Fortress Around Your Heart - Part Three
DISCLAIMER: The title belongs to Sting, as does the song 'If You Love Somebody Set Them Free'. Also referenced is Bryan Ferry's 'Fool for Love'.
NOTES AND SUMMARY: When last we saw Our Heroes: Wes picked up Dawn at Heathrow (she a bit dizzy from a flashback of their kiss); Giles woke up; Buffy dealt with Giles and Anya's daughter Lizzie; we learned about the Nullats in expensive raingear, their project supervisor, and their plans to destroy Watcher-Slayer United; Anya came home, and she and Buffy got bad vibes from one vampire's trash. This part: Hugs and reunions and big scaredy runaways. Same morning.20 DECEMBER 2007. LONDON. LATE MORNING.
"Nine vampires terminated, including one pillock the size of Yorkshire. No loss of human life and minimal property damage. Only one irate phone call from the manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. One extremely stupid git in hospital overnight." Spike took off his glasses after he read the draft of his report off his handheld unit. Then he grinned at the hospital-gowned Rupert. "One extremely stupid git hopping ready to be discharged, soon as he finds his trousers."
"Be quiet and help me," Giles grumbled, as he pawed through the drawers. "I don’t want to display my arse, attractive though it is, to the bloody world at large."
"Well, speaking of large—" Spike began, only to have a blanket flung in his face.
"Never mind, wanker." Giles found his jeans and sweater and pulled them on, then sat down abruptly on the bed. He took off his own glasses and started to rub at them with a corner of the sheet. To Spike’s discomfiture, Rupert’s tone changed to match the gesture.
"Now tell me the truth, Will. How bad was it?"
Spike didn’t want to think about it. Yet he couldn’t stop: the waves of terror, then rage, when he’d seen Rupert unconscious and in danger; the agony still throbbing in his wrist, as the bones healed themselves; Buffy’s frozen silence as she cradled Giles in the Posh Bastard-mobile, which Spike drove like a one-handed madman to Chelsea.
And the guilt, oh God, the guilt. Should he have been faster, cleverer somehow? If Buffy and Wesley hadn’t been there... how would he have told Anya and Lizzie-love about his failure to protect the old man? He forced air out of his lungs, and said simply, "Wasn’t good."
"A trap of some kind, don’t you think? We were lured into the theatre, which hardly qualifies as a normal vamp hunting ground, after all. That ambush on the top level would be another indication; it was better planned than most vamp attacks, no offense. That means someone directing the operation, likely someone not in the battle itself." Giles fell silent, meditating on the problem.
Then Rupert turned an alpha-Watcher gaze on Spike. Even after six years of friendship and teamwork, it was still enough to make him quail in his boots. "You aren’t beating yourself up over this, are you?"
"No, ‘course not. Can’t be my sodding responsibility, your fat head repeatedly getting in the way of some gigantic baddie’s fist." Did the lie sound convincing enough? Spike wondered if maybe he should have put a little more topspin on it.
Apparently so. Rupes leaned forward and laid his hand on Spike’s bandaged wrist. "You saved me from a three-story fall. You held on to me even after they smashed your wrist to bloody hell." Spike swallowed hard, avoiding Giles’s eyes. "Thank you, Will."
"No worries, Dad." And that concluded the mawkish portion of this morning’s entertainment, or so Spike desperately hoped. Perhaps some distraction–
"Giles! Oh my God, Giles, you’re okay!" Dawn cried. She charged into the room and hurled herself at Rupert. Tosser must be feeling better: he caught her.
"Damn it, Wes, what did you tell the girl?" Spike asked, as a haggard Wesley followed her in.
"Just that Giles was injured and we had to come to visit his bedside." Wesley lifted his mobile out of his pocket and made a point of checking it. "Of course, had anyone been thoughtful enough to ring or text me and let me know of his astounding recovery, perhaps this drama would have been cancelled."
"If you push really hard, mate, bet you could get the stick just a bit further up your arse," Spike said companionably. He loved the pompous git, really he did. When he grinned, Wesley smiled back. Yet Spike noticed something tortured in the other man’s eyes. Even without the benefit of mirror all those years ago, he still recognized that look. Damn it, he shouldn’t have let Wes go off and collect her. "You all right?"
Wes’s smile twisted a bit, north northwest. Oh, poor brooding sod— must have been infected in his years with Poofter Investigations. Spike laid his good hand on Wes’s shoulder and patted in sympathy. Not that it would do any good, as he remembered all too well.
"Spike! Now you!" Dawn cried, and she jumped from Rupert toward him.
Automatically Spike put out both arms to receive her, and Dawn’s full-body embrace jostled the bloody hell out of his broken wrist. But it was his Bit, so he choked down a pain-filled roar that threatened to level Chelsea and most of South Ken. "Hullo, sweetness. Good trip, learn lots?"
