Title: Enchantment 2/6
Author: Gail Christison
Pairing: B/G
Rating: PG-13 for the first five parts; Soft NC-17 for romantic sexual encounter in the last part
Summary: Began as a playful challenge by Ness some time ago to which I posted a 3 page fluffy drabble called Giles the mechanic. Became a series on Watchergirls which I have been remiss about finishing. Now it's complete and fully beta-ed, I'm posting it as a whole fic.
Timeline: Late-ish season 5 AU. Wherever your mind slots it in there :-)
Disclaimer: Joss, ME, own all. I'm just borrowing the characters and having more fun with them than they did :-)
Distribution: All those who already have permission. Anyone else please ask first.
Author's notes: Thanks to Gileswench, Karesia and Liz for their encouragement, betas and support during this series :-) And thankyou to Ness for causing it in the first place :-))
Dedication: To Gileswench, Karesia, Liz and Ness.

Buffy looked up and rolled her eyes. She'd forgotten all about them. They were still set at Giles' height and she couldn't see a thing in any of them.

A few minutes later they turned into Taco Bell and Buffy took a just-vacated parking space some distance from the building.

"Not so terrible after all?" Giles smiled as she set the park brake.

She turned to him and smiled. "Nah. Actually, I could totally get used to this. I didn't even miss the stick shift. Things change, I guess. I've changed. A lot. I suppose part of that is all the time we've spent on focus and mediation this year...but mostly it's been, well, stuff. First Dawn, then Riley, then...mom..." Her voiced had dropped to a near whisper. "And this Glory thing...I'm really scared, Giles. Not like I was with the Master...all panic and hysterics...this time it's like there's this weight...it's like I know..." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

Giles swallowed. Hearing her put it into words made it real...too real.

"It matters to me."

She smiled at the quiet emphasis on the words. "I know. I also know that if we take too long getting this food, Dawn will eat everything that's in the refrigerator and then start on the cupboards."

It wasn't very busy at the counter, for which Buffy was grateful. She recited Dawn's order, added her own and turned to Giles, who added the items he'd selected from the colourful menus. When she went to open her purse, he put a hand over hers and handed the clerk a couple of twenty-dollar notes.

"You didn't have to do that," she told him as they headed toward the exit with the food a short time later.

"No, I didn't...but I wanted to. You know a gift graciously accepted, is as important as giving one."

She wrinkled her nose at him, but before she could reply a large youth dressed like a punk, down to the chains on his pockets, walked into her, dropping his meal.

"Now look what you've done, bitch. You're paying for that."

"You walked into me, butthead!" Buffy retorted irritably.

"Fuck you."

"Well, that's original," she drawled.

Giles moved forward. "I think you'd better leave the lady alone. Just pick up your food and go."

"Oh yeah, who do you think you are? Harrison Ford? Fuck you, too."

Giles raised an unfazed eyebrow. "It really is in your best interest to stop bothering the lady."

"Oh yeah? If she's such a lady what's she doing with a sugar daddy like y'all?"

Buffy took another step forward "Oh, you are so looking for a..." Giles touched her shoulder and she looked up at him. After a beat, she reluctantly subsided, allowing him to guide her out the door.

"What an asshole," she growled as they crossed the parking lot.

Halfway to the car they found themselves confronted by three more youths all looking like various-sized clones of the punk in the restaurant.

"We got 'em," one of them said into a cell phone.

"I wouldn't jump to conclusions if I were you," Giles said dryly as Buffy flipped the largest of the trio over her head before the young man even realised what was happening.

Immediately, the heavier youth with the phone lunged toward Giles, only to have the Watcher's swiftly raised knee bury itself in his solar plexus, before finishing him off with a couple of well placed blows. He turned just as Buffy was straightening. They both looked at their handiwork then grinned sheepishly at each other, particularly since both of them were mildly mussed, and both of them were still holding the, apparently quite undamaged, packages of food from the restaurant.

By then the third, and smallest, youth had turned and run, just as the punk from the restaurant arrived on the scene. He stared at the two men out cold on the ground and then at the relatively unscathed pair watching him, apparently without concern.

"Shit," he said, his mouth left to hang open.

"That about covers it," Buffy grinned as they turned and flicked a glance at the crushed package in his hand. "Enjoy your meal."

She was still smiling when she unlocked the car. "You didn't tell me you could fight like that," she said as they slid into the front seats.

Giles fastened his safety belt. "I taught you the rudiments of street fighting in our first year together."

"Yeah, taught...as in stood there and explained the moves and made me do them. Not the same thing..." Her voice trailed off a little as his last words sunk in. 'Our first year together.' *It sounded so intimate...like...like a marriage*. Her mind cast back over all of their time together...all the way back to that first day in the library...and she realized that it was exactly what it was like...the two of them working together, complimenting each other to the point of finishing each other's sentences at times...

Giles tilted his head, amused. "Not the same as what, exactly...?"

