Title: Ever Aftering 1/3
Author: Gail Christison
Rating: NC-17 for romantic and erotic sexual situations. English spelling. Aussies do, y'know
Summary: Sequel to Recognition. Buffy and Giles continue their romance and love and silliness ensues. And sometimes it just gets a little hot ;-)
Spoilers: Not really
Disclaimer: All belongs to Mutant Enemy and Joss. I'm just borrowing for a little while :-)
Feedback: I'd love to know what you think. chriscln@ozemail.com.au
Distribution: All those who have permission. And my site, http://www.wickedsky.com/oncemore within the next couple of days.
Author's notes: This is a combination sequel of Recognition for those who asked for one, and a birthday fic for the wonderful and talented Gileswench, which had to include certain Wenchian challenges which I'm sure you'll spot when you're reading the story :-)

Big thank yous to Liz, Cindy and Wench, for their encouragement and a special wave to Karen for her great beta at short notice.

Happy Early Birthday Wenchy!!!

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

Buffy sighed but there was contentment in the sound. "Giles and surprises...not something people usually put in the same sentence," she observed, affection in her voice.

He smiled as he turned his new car into a familiar street. "Rupert and Buffy...not something people usually put in the same sentence, either," he pointed out good-naturedly.

A look of smug satisfaction lit Buffy's face as she slid a hand over his jeans-covered thigh. "Well, they'd better get used to it, because I have."

The car slowed and pulled over. Buffy looked out the window. For most of the trip, her attention had either been wholly for her new lover or lost in remembering the joy and contentment of the last few weeks. Now she focused and made a small noise of surprise.

"Giles?"

"Come on," he said, climbing out of the classic MG. Buffy waited for him to come around the car, taking the hand Giles extended as they walked into the apartment complex together, the atmosphere between them growing more and more charged as they retraced nostalgic, comforting steps. They stopped at the even more familiar door and Buffy turned into his arms, leaning her cheek against his chest.

"You don't know how much I missed this place. After...after you left me the first time, I kept ending up here when I was patrolling. Part of me knew you were gone, but I kept feeling like I should just be able to open that door and you'd be there...waiting..."

He kissed the top of her head and drew his arms more tightly around her. "I was waiting. I just wasn't here," he told her. "I'm sorry."

Buffy straightened and smiled at him. "Let's not," she said softly. "You know I always win when we play the 'who's a bad person' game."

"Yes, but you cheat," he teased.

Buffy punched his arm. "So why are we here? Trip down memory lane?"

He shook his head and drew his car keys from the pocket of his leather jacket. To Buffy's surprise, he unlocked the door and pushed it open. After a beat for her to catch up, they stepped inside.

Buffy looked around. Everything was back. It was almost exactly the way she remembered it. Even the same smells, though mixed a bit with cleaning products and a little too much fresh air.

Giles was watching her profile, aware that she was stunned, and extremely moved. She wandered around, touching the lamps and various items that had graced the apartment for as long as they'd known each other. Finally, she stopped to admire a silver ice bucket, lifting its contents to read the impressive label before letting it go again and running her fingers along the counter. She seemed to be lost in memories and didn't turn. Instead he went to her, slid his hands onto her shoulders and squeezed gently.

Buffy covered the one on her left shoulder with one of her own. "I can't believe you got it back."

Giles bent his head and kissed her throat. "I never put it on the market. My tenant was on a six month contract, or I'd have arranged this much sooner. Xander was the only one who knew. He helped me move in."

"There are so many memories here," she whispered, "good and bad. It's like we're a part of this place...or it's a part of us."

"A little of both, I think," he said softly, staring at the cupboard behind the stools, remembering how he'd opened up his soul to her after Eyghon had almost killed him. He hadn't talked about any of it, to anyone, for more years than he could count...and yet he'd been able to tell her almost all of it, self consciously, but without regret.

Buffy turned into his arms and lifted her face for his kiss. It was slow and possessive, both of them needing to reassert the present over the sudden rush of memories.

When they finally parted, Buffy played with the chest hair in the 'V' of his black shirt, looked up at the loft and added mischievously: "you know there are still some parts of this apartment where no Slayer has gone before..."

"Well, that's a state of affairs which really ought to be rectified," he growled in a low, sensual voice. "How about we start right about now?"

Buffy squealed in surprise as he swept her off her feet and threw her over his right shoulder, deftly plucking the bottle from the ice bucket and hooking the stems of the two glasses alongside it as he turned. He was half way up the stairs before she started pummelling playfully on his back.

