Title: An Aussie Valentine
Author: Gail Christison

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

Part 4

Buffy's eyes danced and her voice dropped to a provocative tone. "I wouldn't have minded not leaving at all."

He laughed a little at that and smiled. "I suppose we could have made do with room service..."

"Of course that would mean that we weren't sitting here drinking...what is this? Oh, yeah...Tropical Itches..." She paused again at his expression and wrinkled her nose. "Okay, so you're drinking boring old beer...but look at the view...how many sunsets do we ever get to see...and how many of 'em look like this?" She swept a hand expansively across the view of the bow of the catamaran they were on, toward the fiery sunset and its reflection on the waters of the near-windless harbour. They'd passed under the bridge and glided past the unlikely, but truly beautiful opera house, cruised lazily around the harbour and were now on their way back, towards the end of their adventure.

Giles watched her for a long moment. "You've changed. And there's nothing boring about Australian beer."

She looked at him over her drink, with what Xander would call a 'duh' expression on her face, and a question in her eyes.

He answered. "Not so long ago you wouldn't have been able to sit still, let alone appreciate the view, or the moment, particularly at this hour..."

"Not so long ago I was all there was...it needed me and I needed it...the patrolling-the hunting, the world-saving... Now..."

"Now...?"

"Now it doesn't need me anymore and somehow, I don't seem to need it so much anymore, either. Think that might have to do with how happy and content a certain someone makes me feel?"

He grinned again and deliberately slipped into his 'Watcher voice'. "Very likely. The drives of a Slayer are very powerful and you frequently had no outlet for those...er ...drives... other than the act of the hunt, itself."

She stopped sipping at the large green drink and smiled widely. "Now my drives can hardly keep up with their new 'outlet'," she purred and touched his hand, to have hers engulfed by his elegant fingers.

"Are you really happy?"

She returned the pressure and replied, strong emotion in her voice, "I'm whole, Giles."

Their eyes held for a long time then he nodded.

Buffy raised her cocktail. "To love...the forever kind." Her grey blue eyes grew bright with both emotion and the smouldering edge of passion. "To us."

Giles touched his glass of Carlton draught to hers, his green ones darkening in reply.

"To us."

"I said the stones were brought here a very long time ago. I did not say that where we were going would be in the least primitive, nor did I say the conditions would necessarily be harsh. You were the one who immediately assumed it would be some kind of...rather unpleasant...tribal rite."

"Yeah, like the first thing thousand year old mystical stones call to mind is a water taxi ride across Sydney harbour to a to-die-for house overlooking the water."

Giles rang the doorbell.

Just when Buffy had decided that things were looking decidedly normal, the door opened and an Isgoth demon peered down at them from its statuesque seven foot six height, it's almost crystalline blue eyes appraising them beneath fine white eyebrows and a flowing silver mane barely tamed by a beaten silver or pewter clasp.

"Hey there," Buffy said brightly, only to be elbowed, albeit gently, by Giles.

"Hello, Rogan."

"Greetings, Rupert."

"Rogan D'Aignoth Var K'Zah'klel, I would like you to meet Buffy Summers. Buffy, this is Rogan, Keeper of the Stones."

"Rogan?" Buffy asked, holding the glittering blue gaze with her bemused grey one.

"Through the millennia I have travelled this dimension, I have found it best to choose a name that is comfortable in the mouths of those with whom I must deal."

"I get that," she empathized, secretly envying the almost translucent and impossibly perfect blue-white skin.

"I invite you into my home."

Buffy frowned and then looked up at Giles.

"You're being invited to enter. Rogan doesn't think you're a vampire. It's just his people's custom. No Isgoth demon would enter another's home without a formal invitation."

"Oh." She turned back to the demon, whom she could now swear was trying to suppress amusement. "Well, thanks."

They made their way into the immaculate home, and through the normal, if incredibly expensively furnished, living room, down a corridor and through a door to...

She blinked. "We're not in Kansas any more, Toto."

