Through a Glass Darkly 4/4
Apr. 5th, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hobgoblinnHere is the final part of my ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tenyearsofbuffy ficathon entry. Thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting. If anyone knows other ghost!Snyder fics, I'd love to read some other takes on this. Please send them my way.
Special thanks for this section go to the following:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rahirah, clavally, rainkatt, and antennapedia. In addition, the gracious lady theblackmare drew the short straw this time and read the final, final draft as well. This story is much better for their intervention. And I know I'm getting to be a better writer by listening to them. All remaining mistakes are still my own.
Spoilers/ Time period: End of Season 3 to Start of Season 5.
Characters: Core Scoobies + Anya and Tara, with a special guest appearance by someone not quite dearly departed.
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Strictly for entertainment, and no profit is being made. Please sue somebody else.
Distribution: If you're planning on asking me, I'm planning on saying "yes." Just let me know where it's going.
Word Count: 4,964
Through a Glass Darkly, part 4/4
Previous parts here:
Part 1/4
Part 2/4
Part 3/4
Snyder slowly followed Summers back toward the librarian’s apartment. At first, he’d felt a rush of hope, thinking that this long nightmare might soon be over. But then his grade school catechism started coming back to him, leaving him wondering just where he would go, when he finally left this world.
He’d always thought of himself as a good man. Solid. Reliable. Sometimes he’d been harsh, even cruel, over the years. But, he told himself, it had always been for the children’s own good.
Yes, whispered the little voice in the back of his mind, but sometimes you enjoyed it. He’d almost gotten the Sunnydale Police to arrest this girl for murder, even when he’d known she was innocent. Just because he’d wanted her out of his school. If she hadn’t left town while things had died down, she might still be in jail.
Maybe, another voice replied. And if she were in jail, she might be a lot safer than she is out here, battling monsters. But he knew in his heart it was as much a lie as the ones he’d told the police that night, and the days after. He could almost see Sister Mary Catherine looking down at him, love and disappointment in her eyes. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, Raymond.” What would she have said, if she’d known he would also grow up to side with a creature from blackest hell, and worse, to actively torment the one person who had been fighting every night to keep everyone safe from such creatures?
He sighed. He’d tried so hard to be good, to make her proud of him. The lessons on order, punctuality, discipline-- all those had taken root for her in the serious little second grader he had been. But the ones touching on the feelings of others, on loving thy neighbor-- those had always been a mystery to him.
Until, glancing ahead at the moonlight reflecting off Summers’ hair, it suddenly struck him. He would do anything for this child. He really wanted, not what he arrogantly thought was best for her, but what she wanted as best for herself. He wanted her to be safe. And he wanted to see her become-- whatever she would become. Whatever she was meant to become. Even if it cost him something. He wondered if that was what Sister had been trying to teach him all those years ago. If, maybe, it was a kind of love. The thought scared him more than all the monsters he’d ever seen. But after the long time he’d spent alone, merely watching others live, he was reluctant to simply push the idea away and retreat back into his safe little shell. The familiar Gregorian chant he’d sung as a boy echoed faintly in his memory: “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” Where charity and love exist, there also is God.
Summers stopped and looked back, and he read the concern in her eyes. “You okay?” she asked.
“I just...." He paused, unsure how to ask. Or whether or not he wanted the answer. He forced himself to continue, "If you’re the Slayer, you must have some inside information, right? Is there really a God? Or heaven? Or... hell?”
The girl seemed to be choosing her words carefully as she answered, “Well, hell: yes to that one. To hear Anya tell it, there’s more hell dimensions than ones like this. And she doesn’t talk about it as much, but she says there are some heavenly ones, too. But... the jury’s still out on the whole God thing. There are higher powers, and they seem to want me out here fighting evil and all that. But....” She trailed off and shrugged, then grinned as if trying lighten the mood a little. “Tell you what-- let me know when you find out.” But her grin faded as she read the naked fear on his face.
Before she could open her mouth to apologize, he said gruffly, “No, it’s okay, Summers. I had a teacher once who said that it couldn’t be faith, if we knew all the answers.” They reached the librarian’s door. “I’ll just have to wait to find out. Same as everybody else.”
She paused a moment with her hand on the doorknob, studying his face sadly. He tried to give her a nonchalant grin, but he couldn’t tell if she was buying it or not. She turned the knob and pushed the door open and he followed her inside.
There was a roaring fire in the hearth as they came in, and the kids and the librarian were all sitting in front of it, on the couch or floor, with books, pads of paper, and pens scattered before them. Snyder sniffed a little at the untidiness, though it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. Then he felt a little guilty. They were going to a lot of effort on his behalf. His cynical side told him it was because they just didn’t want to have to keep a fire blazing in here all summer long. But another part of him was beginning to have faith in these kids, that they really would do the right thing. Or, at least, the kind thing. And he found himself unaccountably proud of them for it.
The librarian looked up. “Buffy. Back so soon? Is everything all right?”
“Depends,” she answered. “Would it help the research if we knew where Snyder picked up that spell?”
Giles gave a slightly bemused smile. “Yes, I imagine that would help a great deal.”
Summers turned to Snyder. “You said you were drawn here to us-- me and Giles. And that the Mayor mentioned us in that commendation ceremony. What did he say? Can you remember?”
Snyder thought back. “He was handing me the certificate. Thanked me for keeping an eye on troublemakers. He mentioned you two by name. ‘Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles,’ he said. ‘People like that are trouble. I’m glad you’re keeping an eye on them.’ Then he shook my hand.”
Summers glanced over expectantly at the librarian. “What do you think?”
Giles was leaning back to pull a dusty brown volume from the nearby shelf. “A compulsion spell, perhaps,” he said, opening the book. “Even if the Mayor himself hadn’t that kind of power, he could have easily paid someone else to enspell an object for him. A ring, perhaps, or the certificate itself....” He trailed off as something interesting on the page caught his attention. Snyder glanced over at Summers, who was trying to control her restless energy. Something in her expression-- did she really care about this? About what happened to him?
