Elective Surgery

by L. Inman

 

Rupert Giles was finally brought up from the shallows of sleep when Elisabeth sat on the bed to don her shoes.  He did not open his eyes, merely drew a long breath and turned over, listening to the familiar sounds of the zippers.  Boots, then.  Which meant she was dressing up.  Which meant it was…what morning?  She never wore boots to her tutorials; certainly never wore boots to the computer lab or the library.  And she didn’t get up this early in the morning, except for—oh.  Sunday.  He nearly opened his eyes at the shock of his own sleep-drugged stupidity.  The days were all running together: train rides, taxi rides, trips to the bank, to loathsome internet cafes.  He had had to purchase a mobile.  He wished he’d done it earlier, when it was his idea, when he could have arranged for some time to get used to being so damned accessible.  To his relief, the others hadn’t called him as often as his inward gloomy predictions had forecasted.  They were as busy as he.

            Sunday morning, then.  Holy Eucharist at St. John’s.  Elisabeth had invited him once, tentatively, with a nervous glance as if afraid he might think she was trying to convert him, though he knew better.  But when he had said he preferred to have one morning in the week to sleep in, she had easily let the matter drop.

            He had regretted it, though.  Sunday morning would have been an excellent time to spend with her, a time they could fill with ritual actions rather than words, and perhaps a cup of coffee afterward during which they’d discuss the sermon.  Instead they had to make do with snatched cups of tea when neither of them was out of town or buried in work at home, and the occasional troubled conversation often followed by equally-snatched passionate embraces in bed in the small hours.  If only he wasn’t so damned tired.

            Now, he kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he opened them he would not only alert Elisabeth that she’d waked him, but also be driven eventually to get up altogether; whereas if he kept them shut he just might get back to sleep when she’d left.

Her weight left her side of the bed, and he listened for her familiar preparing-to-leave noises.  She moved around to his side of the bed: he felt the warmth of her presence drawing close and caught the faint scent of lavender.  She kissed him on the cheek.  “Good morning,” she said to him, as if his eyes were open.  “I’m off.  I’ll see you in a few hours.”

And without waiting to see if he would open his eyes, she swished out of the room.  A minute later he heard the flat’s front door shut.

Rupert sighed and opened his eyes after all.  He hadn’t fooled her in the least, and anyway he was now thoroughly awake.  He turned onto his back and regarded the ceiling thoughtfully.  The days had run together and become weeks, miraculously, as if the last year’s horrors had made no weighted dent in the temporal flow.  He supposed it shouldn’t come as a surprise that even the end of the world hadn’t been the end of the world.  Elisabeth had said that once a few weeks ago, in an attempt to cheer both herself and him; he had acceded to her silent plea for his laughter, and they had spent the next ten minutes kissing before she left for her tutorial.  But it was she, not he, who had the outlets: Oxford, and church.

He still hadn’t told her about the vicar, lately of Sunnydale, who had received the survivors and ministered to wounds both physical and spiritual.  All of them, he had discovered later, in one way or another had made a confession to the vicar, as if what had happened to them had come under their ownership as a committed sin.  Rupert had resisted until the last, and even when he talked to the vicar it was only because Xander had insisted: Xander’s remaining eye had become inconveniently sharp when it came to him, though Xander himself had said that “everybody” knew that he, Rupert, was cracking up.

The vicar had known Elisabeth from her brief sojourn in Sunnydale, and remembered her—had asked after her, and by that mere glancing touch had found the thorn in Rupert’s flesh; or one of the more painful thorns anyway.  It had taken surprisingly little to make him explain what had happened between them, tearlessly, almost dispassionately; and equally dispassionate had been the vicar’s recommendation that he seek Elisabeth out and try to make amends.  Which he had done, not tearlessly:  the thorn was drawn; the wound was yet to heal.

Rupert got out of bed and went to wash his face and ply the electric razor.  By the time his cheeks were smooth he had already formulated his plan.  He dressed, in cords and his nicest wool jumper, and let himself out the front door, locking it behind him.  It wasn’t far to St. John’s from Elisabeth’s flat, so he elected to walk rather than taking his car.

The air was brisk, though summery, and it looked like rain.  Rupert increased his pace, preferring not to get soaked until after the service.

When he arrived at St. John’s he found that the service was already underway.  The usher, at his request, seated him near the back during the Collect; he had just enough time to shuffle his order of service from one hand to the other and get into his place before it ended and everyone sat for the lessons.  Rupert searched the backs of the heads before him and finally found Elisabeth’s, several rows up and across the aisle.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had attended an Anglican church service since adulthood; he could, however, remember vividly the village church of his youth.  He had even submitted to being an altar boy for six months, until he could convince his father to excuse him the honor.  Rupert suppressed a little smile, imagining what his father would think of the woman in the stole and chasuble leading this service: from this distance he could ascertain that she had short ash-blond hair, awkwardly styled—a strong jawline—and a clear, carrying voice.  He remembered suddenly that Elisabeth had made several references to a Mother Anne—he fumbled over his order of service—yes, the Reverend Anne Langland was the vicar here.  Rupert smiled to himself, a little ruefully; he clearly had not been paying attention.

The service progressed apace, and Rupert began to wonder with disappointment what he had expected; he had not planned exactly to participate, so it shouldn’t exactly be a surprise that he felt himself at a loose end.  He listened to the sermon with detached interest; the vicar spoke well, though of things that seemed to have nothing to do with him.

Except that in the next moment her words began to break through to him and become suddenly, sharply three-dimensional.  She was talking about daily acts of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of reclaiming life from darkness, and she quoted from the lesson:  It is a thing very near to you, on your lips and in your heart ready to be kept.

His breath caught.  He was almost unable to hear the rest of the sermon, his mind had so clutched at the passage and begun turning it over.  The sermon ended, he stood with the others, and sat when they sat, himself voiceless as they spoke the responses.  When the Communion liturgy began he sat unobtrusively while everyone else knelt.  He did not go forward to the altar rail, though he had some dim momentary urge to go ask for a blessing from the priest; ahead of him he saw Elisabeth leave her pew and genuflect quickly before going up.

