Title: Gift of a Future
Author: Gileswench

(notes & disclaimer with part one)

Q popped into a corner of the room dressed in a butler's uniform, carrying a huge vase of exotic flowers, which he placed on the concert grand piano that took up about one twentieth of the huge room.

"Did I leave anything out?" Q asked. "Or did I sum your little soap opera up pretty well?"

Buffy turned on Giles accusingly.

"You were going to leave me? Is this true?"

"I - Buffy...I can explain..."

"You were. You were going away," Buffy said in a small, distressed voice. "Were you even going to tell me?"

"Of course I would have told you. And I was only going because you didn't seem to need or want me in your life at all."

"So that's your solution? You just go away if I don't pay enough attention to you? You don't even give me a chance to make it better? At least Riley gave me a couple hours notice."

"I didn't leave!" Giles shouted.

"Well why didn't you?" Buffy yelled back.

"Because you said you needed me!" Giles bellowed.

"Because I did! I do! Giles, I can't do what I do without you. I've told you that over and over and over. Didn't you believe me?"

Giles sighed and turned away from her.

"Sometimes," he said quietly. "When you could find time in your busy life for me.

Buffy put down her wineglass on the nearest flat surface. She stood straight, shoulders back, feet slightly apart. Battle stance.

"And what about the times you did your best to get rid of me? When I came to you with life and death stuff and you just said 'pooh, pooh, Buffy. Go away 'cause I've got a girlfriend and I don't feel like worrying about vampires on campus now'? Or how about the time the world could have ended because you didn't want to think an earthquake could be the sign of another apocalypse? Or the time you tied me up in your apartment instead of just measuring Kathy's evil demon toenails like I asked? You acted like you didn't even want me around. So whose fault is it if I decided to get out of your way and let you have a life?"

"So we're bringing up ancient history now, is that it?" Giles asked quietly as he turned to face her again, his eyes cold with anger. "Just remember, there are a few unpleasant bits of history of which I could remind you. What about the time you decided not to tell me Angel had returned from Hell? You put us all at risk with that decision, Buffy. Or how about the time you left me to waste weeks of my time trying to figure out who the commandos were and where they might be hidden when all the while you were dating one? Wasn't that a joke? You've lied to me, evaded your duty, ignored me when you didn't like what I had to say, and generally treated me in a pretty shabby way since the day we met. And I accepted it. I let you do it so long as I thought there was any reason to believe you wanted my help at all. I made mistakes, too, I admit it. But Buffy, you shut me entirely out of your life. Last summer...I thought after Adam, after the First Slayer dreams...but I was clearly mistaken. You spent all your time in places you thought I wouldn't want to go. That was certainly a convenient excuse, wasn't it? Why invite Giles to the beach? He hates the beach. Oh, Giles wouldn't want to go to The Bronze. He doesn't own anything recorded after 1978. Giles would think miniature golf is silly. You might as well have left me in a jar of bloody formaldehyde."

Giles stopped, out of breath and miserable after his tirade. He met Buffy's eyes. They were full of distress, but for once he couldn't bring himself to deny his pain in order to soothe hers.

"Is it any wonder I was ready to leave?" he asked. "Did you really think I had no feelings to hurt?"

"But haven't I done better lately?" Buffy asked in a shaky voice."I tell you stuff now. And I haven't lied to you once since that whole Dracula thing, I swear. I've been training so hard, too. Even when Mom...when Mom was sick, I was trying my best to keep up the Slaying, too. Please, don't be mad at me, Giles. I know I've screwed up a lot, but I really don't know what I'd do if you left. I can't lose you. I - I want you here, with me. Always. Not just because of the Slaying, either. I need you to be Giles and help me with the research and the training, but I also want you to be Rupert and...just be with me. With Buffy me, not always just Slayer me."

Giles set down his wineglass at last and moved to Buffy's side. He took the now openly weeping girl in his arms and stroked her hair gently.

"I will always be with you," he promised. "So long as I am alive, I won't leave your side."

