Title: Sleight of Hand 11/14
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Smoke and Mirrors
Summary: It's behind the scenes where things get complicated.
Author Notes: Many thanks to Mad Poetess and Wesleysgirl for betaing :) This is the third story in the Of Old Mystics series; previous stories in the series can be found http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/mystics.html.

Uneasy sleep and bad dreams used to be a regular occurrence in Giles' life.

Guilt and the weight of the responsibility that he couldn't shirk used to haunt his subconscious and disturb his rest on a nightly basis, but over the years he'd come to better terms with what he had to do. Sharing the responsibility, as well as doing his best to keep the worst from happening in spite of what had to be done, had gradually quieted the bad dreams. Good nights of sleep had begun to outnumber the bad nights.

This, unfortunately, hadn't been a good night.

Ethan stirred beside him and snuggled closer, a sleepy hand sliding up Giles' chest from his belly. There was a short pause and then, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Giles covered Ethan's hand with his own, concentrating on the feel of his lover beside him and trying to banish the images that his subconscious seemed determined to inflict on him. "Just some bad dreams," he said, pushing away the memory of Buffy lying dead in front of him. 'Never again,' he thought. 'Not for my sake.'

"Huh?" Suddenly seeming much more awake, Ethan pushed himself up and stared down at Giles. "What did you dream about?"

Giles shook his head. "It's nothing. Old dreams."

Ethan frowned. "Don't do that. It hurts."

Another sliver of guilt went through Giles at that, and he pulled Ethan down into an embrace by way of apology. "It really is just old dreams, love. Things I've been dealing with on one level or another for years."

"Since Randall died," Ethan stated.

"No," Giles replied quickly, surprised at the invocation of that name. Then, thinking about it, he admitted, "Well maybe. But not... The dreams started when I got to Sunnydale."

"I saw a glimpse of your dream, I think," Ethan admitted, his fingers restless on Giles' shoulder. "This is about what was decided yesterday, isn't it?"

"Putting the girls in harm's way for my own protection?" Giles asked, some of his disapproval leaking into his voice. "Yes, quite probably."

Ethan was silent for a few moments, then said, "Ok. We tell them we don't want their help."

Giles tilted his head, trying to meet Ethan's eyes. "Just like that?" he asked softly.

"Yes. I'll just have to hope they get me first. Experiencing your death would be a mite unpleasant for me." Ethan's words might have been flippant, but his tone certainly wasn't.

"You're angry," Giles stated the obvious.

"Really?" Ethan struggled out of Giles' arms and sat up, facing away from him. "What on earth do I have to be angry about, Rupert?"

"I agreed to the plan, like you all wanted." Giles sat up himself, feeling anger licking at his own thoughts. "But that's not enough? I have to bloody well change my feelings to satisfy you as well?"

Ethan turned, and his face was contorted with strong emotion. When he spoke, it was low and raw. "If you can't value yourself, if you can't see yourself as important, then it won't matter how much we all try to protect you. You might as well go out and throw yourself under the next number ten bus to go along our street."

"This isn't about me," Giles argued, exasperated. He let out his breath and ran a hand over his face, then tried to explain. "Or maybe it is. I've stood and looked down at the body of my Slayer once; I've seen girls who were relying on me to keep them safe die in horrible ways. It takes a piece of your heart and soul each time it happens. I don't want to experience that again." He looked at Ethan. "I don't want you to have to experience it either."

"That doesn't work as an argument when you're the head of an organisation designed to train and assign these young girls to fight demons and worse. This isn't about the destiny of Slayers. This is about you and the blood that you imagine is on your hands." Ethan grabbed one of Giles' hands and attempted to show it to him by means of an illustration.

"Yes," Giles freely admitted, not pulling away although part of him wanted to. "It is. And the blood that is on my hands isn't the kind that you can wash away."

"Because it isn't really there." Ethan let Giles' hand drop. "Rupert, do you love me?"

"You know I do."