"Yes to both. But I was so ready to be home, Spike," Dawn said into his hair. Always a shock to find she was almost as tall as he was.
When he looked up, he stared at the place where Wesley had been just a second before. The doorway was empty.
***
Imran Cumberbatch sat in his Council of Watchers office, fingers on the scroll he hadn’t been able to concentrate on decoding, and stared at the blank wall. It was preferable to his thoughts.
His colleagues and friends– the ones who had first saved him all those years ago, when he was still in servitude to the despicable Quentin Travers– had been hurt. They had completed their mission and preserved innocent lives, but at a cost to themselves.
At least it hadn’t been too heavy a cost. This time.
The human part of Cumberbatch wanted to give them a few days off, perhaps a month. He wanted to send them on holiday, buy them a round at the pub, apologize to their families, and make the stupid bastards promise not to frighten him again.
The Watcher side of him knew better, however. He pulled the phone toward himself. They all had work to do.
***
The study seemed so empty without Giles. But he’d be back to work soon.
Buffy sought a place to store the dusted vampire’s belongings so that Giles could assess them later. She was glad to put down the torn card with the "doggie" and deer on it; she and Anya agreed that it was bad, bad news.
If she and Anya were agreeing, it must be time for another apocalypse. Why, it’d been at least fourteen months since the last one. Apocalypse, that is.
Lizzie charged into the study, dragging Wesley Bear, and Anya followed. "Aunt Buffy, what are you doing?" the little one asked.
"Aunt Buffy is tucking away work-stuff for Daddy to examine some other time," Anya answered for her. Buffy snorted; had Lizzie asked her mother? See, this was just another— no. She wasn’t going to pick a fight today.
For one thing, Anya’s expression was closed off in a way Buffy hadn’t seen in years. "Are you all right, Anya?"
"Let’s see. I didn’t get any sleep last night, worrying over Rupie. I missed an investment opportunity this morning in a stock I’ve been following for months. And you’re holding things that remind me how dangerous Rupert’s job is, helping you like he does," Anya said matter-of-factly.
"You can’t blame me for Giles being in the hospital!" But Buffy felt a chilly tide of guilt rise in her throat.
"No. He wouldn’t like it. Rupert chooses to work with you."
Buffy heard the front door open, then her husband shouted, "Oh, Buffy? Anyanka? Got a stray Nibblet here to see you!"
Lizzie immediately blasted out of the room as if on child jet-fuel. Her squeaks of "Uncle Will! Uncle Will!" trailed behind her, to be stopped only by masculine laughter and a series of high-pitched giggles. Some lucky little girl’s getting held upside-down, Buffy thought.
Anya followed her daughter out into the hallway; Buffy stood there, ice coating her veins. "Dawnie!" the vengeance-demon cried, and there came a familiar Summers-girl shriek and thunderous footsteps in response.
She should move. Really, she should. Then suddenly Spike was there, his blue eyes and beautiful mouth smiling just for her. "Missed you, love," he said, as if they’d been apart days instead of hours. That was enough to unfreeze her and propel her into his arms, heedless of his injury. He oofed at the impact, then kissed her as if he’d never heard of guilt or panic. She’d wished for him, and here he was.
Spike never blamed her for anything, even if it was all her fault. Her duty, her curse.
Too soon for Buffy, Dawnie pushed him aside. Of course this was wonderful too. She hugged her (giraffe-tall) little sister as close as she could get without using Slayer-strength. At least she’d managed to keep Dawn safe.
Somewhere in the background she heard Spike tell Anya that Giles had to wait for his doctor, who was running behind schedule, but he’d call her to fetch him soon. She could see Anya and Lizzie twirl around a few times in celebration.
Dawn finally let go, and Buffy said, "Welcome home, sweetie." Dawn smiled at her, and the two sisters simultaneously raised hands to pet the other’s hair. Buffy felt in control again.
"Deeply moving," Spike said. "Lay you odds that one of them is bitching at the other before midnight."
"I wouldn’t take the bet, and I’m a gambling demon," Anya said.
"Hey!" the Summers women protested. Further, Buffy frowned at her husband, who grinned. She said, "Listen, honey, not even your snarking can spoil Dawn’s homecoming."
He raised his scarred eyebrow. "Thanks ever so. Then you won’t be angry when I tell you that Watchers Bennet and Wyndham-Pryce are assigned to do a spot of research tonight. No Slayers invited."
She wasn’t going to take the bait, she wasn’t, she wasn’t— okay, fine. She thwapped him.
He smirked, his good arm going around her, then said, "No, seriously, love. Giles and Imran conferred. They’d like me and Wes to call in some markers, visit a couple of new demon digs I’ve heard about round Covent Garden. Got to find out what’s up with the vampire herd, yeah? You can stay with Bit, catch up and squeal to your heart’s content."
Dawn grabbed Buffy’s free hand, then slid her other arm around Spike. "We’ll yell at you more in a second. But where is Wes, anyway?"
