“I'm okay with it, really,” Willow said for the third time.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. It has to be that one.”

Buffy turned slowly, looking at herself in the mirror. “You really think he'll like it?”

Willow grinned mischievously. “Think, Buffy. Gay, remember? I'm actually overqualified to give an opinion, now.”

The blue-grey eyes flicked up to the emerald green ones, amused but uncertain.

“You…um…like?”

Willow nodded, still smiling, her eyes travelling over Buffy's curves, encased so perfectly in the high cut, white silk and lace teddy. The lace in the vee shaped bodice seemed to caress and cling to her full breasts and the whole effect, with Buffy's loose hairstyle, was one of sensuality and innocence. A silly contradiction Willow commented upon, when she'd dragged her mind away from the temporary visual distraction, only to have them both giggling.

Buffy managed to straighten first. “Buffy and innocence have been un-mixy things all the way back to L.A.,” she pointed out. “And especially not since…well, you know… Parker …and that whole Slutty the vampire slayer thing last year.”

Willow giggled again. “Yeah, well in this you get to be a little of both. He's going to love it, Buffy.”

“So you really are okay with Giles and me now?”

Willow's cheeks flushed. “Sometimes my mouth engages before my brain is in gear,” she said sheepishly. “There's a wig factor, but you knew that. I can deal…see me dealing… but I always looked up to Giles…he was the grumpy pants guy, the one who made the rules for me to break. Makes it kind of hard to think of him as your boyfriend.”

Buffy, who was busy putting on her own clothes again, stopped and looked at her friend.

“Boyfriend? I never thought of Giles like that.” A divot appeared in her brow. “Course I never thought of you having a girlfriend, either. I guess what Giles and I have is too forever for me to think about in dating terms.” Her eyes cleared and she grinned suddenly. “Forever has a nice ring to it.”

“Too forever? You mean like…married?”

Buffy shrugged. “Why not? If it's what he wants, I mean. It's more than that, though. It's like we're joined, somehow. We were, even when Jenny was around, but I didn't know then why it hurt so much to see him so lonely, so unhappy when...”

“That's why you told her to make it up with him.”

Buffy stomped into the last boot and finished buttoning her top before nodding.

“It doesn't scare you…how much older he is?”

Her head tilted a little and she looked at the redhead wryly. “Can anything be scarier than knowing you aren't going to live past twenty five? I mean I've pretty much done scary, Will. Finding out I'm the Slayer…facing the Master…let's not forget the major thrill of finding out I'm going to die at sixteen, followed by Angelus as a main course…”

“The Mayor,” Willow added helpfully.

“No, actually, whenever I think of him, I just have an insane desire to laugh,” Buffy confided dryly. “He never scared me. The terror was Faith,” she added in a much darker tone. “If things had gone even just a teeny little bit differently…if Angel hadn't been there, or had been a few minutes later, Xander would have died. If Wesley had his way, you'd be filet-au-Faith. If I hadn't…” She touched her neck self-consciously, “Angel would be dead. She was going to torture me, you know.”

The soft eyes rolled up despite the slight dropping of her head. “She took something from me. Something I'll never get back.”

“Your body?”

A flicker of a smile touched Buffy's lips, but she shook her head. “My soul. From the moment I used that knife, I lost a part of me that I can never get back…”

“But—!”

“It's true,” Buffy said softly as they left the cubicle. “If it wasn't for Giles being there for me, I would have become *her*.”

“So that's why you're always so angry when anyone talks about her. I mean, we knew, like the stuff that she did…but not…”

“I know,” Buffy smiled as they reached a service counter. “Bottom line is, when it comes to scary, loving Giles is…” Her smiled widened. “Well…neutered Spike is scarier. Giles has always been a part of me…like, he was always meant to be there. Now I understand why. I think I've always loved him, somewhere in my soul.”

“But you always said…” Willow began as they left the small boutique.

“I know what I said,” Buffy admitted wryly. “And in the beginning I sorta meant it. All I could see was Angel…you know…dark and gorgeous and mine. Any comparisons by my tiny teenage mind were not going to favour the Tweed guy. And trust me, there were comparisons all the time. I didn't know why I kept doing that either, except that I wanted to scratch Kendraa's eyes out when he liked her so much, and when Faith came.”

Willow snickered. “Yeah, Buffy. Very grown up of you.”

“Well, she was putting moves on my guy. What would you do?”