Buffy focused. "Oh...um...not the same as..." She stopped, stumped. How could she say: 'not the same as realizing how incredibly hot you looked when you knocked the stuffing out of that little creep'? "Not the same as seeing you in action, first hand," she finally managed. "Why didn't you fight more when we patrolled? You looked like you were actually enjoying it tonight."

He smiled. "I was. But whilst I was training you my job was to make certain you could handle yourself. You needed to believe in your own abilities and not in any way come to depend on back up from me."

Buffy finally smiled back. "Except, when it got real busy you just couldn't help yourself."

His smiled faded a little and his tone grew hoarse with emotion. "Only when there was a chance I could have lost you..." He reached out and touched her face. "I couldn't bear to lose you, Buffy...not ever."

As he spoke the words she realised that she couldn't bear to lose him either...not ever.

*******

Dawn opened the front door before Buffy could put her key in the lock.

"'Bout time, you guys. I'm starving! Cool!" She burbled, relieving them of their packages as they stepped inside.

By the time they reached the kitchen everything was set out on plates and a soda had been poured. Two wineglasses were even sitting on top of the counter.

"So what are we watching first?"

"Why don't you choose?" Buffy suggested.

Dawn agreed happily and bounced off with her meal while Giles retrieved the bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator and opened it.

He brought the glasses around the counter and handed one to Buffy, who looked up at him curiously.

He raised his own glass. "To us."

The blue-grey eyes searched his, trying to decipher the cryptic toast. After a beat she gave up and made her own silent interpretation before smiling and raising her glass.

"To us."

*******

By the time they'd sat through American Pie and Something about Mary, everyone had finished their meal, and everyone, even Giles, had found something to laugh at, despite the girls shooting surreptitious looks at him periodically to see how he was handling the crude, often appallingly tasteless, humour.

For his part, Giles couldn't really quite believe anyone in their right mind would want to make a such a film, though some particularly silly sequences, despite their crudity, pushed all the right buttons and made him laugh as much as Dawn and Buffy.

"Sorry," Buffy said softly, when Dawn went to change tapes again. "Dawn wanted something funny...she wanted to laugh...really laugh...so I said okay. Normally I wouldn't..."

He smiled reassuringly. "They are a little ribald for someone of Dawn's years, but given what she's already had to face since...coming to us...I don't think a little tasteless comedy is going to scar her for life."

Buffy looked relieved and visibly relaxed. The last film, she informed him, was also a comedy, but they didn't know much about it, only that they liked the title: 'Chocolat'.

The film was, in fact, the kind of clever social commentary and humour that Giles could thoroughly appreciate, along with the occasional silliness. At times too subtle for Dawn's youthful tastes, though she perked up considerably at the appearance of Johnny Depp as a gypsy some way into the film, it nonetheless held the attention of her companions until the final frame.

Dawn didn't want to go to bed despite the late hour, particularly since she didn't have to get up for school, but acquiesced when Giles promised to take them both to brunch if she would do as she was bid.

When they were gone, and the television had been switched off, the house seemed to fall silent. They'd been watching by lamplight, and without the harsh light from the TV screen, the room had fallen into soft shadows.

Giles watched Buffy return a short time later, wondering how much the relentlessly unhappy events of the past year were really affecting her. She rarely shared her pain, or grief, or hurt, with anyone, often resulting in all of those things eating away at her, making her more withdrawn and detached than ever.

He found himself missing the wisecracking, vivacious young woman from their early years, the one with the confidence, the fierce defiance of the circumstances thrust upon her and seemingly inextinguishable strength, all setting her apart and making her...extraordinary.

The woman settling next to him on the couch now was about as far removed from that girl as it was possible to be: too many scars, far too much pain...and so very little real joy to balance out the pressure...or the grief and the horror...

"Everything all right?"

She nodded. "Even the bathroom survived. All wet towels, wet floors...and other, well, girly things...taken care of, in case you, um, need to..."

He grinned. "Thank you. Very thoughtful of Dawn."

They both grinned. Like all teenagers, Dawn tended to leave the bathroom looking like a hurricane had been through, and like all teens, never remembered to tidy it afterward. They both knew who'd been through and cleaned it up.

Giles sobered first. "How are you both, really?"

Buffy shrugged. "She still has nightmares sometimes...mostly about mom...about when she tried to raise her again." She frowned. "The worst ones are where mom comes back wrong and she thinks it's her fault. Sometimes it's me, and that makes her even worse...cause hey...still here. It takes me hours, with hot chocolate and cookies and distracting girl talk to settle her back down again. Otherwise I think she's mostly dealing in her own way. I'm not saying it hasn't been tough...I'm not mom, and she really needs mom right now...we both do..."

"And you...?"

Buffy raised her eyes to meet his, the silence stretching for several seconds and the atmosphere growing almost tangibly more tense.

"I don't want to die, Giles."

