Title: Odd Couples
Author: Gileswench

(notes and disclaimer with part one)

It was three days before the wedding when disaster struck.

Buffy twirled in the living room, showing off her wedding gown to her mother, Willow, and Daphne Giles. Since she was so small, she had been able to save time and money by buying a sample gown from a previous season, and the alterations had just been finished.

"It would have taken forever, otherwise," she explained. "And we didn't have forever. It's not exactly the dress I always dreamed of, but it's pretty and I could get it in time."

"Oh, Honey," Joyce exclaimed, "you look so beautiful. Doesn't Buffy look wonderful, Xander?"

The man in question had just wandered out of the kitchen with a large sandwich and a bag of chips. His jaw worked for a moment before he could answer.

"Buffy," he said at last. "You look fantastic. Gorgeousness definitely runs in the family."

"Giles is gonna take one look at you and forget he knows English at all," Willow grinned.

"As long as he remembers how to say 'I do' in some language, I can live with that," Buffy blushed.

Daphne frowned slightly and moved to Buffy's side.

"I think it needs a few alterations, yet," she said.

"There isn't time," Buffy said.

"Nonsense, there's plenty of time. We've three days, and I can make a few changes tonight. Perhaps fit it just a thought more through here, give your bosom a bit more emphasis." She pulled the satin a little tighter over Buffy's ribs to demonstrate. When Xander choked slightly, Daphne smiled. "Yes, that will make a world of difference. And perhaps a touch of beading at the neckline."

"We couldn't possibly ask you to do all that," Joyce said.

"It's no trouble at all. A nip here, a tuck there, and Buffy will look exactly like a princess. After all, it's my only son's wedding, and it's your only daughter's wedding. I think it ought to be as perfect as we can make it, don't you?"

An odd expression crossed Joyce's face. Xander blushed slightly.

"Um...actually," he said hesitantly, "...you want to tell them, Honey?"

"We got the results of the ultrasound this morning," Joyce said. "It looks like Buffy won't be my only daughter for long. We're having a little girl."

"A...a girl? Really?" Buffy smiled weakly and hugged her mother. "That's great news. It is. I'm happy for you guys." She hugged Xander as well. "Good luck, Xand. If she's anything like me, you're gonna need it."

"That's so cool!" Willow enthused. "Buffy, you're gonna have a little sister.

"Yeah. Cool."

Daphne looked sharply at Buffy.

"Why don't you come with me, my dear, and we'll sort out this dress of yours properly," she suggested.

"That'd be great."

Buffy had barely picked up her skirts in order to mount the stairs when something crashed through the window. Something scaly with long claws and sharp fangs. It roared loudly. Xander dived at the beast before it could get too close to Joyce.

"Keep your scaly hands off my wife!" he yelled.

Willow grabbed Joyce and pulled her toward the kitchen as Buffy sprang into action. The Slayer punched the demon over and over.

"Weapon, Xand, now!"

He raced for her weapons chest and brought down a large dagger.

"Buffy! Catch!"

He tossed it from halfway down the staircase. The dagger flipped end over end until Buffy caught it neatly by the handle and plunged it into the demon's chest. A spurt of purple goo gushed out and splatted messily on Buffy's chest, arms, and face. The creature gurgled and fell dead on the carpet.

A moment later, Xander was at her side.

"You okay, Buff?"

She looked down at her ruined wedding gown. Her chin began to tremble. The phone rang.

"Hello?" Joyce answered. "Oh no, but you can't...well, that's not good enough. No, you can't possibly do this to us...."

As her mother continued to argue with whomever was on the other end of the phone, Buffy sniffled.

"It's awful. My dress is destroyed. I can't get married in this."

"Maybe you could dye the whole dress purple?" Xander suggested. "I mean, it's not like you're...y'know...that big with the virginal innocence, anyway."

"Purple? You want me to get married in a purple dress? Are you insane?"

"Joyce wore a green one, and she looked great. I don't see what the big deal is."

"It's my wedding, Xander," Buffy gritted out. "The only one I ever expect to have."

"Yeah, but you know Giles. He'll take one look at you and it won't matter what you're wearing. If you wore a potato sack, he'd still think you were Helen of Troy's prettier sister."

"And purple's not a bad color," Willow added helpfully. "He'll just think it's some wacky fashion you're following and he won't care. Or maybe we can find a way to wash it out. It's not the end of the world, Buffy."

Joyce hung up the phone angrily. It rang again almost immediately.

