TITLE: Turning Point
AUTHOR: Head Rush
PAIRING: G/OC (Megan)
RATING: PG-13
EMAIL: head_rush100@yahoo.co.uk
SUMMARY: Giles is summoned to the coven just before 'Grave'.
SPOILERS: Up to s6, 'Grave'.
FEEDBACK: Always welcome, but please be gentle.
ARCHIVES: Sure, but please email me first so I know where it’s going.
DISCLAIMER: All belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. This was written for fun, not profit, so please don’t sue.

The landscape soothed him. The gentle rise and fall of the earth; the smell of rain, wood smoke, hay, and damp horses. He’d been coming here, to the coven, since he was a child, and if he could allow himself to feel at home anywhere, it was here. When he’d returned from Tesco that morning, there had been a message on his machine to come to the coven urgently. Dutifully, he’d dropped everything and driven straight down.

No one had answered the door, so Giles walked around the back of the old stone farmhouse and down the hill to the stables. He could see Megan down there, putting the tack away. She heaved a heavy saddle onto a fence, and he grinned. His girl was strong. He opened the gate and followed her inside. He was getting an idea. He’d no idea how it would go over, but it would be worth a try.

Megan was distracted, pitching forkfuls of hay back onto the heap from whence they had fallen. Perfect. He reached around her, snatched the fork from her hand, and murmured “Hello, darling,” suggestively but distinctly, so that perhaps this time she’d stop to think before driving her elbow into his stomach and kneeing him right bloody *there*. She spun around with a reassuringly wicked grin. So it was safe to urge her backwards onto the hay bales and slide his cold hand under her shirt as he straddled her, making her yell and squirm beneath him; trying to get away, but not too hard. In retaliation, as he had hoped, her hand soon went to his belt buckle.

He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers for an eager and enjoyable kiss.

“Mmf… what are you… doing here?” she managed around him, some minutes later. “Not that I’m not… happy to see you.” She’d opened his shirt; her hand played over his ribs, over scars from wounds she’d helped to heal.

It was very quiet in here; just the pleased noises they were making themselves, the muffled stamps of the horses in their stalls, and the soothing percussion of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. The hay was soft and sweet-smelling. It was blissful; the taste of a life never meant for him.

“Dunno. Got a call, so I came.” He would have asked if she knew what it was about, but at that moment she unbuttoned his jeans and reached in to grasp him firmly. His heart began to race.

“I think you’d better get these off while you still can.”

He nodded happily and moved to comply.

“Megan?” A woman’s voice. Close.

They jumped apart like teenagers caught behind a shed, wildly straightening clothes and brushing hay from their hair.

The voice called again, from the other end of the stable this time, thank God.

Megan shot him a glance of abject apology, and shouted, “I’m coming!” She laughed at the look he gave her, grabbed him by his shirtfront, and pulled him in for one last, long, dizzying kiss. “Later,” she promised.

Eva was jogging towards them. “There you are, we’ve been looking everywhere for you!” The expression on her face was all they needed to know that something was terribly wrong. For a moment, Giles’ mind rebelled. Whatever it was, he’d not be a part of it.

“It’s Willow,” Eva said gently.

***

That evening as the sky faded to blue-black and the rain still fell, Megan found him on the hillside. He blinked away the tears as she approached, hoping she’d think it was rain on his face. She smiled, and he forced a smile in return.

“All right?” she said.

“Yes.”

She studied his face. “Tell me.”

He sighed. “I was just thinking about Tara. Shortly after Buffy died, she took me down to the beach at dawn. We sat on the sand with a flask of coffee and a bag of doughnuts and watched the grey whales pass on their way up the coast. She could see the miraculous in ordinary things, and she knew I needed a bit of that.” He tightened his jaw against the next wave of emotion, and raised his eyes to the trees in the distance. “She was very kind to me. To everyone. Thoughtful. Intelligent. I’ll miss her.”

