Leaving the Lights On: Leaving the Lights On
by Brian Zino
DISCLAIMER: The characters contained herein do not belong to me. They are the property of Joss Whedon, the WB Television Network, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and Kuzui/Sandollar Enterprises. And anyone else who I'm forgetting.

THE BLAME: This was going to be yet another dedication to the ever-inspirational Allison, but instead I choose to *blame* her for this story. It's all her fault. Until she started polluting my mind, I didn't consider the Buffy/Giles dynamic to be even remotely romantic. And now...well, read for yourself. At any rate, like I said, this story is Allison's fault. :-)



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His key still worked. Glancing furtively around him (he didn't know why -- there wasn't likely to be anyone looking), Giles pulled the door open and slipped into the darkened, dusty hallways of Sunnydale High.

It was strange how this still felt like home to him. He'd spent less than two years here, and the last ten he'd spent knocking about Oxford. And yet this still felt comfortable to him. Walking through these disused corridors, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd finally returned to somewhere he was meant ot be all along.

Giles was probably the only person who felt that way. Sunnydale wasn't home to anybody anymore. When the Hellmouth had opened again, less than a year after they'd managed to close it up by disposing of the Master, the horrors that were released had been too much for the general populace to absorb. Those who didn't die, fled. It had been a ghost town for a decade.

He knew where she'd be, and he reluctantly made his feet move. A part of him was screaming, "Get out! Go back to England -- this isn't necessary!" But that was the part of him that had ruled his life for ten years, ten years of unutterable guilt and regret. He was stronger than that, and this needed to be done. Ignoring the voice, he turned the key and walked into his old haunt.

Giles looked around the Sunnydale High library. It looked just as he remembered it. Ten years had done nothing to change it. And just like always, it was empty of students.

He didn't want to be here. He had managed to escape, to put it behind him. For ten years he had been running from here. Running from his duty. But his conscience finally caught up with him, and he had finally been forced to admit that if he truly loved her, he would do this. Stop being so damned selfish and do this for her.

"Geez, Giles, what happened to your hair?" came the all-too-familiar voice from behind him.

He didn't -- he couldn't -- turn around. "Um...nothing," was all he could say.

"Whaddya mean nothing? It's all white!"

Her voice hadn't changed. Of course it hadn't -- why would it? It still held that gently teasing note, that innocence, that girlish charm. Even after all this time, he found it...compelling. He felt his throat tighten. "Buffy, I --" His voice trailed off.

"What is it, Giles? What's wrong?" she asked, her voice suddenly scared.

He turned, finally. The seventeen-year-old Slayer stood before him, her blue eyes still wide and radiant, her blonde hair still looking slightly disheveled. She wore a simple white dress -- the dress she had fought the Master in, the one she had been -- No, he couldn't remember that. Not yet. Not now.

Like everyone else, he liked that dress. Immensely. Only he never said it. He never told her how she took his breath away.

And now she wasn't really there, was she?

"I failed you," was all he could say, feeling a tear rolling down the side of his nose. He blinked it back, taking off his glasses for lack of anything better to do with his hands. Buffy became an indistinct blur in front of him. That was good. Not being able to see her made this easier. Trying to control his breathing, he said it again: "I failed in my duty."

"I know," Buffy said softly. "I died." There was no accusation in her voice. No, she sounded almost... understanding.

Hearing it put so plainly, in the voice of the girl who should have been standing before him in the flesh... Giles let out a low moan and sank slowly, until he was sitting on the library floor.

The ghost moved towards him, stretching out one perfectly toned arm to comfort him. "But it's been ten years, Giles. You have to move on."

"So do you," he said.

"What?" She moved to sit next to him, and he felt a chill as her ghostly body brushed his.

Giles turned his head away from her. "That's how I failed you. I didn't prepare you adequately. Oh, I taught you everything I knew about fighting, about Slaying. But I thought you would live forever. I --" His voice caught again, but he forced himself to continue. "I *wanted* you to live forever. I didn't want to admit that you would die. So I didn't prepare you for it."

Buffy's ghost said nothing.

Mustering the last of his guilty self-will, he forced himself to look at her. He had to be looking at her to do this. "That's why you're still here. I didn't prepare you for death, so even after you were -- even after, the sense of duty I instilled in you wouldn't let you rest. You still hunt vampires, don't you?"

Buffy smiled, a wan smile that curved her pouty lips into a gentle, sad arc that pierced Giles straight through the heart. "Yeah," she said with a small laugh. She held up a hand and looked at it. "Only it's kinda hard to hold a stake when you're dead. Mostly I just scare the willies out of them."

Oh, Buffy, he silently said. Even in death you are the brightest light in my miserable existence. How can I lose you forever?

You already did, said the other part of himself. You lost her ten years ago, and it's taken you this long to admit it. You miserable bastard.

His feeling for Buffy -- dared he call it love? -- and his self-loathing finally combined, crystallized into something akin to determination. This was it. Steeling himself, he said the words he had come to say, that would comprise the last gift he could ever give Buffy. "Buffy, you don't have to slay vampires anymore. I -- I didn't want to let you go, so you stayed here, locked into that bond we share. I couldn't bear to lose you, so I never..." Here his voice trailed off and he was silent for a moment.

A last moment. A last moment to look at her, to drink in her beauty and to forever burn the image of her perfection into his brain.

"I never said goodbye," he heard himself say. "And my selfishness has caused you to remain in this world long after you should have been here."

She was staring at him, silver tears silently falling from her eyes as the same time as a gentle smile of realization touched her perfect lips. "Giles -- you're in love with me!" she said incredulously. "I never knew you felt that way."

"Oh, Buffy," said Giles. He reached out to her at last. "You'll never know how much I cared for you. How much I -- " His fingers came to a stop in the air where her shoulder appeared to be. There was no tangible sensation, but somehow he felt her, under his fingers.

He looked into her eyes, and said it. "Goodbye, Buffy."

And with that, she faded away, not slowly but quickly. In an eye blink. She was there and she was gone.

Giles sat there silently for a long while, relishing the numbness he felt in his head and in his heart, dreading the all-too-certain moment when it would disappear and the loss would overwhelm him. Finally, he stood up and walked towards the library doors.

He turned back to see the empty room, one last time. "And may you finally find the peace my selfish love denied you, Slayer," he said into the vacant library.

He turned off the lights and walked out.

END


This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=5524