TITLE: After the Fall
AUTHOR: K2
EMAIL: methos@m...
SUMMARY: Willow reflects on the events leading up to "Grave" and her relationship with Giles.
DISCLAIMER: Joss is God we are but humble servants
RATING: PG - mentions sex and uses the word "shagging". Also A for Angst
FEEDBACK: PRETTY PRETTY please???? :-)
DISTRIBUTION: All the normal venues.
TIMELINE: Post "Grave".
NOTE: Thanks mucho to my beta readers A.M, Leslie and Rose, who treated me with kindness and respect. Other than that, I don't really like the ending, but my muses insisted.

She cursed herself silently. He was leaving and now she would be alone again.

It made sense of course. There was nothing to keep him here and so much to draw him back. Even so, it hadn't occurred to her that he would really leave again. She had convinced herself that he'd come for her and not simply to stop her. She cursed again.

Damn! How could she have been so foolish?

"I should have known," she berated herself mentally.

It was actually ironic in a way. For so long she had wanted to be like him, and now she was: the worst part of him. The part he was so ashamed of that he tried to hide it from all of them.

She wouldn't be surprised if they all thought of her with fear and revulsion, she knew she thought that of herself. She also knew she could bear it from any of them except him.

He was the one who truly mattered. He was the one that knew both the pain and ecstasy of her road. Like she, he had killed before. Not simply demons or other soulless creatures, but a man. A human being who no matter the crime did not deserve their final judgment.

They had only talked about it once, a couple years after the Eyghon incident and a few months after Oz had left. It had been late; they had taken a break from an especially rough night of research and shared a few drinks. Technically, she was still under drinking age, but Giles had never treated her as any less than an equal.

As the night wore on and the Scotch loosened her nerve, she dared to ask what it had been like, how he had wound up down that path. They stayed up talking into the wee hours of the night about magic, Eyghon, Ethan, Randall and most of all about regrets.

That night they became lovers.

At first, keeping it to themselves seemed the proper thing to do. The relationship was too new. It was born out of intoxication. There always seemed to be a million reasons to hide and never a good reason not to.

She was a little surprised actually that the others had never found out. It was amazing the things people never saw that were right in front of them.

Oz knew, of course. He'd caught them together once after he came back. It was the only time she ever remembered seeing him that upset. Even her brief interlude with Xander had been met with his usual stoicism. Giles and she were a different matter however. Oz fell completely apart and crumpled into a little heap in the doorway. She never knew why it hit him so hard. He'd been away for so long and then suddenly; he was back, wanting everything to be the same. Only it couldn't be. She had moved on, healed, developed new relationships, and turned gay. Well, supposedly.

Honestly there were days when she didn't know what she felt. Tara had the purest soul and gentlest nature of anyone she'd ever met. She was goodness in its simplest and truest form, but she wasn't him. She wasn't Giles.

For awhile, Willow had felt terribly guilty about the whole thing. She knew at least on some level how terribly unfair it was to Tara. To all three of them really, but the more selfish side of her realized how the situation worked to her favor and used it as such. If Tara knew or suspected, she never said, but sometimes Willow would catch the barest hint of a sad or far away look on her lover's face, and the guilt would return. It wasn't Tara's fault really; she was a warm body and a good cover. Who would suspect that the gay witch was shagging the tweedy but sexy watcher?

Often she tried to pass it off to herself as mere sex with no strings and no consequences. No declarations of love had ever been spoken and no promises made. They lived only in the present with no acknowledgment of the future. Neither pressed with prying questions or deep inquiries into their outside lives. At the same time, however, they knew each other better than anyone, perhaps as a result of their roles in life. The simple truth of the matter was that she was in love with him.

To dismiss it as meaningless sex between friends was really a way of avoiding the truth and guarding her heart. She loved him with every element of her existence, but she didn't know if she could tell him. After all, if he felt the same he wouldn't have left would he?

She remembered the knot in her stomach when she found out. It was ten times worse than it had been with Oz. They would still talk he said, and there were always letters or email. Nothing would change really, he claimed, and with his share of the Magic Box revenues, he could arrange frequent visits back and forth. To her though, it felt like a slow and silent death. Being able to talk to him, to hear his voice and read his words, but not be able to touch him, to smell him or even see his smile, would be a far worse horror than anything she had ever witnessed on The Hellmouth.

In the span of six months she had lost both of her best friends: one to death, the other to England. She knew bringing Buffy back could send her down a path she may not be ready for, and probably couldn't handle, but she also knew that it was the one thing guaranteed to bring Giles back. So, she shoved aside the warnings and ignored the consequences. Instead she buried herself in text and covered her activities with lies. It wasn't until the final moment that she understood what he tried to emphasize to her that first night. It was then that she discovered the only possible rival to her love: power.

The rush was both frightening and exhilarating. Suddenly nothing was beyond her grasp. That was how she lost him the second time.

Yes, he had told them all that he simply wasn't needed anymore. They were all adults now and it was time the patriarch left them to their lives. Deep down though she was certain she knew the truth. She disgusted him. He would never tell her, of course just as she would never admit that she knew he'd slept with Anya. Their relationship was too British for that. Even so, inside the death returned and this time she had only herself to blame.

