ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 205 – REASONABLE CONJECTURE

“It’s The First.”

A moment of shocked silence was soon replaced by all manner of pandemonium breaking loose. While Willow gasped and Giles rapid-fired questions at her, William slipped out of Buffy’s grasp.

Shaking his head violently, with adrenaline fueling his terror, he sought an escape; any escape. Elizabeth stood between him and the window, so instead, he charged for the door.

“Giles!” Buffy yelled, as William ran between him and Willow.

Giles turned and ran down the hall after him. He managed to grab him by the back of his shirt, but it barely slowed him down. As they came to the top of the stairs, William half-turned and swung at Giles to free himself. Ducking the blow, Giles pulled the other way, causing them both to stumble sideways down the stairs.

“No!” Buffy screamed, as she saw what was about to happen, and was helpless to prevent.

“Congelo!”

Buffy scream was short-circuited by the sight of William and Giles over the stairs, frozen in mid-fall. Slowly she turned around.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Willow said.

“How long will it last?”

“Long enough so we can get them back to safety.”

With a nod, Buffy and Willow grabbed hold of the two men, and pulled them back to the landing.

“I’m really sorry to do this,” Buffy said, as she laid William on his stomach, and firmly pulled an arm up behind his back, and for good measure, put one knee on his back as well. She turned to Willow, who had sat Giles up against the wall, and nodded.

“Recursus!” Willow said, ending the spell.

Giles shook himself as he got his bearings. “What the…how did I…?” His question was cut short by the sounds of William as he came to, struggling and cursing at finding himself retrained.

“Now I remember. We were about to…you froze time?”

Willow nodded.

“Well done. I can’t say that I fancy a broken neck right now,” Giles said, as he rose and walked over to where Buffy was still struggling, more than it seemed she should have needed to, with a terrified and angry William. “Not with everything else we seem to suddenly have on our plates. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Sure,” Willow said.

“Buffy?” Giles said loudly over William’s yelling as he approached.

“Yeah? What is it, Giles? I’m sort of busy at the…Oh,” Buffy said, seeing Giles reach into his pocket and pull something out.

“With your permission, of course.”

“What is it?”

“Only a sedative; a semi-mild one. However, I think…”

William froze, his eyes turning to her, pleading.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy said, softly.

She then turned to Giles.

“Do it!”

“Sorry old chap, but it’s for your own good,” Giles said, as he swiftly plunged the needle into William’s arm and emptied the cartridge.

Buffy relaxed her grip on him as she felt his body go slack underneath her. She turned him over onto his back, and pulled him onto her lap.

“Elizabeth,” he mumbled, as he struggled to open his eyes.

She leaned down kissed his hair, as she rocked him against her.

"It's okay, William," Buffy said, her tears finally falling. "I've got you...I've got you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


DECEMBER 28, 2009
SUNDAY
6:00AM

“Did you check on him?”

“Yes, he’s just as he was two minutes ago,” Giles said, as he walked into the study. Stopping, he put down the tray he was carrying in front of Buffy.

“Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better,” Giles said, placing a cup of tea with a shot of brandy into her shaking hands.

“I doubt that, but thanks anyway.” Buffy made a face as the generous shot of brandy burned her throat, but drank it down just the same. She nodded without making eye contact, and Giles refilled her cup with the same.

Despite his being nearly dead weight, they'd somehow managed to get William down the two flights of stairs and onto a couch in the parlor. In shock herself, Buffy had sat vigilantly by his side for the next hour. Finally, after reassuring her that they would be able to hear the slightest murmur from across the hall, Giles had coaxed her into the study.

While keeping the most heinous and personal things out of the tale, she had spent the next half-hour filling Giles and Willow in on what had happened during her and William’s joint nightmare.

Giles asked for, and received permission from Buffy, to take notes while they talked.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to leave your unexpected participation in the nightmare out of it for a moment.”

“Fine by me.”

“Have you any idea what might have precipitated this? A particular sequence of circumstances; sudden memory, or something to do with today’s events, perhaps?”

“All of the above? None of the above?”

“That’s what we’re here to ascertain, my dear,” Giles said, gently. “William did seem to give the impression that he was having a bad day when you and he returned, and you appeared preoccupied at dinnertime.”

“You’re right.”

“Go on.”

Buffy took a deep breath, and proceeded to tell them of her and William going to his old house, meeting his 21st century relatives and of their trip to Highgate Cemetery.

“It was utterly heartbreaking for him, Giles.”

“How did he react?”

“As best he could. I mean, he didn’t breakdown. Maybe it would’ve been better if he had. He bottled it all up; that’s why he couldn’t stand to face anyone after we got back. He was suffering. The only reason he faced me was because I wouldn’t leave him alone.” Buffy snorted. “Right…for all the good it did him.”

