Title: The Visitor 2/5
Author: Gail Christison
Disclaimer: All belongs to Mutant Enemy...well the bath is mine, though my tiles are Italian bronze not faux marble <g>
Feedback: chriscln@ozemail.com.au Always love to hear what you think

By the time Buffy returned, several hours later, he'd been through six cups of tea and enough deductive reasoning to have made an educated, but accurate guess as to who, or what, her latest suitor might be.

She came through the unlocked door wordlessly and sat on his sofa. It was obvious that she'd been running, and, judging by the smudges and the slight breathlessness, possibly leaping and fighting as well, though he'd not heard or seen any vampire or demon activity in the area since his arrival.

"Why?" Giles asked simply, after a long, almost communing silence.

She stared at the floor. "He said I came back wrong. He said I was alone. He said nobody loved me except him...nobody else could love me the way I am. And after...he said they wouldn't want to be my friends if they knew..."

Silence hung heavily for long moments before Buffy spoke again.

"I'll go now," she whispered, and started to rise.

Giles put out a hand to catch her arm, but did not look up.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Why?" he repeated.

Despite her best efforts a sob wrenched out of her. "Because it hurt...because when it comes right down to it, I can deal with digging myself out of a box in the ground. I-I can deal with no mom, monsters and vampires and no money and getting jobs and double-meat burgers and fixing the stupid plumbing," she rambled, her voice getting more and more emotional and histrionic. "I can even deal with my best friend being an addict and almost killing my sister, and Dawn working damned hard at becoming a delinquent. God, I can even deal, badly, but deal, with stupid social workers who want to take her away from me!"

Buffy pulled away from him, walked a few steps and wheeled before speaking in a desolate voice. "What I can't deal with is the emptiness. And he...he filled that, in a horrible, dirty, twisted kind of way." She looked at once wretched and forlorn. "For those times at least, I wasn't...I wasn't *alone*."

Giles closed his eyes for a long moment then stood up and faced her.

"You weren't alone. You have Xander and Willow, Tara and Dawn..." he said, almost as if trying to convince himself as much as her.

She stared at him silently for a long time then looked away. "No, I don't," she said finally, harshly. "This isn't high school any more, Toto. This is the real world. No mom. No Scooby gang, because, hello, crappy lives of their own...n-no library to go to when it gets too hard *or someone tells you: guess what, babe? You're not human. You came back wrong. Nobody wants you*. And even before that, when everything was gone except for the one thing that's kept me sane for the last five years?" She looked up accusingly. "Then it up and left me too."

Giles stared back at her. *How could things have come to this? How could she have done such a thing to herself? How could he, how could any of them, have let it happen?*

Rage warred with grief, disgust, and misery as he stared into her eyes. Eyes that held a hurt so deep, it was as if her soul itself was scarred. His chest tightened.

*Perhaps it was...*

The staring would have continued perhaps indefinitely, or until the mutual rage, the hurt, burned themselves down to embers.

Instead, Buffy spoke flatly. "Are you going to throw me out, or should I just go?" she asked, expecting nothing more, but relieved that it was done, that he knew, and that they'd had this little time together, at least.

Giles opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He seemed so still, but there was the slightest tremor as he fought for control.

Buffy's eyes widened in fear. She'd never seen him like that before...like...like he was going to explode, as he had in the library when Xander had provoked him about the death of Jenny Calendar, and with an intensity that would have made that nuke look like a popped balloon. Fear turned to terror. Her fists closed and she started to back away, not because of any fear that he might hurt her...that was someone else's speciality...but simply to escape the pain of his disappointment, his disgust. She was on the verge of fleeing again when she was halted by a word, a tortured whisper.

"Buffy..."

It took an age for her to turn her head and raise her eyes to meet his and yet only a nanosecond for them to come together. And then he was holding her so tightly that if she hadn't been the Slayer she'd have been crushed against him, and she was returning the embrace so desperately and yet with such love that she actually managed not to crush any ribs. The reunion continued in ferocious silence until neither of them could remember how long it had been.

It was Buffy, lifting her head at last from its hot and damp hollow in his shirtfront, who finally chased away the illusion of peace and allowed reality to rush back in.

Giles started to draw his arms away but hesitated when Buffy made a small sound and looked up at him.

"Not yet," she said softly and leaned against him again, finding a dry spot for her cheek as he willingly closed his arms around her again, and minutes later, when she'd shown no sign of letting go, slid an arm beneath her legs and carried her to the sofa.

"Now?" he said whimsically when she finally lifted her head again, surprised when his gentle face and tender expression caused her eyes to fill again.