***
As a matter of habit, Wesley checked the alarm system on the doors to his space and to Buffy and Will’s. Good; no civilian, occult, or demon intruders had been registered. Then he began to trudge up the communal set of stairs in the Onslow Square house.
He’d made a similar climb in this house thousands of times in his miserable childhood and adolescence. Sometimes he felt the ghost of that lost boy shadowing his footsteps. Sometimes he didn’t think the boy was a ghost.
However, four and a half years after he and the newlyweds had bought the old Wyndham-Pryce residence and turned it into what Buffy called the "Slayer-Watcher House o’ Fun," the atmosphere itself was different. No more chilling disapproval, no more expressions of disgust, no more punishments "for your own good." Now it truly was a family home: the raucous Bennet-Summers ménage filled the ground, first, and second floors, while Wesley had his loft-space on the third.
He refused to think about the other family member who’d just returned to them.
Okay. Key in door. Set of keys on table. Kettle on. Stereo on— whatever’s in the CD changer, no decisions, please God no silence. Tea made. Slug of whiskey poured in tea.
Wes brought his drink to the living area, and he flopped on the couch. The doctored tea burned in just the right way. God, he was tired. He’d had no sleep, since he’d taken the first watch with Lizzie until Buffy had relieved him at five. He’d prowled the halls of the Cheyne Walk house, trying not to think about the losses the family had almost sustained. For one horrifying second last night he’d been sure that Rupert and Will were done for.
And how would he have told Dawn?
Damn it, he’d thought her name. The Wyndham-Pryce wall was crumbling. Because he was tired, he thought.
Or more honestly: because one look at her this morning had brought home to him once again how much he loved her. But it would never work. He was too old for her. He had done too many terrible things, failed too many times. And she thought of him as her brother, didn’t she. Or she had, before.
He sipped at his tea again. Maybe if he drank whiskey from now until forever, he’d forget about the sweet-dark taste of Dawn. He hadn’t meant to kiss her that night in the club. He hadn’t ever allowed himself to know how much he’d longed for her. The wall between his heart and his conscious life had been long under construction, carefully built out of his fear and his longing for family; he wouldn’t have guessed that one touch of her lips could crack its foundation.
He’d fled out of the club that night, called Imran, gotten an immediate assignment hunting vampires in Portugal. He’d run. He’d rebuilt.
One touch from her today, and he’d shattered again.
Wesley put his tea down on his coffee table, took off his glasses, and stretched out on his sofa. God, he was tired. And he was cold. Pulling a woolen throw over himself, he sagged into the cushions.
He’d stay here for a minute or two, before going to his solitary bed to sleep. He didn’t feel like moving. When he closed his eyes, however, he finally registered what music filled the loft. Sting was insisting that "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free."
Wanker. As if Wes didn’t already know that.
He threw one of his boots at the stereo. The missile bounced on the Disc Skip button, and the machine clicked over to Bryan Ferry, who began to sing that he was a fool for love. It wasn’t any better, really, but Wes didn’t care. The song had a nice, soothing guitar line. He closed his eyes again.
Right. He would rebuild after he slept.
***
"Right. The doctor’s supposed to be here within the half-hour, so you might leave now.–
Yes, dear, drive the Land-Rover.– Darling, in an emergency you are perfectly capable of dealing with traffic, forget that little incident with the Mini last month.–Yes, fine. Love you, Anyanka, see you in a bit."
Giles replaced the receiver in the bedside phone, then lay back on the bed. He was fully dressed, ready for escape as soon as the doctor discharged him. His wife would rescue him, as she always did, and take him home to Lizzie and their life together.
He probably should use the interim to go over what Imran had said. They needed to discover who had set the trap, and more important, why. Perhaps the prophecy Imran kept banging on about would have something to do with it–although prophecies as a whole were sodding useless, never gave useful information.
He yawned and closed his eyes. Ah, he could think about the job later. Surely the doctor would make his presence known when he arrived–
And Giles fell into a light sleep.
***
When the lift doors opened, it was as if no one was there.
The humanoid creature in a Burberry trench-coat emerged first and oriented himself: he was in a hospital corridor in a private wing of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. A nurse’s eyes passed through the demon as if through thin air, and then she shrugged and pushed her medicine cart down the hall. Two patients walked by, complaining about the food, oblivious to both the demon and the ash and smoke which trailed after him.
The Nullat put both his gloved hands in his pockets. "Be as you were, solid first; yet threefold stronger, threefold cursed," he said softly.
The ash and smoke coalesced into a man, dressed in 17th-century coat, breeches and shoes. The man, still grey and indigo around the edges, had enormous hands, muscular and blood-stained.
"It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of a man’s throat," the man growled. He lifted those enormous hands, inspecting them carefully. Then he closed them hard. "Show me the dead man."
Burberry started down the hall.