He touched her shoulder. "And I don't want you to, either. What ever happens, we'll face it together. There has to be a way to fight Glory without losing anyone. I know that our ultimate duty is to this world, and protecting it from evil such as Glory, the Master, Angelus and the like...but if there is any way on this earth that we can do it this time, without sacrificing anyone, we will."

Buffy tried to look hopeful, but didn't succeed any more than he did. Instead she rested her head on his arm and sighed.

After a beat Giles slid the arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She closed her eyes and sighed again, before turning slightly and sliding her arm around his waist. They sat silently like that for a long time, then very slowly, Giles felt the tension leave her body and her breathing grow even and rhythmical. He looked down at the fair head and smiled contentedly, then tilted his own head back and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was alone. It took him a moment to un-kink his body before making his way to the kitchen. She wasn't there. Nor was she in the bathroom, or in Dawn's room, but it wasn't until he checked Buffy's own bedroom and saw Mister Gordo quite undisturbed in the middle of the quilt on her bed, that he began to worry.

Some things simply refused to change... All these years of knowing that she was better able to defend herself than almost anyone on earth, and he still couldn't let go of the protectiveness, the underlying panic of not knowing...

Outside, it was raining. He could hear the dull thrum, and the occasional patter on the window driven by a freshening breeze. Uncharacteristic weather for the time of year...and normally the kind he welcomed with open arms...but not with Buffy missing. Logic said that she was almost certainly out patrolling, but there was no way he could settle until she returned.

When she hadn't come back some twenty minutes later, Giles finally grabbed his car keys, thanking the deities that the top was up. He drove by five different cemeteries, following one of their old patrol routes, before he finally spotted Buffy in the halo of a solitary light pole, relief almost shaking him at the sight of her fair head in the distance.

Of all the places she might have been, she was sitting on a swing at the old playground, which had been a staple on one of their old patrol routes, getting wetter and wetter as it creaked backward and forward.

Silently cursing the fact that he had no umbrella with him, this being *California*, where it so rarely rained to any degree of note, Giles got out and walked into the playground. By the time he reached her, he was as drenched as she was.

"Buffy...?"

She looked up from whatever far-off place she'd been in and blinked water from her lashes.

"Giles, what are you doing here? When I left, you were fast asleep."

He looked up into the darkness, rain falling into his eyes, face. "Nice night for a stroll."

"Dandy," Buffy agreed, rain streaming from her hair, and down her cheeks. "You should have stayed asleep. You're adorable, you know...when you're asleep."

He evinced surprise then peered at her throat jokingly. "No new bite marks on your neck?"

"Why? Because I actually noticed something?" She stood up. "Giles, all I've done since I saw you working on your car is *notice*. All I can think about is you...how different you look...how different I..." She reached out and touched his cheek. "How different everything feels now...and how much I want to..." She lifted her face to his, tentatively, her whole body asking the question.

Giles lowered his, his lips touching her forehead, brushing it tenderly before his smooth cheek rested against it and his arms slid around her saturated form.

Deliberately, she lifted her face again, so that she could kiss the rain from his chin before moving experimentally along his jaw. When he didn't appear to respond, she lifted her eyes to search his. The moment seemed to stretch out forever.

Then, finally, as though making a choice, he bent his head and covered her lips with his. At first the kiss was tentative, exploring, asking lingering, longing questions.

Each of them answered: Buffy leaning upwards into the strong male mouth and Giles trailing his fingers down her cheek as he responded equally as possessively. Eventually, both moved as one, fusing into a single form as the connection became a declaration, and the declaration a commitment.

Giles slowly lifted Buffy off the ground, her arms around his neck, as the kiss continued, moving into a slow, sensuous exploration of each other, both of them lost in a world of two, oblivious to the rain, the un-seasonal cold, even the first glow of the coming sunrise peeping over the horizon.

When they were both finally able to bear being parted, he set her gently on the ground and took her face in his hands. It was several seconds before he spoke.

"I have waited for you," he said softly.

She looked up at his face, wonder, and a little in awe in hers. "I never...I never knew...but I feel like I've been waiting for this...it's weird, but it's like I've been waiting for this forever." She reached up, more shyly than she'd ever felt before in her life, and traced the outline of his face, from his temple to his cheekbone. "Like a blurry picture just got un-blurred...like I know a million things now... Like: why I was so scared of losing you...why I was so certain I couldn't do it without you." She stopped and withdrew her hand reluctantly, closed her eyes. "Why other things...could never have worked out; why I didn't have it in me to make them work...because..." She opened them again, her face finally lighting up. "...Because you were always there. I'm such in idiot. It's always been you, even when I was so blind *I* would have smacked me for being that dense."

He couldn't help grinning back and chuckling a little. She would always be, well, *Buffy*...

"We've both hurt each other many times...but I never stopped loving you, Buffy. Disapproved rather severely on occasion..." He added, but he was smiling again.

The undeserved gentleness was almost her undoing.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

His expression grew tender and he nodded, before holding out his hand.

"Let's go home, before we catch our death."

NEXT