“Ah, here’s something,” Giles said, scanning the page. “Tara, what do you know about compulsion spells?”
Something flickered across the girl’s face. Fear? Guilt? Snyder wasn’t sure. “Not much, really. My mom always said it was dark magic.”
“Oh, she was absolutely right about that,” Giles replied. “But, ‘know one’s enemy,’ as they say....” He trailed off again, reading.
“Well,” Harris’ girlfriend spoke up cheerfully, “When we do break that spell, we’ve also found something that should zap you off to the next world just fine. Hope you lived a good life,” she added, oblivious to the fear in his eyes. But to his surprise, Summers wasn’t.
“Hey,” she said softly. ‘Don’t listen to her. You’ll be okay. I mean....” She thought for a minute, then said, “Look. You were probably meaner to me than anyone else, right?”
He had to admit it was true. “Yes. Yes, I was,” he said reluctantly.
“Okay. Well, I don’t agree with everything you did. And I think maybe you had way too much fun doing some of it. But... I see now you were doing the best you knew how to do. You get points for effort. At least from me.” She gave him a tentative smile, and it was oddly comforting. “I hope that counts for something.”
He was struck speechless for a minute. Then he said, very softly, “Thank you, Buffy.”
She looked embarrassed as she turned back to the fireplace. Giles and the others were gathering up books and placing various supplies into a backpack and a leather satchel. “We’ll need to go back to the high school grounds to perform the laying ceremony proper,” Giles said. “And we will have to break the compulsion spell there, too.”
“Great,” Snyder and Buffy said together. They grinned at each other, and then Snyder let Buffy finish their shared thought. “Let’s go.”
****
They stood on the curb at the edge of the ruined high school property. Here and there, remnants of caution tape fluttered in the breeze, caught on dead branches, or pieces of rusted fencing. The only living things here now were the weeds, growing riotously out of control. And behind them? Crumbling walls and darkness.
Snyder felt an aching sense of loss as he looked on the shattered ruin. It was still about an hour shy of dawn, and the sky was just barely lightening in the east. How often had he reached this sidewalk at this time, eager to start his day, and to enjoy a brief interlude of peace before he waded in to bring order and discipline to surly teenagers?
It wasn’t the first time he’d been back. He’d accompanied these children, unseen, some months ago. Then, everything had been hazy, including the threat they were battling. But now, it was worse. He could see the desolation so much more clearly. And he was no longer invisible. He found himself a little irritated by Summers’ curious gaze, until she came to stand next to him.
“This place was really special to you, wasn’t it?” she asked softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” He cleared his throat and said, loudly enough for the others to hear, “All right, everybody, be careful. There’s a lot of broken glass and....” He trailed off, as he realized his old fixation on school safety, and the accompanying worries about liability, were no longer an issue. But still, he repeated, a little ruefully, “Just... be careful.”
Giles led the way across the weed-choked front walk and around the side of the building. “Luckily for us, we should be able to perform the ritual outside, in the courtyard area,” he said. “Should keep the ceilings’ falling on our heads to a minimum.”
Harris asked, “Why over here, though? Why not on the football field around back or something?”
Snyder said, as Giles was drawing breath to reply, “Because the ritual has to be done as close to the place of death, or to the body, as possible. Am I right?”
Giles nodded, seeming a little uncomfortable with the blunt assertion. But Snyder had always been quick to understand harsh realities. If other people couldn’t deal with them, that was their problem, not his.
They reached the site where the Class of 1999 had gathered for the last time. Now, it was a tangled mass of weeds, broken earth, and twisted, rusting metal chairs. Snyder drifted over to an area to the right of the remains of the wooden platform. “Here,” he announced quietly.
“All right,” Giles said, moving to join him. He set down his leather satchel and began removing and sorting its contents on a patch of level ground in front of them. The others began emptying the backpack while Buffy prowled the perimeter, keeping watch, an oddly-shaped hunting dagger in her hand.
Snyder silently watched the preparations as they were carried out under Giles’ murmured direction. Then he mustered the courage to ask, “How is this going to work, exactly?”
Giles answered without looking up, “We will have to perform two rituals. One will nullify the compulsion spell laid on you by the Mayor, which should release you from the obligation to watch over Buffy and me. Under normal circumstances, that might be enough on its own to release you, but given the length of time you’ve remained here in this state, I tend to doubt it. So we’ll first perform the traditional laying ceremony for a ghost, helping you take care of some real or symbolic unfinished business so that you can move on.”
“Sounds fairly simple,” Snyder allowed. But he heard something in the tone, a kind of doubt, that made him suspicious. “What’s the catch?”
“Well,” Giles began evasively, “I wasn’t really aware how, er, total the destruction was. Xander mentioned finding.. bits... of the Mayor, so I had hoped there might be something remaining of your earthly body as well-- perhaps a bone. But....” He shook his head, surveying the area. “Even if there were something here after all this time, I’m at a bit of a loss to suggest a way to find it.”
Rosenberg spoke, from where she was laying out an assortment of herbs on a white towel spread as a kind of makeshift table. “But did it have to be the physical body? I thought I read that objects with special significance to the person, or something that was on a person when he died, could be substituted. Could there still be a coat button around here somewhere, or, I don’t know, a key, maybe?”
Giles glanced up at Snyder apologetically. “It really depends on you, I suppose. I’ve read that ghosts have a remarkable ability to sense the location of significant objects, or the location of their... ah, bodies. I’m sure it’s uncomfortable, but do you get any sense of....?”
Snyder began striding toward the collapsed breezeway, stopping at its edge and looking around for a moment. Then he knelt and fished around in the weeds at the end of the walk. He turned, rising, and held up a small object, a piece of twisted metal hanging from thin a metal chain. “Will this work?” he asked.
“What is it?” Buffy came closer to him to get a better look. He laid it in her hand.
“Something I wore every day of my life from the time I was seven,” he answered quietly. “Given to me by one Sister Mary Catherine Joseph, on the occasion of my First Communion. It’s a Christopher medal.”
