Title: Another Kind of Man
Author: Athenae
Email: athenae25@yahoo.com
Spoilers: "The Prom" and everything before
Rating: PG
Summary: Post-ep. Giles' sympathy. Buffy on the dance floor.
Disclaimers: Not mine. No money. Just for fun.
Acknowledgements: Leonard Cohen's magnificent "Hallelujah" provides the lyrics at the end.

The janitors will clean all this up tomorrow, sweep away the sagging balloons, the crumpled cocktail napkins, the plastic bottle of vodka with which some of the football players not so discreetly tried to spike the punch.

She stood amidst the fallen streamers, the spent confetti. Her parasol tucked beneath her arm, as an umbrella, though this little shiny thing would give her scant protection from the rain.

He feels, as he has felt many nights in this school, as though he should go outside and make an offering to whatever capricious gods watch over them here, that they lived through yet another rite of passage.

They were the only two left. He clutched the main door keys in his hand, responsible as chaperone for locking up. But he would not leave until Buffy did. And she was not leaving.

The disco ball threw silver snowflakes on her skin. She was standing tall, shoulders squared, facing away from him, facing the stage.

He is overcome with an absurd desire to go to her and kneel at her feet. If he were another kind of man he would do this. He would kneel before her and touch the hem of her dress to his lips.

He would take her bravery from her physically, draw out her pain from the marrow of her bones like venom from a snakebite. And she would be young and careless again, and the age would drop from her eyes.

He found himself walking over to where she stood, around her, to face her. He took the parasol from her, gently, and opened it.

She smiled at him without a tremor. "I think it's bad luck to open that indoors," she said as he handed it back to her.

"That's umbrellas," he replied.

"Oh. Yeah."

Everything inside him quaking, he took the hand that wasn't holding her prize in his own. She looked up at him in surprise as he pressed it to his heart.

"You saved me, as well," he told her, voice sandpapered away to nothing. "I don't have a parasol, or even a … slicker" he smiled in spite of himself "to give you, but you should know …

"You were my protector, as well. And I — "

She pulled her hand from his and placed her fingertips over his mouth.

"I've been trying not to cry all night, Giles, and so help me God, if you make me fall apart now."

"I simply want to thank you. For all you've given up."

"We've both given up."

"Thank you."

"Well, thank you back."

He couldn't help the smile spreading across his face. "No, thank you."

She giggled. "Thank you!"

"Thank you!"

She was laughing, he had her laughing.

"Would you like to dance?"

"No.

"These are new sandals, Giles." She lifted her dress skirt and wiggled a perfectly pedicured foot wrapped in slivery straps at him, but her voice was sad.

"They look like little dolly torture devices."

"They cost ..." she considered his face. "They cost as much as one of your musty old books. I'm not letting you step all over them!"

"I'll have you know, young lady, that I took dancing lessons from Arthur Murray."

"The guy who wrote 'Death of a Salesman?'"

"That's Arthur Miller."

"Oh. I was wondering when he had time to teach you to foxtrot."

He laughed out loud at that, at the normalcy of that. At his relief, that she could still make jokes, after everything. Angel, the Cruciamentum, Jenny, Spike, Acathla, Scott ...

"These shoes hurt," she confessed.

"But they look lovely on you."

"Take me home, Giles?" She furled her parasol. "Downside of vampire ex-boyfriends as prom dates. Never remember to call a cab for you."

He slipped out of his jacket and draped it over her bare shoulders, chuckling again at how it dwarfed her tiny frame. "Come along, Cinderella, before my rusted carriage turns into a pumpkin."

He picked up a few stray bits of crepe paper and slipped them into his trouser pockets while she fetched her tiny handbag from a chair across the room. Glitter stuck to his fingers when he flicked the switch to turn off the lights, and the disco ball slowly wound to a sparkling stop.

He locked the door behind them. The janitors would clean all this up tomorrow.

I saw your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken
Hallelujah

END