No it's my job to make, the patients go insane!
It was the start of the evening
shift at the Sunnydale General emergency room; three white-coated nurses paused
by the administration desk to pick up their assignments and discuss the current
intake of patients.
“So let me see,” the tall one
frowned, running her eyes and her finger down the list.
“We got two domestic incidents …”
“Lover’s quarrels,” the plump
one sighed.
“Brutal demonstrations of the
fundamental bestial nature of man,” the middle one corrected archly, buffing
her perfect nails into a soft shine.
“Three people falling onto barbecue
forks …”
“That is so common
around here.”
“Too common, if you ask me.
They should put warning signs on those things.”
“One gunshot
wound …”
The plump one looked surprised.
“Only one? They’ve usually
had at least three by this time of night.”
“It’s Thursday,” the middle
of the three said, as if this explained everything.
Her fellow nurse nodded sagely.
“Oh, and September.
Should’ve remembered.”
“One attempted suicide,” the
tall nurse continued, ignoring them both.
“Two pregnant women with stab wounds to the stomach …”
“No doubt trying to cut the
evil out of themselves again,” the plump nurse confided knowingly.
“Remember that woman last year?”
“Rose … no, Rosemary.
I remember.” Her friend
nodded. “She had such a lovely
baby, too …”
The tallest of them had turned
the page over. “Six severe intoxications,
three from one RTA and … oh yes. One
attempted murder. Low priority
though. Can’t have been much of
an attempt.”
The plump one chuckled, tugging
the list from her friend’s hand. “Then
he’ll wait. Like the rest of them.
Who wants a cup of coffee before we get to work?”
Someone show me a way to get outa here,
'Cause I constantly pray I'll get outa here …
Please, won't somebody say I'll get outa here
Someone gimme my shot or I'll rot here …
Because she wasn’t.
Because she’d left him earlier
that evening without protest, had grabbed the chance to extricate herself from
potential danger and left him facing it, all without so much as an are
you sure to salve her conscience.
And okay, so that was mostly his decision, and he’d wanted her
safe, and all that kind of thing – but she’d still taken off without any thought
of worrying about leaving him behind.
She felt bad about that.
She felt even badder
about seeing him nearly get eaten, and maybe being responsible for showering
him with shards of shattering glass, but that was a more normal kind of ‘I live
on a Hellmouth’ kind of bad; the vague sense of guilt that was nagging at her
had a lot more to do with the I care
about this guy feeling than the there
was a giant carnivorous plant
living in the school greenhouse one …
“
“Yes I do,” she retorted, reassuming
resolve face mode and giving him
a determined glare. “Because I’m
not leaving you lying there, all
blood-soaked and concussy. Not
until I know that you’ve been properly stitched up and … and everything.”
He leant back into the supporting
pillow – carefully of course because, hey, damaged back as well as damaged front,
and head, and wrists, and really, really tender all over – and sighed.
A warm, weary, patient and gently amused sigh, one that went very well
with his smile and – gah, did he
have any idea how sexy that look
was when he wasn’t wearing his glasses?
“All right, all right”
he acquiesced, his acceptance managing to convey he was really quite pleased
that she was being stubborn, however much he felt he was being an imposition.
“Stay if you must. Although,”
he added, “I have the feeling that I am being well and truly
stitched up, one way or the other. I
don’t need a nursemaid,
“Course not,” she agreed cheerfully,
carefully reaching to plump his pillow, pour him some more water and then help
him balance the glass so he could take a drink.
His hands were slightly swollen, his grip was clumsy and she knew
his wrists had to be incredibly painful; the doctor that had conducted initial
triage had ruled against prescribing any painkillers until someone could check
the extent of his concussion. Which
was okay, and probably sensible, but that had been hours
ago, and he still wasn’t top of the list for attention.
“Nor
do I need a guilt-stricken student hovering over me from a misguided sense of
duty.” His tone was wry behind
the effort it cost, and she suppressed a sudden desire to smirk; he might be
feeling – well, half ripped apart and barely put back together – but he was
still Giles.
“Course not.”
“
“Giles,”
she countered firmly, “what you need
is a friend-shaped friend. One
who’ll keep you company and make sure you don’t pass out or bleed to death waiting
for one of these doctors to come and see to you.