With that, Buffy got up from her seat and walked the few feet across the hallway. William was still asleep, although it seemed to her, not as soundly as before. Still, he didn’t seem to be fighting off monsters. Lightly, she stroked his arm. It felt cold to the touch. She grabbed a throw from a nearby chair and tucked it around him, before returning to the study.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy paced the room. With arms crossed against her chest and mouth grimly set, she tried to prevail over emotions with rational thought, but it was a losing battle.

Silently, Giles waited her out. After a few minutes, she stopped, frustration written on her face. With a defeated sigh, Buffy plopped down into a chair.

“As I recall, William has been plagued by nightmares ever since he came back. Am I right?”

“I don’t know about in Chicago; that time being a nightmare in and of itself, but yeah…he first started having them when we were in Michigan, but not all the time. I had some then, too, so I didn’t think anything of them. They weren’t prophetic or anything like that. More along the lines of replaying Spike dying in the Hellmouth; like I’d had for the past five years.”

Giles felt a quick stab of guilt. “I’m so sorry. And his?”

“I didn’t ask. Maybe I should’ve. I guess I just figured they were along the same lines; that he was reliving the past. I thought it was enough just to be there for him. I didn’t want to scare him…he was so helpless, Giles. He was so lost, so afraid of everything. Although we told him otherwise, in reality, to him it was as though he’d just been ripped out of the 1800’s and found himself in another world, another country. I just wanted to take care of him and to make him feel safe...and loved. I just wanted…”

“It’s alright, Buffy. You did what your heart told you was in his best interest.”

“But was it? Has it ever been enough?”

Giles knelt down in front of her, and put his hands on her knees. “Buffy, I won’t lie to you and tell you that at times, your heart leading your head has been at odds at what I felt was best.”

Buffy gave him a patented, albeit watery, roll of the eyes. “I know. I should’ve listened to you better…”

“Be that as it may, I have also come to profoundly respect that, more often than not, not only was your heart in the right place, but that it led you to the correct outcome as well.

Your ability to care for and love others is what has always made you unique, more so than just the fact that you were the one and only slayer for seven years. In case I haven’t told you lately, despite our differences, it was my deepest privilege to have been your watcher and your friend.”

“Giles…” Buffy said, sniffling.

Pulling a handkerchief out from his pocket, he handed it to her. She smiled as she took it. Giles was the only person on the planet that she knew who still carried them. She told him so.

“Yes, I do believe that I, alone, may be keeping the whole handkerchief manufacturing industry afloat. However, I only use them for cleaning my glasses, my dear. Anything otherwise is quite disgusting, wouldn’t you say?”

Buffy stopped just as she was about to wipe her nose. Giles grinned and she guffawed. With that, he patted her legs and stood up.

Walking over to the window behind his desk, he pulled back the edge of the drapes. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and if he squinted, he could vaguely make out the outline of the top of the Royal Observatory.

“Where did Willow go?” Buffy asked, realizing that she’d been gone ever since she’d come back from across the hall.

“To call the coven in Bath.”

Buffy nodded. She didn’t need to ask why.

“Do you feel like continuing?”

“Will it help?”

“It might.”

Buffy rose and walked over to the doorway and listened. She could hear a soft snore coming from the parlor. Satisfied, she came across the room, and sat down in the chair opposite Giles’.

“What else do you want to know?”

“Were William’s nightmares that started in Michigan an every night occurrence?”

Buffy thought for a moment before answering. “No, I don’t think so. After a while, those first ones just went away. They started again when we were driving across country.”

Giles flipped open a folder and rifled through some pages until he found what he was looking for.

"Ah, here it is. Before arriving at the Grand Canyon, William reacted to some sort of premonition he was likely having by becoming quite ill. Then, once there, he experienced vivid hallucinations, which rendered him unconscious for quite a few hours afterwards, correct?"

“Yes, that’s about right, except he said he saw monsters. I think he was reliving the Hellmouth, when he…wait, what is that?”

Buffy looked towards the folder, then up at Giles with silent accusation.

“You’re wondering about the promise I made you to not dissect William, or take notes on him as I would, and did as watcher, aren’t you?’

She didn’t answer him.

“I promise you Buffy, I did honor your request, until William himself contacted me and asked for my help. At which time, it seemed only appropriate that I should record some of what had been told me in order to put what had happened to him -- and is still happening to him -- in some sort of logical order; so as to make sense of it, if at all possible.”

“It’s okay, Giles. I get it. I do. Besides, there’s not much point in worrying about information about William falling into the wrong hands, when the…” Buffy couldn’t bear to say its name again. She continued through gritted teeth; “…when IT already seems to have a goddamned calling card, is there?”