"Who gave you beer?" she demanded between giggles, still beating on his back as he continued to take the steps by twos.

Moments later he put down the wine and swung her down onto the bed, both of them still giggling: "I don't need beer," he said brusquely. "I only need you."

Their lovemaking was passionate and energetic without hurrying. Both of them revelled as much in the closeness and the union as they did in the pleasure of the act. At times it became almost a competition to see who could pleasure whom the most, until finally they came together and merged into one, the final release, as it often was, simultaneous and ecstatic, before they fell back into each others arms.

They stirred much later in a darkened room, each wandering back to consciousness and reaching for the other. The kiss was tender and loving and Giles' stroking caresses of her bare back as she lay pressed against him, made Buffy stretch like a cat, before kissing his nose and snuggling contentedly back down in the crook of his arm.

"Letting Dawn go visit Aunt Carol was the best decision I've made in a long time," she sighed.

"Oi!" Giles objected, mock grumpily. "Whose decision? Who was it who had to nursemaid you through all the concerns and worries about her being out of your sight and beyond your protection for more than five minutes?"

Buffy snorted into his chest. "Yeah, right. And who had the longest hug at the airport? Who got the good-bye kiss and the new cell phone?"

"Jealous," Giles rejoined, only to be poked in the ribs by his Slayer, now used to his unexpected turns of deadpan teasing and humour.

She pushed up on one elbow. "Am not...well, not much. You're just a big softie. You never gave *me* a 'pink pearl' coloured cell phone of my own...I had to buy one and it's just a plain, sensibly *cheapo* clunky one...and boy could I have used any kind of a one a few times, back when I was at school: Hello, Giles? Any chance you could bring your best bad-ass sword to Third and Riverston, so I don't have to decapitate this three hundred and ninety pound demon with a road sign...and can you come, like, *now*?" she mugged.

Giles rolled his eyes. "Yes and I'm sure your mother would have been thrilled to know the school librarian was buying you cell phones."

Buffy giggled. "Kinda creepy," she agreed. "But do you really think that would have bugged her more than knowing her daughter was sleeping with a two hundred and forty year old dead guy whose alter-ego just happened to be a sadistic homicidal psychopath?"

He chuckled. "Yes, well, I don't know how she managed. Had I been one of your parents I rather think I'd have staked him first and asked questions later. She was a remarkable woman, your mother."

Buffy felt a rush of affection. Her mother hadn't always been kind to Giles and yet he was always able to be gracious. She leaned forward and kissed his surprised mouth. "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"Yesterday, about two forty five, I think," he replied facetiously, wondering what he'd done right.

She chuckled and kissed him again. "Well, that's way too long." Somebody's stomach rumbled, both sets of eyebrows rising. "Sounds like at least one of us is hungry."

"Yes, well, we haven't had any lunch, and I daresay we've missed dinner. I was planning to take you somewhere..."

"Mmm...well, nice as that would have been, I liked how we spent the afternoon even better," she purred then looked bemused when a second gurgle was heard. "I think that one was me...definitely major emptiness happening down there."

Giles played with a long strand of blonde hair. "Would you like to go somewhere now?"

Buffy looked around the room. "I kinda like it here. You done the grocery thing yet?"

"The grocery...? Oh...um...yes. I thought...well, much as I enjoy being..."

She smiled widely at his discomfiture. "It's okay, old guy. I figured out over a week ago that you were starting to get kinda edgy about living in the house. Not so easy to suddenly have a family of your own twenty-four seven after being 'batchelor guy' for so long? What was it...the fights over the bathroom or girlie things *in* the bathroom? Oh, I know: empty milk cartons...or empty cereal boxes? Then there's Dawn's taste in music...too much MTV, maybe?"

He rolled his eyes again. "All of the above," he growled, then smiled. "No, strangely enough I was beginning to cope reasonably well with living in a women's dormitory. It was simply that it wasn't..." He sighed and just said it. "It wasn't my home. I needed...I need to feel some sense of belonging. I don't know if you can understand..."

Buffy searched his face for a long time. "I understand," she said softly, trailing a finger along his jaw. "All I've ever wanted was to feel like I belonged. But I never have...until now. These last few weeks have been the first time...so what you're trying to tell me is you want to move back in here?"

"Would you be terribly disappointed?"

She was very still for a moment, struggling with that disappointment. "Yes," she managed, finally, choosing honesty because somehow, now, for him nothing less would do. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. If it weren't for Dawn I'd move here with you in a heartbeat, but..."

