Compassion

Compassion

Disclaimer: The characters and world of this story belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I'm not making any money off either this site or the story itself.

Written for Antennapedia's prompt in the Giles H/C Ficathon: Giles/Joyce; post-S2; they comfort each other while worrying about the missing Buffy; Joyce cares for Giles's injuries. Thanks to Antenna for the beta.

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Buffy was gone.

No, Joyce thought, for the hundredth - for the thousandth - time in two days - not gone. Left. She'd left, and what was worse was that Joyce had told her to. "If you walk out that door," she'd said, and Buffy had. She'd left.

Buffy was gone.

She couldn't get away from it. She hadn't wanted to leave the house - hadn't left the house at all yesterday, in case Buffy called or came home - but her daughter's image looked back at her from every wall. Buffy's bright, bright smile - she was so lovely and always had been, her entire life. It didn't seem possible - didn't seem right that such a bright child should be a - a -

A vampire slayer.

She wouldn't have believed it, except that Willow, who had called yesterday looking for Buffy, destroying Joyce's last hope that Buffy might not have gone very far - smart, sensible Willow had told her it was true. Vampires existed and her daughter fought them nightly. It was something out of a bad movie, the sort she and Buffy rented on Friday nights after a long week when they just wanted something to laugh at. It was unbelievable. Except . . . Joyce believed it.

But believing it didn't mean she knew what to think. She didn't know what to do either. The police had called and said that Buffy had been cleared in the murder investigation - murder investigation - but she was still gone. Missing. Disappeared. Joyce had filed a report with the police, but, well, many people disappeared in Sunnydale. Now she knew why.

She glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand, torn from Buffy's address book. Giles was all it said, in loopy pink writing, and then the address. No phone number, unfortunately, though part of her wanted to have this conversation face-to-face, wanted see him when she finally gave vent to the frustration and terror of the last two days. Buffy's note had made it clear that whatever was going on, this man was part of it. She should have known he wasn't what he seemed that night he'd come to the hospital when Buffy was sick. It had seemed a bit much for the school librarian. But he'd been so very shy and stuttering that it had never occurred to her that he might be - might be -

What was he? What was Buffy? A vampire slayer, but she hadn't said what that was, really, or what he was, only that Joyce should tell him she was sorry she couldn't be the slayer he wanted her to be, that he deserved. Joyce had no idea what that meant, what any of it meant, and she was sick to death of being kept in the dark. This man knew her own daughter better than she did, and Buffy had been lying to her for months with his knowledge. He clearly wasn't a school librarian, and now she was going get some answers. Even if she didn't like them.

She raised her hand to knock and the door swung open. Startled, Joyce took a step back. "Willow?"

"Mrs. Summers! What are you doing here?" She glanced over her shoulder, looking anxious.

Xander appeared behind her. "Hi, Mrs. Summers," he said with a brief wave. "How you doing?"

She frowned at them, then down at the slip of paper again. "Not very well at the moment, I'm afraid. Have - have either of you heard from Buffy?"

They both shook their heads. "She hasn't called?" Willow said hesitantly.

"No, I'm afraid not. Is this - I'm sorry, do I have the right address? I'm looking for Mr. Giles."

"Yeah, you're in the right place," Xander said, even as Willow suddenly stiffened. "He's asleep right now, though."

"Asleep?" Joyce glanced at her watch. "It's three-thirty."

"The pills make him groggy," Willow said, frowning at her. She'd planted her feet apart, Joyce realized, as though she meant to block the doorway, and she had her arms crossed over her chest.

Pills? Joyce frowned, really taking the two of them in for the first time - Willow had a bandage covering a wide patch of skin on her head, and Xander's arm was splinted and bound. What the hell had happened that night? Buffy had been - well, frantic, panicked, and Buffy didn't panic easily. What kind of emergency would it take to upset a vampire slayer? Joyce wasn't sure she wanted to know.

There was a beat of strange silence. "We were just gonna go for burritos," Xander said at last, "if you wanna come."

"No, thank you," Joyce said firmly. "I really just want to speak with Mr. Giles."

"He's asleep," Willow said, lifting her chin.

Joyce lost her patience. "Then he will simply have to wake up."

"No," Willow said, bringing Joyce up short.

"Will," Xander said nervously.

