As Giles, and the two horses, climbed back up the rise to where she'd finally roused from her focus on watching him to dust herself off, Buffy tilted her head to one side in contemplation of the scene before her.

Perspiration matted Giles' windblown hair and the shirt beneath the wide-open coat. Several buttons on the shirt were asunder, revealing the gold and grey hairs beneath. The horses were fractious and prancing despite being sweat-caked and blowing hard. His sword was safely sheathed on his back again.

In the opinion of Buffy's eyes, and the tattoo of her heartbeat, never had anything looked so wonderful before. When the horses came to a halt and his flashing, still hyper-alert, green eyes met hers, her breath caught.

"Are you all right?" His voice was husky and a little laboured but those eyes took all of her in, looking for damage.

"Everything except my dignity," she growled, ignoring the gory display of blood, fresh and dried, on her shoulder and soaked into her clothes. "I'll be as good as new by morning. Course, I'd really like it to stop hurting way before then."

"I can imagine," he sympathized. "We should get you back. Slayer healing, or no, there's a real danger of infection if we don't get those wounds cleaned soon. You'd better ride with me. I don't want a repeat of Titan's earlier antics while you're hurt." He slid back onto the cantle, offered his hand and slipped his left boot from the stirrup.

Buffy took the hand and slipped a toe into the stirrup to lever herself up, with a little help, in front of him, the jostling of her bad shoulder making her exclaim in pain as she did so. A gentle hand rested on her good shoulder and a concerned voice spoke close enough to her ear for the warm breath on it to send shivers down her spine.

"Are you sure you're all right? If it's too painful I can go back and fetch medical supplies from the homestead. I've no doubt that Bill would have a fully equipped kit, including local anaesthetic, for major agricultural accidents...for his employees...and his family."

She leaned back against the warmth of his chest. "I'll be fine, but the sooner we get home to some soap and hot water and quality painkillers, the better."

Giles straightened, trying to ignore the racing of his own heartbeat as his body moulded to the slender one sheltered in the circle of his arms, and turned them all for home.

Instead, they'd opted to go somewhere that would feel as much like home as possible without actually being there: Santa Barbara. While the remaining group: Buffy, Dawn, Willow, Kennedy and Xander, had found and purchased a house with Council funds and made it their own, for better or worse, Giles had chosen to keep his own counsel as he'd always done. All Buffy knew about the new flat was that it had been chosen because it had a loft and because its design was not entirely unlike the one she had grown to miss almost as much as Giles after he was gone.

When the lights went on it felt like...coming home. All of Giles' things were there in much the same order, except this flat was larger and more airy, and the kitchen was almost painfully modern compared to the pretty ancient arrangement in his old one.

Apart from the familiarity and the Gilesean smell of books and herbs, not to mention his personal cologne, what was making her breath catch in her throat was the way it was decorated. In all the years she'd known him, Giles had barely bothered with the season, beyond the obligatory small gifts and cards.

She looked around, wide-eyed, at the tasteful, but beautiful, decorations in green, red and gold, and even more wide-eyed at the big blue spruce in the corner, as bright and as colourful as any family Christmas tree, and as piled underneath with gifts as on any Christmas morning.

"You've kinda been busy, haven't you...in between researching and kicking Mordredii ass and Watcher's Council business in L.A. and other trivial stuff like that? It's gorgeous."

Giles snorted, but he was half smiling at her teasing tone. "I seem to recall some time ago being designated Patriarch of our motley group...even if it was largely against my will. I therefore decided that since we were going to be stuck in California again for Christmas, again largely not by choice, that it was my duty to provide one."

Buffy looked up at him fondly. His mock stuffiness wasn't fooling her. He'd been as displaced and lost as the rest of them since Sunnydale got hoovered by the Hellmouth, and looking just as hard for ways to make that feeling go away.

Despite the warm glow, her arm was almost numb, in a stiff, painful sort of way. The wet clothes, the bloody mess and the bruises were all taking their toll.

Giles closed the door behind them and exhaled heavily. "Sit down on the couch and I'll find our field kit. I'm sorry there was no one home at the ranch. I knew Bill had commitments at work, but he expected to be home in time to see me when we got back."

"Forget it," she croaked. "I've been a lot worse, and so have you. One thing though...could I...that is...what I really need is to get clean. The fresh bleeding stopped hours ago. I'd like to take a quick shower to wash the worst of this stuff off and maybe get really warm again before you try to fix it."

They were very close together, Buffy looking up at him and he towering over her. What little air there was between them suddenly seemed almost...electric.

Buffy shifted a little, but found she couldn't pull her gaze from his, couldn't stop herself from sinking into the soft leaf green, studying all of the tiny black dots and idly tracing the brown smudges as she contemplated the day's events and her reactions to various revelations, visual and otherwise.

Giles watched her colour rise and felt her discomfort, immediately misinterpreting it. "I-I'm sorry," he said suddenly. "I shouldn't be keeping you standing here like this in your condition. Come on, I'll find you some clean clothes and a decent towel and you can have at the bathroom to your heart's content."

