Situation Normal

by L. Inman

 

Buffy still wasn’t back yet.

            Giles stacked the back cushions of the couch in the armchair, brushed some spicules of wood from the upholstery, and spread out his sheet.  It floated, bellying out and warping the faded figures on the linen, before settling down on the couch.  Methodically, Giles bent to tuck the ends in, disregarding the spent elastic fittings in favor of the fold his mother had taught him as a boy before he went off to school.  Over it he spread the afghan blanket issued to him, and anchored his pillow at the head.

            Now for something to read.  If there was anything to read in the house, which he doubted.  Dawn’s collection consisted mainly of boy-band pulp and Sumerian instruction-texts; Buffy’s books had all been packed away and never unpacked; Willow’s and Tara’s college texts were an unappealing thought, and Joyce had preferred to read and then give away all her books as she got them.

            He wandered to the bookshelf in the hall and ran an indifferent eye over its contents.  Finally he reached out and twitched a paperback from its slot—a battered copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets—and shuffled with it back to his makeshift bed.

            The house was quiet.  Everyone had long since gone to bed, leaving him with the jumble of Buffy’s finances at the desk.  He had made neat piles of everything and noted down a list of deadlines and errands; if he could get Buffy to look at it—probably not tonight, not this late, but—

            Giles yawned, painfully.  Better not to head down that road.  His head was throbbing as it was.  He got into bed, twisting his legs to an angle that would accommodate his length to the couch without killing his back, and settled against the pillow with the paperback on his lap.

            He read steadily for ten minutes, absorbing the simple prose without really seeking to comprehend it, but had to take his glasses off mid-chapter, as they were making his headache worse.  He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly and set the book up closer to his face.

            A sound disturbed the quiet of the house.  Giles’s head came up—but it was only from upstairs: a door opening and shutting, and then slow footsteps padding down the stairs.  At the foot, Tara appeared, in robe and pajamas, with an empty glass.  He blinked a myopic greeting at her.

            But instead of going about her business, she came into the room.  “Still up?” she said, softly.

            Well, obviously.  Giles refrained from the sarcasm and answered the thought rather than the words.  “Thought I’d put myself to sleep with a children’s book.”  He gestured with the Harry Potter.

            “I doubt Buffy will be back before early morning,” Tara said.  Her expression had not changed from its usual equable calm, but the words were shrewd.

            Irritably, Giles said:  “Q.E.D.  Maybe I’ll fall asleep before she comes in and not risk looking like a reproachful old hen waiting up.”

            “You could probably use the sleep,” Tara said.

            “I’m quite all right,” Giles said, giving his head a small shake, and instantly regretting it.

            “Giles,” Tara said flatly, “your aura is screaming.”

            He tossed his gaze aside.  “Blabbermouth.”

            Tara was not to be thus put off by a joke.  “Let me make you something for your headache at least.  You haven’t put anything on it….”  She reached out a tentative hand, but drew it back when he warned her off with a look.

            But instead of flinching and withdrawing her presence, she merely stood and looked at him with a steady, serious gaze.

            He suddenly wanted, irrationally, to drive her off as viciously as his morale would let him.  Where had this rock-steady gaze been when Willow was off gathering Urns of Osiris and planning dark resurrection spells?  I counted on you to ground her.

            Her lips drew taut, and he realized to his horror that he’d said those last words aloud.  She dropped her eyes and faltered, “I know that you—we wanted to get it done before you’d gone—to heal it as quickly as possible—”

            “Somehow I don’t think that’s the regret Willow’s harboring,” Giles said, bitterness spreading like a flood in his voice.

            “You’re not finished grieving,” Tara said softly, her gaze lifting to his in illumination.

            “It was wrong,” he said, cutting across that truth with a voice like a rapier.

            “She was in hell,” Tara said.

            “And she’s not now?”  Quickly Giles reined in his voice, which was getting away from him.  “Look what you’ve brought her back to.  And it’s not right,” he added tensely, half to himself.  “I know it’s not right.  I can’t reach her.  She won’t look at me.  Though she will, of course, hare off across country to commune with Angel—”  He broke off and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Oh, hell.”

            Tara was silent:  he could feel her silence, palpable and distressed, even with his eyes closed.