"Yes? What?! Oh, you can't be serious...."

Buffy's eyes filled with tears.

"I just wanted everything to be perfect for one day. Just this one. And I had to take second or third or fifteenth best in everything because I couldn't wait a year for this, and now...now my dress is ruined. Guys, what am I gonna do?"

"We'll find a way to fix it," Willow assured her. "And Xand's right: no matter what, Giles is crazy about you. So, it won't be the wedding of your dreams, but that's okay. You and Giles are gonna be together, and that's the most important thing."

"Oh yeah?" Joyce yelled into the phone. "Well the same to you, buddy!"

She slammed the receiver down. Everyone else was looking to her for an explanation.

"You won't believe this," she said shaking with fury. "The caterer and the photographer have both just quit on us. I don't know what is going on, but as of this moment, we have no food and no pictures, and if I ever find out how, I'm going to put a curse on them both. Willow. You know about these things. How do I curse a man so that every time he takes his pants off in front of a woman she laughs hysterically at him?"

"Um...I...I wouldn't know. Really."

Buffy sat down on the floor next to the demon corpse and began to cry in earnest.

"This can't be happening," she choked out.

Daphne came to her side.

"There, there, my dear," she said comfortingly. "We can't have you crying, can we? Not over such a little thing. Now what are we going to do to fix this?"

"C'mon, Will," Xander said. "I don't know how else we can help, but at least we can get this dead demon off the carpet. The smell alone is depressing me."

The two friends grabbed the demon's feet and dragged it out the back door, leaving a trail of slimy, purple blood in their wake. Joyce opened the back door for them.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said in a tiny voice.

"Whatever for?"

"Being such a wimp," she explained. "I'm just better at killing things than I am at doing girly stuff. Girls plan weddings every day. Mine is going to be awful. We should have just gone off and eloped. Or maybe Rupert should have gone back to England when he was fired, like they told him to. It's not like he couldn't have found someone better; someone smarter who always knows what to do and say. Maybe even someone who looks right with him."

"Are you quite finished feeling sorry for yourself?" Daphne asked.

"Huh?"

"Because there's work to be done, and if it's to be done in three days, we'd best get right to it. Unless, of course, you plan on giving up entirely."

Buffy stood and wiped her eyes.

"But everything's ruined. How do I fix that in three days?"

"First thing, you take a good, hot shower and get that demon blood off you. Then we'll have a nice cup of tea and see what can be done with this mess. You'll see; it's not as bad as you think it is. Remind me one day to tell you about my wedding."

"Disaster city?"

Daphne blinked in surprise.

"Heavens, no. Things got a bit muddled, but I ended it married to Ernest, and that's what counts, isn't it? Now run along upstairs and stop dripping purple on the carpet. Go on, shoo!"

Buffy smiled. Even through tears and demon blood she lit the room.

"Okay, okay. You said it, Xander said it, and Willow said it. I gotta think you guys are right."

"Of course I'm right. You just concentrate on what's important."

*****

When Giles arrived half an hour later, he found a hive of female activity. Willow was on her laptop searching for caterers and photographers with last-minute holes in their schedules due to cancellations. A freshly-showered Buffy was on her knees in the living room scrubbing purple demon blood out of the carpet. Daphne stood at the kitchen sink scrubbing just as hard at Buffy's horrifically stained gown. Joyce alternated between offering suggestions over Daphne's shoulder and poring over a stack of cookbooks. There was a steady buzz of urgent discussion in the air. He decided it might be easiest to begin with Willow.

"What's going on?" he asked his young friend.

"Oh! Giles! I didn't see you come in. Or hear. We're sorta busy."

"Yes, I can see that. The question is why are you all so busy?"

"The wedding. Stuff for the wedding. The one that's just a couple days off. Lots to do for it."

Giles sat and pulled off his glasses. He frowned in confusion.

"I do know about the wedding, Willow. It is, after all, mine. But I thought everything was taken care of."

"It was...until this demon splooshed purple blood all over Buffy's dress just at the same time the caterer and the photographer canceled. And since then, the D.J.'s quit, too. We're all just crossing our fingers that the minister doesn't decide she has an elsewhere to be on your big day, 'cause that would be really, really bad."

"And it's a little late for me to get ordained by some mail-order preachery," Xander said as he came in and sat next to them.

"Any luck?" Willow asked.

"Nada. Admittedly, I wouldn't recommend my Uncle Al if there was any choice, but it seems that he's already booked on Saturday."

