Title: One Word 4/7
Author: Darcy Galvin
Feedback: will be shellacked and framed. Send good words. Feed a starving artist.
Disclaimer: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton ain't mine and neither are the BTVS characters or the song "Inside Her Eyes" by Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. This particular fic idea and Tyler Remmington are the only things I own.

A little less than two weeks after Tyler's arrival, the whole Scooby Gang including Dawn was gathered in the Magic Box.

"So, what's the big brewin' wickedness this week?" Xander asked, propping his feet up on the table top and tipping his chair back. "Is it vampires? Demons? Slimy demons? It's slimy demons, isn't it? You know I don't do the slimy thing. Sure, I work construction, what with the sweat and the toil and the backbreaking labor, but slime is a whole other thing."

"It's not slimy demons, Xander," Buffy drawled. < Far from it. > Giles was leaning nervously against the counter, pretending to look over sales receipts from the day. Buffy stood next to him and looked over his shoulder. Rather than looking over them, he seemed to be tearing a few of the blank papers into smaller and smaller pieces. She caught his gaze from the corner of her eye. Smiling reassuringly, she grabbed his hand and interlocked their fingers. He looked a bit startled, but smiled gratefully at her.

"I guess I am being a bit..."

"Wiggy?" Buffy supplied.

"Yes," he said dryly, "that would work." He raised his eyes to the group, surveying the young people who had become his family since he'd come to Sunnydale. They'd all grown up before his eyes. Xander and Willow were like his very own children (and sometimes he felt that for all the care their parents gave them, he really was their father). Even though Tara was not as...exuberant as the others, he'd come to quite enjoy that about her. She was an observer, and this trait proved quite useful; when the others would squabble over something, she would merely sit back and then suddenly throw in one insightful comment. Anya--whom he had quite honestly found the most aggravating person he had ever known--had grown on him. Though their conversations still involved much eye-rolling, sighing, and glaring on his part, he really was fond of the girl. Dawn was....Dawn, but he still felt somewhat protective of her though it was not only because he knew what she truly was.

Giles smiled fondly, then heaved a sigh, breaking out of his reverie. "Well, as soon as Tyler gets here..."

Buffy chuckled and gave his hand another squeeze then leaned her head against his shoulder. Since the day of Tyler's arrival, Buffy and Giles had grown closer. Though the first few days had fostered some discomfort and unwanted thoughts, the mending of those feelings had knit their relationship even tighter. In such a short time, emotional and physical contact had become less stilted. She enjoyed the closeness that she and Giles had shared since Tyler's arrival. It was comfortable and somehow felt right. They had never been afraid of contact before, but neither had it been an integral part of their relationship. They'd always been talkers, but Buffy was very tactile and this new tendency of casual and affectionate contact was very pleasant.

Giles jumped when the bell jangled over the door. < Showtime. >

The group swung their heads around in a collective movement that would have made Buffy laugh if she hadn't suddenly become nervous. < Why am I nervous? Giles is the one who's gotta announce that he suddenly has offspring. >

"Hey, it's Giles' fellow countryman," Xander put in. "Tyler, right?"

"Yeah," Tyler said slowly. He locked eyes with Giles and grinned lopsidedly.

"Dawn," Buffy said, indicating her sister to Tyler, "this is Tyler. Tyler, my sister Dawn." She began drumming her fingers on the countertop as she waited for someone to say something. Giles dropped his hand on top of hers to stop the incessant noise.

"Well, I should just jump right in," Giles said after a moment. He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "You all know that Tyler and I are acquainted by way of his mother." The group nodded slowly, their faces complete masks of confusion. They had all thought that they'd been assembled so they could be informed of the latest evil to fight. They thought it might even be another apocalypse to avert, from the grave tone Giles had used over the phone. "However, I asked you all here today because you aren't aware of...how *closely* we're acquainted." The confusion turned to utter bewilderment. They sat, watching Giles, waiting for him to finish. He stared at the counter for a moment, and when he was unable to think of any other way to put it he simply said, "Tyler is my son."

Xander's chair banged loudly onto the floor as he sat up. The silence was complete as the Scoobies sat, completely dumbfounded. Buffy half expected to hear crickets or have a tumble weed roll through the shop.

"Giles?" Willow said. "Your son?" he could see the effort it took to get the words out.

"Wow." Tara breathed at the same time Anya grinned gleefully and said, "Congratulations. It's a boy. Do I need to get you a cigar? I've heard that people do that."

"No, um, that won't be necessary."

Xander slolwy returned to his original position of sitting at an angle and just leaned back further in his chair, staring into space. Giles wondered exactly which laws of physics were being broken by the obscene angle at which the young man reclined. "For once, I have nothing witty or mildly stupid or even serious to say. I could ramble, I guess I could ramble, but I don't think I'm in much of a rambling mood. Your son, you say? Okay, wow. Giles has a son. Giles. Our Giles. Bookman, Giles, with all the knowledge and the British reserve and secret guitar habits...*Giles* *has* a *SON*."

"I think we have the point, Xander," Giles said with a small laugh.

"Dawn," Buffy said without looking up, "whatever horrible face you're making, stop it right now. It is not gross or anything along the lines you're thinking." Buffy heard a responding huff.

"It was right before I left for...school," he said, putting emphasis on the word and hoping they knew what he was speaking of. "I-I didn't even know about Tyler until last week. He's been looking for me. And now...he's found me."

All heads then turned to Tyler who chuckled nervously and said, "Do I have to reintroduce myself now that you've found out I'm completely not who you thought I was?" Tara shook her head.

"And why don't you look more like you just heard the news that Giles has a Giles Junior?" Xander asked Buffy.

The Slayer turned slowly. She'd been watching Giles through the whole proceeding and now she blushed a little, barely noticeable.

