The Borders of Night Start to Give, Chapter 22/26

[punch_kicker15]

Title: The Borders of Night Start to Give
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: R
Characters/Relationships: Willow/Giles
Summary: A prophecy leads Giles to practice dark magic once again. This sets him down a dark path, and Willow may be the only one who can help. AU in which Willow’s magic training started earlier than in canon. Word count: 47,533
Notes: Thanks to scratchingpost1 for generously offering a plot bunny that ate my brain, gilescandy and dragonyphoenix for looking over a very rough first draft and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement. Thanks also to the mods (ed_b_rackham and traycer_ and other participants at het_bigbang for all of the help and hand-holding throughout. And special thanks to angelus2hot for some amazing art she created for this story.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Giles

Every week Giles travelled to a different city to have the same argument about Faith with a different group of Watchers. This week, the arguments were in Perth. The arguments had become unspeakably tedious to Giles by now.

"But my point is, Faith will never get a chance to prove that she's reformed unless we allow her to make her own decisions."

Nguyen said, "I understand, but I've read your reports. You trusted her, and she abused that trust--"

Giles, help!

Giles said, "Pardon me. Emergency," and the room faded out as he teleported to Willow.

He'd sensed Willow's pain and terror, knew something terrible must have happened, but the sight of her on lying in a pool of blood still shocked him. There was a wound in her arm. It might have opened up an artery; she was in danger of bleeding out. He knelt down beside her and started CPR. In between compressions, he reached out with his magic--there, it was the brachial artery--and began to repair the artery and knit together the torn flesh.

She started breathing again. The next first aid concern was blood loss. Even if he teleported to the hospital, they might not get her a transfusion fast enough. There was a spell that was used to replenish blood in remote areas far from hospitals. It was in a book he'd read in his first year at Watcher Academy--was it in Mandarin?--yes, that was it. He chanted the incantations, praying that he'd remembered the words and intonations correctly. He felt the energy pass between them, sensed the blood cells increasing. Her color had started to return. He cradled her in his arms.

Now there was nothing else to do but hold her and hope that the blood loss hadn't caused brain damage. He pushed away the thought that he might have arrived in time to save her body but not her mind--it was too awful to contemplate.

He was just Rupert now, not the powerful sorcerer or vigilant Watcher, just Rupert, desperately hoping that he hadn't lost her. Hoping that this time he wasn't too late to save the woman he loved.

Her face twitched and she opened her eyes. She mumbled something incoherent.

“Willow, love, it’s alright.” He kept his voice low and gentle. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her after her ordeal.

She looked at him with a slightly confused expression on her face. “What?” she asked faintly.

“You were--hurt. You’re safe now.” A lock of hair had fallen over her face; he brushed it back.

"No, I mean--what was that spell? With the blood?” She gazed up at him, and he realized her expression wasn’t confusion, but curiosity. “That was nifty. Where's it from? Oh, and thank you for saving me--I really should have said that first, huh? Sorry, I just got excited--"

She was alive and still truly Willow. There weren't any words that could express the relief and joy filling his heart. So he tightened his arms around her and kissed her, pouring everything he felt into the kiss.

***

Willow

One minute she was talking, the next minute Giles was holding her in one of those oxygen-depriving hugs, and kissing her desperately. After about a second of shock, she started kissing him back. He loosened his grip on her just enough for her to move her arms, so she slid one hand to the back of his head, and ran the other hand down his back. She wanted these feelings to last forever--the safety as his arms held her tight, the shivery thrill as his mouth crushed down on hers--but a nagging thought kept coming back. There were reasons that they shouldn't be making out like crazy right now.

"Giles, we need to stop." He pulled away a little, but he didn’t look happy. To be fair, she'd been encouraging him up to that point and her request was kinda abrupt.

"C'mon, you, me, healing spells? It just leads to badness. And we don't have time. Buffy was shot, too, and I think she got to the hospital and she has Slayer healing, but she still might need your help--"

His face switched back to Watcher mode. "I'll be right there."

But he grasped her face with both hands and kissed her hard one more time before teleporting out. Her whole body trembled, and it wasn’t the near-death-y stuff that caused it. Her lips felt bruised, and part of her loved it, loved having a physical reminder of what she’d just done.

Then she had a sobering thought. She'd thought she was dying, and she'd reached out to Giles, even though he was thousands of miles farther away than anyone here. What was wrong with her?

She sat for a minute, back against the bed, trying to decide what to do next. She heard the door open downstairs, and Dawn called up, "Hey, I'm home."

Oh, goddess, she needed to clean up all of this blood before Dawn saw her and started freaking out. "Dawnie, stay downstairs, please. I'll be down in a minute."

"You sound funny. What's wrong?" And of course Dawn ignored her--was there anyone she actually listened to? Dawn walked into the room, looked at her and screamed.

Willow stood up carefully, her legs still a little shaky. "It's ok, Dawnie. It looks a lot worse than it is. I'm all right now."

Dawn looked relieved for about half a second, and Willow hated to have to shatter that relief. "But Buffy's in the hospital, and we need to make sure she's ok.”

