'Coquille Saint-Jacques a l'Amoricaine' was something she wanted to hear Giles' voice say aloud, a lot more than she wanted to listen to herself murdering every syllable.

When the waiter returned she listened happily to Giles' easy mixture of French and English as he ordered for both of them. He hadn't laughed or teased her about not wanting to pronounce the difficult French names, nor did he quibble about ordering for both of them.

Moments after the waiter left, soft music started to play. Buffy, who was facing the band, focused on them for the first time.

"Not exactly the top forty."

Giles turned and followed her gaze. "Part of the charm of this place is that it allows itself to be old fashioned. And part of the charm of being old-fashioned is that one can enjoy music and dancing without one's brains dribbling out of one's ears." He turned back and grinned at the look on her face.

She snorted. "You want to talk about melted brains? I never told you, but I made Willow find the Bay City Rollers on the Internet...pictures *and* music. *Tell me* you were kidding about-"

Giles closed his mouth and nodded sheepishly. "I was kidding. Tartan twits. I was taking out a girl back in those days, who was obsessed with them: squealing, sighing, scrapbooks, the whole lot," he mused then refocused. "I thought I was being clever. It didn't occur to me that you might never have heard of them."

"Thank God," she grinned, watching couples trickling out onto the dance floor for the first time. "What's that song?"

"Cole Porter...Begin the Beguine."

"It's pretty. Does it have words...and do I want to know what a 'beguine' is?"

"It's a type of dance and the music that goes with it." He smiled back. "And yes, it has words. Would you like to...?" He nodded toward the dance floor.

Her eyes lit up, giving him his answer. He stood and held out his hand once again.

As they glided onto the polished surface and Giles drew her into his arms, Buffy gave thanks for the very high heels she was wearing. She sighed happily as they automatically fitted together, swaying to the slow rhythm of the music. She couldn't remember the last time anything had felt so good...so right. Warmth spread through her body as her awareness of his, of the strong arm around her waist, suddenly grew.

And at that same moment another kind of awareness grew. Terrifying, exciting, shattering...and wonderful all in the same split second of recognition.

She was in love with Giles.

A wave of pure happiness washed over her and she snuggled into his chest. Less than a beat later she realised unequivocally that if this was true love, she was meeting it for the first time...

The arm that was around her waist shifted a little, and his hand rubbed small circles in the centre of her back, making Buffy realise her thoughts had made her tense, and Giles had felt it. She made herself relax again, still trying to put it all into perspective as they swung effortlessly past the band.

Giles leaned down and kissed her temple as they swayed before speaking softly in her ear.

"All right?"

It took some effort to lift her head and meet his eyes. She nodded. "More than all right," she whispered, her eyes luminous with emotion. "Nothing's ever been more right."

Despite the music, Giles must have understood, because a slow smile lit his face and he drew her against him again.

This time Buffy let go of his hand and slid both arms around him, leaning against him and closing her eyes, then sighing when he wrapped his large ones around her as they continued to sway. They remained that way through 'It Had To Be You', 'As Time Goes By', and 'Strangers In The Night' before Giles gently swung her off the dance floor as the band shifted seamlessly into Glen Miller's 'In The Mood'.

They returned, hand in hand, to their table, and settled just as their entr?es arrived and the drinks waiter appeared from nowhere with an ice bucket stand and the wine Giles ordered.

"No brain melting yet?" Giles teased when they were finally alone again.

Buffy made a face but couldn't keep from smiling back at him and shaking her head just a little. "I didn't want to stop," she confided.

"Neither did I," he agreed and reached across to touch her fingers. "But I'm sure they'll play another bracket of slow numbers later on. Hungry?"

The meal was heaven and, transported by Giles' easy small talk as they meandered through it, Buffy was able to truly forget for a while that she was anything other than a woman out with the man she loved. The dessert menu proved a challenge. Buffy was determined to miss nothing, but was flagging considerably after an entr?e and a main course.

Giles' look of enquiry enticed her to turn the dessert menu to show him what she was looking at. He'd been going to skip straight to coffee himself, but it was obvious Buffy wanted the chocolate confection at the top of the list. It was equally obvious that she didn't want to eat it by herself.

"It sounds delicious," he agreed, sure it was, but equally sure he'd be far better off with a cappuccino and an after-dinner mint. "But there's rather a lot of it. Shall we share?"

Buffy agreed happily and a waiter's attention was attracted.

When it came, the 'Chocolate Tower' looked as impressive as its name: rich chocolate mouse moulded around a white chocolate lattice, drizzled with raspberry sauce which pooled artfully on the snowy white plate, and decorated with curled milk and dark chocolate shavings.

