Title: The Real Loneliness 6/12
Author: K.V. Wylie
Pairing: Giles/Cordelia
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sequel to Controlled Descent
Disclaimer: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS, has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. This is purely for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended

Giles gave up on the magazine, a nineteen-seventy-five Popular Mechanics, and closed his eyes.  Cordelia had gone into the examination room twenty minutes ago, not long enough, he guessed, for everything the doctor would do.  His part was to wait.  As always.

A small radio was on at the reception desk, some tinny-sounding contraption not quite on the station.  A phone rang there and the nurse answered it in a bright annoying voice.

"Oh, hello Mrs. Silvecki.  Did you take the prescription the doctor gave you?  And did it work?  No?  You'll have to come in and see him."

'Just book her and shut up,' he thought, rubbing circles on his temples.  He was tired to the point of nausea, a bone-deep lethargy starting the moment they'd returned to Sunnydale.  Cordelia had threatened to make an appointment for him alongside hers, but he'd been to two doctors already.  The first suggested rest and iron pills, but the other had scribbled out a strange diet involving laxatives.  He hadn't informed Cordy of that for, upon hearing the first, she'd bought enough iron to weigh down a tanker.  He took the pills at work, washing them down with scotch he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.

He heard paper crumple as he leaned back in his chair, and opened his eyes, thinking the magazine had fallen from his lap.  As he shifted, it sounded again.  Then he remembered the envelope in his pocket, found slipped under the front door when they'd returned home last night.

Giles pulled it out and regarded the outside.  "Mr. R. Giles, Private Correspondence", written in handwriting he didn't recognize.  Someone at his door looking for him specifically.  Worrisome.  He'd put it in his pocket before Cordelia had seen it.

Inside the envelope was a sheet of letterhead with Adas Israel embossed across the top.  Two paragraphs came next, and at the bottom was written, "Rabbi Hivite Mendi".

The name caused a prickling of dread.  He clamped it down and read the letter.

"Mr. Giles, I came to see you at the request of Mr. Wyndham-Price.  I am distressed to hear you are not well, and came to offer you what comfort I have within my means.  Though you may have little memory of when we met, I have thought of you often these past weeks.  Would you, please, do me the honour of a visit?  I can be reached every evening at the following number….."

Giles refolded the letter and shoved it down in his pocket, but it was only when the magazine fell off his legs that he realized he was trembling.

Every action resulted in another action.  Cause and effect.  Giles knew, inevitably, his descent into the Hellmouth would require a counterbalance.  The payment, the restitution, echoed from the last word in that letter.  Mendi.

It was a name, a word, he couldn't seem to lose.  Circling back in every half-remembered nightmare was the spectre of a tall man praying over him while he lay bound in an oppressive skewered fever, the even tones piercing Giles and causing pain and utter rage.  The man had continued, without pause, as Giles had said the crudest…..he closed his eyes.  Oh God, what he had said!

The praying man had been Mendi.

Giles squeezed his eyes until shooting sparks filled his vision.  How did you face someone after that?  Even if you only picked up the phone, what could you say?  What words, no matter how abject, could possibly soften such deeds?

More than that, seeing Mendi, facing him, carried the further weight of facing what he had done.  His memories exploded often enough now, tripped wires sending slivered debris of reflected images and instances, killing his already tenuous control.  It happened so easily - in the middle of a meeting or while doing something as innocent as walking through a grocery store.  Then a stranger's stray word would bring something back in a fury, and he would need to run to a bathroom or the side of a building, hiding as tears blinded him or ran down his throat in jarring trails.

Cordelia had asked him about the hellmouth, Willow once, and Buffy the most.  He'd shaken his head each time.  "Not now."  But here it was in this letter - a man who had seen and kept his own counsel, now wanting, what?  An accounting?  An apology?  Or something Giles couldn't imagine.

He put his hand over his breast pocket and the paper rustled again.

"Rabbi Hivite Mendi.  I can be reached….."

Under Giles' embarrassment was anger, the 'leave-me-the-hell-alone' kind.  Beyond that was an awful apprehension, the same cold anxiety he'd felt the morning he'd woken on the floor of the mansion to Angelus' voice, and knew there was no choice but to go through it.

He could avoid the summons, ball the envelope up and drop it in a garbage on his way out.  If a second one came, he could claim, "what letter?" to the first, continue his current path of crying blindly in washrooms.

The side trips into washrooms were, he knew, the least of it.  All those unravelled ends.  Buffy, adrift, angry herself and now hardly speaking to him.  Willow, more hesitant of him than when he'd first come to Sunnydale.  Cordelia, planning a phantom future.  And he, moving through the rituals of normalcy while grasping at ghost straws to prop himself up.

There were spaces of time when the weight lifted off his lungs, reprieves given to him by Cordelia, of all people.  A casual statement, an unconscious movement in his field of vision, or her touch during the peak of sexual excitement, and, for a little while, he could breathe.