To Giles' surprise, Buffy only began to cry harder. She burrowed against his chest and sobbed as if her heart would break.

"Buffy..." Giles soothed her awkwardly. "Oh dear...please don't cry so. It's all right, Buffy. Shhhh..." He pulled one arm from around the girl and began searching his pockets frantically. "Oh dear. I'm afraid I can't seem to find my handkerchief."

To his surprise, Buffy's shoulders continued to shake, but she had stopped crying.

"Buffy...? Are you all right?" he asked. "Don't tell me you're...are you laughing at me?"

"Maybe a little," she admitted through a slight sniffle. "I mean who but you would worry about where your hanky is at a time like this?"

"I was going to offer it to you," Giles said with a wry smile. "It seemed a better idea than asking if you wanted to blow your nose on my sleeve."

Across the room, Q rolled his eyes.

"For two people who talk so much, you don't seem to communicate very well. Is this how all your talks go?"

Buffy and Giles started.

"I forgot he was there," Buffy said.

"So did I," Giles admitted.

"Can I kick his ass? Please?"

"I rather doubt he'll stay in one place long enough," Giles answered with a regretful sigh.

"Darn."

"My sentiments precisely."

"This from the king and queen of evasion," Q taunted them. "I have half a mind to glue you two to the walls until you understand what you have to do."

"I was with you all the way through 'half a mind'," Buffy retorted.

"There's no need to be rude," Q pouted. "Really, Giles, you haven't done a very good job of raising her, have you?"

"He's not my father," Buffy ground out. "I wish everybody would just get that through their heads."

"I never said he was," Q protested. "In fact, if he was your father, none of this would have anything to do with him. At least I certainly hope not."

The entity grimaced and shuddered theatrically. Giles pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You know, Q, this would all be a great deal easier if you just told us what it is you want of us," he said.

"I can't do that," Q said with a shake of his head. "You have to use that great big, juicy brain of yours and figure it out yourself. Or, better yet, try exercising another muscle; one you don't listen to enough. Neither one of you does."

Q snapped his fingers and Buffy and Giles found themselves back in the cemetery. At a nearby grave, a tall figure clad in a black dress and veiled hat dabbed tears away with a black-edged handkerchief. When the figure turned, they saw it was Q.

"You're almost out of time," the entity warned them just before he disappeared.

Jean-Luc Picard rubbed his temples and frowned. The argument around him had grown heated and rancorous. He was tired of dealing with so many points of view couched in nearly indecipherable slang terms and stated at such volumes.

"That's enough!" he bellowed.

Everyone in the room quieted, except Wesley who kept singing something under his breath about a Vulcan and a farming implement. At the captain's glare, the boy giggled and informed the room that replicated paper tastes funny.

"Wesley," Beverly admonished him. "Captain Picard is talking."

Her son regarded her oddly.

"Gravity can be very painful," he informed her.

"Wesley, are you all right?" she asked.

"Right and left and all around," he agreed genially. "Yes. Very painful. Gravity."

The doctor felt her son's forehead.

"There doesn't seem to be any fever, but the words he's saying make no sense. It's almost like a form of aphasia," she mused. "Xander, did Wesley hit his head again while he was with you earlier?"

"Not while I was watching. And I was there every minute...except for the couple I took to get us something to eat."

"Did you notice anything when you got back?"

Xander shrugged.

"Only that he had the hight score on his game and he didn't seem to want his corndog."

The doctor and the captain shared a stricken look.

"What?" Xander asked cluelessly.

Willow rolled her eyes.

"Xand, this kid's like sixteen. When you were sixteen, would you have turned down a corndog?"

"Hell, no. But Wes here is from outer space. I don't know how much they know about Earth food there. And anyway, they thought he was just fine."

Xander pointed to Riker and Troi who both shrank under Beverly's infuriated glare.

"You didn't notice anything wrong? He's gibbering like an idiot!"

"Wow," Dawn observed. "You guys aren't very observant, are you?"