Title: Stray Cat Strut
Series: Magic Season (4/12)
Author: Kerry Blackwell-Dustin
Email: magicbox@whitehats.co.nz
Pairing: B/G, W/T, S/Dawn
Further disclaimers etc in part 0
"Um," Buffy said into the silence that followed Spike's departure.
"Don't," Giles said gently from beside her, his voice pitched so that only she could hear.
She turned her head to look at him. "Don't what?" she asked softly.
"Say anything," Giles told her quietly. "Don't embarrass him any further, even though he isn't here any more."
Buffy stared. "I didn't think Spike _could_ be embarrassed," she said finally.
"He was terribly embarrassed," Giles said, still speaking in a low voice so that their conversation was private. "That was a very personal message. One to Dawn, to you and to me. It doesn't need to be discussed with the entire room."
Buffy sighed and buried her head in his shoulder. "So I can still be insensitive-girl, huh?"
He smiled, soft and loving, even though she couldn't see it. "It's fine, love." He extricated himself carefully, both to prevent her from falling and to keep Sionell from waking. Carrying the child with an ease that showed he had many years practice behind him, he walked across the room and handed her back to her parents.
It was Angel who took the child, and if he didn't have as much fatherly experience as Giles did, it was clear from the look he gave his baby daughter that he had just as much love to give.
"I think Buffy and I might go for a walk," Giles said. "I don't think it's quite the weather to take Sionell with us."
Brianna looked out the window where the darkening sky was overcast and threatening. The snow had stopped, but it looked likely to start up again at any moment. "Neither do I," she agreed. "Maybe we'll keep her inside with us this time, Dad?"
"I think so," Giles agreed with a nod. He cupped his daughter's cheek in one hand for a moment and felt her muscles move under his palm as she smiled.
He let his hand fall and turned back to his wife. "Buffy? Walk with me?"
She looked out the window dubiously. "Now?"
"Now," Giles agreed seriously. "I sat on a plane for hours, then in Dawn's car and now here. My legs have kinks in their kinks."
Buffy laughed. "That's what you get for being so tall. I never have that problem." She put down Spike's book and stood up. "I'd love to walk with you, Rupert."
He held out one hand, formally, as if he was asking her to dance or proposing marriage. Buffy took the offered hand and he pulled her closer until she had slipped into the familiar safety of being tucked against his side.
Dawn was looking at them with a worried look on her face. "You're not..." She hesitated as if unsure if she should go on or not. "You're not planning to go after Spike, are you Rupert?" she asked. "Cause I think it would be a bad idea."
To her relief, Giles chuckled. "Don't worry, Dawn. I'm not that stupid. I really do simply want to go walking with my wife."
"But it's _snowing_ outside," Willow protested.
"Actually, it's stopped," Tara corrected her gently.
Willow brushed that aside as irrelevant. "It's still freezing cold."
"It reminds me of England," Giles admitted as if he was revealing some guilty secret. "My mother used to take me for walks in the snow. We would put on our warmest coats, pull on our gloves, wrap up in thick scarves and go walking on Christmas Eve. I thought it would be nice to go walking with Buffy."
Buffy was watching him with a particular look on her face; the one she always got when he revealed something from his childhood. It didn't happen often - even after thirty five years of marriage and all the time they had known each other before that, she knew there was still so much for her to learn about his past. She had met him when she was sixteen and it felt like he had always been a part of her life, like there had never been a time before Giles. He, on the other hand, had had a complete life before Buffy and it wasn't something he shared easily. Each new revelation was precious and she treasured every single one. It could have been a raging blizzard outside and she still would have gone walking with him.
"We're outta here," she told the room at large. "Have the egg nog ready for us when we get back. We're gonna need it to ward off frostbite." She grinned at Dawn. "You sit down and read your book and get the young things to do anything you need. We're getting too old for it."
"It's not my book," Dawn pointed out automatically. "It's Spike's book."