"Do you want me to be happy? Sane? Not... evil?"

"Of course," Giles replied, not able to see where Ethan was going. "You know all this."

"Then can't you..." Ethan seemed to be struggling to get the words out, and his voice was thick with what could have been unshed tears. "Can't you give a damn about yourself for me even if you won't for yourself? Please?"

Responding to his lover's pain, Giles reached out, pulling Ethan to him. "I do care about myself, love, I promise. It's just..." He sighed, not sure he could find the words to explain his feelings, or that could make Ethan understand. On the other hand, if he could explain it, he would be better able to debate the reasons for the changes he wanted to the system. "Bear with me while I try to find the words?" he asked softly.

Ethan nodded, and after a pause, snuggled close to Giles again.

When he finally started to speak, Giles didn't think about how to say anything. He just let the words come. "All my life, from the time I was a child, I was told the Slayers were weapons. They were the tools we were to use to defend humanity against the forces of darkness. We weren't to get attached or to allow ourselves to feel for them because they were merely tools. And tools were expendable."

He felt Ethan take a breath, ready to speak, but all his lover said in the end was, "Bearing with you."

Giles paused long enough to nuzzle his lover's cheek in gratitude before continuing. "I was taught that I was to find this teenage girl, teach her, train her, then send her out to face all sorts of evil. I wasn't to get attached, and indeed, I was told that it would be better for me to not even think of her as human. It would make it easier on me when I had to send her to her death. Not if, *when*."

Ethan's hands started to move on him -- smooth, soothing movements. "I know," he said quietly, but he didn't seem to be able to stop some of his old hatred of the Council coming out. "I also know individual Watchers weren't valued a great deal either. All that matters... mattered were the twin causes of Order and humanity uber alles."

"They were valued more than the Slayers. Our name says it all -- Watcher. You weren't supposed to do anything but train and send the Slayer out. You weren't supposed to get involved beyond that. After all, what did it matter if a Slayer died? Another would be called. A Watcher though, if he was killed, it wasn't so simple. A new one had to be trained and educated and seasoned in the field." Giles shook his head. "The Council believed that Watchers were worth more than the Slayer, and that was just wrong."

"You're right," Ethan agreed.

"I never believed it. I never tried to treat Buffy that way." Giles smiled slightly. "I doubt she would have allowed me to get away with it even if I had. But there were still times I had to send her out, ask her to do difficult, impossible things. And those times..."

"So what is your solution to this? Train the girls, but never let them fight? They have drives and instincts, Rupert. Even I've seen that."

Giles sighed. "I don't have a solution -- beyond doing what I have to do and allowing them to do what they have to do. But the feelings remain."

Ethan, after a few moments still, chuckled quietly. "Have you ever considered you may be in the wrong job, dear?" He drew back and put a finger over Giles' lips to stop him answering. "We are agreed that Slayers need to, well, be Slayers, yes?" The finger didn't move.

"It is what they are," Giles replied, his lips moving against Ethan's finger.

"Then it's presumably better that they have the right training and support to stand the best chance of long-term survival in the field, yes?"

"Which is why I do the job I do. Why I can't leave it up to the Francescas of the world."

"Exactly." Ethan took his finger away and briefly kissed Giles. "So let's see. You are important to me because I would go mad and die without you." He said it very matter-of-factly. "To the world, because of whatever it is we're fated to do or stop happening. And to all the Slayers, present and future, to ensure their rights and improve their quality of life... That's ever so slightly damn important, isn't it, dearheart?"

Giles could see the logic, could see the point Ethan was trying to make, but the idea that his life was worth those of the Slayers was not one he'd ever be able to embrace in his heart. "You make perfect sense," Giles told Ethan, brushing fingers along his lover's cheek, "but I fear I'm still going to have bad dreams."

While Ethan didn't exactly look happy at that, he nodded, accepting it. "Will you at least talk to me about them when you have them, rather than pretend they're not important? I promise not to be angry anymore."

