Unfinished
by L. Inman
“I don’t need a doctor. And I’m not about to start singing numbers from Grease,” he said.
“Good,” Buffy said. “Because the thought of you doing John Travolta is just—”
“Ra-volting?”
“You do have a fever. I was gonna say ‘disturbing.’”
Buffy took her cool hand away from his forehead. His eyes were closed, but he could feel her presence in the room, standing near him where he lay in a fetal slump on the couch. Then on silent feet she moved away, toward the kitchen.
“I can’t believe you left it this long,” she said, her voice carrying over the sound of running water.
“The world’s still here,” he said.
He thought maybe she would say something like And so am I, or give him a wry Such as it is.
“That is no excuse,” she said.
“You sound like my mother.”
She was near him again, and he heard the sound of tinkling water, and the press of a cold wet cloth on his forehead. It was the touch of mercy. Mercy was the lie. Panic gutted his breath.
With a hoarse gasp he sat up and forced his eyes open, fully expecting Buffy to be gone, expecting himself to be back where he ought to have been, finishing the pain and the killing. Maybe he’d been turned, maybe that was it.
But no: Buffy merely withdrew the cloth as he sat up, and regarded him gravely.
“You really shouldn’t have left it this long,” she said. “You’re feverish, you’re delirious, and I’m putting you to bed.”
“Well, if it comes to that,” he said, “where the bloody hell have you been?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Buffy said, with a small grunt as she eased a strong arm under his and began to guide him up.
*
He let her half-carry him up the stairs to his bed, his shoulder over hers like a water yoke, his feet numb and dragging. But when she let him gently down onto his bed, he fended off the hand that reached for the buttons of his oxford shirt. “Can undress myself,” he said. It was hard to keep his eyes open. They hurt; he’d been blinking blood into and out of them. But of course now the blood was imaginary, unless the rescue had been imaginary instead—despite what Xander had said.
No, Xander had spoken good sense, and he had been cleaned of blood and debris days ago. Had even shown up for work. Had insisted he didn’t need a doctor, and got away with it.
“You didn’t get away with it,” Buffy said, putting his hands aside and getting at the buttons of his shirt with a brook-no-nonsense manner.
“I didn’t say that out loud,” he said, accusingly. Surely this was the point at which Buffy’s golden hair would dissolve and leave him staring into Drusilla’s crazy face.
“Well no,” Buffy said, “you kinda mumbled it. But I got the gist. Queen of the gist-getters, that’s me.” One of the tails of his shirt was already out; she pulled out the other, causing him to hiss a gasp. She paused; “Sorry,” she said after a moment, as cheerful and brisk as before. But her face as she bent to draw his shirt gently open was taut with a grief no girl her age had any business knowing. He wanted to repent, to apologize to her, perhaps even more than he wanted to accuse her.
He didn’t have the right to accuse her.
Buffy found his good hand, his left hand, and reached to undo the cuff button. But he had been unable to fasten it that morning, and had left it alone in frustration—then hid it in one of his larger jackets, to stop Willow seeing it and insisting on buttoning it for him, as she had done his first day back at the school.
Without comment Buffy reached for the other hand, the bad one. With more gentleness than he’d have given her credit for, she undid the button at the wrist and laid the hand back down again. Then she began to work the shirt off his shoulders, equally gently—which was just as well, because he still hurt.
He helped her shrug the shirt off, leaving him shivering slightly in his T-shirt. But when she reached for his belt, he curled over. “Don’t,” he said.
“Giles,” Buffy said, “it’s not going to cause either one of us serious trauma if I see you in your underwear. Unless—you don’t go commando, do you?”
“Commando? What the hell is that?” Though he had a fairly good idea. King of the gist-getters, he. “No,” he said. But he didn’t uncurl himself: his underwear was the least thing he was loath to let Buffy see, at the moment.
“Fine,” Buffy said. “I’ll go make you some hot tea.”
“I’d rather have a good stiff scotch,” he said, but she was already gone.
He took off his trousers (awkwardly, with just the one good hand), left them on the floor, and eased himself between the covers of his bed. He had forced himself to sleep in it that first night, the day after the cops had finished with the crime scene, after Buffy had dragged him home blind with grief, the hot place on his face where she’d hit him the only well place in his body. Then he had forced himself to sleep in it all the other nights since. To his dismay, it was getting easier.
He was dozing, shivering, when Buffy returned, carrying a bowl in one hand and a steaming mug in the other. She set them both down; the bowl turned out to have the wet cloth she’d used on him earlier, and the cup, he found out when she’d put pillows enough behind his head to prop him up—contained not tea but cup-a-soup. “Authentic Summers cuisine,” she said with a sidelong grin as she put the cup carefully into his good hand. He used the heel of his bad hand to steady it as he sipped: it warmed him all the way down, and his shivering steadied.
When it was half gone, he turned to her a probing look. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he said.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” But she glanced away as she said it.
“And what about the others?”
