Chapter Four - the Folly

 

----====Giles====----

After making sure that Anya had everything she needed, I shut the door behind me and turned to look at the Brilliant Two. Gave me a pang, actually, a flash-image of that first evening in my flat in Bath, with Wes sitting frozen and pale, with Spike who trembled under his swagger. They looked a bit like that now, except more drunk.

Bloody demons chasing them this time weren’t the kind we could outrun, I feared. I hadn’t been able to out-sing the howling in my head, either.

Still, we were together again. It felt right somehow, balanced. I urged them forward, and we started down the stairs. "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere but here," Wes said in a voice strung too tight.

I shot a glance at Spike, who shook his head. Fight with Lilah then, I guessed: the signs had been there at the end of the dinner. I checked my watch. "Well, even if I could leave Anya, which I shouldn’t, pubs in the village will be closing. What’s your idea?"

"Drinks, and more drinks," Spike said. "It’s my solemn duty as best man to get him pissed if not paralytic."

Wes stumbled against me. "Wine cellar. There would be drinks in the wine cellar."

I steadied him. Spike’s task was nearly accomplished already, it seemed. Wouldn’t do a bloody bit of good to tell Wes to slow down at this point, though, even though I was sorely tempted. "Right. Wine cellar. Shall we be staying there?"

"Billiards room, perhaps, once we’ve stocked up?" Spike said. "Knock a few balls around."

"Weren’t we just there?" Wes said owlishly. "It didn’t really appeal."

"Yeah, know what you mean, mate. Billiards ain’t a game for everyone," Spike said. And then he stumbled himself, as if on something he thought he’d buried. One of those memories about which I knew better than to ask.

"All right, never mind. Wine cellar for a start." I unobtrusively put a hand on Wes’s back – rather afraid he’d tumble down and break his neck, wanted to be able to catch him – and Spike led the way down the stairs.

Hated that I could feel a cold presence on the landing, stepping lightly with us as we descended. Hated that I could still hear the daemon-screams in this otherwise quiet house.

"Where are Lilah and Buffy at the moment, by the way?" I said, seeking distraction.

"My bride-to-be is elsewhere. We had a discussion that went rather badly –"

"Enormous bloody row," Spike interpreted.

"– Fine, an enormous row, and she’s disappeared."

"Poor old Wes. But it’s not a horrible thing." I patted him on the back. "I rowed with Anya before our wedding too. Of course you tossers encouraged her, what with the whole ‘Take her on your mission’ rubbish." They both looked at me, and I said, "She was bloody *pregnant*. Had no business going with me into danger, even without that."

Spike lifted my hand. In the dimly lit stairwell, a dusting of blue sparks was all too visible on my fingertips. "Someone’s not quite gotten over it, apparently."

"And I never will." The two smiled at each other: humouring the old man. Gits. Of course I’d never told them the specifics of what happened that night in Surrey; they didn’t know. "But that’s not important right now. The point is that Anya and I argued for hours, and then I hid out in the fire stairs and smoked half a pack of cigarettes, but the wedding went off beautifully nevertheless. So don’t worry, Wesley."

"Thank you, Rupert." He sighed. "But as I’ve said before, Lilah isn’t Anya."

"Both’d tear your head off as soon as look at you," Spike said. When I glared at him, he hastened to add, "Not that my Slayer’s any different."

"And where is Buffy? Is she, er, feeling any better? Seemed a bit down during dinner."

"She was quite vocal afterward, though," Wes said. And he might have snorted.

Spike heaved an enormous breath. "Wish you two could get along, mate. Anyway, Rupes, my lady’s off with Dawn." The second sigh was even louder.

Right. Sensitive area for both of them. I cleared my throat, and said,"So where is this wine cellar, Wesley?"

We’d reached the basement by this time, and he straightened up a bit. "Oh, this way." He led us toward the kitchen, right turn, then left, then right again.

We found ourselves in a darkened corridor. A murmur of voices and the scrabble of paws came from behind a shut door at the end. "The kitchen," Wes said quietly.

He stopped halfway down the hall, and turned a handle I hadn’t even seen. The door swung open, and a smell of damp earth hit me. Heard the daemon-laughter again. Wes was moving, however, going down another two steps. He flicked on a light as we passed.