“Well, a hearty eieww is not the first thing that comes to mind,” the redhead confided, still grinning.

“You know what I was thinking? It was like: she was younger than me. She was supposed be the one saying 'eieww'. She wasn't supposed to be making time with my Watcher.”

“Your guy,” Willow corrected.

Buffy nodded. “On some level, I guess, yeah, even then.”

“Only there was still Angel.”

“Yeah,” Buffy sighed. “And look how that turned out. I guess I knew from the moment I saw Giles' face after he found out Angel was back, but I couldn't admit it to myself. I still wanted the dream…the whole nine yards…and I thought I wanted it with Angel.”

Willow looked a little troubled as they approached the Espresso Pump. “Buffy, the whole nine yards…isn't that what you have with Giles?”

Buffy found a booth and slid into it, smiled sadly at Willow and shook her head. “That was fantasy…having a guy and growing old with him…picket fences and puppies… babies and mortgages and someone to hold you at night…”

Her friend's meanderings were giving the red-headed Wiccan a headache. She put her hand to her brow.

“So what's the reality?”

“The reality is that when Giles is holding me none of those other things matter a damn. When I'm with Rupert it doesn't matter if I live to be 22 or 102, as long as it's with him...”

Willow dropped her hand and a slow grin lit her gamin features.

Buffy emerged from the bathroom with her hair washed and styled so that it fell to her shoulders in a blonde cascade, and her makeup just a little…more sexy, more provocative than her usual natural look. It made her eyes large and sultry and her face the very image of Willow's opinion of the Teddy. She was pleased with it, and the lingerie.

Giles had left very early to go to the store. They'd both agreed to try and catch up a little with their own lives, while Buffy had classes and he had responsibilities. She hadn't seen him now for almost thirteen hours. It seemed like forever. She snickered a little. After being alone for so long, and emotionally solo since the day she'd knelt beside Merrick's broken body, Buffy wondered at the cosmic joke that turned her emotional black hole into a sun of such magnitude that she found it hard to get through a day without being touched by its brightness.

She grinned to herself as she climbed the stairs. She was getting poetic in her old age. And that was probably Giles' fault too.

The loft was untidy. Her fault. She was the last out and she hadn't made the bed or picked up her towel and pyjamas from their resting place on the floor at the foot of the bed. She sighed and set about making it perfect again. When she was done, she slipped into the new lingerie and added some 'Arpege' perfume, before drawing her old grey track pants and a faded pink sweat on, over Giles' surprise.

She was about to go downstairs and fix him some dinner when her eyes lighted on the bedside cupboard he had taken his tin box of photos from. The temptation was too great. She stole them out and sat cross-legged on the bed, handling each picture as though it were the most fragile porcelain.

Some of them were of places, some obviously in England, some anonymous, but the ones that interested her most were the ones with Giles in various states of growth and dress and attitude. She was fascinated to see the transition from small serious boy with appalling haircut to small serious public school boy with serious haircut, to hellion youth, with hellion hair, in the spread of pictures and ages.

Ripper was embodied in the long, lean youth in the last one, cigarette in his fingers, hair barely combed, tight black pin-cord pants, big ripple-soled boots and tight, sleeveless black shirt. He was standing with an equally skanky group of young men and girls. No Ethan yet, she mused. Buffy smiled at the effort they were all putting into trying to look cool. One of the girls had even rested her fingers on the inside of young Ripper's thigh as she pouted for the camera. Buffy decided from the self-satisfied look on his face that young Giles didn't mind one bit.

She picked up another picture, this time a glossy black and white with a narrow white border. Her mother had the same kind of old photos, from her own childhood. Buffy stared at the woman in it for a long time. She looked a little younger than Joyce, but even in black and white it was obvious that her colouring favoured her son. She had the same eyes, the same forehead, but her features were fine and elegant and her hands remarkably small.

She turned the picture over. In someone's large, heavy script on the back it said: Sophie Giles, nineteen sixty-four. Buffy wondered if the writing were his father's. She poked through the pictures looking for one of Mister Giles, or possibly even Ethan as a boy, but by the time she'd sorted them into piles of unidentified people, Giles' hoodlum friends, Giles and school friends, show friends, scenery, motorbikes and Giles' field trips as an archaeologist, those with his adult friends, even a house, possibly a townhouse in London, probably where he used to live, she was getting frustrated.

No family portraits, no Mister Giles, no Ethan. She didn't even know if Giles had any brothers or sisters.