Now she was bringing a child into this, apparently.  The reality was, so far, no more than a strip of paper telling him it was so.  Looking back through his years, he could see where he'd cut off each small sprig of hope for a woman and child of his own.  Somehow, after he'd given up wanting, and out of the rustle of dead sticks surrounding him, it might actually happen.

The knowledge had made him so happy at first.  Standing in the water at the beach, suddenly discovering it within his hands, he'd laughed.

So, what the hell had happened?  At this moment he couldn't draw a complete breath, could hardly move beyond a slow walk, and that heavy feeling was spreading over his chest.

Was he dying?

"Mr. Giles?"

He blinked.  A nurse stood in the door.  "Mr. Rupert Giles?"

"Yes."  What was this?  Bad news?  Well, he was certainly in the mood for it.

"Please come in."

He followed her down a hall.  In a room at the end sat Cordelia on an examination table, holding a paper robe tightly around her.  "Rupert, give me your jacket.  I'm cold," she said.

He couldn't judge her mood, so he took it off and handed it to her without a word.

"The doctor will be back in a minute," the nurse said before she left.

"They took a bunch of blood, did some poking, and disappeared," Cordelia grumbled.  "Buffy must have missed staking these ones."

"Poked you?"

She shifted in irritation, closing her legs together.  "Guess where?"

"Oh.  But you can get dressed now?"

"I don't know.  Nobody said anything."

Giles glanced around the room.  Her clothes were on a chair, there was a stool and a counter, and the table she was on.  Nothing else.  Feeling awkward, he moved to the end of the examination table and leaned against it.

"The doctor didn't say anything at all?"

"He said medical stuff to the nurse."

He recognized the tone to her voice, the harshness that covered nervousness.  "Cor," he started, but the door opened and the doctor came in.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Ingram," he said after a quick, surprised look at Giles.  "Are *you* the father?"

"He's *not* my father," Cordelia started but Giles cut in softly.

"Of the baby, Cor," Giles said.  He nodded at the doctor and braced himself.

But Ingram smiled.  "It will take a couple of days for the bloodwork but everything looked fine in the examination.  I'll call you when the lab results are in, Miss Chase.  I've marked your due date as March first, but I want you to come back to see me in one month."  He handed her a paper.  "You need to start taking vitamins.  This is the name of the brand.  I also want you to have an ultrasound.  The nurse will schedule one for you.  Do you have any questions?"

Giles eyed him suspiciously.  Things didn't go this easily.  "Is that it?" he asked.

Ingram nodded.  "Yes, except for congratulations."  He smiled again before leaving.

"What do you mean, is that it?"  Cordelia started dressing.  "Look at all the stuff I have to do."

"It's not that much."

"Spoken by someone who gets to do sweet dick all."  She zipped up her skirt and reached for her bra.  "Isn't an ultrasound that thing where I have to drink all that water?  And they'll probably lay an anvil on my bladder all through it."  Caught by his expression, she paused as she hooked her bra around her back.  "What?"

Giles cleared his throat.  "Nothing."

"Rupert!"

Embarrassed, he said, "Your, um, breasts look bigger."

"Trust you to notice."  She glanced down at them in dismay.  "They feel tender.  I guess a whole lot of me is going to get fat."

Not knowing what to say, he opted for nothing.  She glared at him.  "In amidst the sweet dick all at your end, you could try being really really supportive."

"Pregnant is not fat," he offered.

"Geez, Rupert, all the letters behind your name and *that's* the best you can think of?"

"This is new territory for me too, Cor."

She frowned.  "Considering those years you spent drunkenly raising demons, I can't believe I'm the first girl you knocked up."

Something flashed across his face.  If she hadn't known him so well, she wouldn't have caught it.

Cordelia sighed.  On second thought, she wasn't so sure she knew him.  "Rupert, you can tell me now, or I can spend all night harassing the shit out of you."

"This antagonism is hormonal, I hope," he queried softly, but he'd gotten his back up now too.  She could hear it in the deceptively quiet words.

As she bent to put on her shoes, she mumbled, "I don't think we're going to survive this pregnancy."

Giles tensed at the word 'survive'.  He offered a hand to help steady her, then placed the other over the envelope in his pocket.

---

Willow pressed Wesley's handkerchief to the wet area in her lap.

"Miss Rosenberg, I am deeply sorry that I---"

"It's ok  It's…..not all that big."  Willow managed a smile.  "And I'm sure the smell will fade as it dries."  She hoped so.  He'd leaned forward to say something to her and spilled his vermouth across the table.

"I will most certainly pay for the dry cleaning."

"My dresses are, uh, ok with washing machines."  She felt uneasy admitting it for she was sure that every single thing he owned, right down to his socks, was sent out to be cleaned.  "It's been quite an evening," she ventured.