It was cold, cold stone, and I felt a punch of revulsion. There was something foul here, a presence that made me want to wrap myself up safe from the ripping teeth, the bone poking through flesh –

"Giles?" Spike said, pushing me forward. "You’ve gone all weird."

"Sorry, sorry." I shook off the flash of pain, and smiled. "Just...wait, hang on. Wes, you all right?"

Wesley had stopped in front of a row of bottles, covered with dust. One finger went out and made an impression in the middle of a label. His hand shook. "‘Laid down for those who are worthy of the name,’ he always said. But only for those who are worth something."

"What the bloody –" Spike began, but I silenced him with a raised hand.

"Not for me, though. I didn’t count." Wesley’s voice was small, like a boy’s.

Slowly, carefully, I put my arm around Wesley’s shoulders. He turned to look at me; his eyes didn’t seem to want to focus. I said, "You know, mate, I’d rather not have wine after all. What have you two been drinking before now?"

"Whisky. Upstairs," Spike said. I’d forgotten how quick he could be sometimes. He smiled at us both, clearly having grasped it was imperative to get the hell out of here. "Right, changed my vote. The malt is much more appropriate for gentlemen of taste like ourselves, I reckon."

"I think so too." I steered Wes away from the row of bottles, and watched his eyes clear. "Upstairs then?"

"Yes. Please." The voice had wound even tighter. "I left the whisky in the billiards room."

We made it out of that place and up the steps far more quickly than we had descended. Spike took the lead. Thank Christ he remembered his way out, because I’d gotten rather turned around. Once into the main part of the house, we went down a familiar corridor.

Even though the house was settling around us, not everyone had gone to bed. We heard voices as we approached the open door. Familiar pillock-tones this time: "No, boy, don’t do it that way. Hold your cue properly."

"Whatever you say, Dad." Teenage sarcasm fairly dripped from Connor’s voice, even from a distance.

"Okay. Now let me see how well you can strike it," Angel said. "Show a little finesse."

At the last word, Spike stumbled, as he had earlier. Another unpleasant flashback, I feared. "Really, really don’t want to go in there," he said.

Wes, better now that we’d left the cellar, touched his arm. "No. We don’t have to."

Ah well, I thought, time for me to take charge once again. "Yes, right. You two go to the front door, find me a coat along the way. Let me reconnoitre; I’ll bring back the swag and meet you there. We’re making a break for it."

They couldn’t have moved faster if the hounds of hell had been snapping at their heels.

I stood for a second, pondering. I wasn’t much enamoured of visiting with Angel and Connor, either – so where else would I be if I were a bottle or two of Scotch? Not that I personally was going to be drinking much. Hard to care-take if one is drunk to one’s eyeballs, after all.

I vaguely remembered that there was a cabinet of some sort in the Gainsborough Room; it might have liquor in it. As I headed toward the drawing room, I heard a faint trill of piano, that tune I’d recognised earlier. The music clarified, took on shape as I got to the doorway.

Spot-lit by one gracefully curved lamp in the otherwise darkened drawing room, Lorne ran his hands over the keys. "I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood; I know I could be oh so good, to One Who’ll Watch Over Me," he sang softly as he played. And then he stilled his hands. "Hello, handsome. Looking for the other two of the Three?" His tone was enough to convey the capitalisation of the last word. Interesting.

I came into the room. "No. Looking for the single-malt, actually."

Lorne laughed. "I’ve already found it." He gestured with his chin toward a sideboard, just outside the light – but I saw a freshly opened bottle, with glasses ranged beside it. A half-full tumbler rested on the floor next to him. "I’d rather have my Sea-breeze, but –"

"When in a strange land, adopt the native customs?"

"And it doesn’t get much stranger than this, Daddy-o." He hit another chord. "Thank the Powers for the gift of song, or I’d be screaming my way into the Shropshire night. And I’m not dressed for it."

I fetched the bottle and three glasses, but paused. He looked rather lonely, curled over the keyboard, and I found myself saying, "I have to take care of Spike and Wes tonight, but, er, I’ve been known to sing a bit myself. Play guitar as well."

"It’s been rumoured in the village." He reached down, picked up his drink. "Perhaps tomorrow we should talk about the musician’s life."

"Or play something together. If we’re loud enough, we won’t have to hear Dorothy," I said.