Buffy looked from the ruined medal to his eyes. She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him in, not pity, but a gentle sympathy. He opened his hand and she replaced the medal in it. He concentrated on keeping a firm grasp, on the feeling of the cold, wet metal in his palm.
“So,” Snyder said, turning back to the others, “How does this ritual go?”
“The um, laying ritual simply requires you to choose someone and impart some knowledge of import or significance to you-- a secret, perhaps. In this case, something as simple as revealing your full given name to one of us might do the trick. While you’re doing that the rest of us can finish preparations for the other spell. We’ll need to clear a space for a fire about here....” Giles indicated an area about three feet from the platform, and Harris, his girlfriend and the girl they called Tara began carefully removing chairs and rubble.
Snyder looked on for a few moments. To an observer, he might have seemed impassive, but inwardly his thoughts were racing. He pulled himself together and turned to Buffy, who was still beside him. “Miss Summers, could I have a word with you in my office?” He gestured and inclined his head, inviting her to precede him across the courtyard to the hallway door. “I believe you know the way.”
Snyder’s office was still standing, if one wanted to call it that. The bookshelves had collapsed, and the books and binders had long since been ruined by the rain which streamed in freely through the shattered window. In fact, their breakdown was so far advanced that he could see some wispy tendrils of weeds taking hold here and there in the piles of decay. The potted plant on the windowsill was still there, thriving out of control. It had been dying on Graduation day the previous year, he recalled.
But the desk was still situated imposingly in the center of the space, dust and debris scattered across it. Two chairs faced the desk, and his own chair had its back to the window. Buffy picked her way carefully across the threshold and let out a low whistle as she looked around the room.
Snyder's lips twisted in a wan smile. “Sorry for the mess,” he said, oddly embarrassed. He drifted over to the open window and looked out, where the eastern sky was turning a pale pink as dawn drew nearer. He glanced back at Summers, who had seated herself carefully in her accustomed old chair, looking at him with an expectant but puzzled expression. He hesitated a moment more, then came to a decision.
“Raymond Ethelbert Ignatius Snyder,” he announced. At her uncomprehending look, he clarified, “That was my full given name. And,” he added, “If you ever tell anyone else, I will personally come back and haunt you to death.”
Buffy’s grin slowly brightened her face. “Hey, no one with a name like ‘Buffy’ has any room making fun of anybody else’s name."
“That’s true,” Snyder agreed. He reached out to straighten the in-box tray on the corner of his desk, frowning at the result.
“But that’s not the only reason you called me in here, is it?”
“Should be enough to cover the spell, if your friend Mr. Giles is correct,” Snyder answered, still not looking at her.
“Maybe. What if it’s not?”
He turned to face her abruptly. “Do you think we have any unfinished business?” He watched as she considered how best to answer this question.
“Well,” she said finally, “You never did get around to expelling me....” She grinned to show she was kidding.
“Did so,” he scowled. “Not my fault it didn’t stick.” He grimaced at the memory. “You have your friend Mr. Giles to thank for that.”
“Yeah. I’ve got him to thank for a lot,” Buffy agreed, a little sadly.
Snyder was looking out the window again. “I did have one other thing I wanted to say,” he admitted without turning. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. That I wish I had been the kind of man who could have helped you, or even believed in what you were doing... in what you were doing right under my nose.”
There was a long silence. Then Buffy said, “Thank you, Sir.”
He shrugged and looked back at her. She was studying him, as if trying to figure out another of the many puzzles that made up a Slayer’s existence. He had no doubt she’d eventually come to make some sense of whatever she was wondering about. Just as he was equally sure there was no way he ever would. No matter how much time was left to him.
“We’d best be getting back, see how the others are doing,” he suggested. She nodded and rose from the chair carefully. He took one last look around his old domain. Then, as he stepped through the doorway, he reached up automatically and flipped the light switch off. He paused, then grinned slightly. Old habits died hard, he supposed.
Giles looked up at their approach. “Excellent,” he said. “We’re just about ready here. You’ve completed the first ritual, yes?” His eyes flicked over to Buffy, then, as if trying to gauge her state of mind after her visit to the principal’s office. Snyder smiled a little at his concern. Then he frowned.
“Well, yes,” he replied. “But I’m not sure I feel any different.”
The librarian, no, Watcher, Snyder corrected himself mentally, nodded. “I doubt you will until we break the other spell. Willow, would you hand me that white clay bowl, there by the bundle of sage?”
She passed it over without a word and Giles looked Snyder in the eye. “The original compulsion spell probably required more than blood. Knowing the Mayor, possibly a lot more.” He looked from principal to Slayer, his expression very serious. “Breaking it may have some dangerous consequences, or unleash some unpredictable forces. I’m going to have Willow and Tara using their limited powers to boost a talisman which may offer us all some protection.” He cast a stern eye on Willow and Tara, as if to impress upon them the seriousness of the undertaking. “One must always remember, Nature always exacts a cost for magic. There are always consequences.”
“As there are in any endeavor in life,” Snyder said, in what he hoped was a confident tone. “I understand. Let’s... Let’s do it.”
“All right,” Giles said. “Buffy, do you have the knife?”
“Yeah.”
“And Snyder, you have the medal?”
He dangled it in the air at the end of its broken chain.
Giles held out the bowl. “Place the St. Christopher medal in this,” he directed, and Snyder did so. He felt curiously bereft after it left his hands, though he had in fact been separated from it ever since the day he’d died.
“Now, Buffy, we must both cut ourselves with the knife and add a few drops of our blood to this bowl.” He handed the bowl to her and reached out to take hold of the knife she offered him. He sliced the blade across his palm, just enough for the blood to well up in a crimson line. His hand flickered in the firelight as he held it over the bowl and let three drops of dark red blood fall. He accepted a clean handkerchief from Anya and wrapped it around his hand to stanch the wound, then took the bowl back and handed the knife carefully to Buffy.
The girl looked at Snyder for a long moment. “Any last words?” she asked, holding up the knife, stained with her Watcher’s blood.