"No!" Willow repeated sharply, stepping out of the doorway. She pulled Xander with her and then shut the door behind them. "You came here to yell at him," she said to Joyce, now outright glaring. "I know you did, I can tell. You wanna get mad at him because Buffy left and you don't know what to do. But it's not his fault and you don't get to yell at him for it."

Joyce counted to ten mentally before answering. Four years of living with a teenager had taught her that much. "Willow, I think this is between Mr. Giles and myself."

She shook her head. "You don't understand, you don't know what's happened. You don't know what he's been through."

"Will," Xander said again, more quietly. "Come on, it's not Giles's fault, but it's not Mrs. Summers's fault either."

Willow shook her head again, her mouth a stubborn line. Joyce had never seen her so - resolved. Usually she was quiet, a bit shy. Exactly the sort of friend Joyce wanted for Buffy. Someone to keep her out of trouble. "You don't get to yell at him," she repeated.

Joyce opened her mouth, closed it, and sighed. Willow was more right than she wished to admit. "Fine. I won't yell at him."

"You can't wake him up, either," Willow said, not appearing the least bit mollified. "He's not sleeping well, he has nightmares."

Joyce raised her eyebrows. "How would you know?"

"We've sorta been staying here," Xander cut in before Willow could reply. "Since everything happened. Giles is kinda in bad shape right now and he needs help around the house."

Pills. Nightmares. Needs help around the house. Joyce didn't particularly like the picture she was beginning to get. It certainly stepped on her indignation, and she'd been counting on that to carry her through this conversation. She looked past them to the door. Willow and Xander knew her daughter better than she did, too.

"All right," she said at last. "Come on. I'm buying you burritos. But you have to fill me in - on everything."

Willow and Xander exchanged a look. Xander shrugged, and after a moment Willow returned it. Joyce relaxed. At last. Answers.

Two hours later Joyce found herself on Mr. Giles's front stoop once more - alone this time, as she had dropped both Xander and Willow off at their respective homes and told them to spend the evening with their families. They'd looked dubious, and Willow had clearly been unhappy with the idea of leaving Mr. Giles alone, but Joyce thought they were relieved as well. They'd been evasive about what had happened to Mr. Giles that night, but Joyce had plenty of imagination and could fill in the details rather more easily than she might have wished. They were children and completely unprepared for taking care of someone who'd been through what Mr. Giles had. But it seemed he had no one else.

Except Buffy, and Buffy was gone. He and Joyce had that much in common, at least.

She knew what Mr. Giles was now: a watcher. What she didn't know was how she felt about it. It seemed his job on the one hand was to keep Buffy alive by training her to fight and helping her do all the things she couldn't do by herself. Joyce was more than fine with this. But on the other hand, it was his job to send her out in the first place, and that she was less fine with. Buffy was seventeen and Joyce didn't believe in destiny, especially not when it came to her daughter.

She knocked and waited. She could hear someone moving about inside. "Just a moment," she heard faintly, and then slow, uneven footsteps approached the door.

Willow needn't have worried. Regardless of her intentions, as soon the door swung open Joyce knew her anger - considerable though it was, since anger was easier to maintain than mind-numbing panic and fear - could not have lasted. Not once she got her first glimpse of his bruised face, his bandaged hand, the way he walked stooped over as though his stomach and ribs hurt. Twelve hours, Xander and Willow had said, poking listlessly at their burritos. Twelve hours this man had sat tied to a chair while a vampire tortured him, and only after they'd hypnotized him had he given in. Only then had he told the secret that almost ended the world. "He has big time guilt about it, too," Willow had said, eyes wide and haunted. No, Joyce could never have vented her anger at this battered, sad man.

"Mrs. Summers," he said, rather faintly. "I - Buffy. Is she - has she come home?"

He sounded so hopeful. Joyce shook her head. "No, she hasn't. She hasn't called you either?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Well . . please." He stood aside.

"This is very nice," she said, glancing around his apartment. It was. Rather cluttered at the moment, but cozy and warm. Whoever had decorated it - silly, of course it must have been him - had good taste. She found herself examining the dragonfly lamp on the desk.

"Thank you. It's not usually such a mess, but I've been a - a bit incapacitated."

