Title: Home For The Holidays
Author: Gileswench

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

Buffy leaned back against the sink with her arms crossed over her chest. She concentrated on keeping her breathing steady. The last thing she wanted was to be caught crying in a foreign bathroom by some total stranger.

She wondered what had happened to her perfectly organized plan. Go to Giles, talk to Giles, bring Giles home. It had all looked so easy when she was sitting in the airport waiting for her flight. Of course, there was something she hadn't counted on:

Giles.

Every time she thought she knew what he was thinking, he wasn't. Every time she had him pegged, he moved the pegs. Or - worse yet - the holes they went in. She let out a growl of frustration.

Why did men always do this to her? Heroic Angel turned into a monster because of their love. Riley seemed so stable - so dependable - until he suddenly became the least stable person she'd known. In Buffy's life, that took some effort. Spike careened madly between worst enemy, staunchest ally, confidant, blackmailer, lover, would-be rapist and goodness only knew what else.

And not one of them could pull the rug so quickly and effectively out from under her feet as Giles could.

Did love always cause this much disaster?

Was it even worth the effort?

How much better off was she with Giles playing this disturbing cat and mouse game with her than she was when she and Spike were manipulating one another and rutting in equal measures?

She blinked hard. Crying wasn't going to solve anything. No matter how many tears she shed, it always came back to the same thing: Buffy, the cheese that stands alone.

"Is it so much to ask that I have somebody to stand with me?" she asked nobody in particular. "I'm feeling kinda lonely here."

She started and turned to the mirror to pretend she was just fixing her hair when the door began to open.

"Buffy?" Mary asked. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm okay." Buffy wished her voice didn't sound so brittle even to her ears. If she was lucky, maybe Mary wouldn't notice.

"Bollocks."

Okay, so no hope of lack of observation there.

"Maybe not, but I will be eventually...I think," Buffy said.

Mary looked sympathetically at her.

"I don't know what's got into him," she said. "I've never seen him act this way before."

"Well, he's never had me throw myself at him before. That makes normal guys go nuts. I guess it makes strange guys...even stranger." Buffy turned back to the mirror and gave herself a hard look. Her shoulders slumped. "Maybe I should just change my plane tickets and go home early. Without Giles."

"You're telling me you came all the way from California just to take Rupert back again?"

"I know, I know," Buffy moaned, "on the dumb idea scale of one to ten this rates about an eighty seven, but I missed him so much." She dropped her gaze and shrugged her shoulders. "I should have known that was the last thing he'd want. It just never occurred to me...I didn't think...and that's nothing new, is it? Not thinking is too much of a way of life for me."

"What is it you didn't think about?" Mary asked.

"This," Buffy wailed gesturing at her companion. "You, Donald, this bar, his bedroom with a real door on it, and egg nog and darts and all the stuff he didn't have in Sunnydale. All this stuff he has in his life that he has to give up if he comes with me. All this stuff he shouldn't have to give up for me. He wants it more than me, doesn't he? It's not like I was the chair."

"You weren't the...?" Mary blinked in confusion. After a moment, she understood. "Oh," she said compassionately, "there's another woman, isn't there?"

"No...I mean yes...I mean, there was, but it was a long time ago and it's not like I was interested then. Anyway, she's dead. Giles was crazy about her. She was the chair woman. Miss Calendar." She stopped and really looked at the expression on Mary's face. "And you didn't know anything about her, did you?"

"What is it you want of the girl?" Donald asked as he stubbed out one cigarette and reached for another. He paused to light the new one. "Who is she, anyway? I know you said she was a student of yours, but that doesn't explain what she's doing here...or the way you're behaving."

"You wouldn't believe me if I could tell you," Giles said sullenly. "I shouldn't worry about it. I imagine she'll be on her way soon enough."

Donald shook his head.

"I don't understand you, Rupert. If I was single and had beautiful twenty-year-olds throwing themselves at my head, I'd bloody well make use of the opportunity."

"You never had beautiful twenty-year-olds throwing themselves at you," Giles retorted with a small, sardonic smile.

