Title: Masquerade 7/7
Author: Elle
Feedback: Please! elle562000@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Buffy and the gang belong to Joss, Mutant
Enemy, and other important people.
She stopped showing up entirely, and Giles began to fall into insanity. He wracked his brain to figure out what he'd done to upset her, and came up with nothing. After a week, not seeing her drove him mad. He would confront her, even if it meant losing her.
Buffy came home from patrolling late, locking her door behind her. Dawn had left for a sleepover, and left it open.
Sighing she climbed the stairs, her eyes dry from crying and lack of sleep. When she flipped the light to her room on, her heart nearly burst.
Giles was there, in a tuxedo, and a black mask. "You stopped coming," he said. "So I picked up the slack."
Buffy shook her head, desperately trying not to cry. "I couldn't do it anymore."
She could see his hurt from behind the mask. "You're tired of me?" he asked, almost inaudibly.
She lost it, tears and laughter coming at once. "I couldn't be tired of you," she half-sobbed. "It got to hard, the leaving."
He went to her, and held her against him. Buffy controlled herself, then plucked the mask from his face.
"If I'm going to tell you I love you, I want to see all of you," she whispered, needing to say it, no matter what reaction she got.
Giles was silent for a moment. Then he was laughing, and crying a bit too. He hugged her as tightly as could.
"I thought I was fantasizing when I found you in my bed," he admitted. "Now I know I'm dreaming."
Buffy swallowed. "Which means?"
"I love you too," he whispered, brushing his lips against hers. "Very much. And I never want to make love you in mask again."
Buffy started her crying binge once again, this time happy. "Me neither."
He bent down to kiss her. "But I wouldn't protest to the lingerie."
The end…Thank God. I did this off the cuff. I'm going to be
unconscious now….