Title: Never Leave Me 1/5
Author: Gail Christison
Pairing: B/G
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The timeline is kind of Jossed now, but Giles is back and Buffy remembers his birthday at last and organises something equine for them to do. In due course revelations and romance ensue. :-)
Distribution: All those who have permission. Also my site: http://www.wickedsky.com/oncemore very shortly
Feedback: I'd love to know if you liked it :-)
Disclaimer: Joss owns everything yadda yadda...
Author's notes: This is a fun B/G fic that grew out of a discussion I had some time ago with Gileswench. I actually finished the story before I went to Hawaii, but it's been in beta until tonight. :-) Hope y'all enjoy. Big Big thanks to Karen, Headrush and Liz for their input and encouragement. They had a lot to do with how the fic finally turned out and I can't thank them enough for that.

Dedication: To Good Friends. All of you...you know who you are :-) Enjoy the Holiday Season, be well, and above all be SAFE.

"You could at least tell me where we're going. It seems as though we've been driving for miles."

"Spoilsport."

"Why? Because I want to know what kind of trouble you're going to get me into *before* the fact, for a change?"

"You are Mister Grumpy Pants today, aren't you? Giles, it's your birthday. I actually remembered. I'm actually the only one who remembered...which has to be some kind of amazing event that should be written down somewhere for posterity...or something. Can't you just go with it, for once? I promise you'll like it."

Giles made a noise suspiciously like a harrumph and guided his new cream coloured MG midget around a sweeping bend.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?"

Buffy folded her arms. "You don't trust me," she guessed. "Well, I guess I deserve that in about seven different ways." She touched his arm. "I know I've been a bad friend way too many times, and I know it's totally weird for you that Buffy, of all people, remembers your birthday and not only that, wants you to drive somewhere undisclosed for activities undisclosed with only the promise that it is absolutely, categorically not a surprise party."

Giles shot her a look, his eyes narrowing. "You promised me," he said suspiciously.

"And I meant it," she shot back, her face reflecting the fact that she wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended, settling for a half smile despite slightly overbright eyes, when all was said and done. "Another fifteen minutes and we should be there. You know, I wouldn't do this for just anyone. Actually, I wouldn't do this for anyone except you."

Giles managed another look, quizzical and a little bit moved.

Buffy smiled back at him. "After you came back, when Willow, *you know*, and then you had to leave again...with her...after you went, I was so lost. Not like before, when I was basically just pathetic," she hastened to add, her distaste for the memories of life after resurrection clearly written on her face. "I mean, you came back, and it seemed... everything seemed so right and so good...like everything was the way it was supposed to be...and then you were gone again...and it was like nothing was really important or...or even right anymore because..."

Giles stole another glance when Buffy didn't say anything else. She was staring at him, her lips slightly parted, as if stunned by something.

"Buffy?"

"Mm? Oh, nothing. I just... Giles, why do you put up with me?"

"Put up with you?" he asked, amused.

"Well, you and I both know my record for being understanding, or even remotely-realizing-there's-something-going-on, let alone something *wrong*, girl is of the major ubersuck. I know I let you down too many times and I know there's no good reason you should, well, *care*, you know?"

"Oh," he said quietly. After a moment's reflection he went on. "You're quite right. You've made more mistakes and 'let me down' as you put it, more times than either of us could probably count. And in all likelihood you will again..."

Buffy opened her mouth to strenuously object but Giles lifted his fingers from the steering wheel in a silencing gesture.

"In almost all of those cases I knew why it happened, and while none of those reasons can actually excuse your behaviour, in most cases they were enough for me to know that it was less personal than it was either unavoidable or a product of the sheer stupidity of youthful self involvement."

Buffy scowled. "You know, you can make it sound all educated and dignified, but it's still a slam."

Giles' eyes gleamed with amusement. "Not a slam, just an observation of fact. For example, what would you call not even realising that you hadn't told me that Riley was part of the Initiative...or even just that he was a part of your life...or about that fishwife, Walsh, for that matter?"

"Well, it feels like a slam," she complained. "I think I already established my creds as a sharing, considerate friend...I thought 'ubersuck' pretty much covered it, didn't you? You don't have to rub it in."