It was a reasonable request, no matter how difficult it might prove for Giles to comply. He'd asked the exact same thing of Ethan; he couldn't very well refuse to do the same. "I'll try," he finally said. "Sometimes I don't remember much about them beyond the feelings."

Ethan stirred and pushed gently at Giles. "Lay back. Tell me what you remember of this one. I won't say much; just hold you."

"The holding part sounds good," Giles admitted, letting Ethan push him back against the pillows.

Arranging himself half-over Giles, Ethan wriggled until they were both comfortable, curling his fingers into Giles' hair at the side of his head. "I saw Buffy," he prompted gently.

Giles sighed, the memory of Buffy's death flashing through his mind again. "Yes. One of the worst moments of my life."

"Tell me?"

He'd never talked about it before; all those who would have needed to know had been there and had seen it as it happened. "We were fighting Glory -- a Hell God. She was trying to get back to her own dimension by using the Key. Dawn."

"Key?" Ethan asked, sounding confused. "What key? Wasn't Dawn the littlest of the little girls?"

"For all intents and purposes, that's what Dawn is. Now. But she hasn't always been." He looked curiously at Ethan. "What do you remember about her?"

Ethan looked somewhat blank. "Erm, brattish? Slayer's little sister. Kicked me in the shins, as I recall. That's about it, I think. Oh, wait -- long hair."

Giles smiled slightly, always fascinated at how complete the spell regarding Dawn's existence was. "You never met her," he told his lover.

"No, I did," Ethan insisted. "A couple of times, I believe."

"No, you didn't. She didn't exist when you were in Sunnydale."

"Is there a punchline to this joke at all, Rupert?" his lover asked, soundly slightly peeved.

"Dawn is the Key, a mystical manifestation whose power is to break down the barriers between dimensions when utilised at the right time and place. Glory wanted to use the Key to get back to her own dimension. So the monks whose duty it was to keep the Key safe sent it to the Slayer in a form that they could be sure she would protect -- they made the Key into Buffy's sister."

"Oh." Ethan was quiet a little while, clearly digesting that. "So we're all the punchline then? Everyone who remembers her before a certain point? Clever monks, I must say."

"Indeed," Giles agreed, then offered, "We've all found it easier to just accept those memories as real."

"You must have considerably more of them than I."

"A whole relationship's worth, yes," Giles confirmed. "It brings up some interesting questions about what exactly the nature of reality is."

"Fluid and malleable, as I have long told you." Ethan raised himself enough to grin at Giles, but the grin fell into seriousness as he continued. "Fighting a Hell God seems unwise, at the very least, and hardly a job for one Slayer and her trusty but *small* band of heroes. Where were all the other Champions of the world's integrity at this point? Or even people like me, who couldn't care less about good-doing, but would rather like the world to remain in one piece?"

Giles sighed and closed his eyes, remembering the feeling of being the only ones standing between the world and destruction. Again. "Where are they ever? It always seemed to be just us against the apocalypse."

"And this time, it wasn't enough? Or at least it was, but at a cost none of you would have chosen to pay. My poor Rupert." Ethan's fingers moved in Giles' hair, the movements a gentle massage.

It felt good, comforting. Having someone he could lean on was still a new experience. "It was worse because we'd thought -- I'd thought... Glory shared her body with a young human man. Buffy defeated Glory, beat her so badly that she retreated and the human personality came to the fore. To keep Glory from coming back after Buffy again, I killed him." He sighed again, feeling unutterably old. "We thought the danger was over, that we had won."

Ethan's face was a picture of concern. "Oh, that must have hurt. Even before what happened, happened... for you to take that death, necessary or not, onto yourself... I wish I'd been there to take that burden. It would have weighed considerably less on me."

"It *was* necessary," Giles said brusquely. "And far easier than... If the ritual started, if Dawn's blood flowed, then the only way to stop all the dimensions from drifting into each other would be to stop her blood flowing. Kill her. We all went into that battle knowing that, and knowing that if it came to that, we'd be fighting Buffy as well because she refused to even consider sacrificing her sister."

