TITLE: Foreigner (3/3)
AUTHOR: Darcy Galvan
PAIRING: B/G
RATING: PG-13 (for an itty bit of bad language)
E-MAIL: lulu_galvan@h...
SPOILERS: season 6 involving our dearth of Gilesean goodness
SUMMARY: emotional Giles/Buffy angst (*snort* surprise from me! LOL).
NOTE: Okay, so here's another piece of Darcy angst that I've been working on forever. It's done! There's no Slayer action in this, but hey, talking is important! Thanks to Me! For doing a little bit of beta work for this poor author...

Three days later, the night before the wedding, Willow, Tara, Buffy, Dawn, Giles, Xander and Anya gathered for dinner in the Summers home. They were making last minute plans and listening to Anya give her last minute speeches and orders. Buffy and Tara were beginning to nod off when Anya slapped the table excitedly, shocking the two guilty would-be nappers into semi-wakefulness. Giles smirked at Buffy who stuck a lazy tongue out at him.

"And you will recall that, in accordance with tradition, you will all attend the wedding tomorrow afternoon as my honored guests." She tapped her pen down the line of instructions and lists on her notepad and nodded. "That's it." Anya's shoulders bunched in excitement and she gave a frothy series of claps. "Yay!"

The listeners stared back in a sort of open mouthed stupor. Dawn looked around and spoke slowly. "Uuuhhhh, okay. Um, yay?"

Anya smiled encouragingly and raised her glass to Willow and Buffy. "Practice your toasts, you two!" Buffy and Willow grinned at each other.

"I just can't believe that you guys are actually getting married," Tara said happily. "Oh, well, not that I thought it was impossible, because you guys are wonderful together it's just, well, you know what I mean."

"Yeah, thanks, Tara," Xander laughed.

Willow looked a little teary as she examined the two before her. "I always thought we'd get married. But I guess the whole girlfriend thing gets in the way. At least I get to be your best man. Or best woman? Can I be a matron of honor?"

Dawn sank a little lower in her chair and smiled sleepily. She had watched everyone since their arrival. She hadn't seen them all together in a room for too long and she found she had to press her lips tightly to keep from making an embarrassingly joyful noise. Even Buffy and Giles had relaxed. They'd stopped casting secretive and weighty glances at each other and merely settled to enjoy dinner and the company. She settled a little more comfortably and let the familiar chatter work over her.

"Dawn? Hey, are you asleep Dawnie?" She opened an eye at Xander's voice.

"No, I just..." she looked around "I just must have slept my way through dinner." She chuckled and sat up. "I just got comfortable, I guess." She looked around again at everyone and licked her lips. "I'm just glad to see everybody."

With final schedules arranged and hugs all around, the company departed and Buffy, Giles, and Dawn silently gathered up the dinner plates, transporting them to the kitchen sink. After the initial fight, the ritual of cleaning became a soothing, if quiet affair. They didn't speak, but silence wasn't harmful. They were both unconsciously adamant that the more words they uttered, the greater the likelihood of pushing their ability to mend the relationship further and further away. The silence helped nothing, a fact they stubbornly ignored because neither did the silence destroy and the stability was comforting whether or not it was exactly pleasant. For three days they had managed to avoid each other by way of wedding plans and visiting with other friends. And during all their meals together, they had miraculously been able to keep conversation to the food and rather shallow occupations. As Dawn had finished with her portion of the wash, Buffy absently flipped the radio on and began swaying to the music. Soon Giles began humming along. Dawn cleaned her hands and stood thoughtfully.

"Dawn?" Giles asked, putting down his dishtowel for a moment.

"Dancing."

"Excuse me?"

"Dancing. At the wedding. There'll be dancing, right?"

With a smile, Giles confirmed her suspicions. "It is very likely that there will be dancing."

Dawn smiled with infectious teenaged joy. "I totally love dancing."

Giles laughed. "Well, I assume you tango?"

"Of course!" Dawn giggled, grabbing his hands as an extremely tango- inappropriate pop song rolled out of the radio. Giles spun her out and back and proceeded to lead her in a cartoonish dance around the kitchen. Buffy couldn't help but giggle at the utter absurdity of the scene as Dawn twirled by. Dawn laughed joyously as Giles dipped her so low that her hair swept the floor. When he released her, she collapsed in happy giggles against the counter.

Giles turned his still glowing face to Buffy and held out a hand. "Do you dance as well, señora?" he asked with amazing composure, his voice dark and rich with happy exertion. Buffy's blood sang and she began to decline when Dawn circled her waist with an arm and pulled her up. Buffy laughed, allowing Giles a sigh of relief, and the three began swaying around the kitchen.