"I’ll look forward to it." He played a one-handed scale. "Although I don’t need to hear you sing to know your future."

"Don’t tell me, please."

He twinkled at me. "Never without asking. Now, scoot; I’ll just stay here and practice. Lennon and McCartney, maybe? You look like a Beatles man."

"Oh, not always. Tomorrow I might want to sing the blues," I said, and he toasted me with his glass. "‘Night, then, Lorne."

"‘Night, indeed. And for you --" He grinned, began to sing: "‘I hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a whiz there was...’" He turned back to the piano and sounded the chord. "‘If ever oh ever a whiz there was --’"

"Cheeky bastard." I shut the door on his laughter, and hurried to where Spike and Wes were waiting.

They were practically halfway to Wales already: coats on, stomping their feet on the threshold. "Come on, old man, we were ready to leave your aged arse behind," Spike said.

"As I’m the man with the booze, I suspect you’re a bloody liar." I handed the bottle and glasses to the bleached one, and then took the coat that Wes was holding out to me. Spike had the bottle open and a shot down his throat before I could get my arm into a sleeve.

Wes then said, "Give me that thing," and grabbed it away from Spike. He tossed a goodly lot down as well.

Apparently I needn’t have bothered with the damn tumblers. I noticed that Spike put them in the umbrella stand.

"So where are we going?" I asked, finally buttoned up.

"To the estate folly!" Wes gestured in a most un-Wesley-like manner, high and expansive. "We felt that the irony alone demanded it."

"And he says that it’s not very far," Spike added, "which we felt was also sodding important."

"Well, then. Let’s go."

We all crunched out onto the gravel of the front drive. The night had turned clear, very cold indeed. Not that I felt the cold much any more. Wesley shivered, but then took another drink. "Here, Spike." He handed the bottle back. "I must lead now."

"Yep, you’re the decision-maker, mate." Spike took another shot. "Onwards."

I’d heard Dorothy droning on about the folly during dinner (Angel being the intended victim, of course). A small tower, set on the hill above an equally small lake a quarter-mile away: Wesley’s great-grandfather had built it as a refuge of sorts around the turn of the century. It was mock-mediaeval, she’d said, with proper crenellations on top of stone walls which no one had ever scaled, where no weapons had ever rested.

We walked briskly along a winding park-path. The stars were huge and bright out here in the country, and we could see well enough. Wes said over his shoulder, "Keep your eyes sharp for spoor of Lilah, won’t you?"

"She ever hears you use the word ‘spoor’ in connection with her fair self, you’ll be wearin’ your entrails as a waistcoat," Spike warned.

"It wouldn’t be the first time," Wes said.

"I meant literally. But hang on ....you know, I just thought of something. Wes, you could have a theme song for your bird. " And then suddenly the tipsy-arsed vampire started to bellow what he must have thought passed as a tune, "‘LII-Lah! You’ve got me on my knees, Lii-lah, I’m begging, darling, please....’"

I took the bottle away from him and smacked his head. Nobody mistreats Clapton that way in my presence. Wes, walking backward, said, "There’s a song about Lilah, besides the Delilah one?"

"There bloody well is not. Ignore this drooling idiot," I said, while Spike chortled. And then I took a deep breath. Could hear dragon-hisses again in the north wind, although they didn’t seem to be able to.

Wes nodded, and then grabbed the bottle himself. Another shot for him. After savouring a mouthful and turning forward again, he said, "You know, Spike started singing, if that’s the word we want, when we were drinking in L.A. last. We narrowly escaped being thrown out of the Fox and Hounds."

"Luckily, no damage would have been done even so. The pub’s on the wrong side of the Hollywood Hills," Spike said mock-seriously. "The Valley -- oh the horror."

"You’ve been talking to my beloved bride-to-be," Wes said, and then gurgled on a mouthful of Scotch. "Dear God, any minute now I’ll sound as uxorious as Rupert!"

"Strangle yourself before that happens. And it’s my bloody turn," Spike said, grabbing for the bottle.

I took it away from both of them. "Isn’t, you bastards. Give an old man a drink." Anything to stop the wind screaming – I poured a measure down my throat. Burned all the way down, but in a good way.

"He admitted he’s old! Bloody hell, the earth’s going to open up and swallow us all!" Spike shouted.

