Title: "...Journeys End In Lovers Meeting..." 1/8
Author: Della
Email: blindbadger@blueyonder.co.uk
Rating: PG
Pairing: B/G
Spoilers: None...
Summary: As the title suggests...
Distribution: Nikki's site www.nikkisfolly.co.uk (if she wants it of course - chuckle) and Of Demon Destiny Site... Any others that would like this, then feel free, but I would be grateful if you could let me know...
Disclaimer: None of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters are mine... They belong to Joss Wheddon and UPN and WB and any others that have a rightful claim to them and the programme... No infringement was ever intended with this fanfiction...
Feedback: Yes please... *Constructive* flames keep the fire burning, but the good stuff keeps it alive...

Dedications: To Rari Coss and Big Sis... My Inspirations... To Kimberly... Gosh, look where I am now... To Nikki... Thank you for the biggest compliment one writer can give another and for your stirling Beta-ing... To Shawna, Heidi, Head Rush, Jamie, Ness, Ewie, Savvy and all the others that continue to inspire me to want to write and also send... Thank you...

Author's Note: - This was written in answer to a Challenge that was sent out by Gail... Very simply, Giles sends Buffy a Valentines card without her knowing and Buffy sends Giles a Valentines card without *him* knowing... Hope I have done the challenge some credit...

Giles studiously brushed his teeth and gazed out of the bathroom window. It wasn't the first time he'd done so and he was sure it would not be the last. He could hear and see the rain spattering his window, a deluge that had not stopped since his return. He knew why. He'd left all his sunshine back in Sunnydale and no matter crippling heartache, that stepping on that plane home had caused, he knew there had been little choice left for him. 'Better to go insane in the privacy of one's home,' he thought derisively, 'than to have it on show for the others to see.'

And he *had* been going insane.

Each day, bit by agonising bit, seeing her had been the hardest to cope with. Loving her and yet never to have the chance to say? To show her? 'No, no, no' he silently denied. The physical pain of a battle wound would never compare to the internal wound of an urequited love. He sighed. "Pratt!!" he whispered, spattering the inside of the window with wet toothpaste. He heard Spike's voice laugh at him, 'Turnin' int' a Nancy boy, Ruper'?'

Giles bent at the waist and spat the remainder of the wet toothpaste into the basin. He filled a glass with water, straightened and took a swig from the glass, gargling and sluicing his mouth out. He bent at the waist again and spat the mixture into the basin. As he watched it twirl its way down the plug hole, he leant on the basin and moaned a little, trying desperately to ease the ache that had taken a hold.

Even this was not the first time. Every morning was the same. Everyday actions, shower, brush teeth, sluice out mouth, mingled with an internal conflict that had him being pulled one way and another, but not back to Sunnydale. And that was the hardest. He wanted to be pulled back there, desperately wanted to be, but he'd *been* there and it had been ever harder to stay. Still, his thoughts strayed there once more.

He missed them all... their cheer, their optimism, despite the overwhelming and often horrifying circumstances that plagued them each night and, at that precise moment in time, he wanted to hear their laughter again. But he could not bare the thought of returning to his Slayer's side and having to love her from afar. It had been the deciding factor of why he had left in the first place. He returned the toothbrush to its glass and softly growled. 'This is getting me nowhere,' he silently remonstrated, 'Buffy is there, I am here and that is quite simply *that!*.'

He turned away from the window, wiped his face clean with a towel and then started to get dressed. He had his T-shirt half over his head, when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

"Are you all right, son?" a husky voice enquired immediately after the knock.

Giles continued to pull the T-shirt over his head and as he tucked it into his jeans, he replied, "I'm fine, father, I should be out in a moment."

"All right, well, breakfast is ready and getting cold."

Giles chuckled at that. He'd heard it often enough as a boy and it tickled him to still be hearing it now. He pictured his father as he was now, Harold James Giles, tall, lean, white haired, with a slight pot-belly that had arrived in his forties and had stayed for the duration, telling him that his breakfast was getting cold. 'My loving father,' Giles silently thought with affection.