”Apparently not. Do you wish to stop for now?’

“No. I’m okay; I have to be. Go on.”

Giles nodded. “Were there any other nightmares that stand out in your mind? That is, before the visit from Drusilla?”

Buffy thought for a few minutes. Her mind wandered not just to that moment in time, but to the closeness they’d shared prior to the day everything fell apart. They’d been happily anticipating going away on vacation, being with Dawn and John, and seeing their friends again, too. Sadly, she forced herself out of her revelry, and back to the question at hand.

“There’s one that stands out; it must have been quite a bad one, too. It happened right after William met Edna again, after we came back to Julian.
She was…well, you met her,” Buffy said, with a wry grin.

“Yes, indeed. Edna is very sweet, and quite motherly towards you both, isn’t she?”

“That’s an understatement; especially when it comes to William! She absolutely worships the ground he walks on. So, you can imagine how thrilled she was at seeing him when I brought him home.”

“Did she realize he was back before she saw him?”

“Well of course. I didn’t just walk in there with him one day and say, ‘Surprise!’ I didn’t want her to have a heart attack, after all. I told her about him when I was still in Chicago. Well, actually, called to find her son, Lawrence, who’s also our lawyer...but that’s another long story. So, to answer your question, yes Edna knew he was back, and also that he had amnesia.”

“So, she didn’t make a fuss, I take it?”

“Well, of course she did. Have you met her? To her credit, she did tone it down as much as she could. It was okay, but then Wally, her grandson, was there too. He’d been just a little child when he’d met William years before, but he remembered. He told him that he’d been frightened by his looks, and by the feel of his cold hands when he’d lifted him up to sit him on the counter so he could reach something. Then there was this blood rare steak that Edna served him, because she remembered how he liked it cooked, or more aptly, not-so-cooked. The problem was, it had been Spike’s favorite. William was mortified by the mere sight of it.”

“And the result of all this is that he had nightmare soon afterwards?”

“Yeah, that night. I woke up and I immediately knew something was wrong. I found him outside, drinking himself into a stupor. And…I remember, that was the first time that he asked me if he’d ever hurt me - if Spike had ever hurt me.”

“How did you respond?”

“I told him no, of course. What else could I tell him? That is without telling him everything? Things he couldn’t understand without knowing the whole story of his life, of us, of everything! And maybe I should’ve already have done that by then, but I hadn’t! Okay? I didn’t...my bad! Now William is paying that price and I’m paying that price, and God Almighty, when will it ever stop? When?”

“Buffy, please, calm down. Your castigating yourself isn’t going to help that matter at hand. This isn’t about you or William paying any price. I don’t believe that your not telling him about his past back then, has anything to do with what’s happening right now.”

“You don’t? Not even a small part of you?”

“No, I really don’t,” Giles said, offering her a sincere, and what he hoped to be, comforting smile.

“Then tell me; what does what I said, or if William believed me, have to do with the cost of tea in a Hellmouth, anyway?”

Giles winced.

“Even my quips suck,” Buffy said morosely. The wind gone out of her sails, she slouched back in her chair.

“Nothing about you has ever...sucked; but onto the issue at hand. I was just trying to get an overall idea of what precipitated the nightmares.”

“Like Edna, or seeing his relatives, and going to the cemetery today?”

“That seems to be a reasonable conjecture. Seeing someone from his past brings up such strong emotional issues, that he internalizes it, and later he has a nightmare.”

“The only problem with a reasonable conjecture, as you call it, is that there’s a hell of a lot more to them than that. Even if seeing people from his past were the cause of William’s nightmares, these are not your normal, garden-variety, reasonably conjectured nightmares, Giles. I know. I was there, remember? Believe me, what we were living through was as real, as you and me sitting here at your desk is real. The word ‘nightmare’ doesn’t even come close to what these are.”

“I do realize that, Buffy, but bear with me. I’m just taking it step by step.”

“If you say so.”

Giles continued. “From what William himself told me, he’s had nightmares quite regularly, ever since he returned. Albeit, like you said, not all the time. However, since finding out about his past, the frequency has increased, and more importantly, they seem to have taken on a darker, more sinister overtone.”

Buffy shuddered. She didn't need a reminder. Only a couple of hours ago, she'd lived through the blinding terror in 3-D and surround sound. Her heart broke to think that William had been living with that sort of terror all along. How could she have been so blind? She couldn’t help but feel like there was a giant piece of the puzzle she was missing, and it made her furious. But blind fury wouldn’t get the job done, whereas, a bit of focused hatred just might.

END CHAPTER 205