FIC: WHAT THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO

[catchyerselfon]

TITLE: “What They Shouldn’t Have To”

AUTHOR: catch_yerself_on

RATING: FRT, references to violence and trauma

PAIRING: None, Giles & Willow friendship, background Buffy & Giles friendship

SUMMARY: Giles has to accept that Willow understands him more than he’d like. He needs her help with his injury if he’s going to stop Glory’s apocalypse. And help with something else that Buffy won’t bloody well talk about.

My attempt to answer some questions - how did Giles feel about Buffy’s threat to kill him and anyone who might try to stop her from letting the whole universe die (“including Dawn”) if it meant she had to sacrifice Dawn? (The full impact of that won’t hit him this early, future installment foreshadowing here). How did Willow transition to the leader of the Slayerettes? Most of all, how the hell did Giles dive “once more unto the breach” a couple of hours after a spear wound, a vehicle flip, hours of bleeding out, and emergency surgery in a filthy gas station performed by an intern who was apparently subletting from Glory?

TIMELINE: Season 5

AUTHOR'S NOTES: My second published fic! Yeah, it's very talk-y again. I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to comments a...year ago. I got shy and kept putting it off. I admire you all so much, both for writing the way you do, and for doing the courteous thing by getting back to people.

Dialogue you recognize is taken from season 5, episode 22, “The Gift” written by Joss Whedon. A clause in italics inside parentheses means someone’s thoughts.

Word Count: 2,788
AO3

 

BUFFY: I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much...but I knew…what was right. I don't have that anymore. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world, if these are the choices, if everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish...I just wish my mom was here. [starts to walk out] The spirit guide told me that ‘Death is my gift’. I guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all.

GILES: I think you're wrong about that.

BUFFY: Doesn't matter. If Dawn dies, I'm done with it. I'm quitting.

Giles absorbed Buffy's defeated words like a body blow. (More like a spear), he thought, as he feebly tensed his muscles. Before she closed the door on the room they’d come to cherish as their Watcher & Slayer sanctum, Giles called out to her.

"Could you ask Willow to fetch me a book called Mariam's Companion, should be on the left-hand upper shelves of the landing?" He smiled serenely. "Just want to discuss some spells we might use." Buffy nodded without looking at him. (God, please don't let her hate me. I haven't even done yet what I might have to do.) Unable to relax his core, the minutes where he was alone ticked by interminably.

Willow had her arms full when she banged open the training room door. She registered Giles’ flinch as his concentration broke. Sitting daintily on the couch, she placed the book, a water bottle, and an amber pill bottle on the table.

"Before we try anything in here," she tapped the leather book cover, "you need to try one of these."

Giles closed his eyes as he drew shallow breaths.

"So, you know what it's for?"

"Spells by an occult physician? Yup. Last fall I spent weeks going through every book about medicine and the supernatural I could find. If magic had found a way to cure tumours, I guess someone would’ve…cured tumours.” He wished he could squeeze her small hand in reassurance, but he was busy white-knuckling the edge of the couch cushions.

Willow swallowed her pointless self-recrimination and cocked her head.

“If you need a healing charm for the nasty hole in your side I'll do it, but the least you could do is take your prescription pain killers. Starving addicts on the street would be appalled at your wastefulness."

Giles grimaced at her joke.

"Willow. I. Can't. I know the side effects. They're the same ones I was prescribed three years ago.” He stared at her with haunted green eyes and she dropped her wry expression.

They didn't talk about That Summer when Willow (once she was well enough to walk) and Xander, and occasionally Oz and Cordelia, nursed Giles back to health: changing his bandages, swapping heating pads with ice packs for his contusions, keeping him on his medication schedule, making sure he ate and drank water, helping him bathe and change clothes, tricking him into doing his physio in the guise of self-defence training, and stopping him from immediately stumbling out to look for Buffy or patrolling with them.

They especially didn't talk about what it was like to hear him at night, muttering, screaming, sobbing out the names of Buffy, Jenny, Angel, their names. What it was like trying to comfort him with their touch and feeling him recoil in fear and shame. What it was like catching him trying to hide his tears and panic attacks.

"I can't...sleep this off, I don't have time to heal naturally and relieve the pain with opiates when I need to concentrate."

"You could stay here, we'll get Dawn back--" she started weakly.

"Has anyone called Angel yet?" he interrupted pointedly.

"Yeah, a couple of times, straight to message," she sighed. "Same with Wesley and Cordelia. Whatever they have going on in L.A. must be big."

"You see? We need all the fighters and magic-wielders we can use. Hospital did a marvellous job, I can't believe I was able to walk from the casualty department to a wheelchair. But my second wind has worn off and my body's reminding me my abdominal muscles were severed. I can't take a deep breath, let alone stand, without wanting to scream bloody murder."

"OK," Willow winced. "Which spell do you want?"