"Right you are," he eventually confirmed. He then turned to the mirror and brushed his hair. He thought to shave but he was beginning to like the shadow of a beard that was growing on his chin. Admittedly the ones he'd acquired in Sunnydale were usually accompanied by the dark rings of a sleepless night, but this one had no such accompaniment. He ran a hand over his stubble and down his neck, splashed on a bit of after-shave and then left the room to go get his cooling breakfast.

# #

Buffy sighed as she threw another knife at the dummy that stood in front of her. Such was her lethargy, it bounced off the dummy and fell to the floor with a clang. She sighed, so deeply this time that it reverberated a moment in the silence of the room. She looked at the dummy, wishing it were alive and could sympathise with her, but then why would it sympathise? *She* had driven Giles away... pushed him, almost physically, away, until he had left. So why would the dummy sympathise? It would probably turn on her, as Dawn had when Giles had suddenly announced one day that he was leaving.

Her chest felt heavy with her depressing thoughts. 'Who ever had invented the saying, "You don't know what you'll miss, until it aint there anymore" should-a told *her*,' she thought, feeling a creeping sadness seep into her heart. Oh boy did she agree now. She missed Giles, more than she ever thought she would, more than she ever thought she could, but no matter how much she wished him to be here with her, she knew she had to somehow accept that he couldn't be; wouldn't ever be... And why...? Because she had driven him from her...

Buffy made her way to the dummy, silent and unobtrusive on her thoughts, bent at the waist and picked up the six knives that had fallen each time she had thrown them. She trudged back to the mark that Giles had painted on the floor for her, turned and started to throw the knives again. She cringed when the first one hit the dummy and fell to the floor again. She simply returned to where it had fallen, replaced all six knives on the wall of her training room and silently left. 'This is getting me nowhere,' she thought, 'I'm here, Giles is there and no amount of wishing is gonna change that.'

# #

Giles looked at his breakfast and instantly felt queasy. It had nothing to with what was on his plate, more the effort it was going to take him to actually eat it. He looked up to find his father looking back at him with a frown. He sighed. "I know, father," he quietly admitted, "another wasted breakfast, Rupert?" He then shrugged, "I'm just not hungry."

"Well, you would be," Harold gently remonstrated at him, "if you would only tell me what was going on in that fool mind of yours."

"I have already told you, Father," Giles replied a little snippily, "that there is nothing to tell."

Giles' father sighed, "You might have got away with that with your children over there, but I am your father," he iterated with a certain preciseness that accentuated his annoyance at his son, "and as your father, I have many a year of experience over them... In other words," he added, "I know when you are lying. And you are lying, Son."

"Look, father, were it important enough, I would tell you, but, sadly, it isn't and it is something that I will have to come to terms with, myself."

Harold shook his head and mumbled something unintelligible, but which was laced with an anger that was slowly tensing his body. "How long have you been back?" he suddenly asked.

Giles blinked at him a moment, taken off guard by the sudden and irrelevant question, "Sorry?" he eventually asked.

"I asked you, how long is it that *you* have been back?"

Again Giles blinked. It wasn't a difficult question, but before answering and possibly landing himself in hot water, he was trying to logically process why his father would ask him such a question. Eventually he gave up and said with a shrug, "Two weeks... Why?"

"And what exactly have you accomplished since returning?"

"I'm now supposed to have accomplished something?"

Harold simply raised an eyebrow at his son, but when it looked as though Giles was not going to answer, he said, "Don't be a smart arse, son. You are not too old, nor too big to put over my knee."

"Don't be ridiculous, father!" Giles snorted.

"Now would that be 'Don't be ridiculous', because you don't think it could happen?" Harold asked, "Or," he added, "is it 'Don't be ridiculous' because you are actually going to tell me that the only thing you *have* accomplished since returning, is the wasting of several good and healthy breakfasts?"

Giles sat back on his chair and frowned at his father. Should he tell him? Could he? He had a hard enough time telling himself. His father started speaking again, so he looked up at him.

"C'mon son, tell me... Tell me what it is that has taken your appetite from you and has you slumped with sadness every night?"