And – it could have been Buffy, but you sent her out on patrol with Angel,
and it might have been Xander,
but he was being all security-conscious and weapon care-taking guy, so that
really leaves me, and here am, and here I’m going to stay – at least until I’m
sure that someone’s taking care of you, and maybe even after that, because I’m
totally sure that getting hit on the head with a shovel and being fed to a huge
carnivorous plant thing isn’t a standard requirement in a Watcher’s job description
and it certainly isn’t one for
a school librarian, and … I’m babbling, aren’t I ..?”
“Yes,” he said, managing to
make the word sound both amused and pained all at once.
“You are. You’re .. umm
… q-quite right, though.” He paused
to lift his left hand so that he could scrub wearily at his eyes.
“And I … umm … d-do appreciate the company. Really, I do.
It’s … well, it’s just that … I -I have this … blinding headache and
…” He trailed off, staring at his
wrist with a bemused frown. “Oh
dear,” he breathed. “I-I don’t
think that’s supposed to happen
…”
Neither did Willow.
The triage doctor had tugged peremptorily at the paramedic’s dressings,
peered under her makeshift bandages, made a few tutting noises and then left
everything in place, more concerned with filling in his forms than dealing with
his patient. There was dried blood
mottled across the cotton around the Watcher’s wrist, a dark stain of it crusting
the edges of the padding beneath – and an ominous trickle of much fresher vintage,
which was slowly oozing down Giles’ arm and into the ruins of his shirt
“That’s it,”
she declared, getting to her feet. “I’m
going to find you a doctor, priority system or not!”
She took a half-step away, then darted back, putting out both her hands
and fixing him with an anxious look. “Don’t
move, okay? Stay right there.
I’ll be right back.”
What we have here is an ethical dilemma …
“So he wasn’t trying
to hang himself.” The tallest nurse
was grinning as she worked on changing sheets and preparing the examination
bed for its next occupant. “Turns
out it was all this bizarre game with silk scarves …”
“… and he just forgot about
the overhead fan?” Her plump colleague
giggled at the thought, efficiently stripped the pillow of its regulation protective
covering and tossing it into the plastic receptacle the third of the trio was
holding.
“Totally forgot.
And then his girlfriend panics and tries to get up to switch the thing
off …”
“ …only she’s got one
ankle tied to the bed and she trips and goes flying.
Knocks herself out on the dresser.
If the night porter hadn’t heard him hammering his heels on the bedhead,
he’d have still been hanging up there when the maid came in to change the sheets
in the morning.”
The three of them exchanged
a look. “Poor girl,” the middle
of the three decided, stuffing a rumpled sheet in with the pillow covers.
“The maid?”
“No – the girlfriend.
Bad enough your date’s a dork.
But when he’s a klutz too …well, that’s just adding insult to
injury.”
“Amen, sister,” the plump one
declared with feeling. “Maybe she’ll
realise what a lucky escape she had.”
“When she comes round.”
“From the coma …”
“Excuse me?”
The three of them turned. A
young woman with long red hair was standing at the entrance to the alcove, a
very anxious look on her face. “I-I’m
looking for a doctor?”
“Aren’t we all, sweetheart.”
The comeback was dry; the young woman coloured a little.
“No – I … my friend.
He’s - ” Her hand waved
in the vague direction of one of the occupied alcoves.
“We been waiting for – well, forever, and he’s hurting and there’s blood
and I really, really think he needs help.
Now,” she added, the word a little determined gulp of sound.
The three nurses exchanged a glance.
“Is he on the list?” the tallest
one asked, frostily.
“Well – yes, but …”
“Is he next in line?”
The middle of the three spoke with less ice, but a lot more disinterest.
“No, but
– “
“He’ll wait,” the three of them
chorused, going back to their duties without a second thought.
The young woman’s expression flitted from puzzled, to hurt, and finally
slid into indignation. She reached
out and caught the plump nurse’s arm.
“No.
He. Wont’,” she declared firmly.
“I don’t care about the list, I don’t care about your system.
I know you were busy earlier, I know there were people who needed the
now thing much more than he did then, but those beds are empty
and the people in white coats are just – hanging around, making beds and – and
drinking coffee. My friend is hurting
and he needs help, and that’s why we came here in the first place.