"Spike – sod off with a Swiss Army knife, opened to the corkscrew," I said in my friendliest manner. And I took another drink.

Wes stopped laughing long enough to wheeze, "God, I’ve missed you, Rupert."

"I haven’t." Spike punched me in the shoulder, although without using vampire strength. "Not much, anyway."

Before I could think of an appropriate reply, we reached the hill. Lake-sounds from the other side mingled with that keening wind. The folly, er, towered above us. I had a quick impression of stone and safety, and then Wes charged up the path. Spike was right behind; I followed.

There was an opening, not as grand as a door, darker than the stone in which it was cut. Wes peered into it, into blackness. "Oh dear. I can’t see anything."

"We forgot a torch for your poor human eyes," Spike said. He bounded back to me and took the bottle away. Took a drink.

"Oh, for God’s sake," I said. Pushing Spike aside, I walked past Wes into the folly. I could feel the safety and blessed quiet of the space enfold me. It was dark, but I could tell that the floor was earth. With a thought, I conjured light, enough to see that there was a circle of stone in the middle of the otherwise empty floor -- and I brought forth fire in its centre.

The flames leapt up to the ceiling and then soothed into warmth and blue-gold.

The two of them stared open-mouthed at me as I sat down on the ground. "You’ve gotten better at that," Spike said at last. "I’d best mind my step around you, what with my aversion to being ash and what all."

"Don’t be absurd. You knew fire was my gift; hell, you saw me set the woods ablaze in Devon," I replied, stretching out my legs, leaning back on my hands. Felt good to have a rest.

"And you collapsed immediately thereafter," Wesley said. He sat down a bit stiffly next to me. "As you were shaken after killing the Somanti demon."

"Yes, well, I’ve told you both that all through the autumn my power kept increasing."

Spike handed Wes the bottle, then slithered onto the floor. "Don’t really need your staff at all, do you?"

"Sometimes I do. It’s quite useful as a shield, better than anything I can summon up on my own," I said.

Wes took a drink, gazing into the flames. He began to worry the ring on his finger. "But you don’t need it as a symbol, do you? The comfort of knowing that there are three of us."

Spike’s hand went to his neck. The topaz flashed in the firelight before his fingers closed around it. "Not like we do."

"No, I don’t need a prop. You’re both always with me," I said. "Rather think I’ve said that before."

After handing the half-empty bottle to Spike, Wes drew up his long legs and rested his chin on his knees, arms going around to fold himself in. "I wish ... sometimes I wish I could be as strong as you. As you both," he said quietly, almost under his breath.

"Bloody hell, Wesley. You went up against a hell-lord and won. Two hell-lords," Spike said. "What do you expect from yourself?"

Oddest thing. At the words, the air in the folly chamber changed somehow, thickened. I glanced at my watch: just gone midnight.

And Wesley answered Spike’s question – because he was drunk, perhaps. He laid his head on his knees, saying, "I expect that I always shall fail."

Forestalling Spike’s protest, I said, "But you know better, don’t you. You know that you’ve succeeded. Our mission, your friends, your Lilah. You heard a mystery of the universe from the mouth of a Most Senior Partner, for God’s sake. Thought you understood."

"It’s all going to fall away," he said, and turned to stare into the fire. "I’m not good enough."

After taking a drink, Spike very carefully set down the bottle besides Wes. "That’s bollocks."

"No." The words came from me, although I hadn’t planned to say them. "That’s his fucking father."

Without looking, Wes reached out and grabbed the Scotch. He downed a shot, enough so that his eyes watered – or enough so that the tears in his eyes could be put down to too much alcohol. "Yes, that’s my fucking father."

Spike opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Do you want to tell us about it?"

"Not particularly. Not in this refuge." He swallowed hard. "I used to hide here, when I was a boy. Escape the house and those eyes and those words – oh God." He buried his head in his knees.

Spike put his hand on Wes’s shoulder. "Good to have a place of safety." In the sound of his voice, quiet in the stone chamber, I could hear the echo of a lost boy who hadn’t had anyplace to hide. I didn’t know if it had been human William or Spike – somehow I couldn’t shake the memory of Angelus saying to me, "But I really want to torture you," couldn’t help wondering if Spike had heard those words too. Yet I knew that the boy was still in this room, just as small Wes was.

