The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind
Chapter 20
"I my loving watch am keeping."
by Gaius Petronius
DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox and Mutant Enemy, Inc. This story can be read on its own or as a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark" from which the Ancient Ones, the Shining Trapezohedron and the character of Robert Blake are derived.
The Wind Beyond the Walls of the Mind is set roughly in mid-season four shortly following the death of Doyle but before the creation of Adam and the death of Maggie Walsh.
Content Note: This part is rated PG-13 for a little raunchy language.
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The first rays of dawn slipped through the front windows of the New Age Curiosity Shop and spread slowly and inexorably across the interior. The morning light revealed everything inside the shop in complete disarray. Display cases were all pushed to the side; a table with Xander's control panel for the floodlights was shoved up near the front window. Anya slouched in front of the controls but she only twiddled them absent mindedly with her fingers. Cordelia stood by the front window and stared outside at the dawn. A few folding chairs were scattered around the room.
In the back corner, near the entrance to the storage room, MacDuffie's desk was shoved away and, in it's place, was opened a small canvas cot covered with a thin blanket. Faith, deathly pale and her eyes closed, lay silent and unmoving on the cot. Every once in a while, her chest heaved as she breathed slowly.
Buffy and Xander sat at either side of the cot. They hovered over Faith like mystical beings charged with an eternal watch over a slumbering warrior goddess. Xander held Faith's motionless hand firmly between his and rubbed it gently. Buffy lifted a cool wet washcloth and every so often ran it across Faith's forehead. She then took her other hand and fussed with Faith's hair that drooped down over the comatose Slayer's eyes. There was no sign Faith recognized anything around her. Nevertheless, neither Buffy nor Xander would break their vigil.
Outside in the bright morning sun, Giles, MacDuffie, Willow and Kate stood together as a group with a uniformed Sunnydale policeman. All watched silently as the last of several fire trucks pulled away from the curb and drove off down the street. Wisps of smoke and steam rose from scattered locations along the street. MacDuffie shifted uncomfortably as if his hip were in serious pain. Willow, with a worried look on her face, eyed him. Finally, the policeman turned to Giles.
"You folks didn't see anything else?" the officer asked perfunctorily.
"No," Giles replied as he ran his hand through his hair, "Like I said, there was just the roar of the earthquake, and then all the fires broke out. I presumed it was the gas lines rupturing."
Puzzled, the policeman shook his head.
"Funny how that old couple in the apartment up the way kept babbling about some flying creature . . ."
"Officer? . . ." MacDuffie quickly interjected.
As the policeman looked at MacDuffie, the shop owner pantomimed with his hand somebody drinking from a bottle of liquor.
"You may be right," the officer grinned, "Anyway, give the department a call if you can think of anything else."
"Of course," Giles said flatly.
The policeman walked over to a squad car, climbed in and drove away following the route of the fire trucks up the empty street. All four stared silently as the squad car crossed the open square and disappeared down a side street. Kate shuffled nervously.
"Shouldn't we get Faith to a hospital . . .?" she finally asked, "Or at least back to Sunnydale Convalescent? They might be able to treat her or at least make her more comfortable."
"Lt. Lockley, I'm afraid there's no treatment for what she has experienced," Giles replied, "The damage is not to her body . . . but to her soul."
The LAPD detective pondered his words.
"Besides," Giles continued as he glanced over at MacDuffie, "I don't believe her two new . . . 'Guardians' . . . would permit it."
All four now walked slowly back to the front window of the shop and stared in towards the rear of the display area.
Buffy and Xander still sat reverently by Faith's side. As Buffy wiped the Slayer's brow with the cloth and Xander massaged her hand, Faith gave a small sigh as if, after all her years of emotional turmoil, she was finally at peace with herself and content. Grasping at any sign of hope, Buffy looked up at Xander and flashed him a tentative smile. Xander grinned sadly back.
Kate shook her head and walked aimlessly away from the others past the floodlights down the sidewalk in front of the closed camera store. Willow had been furtively studying the LAPD detective since she reached the shop after the late night confrontation with Nyarlethotep. Now her curiosity got the better of her. Quickly she joined Kate as she paced the sidewalk. Together they halted in front of the next door display window filled with camera equipment.
"Hi! I don't think we've been introduced," she said, trying to be perky and mustering her best trademark grin, "I'm Willow Rosenberg. I'm a friend of Buffy's."
"Yes, I know," Lockley's response was far from enthusiastic. She still wrestled in her mind with the nightmare visions of just a few hours earlier.
"And you're Kate Lockley from LA?" Willow persisted, "You're Angel's friend?"