So do I get a doctor, or do I have to make a scene?”
The nurse looked down at the
hand on her arm, and then up at angry, anxious eyes.
“Honey,” she asked softly, “you really think the world’s going to come
to an end if we just wait until his name comes up on the list?”
The young woman thought about
that for a moment, a whole slew of emotions dancing in her eyes.
Then she shivered, as if someone had walked over her grave.
“Yes,” she said, the word as confident as her expression, which had settled
into tight resolve. The nurse smiled.
“In that case,” she said, turning
the young woman round and pointing at someone standing near the coffee machine.
“You probably want to talk to that man over there.”
Your temperament's wrong for the priesthood
And teaching would suit you still less …
“Don’t move, she says,” Giles
muttered to himself, gingerly sinking a little further into the pillows and
wincing as even that miniscule movement stirred the damage across his back.
“Because, of course, I am about to leap to my feet and dance an energetic
Rhumba or two … Christ …”
The last was a hiss of angry
pain, a determined expression of the invective he’d been fighting down for the
last two hours, bewilderedly grateful for Willow’s hovering presence, and determined
not to shatter her illusions of him as … well, some kind of story-book English
gentleman. Finally left alone,
even if only for a minute or two, he could swear like trooper, and he did just
that – a muttered litany of furious curse words that did nothing to ease his
discomfort, but allowed him to vent some deep-seated frustrations concerning
his current wretched and unwelcome state.
It wasn’t so much that it hurt
– which it certainly did, given that some of his wounds were still bleeding
and half of the skin on his body had been stripped back to a decidedly tender
layer by the acids in the plant’s juices – so much as the fact that he was lying
in a hospital bed, waiting to be poked and prodded by curious doctors, when
he could be suffering much more
comfortably at home, exorcising his sense of humiliation at being strung up
– to be plant food no less - with
a generous measure of two of Scotch.
He ran out of breath before
he ran out of invective, and retreated to the repetition of a slightly less
earthy mantra in ancient Sumerian. He
could probably summon one or two real
curses if he put his mind to it, especially since he was – to all intents and
purposes – lying in a welter of his own blood, but no good ever came of such
impulses, and it would hardly be any kind of example to set Willow, who seemed
very determined to take care of him, whether he wanted her to or not.
He sighed in between one span
of the meditative mantra and the next, reluctantly letting the tempting thought
of a good glass of single malt turn into one of distant promise.
Much as he hated to admit it – and hated the looming onslaught of fuss,
and the whole degrading routine of being an impatient patient - he needed to
be here. The worst of his wounds
needed stitching, the rest of them needed disinfecting and he probably needed
a infusion of blood to replace what he’d lost.
He almost undoubtedly had a concussion, and … “Blast,”
he realised, losing the rhythm of his words and with it some of the distance
he’d managed to put between himself and the pain.
The comforting liquor he’d been mentally reaching for went back on the
proverbial shelf. Concussion and
alcohol were never a good mix, no matter how
excellent the vintage might be.
“Well now,” a voice said, managing
to sound both amused and harassed at the same time.
“What have we here? Been
in the wars, have we, Mr – uh … Giles?”
Giles blinked, making an effort
to focus on the blur of white that had suddenly materialised at the foot of
the examination bed. It looked
like a doctor – or possibly someone impersonating one; the obligatory white
coat seemed to have been flung over a casual crimson shirt and a pair of faded
jeans. The man wearing them was
at that suspect age between competent authority and looming elder statesmanship;
his hair was fair, but turning grey, his face was lined but not craggy, and
his eyes were twinkling with the kind of jollity that suggested he’d been an
eternal embarrassment as a father but was about to make the best grandfather
a child could ever have.
“No,” Giles found himself drawling
pointedly. “I’m just lying here
in a pool of my own blood because it’s the latest fashion trend … Gods' sake,
man,” he snapped. “What do you
think?”
“I
think we’re feeling a little testy,” the doctor said, grinning at
“Doctoring now, bedside manner
later,” she ordered firmly. “And
yes,” she added, turning her resolve
face back towards the wounded Watcher and letting it dissolve into an anxious
smile. “Definitely testy.