"But I so enjoyed rubbing it in," he replied, amusement reaching his voice.

Buffy sighed. "I suppose I deserve that too. But can't we be grown ups now and not pick on the formally stupid Slayer?" She straightened, looking out the window. "Oh look, there's the red barrel she said to look for. Take the next turn, right there..."

Giles looked around once he'd made the turning. The rolling green was pleasing after the endless concrete highways and the almost as endless brown of Southern California. He liked Ojai and he liked the area beyond it too. Now they were driving through fields towards green hills. This was anything but what he would have expected from a Buffy-style birthday surprise. He'd been half-convinced right from the moment Buffy announced that she'd organised something, that anywhere, at any time, he would have a gaggle of Scoobies jumping out at him screaming 'surprise' at the top of their lungs. It brought him up a little short when he immediately remembered how much things had changed since their last surprise party. They had lost Tara, and Anya had gone her own way, Dawn was growing up and Willow...their Willow...would be a long time truly returning to the fold as it were, if ever.

"There, Giles, see the farmhouse...you have to turn there!"

Giles turned obligingly, admiring the well-fed mares and foals now grazing either side of the road, or more accurately, track.

"Pull over there, by the barn-thingy."

"Stables," he offered.

"That's what I meant...stables." Buffy smiled and tapped her temple. "Gotta admit there's still some 'Valley' in there, somewhere. I never did Farm-101. Actually, except for visiting my aunt I don't think I ever really went anywhere...even in L.A. I knew there was a reason why going to Northwestern would have been such a cool thing. Pathetic much? I don't get paid enough to be me," she pouted.

Giles laughed as he parked the car, despite the shadows momentarily in his eyes. "On that we can both agree, however we are now well beyond the city limits and you have managed to keep me entirely mystified as to what you're up to. I don't know whether to be pleased...or terrified." It worked perfectly as a distraction.

Buffy giggled. "Do you know how hard it is to visualize you terrified? Well, maybe of Anya at inventory time, or Dawn when she wants you to help her with something on the computer..."

He snorted as he got out of the car. "Very funny. So what happens next?"

"Well first of all I give you this," she said, and drew a small package from under her seat to go with the envelope she'd pulled from her shoulder bag earlier.

Giles took the package as though it might explode, or turn into something evil at any moment.

"It won't bite," she growled and made her way around to his side of the vehicle. "Wuss."

"I beg your pardon?" he demanded as he turned it over, looking for somewhere to begin opening it.

"Not everything we touch has to blow up in our faces," she said, surprisingly gently. "I know I don't deserve it, but trust me this once, okay?"

He looked up then, and the soft jade gaze found hers, both of them lingering for a long moment before he looked away self-consciously and finally finished carefully pulling open the edges of the wrapping.

Buffy watched him on tenterhooks, trying not to notice how snugly the soft fabric of his worn blue jeans fit, or worse, exactly *where* they were faded and worn. Or for that matter, how broad his shoulders were and how long his body was, in the long sleeved light denim shirt that went with them.

Giles lifted the porcelain figure from its tissue paper and held it up, looking at it for a long moment before smiling slowly.

"How did you know?"

"Willow. Lately we've started talking about stuff. Every time it gets...y'know...*intense*, she kinda slides into the painless trivia: how gorgeous the British countryside is, how cute you were riding your horse...You never told me you could ride a horse, by the way," she added pointedly.

"Is there a reason I should tell you everything?" he shot back, an unintended edge to his voice, despite being quite moved by the thought that went into her gift. He wasn't even sure why.

Buffy looked as though she'd been slapped. "N-no, I guess not," she said when she'd recovered. "I just...we've been...we are...no, I guess not," she finished, defeated.

Giles put the figure of a cantering, pied horse back in the box with great care, leaned over and laid it on the back seat of the car.

"Buffy?" he asked gently when he turned back to her, well aware that she was still looking like someone had just shot her dog.

She swallowed. "Why...why shouldn't you tell me things?" she managed, a slight edge of pique creeping into her tone.

He frowned for a moment then tilted his head to one side with a great deal of charm. "Are you sure you don't already know the answer to that?"