He considered briefly. Something in him still shied away from expressing his feelings, but this really was his last chance, and something else in him demanded, as simple courtesy if nothing else, that he acknowledge just what they were doing for him. For everyone. When he finally spoke, he made it a point to look at each of them in turn.
“You kids,” he began, then grinned a little ruefully as he corrected himself. “You young people, and you, Mr. Giles... you’re doing okay. Sunnydale owes you a debt.” He grinned again, remembering the very different context in which he’d last heard those words. “A debt of gratitude.” he clarified. “And so do I. Thank you for helping me. Whatever happens. Just.... Thank you.” He met Buffy Summers’ eyes, drew himself up a little straighter. “I’m ready.”
He watched as she sliced the knife across her own palm. As if from a great distance he heard the watcher’s quiet voice, chanting something in Latin he could not quite make out. As the blood dripped into the bowl, he saw a light, flickering at first, then growing ever brighter before his eyes. His last thought was that the light was really kind of beautiful. Just like Sister had always told him it would be.
*****
Epilogue
Buffy sat on the couch staring at the fading embers in Giles’ fireplace. It was early morning. Giles was busying himself putting away the spell ingredients that had helped send Ray Snyder to his final destiny. Xander and Anya had left their friends at the high school front walk, supposedly so Xander could catch a little sleep before work. Tara and Willow had bid them good night on the walk outside, receiving a warm hug from each of them in turn. Willow had looked a little concerned for her, but Buffy had smiled reassuringly and said, “I’ll stay here a while. I’m okay.”
Giles had allowed her to mull over the night’s events without much conversation, though she had caught him gazing over at her several times, gentle concern in his eyes. But now, placing the last of the herbs in their places in the cabinet, he said, “You’ve been very quiet, Buffy. Are you sure you’re all right?”
She glanced up as he came to join her on the couch. “Yeah,” she said. “My hand hurts a little.” She held up her bandaged hand. Then she grimaced. “I bet yours is worse. Sorry. No Slayer healing for you, huh?”
“No, just the ordinary Watcher kind, I’m afraid.” He studied her face closely. “You look tired. Would you like me to drive you home?”
Buffy shook her head and stared back into the fireplace. “Nah. Mom’s out of town and....” She trailed off, unsure how to express it.
“And you don’t want to be alone just now,” Giles finished for her. She smiled gratefully.
“Yeah.” They lapsed into silence again. Then Giles stirred beside her.
“Um, Buffy, did Snyder say anything to upset you tonight? Because if he did....”
Buffy shook her head. “No. It’s just... I hated him, you know?”
Giles nodded. “We all did. What did he say to you tonight, then? He seemed very different from the odious little troll I remember.”
Buffy smiled. “Yeah, he really did.”
And Buffy related the whole of the night’s adventures to her Watcher. When she had finished, they both sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Buffy looked up with a puzzled frown.
“I thought Snyder was just petty and cruel because he enjoyed the power. But he really thought he was doing good by being so mean to us. He thought he was helping us. How can someone go through his whole life, get to where he’s a grown up like that, and be so wrong about everything?”
Giles considered the question soberly. “Well, Buffy, adults are really very little different from children in that regard. Older, more experienced, perhaps. But people see, by and large, what they wish to see. And they form habits of perception over the years, to explain their experiences, and to shape the ways in which they respond to those experiences. Snyder was no different.”
“Yeah.” Buffy frowned, unconvinced. “But the good man I met tonight-- he was always there, somewhere inside. Why couldn’t he have shown himself before now? Before he died?”
There was a much longer pause this time, before Giles replied, almost as if to himself, “I suppose some men are too afraid. Some men take on a role to help them do what they perceive to be their duty, and they wake up one morning to find they have become that role. It’s no longer something they can cast off at will. They need it too much, to fulfill their purpose in the world.”
“Roles like Watcher?” Buffy asked, looking hard at him.
Giles shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “Perhaps.”
“What would you be like? If you weren’t a Watcher?”
“I... I don’t know,” he answered. “The only time in my life that I wasn’t a Watcher, I was something much worse.”
“And that was a role, too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose it was.”
Buffy was frowning again. “So how can I know when I’m right? If someone so much older can be that clueless, what chance do I have?”
“Buffy,” Giles said patiently, “Principal Snyder was hardly a model of self awareness when he was alive. And he lacked a very important resource you possess. You have friends who will tell you honestly when they think you’re off track. And the fact that you think to ask these kinds of questions-- you’re decades ahead of Snyder there. You’ll be all right. Trust me.”
Buffy yawned. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long night.”
Giles smiled and rose from the couch. “Indeed it has. Let me get you a blanket. You’re perfectly welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“Thanks, Giles.” She watched him go down the darkened hallway to pull a blanket from his linen closet.
“Giles?” she asked, as he returned and held out the thin cotton blanket, all she really needed on a summer’s night.
“Yes?”
“Promise me something. Promise me you’ll practice letting go of your role once in a while. Just being you. Whoever that is.”
Giles gave her a long, considering look. “All right,” he said finally. “I’m not sure I know how, but.... I promise.”
Buffy settled herself under her blanket. Giles reached over to switch off the lamp. Buffy said, “Please... leave it on.” He gave her a look of mild surprise, and she explained, “Ever since those creepy dreams we all had, I’ve been a little restless at night. I wake up a lot. I just don’t want to wake up and not know where I am.” She brightened as a new thought occurred to her. “But hey, maybe with Snyder gone, things will get back to normal.”
Giles chuckled. “Or whatever passes for it here. All right, then. Good night, Buffy.”
“Good night, Giles.”
She heard the stairs creak underneath his feet as he ascended to his own bed in the loft. She felt safe and warm, but a little uneasy. She needed to get out more she decided, just before she fell asleep. Let go of her Slayer role once in a while, just be a normal college kid. She wondered what the two of them would be, without their roles to dictate their actions. Just Buffy. Just Giles. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep.