But only in a ‘lying here for hours and not getting the help he needs’
kind of way.”
“Quite,”
Giles acknowledged faintly, a little shaken by the way she was looking at him.
He knew fear when he saw it and he was seeing it now, lurking under the
anxiety, fuelling her impatient determination.
Or … his heart turned over and
his hand went out, instinctively reaching for hers. … was she simply scared
of losing him?
She caught the hand – gently,
he was relieved to note – and her smile grew a little more genuine, some of
that panicked rabbit in the headlights
look fading from her expression.
“Oh,” the doctor was chuckling
as he flipped through the notes, “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that …”
The note of banter faded. His
smile tightened into a wary frown. “How
long ago were you admitted?”
“Uh …”
Giles wasn’t entirely sure. It
had been some time …
“Two and a half hours ago,”
“Two and a half …” His eyes darted down to the notes, then back up to his patient, the twinkle in them flashing with a moment of sheer indignation and fury. “Damn,” he growled – and kicked into action, a sudden whirlwind of barked orders and determined medical competency.
“IV, stat,”
he snapped at the nearest nurse, then grabbed for the next one as the first
scurried away. “Scrub up, and bring
me a sterile dressings trolley – antiseptics, swabs, sutures, the whole works.”
He was on to the third before the second had even finished her answering
nod. “I need an immediate admission
– observation bed, private room if possible. And if Giestman protests,” he called
after as she too hurried away, “tell him we’ve a PMP in progress and that he
needs to get his ass down here asap.”
“PMP?”
The doctor threw her a rueful
smile. “Only for us, young lady.
Potential Malpractice I’m afraid… although,” he added, perching himself
on the edge of the bed and dragging a small torch out of his pocket, “I am rather
hoping I can persuade you both that I can more than make up for our initial
neglect … Let me take a look at this …”
His hand was a gentle touch against Giles’ chin, turning his head – first
to study the bruising on his temple, and then to check the dilation of both
pupils with a practised flick of his torch.
The Watcher blinked under the impact of the light, wincing as the movement
stirred his headache. “Good, good
…”
The doctor’s name was Thackery;
at least, that was the name written on the battered tag which hung from his
pocket. Close to he came wreathed
in the scent of antiseptics, a hint of Old Spice and a much stronger hint of
peppermint; the waft of it took Giles back years – back, in fact to days spent
in the school infirmary, recovering from the honourable injuries of the English
playing field. The school doctor
– a member of the order, and Watcher trained, if never field assigned – had
been firm and friendly and briskly reassuring in his bedside manner.
He too, had smelt of peppermint; humbugs in his case, and never averse
to handing a few around as a reward for ‘bravery in the field of fire’ as he’d
joking called the ordeals of splinting broken bones, bandaging twisted joints,
or dealing with cracked heads and bloody noses.
Back then,
Giles had always thought his gruff tales of life on the frontline – his horror
stories of field agents brought home with shattered ribs, their limbs half ripped
off, or stricken with claw marks so deep that they’d scarred through to the
bone – had been bold exaggerations, fables intended to put the fear of god into
his impressionable charges. But
now – lying under the gentle ministrations of another of the same breed, bleeding
in more places than he cared to think about and determinedly ignoring the nightmare
memories of nearly being eaten alive – the Watcher had to admit that maybe –
just maybe – the old man might
have been telling it like it is.
“Okay,” Thackery decided, putting
the torch away and turning to
Her eyes went wide again; Giles
– who didn’t really need the hint,
but took it anyway – found her a brave smile and squeezed her hand to encourage
her flight. “You should go home,
“Mhmh,” she denied, shaking
her head. “PMP, remember?
Not going until I know … okay,” she agreed, subsiding under the twin
glare of both doctor and patient. “I’ll
… wait. Maybe – maybe I should
phone Buffy. Let her know … you
know?”
“Yes,” Giles breathed, because
he did know – and it was a constant
surprise to discover his young charges did occasionally worry about him.
When they didn’t have more important things to worry about, that is.
“I think that would be an excellent idea.”
“Go,” Thackery commanded, fluttering
his hands to drive her from the now-curtained cubicle.
One of the nurses arrived as she left, bringing the IV he’d asked for.
