Title: Never Leave Me 3/5
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.

"I'll have you know it was a perfectly serviceable vehicle," he retorted, serious until he turned and caught her eye. They both chuckled and he sighed. "Most of the time," he added honestly and drove in.

Buffy knew something akin to fear as Giles unlocked the door of his old apartment. A part of her...a suddenly painfully sentimental part of her, really didn't want to see it if it was nothing like it used to be.

"Would you like something to drink?" he asked as they crossed the living area and he slipped into the kitchen.

She looked around, realizing with relief that it felt the same despite small differences here and there. She noted the new appliances and the gorgeous tea-set on a silver tray decorating the spot where Giles' alcohol used to be on the breakfast bar, before nodding and then grinning when he automatically poured her a glass of fresh orange juice...as he had a hundred times before.

"Maybe that's what I missed most," she mused.

"Mm? Sorry...?" He murmured, pushing the glass towards her.

"Nothing. I'm just glad you're here."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure there isn't something on your mind?"

Buffy stifled an impulse to laugh. If he only knew...

"I liked it today. It was kinda fun...just doing something that didn't involve, y'know, research or slaying...no dire...well, except for Buffy learning to fly the hard way. It was just, well...nice."

"I rather enjoyed that part myself," he admitted, half smiling. "Is that why you didn't quite want it to end?"

Buffy grew very still. "I guess so," she said finally, frantically trying to think of a way to take advantage of the unexpected opening, and still not sure she actually wanted to. "We should have done more stuff together...before...y'know..."

He studied her flushed face and restless hands and wondered. "Absolutely. I would have enjoyed your company," he agreed affably.

"But I was too busy trying to be normal teen girl and making an even bigger mess of things. Giles, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I just...it's hard, you know? It's all...so hard..."

The hollow, despairing words went to his heart. He knew exactly what she meant. It was hard to be different, to be Chosen...to have a destiny thrust at you, to know you had no future, that what little you did have could be taken from you at any time. It was hard to be a child warrior and have the weight of the entire world on those tiny shoulders, to go home, alone, unable to share it with anyone. He sighed jaggedly. It was why he hadn't done more to stop her relationship with Angel before it got started. He'd understood only too well what it meant to her to not be alone...just as he'd understood only too well the price she...all of them...had paid for it. If he thought too much about that time his heart still hurt for her, for what it had cost her and how alone she'd been. Even he hadn't really been there for her then, consumed by his own private grief and despair for far longer than he dared admit. Buffy had been a remarkable child...to endure so much in so short a time...just as she was now a remarkable woman, having continued to endure so much...

"I know," he said softly.

It was Buffy's turn to hold up a silencing hand. "I know you know," she admitted. "I always have. How do you think I survived? I-if I didn't have you...I would've been just another Faith. Probably a very dead Faith," she added sombrely, her large eyes rolling up to meet his and to press her intent home. "Someone once called you a 'Stalwart, standing fast', I can't remember who, but that's only a part of it."

Giles didn't speak for a long time. He remembered exactly where those words had come from, and the way time had stood still as he'd sung them, blessedly ensuring that she hadn't heard a word...or so he'd believed.

"A part...?" he prompted in a near-strangled tone, unable to articulate any kind of rational response.

She nodded, her face a picture of effort and consternation. "Stalwarts are like knights and stuff, holding the armour and the horse and making sure everything is perfect for, like, the king or the champion or whatever."

A flicker of amusement at her interpretation softened the green eyes as she continued.

"That's not enough to describe what you are...what you were. You...you made it all right. Do you know how much I needed to know that after even the worst stuff you'd be there...in the library, or your apartment...and you always were... Just hearing you...even if it was just to scold me or lecture me...or watching you making tea or cleaning your glasses...I needed it, Giles. I needed you so much. It was like no matter how lonely..." She stopped, not willing to explore that thought further. "I mean, I knew, no matter how bad things were, how alone I was...I was never really alone, because I had you."

A nerve twitched in his cheek and he half turned away, albeit reluctantly. "I had thought that you'd outgrown me much faster than that...that I was...was simply another research tool, another weapon in your arsenal, to be trotted out when needed and filed away to gather dust when not..."

Buffy was startled by the admission...or at least by the fact that he'd put it into words, rather than what he'd actually said. Willow and Xander had voiced almost the same thoughts several times over the years but in far less gentle terms.

Her eyes grew very bright, glistening with unbidden moisture. "I'm sorry," she said simply.