For anyone interested, a discussion of the writing of this fic can be found here.
tenyearsofbuffy ficathon entry. Thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting. If anyone knows other ghost!Snyder fics, I'd love to read some other takes on this. Please send them my way. Special thanks for this section go to the following:
rahirah, clavally, rainkatt, and antennapedia. In addition, the gracious lady theblackmare drew the short straw this time and read the final, final draft as well. This story is much better for their intervention. And I know I'm getting to be a better writer by listening to them. All remaining mistakes are still my own.Spoilers/ Time period: End of Season 3 to Start of Season 5.
Characters: Core Scoobies + Anya and Tara, with a special guest appearance by someone not quite dearly departed.
Rating: FRT
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Strictly for entertainment, and no profit is being made. Please sue somebody else.
Distribution: If you're planning on asking me, I'm planning on saying "yes." Just let me know where it's going.
Word Count: 4,964
Through a Glass Darkly, part 4/4
Previous parts here:
Part 1/4
Part 2/4
Part 3/4
Snyder slowly followed Summers back toward the librarian’s apartment. At first, he’d felt a rush of hope, thinking that this long nightmare might soon be over. But then his grade school catechism started coming back to him, leaving him wondering just where he would go, when he finally left this world.
He’d always thought of himself as a good man. Solid. Reliable. Sometimes he’d been harsh, even cruel, over the years. But, he told himself, it had always been for the children’s own good.
Yes, whispered the little voice in the back of his mind, but sometimes you enjoyed it. He’d almost gotten the Sunnydale Police to arrest this girl for murder, even when he’d known she was innocent. Just because he’d wanted her out of his school. If she hadn’t left town while things had died down, she might still be in jail.
Maybe, another voice replied. And if she were in jail, she might be a lot safer than she is out here, battling monsters. But he knew in his heart it was as much a lie as the ones he’d told the police that night, and the days after. He could almost see Sister Mary Catherine looking down at him, love and disappointment in her eyes. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, Raymond.” What would she have said, if she’d known he would also grow up to side with a creature from blackest hell, and worse, to actively torment the one person who had been fighting every night to keep everyone safe from such creatures?
He sighed. He’d tried so hard to be good, to make her proud of him. The lessons on order, punctuality, discipline-- all those had taken root for her in the serious little second grader he had been. But the ones touching on the feelings of others, on loving thy neighbor-- those had always been a mystery to him.
Until, glancing ahead at the moonlight reflecting off Summers’ hair, it suddenly struck him. He would do anything for this child. He really wanted, not what he arrogantly thought was best for her, but what she wanted as best for herself. He wanted her to be safe. And he wanted to see her become-- whatever she would become. Whatever she was meant to become. Even if it cost him something. He wondered if that was what Sister had been trying to teach him all those years ago. If, maybe, it was a kind of love. The thought scared him more than all the monsters he’d ever seen. But after the long time he’d spent alone, merely watching others live, he was reluctant to simply push the idea away and retreat back into his safe little shell. The familiar Gregorian chant he’d sung as a boy echoed faintly in his memory: “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” Where charity and love exist, there also is God.
Summers stopped and looked back, and he read the concern in her eyes. “You okay?” she asked.
“I just...." He paused, unsure how to ask. Or whether or not he wanted the answer. He forced himself to continue, "If you’re the Slayer, you must have some inside information, right? Is there really a God? Or heaven? Or... hell?”
The girl seemed to be choosing her words carefully as she answered, “Well, hell: yes to that one. To hear Anya tell it, there’s more hell dimensions than ones like this. And she doesn’t talk about it as much, but she says there are some heavenly ones, too. But... the jury’s still out on the whole God thing. There are higher powers, and they seem to want me out here fighting evil and all that. But....” She trailed off and shrugged, then grinned as if trying lighten the mood a little. “Tell you what-- let me know when you find out.” But her grin faded as she read the naked fear on his face.
Before she could open her mouth to apologize, he said gruffly, “No, it’s okay, Summers. I had a teacher once who said that it couldn’t be faith, if we knew all the answers.” They reached the librarian’s door. “I’ll just have to wait to find out. Same as everybody else.”
She paused a moment with her hand on the doorknob, studying his face sadly. He tried to give her a nonchalant grin, but he couldn’t tell if she was buying it or not. She turned the knob and pushed the door open and he followed her inside.
There was a roaring fire in the hearth as they came in, and the kids and the librarian were all sitting in front of it, on the couch or floor, with books, pads of paper, and pens scattered before them. Snyder sniffed a little at the untidiness, though it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. Then he felt a little guilty. They were going to a lot of effort on his behalf. His cynical side told him it was because they just didn’t want to have to keep a fire blazing in here all summer long. But another part of him was beginning to have faith in these kids, that they really would do the right thing. Or, at least, the kind thing. And he found himself unaccountably proud of them for it.
The librarian looked up. “Buffy. Back so soon? Is everything all right?”
“Depends,” she answered. “Would it help the research if we knew where Snyder picked up that spell?”
Giles gave a slightly bemused smile. “Yes, I imagine that would help a great deal.”
Summers turned to Snyder. “You said you were drawn here to us-- me and Giles. And that the Mayor mentioned us in that commendation ceremony. What did he say? Can you remember?”
Snyder thought back. “He was handing me the certificate. Thanked me for keeping an eye on troublemakers. He mentioned you two by name. ‘Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles,’ he said. ‘People like that are trouble. I’m glad you’re keeping an eye on them.’ Then he shook my hand.”
Summers glanced over expectantly at the librarian. “What do you think?”
Giles was leaning back to pull a dusty brown volume from the nearby shelf. “A compulsion spell, perhaps,” he said, opening the book. “Even if the Mayor himself hadn’t that kind of power, he could have easily paid someone else to enspell an object for him. A ring, perhaps, or the certificate itself....” He trailed off as something interesting on the page caught his attention. Snyder glanced over at Summers, who was trying to control her restless energy. Something in her expression-- did she really care about this? About what happened to him?