Giles' insides groaned, but even he was impressed, and the look on Buffy's face when it was set in the centre of the table was more than enough for him. So much pleasure in a simple thing like an explosion of chocolate on a plate. It made him realize just how little joy or simple pleasure there was in the life of a Slayer. For a moment his smile flickered, then she looked up at him and grinned impishly, and he couldn't help but smile back.

"Thanks," she said softly.

It wasn't quite what he was expecting. He let his smile widen, the laughter lines at the corners of his warm eyes grooving deeply, and nodded.

After a beat, he was again surprised when Buffy slid a spoon into the sweet confection and held it up to his lips, watching as he slid his mouth over it and drew the mousse and chocolate off. When he swallowed, she moved to dip her spoon in again but he gently stayed her hand.

She watched as he picked his own up and brought a portion of the dessert to her surprised lips. She took it, much as he had, her eyes fixed on his, watching him watching her. The atmosphere between them had grown almost palpable.

Then, as she took another turn with the spoon, a glob of mousse fell into her wine glass, and the spell was broken, both of them laughing easily.

They continued to share the dessert until Buffy called an amused, groaning halt and Giles, whose stomach had been in mild revolt for some time, breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"I'm so gonna regret this later," she sighed happily.

Giles observed ruefully to himself that she probably wasn't going to be alone. He ordered coffee and they drank it very slowly until, as he'd predicted, the upbeat tempo of the music finally gave way to the slower standards once more.

By mutual assent, they soon found themselves on the dance floor again. Drowsy from the wine, the good food and the long day, Buffy didn't bother with the formalities. She simply moved into Giles' willing arms, laying her head against his chest, before sliding her own around him and sighing blissfully as she felt herself enveloped once more.

Giles, too, felt a level of contentment he never believed possible, as they drifted around the dance floor, barely aware that there existed a world beyond the two of them.

Eventually, however, the band switched back to 'Chattanooga Choo Choo', bringing the two of them abruptly back to Earth. When they returned to their table, Giles signalled for the bill.

As the BMW purred quietly through the backstreets of Sunnydale, Buffy rested her head on a tuxedoed shoulder. As she began to drowse, something became very clear. She didn't want the night to end any time soon, and for once she was at a loss as to how make that happen...

When she stirred some time later she was aware of a couple of things: they should have been home by now, and they were close to the ocean...she could smell it. The last time she was near the sea was with the gang, on the beach...barbecuing. Giles had stayed away, probably because Riley was there, among other things. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and in a way it was...several lifetimes, in fact.

When the car stopped, she sat up slowly and blinked.

Giles shifted and smiled at her tenderly. "Hello, sleepy head."

"Is there evil?"

"Possibly," he deadpanned, then grinned at the look on her face and her suddenly very large eyes, and shook his head. "To be honest, I wasn't quite ready for the evening to end yet."

Buffy relaxed again then sat up straight again in the same moment and put a hand on his chest. "Giles...the dress...these shoes...they're so not going in the sand..."

"Don't worry," he said, bending his head, "they won't be."

When his mouth covered hers, Buffy forgot about shoes...forgot about everything. Her arms slid around his neck as the kiss deepened and they slowly fell into each other.

Bathed in moonlight that seemed to reach across the water from the horizon to the hills far behind them, they spent forever exploring, discovering joy both had waited far too long to know.

Much, much later, Giles spoke first, finally releasing the soft lips and stroking a stray lock from her temple with a not quite steady hand.

"I think perhaps we should take that walk after all."

Dazed and a little confused, Buffy looked into his desire-blurred eyes, her own smoky with passion. "My new shoes..."

"Take them off. I haven't walked barefoot in the sand since I was..." Giles trailed off, his breathing almost normal again and the flush of colour almost gone from his face. Then he produced a slightly self-conscious, lop-sided grin. "Do you mind very much...?"

Buffy touched his face. "It's okay," she reassured him softly, well aware of the reason he wanted a change of venue, and ran her fingers lightly over the contour of his trousers, making him draw an audible breath. "Besides, I think I'd like to walk in the moonlight with you." A memory split her face into a grin. "Maybe even frolic a little."

Giles grinned back, remembering. "Or perhaps even a little leaping..."

"Or possibly even cavorting?"

For a beat they continued to smile at each other, then Giles traced her cheekbone with the backs of his fingers.

"Lord, I love you," he whispered hoarsely.

Her eyes blazed the same sentiment back at him before her expression grew mischievous.

"But not in the back of a BMW," she teased, flicking a glance over the back seat. "I get it now. You don't want your feet to stick out the window."

Giles snorted. "When I love you it will not be fumbling about in the back of a car like a teenager," he said in a voice that made her bones melt. "When I love you it will be the two of us and all the time we want...not a mad, sweaty, juvenile dash to..." He snorted again, kicked off his shoes and got out of the vehicle, throwing his socks back in before coming around and opening her door. When she turned her legs toward him, he lifted them so he could remove first one, then the other, silver shoe.