"I thought you were classy and dignified," Buffy called to Giles, the movement lightening her tongue.

He swiveled his hips and replied, "Don't you mean stuffy? Everyone deserves to behave like a complete moron every now and again." Buffy turned her quick gaze on him, but he avoided her eyes, twirling Dawn slowly. The radio announcer came on and segued into a song impossible to dance to and the three caught their breaths.

Dawn smiled and yawned widely. "Is it sad that that was the most fun I've had in a really long time?" Buffy shook her head affectionately and Dawn gave her a kiss on the cheek, receiving a rub on the shoulder from Giles as she passed out of the kitchen and up to her room.

"Thanks," Buffy said, suddenly edgy in their privacy.

"For what?" he asked, pushing his sleeves up to force a casual stance.

"For giving her a real reason to smile. She hasn't been doing a lot of that this year. None of us have, but this much pain has been kind of a new thing for her." Giles' lips tightened and his eyes hardened with pain. Buffy shrugged with effort and smiled. "You're pretty light on your feet."

"I keep in practice," he said archly, willing the weight on his chest away with every word. "I don't think Anya and Xander's dancing will really exceed good-natured flailing and swaying, though."

"Yeah," Buffy said, her voice holding a surprising note of disappointment. "Regular people don't really DANCE anymore, do they?" She asked. Sudden images of Ginger Rogers dancing while she and her mother hummed along twirled her thoughts for an instant.

"No, I suppose not many do," Giles agreed as he idly spun the tuning knob on the radio. Buffy looked up as a slow, waltzy song from the early nineties floated into the kitchen. Giles turned back to her and smiled with a hint of self-conscious questioning. Buffy hesitated for several long moments before stepping into his grasp. Giles placed one hand softly on the small of her back and took her hand with the other. His heart skipped at the feeling of her breasts and belly against him and her form so close, and he smiled tenderly at the warmth that wrapped him up. "Hand on my shoulder," he directed quietly. He slowly began moving them about the kitchen.

Buffy watched their feet at first, not having danced properly since she was just a normal girl, but soon her brain connected the movements with the timing and she could look up. When she lifted her eyes she was immediately caught by the old warmth of Giles' face. Her breath tightened in her chest and her lips curled. Their gazes remained locked for a time and they smiled in the warm, safe silence of the kitchen. And for a while, words were unnecessary, because everything passed between their eyes and there was no awkwardness or hesitation. Buffy slowly lowered her cheek to Giles' shoulder and the two of them, once the Watcher and Slayer, now something a little more frightening, closed their eyes and danced.

Buffy remembered this feeling of peace. She'd come to find a similar, albeit colder version in the silent presence of Giles the past few days. This night, however, the comfort was too great, too complete; and the warmth suffusing itself in Buffy's belly was unsettlingly pleasant. The beginnings of a thought had occurred to her, that perhaps it was just Giles. Buffy tipped her head up and suddenly he was too close. < I can't forgive him. I hate him. > And was it true? Sometimes she still glanced at him and felt hopeless rage, but none the less...

Buffy pulled herself away from Giles' touch and his hands hung, paused in mid air, molded emptily to the curve where her shape should have been.

"Buffy?" He asked, and she could see his brow ready to furrow. She couldn't tell at that moment whether she hated him or herself.

"It's late, Giles," she said, her words a bit too sharp. She snapped the radio off and they both started at the sudden silence. "Tomorrow's a big day and the dishes can wait for after the wedding. Time for bed." She crossed her arms over her waist, creating an unconscious barrier between them.

"Oh," he said softly, his eyes darkening in disappointed bewilderment. He shook his head and his lips twitched into what they felt must have been a smile. He clicked the lights off before he spoke, as if sound traveled better in the dark. "Of course." Buffy bit her lip and waited until she knew he would follow her before moving to the stairs. She felt him behind her in the darkness as they mounted the steps. She could almost sense his shape in the soft blue-black, almost feel the confusion.

At the top of the stairs they paused, hesitating, neither one wanting to be the first to give in, yet Buffy still with her back to him, feeling the weight of his eyes on her. She turned to him, seeing him, barely outlined by diffused moonlight. Impulsively, Buffy leaned forward and pressed her cheek to his, brushing a light kiss across his jaw. "Night, Giles." She slipped silently into her room and pressed the door shut with a muffled click leaning against it with a quiet curse. And though she could not see him, she felt him outside her door, still, long after she'd slid between the cool clean sheets that smelled so empty with only one scent resting in them.