His lips parted and he stared at her.

"I never meant...I was just stupid...and I'm sorry. If there was a way to take back all the stupid things I've done to you...to us...I would, in a heartbeat," she said passionately.

He still seemed mesmerised. "How did y...Buffy, what...? I didn't think you'd ever..."

"Grow up? The jury's still out on that one. Sometimes you just kinda wake up, you know? Like you suddenly see something for the first time..."

"I don't think I understand," he managed.

She hit him on the chest. "You big jerk!" she admonished shakily, her insides a rioting mess. "Don't you know how hard this is? I'm trying so hard to tell you that I love you...that I think I've always loved you, and all you can do is go all librarian on me! "

Giles looked as though she'd hit him in the face with a cricket bat. "That's...that's wonderful, Buffy," he stammered in a strangled voice, "and it's very much appreciated... b-but I've always known that you cared for me."

"No, you haven't," she argued, not sure whether he was deliberately misunderstanding or truly oblivious. "You know that I took you for granted, that I needed you, but when did I ever show you that I cared about you...that I-I loved you? There. I said it again. I mean it, Giles."

He finally breathed, the colour returning to his face, and peace. "I know you mean it, love," he said gently. "I've always known that you cared for me...you have been known to demonstrate...something about a punch on the jaw to stop me from going out to face the Master... perhaps one of your more vivid illustrations, if I remember rightly."

Buffy subsided, not willing to push until she knew exactly how he felt. "I didn't want you to die and you wouldn't have let me go on my own."

Giles' eyes grew bleak. "Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps if we had combined our forces, Council be damned...if we had worked as one even back then, you might not have died at all...other things might have been different. I should have been with you right from the beginning..."

Buffy touched his hand. "You did what you were trained to do. And you worked so hard...we did kinda notice how often you were wearing the same...if wrinkled...clothes we saw you in the night before, even if we never said anything."

They both chuckled, albeit almost nervously.

"So very long ago," he mused.

"Another life time," Buffy agreed sombrely, guessing what and whom he was thinking about. She thrust that thought aside just as something else occurred to her. "Why didn't you get mad about Spike...me and Spike?" she asked suddenly.

Giles was caught on the hop by the change of subject. "B-because it's essentially none of my business."

Buffy was surprised. "Since when?"

"Since you're a grown woman and capable of making your own choices a-and your own mistakes," he expanded.

"I am? I mean, yeah, I am...but understatement much?"

Giles shook his head. "However much I abhor what you did and the fact that he took advantage of you in the first place, while you were essentially still in shock from the consequences of Willow's spell, no one can judge you except...you."

"So you don't hate me, or think I'm dirty or disgusting?" she asked in a very small voice.

He cupped her face much as he had when he'd come back from England to see for himself that she was alive. "I could never, ever hate you...and you were neither the first, nor will you be the last to love unwisely."

"Love?" she said bitterly. "I've never loved wisely in my life. I loved Angel and all that brought was badness. I wanted someone to make the pain go away after Willow brought me back and look who I picked for the job..." She sighed a jagged sigh. "And I even thought I loved Riley...just a little bit, but I was just in love with the idea of a real relationship...the normal guy who understood everything about me and loved me anyway..." she finished, looking up and meeting Giles' gaze at the same moment. After a moment of incredibly charged silence, she spoke again, her fingers spontaneously reaching up to caress the line of his jaw.

"The normal guy who understands everything about me and loves me anyway..."

Giles' vivid green eyes were searching her open, vulnerable ones, trying to understand what was happening.

"He said it was you," she whispered. "He knew."

A still as a statue, Giles rasped the words hoarsely: "Who knew...what?"

"Spike...he said...he said he always wondered about us."

"Us?" he almost squeaked.

The absurdity of it almost made Buffy smile. Almost. She took her fingers away. "I'm sorry," she said awkwardly. "I-I'm sorry."

Giles blinked as she turned and made for the door, then bolted after her, catching her as she reached out to open it. He turned her towards him, holding her arms gently.

"No, *I'm* sorry," he said in an emotion-charged voice. "Buffy, do you realise what you're saying? Are...are you sure?"

Buffy's hands returned his grasp, holding his forearms. She nodded silently, not taking her eyes from his.

For a time neither of them moved nor spoke. Finally, Buffy released a hand to reach up and lay her fingers against his warm cheek again.

