Flinch
By Jacqui

Title: Flinch 5/?
Author: Jacqui wily_one24@yahoo.com.au
Rating: PG-13, the bad is mainly over, let the healing begin.
Spoilers: It's part five, if you're reading this, you pretty much know.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no sirree, no way no how.
Comments: Time may not heal all wounds, but it helps us find the means with which to cope with them.
Feedback: Please. I'll be your best friend.

<wham!>

Giles raised his arm and deflected the blow. Although he had copious padding, it still rocked through him harder than he would have liked. On the other side of the room, squishing themselves into the chairs and sofas stacked over each other, Willow, Oz and Xander talked among themselves while keeping an eye on the two of them.

<wham!>

Buffy sent a round house kick to his left waist. He stepped back.

"I think it's safe to say your strength is returning."

<wham!>

Another kick aimed at his right shoulder. He stepped back again and looked at her reddened face. She was looking at him, but he suspected she wasn't seeing him at all. Her eyes saw past him, her face a mask of anger.

"Buffy, I think that's enough."

<wham! wham! wham!>

Three punches, in rapid succession, hit his face. His arm tried to fend them off as his foot searched for space behind him. Across the room, conversation had stopped and all eyes were on the sparring couple. This was no longer training.

<wham!>

Another round house kick to his head, he ducked and stepped back. There was no more room to move, his back was against the wall. Lifting his eyes he saw her swing her whole body, in slow motion it seemed, into a last fierce round house. Her foot sped towards his face.

"Buffy!"

She stopped as if slapped. Her foot hovered one inch from his face and her eyes were wide with fear. Realization snapped her back to reality and guilt flooded her features, mingling with fear and disbelief. Slowly, as if she wasn't sure of her purpose, she lowered her foot to the ground.

Both of them panted hard as they fought to control the whirling tides of panic, their eyes stared at each other. He didn't seem to notice, but she did, the large stream of blood that rolled lazily down the front of his face from his nostril, pooling at his lip and cascading down his chin.

"I'm…" She shook hard. "God, I'm sorry."

Silence for several seconds as she ran out of the room and up the stairs. Giles raised one shaking hand and wiped the back of his wrist over his lips, smearing the blood. His eyes looked up at the ceiling, his ears tuned to the sound of her movements.

"Perhaps, I think, I should go after her."

"No Giles." Willow stood up. "Not like that. Let me go."

* * * *

Buffy stared at the mirror, trying to look deeper than the image allowed, trying to see what was all the way down in that swirling, dark pool that she'd tried to keep hidden. How long could she force it down? What was in there, did she really want to know?

Her heart raced, thumping loudly in her own chest, trying to beat its way out through her ribs. She'd come so close to hurting Giles, really hurting him. And the worst part was that she'd never actually lost sight of him.

It would be so easy to dismiss it if she'd blacked out, her mind throwing up images she couldn't control, but it hadn't been that way. It had been him, Giles, that she'd been aiming for and she didn't know why.

Her whole body had locked into the training, like an energy force that had finally found an outlet, like a million strands of wire flaying in the wind all focusing at once on a single goal. Her sight had narrowed down, gone were the outskirts of the room, gone were Willow and Xander and Oz, it had only been Giles in front of her. And a very good target he'd made.

A knock sounded at the bathroom door.

"Buffy? Are you okay? Can I come in?"

Buffy cursed, she stared at herself in the mirror for a few seconds longer, her upper lip curling in a sneer of hatred for the image in front of her. It took all her energy not to spit her venom out onto the glass. Her whole body seemed to sag as she forced the tension away and turned to the door.

"Sure Will."

She turned back to face the bench, not looking at the mirror, watching the nervous red head from the corners of her eyes. Buffy reached into the medicine cabinet for the fresh bandages, she sat on the edge of the bathtub and began to slowly unwind the cloth on her arm. Already it was throbbing, pulsing with every rushed heart beat.

"So, that was intense, huh?"