"Ah, no," Giles agreed as Rogan's impressive bulk sort of slowly faded out until they were left alone in the eerie, bluish silver world.

"Let me guess. The Isgoth dimension, right?"

"More or less."

"More...Or less?

Giles cleared his throat. "Less. Actually, it's complicated. This is...well, it's rather like a dimensional hermit shell. As you can see, Rogan's real environment bears very little resemblance to ours. This enables him to essentially stay sane when travelling for prolonged periods of time outside his own dimension."

After a few moments to digest that, Buffy sighed. "So I guess we're going to be doing the test thing after all, huh?"

"Um, yes. Right now, in fact."

At the sound of a shrill whistle, Buffy turned swiftly, but rather than ferocious beasts or vampires about to attack them, she found a small Isgoth child, about her own height, but quite obviously a juvenile, blinking at her with huge violet eyes.

"Hey there," she said quietly, every nerve screaming as she stood down from attack mode as fast as her body had locked into it in the first place.

The child appeared to begin to smile self-consciously, then disappeared.

"Oo-kay."

"Yes, fascinating," Giles agreed soberly, scanning the area carefully. "Behind you."

She wheeled again as a truly huge four-legged, gun-metal grey beast, the like of which she'd never seen before, leaped out of the darkness toward Giles, four rows of razor-sharp shark-like teeth bared. In the time it took her to turn, Buffy hurled herself in front of it and stopped its forward momentum with her own body. It crashed to its knees, then scrambled up and lunged at her. Still shaking her head and catching her wind from the force of the impact, Buffy was forced to think quickly, grabbing the creature by its reptilian head to keep it from taking s'mores out of her hide.

"Buffy!" Giles roared, trying to find something, anything in the way of a weapon that would help. As always, he carried a concealed stake, and cross...neither of which was going to do very much good against that hide. With a small noise he dove into his inside pocket, under his wallet, and pulled out the penknife...not so much a weapon as a utility device, and pulled open the small blade.

By that time Buffy and the beast were rolling on the ground, the creature trying to rake Buffy's back with its talon-like claws, her grunts revealing the strain she was under just from holding back the powerful head.

Without thought for his own safety, Giles launched himself into the fray, getting as close to the creature's rump as possible, knowing that its heart was far more likely to be located there than in its chest.

Aware of what he was doing, the creature swiped at him several times and swung away as he closed in, but that only gave Buffy the opportunity to throw it off balance and roll so that she was no longer pinned, though still anchored to the fearsome head.

At the height of the confusion of the roll Giles took his chance and plunged the blade of the pocket-knife into the lizard-like flesh of the left rump all the way to the hilt. The beast screamed in outrage, but seemed barely affected by the injury in terms of strength and power. It took a little longer to retrieve the blade, but Giles persisted, this time choosing a traditional target. It shrieked and yowled and threw its head back, finally wrenching it from Buffy's hands as it tried to dislodge the blade from its eye.

The distraction was enough for Buffy to finish the job, using Slayer Strength to swiftly break the creature's neck. She looked up as it slid to the floor and vanished, then scrambled to get to Giles' side. He was breathing hard and holding a long slice that had shredded his left shirtsleeve and soaked it with blood.

"It's all right; not too deep," he said hoarsely, between breaths, as she fussed.

The area suddenly grew very bright, and both of them looked around urgently for more trouble. Instead, a large portal had appeared.

Through it they could both see...of all things...Sunnydale High School. The past. And the past was flashing by, ridiculously like a fast-frame DVD search, starting with Buffy's romance with Angel, and Giles with Jenny, through the horror of Angelus, including the night Buffy spent with Angel and his transformation in the morning. On and on until Giles couldn't mute a strangled noise of pain as he watched Angelus despatch Jenny at the school. Buffy's legs gave out, leaving her on her knees as she watched the aftermath and the true horror of Angelus' cruelty, at Giles' apartment.

Next to her Giles stood, silent and frozen, but for the trembling of hands that would not be stilled.

