Title: Going Back 3/8
Author: Gail Christison
Pairing: B/G
Rating: PG-15 for romantic stuff and mildy scary bits.
Summary: First of all, this is a sequel to a post Tabula Rasa fic I wrote a long while ago called "The Visitor,"
http://www.wickedsky.com/oncemore/omwf/fanfic_visitor.html in which Buffy goes to England to reconnect with Giles and to tell him something. They do indeed 'connect' and their relationship evolves into a ..well a relationship <g>. This sequel was written purely to explore the dynamics of that new relationship but it turned into an exploration of Giles' past, and an introduction to it for Buffy, as well as a mystery [not sure how that sneaked in there <g>] that needs to be solved.
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy, Joss..yadda yadda
Distribution: If you want it, please just ask.I like to share <g> Anyone who already has permission...go for it :-)
Feedback: After the length of the birth of this thing? Oh, Ghhhod yesss :-) chriscln@iinet.net.au

Author's notes: Following on from the summary, I should explain that this story was started in 2002. Three pages sat for 12 months before being resumed in 2003 and a healthy chunk written, Emily and Gregor arriving with it :-). Annnnd yet I managed to get stuck again...I've still only just finished it. It was one of those kind of fics. More hiccups than a Saturday night drunk <vbg>

Thanks: At this point I have to thank some people. I'm pretty sure that Ruth and Karen checked out the Scottish accents for me a long time ago, and Gileswench has been great at keeping me going on this thing as well as providing early beta-ing and feedback on parts of it. I also have to thank Karesia for the final beta at short notice and amidst great adversity. It was profoundly appreciated. :-) With over 2 years to cover I'm sure I've forgotten someone who helped or who got shanhai-ed to provide a spot-beta along the way. Whoever you are, I love you...please don't shoot me :D

Dedication #1 Happy birthday, Kim and thanks, my friend

Dedication #2 For Dawn M. B/Gers like you keep me writing. :-)

She went to his side and leaned against his shoulder. "I'm sorry. For all of you: your dad, your mom, Emily and Gregor...and Catriona. All these years I thought my drama was, like, the ultimate tragedy of all time...I mean, I shut down to not have to deal with it...and now I find out you kind of did exactly the same thing, only a lot more sorta...um... privately. She shifted to circle his waist with her arms and rest her cheek against his chest. "You know, don't you, when it comes to dealing with the emotional stuff, we're both really crap?"

Giles laughed, a low rumble that shook his chest and her face. "Ever the gentle comforter, my dear," he chided.

"Sure I am. Emotionally-challenged solidarity," Buffy teased back. "I'm actually trying to be supportive-girl, here. Go me," she added in her best ditzy Buffy voice, and was pleased to hear the sound of his laughter.

They both knew she'd never been much good at the reaching out...emotionally or any other way, even when she desperately wanted to, but it didn't stop her trying when it really mattered. That courage had finally brought the two of them together, and for that he could never be sorry...

Giles' large arms closed around her and she felt a kiss dropped on her hair. "Yes, you are," he agreed, a smile still in his voice. "And it's appreciated."

It was said lightly enough, but his eyes were bright with emotion.

"That's good," she told him, "because I'm still way better at killing demons...well, fighting, punching, killing, you know the drill...than I am at the loving. We both know I sucked majorly at the whole thing, right from the start...and I really need not to suck for you, right now... And that came out really, *really* wrong..."

Giles chest shook again, a deep, short chuckle audible above her head. "Never mind," he said mildly. "I speak Buffy." She giggled into his chest. "And being here, with me, right now is rather the antithesis of 'sucking' at love. I think perhaps it's time we went back downstairs."

She straightened and looked around the room. From the aircraft models on the mantelpiece to the very-much used dartboard on the wall, the collection of bird's eggs, to the small sled in one corner, and the soccer poster on the closet door, it was very much a boy's retreat.

"What was it like when you lived in this room? No comic books, music...stereo? No TV?"

