Title: An Aussie Valentine
Author: Gail Christison

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

Part 5

"I know," she said, watching him. "I know. I'm supposed to be tearing you to shreds right now, yelling excuses and the kind of sanctimonious garbage I used to justify bailing on you then, and how many other times when I couldn't deal any other way? Ben shouldn't have had to die, but someone had to end it...or it would all have been for nothing...and way more innocent people would have paid. I should have known that...should have understood what had to be done...." She half smiled, but it died on her lips. "Funny, even dying never gave me this kind of clarity...unless you count an absolute certainty that I AM going to be cremated next time and scattered somewhere open and preferably pretty..." She paused for a moment, then added: "and that M&Ms were never meant to have peanuts in them..."

It was Giles' turn to almost smile. Buffy would always be Buffy... But it faded just as quickly from his lips as the attendant baggage closed in to crush them both down again.

"I'm sorry...about Ben," he said quietly, half a lifetime of words on the tip of his tongue, but no desire left to say them.

"I know." She dropped her gaze. "I'm sorry too."

The awkward silence returned.

"We aren't good at this, are we?" Buffy finally said without looking up.

"Bloody hopeless," he agreed just as uncomfortably, also without moving his gaze from the ground.

Finally Buffy took a deep breath and raised her head.

"Bitch."

Giles raised his then, surprised but unruffled by the gesture. He nodded.

"Bastard."

Her eyes lit up and she nodded back, but did not move. The next few seconds were the longest and most agonising of her life. And then it happened.

Slowly and deliberately, Giles opened his arms.

Her legs turned to jelly and she almost literally didn't make it.

For a time they simply held each other, before seeking each other out, mouths merging into a kiss that didn't end until reality unravelled around them and they found themselves back in the house.

They broke apart and shuffled backwards, away from each other.

"Did we fail?" Buffy asked warily, brushing hair out of her eyes, oblivious to her pale face and completely ruined make up.

Giles shook his head and looked around warily, not looking very much better. "I have no idea."

The fair eyebrows frowned again. "Your arm...?"

Giles lifted his bloodied arm and drew the shredded fabric back. All that remained of his wound was a fine, scabbed line the length of the original site. He dropped it again and shrugged.

Just then Rogan appeared as if from thin air, which perhaps he had.

He smiled. "You have completed the trials successfully."

"We have?"

The taciturn Isgoth turned to her. "You would become the Guardians of the Stones. To prove that you were worthy of the task...that such a burden could be entrusted to you..." His eyes moved from one to the other. "We had to know who you truly were."

Buffy dragged a harried hand through her hair, grey eyes flashing with consternation.

"I don't get it. That portal thingy just showed you how horrible I am...how much badness there was...even that monster didn't prove...I mean, that's just what I do..."

Rogan smiled and flicked a glance toward Giles. "Ask him," he said, handing Giles a black velvet bag tied with a silver thread, and sealed with what looked like a twisted ring of fresh herbs, blue and grey and aromatic, before vanishing once again.

Giles stared down at the bag for a while, as though he'd forgotten what they'd come for in the first place.

"So," Buffy finally prompted, her voice betraying still frayed nerves.

He looked up slowly, enlightenment glowing in his eyes.

"The first test wasn't about strength or courage. It was about character...and judgement. You were in full attack mode. At that point, most warriors would not have stopped to consider that it was a juvenile, or meant no harm. You did. Not only that, but you were genuinely concerned and showed kindness despite being in a state of agitated readiness to fight."

"In other words ...I passed."

He nodded.

"The second test was also less about strength than about courage and loyalty...and about the bond between us. We were, essentially, ready to die for each other but, united, we were able to overcome."

"That's two ticks for us," she smiled, though it was only a shadow of her usual grin. "But I should have had a huge 'Reject' stamp across my ass after that last one. You saw. I saw. It was pretty obvious...and it *wasn't* pretty."

Giles rolled his eyes at the play on words. "No, it wasn't. But they weren't judging us on what we saw. They were judging us on how we dealt with it. Do you think you can tell me why we passed, now?"

Buffy frowned, looking more fragile than she had since that day he'd first laid eyes on her after her return from the grave. She shook her head. "I really don't know. Of course I know why they'd pick you, but honestly...even I wouldn't pick me after that."

He couldn't stop a chuckle, which didn't endear him. "I'm sorry, love," he said ruefully, at her mildly affronted expression, and then made an effort to sober up again. "I was thinking about it the whole time Rogan was talking to us. They showed us the darkest parts of ourselves...the things we'd never show or confide to each other. It was a test of us...of the strength of the bond between us...our love, if you like..."

"So...if we'd had a fight about it, or ended up hating each other, or even just plain made each other sick...or never wanted to speak to each other again...they would have failed us?"

"Something like that," he said quietly.

"So is that it?"

He stirred from his thoughts. "Um...yes...I believe so."

"And Rogan's gone? What about his little hermit shell?"

Giles smiled. "It was never really here, and neither was he."

Buffy looked down at the pouch in his hands and the blood on his sleeve. "Yeah, right. And I'm in Hawaii getting a tan right now."

He chuckled. "He just borrowed a little piece of our reality for a while and put it in physical terms that our minds could understand. Rogan can go home now. He's found a new keeper of the stones and he won't be required to return until it's time to pass them on again."