"Yeah, sort of . . . " Kate smiled slightly, nodding her head with uncertainty, "I guess."
"Where'd he go?" Willow asked looking around.
Kate just shrugged and held her hand out indicating the sunlight.
"Sewers . . ."
"Oh, I know that!" Willow grinned again, "No idea what he was looking for, though?"
Kate shook her head.
"He's probably searching for clues or some way to fight this thing," Willow continued trying to be sympathetic. Something in her liked the tall, mature but confused woman in front of her who was trying to come to some understanding of just who Angel was.
"He never stops," Willow added, "But he is always disappearing like that."
"Don't I know it," Kate muttered to herself.
Willow stared intently at Kate who realized she was the subject of scrutiny. Willow flashed her trademark grin again.
"Don't worry," Willow said sympathetically, "I've known Angel for a while. It'll be okay."
"What?" Kate asked, not sure whether she should be reading anything into Willow's plain speech.
For a moment, Willow's grin took on a girl to girl conspiratorial appearance. Then all at once, her face changed, as if she could see the centuries of Angel's torment and the years that lay ahead.
It was a totally new feeling for the young Wiccan. Willow had "sensed" things before, brief flashes of events she knew had yet to occur as well as sensations of past actions somehow embodied in small objects associated with those deeds.
But this was something even more intense. For the first time as she stared at Kate, Willow clearly could see a long path of events stretching far off into the eventual future. She was awed and at the same time confused.
Kate picked up on the emotion immediately.
"What's wrong? Are you all right," the policewoman asked.
"It'll take time," Willow answered slowly as if in a dream, looking away from Kate and out at the smoke in the street, "It won't be soon, but . . . he will be free someday . . . Just be patient with him . . . okay?"
"Sure . . . okay . . ." Kate nodded in reply, surprised at her own words.
Inside the shop, Anya still sat in front of the control box for Xander's "defense perimeter" and twiddled with the controls. Cordelia, who herself was lost for something to do, spotted the uncharacteristically silent and discouraged former vengeance demon. She walked over from the window and pulled up a folding chair next to Anya and her control panel.
"Hey, what's with you?" Cordelia asked, trying to sound perky.
Anya didn't answer but only looked away towards Xander seated at Faith's side.
"It's all right," Cordelia continued, now understanding what was going through the ex-demon's mind. "Hang in there," she said calmly, at the same time looking over her shoulder towards Xander. "He'll come around."
"When I was a demon, I roasted guys like him without even a second thought," Anya said quietly, "But, now . . ."
"If it's any help, I know what you're feeling," Cordelia replied. She still struggled with the faint remnants of the hideous physical and emotional scars she experienced after discovering Xander and Willow in each others arms in the old factory two years earlier.
"Then Xander lied!" Anya blurted out, "You two did have sex!"
"Actually . . . no . . ." Cordelia said wistfully, "He told the truth. We never got that far."
Not understanding, Anya stared at Cordelia.
"Ya see, he could never get over that thing for Willow," Cordelia explained all the while trying to resist the emotions she felt welling beneath the surface, "And he hurt me real bad . . ."
"Then Xander and Willow had sex!" the former vengeance demon exclaimed.
". . . no . . ." Cordelia said so softly Anya nearly missed it.
"Then you dumped Xander and summoned me because he didn't have sex with Willow?" Anya asked with eyebrows raised in complete confusion.
". . . no . . . " Cordelia explained patiently, "Because he wanted to have sex with her . . ."
Cordelia paused and thought for a moment. From the distance of almost two years things seemed suddenly clearer now but none the less painful.
". . . no . . . because whether they had sex or not . . . he loved her . . . more than he loved me."
"And what about me?" Anya asked, her voice quivering, "Why's he in there with Faith now and not with me?"
"'Cause she was his first lover," Cordelia explained gently, "And I guess he didn't realize until today that . . . she meant something to him."
"Then I'm just . . ." Anya whimpered.
"No, no," Cordelia interrupted, placing her hand on Anya's shoulder and trying to soothe the ex-demon's faltering emotions, "This may be hard for a Vengeance Demon because of your 'unique perspective.'"
Cordelia paused for a moment, considering carefully what she was about to say. Finally satisfied in her mind she looked directly at Anya.
"I've always believed when two people make love," she continued gently, "And they care for each other when they do, well, there's something there that's created and it never leaves. They may change, fight, end up hating each other but if they cared at that one moment, no matter how hard they try to forget . . . no matter how badly things go after that, the emotion they created together when they loved each other, that has a life of it's own . . . and lives on, . . . as long as they're both alive. They may not love each other anymore but they remember . . . that they once did."