She wondered if she should pretend she didn't know. Nonsense. "So I understand. Willow and Xander told me what happened. Oh," she added, "I'm sorry, I'm supposed to tell you - I took them home, I thought they could use a -" break, no, she couldn't say that - "that their parents would like to see them. Willow said to call if you needed anything, and they would be back in the morning. With doughnuts."

He nodded, looking away. "I see. Yes, they must have liked to go home."

"No," she said, her voice gentling almost despite herself, "they didn't. I more or less insisted." She regretted this now. Something in the almost imperceptible slumping of his shoulders gave her the sudden sense of having robbed a drowning man of his life preserver. She'd been thinking about what the children needed, how tired they had looked to her, how worried their parents must be, though they'd both insisted otherwise. She hadn't been thinking about Mr. Giles and how alone he would be without them.

"Quite right, of course." He looked at her, almost swaying, his eyes rather unfocused. "Willow said Buffy left a note?"

"Yes, I have it with me. I was hoping you might - might know where to look. I don't think the police are going to be very helpful."

"No, likely not. And I doubt she'd have stayed in Sunnydale." He gestured vaguely towards the phone on the broad oak desk. "I have . . . contacts. People to call. But I haven't -" He was really swaying now, she realized with alarm. "It's the damn Vicodin. Xander makes me take them but they make me so tired and . . . loopy. I haven't been able to - to - I'm sorry," he said suddenly. "Would you like some tea?"

Oh dear. "Yes, but why don't you let me make it? Here, sit down." She herded him over to the sofa and, with a hand on his shoulder - he winced - made him sit.

He rubbed his uninjured hand over his face, as though trying to clear his head with it, and blinked up at her. "I'm sorry," he said again, helplessly.

"Please, don't be. I should have called first."

He shook his head. "You have every right. I suppose you wish to discuss the, the slaying?"

She did, but she was starting to think that might not be a good idea. She had always thought him very articulate in their previous few interactions, but coherent was not a word she would use to describe him just now. Willow and Xander's explanations had been helpful but a bit muddled, and she'd hoped for something clearer from him, not to mention help in finding Buffy. But in a way Joyce was almost relieved - focusing on him had derailed her anger, but it had also shoved the fear and the panic to the back of her mind. For the first time in two days, she thought she might have room in her head for a thought that didn't end with Buffy is gone.

"In a minute. Here - Buffy's note. I thought - well, I couldn't make anything of it, but perhaps -" She pulled it out of her purse and unfolded it carefully. It was already rather weak along the creases, as she kept unfolding it to read it again, hoping that this time some cypher, some hidden message, would leap out at her and tell her where her daughter had gone.

He took it from her wordlessly and stared at it without opening it up to read. "Thank you," he said at last.

She was ashamed to think now that she'd intended to throw it in his face. She cleared her throat. "Where do you keep the tea?"

"Oh. In the cupboard over the -" he gestured vaguely.

"I'll find it."

It took her a few minutes, but she did find it eventually. Loose tea in a canister. She distracted herself by sniffing it and wondered where he bought it. It was hard to find anything that didn't come in bags. She tended to drink coffee by default. She put the kettle on, sneaked a glance into the living room, and saw that he was still reading Buffy's note. She didn't wish to disturb him, and his kitchen had proven pleasantly diverting so far. Part of her was curious and growing more so about this man, whose first name she still didn't know. She opened a few cabinets under the mental pretense of looking for the sugar and possibly something sweet to go with the tea - Willow and Xander had said he hadn't been eating - but also to see what sort of kitchen he kept.

A very nice one, usually, she finally concluded. The cupboards were bare, and the refrigerator was almost empty, but the spice rack was full to bursting. Alphabetically ordered, including some she'd never heard of. Cinnamon, both in sticks and ground up, real nutmeg that would need to be grated, peppercorns and coriander and anise, along with the usual basil and oregano and powdered garlic that even the most hapless bachelor kept on hand. Joyce was a bit old fashioned about who should do the cooking, probably because every time Hank had ever tried to make her dinner it had ended in disaster, but she thought she'd enjoy having Mr. Giles cook for her.

This was a ridiculous thought. Joyce knew she wouldn't be having it if she were in her right mind - she was overwrought and exhausted, and thus concocting ridiculous fantasies about sweetly awkward, obviously lonely British men who might be able to help her find her daughter. Understandable, but inconvenient. One thing at a time. Tea first.