The sight of her jolted his dislimned senses back into practical thought.  Perhaps Elisabeth wouldn’t like him coming; perhaps she would like it too much.  Perhaps he should slip out quietly after the Eucharist had finished and beat Elisabeth home, or take a walk and let her beat him home.  Perhaps he should melt into the floor and die.

Too melodramatic, Rupert, for God’s sake.

The outdoor walk was appealing to him more and more.  This was Oxford, there were plenty of places to walk, even in the rain.  Elisabeth would look at him compassionately if he came in with his nice jumper all wet, but that was nothing compared to what she might do if she saw him here—dammit, she knew enough of his weaknesses without—

He stopped.  Is that really what you think?  Or is the problem not what she knows but what you know?

He gave a small dejected sigh and rose for the final hymn.  A thing very near to you, he thought.  Well, you can take it like a man.  Nevertheless he was resolved to slip away as soon as may be.

But he had forgotten about the recessional: before he could insinuate himself into the aisle and out the front doors, the crucifer and torch-bearers were coming, and had passed him even as he cursed his slow reflexes.  Behind them trundled the choir and the lay ministers and last of all the vicar; and after the last dismissal a crush spilled into the aisle, so that it took several minutes for Rupert to get out of his pew.

As he did so he felt a hand slip into the crook of his arm.  He turned his head sharply to see Elisabeth looking up at him—damn! caught—but there was neither surprise nor triumph in her face, merely a mild look tinged with equal parts faint curiosity and humor.  Rupert let out his breath.

“If we go out the front way,” she said through the din of voices, “we can see Mother Anne.  She’s been wanting to meet you.”

To his immense private gratitude, there was no ominous tone in her voice as she said this.  “I’d like to meet her,” he said.

Rupert was feeling the pull of old instincts: he had lowered his eyes though not his head at the crucifer’s passing, paused to nod to the altar as he turned his back on it, and now tucked Elisabeth’s arm through his, as his mother had taught him to do—all things that in his rebel youth he had tried to unlearn.  It made him feel both young and old at once.

They waited together for their turn to pass out of the doors, into a spitting that would soon indeed be a heavy rain.  “Bring the umbrella?” Elisabeth asked.  He shook his head.  “Me neither.  Ah well.”

Up close, he saw that Anne Langland was quite young in years, though not at all in mien.  Her features were both delicate and strong, and not quite beautiful, though her hands as she moved them in expression to the woman ahead of them were.  She turned and caught Elisabeth’s eye, and immediately broke into a smile.  “Good morning,” she said, with a fresh exuberance.  Her eye turned also to take in Rupert’s height expectantly.

“Good morning,” Elisabeth said.  “May I introduce my partner, Rupert Giles.”

Rupert gave a single nod and a grim smile.  He had never had his relationship with Elisabeth named in front of a priest before, and wondered how the vicar would take it.

“Of course,” Mother Anne said, both her hands going out to welcome his.  “I’m very glad to meet you.”

“I-I enjoyed your sermon,” Rupert stammered out.  “Very much.”  Though enjoyed, perhaps, was not really the word he wanted.  But it seemed to convey to the vicar his appreciation, because she nodded and thanked him gracefully.

“Do you know,” she said to Elisabeth, “I have roast chicken I was going to make into sandwiches for lunch.  Perhaps you’d both like to join me, if you have time...?”

They glanced at one another. Rupert made a facial shrug: I’m game.

“We’d love to,” Elisabeth said.

“Wonderful.  If you’d like, you can slip across to the vicarage; I’ve left it unlocked.  It won’t take me long to finish here and de-vest.”

Elisabeth nodded and hustled herself and Rupert out of the head of the line, to make room for the ones behind them wishing to greet the vicar, and led him unerringly across the street and toward a small house with a cross on the front door.  Rupert suspected she’d been there before, and it was confirmed when he heard Elisabeth murmur, “She shouldn’t leave the vicarage unlocked like that.  Though she hasn’t got much a burglar would want; she lives very simply.  Except for the two Russian icons in the chapel.”

Elisabeth let them in, and led him through the vestibule into the front sitting room, which was obviously both a waiting- and a meeting-place for parishioners, furnished liberally with sitting surfaces and not much else besides a magazine rack, a bookshelf, and a pair of icons (not the Russian ones) on the wall.  Rupert strolled meditatively to the front window and looked out on the rain.

Clearly he had not adequately assessed Elisabeth’s relationship with her priest.  He ought to have thought of it, however; he knew she had become more devout in the past few years, probably starting with the vicar in Sunnydale.  He did not begrudge her her religious solace, but he wished he had been paying better attention.

She had called him partner, as a matter of fact and without a blush.  It was certainly a shorter thing to call him than lover-who-roosts-in-my-flat-when-not-scurrying-about-running-errands-for-the-New-Order.  And he had certainly come to see her as his partner, last year when they had finally claimed one another.  Before.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Elisabeth said.

He turned, caught.  Before he could dissemble, Elisabeth smiled and shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks.  “Hmm.  Don’t seem to have a penny.  Just my lucky sixpence.  Lucky sixpence for your thoughts.”

“I couldn’t take your lucky sixpence,” Rupert said with a smile.  “I was just thinking about the vicar.”

Her smile widened benevolently.  “Anne’s been a good friend to me.”

“How long has she been vicar here?”

“I’m not sure exactly.  But she hasn’t been ordained long, and this is her second parish.  I’d say a few years, maybe just before I landed in Oxford myself.”

Rupert nodded half to himself, looking out the window again.  “I did like her sermon.”

“Yes,” Elisabeth said.  After a moment, she added:  “She preaches well.”

He nodded. 

Elisabeth said suddenly, “Maybe we can get the kettle started.  You want tea?”

He nodded again and followed her uncertainly down the hall to the kitchen, where Elisabeth went (again unerringly) to the teakettle sitting cold on the range and took it to fill at the tap.  He couldn’t resist commenting on it anymore.  “You know your way around,” he said.

She smiled over her shoulder at him.  “Yeah,” was all she said as she turned up the gas under the kettle.

He came to rest across the kitchen island from her; when she had finished putting on the kettle she turned and came to lean on the island across from him with a little inward sigh.

It might be easier on him, he thought, if she were to press him for a response instead of waiting patiently, undemanding, for him to speak.  But that of course was of a piece with her general behavior of late—not to lay claim to his time or attention if ever she could help it.  It made her speech of this morning all the more startling.