"Because I already knew."

"You knew? You knew and you didn't say anything?!" Anya cried. "How could you not? This is the most interesting thing to happen since I came to this Godforsaken place. Well, more so than the...bad...things," she said, stumbling and trying to cover up the fact that she was going to say demons and monsters and vampires.

"It wasn't my place to say anything," Buffy pointed out firmly. "Besides, I only knew because I was here when Tyler gave Giles the news."

"Slayer perks," Xander muttered. Buffy aimed a wide-eyed glare at him, but Tyler hadn't seemed to catch the youth's mumble.

"S-so, Tyler," Willow put in, "are you going to be, um, staying in Sunnydale?"

Tyler looked at his father. "Well, England's really my home. I have, well, my life back there. But I will be here for a while. I just don't know how long."

"I think I'm going to have to agree with Anya," Dawn said. "This is big. Oh, can I tell Mom?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

That night Tyler spent with his father. After the introduction that afternoon, somehow the reality of their new situation became so much more solid. Now everyone knew exactly what Tyler and Giles were about.

"Congratulations, Mr. Giles, you officially have a son," Tyler said with a sweeping gesture. Giles laughed out loud.

"It was quite an ordeal, wasn't it? I've never had to say anything quite like that in my life."

"They seem like good people," Tyler put in, taking a drink of his beer. "Of course, once they get started talking, man alive, can they keep on going."

"Yes, well, they took it well. I'm very pleased about that. Of course, I can just hear the wheels in their heads turning wondering how they can slip this into random jokes at my expense over the next few weeks."

"You're lucky, Rupert. This is some life you have here," Tyler said, putting his hand on his father's shoulder. Giles smiled and didn't notice the sad tension in his son's voice.

The next evening, Tyler and Buffy went out again. After a ramble through the music store and an ice cream cone, they sat on Buffy's porch swing, rocking silently back and forth in the cool blue darkness of the night. He couldn't believe he'd barely known her for two weeks. He already felt so at ease with her.

Tyler turned to watch Buffy as she licked contentedly at her ice cream. The moonlight shone in her hair and gave an ethereal blue- white sheen to her already luminous skin. "Buffy," Tyler murmured. She finished her ice cream in two gaping bites and looked over at him with a slightly silly, contented smile.

"Mmm?"

"When we first started doing this, going out, I know we said we would just do it as friends." She didn't say anything, there wasn't even a flickering change of expression on her lovely face, but he knew she was completely aware of what he was going to say next. "But I was wondering, would you mind if I took it back?" He leaned forward and rested his hand on the soft curve where shoulder met throat and pressed his lips to hers. Buffy closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss. Tyler pulled briefly away and returned, his skin burning where it pressed against Buffy's. He'd never met anyone quite like this girl, and didn't think he ever would, or ever cared to. He swept his hands down her back and pulled her to him until their bodies were close enough to be one.

Buffy parted her lips when Tyler's tongue traveled softly across them. As they sat on the swing, fervently yet gently kissing, Buffy found herself wondering if talents such as these were passed down. < Is this how Giles would feel? > she mused as she slid her hands over his shoulders. The moment the thought showed itself, Buffy's eyes flew open and she jerked out of Tyler's reach.

The young man nearly tumbled forward with Buffy's sudden withdrawl. "Buffy! Wh-what? Is something the matter. Did I do something?"

Buffy shook her head and placed her hand gingerly across her mouth. < Okay, what the *hell* is going on? > She shook her head once more and rose, skirting Tyler's legs and hastily opening the door.

"Buffy?"

"I-I'm sorry, night, Tyler."

Buffy pressed her back hard against the solid wood of the door. The ridges of the door pressed wonderfully painful against her spine, distracting her momentarily. She shook her head.

"I did not think that. No way, no how. Unh uh." Slowly, Buffy took a step forward, leaving the secure, hard, physical reality of the door. Buffy suddenly gave herself an angry shake, loosening up. < It was just an aberration, > she reminded herself calmly, her heart slowing it's frantic beating. She remembered her thought about her and Giles having children. That hadn't bothered her. "Slowly regaining sanity," she muttered to herself, climbing the stairs with more resolve than she would have thought possible. In her room, she slipped out of her clothes, into a tank top and then into her bed. Screw the tooth brushing. < Well, it was a logical leap, > Buffy thought. < I was kissing Giles' son, Giles is a big part of my life, the two are related, so my brain made the leap. Yes, yes, that's it. > Yet that wasn't it, and she couldn't exactly make herself accept that.

The reason that the thought had bothered her so much was that since it had first occurred, she'd wanted to know the answer. She thought of Giles' hands trailing up her spine like Tyler's had, his heat and feel surrounding her. Lips pressed to lips, and his tongue gently tracing her mouth. Buffy shivered involuntarily and shifted under the covers. A mattress spring squeaked and for an irrational moment, her bed seemed oppressively small and achingly lonely.

"No!" she muttered fiercely, wincing at the shock of sound in the cold and heavy silence of her room. "No, it was just a brain blip." Saying that seemed to make the whole thing absurd. Why was she trying to fight herself? What was so wrong with wondering how Giles kissed? It wasn't wrong or dangerous, she'd just had a passing "I wonder," as her mother called it. Who cared? Sure, a little creepy to think of Giles like that, but not bad. Okay, all right. She was fine. Buffy smiled at her new, saner self. Now that momentary panic was over, she drifted off to sleep, resolving to worry no more about the subject.

That night she dreamt comfort and tender caresses. Simple and mindless, yet perfect expressions of love that made her ache for something she couldn't quite name when she woke. And as she rose in her still half-conscious state, she could almost imagine the warm, rumpled indentation of another body next to her own.