Angry, or maybe just embarrassed, red flooded into her cheeks. "No," she barked, then just as quickly deflated. "Yes," she relented then shrugged her shoulders. "I know...it's just...look it, when I was with Angel I loved him so much...and then trying to make things work with Riley...I didn't mean to get so tunnel-visioned...I just...with the slaying and the responsibility and school and mom...something had to give." She looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry. I-I think a part of me just always trusted you to understand. You were my Watcher..."

She looked up slowly and found his gaze, stared into the green depths. "You were the only one...the only one I never doubted for one minute would always be there...no matter what. You were the one constant in my life and I leaned on that so hard. I was wrong, and sometimes I was bad and I know that now, but back then all I knew was that no matter how bad or how stupid I was, you'd be there."

There was emotion in his eyes as he spoke. "And then I wasn't there anymore."

Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. "Things change. I changed. Too much, I guess."

Giles frowned. "You didn't drive me away, Buffy. I left precisely because I..." He cleared his throat and started again. "I left because it was time for me to go. You know you had no intention of growing up or learning how to be who you're destined to be while I was there to turn to for everything. I'm your Watcher, not your hus...benevolent uncle," he amended hastily, but Buffy had caught the slip.

She looked up at him a little wildly, her first impulse to make a crack about things Freudian, but she was too rattled...by coincidence...by a subconscious slip that seemed to echo her own confusion? Or maybe by the degree to which she was suddenly noticing how amazing his eyes were in the sun and how boyish he looked, far from demons and monsters and all the stresses and strains that were their lives.

"Well, 'Benevolent Uncle' Giles," she said with a poise she didn't feel, "it's time for the next part of your birthday."

Bemused, and more than a little rattled himself, Giles followed her around the back of the stables.

Two horses were saddled with American western saddles, bulging saddlebags, and on the smaller mount, a diminutive dun gelding with a long mane and tail, was a bedroll of sorts. The taller mount lifted its regal head and turned to look at them, one ear twitching at flies as it seemed to stare straight at them. It was a magnificent animal, coal black and glossy in the sunshine, tail carried high, mane long and silken.

"Oh my..." Giles said softly.

Buffy looked up at him and smiled. "Bastian is special. No one is usually allowed to ride him except Elizabeth. He's a 'Barb' whatever that is. She said it was a good thing..."

"Yes...yes," Giles murmured, mesmerized by the big stud. "One of the foundation breeds of the thoroughbred..."

"Really?" Buffy mouthed, without really having a clue what foundation breeds, or thoroughbreds were, for that matter, except that the latter populated racetracks and other things she hadn't the least bit of interest in.

He shook himself from his brown study and raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't know very much about horses, either, I take it?"

Buffy smiled engagingly and shrugged. "Enough to know how to make them go. Mom was glad my 'horsy' period was short, but she...well, dad...did cough for lessons in L.A. between the ages of eleven and fourteen...in the Dawn free, um, reality, that is," she added, still clearly uncomfortable with the on-going duality of her history.

"What happened at fifteen?" Giles asked, in spite of himself.

Buffy glared at him.

"Oh," he managed sheepishly.

"And hormones," she added honestly.

"So vampires and boys a little too much competition for our equine friends?"

"That about covers it," she agreed, growing less sunny by the second. "So, Bastian and Max...nice horsies, lunch, gorgeous day...what do you think?"

"I think it's quite wonderful," Giles told her, genuinely moved. "But what on earth made you...?"

"*You're* surprised," she said sheepishly. "You should try it from my side. Look, I even missed Dawn's birthday last year. I spend so much time not..." She stopped, frowned. "Anyway, I'm not good at regular life stuff, you know? I screw everything up. Now, death on the other hand..."

"Don't," Giles said quietly.

Buffy hunched her shoulders a little. "Sorry. The truth is the more I listened to Willow talk about all that time she was over there in England with you, the more I missed you, the more I wanted you here. It made me think...which should also be chiselled in something for posterity...and the weird thing was, the more I thought, the more I started to realize how little, outside of training and research, that I really knew about you. I started conversations about you with Will and Xander, got them to talk. I never knew how much I didn't know...how much I missed..." Her voice cracked. "I didn't even know it was your birthday...until Xander told me. We were talking about how much my birthdays always suck and that last year was the worst, because you weren't there...and he said that it was ironic that we'd never celebrated your birthday when it's so close to mine. I never even knew. Why did I not know?"