“You called me partner,” he blurted.

She looked up at him sharply, then broke into a smile.  She dug her wallet out of her jacket pocket, filched out all the bills inside—seven pounds, looked like—and handed them across the island to him. 

Without really knowing why he began to relax.  He took up the notes, fingered them, counting, and handed them back to her.  “It’s really not a seven-pound thought,” he told her.

She pushed the notes back to him.  “Believe me, Rupert,” she said, “no matter how much I had in my wallet I’d still give it all to you.  Take it.  Yes; I called you partner.”

Chin down, he lifted his eyes and regarded her with the remnant of his suspicion.  She remained steady, as he had continued to find her; immovable: a rock and a refuge, as the Psalm said.  I will not be shaken.

Rupert found his lips quirking up into a little smile.  Slowly he reached out and took the seven pounds.  She smiled wider.

He was folding the notes into his own wallet when they heard the front door open and the priest’s brisk step down the hall.  “In here,” Elisabeth called.

Mother Anne appeared in the kitchen doorway.  Her garb had been reduced to black slacks, grey clerical shirt, and collar, and she was in the process of furling a ratty-looking psychedelic umbrella.  “Ah, yes.  Good.  You’ve put the kettle on.  A cup of tea sounds wonderful.  Let me just....”  She disappeared again, to reappear a few minutes later sans umbrella and wearing a pair of well-worn slippers instead of her dress shoes.  “Let’s see about those sandwiches,” she said.

 

The three of them worked quickly together to set the table and prepare the sandwiches, as if they had been doing it for years.  It was even hardly noticeable that Anne and Elisabeth gave Rupert tasks that didn’t require him to look for things; as if it had all been decided at the moment of their meeting that that was how it would go.

            And when they had sat down at the table to eat, a quiet descended upon them, tinged with the sound of the rain outside, and Rupert breathed out, relaxing.

            As they finished their meal, Elisabeth and Anne took up a lively conversation about the writing of icons, in which Rupert actually found a few things to say.  After he launched into (and stutteringly abandoned) a lecture on the secrets of the Byzantines, Anne responded:  “Yes, Elisabeth has told me you are an expert in antiquities.”

            Rupert looked at her, startled.

            “Though you’ll forgive me, I hope,” she went on, “for not recalling exactly what your specialities are.  I’ve known Elisabeth quite a while—ever since the day she came into my office and requested a gallon of holy water.”  As she said this Anne directed a humorous smile over at Elisabeth, who smiled into her tea.

            “Well,” Rupert said, lifting his own cup and answering the thought rather than the words, “it’s a relief not to have to dissemble.”  He reassured Elisabeth, who had begun to look troubled, with a glance.

            “Many priests cannot be surprised at such things.  I understand you are quite busy at the moment,” Anne said.

            It was just beginning to dawn on Rupert that Anne might know a great deal more than he thought not only about Elisabeth, but about him.  If she knew what his heritage was, there was very little he could expect to hide from her.

            “Yes,” he heard himself say, “there’s a great deal of work to do at the moment, between reorganizing ourselves and locating…others.”

            “I should think that would be very difficult work,” the priest said. 

            Rupert nodded morosely.

            “My thoughts will certainly be with you,” Anne said simply.

            He lifted his eyes to her face.  “Thank you,” he said.

            Despite the complete lack of judgment in the vicar’s face, a disquieting thought was taking shape in his mind:  what, if anything, did she know about what had happened in the past spring?  What (worst of all) did she know about what he had done?

            He buried his face in his teacup to cover the dizzy moment, though he did not think he could fool Elisabeth any.  If she had told Brian what he had done to her, would she not also have told her priest?  He had no doubt that anything Elisabeth had said to others about that night would be guarded, and carefully worded so as to isolate and minimize the blame due him.  But it didn’t mean those others couldn’t read between the lines.  Brian certainly hadn’t failed to do so: Rupert had the memory of a bruised lump on his jaw to assure him of that.

            He didn’t think the priest would give him a corresponding bruise on his soul.  But if she knew, he almost wished she would.

            With an effort Rupert dragged his mind from the dismal topic and forced himself to listen to Elisabeth, who was recounting the story of the gallon of holy water—a story he had heard before, about Brian’s discovery of the supernatural world by dint of inviting a female vampire home after a party—“Oops,” as Elisabeth said.  Anne was smiling; he rather thought she had heard the story too.

            They all sat back with second cups of tea and chewed the fat a while longer; then Rupert and Elisabeth helped clear up before leaving.  Mother Anne saw them out graciously, her birdlike hands opening the door, pressing a spare umbrella on them, waving as they stepped out into the deluge.

            After a little bit of fumbling, Elisabeth ceded the umbrella handle to him, as he was the taller by far, and they consciously matched their steps as they made their way up the street toward home.  As so often happened, a silence settled between them, like a muddy grout between the tiles of events, neither comfortable nor unbearable.  Except today it felt more unbearable than not.  Rupert transferred the umbrella to his left hand and slipped his right down to take hers.  She did not turn her eyes from the pattern of water in the gutters and rolling down the windows of the cars they passed, but she squeezed his hand once and held it, and the habitual grief at the corners of her young mouth eased a little.

 

A few days later (the days really were all running together now) found him alone in the flat, reading a book, a cold cup of coffee at his elbow.  He had settled once more into that uneasy groove of thought that so often took over when he was alone—could hardly be called thought at all, except insofar as tangible worries tumbled into it like floodwaters down a wadi.  Elisabeth was gone on a book buy, a day trip that might last till late evening and would certainly last till dinner.  He hadn’t heard anything from the others in several days.  He wondered if no news was really good news.

            As if to answer his inward question, his mobile exploded somewhere in the flat.  He knew it was his because Elisabeth had programmed the ring tone to play “Für Elise,” as a joke that he didn’t know how to undo.  Tinny Beethoven screeched at him as he jumped up and hunted through papers and clothing—cold...cold...warmer...warmer—until he unearthed it with shaking hands from the pocket of his bathrobe (what on earth was it doing in there? he didn’t remember taking a bath with his mobile.  Perhaps Elisabeth was playing a joke on him) and hit the green button.  “H-hallo?”