That got it. Giles gulped back the instant emotion that rose in him and tried to blink away the tears that glistened in his eyes.

The older man pushed his chair back, cringing when it squealed against the stone floor, stood and quietly made his way to his son's side. He sat next to him and drew him into a hug. "It's all right, Rupert," he whispered, "just... just tell me."

Though he would have preferred Buffy's arms about him, Giles still took comfort in his father's arms, in the soft words that accompanied the hug, and for a moment he allowed himself to wallow there. Eventually he pulled away and softly admitted, "I wouldn't know where to start, to be honest with you."

Harold sat a little straighter, but kept contact with his son by leaving a hand on his shoulder. "Why not start from the moment you fell in love with your Slayer," he just as softly suggested.

Giles felt his heart miss a beat and was worried that it might not start again. After a frantic gulp and a hasty breath, he managed to splutter, "M-my S-Slayer?"

"Yes, your Slayer, Rupert," Harold re-iterated, "Buffy, I believe her name is."

Giles nodded absently, his mind furiously whirring with thoughts that would not take form. "Y-yes, Buffy," he whispered, "But... but how did you know?"

Harold briefly chuckled, "Worried that I might becoming psychic, Son? That I now possess the ability to read your thoughts?" On a silent nod from Giles, he added, "No, no such luck I'm afraid." And on Giles' frown of enquiry, he continued, "This might be a sturdy home, but the walls are made of paper and your cries during the night tell me more than *you* ever *consciously* would," he added with a hint of accusation.

"It has nothing to do with you, father," Giles began in apology, but stopped when he saw his father raise a hand to stop him.

"I am fully aware that it is *your* inability to talk of such things, son," Harold muttered, "and for once I am thankful for the thinness of these walls." He stopped a moment as if in contemplation, then gently asked, "How many times have you lost her, Rupert?"

"Twice," Giles whispered above the pain that had enveloped his heart, "three, if you count this time. Though," he quickly added, "though this time, believe it or not, appears more permanent than the others."

Harold's eyes widened with shock and they quickly filled with tears of loss, "She's dead?" he whispered.

Giles' head shot up at the sadness in his father's voice. He was surprised to find him shaking and a little tearful. "Oh no, father, no... I'm sorry," he immediately apologised, "No, she is very much alive," he whispered, "only she is Sunnydale and I am here."

Harold squeezed Giles' shoulder with utter relief, before he managed to say, "Rupert, what you have to believe is that whilst there is life, there is *always* hope."

Giles hummed a noncommittal sound and looked up when he heard his father chuckling, to find him shaking his head. "What?" he asked indignantly.

"Nothing," Harold replied with an innocent look on his face; an all too innocent look as far as Giles was concerned.

"What?" he asked again.

After managing to control his giggles, Harold said, "Afraid are we, of a little rejection? Or afraid to show anyone any form of affection, beyond the fatherly type that is?"

Giles frowned severely at his father. Was he goading him or simply stating a fact? He went with the goading. It felt easier to be annoyed than to admit his father might just be right. "Yes, well," he sniped, "the last time I showed any emotion around here, *you* didn't *like* it."

"Ah, your 'Ripper' days, as you like to call them."

Giles nodded. 'That got him,' he thought with satisfaction.

"Hmm, yes, you're right," Harold admitted, but added, "but despite what you might think, son, I get little satisfaction seeing you struggle through such difficult times... then *and* now."

Giles felt his shoulders slump under the heavy mantle of his returned depression.

Harold stood with a sigh, silently admitting as much defeat as his son had just displayed, and said, "We have all the time in the world to talk, Rupert. Why don't you go for a ride, perhaps that will help you..." then added in disappointed whisper, "more than I can at the moment?"

"Father..." Giles began again.

Again Harold raised a hand to stop him. "As I said, this is *your* inability, not mine, though," he added, "perhaps there *might* come a day when you will feel less restricted and more open towards me."