“Nice kid,” the doctor observed, checking the equipment and nodding at
the nurse to start removing the remains of his patient’s clothing.
“Yours?”
“Good Lord, no,” Giles reacted, drawing in a sharp breath as the nurse’s hands disturbed his tender skin. “She’s … umm … a student of mine.”
“Student, huh?”
Thackery sounded amused. “Good
one?”
“Very.”
The soft coldness of a swab brushed his arm, and then the IV needle sank
into a vein, starting to feed him the fluid his body badly craved.
“I …umm … tutor a- a special group.
Gifted students. T-that
sort of thing …” There was more
than simple saline in the drip; a slow, insistent warmth began to spread through
him, soothing away the constant scream of his skin and muting the deeper protests
of torn flesh and abused muscles.
“Good for you,” Thackery smiled,
lifting one of his wrists and gently starting the process of peeling away the
makeshift bandaging. “And good
for her, obviously. Wish I had
your touch when it came to my interns.
Ungrateful bunch. I doubt
any of them would show me that
kind of loyalty. You’ll have to tell me your secret some time.”
“N-no secret.”
He hissed as the bulk of the cotton padding fell away, his arm spasming
with the sudden resurgence of pain. “Just
… well, I – I don’t know what,
actually. They … tolerate my presence,
seem to … Christ …consider me an
expert in a few things. Even …listen
to what I say. Occasionally.”
Thackery’s amused snort was
a distracted reflex; he was actually staring at torn skin, carefully assessing
the extent of the damage. “What
the hell happened to you, Mr Giles?”
“It’s … Rupert,” Giles offered
distantly, finding sudden appeal in a competent and professional adult addressing
him by his given name. “And an
insane gardener hit me with a shovel, tied me up with garden twine and attacked
me with a rusty fork.”
“Really?” the doctor questioned,
with a raised eyebrow that suggested he knew a lot more about the nightlife
of Sunnydale than the average sane person would admit to.
The Watcher sighed.
“Really,”
he said, and closed his eyes, letting the caress of the painkillers carry him
away.
Show me your face
Clean as the morning
I know things were bad
But now they're okay
“Well,
he said he was fine - but there
was blood and unfocusy vision – and then the doctor kinda went into overdrive
after I dragged him over to do
something. So I don’t know.”
Buffy muttered something at
the other end of the phone.
“Oh, yeah, I know that
– ‘cause he ordered an admission bed.
The doctor, I mean. I think
he's gonna keep him under observation for a while.
That’s … yes, the concussion. And
the - blood loss, I guess. Xander
was right about the stitches. No
– no, I-I don’t think you need to come over.
I’m sure he’ll be fine. Yes.
Yes, I will. Okay.
I’ll see you tomorrow? Good.
Night.”
She put the phone back on the
hook and slowly walked back to the waiting area, wondering if a half
lie was any better than a whole one. She
wasn’t sure that Giles would be fine.
She wasn’t sure how anyone could be ‘fine’ after something like that
had happened to them. She was quite
sure she wouldn’t be.
It would be nightmare city for weeks, and lots of avoidy behaviour around
plants and stuff – not to mention being traumatised by needing to be stitched
back together and the prospect of being scarred.
For life.
She sighed and dropped onto
one of the long padded benches, pushing a pile of well-thumbed magazines out
of the way so she could make herself comfortable.
She suspected that guys didn’t worry so much about getting scars, and
she also suspected that Giles would say
he was fine, whether he was or not. But
that wouldn’t make it right.
She flicked idly though a couple
of magazines, got herself a cup of coffee, drank that as slowly as she could,
then put the empty cup down with another sigh, glancing first at the still curtained
alcove just beyond the nurses’ station, and then at the clock.
It was past late and heading
for all good souls should be abed
– which was exactly where Buffy was going, and Xander probably was,
and she ought to be but …
One of the white-coated nurses
bustled out from behind the curtain, and Willow sat up for a moment – only to
slump down again as the woman collected something from a trolley and vanished
back behind the curtain again. The
three nurses had been doing that for a while, waltzing in and out as if they
were taking part in some obscure dance routine.
Not something Giles would be
thankful for, she’d suspected when she saw it; hospital tea wasn’t real
tea – not like the kind of stuff he drank, anyway.