"I thought Faith had sex with anybody?" Anya said scornfully.
"She did," Cordelia answered with a malicious grin, "She also threw Xander out and tried to kill him later."
"I'm feeling better already," Anya grinned, but suddenly the smile vanished from her face.
"Wait . . . she called him 'lover boy,'" Anya exclaimed as the despair returned to her voice.
"Maybe when Faith saw how much he really cared . . ." Cordelia answered shrugging her shoulders, "Well, she realized she did once, too . . . more than she ever could or wanted to admit at the time."
Anya stared at the floor.
"Then I'd better leave now," she said with a gloomy pout, "He won't want me anymore."
Cordelia realized she still wasn't getting through. A new approach was going to be necessary.
"Anya," she asked, "How would you feel if Xander died?"
Anya gasped and looked up at Cordelia.
"See? Now imagine what he's feeling," Cordelia said gently, "He's watching his first lover . . . die."
Anya's eyes widened as she finally understood.
"He needs you now more than anything."
Suddenly Xander appeared standing in front of both Cordelia and Anya.
"What are you two plotting?" he said with little enthusiasm in his voice.
"Nothing," Cordelia grinned with just enough of the Cordelia malicious glint in her eyes to make him worried, "Just making sure your lady love here knows the score."
"Oh, crap," he exclaimed as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.
"Remember what I just said," Cordelia called out over her shoulder to Anya as she got up and walked to the other end of the shop to stand by Buffy. Xander held out his hand to Anya who took it and slipped up out of her chair.
"I gotta get outta here," Xander muttered, shaking his head, "Let's go for a walk."
Anya wrapped her arm around Xander's waist as the two turned and headed for the door.
"So," he quipped insecurely "What vicious, unflattering and generally mean and rotten things did my ex say about me now? She's still evil, you know."
Anya ignored his joking.
"Xander? . . ." she asked softly, "How's Faith doing?"
Xander stopped walking momentarily. A little puzzled, he turned and stared at her. She grinned back at him and her blue eyes glowed with affection. Xander could see her emotions pouring out openly for him to take and hold as his own. Gently in fun, he rapped his knuckles softly on her forehead.
"Knock, knock? Hello? To the unnamed entity that's now living in Anya's body. You've blown your cover 'cause the real Anya wants to kill girls I used to hang out with."
"No, Xander, really. . . how's she doing?"
Suddenly the wise cracking front Xander relied on so heavily failed him.
"Not so hot," he muttered after a moment of struggling to control his own feelings, "She still hasn't come out of it since . . ."
Xander couldn't finish the sentence but rather just bit his lip. He and Anya resumed walking together through the front door of the shop out onto the street under the bright morning sun. Nearby, Kate and Willow turned to watch them as they headed in the opposite direction down the debris strew sidewalk.
"But she's gonna be all right?" Anya asked encouragingly.
Xander stumbled for the words, answering her in almost a whisper.
"I . . . I don't know."
Anya and Xander stopped a few yards up the sidewalk from the shop. She turned to him and wrapped her arms around him in a firm embrace. Slowly he did the same. Anya slid her body up against his and put her cheek against the side of his face, rubbing it softly. At the same time, Xander buried his face in her wavy blond hair. He gave a deep sigh that almost verged on a sob. They stood together silently in each other's arms for a long time.
Watching from in front of the camera store, Willow struggled to hold her own emotions in check as her heart sank at the sight of her childhood best bud suffering. She wanted to run to him, throw her arms around him, smile as wide as she could and prod him for a joke. This was her Xander who was now in pain, who used to bring her salamanders just to make her scream, who always laughed and could be counted on to raise everyone's spirits in the darkest hours with a witty crack. It was her Xander, the one who broke her heart and yet she still treasured him.
But he wasn't hers anymore. Maybe he never really ever was. Standing on the sidewalk, she finally realized he was truly someone else's just as she was as well. She couldn't comfort him now and that's what hurt the most. He was in pain and it was someone else's job to wipe his tears away.
Suddenly, Willow saw something else, something she knew no one else on the street could see. Through the steam rising from the burned buildings, Willow saw an image of vast distances stretching away from where the whole Scooby Gang stood in the darkness. They were all huddled together and about twenty feet in front of them stood Faith by herself in front of what appeared to be a tunnel of light lined with shadowy figures waiting in anticipation, for what, Willow couldn't be sure.