"Did you actually _read_ that dedication?" Buffy asked, rolling her eyes. "It's your book all right."
"Your book, your vampire; you've got the whole dang caboodle," Joy agreed wickedly. "Like, _totally_."
"And with that, I think we'll be going before I'm forced to hear the English language suffer any further," Giles said firmly. "Dawn, I agree with Buffy. Find something for our errant daughter to do to keep her out of trouble."
"I don't..." Joy started to protest, but her parents were already gone. They could just be heard out in the hallway, gathering up coats and scarves.
"Yes, you do," Brianna told her younger sister firmly. "You're an absolute terror, you know that, don't you?"
"I don't..." Joy protested again, but it was weaker this time. She looked pitifully around the room. "Do I...?"
*****
A light breeze swirled around their ankles and Buffy pulled her coat a little tighter around herself. "So, you and your Mom, huh?"
It wasn't quite like being inside a Christmas card, but it was close. Dawn lived in a leafy, residential suburb where the houses were all about fifty years old and the properties had neatly-cut lawns, pretty gardens and well established trees. The snow had laid a carpet of white across the ground and on roofs and eaves, which muffled sounds and created an artificial sense of peace and quiet. Most houses had lights on now, patches of warm colour against the grey that promised warmth and comfort inside, a refuge from the dark and the cold.
"You know," Buffy admitted confidentially. "Apart from the freezing part, this is kind of nice."
"That's what I always thought," Giles agreed.
"How old were you?" Buffy asked quietly.
It was a vague question really, but he knew exactly what she meant. It had taken a long time, to come to understand how Buffy's mind worked, and while he still got it wrong sometimes he mostly got it right. They could speak to each other in a kind of cryptic shorthand that drove other people crazy, not needing full sentences and detailed descriptions to know what the other was trying to say.
"Eight," he answered slowly. "Mother died when I was eight. She... she had cancer. I didn't really understand, I just saw her getting sicker and sicker and trying so hard to pretend she wasn't."
Buffy slipped her small hand into his larger one and he squeezed her fingers gratefully.
"That was when Father grew so cold and serious. Before, there was laughter and light and fun. After, there was only duty and destiny. I didn't understood."
"I do," Buffy whispered, trying not to imagine what her life might have been like if she'd lost Giles after finally truly finding him.
He squeezed her fingers again and pulled her closer to him. "So do I," he agreed. "Now. I have a wife who lights up my life, and without her all the colour in the world would disappear."
"Sappy," she murmured and he chuckled quietly.
"But then...? I was eight. All I knew was that Mother had gone away and Father had turned into a stranger."
Buffy slipped her arm around her waist and did her best to hug him - a difficult task as they were still walking. "Poor Rupert."
He stopped, pulling her to a halt beside him. "I survived," he said gruffly.
"Yeah," she agreed. "By becoming a bookish little boy, Ripper and a tweedy by-the-book Watcher."
"Until I met you," he retorted with a small laugh.
"Was I that much trouble?"
"Absolutely," he answered firmly. "But you brought colour into my life too and I wouldn't trade that for anything."
"Sappy," Buffy said again.
Giles turned and rested one hand on her shoulder. With the other, he gently brushed a tear from her cheek. "You can't talk," he said softly. "You're the one who's crying."
Buffy sniffed valiantly. "You're the colour in my life too," she told him shakily. "I don't ever want to lose it, lose you."
There was only one way to respond to that. Giles pulled her to him, cupped her face in his hands and tipped it up so that he could kiss her. It was amazing how every single kiss could be so new, even after thirty five years of marriage and a plethora of technically illicit kisses - and more - before the _I do_s had been said.
His lips brushed across hers and she immediately leaned instinctively closer. Her arms slipped around his back under his coat, her hands tracing the line of his spine. She let her mouth open under his and felt his tongue trace the line of her lips, her teeth, before slipping inside.
