘I take their hands in mine, the Black upon the White and the White upon the Black, and I say to them: ‘Give me the Wings of Angels, the Wings of Demons. Lift me up and let me fly.’”
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2005-11-05 05:42 pm (UTC)Thank you! Though part of me does hope for more adventures of the Bookshop Detectives!
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Date: 2005-11-05 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 06:22 pm (UTC)Such a great story - so many sadness but so many hope, too. Loved it *g*
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Date: 2005-11-05 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 07:21 pm (UTC)And LOL!! Nekkid Giles! *goes to happy place* Proper squee a-coming very soon!
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Date: 2005-11-05 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 06:44 pm (UTC)absolutely fascinating and disturbingly hot
*g* I'm with you there! (I'm disturbingly fond of torturedorotherwiseagonized!Giles, myself...)
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Date: 2005-11-06 12:35 pm (UTC)Did I read it right that there will be a sequel? *looks hopeful*
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Date: 2005-11-06 04:39 pm (UTC)And, oh! oh! your icon! Is that a reference to the fic where Wesley gets turned into a ferret? I read it online and it was Wes/Angel slash and Wesley accidentally got turned into a ferret and *to die for* cute and had to lie on a little heated pad after getting smacked around in a fight and would lick his lips pathetically, oh and he proved that it was him (despite being a ferret) by fetching a teabag out of the bin and *dies of the cuteness* turned the pages of books by licking the pages and then turning them with his head. And it was just bliss but I can't find it on my HDD and I don't know who wrote it. I think it was called 'Never Leave Ferrets Unattended' and there was a whole series but I don't know if it was finished or if he got turned back into Wesley the human or was still a ferret at the end, because I can't *find it* to read it again. Sorry, excuse hysterical babbling. I just so want to read that fic again.
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Date: 2005-11-06 04:48 pm (UTC)Yup, guilty. That story is my fault. That's what happens when you talk to each other on MSN and prod someone and daring them to write the story. I provided all the little ferret trades and
Or finish it myself. But my fic muse seems to have been taken over by my RPG muse. *pouts*
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Date: 2005-11-06 04:58 pm (UTC)I'm sorry about your fic muse having given way to your RPG muse even if RPG-ing sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe a challenge fic? I find when I'm stumped that being given an assignment will sometimes shake something loose. Or you could finish the Ferret!Wes fic for your friend?
Thank you again *so* much for giving me the link to Ferret!Wesy goodness!
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Date: 2005-11-08 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-09 09:39 am (UTC)The detective agency/magic help/bookshop is a great idea and the set up was lovely, I hope you can manage to write more adventures but even if you can't, you've left three of my favourite characters in a place where they can, for once, move forwards. Yay you!
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Date: 2005-11-09 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-10 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-13 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-14 07:19 am (UTC)I love the rock collection and what it means. What a lovely gesture of Willow's. :)
Gunn was adamant that Spike and Angel had to be kept separate. “Cause otherwise we’re going to find those rocks have been kicking gravel at each other while we’re asleep.”
Reading this and the Anya postcard made me grateful that I've learned not to eat/drink anything while reading your fics. LOL!
Giles waved them onto the couch and Willow glanced along at Gunn and Wesley’s faces, relieved to see they were looking like she was feeling – as if their eccentric guardian might be about to tell them all that he had arranged for them to have a wonderful field trip to Siberia to look for frozen mammoth remains, and as an extra special treat had decided they could all sleep in the open and live off canned sardines.
And did I mention that you have a lovely way with words? *g*
Gunn hitting Wes was certainly a shock, but it's understandable why he did it. I'm so glad that Wesley has accepted them now. I'm sure he'll be quite happy being in England, having his own bookshop, and fighting the good fight with good people. *happy sigh* I wonder if he'll get any more visits from his dearly departed? I wonder what they'll say. I'm sure they must be very happy for him :)
Thank you so much for writing and sharing this. This fic has been a joy to read :)
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Date: 2005-11-25 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 11:03 pm (UTC)That felt like what should have been the first episode of a new series after NFA - only better.
And the end made me cry - perfect.
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Date: 2006-07-18 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-03 10:13 pm (UTC)And I love the ending. The idea of them setting up in England and working out of the bookshop is wonderful.