Wesley nodded glumly.

"I'm sorry again about your suit."  Earlier, Willow had knocked over a vase of flowers with her menu.  In his effort to avoid the water, he jumped and fell backwards, chair and all.  The splash got him square in the chest.  After the appetizer, he asked her to dance and that had actually gone well, until he tripped on the stairs that led up to the orchestra.

The main course hadn't been any less clumsy for her.  She was given four forks with her duck, and other implements besides, which totalled the silverware around her plate to ten.  She didn't think she should use the same knife for both the butter dish and the duck, but wasn't sure which knife was for what.  The salad arrived with the dressing in a separate bowl - did she pour it in?  Or did she dip?  And what on earth was the bowl of water with a slice of lemon for?

She'd hoped to take her cue from him, but the light at their table consisted of a single candle and she couldn't make out what he was using where.  The upshot was that Willow ate her roll dry, her salad bare, and got what duck she could spear with her fork.

Adding to her misery was the awareness that she was out of place in other aspects as well.  She was not only the youngest woman in this restaurant, but the most underdressed.  She'd worn her most expensive outfit and put her hair up, and still felt achingly like a bargain basement reject.  The women around her were stately, wearing diamonds and pearls as easily as she wore sneakers.  And their gowns…..Willow signed unhappily.  Their gowns came from some exotic place across the ocean.  Not even Cordelia's wardrobe could match them.

She peeked across the table at Wesley.  She was obviously way out of her element, embarrassing him no doubt, and he was too polite to say anything.

"We could go, if you want," Willow said.

He nodded and signalled their waiter for the bill.  'Yup,' she thought.  'He's humiliated by me.'

That notion was reinforced by the speed in which they got from table to parking valet at the front steps.  Willow sneaked a look at her watch after she got in the Lancia.

8:20.  Wesley would probably stammer some polite excuse about Watcher-business and take her home.  She was floundering in his world, and finding more and more sympathy for how he must have felt in the library.  Some things you had to be born to, or be the first one.

She tried to console herself with the better spots of the evening.  The dance had been nice, except for the tripping part.  And they'd managed some spurts of conversation.

She caught herself.  No, they hadn't.  She'd told him some boring stuff from her childhood and he'd feigned interest.

Willow twiddled miserably with the clasp of her watch.  There hadn't been any better spots and she felt like a four year old trying to play dress-up.  He'd seen through her.  She knew it.  In among all those sophisticated ladies at the other tables, she must have stuck out like a stupid dumb kid.

"Miss Rosenberg," he said.  "Would you mind terribly if we---"

'Here it comes,' she thought.

"Went for a drive?  I don't know the area around Sunnydale very well and thought you could direct me to some spots of interest.  That is, if the damp area on your dress isn't making you too uncomfortable."

Willow eyed him, mouth open.  If he was simply being polite, he was being extreme about it.

"Really?  You want to go for a drive?"  In her words was a faint wiggle of hope.

Wesley glanced over, reassured by her expression.  He'd been quite worried…..his mortification on the dance floor, his spilled drink…..disastrous.  Then he'd stuttered into morbid rigidity, unable to think of a word to say to the red-haired beauty across the table.  She looked so vibrant among the jaded women around her.  He'd well seen their cat-like glances, and the starved looks from their husbands.  He was amazed that she was with him and wanted terribly to impress her.

So, what had he done?  Fallen flat to the floor, soaked her clothing, and gawked at her like a bewildered schoolboy.  She must think him a clown.

His last-ditch hope came when they got to the car.  The other evening, she'd seemed affected by it.  If she could bear his company for a little longer, perhaps he could redeem himself.

"If you turn right past that gas station," Willow said, pointing, "there's a neat road that winds past farms."

'Bless you,' he thought, then wondered, 'Farms? In California?'

"When I was little, my parents would drive there and buy fruit at roadside stands.  Sometimes, on Sunday, my mother and I would go riding.  There are stables--"  She stopped, aware that she was babbling…..again.  And, of course, she had no better subject than her childhood…..again.

But Wesley looked delighted.  "You like to ride?"

"Yes, but I haven't for a while."

"We had horses when I was growing up," he said, and Willow breathed out in relief at a subject where she could get him to talk.  As he started in with a story about a favourite horse though, it weighed on her again how far apart they were.  He was money and she was…..she looked ruefully at her dress.  She was not money.

They were on that road now, driving past fields and orchards.  Willow opened the window to let in the country-smelling air, and he glanced over at it, then looked a second time at the unconscious smile on her face.  Her hair, loosening in the breeze, lifted back over her neck.  He held in an urge to touch it.

"Could we turn here?" she asked, gesturing at a small division between two fields.

He slowed the car.  "Is it a road?"

"It's a, well, I don't know what to call it.  It goes up a hill to a little park."