She watched him wheel and head across the room with a feeling akin to being torn from something physically. She went after him and when he returned from the linen cupboard, stood in front of him so that he had to stop and look down at her again.

Her eyes, cloud-grey today, searched his. "It's still there," she said cryptically. "Tell me you can't feel it too."

He tilted his head questioningly to one side, an unconscious but truly endearing habit of his that went right to her heart.

"This," she said boldly, and touched his cheek, feeling him shiver as her fingertips trailed over it.

Giles immediately covered her hand with his. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "But I don't...it's..."

"I know," Buffy said softly. "It's weird for me too. It's like 'what the hell?' And at the same time there's this feeling like 'okay, *now* I get it...like somehow it's always been this way...and why didn't I know that a very long time ago?"

The consternation faded from his handsome features and he smiled slowly. "Yes," he repeated softly. "Exactly."

She smiled back. "I'm glad it's not just me. And I'm kinda glad it happened so fast. It feels like we've wasted an awful lot of time already..." She stopped and frowned. "Actually, there've already been way too many times where we might never have..."

That thought made Giles frown as well, along with the wave of haunting pain that always accompanied sudden, vivid recollections of the period after her death.

"Far too many," he agreed sombrely. "I think you know that I have always loved you. Except that, until now, it has been more about friendship, exasperation, pride, admiration, disappointment and of late far more hurt than I want to think very much about."

She digested that, her eyes losing their momentary amusement and filling with sadness. "There's a lot of that going around," she agreed, the sadness becoming profound sorrow. "I'm so sorry."

He studied the lovely face for a long while before nodding.

An ocean of words faded away, knowing they weren't going to be spoken, neither of them willing any longer to wait until they had.

Instead, with a shaky, tentative hand, Buffy reached up again and touched his cheek. "I am sorry," she repeated, the depth of it reflected in her eyes.

His expression gentled and his eyes grew tender. "I know."

At that, she finally managed to smile back for just a moment.

They grew very still then. Buffy stared up at him and he stared down at the troubled face with its soft, slightly parted lips. The spell was broken when they moved as one; tawny head bending, fair one tilting back, and two lifetimes meeting in the merging of two mouths...

Nothing could have prepared either of them for the joy, or the hunger. The kiss evolved from a romantic meeting into a claim, followed by a celebration. Buffy never wanted to surface and Giles never wanted to let go. Finally, they both seemed to realise at the same time that if they didn't stop now, they weren't going to.

Their hands dropped to their sides, and they regarded each other, flushed, ruffled and glowing-eyed.

"You know most people take a while longer to get from 'I think I like you' to 'whoa'," Buffy managed rather breathlessly.

"Most people are not you and I," he replied remarkably calmly, given the colour in his cheeks. "We've always had to fit things in between apocalypses and measure time in terms of anecdotal historical evidence of Slayer longevity...or lack of it...so-"

"Giles...English," she chided, echoing days of old, but her smile was one of great affection.

"Your, um, 'expiry date' I believe you called it back when Glory was an issue...you and I have never had the luxury of doing anything slowly. I-if you think we're going too fast, I completely understand..."

Buffy shook her head violently then paused, her cheeks more flushed than his. "Well, we are, but I don't want to slow down...unless you do. I know how I feel, what I want...why I want it... "Eiww!"

Giles frowned, the word not one with the best of associations for him. "Eiww?"

She pointed. "I've ruined your shirt...and your neck."

He looked down. True enough. Their enthusiasm had been such that he now had dried and fresh blood and grime all over his shirt and-he touched the base of his throat-his chest and neck.

For the first time Buffy also realized that the legs of his jeans were soaked and the shirt was still damp from when he was pinned in the snow, which must have soaked right through the coat. "We're a mess," she observed wryly, also observing silently to herself that she really didn't want to go anywhere that he wasn't, right now. "But it's okay. We match. We can get cleaned up later..."

He seemed to contemplate her for a moment then held out his hand. "We'll get cleaned up now."

Buffy allowed herself to be led into the bathroom and seated on the corner of the bathtub. This was another area that bore almost no resemblance to the old apartment. A state of affairs for which she was very grateful, given her memories of the occupant of Giles' tub last time she'd seen it. This tub was a two-person corner bath in a pale beige colour, with gold coloured fittings. They weren't exactly shiny or new, but they'd been well cared for. A part of her wistfully imagined herself in it with him, steam rising, bubbles everywhere.

Giles ran water in the hand basin until steam rose then opened the door of the cupboard beneath it to take a folded handtowel from the pile of bath linen inside.

The wet cloth was hot against her skin. Pleasant against her throat, but painful as it worked around her wounds. He was close enough again that she could smell his cologne and feel his breath on her skin. After several more moments of the painstaking, intimate contact, Buffy swallowed. "Giles..." She'd spoken too softly for him to hear.

"Giles?" Just a little louder.