Willow stood just inside the door, her hands twisting nervously into each other in front of her, like a little school girl. Her voice was soft and gentle, like she was talking to a frightened animal, but her eyes were like an eagle's, hard and taking in every single movement and expression.

"I guess."

Her right shoulder raised in a shrug as Buffy bit her lip. This part was the worst, when all the bandages came off and fresh air danced over the skin, puffed and soggy from its confinement, the white tinged lips of the wound raised slightly.

"What happened?" Willow tried not to see the blood as it seeped from the unhealed slash in Buffy's wrist.

"I don't know." Buffy spoke through clenched teeth as she pretended not to see Willow pretending not to see. She washed her wrist gently with a wet cloth.

"You could have hurt him, you know." Willow flinched as the cloth sailed towards the sink viciously, hitting the wall with a thud and sliding down into the basin.

"Don't you think I know that?" Buffy looked up, staring at Willow, eye to eye. Willow shivered. "You think I don't have that imprinted in my brain every second of every day? Gods, how could I forget? Willow? Tell me, how in this damned world am I supposed to forget that everything I do, everything I've ever done hurts him? Hurts you and everybody I care about?"

Her words were punctuated by vicious twists of the fresh bandage around her wrist. Willow watched wide eyed as her hand turned a deep purple, as the bandage was stretched again and again, bought down hard over sensitive flesh.

Buffy began to shake, her anger seeped out of her as fast as it had came.

"Oh gods, Will, I can't do this anymore… I can't… I don't know…"

Willow stepped forward slowly and purposefully, she sat down next to Buffy on the edge of the bath and silently reached out, taking the wounded wrist in her hands. Gently she unwound the twisted, stretched cloth and began to dry the flesh with a clean towel, massaging the blood through to the hand.

"You can do this Buffy. You're stronger than anyone I know. You're allowed to hurt, you're allowed to feel like crap, you're allowed to fall apart. But somewhere, deep down in there, I know you're fighting to get better. You know how to get through this, it's just going to take time.

Buffy let herself lean into Willow, her head resting on the slender shoulder. She felt like a little girl in her mother's arms. The soft voice washing over her, creeping into her head, telling her that things would be okay. There was a black hole in her memory and it ate at her, she knew it should be there, knew that she should remember many scenes like this one, in Joyce's arms, but they refused to come.

For now, she let Willow take that role.

* * * *

She didn't come back down that night. It didn't take long for Willow, Oz and Xander to get the hint and leave. The apartment screeched with the silence. Giles tidied up, absent mindedly washing dishes and wiping tables.

When he could take it no more, he began to climb the steps, one by one, frightened of what he might find up there. There was something in him that hated the hurt she presented him with. No, not hated, feared. He was scared of her need, frightened of her vulnerability, her dependency on him.

Buffy was the strong one, the one person who could take anything and shrug it off with a smile. No matter that they'd gone through, what she herself had gone through, she'd always come through. It was what he depended on, what he needed.

He knew this was selfish, knew it with the certainty of an addict who knew the drugs would kill him eventually. Buffy was strong, stronger than any of them knew, he admired her for that. The knowledge that hurt him most of all, though, was what she must have gone through to get where she was.

What had she gone through down there? Why couldn't he have stopped it? That's what hurt most of all, knowing that he didn't stop it in time, that he didn't help her like he always had. Like he always should. That's why he needed her back to normal, to prove to himself he hadn't failed her.

Gods, he was a selfish man.

She wasn't asleep when he reached her, she was lying on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. There was no movement as he walked towards her, not even a flicker of an eyelid, but she knew he was there, he could tell.

For an instant his heart skipped a beat, it was too much like before, too much like her withdrawal, but there was an awareness there. His breathing sounded loud to him as he gently sat on the edge of the bed. There was no way of knowing how she would react and it bothered him.

No matter what the situation, he'd always known, had always been able to predict her. Not in the little things, where something she'd say would shock him delightfully, but in the bigger things, where it mattered. They'd always been in tune. And now they weren't.

"Buffy…?"