            “I suppose it’s no use saying I’m sorry,” he muttered, without taking his hand away.

            “Well…it might be, if you’d done something wrong,” Tara said.  At her mild, wry tone, he lifted his head to look at her.

            “All you did,” Tara went on, “is break the code of silence.  Don’t worry—” her lips quirked dryly— “your secret’s safe with me.”

            She turned to put the glass she was holding down on the coffee table; but, since it didn’t exist anymore, she shrugged and set it down on the rug, out of the way of traffic.  Giles almost smiled: they were the only two people in the room, and she was concerned about hypothetical foot traffic.

            When she straightened to look back at him, Giles realized afresh how rarely he thought of her as young, with the same kind of youth that Xander and Willow and Buffy still had—vigorous, idealistic, and impractical.  Hers was a youth that had known silence, that had been forced back on itself, outwith the usual desperate gaiety of Sunnydale.  He had a sudden fleeting memory of himself at Tara’s age, raging at occupation and doing his best to destroy the silence he now clung to.  It’ll all be the same in a hundred years, went the old saw; and Lord knew that was true enough.  Tomorrow Buffy would come back; tomorrow they would pick up the pieces and get a new coffee table; tomorrow somebody’s foot would find Tara’s glass and kick it across the rug; tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, a petty pace that no one, not even fools, could slow or speed.

            “Let me do something for your head,” Tara said, reaching out again, this time with a firm gesture.  “I can draw away some of the energies so you can heal.”

            He made a movement as if to resist, but checked it and let out a small sigh.  A moment later her cool hand slid to conform to his broad forehead, covering the hot pain-spot above his right eye.

            “Just the headache,” he told her, eyes closed.  “Don’t go mucking about with anything else.”

            But the touch alone was enough to bring him dangerously near to an ignominious collapse.  He shivered with the effort of holding it in, and she brought her other hand to steady him at the shoulder.

            The touch of her spirit was as cool as her hand, balanced and poised like a cat on its own fence, swiftly finding its spot to work.  She was doing exactly as he asked, but he found himself wishing he had asked for a little more than a magickal aspirin.  The hand on his shoulder seemed to know this: Tara moved it in a smoothing gesture of feminine, even maternal, comfort; and he let go the pretense of holding up.  His shoulders dropped, and he let his chin fall forward, so that he was resting against the strength of her working hand.

            For a moment, he allowed time to suspend itself, allowed her to suspend him, while his grief and he sat alone in a quiet room of his mind and stared at one another.  There was no need to make a sound, or to shed any tears.

            At last he let out a long sigh, and she gently, gradually withdrew.  By the time she released him from her touch his breathing had eased more completely than since he had arrived in Sunnydale.  With the breath came clarity.

            “Better?” Tara said, softly.

            He looked up.  She was shaking out her hand, using her other hand to swipe down and off the fingers.  She must have drawn a lot of pain from him; his headache was quite gone.

            He gave her a quiet nod.  “Thank you.”

            She made a small nod of her own, as if confirming something to herself.  Then, without any words, she bent once more to retrieve her glass, and moved with a slow, tired step to the door.

            “Has my aura shut up?” Giles inquired.

            She turned with a slow smile.  “It’s quiet now,” she answered.  “Just a delicate, quiet unhappiness.”

            “Ah.  Back to normal, then,” Giles said, and reached for his glasses.

            “Goodnight, Giles.”

            “Goodnight, Tara.”

            She paused with her hand on the doorframe.  “And...I’m sorry.”

            He paused in the act of putting on his glasses to look up at her.  “Yes,” he said finally.  “I know.”

            They shared a look for a moment more; then she went away.  He heard her glass clink, the kitchen tap run.  Her steps came back to the lobby, and she climbed the stairs, holding the glass of water steady, and disappeared at last.

            Giles picked up the book from his lap and opened it once more, scrunching lower on the couch.  Instead of finding his place, he began again at the beginning.  He had a feeling he would have the time to kill.

            And indeed, he was fast asleep, the book fallen from his hands, his glasses skewed on his face, and the early sun was glinting through the window above his head, when Buffy crept in the front door.

 

finis

 

Back to Fanfiction