"Table of Contents, it's called a Spell For Knitting Flesh." She wrinkled her nose while flipping the pages. Giles slipped into lecture mode to distract himself from the pain throbbing with his pulse. "Mariam was a battlefield healer in the Holy Land during the Crusades. A copy of this book passed into Watcher hands during the Renaissance. It's good for emergencies until you can get to an infirmary - doesn't require any ingredients or tools like candles, but only an experienced sorcerer can perform it effectively."

Willow’s face twisted.

"Would’ve been handy to know about it back at the gas station. Gah! I should've concentrated more on healing magic instead of offensive! I spent all that time trying to look up ‘how to kick demon and/or cancer’s butt’ when some basic wound-healing spells were the least I could do!"

"Willow," He clenched his teeth through a spasm. "Do you think I'm not ticking myself off for that too? I wish I could've used this one instead of letting Buffy call Ben, even if we didn't know who he really was. But I'd lost too much blood, the Flesh Knitting Spell can’t summon that out of thin air. You slowed the bleeding when we were holed up in the petrol station, but I’d still have died without fluids or from an infection. Besides, there's a reason I couldn't recollect the exact words, even if I were compos mentis," he added ruefully.

Willow landed on the right page.

"Because it's in Arabic," she sighed in frustration. "One of the languages neither of us can read."

"And it has to be spoken in Arabic. Only so much time to learn one of the most popular living languages when there are so many dormant tongues a Watcher is expected to know!” He smiled tightly.

"At least this book is a translation and gives the phonetic pronunciation next to the original script. But I can see why it’s pretty hard to recall it word-perfectly when you've had one of your concussions...or dying. This annotation says the spell will last 'From one watch to the next watch', does that have to do with Watchers?"

"No, it’s like a night watchman, from one bell to the next. It means this will restore and hold me together for around...three hours."

Willow frowned.

"And what happens after the clock strikes, Cinderella? When the sun rises you don’t just turn back into a scullery maid."

Giles regarded her calmly.

"I suspect whatever I put my body through in the next three hours will catch up with me."

Willow choked down her objections - what was the point when Giles could match her stubbornness, and he had the facts on his side? She took a moment to silently mouth the words, then lifted Giles' sweater to fit her hand over the bandaged wound.

He smothered his cries as she chanted. The gentle, warm light enveloping Giles’ waist didn’t quite feel like the needles that stitched the chasm in his body twice in one day; it felt more like the doctor had thrust the metal in a flame to cauterize the wound. Willow withdrew her hands as the glow sank beneath his skin. They both slouched and gasped for air.

"How-how do you feel?"

He slowly leaned forward and stood up.

"Like I can walk, swing a sword, and think all at the same time. That's what we need and that's what I'll do." He stretched his reinvigorated muscles, facing away from her.

"Giles,” she said as she closed the spell book. "If it comes down to it...if it's too late...I don't think Buffy will be able to...kill Dawn. Even to save the world. And that terrifies me." She blinked back tears as she watched his head drop.

"She told me as much,” he replied softly. “that if Dawn dies, she can't be the Slayer anymore. This will be her last battle.”

"And what did you tell her?" Willow replied, equally quietly.

Giles turned around and took off his glasses, one adult looking another in the eye.

"That I've sworn to protect this sorry world, and sometimes that means saying and doing things others can't...what they shouldn't have to."

Willow didn't squirm away from this veiled promise.

"Good. I think if we were still in high school-when I was in high school-I would've fought you on this, agreed with Buffy that we have to find another way. But I... saw what she was trying to hide from us, when I entered her mind,” she looked down guiltily.

“I feel like this is violating her trust to say this, even to you, but you have to know why she shut down. Her mind kept reliving this ordinary moment, but it was important, or she wouldn’t’ve been spinning it like a hamster wheel. I don’t know when it happened, sometime since Joyce died, but you asked her to shelve a book in The Magic Box. She said in that moment, for no particular reason, she gave up. She was tired of fighting to protect Dawn and the whole world. And she was so mad at herself! Like it was enough to make it happen, like she wished someone would take this burden from her, like she wasn’t trying hard enough. So, when Dawn was kidnapped...she fell to pieces...but she was relieved. It was over, out of her hands, nothing she could do. And she couldn’t handle how much she hated herself for thinking that.”

Giles looked up at the ceiling to fight back his tears. (My poor, dear girl. When I asked her to shelve a book? One more straw or merely coincidence?) He slumped on the table next to Willow.

"Of course. She needs rest. Near-constant strain for this long? Damn." He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "I wish she could've told me how she felt, who would understand better than me? She needs to know there isn't another threat coming, even if it's...the last one. For everyone. I ask of her only what is necessary, and it’s too much. Yet it’s never enough.”

"I know. I told her she'd been carrying the weight of the world for too long," said Willow, a banked fire in her voice directed at…everything. "That it was OK she was beyond exhausted, none of us would think any less of her, because she was doing her best. But she's so close to breaking she's not thinking as clearly as she was three years ago. She could kill Angel, even if she ran from dealing with it, when we were younger and more innocent. But now she doesn't have Joyce, she feels like there's nothing to look forward to, just a long tunnel of hopelessness. That it’s gonna keep happening, the wheel will keep spinning and she can’t jump off.” Willow took a centering breath and flicked her large green eyes up at Giles.