Ethan suddenly looked very thoughtful, raising his hand to rub over his mouth, his eyes unfocusing. Giles could almost hear his lover's brain chuntering away, and yet, when Ethan spoke, it was only to ask, "What happened?"

"With Glory dealt with, we thought the danger past, or at least less imminent. But one of her followers had started the ritual in her absence. He cut Dawn, and her blood began breaking down the walls between the dimensions." Giles swallowed hard before continuing; even now, years later, and with Buffy back alive and well, remembering was still difficult. "Dawn had been made from Buffy; their blood was the same. So Buffy sacrificed herself to save Dawn and close the dimensional tear."

Ethan's hands held and caressed. "I know she came back. You told me about Willow and all that she unwisely did. But did you ever even allow yourself to weep for your fallen daughter? And I'm not just talking about one or two escaping tears, dearheart."

"I grieved," Giles insisted. "Although I didn't break down. I couldn't. Someone had to hold everything together." He sighed again. "And even then I didn't see what Willow and the others were planning."

"It's still inside you," Ethan insisted, intensely serious. "Your daughter, or near as makes no difference, died, and that's still inside you. You had to be the strong one; you had to cope. And then she was back, so there seemed no need to grieve. But the pain is there, and it's real, and it's festering. God, Rupert, if there's something I know about, it's the pain of loss and how not to deal with it."

Giles shook his head, denying the pain or denying the need to deal with it, he wasn't sure.

"Rupert, look at me," Ethan said, stern and frowning. Reluctantly, Giles did so. His lover's fingers soothed and stroked, but his words were far from comforting. "You saw your daughter die. You saw her broken body on the rubble. You could do nothing to stop it happening, nothing to remedy it. You were helpless, and she died, and you buried her, and now you need to weep for her."

Giles shook his head again, denying the feelings that Ethan's words were pulling to the surface. "It's over. She's fine."

"But you're not."

"I'm--" Fine, he was going to say, but the word got caught in his throat.

Ethan smiled sadly. "Can't lie to me, can you, dearheart?"

No, he couldn't, but that didn't mean he had to have a breakdown. "I'm dealing with it," he said quietly.

Ethan crimped his lips. "No, you're repressing it. Not the same thing at all. The dreams are only going to get worse, you know."

"The dreams are nothing new. I've dealt with them all along."

"You are punishing yourself with them. You think you deserve them, deserve the pain. God, I'm lucky you even allow yourself to have me." Ethan was clearly getting pissed off again, for all his promises not to be angry.

"And breaking down, wallowing in a grief that holds no meaning anymore, is somehow supposed to make this perceived flaw in my character better?" Giles asked, his own voice becoming sharper in reaction.

Ethan closed his eyes briefly. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm just scared about what you're doing to yourself." He kissed Giles softly on the forehead. "This is the kind of thing the Chaos will use against you, if my experience is anything to go by. Things like this will become our Achilles heels; the sources of our potential downfall. And..." He sighed. "And if you don't feel safe enough here, in bed with me, in our own house, to let it out, then you never will."

"Bugger." Giles sighed heavily and ran a hand over his face. "You don't fight fair," he said peevishly.

"Have I ever?" Ethan asked with a slight smile. "Tell me. Let yourself feel it. Let me hold you."

"I don't know if I can," Giles admitted with raw honesty, even as he let Ethan pull him back into his arms.

Ethan nuzzled against the side of Giles' head. "Just talk, dearheart. Without self-editing. Tell me about her death. Tell me how it made you feel, then and every day after."

"Hollow," Giles said after a moment, those dark days dancing in his memory. "Wanting to just lie down and... stop. Knowing I couldn't. I was strong on the surface because I had to be. But underneath... Underneath, there was nothing. There couldn't be. I couldn't--" He sighed shakily, emotions he'd denied for so long closer now to the surface than he had ever thought he'd let them get. "So I was just... hollow."