She turned to him, suddenly, in a movement so sleek and graceful it made him catch his breath. Before he knew it, her arms were around his waist and her cheek pressed against the small of his back, clinging hard, her knees drawn up close to her body.

"I'm sorry." It was a whisper.

"You don't need…" There was something so fragile in her body, no matter how easily she could crush him, she seemed so easily hurt and in need. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

"Promise me, Giles, promise me that you'll never leave me. No matter what I do,"

She shivered as he reached around and pulled her up to meet his face, the tears streaked her cheeks, but they were long dry. It was her eyes that made him want to weep, they were so full of pain and struggle and it went so deep that he knew he couldn't reach it. Not yet.

"There is nothing in this world to make me leave you." She softened in his arms, but the distance was still there. "Absolutely nothing."

* * * *

Xander was awake, he was sure of it. He was just stuck in that haze of almost consciousness, when sleep didn't want to let you go. There was something, though, that had dragged him back to life. A sound beside him made him open his eyes.

Faith lay asleep, the skin on her eyelids puckered where they closed, her whole body clenched tight. She lay on her stomach, trembling in her sleep, as she whimpered. It wasn't an angry whimper, which she did sometimes, when she was dreaming of a fight, it was more of a scared whimper, which he'd come to recognize over the past week. The kind that meant she was having the bad dreams.

Those dreams.

He reached out and laid his hand flat over her naked shoulder blade and instantly she seemed to calm down, her breath slowing to a regular rhythm. It was here, in the night, that he saw the vulnerable scared Faith, the one she showed to no one. The one that lay hidden under the tough outer layers.

Her skin was hot and burning under his hand, feverish almost. He shuffled under the covers until he could stretch his neck far enough to place a light kiss on the edge of her shoulder. There was something going on here that he didn't want to think about, he was leaving himself open for a world of pain. Her eyes flicked open.

"Get off me! Do you mind? A girl's trying to sleep here! If you're that desperate, get a blow up doll or something." Faith mumbled under her breath as she rolled over, her back to him.

Xander chuckled as he smiled to himself.

"You're welcome."

* * * *

His watch told him it was four in the morning. The pounding in his head and the ache in his ribcage told him it was too early to be awake. With every step he took down the stairs, he could hear her in the kitchen. They still hadn't talked about that afternoon.

"Buffy?" He gently rubbed the corners of his eyes with his fingers, avoiding all contact with his nose. "It's four o'clock. What are you doing, exactly?"

"I'm making a carrot cake!" She turned around and held up a half mutilated carrot and a grater, as if to prove her words. Her voice was too high and happy, her eyes didn't meet his. "From scratch! See?"

Buffy turned back and began to furiously grate the doomed orange vegetable. His eyes scanned the shining, clean surfaces of the kitchen. Everything had been scrubbed, washed and polished within an inch of its life.

"I sincerely believe there's a better time to do this."

"Oh, well, see? I can't stop now. Besides, if you don't want any, then don't have any, but don't spoil it for the rest of us. Go." She shooed him away with her arms. "Go. Back to bed with you. Go."

"I'm going, but only because I can't fight this migraine. Buffy, you and I will talk in the morning."

As he walked back up the stairs, Giles wondered if they would get to talk that morning. Her powers of denial were beginning to reach amazing proportions. If she had anything to do with it, she'd find someway of avoiding the issue, of paving over it with little things until they could no longer bring it out into the open.

"Hey? I'll make that cream cheese frosting you like." Her voice carried up to him, hopeful over the wariness. "Do you even have cream cheese? Let's look."

To the sound of the fridge being raided, Giles lowered his body to his bed and closed his eyes.

* * * *

Xander blinked at the plate of pancakes that had just been placed in front of him. Beside him, Faith grinned as she reached for another helping of extra crispy bacon. Across the table, Willow looked puzzled at the forkful of scrambled eggs she held in front of her face as Oz chewed thoughtfully on some French toast. Giles just looked at the whole table.

"I guess Martha Stewart is back and I bet you all thought she was gone." Xander gestured at the spread before them. Giles gave him a confused expression.

"Excuse me?"