Still kneeling, Buffy lost all colour and expression when the procession of their personal history reached the vision of Giles, wounded, broken, tied in a chair and contorted in agony as Angelus toyed with the broken fingers on the bound hands, and laughed. When it didn't stop, she longed to turn away, but couldn't, held captive now by sorrow as she finally faced the truth about that day and the choices she'd made. When Angelus opened a cloth and spread out the same set of instruments Faith was going to use on her, Buffy sobbed, but by then she not only could not, but would not, look away.

They both watched in silence, only Giles' rasping breathing and her jagged intakes of breath punctuating the silence. On and on it continued until the rescue, and Xander taking Giles away while Buffy fought on. It was Giles' turn to make an anguished noise as he watched his charge struggle with the choice to consign an ensouled Angel to hell forever before the sword, once again, plunged downward.

The perspective immediately switched to the hospital and Xander finally leaving Giles' bedside in the early hours of the morning in the belief that the older man had drifted off to sleep, despite the obvious discomforts of the drip and the splinted and boarded fingers and hand.

Not until Xander had been gone for several minutes did that Giles' eyes open again, a look of such despair, such pain in them.

Next to Buffy, Giles looked away, but she could not, her insides twisted and screaming as she watched those strong, steady eyes gradually fill with moisture and the broken, battered body curl agonisingly into a foetal ball as he began to weep in earnest: racking, lonely sobs that no one would ever hear, no one would ever see. Buffy's hands curled into fists and her mouth set in an angry line, unaware of the moisture that had tracked down so far it was slipping from her jaws and dripping untidily onto the front of her blouse.

Then, suddenly, the scene changed again and a small noise from Buffy made Giles turn back. He watched in silence, his expression dark, as the younger version of his lover discovered the returned vampire and hid him, helped him, and struggled with the choices she had, to ultimately make the wrong one, yet again.

Buffy yelped as the vision filled with Gwen Post's almost fatal assault on Giles, then swore, using an epithet he never thought to hear from her lips, when she saw the paramedic at Giles' side and recalled her words: 'You want him to live? Get out of the way...'

Then they were watching Giles, in the hospital, alone. This time not even Xander stood by his side...just a single lonely nurse, sitting quietly in a corner watching the monitors, his drip, listening to the monotonous beep of the monitor as she waited while he hovered between life and death.

Giles sighed. He had been grateful afterward that they hadn't had to operate to relieve pressure beneath the wound. Hospitals were bad enough for one or two days, let alone the time needed to recovery from neurosurgery.

Buffy watched when it was time for Giles to be discharged, still with none of them there to help, sitting on the side of the bed, gingerly trying to dress himself before the nurse returned with a wheelchair to take him through to a waiting cab. By now her heart had constricted into a tiny ball, the pain in her chest as relentless as the ache in her soul.

Then the scene was changing again and Giles saw himself, replete in robe and flourishing a whisky glass, and the look of surprise when Olivia appeared, then the stunned betrayal on his Slayer's face when he dismissed her. The vision prompted him to remember how much he'd enjoyed confronting her with the idea that he was actually a man, and not some aged eunuch retainer, and then hit him with the seeming indifference with which he'd cast her loose, his calculated effort to force her to embrace her independence as foolishly ill-timed as his departure after her return from the grave.

Both of them suffered through more memories as Riley slid by, Joyce's death, and a plethora of other hurts...shared and otherwise, before they were confronted by themselves, angry and frightened, shouting at each other, raging about the coming battle with Glory.

Giles' heart felt fit to burst. He didn't know if he could bear to relive that period, and he certainly couldn't bear Buffy to find out about Ben this way...or to see the way they all fell to pieces after her death...

Neither of them, however, was spared a single detail. Giles heard the rattle of Buffy's disbelieving gasp when his younger self smothered the pathetic Ben to prevent him from trading the entire world for his own existence.