            “Giles! There you are.”

            “Buffy.”  Rupert straightened and went back into the den area.  (He had to admit it was maybe just a little bit cool, walking around with a very small instrument to his ear, talking into space; but he would admit it only to himself.)  “I’ve been wondering how you were.”

            “I’m fine,” Buffy said pointedly.  “How are you?”

            His eyebrows went up.  “Also fine.”  He took off his glasses and rubbed between his brows with his thumb.

            Buffy not being able to see him, the gesture had no effect.  “I haven’t heard from you.  I wanted to make sure nothing was up.”

            “Oh?  Was I supposed to call you?  I’m sorry.”  Rupert put his glasses back on and went in search of the files he had been keeping on the search for Slayers.

            “Well, you didn’t answer the email I sent everybody, giving my report.  At the tail end I asked everybody to reply with updates on their situations.”

            “Oh—oh, right,” Rupert said.  “I’m terribly sorry—I haven’t got round to answering it yet.  Nothing much is happening here anyway,” he added, offhand.

            Buffy drawled:  “You haven’t been checking your email, have you.”

            He began to stammer, and could veritably hear her smirking over the signal waves.  “Well now—you know—that’s not quite true.  I’ve been very—”

            “Busy?”  Buffy supplied, sweetly.

            “No,” he said, since he had already bricked himself in on that escape route.  His shoulders dropped.  “All right, all right.  I’ll check the damn email.”

            “You’d better,” she said severely.  “Willow didn’t network that computer within an inch of its life just to look pretty, you know.”  Rupert had submitted to getting an email address, in fact, only on condition that Willow network it on Elisabeth’s new laptop; he still refused to acquire a computer of his own.

            “Yes.  I know.  But you can’t make me like it,” he sulked.

            “That’s my boy,” Buffy said.  “Now tell me how you really are.”

            “No,” he said, still sulking.

            To his relief Buffy broke into a genuine laugh, something as rare these days with her as it was with him.  “Then I guess you must be holding your own,” she said.  “So when is Andrew coming to stay with you?”

            Rupert rolled his eyes.  “Xander,” he said, “is palming him off on me in three weeks, last I talked to him.”

            “Xander’s going to Africa soon,” Buffy reminded him, a consoling note in her voice.

            “Bully for Xander,” Rupert muttered.

            “Now, now.”  (It was easy enough for Buffy to talk now that Andrew wasn’t living in her house, Rupert thought.)  “Andrew has a boy-crush on Xander; it’s been really wearing on him.  With any luck he won’t develop a boy-crush on you.”

            “You know,” Rupert said, exasperated, “I think I have definitely decided that no news is good news.”

            Buffy laughed again.

            He decided to turn the tables.  “So tell me how you are.”

            “Oh, just peachy.  It’s all in the email.”

            Rupert muttered several expletives not quite under his breath.

            “Oh, this is just the first step, Giles.  Next thing we’re going to get you doing is IM.”

            “You’ll drag me kicking and screaming into that instant messaging—”  He sketched a rubbishy gesture with his glasses.

            Buffy laughed a third time.  She was clearly in a good mood.

            “Kicking—and—screaming,” he enunciated.

            “Which you’re not at all doing now,” Buffy said.  “Look, I’ve gotta go.  I’ll catch you later.  I look forward to your email reply.  Bye now!”

            “Oh balls!” Rupert replied, just as she clicked off.

            The worst thing about mobiles, Rupert decided, was not being able to hang up with emphasis.  He searched for a few seconds for the ‘end’ button before punching it with his thumb.  He tossed the little phone down on the couch and glared around the room.  His baleful gaze lit on Elisabeth’s laptop, sitting idly on the desk surrounded by a nest of papers, both his and hers.  He snorted loudly.

            It wasn’t so much the technology as the air of esoteric initiation he was forced to endure from these half-pints.  And it wasn’t so much the email as the fact that his report would have as its substance five color-coded files, a sheaf of unanswered emails, a bulging Rolodex, three paperback books (consumed on trains) and a small inward litany of misery.  Rupert couldn’t face it. 

He decided to go for a walk.

 

He had got two steps outside the door when he realized that it was threatening to rain again.  Not wishing to be caught for the second time in a week without raingear, he went back inside for his burberry.  But then he saw the vicar’s umbrella leaning against the wall of the foyer.  Today would be a good time to return it.  And he’d wear his burberry too, so as not to get wet on the way home.

            He set out for the second time, duly guarded against the weather.  His original plan had been to wander into a few of his favorite haunts, maybe even have a pint and a light lunch; but instead he found his steps taking him without hesitation to the church.  When he reached it, he paused, looking across the street to the vicarage; but decided that probably Mother Anne was in the office rather than at home.  He went into the parish hall and, after poking about in a dark corridor or two, found the way to the vicar’s office.

            The church was quiet, though far off he thought he could hear an adult female voice chivvying the voices of children.  He went to the open door and knocked on the frame.

            The priest swiveled about in her desk chair.  She had been rattling comfortably at a computer keyboard, but when she saw him she turned around altogether.  “Mr. Giles,” she said, a smile gathering in her face.

            “Please,” he said, “Rupert.”  He held forward the umbrella with both hands as if it were a child’s bouquet.  “I’ve brought back your umbrella.”

            “Oh, thank you,” she said, getting up to take it.  “I probably would have forgotten completely.  Do sit down.”

            “Oh, no,” he said, “I couldn’t interrupt you....”

            “It’s only an early draft of next week’s sermon,” she assured him.  “I was just going to break off and make a cup of tea.  Would you care for some?”

            He struggled only a moment: it had come to him that this—a cup of tea with the vicar—was exactly what he had wanted.  “Thank you,” he said.  He shrugged out of his burberry and hung it up on the coat-tree in the corner.

            She indicated a well-worn leather chair next her desk, and after some hesitation he sat, giving the act of hospitality into her hands completely.  The chair was deceptively comfortable, and he twisted in it a little to watch Mother Anne turn up the heat on an electric kettle she kept on a little table near the window, which was open on one side, drawing in the sound and scent of the rain.  “Only bags at the moment, I’m afraid,” she said, glancing back at him.

            He made a dismissing gesture with one hand, and settled back in his chair.