All that was left in the bottom of the tin was newspaper clippings. She smiled. Most were faded village reviews of Giles' shows. Then she picked up one that was folded many times, and fragile on those folds. She opened it very carefully until she was able to lay it flat on the bed. A smaller clipping had fallen from it as she opened it: a small obituary, for Mister Giles, but not just the senior Giles.

Buffy read it softly to herself.  "Mrs Sophie Louisa Giles and her surviving son Rupert wish to report the passing of their beloved husband and father Thomas Edwin Giles and his ward, Rhiannon Catherine Morgan, aged sixteen, both found savaged by unidentified wild dogs in the town cemetery." <Well, they had canine teeth, but that's about as close as they would have gotten to being wild dogs>, she thought bitterly. It went on to detail the funeral arrangements. The large clipping was a headline article about the discovery of the bodies.

Buffy packed everything back in the tin, closed it and put it back in the cupboard. . It could so easily have been the two of them turned into vampire food in one of Sunnydale's cemeteries. And 'surviving son'? Rupert had lost a brother too…?

She swallowed and scuffed at her left eye before blowing out a long breath and running down the stairs as though she could run the sadness from her system. By the time she'd found enough makings to produce one of the few things she was good at cooking, she was almost relaxed again.

When Giles let himself into the apartment he sniffed appreciatively. “Whatever that is, it smells bloody good,” he called as he trotted up to the loft to get rid of his formal shoes and suit.

When he came down again in his oldest, most comfy blue jeans, a little shrunk from the wash, but soft and snug, and his new favourite sweater since Buffy had mercilessly disposed of his stretched and moth-holed, old favourite. The new oatmeal coloured, rib-knit one, it had to be said, had achieved favourite status from being worn about the house by Buffy with little or nothing else under it, that very morning in fact, when it proved chilly after they ventured from the warmth of their bed. It still carried lingering traces of her perfume.

When he wandered in to the kitchen, Buffy turned from the counter and grinned at him.

He tilted his head a little and smiled at her. It was good to be home. “You've done something with your hair,” he said, amused.

“Oh yeah,” she said, regretting not getting out of her sweats earlier. “Just a little something I cooked up. I'll show you the rest later,” she told him provocatively.

His grin widened and grew deliberately lascivious. “I take it I'm going to like it a lot?” he asked in an accent that ran closer to Ripper than Giles.

“You might,” she teased, and handed him a plate with a napkin and a knife and fork.

They ate together on the couch, in silence, Giles finishing first.

“God, that was wonderful. I'd forgotten what it was like to come home to a cooked meal. One gets heartily sick of one's own cooking no matter how creative.”

“You can brag about your cooking later and I'll take notes,” Buffy teased. “We've gotta get a dining table for this place. And I'm not talking about the behemoth you dragged out for Thanksgiving, either.”

Giles made a face. “I rented it, smarty pants. I suppose I could finance a nice breakfast table. Damned if I know where we'd put it, though.”

Buffy slid her empty plate onto the coffee table next to his. “Don't worry. I'll make room. I've always wanted to rearrange this place.”

Giles looked particularly uncomfortable with the idea. Buffy and projects of any kind were usually the stuff of chaos and disaster.

Buffy watched the telltale expressions flitting across his handsome features and read every one.

“It's okay, tact guy,” she said fondly. “I can take even a silent hint. This place is you. I wouldn't want to change that. I'd still like us to have somewhere to sit and eat together, though, besides the breakfast counter. I don't like eating like I'm in a bar and grill.”

He chuckled. “Neither do I, actually, but the place wasn't designed for more than one or two people. I'm sure we can fit one in, somewhere, though.”

“Mom called earlier. She says Dawn wants that picture of you with the guitar to take to school.”

Giles' eyes widened. “What picture?”

“The one Xander blabbed about…from your ill-gotten youth,” she quoted.

Giles rolled his eyes. “That one. It's in a carton somewhere, from the move out of the library. I daresay it's keeping company with a dozen other things I've been looking for since then. I'd forgotten all about that box of personal effects. Lord knows what else is actually in it.”

“I thought you were cute.”

He chuckled again. “Want me to grow my hair, do you, and start singing seventies tunes around the house?”

Buffy shifted so that she could slide her fingers through his soft hair. “I like it like this,” she said softly as he closed his eyes against the pleasure of her touch. “You were a cute young guy, but you're beyond sexy now.”