The silence continued as they were both forced to relive the aftermath of Buffy's death, and worse, the horror of her resurrection...through her eyes. Then, finally, there was their reunion. Buffy found the pathetic, emotionally crippled wreck that she was then, almost impossible to look at, let alone understand how she could have been so blind...as time and again Giles tried to reach out, only to be pushed away, and Spike hovered, always with the right word, the right gesture...waiting...waiting.

For his part, Giles remained silent, angry at having to relive not only his grief after her death, but the humiliation of her repeated rejections just when he'd thought he had her back...when he thought perhaps...just perhaps...he'd been given a second chance...only to find that what Willow had resurrected no more resembled the fiery, determined Slayer he'd once known and loved, than even the most perfect silk imitation resembled a rose...

The montage continued relentlessly.

Both cringed at the raw pain and hurt in the exchange between them when he announced that he was leaving, neither of them grasping what it really was that was driving them apart.

As Buffy physically made herself smaller, while the train-wreck that was her relationship with Spike flashed by...making both of them almost physically sick at times, Giles began to wonder why this was happening to them: what purpose could possibly be achieved by making them confront or relive all this abject misery, humiliation and pain. He knew that Buffy was going to be as haunted by the revelations about him as he was by those stark images of her descent into darkness...so much heartache and despair and no one to save either of them, except each other.

And both of them too stubborn and too stupid to realize it before now...

Before the montage was anywhere near over, they pulled away almost simultaneously, turned from each other as, behind them, a lonely Giles returned to a cold and silent Bath flat, unlocking the door and padding across a darkened room to slump despondently in an armchair next to its empty mate, while a moment later an equally lonely Buffy returned from Slaying to a darkened, silent Sunnydale house, padded across the living room and curled up in her mother's chair without turning on the light.

The real Buffy and Giles withdrew even further from the portal, so that it stopped, as though a living link had severed. Neither of them noticed at first, so engulfed were they by the enormity of their past, in all its flaws, its brilliance...and horror, and what lay, until now, just beyond the façade they presented to each other.

The silence dragged on. It was impossible to know where to start...even more impossible to move, to make numb bodies turn or pale faces meet.

Finally, as though in silent concert still, they turned together, began to speak...together.

"Buffy, you don't ..."

"Giles, you can't..."

And fell silent again...together.

The blue-grey eyes rolled up to look at his drawn, tired face and to try unsuccessfully to meet the familiar green gaze.

"If Alan Funt steps out now, can I stake him?"

Giles' gaze flew, almost against his will, to hers then.

Their eyes locked, both near to tears again; both angry, humiliated, embarrassed and finally...full of sorrow.

"Not if I get to him first with this," Giles said through his teeth, comically flourishing the tiny knife.

And then the weave, drawn to breaking point, began to unravel, both of them starting with a snicker, and rapidly devolving into a near-histrionic roar of laughter, soon punctuated by chokes, and then by tears.

Still laughing, and weeping, they staggered into each other and finally sank to the floor together, the guffaws giving way to sobs as they fell into each other's arms and held on; held on against the tide of recrimination, self-hatred and fear.

"Please...don't hate me," Buffy whispered when they finally quieted. "I'll go away...anything. Anything but that."

Giles' voice was strong but wrung by emotion, and as sad as hers. "There is nowhere we can go that's far enough away from what we are."

"Yes there is," Buffy reminded him quietly.

Giles closed his eyes, his voice harsh. "No. Not again. Not on my watch." A moment later he opened them again, captured and held her gaze. "I could never hate you, Buffy. Despair, yes; even despise, at times...but I could never...I cannot...hate that which I love with all my heart."

A fresh sob caught in her throat, making a terrible noise and almost choking her, as she swallowed it back down. "You can't do that...how can you do that? You saw...you saw it all...what I am...what I did..."

"And so did you."

Buffy stared at him for a long moment. "I saw a good man beaten down by the hand he was dealt...by me...pretty much." Her trembling voice dropped to an unsteady whisper. "I may hate what you did to Ben...but not as much as I hate myself for making you do it...forcing you to have to make that choice so I didn't have to."

Giles' eyes widened at the self-loathing in her voice.