"I saw Olivia the other day," Donald said casually. "Your name came up and she went pale. I know something happened between the two of you when you were living in America, but she wouldn't tell me what ended it. You never have, either."

"How is Olivia? Is she well?"

Donald shrugged.

"Well enough. She's living with a chartered accountant in Surrey. I got the impression you frightened her somehow."

"Did you?"

Donald took a long drag on his cigarette.

"Don't play the innocent with me, Rupert," he admonished. "We've known one another too long for that. I know you have secrets you don't tell anyone - and I'm not asking you to tell me anything you don't want to or can't. But if you're being such a bastard because you're keeping secrets from Buffy, you'd do well to just tell her as much of the truth as you can."

Mary smiled wryly.

"Rupert isn't one to tell his secrets," she said. "I've known him for almost twenty years and I still think I know practically nothing about him, sometimes. Oh, I know the things anybody might learn, but not the man inside. He's not easy to know."

"Tell me about it," Buffy returned ruefully. "I mean, yeah, flappy cuffs and mushy peas and the world's most enthusiastic glasses cleaning...I know all that. And book loving and computer phobia and sarcasm and how he likes to dress up in funny costumes given half a chance..."

"Hang on a bit," Mary interrupted. "Rupert goes in for fancy dress?"

"I'm guessing you didn't know that," Buffy said. "If it helps, I think it's sort of a recent development. But the inside stuff...he pretty much never talks about that. God! I've been such an idiot! I spent all our time today talking about me and my issues and my stupid past with guys and I barely let him get a word in edgewise, did I?"

She began to pace the bathroom all the while berating herself.

"God, it's just like Webs said. I've got this whole superior inferiority complex deal and I don't listen to anyone at all. I don't listen to Giles. Maybe that's why nobody stays. I'm just this great big ball of conflicting mental problems. I bet some of them don't even have names. I probably make Sigmund Freud look sane. No wonder Giles doesn't want to be with me. why would anyone want to be with me?"

When she turned back, she found Mary smiling indulgently at her.

"Have you quite finished convincing yourself you're unfit for human society?"

Buffy shrugged.

"Not like there are a lot of people who would argue the point."

"Then let me," Mary offered. "From what you said about your - what was that? a superior inferiority complex? - I would guess that you've spent a great deal too much time talking to a psychology student who hasn't finished his course. Am I right?"

"Depends on what you call too much time. A couple hours, I guess. He was majoring in it. At Dartmouth. But he's not anymore. He's dead now."

"Like the chair woman?"

"Sort of?"

"Buffy, I'm going to ask you something and I'd appreciate an honest answer."

"Shoot. If I can, I'll answer it."

"Do you know anyone who's still alive?"

"If I just share, everything will suddenly be wonderful? Is that it? Open up my heart and let the sunshine in? You know it doesn't work that way."

"Have you ever tried it?" Donald countered.

Giles finished his lager. He rose and gestured to the bar.

"Same again?" he asked.

"Ta," Donald replied handing over his glass. "But you didn't answer my question."

Giles glared at his friend and stalked over to the bar. When he returned he lifted his glass and drank deeply. As he returned the glass to the table, he found Donald giving him a passable rendition of Willow's 'resolve face'. He sighed. This wasn't going away until he said something.

"Look, Donald, I can't tell you...well...far too many things, really. I appreciate what you're trying to do but it's just not on. Now let it go. Please."

"Rupert..."

"No, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"And I can't make you? Christ, you sound like my kids now," Donald grumbled. "I thought you were more mature than that. At least I have the hope that they'll grow out of it."

"In my experience, stubborn children grow up to be stubborn adults."

"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Donald snorted. "We've known each other since we were ten years old and I've never known anyone who could dig in their heels the way you do."

"Then you don't know Buffy," Giles sighed.

Donald nearly choked on his drink.

"Good lord, Rupert, surely you're joking?"

"I only wish I were," Giles mused as he traced a pattern in the condensation on his glass with one fingertip. "She's stubborn and thoughtless and quite the most damnably infuriating woman I've ever known."

Before Donald could think of an answer to the charge, the waitress arrived with the food.

"I wonder what's taking them so long," Donald said with a nervous glance toward the ladies' room.