********************************************************************* *********

Buffy zipped up Willow's dress and then picked up her own, eyeing the green material distastefully. "At least she took our suggestions and got rid of some of the ruffles. I still think we're going to look like mermaids at a boat show. Why can't the guys suffer like this too? There's only two of them, but they get to wear the good stuff. I know at least one of them deserves this humiliation," she mumbled, trying valiantly to block out the words she knew were coming from Willow.

"Buffy, I know you're mad at Giles for leaving." The redhead sighed. She hated watching Buffy avoid the man they'd loved so dearly. Hell, she knew Buffy still loved him, she was just too hurt and stubborn to see that that was the important thing. "I'm mad too, but can't you forgive him? And I know we could have used his help a lot, but--"

"I'm not mad at him for that!" Buffy interrupted, stepping out of her street clothes. "I mean, I AM, I was...but that's not why it's so hard that he's back. I'm not mad that there was enough reason to leave. I'm mad that there wasn't apparently enough reason to come back. That *I* wasn't enough reason."

"Buffy, if he'd come back--"

Buffy stepped into the dress. "He didn't want to say damn the consequences and come back to me." Yanking it up, she shoved one arm in a sleeve. "He wouldn't even call to say if he missed me or not."

She shoved the other arm in. There was a tiny tearing noise and both girls winced. Willow moved to find the source of the noise. She lifted a layer of material and nodded. "I bet Tara will be able to put one stitch in it and have it fixed. Two minutes." She got back to their unwilling conversation. "Buffy, he did call; you told him to go to hell and leave you alone."

"I was mad. He hurt me more than anyone ever has. I wasn't worth fighting for."

"You never called him either," Willow pointed out, grabbing the zipper.

Buffy gave a tense, petulant shrug, then was still for a few moments. "I wanted him to come back because he wanted to. Needed me. I don't even think he needs me anymore. He doesn't love me."

Willow's lips parted in recognition as she pulled the zipper into place. Not at the words that Buffy had used many times before, but at the soft, wistful tilt of the voice. "Buffy?" Their reflections were in the mirror, one startled and still, the other at once sad and critical, both in kelly green nightmare confections.

"It makes my hips look big, but it's for Anya," Buffy said. "Did you know that he helped to train two Slayers in England? His friends, his flat. He's happy. He's not going to stay, not for me. Am I such an idiot? Did I really think I had all of him just because he was my Watcher? I'm not all he needs."

"Buffy, do you love Giles?"

"Of course I do. You know I do," she replied, focusing intently on getting out of the dress, purposefully misunderstanding the question.

"Buffy."

Buffy held her hands out, palms up, her face registering honest confusion. "You tell me?"

"Wow."

"Wow? You can't `wow' yet, there's nothing to `wow' yet. I still don't think I can forgive him." She chewed on her lip, deciding that if Willow could figure her out thus far, she would get the rest of the story anyway. "Besides, what would I give him? Why would he want me even if I decided that's what I wanted?"

"Oh, I don't know," Willow sighed, heaving back on her elbows with feigned defeat. "I mean, you're ugly as sin, have NO discernible talents or skills, he barely knows you and you have absolutely nothing in common. Hell, he never even liked you at all."

"Shut up."

Willow chuckled. "Buffy, let's be honest: nobody knows what Giles wants anymore. I bet he doesn't even know. But I do know at least one thing he needs: you. You may not believe it, and he may need a lot of things, he's changed a lot, so have we. Yeah, he has friends in England, and a life there. That's something we have to respect because he deserves something of his own, but he loves you, he'll always love you and he'll always need you. You need him too. He'll figure it out eventually and that'll be final, but I don't think it can start until you go to him and you both let go of what went on between the two of you." She let out a deep breath and nodded, satisfied.

"Wow," Buffy said, pulling her tee shirt on and then hanging the dress up on the back of the door. "That must be the longest speech you've ever given. I'm sorry you didn't get to give our commencement speech." She grinned.

"Buffy."

"Stop saying my name like that."

"Then go out and do what you have to do, but were too hurt to admit you needed. Take care of business. Be proactive."

"You'd make a crappy motivational speaker." Willow remained silent in irritation and Buffy looked at her, all traces of a smile leaving her features. "I can't," she said simply, striding out of the house.

Willow dropped back against the bed, fresh out of ideas.

