Exit Eternity...

He'd lost her... He hadn't thought he ever would.

He felt numb to the core. a void. He felt nothing. No, that was not quite true. He felt pinpricks of pain across his skin, like pins and needles, and they confused him. How could he feel without a heart.?

How could she not be here.? How was he to go on without her.? He wanted her back. She *had* to come back.

He could not live without his heart.


The sun had set, but he did not see, could not feel the sudden drop of temperature. He did not hear the rapping at his door, or the cries of his name coming from outside. He sat alone in the dark, contemplating nothing.


Willow drew her coat close around her and looked to her companion. She guessed that her worry was as great as Xander's and that his look was mirrored on her own face. "Xander, we *have* to go in." she whispered.

He chewed his lip with a mix of fear and concern. "He might not want us here, Wills. He might wanna be left alone." He shrugged before adding, "and I don't think we can help this time."

All she could do was nod in agreement. She knew this, but it had not felt right to her that to mourn Buffy would be to mourn her alone; without the company of Xander, and then later, without Giles.

She had been afraid and for a brief moment that fear now coursed through her, causing her heart to race. She knew why.The moment she had started to contemplate Giles, she knew why her fear had grown.

What was he to do now.? He'd already mentioned that he might as well go back to England. And that was at a time when Buffy had been alive. Not often in the picture, but still amongst the living. A sudden flash of something, too fast to grasp but enough to leave a trickle of her fear run riot, caused her to gasp. With eyes wide and frantic, she looked to her life-long friend, "Xander, we *have* to go in."

Without any further thought, she leant forward and turned the door handle, knowing it would turn fully and the door would open if she were to give it a gentle push. However, before she could move forward, she felt a light touch on her arm and looked towards Xander.

"What do we say to him, Will.?" he asked in a weak, fearful voice. "Whadda we do.?"

She stopped. What *do* you say to Giles.? What *could* you say to him.? She then realised that you couldn't say anything; that there was nothing you could do, only be there if he needed you.

"You do nothing, Xander." she replied. With that said, she moved forward, opened the door and quietly stepped inside.

It was dark, but she could just make out the shape of someone sitting on the couch. She guessed that it was as cold in this room as it had been outside. No fire burned in the hearth to warm the apartment or lighten the oppression she had felt almost immediately on entering.

It was like a morgue. She took a sharp intake of breath at the thought and then her eyes lit as they quickly filled with tears.

Without thinking, she moved toward the figure, touching the table on her way to guide her. Just as she reached the other side of the couch, she stopped and blinked against the sudden brightness, as the light above her flickered to life. Some of her unshed tears fell, but when she saw the figure, clearly, for the first time, her bottom lip quivered with the shedding of those tears and her crying was in truth, not for the simple, unexpected illumination of the room.

He looked as though he had died, sitting there alone on the couch, without anyone to help him; to beguile his death by telling him of the good points of living.

She glanced away when Xander entered, and watched him close the door behind him, then silently shuffle his way to where she stood. She followed his eyes and looked to where he now looked. At Giles, sitting motionless, staring into oblivion.

Her chin scrunched into tiny pinpricks of despair and her breath trembled with the effort of not verbalising her sorrow. She moved away from Xander and softly sat beside Giles. He did not move or turn his head, or whisper his acknowledgement that she was there, even when she gently placed a hand upon his thigh. "Giles.?" she whispered, brokenly. "Giles.?"


Thought after thought chased themselves in tiny circles, threatening to overwhelm him. Her smile, her laugh; her breathy exasperation; her grin; her face. Her face with a grin and a twinkle in her eyes after she had teased him again. How it had lit the room, how it had engorged his heart, but how it now filled his eyes with tears. Tears of remorse, despair and anguish.

Her voice, a whisper even when she had been angered... Her voice, soft and lilting and full of amour when she had felt that love.

Her eyes, bulbous pools of expression, so torturous to look into when she was in pain. He could see them now, almost closed with her suffering, but still looking up at him, beseeching him for an answer.


Willow despaired. She had not expected Giles to be like this. In truth, she did not know what she had expected, but not this. His face still showed the bruising of their fight with the Knights of Byzantium, which led her to another thought. With the utmost care she lifted the left side of his jacket away to look at his wound. The left side of his sweater was red with his blood and the inner lining of his jacket was heavy with it also. She looked up at Xander with worry in her eyes.

"You lie him down, Wills, I'll get the kit." he whispered and left.

Willow followed Xander's movements for a moment with her eyes, but soon she returned her focus on Giles. He still had not moved. In one fluid movement she had stood and then knelt in front of him. She shuffled softly towards him, so that she knelt between his knees, and then took a hold of one of his hands.

She almost let go of it when she felt its coldness, when she felt it lifeless and unresponsive to her own warm touch, but she stopped herself. She looked up into the eyes that bore into her and then through her, to a point behind her. But even then she thought that where he looked had no end.

She began to rub his hand with both of hers in a hope to get it warmed. "Giles," she whispered, "I'm going to have to move you, but I can't do it alone." her voice broke a little on that word, but she took a breath to steady herself and continued, "you're going to have to help me here."

She looked up to see if he had heard her, or was blushing with embarrassment to find her holding his hand, but she knew he hadn't heard her; still he looked to the point of oblivion. Letting go of his hand, she stood and moved toward him, placed her hands beneath his armpits and gently pulled him forward; and then to the side.


She had threatened to kill him, but even then he had seen her pain. The corner he had pushed her into; and how, like any cornered, living thing she had beaten her way out with such conviction, that he'd had no choice but to believe her. She would have carried out her threat, but he also knew that her heart would have broken at the same time. Knew that she would have shed tears from her very Soul for him.