"Now," she said, and smiled a very watery half smile. "I missed you so much."

Giles touched a damp cheek. "Not nearly as much as I have missed you. Remember that device I told you about? The one you talk into...?"

Buffy failed to stop an equally watery giggle. "I know. But I was so angry with you. I wanted you to call first."

"I did," he said softly.

"Then how come I didn't...?"

"You were never home...or not taking calls. And much as I enjoy a chat with Tara or Willow or a conversation with your sister, it wasn't quite the same thing at all," he told her in a not-quite-rock steady voice. "You told Dawn you didn't want to know, remember?"

Buffy's eyes widened in alarm. "She told you that? But it was right after you left. I was going crazy. I hated you so much for leaving me. I didn't mean it though." She shrugged. "I guess they all took me literally."

"So it would seem," he sighed.

She rested her brow against the base of his throat. "Now that we cleared that up...when exactly did we get all tactile? Not that I h-have a problem with...you know," she stammered, "but I'm not really clear how we got from Giles-enter-my-personal-space-at-your-own-peril to, well, after I came back and...now."

He sighed and kissed the top of the fair head. "You died," he said succinctly.

"I had to die for you to love me?" she squeaked, only realising the breadth of what she'd said, far too late.

After a moment's silence, gentle fingers turned her face to look at him again. "I have always loved you. You have been the centre of my world since the day you faced me in the library and baldly told me what I could do with my Vampyr text."

"I did not," she said shakily.

He chuckled. "Well, all right, but the intent was the same."

"Got that right," she muttered.

"Indeed," he sighed.

Despite her pleased, pleasantly flushed face, she frowned suddenly. "But...if you've always loved me...wouldn't that have been kinda gross...back then?"

Giles coloured a little but laughed anyway. "Oh, no. It wasn't that kind of love. Not...well, anyway, there was Jenny...a-and you were a child. An annoying, infuriating, child..."

"Okay, word picture complete," she complained. "Me...brat. Can we move on? There was Jenny and you're not creepy. Got it."

"I don't know why you thought you came back wrong," he growled, piqued. "You haven't changed a bit."

Somehow, after all the heartache, all the tension, his grumpy, Giles-like observation was far too much.

Buffy started to laugh first, or giggle, more like it, until the giggle became full blown laughter and Giles found himself chuckling with her. The release was almost palpable.

They were still laughing when she lifted her head to look at him, and he looked down at her at almost the same moment, so that they were but millimetres from each other's mouths.

At that point, somehow reality checked out. It was as though the child she had once been suddenly faded to insignificance, a distant, passing recollection, no longer related to the now. Every part of the woman Buffy was suddenly came to life and focused on the man whose breath was caressing her face.

As inconceivable as it had been moments earlier, all she wanted now was for that beautifully sculptured mouth to touch hers.

The moment hung in the air forever, neither of them knowing the tumult of emotions rocking the other. Later they would argue about who moved first, but for that moment: the instant that their lips touched, it was as though they had come home.

Buffy lost herself in the sweet sensuality of it, the way his mouth could be so powerful, yet gentle, the way he could make her feel alive without feeling dirty. She closed her eyes against hurt of those memories as the kiss deepened, her arms closing around his neck as he moved from the tenderness of their first kiss, to a kind of love making as it deepened into something else altogether. She could feel the wellspring of love from which his passion came, and grieved for the chasm between it and what she had been willing to settle for back in Sunnydale. When they eventually surfaced from the kiss, flushed and cautious, to search each other's faces, Buffy couldn't help the light in her eyes.

"Not even an: 'Oh, dear lord'?" she teased, her voice thick with emotion.

"Oh...*dear lord*," he obliged throatily, barely above a whisper.

She touched his jaw with loving fingers. "You deserve way better than me."

His stunned face creased into an amused smile. "We rarely get what we deserve," he told her whimsically, his voice still breaking up. "But sometimes, just sometimes, we get what we want."

She stopped to contemplate that for a moment and grew tearful again, much to Giles' surprise.

"I'm such an idiot," she told him. His grin and the twinkle in his eyes told her she'd get no argument there. "I feel like there's so much I need to say I'm sorry for...why I didn't I ever 'get' anything? Was I *that* blonde?"

Giles laughed, not endearing himself to his companion. "Well, you must admit you've had your moments. I don't think I have to tell you where your thoughts were during the majority of your adolescence. Although, on the whole it was probably healthier that you weren't spending a lot of it thinking about me."