Giles blushed with the accuracy of his father's statement. He had never been able to fathom why he could not trust himself to tell his father everything that bothered him and he supposed that until he could find out why not, then the semi barrier that existed between them both would always be there. He sighed and nodded. "Perhaps you are right, Father..." he softly admitted.

Harold actually smiled at that admission and with a sigh of contentment, he said, "Then I shall look forward to such a day." With that, he turned away, grabbed his coat from the coat rack and said, "Right, well, I'm off to the shops. Someone keeps wasting good food and I need to replenish what he keeps wasting."

Giles stood with a chuckle, approached his father and hugged him. "Drive carefully, father," he warned him.

"I shall indeed," his father replied, "and you take care whilst riding."

Giles nodded and smiled affectionately at his father. He walked him to the front door, watched as the Land Rover pulled out of their drive, then closed the door with a heavy sigh.

# #

Willow blinked into the darkness of the living room. One table light was on and cast a shadow of the couch and its occupant across the floor. "Buffy?" she asked and jumped, startled by the sudden squeal that came from the couch.

"Gees, Willow," Buffy muttered, "scare me much."

Willow fanned the front of her face, trying to get her breathing under control, "D-Ditto!" she managed a squeal of her own in reply.

Buffy shook her head, though could not help the giggle that escaped, then she looked at the clock beside her and frowned. "What are you doing up, Wills?" she asked with a hint of surprise, "It's three in the morning..."

"Umm, couldn't sleep?"

"Uh-huh..." Buffy murmured with disbelief.

Willow frowned and cursed her inability to be able to lie well. She knew why she was down here at such an hour in the morning;she was worried about the best of her friends. She sighed and moved to sit next to Buffy on the couch. "Umm, Buffy?" she eventually whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Umm, what's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing..." Buffy replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

But it was how she would not make eye contact with Willow that had the Wiccan knowing she had just received a lie in reply. She decided to go for the jugular. "Oh sure, Buffy, nothing, huh?"

"S'what I said, wasn't it?"

Willow nodded but said, "Yeah, but what you say and what is the truth are two entirely different things."

Buffy blinked back the tears that had suddenly risen in her.

Willow noticed and immediately hugged her, "Oh Buffy, I'm sorry," she whispered in apology, "I... I didn't mean to make you cry. I was just being mean."

Buffy choked out a watery giggle before admitting, "It wasn't what you said Wills..." She stopped a moment before admitting, "Okay, it was, but, but not the way you think."

Willow pulled out of the hug and frowned with confusion at the Slayer.

Buffy sat back against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. Willow had sounded so much like Giles that the loss, that she seemed to feel every hour of every day that passed, struck her to the core. "Can you keep a secret, Wills?" she eventually whispered, "A big, umm, *huge* secret?"

Willow sat back straight, put on her most serious face, poked Buffy until she was looking at her, then said with as much seriousness, "I promise..."

Buffy could not help the guffaw of laughter that escaped her. "Aww, Wills," she spluttered, "that is just soooo cute."

Willow giggled along with her, but eventually said, "I do promise, though, Buffy. I can swear on my life if you want."

"Nah, you don't need to do that."

"So," Willow asked, "what's the biggie then?"

Again the tears rose in Buffy. Her emotions of late had been a lot like that. One moment she could be laughing and then, as though a light switch had been thrown, she would be on the verge of tears. She sighed, "I miss Giles..." she softly admitted.

"Huh?" Willow squeaked, then quickly added, "Umm, sorry, but, but is that the biggie, Buffy? That you miss Giles?"

Buffy silently shook her head, fighting back the tears that had now appeared in her eyes. She gulped back the emotions that accompanied the tears and whispered, "No, that's not the biggie, Wills. The biggie is that... that I love Giles and I miss him *because* I love him."

Willow let out a sigh of relief and fell back into the back of the couch. Eventually she replied, "Yeah a biggie," she agreed, "but not as big as you think."

"Huh?" Buffy muttered with confusion, "I just tell you that I think I'm in love with Giles and you tell me that it's not as big I think?"

"Uh-huh..."

"Why?"

Willow shrugged as she answered, "Well, we've all known for ages and ages, we just thought you'd get it before Giles *did* leave."