He stopped. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head, staring at the bloodied towel. "We're just making more mess." She looked up very slowly, her eyes meeting his in a way that told him she was suddenly shy, despite the ignition of a mischievous spark in their depths. "We've known each other a long time, right? Long enough to..." Her eyes slid away to the bathtub. "I mean, it's been years and years...and Will and Xander only knew each other for a couple, before..."

"They were five," he chided, smiling widely. "Are you sure you understand what you're suggesting?"

Buffy looked up from the ever more inviting looking tub. "Well, it's like this. I want to be with you and I want to be in there, soaking in hot soapy goodness. In a romance novel we could take weeks just to get to know each other, but if it's all the same to you, I'd like to skip ahead. We've been through death and life together, dressed each other's wounds and held each other's hands for years, now. I think a bath is pretty tame compared to flaming baseball bats and high dives off forty-foot towers, demi-gods and ultimate evil, don't you?"

For a long moment, Giles didn't know what to say. The woman looking up at him, dry humour in her eyes, was not the girl he'd returned to find after the First had almost killed him.

She read the puzzlement in his eyes and grinned. "It's still me. When it hit me way up there in the High Sierra, I guess I knew then that it wasn't something I was ever going to recover from. It's funny, but I told Angel I'd know. That I knew I wasn't done yet; that I had to wait until I found out who I was." Her smile widened to a near-beatific grin. "But it turns out I wasn't waiting for him, or for me..."

"A-Angel?" He managed, still trying to come to terms with what she was telling him.

She nodded. "When he brought the amulet. I know we haven't talked much about what happened, but I know I told you where the amulet came from." He nodded. "When I saw him again there was this rush of chemistry...like old times...and then there was this kinda...fizzle. I tried to explain to him why I wasn't ready for another relationship, any relationship, yet...and there was cookie dough and baking...and really, it was..." She rolled her eyes. "It was kinda pathetic, to be honest. What do you do when you suddenly realize that something you've been pining for, for years, isn't what you want any more, after all?" Giles stared at her dazedly. "You babble," she answered her own question. "You babble about cookie dough like some kind of demented 'Dear Betty Crocker'."

At that point his expression cleared and he finally smiled again. That was all he needed to know. He began unbuttoning her blouse, aware that each caress of his fingertips as he worked his way through them was making Buffy shiver. When he was done, he eased the bloodied fabric with great gentleness from where it was stuck nastily to her wounds. When it was finally free, he slipped it off and let it fall to the floor.

The shoulder lacerations were closing, but the flesh was still swollen and bruised, though the accelerated healing meant she'd already progressed to the green and yellow stage, rather than the original purple and blue contusions.

Giles turned her slowly and carefully undid her bra, before slipping the straps from her arms, careful to make certain the blood-soiled one wasn't stuck to her skin as well. Buffy turned back nervously, holding the cups to her chest and looked up at him.

The moment seemed to last almost forever, both of them aware that a doorway had opened, but that in just a moment another would slam shut forever. Finally, their eyes locked and Giles' green ones lit reassuringly before Buffy's hand fell away and he carefully removed the white sport bra.

"Beautiful," he said softly, then surprised her by leaning past her to drop the plug in place and set the water running into the bath. When he straightened it was his turn to be surprised when Buffy set about removing his shirt.

It didn't take her long and she appeared to like what she saw after it fell to the floor, her fingers almost hypnotically drawn to the soft, tawny and grey hairs. He, too, shivered at her touch, the power of that doing strange things to Buffy's body as her fingertips traced circles and followed the contours of the firm chest.

"Kinda beautiful, yourself," she finally observed, and let her hands trail down to unbuckle his belt, smiling as his breath drew in sharply when she undid the stud of his jeans and eased the zipper down.

"No contest," he growled, returning the favour and allowing them both to step from their pants at the same time. Buffy, in plain sports briefs to match the bra, was surprised to see him in black stretch ones. "Somehow, I thought you'd be a boxer man," she teased. "Not that the view isn't great anyway, but..."

"I'm very fond of shorts," he admitted, "but they're not really the thing for horse-riding, I'm afraid."

"Not the thing for bathtubs either," she observed dryly. "Speaking of which...getting kinda full if we're gonna fit in there too."

Giles roused from whatever place his thoughts had gone to and swiftly turned off the water. When he straightened they both fell silent, neither quite sure how to proceed.

Buffy giggled first. "Considering you apparently weren't shy about orgies when you were my age and, well, me and vampires...enough said...you have to admit the fact that we're standing here like virginal teens is pretty funny."

But there wasn't really anything funny about the momentary doubt Giles had been feeling. The enormity of the step they were about to take had suddenly weighed upon him like lead...until Buffy added her unique perspective.

He smiled slowly. "I never thought to be likened for a virginal teen again in my lifetime." In the blink of an eye his briefs were on the floor and he'd slipped hers over her hips so that they slid obligingly down her slender legs. The moment she stepped out of them, he swept her up and set her gently in the tub, before following her in.

Once they were settled, Buffy busied herself with looking at the bottles on the side. One was filled with salts for muscular aches and pains, a second was an aromatherapy blend and the last was what she was looking for: bubble bath.

End part 3