"Do you want to know why Lilah and I fought tonight? She wanted me to tell off Mum, and I know that I should. I know that she’s been cold, rude, making my love miserable. My loyalty should lie with the woman I wish to spend my life with. But it’s just, being back here...." Wesley’s voice trailed off into thickness, and he coughed, looked back into the fire. "When Mum was here, I was almost safe. How can I forget that?"

"He treated you better when she was around?" I kept my voice neutral, and hoped that neither of them noticed the flames creeping higher. I was angry, so angry.

"Oh yes. It’s odd, isn’t it, the things he hid from her. After all, he didn’t tell her of his transformation, his descent into evil – perhaps he was frightened of her, in a bizarre way."

"Not hard to see why," I said.

That got a broken laugh. "She never stopped him from telling me what a failure I was. She would frown when he’d start one of his lectures about my weaknesses, myopia, clumsiness, my inability to fit in, but she wouldn’t stop it. Obviously she believed it too. But the worst – the worst he saved for when she was in London. Watcher’s Council, you know. For a couple of years they traded off time in Town, so that one of them was always with me."

"And when she wasn’t here?" Spike leapt up as soon as he’d asked the question, unable to sit still. He started to prowl just outside the ring of firelight. I knew he wanted to kill something.

"Father would punish me. Try to crush the weakness out of me. Put me away."

"Lock you in the cupboard, leave you there," I said under my breath.

"How did you know that? I hadn’t told you, had I?" The horror in Wesley’s voice was palpable.

"No. He did." God, I wanted a drink. But this was too important.

Spike’s footsteps came to a halt behind me. "Rupert, what the bloody hell?" He crouched down.

Beside me, Wes drew a sharp breath. "What have you kept back about that night in Surrey?"

‘Almost everything’ was the true but unspoken answer. After we’d stopped fighting and loving and fighting in the hours after we’d returned home, Anya and I had agreed upon a bare outline of facts to be presented to Spike and Wes. They’d been told that John and I had used magic against each other before I’d dispatched the daemon and the human had perished; they knew that he had threatened Anya, that I had gotten in the way and that she had risked herself to save me and thus found her gift. But she and I had agreed that Wesley didn’t need to know anything else, nor did Spike.

Now, midnight had struck. I’d have to say something. I had to find the right words.

"I didn’t tell you most of what he said to me," I began, slowly. "It was vile, but it was just misdirection; he wanted me upset, distracted, so that he could attack. A few of the horrors he said concerned you. One of them was about that. The cupboard, I mean."

Wes didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I could see the coldness, gone from him for so long, beginning to creep back. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. "Why aren’t you asking me what I said in return, Wesley?"

"Does it matter?" The question was hopeless, tired.

"I think it might. Hope so, at any rate." I made him look at me. Once his attention was fixed, I said, "I told him that you were a good man and a strong one. I told him that you weren’t his son any more, that you didn’t need him for a father." A deep breath here: I’d have stopped but for the pain in his eyes. "Then I told him that if you ever needed one, I would be there."

Behind me, Spike expelled air from his lungs. "That goes for you too, you little prat," I said over my shoulder.

The tower was unearthly quiet. I’d said all I could. I couldn’t look at the two of them any more, and then – my mobile went off. Thank God.

I shifted, got it out, checked it. My wife had just sent two words. "Miss you."

"Ah, it’s Anya." The other two hadn’t spoken yet, and so my words rather poured into the silence. "Er, I hate to do this after I’ve just made a bloody speech, and if you two would like me to stay –"

"No, Rupert. Go to your wife." Wesley’s voice was tight again, but it sounded better than when he and Spike had arrived at my door. Either time, actually.

Spike just gripped my shoulder for a second, then released. I hoped he was a bit better too.

I scrambled to my feet. God, I was sore – it had been a bloody long day of travel and trauma. The two of them sat quietly as I grunted, stretched. I passed my hand over the blaze: "It’s set to burn out in an hour, lads. You shouldn’t have to do anything to it."

I was to the opening before I heard one of them – odd, I couldn’t tell which one – say, "Thank you."

"Not to worry. We’re the three, after all." I smiled at them, and then started on my way back.

Quite wonderful night for a walk, actually. The wind seemed to have died.

 

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