"You know," Xander ignored the kick he got under the table from Willow. "when she was trying to deal with all that Angel stuff and not show us how much pain she was in, she turned all Martha Stewart and made us picnic lunches and everything. All that pain…" His words trailed off as he realized just what he'd said. "Oh…"

"She's getting kind of worse, isn't she?" Willow looked at Giles.

"No, not worse." He sighed, looking tired and worn. "But certainly not better."

All eyes turned to the kitchen where the sound of the juicer could be heard.

* * * *

"Do you really have to go?"

She sat on the floor in front of him, loving the feel of his hands deftly braiding her hair. He'd become quite expert at it lately and no longer pulled it. It was relaxing, intimate, comforting in a way. She didn't know why, but when they sat like this, everything seemed right. It was one of those things.

"We talked about this. It's a one time thing at the Museum, really, they just need me to verify a few things, maybe some help with a translation. I can't knock back the money, you know that."

His voice was quiet and calm, hiding the indecision in his heart. He didn't want to leave, wanted to stay exactly where he was, at her side where she needed him. Yet he hadn't lied, he needed to go. Softly, her hand covered his, he shook.

"You can have my money, stay at home."

She turned to look at him, the ends of her hair pulling out of his hands, untied and loose. Her eyes met his and they held them for a long while. So tempting.

"No. No, I won't use your money, you know that. Buffy, please, I have to go."

His words were spoken crisp and clear, but she heard them differently, she heard a direct refusal, a knock back. Suddenly, in her mind, she saw how much he wanted to be free of her, how much he hated this whole thing. She felt foolish. It scared her deeply, the thought that he might leave her, might want her to leave him.

Panic made her reckless.

"Don't leave me, Giles."

He didn't know what to do when she thrust her head forward and kissed him. At first he stayed still, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing, unsure of his own feelings. Then he reached up and pulled her off of him. In no way was this the right time or setting for such a thing. Never, in all his thoughts, had he been the one to end it.

Buffy looked at him with wide and wild eyes, frightened and shocked at what she had just done. She jumped up and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Giles let his head fall into his hands.

* * * *

"Buffy?" Willow knocked on the door. "Buffy, can I come in? Giles will be home soon."

There was no answer. Willow frowned, surely Buffy couldn't be asleep, she had trouble sleeping at night, let alone napping during the day. It had been too quiet all day and now Willow was beginning to panic. Not a deep panic, but that pale panic that made your heart race just a little and your brain think of nasty little scenes.

She opened the door. The room was empty.

* * * *

They were all there when Giles came home. Xander, Faith, Oz and Willow, and they all looked at him with guilty expressions. They looked like four deer caught in the headlights. Instantly his day was forgotten, the mundane little Museum tasks that had drained him more than they should have, they were gone.

"What is it?"

"She's gone." Faith stepped forward, spokesperson for the group it seemed. "We've looked everywhere, Giles, Buffy's disappeared."

He hadn't even had time to take off his coat, Giles spun on his heels and walked out the door.

"You stay here, I have an idea."

* * * *

Before he even reached the perimeter of the mansion, he smelled it. Worry and concern crystallized into intense panic as the acrid stench of gas and smoke invaded his nostrils. Giles didn't even bother entering the ground levels, heading instead to the hidden entry of the lower levels. He could see the smoke now and the earth itself was hot under his feet.

"Good lord!" She wouldn't be so foolish, would she? The smoke billowed up when he threw open the hatch and it choked him. "Buffy! Buffy are you down there?"

There was no distinct answer, but he could hear something. Unclear and indistinguishable, it left him with no choice but to follow. There was no way he could leave without making sure she was gone. His coat, wrapped around his shoulders and covering his face, provided ample protection.

The heat of the flames scalded him as he rushed down the steps, it seemed as if the skin was being flayed from his flesh. He prayed that she wasn't down there, that she had already left, but the higher powers obviously weren't listening to him as his eyes grew accustomed to the cloudy room.

