Title: One Night, Nine Months, & Two Years 3/?
Author: DeeBeth
Feedback: there are worse things in life then flames, and not many better things than praise, but I'll settle for professional criticism.
Disclaimer: all characters, except the few I will make up as the story progresses, belong to UPN, The WB, Mutant Enemy, and of course Joss Whedon, not to mention the countless others that I don't know or have never heard of. The only thing I know for sure is that the shows (BtVS & AtS) aren't mine and I have no control over what the characters do, no matter how hard I wish, pray, and dream!
Buffy made her way down the stairs, she knew her eyes were puffy, but she didn’t care, all she wanted to do was get out and as far away from Giles and his total lack of wanting her. When she saw the expression on his face, she felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest, and any hope that he might some day return her love was seeping out of the imaginary wound. "What do we do now?" She managed, knowing that they needed to talk before she left. He sat thinking before looking back at her. "Do you think we can go back to the way it was before…?" even as he asked he knew that there was no forgetting what they couldn’t remember. He noticed that Buffy hadn’t made eye contact with him since she came down stairs, it hurt to know she couldn’t even look at him. "Yes." Came the quiet answer. They both knew it wasn’t true, last night would always be there between them, even if they couldn’t recall what happened.
"I am so sorry Buffy, if I could change what happened…" Giles trailed off in frustration, he didn’t want to take back last night—not if he thought she would want him like that, but she never would. He shook his head then stared at the napkin now in shreds on the bar. Buffy knew he was telling the truth, he never wanted this to happen and never would. "It’s okay, all right so maybe it’s not, but what can we do about it, we were drunk. We all do meaningless things when alcohol is involved." She lied to him, again, she had done too much of that over the years. He thought his heart would stop, as she said it was meaningless to her, but the stubborn organ refused to end his pain. "Yes, spirits have led to many mistakes, I guess we can just add this to the list." Buffy thought she most have died up stairs in the bedroom because she was sure she was in some hell dimension. There was no way last night was a mistake, it couldn’t be; she loved him too much. "I guess that’s it, life goes on, we will forget what we can’t remember and everything will go back to normal." Buffy said as she walked over to the door. "Okay," was all Giles could manage as he watched her walking out of his life. "I’ll see you later," she said, her whole body hurt as reached out for the doorknob, holding her breath she closed her eyes and turned it, then stepped outside shutting the door behind her. She released a shaky breath and before she knew it she was running at top speed her vision blurred by tears. Buffy didn’t know where she was going, she didn’t care; the look on Giles’ face was enough to make her want to die—again.
Giles some how made it off the stool and to the window just in time to watch his slayer running away from him, she fled as if from a nightmare that suddenly came true. He slumped to the floor and wept for a friend lost and the knowledge that she would never look at him the same. There were so many questions, selfish questions, floating around in his head. Would she ever want to see him again? Would she come to the Scooby meetings at the Magick Box? Would she tell the others what had happened? No, she would never tell them, but what about the rest of it? He couldn’t stand himself right now, with his whole being he wanted to undo last night, but at the same time he would give anything to remember it.
Buffy ended up at her house. She didn’t know how, but she was there standing on the front porch. She unlocked the door and walked in. Everything seemed the same, but she felt as if everything had changed, never to be normal again or at least as ‘normal’ as the Hellmouth got. It felt like her life was pointless, if there was no way Giles could ever lover her, the way she loved him, what was the use? Then Dawn came down the stairs. And she remembered ‘family,’ there was still Dawn, Willow, and Xander. "Buffy where have you been? I was so worried, Willow and Tara didn’t come home last night, so I couldn’t ask anyone where you were, I tried calling Giles’ but I didn’t get an answer. Are you okay? Buffy?" Dawn asked. But Buffy was dwelling on the fact that Dawn called, but they didn’t answer. Where they to ‘busy’ to be bothered with the phone, or were they asleep? Dawn put her hand on Buffy’s shoulder and squeezed it slightly trying to get her attention, noticing the strange look on her sister’s face; "Uh? Oh, yeah, I guess. I had too much of the evil liquid that is alcohol. I don’t really remember much of last night. I’m sorry you were worried…why didn’t Willow and Tara come home?" Buffy asked finally hearing the rest of what Dawn said. "I don’t know they left a message that they were taking Giles’ car home from the Bronze, but had to wait until they detoxed a little." Buffy froze, Willow and Tara could have been there, seen what they were doing, her first thought was maybe they could fill her in, but what if they thought she was crazy? Or be disgusted? She needed to find them. "I guess we could call Giles and see if his car is home?" Dawn asked, trying to decipher the array of emotions she saw on Buffy’s face. "No! I…um…I mean lets go to The Bronze and see if Willow and Tara are still there. If they dropped off the car they would be home right?" Buffy said trying to recover from her outburst, praying Dawn wouldn’t think anything of her not wanting to talk to Giles. "Okay," Dawn said giving Buffy a weird look; she couldn’t remember ever seeing the Slayer reluctant to call her watcher when problems arose.
They started toward the door only to be met by the missing Wiccans. "Oh, hi there!" Willow said a little to energetically. "Where have you two been?" Dawn asked crossing her arms over her chest. "Um…we were going to drive Giles’ car home, but we…um fell asleep in the backseat." Willow said blushing. "Yeah we only woke up forty minutes ago." Tara added, looking down at her feet, and smiling shyly. "What were you doing in the backseat? …Uh never mind." Buffy said as she saw the look on the witches’ faces. "Okay, well I think we’ll just head up to bed." Willow said taking her girlfriend’s hand and starting for the stairs. "Yeah, me too, I didn’t get much sleep last night, you know with all the worrying." Dawn said as she stifled a yawn. "We are so sorry Dawnie" Tara said as she hugged the younger girl. "It’s okay, I was fine, it wasn’t the first time I was left alone all night." Dawn said returning the hug. "Alone? Where was Buffy?" Willow asked turning a questioning eye to the woman in question. "I um…never made it home last night. I don’t really remember much after you told me I drank five rum and Cokes." Buffy said hoping they would not ask any more questions, like where she ‘slept’. Willow surprisingly let it go at that and said, "I am glad you made it home okay." Then turned and continued up stairs yawning.