The green eyes opened again and stared into hers. Buffy drank them in, every fleck, every jade hue, and the unusual brown splash in the left one that was her favourite, simply because it was uniquely him.

“You're a damned sexy woman yourself, Ms Summers,” he said very softly.

Buffy giggled. “Not in these clothes, I'm not.”

Giles watched her stand up and draw the pink sweatshirt over her head, his breath catching as she immediately bent to push the pants off her hips before stepping out of them.

“Oh my,” he whispered when she straightened and caught his eye again.

“You like?” she asked, her cheeks flushed a little and her eyes bright with anticipation.

“Oh yes,” he crooned, drinking in her beauty, the way the high-cut silk followed the inner curves of her groin, hugged her slender waist and the way the soft lace bodice almost seemed to cup her firm, round breasts.

With that she crooked a finger and scooped up their plates with her other hand. “We have to pick up a couple of things,” she smiled, and headed for the kitchen.

The plates were shoved unceremoniously on the sink before Buffy opened the refrigerator, bending low to retrieve the bottle of chardonnay and chilled glasses, well aware that Giles was enjoying the view.

He felt himself tighten and swell with desire as he watched the slip of silk stretch and slip up between the soft round globes as Buffy bent. The semi-opacity of the fabric became almost transparency as the white silk pulled taut against her soft heat while she dallied to collect the lemons she'd dislodged with the bottle, from the floor at her feet, and arrange them once again on their shelf.

“Shall I help?” he asked as a recalcitrant lemon rolled off the shelf again and bounced on her foot, his hand slipping over the smooth fabric and his fingers sliding down to the glorious softness between her thighs.

Buffy moaned and impaled the lemon on the lid of a beer bottle so that it would never move again, before moving slowly against his hand.

“Too much helping,” she groaned appreciatively as he drew his fingernails teasingly over her tender mound. “I'm not going to make love in the refrigerator, even for you.”

Giles laughed and turned her into his body so that she could feel his desire when her hips arched automatically into his. Their kiss was blatant and sensual and Buffy stood on tiptoes to rub herself against him.

When he heard her growl low in her throat, Giles knew exactly what it meant. He kicked the fridge closed and cupped her seat with his hands, lifting her until her damp centre was exactly where she wanted it to be.

He pulled her closer and pushed harder against her while his fingers slid up, under the silk and kneaded her soft cheeks.

Buffy lifted her head from another burning kiss and groaned again as he covered a warm breast through the lace with his mouth, and swung her around to sit her slowly on the breakfast counter.

Her head tilted back as he enjoyed her sweet curves, the feel of his hot breath, probing tongue and massaging lips causing her to groan with anticipation. Moments later he pushed the lace down and lifted a warm bosom from its snug resting place.

She made a small, strangled noise as his tongue slid around the rigid peak before his mouth closed over the soft, creamy flesh. Her fingers slid into his hair as he continued, his stroking her thighs until they were wide apart.

When Buffy's groans turned to demanding whimpers, his mouth travelled down, leaving a trail of hot breath through the silky fabric, until it reached it's destination, Giles nipping the soft mound just enough to make her shudder and cry out as bolts of pleasure shot through her.

He smiled as her hips thrust instinctively towards him, and drew his tongue very slowly over the slip of silk from her opening to her already swollen core, smiling again at the sound of the groan torn from Buffy's depths and the short, panting breaths as he continued to nip and mouth the quivering heat through the damp cloth.

“Tease,” she groaned, lying back on the counter as his tongue again drew provocatively along each edge of the silk.

“Who's doing all the work here?” he asked in an amused but desire roughened voice, caressing her at the same time with an expert fingertip to make her shudder and moan.

“Work harder!” she gasped, making him laugh again as he bent to his 'work'.

Just when she thought he couldn't torment her any more, she felt the cool air as one of his fingers hooked the edge of the fabric and pulled it back. She held her breath and then gasped as his tormenting tongue finally slid into her soft folds, writhing and shuddering as wave after wave of pleasure rocked her. He sought out every tender crevice, stroked teasingly from beneath her swollen centre to her moist opening and back again until she sounded as though she couldn't last another moment. At that exact moment he slid his index finger across the over-sensitised flesh and down to her aching channel, and pushed into it's hungry heat, his mouth covering her throbbing nub.

Buffy's scream was half in surprise, half-ecstasy. By the time he'd fully penetrated her while his tongue explored the ferocity of her desire, she was gasping and clamping furiously on the finger, and arching into his smiling mouth.