Megan moved closer to lean against him, and he put an arm round her shoulders. When he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, she didn’t say anything, but ran her hand over his back soothingly.

“We have to get you ready,” she said at last, reluctance in every leaden word. He nodded, and curled his cold hands around her warm ones. “Don’t do this out of guilt or a misplaced sense of responsibility. You’ve already done all you can for Willow.”

“I’ve done *nothing* for her!” he snapped. “I’ve been over here! And the last time I *was* there, she threatened me and I didn’t do a sodding thing about it!”

Megan pulled back to look at him. “You never said she’d threatened you.”

He sighed. “I didn’t tell anyone. I asked the others to keep an eye on her, and if she seemed to really have an addiction, to call me. I was trying to keep her out of trouble, and I suppose, in not telling me, they were doing the same. We all made a colossal mistake.”

“Regardless; this has been coming on for years.”

And so it had. “Yes. Since I wasn’t there to deal with Acathla, and she had to do the spell instead of me.”

“Which you couldn’t do because you were being tortured at the time. And there had been incidents before that, when you’d told her off for using magic she shouldn’t have been. She wasn’t stupid, Giles! She knew the difference between white and black magic.”

He grunted.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is. In part, at least. I encouraged her interest in magic, but gave her no direction or sense of discipline.”

“She’s an intelligent girl. She should have considered those things herself, and asked you or Tara for help when she needed it.”

“She was too young. She probably didn’t realise she was in over her head till it was too late.”

“Don’t make excuses for her.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, and you don’t have to do this. No one will think the less of you. They only called you for advice; you didn’t have to volunteer.”

Yes, he did. “If ten strangers show up to stop her, she’ll use whatever power she’s got, and get herself, or you lot, killed in the process. Better she sees one familiar face.” *And maybe it’s not such a great idea for you to piss me off*. “One that she doesn’t find intrinsically threatening.” Her overconfidence might at least buy him enough time to reason with her, or to contain her magics.

“You don’t know what she’s likely to find threatening in her current state, love.”

“Even so; my guess is probably better than the coven’s. Yes?”

She nodded, her eyes fogged with tears. He let go of her hands and pulled her into a bear hug.

***

Giles closed the door of Megan’s room behind him with a sigh of relief. He was certain his blush had not diminished over the past hour. “You know, when I was a teenager, it was one of my fantasies to be naked in a room full of women. I can absolutely lay that scenario to rest now.”

Megan grinned. “You might have fuelled a few fantasies yourself, this evening.”

He blinked, heat rushing to his face. Not bloody likely. Still, flattery would get her everywhere.

“Don’t put your shirt on; there’s one last thing. Some extra protection where you might need it.”

Giles let his arms drop, still tangled in his t-shirt. Megan coated her right hand with a large dollop of a gooey, herbal-scented substance from a stone bowl and pressed it firmly to the centre of his bare chest. It felt good. Very good. Soon, the substance began to warm, and she massaged it into his skin.

“I smell like an aromatherapy factory. Are you trying to stop Willow by means of sensory overload?”

“Shut up.”

He watched her as she warded him, frowning in concentration. “I love you very much.”

Her eyes darted up to his, and she grinned. She put her hand round the back of his head, her fingers twining through his hair, and pulled him down into a kiss. “I know. And I love you.”

Summoning his courage, he said, “When I get back, there are some things we should discuss.”

Megan looked confused for a moment, then smiled, her eyes brimming. “Sounds intriguing. I’ll look forward to it.”

He smiled, and leaned forward to kiss her again. When they broke off, her face was streaked with tears, and his own throat was uncomfortably tight. “I’d better go.”

She nodded, wiping her hands on a towel. “If anyone can do this, you can.”

They went back downstairs, and Giles sat cross-legged on the floor in the centre of the witches’ circle. As the room began to shimmer and fade around him, he stayed focussed on Megan and cocked an eyebrow. “I owe you a roll in the hay,” he said softly. The last thing he saw was her tear-streaked grin.

End.
29/08/04