Down there, the smoke was thinner and rushed up to exit through the open trap door. His eyes focused on a figure standing at a door, that door, with her back to him. The flames danced around her and between them, his vision teasing him into seeing the tendrils lick her skin.

"Buffy!"

A sound, guttural and primal, escaped her throat. It tore through him, scraping up his spine and swirling through his head. He watched as her shoulders sagged wearily. It was such a contradictory image, the instinctual animal crying for release and the broken woman begging for a release of her own.

"Go home, Giles, leave me be."

"No!" His voice, his words, held a calmness he was nowhere near feeling. Giles wondered whether she could hear his heartbeat thundering across the room. It sounded deafening to him. "Buffy, please, you don't want to do this."

"The hell I don't!"

Her arms swung in a large arc over her head as she spun around to face him. The flame thrower in her hands spat out a long streak of red fire just above her head. His heart stood still when he saw the angry red welts that ate at her wrists and forearms. She didn't seem to notice her burns, though, as she threw the weapon away from her.

"Buffy…"

"Don't!" She pointed at him wildly and Giles noticed the glassy, unfocused look of her eyes, for the first time he heard the slur in her voice. "You don't get to do that! You can't come here and say my name like you know me! You don't! Nobody knows me!"

"I want to know you." The strength it took to keep the panic out of his voice was astounding, but for all his efforts he couldn't stop himself from jumping when a rafter broke from the ceiling and crashed in a flurry of red sparks to his left.

"No." She shook her head belligerently. "You want to know the Buffy that's fit for public consumption. The Buffy who can smile, the one who's well and strong, the one you can touch without having her flinch!"

"That's not…"

"Let me tell you something! I'm not her! I'll never be her again!" Her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably now and he was able to take several steps towards her without her noticing. "I don't know who I am anymore, I only know that I hate her, whoever I've become, I hate her!"

"I don't. Buffy, please, we have to get out of here."

She looked at him with lifeless eyes.

"Go Giles. This is where I belong. This is where I should be."

"No." He was truly scared. Not because the flames were increasing to fever pitch and not because she was drunk, but because she truly seemed to believe what she was saying. "This is the last place you belong. Buffy, you're stronger that this, you're better than them, than him."

"Am I?" She was looking at him as if she really wanted to know. "Was I better than him when I killed my own father? Was I better than him when I opened my mouth and tasted the blood? When I knew what would be unleashed if I turned and I didn't care? When I was so tempted to stop the pain by drinking? Was I so holy then?"

"Buffy." He was only a few steps from her now. "You couldn't help it. It wasn't your fault."

"How do you know?" Her eyes grew angry now and her words seemed to surprise her more than they did him. "You weren't there! God Giles, you weren't there! No matter how hard I prayed, how many times I called for you, you weren't there! Why didn't you come? Why? You weren't there! Giles!"

He closed the gap during her hysterical words, before she realized what was happening. His arm surrounded her and held her tight. She threw him off and away, he hit the floor hard.

"Get away from here!"

Giles almost growled as he threw himself at her again. This time using his coat as a net, trapping her with it and holding on to her as if his life depended on it. Which it did, because he wasn't leaving the flames without her. Buffy pushed off the ground with her feet, sending the two of them to the ground.

She screamed at him, a wordless sound.

He screamed back, roaring as he rolled to absorb most of the impact.

Giles had to stifle a cry as he felt a searing pain and smelt burning fabric and flesh as the flames danced across his back. He rolled again, smothering the flames, not letting the struggling form go. Even when her nails tore the flesh from his cheek and her flailing limbs struck him hard enough to produce spots.

He could feel her heart pounding through her small frame, beating faster than should be humanly possible. It felt to him like holding a small bird in his hands. The heart thumping out its fear, an organ that seemed too large and powerful to be contained in such a small frame.

In a move that cut him to the bone, Buffy suddenly went limp in his arms. He picked her up, stumbling only once, and carried her to the exit, shielding her from further contact with the flames. The heart, which had felt so strong and erratic only moments ago, began to calm down and regulate itself.

Buffy was playing dead.

For him.

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