He straightened and caressed her softly as she came down, until finally she opened her eyes and smiled goofily at him.

“You do great work,” she said breathlessly and looked down at the damp spot on his jeans at the end of the great bow in them. “But I think it's time we went up stairs.”

When they reached the loft Buffy knew she wanted him again, but she also needed time for that cataclysmic orgasm to well and truly fade from her loins. Before he could undo his pants, she stopped him and bent to run her teeth along the bow, deliberately breathing hot air onto the soft fabric.

Giles groaned and twitched. The taste, scent and sound of Buffy's passion had been enough to keep him aroused and painfully hard almost the whole time he'd been pleasuring her but he was overdue for some stimulation of his own. He moaned again when she massaged him with the ball of her hand, finding his tip with her fingertips and playing with it as the hard part of her palm dragged up and down its length.

He started to breathe hard and Buffy used her other hand to undo his belt and his zipper. He smelled good, his maleness accentuated by the day at work. She could feel the pheromones doing their work, her own loins tightening again and beginning to quiver with the anticipation of having him inside her.

As she pushed the jeans away, Giles slid the fingers of one hand into the hair above her ear and cradled her head in his palm. Buffy liked it. Each of the other men she'd been with this way: Parker and Riley, both insisted on holding her head still with both hands when they were highly aroused, as though there was some kind of unconscious ritual or need to dominate, to be in control. Always aware that she was the one ultimately in control, she had allowed them their moment without ever enjoying it.

Now Giles' very instinct for tenderness turned her on tenfold. Her mouth trailed over his boxers, nibbling, biting, sucking, until he groaned in a half growl, half plea, again.

Buffy couldn't wait any longer, either, pulling the boxers down and freeing his straining member…straining for her touch and almost touching his belly, so aroused was he.

Instinctively she closed gentle fingers around it and massaged with the firmness she knew he enjoyed.

“Yes,” he whispered, closing his eyes, shuddering when her tender lips touched his tip. As she took him in her mouth, Buffy let her tongue slide down the underside of his shaft, and struggled not to giggle when he swore in surprised appreciation and shuddered again. Continuing to pump rhythmically with her right hand, she let her tongue dance up and down his length, tasting, probing, exploring as never before the uniqueness and novelty of an uncircumcised male. It was obvious from his reaction that his tip was way more sensitive, as her tongue slid in and out of the slit and massaged the sensitive spot on the underside of the head that men thought women didn't know about…

When the unexpected stimulation made him moan loudly and arch into her mouth, Buffy increased the speed of her pumping and closed her mouth around him again so that he could thrust into the hot wetness, grunting and moaning as she drove him insane with pleasure.

Just when she thought he might go all the way, his fingers slipped from her hair and touched her face, their signal, and she stopped, drawing herself to her feet again.

His eyes glowing with desire, Giles smiled at her and slipped his fingers over her once again aroused centre, searching for the fastenings, found the press-studs and pulled. As he bent and took her mouth with his, his fingers sensuously kneaded, caressed, and rubbed her still swollen core until she was moist and groaning.

In a beat he'd lowered her to the bed and moved over her.

Buffy opened her thighs and welcomed him, her legs locking around his waist as his rigid shaft found it's mark, then groaned as he rubbed his tip over her soft heat in a moment of teasing, then kissed her again, gently this time.

When he lifted his head it was obvious that she was more than ready for him. “I want it now, Rupert…take me!” she demanded, half steel, half whimper.

“Hussy,” he breathed, still swinging his hips as he enjoyed the sweetness of her scent, her hot flesh.

“Please!” she amended, lifting her own hips so that the teasing shaft slipped down to the opening that was so very ready for him.

Giles paused for just a beat to look down at her. Her eyes were glowing, hair asunder, her nipples rigid peaks on soft breasts still showing signs of his earlier attentions. As he drank her in, he gave silent thanks for the joy of her, of them, of life.

And then the vision, and the insistence of her wet entrance pushing against his sensitive tip, claimed him.

Buffy lifted her legs even higher and made a purely animalistic sound of utter pleasure as he finally entered her, sliding deep into the tight channel and stretching it once again as he found his way home.