"You have responsibilities," he filled in, his voice empathetic. "We shall just have to make the best of it. After patrols, in between job hunting and such, and on weekends, we can certainly see plenty of each other. We shall just have to encourage Dawn to help Janice more often with her Algebra..."

They both giggled and then kissed again, long and luxuriously. "It's not going to be the same," she said sadly, when they parted. "Waking up alone is suddenly something I really, really don't want to do...I've been spoiled, waking up alongside the man I love every morning..."

Giles' eyes clouded a little before he spoke. "I know," he said softly. "I will miss watching you sleep...listening to you sing off-key to the radio while you're making breakfast." He dropped his voice a couple of octaves and his eyes danced for a moment. "And of course I shall miss bathing and showering together...but, perhaps most of all, I will miss you being the last thing I see, hear, smell and taste before I go to sleep each night." He drew her down and kissed her again, before wrapping his arms around her when she laid her head on his left breast.

They remained so, quietly holding each other for a long time.

...Until a remarkably loud stomach rumble shattered the tranquil silence. For another couple of beats neither spoke then both started to giggle.

"That wasn't me," Buffy finally managed between gasps for air as the giggling got further and further out of control.

"Must have been the fairies then," Giles proposed, before succumbing again.

Buffy ran a hand down and rubbed his stomach until it made another quite audible noise that sounded very much like a sink drain emptying, setting them both off again. "So who's a big fairy?" she teased.

"Hussy," he growled, rolling her over and settling between her thighs amid the laughter. "I'll have you know it's been years since I was a fairy."

Buffy paused and looked at him speculatively. "Why does it seriously disturb me to think of you ever being a fairy?"

Giles laughed and kissed her throat. "Probably because I'd look damned silly with wings," he suggested, well aware of what she really meant. "I played Oberon in a school play when I was seventeen," he explained as he trailed his lips down to her breasts and began tracing their curves with his mouth, by which time Buffy had forgotten all about fairies and food...

An hour and a half later they were submerged in steaming hot water in Giles' bathtub, sipping their not quite so cold Veuve Cliquot, the foam from the abundance of bubble bath Buffy had enthusiastically tipped into the water, overflowing every now and then and plopping onto the floor tiles.

"I'm not sure I ever want to get out of here," Buffy sighed contentedly.

Giles smiled and kissed the top of her head as she leaned it against his back, set his glass and hers down on the floor, and slid his large hands from her shoulders, down the outside of her arms to her hands to close them together, inside his own.

"Nor I," he rumbled from somewhere down deep and kissed the curve of her ear.

Buffy shivered luxuriously and slipped a bit further down into the hot water, so that she ended up with foam stuck to the end of her nose, her chin and her neck. She blew at them between giggles and wriggled a little until Giles realised what was going on. He released a hand so that he could gently wipe the bubbles away. When he was done, she turned her face up to look at him and they held each other's gaze for a long moment, before he leaned down to kiss the tender lips he'd just been brushing with his fingertips.

When he lifted his head, Buffy used a forefinger to put a chunk of foam on his nose, a mistake, because the moment she started to giggle about it, his hands slid down to her waist and large fingers began to tickle her ribs. Amid shrieks, demented wriggling and laughter, water and bubbles were thrown all over the bathroom. Finally, Buffy used her slayer strength to slip from his grasp, turn and put her arms around his neck. The game ended as it had begun, with a long, unhurried kiss.

When they finally decided to get out, hunger getting the better of them, Buffy looked around, crestfallen, at the mess and sighed. "Looks like the bathroom at home after Dawn's finished with it. And I'm starving." That gave her an idea. "I know," she said suspiciously perkily. "You can clean this up while I make us some dinner. Deal?"

Giles gave her 'the look,' but he was too content to argue. "Fine. Do your worst. Just make certain none of it involves using the telephone. One thing I didn't miss was the vast amounts of fast food I was forced to consume while I was living here and working with you lot. Xander is the only person I've ever met who knew all the delivery numbers off by heart."

"Guessing they've probably been really handy lately," she said quietly. "I really hope they can figure things out. They seemed so happy until..."

"Indeed," he agreed, equally subdued. "Give them time. From what each of you have told me since I first returned, I think perhaps Anya will eventually realise that, rightly or wrongly, Xander thought he was saving her, rather than rejecting her. I don't doubt that in terms of judgement he's as stupid as the rest of you, but I'm sure he was quite terrified of committing the woman he loves...and himself...to a life not unlike that of his parents. He was quite wrong, and perhaps he'd have realised that, if he'd talked to someone about it, but he believed he was doing the right thing."