Then there was a mad scramble to find car keys and get to the hospital. About halfway there Willow realized that she was still wearing her bloody clothes, but what could she do about it now? The important thing was finding Buffy and making sure she was ok.

***

Xander

Xander was trying to referee the argument between Buffy and the nurse about whether Buffy could leave. The nurse seemed wigged by how quickly Buffy had healed, and since the nurse didn't know Buffy was a Slayer, the nurse’s confusion was understandable. He hoped Buffy wouldn't piss off the nurse so badly she'd keep Buffy here out of spite.

Magic crackled in the air, and Giles appeared out of nowhere. The nurse gasped and ran out of the room. Buffy ran after, still begging her to sign the release paperwork.

Xander was baffled. "Jeez, Giles. Since when is it ok to use magic right in front of civilians?"

"A nurse saw something she couldn't explain. Happens all the time around here."

"But you always told us to be discreet, and now you're just flaunting the magic wherever you go--"

Giles gave him the look that always made Xander feel like the stupidest person on the planet. "If it weren't for my magic, Willow would have bled to death back at the house. You're supposed to be her best friend, but you didn't even check on her. Maybe if you lot weren't so bloody incompetent, I wouldn't need to use magic just to keep things in order around here."

Xander felt like Giles had smacked his head with a two-by-four. "Willow--she was shot too?"

"She's all right now. No thanks to you." He stalked off after Buffy. Xander could only stand there, no doubt looking like a slack-jawed idiot.

***

Giles

Giles followed Buffy out to the waiting room. The nurse looked at him, signed Buffy's paperwork and walked away as fast as she could. "Buffy, are you all right?”

‘I’ll be fine, once I get out of here and track down Warren."

Guilt flooded through him. She'd been right about how dangerous Warren was. They were lucky Warren hadn't killed both Buffy and Willow today.

He allowed himself a moment for his thoughts to continue down that path, then shook them off. They needed a plan to deal with Warren now. His self-flagellation could come later.

"We should all meet at the Magic Box. Perhaps Spike can assist after sundown?"

She frowned, and he braced himself for something he wouldn't want to hear.

"Spike--isn't around anymore. He asked Willow to do an anti-love spell on him. Willow asked me if it was ok, and I said yes. She did the spell and he left a few days ago, I don't know where he is now."

Good Lord. "Hang on a second, you did what? Willow did what?" He hoped that he'd somehow misheard or misunderstood.

"It was just--he found out his chip had stopped working on me, and he could hurt me. And I was so messed up that I kind of wanted him to.” She stared down at the floor. “I finally stopped it, but he--he was just obsessed. It was terrible for him. Willow and I talked it over, and we decided that it was the best thing we could do for him."

What on earth was Willow thinking? He thought she’d be responsible and use her magic only to protect Buffy.

"The chip won't protect you anymore? And you decided to get rid of the only other reason he wouldn't kill you? Are you suicidal?"

"I was. I'm not now." She looked him right in the eye, and he looked away. God, it was his fault she'd felt that way.

He tilted his head back, stared at the white ceiling tiles as if they might have some answers for him. There was nothing he could do about the past. All he could do was protect her in the future. There was a spell that might help. But first, he needed more power.

Buffy was still staring at him. "Never mind about the meeting. You look after Dawn and the others. I'll take of care of Warren for you." Before she could argue, he teleported out.

***

Anya

Anya stacked up some outdated potions, humming to herself. It was good to be back at work. Going out to clubs and malls with Cordy had been fun, but Anya liked feeling useful. This was the only place where her knowledge of magic and her talent for finance put her in her element.

She nearly jumped out of her skin (in the human, non-literal sense) when Giles teleported in. He looked angry, and she wondered if it was something she'd done, but he didn't even acknowledge her. He just strode over to the loft and started levitating the black arts books.

It looked like he was absorbing energy from them. When he reached the fifth book or so, her curiosity got the best of her. "Why are you doing that?"

He fixed an icy glare on her. "Because I need this. I'm paying you to work, not to ask questions. If you don't have enough work to do here, feel free to go home."

Home was her empty apartment, where there was no one to have sex with, or cuddle, or even just talk to. She turned back to the potions, watching him out of the corner of her eye. It looked like he was absorbing magic way too fast. She kept quiet. He'd never listen to her advice. None of them ever did. Never mind that she was one thousand years older than any of them.

Anya stared in fascination as his hair and eyes turned black. She was trying to be a good human, really, but there were times when she yearned for her old calling. This wasn't vengeance magic, but it was dark enough to send a little shiver through her.

He caught her staring, and said, "Get out. Now." His voice was quiet, but Anya couldn't miss the menace behind it. She bolted out of the store.

Giles could be annoying, with his condescending corrections, and his insistence on holding onto The Magic Box instead of giving it to Anya. But he was also a friend, and she wanted to help him. She’d call Buffy. Maybe his Slayer could find a way to talk Giles out of whatever stupid thing he was doing.
Chapter 23