In a twinkling, Faith began walking forward into the light and Willow gasped as she realized that it was the old shopkeeper, MacDuffie who stood at the forefront of the passage leading beyond space and time. He reached out to the Slayer, took her hand and in a moment both were gone along with the other translucent figures. Willow quietly sobbed as she realized she was watching an ending that she knew must come to pass.
In an instant, she suddenly realized she was back on the street and that Kate was staring intently at her.
"That Faith's a real bitch!" Willow stammered as she wiped the wetness away from her own cheek, "She tried to kill all of us, you know."
"So I heard," Kate answered sympathetically.
". . . That's why we hate her guts . . ." Willow said finally as she wiped her face again with her sleeve.
"Hey . . . come on . . . get a grip here, Red . . ." and Kate reached out and took Willow gently but firmly by the shoulders.
". . . that's what Faith calls me . . ." Willow smiled slightly as she wiped her eyes again.
"It's a good name," LAPD detective answered honestly, "Listen, I may only be a cop, but I think I know what'll get everybody outta this funk and back up and running."
". . . what? . . ." Willow sniffled.
Kate grinned broadly and put her hands on her hips as if she were now fully in charge.
"Donuts!" she announced.
Willow couldn't help but smile. She snickered as she wiped her eyes one last time with her sleeve.
"Right?" Kate demanded.
"I am kinda hungry."
"Okay, guys!" Kate yelled out, "Who's up for donuts! It's on me!"
"Me! me! me!" Cordelia's voice sang out from inside the shop.
Xander and Anya were still in each other's arms, his face unmoving from her shoulder. Suddenly, as if it were purely a reflex reaction, Xander's arm shot up in the air and waved back and forth. A moment later, Giles lifted his hand and twiddled his fingers signaling that he was in as well. He quickly gave MacDuffie a disapproving glance.
". . . well? . . ." he prodded the Guardian.
"Oh, all right," MacDuffie replied, "I'll have what he's having." He thumbed at Giles at the same time.
"And Buffy . . . don't forget Buffy. She likes donuts, too," Willow added to Kate's mental list.
"Good. Two dozen outta do it. Let's go," Kate declared as she turned to head down the sidewalk.
"Make it three," Willow added as she hurried to keep up with the blond policewoman, "You don't know Xander and Cordelia. They fight over the jellies."
Willow and Kate walked briskly together.
"How are we gonna find a donut shop?" Willow asked as the two approached the bend in the street.
"Hey, you're with a cop, right? I can smell these things."
Willow and Kate disappeared around the corner. As they left, Giles turned to MacDuffie who was still favoring one leg.
"Are you all right?"
"Bloody thing is still serviceable. But just barely," the Guardian replied as he massaged his leg just above the knee.
For a few moments, neither men spoke.
"You're a bastard," Giles finally said quietly but sternly.
"What?" MacDuffie looked up as if the words had been a sword thrust between the ribs.
"You heard me," Giles said again without hesitation, "You're a bloody stinking bastard."
"Rupert, you're going to have to give me a little more to go on than that."
"You've got her worried sick," Giles answered glowering at the Guardian.
"Who?"
"Willow, you brainless insensitive Celt!" Giles snapped, his anger finally getting the better of him, "She's been over in the corner crying since four a.m.!"
Shocked, MacDuffie didn't answer but only stared at the ground.
"She starting to see things just like you!" Giles continued, "She's having visions of how it's going to end and she's terrified! She doesn't understand what's happening to her, the powers that are descending on her."
MacDuffie still wouldn't respond. In desperation, Giles turned to the old shopkeeper and yelled at him.
"Damn it, man, you're a Guardian! You can't just dump all this on her and march off to your doom like some thick headed Highlander at Culloden!"
MacDuffie's eyes blazed as he quickly looked up at Giles.
"There! I thought that would get a rise out of you, you stubborn Scot!"
"Rupert . . . I'm sorry," MacDuffie answered humbled.
"Well as Buffy likes to say, 'sorry doesn't cut it!' . . . Willow sees what's going to happen just as you do! . . . talk to her."
"And what do I say . . . ?" MacDuffie stammered.
"That it's all right to be afraid," Giles answered firmly, "That it's all right to be sad for what is yet to come. You remember what you felt when your dying father placed his hand on your forehead and passed the essence of the Guardian's soul on to you?"
"I was only sixteen," MacDuffie said slowly, "I never felt so alone . . . Rupert, for two years after that I ran away, wandered, drunk half the time, my life a complete mess. I couldn't understand how he could have passed on such a burden, such a curse. . . and then left me . . . alone. And now, although I see my own end clearly, that which will befall all these brave young people around me, especially those two powerful young women inside, . . . that eludes me."