"Did he even have a camera we could borrow?"

"Will, he hasn't let me borrow anything from him since I was five and I broke the pencil he loaned me. This guy does not let anything he owns out of his sight, which is one of the reasons he doesn't get hired much. Not so many churches have RV parking so he can bring his entire home with him."

Willow glanced at Joyce, then back at her friend.

"Are you really sure you should be breeding, Xand? Some of your relatives are a little scary."

Giles stood.

"I'd best talk to Buffy," he said a bit nervously.

"Be careful, man," Xander said. "She's...wound a little tight about now. If you want my fatherly advice, you'll stay out of hitting range and offer chocolate, that's all I'm saying."

"Thanks, Dad," Giles said with a roll of his eyes.

"Anytime, Son," Xander grinned in return.

"Good luck," Willow offered. "I think you might sorta need it."

"Thank you both for your support," Giles said with a glare. He adjusted his jacket, took a deep breath, and approached his lady love. He squatted down next to her and gingerly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Buffy, darling, I've just heard," he said in a low, soothing voice. "What can I do to help?"

"You can tell me what the hell gets Algarthra blood out of Berber," she gritted out. "I feel like I've been scrubbing for a week, and everything's messed up and your mom thinks I'm a total wimp - which I totally am, and we're not gonna have food, photographs, or music at our wedding and I'll have to get married wearing something out of the back of my closet, and I hate myself for being so dumb and girly, but I can't help it, Rupert! I just wanted everything to be perfect...or at least sorta normal. Just once, I wanted everything to be like it is for everyone else on the planet."

"Hey, hey, it's going to be fine," he said as he pulled the sniffling girl into his arms. "Don't you understand yet? I don't want things to be normal. I don't want you to be normal. I want you to be Buffy. And if our wedding turns out to be a bit...unconventional, well, we'll still be married at the end of it."

"I know," she said into his shirtfront. "I know that's the important part. Everyone's been telling me that, and I know it's true. It's just...I've been dreaming about this since I was a little girl. You know; big white dress, humongous cake that tastes like Wonder Bread covered in hyper-sweet frosting flowers and doves, cheesy band, Dad walking me down the aisle, getting fifteen toasters and having to figure out where to return fourteen of them, Swedish meatballs, entertaining relatives you usually avoid, three hours of photos before you're allowed to eat...all of it. Even the really cheap champagne that's all you can afford to get a hundred people drunk on."

"That doesn't sound like much fun."

"No. It probably isn't. But it's traditional. I thought you of all people would get it. Tradition counts. I'm not sure I'd feel really married without it. Besides...never mind."

"What is it, Buffy?"

"No, it's nothing. Really. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Your mom already gave me a good lecture on that. And she's right. And you're right. Everybody's right. I should just keep my eye on the prize and remember when it's over, I'll be your wife." An odd expression crossed her face. "Huh."

"Hmm?"

"I didn't really ever say it before."

"Say what?"

"Wife. I'll be your wife."

Giles chuckled softly.

"I rather thought that was the point of the exercise," he said.

"Well, yeah, but I never said it out loud before. Not really. It...it feels...funny - but good."

He took a quick glance to make sure everyone else was too busy to pay attention to what he and Buffy were doing. As soon as he was certain they weren't being observed, he leaned down and kissed her.

It wasn't his usual public kiss. Normally, he would have given her a tiny peck if there was anyone within viewing distance. Passion was something he saved for the bedroom, as a rule, but this time his heart overruled his head. He caressed her lips with his, then probed softly with his tongue until she opened to him.

By the time they pulled back, both were breathing a bit heavily and their cheeks were matching shades of scarlet.

"I can't wait to be your husband," he whispered in her ear. An odd thrill shot through his stomach. "And you're right. It feels terribly odd, but good, to say it."

She clutched him tighter, snuggling her cheek against his chest.

"I can't wait. No matter how it happens, it's gonna be good, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," he assured her. He touched his lips to her temple. "Now, I suppose I'd best let you get back to cleaning the carpet, and make myself useful in some way."

"It'll be helpful if you can cook, or sew, or know a photographer with nothing to do on Saturday."

"I suppose I could do bangers and mash for fifty people, but you might be a bit lonely at the reception."

She mock glared at him.

"Go. Find something useful to do. If you don't, it could be hazardous to that handsome face of yours."

He kissed her again.

"Don't worry," he said. "Mum likes you. And when my mother likes someone, surprisingly good things happen."