She'd found a pot, strainer, and tray in the course of her snooping, and a little silver pitcher for the milk - except the milk was a week out of date, she realized, grimacing as she tossed it in the trash. She made the tea in the pot, set a bowl of sugar on the tray along with two cups and saucers, and carried it all out to the living room.

He was hunched over, letter held tightly in his uninjured hand. He held his bandaged fingers over his eyes, and Joyce realized with faint horror that he was either crying or struggling very hard not to. She sat beside him on the sofa without saying a word, poured him his tea, and took Buffy's note from him before placing the cup in his hand. "I'm sorry," he muttered, still not unhunching. "The pills - they bring everything to the surface. Part of why I wish Xander wouldn't make me take them."

"It's all right," she said, resting a hand, very, very lightly on his back. She hesitated, and then decided to go with honesty after all. "I cried a lot that first night, when I realized she wasn't coming home."

He sighed. "I'm so very sorry. I blame myself entirely."

"You shouldn't," she said quietly. "I told her -" She sighed. "I told her not to come back. I demanded an explanation, but the world was about to end - how was I to know the world was about to end? - and I told her that if she walked out that door . . ."

"I see."

Joyce closed her eyes. "I can't believe I said that. I knew, the moment it was out of my mouth, that I had made a terrible mistake, but it was too late. She was gone."

He shook his head. "Nothing you knew of Buffy or, indeed, of the world, could have given you any reason to think - well." He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed but dry. "I swear to you that I'll find her."

Joyce managed a smile, though the truth was that at the moment, he didn't look as though he could find his shoes if he needed to. "Thank you," she said, looking down at her hands. "Though I'm not sure - I haven't the faintest idea how to handle things once you do."

He nodded, looking, Joyce thought, a bit better - not quite so vague as he had earlier. He sipped his tea once, twice, and straightened, wincing. "I must confess, I'm not certain how much advice I can give you. But I'm at your disposal. What do you wish to know?"

She didn't even know where to begin. She sipped her own tea while she thought. "Buffy," she said at last. "You - you care for her, don't you?"

For a moment he seemed to be holding his breath. Then he nodded. "In both senses. I care for her and about her - more than I ever thought possible. I - I've trained my whole life for this, you see, and they always told us - well, they said we would eventually develop a personal relationship with our slayers, but I never knew - I could never have - perhaps if I'd had children, I might have known what to expect."

"Then you have to understand - I don't see why she has to be the one. Why can't someone else - why can't this Council do it - why can't - " you do it, she wanted to finish, but of course he already did, and under the circumstances it would be downright cruel to imply otherwise. "She's a child."

"I know. I could give you the speech about destiny -"

"Don't," Joyce said flatly.

"I wasn't going to." He took a very long sip of tea this time. "It has always been done this way," he said at last. "For thousands of years, the slayer has maintained the balance."

"And no one has ever thought there might be another way? A better way?"

He shook his head. "If so, it has been expunged from the record."

She hated him, just a little, for using a word like expunged when they were talking about her daughter's life. "So that's it? It's always been done this way, so that's how we do it? No other slayer or watcher or - or slayer's mother - has ever put their foot down and said, 'No, not me, not mine'?"

"The Council makes such decisions . . . ill advised."

There was something in his voice just then that sent a chill up Joyce's spine. Willow hadn't said how the - Joyce could hardly call it a gift - how the destiny was passed on, but Joyce could guess. If the slayer refused, then . . . "Oh."

Mr. Giles gave a very dry chuckle, without the slightest trace of humor. "Quite." He sighed and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. She watched him warily, but he merely crossed to the bookshelf, selected a volume, and shuffled back to her. He lowered himself to the couch with a groan he nearly managed to swallow and held the book on his lap. It was bound in hunter green, with plain black lettering: A History of the Slayer Line. "Most of the books on slayer lore are nigh unreadable," he said, shifting around to face her. "I think they're written that way on purpose, to discourage idle curiosity. But when I was at school, an older watcher wrote this for the sixth form students - seniors," he clarified, at her glance. "We read it in a class. It's still rather dry, but also fluent and informative. You may borrow it if you like."