"Your calling leaves little room for such things. With all that's happened to you in the last six years, the last thing you needed to be worrying about was an old man's birth date."

Buffy looked at him as if his head had just fallen off. "Who told you, you were old?" she demanded.

His lip quirked up and his eyes twinkled. "You did. Many times," he said quietly, "and perhaps my joints, a little, particularly when it rains."

She continued to stare for a few more moments, the mental gymnastics she was doing clearly visible in her eyes. "Well, you're not," she said eventually.

"I'm not?" His smiled widened, amusement in his tone.

She frowned. "Uh-uh. I always kind of put you out there, with the grown-ups, when I was at school, because you kind of were. I mean, you were faculty and you took mom's side way too much...and you were always scheduling my whole life..."

Giles watched her mobile features trying to deal with the changes in her perception of him and tried not to smile any more widely.

"But, well, since Riley left I haven't thought of you that way. You're just...Giles. I mean...you're not old. You're...you're you."

"And who am I?" he asked, unable to resist the desire to prod her psyche, just a little.

Buffy blinked, as though the question had cleaved so truly through the endless layers of her defences, beyond all the masks, the walls and the barriers her subconscious had ever manufactured, that it had hit home without deviation or resistance.

"My Watcher," she said uncertainly. "My friend..." She stopped again. "I don't know what to call what you are. What do you call someone who's more important to you than anything, who can be like family one minute, and your best friend the next...who makes you feel safe when he's around, but vulnerable...and kinda empty when he's not? What do you call someone you trust with your life and who kinda makes your heart skip little beats of sheer joy when he comes home to save the day?"

"Unrealistic?" he asked whimsically.

But Buffy was staring and swallowing, Spike's words echoing crazily through the suddenly empty hallways of her thoughts. *I always wondered about you two...* For the first time she understood what he saw. And realised that perhaps the vampire really did see things more clearly than anyone she knew...

The revelation terrified her.

"Um...maybe we should go have our picnic now? I mean, it's a beautiful day and you don't want to spend it all standing here talking to me about stuff. Besides: hunger..." she added, and moved swiftly over to the smaller horse, a bemused Giles following.

They were mounted in moments and, Giles realised with some satisfaction after a few metres, Buffy was quite proficient and reasonably natural as a rider. Despite the western saddle her seat was good and her hands not too heavy, and she knew what to do with her legs. As for himself, the coiled power and sheer robust enthusiasm for life of the stallion beneath him, was magical and breathtaking.

Once they were out of the home yard and out on the rolling slopes, he brought the stud alongside Buffy's mount and they rode together in silence.

Finally, he spoke. "Beautiful country," he offered.

"Oh, yeah, the best. I love this place. Elizabeth is the school guidance counsellor. We kinda bonded over mutual angsting about problem students."

"Ah," he said, pleased to have had one mystery cleared up without having to ask.

"There's a flat area soon if you want to let them run," she added, as the stud threw his head up yet again and snorted impatiently, making the gelding flinch.

They galloped across the small stretch of grass, the gelding doing an admirable job to stay in touch with the stallion, until Giles reined in a little to allow Buffy to fly past them. When they finally slowed to a walk as the terrain once again became hilly, both were breathing hard, their colour high and their eyes sparkling.

"Wow, I forgot how good that could feel," she exalted.

Giles held in the stud, which most emphatically didn't want to be held, and kept his seat with style as it danced and pranced. He'd forgotten too. Riding back in Bath had been predominantly a meditative, sedate exercise, and a way of focusing again. This was pure adrenaline and joy...and the sight of Buffy in full flight, as graceful and as fluid a part of her mount as she was of any battle, made him thankful beyond measure for the thousandth time, that she had come back to them just once more...

"Fine mounts," he agreed, ruddy and glowing as his teeth flashed white in the handsome face.

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