Ethan said nothing, but Giles felt soft lips against his temple and cheekbones. He was clearly expected to keep talking

"The worst part was... We had a robot that looked like Buffy; we were using it to make sure word didn't get out the Slayer was dead. It was a remarkable likeness; it was easy to delude yourself, forget for whole minutes at a time that it wasn't..."

"That it wasn't her. That she was dead. Lost to you."

Giles remembered the completely shattered feeling whenever that happened, all mixed in with the feeling of being stupid for believing for even a second... "Yes," he said, swallowing hard.

"Tell me about your dream, Rupert." Ethan's voice was so very soft beside his ear.

"Failure. Death. My fault." He couldn't describe it any more, couldn't bear looking at it any closer.

"It wasn't your fault. Really, it wasn't. But I know that you feel what you feel. I love you. You've trusted me with this, and I appreciate it." Ethan's hands and lips moved slowly over Giles, finding where he was tense and gentling the taut muscles. His words seemed to be giving Giles permission to stop talking now, that it was enough. "Thank you."

Giles turned and buried himself in Ethan's embrace, allowing himself the comfort and strength his lover offered. He felt raw, like his nerves were exposed; he hated feeling that way, would never have allowed himself to get into that state, but Ethan had asked. Considering how often and how much Ethan had shared of his pain and deepest feelings, could Giles have done anything but reciprocate?

A low hum of Ethan's magic flowed through Giles; it felt like a balm. Ethan himself paused thoughtfully before offering, "I don't quite know how to say this without sounding condescending or cynical, which I'm really not, but you've done so well talking about this. I know how hard this sort of thing is on you." Not feeling like replying, Giles buried his face against Ethan's neck, softly mouthing the skin there. Ethan shifted, tightening his arms. "Hmm. It sounded condescending, didn't it? I'm sorry."

"No," Giles said, the apology stirring him to pull back enough to meet Ethan's gaze. "No, it didn't."

"That's good." Ethan moved in and kissed him softly on the mouth.

Giles closed his eyes and kissed Ethan back. "I don't want to hide bits of myself from you. It's just... difficult to talk about some things."

"I know," Ethan said between soft kisses pressed upon all accessible areas of Giles' face. "I won't push anymore today. It's probably time to get up anyway... and feel free to take that as double-entendre."

Chuckling, Giles caught Ethan's mouth with his own. "I fear that's about all I'm up to in entendre territory right now," he apologised when he pulled back enough to speak. "I'm a bit..."

Ethan smiled sympathetically. "I know, dearheart. I was just trying to lighten the tone. I love you, you know?"

"I do know." He traced Ethan's features with a light finger. "I love you too. In case there was ever any doubt."

"Would sir care to partake of breakfast downstairs today?"

Giles smiled. "Are you going to give me my cane back?" he asked, experience allowing him to push away the memories and dreams with only a modicum of difficulty.

Ethan smiled. "All right. You've been a good boy." He hesitated. "Rupert...?"

"Yes, love?"

"If you ever feel able to talk more about this, please try? I..." Ethan paused, then smiled slightly, snorting ever so softly through his nose. "I'll always be here for you."

The words soothed something deep inside Giles that was still a bit raw from almost losing Ethan earlier that week. He leaned in and kissed Ethan lingeringly. "You are very good for me," he murmured against his lover's lips. "And I love you very much."

***

"In here, girls," Ethan said, pushing open the glass door into the Coffee and Bagel Express. "I have to be able to debauch you a little, and if that's only by ignoring the ridiculous American ideas about coffee being only for over-21 year olds, then so be it."

"So this would be a bad time to mention that I not only frequented Starbucks before I came to England, but I worked there part-time too?" Kat asked, smiling at him.

"You girls just love to spoil my fun. Just for that, you can be the one to go to the counter, Kat." He took them to a table as far away as possible from the loudspeakers playing annoying jazz-flavoured blandness. Handing Kat a twenty, he said, "Double espresso, smoked salmon and cream cheese on onion. Meglet?"