"But, it is owned by someone?"  He stopped the car, unsure what the fine might be for trespassing.

"It belongs to a farmer, but he doesn't mind.  He's let people use it for years."

He turned, checking across the fields apprehensively as the car started up the grade.  He couldn't see any farmhouses but that wasn't to say that there wasn't one and that the occupants couldn't see him.

"He and his wife have a stand where they sell what fruit is in season.  We've missed the strawberries but the cherries are still around.  If we'd come in the day, we could have gotten a basket."

Wesley had a vision of her sitting in the grass, a container of cherries on the ground between her legs and a shy smile on her face.  A sudden jolt hit his groin, and he coughed as he pushed the image away.

The top of the hill required a meandering fifteen minute drive, and the so-called park was nothing more than a few picnic tables and a waste bin.  But, after he parked the car, she was out excitedly and reaching for his hand.  "This way."

She tugged him through trees and along an invisible path he was sure wasn't doing his shoes any good.  But she seemed excited over something and, as long as she was, he would have trudged up a mountain with her.

All at once, the trees broke into a clearing.  Before them were meadows and brush and the edge of Sunnydale, its streetlights just starting to come on.

"Lovely," he said, meaning it, but he was looking at her.

"We don't have a lot in the way of scenery, but we do have this," Willow said.

"Very beautiful," he murmured.  She smiled, glad that she had something with which to salvage the evening.  She squeezed his hand.  He returned the pressure, then reached over and took her other one.

"Miss Rosenberg, may I kiss you?"

Her mouth went dry.  This formality of his was oddly romantic.  "Yes, sir, you may," she whispered.

He let go of her to take off his glasses, then bent, for she only came up to his shoulder.  His mouth caught the side of hers.  She raised up on her toes, and he put his arms around her, lifting her further.  As she felt herself rub up the front of his suit, she raised her arms over his shoulders.  Her feet were almost off the ground but it seemed he was holding her easily, so she gave in and let him support her.  Finally, their lips met.

From Willow's end, it was a kiss in mid-air with only him to hang onto.  She had a second of fright when she lost touch with the ground, and almost broke the contact.  Then his lips moved over hers with a surprising firmness.  She opened her mouth.  His tongue stroked hers and Willow gasped as a shiver zigzagged through her body.

Wesley pulled back abruptly at the sound.  Had he hurt her?  What was it?  But she was still hugged around him and, when she opened her eyes, he saw warm acceptance in them.

He sank down, uncaring if it resulted in grass stains from one end of him to the other.  She settled on his thighs and, dear heavens, was that her touch going up his back?  Wesley kissed her neck, his nose pressing into that wondrous hair of hers.  Vanilla shampoo, he decided, and a different, subtle scent behind her ear.  He kissed along her cheekbone and back to her mouth, feeling the swell of her lips as he parted them again with his tongue.

Her touch travelled around his front.  She opened his jacket and shifted on his legs.  He groaned low in his throat, then kissed her fiercely as an intense prickle of arousal hardened him.

She whimpered.

And he froze.  Dismay fell over him.  He'd overstepped his bounds.  He'd acted like a lust-ridden beast with this lady.

"Dear heart, I am so sorry," he said between breaths as he pulled back.

Not knowing what he meant, Willow ventured, "I'm not that breakable."

"I mean, ah, that you said yes to a kiss, not all of…..this."

"Oh."  Abashed, she slid off his legs.  Their first date and she was in his lap.  What must he think of her?

"I hope I haven't offended you," he added.

She glanced nervously at him.  "But, Wesley, I like the way you kiss."

"You do?"  He sounded plainly surprised.

"…..yes….."

He felt an hallucinatory cuff on the side of his head and a voice that sounded like his old Master's.  'You thick-witted fop, she's sitting on the damp grass with you!  Does the girl need to wear a sign about her neck?'

A sign might be a good idea, he thought.  A solid one to her ankles to keep men like him away because, looking at the fading light dancing across her skin, he wanted so badly to touch her right now.

She solved his quandary by leaning her head against his shoulder and saying, "Tell me more about your horses."

Staring straight ahead, he did, or tried to at any rate.  Even the innocent feel of her against his jacket sleeve was distracting.  After several minutes of sentences that didn't follow any logical sequence, he asked, "Is that riding stable you mentioned earlier still in operation?"

Willow nodded, which caused more vibration through him.

"T-tomorrow I have some appointments, but the day after, I-I wonder if you might---"

"Yes," she said.

It echoed in his mind.  He felt her finger run down the carefully-ironed crease on a trouser leg.  "I could bring a lunch basket," she added.

That earlier image returned to his mind.  "I'll buy some cherries."

He looked down to see her smiling.  She moved her hand from his leg to the side of his face, her caress hesitant and slow.

Wesley didn't bother to ask this time as he lifted her to him.

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