The next morning was clear, the sky a pale blue; the kind of day when nothing, it would seem, could go wrong.
Rupert Giles distrusted those kinds of days on basic principle. But Sunnydale was a surprising place, so it was with a cautious optimism that he opened the library on his normal noncrisis schedule, and looked around.
No disasters appeared to have struck overnight, except, perhaps, the fact that once again someone had left a can of root beer on the counter.
With a “tsk,” he placed it in the recycling bin, and started to reshelve the books which had piled up in the past week, glad of the soothing regularity of the task. It gave his mind a chance to go over the recent events, to try to put them into some kind of order before committing them to history in his journal.
Yesterday, after the battle, had ended up a rather quiet day—surprising, considering how it had begun. Fortunately, the effects of the neurotoxin had worn off swiftly, and none of the injuries had required an Emergency Room visit.
For which I am thankful! I am running out of excuses to give, not that the emergency technicians believe them, anyway.
Were it not for the fact that he, more often than not, was the worst off, Giles suspected he would have been called in long ago to account for the teens’ injuries.
Although, he mused, it was rapidly becoming obvious that the town of Sunnydale as a whole did indeed suffer from what Xander referred to as Total Cluelessitis. Otherwise, it would no doubt be a ghost town, in the figurative if not the literal sense of the phrase.
Buffy had gone on patrol last night and reported a total lack of activity. It would appear that the vampire community was still recovering.
He hoped it would take them quite some time.
There was the sudden sound of the door swinging open, and the clack of heels on the tile—ah yes, Cordelia Chase.
“So,” she began, then stopped.
Giles waited. Surely, Cordelia would speak her mind soon enough. It had never taken her very long before.
“Ariel got home okay?” she said at last. “I mean, she didn’t show up on your doorstep or anything last night?”
Giles shook his head, surprisingly touched by the fact that Cordelia had bothered to inquire.
“No. Willow heard from Dr. Lee earlier this morning. He has been tracking the coastline, and the herd which was in our waters yesterday has gone back out to sea. I assume that Ariel was with them.”
“Good. And what are we going to do about Dr. Lee?”
The Watcher smiled, a bit grimly. “Apparently, things with large teeth are sufficient to distract him. He’s been quite helpful in getting further information about what is lurking off our shores.”
“Oh.” Cordelia shifted, leaning against the counter and playing with the straps of her pocketbook nervously. “I guess he’s all over the selkie-hunting thing, then, huh?”
“Actually, no. He’s still quite convinced that Ariel abandoned us in the middle of the fight. Even Buffy’s avowals that it was a selkie who aided her, it appears, will not change his mind about the essential soullessness of the selkie race, and their threat to humans.”
“Oh,” she said again.
Giles rather thought he knew where this was going. “You don’t get over that sort of betrayal overnight,” he said almost casually, putting several books down on the cart and picking up another, carefully not watching Cordelia’s face. “Love removed so suddenly seems to demand an equally strong emotion to replace it.”
“Like hatred.”
“Like hatred,” Giles agreed. “Or fear.”
“Does it ever go away?”
He did look at her then, his eyes sad, but his mouth curved in a slightly hopeful smile. “It fades. And, when you’re ready to move on, it is often replaced with . . . regret. And finally, perhaps, with a memory of the better times, untainted by the bad.”
“Oh. So—maybe one day Dr. Lee will be able to remember the good times with his wife?”
“Someday,” Giles said. “When he’s ready.”
The bell rang, indicating a class change, and she gathered her books. “I, ah, gotta go.” But in the doorway, Cordy paused, and said quickly over her shoulder, “Thanks.”
She nearly collided with Buffy. “Hey.”
The startled Buffy answered, “Hey,” and hurried into the library. “What did you say to her, Giles? She smiled at me. I mean, a real smile, not like Cordelia at all.”
“And you?”
“Well, yeah, I smiled back at her.”
So did Giles. “Good.”
Buffy waited, but he didn’t say anything else on the subject.
“Right. We’re moving on. You said you had a book that would teach me more about dreams and stuff?”
Giles nodded, indicating a small stack of books on the table.
“I should have insisted that you learn dream recognition before this all began. Had you been more confident in your deconstruction of the images, perhaps we could have avoided—” he paused, seeing something in her expression. “There’s something else?”
Buffy nodded, walking forward slowly to pick up the top book on her pile and flip through it idly. “It’s Will. I mean, she’s glad about Ariel going home, and all that. But, well, I think she still feels bad about Ariel’s not saying good-bye, or anything. Like she just abandoned us, the minute she could go home.
“Not that Willow would ever say that, you know, or even think it—but you can see it on her face.”
Giles nodded. “Ariel was a young girl, long separated from her family, suddenly given a chance to return. It is understandable that she forget her newer friends under those conditions. Willow will understand that, once she’s given it some thought. And you?”
Buffy shot him a look, then shrugged. “You’re asking if I’m over my wig about her? I guess. Okay, so maybe it was the whole sea-thing going on, and maybe—maybe!—there was a little jealousy going on, too. But I think maybe I’m never going to be totally comfortable around things that aren’t human.”
“That may be,” he agreed. “Certainly, you will always be aware of their differences. But there are no lasting ill effects from the dreams? No lingering discomfort?”
Buffy grinned then, the picture of carefree youth. “Nope. Not an emotional scar to be seen. As for Ariel, I’m just glad we got her off safely—signed, sealed, and delivered, so to speak.”
Giles groaned at the joke. “Out,” and he pointed to the door. “Now.”
Laughing, a book tucked carefully under her arm, Buffy obeyed.