Another glance, a further sigh.
She wasn’t going to leave until she was sure he’d been properly taken
care of. Because someone
ought to. Giles didn’t really have
anyone … well, there was Miss Calendar,
but that was all tentative and first date kind of stuff, not the way that Buffy
had her Mom, and she had … well, she and Xander had each other, right? And they
all had Giles looking out for them,
even if he pretended to be grumpy about it most of the time.
Well, okay , she admitted to herself, sometimes
he is grumpy, and not
just pretending …
But she knew that was because
he cared, and that his gruff lectures were a way of venting his frustrations
at not being able to keep them out of trouble.
A way, too, of dealing with the fear that haunted him, every time he
sent Buffy out on patrol. He was
her Watcher, and he was supposed
to feel responsible for her – but no-one had asked him to feel responsible for
the rest of them, and yet he did. Seriously
did, which was kind of cool in a way; cool and oddly comforting – because knowing
someone really cared, rather than
said they did because they thought it was expected of them, was a whole dose-worth
of warm fuzzies, all on its own.
There were, of course, lots
of other ways that being around Giles inspired the warm fuzzy moments; the sweet
glow she got whenever her praised her, the way he trusted her with his books,
even the way he’d sometimes greet her arrival in the library with a smile.
But she’d never tell him
that.
“Miss Rosenberg?”
The friendly-looking older doctor
with the twinkling eyes and the cute laugh-lines was smiling down at her.
He looked tired; his hair was tousled, his coat was rumpled – and there
were spots of blood on it, darkening red blotches staining his sleeves.
For the briefest of moments
“He’s fine,” Doctor Thackery
assured her, offering her a hand to help her up.
“At least, he will be, given a few hours' sleep and a little time to
heal. We’re going to keep him for
the night – if that’s okay with you?”
She nodded warily, her sense
of relief un-knotting her stomach while she made herself breathe as slow and
as evenly as she could manage.
“Nothing to worry about, of
course.” The doctor gently steered
her towards the still curtained cubicle.
“We just want keep an eye on him for a while - make sure that bump on
the old noggin isn’t going to give him any problems.
They’re going to be taking him up to the ward in a minute.
I thought you might like to go with him.
Tuck him in,” he added with a grin.
“Thank
you,” she declared, her gratitude totally heartfelt and not all because he’d
had the kindness to remember her in among the busy bustle of the evening.
She was grateful that he’d listened to her concerns – and that he cared
enough about his patients to step in when he was so obviously needed.
Although if she caught sight of the other
doctor – the one who’d put Giles way down on the list and had left him lying
in misery for hours – then it was likely she’d give him a piece of her mind.
“You’re welcome,” Thackery smiled.
“So’s he. And don’t look
so worried. Most of the damage
is superficial; he’ll be up and about in no time.
Little … tender in places, for a while anyway,” he confided warmly. “But
nothing to panic over. Nothing
to sue over, either,” he suggested, not entirely
in jest.
“Don’t worry,” she said, still
looking anxious despite his reassurances.
Tender was not fun.
“I don’t think … Giles doesn’t like to make a fuss.
Not unless it really needs to happen.
And not so much about himself, either.
Now,” she added, a little ruefully, “if that had been me
lying there …”
Thackery chuckled.
“That, I can imagine,” he said, his expression wry.
“He’s very fond of you, you know?
Fond of all of his students by the sound of it.
Good teachers like that are hard to find.
I’d hang on to this one if I were you.”
“Oh, we will,”
Gone was the bloodstained, dishevelled
figure she’d left lying pale and shivering amongst the pillows.
In its place was a much more reassuring vision; Giles was lying on his
side rather than his back, an IV tube taped to one arm, and a blanket covering
his legs. They’d replaced his torn
and blood-soaked clothing with a clean hospital gown, and the hasty makeshift
dressings and bandages with layers of pristine and professional linen.
His face was still pale and his hair was still faintly tousled, but he
looked so much better lying there
that
“Good Lord,” he murmured, a
soft pumped full of painkillers
drawl. “
“You did,” she smiled, moving
to stand by him and wondering if he’d object to her reclaiming his hand.