“Ah, here’s something,” Giles said, scanning the page. “Tara, what do you know about compulsion spells?”
Something flickered across the girl’s face. Fear? Guilt? Snyder wasn’t sure. “Not much, really. My mom always said it was dark magic.”
“Oh, she was absolutely right about that,” Giles replied. “But, ‘know one’s enemy,’ as they say....” He trailed off again, reading.
“Well,” Harris’ girlfriend spoke up cheerfully, “When we do break that spell, we’ve also found something that should zap you off to the next world just fine. Hope you lived a good life,” she added, oblivious to the fear in his eyes. But to his surprise, Summers wasn’t.
“Hey,” she said softly. ‘Don’t listen to her. You’ll be okay. I mean....” She thought for a minute, then said, “Look. You were probably meaner to me than anyone else, right?”
He had to admit it was true. “Yes. Yes, I was,” he said reluctantly.
“Okay. Well, I don’t agree with everything you did. And I think maybe you had way too much fun doing some of it. But... I see now you were doing the best you knew how to do. You get points for effort. At least from me.” She gave him a tentative smile, and it was oddly comforting. “I hope that counts for something.”
He was struck speechless for a minute. Then he said, very softly, “Thank you, Buffy.”
She looked embarrassed as she turned back to the fireplace. Giles and the others were gathering up books and placing various supplies into a backpack and a leather satchel. “We’ll need to go back to the high school grounds to perform the laying ceremony proper,” Giles said. “And we will have to break the compulsion spell there, too.”
“Great,” Snyder and Buffy said together. They grinned at each other, and then Snyder let Buffy finish their shared thought. “Let’s go.”
****
They stood on the curb at the edge of the ruined high school property. Here and there, remnants of caution tape fluttered in the breeze, caught on dead branches, or pieces of rusted fencing. The only living things here now were the weeds, growing riotously out of control. And behind them? Crumbling walls and darkness.
Snyder felt an aching sense of loss as he looked on the shattered ruin. It was still about an hour shy of dawn, and the sky was just barely lightening in the east. How often had he reached this sidewalk at this time, eager to start his day, and to enjoy a brief interlude of peace before he waded in to bring order and discipline to surly teenagers?
It wasn’t the first time he’d been back. He’d accompanied these children, unseen, some months ago. Then, everything had been hazy, including the threat they were battling. But now, it was worse. He could see the desolation so much more clearly. And he was no longer invisible. He found himself a little irritated by Summers’ curious gaze, until she came to stand next to him.
“This place was really special to you, wasn’t it?” she asked softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” He cleared his throat and said, loudly enough for the others to hear, “All right, everybody, be careful. There’s a lot of broken glass and....” He trailed off, as he realized his old fixation on school safety, and the accompanying worries about liability, were no longer an issue. But still, he repeated, a little ruefully, “Just... be careful.”
Giles led the way across the weed-choked front walk and around the side of the building. “Luckily for us, we should be able to perform the ritual outside, in the courtyard area,” he said. “Should keep the ceilings’ falling on our heads to a minimum.”
Harris asked, “Why over here, though? Why not on the football field around back or something?”
Snyder said, as Giles was drawing breath to reply, “Because the ritual has to be done as close to the place of death, or to the body, as possible. Am I right?”
Giles nodded, seeming a little uncomfortable with the blunt assertion. But Snyder had always been quick to understand harsh realities. If other people couldn’t deal with them, that was their problem, not his.
They reached the site where the Class of 1999 had gathered for the last time. Now, it was a tangled mass of weeds, broken earth, and twisted, rusting metal chairs. Snyder drifted over to an area to the right of the remains of the wooden platform. “Here,” he announced quietly.
“All right,” Giles said, moving to join him. He set down his leather satchel and began removing and sorting its contents on a patch of level ground in front of them. The others began emptying the backpack while Buffy prowled the perimeter, keeping watch, an oddly-shaped hunting dagger in her hand.
Snyder silently watched the preparations as they were carried out under Giles’ murmured direction. Then he mustered the courage to ask, “How is this going to work, exactly?”
Giles answered without looking up, “We will have to perform two rituals. One will nullify the compulsion spell laid on you by the Mayor, which should release you from the obligation to watch over Buffy and me. Under normal circumstances, that might be enough on its own to release you, but given the length of time you’ve remained here in this state, I tend to doubt it. So we’ll first perform the traditional laying ceremony for a ghost, helping you take care of some real or symbolic unfinished business so that you can move on.”
“Sounds fairly simple,” Snyder allowed. But he heard something in the tone, a kind of doubt, that made him suspicious. “What’s the catch?”
“Well,” Giles began evasively, “I wasn’t really aware how, er, total the destruction was. Xander mentioned finding.. bits... of the Mayor, so I had hoped there might be something remaining of your earthly body as well-- perhaps a bone. But....” He shook his head, surveying the area. “Even if there were something here after all this time, I’m at a bit of a loss to suggest a way to find it.”
Rosenberg spoke, from where she was laying out an assortment of herbs on a white towel spread as a kind of makeshift table. “But did it have to be the physical body? I thought I read that objects with special significance to the person, or something that was on a person when he died, could be substituted. Could there still be a coat button around here somewhere, or, I don’t know, a key, maybe?”
Giles glanced up at Snyder apologetically. “It really depends on you, I suppose. I’ve read that ghosts have a remarkable ability to sense the location of significant objects, or the location of their... ah, bodies. I’m sure it’s uncomfortable, but do you get any sense of....?”
Snyder began striding toward the collapsed breezeway, stopping at its edge and looking around for a moment. Then he knelt and fished around in the weeds at the end of the walk. He turned, rising, and held up a small object, a piece of twisted metal hanging from thin a metal chain. “Will this work?” he asked.
“What is it?” Buffy came closer to him to get a better look. He laid it in her hand.
“Something I wore every day of my life from the time I was seven,” he answered quietly. “Given to me by one Sister Mary Catherine Joseph, on the occasion of my First Communion. It’s a Christopher medal.”