"I'm not as afraid to die tonight as I was in high school. This isn't just Sunnydale at risk, it's countless beings. I'm afraid of never getting Tara back. I'm afraid of her suffering even more before she dies. I'm afraid of losing everyone I love because life has been so awful to Buffy it used up everything she has. I believe she's strong enough to defeat Glory tonight, but I don't think she has the strength to kill another person she loves, even us...even if we spare her this sacrifice."

Giles looked nauseous and pale, as though the spell was wearing off already.

"Willow…you-you know I've had to take human life before, for the greater good. I can't ask you to follow me down that path.”

“Giles? Resolve Face. You know what it means. You weren’t much that older than me when you had to kill Randall. Buffy can’t defeat Glory alone, and neither can you…stop Glory…in your own way.”

Giles worked his jaw for a moment. (Randall wasn’t the last.) He surrendered his lonely courage.

“Oh God,” he muffled his face in his hands. “I-I won't act pre-emptively, I'll only do it if we're left with no other option. But I have to be the one to-", he faltered, "to strike the final blow."

Willow flinched but maintained her resolution.

"I get it. But Buffy will try to stop you, or she might be in the way. I'll try to keep track of both of you. If she clocks you, I have a hex that’ll freeze her in place. It only works on humans and lesser demons and lasts at least half an hour - on a Slayer, maybe a few minutes? I dunno,” she cringed. “I've never had a reason to test it on her. I just needed a doomsday plan in case she was ever, like, possessed again?”

Giles snorted. He’d taken it upon himself to learn the same spell after Faith’s body-swapping escapade. He wove his large fingers through Willow’s.

"A few minutes is correct. If we survive, I'll tell her I did the spell, there's no reason she has to hate both of us."

Willow squeezed back and smiled kindly.

"No way. We're going into this and coming out of it 50/50. It's less painful if there's more than one of us she wants to pummel to death, even distribution of weight…like a bed of nails vs. stepping on just one, you know?"

Giles wished he could laugh at that.

"I know you've had to do things, withstand things you don't want us to know about. We still have a lot of pre-frontal cortex development to go. But we're not kids anymore. If I ask for a grown-up job now, it's because I'm ready for it. I've never had a formal initiation with a contract or an oath about 'protecting this sorry world'. I won't pinky-promise for something this big, so you'll be my witness to a solemn vow.”

Willow stood up and tugged Giles’ hands, beckoning him to rise with her.

“I, Willow Rosenberg, swear to you, Rupert Giles, that I will help you-" Here she sobbed for a moment, resuming her speech in a cracking voice. "I will help you kill Dawn if we can't stop the portal from opening...or closing. Even if it destroys Buffy. Even if it destroys us. 'The needs of the many' and all that."

His face crumpled and he embraced her fiercely, whispering into her hair.

"I’m sorry. If the Council weren't made up of such prats who didn't deserve you, you would've made a fine Watcher, the best of us all."

Her fingers locked together against his back.

"Well, I've had you as my role model, how could I not? Maybe I'd bring a little more computer savvy, a little less repressive tradition to the calling?"

He chuckled damply and pulled back so he could face her, tilting her chin up.

"I'll follow your example now, while I'm still feeling brave. Whatever happens tonight, Willow...I love you. You're not a child, but you're my child, and I'm so proud of you."

"I know." Happy tears dampened his sweater as she nestled against his chest.

"But I don't say it directly. I say it in a round-about way. I love you all so much and if I didn't it wouldn't lance my heart like this. Because I can't say it casually. Because I...haven't heard it enough in my life. Because it hurts to say. Physically, like something’s twisting my insides. But it's not as hard as the agony I'll feel later if... And I didn’t say it to Dawn-"

Willow wiped his shuddering face with her thumbs.

"IF. We're gonna save Dawn. We're gonna save the world. We can do both."

"Only if we get a move on!" He sniffed and looked at his watch before fetching a box of tissues. Willow looked at him tenderly.

"Giles? I'm sorry not enough people told you you're worthy of love. You still will be no matter what happens tonight. Someday Buffy will see that. And I love you, I always have,” she wept again as he rubbed her back. “I-I tried to tell you earlier, but you were delirious, and I knew I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't get another chance for you to hear me. You're my friend, my teacher, my mentor, the father I wish I'd had. The others love you so much and they'll forgive you for doing what you had to do to save the world again."

Out of gratitude, Giles let her see another glimmer of emotion, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. They composed themselves before she left the training room. He told her he needed to fetch his sword. He tested his range of motion with the blade. Her bright voice echoed with brittleness as she brushed off questions from their friends about what was taking her and Giles so long. Before he followed Willow (My friend? My apprentice? My successor? My daughter?), Giles slid onto his belt a small sheath, just long enough for cutting a small throat.


The End