********************************************************************* ********

Buffy sat in the tub, listening to the murmuring brush of Giles and Dawn's voices downstairs as they pepared for the wedding, part of her missing Willow and Tara's voices in the bedroom down the hall.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, finding that odd little sadness that had clung to her for weeks. It felt good sometimes to indulge in depression. Today it merely felt oppressive. Buffy opened her eyes, held her breath, and slid her shoulders down the slick body-warmed porcelain letting her head slip beneath the water, staring at the ceiling through a wavering wall. She floated in the softly thick silence, her cheeks pooching out full of unmoved breath. Her hair swayed around her, bubbles and blonde threads waving and twisting before her eyes. Her chest began to grow tight after a minute or so, but she remained.

Something about the restraint combined with instinctual desperation for oxygen, the odd euphoria of near pain, was deeply enjoyable. She could control. < This is what it's been like > she thought < heavy and slow and wavy. > She frowned thoughtfully, not used to making such comparisons. With a forceful push of the abdomen, she expelled hundreds of tiny bubbles and broke the surface with her head. Water cascaded down her face, forcing her to squint, sputter and spit. Slicking her hair back to the nape of her neck, Buffy leaned against the wall, letting her hands drift over her body. Neck, breasts, hips, and back to her shoulders with absently tender affection. And then she knew.

She could control it.

She didn't know exactly what "it" was, but she was suddenly aware that whatever the thing had been, it no longer clung heavy and scraping over her shoulders. She'd let herself look away for a moment and some evil thing had flown away and something new had replaced it. But this edged around her body in a warm, comforting layer. Buffy smiled as she wondered how she would tell Giles and lifted her arms above her head, deciding that she could afford a few more minutes in the tub.

********************************************************************* *********

The pastor began to speak and Buffy found her thoughts trailing away. Her gaze moved over the line of faces. Dawn was enthralled by the ceremony, her romantic rapture so young, but she, so old that it scared Buffy. Tara watched Willow with such an expression of love that the Slayer had to grin. Xander and Anya beaming at each other over their clasped hands. Buffy knew that expression made up for any hideous bridesmaid dress Anya could have picked. And Giles...his profile was so familiar. Talent or no, she could have sketched his portrait in an instant. She smiled at him, looking so sexy and adorable in his tux. Just wait until he whipped out the English accent at the reception. The ladies would just melt.

Giles became aware of someone's gaze on him and he glanced about, catching Buffy's eye.

A reactionary part of her wanted to drop her eyes. Instead she held his gaze with a smaller, but blindingly honest smile. She mouthed the words "I love you," the intimate moment making her breath quicken; the setting that did not belong to them somehow relieving the terrible pressure she'd felt for so long. The tender recognition that touched his face softened the distance between them and Buffy suddenly felt lighter. Their gazes remained connected until the rings were exchanged and the words "I now pronounce you husband and wife" rang out. They turned to watch Xander dip Anya low and plant a passionate kiss on her. Anya gave his butt a playful -- to the untrained eye -- pinch, making him jump and causing their guests to break into uproarious laughter and whoops and catcalls.

The trip to the reception hall shuffled by in a blurry series of clicks as if impatience had nudged it to sidestep the normal pace of time, and suddenly they were in the summery scent of floral arrangements and light lunch. They ate and laughed, a pure, airy sound that seemed vaguely unfamiliar, but entirely necessary and proper.

Buffy took in the colors, sound, shape and form. An impressionist watercolor lasted throughout the day. Later she would remember it all in detail, but with sunlight muted by glass falling on her shoulders and a bridally decreed escape from all reality, she only got a gentle sense of it. All she felt was an almost palpable joy and a softly trained focus on the man two seats away from her who had been worlds away for an eternity. Buffy watched Xander and Anya rise with the soft swelling of music and begin to sway in a small circle of two that managed to be a universe of it's own. All the time she was comforted by the pressure of his gaze as a warmth on her neck.

The rest of the party moved to the floor, each to his own, and Buffy went to a small open space, turning to the man she knew was there. Dawn twirled by with a giggled, "I totally love dancing!" They laughed, watching her go and then for the second time that week Buffy stepped into Giles' arms and let herself move.

"Hi, Giles."

"Hello, Buffy."

"How have you been?"

"Splitting my time between `fine' and `dreadful.' And you?"

"I've missed you."

He released her with one arm, gently twirling her out. Buffy felt an almost painful joy at the selfishly firm grip of his hand, the sensation of Giles tugging her back to himself. Wanting.

"Would it be selfish of me to say I'd missed you too?" He queried, voice deep with anticipation.

Buffy nodded. "It would be perfect."

Giles' lips felt right against hers and she sighed. His touch paralyzed her. He let his head move, cheek on her hair, lips at her ear as she tipped her face up, moving in to fit him better. His voice moved gently in her ear.

"Oh, how I've missed you, Buffy."

THE END

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