“But I didn’t. I guess I
can now. Since you’re all – stitched
up and everything.” She gave in
to the impulse and dropped her hand over his where it lay on the top of the
blanket. He gave her a slightly
startled look – then turned his palm and let her lace her fingers through his
own.
“I certainly am,” he sighed
wearily. “And that sounds like
a jolly good idea to me. You have
school tomorrow, remember?”
She nodded; she
didn’t need the reminder, but Buffy certainly would have done. She found herself
wondering if he wished that it had been Buffy who’d brought him to the hospital,
if he’d have been less startled if it had been his Slayer who’d stayed … and
then his hand tightened around hers with almost imperceptible pressure, and
his smile widened just that little bit, and she knew it didn’t matter one way
or the other.
Because he was really, really
glad to see her there.
“Thank you,” he said, managing
to pack more gratitude into those two words than a whole slew of gift-baskets
and Hallmark cards would have conveyed.
“F-for staying, I mean. And
for … berating doctors on my behalf. I
know you would have … much rather been elsewhere.”
“Well yeah, but … so would you,”
she countered, a little self consciously.
Being praised by Giles was always nice.
Being thanked by him was
even nicer. But she never felt
entirely deserving of the first, and she didn’t feel deserving of this at all.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” she said, then coloured, realising how that
might sound. “Not to be ‘going
on alone guy,’ I-I mean. You’re
not – Buffy, you know.”
“A fact I have been painfully
reminded of tonight.” He sounded
vaguely embarrassed about it. “I
was the one who told you to go – there’s nothing to feel guilty about in that.
And you kept your wits about you later.
Picking up on my hint about the roof.
You acquitted yourself well tonight,
“Don’t be silly,” she said,
half embarrassed by his adding praise to praise and half annoyed that he should
seek to belittle himself after everything he’d been through.
“It wasn’t your fault that
Simon hit you with a shovel. And
you were all with the stoic bravery and stuff afterwards.
You only screamed the once …”
She tailed off.
He was looking at her with a slightly pained expression – one that had
nothing to do with the cuts and the bumps and the bruises – and she suddenly
felt extremely small. “Sorry,”
she gulped. “Not helping here,
huh?”
His hand tightened on hers a
second time, a little more firmly and with a lot more reassurance.
“Actually,” he said gently, “you’re helping a great deal.
But you should go home.”
“I will,” she promised, and
grinned – because suddenly she
knew everything was going to be okay, and they’d all be laughing about this
by the end of the week – even Giles. “Just
as soon as they get you into a real bed.
Doctor Thackery,” she confided happily, “promised I could tuck you in.”
The upward roll of his eyes
was perfect.
As was his pained look and the inevitably martyred sigh.
“Oh good Lord,” he groaned.
But she knew he didn’t mean
it. Because he held on to her hand
– and went on holding it, all the
way up to the ward and afterwards. Right
up until he finally fell asleep.
Tell me this feeling lasts till forever
Tell me the bad times are clean washed away…
Outside in the dark, three nurses
leaving their shift – who were also three cheerleaders, still in school, and
three other creatures altogether – paused to glance up at the still-lit
windows of the ward, and smiled.
“I think they handled that pretty
well, don’t you?” the plump one said, a note of affection in her voice.
The tallest one snorted.
“Sure,” she drawled cynically.
“And he’s really going to survive the next few years with his
slayer taking such good care of him, isn’t he.”
“He will,” the middle one said,
linking one arm with her older sister’s, and the other with her younger’s as
they headed down the road and into the night.
“Few bumps in the road, the odd knot in the thread and a little heartache
on the way, but … they’ll make
it. All of them. They have Fate
and Chance and Destiny on their side.”
“Yeah,” the plump one chuckled.
“Nice to know there’s someone you can rely on to save the world.
Again.”
Their giggles floated back as
they vanished into the darkness, their shapes blurring and fading into nothing
but a lingering hint of starlight. The
very last thing that might have been heard – if anyone had been around to listen
– was the voice of the tallest, dropping into thoughtful tones.
“Now then,” she said.
“Where in the hell did the next one of those cursed things take
root …”
Hold your hat and hang on to your soul
Something's coming to eat the world whole
If we fight it we've still got a chance
But whatever they offer you
Though they're slopping the trough for you
Please, whatever they offer you
Don't feed the plants