“Oh God…yes,” she moaned as he immediately began to stroke, too aroused, too close to resist the overpowering stimulation of her. This was what she craved. This was the ultimate…being joined, fused, to the man she adored. As she tilted her hips just a little more and opened herself even wider, the feeling rolled over her entire body. She was his, mind, body and soul, and at this moment, he was hers, in exactly the same way.

She rose as she felt him getting closer and claimed him, her hips thrusting back as hungrily as his, their coupling growing wilder and wilder as they both grew more insistent, more demanding, until Giles started to shudder and cry out while still moving for her benefit. Close behind, Buffy ground herself against him as he bucked and gasped, matching thrust for thrust until, finally, she exploded again.

Giles grunted with satisfaction and stopped as she spasmed around his spent member, almost smiling as she rocked on it, except that he was so sensitive that it was all he could do not to jump each time he slid into her again.

When she finally came to rest and opened her eyes, he reached out and gently brushed the hair from her face.

“I rather think that one wasn't quite up to the standard you were aspiring to earlier,” he offered ruefully.

She grinned back at him lovingly. “They're all perfect when I'm with you, Sexy Guy. You, on the other hand, looked pretty happy from down here.”

“Mm,” he grinned as the afterglow of pure contentment stole over his body. “Blissfully,” he added playfully, and rolled to lie alongside her, smiling when Buffy did the honours with the tissues before drawing the quilt, nearly kicked off the bed during their lovemaking, over both of them. “Is something worrying you?”

She pushed herself up on to one elbow, and absently stroked his chest hair while she spoke. “I'm scared,” she said unexpectedly. “Not 'world's going to end tomorrow' scared or 'what happened to my voice' scared. Just…Giles, I love you *so* much, and when I love someone, badness happens. I don't want you to get hurt because of us…I don't want something to happen to you b-because of us.”

Giles sat up and took her face in his hands. “It's all right,” he whispered. “I'm not going to try to deny the truth of what you're saying…we've both always seemingly been destined to be alone, to somehow be punished for being who…what…we are. Don't you think I have the same terror, the same doubts? I adore you, Buffy, and in my heart I know that could kill us both as surely as any demon or vampire,” he admitted tremulously.

Buffy moved into his arms and rested her face against the reassuring steadiness of his chest. “I wont let anything hurt us, I promise,” she told him sleepily. “I love you, Rupert.”

Giles wrapped his arms around her and drew her back down, so that he was curled around her, on his side.

“And I you,” he whispered. “And you have the same promise from me. If neither of us was meant to find happiness anywhere else, perhaps it was because we were always meant for each other…” After a moment for his words to sink in, he felt Buffy's tense body relax into his.

“You're right,” she told him sleepily. “I think I was always meant for you. I think I've been yours since the first time I truly saw you…when you saved me from that spell Amy's mother did.”

Surprised, Giles kissed her temple and half frowned, half smiled. “Surely not? You were little more than a child back then.”

“I was a hormonal overload waiting to happen,” she told him, trailing her lips over the warm skin of his chest. “And child? Definitely. I thought Angel was my knight, my forever.” She trailed up to his throat and kissed his chin. “But the truth was, the one person I always needed, the one person I couldn't survive without, was you. It took me all this time to realise why, but it was always there.”

He laughed. “Even when I was very, very old, and it was gross?”

She giggled. “God, especially then. You never got it, did you?”

“Got what?” he demanded, curious.

“I was so jealous…and then you didn't even want me any more. I wanted to scratch her eyes out and feed her to Lurconis's second cousin,” she said roughly.

Giles stroked her nape with gentle fingers. “I didn't know,” he said softly. “I'm afraid I thought you were just being yourself…as per your 'raise your hand if eiwww' and such.”

“You're not old,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument and drew herself up to slide her arms around his neck. “Except when you were wearing those stupid suspenders. I thought you were fashioned challenged when the tweed was at its worst, but I swear you were actually trying to look old with those. You even cut your hair like a…a…well, I don't know, but don't ever do it again,” she pouted, stroking the soft length of his golden-brown hair, noticing the fine featherings of grey starting to appear in it.

He brushed her lips with his. “Never again,” he agreed lightly

But Buffy could hear something in his tone. “Giles?”

“I would prefer to forget that year ever happened,” he admitted.

Buffy frowned, all of the badness of that period washing over her, both hers and his. Now, however, she was old enough to step away from her own hurts and to see his clearly for perhaps the first time. She looked down as moments came back to her and she saw them with a clarity so painful her lips trembled and a hard lump formed in her gorge.