"Iced cappuccino and something chocolatey," Megan said, sitting down beside Ethan as Kat headed off to the counter.

"Lightweight," he said, grinning at her. She stuck her tongue out at him. "It's part of a Slayer's sacred duty to be able to function under severe caffeine overdose," he insisted.

"I don't like espresso," Megan replied with a half-shrug. "Besides you still owe me cotton candy."

"Infuriating child," he said with a laugh. "When the current troubles are over, I'm taking you to Great Yarmouth. Or worse still, Southend-on-Sea." He smiled more gently at her. "How are you, Megan?"

"I'm fine," she said with another shrug. "I feel like I should be asking you that."

Ethan persisted. "The last fortnight has to have been hard for you to deal with."

"Well, yeah. But only because we've been worried about you and Giles." She smiled at him. "I'm glad you're both feeling better."

He studied her, unwilling to start on what he had taken them out to say to them before Kat was back. "We, erm, haven't been the best of Watchers to you recently, what with Devon and everything that has happened since."

"You've been fine," Megan said, reaching out and patting his hand. "Really. In all the important ways."

Kat returned to the table with a tray of goodies and started handing them around before sitting down. She'd bought herself a half-baguette, which was huge and bursting with an extravagant quantity of fillings. "Feeling hungry were you, dear?" Ethan asked in a dry tone.

"Slayer metabolism," Kat said just before taking a big bite.

Ethan looked at Megan, who as usual was merely picking at the chocolate cake she'd been bought. "Perhaps we should have you checked over by the medics."

"Nah," Megan disagreed. "Kat's just a freak." Kat just shrugged and took another bite.

Ethan sipped his coffee and looked at them both, his feelings complex. Both girls were at that stage when they were one moment serious young women and the next back to being carefree children again. But however child-like they could seem at times, both were seventeen, had the intelligence and maturity of many 20-somethings, and of course, super-powers.

"Have I ever told you anything about my childhood?" Ethan asked, surprising himself.

Both girls immediately focused on him with interested looks that reminded him of the kind a fox would give a rabbit. "No, you haven't," Kat said. "I take it you're gonna now?"

He grimaced. "It's not a pretty story, and I've no intention of telling you a great deal about it. I... I'll try to tell you some though. If you'd care to hear it."

"Yes, please," Megan said, answering for both of them, eyes shining.

Ethan sighed. He'd had no intention of talking about this when he'd first planned this little chat. He *never* spoke about these things. Rupert knew, of course, but never commented on what he knew. And while Ethan could see why his brain had thought it was a good idea to start discussing this, he had severe misgivings before he even started.

"I was born here, in London. In Enfield, to be exact. I was an accident and an only child. My mother had no interest in me, and I was expected to care for myself from an early age. I was a bit of a dirty, unkempt brat to start with, which eventually attracted the attentions of the social services. Which in turn, attracted the painful attentions of my otherwise thankfully absent father. I learnt quickly to tend to my appearance, and through theft and other unsound activities, I always looked rather... dapper, after that."

He gave the girls a wry smile. "And so, of course, was called the entire catalogue of deeply unpleasant synonyms for 'gay' long before I knew what they meant, or indeed, that I was."

"Kids use names that they hear at home. It doesn't matter to them what the words mean -- they just know that it's bad. That's how prejudices get passed on." Kat said softly, with an insight that many wouldn't expect from her.

"You're quite right, of course." Ethan nodded. "Well, I was self-sufficient, rather too intelligent, and by my peer groups' standards, decidedly odd. I had no friends, and while technically I was part of a large extended family spanning half of Enfield, I didn't fit in there either. I did briefly have a dog..." He laughed, not completely bitterly. "But my childhood wasn't completely without fun, for all that I had to create it myself. I was allowed to wander pretty much wherever I liked, do whatever I liked, so long as I never brought trouble home with me. They preferred it when I was out of the house."

