DRUSILLAS ROSES Chapter Eighteen “I need to go on a road trip,” said Buffy. Everyone looked up from the kitchen table and waited to hear what the slayer would say next. It was a few days after the fight on the office block. Buffy and Drusilla had struggled back to the house just before dawn to find a sleepless Giles and Xander waiting for them. Giles took one look at them and muttered something unintelligible. Xander always thought it had sounded something like, “oh, my poor children,” but he never asked Giles about it. Buffy’s clothes were torn and ripped. She leaned heavily on the Scythe and moved as if pieces had been chipped off her hips, her eyes were blackened and her jaw was swollen. Worst of all, both her hands looked smashed. Drusilla looked a little better. Dusty and battered, but at first glance relatively unscathed. Xander could see her more clearly, however. He could see the white lines of pain around her eyes and the way she set her mouth to avoid screaming in agony as her broken ribs tore against her flesh. Drusilla had carried Buffy for two blocks until the slayer began to heal. She would never tell Xander what the effort cost her. Both vampire and slayer had slept like the dead that day. After Dawn had helped Buffy to bed, Giles sat with her a while. “I’m a mess, Giles,” she said eventually. “I’m a bigger mess than our insane vampire housekeeper. I always push people away. I wouldn’t tell you how much I missed Spike, and I wouldn’t admit to myself how jealous I always was of Dru.” “Jealous?” “Yes, jealous. Right from the first time I saw her with Angel. I felt like killing her when I thought about the three of them together – Dru, Spike and Angel. I hated her guts, not because she was a vamp but because she was my rival and I felt threatened. She was the legendary ex-girlfriend. Older than me, taller than me, more experienced than me and, well, not bad looking. I didn’t like it when Xander brought her into our home. I tried to do the right thing but I resented the hell out of her just for being here and getting on with my friends. Especially Xander. I couldn’t even find anything to hate about her, and I tried. She is sweet, the cow, and she is the only other person alive I can talk to about Spike and Angel. The only other person who knew them like I did. Maybe better than I did, damn her.” Giles rubbed his forehead, feeling quite emotionally out of his depth. “I suppose then that, like it or not, you have a strong bond with Drusilla because you both loved the same men.” “Yeah, and if I’d handled it better, she wouldn’t be lying upstairs with two broken ribs and a concussion. I tried to get myself killed, she rescued me and I nearly got her killed. I’m self-destructo girl, I am; and the funny thing is, the people who keep saving me from myself are the ones who should be my mortal enemies.” “Well, I wish you’d worked this out a bit less violently, but I think you’re coming to terms with it now. Always remember, Buffy, love is the flipside of hate and a friend the flipside of an enemy.” “Giles, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The watcher got up to go, knots in his stomach at long last loosening as he realised Buffy was finally recovering. “No change there, then,” he said aloud. “Giles…” “Get some rest, Buffy. You’re not a teenager any more.” “Okay, Giles. As long as you promise to check on Dru for me.” “I will, Buffy, but I’m quite sure that if anyone else tried to hurt Drusilla, Xander would bury them alive in her flowerbed.” Buffy smiled in perfect understanding and for the first time in a long while, she looked young again. Drusilla’s ribs mended, she tended her roses and looked at the mountains. She watched Xander go to work and listened for him coming home. She felt more at peace and her mind was healing, but the dreams still came. Every night she saw the faces more sharply and clearly, and she began to realise her time on Candlewood Drive was only an interlude. There was a reckoning still to come. So when Buffy made her announcement, Dru wasn’t surprised at all.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 01:17:13 +0000
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