"Is it really so crazy?" she asked, searching his face, his eyes, for the truth.

He shook his head very slowly. "N-no. Buffy...no...not crazy...and yet, utterly insane. I'm twice your age and...and you deserve so much more..."

The blue-grey eyes widened. "Then...then it's not just me?"

He released her and stepped away. "I've never...I have always loved you. Just not like...at least not until...I think I knew when you walked into the room at the prom...safe, at last. And so beautiful...but it wasn't until I tried to deny it...tried to put distance between us that day you found Olivia and me...that I realised that you were my world...my whole world..."

The revelation winded Buffy. So many things were slamming into place...so many ways she must have hurt him, so many reasons why he should hate her. How could she have been so blind? All this time, the one thing she'd been looking for in all the wrong places, was *right in front of her...*

She drew a sharp breath as a memory echoed hauntingly in Xander's voice: 'He's out there, he could come along any minute.'*

Life, or Fate or something had been trying to tell her in so many different ways and she'd been blind, deaf and stupid...

Before she could speak, Giles moved further away, nervous fingers raking through his hair in lieu of his usual retreat behind glasses and handkerchief.

Buffy swallowed, not sure whether to answer or not, whether he was having second thoughts, or embarrassed or what... But when she caught herself thinking about changing the subject, letting it go...again, rather than facing things, she scowled ferociously, which only made him step back a little more.

She took a step towards him. "You knew even then? How could you stand it...watching me be *so* stupid, watching me do all horrible, dumb things I've done? How could anyone?"

He didn't look up. "I-I just...I already loved you so very dearly, Buffy. M-my romantic notions didn't matter...which is not to say, of course, that I didn't find your blundering along with young Riley or the recounting of your most unfortunate interaction with Spike both distasteful and distressing at times..."

Despite the criticism, Buffy had to laugh. Only Giles could make such an emotional issue sound like a discussion over tea.

"I'm sorry," he blustered, confused, and finally looked up.

"Don't be," she managed, getting the giggle under control. "Oh, God, don't be," she repeated, stepping right up to him and putting her hands on his chest. "I wasn't laughing at what you said...only the Gilesy way that you said it."

His lips parted and his eyes searched hers, as though he was trying to understand what she was trying to tell him, all the while trying to the ignore the racing of his blood, the thump of his heart beneath her fingertips.

Buffy knew that look. She'd caused it enough times...just by making him totally confused or nonplussed by her various antics.

"You're right...about all of it," she translated, "but the way you said it was so..."

"Stuffy?" he supplied, trying not to think about the fact that he could all but breathe her in as she stood leaning against him.

She only half stopped the smile. "Um...okay...*stuffy*," she continued, "that it made me laugh...in a good way. In an 'I love him so much' kind of way," she added, her voice suddenly growing hoarse as her eyes found and locked with his.

"Love...me?" he said softly.

Buffy nodded. "Scary, isn't it?" she asked shakily, trying to smile but having trouble making her mouth do what she wanted. "My insides are doing the cha-cha and my throat feels like it's got an egg stuck halfway down...that's gotta be love, right? If it's not, I'm going to need some serious therapy to deal with some of the thoughts I'm having right now."

"Thoughts?" he was jolted into repeating, his own mouth trying to smile whether he wanted it to or not. "D-dare one ask what kind...of thoughts?"

"Now that *would* be daring," Buffy agreed, in reality stalling for time, having realized that her thoughts weren't exactly rated for the usual Watcher-Slayer sharing-of. "But I'm not sure you want to know how bizarre your Slayer's mind is being today."

Giles, watching her face flush until her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone, started to relax a little. For once Buffy was the one in the hot seat and something deep down inside of him, something with all the years of experience to know, suddenly felt that everything was going to be all right.

"Bizarre and Buffy's mind have been synonymous for a very long time, love," he said gently. "Try me."

The patches of red on Buffy's cheeks deepened almost to a mulberry colour. "That... sorta...kinda was the thought," she said awkwardly, in a rush, before she could chicken out again.

He was lost for a couple of seconds, then put it together, colour, in spite of himself, rushing to his own cheeks.

"Oh," he managed.

"Don't tell me the thought never once occurred to you...?" she retorted defensively when he hadn't managed to extend the thought a few seconds later, leaving her to interpret the silence as shock, or worse.

He jolted out of his contemplation of the possibilities and cleared his throat. "Yes, well, contrary to long held, popular belief, I am a man and you...you have been a very beautiful young woman for some time."