            “Milk? sugar?”

            “Both,” he said.

            She soon brought him a steaming quantity of tea, in a cup and saucer of fine bone china.  He smiled at it as he received it from her hands; reading his look, she said, “Used to have a set of six.  Only two left now, I’m afraid.  Things do break, even if one is careful.”

            Indeed, Rupert thought; but his only answer was to bring the cup to his lips and imbibe deeply.

            It was the same.  He had wondered if perhaps that Sunday afternoon had been a fluke, if the quiet and the sense of safety, of haven, had been merely an illusion born of his moment of connection with Elisabeth and the not-quite-epiphany he had had during the sermon.  But he felt as safe now, sipping tea in the vicar’s office, as he had then, and he decided to savor it.  He shut his eyes for a long moment as he took in a deep sip of tea.

            When he opened them he saw that the priest was sipping at her own cup, her eyes lost in abstraction out the window.  “Nice day,” she said.  “A rainy day is always good for writing.”

            He thought about it.  “I suppose it would be.  I haven’t a turn for it, myself.”

            “What, for writing?”  She turned to look at him.

            He shook his head.

            She cocked her chin a little.  “Nevertheless you appear to have something of the creative mind about you.  I’m not sure what it is.”

            He shrugged helplessly.

            The vicar took another sip of her tea.  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, you know.  I’ve been looking forward to meeting you one of these days.  Elisabeth speaks very highly of you.”

            His throat tightened.  “Does she?”

            Mother Anne’s eyes were steady on his.  “Yes.”

            His gaze dropped before he could stop it.  He shifted his cup on its saucer, a morose frown gathering in his face.  “I...I don’t know that I deserve for her to praise me.”

            “Because of what happened in the spring?” the vicar said simply.

            He made the faintest of movements and went still, but in his mind’s eye he half-saw himself jerking and dropping the teacup onto the rug.  Slowly he lifted his eyes to the vicar’s face.  “You know, then?” he said, his voice hollow.

            “Yes,” she said.  Then abruptly sat back, a look of faint chagrin in her face.  “Rupert...you ought to know that I don’t often act as confessor to my male parishioners.  Unless circumstances do not permit it, I usually arrange for one of my colleagues in town—”

            Rupert jumped in, horrified.  “Oh, I’m not here to make a confession.”  When the vicar’s eyebrows went up, he added, “I’m not even a Christian.”

            To his—mortification? relief?—a smile spread over her face.  “I’m not sure what Watchers call it.  You were going to tell me what happened, were you not?”

            He looked down into his tea.  “Well, if Elisabeth...it wouldn’t be new information to you.”  He sighed deeply.  “I’m not sure what Watchers called it.  There’re not many of us left.  I’m one of the last.”  He shifted his cup on the saucer again.  “I do understand your professional delicacy—” he gave a short laugh— “after all, in my heritage I exist to train and protect a young girl in an intimate setting.  There are...recognized dangers.”  He sighed again.

            “So I would think.”  He looked up at her again, and saw that she had tilted her head back slightly and was regarding him with an odd aquiline look, as if she were trying to see through him to something far beyond.

            “And I didn’t,” he hastened to say, “come here to confess: really.  I merely...I only...I’ve only just realized that Elisabeth has friends...other than Brian Whitaker, I mean.”

            “Ah, Brian.”  The vicar smiled and sipped at her tea.

            Rupert cut his eyes over at her.  “He’s not one of your parishioners, is he?”

            Anne shook her head.  “I know him through Elisabeth.”

            Rupert sighed.  “I wanted to...put myself in touch with what comforts her.  And...in a way, I suppose...find out the worst.”  He looked over at Anne and saw that she was nodding.

            He took the plunge.  “So...Elisabeth told you, then...what happened.”

            The priest let out a long sigh and leaned back in her chair.  “It was Brian and I who cared for Elisabeth when she collapsed in college.  She wasn’t very coherent; apparently she had not really slept for weeks.  And she was still under occasional attack by what you call the First Evil.  It was days before we could calm her enough to sleep through a night, and even longer before she could speak.”

            Rupert shut his eyes.  It wasn’t until the battle had been fought that he could think straight enough to be fully mortified by Brian’s phone call informing him that Elisabeth had collapsed, was being given a leave of absence from her coursework, and demanding that Rupert offer anonymous assistance.  Which, of course, he had done without cavil.  After he had reconciled with her, he had gradually discovered the rest.  And this he had not known at all.

            “I kept her with me in the vicarage for a few days,” Anne’s calm voice continued.  “She was very scattered for a while.  She’d had a history of anxiety disorder, I was told, and her collapse brought it back; but eventually she was able to talk, and she could tell me what she’d been going through.  She wouldn’t talk about you at first; only about the First Evil...but I found out after a while that something had happened with you in the midst of it.  I decided to press her gently for the story, and she told it to me.”

            Rupert opened his eyes and found a place on the vicar’s desk to put his cup and saucer.  Set his eyes on a rose in the rug at his feet and said softly, flatly:  “I showed up at her flat that night to torture information out of her.  I didn’t succeed.  I couldn’t quite go through with it.  But I did damage enough.”  He drew a long stertorous breath.  “I let go of what I knew.  I believed the lies that were told me, that she was an enemy.  And I betrayed her.”

            There was a long silence.  The rain-dampened air felt strange to Rupert’s cheeks, and he realized it was because his face was wet.  He sat silently and let the tears flow, keeping his blurred eyes on the carpet rose.  The priest said nothing.

            After a moment Rupert pulled off his glasses and laid them down on his knee, then took out his handkerchief to dry his face.  He cleared his throat and said, “It sounds so benign, when I put it like that.”  His eyes filled afresh.  He caught the new tears with his handkerchief as they fell.  “What did she tell you?”

            He heard her draw a breath and let it out in a little sigh.  “She told me you pushed her against a wall and twisted her wrist to breaking point, and said some unkind things to her.  That you were desperate and had been drinking.”

            Rupert sniffed.  “That was the dutch courage.”

            “Yes.”

            “She said it was my saving grace.”

            “Yes.”

            “I asked her forgiveness,” he said in a whisper.  “When I came back.  I think she gave it me.  But I can’t put it right.”

            “No.”