"I know," Buffy said quietly. "But it was dumb, the way he did it. I wish you'd been here. He would have talked to you."

Giles looked up from towelling his long legs and flipped the towel, one end in each hand, over his head and let it slide down to dry his butt as he talked.

"So do I, but it wasn't to be. They are all, with the exception of Dawn, adults: all by definition able to vote, drive, have sex, drink and to merrily die for their country if required to do so by your government. Eventually they all have to be able to run their own lives with or without me, you, or anyone else to help."

Buffy towelled her chest dry, watching him and enjoying the view, but surprised that Giles was still so vehement about their independence after mentioning several times how much he regretted not being there for all their catastrophes during the year.

"You wanted everyone to grow up and be independent, but you still wish you'd been here to help?"

He grinned as he rubbed his chest and the tops of his shoulders. "I care about all of you a great deal. Intellectually I knew what you needed, and I knew what I did was right, but of course, emotionally, it almost killed me to abandon you like that. Regardless of how right it might have been, in my heart I feel as though a great deal of heartache, and lot of problems, could have been avoided if we had all been as close knit as we were in the old days."

"The old days..." she repeated, memories resurfacing in quick succession. "You're right. Whatever else was going on, we were at least together...you saving me from Catherine Madison, all of us saving Willow from Moloch, not to mention Xander and Praying Mantis lady. And it wasn't just being in trouble. I mean, you with the books and the research, Willow making with the computer magic to help us fight the bad guys, and Xander being, well...Xander, while you helped Oz deal with full moons, and we all had to deal with Cordelia...like a real family."

"Oh Lord, yes...Cordelia," he muttered, caught up in her reminiscences. "Cordelia speak...the stuff of nightmares...and migraines."

Buffy laughed aloud. "I didn't think you noticed stuff back then."

He balled up the towel and threw it at her. "You all thought I was a doddering old fool. I was forty bloody two not seventy two," he told her indignantly.

"Not all of us," Buffy confided, throwing the towel back. "When she wasn't dreaming of Xander smoochies, Willow had the hots for you...at least until Oz came along...and Faith thought you were pretty cute."

He made a face at her. "Rather like a cobra finding me appetizing," he observed gruffly, "but at least she recognised that I was, in fact, a man, and not some Tweed covered, geriatric eunuch there for the convenience of the rest of you."

Buffy blinked and looked at him, standing there, his slim body still firm and mostly toned, the hair on his chest running sexily down to his navel and the rest of him proving that he was indeed still a very impressive specimen of manhood.

"Where did that come from? Okay, so I know I took a long time to grow up, especially with Angel around. It bugged you that much...my spectacular stupidity?" She dropped her towel and went to him, sliding her arms loosely around his waist. "I wish stuff didn't matter so much, like age differences and all that junk. If we'd been together back then so much bad stuff wouldn't have happened...to either of us. I can't believe I was so blind..."

"Nor can I," he rejoined dryly.

"Ouch," she complained. "Well, maybe not entirely blind. Even when I didn't know why I needed you, I wanted you close by...I wanted to know you were there and that I could see you and be with you. I couldn't imagine a world without you in it, but being a kid, I thought it was just because you were my Watcher, my anchor, my safe harbour." She kissed the spot at the base of his throat. "I didn't know my terror of losing you was about a whole lot more than having to find a new Watcher." He growled meaningfully and she smiled into his chest. "You know, Spike even knew. Remember how he always knew things about all of us...like he knew Willow was still hurting about Oz, and he was so good at manipulating everyone when he was working for Adam, because he knew things...?"

Giles remembered only too well. He murmured an affirmative and closed his eyes as she continued.

"Well, while you were away, he said he'd always wondered about us. He saw it, even when I was still blind. Even then I kept thinking he was crazy, that I just wanted you back...that the empty, ripped open feeling when you left was just because we'd been through so much together, because I needed my Watcher...my best friend."

Into the silence came not a moving response from Giles, but the sound of a very empty stomach objecting violently to being so mistreated.

Buffy straightened and rolled her eyes as he tried valiantly not to chuckle. "Well that sorta puts things in perspective."

"Indeed," he said softly, when he'd gotten control of his smiley muscles. "The past is exactly that...past." He trailed his fingers through the hair she'd released from the loosely tied knot she'd put in it to bathe. "All we have to worry about is now...and where we go from here."

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