"It was the sixties, Buffy. Of course all that existed, except in those days television sets were largely confined to living rooms and I'd stopped looking at comic books by the age of ten. There was no time, no room, for such things. I followed Liverpool's soccer fortunes in the schoolyard and listened to rock music with school friends, though never at home. It wasn't tolerated...any more than fluorescent pictures or flared trousers."

Buffy eased out of his arms and went to open the closet. "So what did you do when you weren't slaving over Latin texts or studying your brains out?" A navy blue coat with wooden toggles for buttons was about the only thing hanging there, and several pairs of shoes: school, tennis, cricket boots, were neatly lined up, side by side. In the back was a soccer ball, a Stuart Surridge cricket bat, the willow obviously well oiled once upon a time, but deeply stained by numerous red smudges, a wooden tennis racquet and a shabby pair of ice-skates, along with a schoolbag and a small box of toys, filled mostly with parts of construction sets and one or two action figures, tennis balls and a battered cricket ball.

"Tell me this isn't the sum of your childhood," she said quietly.

"All right. It isn't," he said unhelpfully. "I wasn't that different to any other small boy. There were more toys, school things and such, but most were given away when I outgrew them. All my books, I took with me. The rest you see here."

Buffy turned. "But there's so little here that actually tells me anything about you. So you played tennis and cricket and you liked a soccer team." She spread her hands. "Except for the planes...and I already knew Giles junior wanted to be a pilot...what else is there? There aren't any CDs...no posters, no junk, no stupid prizes you won at carnivals and didn't want to throw out, no trophies, no photographs...not even a teddy bear..."

"I still have the photographs," he told her softly. "And since I had no time to participate actively in team sports beyond the age of ten, or go to carnivals and fairs, nor did I have the resources to buy endless musical albums...vinyl ones back then, even if I had wanted to, my childhood was commensurately uncluttered by such things." He turned then, and went to a wooden window seat. Only when he lifted the top of it, did Buffy realize it was hinged. When he turned again, he was looking down, almost forlornly, at a rather battered, but jaunty-faced, one-eyed teddy bear.

For a long moment, Buffy couldn't bring herself to break the silence. Finally, she walked up to him and touched the bear's brown corduroy waistcoat.

"What's his name?"

Giles almost smiled, but the forlorn look remained. "Edwards. Don't ask me why. I was four, apparently, when I named him."

"Edwards? Let me guess: you weren't spending much time with other kids?"

His eyebrows rose. "I was learning to read and write in several languages, to ride and to fence, among other things."

"At the age of four?" Buffy asked, alarmed. "And I thought Slayers had it rough."

"I was being prepared; though, of course, for what, I wasn't told. They knew I was gifted, and though it wasn't quite common knowledge back then, the Council had been aware for some time that the most successful way to teach languages...among other things...was right from the beginning. The basics of riding and fencing were for balance, co-ordination and physical fitness."

"Or they could have let you play soccer and catch frogs...you know: hang out like a normal little British kid, with the usual little boy running around and jumping and climbing and stuff," she said with a scowl on his behalf.

"Don't distress yourself about it." He handed her the bear. "I wasn't unhappy. A little lonely, perhaps, but I was loved and cherished...both my mother and my grandmother ensured that I never wanted for love as a child...and later..."

"Gregor and Emily," Buffy filled in, hugging Edwards to her bosom. "But you had friends at school, right?"

"Of course. And I filled my quota of chipped knees, schoolyard punch-ups, followed by notes from the Headmaster, dodgy reports and playing truant."

"You ditched school?"

He finally grinned. "If I was angry enough with my father about something, or if my mates had plans. My grades were never affected. I was always ahead with the work...my father saw to that, so I could afford to pretend I actually had the freedom to indulge my own little rebellion every now and then...until I was sent away."

"Away?"

"Boarding school... Public school education: not for the faint of heart, and rather lacking the latitude for real rebellion, I'm afraid.

Buffy looked down at Edwards. "You must have missed your mom, your grandmother?"

