Things I Don't Know
Rating: PG
Pairing: Willow/Giles
Spoilers: Lessons: everything up to there
Feedback: Is adored
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Giles's thoughts about Willow on a summer's night.
Author's Note: So, I haven't written Buffy in a real long time, but after Lessons this popped into my head and wouldn't go away until I wrote it! Let me know what you think!
It's a typical summer's night in England, which, as most local people know, or indeed anyone who's spent any amount of time in England during the summer knows, means that rain is dashing against the windows. The sky is dark, not with dusk, but with ominous looking clouds that promise no respite any time soon. It is, as my grandmother used to say, a fine evening to settle in front of the fire, book in one hand, hot chocolate in the other, and watch the flames dancing in the hearth.
One out of three isn't bad I suppose.
I have the book in hand, but I'm not reading it. The hot chocolate has been replaced by a glass of brandy, which I sip every now and again. And while I may be sitting in front of the fire, I'm not looking at the flames.
Instead, my gaze is concentrated on you, the young woman lying stretched out on my couch, eyes closed in slumber, your breathing deep and even. The flames of the fire cast flickering shadows over your pale skin, bronzing it a pale golden colour, deepening the ruddy hue of your hair even more than nature already has. You look so peaceful lying there like that, and while I know that that couch isn't the most comfortable bed in the world, that I really should wake you and march you upstairs to a much more orthopaedically sound mattress, I don't have the heart to wake you. After all, the nightmares will do that soon enough.
Your words from earlier on this afternoon rattle around in my head, echoing, taunting me. "Is there anything you don't know everything about?" you asked, your voice making it clear that you were making a joke, albeit a weak one. I made a joke back, mentioning synchronised swimming, and I was pleased to see the faintest of smiles on your face.
I didn't tell you the truth though.
You think that I'm your Dumbledore, your all-knowing, wise and wonderful magic teacher, that I've got all of the answers.
Oh Willow, my dear, sweet Willow, nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many things that I don't know.
I don't know how you could have fallen so far without any of us knowing, without any of us noticing how deep into magic you were getting. Tara noticed, I know that. She told me as much herself in one of our rare conversations, and I know that the rest of the group came to share her concerns. I only found out about your troubles well after the fact, when Dawn mentioned the car crash by accident, and I contacted you, wanting to know if there was anything I could do to help you. You told me that you were fine.
I don't know how I could have believed you.
I don't know how I could have put that fight that we had in the Summers' kitchen out of my head, when I was so angry with you for resurrecting Buffy. Let's call a spade a spade here; I was happy with the outcome of the spell. I missed Buffy just as much as any of you did. But I knew the cost of messing around with the dark magicks you were using, and I saw, in those few brief moments when a stranger's voice came out of your mouth, when a stranger looked out at me from your face, that it had exacted a terrible price from you. We exchanged words, but at the end of the day, without speaking of it, we agreed to put it behind us, not to think of it any more. I don't know how I could have thought that this was the beginning of something, rather than an ending. I don't know how I could have rationalised the danger that you were putting yourself in.
I do know why I left Sunnydale. I was holding Buffy back, standing in the way of her getting on with her life. I knew that as long as I was there to take care of things that she'd never take care of things herself, that she'd always rely on me. And while I love Buffy, love her as if she were my own daughter, I can't be there for her like that. She needed to stand on her own two feet. You all did.
I only found out how bad things were in Sunnydale when the coven sensed the great power rising there, and I knew right away that it was you. Who else could it be? They teleported me there, and Buffy filled me in on all that had happened, all that I hadn't been told. I laughed hysterically when she did, for what else could I do, but it was no laughing matter. Xander and Anya had split up, Dawn was hanging on to sanity by a thread, Buffy had been sleeping with Spike, Tara was dead, and you were wreaking apocalyptic vengeance on the world.
What else was there to do but laugh?
I had hoped that I would be able to get through to you, but I didn't know the right things to say to get you to listen to me, to break through your wall of anger and pain. It was Xander who did that, who brought you back, who saved us all.
And when he brought you back to the Summers' house, his arm wrapped around you in a protective embrace, you saw me, lying on their couch, still recovering from hovering at death's door, you broke down again. Cried like you'd never stop, kept telling me that you were sorry, that you didn't know how you could do something like that to me.
I wanted so much to take your pain away, but I didn't know how.
The only thing I knew to do was to take you away from that place, take you back to England with me. Oh, I had my legitimate reasons for that, bring you to the coven, let them help you come to terms with your powers, harness them, control them. But I had other reasons as well, reasons that have only recently become clear to me. I wanted you to come with me so that I could spend time with you, learn all the things that I should have said, should have done, but didn't know.
Now, here we are, in my living room, sitting in front of the fire as we have done on so many of these summer nights, and I know some of the things that I didn't know then, but I still don't know nearly enough.
Because the nightmares come every night, making your body toss and turn on the couch or in bed, just like it's doing now. Low moans come from your lips, Tara's name, Warren's, and tears leak from under your closed eyelids. Shortly thereafter, you awake with a scream, and you're sobbing your heart out for another night.
I don't know what to say to make the dreams go away.
The only thing I know to do is to leave aside my book and my glass of brandy, to go to you, wrapping you in my arms, letting you shake and cry and fall apart in my arms. Sometimes there are words mixed up in your tears, and you tell me how guilty you feel, how much you miss Tara, how you don't know what you're going to do without her, and I mutter words of sympathy.
I don't know how you're going to live without her either, or how everyone is going to react when you go back to Sunnydale, and that day is coming Willow, and it's coming soon. Summer is drawing to a close; if I'm not mistaken, Dawn is going to be starting high school in a couple of days, and you need to be thinking about going back. I know Buffy and Xander miss you, just as I know that they're partly afraid of seeing you again, that they're not sure what to say to you, how to act around you.
I know you're scared of seeing them again, and I want to take that fear away, but I can't.
I want to be there beside you when you go back, to support you in any way I can, but I can't do that either. That's something that you have to do on your own, I know that. I just don't know how I'm going to let you go alone.
And, as I hold you in my arms in front of the fire, stroking your hair, your head against my shoulder, I realise how much you've come to mean to me during your stay here. How much my life has come to revolve around you, how I've become accustomed to your presence here. How much I'm going to miss you when you leave. It's been a long time since I shared such close quarters with someone, yet you just slipped into my life without my knowing about it, and I don't know how I'll manage once you're gone. I'm going to have to get used to living without seeing you every day, and that's something that I find myself strangely unwilling to do. I don't know how I'm going to let you leave here Willow, any more than I know how I'm going to manage when you do.
You look up at me now, eyes clouded with pain and hurt, and you whisper a question that tears at my heart. "Will it ever get better Giles?"
I want so much to give you the answer that you want to hear. But I've never lied to you Willow, and I refuse to start now. So I just pull your head back down on to my shoulder, and continue stroking your hair while I answer the only way I can. "I don't know Willow," I say, staring into the flames. "I don't know."