            He shut his eyes tight and stopped breathing. 

That was what he had been afraid of.

            He heard the priest shift a little in her chair.  “Rupert...can I ask you a question?”

            He let out his breath and nodded, eyes still closed.

            “When you asked her forgiveness...is that what she understands you to have done—what you said just now?”

            He opened his eyes, bewildered.  “She was there.  She knows what happened.”

            “No,” Anne said patiently, “you misunderstand me.  Is that the sin you asked her forgiveness for, or did you describe it differently to her than you did just now?”

            For a moment he was too distracted by his odd relief that she had matter-of-factly termed it a sin to give her an answer.  Then he thought it over, and said:  “I think so.  It’s hard to remember....”  But he knew, and the silence of the office dragged it out of him.  “I didn’t mention the bit about—the enemy,” he said, haltingly.  He paused, then added, “I daresay she knows it anyway.”  Which, he waited for her to say, was not the point.

            “Mm,” was all Anne said for a moment; then, gently, “Is it that bit, about your believing she was your enemy, that is still between you?”

            He nodded slowly.  Then let his shoulders drop.  “You’re going to tell me I need to confess it to her, aren’t you?”

            “No,” she said.  There was a tinge of humor in her voice, and he looked up, looked her in the face for the first time since they began this terrible subject.  There were grief lines about her young thin mouth, but it was a smile she was giving him.  “This isn’t a confession, remember?  I’m not giving you direction.  Besides—” her smile widened wryly— “you seem to be doing all right on your own.”

            “Dammit,” he said.  Then he sighed.  “I thought perhaps I wouldn’t have to say it if I could...show her that it wasn’t true; if I could—make her some sort of satisfaction for what I did.”

            “And it isn’t working?”

            He gave his head a brief shake, half-uncertain.  “Not—not—”  He paused.  “It’s... hot and cold.  It works and it doesn’t.  I don’t....”  He stopped altogether, and began to rub his tear-streaked lenses with his damp handkerchief.

            “You can’t find yourself on the map.”

            He nodded, relieved that she had found the words for him.  He put his glasses back on and wiped at his hands with the handkerchief.  “I’m not sure what to do,” he said, simply.  “And it hurts.”

            Anne merely looked steadily at him.  His eyes fell to his teacup.

            “I’ll have to tell her,” he said heavily, almost to himself.

            “You probably won’t have peace, either of you, till you do,” she agreed.

            He nodded, his eyes turned inward.

            It was a long moment before either of them spoke; Rupert picked up his cup and saucer again and sipped at the cold tea for a moment, then lowered it to his lap.

            “I can take that,” Anne said, getting up with her own cup and saucer.  “I expect it’s cold.”

            Mutely he gave his to her; she took both cups and returned them to the little table, to be washed later, he presumed.

            He cleared his throat.  “Is she better, d’you think?”

            Anne turned.  “Elisabeth?”

            He nodded.

            “Much,” she said.  She looked him steadily in the face.  “She’s healing.  So, I think, are you.”

            He gave her a small smile as he rose from his chair.

            “I hope so,” he said.  He moved tentatively toward the coat tree where his burberry waited, then turned to look at her where she stood, hands clasped graciously in front of her.

            “Thank you for the tea,” he said.

            “The pleasure was mine,” she said.  “Come again.”

            He nodded, took his burberry from the coat tree, and bowed gently before letting himself out of her office.

 

Still avoiding the email, Rupert busied himself at home with cleaning the kitchen and doing a load of laundry until his mobile went off in the den area.  He picked it up and checked the little screen.  If it was Buffy, asking if he’d checked his email yet, he just wouldn’t even answer it.

            It was Elisabeth.

            “Hi,” she said breathlessly, “I’m on the train.  I’ll probably be home in an hour.  Thought I’d let you know.”

            “Good sale?” he asked her, though the euphoric tone of her voice could hardly mean anything different.

            “Very.  What’s for dinner?”

            “I was thinking fish and chips.”

            “Oh, sounds heavenly.”

            “Right, then I’ll put the fish to defrost.”

            “’Kay.  See you in about an hour.”

            “Right.”

            She clicked off.

            Rupert went to get the fish out.  It would take a while even after Elisabeth arrived for dinner to be ready, but Rupert felt he could fill the time while the fish thawed.  He made the batter and put it in the fridge to chill.  He opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass to sip at while he selected potatoes and peeled them.

            Avoiding could be an art, he thought.  Though he could do without the cat sitting on the floor, paws tucked under its chest, watching him sardonically.

            “You’re not helping,” he told the Guardian.

            The Guardian twitched his tail in a way that Rupert was sure was the equivalent of flipping him off, in a friendly way of course.

 

Elisabeth arrived home in a whirl of satchel and black burberry.  “Hallo,” he called from the kitchen, and she appeared fully, bringing with her the vinyl scent of train travel and brushing rain from the surface of her hair.  “Hallo,” she replied.  “You look suitably domestic.”

            He glanced down at his apron, scarcely pausing in his work cutting potatoes.  “Thank you,” he grinned.  “You look like a successful bookman.”

            “I am a successful bookman,” she said, rising on tiptoe at his shoulder to kiss him.  “I’m also glad to be home.  I had to work with a guy who was a total ass.  I wish you’d been there to glare at him.”

            “I’m sure you did all right on your own,” he said with a sidelong smile, moving the cut potatoes to the brine bowl and fishing out an uncut one.

            “Ooh, wine,” Elisabeth said, noticing his glass.  She got one of her own and put her backside to the counter, sipping.  “So how was your day?”

            “Not very exciting.  Buffy called,” he said lightly.

            “Oh, really?  How is she?”

            “She wouldn’t say,” Rupert said bitterly.

            Elisabeth wilted a little.  “Oh.  Did you have a row?”

            “No.  She just insisted that if I want to find out how she is I have to read her email.”

            If he had hoped to get sympathy from Elisabeth on that point, he was disappointed.  “You mean you haven’t been checking your email?  Rupert!”

            He didn’t look at her.  “It’s a nuisance,” he said, chopping the potato with extra vim.

            She came over and took the knife out of his hand.  “Have you checked it yet?”

            He glared at her.  “No.”

            “Then I’ll finish the potatoes.  You go read your email.”