Buffy sighed a long, heavy sigh. "See, that's the thing. All I ever wanted was to not be alone. Even when mom and dad were together they were fighting, at least in the years I remember most clearly. Then Sunnydale: Willow and Xander were great ...*are*... great ...but at the end of the day, Buffy went home alone. Mom didn't know what I was doing for years; Willow had Oz and Xand' couldn't decide if he wanted Cordy or Willow; you were busy being research and 'how stuffy shall I be today?' guy. I guess I did have Mister Gordo, but you know, much as I love him, Mister Gordo is way overrated in the not being alone stakes."

"So you fell in love with Angel?"

She rolled her eyes. "I did, didn't I? Don't get me wrong; it was real, while it lasted. Too real for a while there, when it got bad. There are times when I still miss him."

It was Giles' turn to sigh heavily. "I'm not sure you've ever really gotten over him, to be honest."

Buffy sat up straight. "You think the...thing...with Spike was a substitute for Angel? Eieww. And no. Giles, I'm not a kid anymore and I don't have vamp issues. The only thing that hasn't changed is the alone part. I didn't love Angel for the pointy teeth and bumps. And I didn't love Spike, period. I didn't love me either, during my time with him. I became something horrible and dirty and powerless while I was with Spike. I can't explain why I didn't stop, or why I let him do all those things to me. It wasn't even like I was there, emotionally."

Giles watched her agitation with the dawning realisation that she meant what she was saying, and with nausea at the revelation of the extent of her intimate relations with that sodding vampire.

"Not...there?" he asked weakly.

Buffy nodded. "It was like...I guess it was kind of like being Faith. She always said the slaying made her feel horny and hungry. She was right. I-I just never...I wouldn't let... anyway, Spike was like my Xander, you know?"

Giles nodded. "Are you saying that just as Faith abused Xander, you abused Spike?"

She shrugged. "Kind of. It's creepy that I can remember how much I w...um..." Buffy reddened violently.

"Go on," he said quietly.

"...How much I wanted him at times...usually at the worst times, when I thought I was dirt and that I was never going to be anything but dirt...Alone dirt. Creepy, because I have no memory of wanting him to love me, or hold me or even really to touch me. Stupid, I know. It's like I just gave in to the First Slayer, to those drives, because they were the only things left that I could feel. And the rage...it was so violent..."

"Oh, Buffy." The despairing words were wrung from him. "I never meant for you to suffer. I left you because I loved you, loved you more than life, and I couldn't bear to see you give up, couldn't bear to see you stay a child for the rest of your life." He looked at her frankly, his whole heart in his eyes. "The truth is I need you to grow up...so very badly."

Moved, she fought for control of her emotions before speaking again. "I thought you gave up on me. I thought you were disappointed in me again, that you didn't want to be with me because I was 'wrong' and horrible. I hated you so much for leaving me."

"I had to go," he whispered. "I couldn't stay any longer and pretend to be your 'mother' or even your rakish uncle. It was unbearable wanting so badly to be with you, now that I had you back, and knowing that if I stayed I never could..."

She frowned for a moment, sorting that out. "Because I'd never see you as anything but the tweedy old guy with the books?"

He snorted. "I was never..." he began indignantly, then realised he didn't really have anywhere to go from there. "Never mind," he said grumpily.

"You had a point," she admitted. "God, Giles, I'm only twenty one years old, but..." She trailed off, then continued: "...which by the way, you didn't even send a card. And don't think you've gotten out of that one, either. Talk. Later." She told him pointedly. "Anyway, I feel like a hundred and three, and I've died so many times now I don't think age counts anymore anyway, but I was just a kid back then. I didn't want to see what was right in front of me. I didn't want to love you. In a way you-the Council-were a part of the badness. How could I want you when I was trying so hard to get away from it? To have a normal life, like every other kid, to *be* every other kid?"

"Yes, with the adolescent hormone brigade in tow. I remember. And, of course, the obsession with Angel. Whereas I was, and still am, old and tweedy and worn out in your eyes," he observed unhappily as she got to her feet. "This isn't right."

"Oh great," she drawled. "Now he starts developing the galloping conscience."

He glared up at her. "Well *is it?*" he demanded almost angrily.

She thought about her answer for a long moment. "One," she said finally, "you're not tweedy anymore, nor are you worn out, and old is a relative term. Besides, I way prefer your kind of warm, breathing 'old', to certain *other* kinds of old. Two, if I even remotely thought it was wrong, I'd have run screaming into the night by now. Have you forgotten already? There was mutual kissage-with *you*: Mister Sexy Old Guy, remember? Operative word: mutual. And last, but not least..."

She leaned down and caught his sensuous mouth with hers before lifting her head again. "That growing up you were talking about? Mission accomplished."