"Stockings or tights?" He asked, his green eyes flashing tigerishly in the moonlight.

Buffy, dazed, eased her long dress up past her knees. "Stockings."

The smiled widened to a wolfish grin and he ran his hand up a silken thigh, making her gasp softly, to the fastenings of her garter belt and expertly flicking each of them undone. He eased the silk down and drew it off her foot, then repeated the process with the other one, Buffy barely able to breathe when he was done...the touch of his fingertips against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs sending bolts through her entire body.

Giles dropped the two bits of silk on the floor of the car and carefully smoothed down her dress before taking her hands and easing her from the vehicle and into his arms.

Except this time he didn't kiss her, instead setting her down and offering her his hand.

Together, they picked their way across the grass, Buffy holding up the hem of her dress as they stepped onto the sandy path to the beach.

When they reached the high water mark, Giles paused to hitch up the cuffs of his pants.

The water was cold and Buffy shrieked the first time it ran across her toes. They meandered up the beach, playing at the fringes of the rising tide and laughingly fleeing the occasional surge that threatened their clothes, until a particularly large wave roiled up the beach. It was clear that Buffy hadn't seen it in time.

She looked up at Giles' barked warning and shrieked.

Fortunately he'd already summed the situation up, and simply scooped her up in one smooth movement to save the dress, before striding up to the high water mark, the incoming wash rushing past until it was perilously close to the edges of his rolled up pants.

Once they were clear he stopped and set her down.

"Okay, that was way too close for comfort."

"The dress would probably be perfectly fine after a trip to the cleaners," he pointed out gently. "In any event, it's not damaged."

Buffy leaned her forehead against his chest. "I know...it's just..." She sighed and looked up again. "It's part of tonight and I don't want *anything* about tonight to be messed up. Does that make sense?"

"Strangely enough, perfect sense."

A slow smile lit her face, matching the one on his. "Why are we fooling around on the beach when there are so many other interesting things we could be doing right now?" She asked provocatively, sliding her arms around his neck.

"Going slowly," he told her. "If the rest of our lives must be a chaotic rush, then let 'us' be the one thing that isn't." He followed his last words with a bending of his head to hers again, simultaneously drawing her slender body against his own. Both of them remained oblivious of the water that burbled up once again, and over Giles' feet and ankles, just missing Buffy's dangling toes as it rushed up the gentle bank of sand. The tide was still rising.

When they finally parted, Giles finally realised that his feet were no longer standing on dry sand and laughed as he scooped Buffy up again and marched towards the car.

When the car drew to a halt outside Giles' apartment building, they were both wide- awake, both more aware of each other than they had ever been before.

They sat quietly for a long moment after the engine was turned off. When they finally faced each other, almost at the same moment, both opened their mouths to speak then closed them again, eyes meeting and doing the talking for them.

Giles reached out and brushed a tender cheek with the backs of his fingers, somehow diffusing the overwhelming tension. In turn they finally smiled and looked a little sheepish, before opening their doors.

"I'm getting sand all over your floor."

Giles looked down at his own very sandy feet. "Don't worry about it, so did I," he called matter-of-factly from the kitchen, where he was putting the ubiquitous kettle on and trying hard to work out exactly why. "You're welcome to use the bathroom to rinse your feet, though, if you want."

A moment later Buffy halted in the archway to the kitchen and watched him with the cups, half-smiling and well aware that, for whatever reason, he was stalling. "Very tempting...but even more tempting if I had company." Her tone was provocative and enticing, despite the barest hint of uncertainty behind the teasing.

Giles stopped rattling cups then and stared at her for a long moment, butterflies in his stomach, and an almost dread sense of looming precipice...

...And then he remembered that he knew, now. Knew why he'd stayed all these years; why she was the only thing in his world that made sense; that mattered a damn, and always would be...

He turned off the gas without even looking down, before sweeping her up and carrying her through to the bathroom across the hall.

Inside, he kicked the door closed and put her down so that she was facing him, took her face in his hands and kissed her until she wasn't sure what planet she was on, let alone which bathroom. Then he lifted his head and met her bemused smile with one of his own, before sliding his arms around her and finding the zipper of her dress.

Buffy's entire body went from superheated to on fire as the zipper slid down to the small of her back and he very carefully slid the gown off her shoulders and over her hips. When she stepped lightly out of it, he hung it on the robe hook on the back of the bathroom door with one hand, and without taking his eyes from the vision before him. She was wearing only a tiny, hi-cut trifle of white silk, and a matching suspender belt for the silk stockings still lying on the floor of the car.

End part 5