Power had filled the void his absence created and by the time he returned, it had turned the sorrow into an angry and bitter arrogance. It repulsed him - she knew, to see her down this path, but it didn't matter anymore. Power had crept into her body and filled her veins with its siren song.

He tried to pull her back as did Tara and the others. He even promised to stay for good but in the end she failed and could not meet their expectations. Magic and Power were her life's breath now and without them she was simply Willow. It seemed everything fell apart once he was gone. No one seemed to realize that what she once controlled now controlled her. In turn, she chose to feign ignorance while Buffy found escape in Spike's bed.

In the old days the Troika would have been an easy enemy to defeat. Now though, the fight had gone out of all of them. Giles had been the guiding force and glue, which held them all together. On all of them, in one form or another, his mark was indelible. Over the years he had become father, mentor, lover and best friend.

Then, without a word, he was gone. Because of her, he had left twice, and soon he would be leaving again.

She had tried. Oh, she had tried. Determined to prove to him and to bring him back, she went cold turkey. This was not quite like quitting smoking however. This was leaving the Magic behind and purging herself of its entire essence. Then they killed Tara.

No one knew, but that was her fault as well. Without accusing or naming names, Tara had come to her and asked if the past had been left behind and if Willow was willing to make a true commitment. Desperate to make it all right, and feeling guilty for the deception, she agreed to try. It didn't work. Tara, patient and wonderful though she was, could not touch the core or reach the darkness he had stared at unflinchingly.

If only she had been honest from the first. If only she had told Tara what she'd known since the very first day in the library. The second he smiled and said, "Hi, I'm Mr. Giles," she knew there would always be only him. If she had told Tara all this, then she wouldn't have been there when Warren and his gun came looking for Buffy. Now Tara was dead and she knew that the blame fell squarely on her shoulders. Worst of all, even in this he stayed away.

Days passed and grief turned to guilt, then guilt to blame and anger. How could he not have come back? How could he leave her alone? Didn't he know how much she ached to feel and touch him?

He wasn't here, but Warren was and in her pain, she poured out everything she'd become inside: Death. This brought him back. With his borrowed Magic, he came not to love her, but to defeat her. He failed.

She knew she was killing him, but the part of her that screamed, "stop" was drowned out by the part that hated him for abandoning her. In the end it was Xander who brought her back.

In retrospect, Xander must have felt as abandoned as she did. He never admitted it, but she knew how much he worshipped Giles. The man was more of a father than Xander had ever known, and yet, was a no show at the wedding.

She had urged Xander to call Giles in the aftermath of his almost nuptials, but he refused. Now she realized how hurt and alone he must have felt. She also began to realize that the bumbling boy with his infinite capacity to love and forgive had grown into the sort of man others were measured against.

How had it come to this? Wasn't it only yesterday that she and Xander were playing doctor in her basement? Yet, here they were, The Zeppo and The Hacker grown into Beauty and the Beast.

She sighed and put down the journal she'd been writing in. It was time. She had to face him before it was too late. Before he was gone. She only hoped he could try to forgive her, that she would be able to make him understand how much she missed him, needed him, loved him. A noise from the doorway alerted her to his presence.

She stared at the ground in shame, afraid to face him. She was certain what she would see there would be his revulsion at what she'd done and become.

"Willow. Look at me," his voice was crisp and stern.

Slowly she raised her head; the tears she'd been fighting back began to run down her cheeks. His expression softened as their eyes met. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it realizing there were no words for this. How, after all that had happened was he supposed to convince her that he had come for her?

He knew she must think he'd abandoned her without a second thought. He supposed that in a way he had. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

Would he be able to make her understand that he cared too much rather than too little? Would she believe him when he told her how terrified he'd been of losing himself in her only to realize too late that he had?

Since the day they met he knew that she would be his cause. He would sacrifice himself to protect and shelter her from the nightmares of The Hellmouth. Couldn't she see? Didn't she know that the night they became lovers was the moment he became alive? Oh dear lord, it was not that he didn't love her, but rather that he loved her too much. The irony was that in being so afraid of losing her, he'd never allowed himself to have a life with her. Instead, he kept her at arms length the whole time, telling himself that he was too old, it was just sex, it was a passing phase. He did anything to keep from admitting to himself the truth, which was simply that he was certain she could never love him back.

"I'm so sorry Giles."

Her whisper brought him back to the present.

"Oh, my dearest Willow," he nearly ran to where she sat on the bed. "Its alright," he whispered stroking her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder.

Sniffling, she pressed her face into his coat drinking in the leather and soap mixture of his scent.

"I love you, you know," she mumbled against his sleeve.

"I know," he said and kissed her realizing for the first time that it was true. "I'm staying this time, I promise."

At his words, Willow looked up searching his face and his eyes for confirmation. Seeing what she wanted, she smiled slightly through her tears.

"Hold me, please?" she asked, afraid to let go, still worried that if she did he would be gone.

He nodded and wiped dry her tears.

"Forever, love," he whispered and began to hum softly, soothingly.

Finally and for the first time in weeks, Willow truly slept snuggled into the warmth of the man who held her heart. At the same time for the first time since Buffy's death, Giles felt true peace and contentment. They had a very long haul ahead of them, but this time whatever came would be faced together. He smiled and kissed the top of her head. At last, he was home.

END