Chapter Four

Willow had awoken to find herself alone in Buffy’s room. For a moment, she’d panicked, but then, she’d remembered the spell. Angel couldn’t get in. Buffy was probably patrolling. She rolled back over in her sleeping bag and shut her eyes. But then, her stomach growled, and the floor felt really hard. She sighed, and decided a little snack was the way to go.

She slunk downstairs in the dark and crept to the refrigerator. She opened the door and stood bathed in the welcoming yellow light. Hmm, she thought, should she go with a cheese stick, or the more healthy veggies?

She was still pondering this momentous decision when she heard the front door quietly open and shut. She bounced out of the kitchen and into the living room, feeling bright-eyed and wide awake, and hoping that Buffy’s patrolling had left her in a similar condition.

“Hey, Buff!” she said, keeping her voice low.

And then, she caught her first real look at her friend.

Buffy was pale, her hands clasped in front of her, her head hanging down. Her clothes and hair were damp with dew. And when she raised her head, looking at Willow like she wasn’t quite sure who she was, her eyes were dead.

Willow’s face fell.

“Buffy?” She approached her, slowly. “Did something happen? Is it Angel?”

“Will,” Buffy said, her voice coming out raw and damaged. It sounded like something had broken inside her that could never be fixed. She took a few aimless steps forward.

“Oh, god. Oh, god, Buffy, what-”

Willow gently caught hold of Buffy’s arm and steered her towards the couch.

“He’s dead, Will.”

They both sat down slowly as Willow spoke gently:

“Who? Angel? Did you fight-”

Buffy was staring at some invisible point near the center of the floor.

“Giles.”

“What? What did Giles do?”

Buffy raised her head again, turned to look at Willow, but her eyes still didn’t quite focus.

“Will, Giles is dead. He’s a vampire. They turned him. They killed him.”

Even hearing the words, it didn’t quite make sense at first. And then, slowly, it sank in. Willow went cold all over.

“Oh. No. No.” Suddenly, she rallied herself, “No!” she turned urgently towards Buffy, grabbed her arm and tugged on it, “You must be wrong. A mistake. Bad lighting. Not, not Giles. He wouldn’t- he’s too-”

For the first time that night, Buffy focused, and her eyes went hard.

“I’m not. He’s dead, Will. I saw him myself. I know what I saw. And-” Buffy looked down at her hands. “And Jenny, too.”

This second blow hit hard, blasting through what little was left of her ruined defenses. She opened her mouth to try to speak again, beg for it not to be true, but instead, all that came out was a sob. And then, once the tears started, she couldn’t get them to stop. She felt like someone had just stabbed a knife through her chest.

Buffy’s strong arms wrapped around her, crushing her almost painfully against her. She knew she should be getting ahold of herself, comforting Buffy, something, but all she could do was cry, cry like she might die of it, like every drop of liquid in her body was escaping down her cheeks, and her chest burned for air because all she could do was gasp between sobs.

This couldn’t be real. Not Giles. Not Jenny. How could she lose the two people she’d come to look up to, to count on, more than almost anyone else in her life? God, Giles had been there for her more than her own parents ever had.

And then, a horrible thought hit her.

“Oh, god,” she gasped, “Buffy, Xander! And- and Cordelia, and Oz! We- we need to warn them.”

She looked up at Buffy through the blur of tears and saw her friend’s eyes were still dry, although her shoulder was soaked. Buffy nodded.

“You... think you’re up for it?”

Willow sat up straight and drew in a deep breath, swiping the sleeve of her pajama tops over her eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Buffy waited for her in the living room as she snuck back up the stairs and changed, and then they both slipped out into the grey haze of near-dawn. It was a short walk to Xander’s, where the threw rocks at his window until he appeared at the window, then joined them outside. Next, Oz’s place. Then, Cordelia’s. They were silent in their mission, and the others picked up on their silence and merely followed them all the way back to the school.

They settled in their usual places in the quiet library. Willow pointedly tried not to look at anything. Buffy seemed to be looking at everything.

Cordelia was the first to break the silence.

“So, we’re all here. Where’s Giles? Doesn’t he like, live here?”

For a moment, Willow was uncomfortably sure that Buffy was going to kill her. She went completely still, her eyes drilling into Cordelia like lasers.

“What?” Cordelia said, looking put out.

Willow couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“He’s dead.”

Now all eyes, except Buffy’s, who was again avoiding eye contact with anything, were on her.

“He- he got- he’s a vampire now.”

Again, Cordelia: “He’s what?” She looked even more put out than before. “Look, is this some kind of a joke? I mean, hello, it’s like, o’ dark thirty in the morning, this is not fu-”

Buffy backhanded her.

She hit the shelves, bounced to the floor, then scrambled to her feet with one hand pressed to her face. Everyone just stared, wide-eyed, too shocked to move.

“Holy shit,” Oz said, “He really is, isn’t he?”

Willow nodded, the tears pressing against her eyes again.

“Oh, god,” Cordelia said, “I think you dislocated my jaw.”

Willow squeezed her eyes shut and then Oz was there, his arms so warm around her, holding her tight and keeping her safe.

“What do we do?” he said.

The darkness was comforting. Willow just drifted on it, feeling a slow trickle of tears running down her cheeks, floating on the sensation of Oz’s embrace, the only thing that really seemed real.

“We need to stop him,” Buffy said, softly. “He could be dangerous, with all the Watcher stuff he knows. We should stake out his house, and here. He might come back, and then, then we can-”

Kill him.

The unspoken words hung in the void around them, and no one spoke for a long, long time. Oz was quietly rocking her, his face pressed to her hair. She could feel his breath against her ear, and feel it cooling the wet tracks on her cheek.

After awhile, she had to open her eyes. Buffy was leaning against the bookshelves. Cordelia was sitting at the head of the table, down near the computer. She looked slightly spaced out, but she was still gingerly probing her jaw with her finger tips. Xander was standing, a few feet away from the table. Just standing. Like maybe he’d forgotten how to move.

“Xander?” Willow said, gently, and felt Oz lift his head a bit, shift his arms.

Xander didn’t react.

“Xander?” she tried again. He moved a bit, then finally turned to look at her, the same dead shell-shock in his eyes she’d seen in Buffy’s earlier that day.

“Huh?”

Oz released her and she walked around the table, and reached for him. But before she could embrace him, he flinched all over and took a quick step away.

“Don’t.”

She looked up at him, pained.

“Oh- ok.”

He looked a bit apologetic, turned and lifted a hand, nearly touched her face, then stopped himself.

“I just, I just need... need to... not be touched right now.”

Her vision blurred again, and she nodded.

“Ok. Ok, that’s fine. I understand.”

There was another painful silence, and then he spoke again.

“I think... I think I’m gonna go. Yeah. Go.”

And then he made for the door at a slow, ambling, pace, wavering slightly, like a drunk. They all watched him go, and then Oz, for once, spoke first.

“Giles was a good man. I think... it’s important we don’t forget that.”

Willow turned back to face the group and saw Buffy was crying again, silently, just dampness on her cheeks, sticking her eyelashes together in dark clumps. Her arms were crossed, though, and her expression was resolved.

“He was. And now- he’s gone. And there’s a demon in his body. And we’ve got to stop it. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“But... Buffy. Can you?” Willow asked.

She looked down, then looked back up, her eyes hard again.

“I have to. And I will. And Angel, too. Because nothing’s gonna bring him back, and too many lives have been lost.”

Willow felt her heart break all over again, but all she said was:

“Good. That’s good.”

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