Buffy looked from the ruined medal to his eyes. She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him in, not pity, but a gentle sympathy. He opened his hand and she replaced the medal in it. He concentrated on keeping a firm grasp, on the feeling of the cold, wet metal in his palm.
“So,” Snyder said, turning back to the others, “How does this ritual go?”
“The um, laying ritual simply requires you to choose someone and impart some knowledge of import or significance to you-- a secret, perhaps. In this case, something as simple as revealing your full given name to one of us might do the trick. While you’re doing that the rest of us can finish preparations for the other spell. We’ll need to clear a space for a fire about here....” Giles indicated an area about three feet from the platform, and Harris, his girlfriend and the girl they called Tara began carefully removing chairs and rubble.
Snyder looked on for a few moments. To an observer, he might have seemed impassive, but inwardly his thoughts were racing. He pulled himself together and turned to Buffy, who was still beside him. “Miss Summers, could I have a word with you in my office?” He gestured and inclined his head, inviting her to precede him across the courtyard to the hallway door. “I believe you know the way.”
Snyder’s office was still standing, if one wanted to call it that. The bookshelves had collapsed, and the books and binders had long since been ruined by the rain which streamed in freely through the shattered window. In fact, their breakdown was so far advanced that he could see some wispy tendrils of weeds taking hold here and there in the piles of decay. The potted plant on the windowsill was still there, thriving out of control. It had been dying on Graduation day the previous year, he recalled.
But the desk was still situated imposingly in the center of the space, dust and debris scattered across it. Two chairs faced the desk, and his own chair had its back to the window. Buffy picked her way carefully across the threshold and let out a low whistle as she looked around the room.
Snyder's lips twisted in a wan smile. “Sorry for the mess,” he said, oddly embarrassed. He drifted over to the open window and looked out, where the eastern sky was turning a pale pink as dawn drew nearer. He glanced back at Summers, who had seated herself carefully in her accustomed old chair, looking at him with an expectant but puzzled expression. He hesitated a moment more, then came to a decision.
“Raymond Ethelbert Ignatius Snyder,” he announced. At her uncomprehending look, he clarified, “That was my full given name. And,” he added, “If you ever tell anyone else, I will personally come back and haunt you to death.”
Buffy’s grin slowly brightened her face. “Hey, no one with a name like ‘Buffy’ has any room making fun of anybody else’s name."
“That’s true,” Snyder agreed. He reached out to straighten the in-box tray on the corner of his desk, frowning at the result.
“But that’s not the only reason you called me in here, is it?”
“Should be enough to cover the spell, if your friend Mr. Giles is correct,” Snyder answered, still not looking at her.
“Maybe. What if it’s not?”
He turned to face her abruptly. “Do you think we have any unfinished business?” He watched as she considered how best to answer this question.
“Well,” she said finally, “You never did get around to expelling me....” She grinned to show she was kidding.
“Did so,” he scowled. “Not my fault it didn’t stick.” He grimaced at the memory. “You have your friend Mr. Giles to thank for that.”
“Yeah. I’ve got him to thank for a lot,” Buffy agreed, a little sadly.
Snyder was looking out the window again. “I did have one other thing I wanted to say,” he admitted without turning. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. That I wish I had been the kind of man who could have helped you, or even believed in what you were doing... in what you were doing right under my nose.”
There was a long silence. Then Buffy said, “Thank you, Sir.”
He shrugged and looked back at her. She was studying him, as if trying to figure out another of the many puzzles that made up a Slayer’s existence. He had no doubt she’d eventually come to make some sense of whatever she was wondering about. Just as he was equally sure there was no way he ever would. No matter how much time was left to him.
“We’d best be getting back, see how the others are doing,” he suggested. She nodded and rose from the chair carefully. He took one last look around his old domain. Then, as he stepped through the doorway, he reached up automatically and flipped the light switch off. He paused, then grinned slightly. Old habits died hard, he supposed.
Giles looked up at their approach. “Excellent,” he said. “We’re just about ready here. You’ve completed the first ritual, yes?” His eyes flicked over to Buffy, then, as if trying to gauge her state of mind after her visit to the principal’s office. Snyder smiled a little at his concern. Then he frowned.
“Well, yes,” he replied. “But I’m not sure I feel any different.”
The librarian, no, Watcher, Snyder corrected himself mentally, nodded. “I doubt you will until we break the other spell. Willow, would you hand me that white clay bowl, there by the bundle of sage?”
She passed it over without a word and Giles looked Snyder in the eye. “The original compulsion spell probably required more than blood. Knowing the Mayor, possibly a lot more.” He looked from principal to Slayer, his expression very serious. “Breaking it may have some dangerous consequences, or unleash some unpredictable forces. I’m going to have Willow and Tara using their limited powers to boost a talisman which may offer us all some protection.” He cast a stern eye on Willow and Tara, as if to impress upon them the seriousness of the undertaking. “One must always remember, Nature always exacts a cost for magic. There are always consequences.”
“As there are in any endeavor in life,” Snyder said, in what he hoped was a confident tone. “I understand. Let’s... Let’s do it.”
“All right,” Giles said. “Buffy, do you have the knife?”
“Yeah.”
“And Snyder, you have the medal?”
He dangled it in the air at the end of its broken chain.
Giles held out the bowl. “Place the St. Christopher medal in this,” he directed, and Snyder did so. He felt curiously bereft after it left his hands, though he had in fact been separated from it ever since the day he’d died.
“Now, Buffy, we must both cut ourselves with the knife and add a few drops of our blood to this bowl.” He handed the bowl to her and reached out to take hold of the knife she offered him. He sliced the blade across his palm, just enough for the blood to well up in a crimson line. His hand flickered in the firelight as he held it over the bowl and let three drops of dark red blood fall. He accepted a clean handkerchief from Anya and wrapped it around his hand to stanch the wound, then took the bowl back and handed the knife carefully to Buffy.
The girl looked at Snyder for a long moment. “Any last words?” she asked, holding up the knife, stained with her Watcher’s blood.