“The others don’t need nursing.” She turned her eyes back to his face. “You’ve been hiding it from them, haven’t you.”
He did not need to answer, merely looked her in the eye.
“Stiff upper lip and all that,” she said, with a jocular bitterness.
“The world’s still here,” he said, again. “I’ve been meaning to thank you.”
Again she looked away. “I owed you.”
“You don’t,” he said. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Big tears stood in her eyes. She shook her head.
He held out the cup; she took it away and put it on the nightstand, nudging room for it next to the bowl. “Sit,” he told her; she looked behind her, found the small chair he weakly indicated, dragged it forward, and obeyed. Her eyes were still wet, but they did not spill over. She held one arm with one hand, chafing it gently.
“I’m sorry,” she said, at last.
He shut his eyes. “I know.”
A small silence fell in the dimness of the room. Finally he ventured a small question: “Where did you go?”
Buffy shrugged. “Anywhere, and nowhere. It didn’t matter.”
“We looked for you.”
“Yeah….” For a moment she seemed about to say more, but remained silent, her eyes gazing across the bed at nothing in particular.
“Do the others know you’re back?”
Buffy shook her head. “I came to you first. I don’t…I don’t think I can talk about it.”
“I dare say,” was all he answered. He didn’t think he could talk about it either. Except, “I’m sorry I failed you. I didn’t mean you to have to…do what you did.” It was easier to say these things with his eyes shut.
“Well, there’s that little part where I failed to protect you in the first place,” she replied tartly, “so I think we’re even.”
He shook his head feverishly on the pillow, but could offer no riposte.
Her voice, when next it came, was gentler. “Try to sleep, Giles.” Again the sound of water, again her cool hands, arranging the cloth over his forehead. “Are you in any pain? I could get you some ibuprofen. Good for cramps, bruises, and fevers of all kinds.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said, feebly. “And no thanks. And, you should call the others, at least. They’re worried.”
“I will. But you sleep, first. I’ll stay here.”
Of course she knew that was what he wanted, what he needed. “Yes,” he murmured, “please. Stay.”
For answer he felt her hand, smoothing back his hair, touching his cheek. She was here, and alive, and because she was here and alive he was here and alive. After a fashion.
Her fingers, with the strength held in abeyance, straightened the curls of his hair with the artless idle tenderness of a girl, which she was. Somehow she had not been—what was it he’d feared?—used up, life and youth and exuberance spent on saving the world one more weary time. She never failed to surprise him. And yet he knew her, could intuit her, better than he’d managed to do with anyone else.
“Shh,” she said. Had he been mumbling again? “It’s all right. Go to sleep.”
“You’ll call them,” he murmured.
“I’ll call.”
“Right,” he answered on a breath, and was gone.
*
The phone rang, shrilling directly into his ear, it seemed.
He sat up abruptly, then drew in a sharp breath at the pain. Bewildered, he fumbled on his glasses, heaved himself up from the couch, and staggered to the desk, ignoring the wakening pains all over.
“Yes? Hullo?”
“Hey, Giles. It’s Xander. Calling to check in.”
“Wha—? Oh, right, yes yes, right. How was the—er—patrol?”
“All clear tonight. Everybody’s home now.”
“Good,” he said, trying to blink himself further awake. “Good.”
“Are you feeling bet—I mean, did you find anything out from those phone calls you were going to make?”
“I—” It took him a moment to recall his excuse for not joining them on patrol. “No. No joy.”
“Oh,” Xander said, as disappointed as if he’d really made them. But he made a quick bid for recovery. “Don’t worry,” he added briskly, “we’ll find her.”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you for checking in.”
“No prob, G-man. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes, thanks. And don’t call me that.”
“Bye.”
He put down the phone and looked around his empty flat.
Nearly every light in the place was on, and it was quite late. His shoes lay under the coffee table where he’d kicked them off; his drink sat on its coaster practically untouched.
He turned away from them and went into the kitchen. He did—one veridical thing—have the chills. There were plenty of things to do for that. Fill the kettle and put it on. Dig some painkillers out of the drawer, swallow them with a glass of water from the tap. Get out a mug for tea. He opened the cupboard.
One shelf up from the tea was an opened box of cup-a-soup. He reached—it was his bad hand—stopped and reached again with his left: the box had one packet left.
For a moment he wanted to fling the damned thing across the room with all the force in his body. Let it hurt: they hadn’t got to finish anyway. But the moment passed, and the moment between that and the hissing of the kettle, and the moment between that and his adding steaming water to the powder in the mug.
Rupert Giles stared out at the clear quiet of his flat and quaffed his hot imitation chicken soup. It tasted like piss, but it was—the other veridical thing—authentic.
He could comb his feeble mind for more veridical things; or he could go to bed.
He poured out the rest of the soup in the sink: bed.
The day’s unfinished work was finished.
He climbed the stairs, slowly, leaving the unwashed mug and the hours-old drink and his kicked-off shoes where they were.
And went to sleep with all the lights burning.
*
finis