Tired and drawn, Buffy looked up at him with unexpected ferocity. "You lied to me," she said crossly. His eyes widened, but he waited patiently for an explanation. "There was no impending apocalypse...no world saving."

"Ah...but that's where you're wrong. The power of these stones in the wrong hands could easily bring about the end of this world, or any other. That is why we were chosen to undertake the test, and now to guard the stones until the next guardians are called."

"So why not take them back with him? Wouldn't that be the easiest way...?"

Giles shook his head. "The stones belong here. They would cease to exist in Rogan's true reality...and the magick would be unleashed...probably with catastrophic consequences."

She subsided and closed her eyes. "Oh. I'm sorry...it's just..."

Only too aware how tired they both were of being 'chosen', he trailed his fingers down her cheek and smiled when she leaned into them.

"I know," he said softly, a myriad of meanings in those two words.

Buffy's eyes opened slowly, and looked up at him with a depth of emotion that moved him more than he could say, and spoke with an intensity that shook both of them.

"I love you, Rupert Giles. With everything that I am, and everything I have. I love you, even though I don't deserve it...and I've never deserved you."

Still holding her gaze with burning eyes, he stared for the longest time, then leaned down and brushed her mouth with his. "Let's go home," he said softly.

"Giles?"

"Here," came the echo from the bathroom.

"Did I have a bad dream last night?"

"Um...depends whether that's a commentary on our love-making or a reference to our adventures across the harbour." A groan from the other room made him grin.

He emerged from the bathroom wiping the last of his shower from his neck and shoulders, Buffy watching appreciatively as he sauntered across the air-conditioned room.

The previous night's urgent, possessive lovemaking had been about more than sex, or even romance. It had been about rebuilding, and reaffirming...and most of all about letting go.

"You look good enough to eat," she teased. "And you smell nice."

"It's that Jovan stuff you bought for me. Personally, I'm not really a musk..."

"It turns me on."

"Ah. Then it's perfect," he twinkled, making her giggle.

"Are you okay?"

The smile faded and he came and sat on the bed. "I will be," he said honestly and reached out to touch her face again. "It's going to take a little time...for both of us."

She nodded then smiled uncertainly again. "One bright side: suddenly we don't have any secrets left, or issues to fight about..."

"We could, of course, re-cycle old ones," he suggested, picking up on her mood. "Like the toothpaste cap I found on the floor in the shower...for example..."

"Or not," she mock-pouted and kissed him on his minty mouth. "What's for breakfast?"

"I rather hoped *you* were," Giles growled playfully. He kissed her back, drawing her into his arms and chuckling at her 'ick, you're still all damp' and half-hearted squirming before surrendering to the kiss completely, and in fact pushing him onto his back on the bed in one smooth movement.

The large arms went around her and appreciative hands slid down the smooth back and over the inviting curves below it, making her growl with delight and arch against them as the impassioned sharing of mouths, lips and tongues continued.

Giles revelled in her body, the sense of power beneath silken softness, the lithe suppleness of her form, the breasts once again full and female after being gone so long, and the sweet, full curves of her well-shaped buttocks. He could feel himself burning once again with the need to be inside her, to again know the feeling of losing themselves in each other, of the sheer joy of their union...

Joy had been so rare in his life...almost non-existent, in fact, that now, when it had come so close to being taken away from him again, he couldn't get enough of the precious gift he'd been given...they'd been given.

Buffy groaned as he found and pressed himself against the warm, moist folds, and moved to torment him by caressing his length with her heat, over and over until he didn't think he could hold out much longer, and then she moved to break the contact.

Giles made a noise, which Buffy recognised and smiled to herself. She was gone for just seconds, but to Giles it felt like a lifetime. When she came back, it was with something in her hand. A moment later he felt cool drips of something on his almost painfully hard erection. Whatever it was, it was terribly viscose, sliding awfully slowly down his length.

"Buffy...?"

But before he could say more he shuddered. "Jeesss...s'ssss," he moaned as Buffy set about retrieving those drips of unused Yellow Box honey from the previous day's breakfast tray. It was astonishing what she could do with her tongue while those talented lips moved with such inspiration up and down his throbbing shaft...

And that was his last coherent thought for a while, until, just when he was arching off the bed, chasing her tormenting tongue yet again, Buffy moved, swinging her body back to replace lips and tongue and honey with another hungry place and a very different kind of nectar.

"Giles," she moaned appreciatively as she guided him in and slid slowly down, growling and moaning much as he was, until she had claimed all of him.

"Yes, my love," he whispered, clasping her hips just before another groan was torn from him as she began to move, the power of her inner muscles deliberately and deliciously tormenting as she took him with demanding, powerful strokes.

"Deeper," she growled almost to herself, as her movements grew faster and more frenetic. Giles made a noise in his throat when Buffy seemed to open herself wider and tilt her pelvis so that he could feel himself bumping her cervix, and the urgency of her hunger for the new sensation.

"Please...Oh God, Rupert...please!" She finally cried, and he knew that it was time to begin thrusting back...to give her what she wanted. Moments later he, too, was lost in the tidal wave of pleasure that was rapidly setting his body alight.

Then suddenly Buffy was gasping and her movements became frantic and uncontrolled, her ecstatic cries filling the room. It lit a fuse along the length of his entire body and he felt himself rise up and explode as the lithe body in his hands continued to thrust itself against him again and again until both of them were completely and utterly spent.