"Since, like, the beginning?" she asked, unable to imagine Giles having secret horny thoughts of any kind, let alone...

His eyes held hers, amusement back in them. "In a romantic, even a sentimental, sense I should like to say yes to that, but it wouldn't be the truth. I didn't see you...any of you...as anything more than children for quite a long time, which of course you were. It is true that you were a lovely girl...but just that...a girl, while-"

"While Jenny Calendar was all woman," she finished, unable to keep a slight edge of jealousy from her voice, until she saw the bleak look momentarily clouding his eyes. He seemed to realise and banished it again. "Sorry," she added.

He shook his head. "Jenny was...she was the first real love in my life. Oh, I'd had plenty of companions, lovers over the years...but I'd never truly been in love...it was a true mystery to me, knowing how to...well...you remember."

Buffy smiled, jealousy gone. "I remember. You were so cute trying to work up the nerve to ask her out. Tell me you didn't seriously like Monster Trucks?" she added, suddenly remembering.

For a split second he blinked, trying to fathom the seeming change of topic then remembered and chuckled.

"It wasn't the trucks. It was the company. It should have been the worst date I'd ever been on," he said fondly, "but of course it wasn't...far from it."

Buffy's brow folded into a divot again. "Do I still need to be jealous?"

"What?" He roused himself from pleasant memories. "Oh, no, of course not. It's been a long time since I thought about her...about those times." He grew thoughtful for a moment. "I missed her for such a long time."

Buffy swallowed. "I know," she said softly. "Do you...still?"

Their eyes met.

"Not any more," he re-confirmed. "Wounds heal and empty places in the heart are filled by new things."

The hurt subsided. "New things?" she asked, hoping that she knew the answer.

His fingers brushed her cheek and he smiled. "New things," he confirmed.

"Well, maybe not so new," Buffy amended as she leaned her cheek into his touch and her body even more closely against his. "More like soiled goods these days." Her eyes grew bright with regret. "I'm sorry...if anyone deserves better, it's you."

Giles traced the bottom lip he'd been secretly entranced by for years as he spoke, trying once again to ignore the warmth of the lithe form pressed against him.

"Hush," he said softly. "None of that matters. Do you think I spent my youth helping old women across the road or waiting in virginal anticipation for the right girl to come along?" he added, humour in his voice.

"Ripper?" Buffy shook her head, smiling back. "Do I even want to know?"

His look was emphatic. "You most certainly do not. Let's just say we're even, shall we?"

Buffy's expression grew grim. "We both know it's going to be forever before we're ever even. I could spend the rest of whatever's left of my life making it up to you and never come near catching up." Then she smiled an entirely winsome smile. "But I'm willing to accept charity at this point." She let her arms slide up and around his neck.

Amused, and astonished at the turn life had taken, Giles finally started to bend his head toward the upturned mouth, to be stopped just millimetres from her face, by the shrill of Buffy's cell phone.

They groaned simultaneously and Buffy reluctantly drew away, leaving Giles rocked at how bereft of her presence he felt as she went to answer the cursed thing.

"We have to go," Buffy announced flatly when she hung up. "Dawn is at the Espresso Pump with a friend. She says they're being followed, but they don't know by whom. Dawn figures vamps, but she's not sure except that they're 'creepy'. No part of this sounds good," she added, trying not to think about what had been interrupted and what was at stake.

Giles ran a hand over his face. "No," he agreed. "What weapons do you have to hand? Mine are in the hall closet..."

They prepared mechanically, silently and with all the economy of comrades in arms who'd been doing the same thing for years. Nor did they talk during the drive to the Pump.

A cursory look around revealed no skulking demons or vampires outside. Eventually they both moved into the coffee shop to find Dawn and Janice squashed into the same side of a booth, with two young men sitting opposite them. The look of relief on Dawn's face when she saw them was enough to tell Buffy that this was no date.

"Hey, Dawn," she said, her voice rising in a question.

"Hey, Buffy," Dawn said nervously, smiling in spite of herself as she craned around to look at her companion. "Hi, Giles."

"Hello, Dawn. Janice. Are you having a good time?" Giles asked quietly.

Dawn's face grew bleak again. "About like I told Buffy on the phone," she told them.

One of the young men, a slender blond of about nineteen, looked up at them. "In your era this was called a date," he said obnoxiously. "And I bet even back then it didn't involve parents."

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