"As it should," Giles answered, "As much as you hate to admit it, there are some powers denied even to a Guardian! If we would know the final end, we would either grow lazy with self confidence . . . or weak with despair . . . either would guarantee a victory for evil. Endings are not always immutable . . . that's the great paradox."
MacDuffie considered Giles' words as he stared out across the street. Smoke and steam from the previous night's fires swept across the open pavement and blew by the Guardian and the Watcher. MacDuffie's trench coat flapped gently in the smoke filled breeze. For a moment, the two men looked like ancient celtic warriors, survivors of a particularly hideous struggle, now surveying the desolation of the battlefield on the morning after and wondering whether the slaughter had any meaning at all.
"I realize it's no consolation, but all of us here suffer in our own way as greatly as a Guardian . . ." Giles said as he stared back at the shop where the two slayers were inside, "And it's from that suffering that we all derive our strength.
Giles' voice dropped in volume. He spoke just above a whisper.
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. And in our own despair, against our will, . . . comes Wisdom to us . . . by the awful grace of God."
Inside, Buffy still sat by Faith's side. The comatose slayer never stirred. Cordelia stood just behind Buffy. Tenderly, Buffy wiped Faith's forehead over and over with the cool washcloth.
Outside on the street, MacDuffie finally looked back up at Giles.
"I see you remember your Aeschylus from Cambridge," he said simply.
"Actually, it was while I was in training," Giles answered, "There was an old Watcher. I don't even remember his name. Many years before, he lost his Slayer; he was powerless as he saw her die horribly. He often quoted from Aeschylus, even gave me a copy of the plays. Said it would be a long time before I understood them. But they might save my sanity someday."
There was a long pause.
"You must explain to her what's coming!" Giles said emphatically, "The powers may be too great for her to deal with alone. Don't make your father's mistake!"
Finally, MacDuffie looked Giles directly in the eyes.
"All right, Rupert," MacDuffie said nodding, "I'll talk to her."
Meanwhile, Cordelia stood silently by Buffy as she tended to Faith. Even in the bright daylight, the bizarre rays emitted by the Shining Trapezohedron leaked through the store room door and fell across Faith's body like a lacework of gossamer chains.
"Hey, Buffy, break time," Cordelia said.
"That's okay," Buffy answered not looking up.
"No, it's not okay. You gotta take a break, rest, get some sleep, anything if we're gonna fight this thing tonight."
Buffy slowly stared up at Cordelia.
"Go on," Cordelia insisted, "Go find that Midwestern hunk of yours, what's his name, Riley? I'll stay with her."
Buffy's eyes widened at the Riley remark. Realizing Cordelia was not about to be put off, Buffy sighed.
"Move it, now!" Cordelia nagged sensing Buffy weakening, "What's the worst that can happen? Faith wakes up, we trade insults, she beats me to a pulp."
Buffy grinned in spite of herself.
"Get outta here! This is 'The Bitch' talking, and I'm not gonna be this nice to you all the time!"
"Thanks," Buffy said sincerely. She then gazed down at Faith for a moment more. Tenderly she ran her hand across Faith's forehead.
"Just rest," she whispered softly to the comatose slayer, "Don't worry. I'll be back soon. Oh, you remember Cordelia here? If she talks too much, you have my permission to shut her up."
"Gee, thanks!" Cordelia snapped.
Buffy stood up and walked slowly out of the shop. Cordelia, alone in the corner with Faith, sat down in Buffy's chair. Unsure of exactly what to do, she said nothing for a few moments and only stared at the unresponsive form of Faith. Suddenly, she sensed a presence and glanced over her shoulder. A look of sad recognition crossed her face.
"Hi," she said sweetly to the empty air behind her, "How did you get here?"
The shop was silent.
"I'm so glad you came," Cordelia continued quietly, "I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't want to tell anybody 'cause . . . I'm trying to be strong like I'm supposed to be. But . . . I'm scared, Dennis . . . I'm really scared."
For another moment, the shop was silent. Then, ever so slowly, as if a set of ghostly fingers were stroking her long brown locks, Cordelia's messed up hair on her forehead gently shifted to the side of her head and out of her eyes. She smiled sadly at the emptiness around her, leaned her head to the side and rubbed softly against what might have been an invisible shoulder that was now supporting her.
Then, the wash cloth, of its own accord, floated from Faith's bedside up into Cordelia's hand. As if urged on by an unseen presence, Cordelia began gently wiping the cool wash cloth across Faith's brow.
* * * * * * *
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