He blinked. "And you are not...'wigged' by any of this?"

She giggled as she sat next to him. "Oh, seriously wigged. You have no idea. And that word is so out, you can't begin to *know* how far out." In the next moment, she sobered. "All these years I was so terrified of losing you. I knew I couldn't do it without you, and I made sure to tell you that as often as possible. What I didn't realise was *why* I couldn't live without you."

She traced his jaw. "I was way too young to get it. I thought *that* love, that intense need I had for you to be around, was because you were, y'know, you. You were there for me, my friend, my safety net...my Watcherguy. And you were. I'm *not* supposed to be in love with my Watcher. I'm not supposed to want someone like you...but where did it ever say that the Slayer was supposed to want a vampire? And Riley was a mistake...he thought he was competing with Angel. Poor guy...I don't think it ever occurred to him that Angel was never his real problem." Her gaze found his. "What neither of us knew was that he was competing against someone much more real, and he never really had a chance."

His eyes had been gradually lighting up, but now they were beaming, and glistening.

"I'm dreaming," he said softly. "I haven't woken up yet and I'm dreaming impossible, tormenting, dreams."

Buffy smiled brilliantly and pulled several hairs at the base of his throat. "Yeah, you're asleep," she teased when he inevitably made an 'ouch' noise. "Besides, you're only getting me. I'm not a new model. I'm not even reconditioned properly...even Spike's chip doesn't recognise that I'm me. And I've been used and abused more than most second-hand...twelfth-hand...cars, even. It's no sweet dream."

"It is to me," he said softly. "You're not exactly looking at this year's model, yourself."

Buffy made a disparaging noise and looked into his eyes. "You're sure you want to do this? I wasn't kidding about the wear and tear. Or the fact that you deserve way better than me."

Giles shook his head. "Don't do that to yourself. Someday I will tell you in detail about my youth. Sufficed to say that whatever you think you've done with Spike, I've probably done far worse, thrice over, in my hellion days."

She giggled. "You had hellion days? I mean, besides Eyghon?"

He looked rueful. "In addition to Eyghon," he qualified. "I had a lot of rebelling to do, a lot of rage and defiance for which to find outlets. I was, um, stupid, to frame it in a word," he admitted.

Buffy sighed. "It's scary how alike we are...were...are." She frowned. "Are," she decided.

His amused eyes gave her a dry once over then glanced down at himself. "So terribly alike," he said ruefully. "Peas in a pod."

She snorted. "You know what I mean. This isn't exactly easy for me either, buster. You could cut me a little slack here."

Giles sobered and cupped her right cheek with a large hand. "It's all right," he said reassuringly. "Whatever...we...that is, if you truly want us to be..." He stopped, too self-conscious to finish his thought.

"See," she teased. "Why can't it just be man...woman...I've got a thing, you've got a thing...do you like Mexican?"

He sighed, but there was laughter and affection in his eyes as he remembered the last time they'd bantered those same words.

"I have got a thing," he said seriously. "The question is, whether you have a thing too, and whether Mexican will ever be enough for you? You may decided you want spring lamb, or yearling beef..."

"Mexican is more than enough," she said, cutting him off. "It's all I've wanted for a long time, even when I didn't know I did. Now I want it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I really, really don't want to leave without it. Do you want another drink?"

"God, yes," he said without thinking then blinked. "Oh...tea? No thanks. I'm going to be up half the night going to the bathroom as it is."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Two great mind pictures. Go the romance, Giles."

But before she had finished the 's' in Giles, he'd swept her back against him again and was kissing her hard. There was a great deal more give and take, demanding and submitting involved in their lovemaking this time. It might have only been another kiss, but when Giles finally let her go, Buffy felt as though she'd been making love for hours.

"Romance enough for you?" he asked roughly as she drew herself up straight.

"Um," she said shakily, aware that her lips still resonated with the impression of his. "That would h-have to be a yes. Where did you learn to do that?"

He stared for a moment, until he got it. "Oh, um...well..."

"Don't tell me...you're a natural?" she drawled, relaxing again.

Giles went red, his gaze focused on his empty teacup.

It was her turn to stare. She had seen him a thousand times, and yet she'd never noticed before...how cute he was when he blushed, how handsome the bent head was. She'd never thought of Giles as handsome, but with his hair less formal, no glasses and that gold band in his left ear, he was indeed rakish and incredibly good looking for his age.

She said so and made him snort.

"So I'm lucky that I look presentable, at my age?" he asked. "If were less...aesthetically pleasing...would you have still kissed me?"

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