            He gave a loud snort, but acquiesced.  “Wash your hands,” was all he said as he rinsed his and wiped them on his apron.  As she moved demurely to comply, he took the apron off and dropped it over her head.  She grinned over her shoulder at him as he tied the strings in the back, pausing as he did so to kiss the nape of her neck.  Then he heaved a great sigh and went into the den to do his duty.

            A week’s worth of avoiding email, and it was as bad as he feared:  more than a hundred new messages filled his inbox when he signed in.  He clicked desultorily on the ones that looked most important, and somewhere in the middle of the list he found the email Buffy had referred to.  He clicked on none of the ones from Andrew; not only did he not have patience at the moment for Andrew’s florid style, he also had no idea what the emails referred to, as Andrew had seen fit to get creative with his subject headers.  What on earth was “Re: I know something you don’t know...I am not left-handed” supposed to be about?

            Subtly, so that he was not even startled, Elisabeth’s hands slipped over his shoulders from behind and her arms curved round him in a light embrace.  He felt her lips on the back of his hair.  She spoke, humor in her voice.

            “Looks like you have a lot of messages.  Am I going to have to start prodding you to check your email?”

            “No,” he said sulkily.

            She chuckled and kissed him just behind the ear.

            “You’re distracting me,” he said, still sulking.

            “And you object?”

            “Well, you were so keen a minute ago for me to check my email.”

            “What can I say?” she said lightly, “I’m just keen all over.”

            He groaned.  “Bad joke.”  Nevertheless his hand rose to stroke the inside of her wrist where it crossed his collarbone.  He took his glasses off and leaned his head back; it found a perfect resting place on her shoulder.  He smiled.  “But, an admirable sentiment.”

            “Mm?”  He caught a glimpse of her smiling eyes before she kissed him.  He moved his head and kissed her back. 

            She broke the kiss to say, “I finished cutting the potatoes and they’re brining as we speak.”

            Then she kissed him again.  Pulled back again to say, “And I put the fish back in the fridge.”

            “And the batter?”

            “And the batter.”

            “Mm.”  He reached to kiss her again.

            “Think we could delay dinner a half hour?” she murmured.

            Rather.  Please.  I’d like nothing better.  “Mmm,” he said.

            He got up, taking her hand as it slid from his shoulder.  “You sure you don’t want me to finish reading my email?”

            “What email?” she said, with a little smile.

 

She was still wearing the apron.  It was his, so the bottom hem hit just below her knees and never failed to make him laugh when he saw her wearing it.  Teasing him, she took her slacks off first, leaving him to embrace her and undo the strings behind.  Half-undressed, they unmade the bed and got in, where she straddled his lap and bent her head with a grace that made him ache, to kiss him thoroughly.  His hands cupped her shoulders for a moment; then he unbuttoned her blouse and smoothed it off her as she kissed his closed eyelids.  He knew her by feel now, as she knew him; and it was with the inerrancy of a dance, or a liturgy, that he brought down his hands so that she could lift hers and kiss him, holding his head like a chalice.  His eyes fluttered open, to catch sight of the sweep of her eyelashes close up; but he found that she too had opened her eyes and was looking in his.  One glance was enough; he shut them, drew a giddy breath, and lowered his head to nuzzle the hollow of her shoulder.  Fluent in five languages, he thought; conversant in three more, and expert in nearly every ancient language going; and he had not one word with which to describe what it meant when she touched him.  He breathed out and kissed the soft bare skin above her breast.

            He couldn’t speak, but he could touch her in return, and did:  and together they redeemed the time, golden and ordinary, with dinner waiting and the rain falling outside.

            When they had finished they lay embraced slightly apart, their bodies cooling, eyes half-closed.  Rupert lay still, listening to her breathing and to the sussuration of the rain outside the open window.

            As he listened, the rain drew his eyes open gradually and brought his mind to the faint tendril of courage rising within him.  He cleared his throat and said quietly:  “I returned the vicar’s umbrella today.”

            Elisabeth stirred.  “Did you?  Good.  I kept forgetting to do it.”

            He was silent a long moment, and she moved her head a little.  “Did you see her?”

            “Yes,” he said.  “She gave me a cup of tea.”

            She made no answer except to move her hand, stroking along his ribs, a comforting gesture.

            “I like her,” he said.

            “I’m glad,” she replied, snuggling closer.  “I thought you probably would.”

            His tendril of courage had wisped out: he knew he was not going to confess to her today.  But soon.  He moved his head and took in the scent of her hair.

            Soon.

 

They returned to the kitchen eventually and worked together to prepare their dinner; then they clinked their wineglasses, smiling, and ate it without much need for comment.

            After dinner Elisabeth went to have her bath—a good soak, as she said, was definitely in order, though Rupert had already done much to soothe away the day’s cares.  He broke into a smile when she said this last; she kissed him, said, “Go finish checking your email,” and disappeared into the bathroom, the hem of her robe flipping lightly as the door shut.

            Rupert made a face and returned to the computer.

            He may as well, he decided, read all the new messages and have done with it.  Methodically he clicked on each bolded header, deleting the irrelevant ones.  After some hesitation he read Andrew’s messages as well.  The “I know something you don’t know” one turned out actually to be useful, being a rundown of some fresh information he had discovered about the Scythe—presented in a veering fashion, it was true, but still worthwhile.  He toyed with the idea of printing out the important messages, and decided that could wait for tomorrow when he wasn’t so tired from the day.

            He duly answered Buffy’s message: his hand still hesitated painfully at each new step—Reply All, click in the window, erase all the send-path gobbledygook, type his message.  He’d never taken a typing course, and his style was a quick version of modified hunt-and-peck.  For them it shaved a lot of time off writing “snail-mail” letters, but not so much for him.  His report, however, was not a long one; not much had happened on his end, at least not until he’d checked his email; now he had several contacts to follow up on and two banking requests to put through.  He checked his reply over, squinting through his glasses, and clicked Send.  Then he turned to the task of cleaning up his inbox.  Surely there had to be a way to sort these damn things once they arrived.

            He had new mail.  Dammit, how on earth was he supposed to stay on top of all this, with new mail arriving every bloody hour?