Giles cleared his throat. "It wasn't...ideal. My grandmother died the first year I was away." After another strained moment he smiled unexpectedly. "Emily used to send me biscuits. And Argyll socks."

"Biscuits-cookies, I get. But socks?" she asked, bemused.

He grinned. "Emily is an Argyll, herself. She used to say she could turn a heel with the best of them. Her socks, and if I remember correctly, her Fair Isle knits as well, have taken prizes."

"So, socks were good...?"

He chuckled. "Emily's woollen, hand-knitted socks? If you'd ever lived anywhere where the temperature dropped below seventy degrees for more than five minutes, you wouldn't have to ask."

Buffy made a face at him. "Maybe one day I will...with you. There's something to be said for lots and lots of snuggling weather. You and me, a big bed and a warm fire sounds about like heaven right now..."

*******

Buffy followed Giles curiously through the door he'd led her to, some way down the hall from his boyhood room.

"I thought these things were only this spectacular in fairytales?"

Giles chuckled. "As you can see, they're entirely real. Times may have changed, but once they were a common part of the fashion and social mores of affluent society."

It was Buffy's turn to chuckle. "English, Giles: for the verbally challenged American, remember?"

He sighed. "In the past they were very popular with the wealthy, who were the only ones who could afford them, though I believe you can buy mass-produced replicas, nowadays."

She moved over to the huge four-poster bed with its ornate canopy and carved wooden posts, replete with gorgeous quilt and pillow covers in darker autumn tones, and laid Edwards on one of the pillows.

"At least it isn't one of those really girly ones. I'm not sure I could keep a straight face with you wallowing in lace or flowers or something," she teased.

Giles turned and surprised her by sweeping her off her feet and depositing both of them on the bed, Edwards tumbling onto the polished wooden floor in the process.

"This isn't the main guest room, but I'll have you know I can be just as manly in lace, voile, tulle, satin or even bloody flowers," he growled, and kissed her with a ferocious, red-blooded passion.

Which drew exactly the right reaction from Buffy, whose body always came alive in the presence of his very real, and no longer suppressed, power, which, combined now with the intensity of their love for each other, whipped up a potency of passion and desire she couldn't resist. The game became a session of love making of heady proportions, leaving both of them limp but content afterward, curled in each other's arms and already falling into a blissful post-passion torpor, barely aware of the temperature of the room or the fact that the weather outside was rapidly turning.

"We can't go to sleep now," Buffy pointed out blurrily. "What if Emily comes in and finds us like this?"

Giles stretched out a long arm, grasped a hand full of quilt and hauled at it, pulling the bottom half up and dragging it over them so that they made a disorganised looking pile of bodies and bedclothes in the middle of the bed.

"Then she'll just be cross that we don't know the civilized way to sleep in a bed," he yawned, drawing her even deeper into the cocoon of his arms in an unconscious retaliation against the encroaching chill.

Neither of them stirred for the next few hours, nor did they hear the tap at the door after the second hour, or see the amusement and affection in the cornflower-blue eyes that peeped in on them after they'd been gone far too long, unsure whether they were in the room or not.

When they finally stirred, Buffy declared that she was both thirsty and hungry, and made to slide out of the big bed only to shriek as the cold immediately bit into her bare legs, and when her feet touched the floor, sent chills through their soles.

"We could stay here for the night," she suggested, burrowing back under the covers and snuggling up tightly against Giles' chest.

"Or we could go back to our room, where our things are and our made-up bed is waiting ...probably with the electric blanket switched on..."

"Okay," she said reluctantly, then paused. "You go first. I'll stay here while you get dressed and then you can hand me my stuff..."

Giles snorted. "I see...I'm to freeze my arse...and other parts...off to fetch your things so you can get dressed without setting one bare toe out of the warm bed?"

She wriggled up to eye level and kissed his nose. "Uh-huh," she confirmed and grinned mischievously at him.

He was lost. When she looked at him like that, he always was.