Her brow slowly came to rest just below his throat, and she cleared hers with difficulty.

“I-I've always thought of that year as 'Buffy Hell Year',” she told him hoarsely. “This is the first time I've really, truly seen it through…through your eyes.”

He found her chin and lifted her face very gently, so that he could see her eyes, his green ones searching them with concern, curiosity and something else.

The emotion Buffy had controlled until then, wavered and fractured under that tender scrutiny.

“Don't look at me like that,” she whispered. “I think about what happened to you…what I did…I don't know what to say…it was all so…and I couldn't see anything but what was happening to me…and th-things just kept on happening,” she added in a rush.

He rested a finger on her lips. “It's over, done with. And it truly was 'Buffy Hell Year', thanks in no small part to the Council and my own stupidity.” I don't know how you survived, but you did. And made me so terribly proud of you. As to the rest, I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well, it's going to take me a little longer,” she sniffed. “Everyone always talks about moments of perfect clarity. Nobody said how much they sucked.”

Giles laughed a full, open laugh and Buffy watched him, wide-eyed, before succumbing and laughing along with him until he stopped and caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“Why do you think I love you so terribly?” he asked her.

She grew very still then grinned. “Great body? Winning smile…killer right cross?”

Giles smiled placidly. “All of those things,” he agreed, “but most of all it's because of who you are. Even when you were a child, you were full of courage and determination. You never wanted this fight, but you've never walked away from it. Even after Angelus…Angel…you came back. I'd spent hours, days…weeks…wanting to shake you, to rant, to rave, and yet when I saw you standing there looking up at me, I was so proud of you, words simply became irrelevant.”

“Proud?” Buffy frowned. “What was to be proud of? I left. I-I left you after... I wasn't there when you needed me. I sucked in the worst way. If I was you I'd have slammed the door in my face.”

“That was an option,” he said a little ruefully. “Perhaps it would be easier for you to remember that whatever you did, I did worse in my own youth, with worse consequences, and more importantly, where I had to be driven back to my destiny, you came home to yours. I saw *more courage in you from that first day*…when you as good as told me to shove my book up my arse, than in any ten grown men…and then, when push came to shove, you, a sixteen year old child, made a choice that I was still struggling with at twenty five.”

“You keep calling me a child, I'm going to get seriously wigged about your intentions, Mister Giles,” she teased.

He only half smiled. “I was speaking only of the biological fact at that time. I have never treated you like a child, because I have never known you as one. Sending you out to fight has never been my choice…but do you honestly think I would have told a child all those things about my time with Eyghon…? And yet I told you. Do you think I could have allowed Angel to so much as touch you, if I truly believed you were still a child and not capable of using your own best judgement?”

Buffy looked away. “No,” she whispered.

I couldn't help but love you, Buffy. It was hell waiting for you to grow up, knowing that you would probably never even notice I was alive, and all the while having to watch you get hurt, watch you search for something I knew I could give you if only…”

“If only I would open my eyes and see what was there in front of me, all the time,” Buffy finished, turning back to him. “The worst thing is…a part of me has always known, but the age thing…the whole 'not wanting' thing with the destiny…I couldn't see…couldn't feel it, except when I thought I was going to lose you.”

Giles chuckled. “I seem to remember feeling something quite violently the first time you thought I was going to…”

“I remember,” Buffy grinned. “Killer right cross. You went down like a sack of wheat.”

He looked down a little self-consciously. “Indeed. It was also one of those times you surprised me, delighted me, made me furiously angry and utterly terrified at the same time.”

“You were scared of me?” she teased.

He looked up enough for her to see his eyes. “Not of you…for you. If you had died…”

Buffy coughed meaningfully.

“Oh…yes, well, you know what I mean,” he said stuffily.

A rush of love moved her forward and she wrapped her arms around his neck, his automatically curling around her. She kissed his ear.

“I know,” she whispered near it. “Remember that feeling, and that I'll be the one feeling it if you ever do anything stupid like that, or going after Angelus, again. Just remember I may not be there next time…” Her arms tightened.

“There will be no next times like those for either of us,” he said, his hand rubbing her back slowly. “If we don't go together, we don't go at all.”

“Sounds fair,” she said, nuzzling into his neck as he drew them both back down under the covers.

“Early night?” her muffled voice enquired from somewhere under the quilt.

“Something like that,” his growled, his arm reaching out to turn out the light.

The next sound was a long, slow, feminine groan.