Giles' hands left her face to trace the contours of her body, long familiar and always new, and Buffy let herself fall into his touch and his kisses. She knew he was doing the same; letting the world around them slip away until only they existed, love and touch, taste and passion.
"Bugger." Giles pulled away just far enough to breathe the word harshly against her lips. "Bugger being out on the street."
Buffy's own breathing was ragged as she pulled away from him. "Home? Bed?" she whispered hopefully.
Giles chuckled, the sound both amused and frustrated. "I wish. Can you imagine how embarrassed the children would be if we dashed in the door and straight upstairs?"
Buffy stood on her tiptoes to brush another kiss across his cheek. "Yes," she said easily. "But we could do it anyway."
"I wish," Giles said again. His breathing was slowly returning to normal, and his smile was highly amused.
As she dropped back to the ground again, Buffy caught a glimpse of movement in the snow behind him. A slight flash of white against white, ghostly in the darkness. "Don't look now, but I think we've got an audience."
"What?" Giles spun around, his posture immediately defensive. Seeing nothing, he gave her a questioning look, but didn't risk relaxing.
Buffy laughed, pulling him towards her and turning him until he was facing in the right direction. "Down there," she said, pointing. "Unless it's a zombie cat, I think we're safe."
The cat was crouched at the base of a tree, studying them with wide, watchful eyes. It was thin, its ribs just showing through its short, white coat, with the hungry look of a stray. It seemed to find them fascinating. Not quite fascinating enough to leave the safety of the tree trunk, but certainly interesting enough to choose not to hide.
Buffy crept closer to the little animal, one hand outstretched. She stopped a few feet away, crouching down and waiting patiently for the cat to decide what it wanted to do next. "Hey, kitty," she crooned softly. "Pretty, Christmas kitty."
Although neither she nor Giles where really pet-people, there had been a succession of cats, birds, puppies and the occasional more unusual creature in their household from the time the twins were toddlers. There was no pet in the big, old house in Sunnydale right now and Buffy wasn't sure she particularly wanted one, but she couldn't walk past and ignore a living creature that seemed to want to say hello.
The cat hesitated for a while, and finally crept forward to sniff at her fingers. It seemed to like what it found because it let Buffy stroke its thin head before backing off again to the safety of the tree.
"Let it be, Buffy," Giles said quietly. "Cats are very good at looking after themselves."
"I know," she conceded. "But now we've made friends I don't like to leave it out in the snow."
Giles put an arm around her waist and drew her along the footpath back towards Dawn's house.
Buffy cast one last look back at the white against white shadow and let him pull her away.
He was right; it was a cat and cats are very good at looking out for themselves.
*****
Giles was just closing the front door while Buffy removed her coat when a white streak zipped inside. Giles let the door click shut and turned to see the little cat watching him from among the collection of boots and shoes at the base of the coat rack.
Buffy grinned when she saw the identity of the new arrival. "You came," she said to the cat, and it made a point of licking one paw nonchalantly as if to prove it was not a big deal and the creature followed people home all the time. Of course there wasn't anything special about this particular pair of humans. Nothing that might have attracted it to follow them.
A patter of small feet and a hiss was the only sound the heralded the arrival of Dawn's cat Sneaky from wherever she had been taking care of her home.
The white cat looked up and considered. Sneaky had grown from being a cute kitten two years earlier into a large, elegant ginger-furred and green-eyed cat who ruled the house with absolute authority. Dawn had heard Spike muttering about poker upon occasion, but he remained secretly proud that his was Sneaky's favourite lap and overfed her outrageously if Dawn didn't pay close attention.
As Buffy and Giles watched, the new cat approached Sneaky and the two engaged in a cat-conversation the humans were unable to follow. In the end, Sneaky led the way into the living room, her tail held high, and the white cat followed here at a respectful distance.
Giles grinned at Buffy. "I think it's staying," he said. "So, love... Would you like a cat for Christmas?"