Buffy watched him slide out, enjoying, as always, the sight of his long legs and incredibly cute butt, despite his swiftly indrawn breath and muttered epithet as his feet touched the floor. Within moments he'd pulled on his shirt, gathered up all their clothes and shoes and thrown them on the bed before sitting down again so that he could lift his half-frozen feet off the floor.

He was amused by her antics, trying to dress under the covers while he steadily clothed himself and pulled on his socks and shoes. When she emerged again, tousled and rosy, he suddenly felt very, very old.

Her brow furrowed when she saw his face go from tenderness and amusement to very real consternation and sadness.

"Hey...talk to me," she said softly.

He shook his head. "Us...You and I...it's ludicrous for someone as young and alive as you are to saddle yourself with someone like me. No matter how much I try, there are times I can't help feeling like a selfish, possibly dirty, old man..."

The cold forgotten, Buffy crawled across the bed and put her arms around his neck, resting her chin on top of his head.

"You think Gregor was a dirty old man?"

"Hmm...no, of course not...but it was a different era...Women were..."

"They were what...?" She demanded dryly. "Smarter, stronger...?"

He sighed. "Emily at sixteen was probably older and more emotionally mature than you are now, or than Dawn, or even Willow, will probably be at forty."

Buffy's eyes widened a little and she sat back to look at his face. "Was she really married at sixteen? That would mean they've been married almost sixty years!"

Giles looked thoughtful for a moment then shook his head. "I believe Emily was eighteen and Gregor forty odd when they were married. He'd lost a fiancée to diphtheria when he was thirty and thought never to find true love again."

"Wow...he sure made a lot of babies for an old guy," she teased.

"As did Emily...all by the age of thirty, including the twins just after their first, Fiona," he mused. "Highland women had to be tough just to survive their confinements. There were no clinics or hospitals around the corner, no day care for the little ones or the ubiquitous drugstores your countrymen seem to take for granted, to run to for any and every emergency, or even day-to-day items. Five children, more than one in nappies at times, without medical help, power or mains water would probably traumatise even the best modern mother..."

"Slaying is looking better by the second," Buffy agreed, then ran a finger down the crease in his forehead and across his brow to the laughter lines at the corner of his right eye. "Except...did you ever think about having little Gileses running around?"

His eyes grew distant. "Not when I was younger. The last thing I wanted to do was saddle an heir with the kind of inheritance I'd have been required to pass on to them. Later, however..."

Buffy's large, blue-grey eyes searched his face. "You would have made a great father... in a stuffy British kind of way," she said tenderly.

The corner of his mouth lifted and he chuckled softly. "No, I wouldn't," he said ruefully. I'd have been as appalling as any father whose occupation continually takes priority over the needs and welfare of their own children."

The wide eyes lost their sparkle. "I'm the reason you don't have a family of your own? But your father..."

His glaze flicked up to hers, his expression unreadable. "And we know how well that turned out..."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Do we? You only remember how much your dad wasn't there for you, but were you listening to Gregor and Emily tonight? Did you hear how much he adored your mother...and you? It's like her death changed everything..."

Giles' eyes grew very bright. "My mother deserved better than to spend her life standing and waiting..."

"But did she?" Buffy persisted. "Do you remember her being unhappy?"

He frowned. "Not when she was with me, but there were times when she was terribly, terribly sad, particularly when he was off to the Council again or on the nights when he was out training Catriona..."

"I'd be 'terribly, terribly' sad too, if my honey was out spending his all time with a nubile young teenager instead of home with me." She caressed his clenched jaw. "And I'd miss him horribly if he went off without me for days at a time. "I don't suppose you remember what she was like when he came home? Mad? Cool and unresponsive?"

After a beat he finally smiled, then shook his head. "Not at all. She seemed to come alive whenever he was around. My father was not a terribly demonstrative man, but mother used to be able to make him smile, even laugh...and if he thought no one was around, he'd even manage a comforting pat or small, soothing circles on her back if she was upset or worried about something."

It didn't seem like very much to Buffy, but Giles spoke in tones that were almost awed. Giles senior must have been even stuffier than Rupert used to be.

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