Buffy blinked at her and opened and closed her mouth without sound. "You," she eventually spluttered, "You knew?"

"Uh-huh."

"It woulda been nice if you'd told *me*, y'know."

"Oh yeah," Willow snorted, "like you'd have believed us?"

Buffy looked away. That stung a little simply because it was true. She had spent so much time being self-absorbed that if someone *had* suggested such a thing, her foot would have been planted in their mouth so fast and so deeply that it might have taken surgery to remove it. She started to giggle, "You know, Will," she said, "I was so scared you were gonna call me dirty."

"Why?"

"Well, Giles *is* old enough to be my dad, you know."

Willow stuck her hand in the air and replied, "Crush girl, remember."

Buffy lightly giggled at that, but said, "Yeah, but this is the *real* thing."

"Well," Willow conceded, "there's not a *lot* of difference between a crush and being in love. I guess with a crush you sorta grow out of it, not like the *real* thing, but the feelings are the same."

Buffy gave her a smile, but it wobbled when she whispered, "What am I going to do, Wills?"

"You tell him," she unequivocally announced.

"Oh yeah," Buffy suddenly snorted, "and if he doesn't feel the same? That's so gonna get him back again in a hurry."

"He does feel the same, Buffy. Trust me."

Buffy shook her head, "Nope, I can't," she flatly denied.

"You can," Willow persisted.

"Nope," Buffy stated and added, "Gees Wills, I've just discovered that I love him, but saying and doing is another thing."

Willow slumped a little into the back of the couch, a frown of deep contemplation appearing on her brow. She 'harrumphed' a couple of times before her eyebrows rose beneath her fringe and a grin slowly appeared on her face.

"What?" Buffy muttered, a little frightened by the look.

"Isn't it Valentine's Day next Friday?"

Buffy sighed, "Yeah, and that is sooo gonna be a stinker for me again," she admitted, her heart pulling on her with sadness, "The man I love happens to be in another continent from me. Bad, Wills, bad."

"It doesn't have to be..." Willow slyly replied.

"I am *not* going over there and that's that," Buffy suddenly stated.

Willow started to squeal with happiness, "No, no... Valentine's day... What do you do on Valentine's day?"

"You spend it with the one that you love... Wills," Buffy suddenly protested, "you're not making me any happier you know."

"No, no, when you can't spend the day with the one you love, you send *cards* to them."

At first Buffy started to warm to the subject, but then she shot it down in flames, "Oh and him seeing a Sunnydale post mark and he's gonna think that one of us... you... are just playing games with him."

Okay, that got Willow thinking. It was true... she could see Giles thinking just that. "Oh, oh," she suddenly squealed with excitement, "I've got a friend in Oxford Uni..."

"Well, bully for you, Wills," Buffy muttered dejectedly.

"Aww, c'mon Buffy, I'm trying to help you here," Willow whined in protest.

Buffy had the good grace to look sheepish and she immediately apologised. "Sorry, Wills," she muttered with a shrug.

Willow was immediately appeased, but whether it was because of Buffy's apology or because of her excitement that her friend had come to realise something that *she* had known for sometime and was now doing something about it, well, the jury would have to consult on that one.

"Umm," Buffy suddenly asked and quickly returned her hand to her lap when she noticed she had raised it in asking for permission to speak, much like Willow often felt the need to. "Umm," she started again, "what does your friend in Oxford Uni have to do with me sending Giles a card and letting him know of my undying love for him?" Buffy actually pulled a face and said, "You know, that sounded so much better inside my head. Maybe this is not such a good idea, after all..."

Willow giggled and playfully whopped her on the arm, "You're not getting out of this *that* easily," she declared, then said, "My friend will send your cards from there. See," Willow proudly announced, "simple. It will have an English postmark on the envelope."

Buffy's eyes narrowed suspiciously before she giggled and said, "You know, Wills, I would never have thought you could be so devious."

Willow giggled with her and asked, "Are you sleepy?" and on Buffy's negative shake of her head, she excitedly added, "Well, let's get to it then..."

NEXT