He considered briefly. Something in him still shied away from expressing his feelings, but this really was his last chance, and something else in him demanded, as simple courtesy if nothing else, that he acknowledge just what they were doing for him. For everyone. When he finally spoke, he made it a point to look at each of them in turn.
“You kids,” he began, then grinned a little ruefully as he corrected himself. “You young people, and you, Mr. Giles... you’re doing okay. Sunnydale owes you a debt.” He grinned again, remembering the very different context in which he’d last heard those words. “A debt of gratitude.” he clarified. “And so do I. Thank you for helping me. Whatever happens. Just.... Thank you.” He met Buffy Summers’ eyes, drew himself up a little straighter. “I’m ready.”
He watched as she sliced the knife across her own palm. As if from a great distance he heard the watcher’s quiet voice, chanting something in Latin he could not quite make out. As the blood dripped into the bowl, he saw a light, flickering at first, then growing ever brighter before his eyes. His last thought was that the light was really kind of beautiful. Just like Sister had always told him it would be.
*****
Epilogue
Buffy sat on the couch staring at the fading embers in Giles’ fireplace. It was early morning. Giles was busying himself putting away the spell ingredients that had helped send Ray Snyder to his final destiny. Xander and Anya had left their friends at the high school front walk, supposedly so Xander could catch a little sleep before work. Tara and Willow had bid them good night on the walk outside, receiving a warm hug from each of them in turn. Willow had looked a little concerned for her, but Buffy had smiled reassuringly and said, “I’ll stay here a while. I’m okay.”
Giles had allowed her to mull over the night’s events without much conversation, though she had caught him gazing over at her several times, gentle concern in his eyes. But now, placing the last of the herbs in their places in the cabinet, he said, “You’ve been very quiet, Buffy. Are you sure you’re all right?”
She glanced up as he came to join her on the couch. “Yeah,” she said. “My hand hurts a little.” She held up her bandaged hand. Then she grimaced. “I bet yours is worse. Sorry. No Slayer healing for you, huh?”
“No, just the ordinary Watcher kind, I’m afraid.” He studied her face closely. “You look tired. Would you like me to drive you home?”
Buffy shook her head and stared back into the fireplace. “Nah. Mom’s out of town and....” She trailed off, unsure how to express it.
“And you don’t want to be alone just now,” Giles finished for her. She smiled gratefully.
“Yeah.” They lapsed into silence again. Then Giles stirred beside her.
“Um, Buffy, did Snyder say anything to upset you tonight? Because if he did....”
Buffy shook her head. “No. It’s just... I hated him, you know?”
Giles nodded. “We all did. What did he say to you tonight, then? He seemed very different from the odious little troll I remember.”
Buffy smiled. “Yeah, he really did.”
And Buffy related the whole of the night’s adventures to her Watcher. When she had finished, they both sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Buffy looked up with a puzzled frown.
“I thought Snyder was just petty and cruel because he enjoyed the power. But he really thought he was doing good by being so mean to us. He thought he was helping us. How can someone go through his whole life, get to where he’s a grown up like that, and be so wrong about everything?”
Giles considered the question soberly. “Well, Buffy, adults are really very little different from children in that regard. Older, more experienced, perhaps. But people see, by and large, what they wish to see. And they form habits of perception over the years, to explain their experiences, and to shape the ways in which they respond to those experiences. Snyder was no different.”
“Yeah.” Buffy frowned, unconvinced. “But the good man I met tonight-- he was always there, somewhere inside. Why couldn’t he have shown himself before now? Before he died?”
There was a much longer pause this time, before Giles replied, almost as if to himself, “I suppose some men are too afraid. Some men take on a role to help them do what they perceive to be their duty, and they wake up one morning to find they have become that role. It’s no longer something they can cast off at will. They need it too much, to fulfill their purpose in the world.”
“Roles like Watcher?” Buffy asked, looking hard at him.
Giles shrugged, not meeting her gaze. “Perhaps.”
“What would you be like? If you weren’t a Watcher?”
“I... I don’t know,” he answered. “The only time in my life that I wasn’t a Watcher, I was something much worse.”
“And that was a role, too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose it was.”
Buffy was frowning again. “So how can I know when I’m right? If someone so much older can be that clueless, what chance do I have?”
“Buffy,” Giles said patiently, “Principal Snyder was hardly a model of self awareness when he was alive. And he lacked a very important resource you possess. You have friends who will tell you honestly when they think you’re off track. And the fact that you think to ask these kinds of questions-- you’re decades ahead of Snyder there. You’ll be all right. Trust me.”
Buffy yawned. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long night.”
Giles smiled and rose from the couch. “Indeed it has. Let me get you a blanket. You’re perfectly welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“Thanks, Giles.” She watched him go down the darkened hallway to pull a blanket from his linen closet.
“Giles?” she asked, as he returned and held out the thin cotton blanket, all she really needed on a summer’s night.
“Yes?”
“Promise me something. Promise me you’ll practice letting go of your role once in a while. Just being you. Whoever that is.”
Giles gave her a long, considering look. “All right,” he said finally. “I’m not sure I know how, but.... I promise.”
Buffy settled herself under her blanket. Giles reached over to switch off the lamp. Buffy said, “Please... leave it on.” He gave her a look of mild surprise, and she explained, “Ever since those creepy dreams we all had, I’ve been a little restless at night. I wake up a lot. I just don’t want to wake up and not know where I am.” She brightened as a new thought occurred to her. “But hey, maybe with Snyder gone, things will get back to normal.”
Giles chuckled. “Or whatever passes for it here. All right, then. Good night, Buffy.”
“Good night, Giles.”
She heard the stairs creak underneath his feet as he ascended to his own bed in the loft. She felt safe and warm, but a little uneasy. She needed to get out more she decided, just before she fell asleep. Let go of her Slayer role once in a while, just be a normal college kid. She wondered what the two of them would be, without their roles to dictate their actions. Just Buffy. Just Giles. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep.
For anyone interested, a discussion of the writing of this fic can be found here.