"Yes," she said, taking it from him. "Thank you." She smoothed her hand over the cover. Neither of them spoke for a time. Her own tea sat neglected on its saucer, but she listened to him sipping his. Eventually he poured himself some more, giving her time. Time. Time was what she didn't have now - what they didn't have. What Buffy didn't have. Her breath caught. "We're going to lose her, aren't we."

She heard the clink of cup on saucer as he set his tea down unsteadily. "Yes."

"God - you can't - you can't possibly expect -" She buried her face in her hands. "She's a child. Mine. My child."

"As the last one was someone else's," he said softly, "and the next one will be as well. Mrs. Summers, I - I know it seems a pallid sort of comfort now, but I have every intention . . ." He swallowed. "We will lose her, yes. I won't lie to you. But not for a long time yet if I have anything to say about it."

She couldn't look at him. A pallid sort of comfort. It seemed a grotesque understatement. "What if we already have?"

He shook his head. "Buffy is very capable. She's strong, she can take care of herself. Wherever she is, I have every confidence . . ." He didn't finish his sentence. Joyce was just as glad. She thought - well, she didn't know what to think, except that nothing was how she'd thought it was. Vampires roamed the streets at night, it was her daughter's job to protect people from them, and this man helped her. He loved her, too, and was obviously there for her in a way Hank couldn't seem to manage anymore.

Destiny was real. And it seemed that, unless something unforeseen happened, she was destined to bury her daughter someday.

She could not understand this now. It threatened to overwhelm her and she refused to allow that. Not here, not now. She could break down later, perhaps.

First things first, she'd thought earlier. The tea had grown cold while they talked. They needed to find Buffy, and for that they need Mr. Giles's contacts, and for that he needed to be well. Better, at least, than he was. Joyce watched him surreptitiously. He hid it well, she thought, especially sitting down, but the way he carried himself belied his efforts. He was clearly in a great deal of pain, and not only of the physical variety.

The solution became suddenly obvious. Awkward but obvious - and for pity's sake, she still didn't know his first name.

"Rupert," he said when she asked. He sounded faintly surprised - or maybe just faint. His hands were shaking more now than they had at the beginning of the conversation. He hadn't poured himself any more tea, and she suspected it was because he didn't think he could manage it without spilling. He needed a pill, she judged, and there was next to no chance he'd take one if no one was here to make him.

This was something she could do. Heaven knew she hadn't trained for it her whole life, she had no idea at all what she could do to find Buffy, much less help her once they had. But she could help Mr. Gi - Rupert get well again so that he could find her and help her.

"Rupert," she said. "I have a guest room. I think you should use it until you're feeling better."

He blinked at her, mouth opening in clear astonishment. "Mrs. Summers -"

"Joyce."

"Joyce. I - I couldn't possibly impose -"

"You're not. I - this was supposed to be Buffy's first week of summer vacation," she said, when he looked dubious. "I took it off of work so we could spend time together, and now -" She looked away, swallowing against the lump in her throat. "The house is so quiet without her. It would be nice to have someone else there. I'm going to make myself crazy otherwise."

"Oh." He cradled his injured hand against his chest, rubbing it with his good one - the fingers must be starting to hurt. Joyce felt her own twitch in sympathy. "I - I do appreciate the invitation, but I'm really doing all right."

"Willow didn't seem to think so."

He closed his eyes and was silent. She let him battle it out with his pride. At last, he said, without opening his eyes, "I - you should know, I have - I've been having nightmares. I wake up . . . screaming. It's not - I'm not -"

"Buffy went through night terrors when she was four. It can't possibly be worse than that," Joyce said, as matter-of-factly as she knew how.

Rupert did open his eyes then, and looked at her for a long moment. Finally he nodded. "Yes," he said, rather roughly, "thank you."

He refused her offer to help him pack and dragged himself up the stairs to do it himself. Joyce watched him go, then took the tea things into the kitchen to wash up. What had she just done? she wondered. She'd invited a man she barely knew - whose first name she'd only just found out - into her home, to convalesce (a word Joyce had never heard outside of old movies, but which seemed oddly appropriate for Rupert) in her guest room. It was bound to be awkward, or worse.

Joyce didn't care. As long as it brought Buffy home, even just a little bit sooner, and kept her safe, if only a little bit longer, she didn't care. And if there was more to it than that, if she found herself wanting to help Rupert for his own sake - well, there was certainly something to be said for compassion.

Fin.

Continued in The Smell of Roses.