"You must have been so lonely," Megan murmured, watching him with sympathy in her eyes. "You needed what Kat and I have. You needed an Ethan."

He felt an alarming lump in his throat at that and looked down, picking at his bagel. "Actually," he said quietly, "By the time I was your age, I had a Ripper."

Kat said gently, "That's almost as good."

"It was a great deal better than good. Rupert gave me everything my childhood hadn't, and a lot more besides. But I'm not meant to be talking about my relationship." He looked up again. "My topic is family, and the fact I haven't really ever had one... until now." Before they could say anything, he added quickly, "I know you both have your own families and that really, we've all known each other a very short time, but..." The words were getting sticky in his throat, harder and harder to say. "But you're the closest thing I've ever had to family. I'll never have children of my own and would never have wanted them, but... oh."

He stopped, embarrassment, and the fear that what he was saying was totally inappropriate, welding the words in his throat.

Ignoring the fact that they were in a public place, Megan moved out of her chair to come over and hug him. A second later, Kat joined her.

Oh God. Wrapping his arms around them both, he pressed his face into their hair, hiding from the curious eyes around them. "I'm sorry," he said, very quietly, finally getting to what he had come here to say. "I'm so very sorry for how I was when the Chaos was in me. Rude and dismissive, bitchy and... and I'm sorry. And for walking out not just on Rupert, but on you two as well. It won't happen again. None of it will." He tightened his arms briefly. "And now, girls, unless you really want me to bawl like a babe in public, please sit back down."

Kat chuckled as she pulled back. Megan followed a heartbeat later, but not before she kissed Ethan's cheek and whispered, "Apology accepted."

They were quiet for a while, Ethan concentrating on eating his bagel and not meeting the Slayers' eyes. Not, indeed, thinking about the conversation they'd just had and the girls' reactions -- he was saving that up for when he was alone, or better still, with Rupert. When the food was finished, however, he sat back in the chair and smiled at them. "Seconds?" he offered.

"I think you got my so-called Slayer metabolism," Megan teased.

He grinned. "Well, perhaps you two would prefer I took you somewhere else now? We have the whole afternoon to enjoy ourselves, and I raided Rupert's wallet."

Perking up, Megan said, "Kat's never been to the Eye."

Ethan looked out of the window. "It's a bit dull today for the Eye. Wouldn't you rather go shopping?"

Kat shrugged. "Shopping's fine, if that's what you want to do. Megan and I can do touristy things some afternoon when you and Giles are both busy."

Ethan frowned. "No, this afternoon's for you. Aren't teenage girls meant to love shopping with their parents' money?"

"Depends," Kat said. "Some parents substitute shopping with their money for actual parenting." She glanced meaningfully at Megan.

"Oh. Bugger." He gave Megan an apologetic look. "I was intending to shop *with* you, you know? Give you the benefit of my superior taste in matters stylish and co-ordinated." He winked at them. "But if you want to go to the Eye, providing it's not fully booked, then that's where we're going."

"I do want," Megan said quietly. "It's just... it's our special place. But maybe we can go shopping after?"

"Very well." Ethan nodded, more pleased than he wanted to admit that they had a 'special place'. "Why don't you two get me a slice of the most totally over-indulgent gateau that they have, and I'll call ahead and book up tickets. Just to make sure there's no disappointment."

"Slayer's metabolism, definitely," Kat teased, as both girls stood up.

"Love of good food shows a love of life, as my dear old granny didn't used to say." The girls laughed. Ethan watched them go to the counter where they giggled further, clearly trying to decide what to get him. As he removed his mobile from his jacket pocket to dial Directory Enquiries, Ethan realised that he hadn't really managed to quite say any of the things he had planned. But Kat and Megan had seemed to understand.

He vowed to himself again that he would protect and nurture them as fiercely as they would, and indeed had, him. Because they were family and that's what families -- true families -- did.

NEXT