            The new message was a reply to his, from Xander.  “Hey Giles, glad to see your still in the land of the living.”  At first Rupert couldn’t make sense of the message, then realized that Xander’s Sunnydale High education hadn’t equipped him to distinguish a possessive from a contraction.  Well, he decided magnanimously, once he could understand the message he supposed it didn’t matter.  Then the message sank in; but he didn’t have time to retort before a new message had appeared.  This one was from Willow.  “Hey, Giles found his email account again!  Hurray!”

            Then there was one from Buffy in reply.  “Isn’t it amazing?  I only had to call him on his cell one time!  Elisabeth must have made him check his email.”

            Rupert scowled, and opened a new reply window.  His new message was simple: the header said, “Get Stuffed,” and the body of the reply said, “All of you.”  He clicked Send.

            Xander’s reply came in predictably quickly:  “oooh, look at Giles with the e-trash talk!”  And before he could compose a suitable reply, the others had chimed in as well.  Even Andrew was adding his two cents.  Dammit, at this rate his inbox would be cluttered beyond repair.  He searched for, and found, the little button that “minimized” the email window and went searching for the IM icon.

            Luckily it was on the desktop and not buried hopelessly in the Start menu.  He clicked on it, but to his dismay it immediately signed on in Elisabeth’s name.  He was forced to search the file menu for a way to change it over to the call sign Willow and Elisabeth had set up for him, which he had never used.

            It took him what seemed an excruciatingly long time but at last it was done, he was signed on, and of course they were all there, in the “online” list.  He hadn’t been paying attention when they’d set this up for him: why on earth had he let them name him ScentOfBooks?

            Almost immediately a new window appeared, startling him: an invitation to a chat room called “Kicking and Screaming”.  He joined it and typed, “har, har.”

            They razzed him almost unmercifully for a while, but he fancied he gave as good as he got, though it took him longer to type the damn responses.  Then the talk turned to business matters; Andrew mentioned again his new information and the follow-up he’d done.  “okay, lore us, andrew,” Buffy said (what was this trend of uncapitalized syntax?).

            “Yes, bore us, please,” he typed, then added sarcastically, “oops, typo.”

            Another window appeared suddenly over the chat window:  Willow (LittleTree104) apparently trying to communicate with him alone: 

           

            LOL

 

He responded:  “what the hell?”, and she replied:  “Laughing Out Loud, Giles”

            “Oh, for God’s sake!” Rupert said aloud.  He typed “OFGS” into the window, and Willow replied:  “LOL!!!”  Then she provided him with a link to some website explaining a host of such abbreviations.  It made his head spin, and he had to ask Willow how to get back to the chat room, though he probably could have figured it out himself.

            He didn’t even notice when Elisabeth came into the room.  “Have you just now got round to reading your email?” she asked him.  “It’s been two hours.”

            He jumped, and turned.  “No, I’ve been on this whole time,” he said, flushing.  She came over and looked over his shoulder at the screen.  “They’ve got you on IM finally, I see,” she said, with a little smile.

            “Yes, yes,” he said, “don’t rub it in.”

            “You seem to be holding your own,” she observed.

            A number of people had said that to him today, one way and another.  He snorted.

            “I’m going to bed in a bit,” Elisabeth said.  “But first I’m making tea.  Want some?”

            “I’d love some,” he groaned.  “My head is killing me.”

            She kissed the top of his aching head and disappeared.

            It took him about ten minutes, but he finally managed to extricate himself from the chat room and close everything.  He got up, aching, and puttered into the kitchen, where Elisabeth put a cup of the hot and steaming into his hands.  “You look tired,” she said.

            “I am,” he said.  “Very.”

            “Well, you’ve earned it,” she said, and he glanced at her with a little smile.  But her expression was quite serious.  “You joined the online world, and got it over with.  That’s something.”

            He nodded and took a long sip of tea.  He had gotten more than that over with, but he was not ready to say so.  They said confession was good for the soul; and whatever it was he’d done today had cleansed a small part of him.  He looked up at his partner.  She was leaning back against the counter, her eyes cast down into her tea, her breathing soft.

            “Do you know I love you?” he said.

            He was rewarded when she looked up at him, her eyes smiling rather than her mouth.  “You’ve gotten blurty lately,” she teased quietly, and added, “Yes.”

            He was willing to accept the tease for the sake of her glance in his face.

 

And so to bed.  It had been quite a day, and Rupert fell asleep almost immediately in the darkness, but not before Elisabeth, who always dropped off quickly after such days as this.  She had abandoned her practice of sleeping with the bedside lamp on when he came to live with her, and he had compromised by leaving the bathroom light on and the door open.  In this way they were both able to sleep through the night.

            Deep in the small hours he was wakened when she stirred fitfully and whimpered.  He blinked sleep from his eyes in the darkness and listened as she twitched and swallowed small cries in her sleep.  He sighed to himself; he had thought her nightmares were abating.  Sometimes her dream subsided without escalating into panic; but tonight it was not to be—she began to thrash around, and as he rose up to catch her a small cry broke from her throat.

            As he had done many times before, he gathered her in and whispered to her, stroking her hair and her hands until she waked enough to let go of the dream and relax.  With his voice soft in her ear, she subsided under his touch into an involuntary shivering; gradually that too began to ebb as he stroked her.

            “Rupert?” she muttered thickly.

            “Yes,” he said.  “I’m here.  It’s all right.”

            “Rupert?”

            “Don’t worry.  You were only dreaming.  Shh.”

            Her breathing eased, and he had the brief sense of them lying spooned together, his greater length curled around her, both wakeful in the darkness.

            She had told him, when the nightmares had begun to escalate, that she still dreamed about the First, tormenting her by appearing as herself; she hardly needed an evil to represent the bitter irony of that to her.  He had taken to soothing her even when she did not wake; love and guilt together moved him to give her comfort he had failed to give her before.

            It is a thing very near to you—

            He could not put off telling her too long.  Neither of them could afford such a dearth of peace for much longer.

            —on your lips, and in your heart—

            He lifted his head briefly, to listen to her breathing.  She had fallen asleep again, though faint tremors were still running through her body under his touch.

            —ready—

             His own eyelids were drooping again; he was slipping into the deep well of sleep...get it over with...he would, in good time....

            When he was ready.

 

Finis

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