The air crackled around him, alight with electricity. He looked up into the night sky and felt his heart rip and tear itself from its cage. His eyes immediately lit upon a figure launching itself from the top of the tower; a golden halo of hair fluttering behind the body like wings, until the figure disappeared into the rift.

His heart thudded mercilessly in his ears; a huge gaping hole in his chest bled with his anguish. His thoughts chased themselves in tiny, exhausted circles, screeching their denial of what his eyes saw; beseeching the deity above that it was not true. His breath had stopped in a gasp, lodged in his throat, unable to force its way any further.

Then he saw her, lying motionless at the bottom of the tower. The halo of hair no longer fluttered, but fanned lifeless across the ground around her. Her eyes were closed and her face was relaxed in peace, but he did not want that. Though it had pained him each time she had looked into his own eyes, with eyes that showed the scars on her Soul, at this very moment he would have welcomed the look with every fibre of his being; and he found himself praying for it.


When Xander returned to Giles and Willow, he found the latter quietly sobbing next to the former. Whispering a mantra of broken "sorry's."; over and again; gasping and hiccuping to draw breath to continue it.

His first thought was that they had lost him, that he had joined his Slayer and for a brief moment his breath stopped, painfully lodged itself in the centre of his chest. But then his mind kicked in and told him that Willow would have called for him, all frantic and scared and heartbroken, but still she would have called.

He moved to her side and gently touched her shoulder. "Will.?"

She looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, shattered and weary and tearful. "I hurt him, Xander," she whispered, her own pain mirrored in her voice; a tear silently falling down her cheek as she looked back down at Giles, "I-I tried not to, but I did."

He smiled back down at her with sympathy, tracing little circular patterns with his hand on her back, "I guess you couldn't do anything else, Will, it's pretty bad." With that said, he looked down at the man whom he'd grown to love as a father; down at the man that had, without trying, made him feel that he could be whatever he wanted. Now it was *his* time to help *him*. "Let me take a look, okay.?"

He waited a moment as Willow shuffled on her knees away from Giles, making room for him next to her. He then knelt, placing the Kit beside him, and removed the jacket from the left side of his friend's body. It took a bit of time, what with him stopping at each moan, but eventually he had a clear view of what the wound looked like.

It was still weeping and the surrounding area looked red and puffy. He gently cleaned it, but with each stroke to wipe the blood away, more took its place. "We're gonna have to get him to hospital. I-I can't get it to stop." He looked at Willow and instantly saw the question on her face. Yep, he also knew of Giles' distaste for those white walled buildings, but there wasn't any choice. "It's either that, or we lose him too."

He took a quick look at her face, knowing his words had been harsh; and the crumple of her face, the tears falling silently down her cheeks, confirmed to him just how harsh they had appeared. He grasped her hand in his own, giving it a little shake, and whispered, "I'm sorry, Will, but-but it's true. We can't do anything here, and I don't want to see him die along-along with Buffy."

His eyes immediately teared at the mention of the Slayer's name; his friend's name; and he swallowed convulsively. He had to be strong. He'd been conditioned to be strong, but this was different. This was real.

At her nod, he rose from the floor and made his way to the phone; wiping away the smears of tears that had fallen on his cheeks.


Just a touch, a whisper of silkiness beneath his fingers. That's all it took.

He swallowed the grittiness in his throat. It had been a dream, a nightmare of the worst sort, but how, *how* his heart still ached with the residual of said nightmare. She had gone from him; launched herself to her death and he had seen her; felt her last moments as though they had been his own.

Now his heart leapt with the thought of seeing her. He cursed the nightmare; cursed his weakness that he could have believed in such a thing and then cursed his inability to open his eyes. 'One look', he silently pleaded, 'One look at her and my eyes would never again close without an imprint of her.' He felt his fingers caress that which he thought he had lost and smiled, just as he knew she would when he opened his eyes.

God, it was an effort. They felt as though weighed down by a ton of bricks. The effort was beginning to tire him. He was exhausted, but he wanted to see her, look upon her with the love he could no longer deny. He heard himself moan with the effort, but stilled any others. He did not want to frighten her.

He felt her stir beneath his fingers, and then the sensation of her lifting her head. His fingers eagerly traced her movement, then chased her; determined not to lose contact.

"Giles.?"

He frowned. 'Willow.?' he thought with confusion. 'Willow. where's Buffy.?' He moaned again, unable to stop it as before.

He then felt a feather-light touch of a hand upon his cheek, shaking as though afraid to be there. He felt the warmth of Willow's breath on his ear; trembling with every exhalation and then he heard her whisper.

"Shh, it's alright, Giles."

He felt her lashes brush his cheek and then he felt her tears. That's all it took.

He *had* lost her.

He felt the ache grow swiftly to a physical pain; much like his heart, still beating with life, being ripped from his body.

She was gone.

Now he was too frightened to open his eyes. Too afraid to see the bleakness, the greyness that he knew would surround him, now that he was never to see her again. Too afraid because he knew that the tears trying to force their way out of him would fall, no matter how hard he tried to stop them.

He could feel his body trembling with the effort of not screaming his denial, of not losing control. It did not matter that Willow held him, or that she shared his despair; none of it did. He wanted the arms of his Slayer to hold him, to heal him, but she wasn't there and would never be there again.

He moaned again and felt Willow move away from him; causing a momentary flush of cool air to brush his face. Her grip on his hand was firmer than the one on his cheek, but its hold was as worrying. He gasped a breath, wanting to say something to help her, but he was lost himself. What could he say.?

He gasped another breath, and then another, until one by one his tears painfully fell beneath his own lashes and his body finally gave in and shook with his despair.

She was gone.

The End



Site Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. own the Buffy characters. All products, movies, books, songs, etc. are owned by their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended. All plots and original characters are owned by the authors.